Dame

For its Southern Section Division 3 football playoff opener on Friday night against Laguna Beach, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame brought in a “ringer” assistant coach this week to get its running backs a little tougher.

Former UCLA coach DeShaun Foster dropped by to offer lessons, particularly to his sophomore stepson, Noel Washington.

“He helped a lot,” Washington said. “Having him here means a lot. He’s been making us practice a lot harder.”

And what was the impact? Washington had touchdown runs of 35, two and 32 yards to help Notre Dame (6-5) come away with a 44-28 victory and advance to a home game next week against Chino Hills. He finished with 83 yards in 11 carries.

Safety Tahj Skinner of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame is happy after getting his sixth interception of the season.

(Craig Weston)

Junior quarterback Jack Hurst of Laguna Beach and West Virginia-bound senior quarterback Wyatt Brown of Notre Dame kept making plays all night. Hurst completed 32 of 51 passes for 417 yards and four touchdowns. Brown completed 16 of 31 passes for 232 yards and one touchdown. He ran for 61 yards and one touchdown.

The most important completion for Brown came with 7:38 left on third and 17 with Notre Dame clinging to a 34-28 lead. He found sophomore Emmanuel Pullins for a 19-yard completion. Then Pullins made a 31-yard catch. It set up a 21-yard field goal by Nico Marliani for a 37-28 lead with 2:22 left.

“Huge,” Notre Dame coach Evan Yabu said of the third-down reception.

“I just saw him one on one with no safety coverage,” Brown said.

Said Pullins: “I’m ready for those situations. Before the game, I promised myself to go for the ball.”

It became a wild game in the second half because Laguna Beach (9-2) refused to go down without a fight. After Andre Gamboa picked up a fumble on a high Laguna Beach snap to score a touchdown to start the third quarter, Notre Dame looked ready to pull away with a 28-14 lead.

Hurst responded with a four-yard touchdown pass to Grant Regal. Brown ran 10 yards for a touchdown and a 34-21 Notre Dame lead. Back came Hurst, who fired a 40-yard touchdown pass to Otis Boultinghouse.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” Brown said. “They throw a punch, we throw a punch back.”

In defeat, Laguna Beach made clear it will be a team to reckon with next season. Two freshmen, lineman Luke Bogdan and running back Charlie Christian, kept making plays like they will be future stars. The receiving corp made up mostly of juniors kept making catches for Hurst, who finished the season with 45 touchdown passes. The Breakers were hurt by two fumbles and an interception.

“It was a fun game,” Washington said. “They are tough and play hard.”

A mistake by Brown late in the first half helped Laguna Beach get back into the game. Brown had a pass intercepted by Will Kimball with 1:01 left on a scramble with Notre Dame leading 21-7. Hurst drove the team down to score on a four-yard touchdown reception by Kimball with four seconds left to make it 21-14 at halftime.

Two touchdown runs by Washington and a 25-yard touchdown reception by Luc Weaver accounted for the Knights’ first-half scores.

Tahj Skinner of Notre Dame picked up his sixth interception of the season. Notre Dame lost its standout nose tackle, Chris Colon, for next week’s game after being ejected for two 15-yard personal foul penalties.

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame confirmed on Wednesday that 6-foot-7 Tyran Stokes, considered the No. 1 high school basketball player from the class of 2026, has withdrawn from school.

Stokes arrived last season from a Northern California prep school and helped the Knights reach the Southern Section Open Division championship game and the Southern California Regional final.

His departure could produce changes in national TV game plans for Notre Dame. The Knights are still expected to be one of the top teams in Southern California with San Diego State commit Zachary White and top junior NaVorro Bowman.

Stokes leaving Notre Dame makes Sierra Canyon the Mission League preseason favorite.

USC had lost four of five, its season already all but lost, when Lincoln Riley made a bold move early last November that would have lasting ripple effects. He benched starting quarterback Miller Moss, in favor of backup Jayden Maiava, whose big arm and mobility gave the Trojans’ offense a different, more dynamic look.

