Announcement comes less than a week after Denmark’s longest serving monarch abdicated the throne
Having abdicated the Danish throne after 52 years on exactly the same date she became queen – and announced her surprise decision live on TV with just two weeks’ notice – there’s little doubt Margrethe II has a sense of drama.
After signing the abdication declaration last weekend, she left the room with tears in her eyes and the words: “God bless the king.”
Continue reading...Programme’s lexicographer says audiences are consumed by correct pronunciation of the word ‘scone’
As the in-house lexicographer on Channel 4’s enduringly popular Countdown programme, Susie Dent has been arbitrating on word-related disputes for more than 30 years.
Now, Britain’s most famous word expert has revealed the question she is asked most frequently about the sometimes idiosyncratic English language: the correct pronunciation of the word “scone”.
Continue reading...Improved oversight and a law to strip organisations of their power to take people to court are among measures gaining cross-party support
Plans to overhaul the growing “cottage industry” of private prosecutions are already being urgently examined by ministers in the wake of the Post Office scandal, including measures that could see untrustworthy bodies barred from pursuing them.
Labour is also understood to be drawing up its own reform package this weekend after the outcry prompted by the Post Office’s use of private prosecutions against more than 700 post office subpostmasters. It means that there is growing scope for a cross-party commitment to complete any reforms after the election.
Continue reading...The teenage sensation may have lost his world final showdown but has helped bring a fresh audience to the sport
When Eilidh Milne was visited by her dad and brother on Tuesday, she initially protested against their insistence on watching the darts world championship on television.
But Milne soon found herself on the edge of her seat, yelling at the TV and leaping into the air when the 16-year-old Luke Littler, who had taken the tournament by storm, defeated the 2018 world champion Rob Cross in the semi-finals.
Continue reading...Latest project from screenwriter of Netflix’s most watched non-English-language series revisits its most enigmatic character
After a busy few years chronicling fatal Balearic excess in White Lines and crafting the pulpy trafficking drama Sky Rojo, the Spanish screenwriter and producer Álex Pina is returning to one of his most famous criminal creations.
La Casa de Papel, known in English as Money Heist, grew into a global TV phenomenon after Netflix picked it up from the Spanish network Antena 3 in late 2017. By 2020, Pina’s pacey, violent and stylish series about a gang of red-overalled, Salvador Dalí-masked robbers who target the royal mint and then the Bank of Spain had become the platform’s most watched non-English-language series.
Continue reading...As the singer prepares to host the BBC’s new year special, it caps a stellar 2023 for the star who launched a meme phenomenon
Some may think: why is the BBC welcoming in 2024 with “Mr 1987”? Though that suggests they missed the memo about the spectacular revival of Rick Astley. On Sunday night, 1980s pop star Astley will host BBC One’s New Year’s Eve show from the Roundhouse in Camden, north-west London, following in the footsteps of Sam Ryder and Years & Years, fronted by Olly Alexander.
Stars come back. It’s what they do. But few manage to do it in a way that makes them look infinitely cooler than before. As Astley, 57, continues to ride the Rickrolling phenomenon (more of which anon), his 2023 has been stellar.
Continue reading...Tom and brother Dick’s groundbreaking CBS show was pulled when they took a stance against Vietnam war and for civil rights
Tom Smothers, half of the comedy group the Smothers Brothers, has died at the age of 86.
Smothers was described as “not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life”, but as “a one-of-a-kind creative partner”, according to a statement by his brother Dick Smothers on Wednesday shared by the National Comedy Center.
Continue reading...BBC showed nine out of 10 most popular shows, according to overnight data, with Strictly coming second and Doctor Who third
King Charles’s Christmas broadcast came top of the TV ratings on Christmas Day, with the BBC showing nine out of the 10 most watched shows.
The king’s message, which reflected on the “increasingly tragic conflict around the world”, attracted an average of 5.9 million viewers, according to overnight ratings.
Continue reading...The actor, who has played characters on both sides of the debate, says the UK needs a conversation about euthanasia and assisted suicide
About a decade ago, Dame Harriet Walter, the 73-year-old star of stage and screen, decided to make a living will. The will, also known as an advance decision, informs family, carers and doctors of a person’s wish to refuse specific treatments should they become too ill to communicate those choices. (It stops short of requesting help with end of life; euthanasia and assisted suicide remain illegal in the UK.) But, when it came to actually completing the details of her living will, Walter always found something else to do.
“I had the will sitting in my filing cabinet for about three or four years before I got round to it,” says Walter, who made her name in the theatre but has recently had eye-catching roles in the TV shows Succession, Killing Eve and Ted Lasso. “It’s not something you really want to look at, it’s not something you want to think about. But it will be good to know that there’s something in place that you could use when the time comes. Then you close that filing cabinet.”
Continue reading...The actor, who also starred in film and television for decades, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer
James McCaffrey, the actor who provided the voice of the titular character of the Max Payne video games, has died aged 65.
