Duchess of Argyll sex scandal retold in new BBC drama series

Admirers of vilified aristocrat say they hope series will allow her to be ‘seen in a different light’

It took the judge more than three hours to read out his damning judgment at the end of one of the longest, most expensive and toxic divorce cases of the 20th century.

Margaret, the Duchess of Argyll, was, he declared with contempt, “a highly sexed woman” who was not “satisfied with normal relations and had started to indulge in disgusting sexual activities to gratify a debased sexual appetite”.

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Javier Bardem: ‘When I won the Oscar, I felt great, but it didn’t make any sense’

Famed for portraying bad guys in Skyfall and No Country for Old Men, the Spaniard opens up about his marriage to Penélope Cruz, his formidable mum, and his hopes for his kids

The bad news is that, at the last minute, my interview with Javier Bardem is changed from being a face-to-face encounter to one conducted by the less risky means of video chat (damn you, Omicron!) But the good news is this means I get to snoop around Bardem’s home in Madrid, where he Zooms me from, and which he shares with his wife, the actor Penélope Cruz, and their two children, Leonardo, 10, and Luna, eight. OK, I don’t actually see the whole house, but he does give me a panoramic view of his study while his kids shout and play outside.

“You can see my little bookcase here,” Bardem says, picking up his laptop and giving me the grand tour. “And my map of the world. It’s very chaotic.”

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Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler on saving Christmas: ‘We don’t usually meet people who hate our books’

The Gruffalo creators are back with Superworm, their ninth festive special – that’s one more than Eric and Ernie. The Christmas TV royalty talk tinkering with Olivia Colman’s script … and the perils of mega success

Meeting Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler is a little like meeting the royal family. To learn anything about them is to be bombarded with an avalanche of statistics. In this country alone, a Julia Donaldson book sells every 11 seconds. In 2014 it was reported that 40p in every pound spent on children’s picture books went on a Donaldson title. And her work with Scheffler has taken on a rabid life outside of literature, too. Go to the woods and you’re likely to discover a Gruffalo trail. Chessington World of Adventures theme park is essentially a Donaldson/Scheffler temple, brimming with themed rides and marauding characters.

And, let’s not forget, they are also the reigning king and queen of Christmas Day. Starting with The Gruffalo in 2009, one of their books has been sumptuously animated and proudly placed in every BBC One Christmas schedule. This year, Superworm – about an earthworm superhero captured by a wizard lizard – has received the treatment, narrated by none other than Olivia Colman and with Matt Smith as the titular creepy crawly. In grand Donaldson/Scheffler tradition the animation is bright and tactile, and the storyline has been augmented with a rich seam of festive melancholy. On a Christmas day dripping with repeats, this will not only go down as the BBC’s stand-out offering, but is also their ninth Christmas special. If you’re counting, Morecambe and Wise only managed eight.

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Shatner in Space: Captain Kirk’s in a willy-shaped spaceship – and it’s poetry in motion

This documentary is indescribably touching as it captures the Star Trek actor’s rocket voyage. Even if it is a Jeff Bezos ego trip

There are two competing schools of thought when it comes to William Shatner’s space mission. The first is characterised by a kind of awestruck wonder over the beautiful symmetry of it all: Shatner starred in Star Trek, Star Trek inspired a generation of engineers, the engineers built a rocket, the rocket flew Shatner into space. The second tends to think that letting a billionaire indulge an actor by flying him to the brink of the atmosphere in a spaceship shaped like a willy might not be the best use of our resources.

Shatner in Space is firmly for the first crowd. A 45-minute documentary about his mission, it airs on Amazon Prime. Jeff Bezos owns Amazon Prime. He also owns the rocket that Shatner flew on. Anyone expecting even an iota of criticism would be better off looking elsewhere.

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‘We were pinned as the bitches’: the OC and 90210 stars reclaiming their voices

Hit noughties US teen shows – and UK ones like Skins – were irresistible to their wide-eyed, hormone-fuelled viewers. Now their casts are reuniting in podcasts to discuss the good – and the bad – of adolescent stardom

There is nothing new about a nostalgic TV reunion. In the last year we’ve seen televisual specials reunite actors from Friends, New Girl and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for emotional chats and table reads of episodes past. There are cast-led rewatch podcasts like Fake Doctors, Real Friends – hosted by the Scrubs stars Zach Braff and Donald Faison – or West Wing Weekly and Office Ladies (about the US Office). But, often, they are bathed in a cosy glow. They fail to lift the lid on the shows’ darker side. They avoid raising problematic issues that call into question the ethics of the industry they work in.

