Bradley

Rory McIlroy claims United States captain Keegan Bradley could have used his platform to rein in abusive crowd behaviour at last year’s Ryder Cup, but did not take the opportunity.

Europe defeated the US 15-13 at Bethpage Black to retain the trophy and become the first away team to win the event since 2012.

Yet they did so in the face of relentless heckling in New York, with Northern Ireland golfer McIlroy’s wife Erica hit by a drink thrown by an American fan and “horrific” abuse directed towards them both and their young daughter Poppy.

“We knew going to New York that we were going to get a lot of stick, a lot of abuse,” said McIlroy, while appearing on The Overlap., external

“Look, I don’t care if people are saying whatever they’re saying to me.”

McIlroy said he was able to brush off a Bethpage MC joining in with an expletive-led abusive chant about him, while she warmed up the crowd, saying that was “nothing compared to the other stuff we heard”.

“Erica, my wife, would say she’s a grown woman, she’s strong, she can handle that. But then when it starts to get into your family, I heard stuff about my daughter that I couldn’t even repeat here. It’s horrific,” McIlroy said.

The world number two added: “Keegan and I have talked about this. You have to play into the home-field advantage, absolutely.

“But during the competition on Friday night and Saturday night, after the stuff that we heard on the course, there was an opportunity for either Keegan or some of the team-mates to be like: ‘Let’s just calm down here. Let’s try to play this match in the right spirit.’

“Some of them did that, but obviously Keegan had the biggest platform of the week in being the captain. I feel like he could have said something on that Friday or Saturday night, and he didn’t.”

It was abundantly clear to actor-director Bradley Cooper that if “Is This Thing On?,” his comedy-drama set in New York’s stand-up scene, lacked authenticity, the film would fail. With the iconic Comedy Cellar at its heart, he found the key to unlocking that — by casting several of the real-life comedians who regularly take the stage there. Among them were two women at the top of their game right now with sold-out shows and substantial social media followings: Chloe Radcliffe and Jordan Jensen.

“Bradley fell in love with the Comedy Cellar and the relationships that go on there,” Jensen recalls.

“Is This Thing On?” is based on an anecdote from the life of British comedian John Bishop, whose career started when he stumbled into an open-mic night in Manchester, England, while temporarily separated from his wife. In the film, Will Arnett plays a fictionalized version of Bishop, Alex Novak, a finance guy, and the narrative shifts to New York.

“The idea was, ‘If we use people who aren’t comics to play comics, there’s not going to be a juxtaposition between Arnett and this super-tight group of people,’” Jensen says. “His character is this stuffy, bored guy, and he enters into this world of people who have day jobs just like him, but they step into this room, and it’s all dirty humor and busting each other’s balls.”

Radcliffe realized early on that Cooper, who also produced and co-wrote the film, understood the level of commitment required to portray the stand-up world realistically. She saw the first signs of him getting it when he screened 10 minutes of test footage for the comedians at his home, just a few blocks from the Greenwich Village club.

Comedian Chloe Radcliffe on stage as her character, Nina, in “Is This Thing On?”

(Jason McDonald / Searchlight Pictures)

“The second the test footage started, I immediately felt so confident that we are in the right hands,” she recalls. “Any lingering doubt or trepidation was totally washed away immediately, because Bradley just has such clarity of vision and taste. It was clear that he and Will had both embedded themselves deeply in the world of stand-up. Bradley wanted to capture what is real, and he was like, ‘If that means going off script, do it. If that means going to a weird place, do it.’”

Jensen adds, “I don’t think I said one actual line from the script. I would improvise something, and along the way, as I got the point across, it was OK. He might occasionally tell us to say a line, but it was in between 100% moments of improvisation, and he would be rolling camera.

“When I saw the movie, it was really moving. The way he showed it reintroduced me to it and made me be like, ‘Oh yeah, this place is f— magical.’”

Cooper wanted to capture what goes on offstage as well as on, and a significant part of that happened around a particular table at the Olive Tree Cafe, which sits above the underground comedy club. It’s where the acts gather before, after and in between their sets.

“We shot a scene around the comics’ table on the very first day,” Radcliffe says. “About a week or 10 days later, Bradley wanted to reshoot it because he looked at the footage and realized that it looked like a movie. He wanted to make something that looked like the real environment. I admire that so much. Not only is he willing to ask us for our input, but he’s also willing to go back and make new decisions based on new information.”

