My Hero Academia is ending after more than a decade – here's how it became an anime phenomenon
The beloved cast reflect on the incredible series in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com.
School's out for good with the end of My Hero Academia, but it's not just the end of another academic year. We're talking the end of an era, the end of a franchise that expanded and deconstructed an entire genre. Where else could you see the kind of earnest, hopeful superhero storytelling that came to define Kōhei Horikoshi's decade-long run in his manga and the show that followed? So much more than just another story about super-powered school kids, My Hero Academia introduced us to countless heroes and villains who are just as inspiring as they are "quirky". It's not just their powers or "quirks" that set them apart though (as weird as they often were). No, it was their determination to push through imperfection and fight for what mattered. Izuku Midoriya, especially, represented a new kind of hero in that sense, worlds removed from the dark or quippy protagonists popularised by Marvel and DC. It's not just us who are saying goodbye to Midoriya and the gang though. After 170 episodes and four theatrical film releases, the English dub cast have been forced to reckon with the end of an era for themselves as well, learning to let go of a show that's dominated anime and their own personal lives for the better part of a decade. "I'm definitely in the beginning phases of mourning," says voice actor Ernesto Jason Liebrecht (Dabi) ahead of the final episode: "It is really kind of a crazy thing to live with a character in your head for a decade of your life, to experience the level of character development that the creators so graciously provided to us as actors." Justin Cook (Red Riot) was quick to echo that sentiment: "There's a part where you don't want to say goodbye to these characters, but at the same time, watching the story wrap up on its own terms… It's pretty powerful to be a part of it." Very few titles make it to eight seasons in any medium, so the fact we're now here in the final stretch with some of the show's best reviews yet is nothing short of phenomenal. It didn't always seem like that would be a given though. Luci Christian (Uravity) recalls huge hype at the start, only for the first season to come and go without much fanfare. "We all went, 'Oh well. That's how it goes. It's no big deal.' Then the second season came out, I think, or was about to come out, and it just went huge." "I think My Hero Academia happened at a really perfect time," adds Christian. "It's kind of when streaming anime took off. It became a lot more mainstream. And I think My Hero Academia really reaped the benefit of that." Between the peak visuals, innovative powers and epic saga at hand, it's always been easy to fall in love with My Hero Academia. Patrick Seitz (Endeavor) likens all that to the "frosting," so to speak, on the foundation of this series and its appeal. "The cake, the underpinning, the structure of it all, is still about imperfect people trying to do better for each other… People want connection. They crave connection. They foster it, they love it, or they suffer for the lack of it. And I think that's what speaks to people about this. Yes, it has the power fantasy. It has the big fights. It looks great. The production is great. But again, that's, that's the frosting to the underpinning. If the underpinning weren't solid, the frosting would just collapse in on itself." "My Hero Academia really breaks the mould of the Shōnen genre," adds co-star Christopher Sabat (All Might). "As somebody who's watched it with his kids, I think the thing that makes it special is that everyone gets to participate. With Shōnen, you'll traditionally have the main character that does everything, and everyone else stands on the sideline explaining to the audience why it's so cool that the main character is doing their thing. But in this show, everyone has a role to play." Just as everyone has a role to play within My Hero Academia, everyone seems to have their own opinion about the show too, or at least how it ends. When the manga was completed last year, criticisms around the fate of Midoriya and the rushed feel of it all inspired Horikoshi's to write an additional coda that addressed these issues. This, of course, impacts the anime in turn. "I thought it was interesting of Horikoshi to give us a little bit more," says Christian. "It's a little bit messy. I kind of like that. I think that's part of the story that he tells with these heroes, because it's not black and white. It's not necessarily tied up at the end with a bow, with the good guys winning. It's just not quite like that. So I'm okay with how it ends. I like it. I guess I'm okay with the bittersweet. And I always have hope that maybe he'll come back and give these characters more to do later." Christian's not the only one who feels this way. "We live in a time where I feel like all the franchises keep coming back if you give them enough time," says Clifford Chapin (Katsuki Bakugo). "I'm not going to give up hope that maybe one day there will be My Hero Higher Education or something to follow this series." But what would such a thing actually look like, assuming it does eventually happen one day? For two of the franchise's most significant heroes, it seems like it might be time for some long overdue rest. Sabat's grateful that All Might lasted as long as he did. "Every single season has been just nail biting, wondering when this is going to be the season that they use All Might as a vehicle to make Izuku stronger. So I'm just grateful that he got as far as he did, and I think he could probably use a little time just at home. Maybe All Might and Midoriya can link up online and play games or something like that. They just need to chill." Justin Briner (Izuku Midoriya) is on board with that too. "If they want to make a show all about Deku's day-to-day life, I'm there for it. I just hope for him that he's living his best life. Deku's achieved so much in such a short time. He's proven himself on the world stage as the hero that he's always wanted to be. Now, I think hopefully he's just living proudly with the knowledge that he has made the difference that he has always wanted to." The Todoroki family have a lot of recovering to do as well, and given all they've been through, the cast hope to see them work through that together. "I would just want to see Endeavor living life as a civilian, doing no harm, trying to come to terms with himself," says Enji voice actor Patrick Seitz. "His story, it feels like Greek tragedy to me. He had the hubris. He was smote many different ways for it… His race is run as far as what I want to see. But if there were more material, I hope it would just be something day-to-day, pastoral, going to see Toya, speaking to the children that will still speak to him. No harm, no interactions with rage, just real slice-of-life, just something low stakes. Because for him, that is such high stakes." "You hit upon a fantasy of mine," adds Liebrecht. "I had this weird notion that it would be really cool to see Engie and Toya in their recovery mode, living in some little house with a garden and Eng taking care of them, taking care of each other, and it just being a normal, beautiful life. Finally, peace, redemption, the turning of that page." But what about Shoto Todoroki, the family's premier hero? "I have this idea of Shoto, having fully accepted who he is and where he's come from, taking some of his Dad's wants and needs doing them the right way," says David Matranga (Shoto Todoroki). "I have that idea of him out there in the world, heroing, really in the light, because Endeavor's idea was born in shadow, in intensity. So for Shoto to go and be a top hero in a different way, truly embodying that… I would be so jazzed for that." As it stands, there are currently no plans to continue Shoto's story or revisit any of his peers in Class 1-A either. Not in animated form anyway. But with a Hollywood live-action adaptation on the way, not to mention a popular new anime spinoff titled My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, anything's possible. "After you do this for a really long time," says Christopher Wehkamp (Eraserhead), "You suddenly realise that these shows don't always go away. My Hero Academia is so big and it's so meaningful to so many people, we could always hope that it's going to be back in some iteration or another. Vigilantes is kicking off now and, and that's a nice bridge to jump to if you really want to. There's always going to be hope that maybe someday down the road we'll see something else." But even if this really is the end, even if it's time to say goodbye to Class 1-A for good, at least My Hero Academia was able to end on its own terms. "At this point, I don't really know what it'll be like for it to really, actually end, but I'm happy that it gets to end," says Chapin. "There are so many shows we've worked on that don't get proper endings. The fact that we're going to at least get to do that is kind of its own little blessing." And don't forget; My Hero Academia will always be here in some shape or form, ready to inspire a whole new generation. Kind of like One For All, when you think about it. "I think we'll be talking about My Hero Academia for a very, very long time," says J. Michael Tatum (Ingenium). "I think it'll age incredibly well. New generations will continue to find it and be moved by it. And I think it'll go on to be — well, it probably already is —the gold standard that other shows will be judged by going forward." My Hero Academia is available to watch on Crunchyroll. Check out more of our Fantasy 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.
Wake Up Dead Man cast reveal their favourite detectives and whether they’d make good murderers
Daniel Craig and the Wake Up Dead Man cast talk perfect murders, imperfect detectives and everything in between.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. “I am hoping to get out of Narnia in time for Christmas,” says Daniel Craig. We’re supposed to be talking about the former James Bond star’s performance as Benoit Blanc, the mannered, sometimes manic, private detective from the Deep South of the US in Rian Johnson’s Netflix Knives Out mysteries. The new film, Wake Up Dead Man, is set in and around a neo-Gothic church in upstate New York where Benoit enlists the help of Josh O’Connor’s Catholic priest Father Jud Duplenticy to solve “a classic impossible crime”. But Craig’s mind is already a movie ahead of me. He’s presently filming The Magician’s Nephew, Greta Gerwig’s take on CS Lewis’s Narnia novel, in which he plays the eponymous magician, Uncle Andrew. It’s a role as un-Bond-like, in its way, as the unhinged gay author he played in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer last year (based on William Burroughs). Or, for that matter, Blanc, the driving intellectual and dramatic force of Johnson’s three Knives Out films. “I suppose I started freeing myself up from any convention,” says the 57-year-old Craig. “I’m not saying no to things that I might have been a little bit wary about before. When the Bond thing was going on in my life, the juxtaposition between that and another role would sometimes feel self-conscious. I’m working harder than I ever have, but I’m also just enjoying it more than I ever have. I get to do really interesting, different stuff.” No Time to Die was in 2021. That’s four years away from Bond now; has it made him happy? “I love my job but does it make me happy? Not always,” he muses. “It’s very complicated. It’s an incredibly tough job. It’s kept me away from my family over the years, and that has its downsides.” View Green Video on the source website Craig is married to the actor Rachel Weisz. They have a daughter, Grace, born in 2018 (Craig has another daughter, 33-year-old actor Ella Loudon, from his previous marriage to actor Fiona Loudon) and homes in north London and New York. Craig likes nothing better, he says, than “watching Strictly with the kids – it’s a joy” and, if he is out of Narnia in time, will be celebrating Christmas with them. “Not in a religious way,” he says, “but celebrating the fact that it’s a family get-together. Much in a way like the Americans have Thanksgiving, Christmas is an English kind of thanksgiving. And saying thanks for having family is really what it’s about.” Ironically, after escaping a character that defined him in the public eye over five films and 15 years, starting with Casino Royale in 2006, Craig is now the centre of another franchise, Knives Out, playing a character who walks the narrow line between convincing characterisation and camp. “But that’s the fun bit, isn’t it?’ he says. “Walking the line.” Three films in, Benoit Blanc feels like he has a lot of mileage left… perhaps more than the five films Craig made as Bond? “As soon as we’re on the red carpet, Rian and I get asked, ‘Are you going to make another one?’ And we both go, ‘Hang on a second! Let’s get this one out first.’ But, of course, I would love to continue working with him. As long as Rian keeps inventing it the way he does, then I’m in.” Not that playing Benoit Blanc is easy. “I still have to work hard at this,” he says. “He’s not uncomplicated to play. I don’t turn up on day one and go, ‘I know how to do this.’ That would be just terrible. I work on it and work on it.” With that level of commitment, does Craig feel he’s now getting the hang of investigating? For example, if I were to be clubbed to death or poisoned, could he work out whodunnit? “No! It’s like asking me, ‘Do you think playing James Bond made you better at being a spy?’ ” Craig exclaims. “It’s not going to happen; I wouldn’t be very good in that situation. You need a brain. “I suppose what I like about Benoit is that he’s not aggressive, his way of doing things is to try and disarm people. He often pays compliments, and I think that’s an interesting way of getting what you want in life. You know, he’s a charmer.” His co-star O’Connor told RT that, because he’d been brought up thinking of Craig as Bond, he was surprised to encounter an actor whose “sweetness, insecurity, and funniness were such a pleasure to work with”. Does Craig recognise himself in that description? “Well, all actors are insecure,” he says. “We may appear to be confident, but we’re just ducks; looking good on top but the legs are going crazy underneath. I’m making it up as I go along.” Read our guide to the best Christmas TV for 2025 Andrew Scott plays Lee Ross Could you get away with the perfect murder? ANDREW: I don’t think I would be very good at murder – I suppose I’m the type, but I just don’t like blood. I have many faults, but I think I’m going to get away in this life with not murdering anybody. That’s the way it’s looking, anyway. Do you have a favourite detective… Sherlock Holmes, perhaps? ANDREW: Actually, it’s Hercule Poirot. One of the films that had a real influence on me was Evil under the Sun with Peter Ustinov as Poirot, made in the 1980s. I remember watching him, Diana Rigg and Maggie Smith and thinking, “Wow!” I’d never seen a film like that. Glenn Close plays Martha Delacroix Do you have a favourite detective? GLENN: I loved Agatha Christie’s books and I was in Christie’s Crooked House in 2017. It had never been filmed because it has a very strange, disturbing ending. I also loved Prime Suspect. Helen Mirren was so good in that. Do you believe in good and evil? GLENN: Oh, very much so, although I think we’re a complicated species. It’s a pretty deep question. I think there are very few people who are born evil, but there are some. It’s usually a malfunction in our very complex brains, and I think a lot of it is how you’re brought up. Josh O’Connor plays Father Jud Duplenticy Could you imagine yourself planning the perfect murder? JOSH: No. Absolutely not. I’m too anxious. Most of the time, even if I make a plan to go and meet someone for dinner, I have second thoughts. I don’t think I’d ever make it out of the door. What about solving a murder, Josh? JOSH: Again, I’d be useless. Crime-solving requires an incredible level of organisation. You’d have to be very directed in your thoughts. And I’m so doubtful of everything and anything and everyone. My answer to most things is, “I don’t know!” As a detective, you’d have to have a little more conviction. You don’t seem very confident in your abilities… JOSH: I have low self-esteem and a big ego. You put those together and it’s chaotic. But it is perfect for an actor – most of us have low self-esteem. That’s why we need to be told that we’re good. But we also have a big ego and we want to be seen. It’s a strange one. Who was your favourite detective growing up? JOSH: I used to love turning on ITV and watching Midsomer Murders on a Sunday afternoon with my family. We’d all sit there and predict who the murderer was. We loved it. Mila Kunis plays police chief Geraldine Scott Did you grow up watching murder mysteries? MILA: I grew up in Russia, and Sherlock Holmes was definitely around when I was seven or eight. Then, when I moved to the States, I loved murder mysteries. Clue is one of my favourite movies of all time. Would you make a good murderer? MILA: I couldn’t do it. I’m not a very aggressive person and I don’t think I’m very calculated. I’d also need to be so much more organised… Actually, hold on, that’s not true. If my life or my family’s lives were at stake, I’d have no problem doing something extreme – and a woman who’s juggling a job and a family and kids can do a lot of things. Of course, you’re on the other side of the fence in the movie — would you make a good investigator in real life? MILA: I’d make a great investigator. I have no problems asking questions and I’m also pretty observant. However, I’m not good at identifying people – in a line-up I’m not your gal. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is coming to Netflix on 12th December. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 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. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Neighbours legend Lucinda Cowden talks soap spin-off hopes – and her new project with Toadie star Ryan Moloney
The actress chats to RadioTimes.com ahead of her final return to the axed Australian drama.
It just wouldn't be right saying goodbye to Neighbours without hearing Melanie Pearson's iconic chuckle one last time. Fortunately, actress Lucinda Cowden is making her way back to Ramsay Street tomorrow for the soap's finale. There's been a Mel-shaped hole in Erinsborough ever since the character decided to start a new life with Vic Stone (Craig Hall) in Gippsland last year and, although we did see her during the 40th anniversary celebrations in March, there's always room for her in Erinsborough. With the cameras primed to shoot the last scenes in July, Cowden began to fear that she hadn't made the shortlist of familiar faces jetting in to view the new Ramsay Hills and Robinson Towers developments. "I have to admit, I may have sent a little email to [executive producer] Jason Herbison saying: 'Put me in it or I shall hurt your... something'", she joked to RadioTimes.com. "Maybe not quite so threatening, maybe a little pleading. I was thinking that surely they must want Mel back. "I tried to sort of give it a humorous tinge, rather than try to sound quite so desperate. He emailed me back, saying: 'Give me a day, I just need to work it out as I've got so many things in my head.' I got a call from my agent on the Monday." The news of the show's cancellation first hit Lucinda at the conclusion of a nationwide UK tour celebrating Neighbours' birthday earlier this year, a moment she says "floored" her. "The tour had been such an incredible success, we received so much love from the fans and they just filled up our cup. The day after it finished, I was still in Manchester and the cast that were still in the show had left really early that morning to get on a plane," she explains. "I got a number of text messages and was totally floored. This show is still so incredibly loved, and yet here they are tossing it in the bin again." But where do we find Melanie upon her comeback? "It seems all is well in the world of Gippsland pubs and for Mel and Vic, apparently. That's a good thing, because I think it's nice for people to know that Mel's happy and loved, because she had such a terrible time, didn't she? "From the reboot to when she left, it was a rollercoaster that was mainly downhill." She even reckons there's room for a Melanie-centred spin-off, and honestly, we're totally here for it. "Wouldn't that be great to have a little Gippsland spin off with maybe some sort of Byron, Nicolette and Jane Harris action? That would be a nice catch-up. "That's what I'm really hoping might happen with the show – they do little vignettes on what's happened to different families, where they are and what they're doing now. I think there's a market for that." Cowden continues: "It was an absolute joy to be involved in that very important episode. But I don't think it's ever going to come back in the same way again. If it does, I think it will only be in little, short bursts. "That has a sadness for our industry here in Melbourne, and that we lose this incredible training facility. The arts are absolutely and utterly under attack at this moment in time. AI is a really frightening option for all of us creatives." In fact, the threat of artificial intelligence has been the inspiration for a new project that has been crafted with one of the soap's most beloved names. "It's an old idea called Soapboxed that I had that I spoke to Neighbours script editor Megan Herbert about. We've collaborated together, and we're going be doing a premiere of it at the Flinders Fringe Festival in February in February," she reveals. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2021/07/Lucinda-Cowden-and-Ryan-Moloney-on-Neighbours-2021-Taken-by-Jane-Zhang-3_jpg_ReferenceImage_m18676-1f216a4.jpg" width="1080" height="720" alt="Melanie, wearing a leopard print dress, stares into Toadie's eyes. He's wearing a blue shirt and purple tie in a scene from Neighbours" title="Lucinda Cowden and Ryan Moloney on Neighbours 2021 (Taken by Jane Zhang) 3_jpg_ReferenceImage_m18676" /> "I have managed to secure the talents of one of my very favourite actors. His name is Ryan Moloney. Never heard of him? He's a young man with a lot of potential. He actually did a marvellous audition for me for about four years. "It's a play about television and soap and of course there will be cheeky references to Mel and Toadie. We would love to maybe give it a tour around the UK one day, because you don't get any more human than theatre." But, for now, fans have one last slice of Aussie action before the infamous theme tune kicks in, and for Lucinda, it was a "strange feeling" leaving the Neighbours production base in Nunawading, Victoria, for the final time. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/12/Strap-in-Everyone-put-theyre-all-into-the-last-few-months-and-its-so-nice-to-see-such-a-huge--fa11aab.jpg" width="1080" height="608" alt="Lucinda Cowden as Melanie Pearson in Neighbours, wearing a bright green coat and brown boots, sat on a field." title="Strap in! Everyone put they’re all into the last few months and it’s so nice to see such a huge" /> "The first time I drove into that building, I was probably 22, and when I drove out, I was 59. Things happened in between, for sure, but that's pretty much 37 years of driving in and out of the studio. "I spent a long time trying not to be 'Melanie from Neighbours'. I think the important thing that it taught me is that it's enough to be Melanie from Neighbours, and that's a privilege to have been involved with such an incredible show for such a long time." Read more: Neighbours legends tease that beloved soap would be a "completely new show" should it be revived following finale Neighbours boss was unable to secure legendary character for affair story Neighbours producer teases "optimistic" finale and reflects on soap's legacy after 40 years Neighbours finale week: Tragedy strikes as a further 9 old faces return to say goodbye to Ramsay Street Neighbours spoilers reveal finale story as 9 old characters return to Ramsay Street Neighbours star reveals whether they think axed soap can be saved again The Neighbours finale streams from 7:30am tomorrow on Prime Video. Check out more of our Soaps coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guideto find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast. Read our guide to the best Christmas TV for 2025.