This is not true when it comes to the wave of podcasts that have brought together the casts of 00s teen shows. Years spent portraying the breakups, makeups, hedonistic parties and burgeoning sex lives of teenagers – in hits such as The OC and 90210 – have made way for audio series in which their casts discuss the good and the bad of adolescent stardom.

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‘I’m hooked all over again!’ Readers review And Just Like That

The Sex and the City sequel has just arrived on our screens. But is it a ‘sharp-tongued, hilarious’ return to form or ‘a barrage of forced woke moments’? Here are your verdicts

After almost 20 years away from our screens, Carrie and co are back for a Sex and the City sequel: And Just Like That. But as the fiftysomething women grapple with the modern era of dating apps and teenage children in the long-anticipated reboot, fans are divided.

Warning: these opinions contain spoilers from the first episode of And Just Like That.

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Succession creator Jesse Armstrong on its thunderous finale: ‘That might be as good as I’ve got’

Season three of the hit show has made even more headlines than usual. We ask its British creator if he’s had enough yet, if actor Jeremy Strong is doing OK – and if his character Kendall is actually Jesus

• Warning: contains spoilers

Yesterday, like much of the rest of the world, I watched the finale of the third season of Succession. And, like much of the rest of the world, I found myself buffeted by one astonishing twist after another – and a gasp-inducing climax that outdid even those of series one and two. Unlike my fellow viewers, however, pretty much the first thing I see after the end credits roll is the face of Jesse Armstrong, the show’s creator, popping up over Zoom and politely attempting to dissuade me from discussing the episode.

Unlike other big TV showrunners – who will happily explain, and sometimes over-explain, every single second – Armstrong prefers to remain hands off. He tries not to read the acres of theorising that Succession inspires. Such post-match analyses, he says, can often feel like a tightrope walk. “There’s a bit of me that just wants to find out what the fuck everyone is saying about the show,” he says from his book-lined study in London. “But you can’t. It wouldn’t be good for me psychologically – and it wouldn’t be good for the creative process of doing the show.”

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Why it’s time to say goodbye to Tiger King

Netflix’s continued obsession with the pandemic hit has brought a follow-up special, a second season and now a spin-off but enough is enough

To think of Tiger King is to immediately transport yourself to the heady days of lockdown 2020. Remember it? Remember how filled with artificial purpose we all were? We did Zoom quizzes with all our friends! We made banana bread! We clapped for frontline workers!

Looking back, it seems relatively clear that all those things were stupid. Nobody wants to spend more time on Zoom than they have to. Nobody likes banana bread. The clapping didn’t change anything. And as for Tiger King? With the benefit of hindsight, Christ, we chose the wrong show to obsess over. Looking back, Tiger King was grubby and exploitative. Once you’d crossed the “Are these people for real?” hurdle, you found yourself sitting through a carnival of monstrous behaviour. Tiger King was the documentary equivalent of that old Black Mirror episode: as fun as it sounds to watch someone have sex with a pig, at the end of the day you actually have to watch someone have sex with a pig.

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Naomie Harris says ‘huge star’ groped her during audition

Bond actor recalls past #MeToo incident and contrasts lack of censure with ‘immediate’ removal on recent project

The Oscar-nominated actor Naomie Harris has said a #MeToo incident on one of her recent projects prompted the “immediate” removal of the perpetrator, as she recalled another occasion when she was groped by a “huge star” who faced no censure.

Harris, who played Moneypenny in the last three Bond films and was up for an Oscar for her role in Moonlight in 2017, declined to name either of the men allegedly responsible.

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And Just Like That: bad jokes are the least of its problems

Some franchises cannot endure, it turns out – but, happily, old box sets live forever

Good sex, like good comedy, relies on timing, and maybe, 17 years after the original show ended, 11 years after the second film departed cinemas, Sex and the City no longer has its finger on the clitoris when it comes to timing. “And Just Like That, It All Went Wrong” was the New York Times’s verdict on the wildly publicised, moderately anticipated SATC follow-up series, And Just Like That, which debuted its first two episodes this week. The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan described it as at times “excruciating”.

Certainly the jokes are bad. Not “Lawrence of my labia” bad, as Samantha (Kim Cattrall) notoriously said in Sex and the City 2. But a far cry from the spit-out-your-wine-with-laughter-and-shock level of the original show, which ran from 1998 to 2004. And that’s the least of its problems.

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‘Just for the fun of it’: Countdown star, 17, targets more TV success

Eton scholar Jasamrit Rahala, a Child Genius finalist at 10, is in the knockouts and already looking for his next test

If TV quiz fans think Jasamrit Rahala’s face looks familiar, they would be right.