The sudden switch made for a tense two weeks leading up to last season’s meeting with Nebraska. Not everyone in the locker room, you see, was thrilled with Moss’ removal.

But the move paid dividends in the end. Maiava injected life into the offense, USC returned from its bye and won three of its last four to finish the season. More critically, Riley found his quarterback of the future.

“The way that Jayden handled both when he wasn’t the starter, then when he was, I think set the stage for the player he has started to become and what he means to this program and this team right now,” Riley said this week. “He handled it with class both ways, and that makes a huge difference.”

USC starting quarterback Jayden Maiava throws a pass against Notre Dame at Notre Dame Stadium on Oct. 18.

(Justin Casterline / Getty Images)

A season later, USC is once again searching for answers coming out of its second bye, with Nebraska looming in November. Though, none of the questions this time concern the quarterback, who has been one of the best in the Big Ten. Nor are they as easy to solve as plugging in one player.

USC’s defensive front was just steamrolled for over 300 yards by Notre Dame’s run game. The offensive line is still dealing with nagging injuries. And the Trojans own rushing attack left a lot to be desired in their last outing.

Nevertheless, USC is 5-2, still within conceivable reach of the College Football Playoff conversation. The Trojans should be favored in four of their final five games, the lone exception being a trip to Eugene in late November. You don’t have to squint too hard to see a potential path to the Playoff … assuming USC can iron out its issues, first. That’s more encouraging than the circumstances were at this time last year.

“We’re still in a good place,” tight end Walker Lyons said. “We still control our destiny where we’re at right now.”

That’s been the message since USC left South Bend in bitter defeat. But control could slip through their hands in a hurry if Riley can’t right the ship this week on the road at Nebraska. A single loss, especially one outside of Oregon, would all but sink those hopes.

“I think we’ve learned a lot about ourselves with some of these really good matchups we’ve had as of late,” Riley said. “We know what we’ve gotta do. It’s very clear to us. Now we’ve just got to do a great job of it.”

That part hasn’t been so easy for USC as it unraveled down the stretch in each of its last three seasons. The Trojans are 6-11 in October and November since winning seven of eight during that stretch of Riley’s first campaign.

Adding a hostile road environment to that equation this week only makes matters more complicated. The Trojans haven’t won a true road game in October or November outside of Los Angeles since Oct. 28, 2023.

Nor do they seem to have pinned down precisely what’s ailing their defense at the moment. A week after one of USC’s best defensive performances of the season in a win over Michigan, the Trojans suddenly had major errors in execution, leading the Irish to rack up 306 rushing yards, the most allowed by a D’Anton Lynn-led defense. Lynn, the Trojans’ second-year coordinator, called the mistakes “extremely” frustrating.

But like Riley, he’s confident a week away will have done USC’s defense well.

“At the end of the day, when we’re on the same page, we know we can be a good defense,” Lynn said. “But we have to be on the same page and trust that the guy next to us is going to do his job, and we don’t have to overcompensate for anything.”

Notre Dame’s Jadarian Price (24) carries the ball and pulls away from USC’s Bishop Fitzgerald (19) on Oct. 18 in South Bend, Ind.

(Paul Beaty / Associated Press)

That trust comes much easier now for Maiava, after a full year as USC’s starting quarterback. Though, Nebraska and its top-rated pass defense won’t make it easy, per se. The Huskers are giving up a mere 127 yards passing per game through seven games.

It all makes for a test that the Trojans can’t afford to fail, one where its quarterback will be critical.

“Keep your head down, keep fighting,” Maiava said. “Just stay in it no matter what. We had this bye and we got to rest up a little bit which is great. But we need to be that beast every single day.”

Injury update

Left tackle Elijah Paige and center Kilian O’Connor both dressed for practice on Tuesday, but Riley expressed some doubt that USC would have its full starting offensive line available in time for Saturday’s game.