Neighbours legends tease that beloved soap would be a "completely new show" should it be revived following finale
The legendary actors speak to RadioTimes.com about their sadness, hopes for the future and gratitude to the show's viewers.
As one of Australia's biggest media exports, Neighbours has cemented a number of cast members as household names over the last four decades... but few have had quite the same impact as Alan Fletcher and Jackie Woodburne. The duo - who have played the beloved Karl and Susan Kennedy since 1994 - are preparing to say farewell to the cult soap this week, after it failed to be recommissioned by producers Amazon MGM Studios in February. Uniquely, and rather sadly, this is a position they've both been in before. It was just over three years ago that the show wrapped up the Ramsay Street drama with a blaze of highly publicised returns, including Kylie Minogue and Margot Robbie, a wedding party on the infamous cul de sac and a sense of hope for the future. This time, however, things are a little different. A threat to the future of fictional Erinsborough looms large, with redevelopment plans displacing the characters across the state of Victoria. The more finite storyline, while allowing the door to remain open for a potential revival, signifies a change in gear from last time. If Neighbours was to return - and given this is the third time that the series has been pulled since it began - it would be very different. "There was tears, there was sadness, Stefan [Dennis] spoke beautifully on the last day," Fletcher explains to RadioTimes.com. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/11/NBRSS3UT9362250711TRAALL00139-3e490d2.jpg" width="3900" height="2601" alt="A greyscale image of producers Andrew Thompson and Jason Herbison stand beside actors Stefan Dennis (who is raising a glass) and Rebekah Elmaloglou. Seated are Hana Abe-Tucker, Jackie Woodburne and Annie Jones on the set of Neighbours" title="Neighbours" /> "I think there was also a sense of pride. We faced great sadness the first time around. This time we got an extra two years, we got an extra 400 episodes. We proved to the world that Neighbours didn't finish because it lacked an audience. The show is still loved." Woodburne adds: "Ironically, there was a sense of, 'Well, who knows?', especially the way the story ended. There was an element of hope. And we have lived the experience of 'you really do never know'." In fact, the pair have already started considering what Neighbours 4.0 could look like. During episodes that air this week, the residents are debating whether to fight for their homes, move to Shane Ramsay's (Peter O'Brien) 'Ramsay Hills' development, or shift to the city for Paul Robinson's new mixed-use venture 'Robinson Towers'. "What logistically would be the easiest and the least expensive to shoot? Where do Karl and Susan best fit in? I mean, really, you could justify any of the three options," she continues. "For Susan, obviously, the hope is that they would save Ramsay Street, but logistically, I doubt that's possible." Fletcher agrees. "It's enormous fun to speculate. The one thing I would say is, if for some amazing reason down the track there was some kind of an incarnation of a program not necessarily called Neighbours, but a program that had a Neighbour-ish type feel, then you can be sure that they would go to the boffins like [executive producer] Jason Herbison, who would generate the best possible storyline." Amid the speculation, they also want fans to manage their expectations and not be sat waiting for a reprieve. In fact, they've both moved onto new ventures. For Fletcher, he's just completed a nationwide UK tour with his music, while Woodburne is set to lead a new 5 drama, Imposter, which hits screens next week. "It's November and I haven't heard a single whisper of any notion whatsoever. It would have to be a completely new show," he explains. "It's just the reality. So who knows what the future is? Paying for television [production] these days is so hard and so fraught that you just don't know what sort of show would even be possible." There's still a lot to look forward to in the last few days. A range of old faces return in the finale, allowing Neighbours to do what it does best - dipping into the rich history of the characters and playing on the nostalgia a little. "I love the fact that Peter O'Brien could come back and play such a substantial part in the finale. These people are very successful actors in the industry, and yet they always put their hand up when asked to come back and do substantial work," Fletcher notes. "I think having Shane pitted against Paul at the end, there was a perfect blend, if you like." Woodburne continues: "The dynamic that they had was fascinating. I think the fans will recognise that, even if it's just subconsciously. It pulls fans back to the origins of the show that they've been faithful to for so long." Concluding, they both wanted to share their gratitude with those who have supported their careers, and the show, over the years. "What wonderful people, beautiful people watch our show. My message to them is just a profound thank you for the support; the encouragement, the love, for watching the show, and keeping me employed. I have nothing but gratitude and admiration for all of them," Woodburne beams. And for Fletcher? "It's a total ditto for me. I do have a very, very close personal connection with a lot of people who, over the years, have come to all the gigs. So actually, I know people now on a different level, and they tell me about what's going on in their lives and what Neighbours means to them. "I feel very connected to that audience, and I'm very appreciative that they've let me into their lives." The final episode of Neighbours streams on Amazon Prime Video from 7.30am on Thursday, 11th December. Read more: Neighbours boss was unable to secure legendary character for affair story Neighbours producer teases "optimistic" finale and reflects on soap's legacy after 40 years Neighbours finale week: Tragedy strikes as a further 9 old faces return to say goodbye to Ramsay Street Neighbours spoilers reveal finale story as 9 old characters return to Ramsay Street Neighbours wraps after 40 years - as boss drops hint of "hopeful" future Neighbours star teases Terese and Paul's future and 40th anniversary cast comebacks Neighbours star reveals whether they think axed soap can be saved again Neighbours is available to stream on Prime Video. Check out more of our Soaps coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guideto find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Harry Potter TV series star Johnny Flynn on how his new film role compares to playing Lucius Malfoy
The Goodbye June star has a very different role lined up next.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. On the day we meet, Johnny Flynn confesses to feelings of anxiety about the prospect of his family attending the premiere of Goodbye June, in which the 42-year-old turns in a quietly devastating performance as youngest brother Connor, who simply cannot cope with his mother’s terminal illness. As Flynn sees it, “This is somebody who doesn’t have a mask to put on in those situations. His mum is his guiding star, whereas his sisters have their kids and families.” Which brings us back to Flynn’s anxieties about the premiere. In attendance will be his own mother — “and for anyone of that generation, you know this is something that not far away”. This feels like new territory for Flynn, perhaps best known for his roles as Ian Fleming in Operation Mincemeat and Mr Knightley in the 2020 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, as well as his parallel career as an acclaimed singer/songwriter who’s made six albums. And as he felt his way into the role, he inevitably ended up drawing on memories of the passing of his own father when he was 18. “It totally brought back memories of waiting in hospital corridors and that hushed atmosphere that a family comes to around the death of a loved one. There was also a lot of me in moments when I’m thinking I haven’t got my s**t together. Like many people in my profession, I grapple with imposter syndrome.” And what did starring in a film alongside Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Andrea Riseborough, Timothy Spall and Toni Collette do for his imposter syndrome? “Well, it went through the roof, of course,” he says with a sheepish smile. “This is literally a bunch of names who would all be in my top ten favourite actors. But what can you do? You just have to go, ‘If this is it and I mess this up and this is the only chance I get to be with these wonderful people, then so be it.’” All of which couldn’t be more different to the job he’s just finished, playing Lucius Malfoy in the first instalment of the new Harry Potter TV series. “It’s a world away,” he laughs. “With Connor… well, I’m someone who is very familiar with panic attacks and stuff like that. So you’re going from that to Malfoy, trying to sound like the guy with the biggest balls in the room. That’s much more of a stretch for me!” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Goodbye June will be released in select UK cinemas on 12th December and on Netflix on Wednesday 24th December. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Doctor Who favourite Alex Kingston and Johannes Radebe spill on Strictly journey and finale return
From first steps to standing ovations: Alex Kingston and Johannes Radebe reflect on dancing, friendship, and their post-Strictly Christmas plans.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. At 62, actor Alex Kingston is only three years younger than the mother of her Strictly Come Dancing partner, 38-year-old professional Johannes Radebe. But in this partnership, she was the one learning from him. Over the past few months, they went from tentative first steps to earning standing ovations. And now, despite their Strictly journey ending, they vow they’ll stay on the dance floor one way or another… Alex, what was it like learning from someone younger? ALEX: Oh my gosh, I can’t imagine anyone else being my dance partner. The problem is, now my Strictly journey has come to an end, I will have to carry on dancing and I don’t know who will ever come close to Johannes. JOHANNES: Oh my goodness, we’ll have to book some lessons. I’ve always said that partnerships are special because they grow, and that I always teach like a marriage – even though I have never been married. ALEX: And I’ve been married three times! Did you have a mentor or someone you looked up to earlier in your careers? JOHANNES: As a boy, there was an Australian dancer I watched from a distance from my township in South Africa. His name is Jason Gilkison. I modelled my career on his, and now I am in the same room as him – he’s the creative director of Strictly Come Dancing. It’s an honour to work with him. Nowadays, I go back home to South Africa and run workshops teaching kids to dance. That’s my way of giving back. ALEX: My English teacher saw that I wasn’t academic in the sciences, but she made sure I had an opportunity to begin acting, devising plays where I was the lead. Her name was Margaret Kirk. She’s no longer with us, but I’m forever thankful to her. Are you looking forward to the final, where every Strictly couple returns for a reunion? ALEX: Oh yes, one hundred per cent. Looking at the opening credits of Strictly, seeing all the contestants, you realise how few are left. The first week does seem a long time ago now. It will be really lovely to see all those smiling faces again. JOHANNES: Strictly plus Christmas feels like a warm hug. It’s so dark outside, it’s cold… I know that people are thankful it’s on telly. And finally, what are your post-Strictly Christmas plans? ALEX: We celebrate two Christmasses – the German Christmas on the 24th and the English Christmas on the 25th. I also participate in our village pub panto. This year, it’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They asked me to be the mirror on the wall, so that if I was still busy with Strictly, I could just record a voiceover! JOHANNES:After two years of not being home for Christmas, I’m jumping on a flight. It’s summer back home. Normally there’s a big barbecue – the whole family’s in the yard, playing music and dancing. Sounds like heaven to me. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Strictly Come Dancing continues on BBC One and iPlayer. Add Strictly Come Dancing to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Archers stars David and William Troughton talk being father and son in iconic radio soap and in real-life
David and William Troughton on life as father and son – on The Archers and at home.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. David Troughton and his real-life son William have played father and son Tony and Tom in The Archers since 2014. They are the son and grandson of the second Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton. As father and son, is it easier to play that relationship? DAVID: At the beginning it felt odd, because Tom and Tony don’t get on! Tony is still hankering after his dead son, John. Tom’s never lived up to John. WILLIAM: Tom’s constantly chasing his father’s praise, wanting him to be proud of him... DAVID: And that is so unlike our real relationship. WILLIAM: It really is. It’s great that I get to spend this time with my dad. And because it’s outside the rest of the family, it’s special. Does that make other family members feel a bit jealous? DAVID: They’re probably thankful not to be part of Tony and Tom! WILLIAM: There’s no competition. My brother Sam is also an actor and the other one, Jim, is a cricketer. DAVID: That’s performing, too. It has to be in the genes. Have any of your storylines made you gasp? DAVID: Not yet… But remember your audition, Will? You came to see me [as Tony] in hospital when I seemed to be dying because I’d been hit by the bull. After the audition, Sean O’Connor, the editor, rang me up and said, “David, how would you feel if a member of your family joined The Archers?” WILLIAM: Growing up watching him onstage, there were quite a few of those moments. I remember watching you get poisoned and die in one production… DAVID: And before that, in 1989 when I played Bottom at the RSC, I stabbed myself fairly dramatically, and all I could hear from the front row was, “Bye bye, Mr Dad.” Isn’t that sweet? WILLIAM: Growing up watching you die – not the most usual of childhoods. David, have you ever given William any acting advice? DAVID: When we started, I gave him a bit of advice about the microphone. On stage you look at each other but in radio you use it as the person. Although I’m always being told [does huge voice], “YOU’RE TOO LOUD.” Stage actors like me, we’re constantly trying to hit the back of the stalls. I like being BIG, you see. WILLIAM: I’m constantly being told to quiet down, too. Any dream storylines? WILLIAM: I want us to fall out. Furiously. Big argument. Conflict! DAVID: Yes, nobody wants to listen to us being happy. We need crises! What would you give each other for Christmas, in character? WILLIAM: Tony likes his train set, so something for that. DAVID: Something for his tractor. WILLIAM: Tom’s constantly searching for acceptance, so maybe just a “Well done, son” would do. How about in real life? DAVID: We do a Secret Santa, because it got too expensive. WILLIAM: I’d give you a gadget, you like those. DAVID: I gave you a drone last year – you’ve not used it once! WILLIAM: Still a sore point, is it? DAVID: It is! The Christmas double issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. You can listen to The Archers on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. Check out more of our Soaps coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Lord Alan Sugar dishes on Celebrity Apprentice and why he allowed Thomas Skinner to return for it
From Lapland tasks to childhood chestnuts, Lord Sugar reveals what makes a very Apprentice-style Christmas.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Merry Christmas, Sugar Claus! If you were Father Christmas, which public figures would you put on your naughty list? I would have to say no comment on this whatsoever, my friend. As you will know, the BBC has guidelines. I have to keep my big mouth shut and not make personal or political comments like that. In that case, can we assume the contestants in your Celebrity Apprentice Christmas specials went straight on the nice list? Nah! That’s the excitement of it. Most of the time, they’re schmoozed by everybody, told how marvellous they are. Then they get a gig where I’m telling them what a load of rubbish they are. They’re masochists, really. Still, it’s worth remembering they don’t get paid anything at all. They do it for charity and that is very, very commendable. What will you be making the brave contestants do in the two festive episodes? They’re going up to Lapland and meeting Father Christmas. There was snow and ice, as you can imagine, reindeers and sledges. The contestants were split into two teams and each team had to create a special Christmas biscuit. Then they came back to London and presented their biscuits to big supermarkets and the best biscuit won. The interesting thing is, for the first time ever, the products created in the programme are actually going on sale in the supermarkets. All the money is going to Children in Need. Does the show create its own celebrities now? Did you decide whether Thomas Skinner could come back as a “celebrity”? I’m not sure over the 20 years how many people who have appeared on my show have actually made a name for themselves. I can think of maybe three: Saira Khan did quite well, then Katie Hopkins, who everybody loves to hate, and Thomas Skinner, who ended up on Strictly. But I don’t have any input. I’m presented with these celebrities; the BBC seek these people out and find them. And it’s not easy, because you can imagine that some of them are working and can’t take four or five days off. I can dream and say, “Oh, I’d love Madonna, I’d love Adele, I’d love the ginger bloke with a guitar...” What’s his name? Ed Sheeran. So, it’s not a matter of you ringing up the Beeb and going, “Get me Piers Morgan”? Well, funny you should say that. He was in the very first Celebrity Apprentice and I fired him. I keep reminding Piers that I gave him his TV debut, but he says, “I was on TV before that.” But you know what an arrogant bloke he is. He’d never admit it. Did you enjoy Christmas when you were growing up in Hackney in the 1950s? Our family weren’t very religious Jews, so we semi-celebrated Christmas, but more the happy side of things. We put Christmas decorations up and all that stuff. As a kid, I’d look forward to getting a Christmas present. I remember when I was 10 or 11 getting a pair of metal roller skates with rubber wheels on them that you adjusted with a little spanner. Mum and Dad saved up and bought them for me and my sisters and brother. As I grew older, I didn’t dish out Christmas presents to people. We used to give the staff financial bonuses and things like that, not physical things. Where will you be spending Christmas this year? I’ve had Christmas away from England the last 40 years. I spend five to six months of the year in America, so I’ll be here in Florida. My family also have homes here, so we’ll all be together. The grandkids as well, though they’re not kids any more. We’ll have a big traditional at-home British Christmas lunch with turkey and things like that. Won’t you miss cold, rainy old Hackney? No. Will you be having any special Christmas treats? My wife went to the supermarket today and bought my favourite thing – chestnuts. It’s the time for them, isn’t it, Christmas? I remember the vendors on Oxford Street when I was a boy, those black ovens with coal underneath and the chestnuts sitting on the top. You’d buy a white paper bag full of them off the bloke for sixpence. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Celebrity Apprentice is coming to BBC One and iPlayer this Christmas. Add The Celebrity Apprentice to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
David Suchet reveals why Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol remains so prescient – and what he'd say to Agatha Christie
As he voices a new Dickens podcast, David Suchet reflects on timeless storytelling and the hope Christmas brings.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Nothing brings us together like a festive ghost story and, since its publication in 1843, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol has never been out of print. It is the seasonal chiller. Sir David Suchet is delighted to be narrating it, alongside some of the author’s lesser-known tales, for a new podcast series. “These aren’t merely creepy stories — they’re ghostly reflections of the human soul.” We know about your devotion to Agatha Christie, but how well do you know Dickens? I don’t claim to be a Dickens expert, but he has always held up for me as the master of the English language. Reading these ghost stories has just been one of the most enjoyable and exciting pieces of audio work I’ve done. I’ve been blown away by how he writes. He’s very theatrical. Why do you think Dickens remains so prescient? I would say the same thing about Shakespeare and, if I’m allowed to, Agatha Christie. They all write about the human condition: love, jealousy, greed, hate, envy, crimes. They talk about poverty and society. They have managed to write about various aspects of our lives as human beings and make them into dramatic tales. That’s why they will never date. Why do you think that we enjoy being scared at Christmas? Well, if you go back to when you were a little child and somebody scared you, what was the first thing you did? You screamed and giggled. We love mystery, we love being scared. I mean, look at Doctor Who! We love to be taken outside of ourselves into realms that we don’t quite understand, and being a little bit frightened can be very enjoyable. Is A Christmas Carol the ultimate seasonal ghost story? A Christmas Carol is a work of genius. It’s just got everything. Not only the most extraordinary characters, but Scrooge himself going through that redemption... It’s what Christmas is all about, which is generosity, kindness, family if you have one, friends if you haven’t. Being social, being warm to each other. Ultimately, that’s the world that Ebenezer Scrooge enters and enjoys for the rest of his life. It’s a wonderful story. Would you like to meet Agatha Christie as your ghost of Christmas past? Agatha Christie has been very important in my life, because I never met her and I’ve always wanted to. At the same time, I’ve always wanted not to meet her because she was famously not pleased with any of her Poirots. I’ve often been asked what I would say to her if I met her. I might ask, “How do you think I did?” But I’m not sure whether I’d have the courage. What is a Suchet Christmas like? Our Christmasses have changed over the years. But our great tradition is that I always read the poem The Night before Christmas to the family. When I was filming once in America, I recorded it for my family in England. Wherever I am, down the phone, on Zoom or in person, if it’s possible, I will still do The Night before Christmas. I think I did it from Australia once. Our world today can be a little unkind – does Christmas shine a light of hope? Yes, I think that’s right. When the lights are put up at Christmas, you’re not aware of this heavy, heavy winter blackness. You can walk through London into the early hours and it’s gloriously lit up. I think it makes people feel good. I always feel more nervous when everything comes to an end, when everything is taken down, and people feel lonely again and bereft of this spirit of Christmas. It’s a time to share with family or friends, wherever you are. That’s what Christmas is about. Charles Dickens' Ghost Stories narrated by Sir David Suchet is released weekly on all streaming platforms and Noiser. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Kate Winslet reveals why her film Goodbye June is so personal for her "brilliant, clever" screenwriting son
