Standup comedian played police role in Homicide: Life on the Streets, Law & Order: SVU and other series
Richard Belzer, a stand-up comedian who became one of TV’s most indelible detectives as John Munch in Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: SVU, has died. He was 78.
Belzer died on Sunday at his home in Bozouls in southern France, his longtime friend Bill Scheft told the Hollywood Reporter.
Continue reading...Exclusive: head of Aardman studio blames Brexit as UK falls behind on skills and tax relief
The head of Aardman, the Oscar-winning British studio behind Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, has warned that the nation’s animation productions for children’s television will have to be made overseas because acute challenges are taking their toll on the UK sector.
Sean Clarke, Aardman’s managing director, said the company is struggling with everything from serious competition from other countries on tax relief to a dire skills shortage.
Continue reading...Insiders say departure of popular BBC News presenters – with Martine Croxall also going – could prompt ageism row
Some of the BBC News channel’s most famous faces, including Jane Hill, Ben Brown and Martine Croxall, have been axed before the launch this spring of a channel that combines international and domestic news.
The trio have become familiar to UK viewers during times of political and economic turmoil and their departure could prompt a row about ageism, according to BBC insiders.
Continue reading...Actor appeared in two series of the thriller as well as Star Trek: Picard, and was reportedly diagnosed with cancer in 2020
The actor Annie Wersching, best known for playing FBI agent Renee Walker in the TV series 24, has died at the age of 45.
Wersching died on Sunday morning in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer, her publicist told the Associated Press. The type of cancer was not specified.
Continue reading...Sharing accounts across multiple households likely to attract additional fee as streaming giant looks to recoup subscriber losses
Streaming giant Netflix will begin its crackdown on password sharing in the first quarter of this year, after the release of its company earnings report to shareholders last week.
The practice of sharing passwords with people outside the subscriber’s household will become more complex and is likely to involve an additional fee to share a single subscription across multiple locations.
Continue reading...Roiland, who has pleaded not guilty, will no longer work on Hulu shows Solar Opposites or Koala Man, as well as being dropped from Rick and Morty
Justin Roiland has been dropped from two more animated shows, Solar Opposites and Koala Man, after being charged with felony domestic violence against a former girlfriend, a day after he was dropped from hit series Rick and Morty.
US network Hulu announced on Wednesday that it had “ended our association with Justin Roiland”, a day after Rick and Morty distributor Adult Swim released a similar statement saying he would no longer voice the titular characters or work as showrunnner.
Continue reading...Convicted fraudster and inspiration behind Inventing Anna is creating a series in which she hosts dinner parties in her apartment
Anna Sorokin, the convicted con artist who went by the name Anna Delvey, subject of a viral New York magazine story and inspiration for the Netflix series Inventing Anna, is reportedly working on her next act: a reality TV series.
The Russian-born former “Soho grifter”, who is currently under house arrest after overstaying her visa, will host “celebrities, moguls and glitterati” for dinner parties in her Manhattan apartment for an unscripted series tentatively titled Delvey’s Dinner Club, according to a statement from producers on Wednesday. Sorokin, who just turned 32, was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention last October after overstaying her visa; she already completed her sentence for her 2019 conviction for attempted grand larceny.
Continue reading...Former Sex Pistol competing to represent Ireland with love letter to wife of 44 years who is living with the illness
John Lydon has said he is competing to represent Ireland at this year’s Eurovision song contest primarily in order to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease. The former Sex Pistols frontman (once known as Johnny Rotten) will appear with his band, Public Image Ltd, on the Late Late Show on 3 February, performing Hawaii, a love letter to his wife of 44 years, Nora Forster, who is living with the illness.
“I’m doing it to highlight the sheer torture of what Alzheimer’s is,” said the singer, who holds an Irish passport as well as US citizenship. “It gets swept under the carpet, but in highlighting it, hopefully we get a stage nearer to a cure.” Lydon insisted that spreading this message was much more important than competing to win, so he isn’t listening to the five other entrants.
Continue reading...The English Australian actor, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, died at home in Sydney in December
Neighbours and A Country Practice actor Joan Sydney has died at the age of 83.
The English Australian actor, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, died at her Sydney home on 28 December. Her long-time friend and fellow actor Sally-Anne Upton confirmed the news on social media on Friday.
Continue reading...Slow uptake of ad-supported offering has meant lower than expected viewing figures, made worse by UK cost of living crisis
Netflix is expected to suffer a second year of subscriber declines in the UK in 2023 as the cost of living crisis takes its toll and the streaming giant’s new cheaper, ad-supported service takes time to win over users.
The world’s biggest streaming service is expected to have lost around 500,000 UK subscribers in 2022 and to lose another 200,000 this year, as increasingly budget conscious consumers cut back on spending.
