With the passing of former F1 boss and broadcaster Eddie Jordan, revisit this RT interview from 2009, when the charismatic commentator reflected on his public persona — and how scandal strained his friendship with a racing legend
This article was first published in RT in October 2009. With two races to go in an F1 season of extraordinary highs and lows, it is reassuring to discover that the canary in the BBC’s commentary cage, Eddie Jordan, is still singing loudly seven months on. A consistently provocative voice during the BBC’s race coverage, the upbeat Dubliner, who once lit up the pit lane in his yellow shirt and slacks, has distinguished a first year in the box with his straight talking, some of it wonderfully off-key in a world where you offend the powers that be at your peril. From Jenson Button leaving mid-grid mediocrity behind with six wins in the first seven races – more victories than Lewis Hamilton managed in all of last season – to the continuing aftershock of the Renault scandal, where team boss Flavio Briatore was found to have ordered a driver to crash deliberately, Jordan has been telling it like it is. “I have always had a very low concentration level. I say what is in my mind at the time. If it’s controversial it’s controversial, if it’s fun it’s fun and if it is stupid it is stupid. I’m not one of these people who are cloned. You get Eddie Jordan as he comes,” he says, slipping into a moment of third-person pomposity uncharacteristic for a man who breezily ran his Jordan team from 1991 to 2005 as a private venture. “He absolutely let himself down,” he says of one-time rival and friend Briatore. “I do not know any other person that has abused the management of one of their drivers to this level. It’s not anything I would have thought of. “Do I believe he has let that friendship down? I do believe that. It was a grave error and I’m sure he understands that now. I haven’t spoken to him since. When I speak to him, we will discuss it. Nothing has changed from that point of view, other than I do want him to explain to me why he did it. He needs to come out and make a full apology.” The Briatore affair overshadowed not only Button’s early-season heroics, which have given him a 14-point lead with two races left, but also the on-track demise of McLaren and Ferrari: not as sudden as Briatore’s crash from grace, but just as unpredictable. You’ve got to give some credit to Bernie [Ecclestone] and Max [Mosley] here,” says Jordan. “This season they’ve curtailed the ability to win with your wallet by limiting testing and the amount of time teams can spend on development. What do you get? Teams like Brawn and Red Bull able to compete with the big boys. I go to a race not having a clue who’s going to win. You haven’t been able to say that for the last ten years or so.” What was predicted, though, before the season began was that Jordan would swear on air. He said an Irish bookmaker had opened a book on it. Did they have to pay out? “I don’t think so. I don’t swear as much as some people think. I was always told by my mother that people who swear have less knowledge of the English language.” The canary’s singing but – in this respect at least – he can guarantee no bum notes.
Radio Times Screen Test Awards 2024 reveals nominations shortlist
The special awards examine how our favourite programmes make us feel.
Last month we asked you to vote for your favourite programmes in our annual Screen Test Awards and now we can reveal the nominees in all seven categories. The only television awards based on science, the Radio Times Screen Test Awards grew out of a survey of 22,000 readers and users that we carried out last year with the department of psychology at the University of Sussex. The categories reflect the profound impact TV has on the way we feel, from our levels of happiness, to empathy, to trust and even stress. Because our Screen Test study showed that watching TV, far from being a passive pastime, is an activity that engages not only brain but our emotions too. Study the shortlisted shows and you will see the programme that you voted for as having played a powerful part in our lives in 2024. But which do we judge to be the best in all seven categories? Our jury of academics, psychologists, TV critics and Radio Times editors will unveil the winners at an awards dinner in central London on 5th November. Happy TV Award From murder-solving podcasters to lying British comedians, these are the shows that put the biggest smile on your faces. Changing Ends (ITV1/ITVX) Ghosts (BBC One/iPlayer) Inside No. 9 (BBC Two/iPlayer) Only Murders in the Building (Disney Plus) Would I Lie to You? (BBC One/iPlayer) Empathy Award for Drama These are the characters who touched you, inspired you and moved you to walk in another person's shoes. Chris Carson (Martin Freeman) – The Responder (BBC One/iPlayer) Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) – Bridgerton (Netflix) Jo Hamilton (Monica Dolan) – Mr Bates vs The Post Office (ITV1/ITVX) Dr Abbey Henderson (Joanne Froggatt) – Breathtaking (ITV1/ITVX) Lali Sokolov (Harvey Keitel/Jonah Hauer-King) – The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Sky Atlantic/NOW) Watercooler Award At its best, television stops us in our tracks and gets us all talking. These programmes connected us in 2024. Baby Reindeer (Netflix) Mr Bates vs The Post Office (ITV1/ITVX) Beckham (Netflix) Doctor Who (BBC One/iPlayer) The Traitors (BBC One/iPlayer) The Reith Award This award recognises the programmes that best encapsulate the BBC's mission to "inform, educate and entertain", as put forward by the BBC's first director-general in 1922. The Assembly (BBC One/iPlayer) Clarkson's Farm (Prime Video) D-Day 80: The Unheard Tapes (BBC Two/iPlayer) Michael Palin in Nigeria (Channel 5/My5) Planet Earth III (BBC One/iPlayer) Stress Buster Award TV offers us a doorway to dozens of different worlds. These programmes were the best at helping you escape. Death in Paradise (BBC One/iPlayer) The Great British Sewing Bee (BBC One/iPlayer) The Marlow Murder Club (U&Drama/U) Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing (BBC Two/iPlayer) Race Across the World (BBC One/iPlayer) Trust Award for Audio Thanks to podcasts, audio's bond with listeners has never been stronger. These are the shows you count on the most. The Great Post Office Trial (BBC Radio 4/Sounds) Just One Thing with Michael Mosley (BBC Radio 4/Sounds) More or Less (BBC Radio 4/Sounds) The Rest Is History (Goalhanger Podcasts) Why Do You Hate Me, with Marianna Spring (BBC Sounds) Best Box Set We live in a world blessed by a wealth of compelling drama, which means that bingeing is no longer something to feel guilty about. These programmes had you making time so that you could dive in and watch "just one more" episode. The Bear (Disney Plus) Blue Lights (BBC One/iPlayer) A Gentleman in Moscow (Paramount Plus) The Long Shadow (ITV1/ITVX) Slow Horses (Apple TV+) The Art of Reflection In our noisy, busy lives, we all need a place of creative contemplation. These are the shows that managed to take you into someone else's world. First Night of the Proms (BBC Two/iPlayer) French and Saunders: Imagine (BBC One/iPlayer) A Life in Pictures (BBC Two/iPlayer) The Piano (Channel 4) Portrait Artist of the Year (Sky Arts/NOW) For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
This week's Radio Times is an Olympics special
Your complete 16-day TV guide to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The Olympic Games begin on Friday 26 July as the River Seine offers up a waterborne overture for the greatest show on Earth. It’s as ambitious as it is fanciful – and an entirely appropriate way to herald the 16 days of the XXXIII Olympiad. Is there anything else quite like the Olympics? As the ultimate test for so many sports, it’s a true measure of greatness. But it’s the mix of events, enhanced these days by an ever-expanding list of novel additions – from surfing to break dancing – that makes this the most inclusive of sporting jamborees. Over 16 days, you will be able to watch every event, from athletics to weightlifting, without having to move a muscle, other than to switch channel on the remote control. Many, no doubt, will choose to follow the Games on the BBC, which will broadcast over 250 hours of live coverage. But for those who want to watch every event live, then Eurosport and Discovery+ offer the chance to see all 10,500 athletes and an opportunity to catch all 329 medal moments. If you keep your wits about you. Our 68-page guide in next week's Radio Times includes day-by day listings of the BBC’s coverage and an A-Z daily guide to each sport. Plus, we have the pick of the action chosen by our pundits. With 12 gold, six silver and ten bronze medals between them, there can be no voices better qualified to steer you to the best of the action. Let the Games begin! The Olympics Special issue of Radio Times magazine is out now – subscribe here. Also in this week's Radio Times: We still have our regular listings for the week leading up to Friday’s Opening Ceremony, plus our eight-page streaming section is a sport-free zone. A preview of the TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s 1980s romp, Rivals. We talk to Game of Thrones star Iwan Rheon about his role in Roland Emmerich’s Roman-era gladiator drama Those About to Die. In the Radio Times Podcast, Emma Gannon on writing, the joys of slowing down and Ctrl-Alt-Delete View oEmbed on the source website Visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Tom Bradby on surviving Election Night: 'You feel like you've been punched in the face for eight hours'
ITN’s anchor Tom Bradby tells Radio Times magazine he has learnt from the best when it comes to Election Night. But how has he survived so long? And why does he no longer care about being at the top of the tree?