How Kate Winslet turned her son’s script into a moving family drama – and found a new creative calling.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. “I promise you, I didn’t plan it this way,” exclaims Kate Winslet, and for a second, her slightly brisk response leads me to wonder if she has taken umbrage at my suggestion that, as Christmas approaches, she seems to have achieved full omnipresence. As we speak, a TikTok trend to land her the coveted Christmas number one spot is well under way, thanks to hundreds of clips of millennial Winslet fans miming to What If, the ballad featured on the soundtrack of her 2001 animated film Christmas Carol: the Movie. Another milestone from her past that looms large at this time of year is her 2006 romcom The Holiday, whose wholesome succour has turned it into something of a cult classic. Meanwhile, in cinemas from 19 December, you can catch her in the long-awaited third instalment of the Avatar franchise, Fire and Ash. Oh, and if you tune in to Radio 4 as you wrap your presents on 21 December, you can hear her selections on Desert Island Discs. But the reason she’s set aside a chunk of her afternoon to speak with Radio Times is a project that’s clearly closer to her heart. The film Goodbye June marks two significant firsts for Winslet and her family. The script was written by her 22- year-old son Joe Anders. And, as well as producing the film and starring in it, the movie also marks her directorial debut. If you’ve never found yourself blubbing at a film trailer, it might also mark a first for you. The sight of a dying Helen Mirren in a hospital bed, with her screen family – Winslet, Andrea Riseborough, Timothy Spall, Johnny Flynn and Toni Collette – all trying to come to terms with their imminent loss should just about do it. Winslet brightens at such an outcome. She’s fine with all of it, of course – even the revival of What If, which her husband, Edward Abel Smith, sometimes plays “for a laugh when we’re on family holidays and I least want him to do it.” She beams. “I’m lucky that I got to be across all of these things.” She insists that directing was never an itch she felt the need to scratch. By 2015, she had already won an Oscar for her role in The Reader as well as sundry Golden Globes and Baftas along the way – but it was on the set of Danny Boyle’s eponymous biopic of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs that the notion of directing was seeded in her. In a complex, multi-actor action shot that hit a sudden glitch – even as the cameras had to keep rolling – Winslet was able to see the exact point to which everyone would have to re-set. “I said, ‘Oh actually, if you come back here, we can cut around it.’ I was making sure it was usable. Danny just turned around to me and went, ‘Actors don’t do that,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, well I do!’ Since then film crew members, and some other actors, have also said to me, ‘You know, you should do it.’” So why now? Why this? Winslet, who recently celebrated her 50th birthday, talks about “a story that felt so important and personal to me, that when it was ready to send out to directors, I just couldn’t let it go.” Of course, part of the reason the story felt so personal is that it was literally so close to home. She’s aware of the optics here. Goodbye June – and Anders’s involvement in it – will be scrutinised far more closely as a result of the fact that Winslet is his mother. At the same time, anyone who has found themselves feeling helpless in a hospital waiting room as they prepare to see a loved one, perhaps for the final time, will recognise much in this big-hearted story about a family coming to the realisation that their mother’s final Christmas may have to take place around her hospital bed. Tiny details are painfully well observed – and you can’t help wondering if Flynn’s stunning portrayal of Mirren’s struggling son Connor is perhaps the one that cleaves closest to Anders’s own experience. View Green Video on the source website Speaking about “this brilliant, clever young boy of mine”, Winslet (who has three children – actor Mia Threapleton, Joe, and 12-year-old Bear) talks about his response to the death of his grandmother – Winslet’s mother, Sally – in 2017, when he was still only 13. “It was the most significant thing that’s happened to Joe in his limited years and he remembers how everyone from our big family – nieces, nephews, siblings – came together, and just how almost geographically unusual that was.” Unsure of “where to place himself in the world” as Covid hit during his A-levels, Anders won a place on an intensive screenwriting course at the National Film and Television School as a result of a short film he had submitted. When he showed his mother his screenplay, her first instinct was to reach out to Riseborough, with whom she has been firm friends ever since they first spoke via FaceTime in advance of Riseborough’s involvement in Winslet’s Lee, her biopic of the photographer Lee Miller. Of that first meeting, Riseborough recalls, “It was a moment in my career and my life that was very important.” Speaking on the phone from London en route to a fitting, Riseborough talks about taking receipt of Anders’s screenplay from Winslet: “I read it and I immediately said, ‘Oh my goodness, let’s do this.’” Did it seem surprising to her that someone with relatively little life experience should have delivered such an emotionally intelligent story? “Certainly, in one sense,” she says, “but in another, no. I’ve known Joe for some years, I’ve seen him grow up, and I think he just has a huge amount of humility. He’s very permeable, in the most glorious way.” In Goodbye June, Riseborough’s uptight, unhappy Molly, stuck at home with her kids, envies Julia (Winslet) for somehow managing to juggle her high-powered job with motherhood. The longer Winslet talks about this dynamic as it plays out in the story, the harder it is to tell where Julia ends and Winslet begins: “It doesn’t matter how well-oiled the machine of our life is, there are things I have missed. Not long ago, my youngest son did a piano performance of a song that he had created himself from scratch –and having to watch that over FaceTime from another country, you know, it’s hard. “On social media, we’re constantly seeing people apparently pulling off this impossible balancing act. I wanted to punch through that and to show these two women, whose relationship has been completely misfiring for a bunch of reasons that neither can actually really remember.” For Riseborough, this was where the heart of the film lay. “You have this unbelievably tense relationship between Julia and Molly – and to show that with somebody I love so much was a bit of an honour. Because we tackled it with such care and gentleness and softness in the in-between moments – even though we had to get through some quite volatile and aggressive scenes.” Having worked with so many big-name directors – James Cameron, Woody Allen, Peter Jackson and Anders’s father Sam Mendes, to name a few – it’s perhaps surprising to note that the director Winslet cites as the biggest influence on Goodbye June was Mike Leigh – whom she has “never met or even had a conversation with. “For me there was something about the tone of Goodbye June that landed somewhere in that sweet spot between Secrets and Lies and Four Weddings and a Funeral.” And as with so many of Leigh’s films, Winslet encouraged improvisation – something necessary in a story that involved so many children. Look out, in particular, for the unscripted exchange between Winslet and Flynn, during which her on-screen son – played by five-year-old Benjamin Shortland – lay fast asleep in her arms. One might suppose that after three decades of landing lead roles, Winslet had her plum pick of supporting actors when casting for Goodbye June. In the event, she seems to perceive an unintended insinuation in the idea that she should (as I clumsily phrase it) “call upon” anyone to star alongside her. “You know, it’s not about ‘calling upon’ people, it’s really about establishing a degree of respect… and being in a position to make direct approaches.” Nevertheless, I wonder whether – having initially explained to Winslet that she makes it a rule never to play people who have cancer – Mirren would have been curious enough to take a look at the script if a lesser-known person had sent it to her. Winslet smiles as she recalls the follow-up call from Mirren: “She said, ‘I will break my rule, I do want to support you in doing this.’ When she said yes, I just couldn’t believe it.” Her delight was echoed by Riseborough, who remembers just what a steadying, supportive presence Mirren was, back in 2010, when she took on her first ever lead role in Brighton Rock. “I was very young and she was so encouraging. And she has continued to be incredibly supportive over the years, and is a champion of good writing. She has fantastic taste.” Winslet would rather that Goodbye June be seen as a movie that takes place over Christmas, as opposed to a Christmas movie. The charmed afterlife of The Holiday serves as a reminder that not all Christmas classics assume that status upon their arrival in the world. If that’s how it has to be, says Winslet, then fine – “but we just want people to see it now and watch it when it comes out. When I say ‘we’, I mean me and Joe – we really just hope that people see something of themselves in this story.” Back in Sussex at the Winslet homestead, an altogether more well-established seasonal tale is set to receive its traditional airing. “We always watch The Snowman at some point on Christmas Eve,” she says. As for the responsibility of making Christmas dinner, well, that’s one that she visibly relishes – even down to the lentil and walnut Wellington she makes for her vegan husband. “He can usually get about three days out of it, so he’s always delighted and very covetous.” This is a ritual clearly finessed over several years. “Well, there’s really nothing I don’t love about Christmas. The letters from Santa. The chaos of it and people going crazy. Pulling things out from underneath the tree.” All spoken with the zeal of someone who thrives on being in charge. When it comes to Christmas dinner, the director and star turn get to be one and the same. It’s a role to which Kate Winslet is singularly suited. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Goodbye June will be released in select UK cinemas on 12th December and on Netflix on Wednesday 24th December. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan talks season 2: "We're very mindful of the legacy of the books"
"We all feel a sense of obligation and respect toward the material."
It’s no secret that when the Percy Jackson films were released in the 2010s, swathes of longtime fans weren’t impressed by how the fantasy novels had been adapted. So it was with some trepidation when Disney announced that they, too, were going to have a go at recreating the mythological Greek world for a new TV series. Thankfully, this time, fans needn’t have worried. Starring Walker Scobell in the eponymous lead role alongside Leah Sava Jeffries as Annabeth and Aryan Simhadri as Grover, the first season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians received warm reviews and in its first week alone, episode 1 notched up over 13 million views. In no small part, its success is undoubtedly due to Rick Riordan – author of the Percy Jackson books who is also credited as a writer and executive producer of the television adaptation. He wasn’t involved in the film franchise. Indeed, when Radio Times visited the set during filming of season 2 (a third season has subsequently been confirmed), Riordan was on hand to answer our pressing Percy questions. How does it feel to be filming a second season and to see the world you imagined springing to life? “Yeah, it's unreal. I can't believe that we're on a second season in some ways, but I know it took us a long time to get here. It's wonderful to see it all come to fruition.” It's been years since you wrote the initial Percy Jackson story. In now making the TV show, have been things you changed that you felt you can improve on? “Yeah, it's a beautiful chance to do over… Because it's now been 20 years since the first book came out, which is mind boggling in itself. But it's true. "I mean, a lot has changed in 20 years, and It's nice to have the chance to keep the story the same, but also refresh it and make sure that it feels relevant and timely for what's going on today. I do think that these stories, the Greek myths, have been with us for centuries because they're timeless. "So there is that element that doesn't change. But at the same time, we want to make sure that it feels really fresh for viewers today.” Fans are very protective over Percy Jackson. How trepidatious did you feel ahead of season 1 airing? There were a few plot tweaks – did you worry they wouldn’t be received well by fans? “Oh, I think we were fairly confident that most of the tweaks that we had done would be well received. We had many, many conversations about that. And I will say this, I think everyone on the team is very mindful of the legacy of the books and the audience and what they're expecting. "So while I don't think we feel imprisoned by that, I do think that we all feel a sense of obligation and respect toward the material. So everyone's coming at it from the same point of view, which is really lovely. I mean, anytime you translate from one media to another, you have to make changes.” The film series wasn’t received so well, whereas season 1 of the TV show was. It must be not only a relief, but a vindication that your involvement has really helped bring your story to life… “Well, I don't want to take too much credit. I mean, I'm part of the team and it really does take a village to make this happen. There's no way that anyone could solo this. It is such a team sport. That's something I've come to appreciate about television. "So I'm very grateful to all the hundreds of people that bring this to life every day. But yes, you're right. One of the questions I’ve been asked is: ‘Does this feel like a birth or an exorcism?’ It's a good question. A little bit of both, probably…” You’ve said before that you’d love to make a season for each of the five original books in the series. But there’s also that pressure that the actors are getting older and growing up fast… “I want to put bricks on Walker’s [Scobell] head! He's getting so tall so quickly. Honestly, that's something else I didn't even consider. "That how long it takes to make a show of this complication and this calibre with all the effects and everything that's going into it, it takes longer to make a season than it does for these kids to grow up. I naively thought, ‘Oh, yeah, we'll just make one every year’. It's just not possible. But we're doing the best we can…” Percy Jackson and the Olympians season 2 will return to Disney Plus on 10th December. Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Amadeus star Paul Bettany reveals how a fan's selfie intruded on a tragic family moment
Paul Bettany on how he balances Hollywood fame with family fun in Vermont.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Paul Bettany is far from being too cool for Yule. “I love Christmas so much,” he enthuses in advance of the festive celebrations at his home in the USA. “Our Christmas Day is a very English affair with crackers and turkey, and then, when people start showing up after Boxing Day, the party just continues. Last year we had 40 people.” Bettany, co-star of Amadeus, Sky Atlantic’s five-part adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play, lives with his wife, actor Jennifer Connolly, in a timber house in rural Vermont, New England, where “it snows every year”. So, the 54-year-old London-born actor will be having a picturesque Christmas – but also a loud one. “I have a band room with drums and piano and PA system and loads of guitars. Lots of people come up and play. We do a gig on New Year’s Eve.” You might be thinking, rather him than me. But Bettany likes to go at things full throttle, whether that’s entertaining friends at Christmas or in his performance as the scheming court composer Salieri in Amadeus, who dedicates his life to destroying Mozart. It’s one of those roles where Bettany, who has lived in America since 2003, pops back to the UK to remind us just how good he is. He did it before in 2021 when he played the alcoholic Duke of Argyll in the period drama A Very British Scandal. Now he’s facing off with Will Sharpe’s Mozart in 18th-century Vienna; an arrangement Bettany is charmed by. “I have enormous admiration for Will. He’s funny, gentle and kind – an attractive combination and rare. Usually, actors are working out how they can triumph against the opposition rather than how to make each other better.” Bettany is a thoughtful, compelling actor; even as android superhero The Vision in the Marvel universe where, since 2015, he has been wearing a catsuit and firing lasers out of his forehead. He does this so convincingly I ask him to explain what it feels like. “I have no frame of reference for laser beams coming out of my head,” he says, gently reminding me that, thanks to computer graphics, it isn’t really happening. Appearing in films like A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander and The Da Vinci Code means Bettany has been well known in the US for a long time, yet he finds fame hard to talk about. “The things that are great about it outweigh those that are not so great. I do wonder what it’s like for somebody as famous as Brad Pitt. But, for me, without even noticing it, you get a good table in a restaurant and people are nicer to you at airports. So, you tend to meet people on their best behaviour. But, when you meet people on their worst behaviour, it’s sometimes a little alienating.” He has an example. In 2015, he got the news that his father Thane (also an actor) was dying. “I remember getting the call, that I needed to fly over to be with my dad. I was on the phone, trying to process this information and crying, when somebody came up and took a selfie with me. They just hadn’t noticed what was happening and couldn’t see that part of me in that moment. So that bit’s weird, but there are great things as well. The life that it has afforded me, my children and my wife is extraordinary.” View Green Video on the source website Bettany and Connolly have a 12-year-old daughter Agnes and son Stellan, 22, and a son Kai, 27, from Connolly’s earlier relationship with photographer David Dugan. They’ll all be in Vermont, adding to the noise. “There are loads of kids, it gets crazy,” he says of the upcoming shindig. “And it’s a very inebriated affair. Lots of sledding.” Inebriated sledding? There are things that could go wrong with that. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere,” he concedes. “But it’s a lucky house. Nothing bad ever happens.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Amadeus will be available to watch on Sky and NOW in December. Add Amadeus to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock speaks on space travel future and aliens: "I'm not sure about alien abduction"
Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock tells us why the future of space exploration matters and how she hopes to inspire the next generation.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock has been blown off course by cancelled trains. She has finally arrived at the Royal Institution in London to rehearse her Christmas Lectures on the furthest reaches of the known cosmos, but the journey was challenging. She laughs at the irony: “I was stranded. I was like, ‘Beam me up, Scotty’, but no one was listening.” The Sky at Night presenter – whose dream of becoming a space scientist took root after watching an episode of Clangers – has slept for just three hours, but she’s fizzing with the energy that both fuels her insomnia and has made her a household name. “I have dyslexia and ADHD, my head is a-buzz with ideas. Sometimes it’s overwhelming,” she explains. She’ll be pouring a slice of those thoughts into her three-lecture series, entitled Is There Life beyond Earth? and showing on BBC Four, covering Nasa’s plan to return humans to the Moon, potential signs of life on exoplanets, whether future human settlements could survive in space and how the James Webb Space Telescope – on which she worked in the design stages – is rewriting the story of the Big Bang. Dame Maggie’s story is compelling – her parents separated when she was four, she was diagnosed with dyslexia at eight and attended 13 different schools. But she made her name in science because, she says, “I was lucky to have a powerful dream.” She also wants to hammer home the message that space is for everyone. “Growing up, I thought space and astronomy were done by white guys in togas. You hear about the Greeks and Romans, you don’t really hear about everybody else. But every culture has looked up at the night sky. It’s the heritage of all of us,” she says. However, our ancestors could never have imagined this current era of billionaire-fuelled galactic adventure, led by the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson. While Dame Maggie is optimistic that “more of us will get out there” despite the eye-popping cost of a ticket ($28 million for a maiden flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepherd rocket in 2021, for example), she has concerns. “Space is too important to leave to the vagaries of billionaires,” she says. “There might be life out there. How will we interact with that? The nightmare is that we exploit rather than embrace space. We need to get legislation in place before we spread our wings because, as humans, we have a tendency to make a mess of things.” Is she confident that we will find other lifeforms some day? “I’m pretty convinced there’s life out there. I’m not sure about alien abduction, because space is vast! Even if aliens are there, I think they might find it quite challenging to find us.” As a space educator who’s spoken to some 650,000 people through her talks – “I’m knackered, but it’s a joy” – what’s the one thing she would change about our perception of space? “People say, ‘You spent all this money on space. What’s it for?’ They don’t ask that about art or poetry. I worked on the James Webb telescope, but most of my time is spent on observation satellites that look at our planet and tell us about climate change or help when a disaster hits. They benefit our planet, but people don’t really see that.” She’d also like us to prise ourselves away from our phones and marvel at the sky, just like our ancestors did. “Stuck at the station this morning, people were on their phones. It’s a beautiful day, the sky was blue. I looked up and felt the sun on my skin. Every so often, look up, because it makes your heart sing.” Despite all her achievements – from developing hand-held instruments to detect landmines to becoming the first black woman to win a gold medal in the Physics News Awards – Dame Maggie has one ambition that she is yet to achieve, to actually get to space. “So far, 12 people have walked on the Moon. They’ve all been white, they’ve all been American and they’ve all been male. Now Nasa has said they need to send a woman, they need to send someone who isn’t American and they need to send someone who isn’t white. “I keep saying, ‘Me! Me!’, so we’ll have to see.” Train timetable permitting, expect to see her there. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: Is There Life Beyond Earth? air Sunday 28th to Tuesday 30th December at 7pm on BBC Four and iPlayer. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Mishal Husain talks her new chapter, pressing Nigel Farage on Russia and the recent BBC troubles
Leaving the BBC has been a challenge for Mishal Husain, but at least she now gets to express her opinions – and have a Christmas lie-in!
