A Sunday Brunch star was forced to make a quick exit from the Channel 4 programme during its latest episode
Joe Crutchley Screen Time Reporter
12:24, 08 Feb 2026Updated 12:25, 08 Feb 2026
Sunday Brunch guest rushed off set halfway through show as host explains absence
The Sunday Brunch set had one guest missing from the line-up halfway through the programme.
The hit Channel 4 show returned to TV screens on Sunday (February 8) with its usual three hours of celebrity interviews, culinary demonstrations and light-hearted entertainment.
Joining hosts Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer were another batch of famous faces. On the long-running programme, the pair chatted to the likes of Shazad Latif, Vanessa Williams and Michaela Strachan.
Rock band James – best known for hits like Come Home and Sit Down – spoke to the hosts and also performed at the end of the show in a pre-recorded performance.
However, after James’ interview – in which they spoke about their new greatest hits album, James: Nothing But Love – The Definitive Best Of – Simon revealed the band would soon be heading off and leaving the Channel 4 studio.
He said: “We’re going to be saying goodbye to you guys aren’t we because you have to shoot off and do a show.”
Simon added: “Where’s the show,” before the band confirmed: “Liverpool.” Simon then said: “Oh great, best of luck with your travels.”
It comes after Sunday Brunch sparked complaints from fed-up viewers minutes into the show last month. Comedians Bridget Christie and Russel Howard, actors Malachi Kirby and Mark Benton, musician Bellah and chef Jeremy Pang were the guests at the time.
However, the line-up left viewers divided with some claiming they “didn’t know any of them”. Taking to social media, one fan penned: “Another week of z list “celebrities” time to knock this show on its head.” A second added: “Don’t know any of them.” A third person said: “Sorry but used to love it …getting past its used-by date.”
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However, some fans were delighted with the celebrity guests, with someone else writing: “A way better and funnier line-up than last week.” Another agreed: “I love Sunday Brunch! It’s a must-watch tradition in our house.”
Meanwhile, a week prior viewers branded an interview on the show “a tough watch”. The exchange between Tim and Simon with Black Ops and The Wheel of Time actor Hammed Animashaun was criticised by fans watching at home.
Sunday Brunch airs every Sunday at 10am on Channel 4.
Former Manchester United and England footballer Gary Neville has returned to BBC One’s Dragons’ Den as a guest investor, judging entrepeneurs to see if he wants to back their business
Gary Neville’s co-star has revealed what he is like on Dragons’ Den(Image: BBC)
While Gary is best known for his talent as a Manchester United and England defender, he built up an extensive property portfolio during his career. The BBC says he spearheads the £450m St. Michael’s development in Manchester after securing over £200m of overseas investment.
He said: “This gentleman here is the biggest softie when it comes to investment. Thank god he has only been a guest, if he was there full time he’d need a printing machine, he’d invest in everything.”
Touker went on to joke that Gary likes to share a bit of “Mancunian help” with the guests as they make their pitches. Gary replied: “Honestly, people come in and if I like them, I think, ‘Oh they deserve a little bit of Mancunion love’ and just give them a little bit of investment.
“I have to say, when they walk through the door, how nervous they must be, but when I’m looking at them I’m thinking, ‘I’m glad I’m not stood where you are’.”
Gary went on to explain that Touker “drills” the contestants over their finances almost straight away before fellow dragons Deborah Meaden and Peter Jones join in. He added: “You have to be quite resilient when you come through the doors.”
The Manchester-born footballer explained he has “sympathy” for the contestants after they exit the famous Dragons’ Den lift. He admits he even gets “a little bit nervous” when he is confronted by the dragons.
He added: “Them coming through facing you, Deborah, Peter, Steven [Bartlett], they must be terrified.”
Touker however explained he likes to be cautious when investing on the show. He said: “If you’re investing your hard-earned cash, you can’t just give it away, and some people like to pull the wool over your eyes.”
He went on to explain that the “most important thing” he looks for when investing on the show is a business that he can help improve. Gary will be returning to Dragons’ Den from 8pm tonight on BBC One.
This week’s pitches will include a business offering skincare made from rescued food, a device that keeps your golf balls spotless, an app that can help with your mortgage and spicy seasoning balls.
This series will see a host of guest dragons joining the panel of investors. As well as Gary, rapper Tinie Tempah, serial entrepreneur and REFY CEO Jenna Meek, and Tropic Skincare powerhouse Susie Ma will be judging investments.
Tinie said: “I have a keen interest in supporting emerging entrepreneurs as well as investing in a wide-ranging portfolio of businesses, so Dragons’ Den was an opportunity I simply couldn’t turn down.
“I am ecstatic to become a guest dragon and look forward to seeing where I can help, bring value and of course invest in some of these brilliant businesses and people that step into the Den.”
Samantha Davies, Executive Producer, BBC Studios Entertainment said of the guest dragons: “Audiences love the powerful combination of our much-loved regular dragons and the fresh energy guest dragons bring to the Den – and this series, we’re going bigger than ever.
“We’re thrilled to welcome back Gary, alongside three formidable new business titans, all ready to uncover the next generation of bold, brilliant and disruptive entrepreneurs. There’s no better place to ignite that ambition than right here in the Den!”
Before we see elephants at Elephant Valley in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, we come face to face with destruction, only the wreckage is beautiful. A long, winding path takes guests around and under felled trees. Aged gray tree hunks form arches, for instance, over bridges that tower over clay-colored paths with hoof prints.
