Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2025-12-19T17:19:18.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: 'What a huge thrill!'
items: From the front line
items: Watered-down truth?
items: 'I feel so lucky'
items: 'I aspired to be a geek'
items: Caroline Wyatt gets candid about life with MS - and why she thinks the BBC will endure
items: Former Strictly favourite Hamza Yassin wants to find love - and shares his struggles with racism
items: 'I didn't believe in evolution'
items: 'Why isn't he here now?'
items: Otterly magical
items: The Grand Tour producer talks bringing down the chequered flag on its motoring musketeers
items: The End of the Road
items: Man of the Match
items: Des Lynam on Gary Lineker, Ian Wright and 60 years of Match of the Day
items: My Long Road Back
items: Murder most foul
items: Frozen Planet II filmmaker: “We’re taking the audience to Narnia"
items: Animal Park's Megan McCubbin on dyslexia, climate hopes and Chris Packham
items: Sir David Attenborough on "hypnotic appeal" of nature docs like The Green Planet
items: Andrew Neil on leaving the BBC, setting up GB News and those Piers Morgan rumours: 'We’re not building this channel around Piers!'
items: Peter "the Human Cyborg" on his groundbreaking transformation: "I’m in uncharted territory – how cool is that?"
items: Springwatch's Chris Packham: we need to save our birds before Britain falls silent
items: Line of Duty's Vicky McClure: 'Music brings hope to those with dementia'
items: 'One of the most pressing issues of our time': BBC prioritises environment with new natural history programming
items: How was Dynasties filmed? Behind the scenes on David Attenborough's new BBC natural history series
items: Meet Winterwatch's new presenter Gillian Burke
items: David Attenborough talks alpha males, feminism – and new BBC documentary Dynasties
items: Manhunt writer admits filming in Walton-on-Thames on anniversary of Milly Dowler's disappearance was "unfortunate timing"
items: Michael Palin on his journey through North Korea: "once we got there the anxieties fell away"
items: How are BBC weather forecasts made?

'What a huge thrill!'
type: item
creator: Terry Payne
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Who needs the Galapagos? Sir David Attenborough revels in the wildlife on his London doorstep
encoded: Wild London is on New Year's Day 6.30pm BBC One. Add it to your watchlist It’s approaching 11pm on a May evening and in a west London garden Sir David Attenborough is stretched out on a picnic rug, swaddled in a heavy coat to protect him against the night-time chill. He’s almost nose to snout with a humble suburban hedgehog and the joy on his face, illuminated by TV lights that puncture the darkness, wouldn’t be any greater were he in Papua New Guinea observing his favourite bird of paradise. Instead, he’s in Ealing, and clearly relishing the moment. In a world that’s unsettled by division and disharmony, there’s something deeply comforting watching Attenborough, a man who will be 100 next year, talking to the animals. “I think they’re lovely things,” he chuckles as the hedgehog shuffles past him. “I used to have a hedgehog that lived in my garden all the time. But these days they’re a rare sight. Nonetheless urban areas are the one place where their numbers have stabilised and with a little help from us there’s hope they might increase.” Attenborough, out and about on location, is also a rare sight these days, but filming wildlife in the city he’s lived in for 70 years was too good an opportunity to turn down. And so, in Wild London, Attenborough is captured in various locations in the capital, including a north London allotment site waiting for some resident foxes to put in an appearance. Once again, his instinct is to engage with them. “Oh, here we are… Hello,” he announces as the foxes come out to play and, later, to forage. “Even though there are more wild foxes in London than almost any other big city, it’s still a huge thrill to see one emerging from the bushes,” he says. We also see him high up in the Houses of Parliament helping as a peregrine falcon chick, from a nest that’s been established there for 11 years, is ringed with a numbered identity tag. “There we are, there we are,” he says, as he gently cradles the four-week-old chick in his hands. “And now …

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From the front line
type: item
subject: App
subject: App features
description: For more than 50 years broadcaster Kate Adie has brought us news of conflicts from around the world. And now these stories are more important than ever, she says
encoded: Listen to From Our Own Correspondent at 70 on Saturday at 8pm on Radio 4 There’s much that stands out in Kate Adie’s long BBC career. Terrifying brushes with death – a Tiananmen Square protestor died from a bullet that grazed her elbow – nights sleeping in a bath in Bosnia, interviews conducted at gunpoint, frontline dispatches that changed our understanding of conflicts… It’s those reports from places like Iraq and Afghanistan that help characterise Adie in our mind’s eye. But there’s more to her than desert boots and battledress. At the start of her career on local radio she drunkenly sang the weather forecast live on air. She once walked in the footsteps of Bristol sex workers to identify the men trawling for business. She received several offers. There was the occasion during a chaotic IRA funeral in Northern Ireland when she hit a priest who had punched her cameraman. And because she possesses intelligent curiosity she observed the open-casket bodies of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands in Belfast and of film star Gracie Fields on Capri. Such curiosity didn’t come naturally. It evolved during her fledgeling years as a broadcast reporter. “I felt my own ignorance keenly,” she says in her autobiography, The Kindness of Strangers. “I trained myself to stare at a street of houses and be nosy about what went on inside. What did a sheet hung up instead of curtains indicate? Why did half the country garden fanatically while others tolerated a wilderness of mud and tin cans and broken gates?” It’s that inquisitiveness – coupled with an enduring concern about a world so often in crisis – that has seen Adie helm Radio 4’s flagship series From Our Own Correspondent for the last 27 years. Both she and it have just celebrated big birthdays: she recently turned 80 and this week the programme, affectionately known as FooC, marks its 70th anniversary with a special hour-long episode recorded at the BBC Radio Theatre, featuring contributions from the BBC’s bestknown foreign corres…

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Watered-down truth?
type: item
date: 2025-11-21T17:11:51.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: App
subject: App features
description: There are still questions following 1988’s mass poisoning in Camelford
encoded: Add Poison Water to your watchlist Some complained that the water pouring from their household taps had caused their skin to blister and peel. Others reported chronic vomiting and diarrhoea. Doug Cross’s wife Carole noticed that the soap she used while bathing had turned bright blue and that the water was “quite sting-y”. “I told her to get out of the bath immediately, because I knew there was something seriously wrong,” he says now. For two days the couple drank water from a well in their Cornish garden, but then came the advice from the water authority that, despite an outbreak of illness seemingly linked to the local supply, it was safe to drink. “Purely an aesthetic problem,” as one official put it. It was advice that Cross and his wife dutifully followed and that, he believes, was what ultimately killed her. The 1988 Camelford water scandal remains known as the worst case of mass poisoning recorded in the UK – 20 tonnes of aluminium sulphate was mistakenly added to a drinking-water supply tank at a local treatment plant and piped into 20,000 homes. The story is revisited in a new BBC documentary, and 37 years on it’s clear that it still ignites sadness, anger and claims of a cover-up. As well as causing widespread sickness among people across north Cornwall, the contaminated water killed all the small animals at Camelford’s pet shop and livestock on nearby farms. Though it’s accepted it was an accident – albeit one that was demonstrably avoidable – what infuriated residents was that it was a full 16 days before the South West Water Authority came clean and announced in a local newspaper advert that aluminium sulphate was the source of the contamination. A coroner later said that delays in informing the public about the poisoning meant they were “gambling with as many as 20,000 lives”. Cross, a pollution scientist by profession, believes the reason for the delay became obvious. “It was a commercially driven cover-up,” he says, citing Margaret Thatcher’s much-her…