“We’re better,” Riley said, “but we’re not at a point where I’m like, ‘Yeah those guys are ready to go.’ We’re just not to that point yet.”

Welcome back to the Times of Troy newsletter, where after one last rain-soaked showdown in South Bend, we pour one out for one of the great rivalries in the history of college football. After a century of meeting on the football field, USC and Notre Dame are not currently scheduled to meet again. This, by all accounts, is a terrible shame.

Outside of L.A., the college football world has placed the blame for the rivalry’s demise squarely on USC’s shoulders. Notre Dame made sure that was the case when its athletic director, Pete Bevacqua, ran to Sports Illustrated last spring, immediately after USC made an offer to renew the series for one year.

As PR moves go, it was a smart one: By firing the first missive, Bevacqua knew that Notre Dame could shape the narrative around negotiations. And ever since, as Bevacqua hoped, Notre Dame has been cast by much of the national media as valiantly attempting to save the rivalry at any cost, while USC looks like its running scared away from it.

Which is really quite ironic, if you know the recent history of how Notre Dame has handled its rivalries.

Thirteen years ago, minutes before the two schools were set to face off in South Bend, former Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick famously handed then-Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon a letter as notice that Notre Dame intended to cancel the remainder of their rivalry series. It was as passive aggressive as scheduling changes get. Brandon didn’t even read the letter until after the game.

These two teams went way back, before USC even first fielded a football team. The two Midwest rivals first faced off back in 1887, when Michigan literally taught Notre Dame how to play football. (Not kidding.) Not to mention it was actually a Detroit Free Press columnist who first called Notre Dame the “Fighting Irish.” (Imagine the royalties!)

But in 2012, Notre Dame declared without any further conversation that it was backing out of the game. The reason? As part of its move to the Atlantic Coast Conference in every other sport, the Irish football program agreed to play five games against ACC schools every year.

No one at Notre Dame seemed all that concerned about history and tradition then. Swarbrick, at the time, called canceling the series “a necessary precaution,” given the future uncertainty surrounding its schedule.

Sound familiar?

Except, in this case, Notre Dame kept Purdue on its future schedule. And Michigan State. It chose to maintain its series with Navy, which had beaten the Irish just three times in the previous half-century, as well as Stanford. I wonder why.

Months later, then-Michigan coach Brady Hoke told a crowd at a booster luncheon that Notre Dame was “chickening out” of the rivalry. And he was right.

A dozen years later, Notre Dame is floating the same accusations about USC.

Except, in this case, USC has made efforts to maintain the series after moving to a much less flexible and more difficult schedule in the Big Ten. It has tried to keep the game going despite being locked into nine conference games — and with far less incentive to add strong non-conference opponents than there was in 2012. USC even amended its initial offer to extend the rivalry for multiple years, instead of just one, as a compromise.

Look, USC isn’t blameless in all of this. But no one seems to have acknowledged yet that Notre Dame hasn’t exactly helped negotiations along. It doesn’t want to move the game from October or November to September, as USC has asked — not because of tradition, as has been suggested, but purely because it’s much more convenient to Notre Dame to keep USC later in the season, when no other top programs want a team such as Notre Dame smack dab in the middle of its conference slate.

Who cares about the tradition of when the game is played, if the other option is it’s not played at all? If the Irish are so concerned about maintaining the USC rivalry, why didn’t they insist that Clemson — a team it has much less history with — play their newly signed 12-season series in mid-October?

Because Notre Dame is used to dictating the terms of engagement and getting its way. It has the flexibility of being without a conference. And it also knows it has the narrative firmly on its side. So why bother budging when the pitchforks are already pointed toward USC?

I don’t expect that to change any time soon, even as both athletic directors say they’re “optimistic” an agreement can be reached. Not unless USC is ready to capitulate. Until then, the public pressure will remain on the Trojans alone, while Notre Dame points across the bargaining table and cries chicken. Irony, be damned.

Yes … technically.