Who would you trust to bring you the news on Election Night? Viewers of a certain age might hark back to the 1970s, choosing perhaps Alastair Burnet’s gravelly staccato barely missing a beat as he juggled Robin Day’s dogged questioning of a future cabinet minister with the animated interventions of the ever-present analysts, the politics professor with a Canadian drawl, Robert McKenzie, and donnish psephologist of swing David Butler. But for Tom Bradby, aged 57, there is only one man to learn from as he prepares for his biggest night in years. “David Dimbleby is the best broadcaster I’ve seen in my lifetime,” says the host of ITV News at Ten and the anchor of their general election coverage this week. “For the last ten years I’ve studied how he does things. He’s completely unflappable. So I’ve tried to be like him, piloting the ship… clear, calm and engaging.” Unlike Burnet, Day, or so many of the greats of Election Nights past, Dimbleby is, of course, still very much with us, even if the BBC dispensed with his services in 2019. Do they talk about their shared trade, master to apprentice? “Yes, he lives just round the corner. I bump into him all the time. We chat for hours. I wouldn’t say he gives me feedback, but we always have long and funny chats.” Does he think Dimbleby will be tuned to ITV come 10pm Thursday? “I wouldn’t dream of making any assumptions about where he was going to watch Election Night,” he says, his eyes twinkling behind a pair of oversized tortoiseshell spectacles. It sounds like a yes. We’re talking in Bradby’s London flat, five floors up in a stuccoed Victorian terrace, a brisk 15-minute walk from Westminster. He has just flown in to London after seeing family abroad, a brief stopover on his way to Winchester where he lives with his jewellery designer wife Claudia, their house now an empty nest since his three 20-something children – two sons and a daughter – left home. He’s as laid-back as he appears on screen – “Don’t Panic, Captain Mainwaring” reads the legend on my mug as we sip tea in the late afternoon sunshine – every inch the unflappable voice of the news, whose easy charm and polish have made him friends not just among broadcasting royalty but real royalty, too. (Not that he talks about either Princes Harry or William these days. “I’ve taken the decision to keep my mouth shut.”) “I actually signed the News at Ten contract the day I came in to do the 2015 Election Night,” he says. An ITN lifer, whose route from graduate trainee to grand fromage has taken in roles in Ireland, Washington and London, where he was first the royal correspondent and then political editor, he’s been a constant presence on our screens for more than three decades. “I never get nervous on live TV but on that day I thought, ‘God, I hope I don’t screw this up, because I only signed my contract two hours ago.’ “I really loved being political editor, but when the head of news and current affairs at ITV asked me what I wanted to do with my career, I said I’d love to do Election Night. It tops everything.” He considers it the ultimate test for a news anchor, a marathon race of nerve and skill that begins at 10pm and ends just before breakfast the following day. “You’re at the centre of a fascinating unfolding narrative. My kids have taken the piss out of me for years – ‘Dad reads aloud for a living’ – and I’m the last person on the planet to say that being a TV presenter is rocket science. Transparently it’s not. But in the middle of Election Night stuff happens really quickly, seats come thick and fast, and you have to talk about it for eight hours.” How does he navigate that? “There are all these weird things we get up to. Like, if you can’t go to the loo, how are you going to manage? I’ve worked out that if I don’t drink from 5pm but then start drinking again at 3am, I don’t get too dehydrated. And you’ve got chocolate, bananas and nuts to keep you going.” What about the mental gymnastics? “Sometimes you get to the end of the night and realise you have had no personal reaction to the news at all, because all you’ve been doing is thinking about the next five minutes and the questions you’re going to ask. You come out and the whole world has had time to react and you just feel like you’ve been punched in the face solidly for eight hours.” With the polls indicating that this time around we’ll have the most one-sided election in living memory, will that make things easier, more predictable, perhaps even boring? “Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that the polls are right and Labour gets a really big majority, the Tories are in very, very difficult territory and, in Scotland, the SNP have a really bad night. You’re into three completely fascinating stories straightaway. Does having a really big majority mean Labour can govern differently from if they had a majority of 20? Do the Tories merge with Reform? And in Scotland is independence off the agenda for a generation?” On Thursday, Bradby will have by his side three big beasts of the political jungle better placed than most to answer those questions. Former cabinet secretaries Ed Balls and George Osborne are back, reprising their ITN general election double act that began in 2017, continued in 2019 and has since launched a podcast. But joining them this year will be Nicola Sturgeon, former First Minister of Scotland and ex-leader of the SNP, who barely 12 months ago was arrested in connection with a police investigation into the funding and finances of the SNP. It turns out hiring her was Bradby’s idea. “I thought after 2019, how do we take it to the next level? Who do we put in there who people would be really interested in watching go from politician to analyst? I went up to Scotland and very carefully laid out over lunch how interesting it is to be an analyst and not have to stick to a party line. I think that’s what appealed to her. She’s up for new challenges. She was one of the pre-eminent figures of her generation and she’s looking for the next phase in her life.” While some might question the wisdom of hiring a figure being scrutinised by an ongoing police inquiry, Sturgeon does at least add a change of tone to a top table that some TV producers might condemn as pale, male and stale. We’ve come a long way since a bunch of middle-aged white men had the general election stage to themselves. Does he feel exposed to the winds of change? “I don’t particularly, because that’s not my decision. That will be someone else’s decision. There aren’t many white male anchors left, dare I say, so I feel a bit less nervous about that than possibly I should. You just put your head down, do a good job and try to be as nice as you can to everyone around you. As you get older, you think, ‘Will I be remembered as somebody who was decent to work with?’ Because that’s what you want to be remembered for. It’s much easier to have that perspective when you’re older.” Bradby’s outlook on life has changed dramatically in the last few years. In 2018 he had a breakdown. The underlying cause, he says now, was the death of his parents. But the trigger was insomnia. “When I was having my breakdown, I went from thinking I was OK to being in really significant crisis, very fast. Because if you don’t sleep at all the night before doing News at Ten, then you are terrified you’re not going to be able to sleep again and you think, ‘How am I going to do News at Ten tomorrow?’ Then you can’t sleep because you know you must sleep and you go into crisis. Even if your body has injected enough adrenaline into your system to get to functionality by 9.50pm.” In the end he stepped back from presenting duties and sought help. “I went to one of Britain’s best psychiatrists and my life changed completely. I carry very little stress around in my life now and I sleep soundly every night. It’s a marvellous feeling to wake up and not worry about things.” What sort of things? “Like having to get to the top of the tree. The psychiatrist was pretty relentless about that. He’d ask, ‘Why do you care what people think of you?’ In the end, you get ground down and think, ‘OK, maybe it’s better not to worry about it.’ I still really want to succeed, but fundamentally if something doesn’t go well, or people say bad things, I can’t control it. So I don’t worry about it.” Television is an industry built on stress, success and fragile egos. After speaking about his breakdown in a series of interviews, he found himself being sought out by others from TV newsrooms. “I ended up having two-hour conversations with people who I don’t really know. When you’re in crisis, you don’t know what to do and I suppose people think, he was open about it, and they ask for a chat. After this is printed no doubt, I’ll get a whole bunch more. I find it great. It’s enhanced my life.” On Election Night he will be going up against a pair of double acts – Clive Myrie and Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC and Emily Maitlis and Krishnan Guru-Murthy on Channel 4. The corporation’s pairing replaced Huw Edwards, who’d been the BBC’s election anchor in 2019 but ended up in hospital last summer with what his wife called serious mental health issues after he was caught in an explicit photo scandal. He has since left the BBC. Does Bradby think he could have helped? “Yes, probably, a bit. You think about the world differently once you’ve had a breakdown and spent a lot of time talking about the stresses and strains we place on ourselves. The demands we feel we must meet and the standards we must achieve. Once you’ve had a chance to rethink it, you’re bound to view the world differently. I definitely do.” When he’s not presenting elections or the news, Bradby writes thrillers and screenplays. He says he has three careers. ITV recently announced it will be turning his novel Secret Service into a drama, which starts filming next year. “I wrote it in that period after I started News at Ten. When I look back, it’s obvious that the female MI6 agent at the heart of the book is on the cusp of having a breakdown. If you follow the trilogy through, she does have a breakdown and then recovers. But when I go back and read it now, I can see this woman is psychologically on the edge. And I was psychologically on the edge when I wrote it. But I didn’t know it. Which possibly makes me look a bit stupid. But hey ho.” It’s an admirably phlegmatic approach. One that will no doubt serve him well in the heat of the studio lights at 3am on Election Night. Can he imagine a time when he would give it all up to spend more time with his novels? “I’ve been at ITN for 34 years. I’m pretty institutionalised. I’ve wanted to be a journalist since I was 17. I can’t imagine waking up one day and not wanting to do this.” He may be the last of the election news anchors standing, but he’s not ready to set sail for the sunset yet. The Wimbledon and general election issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe here. ITV's Election Night coverage will air throughout the night on Thursday 4th July. Visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson star on this week's Radio Times with 3 special covers
The TARDIS travellers on chemistry, mischief, dancing at the Oscars and racing across time and space.
Sixty years of Doctor Who adventures have provided limitless possibilities for generations of febrile imaginations, whether they belong to its viewers or its writers. After all, how many television heroes can travel wherever they choose in time and space? The new season doesn’t disappoint on either front, with the TARDIS touching down in Regency-era England, the Swinging Sixties and, since it can’t all be grounded on planet Earth, a universe populated by space babies. Unlike previous Doctors, who might arrive in a different epoch or galaxy wearing a second-hand overcoat, multi-coloured scarf, or even a crushed-velvet dinner jacket, this one has the courtesy to dress appropriately. At least in the sense that there is a new outfit for nearly every adventure. It helps, of course, that the man who plays him, Ncuti Gatwa, is described by his stylist, Pam Downe, as a "clothes horse". He needs to be to pull off some of these looks – not least the tight, white Regency breeches. But there is more to the new season than a considerably larger wardrobe bill. The adventures are bigger and bolder, the ambition seems to have grown to match the budgets that come from the BBC joining forces with Disney, and at the heart of the series is a winning relationship between Gatwa’s Doctor and his companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson). To mark this new start for the latest Doctor, we sent lifelong fan – and Radio 3 arts presenter – Matthew Sweet to test their chemistry. Read his interview with the new Doctor and his latest fellow traveller in this issue, which has three special covers. Also in this week's Radio Times: Martin Freeman on BBC’s The Responder, breaking his rule on doing a second season and anxiety around his character’s accent, plus author and screenwriter Tony Schumacher on leaving the police force, and how writing The Responder saved his life BBC Radio journalist Sue Mitchell chats about Radio 4’s podcast To Catch a Scorpion and migrant smuggling Ahead of BBC Two’s Salman Rushdie: Through a Glass Darkly, Rushdie reveals he had a premonition that he was about to be attacked just days before he was stabbed by a man with a knife View Green Video on the source website Doctor Who returns to BBC One and iPlayer on Saturday 11th May 2024. Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Piano's Claudia Winkleman, Lang Lang and Mika are on this week's Radio Times cover
The stars of Channel 4's musical success story reveal the secrets of the most joyful show on TV.
The story of how The Piano began life may be apocryphal, but it’s worth repeating. A TV executive on his commute walked past an old piano, installed at St Pancras Station to amuse passing passengers, and found the sound of those brave enough to sit on the stool and start playing so uplifting, he decided it must make a television show. That the show then became one of last year’s most unlikely hits – and Channel 4’s biggest ratings success of recent years – is testament to live music’s power to move an audience. Not to mention our love of plucky amateurs ready to have a go at entertaining us that goes back long before TV talent shows such as The Voice and The X Factor. But unlike those shows, the contestants in The Piano had no idea they were part of a competition. They thought they were merely playing for the hell of it, thinking they were being filmed for a documentary about people who play pianos in public spaces for the fleeting entertainment of passers-by. What made the series such a success? In our interview in this week's issue of Radio Times magazine, The Piano’s trio of Claudia Winkleman, Lang Lang and Mika have their say. To their eyes – and ears – the show worked precisely because it didn’t set out to entertain using all the usual props of TV entertainment: shiny floors and showbiz glitz twinned with fake pathos and jeopardy. But there may have been another key to its success: the simple joy that music can bring, performed at the highest level or by a tinkler of the bar-room ivories. Last September, C4 boss Ian Katz told RT that 2023 spelt the end of mean television. And that he was ready to pronounce a new era of Happy TV. Which may explain why The Piano is back for a second run – especially since he said all this before cycling off to attend a piano lesson. Once you have fallen for The Piano, it’s hard to forget it. The new issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe to Radio Times here. Also in this week's Radio Times: Idris Elba on never having watched HBO's The Wire, being on the 100 most influential list and interacting with fans Sean Penn discusses filming Superpower in Ukraine, meeting Vladimir Putin, and hating red carpet appearances Richard Armitage chats about his working-class family, growing up in Leicester, studying drama in school and starring in The Hobbit The Piano returns at 9pm on Sunday 28th April on Channel 4. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Chris Packham is this week's Radio Times cover star and guest editor for Earth Day
The naturalist and broadcaster guest edits our special edition, marking Earth Day on 22nd April.
It's not often we hand over Radio Times to a third party. But this month's Earth Day gave us an opportunity to call on an old friend of the magazine, Chris Packham, to ask him to grace our cover and also sit in the editor's chair for one week. The result is this week's special edition of RT in which many of the features are devoted to some of the issues that Chris holds dear. Elsewhere, the rest of the magazine remains as it should: at your service, with all the usual guidance for TV, radio and streaming. The Earth Day special issue of Radio Times magazine is out now – subscribe to Radio Times here. Also in this week's Radio Times: Chris Packham meets former punk singer Feargal Sharkey, who's making a big noise about the state of our rivers Making simple changes to your diet is an easy way to help protect the planet – here's how to do it The stories of three young climate campaigners – including one who's prepared to go to jail for her ideals Megan McCubbin picks her top 10 environmental podcasts Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Abba star on this week's Radio Times cover
From nul points to pop idols, the night Britain fell for Sweden's Fab Four – and why we still love them 50 years on.