The 17-year-old from Slough has reached the knockout finals of Channel 4’s Countdown, having been a fan of the programme since primary school. But for Jasamrit, identified as a maths prodigy aged nine, Countdown is just the latest in a string of gameshow endeavours, having become the youngest finalist on Child Genius aged 10 and competed in Britain’s Brightest Family.

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Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?

The Succession star Jeremy Strong has been widely scorned after a magazine profile revealed his ‘preening’ and ‘self-indulgent’ acting process. But many actors have been lauded for their method – so what has changed?

Robert De Niro is the greatest actor of his generation. So claimed the headline in a popular magazine last year, and it’s not a controversial claim. The evidence offered for this opinion was the same that’s always wheeled out when discussing De Niro’s acting: “[He] took method acting to previously uncharted levels. He got a New York cab licence for Taxi Driver, learned Italian and lived in Sicily to prepare for The Godfather Part II, put on 60lbs to play Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, learned Latin for True Confessions and the sax for New York, New York. He was the hardest-working man in Hollywood,” wrote the journalist.

For decades, this has been the general feeling about actors: the more method, the better. After all, if they don’t eat raw bison and sleep in an animal carcass (Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant), stay in a wheelchair and be spoonfed by the crew (Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot) or lose so much weight that they start to go blind (Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club), they’re just playing make-believe. And why should they get all that fame, adoration and money just for that? All of the above actors were rewarded for their efforts with an Oscar, and actors talking about their method efforts has become as much a part of the run-up to the Oscars as shops playing Do They Know It’s Christmas in the run-up to the holidays.

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And Just Like That review – Sex and the City sequel has a mouthful of teething troubles

Carrie and co are back and having excruciating ‘learning experiences’ to haul themselves into modern times. But there are reasons to be hopeful!

Warning: this review contains spoilers from the first episode of And Just Like That.

The first 20 minutes of the long-anticipated, much-hyped reboot of Sex and the City, And Just Like That (Sky Comedy/HBO Max), are terrible. The Manhattan streets are alive with the sound of crowbars jimmying more exposition into the dialogue than Carrie’s closet has shoes. Samantha’s absence (Kim Cattrall declined to take part in the new show, apparently as a result of longstanding animus between her and Sarah Jessica Parker) is briskly dealt with. She moved to London (“Sexy sirens in their 60s are still viable there!” says someone with their tongue not firmly enough in their cheek) in a fit of pique after Carrie told her she didn’t need her as a publicist any more. That this does not square with anything we have ever known about Samantha apparently matters not a jot.

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‘The Wizard of Oz of entertainment’: the incredible career of Robert Stigwood

He managed the Bee Gees and created Saturday Night Fever but the closeted impressario ‘never felt that sense of success’ according to a new documentary

According to film director John Maggio, two types of executives run the entertainment industry – one far rarer than the other. “The vast majority of them don’t know what’s good, or what will be a hit, until ten other people tell them,” he said. “But a few can tell you right away. They’re the visionaries.”

For an extended time, one of the most clairvoyant was Robert Stigwood. Yet no one had made a feature documentary about him until now. Mr Saturday Night lays out the rocket-like trajectory of this manager turned producer turned impresario who scored hits in the worlds of music, theater, concerts and film. Stigwood’s projects ranged from managing the Bee Gees to running a record label featuring artists like Eric Clapton to producing two of the biggest movies of all time – Saturday Night Fever and Grease, as well as the successful movie version of the Who’s Tommy – to bankrolling smash plays like Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. “For a time, he was the Wizard of Oz of entertainment,” said Maggio, who directed the film, to the Guardian. “Between 1970 and 1978, he could not not make a hit.”

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‘It’s soul-crushing’: the shocking story of Guantánamo Bay’s ‘forever prisoner’

In Alex Gibney’s harrowing documentary, the tale of Abu Zubaydah, seen as patient zero for the CIA’s torture programme, is explored with horrifying new details

From “a black site” in Thailand in 2002, CIA officers warned headquarters that their interrogation techniques might result in the death of a prisoner. If that happened, he would be cremated, leaving no trace. But if he survived, could the CIA offer assurance that he would be remain in isolation?

It could. Abu Zubaydah, the agency said in a cable, “will never be placed in a situation where he has any significant contact with others” and “should remain incommunicado for the remainder of his life”.