If USC wins each of its next five games to finish 10-2, you can count on the Trojans being in the 12-team field. But anything less than that, and they’re going to have a tough time making a case.

Let’s say USC only loses on the road to No. 6 Oregon from this point on. That would put the Trojans at 9-3, with just two Big Ten losses — and three overall. That’s a good season! But no team with three losses has ever made it into the Playoff, and while there’s a legitimate argument that this year will be the first, USC presumably wouldn’t have enough marquee wins to move the needle with the committee.

Michigan is currently USC’s only win over a team above .500. Nebraska, Iowa and Northwestern are all 5-2, but only one of the three has a top 25 win this season — the Huskers won their opener against No. 21 Cincinnati. The toughest test left aside from Oregon could very well be UCLA, which has won three in a row after starting 0-4.

Perhaps there’s a world where USC, with one conference loss, could end up in the Big Ten title game. But in addition to beating the Ducks, that would also require moving past either Ohio State or Indiana, neither of which have looked particularly vulnerable of late.

However you try to spin it, getting USC into the Playoff requires serious finesse. By losing to Notre Dame, the Trojans closed off the easiest path to a postseason run.

More than likely, USC’s hopes now hinge on running the table. But nothing I’ve seen recently suggests that’s a likely option. Instead, with each passing week, my 8-4 prediction is feeling just about right.

Jayden Maiava throws a pass under pressure in the second quarter against Notre Dame.

(Justin Casterline / Getty Images)

—Stop asking if Lincoln Riley is going to give up playcalling. It ain’t happening. It wasn’t that long ago that Riley’s playcalling was the main reason for his historic rise through the coaching ranks. That felt like ancient history on Saturday night, as Riley dialed up a failed trick play to star wideout Makai Lemon that ended in a game-altering fumble. Riley admitted after the game that it was “a stupid call,” which is the closest he’s come to accountability in that department. He added later that his two failed fourth-and-short calls weren’t very good either. “I’ve gotta be way better for our guys,” he said after. It’s good that he recognizes his shortcomings in this situation, but how we’ve gotten to this point, with Riley’s playcalling having a clear negative affect, I can’t quite explain. Riley has had impressive moments calling plays this season, which are easy to forget after such a bad performance. But the fact that he seems to be at his worst in the biggest moments is not the best sign for turning things around in the future. All that said, it would presumably take an intervention from one of his bosses to hand off those duties to Luke Huard. The ego hit would simply be too significant for Riley to initiate that change otherwise.

—USC struggled to protect Jayden Maiava, and it paid the price. The Trojans’ front allowed a season-high 17 pressures to Notre Dame, and Maiava completed a meager 31% of his passes and threw both of his interceptions when under pressure Saturday. The good news is that reinforcements are on the way. Starting left tackle Elijah Paige dressed for Saturday’s game, but was only available in case of emergency. Center Kilian O’Connor, meanwhile, was surprisingly listed as questionable against Notre Dame. Both should be good to go when USC takes on Nebraska in two weeks.

—USC has lost 11 straight on the road to top 25 teams, six of which came under Riley. The last win USC had against a ranked opponent on the road came in November … of 2016! And USC’s last chance this season to rectify this terrible streak will likely be in Eugene next month — a game the Trojans are, as of now, unlikely to win. That means we’re staring down the barrel of an entire decade without a win over a ranked team on the road, which is totally unacceptable for a team that sees itself as a blue blood of college football.

—After having zero rim protection a year ago, USC might have one of the best rim protectors in the Big Ten this season. Just take a look at the statline for new 7-foot-5 center Gabe Dynes from USC’s exhibition against Loyola Marymount. Dynes had six blocks, three of which came in his first 10 minutes of the game. Dynes also had nine points, eight rebounds and even three assists, as the USC took care of business in a 60-51 win. The Trojans shot just 33%, but showed that their defense can be a strength by holding Loyola Marymount to just 28% from the field. Dynes will be an important part of that equation and if he can contribute on offense, well … the sky could be the limit for the 7-footer.