According to Jensen, in another scene in the cafe, the filmmaker asked whether the comedian’s coats, which PAs had removed from the shot, would be there, and when he was told they would, ordered them to be put back. The level of detail even extended to whether the comics would share fries from a single plate or have their own. It all mattered.

Comedian Jordan Jensen was used to riffing through her scenes on camera while playing her character, Jill, in “Is This Thing On?”

(Jason McDonald / Searchlight Pictures)

Radcliffe describes Cooper’s reverence for the Comedy Cellar and the comics as an appreciated display of “humility and willing” that extended to both the filmmaker and Arnett, asking for their input on techniques that would improve Novak’s set.

“We wound up chatting about things like where the funny idea is in a punch line, so you might rearrange the sentence so that the most surprising part of it comes at the end. That’s an unnatural way of delivering that sentence,” she reveals. “I would see Will running the set at the Cellar before the shoot, and he is so naturally funny that even if he went off script and started riffing, he instinctively hits punch lines. He has this natural sense of rhythm.”

However, neither the actor nor the director, who also plays Novak’s best friend, Balls, rested on their laurels. To gauge real audiences’ reactions to the material, they ran it multiple times in rooms for months before filming started. It’s something Jensen calls “the ballsiest thing I’ve ever seen a person do.”

“I would be on a show months before the movie was happening,” she says. “They’d be like, ‘Here’s Alex Novak,’ and I was like, ‘Who is that?’ I would see that it was Will Arnett and then I’d be like, ‘F—, he’s bombing. Oh, this is the movie.’”

However, the bombing was intentional, and things would change as the set progressed. She continues, “What I realized is they had written it so that the first chunk in the movie, he doesn’t do so great, the second chunk he does a little better, and the last chunk he does the best, which is how comedy works. I can’t imagine in a million years doing that and not breaking at some point, and being like, ‘Hey, by the way, I’m actually doing this for a movie.’”

While Arnett was on stage, Cooper would stand in the back of the room, taking notes, making changes and doing research. However, Jensen says watching Arnett tank, even on purpose, was “brutal.”

Will Arnett with director Bradley Cooper on the set of “Is This Thing On?”

(Jason McDonald / Searchlight Pictures)

“These were not open mic nights; they were real shows. It was Will Arnett’s reputation, and he was bombing on purpose, but it totally worked out in the long run. He was operating like a real comic up there.”

There were also little things that Arnett did, sometimes by accident, that made his delivery next-level. One example is when he breathes into the microphone.

“It was totally an improvised thing,” Jensen enthuses. “It was this moment of awkwardness that is so authentic that it makes you immediately empathize with him. You’re like, ‘Oh, man, I know that feeling of the air leaving your mouth, hitting the mic, and now everybody has heard that you’ve let out a sigh of grief.’”

Radcliffe, who plays Nina, and Jensen, who plays Jill, are close friends in real life and read for each other’s roles. Aside from being able to take Cooper and Arnett behind the curtain of the comedy scene, their relationship added an extra level of authenticity to the film and to each other’s performances.

“We’ve been really close since pre-pandemic, and she and I have a lot of similar energies,” Radcliffe muses. “We can both be trashy little gremlins. She has a level of aggression that I don’t quite step into, and I think I have a level of exasperation that she doesn’t quite step into. We play off each other really well. She’s so subversive and transgressive, and she’s got such a magnetism in where she is willing to go on stage that I think is unmatched in a lot of other comics working right now.”

Jensen, who is a big fan of Cooper’s work, recalls being starstruck when he first opened the door to his home when the cast came over to read the script for the film. “He opened the door and said, ‘Hi, I’m Bradley.’ I just looked at Chloe over his shoulder, beelined right to her, and snuggled up next to her on the couch, because I was so intimidated,” she said. “It would have still been great if she weren’t there, but having her there was the best. It’s one of those things where when I’m really old, I’ll tell people, and they won’t believe me.”

Following claims that he “corpses deliberately” on The Chase, a long-time friend has revealed what Bradley Walsh is really like when the cameras stop rolling

A friend and colleague of Bradley Walsh has revealed what it’s been like working alongside The Chase presenter for over four decades. The 64-year-old host has been at the helm of the ITV quiz programme since its launch in 2009.

Never one to take things too seriously, Bradley regularly has a laugh with the chasers and contestants and has been known to be left in hysterics over amusing questions and responses.

