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...Study shows the proportion of musicians, writers and artists with working-class origins has shrunk by half since the 1970s
The proportion of working-class actors, musicians and writers has shrunk by half since the 1970s, new research shows.
Analysis of Office for National Statistics data found that 16.4% of creative workers born between 1953 and 1962 had a working-class background, but that had fallen to just 7.9% for those born four decades later.
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...Victoria police confirm at least seven infringements totalling $462 each were issued for ‘serious traffic offences’
Mourners who were fined for running red lights during late music icon Uncle Archie Roach’s funeral procession will not have them overturned.
Victoria police confirmed at least seven infringements totalling about $462 each were issued to mourners travelling as part of the motorcade, including the driver of a hearse carrying Roach’s body back to Country in August.
Continue reading...A new lawsuit claims the Backstreet Boys member sexually assaulted a minor after a concert
Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter has been sued for sexual battery involving an incident with a minor in 2001.
According to the lawsuit, first reported by TMZ and later obtained by Rolling Stone, Shannon Ruth, who was 17 at the time, claims she was invited by Carter, then 21, on to the Backstreet Boys’ tour bus after a concert in Tacoma, Washington. Ruth also spoke at a press conference today.
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...Minister defends step in ‘civilisational battle’ but says it would not amount to ‘cancelling Tchaikovsky’
Ukraine’s culture minister has called on the country’s western allies to boycott Russian culture, urging a halt to performances of the music of Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers until the end of the war.
Writing in the Guardian, Oleksandr Tkachenko argues that such a “cultural boycott” would not amount to “cancelling Tchaikovsky”, but would be “pausing the performance of his works until Russia ceases its bloody invasion”.
Continue reading...Mandy Walker became the first female to win best cinematographer for Elvis, which beat out the Drover’s Wife and the Stranger in most film categories
Baz Luhrmann’s $127m biopic extravaganza Elvis has scooped the 12th annual Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (Aacta) awards, collecting a total of 11 gongs including best film, best director, best lead actor for Austin Butler in the title role and best supporting actress for Olivia DeJonge, for her role as Priscilla Presley.
The film also made history, with Mandy Walker winning for cinematography at an earlier ceremony this week: a first for female cinematographers at the Aactas. No woman has ever won for cinematography at the Oscars or the Baftas.
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...No plans to amend legislation that could stop removal back to Greece, after secret talks held over their future
Rishi Sunak has ruled out changing a law that could prevent the British Museum from handing the Parthenon marbles back to Greece, after it emerged that trustees have held secret talks with the Greek prime minister about the future of the artefacts.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said there were no plans to amend legislation under which a museum can dispose of objects within its collection only in very limited circumstances. However, it could decide to lend part of the collection to Greece.
Continue reading...Al Saqi Books in London, which was established in 1978, blames closure on rise in prices of Arabic-language books and ‘detrimental’ effect of Brexit
Europe’s largest specialist bookseller for Middle Eastern books, based in London, has been forced to close because of the hike in prices of Arabic-language books and because Brexit has been “detrimental” to its business.
Al Saqi Books in Bayswater opened in 1978, and sells books on the Middle East and north Africa in English, and on all subjects in Arabic.
Continue reading...Lawsuit claims ‘millions of fans waited up to eight hours and were unable to purchase tickets as a result of insufficient ticket releases’
A group of Taylor Swift fans is suing Ticketmaster over what they call the “disastrous” recent debacle to secure tickets for her 2023 Eras US tour.
In November, Ticketmaster had to cancel the public on-sale date for the tour “due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand”, the company said at the time.
Continue reading...Producers believe this is the first time a film has used both English and Kernewek on its posters
The new film from the director Mark Jenkin, who has won plaudits for his gritty takes of life in the far south-west of England, is being promoted with Cornish-language posters.
Producers of the film, a folk horror called Enys Men, believe it is the first time posters in Cornish (Kernewek) as well as English are being used to market a major feature film.
Continue reading...Eric Tucker, self-taught and virtually unknown until his death in 2018, has since been compared to LS Lowry
It is the cluttered front room of a Warrington council house: gas fire set into a tiled surround, glass-fronted cabinet housing treasured knick-knacks; shoes tucked under a chair; magazines and books piled up. And in the middle, an easel, surrounded by tubes of paint and jars of brushes.
The room is where Eric Tucker, an artist virtually unknown until his death in 2018 but since compared to LS Lowry, painted people in the pub and on the street, gossiping, reading, smoking, playing cards.
Continue reading...Take a crisp white shirt, layers of black tulle and lace, and team with a sullen stare. Now you’re tuned in to Netflix’s new take on the Addams family
If you are seeing a lot of Gen Z wearing black, plaiting their hair into pigtails and giving you a Kubrick Stare, it’s all because of their new anti-heroine heroine, Wednesday. It has been just over a week since Tim Burton’s new series Wednesday debuted on Netflix but already tweens and teens are channelling the sullen and sardonic daughter of the Addams family.
Defined by the deadpan Christina Ricci in the 90s films, this time round Wednesday has been given a Gen-Z makeover. The series follows a now teenage Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) as she is banished to Nevermore Academy, a creepy boarding school, after an incident involving a school swimming team and a bag of piranhas. What ensues is an action-packed melodrama fusing the genres of murder mystery with horror and a dollop of teenage angst. It has swiftly become Netflix’s most popular show, beating the last series of Stranger Things.
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.
Continue reading...Stencil image, which shows figure in nightgown and gas mask holding a fire extinguisher, was removed in Hostomel on Friday
Eight people have been detained over the theft of a mural painted by the elusive British street artist Banksy from a wall on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities said.
The stencil image of a person in a nightgown and gas mask holding a fire extinguisher, next to the charred remains of a window in the town of Hostomel, went missing on Friday, they said.
Continue reading...The Guns N’ Roses singer made the announcement on Twitter after the incident at in Adelaide, Australia
Axl Rose has promised to stop throwing his microphone into the audience after a fan was reportedly hurt during a recent show in Australia.
The Guns N’ Roses singer, who celebrated his 60th birthday this year, has routinely ended their shows by offering attenders towards the front a chance to catch his mic.
Continue reading...Police make arrests and secure image of gas-masked woman in dressing gown sprayed on Hostomel wall
A group of people have tried to take a mural in Ukraine by the graffiti artist Banksy, by cutting away a section of war-damaged wall where it was sprayed.
The group managed to slice off a section of board and plaster bearing the image of a woman in a gas mask and dressing gown holding a fire extinguisher on the side of a scorched building.
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