Olympic sports spotlight

After losing four of six to start its Big Ten slate, USC’s women’s volleyball team bounced back in a big way over the past weekend, winning two critical matches on the road. The highlight of the weekend was a 3-1 win over No. 9 Wisconsin, USC’s best win yet of this season.

Redshirt freshman outside hitter London Wijay had a career performance in the win over Wisconsin, tying a career-high with 24 kills, while freshman libero Taylor Deckert tallied back-to-back 20-dig performances over the weekend. USC also handled Iowa in four sets, to bring its Big Ten record to 4-4 on the season.

In case you missed it

USC’s College Football Playoff hopes take a big hit in rain-soaked loss to Notre Dame

King and Kaylon Miller always believed they could rise from USC walk-ons to key roles

Depleted USC fined by Big Ten for playing running back listed ‘out’ on injury report

What I’m watching this week

Jason Bateman as Vince, Jude Law as Jake in “Black Rabbit.”

(Courtesy of Netflix)

The last time Jason Bateman got in with the wrong crowd on a Netflix show, one of the best shows of the last decade was born. I didn’t want to place “Ozark”-level expectations on “Black Rabbit,” Bateman’s new show on Netflix with Jude Law, but after watching the first two episodes, I can say with confidence that it’s off to just as strong of a start.

Law stars as a New York restaurateur whose life is upended when his estranged brother, played by Bateman, suddenly comes back into his life and drags him unwillingly into New York’s criminal underworld. The show’s tone is about as tense as it gets — think “The Bear” meets “Uncut Gems” — but if you’re in the mood for a thrill ride, then this show is worth your time.

Until next time …

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected], and follow me on X at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — It was an ominous bit of imagery at what could be the bitter end of a century-long series. Dark clouds descending over Touchdown Jesus, and a heavy downpour soaking every soul in Notre Dame Stadium, as if Mother Nature herself was lashing out at the prospect of one of college football’s defining rivalries dying in vain.

Both USC and Notre Dame have suggested they want the rivalry to continue if they can come to an agreement in the coming months. But if this was indeed the end, 99 years since USC and Notre Dame first met on a football field, it would be a particularly crushing finale for the Trojans, who fell 34-24 and now find their hopes of a College Football Playoff bid hanging by a thread.

Saturday seemed well on its way to a different sort of conclusion, when the Irish shanked a 31-yard field goal in the fourth quarter. Three plays later, USC quarterback Jayden Maiava found wideout Makai Lemon downfield for a 42-yard gain.

All the game’s momentum was suddenly in the hands of USC coach Lincoln Riley and his offense. That’s when Riley dialed up a hair-brained trick play that he’d surely regret later.

Sprinting right on an end-around, Lemon took the handoff from Maiava and immediately found himself trapped by the Notre Dame defense. Lemon cocked the ball as if he were going to throw, only to have the ball stripped away.

It was a rare misstep from the Trojans star, but an especially costly one. It took seven plays for Notre Dame to find the end zone after that, as quarterback C.J. Carr punched it in from one yard out to put the game away.

THE son of Dame Deborah James has honoured her “amazing” legacy by following in her fundraising footsteps.

Hugo Bowen ran the Royal Parks Half Marathon at the weekend, smashing his target to raise £3,000 for her Bowelbabe Fund, in true Dame Debs style.

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The 18-year-old told The Sun: “Running was something Mum and I used to do when I was younger, we often did park runs and I think I spurred her on to run a little faster.

“It was amazing, there was so much support along the route, which really helped motivate me to run harder and faster than I would have.

“It meant so much to be able to run in memory of her, and the amazing change she has inspired.”

Reflecting on the advice his running-obsessed mum would’ve given before the race, he added: “She would definitely have told me to make sure I had had a poo.

“And to ‘go smash it’, which I probably did a bit too much at the start, so I was super tired towards the end.”

Hugo was 14 years old when Dame Deborah died at the age of 40 in June 2022, five and a half years after being diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer. 