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. After 26 years at the BBC, Mishal Husain left in 2025 to join Bloomberg. It’s been the greatest challenge of her career. “I have had to reinvent myself and that’s scary because you wonder, ‘Am I going to make a success of it?’” Husain presented the Today programme on Radio 4 for her final 11 years at the Beeb and was my favourite presenter on the show. While others tried to shout down interviewees, she researched meticulously, listened intensely, probed forensically and got results. Husain exposed inconsistencies, hypocrisies and plain old lies, fairly and without fanfare. But now she’s swapped short-form interviews for a weekly 40-minute podcast called The Mishal Husain Show, which started in October. Husain insists they’re worlds apart. “I’m discovering that doing one deep, really thoughtful interview a week is completely different and harder than being in daily news and getting up at 3am.” Harder? “It really is. But I’m loving it.” Off air, she still speaks with that limpid, head-girl voice, but her tone is a bit more sing-song; a bit more fun. What scared her most? “Starting from scratch. Starting from zero viewers and listeners.” The change in job has also meant a change in lifestyle. Workwise, Husain and her husband Meekal Hashmi (who have three sons born 18 months apart – the youngest two are twins – at university) are now in sync. “My husband’s finding it quite curious that for the first time in our married life I have normal office hours and we both have to share the bathroom in the morning. Suddenly we have parallel routines, which we’ve never had.” Does he like that? “I think he’s probably… we’re probably, adjusting to it.” Husain is a ridiculously youthful 52, and petite. With the familiar big bob, and a slight, strong frame, she’s got something of the superhero about her. Today, she’s racing up and down the extremely challenging stairs at Bloomberg, introducing me to the top floor with its magnificent view over St Paul’s and central London, down to the enticing (and free) pantry, then to the highly industrious newsroom. In the first few weeks she’s interviewed a mix of world leaders, aspiring world leaders and global influencers, including Canada’s prime minister and former Bank of England governor Mark Carney, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado, the recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. She says patterns are beginning to emerge in the show, many of them reflecting the increasing schisms in the world. When we meet, Husain has just interviewed newly retired MI6 chief Richard Moore and she’s still thinking about it. “He said that the world today has never been more contested in his 38 years of intelligence. When I left university in the 90s it was before 9/11, and it was a more settled world order. Economically, it was a better time, too. Making sense of that world is one of those things I want to do. Mark Carney was our launch guest and he talked about a rupture. I thought, you’re a G7 leader, and you’re telling us what we’re going through is not just a blip and trade is possibly never going to go back to how it was.” Her fears for a world in crisis are written all over her face. When she interviewed Farage, she grilled him about his and Reform’s relationship with Russia (before the former leader of Reform UK in Wales, Nathan Gill, was jailed for 10 years for accepting pro-Russian bribes). Farage was so riled he responded, “Listen, love, you’re trying ever so hard.” She let it pass without a flicker. Was she tempted to say something? “No, because we would have stopped talking about Russia and we would have started talking about me and him, and I didn’t want that.” View oEmbed on the source website If that had been pre-recorded for Today, would it have been included in the show? “Probably not. We might have had to cut the interview down to five minutes, and it’s likely it would have been left on the cutting-room floor.” Now she’s left the Beeb she’s free to be more opinionated. But she says she’ll never be an open book. That’s just not her. However, when delivering this year’s prestigious Romanes Lecture she said she is less reluctant these days to talk about being a Muslim or her Anglo-Pakistani background. I ask why? “Because there’s a responsibility that comes with being in the public eye. We’re in a world where prejudice, discrimination and hatred is rising, so I do feel a sense of responsibility. “About eight years ago, there was a young Muslim journalist at the BBC who said to me, ‘I admire that you don’t hide that you’re Muslim’, and I thought how sad that he’s even saying that. That is one of the moments that brought home the sense of responsibility.” She smiles. “And look at my name. How could I hide the fact I’m Muslim?” We’re talking in the week that the BBC’s director-general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness resigned following an edit of one of Donald Trump’s speeches on the Panorama programme. Was she surprised? “I think what they were dealing with became too intense. I understand why it would have come to that.” Whether they should have had to is a different matter. The BBC has been accused of a left-wing bias, but Husain’s not buying that. “They [Davie and Turness] were dealing with a board that has individuals within it who are not impartial. I was always told as a BBC journalist you leave your opinions at the door. You do expect that from the board as well and I don’t think that happened.” She says being director-general is a tough job and she can’t fathom who’d want it. “It’s a brave person whoever they are.” Has she been in touch with former colleagues to offer support? “Yes. Of course. I’d have to be heartless not to be thinking about what it’s like. I saw quite a few serious issues and scandals play out from the inside, but none of them felt existential in the way this one does. It makes me worried for the future.” On a more positive note, she’s looking forward to Christmas. “I don’t know if this sounds weird coming from a Muslim, but I love the religious side of Christmas. I find Midnight Mass or any kind of carol service deeply moving. The story of the birth of Jesus is beautifully told in the Koran, and I find the Christmas story so moving.” Is she religious? “I would say faith is a part of my life.” This Christmas should be more relaxing than previous years when she has often been working on Boxing Day. What will she be watching? “We’ll pick a few films. I’m a member of Bafta so I always have quite a few films to watch over Christmas.” She stops. “Radio Times will hate that because they’ll be wanting me to watch something actually on TV.” She asks if she can have ans go. OK, I say. “I’ll be going through my Christmas issue of Radio Times to find out what to watch!” – and she dissolves into girlish giggles. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Death in Paradise's Don Warrington teases he doesn't know Christmas 2025 special plot as Selwyn future remains unclear
Don Gilet and Don Warrington reveal what fans can expect from Death in Paradise’s festive showdown.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. As we prepare to unwrap the eagerly anticipated festive instalment of Death in Paradise — Don Gilet’s second as DI Mervin Wilson following his debut this time last year — fans will be hoping that, by some Christmas miracle, it’s not the last we’ve seen of Commissioner Selwyn Patterson, played by series stalwart Don Warrington. At the end of the last series, the long-serving commissioner was unceremoniously replaced, in a bid to cut costs, by an arrogant young upstart, causing major upset among Honoré’s police officers and locals, not to mention Death in Paradise viewers. RT brought the two Dons together to mull over their time on screen together and their yuletide plans. What were your first impressions of each other? DON WARRINGTON: Well, I knew him before Death in Paradise. DON GILET: Even though he denies remembering working with me. WARRINGTON: I knew he’d bring this up! GILET: He was the lead in a radio show [Deacon, Radio 4] and I was one of the guests. I was so happy at the Death in Paradise audition to say, “I know you – we’ve worked together.” Don said, “Did we?” and I thought, “OK, this is probably not going to go as well as I hoped!” But working with Don – there’s the writing, but there’s also the why. Why are these people together? How do they relate? We can all learn our lines and be good actors, but he pushes me to deep-dive into my character. The Commissioner was a guiding force for Mervin. Did anyone inspire you to become an actor? WARRINGTON: For me, it was Marlon Brando. As a kid living in Trinidad with my grandmother, there was an Asian family who used to put on movies. One day they put on On the Waterfront and I thought, “That’s what I want to do.” The Christmas episode is a festive tradition. Will you be tuning in? WARRINGTON: [with a smile] I’ll be watching to see what the story is… GILET: It’s the payoff, for me, to go, “This is it. It’s the Christmas special and I’m in it.” Not from a vanity point of view, but just to see if all the things we hoped we were going to hit, hit right. What are your festive plans? GILET: Christmas is busy for me because I’ve got family in the Midlands and I’ve got my girlfriend’s family up north. So, there’s quite a bit of whistlestop travelling. Once I’ve done that, I just want to go back home and get under a duvet with my Baileys. WARRINGTON: My partner makes plans and says, “You’re doing this…” and I go, “OK!” New Year is more important than Christmas in the Caribbean. On New Year’s Eve when I was small, in Newcastle in the 1960s, my family would get out the steel pan and play, marching through the streets, and all these Geordies would join in the dancing. Finally, what gift would you buy each other? GILET: I would buy Don one of those little music boxes where you turn the crank and it plays a tune. WARRINGTON: Four guitar lessons. GILET: I took my guitar over [to Guadeloupe] and he kept saying, “Have you played?” I like the idea of learning, but I didn’t have the time or the energy, so thank you! WARRINGTON: If you can’t do something as well as you’d like, it’s work – but if you can do something as well as you like, it’s pleasure. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Death in Paradise 2025 Christmas special will air on 28th December at 8:30pm on BBC One and iPlayer. Add Death in Paradise to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Night Manager season 2 writer reveals why new episodes are perfect for this Trump era – and talks plans for a trilogy
Screenwriter David Farr tells us how a vivid dream and a decade of global upheaval brought The Night Manager back to life.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. After its huge success, audiences and producers wanted a second series. But despite The Night Manager winning three Emmys, a pair of Baftas and Golden Globes and selling to 180 countries, it will have been almost a decade since the February 2016 UK premiere that the second series arrives on our screens this winter. The main reason for this is that the initial six episodes – featuring the pursuit of arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) by reluctant hotelier-turned-spy Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) – were based on a novel by John le Carré, and no second book existed. “No one has ever taken le Carré beyond le Carré source material [on screen] before,” says David Farr, screenwriter of both series. “And so there’s a humility. We finished the first one and no one knew it would be such a big success.” Once it was, there were discussions about a sequel, though not involving Farr. “I was engaged in doing a TV version of Hanna, the film I wrote for Joe Wright. So there were chats about a Night Manager 2 and they came to me about it, but I wasn’t available,” Farr says. The 2022 book A Private Spy: the Letters of John le Carré include a letter in December 2018 to the playwright Sir Tom Stoppard reporting that: “The sequel to The Night Manager is suddenly happening… with the old gang minus Tom Hollander, whose part I so carelessly despatched.” Hollander played “Corky”, Roper’s quirkily vicious sidekick. The novelist killing off such a memorable character might be seen as a clue that he envisaged no continuation. But le Carré, who loved the TV version of The Night Manager, may have also become pernickety about television, telling Stoppard that he was “very disappointed” with the BBC’s 2018 adaptation of his novel The Little Drummer Girl. For whatever reason, the Night Manager sequel went to sleep. As, in late 2020, did Farr, waking early from a vivid dream: “I knew that le Carré and his wife, Jane, were ill, so perhaps they had returned to my head. But I had a dream – and for plot-spoiling reasons this is all I can say – but it was set in the past and a black car was driving towards a boy high up in the hills in Latin America. And the boy is thrilled and has expectation in his eyes. “I half woke up and thought: I think I know what that is. I realised what the story could be. I told my partner – so there is a witness! The story came to me in the half-and-half stage between sleeping and waking.” For all Farr knew, though, someone else could have been writing the sequel. But, after the novelist’s death in December 2020, he met, at memorial events, two of the novelist’s sons, Simon and Stephen, who run The Ink Factory, producers of the original series and other le Carré adaptations: “I told Simon about the dream. And he commissioned an episode.” First time round, Farr worked closely with the author, who was generally cooperative. When the screenwriter wrote to le Carré to explain that the latter half of the story required surgery as it wouldn’t work on television, he wrote back confessing, “The second half of the novel didn’t work in the novel.” Farr explains that the second season belongs to “the same universe, and I would argue is a continuation of the same story. What I was afraid of was creating a sort of tangential spin-off.” Without a novel or the novelist for reference, he adds, he found “the long gap had been useful because depth had accrued to characters in that time, particularly Jonathan Pine”. That meant confirming Hiddleston’s availability, on which there was qualified reassurance, says Farr: “All of the anxieties I had about a sequel, he also had, so it was a hand-holding exercise. Tom read each script to check he believed the story.” That story mostly unfolds in South America, with the scripts referencing the huge change in international politics since 2016. When the first series aired, reality TV star Donald Trump was emerging as a surprise frontrunner in the Republican presidential primaries and the Brexit referendum hadn’t happened. So the world has sharply turned? “It’s very different,” Farr agrees. “Even in our setting of South America, Trump has become very engaged with Colombia and Venezuela in the past year. And I would argue that the fundamental philosophical debate in season one – Roper v Pine, libertarian freedom versus a deep sense of duty to a cause – that debate has become a very hot one because at the moment the first side is winning and Trump is the perfect manifestation of it.” When the novel came out in 1994, some queried the sheer amount of global power that Roper had and whether it was plausible for someone to become notorious enough to become known as “the worst man in the world”. Donald Trump, while not sharing Roper’s psychopathic criminality, is quite a Roperesque figure in reach and reputation? “I totally agree with that,” says Farr. “Roper was prophetic in the way you describe. There’s no question we are dealing in a world of what I would call Caesars. Trump, Elon Musk and others are not accountable in the way that leaders have traditionally been. It feels as if the people are accountable to the leaders. “I’m not saying that these are necessarily bad people, but the level of power that some have is extraordinary and we need to have a conversation about it. Because that level of economic power gives them untrammelled political power if they want to wield it.” With the scripts written and Hiddleston and Olivia Colman on board, alongside other original actors and some new recruits, Georgi Banks-Davies was hired to direct. The British film-maker has worked on new TV shows (Kaos; I Hate Suzie) and, like everyone else, she had some sequel fears: “This is the first series two I’ve ever done. You’re inheriting everything that has gone before but also the expectation. “What’s unusual about this series is that there’s such a large gap, nearly 10 years. And the material is new, it’s not from a book. But I felt I had to forget what came before or otherwise you’re chasing down a rabbit hole. If you’re looking to re-create magic, you can’t do it. I rewatched it once and then forgot about it.” With the BBC already committed to a third series, it seems unlikely to be another decade until the next Night Manager. “We have a clear sense of the arc of our show,” confirms Farr. “We’re not into endlessness here. Tom and I see it as a trilogy.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Night Manager, another Ink Factory project and adaptation of le Carré's work, will return for its long-awaited second season on 1st January 2026. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Dame Joanna Lumley reveals her vegetarian Christmas plans: "Wouldn't it be lovely if we didn't kill things at Christmas?"
Two decades after Ella Enchanted, Dame Joanna Lumley and Lucy Punch reflect on festive traditions, family fun and their on-screen reunion.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Joanna Lumley and Lucy Punch first played mother and daughter in the 2004 film Ella Enchanted. Some 20 years later, Punch plays social climber Amanda with Lumley her scene-stealing mother Felicity, first in Motherland, and now in its spin-off Amandaland. While filming the festive special, the pair reflected on their reunion, Christmases past and present, and what gift they’d buy for each other… Lucy, what were your first impressions of Joanna? LUCY: In Ella Enchanted, we played a ghastly stepmother and stepsister to the heroine, then we were reunited for Motherland, which was lovely, and now this. All this time later, I’m a very different person, but I believe Joanna’s exactly the same: so smart and funny. She charms everyone. When you’re doing comedy, you need lots of good energy, and hers is infectious. Joanna, what have you learnt working with Lucy? JOANNA: I couldn’t admire Lucy more. I remember her playing my daughter, but I’m not sure they [the Motherland producers] even knew that. She’s blossomed in this. A lot of acting by many of us is interchangeable, but some people stand out, and Lucy’s always been slightly different. She brings something extra. What are your fondest memories of Christmas growing up? JOANNA: We were in hot countries so we never saw snow, but Mummy would get balls of cotton wool to put on the windows like snowflakes. We were out in the Malayan Mari when the Disney film of Alice in Wonderland came out. I was given an Alice doll, and it was as beautiful a thing as I’ve ever seen, with yellow hair and a hair band, a blue dress with a little white apron – thrilling. Isn’t it lovely what we remember visually? What gift would you buy each other for Christmas? LUCY: I’d buy something very little, discreet and lovely, maybe a teeny, tiny book. Joanna likes little things. JOANNA: Lucy lives in California and has two boys, so I think I’d get her something that money can’t buy – an experience of some kind… Going down the Thames on a boat with the boys, perhaps. Yes, an adventure! Any special present you’d each like to unwrap? JOANNA: We were filming a dinner scene at this beautiful table yesterday, and the props boy Harry had to light and then put out the candles between every take to preserve their height. And he had a mini flamethrower. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life. That’s going on the list. LUCY: I’m just thinking about the mountain of gifts I’ve got to buy for my children [aged 10 and three]. So I really don’t want anything for myself. Give it forward, I say. That’s very Amanda, isn’t it? What will Christmas look like for you this year? JOANNA: I’m vegetarian so I love all the bits that go around the feast – roast potatoes, brussels sprouts with chestnuts, just not the centrepiece. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we didn’t kill things at Christmas and just for once celebrated birth and life? The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Amandaland is available to stream on BBC iPlayer. Add Amandaland to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Comedy 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.