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'I feel so lucky'
type: item
creator: Terry Payne
subject: App
subject: App features
description: A diagnosis of multiple sclerosis disrupted BBC correspondent Caroline Wyatt’s career. But 10 years on she’s unbeaten and still broadcasting
encoded: Saturday PM is on Radio 4 at 5pm on Saturday. Add it to your collection Caroline Wyatt uses the word “luck” a lot. Lucky to have started out in journalism at a time when the world seemed to be changing for the better. Lucky to still be broadcasting, even though it leaves her exhausted and bed-bound. And, yes, lucky to have only been struck down by what she describes as a “gentler” version of the chronic illness multiple sclerosis. “Some people get it very aggressively from the beginning, so yes, I have been so lucky with the way that my MS has developed.” She’s sunny and speaks with no hint of self-pity, even though she acknowledges, with almost a newsreader’s detachment, that her condition is deteriorating. “I am slowly getting worse and I have got to the stage where I’ve had all the drugs I’m eligible for with the NHS. The thing that I really notice now is the way my brain is changing. I can’t focus and concentrate as much… it’s like accelerated ageing.” She also has to contend with crushing fatigue. “You wake up in the morning feeling as if you haven’t been to bed. And the older I get [she’s 58], the worse it gets.” We last met 10 years ago in her central London flat, where she spoke for the first time about the hospital results confirming she had MS. Today, as that diagnostic anniversary approaches, we’re at the BBC’s HQ, from where she broadcasts a 30-minute version of Radio 4’s PM programme every Saturday. She laughs – as she does frequently – about the support she needs from colleagues in getting the programme on air. “My eyesight is really quite unreliable now, so if I’m nervous or have a lot of adrenaline in my system I find it really hard to read words on a screen. I ask the team to print out a script in big letters, which these days is the equivalent of saying I’m a dinosaur, but it just makes it a lot easier.” Today is also the day that Donald Trump is in town and the world’s broadcast media are in tow. Considering she was the BBC’s woman in Berlin not l…

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'I aspired to be a geek'
type: item
creator: Terry Payne
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Dyslexia, racism, rough sleeping – nothing stands in the way of wildlife presenter Hamza Yassin and his love of Mother Nature
encoded: Add Hamza's Hidden Wild Isles to your watchlist Hamza Yassin is, by his own jokey admission, an old man living in a 35-year-old’s body. He’s spurned the bright lights that might attract someone of his age and profile for life in the remotest possible part of mainland Britain, where his core friendship group are of his parents’ generation and where a perfect Saturday night’s entertainment is inviting this “Scottish family” to his house for a film show. “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t party. I didn’t understand people at uni going drinking, becoming absolutely mortal then waking up the next day saying, ‘I don’t want to go to the lecture because I’m hung over.’ We calculated back then that every lecture was costing us roughly £300, so why spend £300 lying in bed recovering from a hangover?” He delivers this message of temperance not with any finger-wagging disapproval, rather a sense of bewilderment that anyone would choose shots over shearwaters. “It just seems like a waste of time. Get up and go out into the countryside.” It’s a lifestyle mantra that’s served him well. Apart, of course, from exuberant spins beneath the Strictly glitterball (he won the show in 2022), the countryside is where he’s happiest, and where he is today, talking in the shade of a Scots pine, his calf-length hair tucked beneath a floppy green canvas hat and resting on a stout hazel stick carved 15 years ago when working as a ghillie’s assistant. His description of this period of his life – indeed pretty much the whole of his life in the UK – is a reminder of just how remarkable his personal journey has been. Arriving here from his native Sudan as an eight-year-old with only a handful of words of English (“please, thank you and pizza and chips”), the learning challenges that came with being diagnosed with severe dyslexia, through to sleeping in the back of a car for nine months while learning the fieldcraft skills he’s deploying on this balmy summer evening at the RSPB Arne Nature Reserve…

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Caroline Wyatt gets candid about life with MS - and why she thinks the BBC will endure
type: item
date: 2025-10-06T23:01:18.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: audio
subject: Radio
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: A diagnosis of multiple sclerosis disrupted BBC correspondent Caroline Wyatt’s career. But 10 years on she’s unbeaten and still broadcasting.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Caroline Wyatt uses the word “luck” a lot. Lucky to have started out in journalism at a time when the world seemed to be changing for the better. Lucky to still be broadcasting, even though it leaves her exhausted and bed-bound. And, yes, lucky to have only been struck down by what she describes as a “gentler” version of the chronic illness multiple sclerosis. “Some people get it very aggressively from the beginning, so yes, I have been so lucky with the way that my MS has developed.” She’s sunny and speaks with no hint of self-pity, even though she acknowledges, with almost a newsreader’s detachment, that her condition is deteriorating. “I am slowly getting worse and I have got to the stage where I’ve had all the drugs I’m eligible for with the NHS. The thing that I really notice now is the way my brain is changing. I can’t focus and concentrate as much… it’s like accelerated ageing.” She also has to contend with crushing fatigue. “You wake up in the morning feeling as if you haven’t been to bed. And the older I get [she’s 58], the worse it gets.” We last met 10 years ago in her central London flat, where she spoke for the first time about the hospital results confirming she had MS. Today, as that diagnostic anniversary approaches, we’re at the BBC’s HQ, from where she broadcasts a 30-minute version of Radio 4’s PM programme every Saturday. She laughs – as she does frequently – about the support she needs from colleagues in getting the programme on air. “My eyesight is really quite unreliable now, so if I’m nervous or have a lot of adrenaline in my system I find it really hard to read words on a screen. I ask the team to print out a script in big letters, which these days is the equivalent of saying I’m a dinosaur, but it just makes it a lot easier.” Today is also the day that Donald Trump is in town and the world’s broadcast media are in tow. Considering she was the BBC’s woman in Berlin not long after the reuni…

Former Strictly favourite Hamza Yassin wants to find love - and shares his struggles with racism
type: item
date: 2025-10-06T23:01:17.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Dyslexia, racism, rough sleeping – nothing stands in the way of wildlife presenter Hamza Yassin and his love of Mother Nature.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Hamza Yassin is, by his own jokey admission, an old man living in a 35-year-old’s body. He’s spurned the bright lights that might attract someone of his age and profile for life in the remotest possible part of mainland Britain, where his core friendship group are of his parents’ generation and where a perfect Saturday night’s entertainment is inviting this “Scottish family” to his house for a film show. “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t party. I didn’t understand people at uni going drinking, becoming absolutely mortal then waking up the next day saying, ‘I don’t want to go to the lecture because I’m hung over.’ We calculated back then that every lecture was costing us roughly £300, so why spend £300 lying in bed recovering from a hangover?” He delivers this message of temperance not with any finger-wagging disapproval, rather a sense of bewilderment that anyone would choose shots over shearwaters. “It just seems like a waste of time. Get up and go out into the countryside.” It’s a lifestyle mantra that’s served him well. Apart, of course, from exuberant spins beneath the Strictly glitterball (he won the show in 2022), the countryside is where he’s happiest, and where he is today, talking in the shade of a Scots pine, his calf-length hair tucked beneath a floppy green canvas hat and resting on a stout hazel stick carved 15 years ago when working as a ghillie’s assistant. His description of this period of his life – indeed pretty much the whole of his life in the UK – is a reminder of just how remarkable his personal journey has been. Arriving here from his native Sudan as an eight-year-old with only a handful of words of English (“please, thank you and pizza and chips”), the learning challenges that came with being diagnosed with severe dyslexia, through to sleeping in the back of a car for nine months while learning the fieldcraft skills he’s deploying on this balmy summer evening at the RSPB Arne Nature Re…