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David Thewlis on new show Landscapers and the misogyny of Naked: ‘I find it much tougher to watch today’

As he stars alongside Olivia Colman in a drama about the Mansfield Murders, the actor talks about his discomfort with Naked, doing night shoots with Julie Walters – and growing old grotesquely

David Thewlis, speaking by Zoom from his home in the Berkshire village of Sunningdale, has set his screen at a jaunty angle. His manner is equable, nerdy, eager to please. Nothing like what you’d expect, in other words – unless you had watched Landscapers, a new four-part TV drama in which Thewlis stars opposite Olivia Colman. Perhaps he’s one of those actors who doesn’t de-role until he’s on to the next character.

Landscapers is true crime, in so far as the protagonists are Susan and Christopher Edwards, the so-called Mansfield Murderers convicted in 2014 of killing Susan’s parents and burying them in the garden 15 years before. Yet it is absolutely nothing like true crime. It jumps through time and genre, smashes the fourth wall then puts it back together as a jail cell. It is vividly experimental yet recalls the golden age of British TV, specifically Dennis Potter and his dreamlike, restless theatricality. “I didn’t think of that while we were making it,” says Thewlis. “But when I saw it, I thought of The Singing Detective – which I was in!”

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Succession recap: series three, episode eight – now that’s what you call a cliffhanger

In the most horrifying episode of the show so far, Shiv and Roman take things too far at the Tuscan wedding, Logan is left incandescent with rage … and then there’s Kendall

Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching Succession season three, which airs on HBO in the US and Sky Atlantic in the UK. Do not read on unless you have watched episode eight.

Wedding bells were ringing. So were alarm bells in Waystar Royco’s HR department. But is a funeral toll about to ring out, too? Here are your tasting notes for the penultimate episode, titled Chiantishire …

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Chris Noth on feuds, family and Mr Big: ‘I never saw him as an alpha male’

The Sex and the City star is back for the reboot, And Just Like That … He talks about bereavement, rebellion, the fun of acting – and the absence of Kim Cattrall

“I’m not supposed to talk for this long. I told my publicist beforehand: ‘I need to keep this short so I don’t give quotes I’ll regret,’” chuckles Chris Noth.

Too late for that. Ahead of our interview, I had expected Noth – best known as Mr Big from Sex and the City – to be a reluctant interviewee, because that’s how he came across in past articles, especially when he was talking about the TV show that turned him from a jobbing actor into, well, Mr Big. But those were from back in the day, when he bridled at his sudden celebrity. Noth had been in hit TV shows before, most famously when he played Detective Mike Logan for five years on Law & Order. But nothing could have prepared him for Sex and the City.

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Murray Bartlett: ‘Filming The White Lotus in lockdown felt like a TV summer camp’

The Australian actor on creating his character Armond, the magic of Tales of the City and that meme-inspiring suitcase scene

Sydney-born actor Murray Bartlett, 50, made his screen debut aged 16 in medical soap The Flying Doctors. He worked in Australian TV and film before being cast as a guest star in Sex and the City in 2002. Subsequent TV credits include Dom Basaluzzo in HBO’s gay comedy-drama Looking and Michael “Mouse” Tolliver in the Netflix revival of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City. This year, he starred as luxury Hawaii spa resort manager Armond in HBO’s hit satire The White Lotus, shown in the UK on Sky Atlantic.

How did you land your role in The White Lotus?
I did a self-tape audition in lockdown, then spoke to [writer/director] Mike White on the phone. Before I knew it, I was on the plane to Hawaii and landing in paradise, which was bizarre and thrilling. There’d been times early in the pandemic when I thought: “Should I get another skill? Maybe acting won’t be a thing any more.” So The White Lotus came as an extraordinary surprise. I felt guilty talking to my actor friends about it because it was such a dreamy job.

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Louis Theroux: ‘I’ve always found anxiety in the most unlikely places’

The broadcaster, 51, talks about his first memories, last meal, lockdown resets and his brainier older brother

I always felt like the second fiddle to my older brother Marcel, who I thought was impossibly brilliant and mature and seemed to be reading more or less from the womb, although I’m two years younger, so I wouldn’t have known that first-hand. I was the sideshow: the funny one, the ridiculous one my grandparents said was “good with my hands”, which at five or six I embraced. It was only as I got older I realised it meant, “might not want to stay in school past 14 or 15”.

From childhood I’ve always found anxiety in the most unlikely places. Aged six I remember watching maypole dancers skipping around and braiding these ribbons into beautiful patterns at my south London primary school and even though I was still in the infants and wouldn’t be doing it for years, I thought, “I’m never going to be able to fucking dance around a maypole.” All through my life I’ve tended to experience future events in a negative way. It’s always been a source of looming discomfiture.

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