Dame Judi Dench opens up on her declining eyesight, family history, and having a temper: "Oh yes, I’m sometimes very cross"
At 91, acting legend Judi Dench speaks candidly about sight loss, memory worries, her inherited temper, and the comfort of Shakespeare.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. The snow is falling sluggishly, barely settling, as we drive down ever-more-winding country lanes and draw up to Dame Judi Dench’s fairy-tale cottage, with its heavy wooden door. It emerges beyond a barn and outbuildings, a lake, swimming pool and six acres of her beloved woodland in which, each time a dear friend dies (and there are a lot of them by now), a tree is planted with their name attached: recent additions being Maggie Smith and Diana Rigg. The grounds are tended by a friendly young man (the son of one of the longstanding group of women who help the actor), dressed in tweeds, a bounding dog at his side. Dench would doubtless demur at "grounds" – being the least given to airs and graces of any interviewee of her stature. Last time we met, in 2017, she told me how much she loathes being called an "icon" and actively despises "national treasure", relishing Tracey Ullman’s hilarious portrayal of her (available to watch on YouTube) as a swearing, boozing, shoplifting, dog-poo-throwing tearaway hiding behind her revered status. Outside is perishing, but inside all is warmth and good cheer. Indeed, it feels Christmassy, down to the glass of champagne from which Dench takes the occasional sip. Age has not withered her. Jude – as she is known to her friends – is so warm and fun (God, is she fun! And so game!), as well as funny, making spontaneous quips that reveal a still-lively mind even if she worries about losing her marbles. But on 9 December she turns 91 and the passing of time has had an impact. Her bright blue eyes, which can turn to steel when playing a part like M in the Bond films, no longer see. Her sight has been declining for some years, due to age-related macular degeneration. When I ask whether she can see my face – we are seated very close to one another, she at the head of her kitchen table – peering intently, she says, "You’re in a fog." She suffers from both eyes being "wet", the worst condition, and so there’s nothing to be done. "It’s a crusher," she says, her voice low. It was a blow to her independence when she could no longer drive, and then having to give up embroidering (swear words on dainty cushions; the soft furnishing equivalent of the Ullman skits), reading and watching television. Is there anything she particularly misses? "Well, I miss seeing Clive Myrie doing Mastermind, but I can hear the questions." So you still have the TV on, but just for listening? "Yes, that’s what it is now." She gets her temper, she says – wait, what? Dame Judi Dench has a temper? "Oh yes, I’m sometimes very cross" – from her red-haired Irish mother. (Her doctor father, Reginald Arthur, was English but grew up in Dublin, where he met Eleanor Olive Jones, who became his wife.) Dench breaks into a strong Irish accent as she recalls one of her mother’s "fiery" outbursts: "Daddy had bought her an Electrolux to replace her old Hoover. It arrived and she was standing at the top of the stairs – we had a long, long, long staircase going down to our front door – and she shouted, ‘Will ya give me back me old Hoover!’, and then she threw the Electrolux down the stairs! She had a furious temper." In her documentary, Judi Dench: Shakespeare, My Family and Me, which we are here to discuss, every so often she says she hopes she’s not going to lose the plot. Does she worry a lot about that? "Oh yes, and I do now." She feels lucky to still be able to remember great reams of Shakespeare, which she has been performing her whole life; even as a child it was the practice of her family to learn his words. "But I can’t remember what I’m doing tomorrow, I swear to you – just ask them," she points to the assistants who are lined up at the other end of the kitchen so as not to disturb us, but on hand to help if need be, which does occur. "It can be true, yes," they say as one, like a Greek chorus. The documentary has been made at the behest of director Harvey Lilley who – among other projects – helmed her episode of Who Do You Think You Are? in 2021, when her Danish connection first came to light and took her into the orbit of Shakespeare, who is her hero for life. In that programme, it transpired that Dench’s ten-times-great-aunt was a lady-in-waiting in the Danish king’s court at Kronborg Castle in Denmark, which inspired Elsinore, Shakespeare’s setting for Hamlet. But it was her eight- times-great-grandfather, Anders Bille – who came to England as part of the royal entourage in 1606 – on whom the new documentary turns, with its key question: could Dench’s ancestor have actually met, or at the very least brushed shoulders with, William Shakespeare on that visit, given the playwright himself was an important member of the court of James I? If at times the thread of the conceit seems in danger of snapping in its tenuousness, the great charm of its protagonist – her lovely face as the words she has said since she was a young girl flow unbidden from her, in this or that grand historic hall – prevails and you’re left feeling terribly moved, grateful, even. It’s the long decades of familiarity with the words, elucidating as they do all there is to know about the human condition, that bind her to her childhood, her family, her whole big career and the love of her life, Michael Williams, her late husband – and father of her daughter Finty (born Tara Cressida), also an actor – who died of lung cancer at 65, in 2001. Judi and Michael met in the 60s, when they were both with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and married in 1971. There are paintings and photographs of him in prominent positions in every room. He is staring at me now from the counter on the other side of the kitchen – a particularly golden, luminous blown-up photograph of him looking lovingly at the camera, which makes your heart skip a beat. I ask whether it’s at times like Christmas that she particularly misses Michael. "No," she says. "All the time." If you met Shakespeare now, what would you ask him? "Are you writing another play? Is there a part for me in it? Some old bird sitting in the corner with a nice speech at some point, not too much. And could she drop off during the play?" Dench has been a Quaker since boarding as a teenager at The Mount, a Quaker independent secondary school in York. After attending the meetings, she discovered that they were meaningful for her and has remained a Quaker ever since. Is her faith a source of strength and consolation? "Certainly." But friendship is more than important to her: "It’s absolutely vital. That’s what the Quakers are called – the Society of Friends." One such dear pal is Pierce Brosnan, about whom a story comes up on the back of me asking if she has an interest in who the new Bond might be (answer: not really). Her old 007 mucker came for lunch and she’d completely forgotten the doormat because it’s been there for so long: "The door was open, he looked down and there on the mat are the words, ‘I’ve been waiting for you, Mr Bond’." Was he tickled? "Oh, yes." Forgiveness is a central tenet of the Quaker belief system – that everyone, regardless of the crime, deserves a second chance, and that through compassion and empathy a person can change and is worthy of care, regardless of the outcome. I start to recite some lines that come into my head: "Love is not love…" and she joins in – "Which alters when it alteration finds / Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark." Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey were very good friends to her – the latter was a great comfort when her husband died, the former made her career in Hollywood. She was quick to condemn the predatory sexual behaviour of the producer when it first came out. I wonder how she feels now. Can she forgive both men? What sort of accommodation do you make when a friend has erred so egregiously? Is every good deed or accomplishment erased for ever? Can they be more than the worst thing they have ever done, even if it was persistent behaviour? Will there be a Weinstein tree in her woods when he dies? At this point, the Greek chorus has broken into a Mexican wave of alarm, but I press on because she has spoken about this to Radio Times before and time has elapsed – perhaps her views have changed? She says: "Kevin has been exonerated and I hear from Kevin, we text. I saw a bit of film of Harvey walking with two sticks and you think, 'Well…' 'I knew Harvey and I knew him well and worked with him, and I had none of that experience – very fortunately for me,' she says, with empathy for his victims. 'I imagine he's done his time…' she pauses. 'I don't know, to me it's personal – forgiveness. I just think…' her voice trails away and we leave it at that. The subject is clearly painful to her, so to lighten the tone I ask whether she has a celebrity crush. "Oh God! Well, I can't see anybody, can I?" OK, so in the past? "I don't know!" The Greek chorus coughs off-stage and looks over to something clearly significant on the wall. "Oh," Dench clocks. "Are we talking about… Yes, I expect we are… Johnny Depp?" Why? "WHY? Pull yourself together!" She points to the wall. "Up there is a framed earring that he bit off my ear in Pirates of the Caribbean." He bit off your ear? "Well, of course, he had to. I had to sit in a carriage in Greenwich and they said, 'Johnny Depp will jump in through the window, give you a kiss and jump out.' He jumped in, but he didn't give me a kiss, he went for my ear and took my earring off with his teeth. And I said [disappointed voice], 'Is that it?' and that is actually kept in." So, was that a bit of a moment for you? "Well, of course Johnny Depp, he's…" she fans herself. She’s looking forward to Christmas with her family – her daughter, Finty, her grandson Sammy and his girlfriend, Lizzie. They don’t watch TV except for the King’s speech. "If you are lucky enough to be together with the family, round the table, then that’s what I like best. A group of people talking, exchanging things and delighting in each other. There’s nothing better than that." We talk about her rapping with Lethal Bizzle, dancing in lockdown with her grandson on TikTok, the tattoo she got at 80 on the inside of her wrist – carpe diem (which looks so cool with her silver rings on every finger). The same legend is framed on a wall, alongside another one: "I love you to the moon and back," a saying her family have for one another. Oh, to be in her presence is such a tonic. She is so very present that it has the effect of making you feel more vividly alive. But does she fear death? "Oh, yeah!" she says almost enthusiastically, which makes us both laugh. "But he’s not coming in here now, is he?!" "Aye, but to die, and go we know not where," I start, and she joins in and then we are reciting together the great speech from Measure for Measure: "To lie in cold obstruction and to rot / This sensible warm motion to become / A kneaded clod…" Stop it, Judi! Is there any Shakespeare you don’t know? "It’s only because I’ve done the play twice." But they’re not even your lines! "He wrote about everything that we might fear or look forward to, or delight in, or love. You feel it. He wrote it." The Christmas double issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Shakespeare, My Family & Me will be available to watch on Channel 4. Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Neighbours producer teases "optimistic" finale and reflects on soap's legacy after 40 years
Jason Herbison exclusively reflects on the end of an era – and what he regrets about the final weeks...
After more than 40 years on air, the time has come to bid farewell to Neighbours – again. The iconic Australian soap survived the axe from 5 in 2022 and was revived by Amazon a year later, only for the streaming giant to announce in February that it was pulling the plug on the reboot. As the show’s loyal fans commiserate the end of an era, anticipation is high for the Neighbours finale’s release on 11th December. In an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com, the soap’s executive producer Jason Herbison teases what viewers can expect, and candidly reflects on the challenge of crafting a second swansong, his feelings on the show’s demise and what he would have done differently. Did you approach the 2025 finale differently from the 2022 one? I approached the ending very differently this time. I knew I couldn’t compete with 2022 or do the same thing twice. What can you tell us about the final scene? It’s somewhat of an homage to the finale 2022 scene, however it involves a small cast this time. Jackie Woodburne (aka Susan Kennedy) made me cry in 2022 and she’s done it again in 2025! I was on set when we shot it. How would you describe the atmosphere on the final day of filming? We all hugged and shed a tear – it was very emotional. After the final scene, we gathered in Studio A, exactly as we did in 2022. For those of us present on both occasions, it was incredibly surreal. You can’t go through the same thing twice and feel exactly the same way, I believe. Most of all, this time, we felt a sense of gratitude. We all thought the show ended for good in 2022 and the Amazon era has been a wonderful bonus. Paul and Terese are at the centre of the final week, what makes this couple work so well? The all-important X-factor! Some pairings just have great chemistry, while others don’t. We have tried putting them with other people but they always end up back together. I think these obstacles are what makes them work, too. If they were together and happy all the time, it would be boring. Full credit to Stefan Dennis and Rebekah Elmaloglou, who bring their own real-life charm and naughtiness to the roles – and I do mean naughty! Stefan Dennis gets the last line in the finale – was it hard to choose which actor had that honour? Stefan asked me if he could have the last line long before I’d even written the episode. It wasn’t a tough decision – he’s a legend and he deserves it. How important was it to return to the Ramsay/Robinson feud for the finale? I’m a big believer in honouring the history of the show. The Ramsay/Robinson feud has been a great foundation for conflict over the years and it felt full-circle to come back to it. I was hoping to bring all of Paul’s living kids back for the finale but when that didn’t work, I realised it would be fun to have Jimmy and Max as young rivals – chips off the old block and the next generation. In the way that Mike and Clive sparring was old-school Neighbours in the 2022 finale, the hijinks here are intentional throwbacks to the style of the '80s. Without spoiling too much, what can you tease about how the show ends? The mood is optimism. We shot the finale back in July so of course, there are lots of spoilers out there already, but the actual dialogue itself hasn’t leaked so hopefully that will be a surprise to viewers. I couldn’t help but play with that sense of deja-vu. We have been here before, right? The threat to the street is an echo of what is happening to the show itself. Unlike last time, we were actively starting to pack up our studios in Nunawading as the last episodes were shot. I personally found this very emotional and wanted to bring that sentiment to the finale. Which storyline from the Amazon era are you proudest of? I enjoyed the recent return of Darcy Tyler and how it dovetailed into Jane and Amanda’s story arc. It was always great to give Karl a big, dramatic arc. Similarly, I loved the way Holly and Andrew’s affair dovetailed into Cara and Greg’s story. I always strive to fold in every character in the street and have long-lasting repercussions for every major event that happens. Were you worried about the reaction to the Holly/Andrew affair? No more than I would be for any controversial story. Soaps aren’t meant to please audiences all the time, you have to take risks. Characters need to be flawed and there has to be conflict, drama and shocks along the way. If there’s not, you are rightly criticised for being boring and predictable. I do regret we were unable to secure Natalie Bassingthwaighte to reprise her role as Izzy – there was a return planned but the story arc still played without it. Holly came into her own as a leading lady in this era, why did the audience respond to her so strongly? Lucinda Armstrong-Hall did an incredible job bringing Holly back to life in the reboot, complete with the character’s glorious imperfections. I loved how she was a chip off the Izzy block and trying to be herself, yet her worst instincts kept getting the better of her. We had the Andrew affair storyline planned a while ago and started to chip away at Holly’s self-esteem to get her in the right emotional place. The story was meant to launch in the 40th anniversary week but we had to delay it. Holly’s a great soap character – trouble finds her and Lucinda played the role in a very real, multi-dimensional way. The Varga-Murphys were breakout stars of the Amazon era, what made them so popular? We were incredibly fortunate to cast two amazing actors, Sara West and Naomi Rukavina, as Cara and Remi, along with two new talents, Marley Williams (Dex) and Riley Bryant (JJ) , as the boys. They all worked hard to make the family feel authentic and it paid off. I know there was some criticism of Remi’s recent amnesia storyline and that’s valid, no fault of the actors. We had a much bigger story planned but ran out of time to play out the full scope. There is a nice ending for the family and I’m sure they’ll be long remembered. Across the 40 years, is there a single character that defines Neighbours for you? I can only single out the street. It’s the glue that keeps everyone together – the connective tissue. A few months on, how do you feel about Neighbours ending in this way? I’m in a very different head space now and feel very at peace with it all. The ending was a challenge but I hope the loyal fans can appreciate why I’ve gone the way I did. My only regret is that I didn’t have another week of the show – it was a squeeze to wrap up all the stories. Very much like the last time. You’ve already worked with Jackie Woodburne since Neighbours ended on The Imposter – which other cast would you like to collaborate with again in the future? That’s a long list! The great thing about The Imposter is that Jackie is playing a role that is the total opposite of Susan. Wouldn’t it be great to see Stefan or Alan Fletcher (aka Karl) in a new kind of role too? One of my absolute favourites from over the years is Morgana O’Reilly (aka Naomi Canning), who was recently in The White Lotus. I would love to work with her again. Which UK soap would you like to work on and why? EastEnders – so I can live in London! I have a British passport through my parents but have never put it to use. Finally, how would you sum up the legacy of Neighbours? Neighbours changed the landscape of serial television in both Australia and the UK. We had stripped serials down under before, but never with the blend of comedy, romance and drama that Neighbours served up. The show tapped into something and Home and Away and all the British soaps followed, at least in terms of weekly output. I’m often told that Neighbours is one of the few shows to retain its original DNA and I like that. We’ve stayed true to our roots but also moved with the times. I’m personally very proud of how progressive the show has become. Our motto is that everyone is welcome on Ramsay Street and I have tried to stand by that. I thank the fans for sticking with us – we will always have those memories. Read more: Neighbours finale week: Tragedy strikes as a further 9 old faces return to say goodbye to Ramsay Street Neighbours spoilers reveal finale story as 9 old characters return to Ramsay Street Neighbours wraps after 40 years - as boss drops hint of "hopeful" future Neighbours star teases Terese and Paul's future and 40th anniversary cast comebacks Neighbours star reveals whether they think axed soap can be saved again Neighbours is available to stream on Prime Video. Check out more of our Soaps coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guideto find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Dreamers director Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor: "In cinema, after you come out, it's like you stop existing"
Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor chats to Pass the Mic about her feature directorial debut Dreamers, the conversations the film prompts about immigration, and the state of Black queer cinema in the UK.