Back in the days when there were just three television channels, the biggest star of Saturday-night TV was an impersonator and a novelty band inspired by a children’s animation could top the singles charts, the Eurovision Song Contest was a very serious competition indeed. In 1974, Britain had the honour of hosting the event, not because we’d won the previous year (Cliff Richard came third), but because the actual winners, Luxembourg, were not prepared to host it. So it was that on 6 April, Abba took to the stage in Brighton to announce themselves to the world. Not that the British jurors were impressed at the time. In fact, they gave the Swedes nul points – unlike the millions watching all over Europe, in particular the other Eurovision juries, who quickly installed Abba and their song Waterloo as the winners. In the latest issue of Radio Times magazine – out now – we remember that night and hear from those who were there, from Benny Andersson of Abba to Mike Batt of the Wombles, who had donned his furry suit to provide the half-time entertainment. All this nostalgia is good clean fun, but of course Abba, who have long resisted demands to reform, remain part of our pop-cultural world. Their songs top playlists, inspire musicals and Hollywood movies and indeed their avatars still sell out shows half a century later. We explore all this and more in our feature. Also in this week's Radio Times: Molly Ringwald and Chloë Sevigny discuss Ryan Murphy's Feud: Capote vs the Swans, playing the original housewives, showbiz fallouts and navigating a male-dominated industry Siân Brooke chats about the new series of Blue Lights, support from Northern Ireland and dealing with fame Sian Gibson on nearly quitting her acting career, her interest in 1970s style, and signing with new agents Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast
Scoop's Gillian Anderson, Billie Piper and Keeley Hawes star on this week's Radio Times
The Netflix film provides the inside story of the explosive TV interview that ended Prince Andrew's career.
Making television about television must be tempting. After all, television as an industry is as self-absorbed as any other. But unlike, say, The Hour, the 2011 BBC drama series that looked back at the early days of BBC TV, or the BBC spoof W1A, the latest addition to this genre could never be accused of excessive navel gazing. Firstly, it’s a drama about a Newsnight story, made by Netflix. Secondly, it’s centred on the travails of the royal family, which means it has a broad appeal when it comes to finding an audience. Since the first season of The Crown in 2016, dramas about the House of Windsor have proved good business for Netflix. This latest drama, Scoop, which tells the story of Prince Andrew’s 2019 interview with then Newsnight star Emily Maitlis, shares The Crown’s production values and features a big-name cast – Gillian Anderson plays Maitlis, Billie Piper the Newsnight fixer Sam McAlister and Keeley Hawes is Amanda Thirsk, Prince Andrew’s PR minder. The shaming of a prince provides the story. The fact he stuck by a convicted paedophile for far too long, appearing shifty and uncomfortable on screen and failing to express any regret, gives the drama its moral authority. But it’s the tale of the women who brought about his downfall that powers the narrative. Read our interview with McAlister, plus the rest of the cast on making a drama out of a royal crisis. Also in this week's Radio Times: Mary Beard and Bettany Hughes chat about their experience working in TV, receiving death threats and dealing with social media abuse Stacey Solomon discusses her physical appearance, celebrity status, and dealing with trolls online Eddie Marsan on playing Amy Winehouse’s dad, his views on masculinity and using his platform for good Scoop is available to stream on Netflix from Friday 5th April 2024. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Ewan McGregor is this week's Radio Times cover star
On his Russian Revolution drama, relationships and why sex scenes are tricky – even with your wife!
The Russian Revolution and the turmoil that followed once proved rich territory for film-makers, from David Lean's Doctor Zhivago to Warren Beatty's Reds. But we haven't seen that much of revolutionary Russia on screen in recent years, possibly because the Russia we know today has more than enough drama going on in real time. But that changes this week on Paramount+ when Ewan McGregor becomes Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, the leading man in Amor Towles's bestseller A Gentleman in Moscow. McGregor makes a wonderful Count, who is locked in a gilded cage after he strikes a deal with his Bolshevik captors to escape the firing squad as long as he doesn’t leave his grand hotel. It's a story of confinement and romance as Rostov falls for a film star, Anna Urbanova, who is played by McGregor's wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead. What's it like to play opposite your other half on screen? And how does that affect your performance, not least your approach to sex scenes? McGregor answers all these questions in a revealing interview in this issue, in which he also talks about family, his four daughters, accents and, of course, Star Wars. Also in this week's Radio Times: Diane Morgan on her pet peeves in comedy dramas, working with David Bowie's son and not learning any lines for new sci-fi film Rogue Trooper Sue Johnston and Ricky Tomlinson chat about Channel 4's Ricky, Sue and a Trip or Two, whether The Royle Family's Barbara and Jim would still be together and achievements throughout their career Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: Bryony Gordon discusses eating disorders, the impact of writing books, alcoholism and the role gender plays in media consumption View oEmbed on the source website A Gentleman in Moscow will debut on Friday 29th March on Paramount+. Visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide or take a look at the rest of our Drama coverage. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Star Wars' Carrie Fisher features on this week's Radio Times cover
She found fame aged 19 as Princess Leia, but that's just the start of her fascinating life story, as told in the BBC's Carrie Fisher: A Life in Ten Pictures.
Star Wars landed on planet Earth in 1977. But looking back nearly half a century, those times feel like they came from a galaxy far far away. It was, in many ways, the first of its kind. A film that broke new ground and helped create the model for the blockbuster sci-fi and fantasy films that dominate Hollywood today. Without Star Wars breaking the mould back then and creating the first sci-fi film franchise would we have the Marvel universe? Not on film we wouldn’t. Because here was a winning formula that could bear being repeated. A film aimed at youngsters that captured the imagination of millions of fans of all ages. A movie whose unexpected box office success spawned two follow-up films almost immediately. Not to mention a set of characters so memorable that they could be easily monetised as merchandise... But the real star of the film was a teenage girl whose parents were famous but who was virtually unheard of as an actress in her own right. Carrie Fisher may have known what to expect from fame, but that didn't mean she was prepared for it. The temptations of stardom combined with her bipolar disorder led to a lifelong battle with addiction. In the end, Fisher all but turned her back on the film business, forging a successful career as a writer instead. This week, Fisher's story is told in A Life in Ten Pictures on BBC Two. You can see the pick of those photographs, some more famous than others, in our feature in this issue. Fisher sadly died in 2016. But aside from her writing, Star Wars was her legacy. It was a film that not only made her, but also broke her. However, without it, the entertainment world would be a very different – and much poorer – place. Also in this week's Radio Times: Strictly Come Dancing's Anton Du Beke and Giovanni Pernice discuss the new series Adventures in Spain, practising Spanish dancing, and their 10-year friendship Kris Marshall on the success of the BBC's Beyond Paradise, why he quit Death in Paradise in 2017 and what the critics think of his shows Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver chat about growing up together, shoplifting in West London, and their new BBC Sounds podcast Miss Me? View oEmbed on the source website Carrie Fisher: A Life in Ten Pictures airs at 9pm on Thursday 21st March on BBC Two. If you're looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide or visit our Documentaries hub for all the latest news. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast
Comic Relief's Lenny Henry is on the cover of this week's Radio Times
The star discusses rude comedy, the politics of charity and saying goodbye to Red Nose Day.
For those too young to remember, it's hard to explain the extraordinary impact of the first Red Nose Day in 1986. Children in Need had introduced us to the idea of the telethon in 1980, Live Aid had been the music industry's response to the famine in Ethiopia in 1985. Then came the comedians doing their bit for charity. Lenny Henry was there at the beginning, inspired, like Bob Geldof, by the television pictures coming out of Ethiopia to use his skills and contacts to raise money for famine relief. Now, 39 years on from founding the charity alongside film-maker Richard Curtis, he's preparing to hand over the baton of Red Nose Day host to a new generation. "Me, Billy Connolly, Victoria Wood, French and Saunders, the Young Ones, we were like a little gang," he tells our writer Jimi Famurewa in this week's Radio Times magazine, recalling the first few years of the raucous telethon, when he once staged a seduction of Delia Smith as Theophilus P Wildebeeste in a "two-tonne codpiece". Much has changed since then and not just in what we consider good-humoured comedy. The politics of charity has changed, too. In 2017, Comic Relief ran into hot water when it was accused of perpetuating unhelpful stereotypes, summed up by some as "white saviour syndrome". Again, times have changed since. Sir Lenny addresses all this, plus where his instincts to offer a helping hand come from and why "it's time for a new gang now", in our revealing interview in this issue. Also in this week's Radio Times: Daisy Ridley chats about her time filming the Star Wars movies, doing more comedy and romcoms, working with husband Tom Bateman and her issue with WiFi on aeroplanes AJ Odudu discusses the new Celebrity Big Brother, being told to take elocution lessons due to her Blackburn accent, and the lack of TV opportunities for young people outside of London Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: Theo James on the Netflix series The Gentlemen, the current economic and financial climate, the success of HBO's The White Lotus and his favourite type of wine View oEmbed on the source website You can donate to Comic Relief at comicrelief.com/radiotimes. Red Nose Day 2024 airs at 7pm on Friday 15th March on BBC One and iPlayer. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Samantha Bond, Meera Syal and Sally Lindsay appear on Radio Times crime special covers
Lorna Watson, Kerry Godliman and Greta Scacchi also discuss what it's like playing the lead in some of the UK's biggest crime dramas.
Our fascination with crime is not new, as our columnist David Hepworth reminds us in this issue, referring to George Orwell’s essay Decline of the English Murder, written in 1946. But neither is television’s appetite for covering the crime beat. Of course, crime stories come in many guises, from cosy flights of fancy where no one dies horrifically and everybody gathers in the drawing room for a final reckoning over afternoon tea, to terrible accounts of the human cost of real-life murder. As our cover story suggests, there is a new crime wave unfolding on television in which female sleuths, often of a certain age, bring criminals to book in a style that owes much to Agatha Christie. To some this is perfect comfort viewing – exactly what crime on TV should be. Although beware of labelling them “cosy”. As the star of The Marlow Murder Club, Samantha Bond, tells us: “There isn’t much that’s cosy about The Marlow Murder Club – it’s a really complex, funny, intriguing murder mystery.” At the other end of the spectrum is the true story that the Oscar-winning writer Dustin Lance Black tells us in his drama Under the Banner of Heaven. Researching the story of a killing in a tight-knot Mormon community in Utah in the 1980s, he came face to face with a murderer. It proved to be a moment of revelation and reckoning. “I understood what sociopathy looks like,” he says. “I could see how pleased he was to have the opportunity to tell his story again.” This, of course, is the trap that awaits anyone consuming a crime story. In real life it’s the victims’ stories that are not often told. To that end, in this week's Radio Times magazine, we also hear the harrowing account of a mother who lost her daughter in a brutal murder. Read Yasmin Javed’s story in this issue. Also in this week’s Radio Times: Ray Winstone discusses filming The Gentlemen with director Guy Ritchie, young actors in Hollywood, and his time in Marvel movie Black Widow Author and historian Benjamin Woolley chats about the Sky Original Mary & George, explicit scenes for television and the love triangle between James, George and Mary Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: Dame Joanna Lumley on co-star Roger Allam, the success of her marriage, changes in the industry since starting out in the '60s and performing sex scenes View oEmbed on the source website The Marlow Murder Club airs on Drama and UKTV Play on Wednesday 6th March and Thursday 7th March at 8pm. If you're looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide and Streaming Guide or visit our Drama hub for more news and features. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Rod Stewart and Jools Holland appear on this week's Radio Times
The stars on big bands, TV talent shows and the death of pub rock.