Continue reading...League of Gentlemen star’s two programmes are part of a rich seam of shows about the supernatural this year
This year’s Christmas TV and radio schedules feature more spooky and supernatural content than before the pandemic, reflecting a hunger for answers during uncertain times or grief for loved ones.
That’s according to Sherlock and League of Gentlemen writer and actor Mark Gatiss, who will be appearing in two ghostly programmes over the Christmas period.
Continue reading...Former Superman star Henry Cavill linked to project, and agreement includes film and merchandise plans
Amazon has struck a deal with the high street games chain Games Workshop to create a series based on its hit franchise Warhammer, the science-fiction fantasy miniature war game, potentially featuring the former Superman star Henry Cavill.
The London-listed Games Workshop, which has a £2.7bn market value and runs about 530 stores, has struck a deal with Amazon to develop the company’s intellectual property into film and TV productions as well as sell merchandise.
Continue reading...Agent pays tribute to ‘unique talent loved by many’ who played Gladys Pugh in BBC comedy series
The Hi-de-Hi! actor Ruth Madoc has died aged 79 after a fall.
Madoc became a household name playing “chief yellowcoat” Gladys Pugh in the BBC One sitcom. The show ran for eight years from 1980 and was set in a fictional holiday camp, Maplins, during the 1950s.
Continue reading...Show’s makers to sift through cream of UK comics from Tom Allen to Ellie Taylor to find new co-host
Who will seize the whimsical baguette, so cheerfully passed on by Matt Lucas this week as he announced he would be stepping down as the co-presenter of The Great British Bake Off?
What other comedic genius would have the acumen to take on spring rolls and pistachio ice-cream? The compassion to wipe away Iain Watters’ tears over his sloppy baked alaska “bingate” disaster in season five or the beginner-level intuition required to stay away from maracas and sombreros during Bake Off’s much-criticised “Mexican week”?
Continue reading...First chapter of what has been described as an ‘unprecedented’ look behind the scenes at conflict in British royal family arrives at 8am UK time
“I just really want to get to the other side of all of this” Meghan says during the opening montage of the documentary, which includes a voiceover by Harry, and starts at the point where the couple have performed their last royal engagements having announced they were stepping back from royal duties. “I think anyone else in my situation would have done exactly the same thing” Harry says. There is clearly a lucrative role in playing sad piano music for Netflix documentaries out there.
I’ve no idea how many people will be tuning in as soon as the documentary arrives – 8am does seem an odd time to launch a prestige series – but I, and presumably a load of other journalists, have just pressed play.
Continue reading...Comedian who has co-hosted Channel 4 show for three series to focus on other projects including Fantasy Football League
Matt Lucas has announced he is stepping down from his presenting role on The Great British Bake Off.
The 48-year-old comedian, who has hosted the popular Channel 4 show alongside Noel Fielding for three series, explained he was leaving as he could no longer commit to the programme’s schedule alongside his other projects, including his new hosting role on the revived comedy show Fantasy Football League.
Continue reading...TV Rain had relocated from Russia soon after invasion but on-air remarks by presenter were deemed to take Moscow’s side
Latvia has revoked a broadcast licence for TV Rain, the independent Russian TV station broadcasting from exile, following a scandal over its coverage of the war in Ukraine.
The liberal television station relocated to Riga, the Latvian capital, as well as Tbilisi and Amsterdam shortly after Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Alley’s children say the actor died ‘after a battle with cancer, only recently discovered’
Kirstie Alley, the TV and film star known for her roles in Cheers, Veronica’s Closet and Look Who’s Talking, has died at the age of 71.
Alley’s death was confirmed on Monday night in a statement from her children, William “True” Stevenson and Lillie Price Stevenson, which was posted to her social media account. Her manager also separately confirmed her death.
Continue reading...US network says the anchors, who are married to other people, will be temporarily pulled from GMA3 as their romance is ‘an internal and an external distraction’
Two TV anchors working for ABC News in the US have been pulled from air after their workplace romance came to light, amid a storm of public gossip and tabloid coverage.
TJ Holmes and Amy Robach, who have worked as hosts on Good Morning America spinoff talkshow GMA3 since 2020, were revealed to be in a relationship last week after paparazzi photos of the pair were published online. Both Holmes and Robach are married, but after the photos were published a representative for the pair said they had both separated from their spouses and the relationship only began recently.
Continue reading...The poisoned agent’s son Anatoly tells of the visit to his Moscow flat, as ITV prepares to screen a drama about the killing of his father, played by David Tennant
Anatoly Litvinenko: How the Kremlin tried to conscript me
The Moscow home of the son of Alexander Litvinenko, the defector killed with polonium-210 in London in 2006, has been visited by recruiting officers from the Russian army hoping to sign him up.
Anatoly Litvinenko, 28, has revealed that he was called up for military service in Ukraine a few weeks ago by soldiers who seemed unaware of his tragic history with Vladimir Putin’s regime.
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