With her directorial debut Dreamers having premiered at London Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, as well as having spoken at multiple pre-release screenings of the film, you'd think that Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor may have possibly tired a little talking about her movie. Sure, she jokes that she'd love to sleep after its release, but it's abundantly clear that she's beaming with happiness and gratitude at just being able to make a film like this one. Dreamers is Gharoro-Akpojotor's feature film debut, which she has also written, and is a semi-autobiographical story that is underpinned by love. The film follows Isio (Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo), a Nigerian woman who is detained after living undocumented in the UK for two years. She is remanded at Hatchworth Removal Centre and there, meets Farah (Ann Akinjirin) who keeps her spirits high as the possibility of her asylum pleas being rejected looms. Isio is seeking asylum in the UK because there is a very real threat of danger if she were to return to Nigeria, something that Gharoro-Akpojotor had similar experiences of. While at the crux of Dreamers is very much a love story, it still must be hard to bare your soul on the big screen like this, I remark. "I watch the film sometimes and I'm very proud and happy because for me, it's a part of my life that made me a whole lot stronger," Gharoro-Akpojotor tells me. "I went through so much therapy in the process, during the filming. Not everything in the film happened to me but some things could've. The scene where Isio's with the case worker talking, it was much longer before, but that scene is verbatim what happened in my session. "When the guy at the end asks, 'How do I know you're gay?', that's the same thing that my guy said to me at the end. Making it and going through the emotions everyday, it becomes different, it reminds you where you've been but also how much I've grown. There were times on set that were very intense and I asked myself, 'Why am I doing this?' but that's what therapy's for." The director adds: "The journey of Isio freeing her mind or realising her own voice, I think that was my journey of having to learn that immigration doesn't have to define you." Although Gharoro-Akpojotor has been doing the screening circuit throughout various points of the year now, the prospect of the film being released to the public brings its own unique set of emotions. "I'm excited but also scared because it's a film that I hope a lot of people see," she says. "But also, it's a film that I want to challenge people, but the scary part is that you want people to engage in their love story and the immigration of it. I think it's the second Black lesbian film in cinemas in the UK. "For me, that's a big deal just in terms of representation on so many levels. I'm excited about that but I'm also like 'are people going to go and watch it because of that?'. At the same time, I think people should watch it for that, if anything." When Gharoro-Akpojotor learnt that Dreamers fell into such a small statistic, how did that make the debut director feel? "It's wild. There are some stats that you never think about until somebody tells you. We made the film and knew 'They're queer, Black, it's about immigration' but that was it. "Then someone who I work with had done some research for something else and had said he'd been looking for Black lesbian films out of the UK and he could only find Stud Life. That was over 20 years ago. "We come from a period where people talk about diversity in film and TV, we talk about making a difference and then you suddenly realise it's a surface level thing. In my mind, you look at Black cinema for instance and you see the lack of." The founder of Joi Productions, Gharoro-Akpojotor is in a better position than most to know what's actually being done to further representation within UK cinema right now. That being said, the director and producer is clear that there's still more that needs to be done. "I made Blue Story, I made Boxing Day. I look at the landscape and there hasn't been a lot of Black cinema anyway that people can go 'Let me go see myself in it'. "Then you look at queer cinema separately, there's not a lot of queer cinema in the UK and that's just before getting to being a Black woman. The things that frustrate me the most is when people are like 'Oh, maybe you haven't got audiences for your film' but I think the issue is that maybe you don't know how to market to these audiences. So therefore, you don't even want to put money behind marketing for these audiences to go and watch the film." She adds: "When I first found out about [that statistic], I was quite shocked because I didn't realise how terrible the stats were, just around queerness and Black queerness on screen. Part of the reason why I got into films was just because I wanted to see myself on screen." Around the age of 19, Gharoro-Akpojotor was on a mission to find just that as a film fan. She wanted to find films that could speak to her sexuality, race and also being from Nigeria. She wasn't looking for these films purely for her own amusement, it was also in a bid to help her come out to her mother at the time. "I was trying to gather research and see how [these characters] did it," she laughs but admits that every film she managed to find was American with nothing from the UK. Through her work as a producer and now, as a feature film director and writer, Gharoro-Akpojotor is hoping to change all of that – but it's no easy feat. She's unashamed in the fact that she wants to create work that shows people that their stories matter, with that being one of the reasons why she went into filmmaking in the first place. "It's nice to be part of that representation and growing the catalogue but it's also terrible that ... there's nothing. It's awful," she says, reflecting on Dreamers space in the somewhat non-existent queer Black cinema strand coming out of the UK. When Dreamers was screened at an event in Ghana, a man accosted Gharoro-Akpojotor in the audience Q&A asking whether the film was "pushing the gay agenda in Africa". He'd said that if it went to National Film Board in Ghana then it would be deemed illegal, seeing as the country had just last year passed a bill making identifying as LGBTQ+ illegal. The moderator had said that Gharoro-Akpojotor didn't have to answer but she wanted to, saying that it was a good conversation to have. "I'm not pushing an agenda, I'm just showing people that it exists," the director says as she reflects on how she answered at the time. "What you choose to do with that information is really up to you. This film cannot make you gay. But why are you so concerned with what everyone is doing in their bedrooms?" While that's just one negative instance of some heckling from the sidelines (although it turns out that the man in question loved Dreamers), one of the best things Gharoro-Akpojotor has been confronted with after screenings are audience members beaming and saying "I saw myself on screen, thank you". But also, a glaringly obvious undercurrent that has come out of the film being screened is the fact that one of the topic's explored in the film is still something that many don't know a lot about. "What I've realised taking the film around is that a lot of people don't know anything about immigration," Gharoro-Akpojotor tells me. She describes a woman in one of the screenings who acknowledged her own privilege before asking the director how exactly someone becomes an illegal immigrant. "She had no idea how you could. Immigration is something where people are like, 'Oh immigrants' but there's no explanation, you don't understand the complexities of the immigration system," Gharoro-Akpojotor says. But she welcomes those questions because that's the point of the film, she explains. "Maybe people will begin to question the rhetorics around immigration or even just question their own belief as to what immigration is and who immigrants are." View oEmbed on the source website We joke rather than despair over the fact that when you add on levels of intersections within one's identity, it only lessens the probability of seeing your stories reflected on the big screen these days. But why is it so hard to bring a breadth of diverse storytelling to life in UK cinema? "I think, for me, I find that there's an unconscious bias. I don't think a lot of people realise that they're doing it. One thing we do at Joi Productions is we say we're Black, queer, female-led and everything in between. But when you come to us, you don't have to sell your Blackness or your queerness. We encourage the fact that we don't need to explain to audiences that this is a queer character or this is a Black character. "In Dreamers, I made a point that they never come out to each other, they just fall in love and that's it. When you live the experience, you just are. I got tired of seeing so many coming out stories because after you come out, in cinema, it's like you just stop existing. It's like I'm out... but you don't live." Gharoro-Akpojotor continues: "I think sometimes with the people in power... when it comes to you being a person of colour or a person from an underrepresented group, if the person you're speaking to doesn't understand that, they ask you to dig deeper into whatever experience you have in order for them to understand. "Whereas if you're in a room and everyone there has different lived experiences, they wouldn't be asking you to explain 'What does it mean to be queer? What does it mean to be Black? What does it mean to be working class?'. They would accept that it just is what it is. It's more about the story, less about the identity of the person. I think a lot of times in cinema, people spend more time wanting you to explain why you do A, B, C, D as a Black person. A lot of writers get frustrated." It's that process of explanation that can often be drawn out and take away a sense of creative freedom for many budding writers from underrepresented backgrounds. "When you think of any other film with 'insert white man', it just happens. My man is just living in the woods, assassin, we don't need to know how he got there," Gharoro-Akpojotor laughs. "Why does he live there? Is there a shower? But there's never questions about his trauma or what led him there. He's just there. Then you insert a Black man and it's like 'Why is he there? What led him there?'. But I think that's a very unconscious thing where [if] you don't understand the other person, you spend more time trying to understand. Sometimes people conflate understanding character with understanding the character's backstory or experience for them to find a way for them to relate." While we laugh about assassins in trees, Gharoro-Akpojotor does reflect on the fact that this very instance rings true for Dreamers. "There was a producer years ago when I first was doing Dreamers, he was like 'I'm more interested in their story of coming to the UK, what was that journey and what did they have to fight for?'. "That's because you're so used to hearing these painful, traumatic stories – go and read the paper, you'll find those stories, it's nothing new. I'm trying to tell a story of women and they're just in a place where they have to survive but that was hard for him to understand. 'How do you make me feel for them if you don't show their pain?' but again, with the man in the forest, you're not going 'Where's his trauma?'." Gharoro-Akpojotor continues: "In the film, I didn't talk about immigration, I spoke about it twice and that was a conscious decision. If you feel that at the end of the film that she should've got out, more should've happened or you're angry at the system then good. That's many people's lives. Many people that you know nothing about because you've never bothered to think who are these people and what are they going through." While the director has crafted a film that is very much centred on love, it does obviously also shine a light on the asylum process in the UK. How has it been fielding questions about immigration as if she's the sole beacon of information on it? "I always tell people that I have no solution, I know nothing but I do really believe that we as individuals have choices that we can make. Our choices affect policies. If we want any sort of real change, we have to make different choices. The thing about immigration is that it's such low-hanging fruit ... it's something the government uses all the time," she says. Gharoro-Akpojotor tells me that living in Dagenham 20 years ago, it was the rise of the British National Party and the English Defence League. Then, the rhetoric was that people are "coming over and taking our jobs", she says, "but 20 years later, we're still having the same conversations. Why are we? What is it about immigration that means you can't get a job?" "These asylum hotels you're protesting outside, nobody just turns up and checks in for two weeks, they got put there. The people who are coming, I think sometimes we forget to think about why they're coming, where they're coming from, what situation they're running from. But also, we should stop framing immigrants in that way because expats do the same thing – they go somewhere for a better life, for sunshine in Spain or wherever it is. "The only difference is there's an economic differentiation because when you're an expat, you've got a bit of money, you can buy a house. When you're an immigrant coming over, the assumption is that you're very poor, you have nothing so therefore, you can't contribute. When in reality, people who come in seeking asylum used to be doctors, accountants, teachers, have all these skills that we don't bother to think about." Releasing the film at this time when those tensions are seemingly at fever pitch is part of the scariness of Dreamers coming out, Gharoro-Akpojotor tells me. "The people I really want to watch the film are people who I want to be engaged with the immigration aspect of it too. I want the gays to go and watch it, I want women to go and watch it, people of any colour to go and watch it. Also, people who wouldn't normally watch a film about immigration and have their own questions." As for the future, Gharoro-Akpojotor is looking to adapt Diana Evans's Ordinary People which is "a beautiful, poetic unromantic romance" that follows two middle-class Black couples in Crystal Palace. "It's all about an affair that saves a marriage. It's adult and different to Dreamers but still soft." She continues: "I have a thing where I'm like 'How can we expand Black cinema and it's not just in the hood or it's not just solely based on your culture?' It's just about people with lives and things that we all experience in life. That's one of the things I'm very passionate about, the expansion of Blackness in genre – horror, action, romance because I don't think we have enough of that. I want to see more Blackness across the board, in every shape and form." Gharoro-Akpojotor is also serving as producer on Ashley Walters's Animol, which is his feature film directorial debut. "This man doesn't sleep," she laughs as we speak briefly about the post-Adolescence haze that has been 2025 for him. "He's always making Animol a priority. It's been actually quite a wild time but I'm very excited, I can't wait for people to see it because it's so beautiful, it's very unexpected from him and I think it will really announce him as a voice that people should listen to visually, creatively. I don't think people are going to expect what the film is going to do." For Gharoro-Akpojotor though, the future continues to beam bright as she confidently assures me that she'll continue doing all three – producing, writing and directing – going forward. In America, they seem to do it all, she says, so why not over here too? "I have stories to tell and I feel like I should be able to tell them. In the UK, we're so used to putting people in boxes but what happens when we just take them away?" Dreamers is in cinemas from Friday 5th December. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
£40,000 costumes and 19 Christmases sacrificed: What it really takes to keep Britain's glitziest tradition alive
The London Palladium panto is back for another year, but how exactly do they manage do pull such a show together?
Speaking to Chariots of Fire actor Nigel Havers over a crackling phone, as he hurriedly drives to pantomime rehearsal in the West End, is not how I imagined our interview going. Over a fuzzy speaker, he cheerily tells me in one breathe that he's flown over the London Palladium more than anyone else in the theatre's history, in the other, that he's not had a proper Christmas for 19 years, all before dashing out the car in under 15 minutes. It was after this hasty chat however, that I learned that this is, in fact, the perfect encapsulation of what life in pantomime is. Great, grand, British tradition... on speed; a multi-million pound industry dating back to the 16th century with a one-week rehearsal period; hundreds of jobs, props and actors, stuffed into a backstage designed for small variety theatre; and thousands of young families piling in only for the highlight to be Julian Clary's excellent innuendo. This year, the venue is set to host a three-week run of Sleeping Beauty, with Havers and Clary returning alongside Doctor Who's own Catherine Tate. The performance is also doubly special as it marks 10 years since panto returned to the Palladium, or as producer Michael Harrison puts it: "10 years of King Julian on the throne." <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/12/GettyImages-2188949634-625f687.jpg" width="5000" height="3333" alt="LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 12: Chrissy Brooke and Julian Clary bow at the curtain call during the press night pantomime performance of "Robin Hood," at The London Palladium, on December 12, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Dave Benett/Getty Images)" title="The London Palladium Pantomime "Robin Hood" - Press Night - Curtain Call" /> Michael Harrison has produced literally hundreds of pantomimes over the past two decades, neatly starting off with Sleeping Beauty at the Kings Theatre Glasgow. At the time, the producer was completely new to professional panto and "blagged" (his words) his way in by telling theatre organisers that if his show didn't get at least four stars in The Scotsman, they could pay him just £1. From there, he has put together dozens of pantos in Newcastle, Birmingham, and now London, becoming known for the way his shows push the boundaries with extra stunts and special effects. Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, I asked what it takes to pull these enormous productions together. "It's a year round business, we start the prep a year in advance for, you know, the designs of the costumes, the scenery. It's a Victorian tradition that there has to be some kind of big magical moment at the end of Act One, like Cinderella going to the ball, Aladdin in the cave, and you've got to find ways to reinvigorate and reinvent that early." He continued: "I mean, for London the design and making process of Julian Clary's costume has a bigger budget than some West End shows, you can spend £30-£40,000 on a costume for him. "Then, sometimes they're so big when he steps out of them they have to be flown up to the grid to get them out of the way because nobody would get past them on the floor." <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/12/GettyImages-1845654215-7b1e31e.jpg" width="5000" height="3333" alt="LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 13: Julian Clary performs as Seaman Smee as Donny Osmond makes a surprise appearance in "Peter Pan" at The London Palladium on December 13, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Sama Kai/Dave Benett/Getty Images)" title="Donny Osmond Makes A Surprise Appearance In "Peter Pan" At The London Palladium" /> However, he added that despite the huge amount of prep needed, the rehearsal time for a panto can be as short as a week, and the technical run as little as four days before the first performance, compared to the three to four weeks most West End musicals get. It's lucky then, as Harrison says, that the magic of Julian Clary and Nigel Havers pulled it together from the very first run: "The notion of Julian Clary being angry with Nigel Havers for just being there happened on that first performance and the audience loved it." It's a thought Havers wholeheartedly echoed: "The tradition is that Julian treats me really badly. He's incredibly rude to me. Last year he called me 'the poster boy for assisted dying.' "But being on stage with him is the highlight every single year, he is an extraordinary and a sort of comedy genius." Behind-the-scenes, both Harrison and Havers confirmed it's extremely regimented, with pin point lighting and sound queues to keep things on track. "You want them to be tight and fast-paced," said Harrison – but, does that mean it never goes wrong? "Well, once a bit of scenery dropped on Julian's head," he laughed, "We were doing Aladdin and it was the very first performance. He was supposed to walk to the front of the stage, but he didn't quite do it quick enough and the curtain came down behind him, hit him on the back of the head and took him out – it really hurt him but the audience thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen." While, thankfully, that never happened again, there's always a danger of things getting interesting on stage. "There was a funny moment between Julian and Donny Osmond when they were singing and it all got a little bit rude, and let's just say the audience were a few steps ahead of what was happening – but it's all innuendo and it's all good fun." It will please fans to know too, that the fun carries on backstage, with Nigel Havers describing it as a "family environment". "You get a great rush from the audience because they're so psyched up for it. It's Christmas and you get big laughs and a round of applause, so you come off the stage and it's a real family feeling." Plus, pantomime has a real unsung magic in the amount of jobs it generates, not just in London, but in theatres across the UK. As Harrison said: "It's a big cast: 16 dancers, 10 principles, 12 in the orchestra and all of the backstage team. Then pantomime gets people through the doors of a theatre when they're unlikely to for the rest of the year. "You might have a piece of drama or dance commissioned in a local theatre that's only financially viable because of the money made in panto season, so it's hugely important." And why, really do we as Brits love pantomimes so much? "It really is a unique British tradition and it's a rare occasion where the entire family can collectively come together where you're not there to be challenged, you're there for joy and entertainment." Meanwhile, Havers said: "They have a little bit of something for everyone. That's the key to it, there's a lot of colour and movement and a lot of jokes and a little bit of pathos – and a very small amount of plot, we don't really bother with a plot." Of course, neither of them could tell me much about this year's 10th anniversary performance at the Palladium, other than the fact it's "bigger and better than ever," plus Nigel Havers guaranteed me he would be flying again this year. Buy Sleeping Beauty tickets from £37.50 at LW Theatres Shop pantomime tickets at ATG Tickets Check out the best UK concerts and tours coming in 2026, as well as how to get Kevin Bridges's tickets.
How Dancing with the Stars plans its themed weeks and beyond – from flying producers to fighting for fairness
Inside the well-oiled machine behind the biggest show on television.
The Strictly Come Dancing format is currently licensed to 61 territories worldwide, and while each is inherently similar, there's something different about all of them – and it's no walk in the park ensuring each and every one of them goes to plan every year. Strictly Come Dancing is the brainchild of the BBC, with the series first beginning in May 2004, before Australia aired its version later that same year. Since then, roughly 20 variations of Strictly are on air every year worldwide. As to be expected, there is an entire team covering all bases ensuring the series go ahead without any hitches – and this is where Sumi Connock, Global Creative Lead at BBC Studios, comes in. Letting us in on the behind-the-scenes work that goes into putting on the shows from scratch, Connock exclusively told RadioTimes.com: "I have a team of flying producers that work with me. So whenever we get a new sale, let's pretend it's Belgium, we've got two flying producers who specifically work across Dancing with the Stars. "So between them, they split all the territories and they will work really closely with that new partner, which could be the producer, and with the broadcaster as well. "And they'll basically work with them from the start to make sure that they fully understand the DNA of the show and how to deliver it, and they'll work with them on sort of creative solutions in terms of they've got to solve challenges. "So it might be budgetary, not everybody has got the budgets of the US or the UK version or even the bigger territories, some of them are working to much tighter budgets. "But I think that when you're pushed into a corner, it can really be inspiring creatively and we've seen so many amazing creatives come out of countries that don't have as big budgets. So they will work really closely with them." Afterwards, their attention is turned to the duration of the show, which can run for either two or three hours, before moving onto which dances to focus on. What makes the Strictly format stand out from other televised dancing competitions is its focus on Ballroom and Latin, allowing for those behind the scenes to put their attention on the 10 key dances – Waltz, Tango, Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep, Cha-cha-cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble and Jive. Connock added: "We do allow other styles where they can sort of lean into local tastes or a traditional dance, but probably not in the first couple of weeks, because that's our USP and [is what] differentiates us from all the other dance shows is that we're rooted in Ballroom and Latin, we like the focus to always be on the celebrity and their celebrity journey and showing growth and improvement. "We're about focusing on the fun, the funny, the positive, giving takeaway for the viewers. That's another really important attribute that we try and instil in all of our versions." When it comes to the judges, there is always an important role to play in helping educate the audience in a way they can understand, and before each series the flying producers hold a judges' workshop with each of the judges to help them when it comes to "talking about creativity, talking about posture, giving constructive feedback", with there being one golden rule... "We want to see a build of scores across the season," Connock explained. "So you don't want to see 10s in week one, because then there's nothing to work towards and they're not professional dancers, so they need to have something to build on. But we really don't like to see any zeros. "We don't have a zero paddle, because there's always something good to find in whatever performance someone has done. So you might see a one, but there'll be something there to hold on to and take forward into the next week." It's also important in regards to the judges that they are "honest, transparent and fair" in their voting. "Fairness is really important. We need to make sure that we're really hot on our duty of care when it comes to training and injuries, and how to prevent that, and all that sort of stuff," Connock told RadioTimes.com. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/11/Untitled-design-25-10fe294.jpg" width="1200" height="840" alt="A brightly lit TV studio shows four judges seated behind a sparkly judging desk. They each hold up score paddles: the first judge displays a 9 and looks serious, while the other three judges hold up 10s, smiling and cheering. Colourful stage lights and an audience are visible in the background." title="Strictly Come Dancing judges" /> And then it's time for the music, which must be "unashamedly mainstream". Connock told RadioTimes.com: "We always think it's a bit like being at a wedding where there's something for every age, but there might be a different take on a classic. Obviously we don't have a live band or live singers in every territory, because, again, that can be a budgetary thing, but it is really exciting when you can have live singers. "And again, that builds the whole atmosphere, and it means that you can do that specific take on a song, and do something different with it." Strictly Come Dancing is loyal to its themes each year, with Halloween, Movie and Musicals Week all being staples for the BBC programme, with the new addition of Icons Week. And it's not as straightforward as it may seem to put on a themed night, or even a themed dance. Connock explained: "If you're doing a specific themed night or a specific theme dance, first of all, you're going to have to get the rights to make sure that you can do it depending on what it is. "So if you're using the music, they need the rights. If you're doing a whole themed night, like a Wicked night, then you need to work with the IP owner to create all of that. But we do find that territories are inspired by each other. But it's the costume, the music, the finding the right dance that goes with each track. "So [if] you've got Wicked then they're going to lend themselves to different dance styles. So it's about the timing of those. But then you've got to make sure that you've got to give everyone the fair amount of time to dance. They'll work with the musical director to create a length of music that's going to include the bit that everybody knows. "You've got the chorus and the verse, whether it's one and a half minutes, or one minute 50, or whatever it is, so everyone has the same duration of dance to do just so that it's fair." But as Strictly fans will know, themed weeks aren't introduced until a little later in the run, with the exception of US Dancing with the Stars, which has a themed night each week other than the launch. "It depends in different versions, but you tend to sort of start with your classic dance, [you're] probably not doing a theme in your first couple of weeks," Connock told RadioTimes.com. "In most territories around the world we do that, and then you start bringing themes in. You can also build the themes to include more props, more dancers as you go on, bringing more lifts, etc, so that you see a progression in terms of both what you're seeing visually in terms of what surrounds the dance, but also in terms of their sort of technicalities as well." On the other side of the pond, there are plenty of differing themed nights, with the US Dancing with the Stars recently dominating headlines with its Dedication and TikTok nights, with the latter having potential to be seen in more formats. Speaking of whether a new theme is likely to be introduced in a territory each year, Connock added: "We've had Prince [night], we've had Taylor Swift [night], or there might be a local artist that the territory will really lean into, but it was the first time that we had done a TikTok night this year. "And I think that might be something that we see more of within that as well." Dancing With The Stars is a multi-award winning format and is now in over 60 territories around the globe. The format is distributed by BBC Studios Global Production. Read more: Strictly fans call for "iconic" format twist to become regular feature after chaotic scenes Alan Carr reacts to Strictly Come Dancing host speculation - and reveals whether he wants the job Strictly Come Dancing continues on BBC One and iPlayer on Saturday 6th December at 6:50pm. Add Strictly Come Dancing to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Eternity stars reveal they're already living in their idea of hell in the afterlife: "America right now"
Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, John Early and Da'Vine Joy Randolph spoke exclusively to RadioTimes.com about the inventive new romcom.