One of his most unforgettable moments occurred when he couldn’t contain his laughter over a query about German skier Fanny Chmelar.

After some viewers accused him of faking his reactions, Bradley set the record straight, insisting he doesn’t know what’s coming next.

“I don’t pre-read them, I do it as it is, I literally play the game,” he explained. “If I get a reaction, then it’s much better.”

During an appearance on Laura Hamilton’s Mile Fly Club podcast, he added: “I’ll read what’s on the autocue and half the time, I don’t realise what I’ve said,” reports the Express.

Discussing the infamous Fanny Chmelar incident, Bradley went on to say: “And people, still today, think I’m corpsing deliberately but I’m not, that’s actually me laughing, I had no idea that was [coming] up.”

Backing his long-time friend, Joe Pasquale said The Chase host is the same person on and off screen.

“Bradley is what you see, he does what he says on the tin, what you see is what you get with Brad,” the comedian revealed.

“We’ve been mates for 40 years, myself, Brian [Conley] and Shane [Richie], we all started off together, which is what’s great about The Prat Pack tour.”

Beyond their joint touring, Joe also recently caught Bradley off guard when he turned up as the fresh quizmaster on Beat The Chasers.

Joe joined the panel for a special one-off episode, adopting the moniker Maverick.

Prior to unveiling his true self, Joe was given strict instructions to keep his identity under wraps from the Chasers, audiences, and particularly Bradley.

Speaking about the measures he took to remain disguised, he revealed: “I’d been on the road with Bradley all year, we’ve known each other for 40 years but literally just before filming we had been on the road together. He knows me inside out, he knows my body movements.

“I had to be really calm because I talk really fast and I’m very physical, the producer said, ‘Don’t move, just keep really still and talk very slowly so he doesn’t suss it’s you.’ So it was quite hard for me.”

Thankfully, the comedian succeeded in concealing his identity from Bradley, leaving the presenter “genuinely surprised” by his reveal.

When questioned whether the host was miffed by his deception, he quipped: “He’s never furious with me, he’s like my big brother.”

Joe is appearing in Swansea Grand’s Aladdin until 4 January 2026. The Chase: Celebrity Christmas Special broadcasts tonight at 5.35pm on ITV.

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The Chase Celebrity Christmas Special is airing on Christmas Eve on ITV

Bradley Walsh is left gobsmacked after one star banks a ‘rare’ amount of cash on The Chase Celebrity Christmas Special.

The festive episode airs on Christmas Eve and sees comedian Lucy Porter, Countdown host Colin Murray, Strictly Come Dancing vocalist Tommy Blaize, and actor and comedian Asim Chaudhry take on five Chasers, who are dressed in festive costumes.

In an exclusive clip obtained by The Mirror, it sees Lucy, 52, impress during the cash builder round. At the start of the round, it sees host Bradley, 65, say: “Now, you and I, we’ve known each other a long while. You love quizzing, don’t you?”

To which Lucy admits: “I do, I do. My dad used to, when I was a kid, if we had dinner, you didn’t get pudding unless you could answer a quiz question.

“So, every time I would answer a question, he’d need to give me a slice of Viennetta or an Arctic roll!”

Lucy then gets stuck into the cash builder round, where each correct answer is worth £1,000. In the 60 seconds, Lucy is able to correctly answer ten questions, earning an incredible £10,000.

After the impressive cash builder round, the audience and Lucy’s fellow teammates erupt into cheers.

Meanwhile, host Bradley says: “Well that was very, very rare that we get five figures in a cash builder. Ten grand, congratulations, time to face a Chaser!”

Mark Labbett, Shaun Wallace, Anne Hegerty, Paul Sinha, Jenny Ryan, and Darragh Ennis will all appear on the special festive instalment of the ITV quiz show.

The fancy dress theme this year is Christmas Lunch. The Beast is a Christmas Pudding, The Vixen is a Brussels sprout, The Menace is a Pig in Blanket, The Sinnerman is a Turkey and the The Governess is a Christmas Cracker.

Anne looks glamorous has ever in a blonde curly wig with a glitzy red ballgown for the special occasion where the others don eye-catching costumes to get into character.

The Chase Christmas Special airs on Wednesday 24 December at 5.55pm on ITV1.

For the latest showbiz, TV, movie and streaming news, go to the new **Everything Gossip** website