In the last weeks of her life, the Sun columnist launched her Bowelbabe Fund, aiming to raise £250,000 to help fund research into the disease to help prevent “any future Deborahs”, and give cancer patients the hope of new and better treatments.

So far, the Fund has supported more than 11 different projects, including a state-of-the-art interventional radiology machine at The Royal Marsden hospital where Deborah was treated.

Other scientific studies that have received a contribution from the Fund include one that is investigating personalised medicine for patients with bowel cancer, a cause Dame Debs was very passionate about.

And earlier this year, Deborah’s husband Seb Bowen, parents Heather and Alistair James and brother Ben James were on hand when the new Bowelbabe Lab was unveiled at The Francis Crick Institute, home to a team of scientists using ‘mini bowel tumours’ or organoids to test new and more targeted treatments.

Just days later Heather and Alistair were invited to a reception with King Charles where His Majesty hailed Deborah “an inspiration to us all, in sickness and health”.

The King went on to quote Debs parting message to her followers before she died: “Find a life worth enjoying; take risks; love deeply; have no regrets; and always, always have rebellious hope.”

“I’m honestly so proud of Mum and everything the Fund has done to help others,” Hugo added.

“I remember when she set it up she had a target of £250,000 and now we are at over £18million raised – it is beyond what any of us could’ve imagined.

“It’s such a beautiful legacy for my Mum and the research it is funding will save so many lives.”

Inspired by his mum, Hugo has already added another £4,300 to the Fund’s total, and thanked all those who have supported him so far.

“Everyone has been so supportive, I thought £3,000 would be a really difficult target to hit but we’ve smashed it and I’m so happy and honestly so surprised,” he added.

“I’m really grateful to everyone that has donated.”

Hugo was just the latest in the family to take on a running challenge, with Debs’ brother Ben and sister Sarah taking on the London Marathon this year – Sarah wearing the same poo emoji costume her sister was often seeing running in.

To donate to Hugo’s efforts, visit  https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/hugos-royal-parks-half.

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DAME PATRICIA ROUTLEDGE created a monster, and we loved her for it.

The actress, who has died aged 96, turned Hyacinth Bucket – pronounced “Bouquet” – into one of the most memorable TV characters of all time.

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Decades on from Nineties sitcom Keeping Up Appearances the pearl-wearing snob, with her candlelight suppers and white slimline telephone, is still as embedded in the national psyche as a character from Charles Dickens.

In Patricia’s own words: “She was grotesque.”

But the actress, like viewers, could not help but admire her: “She was always getting it wrong and slipping on the banana skin, and then coming back and flying the flag.”

By the time the sitcom first hit screens, Patricia had been acting for nearly 40 years, in roles from Coronation Street to Broadway musicals, with co-stars from Sidney Poitier to Jerry Lewis.

She was also a favourite of writer Alan Bennett, who wrote his first great TV monologue especially for her in 1982.

Its success led to the landmark series Talking Heads, in which she also starred.

Alan said in 1998: “She has an enormous amount of zest and brio and she puts a lot of air into the language, so it lifts dialogue which might otherwise seem quite banal.”

After leaving Keeping Up Appearances, Patricia had a second smash-hit with Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, and in 1996 was voted the nation’s favourite actress of all time.

But Patricia managed to keep her private life out of the spotlight.

She never married or had children, and for years refused to discuss her relationships except to say: “I do know what it is to have loved and suffered.”

Eventually, she revealed she had had three great love affairs, including one with a married man, which tormented her as a devout Christian.

She also admitted: “I didn’t make a decision not to be married and not to be a mother -– life just turned out like that because my involvement with acting was so total.

“Now I think it’s a pity I didn’t have children. But I’m not sure you can have a career and a family and do both satisfactorily. I always knew, deep down, that everything has a cost.”

But whenever she was asked how to become a success, she had the same answer: “I say, I can give you a tip. It’s called risk. And if you’re prepared to risk everything, then you can do anything.”