Sir Roderick Stewart has come a long way since growing up above the family newsagent’s at 507 Archway Road in north London. It was while he was recording his new album, thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, that he decided he needed to do something different. Which is where south Londoner Jools Holland came in. "What Rod was saying is that he wanted it to sound a bit rough around the edges," says the pianist. "Well, you've come to the right bloke..." The result is Swing Fever, the pair's new big band-influenced album. If Rod Stewart has learnt one thing in his 60-year career it's how to confound the critics and have hit after hit. Whether it was kicking footballs into the crowd with the Faces or providing the theme to Sailor, the 1976 documentary about HMS Ark Royal, Rod has a knack of capturing the public imagination as well as a reputation for having a good time whilst doing it. In this issue of Radio Times Magazine, read what happened when we got Rod and Jools in a room to talk about everything from politics to pubs to the new Amy Winehouse. Also in this week's Radio Times: Journalist and television presenter Esther Rantzen reflects on her career on screen, older women being invisible, living in a world of fake news, her views on assisted dying and the power of TV to change lives forever Comedian Rosie Jones discusses surviving school, addressing diversity challenges in early stand-up, and the importance of her role in Call the Midwife Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: Martin Compston on breaking into acting, nudity, running with wolves and his Line of Duty friends keeping him grounded View oEmbed on the source website Looking for something else to watch? Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
David Tennant stars on cover of Radio Times BAFTA Film Awards special
David Tennant faces his scariest role ever – playing himself as he hosts this year's BAFTAs.
The film BAFTAs have long been a grand night for British television: a chance to stage our own Oscars a few weeks before the real thing. Sometimes a dress rehearsal for Hollywood's big night, at others a celebration of British cinema with a sprinkling of foreign stars, and occasionally both, the evening has been an important date in the film industry's calendar since 1949. For years the ceremony was hosted by Stephen Fry, who left viewers at home and any Hollywood stars in the audience in no doubt that when it comes to class, charming self-deprecation and sheer brainpower you can never beat a theatrical Brit. Fry has, of course, moved on to other things now, his place these days taken by a changing cast of home-grown actors, the latest being David Tennant. Readers of Radio Times will need no persuading of Tennant's right to assume the crown. He ticks all the boxes. Read our interview in this week's issue. What has changed in recent years is the relationship between TV and film. Once this was the small screen's chance to host a night of cinema in which television felt very much the junior partner. Nowadays, of course, the dividing line between film and TV is vanishingly thin. This has as much to do with technology as it does the availability of talent and the budgets of the streaming platforms. But these days you can watch pretty much any film you want to on TV, if you're prepared to pay for it. To that end, in the latest issue we also provide our guide to the top 12 films nominated for BAFTAs and point you towards the streaming services where films are available at the click of a button. It may not capture the magic of going to the cinema, but there's something to be said for watching the best films of the year without having to leave your sofa. Also in this week's Radio Times: Doctor turned whistleblower Rachel Clarke recorded the reality of life in the NHS during the pandemic in a shocking memoir – now with Jed Mercurio, she's telling her story on screen in ITV1's Breathtaking Actor Michael Sheen, who's collaborated with screenwriter James Graham and acclaimed documentary maker Adam Curtis on BBC One drama The Way, discusses being an actor-activist and his first role directing fiction Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: Wicked Little Letters co-stars Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley on swearing, sweaty auditions and swanky awards parties View oEmbed on the source website The BAFTA Film Awards will air on BBC One and iPlayer at 7pm on Sunday 18th February. If you're looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide or visit our Film hub for all the latest news. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
This week's Radio Times cover features special fashion illustration for Apple TV+'s The New Look
Corsets, couture and Nazi collaboration – the real story behind fashion's fiercest rivalry between Christian Dior and Coco Chanel.
When Christian Dior shocked the fashion world in 1947 with his New Look collection, he was expressing a desire for beauty after the horror of war. He was also giving France a chance to look to the future while triggering memories of the belle epoque. It was for many a massive relief after the privations they had so recently endured. But two years on from the Nazi occupation of Paris, French fashion was not in the mood to reflect on its more recent past, some of which was far from glorious. Many of the leading figures of mid-20th century haute couture had kept open their ateliers and carried on designing rarefied creations for new clients, plenty of whom were German. A new drama on Apple TV+ this week tells the story of Dior as seen through the prism of wartime Paris and Dior’s rivalry with that other towering figure of French fashion, Coco Chanel. To say Chanel’s wartime record was more chequered is an understatement. Dior carried on designing for German clients, but he also sheltered his sister, who was a member of the French Resistance. Chanel, on the other hand, took a room at the Ritz and moved in with her Nazi lover. All this makes for a gripping drama that’s stunning to look at, although many of the moral questions are shades of grey. As Juliette Binoche, who plays Coco Chanel, tells us in this week's issue of Radio Times magazine: “It’s easy to call her a collaborator but it’s way more complex than that.” This week we also celebrate the TV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office – with two pages devoted to the former sub postmistress Jo Hamilton and the actor who played her, Monica Dolan. Both women were among the famous faces who attended our covers party at Claridge’s. Needless to say, all present agreed there was only one real star in our midst. And that was Jo. Also in this week's Radio Times: Andi Oliver on being host of BBC’s Great British Menu, her daughter Miquita Oliver and Lily Allen being best friends, and growing up as a Black girl in 1970s Suffolk Lorraine Kelly chats about her proudest moments, working on her first novel, and flirting with Hollywood A-lister George Clooney on daytime TV Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: Sophie Rundle discusses her experience working on Peaky Blinders and Gentleman Jack, intimacy coordinators and changing roles for women View oEmbed on the source website The New Look premieres on Apple TV+ on Wednesday 14th February 2024. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
This week's Radio Times is a 2024 Six Nations special
Your complete TV and radio guide to the rugby competition.
Rugby's Six Nations Championship arrives just when we need it most. As we crawl out of January, and February stretches ahead like a month of grey Sundays, suddenly high-impact sport bursts into our sitting rooms to jolt us out of hibernation and enliven even the dreariest afternoon. Time was when all Six Nations matches – or Five Nations as it once was – kicked off at the same time on the same day. Now, thanks to the demands of television, the action is spread over a weekend so you can watch one match, then another and another. Which is something of a grand slam (or should that be a Triple Crown?) for the armchair fan. Now matches are scheduled from Friday nights to Sunday evenings, although nothing quite beats the pleasure of settling down to watch the Six Nations on a Saturday afternoon. It was once rugby union's equivalent to the FA Cup final, the only time of the year when your sport would be broadcast live, on the BBC or ITV. It's where many of us first found our love for the game. What can we expect from the home nations this year? Ireland are the favourites, Wales are backing youth, England are rebuilding and Scotland are making a fresh start with a strong team. But don't take our word for it – listen to the experts. Because inside this week's special issue of Radio Times magazine, we've spoken to the captains of England, Scotland and Ireland, plus the Wales scrum half. We also hear from England's coach, Steve Borthwick, and a line-up of rugby royalty in the form of ITV's pundits, including such legends as Shane Williams, Brian O'Driscoll, Lawrence Dallaglio and Sir Ian McGeechan. Read our seven-page guide to all the teams, players and matches in this issue. Stick with the action and the Six Nations will see you through to March. By then we'll be crowning the champions – and just two weeks away from Easter. Let the games begin. Also in this week's Radio Times: As Death in Paradise reaches its 100th episode, original star Ben Miller meets the latest detective Ralf Little to talk sun, sea, sand and suspects Author David Nicholls says TV is the perfect medium for his 2009 page-turner One Day, which is now a 14-part Netflix drama Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: Rylan on growing up, reality TV and Claudia Winkleman View oEmbed on the source website If you're looking for something else to watch, check out our TV Guide or Streaming Guide, or visit our Sport hub for all the latest news. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Masters of the Air cast star on this week's Radio Times cover
Ben Radcliffe, Anthony Boyle, Raff Law, Callum Turner and Austin Butler and many more appear in the spectacular new Apple TV+ drama about the men who flew in the US Air Force's 100th Bomb Group.
The Second World War is fast becoming history for all but a handful of survivors. Those who experienced the horror of that war are now so few as to be celebrated as rarities, witnesses to a conflict that has almost slipped out of living memory. In this issue we talk to one such witness. John “Lucky” Luckadoo is now 101 and lives in Dallas. But in the summer of 1943, fresh out of Tennessee, he arrived at Thorpe Abbotts air base in Norfolk, straight from pilot training and with orders to fly a B-17 bomber on daytime missions over Germany. In our interview in the new issue of Radio Times magazine, he talks of the overwhelming sense of fear that consumed the American crews every time they took off. How he and his band of “citizen soldiers” found themselves in the heat of battle, flying at altitudes so high the temperature inside the unpressurised cockpit fell to -40°C, pitted against a war-hardened enemy. Lucky lived up to his name, flying the 25 missions he needed to complete before he could go home. Others weren’t so fortunate. Every time a B-17 took off the crew pushed at the edges of life expectancy. He tells us of a comrade who died on his 24th mission. In all, the American Eighth Air Force lost 18,800 aircrew in the run-up to D-Day. Now a version of Lucky’s story – or at least the story of the men who flew with him in the Bloody 100th – is coming to television in Masters of the Air, a nine-part series on Apple TV+, adapted and executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. It is the latest and possibly final chapter in Spielberg’s trilogy that includes Band of Brothers and The Pacific. This is America’s war as fought in the air. “In air war, when a crew goes down, there is no memorial,” Lucky tells us. In that single respect, he is wrong. Television has just provided one. Also in this week’s Radio Times: Johnny Vegas on the pleasure and pain of running a campsite – and how he deals with his ADHD diagnosis When not foiling bad cops and terrorists, Vicky McClure chats about being on a one-woman mission to show working-class lives on TV Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: Tamsin Greig made her name in comedy, but says she has the perfect face for a villain View oEmbed on the source website Masters of the Air is coming to Apple TV+ on Friday 26th January 2024. Subscribe to Apple TV+ here. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Best new shows of 2024 in this week's Radio Times magazine
Peter Capaldi, Nicole Kidman, Keeley Hawes, James Norton and Ncuti Gatwa star in a year of unmissable television.
It has become a cliché to claim we are living in a golden age of television. People have been saying it for years. But we are living in a golden age of choice. Never have so many programmes been available to watch, admittedly in some cases, by so few. Not every show is good – how could they all be? But there’s still a huge amount of quality TV to watch and the biggest challenge for viewers in the age of multiple channels, catch-up and streaming services is how to find it. Which is where Radio Times comes in. It’s became an RT tradition to start the year with a pleasingly poetic round-up of the best shows to look forward to – 24 for 2024. But it soon became apparent to us that this year it would be an impossible task. There is simply too much good television out there. Which is why we have ended up with the 65 shows you won’t want to miss this year. Also in this week's Radio Times: Peter Capaldi and his executive producer wife Elaine Collins discuss working together on new Apple TV+ drama Criminal Record, Collins’ driving role in the drama, and why Capaldi is nervous about viewer reactions to the series Wildlife TV presenter Michaela Strachan on Winterwatch’s role in providing an uplifting alternative to global crises, her relationship with Chris Packham, and why she’s happy being labelled as “the soft underbelly of wildlife telly” Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: Joe Wicks chats about childhood traumas impacting his parents’ behaviour, finding solace in exercise, and being pleased to turn down the BBC and Channel 4 View oEmbed on the source website Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Traitors' Claudia Winkleman is this week's Radio Times cover star
Prepare for betrayal... the host is back with a new round of Britain's most treacherous TV show.