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'I didn't believe in evolution'
type: item
creator: Terry Payne
subject: App
subject: App features
description: She was an anti-science Creationist but Ella Al-Shamahi now champions palaeoanthropology and is making some startling discoveries about our ancestors
encoded: Add Human to your watchlist If it wasn’t a true story, you might think the philosophical transformation undergone by scientist-cum-comedian Ella Al-Shamahi was a tall tale from one of her stand-up routines. A Brummie of Yemeni/Syrian descent, Al-Shamahi was once an emboldened Creationist who toured the country trying to dismantle theories about evolution. This week she’s presenting a major new BBC2 series on, you’ve guessed it, human evolution. It’s the latest chapter in an eventful life story that started with a deeply conservative Muslim upbringing, her faith-over-science activism, an arranged marriage that ended in divorce, a breakdown and then, in her late 20s, embracing a secular lifestyle and latterly the job of palaeoanthropologist. “Yeah, it’s been a very complicated journey,” the presenter of documentaries like Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors (2018) admits with a smile that frequently bursts like a firecracker into uncontrolled laughter. Not an exclusively human trait, but one that disarmingly punctuates our conversation. To understand this latest stopping point on her remarkable journey – the five-part BBC2 documentary Human – we have to start with the teenage Al-Shamahi. So persuaded was she of the “lies” being spoken by scientists about evolution that she travelled the country with like-minded friends giving pro-faith, anti-science Creationist talks. Was she ever one of those door-to-door nuisances? “No, I never did door to door,” she howls hysterically. But what she did do, almost unbelievably, was sign up to a degree course in genetics and evolution just so she could, as she says, “destroy it from the inside”. It was, she admits now, the “arrogance” of youth. “I thought we were effectively being lied to and I could overturn the theory.” Where did such certainty come from? “I grew up in a Creationist community so the reason why I didn’t believe in evolution was because my community didn’t believe in evolution. I became a missionary and we were very de…

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'Why isn't he here now?'
type: item
creator: Terry Payne
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Tom Parfett took his own life after joining a suicide forum and buying poison online. His father David is now on a mission to get answers
encoded: Add Poisoned: Killer in the Post to your watchlist David Parfett’s 22-year-old son Tom, described by his university as “exceptionally bright, much loved and with so much potential”, took his own life in October 2021. He had purchased a poisonous substance online that was delivered through the post in an A5-sized package and which he diluted, then drank, in the room of a Premier Inn hotel in Surrey. “It asphyxiates you from the inside,” Parfett, 57, says matter-of-factly, the language of paternal love displaced by that of cold pathology. “You are in agony for a while and then you fall unconscious. Within two or three hours you’ll be dead.” Parfett knew that his son was struggling with his mental health – a few weeks earlier he had expressed a wish to die – but he is adamant that, with the right support, Tom could have controlled his demons. “He was always going to have his challenges but there was so much going for him.” What Parfett didn’t know was that Tom had been a member of an online forum on which suicidal people were encouraged to kill themselves. Also, there was a man in Canada who was selling them the means with which to do so. “This guy knew what he was doing,” says Parfett. “He might not have been in the room to force the substance down my son’s throat, but near as damn it he was.” The man in question is Kenneth Law. In the UK alone, it’s thought that 97 people may have died as a result of buying this poison (which does have a legitimate commercial use but which we’re not naming) from him. Because of Parfett’s disquiet about the manner of his son’s death, and what he saw as a police failure in examining it more thoroughly, he contacted The Times newspaper. Their subsequent investigation led to Law being arrested by Ontario police. He’s now accused of 14 charges of first-degree murder and assisting suicide relating to deaths in the province. He has pleaded not guilty and is due to stand trial next year. A new two-part Channel 4 documentary follows Times jou…

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Otterly magical
type: item
creator: Terry Payne
subject: App
subject: App features
description: An award-winning film by Charlie Hamilton James explores the relationship between a wild otter and the man who saved her
encoded: Add Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story to your watchlist Film-maker Charlie Hamilton James made the first of many trips to Shetland as a 16-year-old to photograph otters. “I was a weird teenager. I craved the solitude I could find with nature and I was obsessed with otters!” His subsequent career has seen him behind the camera on some of David Attenborough’s biggest natural history series and, more recently, travelling the globe as a stills photographer with National Geographic magazine. View oEmbed on the source website However, it was because of his Shetland connections that Hamilton James – whom RT readers might remember from his BBC series My Halcyon River and Halcyon River Diaries made with his now ex-wife and former TV presenter Philippa Forrester – was made aware of an extraordinary relationship that was developing between an orphaned otter pup and a couple who discovered her near their waterside home on Shetland and named her Molly. So captivated was he by what he heard that he dropped everything and spent a year there filming. The award-winning result – Billy and Molly: an Otter Love Story – has just scooped the Golden Panda award at the wildlife equivalent of the Oscars, and tells the story of a young orphaned otter rescued by Billy Mail, a 57-year-old former oil industry engineer who found her weak and dying and, with his wife Susan, 59, helped bring her – and himself – back to health and happiness. BILLY'S STORY It was March 2021; I was looking out of the window and I saw this otter in the sea in front of the house, diving and catching food and taking it onto the pontoon and eating it. I could see she was really thin, you could see her bones sticking out, so for me it was natural to help her. I hate seeing animals suffering and I may be humanising them, but an animal can’t understand why a bad thing is happening to it — whereas a human being can rationalise it. I had no real idea what I was doing, but I knew feeding an animal that was going to die of sta…

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The Grand Tour producer talks bringing down the chequered flag on its motoring musketeers
type: item
date: 2024-09-13T10:30:16.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: Amazon Prime Video
subject: Interview
description: As Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May drive off into the sunset, the showrunner behind their success, Andy Wilman, reflects on the trio's affectionate chemistry.
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. And so here we wait at the finishing line, about to observe the last lap, the final flourish, of those three motoring musketeers Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. After 22 years of working together, and back at their favourite destination, they take the chequered flag with the promise that this truly is the end of the road. No reunions, no comeback specials – that's it. Job done. The fourth musketeer – and, like D'Artagnan, arguably the most important – says they didn't want to go out with a trademark big bang, but a warmly affectionate celebration of their friendship. And that's true. At times this final Grand Tour special feels like a love story that's taken two decades to consummate. "With this one we felt we should leave the dynamite at home, that no high jinks should get in the way of them saying goodbye," says Andy Wilman, the creative, behind-the-camera powerhouse for all those 22 years. "It's more gentle, more reflective and I think they brought their A game with their conversation and their banter, which was wonderful. Their friendship is fully on display." The depth of that friendship – underpinned by merciless mockery – is evident like never before. Richard Hammond will do well to unburden himself of the nickname Buttons, so called because of Clarkson and May's conviction that he will serve out his post-programme life in panto. That said, he does get to deliver one of the best lines of the show as he reflects whimsically on its demise. "We don't have to all go to the same old folks' home, do we?" It brought Wilman to tears, mostly the laughter sort. "I thought, 'I love you three, because only you three can say goodbye in this way. You are clearly sad, but you are robust about it. You are taking the piss to the very end.'" The backdrop to this final outing – and at two hours and ten minutes it’s a very long last lap – is an east-west drive across Zimbabwe in the three cars they'…