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Katherine Patricia Routledge was born on February 17, 1929, in Birkenhead, Wirral, and grew up in a house behind father Isaac’s “high-class gentlemen’s outfitters” shop.

The family was theatre-mad and Patricia acted in school plays but never saw it as her future: “I always intended to be a go-ahead headmistress in a red sports car who had romances all over Europe in the holidays.”

With that in mind, she studied English at the University of Liverpool but spent so much time in the student drama club that older brother Graham urged her to audition for the Liverpool Playhouse.

She said: “He was the one who said, ‘That’s what you ought to do.’”
In 1952, aged 23, she made her professional debut with the company as Hippolyta in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Just two years later she was in the West End, showing off her roof-raising contralto singing voice in musical comedy The Duenna.

By early 1961 she was so well known on stage stage that the makers of Coronation Street, which had begun a couple of months earlier, pounced: “They created a character for me – Sylvia Snape. She had a little cafe.”

Their idea was for the no-nonsense proprietor to become one of the cobbles’ stalwarts, but after just three episodes Patricia quit.

She recalled: “I just knew inside that I needed to have other adventures.”

That included belting out satirical songs on That Was The Week It Was, as well as her big-screen debut in 1967’s To Sir with Love.

She played a teacher who offers support to Sidney Poitier’s character, and years later recalled the actor’s generosity: “I just had one scene alone with him, and he gave it to me.”

Patricia had less happy memories of working with Jerry Lewis in 1968’s Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the River: “An absolute nightmare. And I’m afraid I didn’t find him funny at all.”

BROADWAY DEBUT

That year Patricia also took Broadway by storm, with the New York Times critic describing her performance in Darling of the Day as “the most spectacular, most scrumptious, most embraceable musical comedy debut since Beatrice Lillie and Gertrude Lawrence came to the country.”

It landed her a Tony Award, presented by Groucho Marx.

Back at home, Alan Bennett had been a long-time fan and so when he wrote his first ground-breaking TV monologue, he wrote it for her.

Initially, Patricia turned him down: the piece was 47 minutes of just one character speaking directly to the camera.

Patricia recalled: “I said it wouldn’t work – people would switch off in their thousands.”

But Alan told her: “If you don’t do it, nobody will. I’ve written it for you.”

A Woman of No Importance screened on BBC2 in November 1982, with Patricia as Miss Schofield, who bubbled away about office gossip and the goings on at a hospital where, it slowly dawned on viewers, she was dying.

It was a sensation, and won Patricia a British Press Guild award for best actress. She later said of the writer: “He turns cliche into poetry.
“He sees a world in a grain of sand – the sympathy, the humanity.”

Its success led to 1988’s beloved Talking Heads series of six monologues, with Patricia in A Lady of Letters as a lonely busybody who finally finds friendship when she is sent to prison.

She said: “It’s about salvation, about learning to love at a tremendous cost. Oh, it was a joyous thing to do.”

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A second series was made in 1998, with Patricia’s monologue this time about a shop assistant who ends up in the thrall of her chiropodist.

In 2004 she admitted she found that part “very kinky”: “I didn’t really enjoy it. I didn’t understand it, deep down.”

Alan said later: “Patricia has a very strong moral streak and very strong views, and I think if a part doesn’t conform with those she’s very dubious about it.”

In between all this, she showed off her comedy brilliance again in Victoria Wood’s series As Seen on TV, playing an overconfident recurring character called Kitty who came out with lines like: “I’m something of a celebrity having walked the entire length of the Pennine Way in slingbacks, to publicise mental health.”

But when sitcom writer Roy Clarke, already famous for Last of the Summer Wine, presented the BBC with scripts for a new series about a suburban social climber, he did not have a lead actress in mind.

He recalled in 2004: “People do assume I must have written Keeping Up Appearances for Patricia Routledge, but I didn’t.”

It was director and producer Harold Snoad who Roy credited for “that perfect bit of casting”.