The design is meant to reorient us, to take us on a trail walked not by humans but traversed and carved by elephants, a creature still misunderstood, vilified and hunted for its cataclysmic-like ability to reshape land, and sometimes communities.
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“It starts,” says Kristi Burtis, vice president of wildlife care for the Safari Park, “by telling the story that elephants are ecosystem engineers.”
Elephant Valley will open March 5 as the newest experience at the Escondido park, its aim to bring guests closer than ever to the zoo’s eight elephants, which range in age from 7 to 36, while more heavily focusing on conservation. The centerpiece of the 13-acre-plus parkland is a curved bridge overlooking a savanna, allowing elephants to walk under guests. But there are also nooks such as a cave that, while not previewed at a recent media event, will allow visitors to view elephants on their level.
In a shift from, say, the Safari Park’s popular tram tour, there are no fences and visible enclosures. Captive elephants remain a sometimes controversial topic, and the zoo’s herd is a mix of rescues and births, but the goal was to create a space where humans are at once removed and don’t impede on the relative free-roaming ability of the animals by keeping guests largely elevated. As an example of just how close people can get to the herd, there was a moment of levity at the event when one of the elephants began flinging what was believed to be a mixture of dirt and feces up onto the bridge.
An aerial view of Elephant Valley at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, home to eight elephants.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“Our guests are going to be able to see the hairs on an elephant,” says Kristi Burtis, vice president of wildlife care for the Safari Park.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“Our guests are going to be able to see the hairs on an elephant,” Burtis says. “They can see their eyes. They can see the eyelashes. They can see how muscular their trunks are. It’s really going to be a different experience.”
Elephant Valley, complete with a multistory lodge with open-air restaurants and bars, boasts a natural design that isn’t influenced by the elephant’s African home so much as it is in conversation with it. The goal isn’t to displace us, but to import communal artistry — Kenyan wood and beadwork can be found in the pathways, resting spaces and more — as a show of admiration rather than imitation.
“We’re not going to pretend that we’re taking people to Africa,” says Fri Forjindam, now a creative executive with Universal’s theme parks but previously a lead designer on Elephant Valley via her role as a chief development officer at Mycotoo, a Pasadena-based experiential design firm.
“That is a slippery slope of theming that can go wrong really fast,” she adds. “How do we recognize where we are right now, which is near San Diego? How do we populate this plane with plants that are indigenous to the region? The story of coexistence is important. We’re not extracting from Africa, we’re learning. We’re not extracting from elephants, we’re sharing information.”
But designing a space that is elephant-first yet also built for humans presented multiple challenges, especially when the collaborating teams were aiming to construct multiple narratives around the animals. Since meetings about Elephant Valley began around 2019, the staff worked to touch on themes related to migration and conservation. And there was also a desire to personalize the elephants.
“Where can we also highlight each of the elephants by name, so they aren’t just this huge herd of random gray creatures?” Forjindam says. “You see that in the lodge.”
Two of eight elephants eat during an Elephant Valley preview.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
That lodge, the Mkutano House — a phrase that means “gathering” in Swahili — should provide opportunities for guests to linger, although zoo representatives say reservations are recommended for those who wish to dine in the space (there will also be a walk-up, to-go window). Menus have yet to be released, but the ground floor of the structure, boasting hut-like roofing designed to blend into the environment, features close views of the elephant grazing pool as well as an indoor space with a centerpiece tree beneath constellation-like lighting to mimic sunrises and sunsets.
Throughout there are animal wood carvings and beadwork, the latter often hung from sculptures made of tree branches. The ceiling, outfitted with colorful, cloth tapestries designed to move with the wind, aims to create less friction between indoor and outdoor environments.
There are, of course, research and educational goals of the space as well. The Safari Park works, for instance, with the Northern Rangelands Trust and Loisaba Conservancy in Kenya, with an emphasis on studying human-elephant conflict and finding no-kill resolutions. Nonprofits and conservation groups estimate that there are today around 415,000 elephants in Africa, and the African savanna elephant is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Water areas in Elephant Valley have been redesigned with ramps and steps to make it easier for the elephants to navigate. The hope is to inspire play.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Studies of the zoo’s young elephants is shared with the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in the hopes of delivering care to elephant youth to prevent orphanage. Additionally, the Safari Park has done extensive examination into the endotheliotropic herpes virus. “The data that we collect from elephants here, you can’t simply get from elephants in the wild,” Burtis says.
One of the two entrances to Elephant Valley is outfitted with bee boxes; bees are known to be a natural elephant deterrent and can help in preventing the animals from disrupting crops or communities. To encourage more natural behavior, the plane is outfitted with timed feeders in an attempt to encourage movement throughout the acreage and establish a level of real-life unpredictability in hunting for resources. Water areas have been redesigned with ramps and steps to make it easier for the elephants to navigate.
The view from Elephant Valley’s Mkutano House, a two-story dining destination in the new space at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
With Elephant Valley, Forjindam says the goal was to allow visitors to “observe safely in luxury — whatever that is — but not from a position of power, more as a cohabitor of the Earth, with as much natural elements as possible. It’s not to impose dominance. Ultimately, it needed to feel natural. It couldn’t feel like a man-made structure, which is an antiquated approach to any sort of safari experience where animals are the product, a prize. In this experience, this is the elephant’s home.”
And the resulting feel of Elephant Valley is that we, the paying customers, are simply their house guests.