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The End of the Road
type: item
date: 2024-09-11T11:40:28.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: App archive 100
description: As Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May drive off into the sunset, the showrunner behind their success, Andy Wilman, bids them a fond farewell
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in September 2024. The Grand Tour: One for the Road is available from Friday. Add it to your watchlist And so here we wait at the finishing line, about to observe the last lap, the final flourish, of those three motoring musketeers Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. After 22 years of working together, and back at their favourite destination, they take the chequered flag with the promise that this truly is the end of the road. No reunions, no comeback specials – that’s it. Job done. The fourth musketeer – and, like D’Artagnan, arguably the most important – says they didn’t want to go out with a trademark big bang, but a warmly affectionate celebration of their friendship. And that’s true. At times this final Grand Tour special feels like a love story that’s taken two decades to consummate. “With this one we felt we should leave the dynamite at home, that no high jinks should get in the way of them saying goodbye,” says Andy Wilman, the creative, behind-the-camera powerhouse for all those 22 years. “It’s more gentle, more reflective and I think they brought their A game with their conversation and their banter, which was wonderful. Their friendship is fully on display.” The depth of that friendship – underpinned by merciless mockery – is evident like never before. Richard Hammond will do well to unburden himself of the nickname Buttons, so called because of Clarkson and May’s conviction that he will serve out his post-programme life in panto. That said, he does get to deliver one of the best lines of the show as he reflects whimsically on its demise. “We don’t have to all go to the same old folk’s home, do we?” View oEmbed on the source website It brought Wilman to tears, mostly the laughter sort. “I thought, ‘I love you three, because only you three can say goodbye in this way. You are clearly sad, but you are robust about it. You are taking the piss to the very end.’” The backdrop to this final ou…

Man of the Match
type: item
creator: Terry Payne
subject: App
subject: App features
description: As Match of the Day turns 60, former presenter Des Lynam reflects on all things footie – from Gary Lineker to VAR and female pundits
encoded: Des Lynam is bemoaning the march of time. The twinkle-eyed charmer who once joked about a life of ‘fast women and slow horses’ is starting to creak. He stopped swimming in the sea off his south-coast home several years ago, now it’s the golf he’s had to pack up. “When you get to the age of 80 – I can’t believe I’m even saying it – the machinery starts breaking down. My eyesight’s not so good, my back’s gone… the body that you’ve been given to live in wasn’t designed to last this long, I don’t think.” It’s a rare maudlin moment. Lynam is actually 81 (he turns 82 in September) and while he’s happy to talk about the past he doesn’t want to live in it. I wonder, though, does he keep any mementos of all those special sporting occasions he had the privilege of observing during six decades of broadcasting? It turns out not. “We moved house recently and I dug out a box of all the press accreditations I had from all around the world. I threw them all out. The past is the past, I’m interested in the present and the future,” he says. OK, so for the time being let’s stick with the present. This month sees the 60th anniversary of Match of the Day. Lynam presented what has become the world’s longest running football show between 1988-1999. Is he still a fan? “I never miss it,” he says, then adds, “It’s a total misnomer, really, isn’t it? Match of the Day worked for Kenneth Wolstenholme, who presented it between 1964 and 1967 because they only did one match, but now it’s every match. So, it’s the wrong title, but they’re not going to change it now because it has such a great cachet.” And what does he make of Gary Lineker, who was a fresh-faced punditry sidekick when he was host, and after 25 years in the hot seat is, by quite some distance, the longest-serving MotD presenter. “He wasn’t comfortable (as a pundit) at the beginning,” says Lynam. “Of course he’s been highly critical of the England team in the Euros but when he first came on he wouldn’t criticise anybody. When I left, …

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Des Lynam on Gary Lineker, Ian Wright and 60 years of Match of the Day
type: item
date: 2024-08-12T23:01:13.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Football
subject: Sport
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
subject: On demand
description: The broadcaster spoke with Radio Times magazine about the 60th anniversary of Match of the Day.
encoded: Des Lynam is bemoaning the march of time. The twinkle-eyed charmer who once joked about a life of 'fast women and slow horses' is starting to creak. He stopped swimming in the sea off his south-coast home several years ago, now it’s the golf he’s had to pack up. "When you get to the age of 80 – I can’t believe I’m even saying it – the machinery starts breaking down. My eyesight’s not so good, my back’s gone… the body that you’ve been given to live in wasn’t designed to last this long, I don’t think." It’s a rare maudlin moment. Lynam is actually 81 (he turns 82 in September) and while he’s happy to talk about the past he doesn’t want to live in it. I wonder, though, does he keep any mementos of all those special sporting occasions he had the privilege of observing during six decades of broadcasting? It turns out not. "We moved house recently and I dug out a box of all the press accreditations I had from all around the world. I threw them all out. The past is the past, I’m interested in the present and the future," he says. OK, so for the time being let’s stick with the present. This month sees the 60th anniversary of Match of the Day. Lynam presented what has become the world’s longest running football show between 1988-1999. Is he still a fan? "I never miss it," he says, then adds, "It’s a total misnomer, really, isn’t it? Match of the Day worked for Kenneth Wolstenholme, who presented it between 1964 and 1967 because they only did one match, but now it’s every match. So, it’s the wrong title, but they’re not going to change it now because it has such a great cachet." And what does he make of Gary Lineker, who was a fresh-faced punditry sidekick when he was host, and after 25 years in the hot seat is, by quite some distance, the longest-serving MotD presenter. "He wasn’t comfortable (as a pundit) at the beginning," says Lynam. "Of course he’s been highly critical of the England team in the Euros but when he first came on he wouldn’t criticise anybody. "When I left,…

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My Long Road Back
type: item
creator: Terry Payne
subject: App
subject: App features
description: His accident left him with flashbacks and scars, but Freddie Flintoff feels ready to face the world thanks to his ragtag cricket team
encoded: Add Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams to your watchlist Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff, casually dressed in dark blue track suit, white socks and white Crocs, squeezes into the second row of the screening room in a bijou central London hotel. Already seated in the row in front of him are nine animated young men from his home county of Lancashire, one of whom is still chomping on the burger he arrived with. He greets them all as he would old friends. The strength of their bond is strikingly evident. Flintoff is about to relive the aftermath of the crash in December 2022 in which he received severe facial injuries and that he now admits has changed his life for ever. The profound physical and mental impact of that Top Gear accident meant that filming the documentary series we’re here today to watch – an ambitious sequel to his heartwarming Field of Dreams – had to be postponed for more than a year to allow his recovery. Ultimately, it was this ragtag bunch of teenagers sitting in front of him – recruited by Flintoff from the streets of his native Preston and shaped into something approaching a cricket team – who helped pull him back from the brink and towards fulfilling his dream of a second series tour of India. As the film shows Flintoff in what appears to be a hospital bed talking about the crash, the former England all-rounder sitting directly in front of me in the screening room gathers his long legs up onto his seat and grasps them tightly. In the film, the extent of the injuries that he suffered – wounds to his nose and mouth – are now visible. The injuries are so significant that Flintoff’s words are, at times, barely discernible – “I genuinely should not be here with what happened,” he explains. By way of apology for having to postpone the India trip following his accident, Flintoff adds: “It’s going to be a long road back, and I’ve only just started. But I’ve got to look at the positives: I’m still here and I’ve got another chance to have a go at it. I’m looking…