It was the surprise television hit of the year. The Traitors descended on our screens in an orgy of back-stabbing that gripped millions last winter before the winners were unveiled just in time for Christmas. This time round the BBC has let us digest our figgy pudding before serving up a new feast of deception that begins this week, in which we will watch 22 contestants plunge into the depths of despair as they pick each other off before breakfast. The action unfolds against the backdrop of the 19th-century Ardross Castle near Inverness. The air is thick with intrigue and a hint of menace and over it all presides Claudia Winkleman in a cloak, doing her best not to be the cuddly Claudia we know from Strictly. It is perfect mid-winter fare. In this issue Claudia tells us how the success of the first series took her by surprise, and how this second series will be more tricky – and more beastly – than ever. We also meet two of last year's contestants who share their strategies for winning the show. Because it is, after all, just a game. Also in this week's Radio Times: Jamie Dornan on the unexpected return of The Tourist, how, as a former model, he doesn't like having his picture taken, and his hopes for a unified Ireland New stars of Call the Midwife Renee Bailey and Natalie Quarry reveal how they reacted when they got the part and discuss their first birth scenes Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: Ed Gamble, who has type 1 diabetes, speaks about the new diet fad that uses diabetic medication to suppress the appetite View oEmbed on the source website The Traitors season 2 starts at 9pm on Wednesday 3rd January on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Looking for something else to watch? Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Chicken Run's Rocky, Ginger and Molly star on this week's Radio Times cover
Six years in the making, Aardman’s Chicken Run sequel is proud to be handmade in Britain – and kicks off Radio Times magazine's festive TV preview.
Cheese, sidecars, tank tops and heroic hens. Could there be a more quintessentially British world than that created by the Aardman Animations studio? It is, of course, a world that harks back to a charming and heart-warming past that didn’t really exist. But considering the grim realities of life in the world today, is it any surprise that millions of us find it irresistible? What is remarkable is that more than 30 years on from the creation of Wallace and Gromit, the Aardman magic still works. Despite a flirtation with Hollywood that ended after three films, the Bristol-based animation studio still does things the way it always has: with characters hand-crafted out of modelling clay, much as they were when Aardman first made Morph in the '70s. That commitment to stop-motion animation is as much part of Aardman’s DNA today as it was then, even in the age of CGI and AI. But it takes time. 23 years after the launch of Chicken Run – the story of chickens breaking free of their farm, inspired by The Great Escape – Aardman is about to unleash the sequel on Netflix. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is just as daft and charming as the original. “The whole notion is totally absurd,” Peter Lord, co-founder of the studio, tells us in this week's Radio Times magazine. “We do what makes us laugh: silent comedy and slapstick.” As such, a new Aardman adventure if the perfect way to launch our preview of the best Christmas TV for all the family. Also in this week’s Radio Times: Saoirse-Monica Jackson of Derry Girls fame chats about the “bittersweet” end of the show, how she’d love to revisit her character and how the show helped revive a town with a troubled past Steve Backshall on the forgiving nature of whales, how to tackle “conservation fatigue” and why he hopes to move into politics Speaking to the Radio Times Podcast: Bear Grylls discusses the scary experience of going to Eton, the dark time following a parachuting accident that nearly led to paralysis and the importance of leaving ego behind View oEmbed on the source website Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget arrives on Netflix on 15th December 2023, while the first film is available now. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to see what's on tonight. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Doctor Who's David Tennant and Catherine Tate are on this week's Radio Times cover
The stars step back inside the TARDIS as the BBC is giving us time and space to enjoy the Doctor's 60th anniversary with the first of three birthday specials.
For a certain generation, Tom Baker is the one and only Doctor. Obviously, it’s sacrilege to say that in the Whovian universe of regeneration, which, as the original director of the show Waris Hussein tells us in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, provided the magic ingredient that transformed a '60s sci-fi drama into a BBC classic for the ages. But Baker’s years were memorable, his performance magisterial, and his tenure of the TARDIS the longest in the show's history. In this issue we celebrate a TV landmark with a special issue largely devoted to Doctor Who. David Tennant reveals what it took to persuade him to return to the role, having done so much to revive the show alongside showrunner Russell T Davies, and explains why he and Davies have teamed up again for three fresh adventures. Davies himself joins us for a conversation with Hussein. And we also bring together a companion from the past – Bonnie Langford – with a companion from the future, Millie Gibson, who will make her Who debut as Ruby Sunday this Christmas. Together they swap notes on what it takes to accompany a Time Lord across time and space. Which brings us back to Baker, who gave Radio Times the rare honour of an interview just a few weeks shy of his 90th birthday. We sent broadcaster and Who fan Matthew Sweet to meet Baker. Like your editors, Sweet grew up with Baker's Doctor and found his childhood hero in charmingly mischievous form. As Baker puts it, “Knowing anything is a bit dangerous when you play Doctor Who.” But don’t take that to mean he didn’t know what he was doing. As he makes clear in a candid interview, he has long enjoyed the power that came with the role. So to what does he attribute his success? “I found this performance, which I’ve done non-stop ever since... It’s been very successful so far.” Also in this week's Radio Times: Snooker legend Ronnie O'Sullivan reflects on the challenges he faces, how psychologist Steve Peters has helped him manage his emotions and his friendship with artist Damien Hirst. Eleanor Tomlinson and Sam Heughan chat about working together for the first time in Channel 4’s new psychological thriller The Couple Next Door, the relief of it not being a period drama and working with intimacy coordinator Vanessa Coffey. Speaking to the Radio Times Podcast: Romesh Ranganathan on why he never watches himself, living in a B&B after his dad went to prison and being racially abused at private school. View oEmbed on the source website Doctor Who's first 60th anniversary special The Star Beast airs at 6:30pm on Saturday 25th November on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Classic episodes are available on BritBox – you can sign up for a 7-day free trial here. Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now and celebrate the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who with a special issue of Radio Times. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
This week’s Radio Times cover features the late Dame Deborah James
Friends of the late cancer campaigner and fundraiser recall a vivacious one-off who was a force of nature ahead of new BBC documentary Deborah James: Bowelbabe in Her Own Words.
Like thousands of others in the UK, Dame Deborah James had to live with the fear and uncertainty of cancer. In her case it was stage three bowel cancer, a form of the disease that's much less publicised. Cancer isn't something people like to talk about. Bowel cancer even less so. Deborah died last summer aged 40, five years after her diagnosis. But in the intervening time her mission to raise awareness of the disease saw her start a taboo-breaking BBC podcast – You, Me and the Big C – that became the launchpad for her Bowelbabe campaign that, as of today, has raised more than £11 million for research into the disease. What was it that made this deputy headteacher and mum of two such an inspiration? This week, BBC Two revisits her life and examines the impact she had in a powerful and poignant documentary – Deborah James: Bowelbabe in Her Own Words. In the new issue of Radio Times magazine, we talk to her Big C co-host Lauren Mahon, Radio 5 Live presenter Tony Livesey, and her friend and fellow cancer sufferer Emma Campbell. All of them point to her frank approach. She was determined to draw attention to her cancer, to campaign for people to be aware of the symptoms and to raise money for research into a cure. But she also refused to be defined by it. As Emma tells us: "She showed me that, among the fear and darkness, there is room for joy." That defiance is evident in so much of what Deborah did. It drew the admiration of many, including Prince William, who conferred on her a damehood in her parents' garden a few days before she died. The photographs of that occasion show her pride, mixed with an inevitable sadness. The images she routinely shared on her social media – such as the one on our cover – did the same. But they also capture something else. The joy she found in living. It may have been too short, but hers was a life well lived. Also in this week's Radio Times: Jim Moir (AKA Vic Reeves) reveals his love for birds, no longer being interested in TV, and not talking to Bob Mortimer much anymore Bruno Tonioli on the "demented" contestants on Britain's Got Talent, never mincing his words as a judge, his thoughts on his lockdown exit from Strictly Come Dancing and what former BGT judge David Walliams said to him Richard Armitage discusses throwing off prudishness, falling in love with his co-star Charlie Murphy in new Netflix series Obsession and his success in audio Former head of Northumbria CID Neil Adamson and screenwriter Kevin Sampson talk about the new ITV drama The Hunt for Raoul Moat, the legacy of the incident, toxic masculinity, the media glare and inexplicable public support for the murderer Speaking to The Radio Times Podcast: comedian and presenter Sara Pascoe on stand-up, motherhood and the difficulty of turning down work. View oEmbed on the source website Bowelbabe: In Her Own Words airs at 9pm on BBC Two on Monday 17th April. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only £1 with delivery to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Introducing your new and improved Radio Times magazine
This week, we have made some changes to our magazine - here's how to get the best out of the new additions to RT.
In its near 100-year history, television has never been this big - or this varied. The choice of programmes, even on free to air TV, is surely richer than it has ever been before. But when you add in the explosion of shows offered by the streaming platforms, the options facing a viewer when deciding what to watch are simply dizzying. Radio Times has always aspired to guide you to the best programmes, without too much spin, and our mission today is no different from the one we embarked on 99 years ago when Lord Reith launched the magazine: to point you towards the best of broadcasting. But to do that in 2022 requires not just judgement and time - we set out to watch every programme we preview - it also requires rather more pages. Which is why this week we are unveiling some changes to your regular magazine. The first thing you will notice is that we have devoted more space to the streaming services. Television's digital revolution shows no signs of slowing and with more shows to watch and more services to cover, we think we can now offer you the best guidance in more detail than ever before. On traditional TV our aim remains the same: to list your favourite channels in as much detail as possible. But we're delighted to have been able to include two more channels, as requested by you – and also to include more detailed choices. We have also embedded our film reviews on the listings pages, so that you can more easily find the movies you want to watch on any given day. With a new This Week section to preview some of the best entertainment in store for you over the next seven days, we think these changes add up to a better magazine. But, of course, we will let you be the judge of that. Do get in touch and let us know what you think on RTeditor@radiotimes.com. We hope you enjoy the issue. Tom Loxley & Shem Law – Editors, Radio Times What's new in this week's Radio Times magazine? STREAMING – More shows, more previews, more choice Keep up to speed with the streaming revolution with our new expanded guide to the pick of the shows on demand – from Amazon to Netflix, Disney+ to Apple TV+, and from BBC iPlayer to All 4. THIS WEEK – News, interviews & Jane Garvey Television has never been as big – or as good. Read all the latest news from the television grapevine and meet the biggest names in entertainment. Plus RT’s voice of TV, Jane Garvey. FREEVIEW – New channels We’ve added listings for Food Network and Blaze, the top two channels requested by readers! FILMS– Easier to use We’ve moved our film reviews, so that they’re now a part of each day’s listings, and sit next to the channels they refer to. SPORT – Quick & easy Want to know what time and channel your team’s match is on? We’ve made it easier to find out, with our sport-by-sport listings. NEW PODCAST – View From My Sofa Don’t miss our brand new Radio Times podcast... Every week our guests share the secrets of their TV life. What do they watch? Where do they watch it? Who do they watch with? Plus, the shows that inspired their own love of television. This week’s guest is James May! The latest issue of Radio Times is on sale now – subscribe now to get each issue delivered to your door, and visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight.