Harold said: “I wanted the character of Hyacinth to be a sort of stately galleon. I didn’t want somebody lightweight, either in size or vocal terms.”

Patricia said of the character: “She leapt from the page.”

GLOBAL HIT

The first series began on BBC1 in October 1990; soon 13million people a week were tuning in, including superfan the Queen Mum.

Nobody could have delivered lines like her (“I hope that’s a first-class stamp. I object to having second-class stamps thrust through my letterbox”) but she also brought a bursting energy to the role that was unmatchable.

The late Clive Swift, who played Hyacinth’s long-suffering husband Richard, said in 1998: “I can’t think of an another actress who could have brought the physical clowning to the part, which isn’t there particularly in the script.”

It was a global hit, but in 1995 after five series Patricia announced she would not do any more, despite the BBC’s pleas: “There were other adventures to have.”

They included, at the time, a new relationship.

Speaking to The Sun in 1996 she opened up about her private life for the first time, admitting: “A corner of my heart is taken. I’ve got a sneaking feeling that I might have almost everything in the end.

“He’s someone I’ve known for years and years. He’s in theatrical management but we hadn’t seen each other for a long time and then we met again.

“Life is full of the most wonderful surprises.”

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Patricia moved to Chichester, West Sussex, in 1999 to be closer to this new love, whose identity was never revealed, and lived there for the rest of her life.

She also told The Sun: “I had my heart broken when I was young. It was a grand passion, but it was complicated because he was married and, of course, I felt very guilty.

“I would gladly have lived with him and I wanted his children. But I couldn’t do it because I thought it would kill my parents.”

Her second great passion came in the late Eighties, when she least expected it: “Out of the blue this enchanting person appeared.

“He was a theatre director – a very funny and delightful man. But he had a heart condition, which I didn’t know about for a while.

“One day I went to rehearsal and was told he’d died in the night. This dear man was no more. I was just so hurt, so sore with the pain of loss.”

‘ILLUMINATING LIFE’

Work was always a refuge. In 1996 she was back on screen in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates as pensioner-turned-crime fighter, who was a down-to-earth, proud working-class opposite of Hyacinth.

Patricia later said of that character: “I loved her.”

It was another hit and the actress never forgave the BBC for axing the programme after four series without telling the cast: “No word ever came – how rude.”

Hetty was her last major TV role; afterwards she focused on theatre.
Her final role was in Oscar Wilde’s play An Ideal Husband in 2014 in her adopted hometown of Chichester, where she worshipped at the cathedral each week.

In 2017 she was made a dame for services to the theatre and charity.

On getting the news, she said: “I started to laugh, and then I started to cry. It was extraordinary.”

But Patricia believed her profession was important.

She once said: “It sounds a bit high-faluting, but I think acting is the physicalisation of the imagination.

“If the word becomes flesh, then you are illuminating life for other people.”

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“Is he actually coming?”

A Sherman Oaks Notre Dame football player had heard the rumors of a new student joining the football team on Monday at practice.

Sure enough, 6-foot-8 Tyran Stokes, the No. 1 high school basketball player in the country from the class of 2026, showed up wearing practice jersey No. 67. He’ll need 10 days of practices before he can play in a football game, but coach Evan Yabu was excited to have him.

He’s supposed to play receiver and Yabu observed, “We don’t have anyone 6-8, 245 pounds.”

Notre Dame’s Tyran Stokes celebrates after a slam dunk in the closing seconds of a 68-61 victory at Harvard-Westlake last season.

( Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Stokes could use a break from basketball after a busy offseason of traveling and games. Notre Dame basketball coach Matt Sargeant is fine with Stokes trying football. He has three other players on the football team.

USC basketball coach Eric Musselman looked like a genius when he went out to the football field to watch Stokes. He had come to Notre Dame to watch basketball practice, then heard about Stokes missing basketball practice.

Basketball player Zach White said of Stokes trying football, “He’ll do great if he puts his mind to it.”