celebrity
Celebrity Big Brother, Channel 5Friday, 19 August 2011![]() There were rumours – on Twitter, naturally – that Charlie Sheen was going into the House. But, alas, these were unfounded, and he didn’t. Maybe even Sheen has to draw the line somewhere. Instead, only four people I’d heard of actually went ahead and... Read more... |
DVD: Anna NicoleThursday, 04 August 2011![]() “I wanna blow you all… a kiss” are our hapless heroine’s first and last words in this opera dealing with Anna Nicole Smith's real-life rise and fall in strip-cartoon, morality-ballad style. But it’s not by any means the shallow, voyeuristic tack-... Read more... |
Stephen Fry: In Confidence, Sky ArtsFriday, 03 June 2011![]() When a celebrity lets their public mask slip, something wonderful and also disconcerting can happen: they can noticeably become someone else. If they’re lucky, that change can be so marked that they become just another face in a crowd. Of course, if... Read more... |
Lead Balloon, BBC TwoWednesday, 01 June 2011![]() It’s been more than two and a half years since the third series of Jack Dee’s comedy about a comedian. Everyone in Rick Spleen's world looks a little bit older, a mite more pinched and drawn, as if proximity to the man about the house is draining... Read more... |
Lily Allen: From Riches to Rags, Channel 4Wednesday, 16 March 2011![]() Why were any of us watching Lily Allen: From Riches to Rags last night, about the pop star's move from selling millions of tracks to stacks of vintage clothes? It was not because we need a lesson in the hardships of starting up a business - Allen... Read more... |
Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer, National Portrait GalleryMonday, 14 March 2011![]() What ever happened to Ida Kar? If the question is not quite on the level of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, perhaps the answer is more interesting, if less melodramatic. Ida Kar - born Ida Karamian in Russia of Armenian parents, resident of Cairo... Read more... |
Waking the Dead, BBC One/ Celebrity Naked Ambition, Channel 4Sunday, 13 March 2011![]() By the trail of dead shall ye know Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd, who bounces back irascibly for a ninth and final series of Waking the Dead. For once, British TV has the edge over its American counterpart. While Jerry Bruckheimer's US series... Read more... |
Great British Food Revival, BBC TwoWednesday, 09 March 2011![]() If you know which side your bread is buttered on, you should be up in arms about the white fluffy stuff you’ve been hoodwinked into putting into your toaster, implied a positively evangelical Michel Roux Jr in this first of a five-part series on the... Read more... |
Drowning on Dry Land, Jermyn Street TheatreSunday, 27 February 2011![]() There’s a fascinating programme note for this production of Drowning on Dry Land, taken from an interview given by its author for the play's premiere at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Back in 2004, Alan Ayckbourn told The Yorkshire... Read more... |
Hoppé Portraits: Society, Studio and Street, National Portrait GalleryWednesday, 23 February 2011![]() If you’ve seen pictures of the Ballets Russes, then you’ve seen Hoppé photographs. But then, if you’ve seen any society pictures from the 1920s and 1930s, then you’ve seen Hoppé. And famous writers. In fact, for portrait photography in Britain... Read more... |
Graham Norton comes to your localSunday, 20 February 2011![]() Every now and then an idea comes along so perfectly formed that you think, “I wish I’d thought of that.” And so it is with The London Chat Show, one of the many exciting projects being developed by young urban arts professionals who come into the... Read more... |
Anna Nicole, Royal OperaThursday, 17 February 2011![]() Look past the cum buckets, the trucker pussy, the fuck you-ing and cunt-hungry beasting (librettist Richard Thomas's words, not mine), the mountainous titties and cheap promotional candy that had been confected for the legions of rubbishy celebrity... Read more... |
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