Zoe Ball on taking over Radio 2's Breakfast Show: "I've got my work cut out – but I'm ready for it"
She may have had missed a few early stars during her Radio 1 present days, but Radio 2's new breakfast show host says she's 'not the same Zoe from 20 years ago'
When Zoe Ball finished her final Radio 1 breakfast show in 2000, after two-and-a-half years of burning the candle at both ends, Greg Dyke, then director-general of the BBC, presented her with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and packed her off for a champagne breakfast. The woman whose reputation for partying had given the tabloids reason enough – as if one were needed during the 90s heyday of lads-mag Britain – to coin the noun “ladette”, told the world she was off to have a family. No more would her driver John “have to literally bash the door in to get me up”, as she later confessed to her Radio 1 successor Sara Cox. Nor would she be late again: “The worst thing was being in the car and hearing someone else do your show. Three records in, ‘She’s still not here.’ Four records in, ‘She’s still not here.’ I did get told off a couple of times.” How things change. Nineteen years on and it won’t be her BBC driver tasked with making sure Ball makes it out of bed – it’ll be her eight-year-old daughter Nelly. “I hope getting up will be much easier this time round,” she tells me, speaking before she takes over from Chris Evans on the Radio 2 breakfast show on Monday 14th January 2019. “It’s going to be just like my old school days, especially on a Sunday night. You remember when the Songs of Praise music came on and you’d feel forlorn because it was nearly time to go to bed? I was telling my daughter how our roles will be reversed at bedtime. She will have to read me a story and make sure I’m not going on the telephone or reading a book sneakily under the duvet. I am, in fact, going to sleep at nine o’clock in the evening. Nelly is well up for that!” View oEmbed on the source website Zoe, 48, and Nelly live in Sussex, in a small village in the South Downs near Brighton, where Ball and her family – she also has an 18-year-old son, Woody – lived for many years, before she split up with her husband, the DJ Norman Cook, in 2016. Which begs the question: what time will she actually get out of bed to be in the Radio 2 studio – a good 50 miles away in central London – in time for the show’s 6.30am start? “Well, it depends,” she says tentatively, her voice betraying more than a little trepidation. “If I’m coming from Sussex then it will be half-past three…” She laughs nervously and protests, “I’ve done things when you get up early before!” Indeed, she has. She may not have an unblemished record of starting work bang on time at Radio 1, but in 1997 she became the first woman to host the station’s breakfast show, and she made it her own, attracting seven million listeners a day. Her impact in the studio was matched only by her presence in the newspapers, where her rising stardom and reputation for a rock ’n’ roll lifestyle guaranteed column inches. On one occasion she said she’d been “high” during a live broadcast from Ibiza. On another, according to the Mail on Sunday, school bus drivers in Shropshire banned the show after she let slip a swear word on air. “I may be in denial about the hours, but the good thing is that I’m not the Zoe that I was 20 years ago, when I was at Radio 1,” she says. “I don’t really go out much now. It’s a miracle for me to still be up at 10pm, to be honest with you.” She says that years of negotiating the organised chaos of the Ball family breakfast has been the perfect preparation for her new gig. “I think the first hour of the radio show might be easier than trying to get two children out of the house before 7.30 in the morning. I had to get up earlier and earlier to get myself organised: pets fed, homework packed, kids out. That was a military operation. It’s the perfect training for this.” Will she be approaching her new morning routine with the same precision, as well as a clear head? “The key is the minute the alarm goes off, leap out of bed. Have your clothes ready at the side of the bed and your favourite little mug ready for a cuppa, and off you go. The worst bit is if you lie there thinking, ‘I’ll wait for another alarm.’ That’s when things start to go wrong. Things have been going right for Ball in recent months, after a difficult couple of years. Following her split from Cook, she had a relationship with a BBC cameraman, Billy Yates, that ended traumatically when he took his own life. Ball was devastated. When we last met in March last year, she was about to embark on a 350-mile Sport Relief bike ride from Blackpool to Brighton in his memory, cycling into the teeth of the Siberian blast that was the Beast from the East. “I knew when I lost Billy that I wanted to do something,” she told me at the time. “The horror and the heartbreak never leaves you.” A week later she triumphantly completed her ride, despite not having ridden a bike since she was a girl, raising £1,198,012 along the way. It was an emotional journey, in more ways than one, and it saw Ball splashed across the pages of the nation’s newspapers for all the right reasons. Then, in the autumn, came the shock news that Evans was quitting the breakfast show, and that Ball was to be his replacement. The first woman to have her own daytime show on Radio 2 since Debbie Thrower departed the station in 1998, Ball beat her friend Sara Cox to the most coveted gig on radio. “We spoke a lot during the whole process,” Ball says. “We’re old buddies and we’ve always been really supportive of each other. Sometimes she gets jobs I’ve wanted. We always talk. It worked out.” It must have been tricky, though, finding herself pitched into a head-to-head race with Cox for the top job. “We don’t see each other a huge amount any more,” she says. Cox, of course, has now landed Radio 2’s other plum job – the drivetime show – in the slot recently vacated as a result of bringing the ill-fated pairing of Simon Mayo and Jo Whiley to an end. “Lots of people have said to me, ‘I bet you wished you had waited a couple of months,’” Ball laughs. “You could have had the later show!” Together Ball and Cox are spearheading a brand-new, female-led schedule that rips up the old Radio 2 daytime line-up that was very publicly dismissed by Woman’s Hour presenter Jane Garvey as “extraordinarily male and entirely pale”. How have Ball and Cox been approaching their new roles? “We were reminiscing about the first time round, when sometimes we didn’t sleep at all. It’s so different now. We need eight hours or we’re really grumpy. Or seven with an afternoon nap. But you know, she’s up there [Cox lives in London], I’m down here in Sussex. We don’t have a social life any more. "But professionally, work-wise, we’ve always supported each other. We start on the same day, which is wonderful. We are going to ring each other before to try to keep calm. She’s an amazing broadcaster. She cracks me up. She has so much energy. It’s all turned out rather nice.” And what of her other old friend, Evans? She may be moving into his still-warm seat on the breakfast show, just as she did in 1997 when he quit Radio 1 in an equally surprising move, but he will be turning up again as a rival attraction on Virgin Radio in a matter of weeks, in a show he has announced will be ad-free. Is she worried? “He’s my hero. I worked on The Big Breakfast when he was presenting and I was a lowly researcher. He has always championed me and given me great advice. When we were up against each other last time he told me, ‘Come on Zo, it’s all good fun!’ He gave me more confidence in myself. I’m inheriting the biggest radio show in the land. I’m hoping we can keep it that way. I’ve got my work cut out. But I’m ready for it." View oEmbed on the source website In many ways, she’s getting back on her bike – except she hasn’t ridden her bicycle since she completed her Sport Relief challenge. “My bike was auctioned off. The guys who made it made me another, my tangerine dream, but it’s been sitting in my house ever since. I watch cyclists go past in the village and I look at them longingly. I’ve dug out all my stuff. But I’m not a fair weather cyclist,” she jokes. “I only ride in hail and rain.” There will, of course, be plenty of time for an afternoon ride, now she will be finishing work just as the rest of the nation makes it into the office. “My plan is to finish the show, go to the gym, go home, get food for the kids, then pick my daughter up from school. She’s excited about having me home because we haven’t had that for a while. Come Friday morning, 10am, my weekend starts!” Cue 48 hours of mother-daughter quality time. At least, until Nelly has to tell Mummy that it’s nearly time for bed. Sara Cox had the best response to Zoe Ball being named the new BBC Radio 2 breakfast show presenter Zoe Ball’s move to Radio 2 is big news – and so is the enduring appeal of radio Stay up to date with the RadioTimes.com newsletter Zoe Ball's first Breakfast Show airs on Radio 2 on Monday 14th January 2019 at 6.30am
Who is Zharnel Hughes? Meet the England sprint star running for gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games
BBC pundit Steve Cram picks out Zharnel Hughes as the one to watch
"England’s Zharnel Hughes may not be as well known as some of the other home country sprinters, but I think he’s one that will step up and make a big name for himself at these games,” says BBC pundit Steve Cram, who knows a thing or two about making your name at the Commonwealth Games — he won the gold medal in the 1500m in Brisbane in 1982, his first victory at a major championships. “Hughes is a huge talent and has based himself in Jamaica, which has really helped to get him in great shape already.” How to watch the Commonwealth Games on TV Commonwealth Games athletes to watch View oEmbed on the source website Hughes, 22, made the semi-finals of the 200m at the World Championships in London last summer, having missed the Olympic Games in Rio the year before. “The two-year cycle towards the next Olympics starts right here,” says Cram. “But people shouldn’t assume the home nations are going to win a haul of medals. We didn’t win any individual medals on the track at the last Commonwealth Games. They are really hard to come by because you’ve got some big athletic powerhouses there: South Africa, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean nations, Kenya and a lot of the other African sprinters, too.” But Cram believes Hughes, who ran for Anguilla until 2015, having been born and brought up in the British Overseas Territory, is now ready to take on the best in the 200m and 4x100m relay. “Zharnel has warmed up with a couple of races in Jamaica and has run really quick, so he’s fast heading up the world rankings. I expect his fellow England sprinter Adam Gemili to go well in the 100m, but these Games are where Zharnel could announce himself as England’s next sprint star.” Hughes will compete in the 200m heats on Monday 9th April on BBC1 and in the 4x100m relay heats on Thursday 12th April
Commonwealth Games 2018: Scotland's Beth Potter goes for gold in women's triathlon
The Scottish athlete takes on the women's triathlon and the 10,000m at this year's games
"All eyes will be on the Brownlee brothers in the men’s triathlon, but don’t miss Scotland’s Beth Potter going in the women’s event,” says Steve Cram of one of the highlights of the opening day. A 10,000m finalist at the Rio Olympics, Potter is busy making the transition from track to triathlon. She quit her job as a physics teacher last year to train full time with Jonny and Alistair Brownlee in Yorkshire. How to watch the Commonwealth Games on TV View oEmbed on the source website “It has worked out really well,” she told the BBC after she qualified for the triathlon World Championships last summer. “I’m up in Leeds, living with Jonny Brownlee and training up there.” As well as the Brownlees, Potter’s training group included one of her main rivals for Commonwealth gold, Non Stanford of Wales, who won at the World Championships in 2013. Commonwealth Games athletes to watch Unlike Stanford, though, the 26-year-old from Glasgow is new to the gruelling school of stamina that is triathlon. “Incredibly, she’ll also compete in the 10,000m on the track just a few days later,” says Cram. Does he think a little of the Brownlee gold dust has rubbed off on their unsung pupil? “Even for a gutsy character like Beth, it’s a hectic schedule. She’s British champion at 10k, but moved to the triathlon a couple of years ago and this is her first major championships in the event. If she’s in contention towards the end, she has the speed to surprise us all.” Women's triathlon: Wednesday 4th April, 12.15am BBC1 Women's 10,000m: Monday 9th April BBC1
Zoë Ball on how the loss of boyfriend Billy Yates motivated her Sport Relief challenge
"If me doing this challenge helps one other person seek help, then it has been worth it," she says ahead of documentary Zoë's Hardest Road Home