David Freyne’s new film Eternity contemplates what heaven (or hell) might feel like if you had to spend an eternity there – and the options are endless. Tired of living with men? 'Men Free World' is a good option. Ready to retreat into a stunning landscape? 'Mountain World' might be a good move for you. Always wanted to go to Paris? Well, how about you spend an eternity there? The Irish writer-director imagines that death is not the end, as after your time in the real world is done, you arrive by a retro-fitted train to the afterlife where you meet your AC (afterlife consultant) who will help you choose how to spend your eternity. Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early play Anna and Ryan, the ACs of Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) and Larry (Miles Teller). Instead of opting for eternal uptopian relaxation, Anna and Ryan have chosen to spend their afterlife in service of everyone else’s happy ever afterlives (if you will). Joy Randolph has already thought about what afterlife she’d choose, if a system like the one in the retro-futuristic world of Eternity exists. "Just luxury," she told RadioTimes.com. "Not super lux, but like when you go on a really nice holiday and you’re like 'You know what? I did the research and I found a great hotel.' You know that feeling when you open the door to the hotel and you’re like, 'Yes.' I want a nice holiday." Early is more influenced by the fact it’s already past lunchtime when we chat. "Mac and Cheese World," he responds. "But that's just because I'm starving right now. There's lots of different kinds of mac and cheese!" Though he doesn’t tend to watch romcoms himself, Early does have one film he could watch for an eternity. "I just rewatched The Way We Were with my mom and seeing the way that it just worked on her, it was so sweet," he says, "She was like, by the end [wipes tear], we were both like [wipes tear]… I’d choose that maybe. I love that." In the film, there are also many discontinued eternities that are either inherently problematic or just creepy and unpopular, such as 'Clown World', that would feel like hell if you had to experience them for ever more. For Joan, it’s 'Beach World', for Larry, it’s living for an eternity without Joan. When asked what would be hell to them if they had to experience it for an eternity, Joy Randolph replied: "America right now." "Yeah, we’re living in it," Early adds, exclaiming that an eternity where there is "no Mac and Cheese World, where it's banned" would also be far from ideal. Meanwhile, what Olsen loved about the script was how it reinvented the idea of the afterlife through the modern lens of capitalism – as eternity is now something that has been packaged up and marketed to us. "This idea of the afterlife presenting not really a spiritual option, but more consumerism and capitalism and trying to force people to buy into an idea or something, I just thought it was a really funny reflection back at what culture has become," she tells us. "And because of it feeling so bleak in a way, it allowed for the relationships and what matters most to, in my opinion, really shine through. You can decorate whatever you need in your life to have the best version of this or that, but the only thing that really matters are the people you have these relationships with while you're alive and that is what I love most about the film." Olsen and Teller had the fun challenge of playing eighty-something souls in thirty-something bodies, as Larry and Joan arrive at their eternity in the happiest version of themselves. View Green Video on the source website The actors took different approaches to crafting their character, with Teller being influenced by his grandma’s outlook as a young soul in an 85-year-old body. "My grandma, she’s always considered herself a vampire of the youth," he says. "She does not like hanging out with old people, even though she's 85 herself. But when I've asked her questions about getting older, she says. 'Well, Miles, first of all, I remember when I was your age. I felt like I was your age yesterday and I also still feel like I am 35, and I wonder who this old person is looking back at me'. "So, for her, even though she's been through some of life's most tragic of circumstances, she hasn't really aged. She's been – I imagine – that same personality long before I even got to know her. I was just excited with Larry to explore what that would feel like when he finally doesn't have the aches and pains and how exciting that would be, even though he's dead." Meanwhile, Olsen dived into historical research to find touchstones within film and TV of what would have influenced Joan’s character to build out her old soul. She explains: "It was Shirley MacLaine films with Billy Wilder and things like that that were fun to watch and think about that woman being an aspirational type of woman for Joan in her life growing up. I really enjoy prep work because I think it helps just find ideas, even if they're not useful in some ways." Eternity also breaks the mould of many romantic comedies with a compelling love triangle that moves away from a prescriptive idea of what love should and can be. "I loved reading this script," Olsen says. "I felt very comforted by meeting Joan and Larry in their old age. It was something that to me is aspirational when it comes to romantic comedies — growing old with someone and that bickering and familiarity." She added that she enjoyed that each love was "equally valid" in the film from a five-year crush to a 60-year-long marriage as "those experiences are so real and also so valid. They stay with you as well." The romantic comedy also champions 'ordinary love' over fireworks and grand gestures, which Joy Randolph emphasised was important to see on-screen. "You don’t see that," she says. "I remember when I was younger and I used to watch romcoms, I used to make a little list in my brain and I was like, 'OK, who I date needs to do this based off of that movie'. Early on in my dating career, I was like, 'I'm disappointed because people don't do those things.'" In each eternity, there’s an opportunity for people to revisit some old memories from their life on Earth in the archives. If that power existed in reality, Joy Randolph knows exactly which moment in her career she’d like to relive. "Maybe High Fidelity and get that second season," Joy Randolph says, "I'm not playing, that was a blast. It's fun to film in New York in the summer. You just feel on fire." Meanwhile, Early would return to one of the most ‘surreal’ moments of his career: "I have to say for me, when I did the Wet Hot American Summer reboot, that was one of my favourite movies growing up, and so it was really surreal. "That's the weird thing about reboot culture. You literally get to enter into the whole thing that you loved. Wow." Eternity is released in UK cinemas on Friday 5th December 2025. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Fallout season 2 will see Lucy's moral compass "eroding" amid surprising choices, reveals Ella Purnell
She may be fighting monsters in a post-apocalyptic world in US video-game adaptation Fallout, but all British star Ella Purnell wants is an early night and a cup of tea.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Fallout is one of those shows that lays waste to your sleep schedule; a big-budget, post-apocalyptic adventure that’s far more fun than the end of the world has any right to be, and almost impossible to turn off. But as you’re halfway through a late-night binge, watching Lucy MacLean fight mutants and dodge bullets, the woman who plays her, Ella Purnell, will already be asleep. “I’m like an old lady who’s in bed at nine o’clock every night,” the 29-year-old actor laughs. “If you’d told me that ten years ago, I’d have said, ‘No way.’ But now, it’s a foam roller and a cup of tea. That’s all I need.” It’s a far cry from her on-screen antics, but Purnell could be forgiven for wanting to slow down after filming Amazon’s high-profile adaptation of the video game franchise Fallout. Since 1997, that game has seen more than 50 million players explore a post-nuclear-war America, trading bottle caps for currency, fighting off irradiated monsters and aligning with – or avoiding – the warring factions formed by survivors. But for all its fanfare, the TV version of Fallout landed in Purnell’s inbox like any other role. She’d never wandered its wastelands, strapped on a Pip-Boy computer or even heard of the game. “I really didn’t know much about the project,” she admits. “I was bad, and didn’t even google it, because I was busy filming [the US survival drama] Yellowjackets.” So what convinced her wasn’t Fallout’s mythos or millions of fans, but the human nature of Lucy MacLean, the show’s sheltered yet spirited lead, exploring this wild new world after growing up in an underground bunker (called a Vault). “They said to me she’s the kind of person that could star in a toothpaste commercial, but also could maybe kill you,” says Purnell. “And I was, like, yeah, that sounds like me.” Of course, once she signed on, everything became real. “It wasn’t until I got the job, and I started doing my research and my prep for the character, that I really understood exactly what I was getting myself into. That actually, this was quite a big deal and you really want to do that justice.” View oEmbed on the source website It paid off: despite telling an all-new story with new characters not before seen in the games, season one aired to critical acclaim from longtime fans and new audiences alike. And Purnell, suddenly a breakout star, faced an outpouring of affection for her endearing portrayal of Lucy. “It’s really touching to me that people love this character,” she says, smiling. “She’s so naive because she’s literally lived in a bubble her whole life. She’s never felt the wind before. She’s never looked at long distances before. I found a lot of enjoyment thinking about all the things that we take for granted, that she would have been like, ‘Wow!’” In many ways, Lucy’s sheltered life reflects Purnell’s own childhood. Growing up in London, she began her career as a baby model – “so ridiculous,” she interjects with a laugh – after a friend of the family needed a baby for a clothing shoot, and Purnell’s mum simply volunteered her “cute kid”. From there, photoshoots became commercials, commercials became theatre, and before long, Purnell was a successful teenage actor in films like Kick-Ass 2 and Maleficent. It’s an environment with clear parallels to the Vault: both carefully controlled, make-believe worlds, shielded from real life. But Purnell sees it another way. “I feel more like a child now than I did when I was a child,” she says. “Now, in the space between ‘action’ and ‘cut’, I’m free, and I’m completely playful. But as a child working, I didn’t feel like that. I was terrified, I was nervous and I didn’t know what was going on or what I was doing. “As an adult, I love these people. I love this set. I feel like I can speak my mind. I feel like I’m protected. That’s how Lucy feels in the Vault: she has a purpose, she has structure. When she leaves the Vault and all of that falls away, and she’s in completely unfamiliar surroundings and she doesn’t know the rules – that’s how I felt as a child actor.” It’s an interesting inversion. As Purnell’s celebrity has grown – with the Paramount+ series Yellowjackets, animated Netflix series Arcane and now Fallout – her world has become smaller, safer, more intimate. “In the last couple years, I’ve come home to myself a little bit more. The bigger work gets, the smaller my life gets, and that feels right for me. I still live in the same flat, I still drive the same car, I have my friends, my family, my garden. I knit. And I like that.” “I think if I was one of those people, like Justin Bieber, who became an overnight success, it would’ve really messed with me, and I’m glad that I got a longer, slower build over the course of 20 years.” That long arc has yielded a new kind of confidence – “I have a little bit more trust and faith that as long as I keep picking projects that I really care about, that’s going to come out in the performance” – as well as an appetite for morally ambiguous characters, like the murderous Rhiannon in Sweetpea, which aired on Sky Atlantic last year. “In my real life, I need things to be black and white. So I’ve noticed in my work, I’m really drawn to the grey area, and I wonder if it’s my safe, exploratory way of figuring that out, and becoming OK with it in my real life. I love when I can’t say whether a character is good or bad.” If anything, Fallout is the perfect sandbox for that exploration; in a world where everyone fights to survive, monsters are a matter of perspective. Take Lucy, Purnell says. “Yes, she has a good heart, and she cares about doing the right thing. But she’s spoilt and she’s privileged, and she can be very ignorant and stubborn. And that’s life.” So what can we expect from, and for, Lucy in season 2? Purnell grins. “Oh my God, there’s so much in store. You’re going to see sides of Lucy that I did not see coming. She makes some very surprising choices, and her moral compass is just eroding. The entire fabric of her being is suddenly unravelling. Everything she thought she knew is now coming into question. What does that do to a person?” And if Ella Purnell were to find herself at the end of the world? “I like to think I’d be Lara Croft, all the gear and great arms, but in reality, that just wouldn’t be me. I am very non-confrontational, I’m very organised, I’m very Type A.” She smiles mischievously. “I’d organise everything instead. You know, if I have access to an Excel spreadsheet, it’s game over for you. I’m going to conquer the world.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Season one of Fallout is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video. Season 2 will premiere on Wednesday 17th December. Add Fallout to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Alan Cumming teases "prescient" new show from Russell T Davies about rage faced by "marginalised people"
The actor and presenter on The Traitors, speaking out – and being a superhero.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Over an illustrious 40-year career, Alan Cumming, 60, has appeared in an eclectic range of TV shows, films and stage plays — from the Emcee, full of licentious glee, in Sam Mendes’ productions of Cabaret to the weapons-grade camp host of The Traitors USA. Grammy-nominated, he has won Emmy, Tony and Olivier awards and was named by Time magazine as one of the three most fun people in showbusiness (alongside Stanley Tucci and Cher, apparently). He’s played God and the Devil, sold out Carnegie Hall and written seven books. Now, the actor-writer-singer-activist-photographer has added artistic director to his talents, taking charge at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Scotland where he recently announced his inaugural season next year. You have quite a CV – have you ever been presented with an opportunity and thought “I’ll pass”? I believe in saying yes – and why not? If you have the pizazz and passion for it, give it a go. I feel like the most successful things I’ve done are things I haven’t overthought. I’ve just had a funny feeling in my tummy, excited and inspired, which is what I’ve got about Pitlochry. It’s about celebrating Scottish talent and bringing new ideas and international stuff to Scotland. When you were on Desert Island Discs, you said, “I do things I might fail at”. You’re not frightened of failure then? I’m not. I mean, it’s not my favourite thing, but Patti Smith said to me, “Alan, it won’t be a failure if you’ve done your best”. It could be a failure in financial terms, but those things don’t matter to me. The biggest and most important critic to me is myself. I’ve found in my life that if you believe in something, your passion can inspire other people. This is why I think I’d make a good cult leader. It feels harder than ever to be hopeful these days. As someone who lives in America, how do you remain optimistic? Depressed isn’t quite the right word to describe how I feel about American politics. I’m disgusted. Appalled. I recently hosted The Jimmy Kimmel Show and I did a monologue about trans rights. Everyone went nuts and people said, “You’re gonna get deported,” but all I was doing was saying the truth. So few people do that because they’re scared of being deported, of being attacked. I have a confidence because I have another life, another passport. I feel more at home in Scotland right now. The Traitors USA has been a huge hit, winning you four Emmys. Did you imagine it would be so successful? I thought it was going to be good but I had no idea that it would become this cultural phenomenon. People love it because there’s a panto element to it: it’s a way for us to boo and hiss and scream at the baddies and cheer the goodies. Would you go on the UK celebrity version of the show if asked? I’d love to do it. It’d be so fascinating to see it from the other side because I see up-close how people make terrible decisions when they’re mesmerised by this psychological experiment. It’s around episode five or six that they start taking leave of their senses. Christmas is coming up — how do your Christmasses now compare to those of your childhood? I grew up on a country estate so I’d be selling Christmas trees until Christmas Eve. After that, Christmas was an old-school Scottish affair. Family-oriented, satsumas in your stocking, maybe a wee Advocaat… This Christmas, our new house in the Highlands isn’t ready so we’ll be upstate [in New York] in the Catskills. We have a life-sized neon horse – from The Threepenny Opera I did – which we decorate then spend time doing nothing, making delicious food and watching films. You always seem busy — are you really able to “do nothing”? It might seem like I’m not good at it but I really am. With this show I’m filming in Manchester, I’m living a monastic life, doing a lot of reading and enjoying not having to see people. When I finish that, I’m off to a wee hotel in the Highlands, just me on my own, to rest up. You’re referring to Tip Toe, Russell T Davies’ new “suburban thriller” — what can you tell us? I’ve been trying to work with Russell for 20 years – I did a little thing on Doctor Who last year but I mean one of his big dramas – and finally now I’m in the right place at the right time. It’s beautifully written, it’s prescient, and I regularly go home emotionally and physically battered. It’s about rage, how we got into this current febrile atmosphere where there’s all this anger towards marginalised people, and how we might escape it. David Morrissey and I play neighbours. I get locked out. We have an interaction and 10 days later, the world changes. So it’s an anti-Reform drama? It’s a drama about having a moral centre, and the vigilance required to maintain a kind society. And finally, not since Gudrun Ure in Supergran has there been a high-profile Scottish superhero, but you’re reprising your 2003 X-Men character Nightcrawler, in next year’s Avengers movie, Doomsday. How does that feel? It is insane and incredible. I imagine that somewhere there is a production manager having a breakdown, trying to schedule 28 of the world’s busiest actors into the same scenes. I did my bits very quickly, on green screen because there was no one else around. I can’t quite believe that I’m doing another superhero movie. I turned 60 recently… The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Jane Austen’s enduring and universal appeal revealed by hit writers, from Pride & Prejudice 1995 screenwriter to David Baddiel
As Radio 4 marks 250 years since Jane Austen’s birth, Philippa Perry explains why the author remains so influential today
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. This year, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen, has seen ample celebration of the life and works of this singular observer of English life in the early 19th century. So far on TV, we’ve had a three-part documentary exploring Austen’s rebel spirit, the drama Miss Austen starring Keeley Hawes, and soon to follow is another version of Pride and Prejudice, this time with some big Netflix bucks and an all-star cast. When it comes to Austen, it seems broadcasters never scrimp, and Radio 4 is proving no exception – celebrating this important anniversary in style, with a dedicated season that has already featured a new take on Northanger Abbey, Radio 4 Extra mining its archive of classic dramas, and newly commissioned radio dramatisations of Pride and Prejudice (see below right) and, next weekend, Sense and Sensibility. The latter is also explored in a special episode of Bookclub on Tuesday (Austen’s 250th birthday) with Emma Thompson. Fans can also feast on a ten-part factual series, When I Met Jane Austen, in which her biographer, Dr Paula Byrne, asks a star line-up of guests – David Baddiel, Katherine Rundell, Val McDermid, Kate Atkinson, Andrew Davies, Amy Heckerling, Gurinder Chadha, Marlon James, Colm Tóibín and Philippa Perry – about how Austen’s work has shaped and influenced their lives and own creative efforts. Like so many of Austen’s many millions of fans across the world, psychotherapist and bestselling author Perry can barely remember life without recourse to the wit and wisdom of the author she credits with “changing her life” after she first encountered her work aged 12, and studied Pride and Prejudice for English O-level. So, what is so special about Austen’s small but peerless collection of works that includes six novels (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion), one novella (Lady Susan) and the tantalisingly unfinished The Watsons and Sanditon? “It’s like having a gossip with a good friend when you’re working out what people are like,” says Perry, who has been working out what makes people tick for more than 40 years, since she first volunteered for the Samaritans. Perry is the author of four bestselling books, including the ground-breaking The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did), which was published in 2019 and became one of the great breakout publishing hits of lockdown. She takes a keen psychologist’s eye to Austen’s writing and is convinced that, despite the author writing about social mores observed more than 200 years ago, she continues to have a great influence on her own work today. “She is such a great observer of human behaviour,” she reflects. “I remember quotes from her that remain fresh and relevant. For example, ‘To be sure, you knew no actual good of me – but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love.’ This is Elizabeth Bennet explaining to her suitor Darcy that no one falls in love with someone because they are good.” Austen was an observer, not a speculator, adds Perry. “She never had a scene where men were talking together without a woman present because, being a woman, she had never observed that.” For Perry, that makes the author the most reliable of documenters of the human condition. “Observation, observation, observation. She may have made up the stories, but she observed humans rather than reinventing them.” What subjects would Austen be writing about if she were alive today? Perry doesn’t believe her style would be any different: “She’d be noticing how humans are with each other and what becomes of them because of how they are with each other.” Speaking as one observer of the human condition in consideration of another, would Austen have made a good psychotherapist? Perry has no doubt. “She and Shakespeare would have had a phenomenal practice!” David Baddiel - Comedian and author “I’ve never met anyone who said, ‘Oh, my God, you like Jane Austen. What’s wrong with you? I thought you were just a football lad.’ But I used to have a Times column and the people I wrote most about were John Updike and Jane Austen. I was writing against the voice that thinks Jane Austen is just a lovable maiden aunt, but also probably against the voice that was ‘David Baddiel and his Three Lions and laddishness likes Jane Austen? That can’t be right!’ I like the fact that’s challenging. But, I’m a storyteller primarily, and Austen is possibly the greatest storyteller in English literature, so I’m always going to love her.” Andrew Davies - Writer of the 1995 TV dramatisation of Pride and Prejudice “I first read Pride and Prejudice in school and remember really enjoying it right from the start. That was the one I taught most often as a teacher. I used to read it aloud to sixth formers. You think, isn’t that a terrible waste of time? Just reading aloud like they were little kids, but they would get so much more and then be able to read it themselves. One of the things I always said in teaching is that this book is not just about social fripperies and little bits of irony. It’s about sex and money and primal urges and all sorts of big important things.” Katherine Rundell - Children’s author “I first met Jane Austen when I was really quite young, maybe nine or 10, at a time that I don’t think I would have had the stamina to read her. She is absolutely staggering. [Her Juvenilia] is like no other young person’s writing I have ever encountered in my life. It is so funny; it is so sharp. The majority of the children’s writing that I read has not yet worked out that the way a character moves through a plot is what makes a story. Children usually don’t have enough of a hinterland of knowledge of the way normal literature might work to understand how you might subvert it.” Kate Atkinson - Creator of the Jackson Brodie crime novels “You read Mansfield Park and think, well, that’s not Emma. That’s not Pride and Prejudice. I’m not sure I like that book. I revisited Fanny Price and Mansfield Park a few years ago, and wondered: why did she write this book? She’d had success with Pride and Prejudice, which she started writing quite early in her life. So at that point, she knew she was a writer, but I think that she wanted to write something that established her as a real writer, that showed she knew how to shape a novel, that she wasn’t just going to be writing Elizabeth Bennet — because there must have been a pull to write Pride and Prejudice Two.” Val McDermid - Crime novelist “I first read Northanger Abbey when I was 17, the same age as Catherine Morland and I thought, she’s ridiculous, she’s stupid. And then when I read the book again when I was in my early 30s, because I was trying to break down people who I considered to be good storytellers to see how they work, I was very impressed. I could see the humour in it and I could see why it was important to have the kind of central character that she had. The third time I read it, I was in my 50s and had a son. I saw it from the perspective of the parent, where your child is going out into the world and you’re anxious about them but you also realise the absurdity of your behaviour in many respects. Every time I read it, it’s like reading it for the first time.” Amy Heckerling - Writer of the movie Clueless, which updated Emma to modern LA “When I was in college at NYU, I took a class on British literature. We read Dickens and Sir Walter Scott and we read Emma, as a representation of Jane Austen. I just loved the book, I went crazy for it. It was so wonderful to read about such a strong, confident character. To pick up a book from another world and another time, and to find it so right on the money about what it’s like to be a young person — you can jump through time like that, and reach us.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here.