The actor died on Sunday at his home in Larchmont, New York, having been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, his wife, the actor Rochelle Boström confirmed.
Continue reading...The ex-Coronation Street actor grew and grew over the series, while her partner went one better than his runner-up placing last year
It was a night of high-quality hoofing, high scores and high camp but ultimately, the Strictly Come Dancing final went the way that bookmakers predicted. Odds-on favourite Ellie Leach and her professional partner, Vito Coppola, were crowned champions. As they lifted the glitter ball trophy and sparkly confetti fell, it made a fitting climax to another feelgood series.
Former Coronation Street actor Leach, 22, had blossomed before viewers’ eyes. Initially an unfancied contender, she visibly grew in confidence to become a pocket rocket performer.
Continue reading...Corporation halts production on world’s longest-running sport quiz after 53 years and says it is ‘not the final whistle’
The BBC is pulling Question of Sport, the world’s longest-running sport quiz, citing “funding difficulties”.
The show began in 1970 with David Vine as presenter, followed by David Coleman, Sue Barker and the current incumbent, Paddy McGuinness, who took over two years ago.
Continue reading...‘I will now have the opportunity to finally shed this “Larry David” persona and become the person God intended me to be,’ star says
After almost 25 years playing Larry David, Larry David has announced that his award-winning comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm is ending with the next season.
The Seinfeld co-creator has played a curmudgeonly version of himself in Curb Your Enthusiasm since 2000, making it HBO’s longest-running comedy. Much like Seinfeld, the show draws on the humour in everyday life but the dialogue is mostly improvised around an outline written by David, who plays a semi-retired television writer.
Continue reading...Emmy-winning actor, who also starred in Homicide: Life on the Street, died at age 61
Andre Braugher died from lung cancer, a representative said on Thursday.
When the Emmy-winning actor who starred in the series Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Homicide: Life on the Street died on Monday at age 61, his representatives said only that he had been through a brief illness, but his publicist Jennifer Allen gave the cause on Thursday.
Continue reading...The actor who played the deadpan Captain Raymond Holt and starred in Homicide: Life on the Street, has died after a brief illness
Andre Braugher, who starred as Captain Raymond Holt in the hit comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine and as Detective Frank Pembleton in Homicide: Life on the Street, has died aged 61.
The actor died on Monday after a brief illness, his publicist confirmed.
Continue reading...In a recording in 2020, the actor made a case for giving ‘human beings true agency over their bodies at the end of life’
• Read more: ‘Push me over the edge’ – Diana Rigg’s daughter Rachael Stirling writes about her mother’s dying wishes
Diana Rigg made an impassioned case to legalise assisted dying in a message recorded shortly before her “truly awful” and “dehumanising” death from cancer three years ago.
The actor’s statement calling for a law that gives “human beings true agency over their own bodies at the end of life”, published today in the Observer, adds to the ongoing debate on assisted dying, with MPs expected to publish recommendations to the government within weeks.
Continue reading...Actor, 50, sustains injury hours before the quarter-finals, leaving just four celebrities in competition
Nigel Harman has withdrawn from Strictly Come Dancing after sustaining a rib injury just hours before the quarter-finals of the competition.
The Casualty actor, 50, had been due to compete with a Charleston to Step in Time from Disney’s Mary Poppins with his partner, Katya Jones, on Saturday night.
Continue reading...Actor played Thelma Ferris, wife of Rodney Bewes’ Bob, in popular BBC1 sitcom that aired from 1973-74
Brigit Forsyth, who starred in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, has died at the age of 83, her agent has confirmed.
The Scottish actor played Thelma Ferris, the long-suffering wife of Rodney Bewes’ character, Bob, in the 70s BBC sitcom. She died “peacefully in her sleep surrounded by her family” in the early hours of Friday morning, her agent, Mark Pemberton, confirmed.
Continue reading...Christmas alumni episode had one blind entrant and another who was neurodivergent, both of whom say they did not get help
The BBC has apologised and pulled a Christmas episode of University Challenge after two contestants complained about a lack of provision for their disabilities.
The festive spin-off from the BBC Two quiz show, hosted by Amol Rajan, features teams of distinguished alumni who compete on behalf of their former universities.
Continue reading...Actor paid $15,000 for an exam proctor to change her daughter’s answers on the SAT and spent 11 days in prison in 2019
The actor Felicity Huffman says she paid to have her daughter’s college testing scores raised – breaking federal law and getting imprisoned over it – because she felt pressed to give her child “a chance at a future”.
Huffman, an Emmy winner who starred in the TV series Desperate Housewives, expressed that sentiment in an interview published on Thursday by the Los Angeles news station KABC. The interview marked the first time Huffman had discussed her role in the 2019 scandal that ensnared dozens of prominent, well-connected parents across the US accused of illicitly plotting to get their children into college.
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