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Murder most foul
type: item
creator: Terry Payne
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Who killed the man in the blood-soaked M&S pyjamas?
encoded: Add The Body Next Door to your watchlist When a sleepy Welsh village, whose name in English means graves, became the centre of a modern murder mystery, it sparked both anxiety and intrigue. A body had been found in macabre circumstances, wrapped in multiple layers of plastic, in the garden of a woman whose brazen exploits had alienated her from village folk. Leigh Sabine, the woman in question, was in her 50s when she arrived in Beddau in 1997, and is remembered for flouncing around in tight denim shorts and hitting on any man who caught her eye. There was even talk of her having abandoned her five children in New Zealand, but with Sabine the locals found it impossible to separate fact from fantasy. That she didn’t seem to be hewn from the same rock as those who inhabited the former pit village seemed obvious. But good people tend to be graciously forgiving at the end of life and so when Sabine died in 2015, aged 74, more than 50 locals gathered around her graveside and, as she’d instructed, sang the Gracie Fields wartime ditty Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye as her coffin was lowered. “Yes, she was very eccentric,” says pastor Mary West, who knew her as well as anyone. She conducted Sabine’s funeral service and appears in a three-part Sky documentary that reveals how the murderer was identified. “She just wanted to be noticed. She was always in outfits that were designed to attract attention. Any man who came into her orbit was immediately subject to her advances. My husband and my brother were really quite frightened of her. In fact, when she was in the hospice two days before she died, the oncologist bent over her and she tried to kiss him.” Losing its eccentric talking point following her death, the village quickly regained a peaceful normality, though first there was the job of sorting through her personal effects. Her husband had, apparently, left her soon after arriving in the village and with no other known family members the few mementos Sabine had in h…

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Frozen Planet II filmmaker: “We’re taking the audience to Narnia"
type: item
date: 2022-09-18T08:00:09.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: BBC One
description: Documentary maker Mark Brownlow talks us through the highs and lows of filming in one of the most inhospitable landscapes on Earth.
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Wildlife film-maker Mark Brownlow had encountered endless days of stomach-churning sickness while crossing the world’s roughest sea. He’d been so close to a killer whale that he could smell its breath, and he’d had a crushing encounter with dense pack ice on a boat whose engine had failed. Anxious moments all, though not the worst while making a landmark series set in the natural world. That, for Brownlow and his colleagues, was showing the work to David Attenborough. “The greatest moment when you make any series is when you show David what you’ve been up to,” says Brownlow. “It’s so important for us that we get his blessing.” And the great man’s verdict? “He was generous enough to be wowed.” There’s much in this six-part series (that Attenborough narrates) to excite a man who’s seen it all during a 70-year broadcast career. But there’s no escaping the fact that the many exhilarating highs are tempered by some conscience-challenging lows. Wherever you venture in the frozen parts of planet Earth, the consequences of climate change are there to be seen. It wasn’t considered so clear-cut in 2011, when the first instalment of Frozen Planet was broadcast. As Brownlow rather mischievously points out, as part of its coverage of that series, RT published the views of Nigel Lawson, who cast doubt on the very existence of global warming. We’ve come a long way since, as Attenborough attests in his opening remarks in the first scene-setting episode. “Looking down on our planet, it may come as a surprise to find just how much of it is blanketed in snow and ice. These vast frozen wildernesses cover more than a fifth of the Earth. Yet some areas are so remote and inhospitable that even today the closest we’ve come to exploring them is from space.” The first Frozen Planet examined life in the Arctic and the Antarctic. But the new series, says Attenborough, explores “all of Earth’s frozen habitats, from its highest pea…

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Animal Park's Megan McCubbin on dyslexia, climate hopes and Chris Packham
type: item
date: 2022-08-09T16:27:05.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
description: Megan McCubbin has overcome personal battles to become one of our most popular wildlife presenters.
encoded: This article was originally published in Radio Times magazine. In 2018 Megan McCubbin saw a random tweet posing the question: what were you told you’d never be able to achieve, but have since accomplished? The stepdaughter and sometime screen partner of Chris Packham responded: “My teacher told me I would never get a degree in science due to my dyslexia. I graduate tomorrow.” The accomplished 27-year-old Springwatch regular has continued the process of “graduating” ever since, this week joining the long-established pairing of Kate Humble and Ben Fogle on the popular BBC One daytime series Animal Park. If it’s been a battle she makes light of it, though she acknowledges why her teacher held such a pessimistic view of her prospects. “I struggled at school – I found it really, really difficult and was terrible at exams. “Complicated science was something that I struggled with initially because I had to find my own way to learn it. I don’t learn conventionally. After a class I might be able to relay the information and understand it, but there was no chance that I could retain it in the way that was asked of me. My brain definitely works very differently from other people’s – I retain information differently.” One of her coping strategies was to strip out some of the complex language she was presented with in order to absorb the core detail. It’s an approach she still uses today. “I think my dyslexia does change the way that I broadcast, because I try to speak about science in a way that I would have understood when I was younger. I’m like that with my writing – I’m a very slow writer. So I try to strip back the unnecessary complexities.” Does her dyslexia impact the way she works? Can she digest scripts, for instance? “I mean, I can. I did drama at A-level and I had to learn scripts for that – memorising them line by line if I needed to. But I try not to [for television work], because I think if you memorise a script and are going into a live broadcast, your head is so…

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Sir David Attenborough on "hypnotic appeal" of nature docs like The Green Planet
type: item
date: 2022-01-09T09:00:53.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
description: We got the lowdown from the veteran broadcaster and naturalist
encoded: Picture the scene. It’s September 2019. A rowing boat eases its way steadily across a sparkling Croatian lake. Pulling purposefully on the oars is none other than David Attenborough, then a mere 93 years of age. But he has company. Hidden beneath a tarpaulin in the stern of the boat is not, as you might expect, an outboard motor, but Mike Gunton, the executive producer of the TV series Attenborough is making. He’s there as the health-and-safety contingency, but the purity of the shot (Attenborough alone, at one with nature) means he’s covered up. In any case, Attenborough is enjoying himself and, it turns out, has a point to prove. “No, I can do a bit more,” he insists, turning down the offer of rowing support from Gunton, who’s now emerged from beneath the tarpaulin. And on Attenborough rows. “When David was at Cambridge he was a rugby player and when I was at Cambridge many years later I was a rower,” explains Gunton. “He said, ‘We rugby players always thought we could row better than you rowers’ so this was him proving that we ‘wet bobs’ – as he calls us – weren’t as good at rowing as the rugby players. That is classic David.” This new series, The Green Planet, is also “classic David”. A largely unseen vocal guide to many of the most recent landmark natural history programmes, Attenborough is back on location for this stunning and thought-provoking deep dive into the world of plants. The filming schedule has taken him around the world – almost certainly the last time he’ll travel to so many far-flung places for one series. We see him in the freezing high Arctic, in the baking deserts of America, on a gondola high up in the tree canopy of Costa Rica and, closer to home, in Kew Gardens, the place, probably more than any other, where he feels most comfortable and where we catch up with him. Attenborough’s been here, as he was yesterday and the day before, since 6:30am. This morning he’s observing the awakening of the humble daisy. Thermal cameras show how the warmin…