It’s barely 20 miles as the crow flies from Darwen in Lancashire to Blackpool. High on the moor above the old mill town perches Darwen Tower, an 85-foot tall Victorian landmark built of solid blocks of sandstone that stands guard over what locals call the Happy Valley. On a good day, with clear skies, you can see Blackpool Tower glinting in the sunshine on the coast. As landmarks go, the two towers are in different leagues, but when Zoë Ball set off from Blackpool beach two weeks ago on her 350-mile Sport Relief bike ride, she would have looked for Darwen on the horizon and her thoughts would have turned to her boyfriend, Billy Yates. Sport Relief 2018: everything you need to know Greg James completes delayed Sport Relief challenge BBC and ITV celebrities go head to head Sport Relief 2018 Boat Race View oEmbed on the source website This time last year, Zoë and Billy were an item. The Radio 2 DJ and Strictly presenter had, in her father’s words, found a new lease of life with the television cameraman, who hailed from Darwen but who lived in London and worked on Antiques Roadshow. After the trauma of the breakdown of her 17-year marriage to superstar DJ Norman Cook in 2016, Zoë was rebuilding her life. But then, shockingly, Billy ended his. View oEmbed on the source website Billy Yates died alone at his Putney home in May last year. Zoë was among the first to discover what had happened. In the aftershock, she left the airwaves, reappearing four weeks later to open her Radio 2 show with a Northern Soul classic dedicated to Billy: Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) by Frank Wilson. Aged just 40 when he took his own life, Billy had suffered with depression. “At the time Billy came into my life, I didn’t know how to help,” she says. “I knew he had lived with depression for a long time. But he was a big strong guy. He did the Iron Man, he loved cycling 50 miles a day, he was the life and soul of the party when he was on the crew, he was so much fun. To see a man like that crumble under the pressure was heartbreaking to watch.” The pain is still raw, ten months on, and despite the Lycra outfit and welcoming smile Zoë is wearing for her RT cover shoot, and the warm hugs she dispenses, the 47-year-old is fragile and in a reflective mood. She has never talked openly about Billy and when the mask slips, revisiting their relationship is clearly difficult. But she is doing so very publicly this week. View oEmbed on the source website “I knew how much pain he was in,” she reveals in a one-off BBC1 documentary on Wednesday evening. “He couldn’t make sense of what was happening to him. It was almost like a change of light, you could see the pain come into his eyes. You wanted to say, ‘Come on. Stay with me, stay with me. Let’s get you out of this headspace.’ But it was harder and harder to do that.” In her quest to understand the illness that afflicted her boyfriend – and to raise awareness of mental health – she signed up for her cycling challenge, which is one of the highlights of Friday night’s Sport Relief programme. Riding from Blackpool to Brighton is no mean feat for a novice cyclist (it is not, as the jokers say, all downhill). But then Zoë is nothing if not doggedly determined. “When I lost Billy I wanted to do something, and I felt with my platform there was a chance to help. “Billy didn’t tell me about his depression at the beginning, it’s only when you get to know someone that they really share stuff like that. Any other illness and you have time off work, but there is a lot of stigma around mental illness. It’s frightening to talk about it. The people suffering don’t want sympathy. Although I wasn’t surprised when he eventually told me. I could see there was some sadness. I tried my best to help. But I look back and think, ‘I’m not sure I did the right thing.” So, what would she have done differently? “You can’t just sit down with someone when they are that poorly and say, ‘I want to help.’ There is no quick fix. I’d say things like, ‘If you exercise, go outside, see someone you love, it might help.’ But it didn’t. And the therapy he had didn’t even touch the sides.” Around 6,000 families lose someone to suicide in the UK every year. But it’s perhaps a more alarming statistic that the biggest killer of men in the UK under the age of 45 is suicide. “One in four of us will experience mental illness,” says Zoë. “But the number of young men killing themselves is shocking. Why? A lot of men I have spoken to have said it’s very confusing being a modern man. You want to be sensitive but also strong. You can’t win. It’s really hard trying to be both.” But this is about more than just men being confused, it’s an illness. “Yes, this a disease, and men suffering with depression need help. It takes the right person to break through to someone who has been brave enough to reach out.” Her worry is that finding the right people to help is so difficult – the NHS is stretched and resources are limited, drugs may provide short-term relief but not a long-term answer and independently funded mental health projects that can provide specialist help and support are thin on the ground and short of money. View oEmbed on the source website “We are so busy looking after our body – we drink less, we take vitamins, we exercise – but looking after the mind is taken for granted. From my experience with Billy it was very difficult for him to find support. There is very little on offer other than anti-depressants and a bit of counselling.” In her documentary she meets Penny Johnson, a mother whose son Jamie killed himself at the age of 19. Penny went on to found the Tomorrow Project, a suicide prevention service run by Harmless, a charity funded by Sport Relief. “We talked about our boys,” says Zoë. “We agreed that we shouldn’t let their deaths be in vain. If me doing this challenge helps one other person seek help, then it has been worth it. If one other family doesn’t have to go through what Billy’s family have gone through, then this is all worth it.” Bereavement hurts, whatever the circumstances, but suicide is “really cruel”, as Zoë puts it. “Talk to people who have lost loved ones to suicide and you are always left feeling that there was something else you could have done. The horror is unbelievable. “There are moments – I had one this morning – when I can’t believe any of this happened. I’m in the middle of this challenge and Billy’s gone. That never leaves you. That and the heartbreak, and the fact you couldn’t save them. It’s true for Billy’s mum and dad and his sisters and friends, too. They are all in pain. Especially his male friends. The ripple effect is dangerous. It can happen again. It’s scary.” View oEmbed on the source website Does she still reproach herself? “Even now I sometimes think, ‘I’m a resourceful woman, I’m a bright woman… why could I not save him?’ And then I have to stop and say, ‘Everyone who loved him knew. None of us found an answer, none of us saved him. To move forward you have to accept that. Which is very difficult. But I take comfort from the fact he is no longer in pain. He struggled every day and now he is at peace. The pain has stopped for him. “And I remember all the glorious things about him. He was a funny man, so full of love. I remember looking around at his funeral and everyone was talking about him and I thought: ‘He would have hated this.’ He hated being the centre of attention. He hated a fuss. He hated the cameras. He hated all that stuff.” What, you wonder, would Billy have made of her charity bike ride? “He would be pissing himself laughing that I’m in Lycra on a bloody bicycle. He would find it hilariously funny and frankly unbelievable. But I like to think he would say that if there’s someone out there we could help not be in such a desperate state as he was, he would be grateful for that. So, I hope he would be pleased. Although I have cursed him a few times, especially going uphill: ‘You sod! I’m doing this because of you!’ In grief, a dark sense of humour is handy at the lowest moments. He had a wicked sense of humour.” View oEmbed on the source website Not that riding 350 miles in five days is a joke, especially if the last time you regularly rode a bike was four decades ago. “I may be 47 but I feel 63! But once I got over my fear of the road, my fear of junctions, the feeling of ‘Argggh! There’s another hill coming…’ I have been getting off my bike feeling high. I’m sore – the key is no knickers, just padded pants and serious undercarriage buttering to avoid chafing. But I’m also slightly euphoric.” She smiles. In the documentary there are tears (although she’s quick to point out “I’m not bawling my eyes out”) and talking to her now it feels as though they are never far away. How is she? “I’m getting stronger. I’m a tough old cookie. My family have been through a lot. There are moments when you least expect it when grief catches you. But the main thing for me is I’ve found people who have been through this and are doing better. They’ve found some hope. That’s the biggest thing for me – that there is hope. Otherwise what are we doing this for?” As for Billy, she carries his memory with her. The rose tattoo visible just above her wrist echoes one he had on his arm. “He’s missed terribly. When you lose someone like that you feel they are always with you. It’s not been long.” She visits Darwen every few weeks, where Billy’s mum and dad still live, to see his family. “He used to go up to Darwen Tower. On his birthday in September I walked up there with his friends and we set off fireworks and carved a B into the rock at the top. It’s a beautiful place to reflect. I find him in the sky. Whenever there is a blue sky it feels like he’s here. “I don’t think you ever get closure. It’s something that’s part of me now. He will always be in my heart. Hopefully this isn’t the end, but the beginning of me doing something to help.” Zoë Ball’s Hardest Road Home airs on Wednesday 21st March at 9pm on BBC1. Sport Relief is on Friday 23rd March at 7pm on BBC1
Bear Grylls on education, never giving up and whether he'd take Donald Trump on one of his adventures
'Obama liked stepping out of his comfort zone... Trump likes to be king'
I am on a mission with Bear Grylls. “Are your shoes OK?” he asks, urgently, and gestures to my feet. They’re fine, I tell him. A quick glance to check the coast is clear and he beckons me on. Can we make it to the other side? Or will his wife Shara suddenly appear, in which case, I suspect, we’re sunk. Because we are attempting to cross his pristine cream carpets WITHOUT GETTING MUD ON THE FLOOR! Unlike the contestants stranded by Grylls in the Pacific in the latest series of The Island, we are bobbing around comfortingly close to civilisation. Battersea, to be precise. We are on board Grylls’s houseboat, which is moored permanently just down the road from the power station. The recently refurbished old barge is the family home where he, Shara and his boys – Jesse, 14, Huckleberry, ten, and Marmaduke, eight – stay when they aren’t living on a remote island off the coast of north Wales. Why am I surprised the great adventurer’s living quarters are pristine? The bedroom looks like a showroom, the galley/kitchen, too. The boys’ berth is a suitably nautical bunk-bed affair, but even here everything is a startling bright white. There is clearly a strictly enforced No Shoes policy. Impressive with three boys, is all I can say. Or perhaps they never really stay here. With his sons Marmaduke and Jesse in 2011 Do the kids go to school in Wales? “No, no,” he says. “Huckleberry has just done a term with us in the Alps – we do a few months there every year – in a little international school. Marmaduke is at prep school and Jesse’s just started at boarding school. So it’s a whole new journey for everyone.” Is he missing his eldest? “I loved it when we walked down the road and, even though he had all his schoolmates passing by, we were holding hands. It’s wonderful. Long may that last.” I tell him to enjoy it while he can, because in my experience, as a father of three boys, I know young Jesse isn’t going to want to be seen with Dad much longer. But, then I realise, he is Bear Grylls – a hero to millions of schoolboys. “I don’t know,” he says. ‘Nobody is a hero at home, are they? When I say to Jesse’s friends, ‘Never give up!’, which is my greeting or farewell, he’s like ‘Argh! Dad, you never stop banging on about your messages.’” On the bow of the boat is an enormous Union Jack bean bag that matches the Union Jack chairs arranged around a small table. There is just enough room for two drinks at our table as we take our seats on deck. For those who have only ever seen Grylls drink his own urine – or the juice he can squeeze from elephant dung – I can report he prefers a diet cola on board, served ice cold. The only food in evidence below deck is a bowl of prawn crackers. Obviously more appetising than the yak’s eyeball, raw snake or the giant larvae we’ve seen him devour on screen in the numerous clips from his greatest hits, but possibly not as nutritious. “We bought this in 2000 when we were looking for a flat,” Grylls tells me, trademark sunglasses in place, dressed in his off-duty uniform of untucked shirt, jeans and box-fresh – of course – trainers. “Then we saw the island in Wales and fell in love with it. This mooring and the freehold for the island cost less than £200,000, or the price of a two-bed flat. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.” Bear Grylls has made many life-changing decisions since 2000, nearly all of them for the better. And along the way he has become one of the most recognisable television stars in the world, with his own TV company and merchandising business, reportedly worth £6 million. In the States, his Running Wild series attracts millions of viewers; guests have included Barack Obama, who called Grylls up in 2015 and asked to join him on an excursion to Alaska. Now everyone from Roger Federer (whom he has just taken to the Alps) to “the most famous actress in the world” wants to hook up for an adventure. It turns out he is talking about Julia Roberts. Who would he take to a desert island if he had the choice? “That’s a difficult question. A compadre to work really hard with?” Since he’s already been away with Obama, perhaps he’d like to take Donald Trump? “It would be amazing. Of course. And, there’s no doubting he’s tenacious. Obama liked stepping out of his comfort zone, and that atti tude is good in the wild. He told me it was one of the best days of his presidency. But I don’t know... Donald Trump is a person who likes to be king and the one thing I’ve learnt in the wild is you’re never the king. You’ve got to learn to put the crown down. I’m actually on the same network, NBC, as The Apprentice. But I kind of hope he’s got more important things to do than to go on an adventure with me.” He pauses then asks: “Can I not take my family? Obviously Shara and the boys would be first, because if your light inside is burning bright, everything is possible.” Grylls is a man of many parts, like a Boys’ Own hero. He’s a poster-boy for the evangelical Christian Alpha course (he’s loud and proud about his faith), he’s Chief Scout, a former SAS reservist and is now an Honorary Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Marines Reserves. But it’s his effect on boys that’s interesting. Since he became Chief Scout in 2009 he has seen numbers boom; he proudly tells me there are more Scouts in Britain than ever before. Indeed, reports last week suggested the Scouts have a waiting list of 51,000 children because of a shortage of volunteer leaders. “Young people in this country get such a hard time,” he says. “You know, the so-called ‘hoodie generation’. But my experience as Chief Scout is that young people are incredible. What they lack is opportunities.” Young Bear didn’t want for opportunities. The only son of former Tory MP Michael Grylls, he was sent to Eton. “I look back on that time and think it gave me some of my strongest memories and best friends of my life. It was a totally forward-thinking, progressive school and I am always grateful to them.” Was he academic? “I was never very brilliant at school. Never the sportiest or the cleverest, but the one thing I could control was I could be determined... The SAS was the first time I really proved that to myself, when I passed selection. And ever since I have leant on that feeling, that if I hang on in there I can do it. That’s what helped me through my time on Everest [he climbed it at the age of 23, just months after he had broken his back in a parachute jump] when people were dying up a mountain, it’s helped me through countless expeditions, it’s seen me through endless jungles, deserts and mountains on eight years of Born Survivor. And that’s what I try to instil in people when I take them to The Island.” View oEmbed on the source website The danger is he is so busy instilling these life lessons in other people he isn’t around to pass them on at home. “I try never to be away for more than a couple of weeks at a time. And even if, like in the last month, I’ve been away solidly I try to come back for a weekend. And then if it has to be a long time I get the family out with me. Break a few school rules so maybe the boys are out [of school] for a bit longer than they are meant to be.” Taking his sons out of school during term-time makes him sound like a rebel. Is he strict? Boys the age of his three are just the sort to spend hours on screens. “There aren’t many manuals as a parent and we try to figure it out in a way that’s balanced and fair. I think, generally, we let our kids spend too much time watching screens. That’s when they’re worst-tempered. Their relationships are worse with each other and everything suffers.” Do his boys have phones? “Only Jesse. It can be brilliant. I love texting him when I’m away – I love the banter, the emojis. I love all that because we’re using it to communicate and build a great relationship. But it’s about who’s master. My line is, ‘Make sure the phone’s your servant, you’re not its’ – you become that when you can’t do anything without blankly staring into the thing. If we go on a long car journey, I’ll say we must chat for a bit. We’ll never out-think kids, because their imagination is God-given and fresh. Ours, like a muscle, decays. But nothing decays imagination faster than screens.” Does he think our schools are coming up short when it comes to equipping our children for adult life? “I do, and the people who suffer are the kids. I want my kids to be equipped for life and life is not a sprint to get to the top at 18. It’s a long haul. Life kicks the s*** out of you and it rewards the persistent. Schools have got to empower kids for life, rather than getting to a certain level on a league table. The brain surgeons, the high achievers in life aren’t always the best at school, they are just determined to get there. I bet that brain surgeon is the guy who got Bs and Cs at A-Level.’ Which sounds unlikely, but things have changed since Grylls finished at Eton in the early 90s with an A, two Cs and a D in his A-levels. But as an advert for “bloody-minded- ness” there can be no doubt that he knows what he’s talking about. And if life is a marathon, he’s only halfway there. “I’m 42 years young! I train harder than I ever have before, I get smarter and I’ve learnt to be very mindful of risk. But I don’t want to reach the end of my days in a perfectly preserved body. I want to come in sideways, covered in scars, beaten up and screaming, ‘Yahoo! What a ride!”’ It’s inspirational stuff. No wonder 150,000 people applied to Channel 4 to join him on his island. In fact, I feel I should leave immediately and climb a mountain. Except there isn’t one in London SW11. As I jump back onto shore he apologises for having to wave me off, but he needs to get out the shoe polish because he’s the guest of honour at a Royal Marines regimental dinner. His boots will be spotless, of course. Even if he does have to put them on at the door. The Island with Bear Grylls returns to Channel 4 on Sunday 23 April
James May: I don't want to be "fart-arsing around" in five years
The TV presenter is exhausted from whizzing around the world in fast cars - so how does he slow down in his shed?
James May is, to use his own word, knackered. “It never occurred to me that I would become old,” says the former Top Gear star, who turns 54 in January. “I just never imagined it. And yet here I am, suddenly a bit ancient. I like to think of myself as being 12, but I’ve got frizzy grey hair and a baggy face. I’m old. How long have I got left? 30 years? I’m going to assume it’s ten.” He says all this as he carefully packs into a large shoebox a toy train that was given to him as a Christmas present when he was nine years old. He admits that his old toy makes him feel sentimental, no more so than when he takes it apart and puts it back together again in the first programme of his returning BBC4 series, The Reassembler. But as much as it reminds him of his past, does it also point to his future? Because what really marks out May as a man of a certain age is the existential angst currently swirling round his frankly not badly preserved head. After the traumas of 2015, when the Top Gear trio left the BBC under a cloud of Jeremy Clarkson’s making, they’ve spent 2016 creating The Grand Tour, in which three middle-aged Englishmen romp round the world, burning rubber and millions of pounds as they go, driving Porsches, Ferraris and McLarens. It is, by all accounts, terrific TV – even though you need to have Amazon Prime to see it. So why does May appear to be so ambivalent about his success? “I’ve been doing it since I was 40,” he says. “We’d become lazy with Top Gear, doing six or seven shows a series. This is 12 shows. It takes a year to make. We had more energy in the old days, because we were younger and less knackered. I’m amazed this has lasted as long as it has.” In any other walk of life you’d diagnose a mid-life crisis and expect him to turn up driving an open-topped sports car – except he does that already. No, the man Jeremy Clarkson christened Captain Slow sounds very much like he wants to get out of the fast lane and – wait for it – slow down. “We have to accept that fairly soon we will be too old for it,” he says. “Richard Hammond [46] is a reasonably fit bloke who looks after himself, me and Jeremy [56] aren’t. Jeremy is particularly decrepit and I find growing within me – I try to fight it for some reason, but I’m giving into it – a much stronger, nesty sort of instinct. Within the next five years I don’t want to be fart-arsing around.” So why he is still “fart-arsing” now? Is he trapped by his Grand Tour contract – Amazon reportedly paid £160 million for three series of the show? “I don’t feel trapped because I’m just about in control of it. But I don’t have to do it forever, I’m not beholden to anyone, I’m not waiting for a pension or a carriage clock. But you have to know when to step back, and to be honest I thought it would have happened by now. Eventually I want some other people to do it.” Does Clarkson want to go on forever? “Christ, let’s hope not!” The man who fell into writing about cars by accident – he studied music at Lancaster University – is clearly thinking about the future. “Left to my own devices I would like to go back to playing the piano properly. It’s of no value to anyone else – I’m never going to be brilliant at it – but it would be consuming enough to allay some of those gnawing doubts and fears that come at our age...” Doubts? “It sounds terribly ‘eggy’ but maybe I should consider doing something good. In some ways what we do is good, because it entertains people, informs them, maybe enlightens them. That’s worthy enough. But I suppose I’ve been luckier than I ever thought I would be, so maybe I should try to help some other people be a bit luckier.” In which case, why not step away? Presumably he doesn’t need the money. “Er, yeah. I could. Well I can’t, because I’ve signed a contract for three years. But if you mean could I survive on what I’ve got, of course I could. You don’t need much once you’ve paid for your house.” He lives in Hammersmith, west London, with his long-term partner, dance critic Sarah Frater. They don’t have children, but he does have three sheds. “I like taking things to bits and putting things together because it’s a form of therapy. I like tools... I will happily go into the shed to mend something.” The ex-Top Gear trio moved from the BBC to Amazon Prime to continue their antics With the return of The Reassembler he’s back in his element – and on the Beeb. “I’m indulging myself horribly and expecting other people to sit back and watch.” Not that the BBC see it like that – the episode devoted to the very 1971 model Flying Scotsman that he has just finished swaddling in bubble wrap is a highlight of the BBC4 Christmas schedules. The Reassembler is as lo-fi as it gets, yet way more engaging than it sounds. If you watched him reassemble a vintage lawn mower in the first series you’ll know as much. One newspaper called it “the best programme you’ll see all year”. It is a triumph of Slow TV. “It’s not true Slow TV,” he suggests. “The BBC are very keen on time checks. That we say, ‘Five hours in and James has put the lawn mower’s carburettor together’. It doesn’t actually take that long. I could probably do it with a blindfold on, to be honest. It’s completely misleading, the idea that it took me eight hours to put that together. I could put 50 of those together in eight hours!” Would Jeremy Clarkson be a welcome guest in his shed? “No. He’s not interested. We’re so different. I don’t want Jeremy Clarkson anywhere near my shed or my toolbox or my piano. He’s interested in fashionable restaurants and celebrity gossip – I’m not interested in those. He’s the sort of man who would say, ‘I’ve got a tool kit’ and it would have in it a multi-bit screwdriver with a magnetic tip and an adjustable spanner. No true mechanical engineer would go near an adjustable spanner. It’s like asking a cabinet-maker to use chipboard. It’s the tool of the charlatan.” Straight after Christmas May will tear himself away from his spanners, his shed and his rapidly developing nesting instinct to go back on the road with The Grand Tour, filming the next series. One wonders how he will cope. “We don’t live like AC/DC or Led Zeppelin did,” he protests. “We don’t fall out of the back of limousines vomiting or snorting drugs from the navels of nubile 22-year-olds. Often we have a cup of tea and go to bed.” Which is just as well, all things considered. “I used to think that when my glamorous life in TV was over, I’d end up with a shoe shop. But then I realised I’m not that interested in shoes. Maybe I’ll have to set up a toy train repair business instead.” James May: The Christmas Reassembler airs on Wednesday 28 December on BBC4 at 9pm