Johnny Vaughan explains why Porridge is still the greatest sitcom after his own prison experience
The Radio X drivetime host is a big fan of Oasis, Horatio Nelson and Ritz Crackers.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. What’s the view from your sofa? There’s a mantelpiece and a lot of dinosaurs. My son Milton is obsessed with them. They’re meant to be up in his room, but every time I put them there, he brings them all downstairs to create “dino-ramas” on the floor. My partner [Vanessa Howard] and I thought he’d grow out of these a few years ago. He hasn’t, and he’s now five. Who controls the remote at home? Well, because we’re always losing them, I discovered you can buy them easily on Amazon, so there’s loads of remotes just lying around, which means we get into tit-for-tat remote wars. It just goes on and on, but generally, if I’ve cooked dinner, I do. What have you enjoyed watching recently? We’ve just finished The Bear. Sometimes the reason you’re hating something is because it’s emoting precisely what the makers intended, so if The Bear makes you angry and frustrated, it’s because it’s meant to produce that reaction. What does it take to be a good presenter? Someone who realises it’s a craft, and is always chasing that perfect show. You’ve got to keep learning. I came to radio from telly and I was a real snob about it: “Television is bigger profile and now I’m coming to radio – so, boy, am I doing radio a favour!” Then you realise that radio is something you get better at. For me, TV you can either do or you can’t. I did The Big Breakfast, the most lively live show, so anything else in telly was never as enjoyable. Who’s the broadcaster you most admire? Anthony Bourdain. You could see his brilliance and his weaknesses. I interviewed him once and his passion for it was fantastic. He was travelling the world, eating great food, meeting great people – something we’d all love to do. Thanks to social media, now everyone can be a broadcaster, but are they real broadcasters? It’s short-form content, and there’s a bit of wannabe-ness about it. They’re like the local TV news we used to have – it would cut to a reporter dressed in karate gear in a village hall full of children with Mohicans doing a sponsored pogo. I see it a bit like that – they’re one-joke wonders, a lot of them. What’s your most replayed song? I’ve always hammered Oasis, but recently I really went for it with [Irish band] Fontaines DC’s Favourite. It’s just so good. I hammered it at home and I hammered it on the show. With Gavin Woods, you host Bloomin’ Legends, a podcast about historical figures. Which do you most admire? Admiral Nelson, the most influential man in British history. He single-handedly made Britannia rule the waves. In fact, I just dragged my family on a pilgrimage to Trafalgar Point, to look west and see where the battle was fought. But the trouble with the site of a naval battle is it’s just the sea. As someone who once resided at Her Majesty’s Pleasure [Vaughan tried to sell cocaine to undercover police when he was 21 and served 25 months of his four-year sentence], do you think the UK has enough measures to help people get back into work after jail? Are you Barrowclough or Mackay? That’s why Porridge is still the greatest sitcom. Are you just locking people up and sending them back into society worse, or investing in people who’ve gone astray? You’ve got to send people back out into the world with more than they came in with. That’s in terms of qualifications, knowledge and a sense of responsibility, or else you’ve failed. So I would always say: education, education, education. What would older Johnny tell his younger self? Never sell any of the properties you bought, and just keep buying them! You know those t**ts who go: “See this? Bought it for 90 grand…” That’s what I’d be. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Comedy 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.
Guz Khan reveals why he ended Man Like Mobeen - and how he portrays multi-faith marriages in new Christmas caper
High-flying comedian Guz Khan on how family and friends help him keep it real.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Guz Khan has come a long way in ten years. While teaching at a secondary school back then, Khan had been posting online skits as Brummie Muslim “Mobeen”. After a couple went viral, Joe Lycett invited him to be his opening act at a stand-up gig and, before long, Grace Academy was looking for a new humanities teacher. In 2017, Khan turned Mobeen into a layered character for BBC Three comedy-drama series Man like Mobeen, about a drug dealer who, despite being reformed by faith and family, is never quite able to leave his old life behind. Four more series and three Bafta nominations followed, as did supporting gigs in productions by Judd Apatow and Mindy Kaling. Now, projects with Riz Ahmed and Rebel Wilson are in the works, while Khan’s new comedy drama, Stuffed, will be on BBC One over Christmas. In another sense however, the 39-year-old comedian insists he hasn’t gone far at all. “My friendship circle has been the same for decades. Me and my wife have known each other 21 years. I go to work, have a good time, then come home to my gang and no one really talks about it. Everyone’s like, ‘You’re the same prick you’ve always been.’ I don’t think I’m more talented than anybody else, I just never worried if something didn’t work out – it was one more for the memory bank.” Have public attitudes towards him changed with his success? “Not a day goes by where someone doesn’t ask how I’m doing or if they can have a photo. My interactions in person are so varied, but overwhelmingly positive. In my online life, if you look at my X, you’ll see I’m an idiot and respond to things, partly because it’s entertaining and partly because you want to teach those people sitting in their mum’s basement, typing ‘Go home, you ___ b*****d’, that in real life you just wouldn’t say that. I tell my kids to be careful with all this, because online is realer than real life for a lot of people.” Family is everything for Khan. He laments how easily distracted he gets while running errands (“My missus is always like, ‘Why did I marry you?’, but I always come home with one of the four things on the list, because it keeps the marriage together”) and references their five kids throughout our conversation, whether it’s “cussing each other out” while checking out random facts on YouTube, or his admiration for their earnest interest while watching Louis Theroux’s documentary The Settlers. He splutters with laughter at his own earliest TV memory, recalling his sister playing him a VHS of Eddie Murphy doing stand-up when he was just five. “It rewired my brain; and my sister is now one of the leading child safeguarding officers in the West Midlands. How about that?” Khan was brought up by his mother and two sisters in the Coventry suburb of Hillfields. “My earliest memories are that, to get in on a conversation between my mum, sisters, three aunties and one uncle, I had to say something that maybe I shouldn’t: if my aunties wanted to beat me up afterwards, my mum and uncle would laugh. I think that’s what honed my comedy: saying something that I knew was funny, but would probably p*** a few people off.” Khan, who still lives in Coventry, hasn’t lost that childhood instinct to entertain without fear of the repercussions. In his new Christmas caper, Khan plays a Muslim grinch whose wife (Morgana Robinson) suggests a family trip to Lapland, where chaos reigns. It’s daft and energetic, and, like all his work, smuggles the thought-provoking alongside the silly. For example, why are multifaith marriages (particularly happy ones) still so rare on British TV? “They’re pretty commonplace out there!” he chuckles. “It’s not overt in Stuffed – we go through familiar family s**t, we’re not sitting around talking theology – but I know I’ll get messages saying, ‘I’m so glad you and Morgana were a couple on screen, because we don’t see it.’ Not enough people get to tell their stories, still. One of the reasons I ended Man like Mobeen is because I’m not the kid who had those experiences 20 years ago any more.” I finish with a festive poser: is it better to give or receive? He laughs, shocked: “My G, what type of people are going to read this?!” Then he takes it in the intended spirit. “It’s always nicer, in life, to give. Take from that what you will.” What I take from it is that Guz Khan has plenty left to give. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Stuffed will air at 9pm on Tuesday 23rd December on BBC One. Check out more of our Comedy 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.
Avatar: Fire and Ash director James Cameron shares how this film about loss helped him process his "true grief"
As the Avatar saga’s latest chapter hits cinemas, can director James Cameron replicate the mind-blowing success of its predecessors? No pressure…
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. James Cameron operates at the kind of scale usually reserved for plagues and empires. For instance, for his latest “very expensive” Avatar sequel, Fire and Ash, to be considered successful, “I don’t have to affect every single person on the planet,” he says, modestly. “I only need about 3 per cent.” If you’re wondering, that equates to about 240 million people: over three times the population of the UK. And if they all buy a ticket for $10 each, then that translates to a gross of $2.4 billion: placing it in the top three highest-grossing films of all time. “It is the stupidest business model in the world,” he laughs. “We’ve made a movie that fails if it’s not in the top ten in history. That’s ludicrous, right?” Ludicrous for most directors, perhaps. But not James Cameron. This is the man who directed the 1997 phenomenon Titanic, a blockbuster so over budget that at one point it looked as though it would sink his career. Instead, it became the highest-grossing film of all time. And then there’s 2009’s Avatar. Back then, it was a baffling prospect: a surreal 3D science-fiction extravaganza made almost entirely on a virtual soundstage, about a distant planet of blue aliens called the Na’vi. It overtook Titanic to became the highest-grossing film of all time. And yet, even by Cameron’s standards, the 71-year-old director admits that he has played a “dangerous game” with his two Avatar sequels, which were filmed back to back in New Zealand. “That was a big bet,” he says. “Because we had to assume that the second film would be successful enough to warrant the finishing of the third.” The first sequel, The Way of Water, was released in 2022 amidst scepticism as to whether audiences still cared about Avatar. It grossed $2.3 billion: placing it in the top three highest-grossing films of all time. More than enough to justify this third instalment, Fire and Ash. Avatar’s status as a worldwide phenomenon is often attributed to its spectacle. The CGI alien world of Pandora, the home planet of the Na’vi, is so astonishingly vivid that in 2010, CNN reported that some fans had developed “post-Avatar depression syndrome”, a condition caused by how unsatisfying the real world felt in comparison. While the Na’vi, in the words of Cameron, “might be ten feet tall, blue and have cat ears and tails, but they’re almost more expressive than we are.” A marvel achieved through groundbreaking performance capture technology: the kind that allows the 76-year-old Sigourney Weaver to play a 14-year-old alien girl. But Cameron, speaking to RT from his office in New Zealand, his voice a soft Canadian drawl, prefers to attribute Avatar’s appeal to the universal theme of family. The director has been married five times – most recently to former actor Suzy Amis in 2000 – and has five children. Notably, that’s the same number of kids as the series’ lead character, Jake Sully (played by Aussie actor Sam Worthington). A paraplegic human marine who had his consciousness transferred to a synthetic Na’vi body (known as an Avatar) after falling in love with Na’vi warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), Jake has now settled down and is primarily concerned with protecting his family. “These films have to sit at the top of the pyramid in terms of revenues,” says Cameron. “So I was like, ‘All right, how can I cast as wide an emotional net as possible?’ I’m a father. Every adult has parents. Everyone is part of a family. This is going to be a family story. But it’s not going to be a family story like a Disney story where the dog dies. It’s going to be a family that gets challenged, that gets ripped apart, that goes to dark places.” Hence – spoiler alert – the death of Jake and Neytiri’s first-born son Neteyam at the end of The Way of Water, where the teenager is killed during a battle with the antagonistic colonial forces of humanity. View oEmbed on the source website “Grief is often used in commercial film-making as a motivator for people to lay waste to the bad guys,” says Cameron, explaining how the loss continues to haunt the characters during Fire and Ash. “But there never seems to be a real heartfelt consequence to it, the way there is in the real world.” Grief is a theme that is especially pronounced for Cameron. Last year the director lost his close friend Jon Landau, his dedicated producing partner of more than 30 years, during the production of Fire and Ash. Landau had worked on all the Avatar films – in fact, RT interviewed him in 2022 for the last movie. “We’ve all had to process our true grief while making a movie about loss,” says Cameron. “In a funny way, it’s been cathartic.” In his younger days, like when Cameron and Landau were steering Titanic, the director had a reputation for being a cranky perfectionist. But today he cuts a more reflective figure. “I’ve had a lot of loss in my own personal life in the last ten years,” he says. “Friends, my brother, my parents. You realise that it’s an inescapable part of life, just like your own mortality. It’s never easy and it never goes away.” Just like Cameron, Jake and Neytiri find that life does not stop for grief. A few weeks after the death of Neteyam, their family is tested by the emergence of an aggressive Na’vi tribe called the Ash, led by Oona Chaplin’s vengeful Varang. The volcano-dwelling Ash people act as a counterpoint to Jake’s adopted Metkayina clan (a nautical tribe led by matriarch Ronal, played by Kate Winslet). They are also intended to explore, as Cameron explains, whether, “humanity has contaminated the purity of the Na’vi culture.” A complex question with profound consequences for Neytiri, “who becomes what you could only refer to as racist,” says Cameron. “I want to challenge the audience.” Fire and Ash is technically the midpoint in an ambitious five-part film series. But Cameron has also built in a fail-safe: he has designed the series so that its first three films feel like a complete trilogy. “If it all ends with this film that’s OK,” he says. “Because it’s not a cliffhanger ending. It all resolves in a very satisfying way.” If they do happen, he says, the fourth and fifth Avatar films will involve a six-year time jump and would feature Neytiri making her way to a dystopian Earth. The scripts are written (“they’re pretty good!”), and a portion of Avatar 4 has been filmed, but for now their fate depends on the box-office performance of Fire and Ash. “I would love to make those movies,” says Cameron, sounding uncharacteristically cautious. “But I’m a bit more pessimistic than I normally would have been.” His fear is that the media landscape has changed. “Cinema has become a few selected films that people believe will be an experience that’s worth leaving their homes for,” he says. “Post-Covid and post-streaming, it’s a depressed industry right now. And it doesn’t seem to be bouncing back.” For Cameron, Fire and Ash represents a crossroads. Will he be spending his 70s making two more Avatar movies? Or will he concentrate instead on projects such as The Last Train to Hiroshima, his mooted adaptation of Charles R Pellegrino’s book about a Japanese man who survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings? “We’ll look at it when the dust settles,” says Cameron. “I have no doubts about Fire and Ash as a film. We’ve done test screenings. People cry. I’ve achieved my goals, artistically. If this one falls on its ass, it’s going to be because of forces beyond my control.” The stakes are big, the odds are long; but if there’s one inviolable rule of modern Hollywood, it’s that you don’t bet against James Cameron. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Avatar: Fire and Ash is set for release on Friday 19th December 2025. Check out more of our Movies coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Game of Thrones star reveals her Avatar: Fire and Ash villain is a "magnificent beast of a lady"
Oona Chaplin tells us how she brought Varang to life with intense Method prep, ritual stomps, and unflinching authority.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Tell us about Varang, the leader of the antagonistic Ash people, who you play in Fire and Ash. She is spicy! A magnificent beast of a lady. She is the leader of the Ash clan, who are very different to the other Na’vi clans. They live in a place where there was a huge natural disaster so their connection to [Pandora’s spiritual nature entity] Eywa was severed. They have this huge trauma and pain and the smart, brilliant Varang has figured out a way to harness that despair. Sam Worthington mentioned that you went “Method” for the role of Varang. What did you do to get into character? I plastered very traumatic images all over my trailer, which I don’t think I’ll do again! Also, before scenes I would do these chants and stomps to get myself into Varang’s headspace. Looking back on it now I am a little bit embarrassed… but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. Going from being the kind of person who is like, “Oh no, don’t worry about me!” to being like, “Do exactly as I say or you shall die!” – it was a big leap! What was your audition for Varang like? At the time, I had built myself a treehouse and I was determined to live in there and start a permaculture project [for sustainable land use]. And then there was this opportunity to audition for Avatar and I was like, “That’s a good reason to come out of my treehouse!” James Cameron is a hero for me. But then I met him and he’s so playful and curious. We ended up stopping the audition and talking about agriculture and biodynamics. It sounds like you were at an interesting point in your life at that time? A huge crossroads. I was in a place of really feeling the injustices of the world. I spent a lot of time in Calais building shacks in the Jungle [the refugee camp in France]. And I was very conflicted, because then I’d be going on to set and wearing a £9,000 dress. There was a lot of inner turmoil in that. The performance-capture process used in Fire and Ash meant you had to act in an empty soundstage while wearing a facial rig and no real costume. How did you find that? It’s actually the most freeing acting experience I’ve ever had! It’s like the closest thing to being back in the playground. Because you really are just creating. You have to commit to the moment 100 per cent of the time to create this imaginary realm. Your grandfather, Charlie Chaplin, was instrumental in the development of silent film. Did it feel fitting for you to be doing something as cutting-edge as performance capture? It feels like a horseshoe. Silent films for my grandpa were cutting-edge technology. I thought a lot about him on the set and what he would think about all of this. I think if he was around, he would be doing cutting-edge stuff like this, too. It was a really beautiful parallel, a cool rhyme. How is it as an actor to have that kind of showbiz history in your family – is it a double-edged sword? I spent a lot of my career trying to feel like I “deserved” the opportunities that I was getting. And it’s definitely still present in my psychology! The things that my grandfather did were so incredible. I respect and admire him so much. And nothing that I do is anywhere near what he did. And that’s OK with me now. I’m trying not to be so self-conscious and self-deprecating all the time. Instead of trying so hard to “deserve” the doors that open for me, I have started focusing on being grateful for them. This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Avatar: Fire and Ash is set for release on Friday 19th December 2025. Check out more of our Movies coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.