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Andrew Neil on leaving the BBC, setting up GB News and those Piers Morgan rumours: 'We’re not building this channel around Piers!'
type: item
date: 2021-06-13T08:00:01.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Current Affairs
subject: TV
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: Andrew Neil's GB News launches today.
encoded: Andrew Neil rings, as promised, on the dot of 5pm. There’s a hint of fatigue in his voice that, in a previous professional incarnation, might have suggested an old-fashioned Fleet Street lunch. But Neil has just turned 72 and is in the chaotic throes of launching a new, and newsy, TV channel. “There’s a lot of the technology still to sort out, but rehearsals are underway and we’ll soon be in full dress rehearsals. The team are working around the clock.” As we speak, the launch of GB News is only 12 days away and the team he describes has only had two months to turn an empty west London office space into a broadcast-ready studio. Neil may have missed the hard-hat phase but, despite rumours to the contrary, he has arrived in London from his home in France to oversee the preparations and expects to remain in the capital for the “foreseeable”. He’ll present the launch programme on Sunday and then have his own 8pm show four nights a week. Broadcasting from 6am to midnight, GB News is, unashamedly, moulded around its star presenters. They are the lure Neil hopes will ensnare new viewers – not to mention a different way of packaging the news. “The one thing we know from America, which is always ahead of Britain in these things, is that whereas rolling news does not rate with audiences, appointment-to-view news programming built around colourful and characterful anchors does rate. View oEmbed on the source website “We won’t be doing rolling news, we won’t even be doing news bulletins. The content we select will be chosen by the presenters and their editors. It won’t be just the style of the shows that will be different, I think the content will be different.” So, for “colourful and characterful” read Simon McCoy, who jumped ship from the BBC and will co-present an afternoon show; Alastair Stewart, who parted company with ITV and has a weekend show; and Kirsty Gallacher from Sky, who heads up the breakfast team. They’re complemented by other presenters and journalists, upwar…

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Peter "the Human Cyborg" on his groundbreaking transformation: "I’m in uncharted territory – how cool is that?"
type: item
date: 2020-08-18T09:25:34.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Peter Scott-Morgan was paralysed by Motor Neurone Disease – now, cutting-edge technology seems him "not just surviving" but "thriving".
encoded: As Peter Scott-Morgan, his paralysed body ravaged by Motor Neurone Disease, whispered a final “I love you” to his partner of 40 years he knew it would be the last time they spoke to each other, at least in any conventional sense. But then there’s nothing conventional about Scott-Morgan. Wheeled into a hospital theatre in Devon last October to voluntarily have his biological voice surgically removed, he knew it was not the end of anything, but a new, extraordinary, beginning. And the robotics expert in him was excited. He was transforming himself into a cyborg – as he put it ‘the end of Peter 1.0 and the start of Peter 2.0’. That transition had already begun with some complicated replumbing of his body - a colostomy for his bowels, a catheter for his bladder and a feeding tube directly into his stomach. But with his body under attack from MND he knew what would most likely kill him was pneumonia. And the way to prevent that was to undergo a laryngectomy, in which the oesophagus and trachea are separated. Life-saving perhaps, but it meant he would never be able to speak again. Scott-Morgan, who lives in Torbay, saw it as a challenge. Before having the operation he recorded his voice – tens of thousands of words - which now, using eye-tracking technology, can be converted into both verbal and written responses using just his eyes via the computer screen that’s fixed in front of him. Laser eye surgery has equipped him with perfect vision at 70cm - the distance from his computer screen – and because his facial muscles don’t work there’s an avatar which animates his responses. The voice, too, his is own. Not an unrecognisably synthesised version of it. His remarkable story is captured in a new Channel 4 documentary and using his ‘cyborg’ technology, he answers these questions for us... Explain in practical terms how you are responding to these questions - does the AI deal differently with that which is written and that which is spoken? Let me start by stressing that what’…

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Springwatch's Chris Packham: we need to save our birds before Britain falls silent
type: item
date: 2019-05-27T07:12:23.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Current Affairs
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The Springwatch presenter says he believes environmental activism and working with the BBC are not compatible
encoded: It’s 8pm on a murky, rain-spattered, evening in central London. Chris Packham, just back from a filming trip to Tanzania, is holding court with a small band of dedicated supporters. The setting is the lyrical home of the nightingale, Berkeley Square, and for one night only its bewitching song will subdue the roar of the nearby traffic. Sadly, it’s merely a digital refrain. Spurred by Packham’s evangelical encouragement, phones are juggled with umbrellas and recordings of the nightingale song – likened by Shelley to the writing of poetry – cut through the gloom. This is an act of reverence, not rebellion. “When we did the Walk for Wildlife [last September] we were playing birdsong down through Piccadilly and it was magical,” says Packham. “We had 10,000 people all playing their birdsong and it was bouncing off buildings and we managed to transform the soundscape of London. It was such a simple idea I thought why not repeat it here in Berkeley Square, because of the popularity of that song.” Chris Packham and Jack Fincham are teaming up on a new BBC nature show David Attenborough talks climate change, vegetarianism – and working with Netflix Springwatch presenter Chris Packham warns of Britain's "ecological apocalypse" Packham cannot rest in his pursuit of causes that many worry are in danger of being lost. Nightingale numbers have plummeted by 90 per cent since the 1960s, and there are now fewer than 5,500 breeding pairs in the UK. View oEmbed on the source website “They are a migrant, so we have to accept that it’s not just due to what’s happening in the UK, but when I travel back here it’s like coming to a vacuum – silent springs have already fallen upon us. We know that the collapse in farmland and woodland bird numbers is severe, dangerous and ongoing. We’ve got to get people to engage with that fact.” Engagement is a vital part of Packham’s DNA and, while tonight’s event is as benign a gathering as it’s possible to imagine, he appears increasingly prepared to mi…

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Line of Duty's Vicky McClure: 'Music brings hope to those with dementia'
type: item
date: 2019-04-28T07:09:48.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: After watching her grandmother struggle with dementia, the Line of Duty star formed a choir to prove the value of music as therapy...
encoded: As a line of dialogue it could have come straight from the mouth of Vicky McClure’s Line of Duty character Kate Fleming. “We’ve got each other’s back, so we’ll be fine,” she says with confident conviction. But McClure isn’t seeking solidarity with her mates in AC-12, nor is there any dramatic bravura attached to the sentiment. Instead they are words of gentle encouragement to a 50-year-old woman with dementia trying to learn – and remember – the lines of a song the pair are preparing to duet on. These days Julie can’t remember what she’s doing from one moment to the next. “I don’t know how long I have got to remember things, so I need to pack in as much as I can,” she says of her reasons for joining a choir made up of people with dementia, formed by McClure in her home city of Nottingham for a new two-part BBC documentary, Our Dementia Choir. Anna Maxwell Martin will guest star in a "pivotal" role in the final two episodes of Line of Duty series five When is Our Dementia Choir with Vicky McClure on TV? McClure’s reasons are also personal: she lost her grandmother Iris to dementia in 2015. Now, she wants to bang the drum about the benefits music can bring to people with dementia. “I watched my nana being taken by dementia. I watched her personality slowly fade away – it’s one of the hardest things to watch a family member go through. But I also saw how music helped, changing her mood and, for a while, bringing us back the old Nana.” The youngest member of the 20-strong choir is 31, the oldest 87 – what connects them is a desire to find new purpose in their lives and help science understand better how music can help reawaken dementia-affected brains. McClure herself underwent a brain-imaging scan to illustrate how music affects neurological activity. As low-intensity sounds were played through her headset there was patchy acknowledgement of what she was hearing. But when her favourite Beatles song In My Life was played the sensory parts of her brain became stimulated,…

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'One of the most pressing issues of our time': BBC prioritises environment with new natural history programming
type: item
date: 2019-03-06T15:53:44.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: BBC
description: Chris Packham and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall were among the BBC presenters to reveal details of their upcoming shows
encoded: The BBC has assembled its largest ever panel of natural history TV presenters to put the environment firmly at the top of the broadcaster's agenda. Seven presenters, including Chris Packham, Liz Bonnin, Steve Backshall and Gordon Buchanan revealed details of programmes coming up in the next few months that will examine the threats posed to planet Earth. The BBC lines up Planet Earth III for 2022 The best TV shows airing in 2019 Listen to the RadioTimes.com Podcast now: subscribe on iTunes / subscribe on Google Podcasts The launch at Kew Gardens in London comes a month before Netflix broadcasts its own clarion call for the world with the eight-part series Our Planet, and will be interpreted in some quarters as the BBC asserting its authority in the area of natural history film-making. The BBC’s most senior television executive, director of content Charlotte Moore, said the environment was “one of the most pressing and important issues of our time”. She went on: “The audience really want to know more about the way our planet is changing. We feel that this is just the beginning of the conversation.” Each of the presenters outlined details of the programmes they’ve made, but it was Chris Packham whose documentary polemic on population growth produced the biggest reaction. “It is in my opinion the single most important thing to talk about,” he said. “We spend a lot of time worrying about climate change, but as a species we are enormously intelligent and adaptable and our species will survive the impact of climate change. The changes we will undergo will be catastrophic and life will be nothing like it is now, but we will survive.” But population growth poses a much bigger threat, said Packham, adding that the Earth’s population has doubled since 1968 “We are just simply running out of resources. We, here, survive on the resource poverty of other people in other parts of the world. There are too many of us and we need to have this discussion.” Packham said his programme –…

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How was Dynasties filmed? Behind the scenes on David Attenborough's new BBC natural history series
type: item
date: 2019-02-19T13:22:45.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The broadcaster's new nature documentary focuses on five different species. But how did the wildlife filmmakers capture their incredible stories?
encoded: David Attenborough returns to present BBC1's new nature documentary Dynasties, centring on five endangered species: chimpanzees, tigers, emperor penguins, lions, and painted wolves. But how did the show's wildlife filmmakers capture their stories? Dynasties: first trailer released for the new landmark BBC natural history series David Attenborough shines a light on animal interactions and habitat loss in politically charged new series Dynasties Chimpanzees Where were they filmed? Senegal, West Arica How long did it take to film them? 309 days Meet David. An alpha male chimp who’s clinging on to power and all the benefits that being leader of the pack bestows. “He gets the best access to the food and the females,” says producer Rosie Thomas, who was part of a crew that filmed him and his group over two years in the border area of Senegal and Guinea But David’s three-year grip on power is under threat. Other males want a piece of his action and this episode follows them as the struggle for supremacy unfolds. “They are quite a unique group, in that there are many more males than females, so there’s a lot of aggression,” says Thomas. Observing the plotting and the treachery involved following the chimps on foot, sometimes up to 15 miles a day in temperatures of above 40° Celsius. “The physical demands were huge, but the rewards immense,” says Thomas. “You have to be careful not to anthropomorphise too much, but it was just like being in Number Ten watching them play all their games.” Some might say… Actually, no, let’s not go there. Emperor Penguins <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2018/11/16333463-high_res-dynasties-1531f4c.jpg" width="4282" height="2858" alt="WARNING: Embargoed for publication until 00:00:01 on 04/11/2018 - Programme Name: Dynasties - TX: n/a - Episode: Dynasties - Emperor (No. 2) - Picture Shows: **PRESS PACK EMBARGOED UNTIL SUNDAY 4TH NOVEMBER 2018** A pair of six-week-old chicks, left on their own by their parents…

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Meet Winterwatch's new presenter Gillian Burke
type: item
date: 2019-02-01T13:54:00.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Kenyan-born Burke studied biology at Bristol University, became a natural history researcher, and then worked her way up as a producer
encoded: Talk to new BBC wildlife presenter Gillian Burke about diversity and you’ll most likely get a heartfelt piece of advocacy for the ladybird spider, the grass snake or the hermit crab. This is a woman who loves the variety of the British countryside. But mention it in conjunction with her elevation as an on-screen addition to the Springwatch team, and the simultaneous demotion of Martin Hughes-Games, and you ignite a different kind of debate, one of the most persistent in the broadcast industry at the moment. Is Hughes-Games being eased out to make the presenting team less white and help the BBC hit diversity targets? He says yes, though generously accepting it’s a good thing, the BBC says no. But more of that later. Burke, 42, is Kenyan born and now lives in Cornwall with her ten-year-old son and eight- year-old daughter. She says she was upset when the story broke suggesting she was ousting Hughes-Games from the team. “A friend texted me one Monday morning saying I was in the papers. Can you imagine the horror for me of apparently busting into the party and being blamed for breaking it up?” Happily, at least for the time being, that party is still in full swing as Hughes-Games is back in the field – and the studio – for this week’s Winterwatch from RSPB Arne in Dorset with Burke and programme co-hosts Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan. Have she and Hughes-Games spoken about it? She says not. But she hopes there isn’t a problem. “In many ways Martin and I have had a very similar journey. We both went to Bristol University, both did biology, both went into natural history as researchers and then worked our way up as producers.” The difference being, of course, that Hughes-Games’s route wasn’t via Nairobi and Vienna. Born just outside the Kenyan capital, Burke lived what she describes as a “very happily feral” childhood, hunting barefoot for insects outside their house – “I hated shoes and would kick them off as soon as I got home from school” – and going on trips wi…

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David Attenborough talks alpha males, feminism – and new BBC documentary Dynasties
type: item
date: 2019-01-25T12:13:08.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The 92-year-old documentary maker discusses his latest five-part series, which follows five endangered species as they attempt to secure the future of their offspring
encoded: David Attenborough is a wise observer of human behaviour. But there must be times when Homo sapiens (or, at least, the fourth estate) leaves him scratching his head in bewilderment. During a morning of interviews to promote his latest series, the five-part Dynasties, Attenborough is invited to ponder a disparate range of questions. Will he be donating his brain to science; is a dramatic scene of primate politics featuring David the chimp (opposite) a metaphor for Brexit; and what is he hoping to get for Christmas? Though aged 92, Attenborough is still agile enough to spot a headline masquerading as a question – and nimbly sidestep it. How, then, would we fare encouraging him to invoke his inner feminist? David Attenborough: The BBC doesn’t do enough for culture and the arts Dynasties: first trailer released for the new landmark BBC natural history series David Attenborough looks back on how TV has changed in the last 60 years It’s an approach that demands an explanation. If Dynasties underlines anything, it’s that in the animal kingdom females are generally, though not exclusively, much more useful than males. So, would he agree there are parallels in this regard between animal kind and humankind? View oEmbed on the source website “Yes, but you could also find the opposite. There are female-dominant societies both in human beings and in animals. I agree, though, they’re a minority.” There’s some anecdotal evidence that with lions, for instance, female cubs learn from their mothers, whereas boisterous young males learn from their mistakes. Any helpful clues there? “If you restrict it to mammals, then by and large it is true. Bull elephants, for example, don’t stick with the family. The females have all the wisdom. They bring up all the kids, they deal with the problems of drought and so on. The males dash around, trumpeting and copulating whenever they get the chance.” With girl power a mostly positive fact of life in the wild, might our society be a better place if …

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Manhunt writer admits filming in Walton-on-Thames on anniversary of Milly Dowler's disappearance was "unfortunate timing"
type: item
date: 2019-01-08T20:31:00.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Manhunt screenwriter Ed Whitmore says he was right to revisit the site of the tragedy — but accepts the timing was insensitive
encoded: On 19 August 2004, 22-year-old French student Amélie Delagrange was attacked and left for dead while she was walking home through the west London suburb of Twickenham. On 24 April 2018, residents woke to discover police tape once again sealing off Twickenham Green, the place of her murder. Men in white protective suits, posters pinned to trees and “Can you help?” witness appeals all pointed to a gut-wrenching case of déjà vu. Except this time they were just props, used by the makers of ITV’s drama Manhunt in their depiction of the police investigation into Amélie’s death and the subsequent conviction of Levi Bellfield for her murder, and also the murders of Milly Dowler and Marsha McDonnell. What time is Manhunt on TV, and what’s it about? Everything you need to know about Grantchester series four Meet the cast of ITV's Manhunt View oEmbed on the source website “We took the decision to try to be as authentic as we possibly could,” says writer Ed Whitmore. “If you decide to be authentic about A, B and C, then why not D, E and F? If we had filmed somewhere else and called it Twickenham Green people would have said, ‘That’s not Twickenham Green’. If you call it something other than Twickenham Green you’re starting to stray away from the real story you’re telling. Then you’re in more treacherous waters because you could be accused of playing fast and loose with the truth, which is serious.” The truth about what really happened on Twickenham Green is, of course, appalling, and Whitmore accepts that a script so closely mirroring an awful, and still familiar, reality risks triggering renewed pain for the families of those involved, although the show’s executive has insisted it would never have gone ahead if any of them had objected. “Whenever you base a drama on real events you run that risk,” says Whitmore. “But if you can look yourself in the eye and say that you’re telling the story for a good reason and you’re doing so with integrity, respect and sensitivity, then I th…

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Michael Palin on his journey through North Korea: "once we got there the anxieties fell away"
type: item
date: 2018-09-20T10:19:53.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: "There was no way that our minders could control everything that we saw, nor did they really try to," says Palin, who reveals he even invited his North Korean guide to visit him in London
encoded: Picture the scene. Michael Palin kicking his heels in a deserted North Korean airport waiting for a delayed flight to arrive. With him are his ever-present team of stern, muscular, suited minders and his young, female, Government appointed English-speaking guide. How to pass the time? What about a clip from Monty Python that one of his film team had brought along. “They knew nothing about it (Python) and they didn’t know who I was,” says Palin. “They knew I was some great British star but they didn’t really know what that meant.” Cue the fish-slapping dance sequence featuring Palin and John Cleese. Response: total bewilderment. “Her only comment at the end was ‘was that a live fish’? I said ‘no’ – no fish were harmed in the making of this sequence.” Michael Palin reveals first trailer for North Korea travel series: "This will be the most revealing journey of my life" Everything you need to know about Michael Palin in North Korea Vanity Fair's Michael Palin: 'Today Becky Sharp would be on Love Island – or working as President Trump's press secretary' View oEmbed on the source website Palin was talking on Thursday night at a Bafta screening of his new two-part documentary for Channel 5 in which he travels – albeit permanently monitored – around North Korea. The access took three years to achieve and Palin admits being nervous before entering the country from China in April this year. “I didn’t get a wink of sleep on the train. It was a very volatile time. That week happened to be a week of handshakes and rapprochement, but it could easily have gone another way and Trump could have said something, [president Kim Jong] Un could have let off a missile and we may well have been stuck there for a long time and that was always in my mind. "But once we got there the anxieties fell away; we were well looked after and well treated. Even the minders who were cold and cool to start with turned out to be not as robotic as we thought.” The first episode of the documentary observes…

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How are BBC weather forecasts made?
type: item
date: 2018-09-10T10:58:04.000Z
creator: Terry Payne
subject: Current Affairs
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: BBC
description: The BBC no longer goes to the Met Office for its weather updates, instead relying on a company called MeteoGroup – find out more about how the process works here
encoded: There's been a change in the weather... Until March this year the BBC’s forecasts came from the Met Office, but are now supplied by a global company, MeteoGroup, from a small office in central London. Here's how the weather forecasts are made and supplied to the BBC's presenters. “Where has the time gone?” BBC Breakfast’s Carol Kirkwood celebrates 20 years presenting the weather Eddie Mair explains his decision to leave the BBC: “None of my thinking has been influenced by pay problems” RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox Small office? Yes, just a handful of desks with multiple screens and a total of 17 meteorologists, some of whom are based at the BBC and provide the daily briefings for the on-screen presenters, as well as video conferencing with broadcasters outside London and script-writing for local and national radio. View oEmbed on the source website Only 17? Do they ever sleep? They’re not actually doing all the climate crunching. The company buys in data from other groups of forecasting experts, and refines it for the BBC’s national and regional weather bulletins. What sort of groups? Well, they still include the Met Office, along with their equivalents in the Netherlands and Germany, but their key provider is the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, based in Reading, Berkshire. “Their weather model is consistently the best,” says MeteoGroup forecasting manager Paul Knightley, “but we pick a model that looks the best on the day and try to improve on it.” “Looks the best”? It’s a question of assessing the predictions against current conditions. Says fellow meteorologist Nikki Berry: “If the model doesn’t match what the satellite picture tells us is actually happening, then it’s already wrong. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.” So, there’s still an element of guesswork? Yes and no, in Knightley’s view. “Forecasting wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for computer models. That’s why forecast…

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