Harry Potter

ITV bosses have wiped “uncomfortable” footage of Miriam Margolyes from the edition of This Morning that appears on its ITVX service.

Miriam Margolyes has been met with a wave of fury after using a highly offensive term to describe Andi Peters’ skin colour during an ‘uncomfortable’ appearance on This Morning.

Viewers have branded the 85-year-old ‘disgraceful’ following her interview on the ITV show and bosses have scrubbed the remarks from the ITVX footage.

In the interview to promote her book, which aired on Thursday’s episode, she began dissecting Christine Lampard’s Northern Irish accent before turning her attention to her co-host.

“What accent would be normal for you? What are you?,” she asked the 56-year-old, leaving him baffled. The presenter responded: ”This is normal. What am I? I’m me!”

“You’re a mix, aren’t you? You’ve got a Black daddy and a white mummy,” she said. He explained that both of his parents are Black, jokingly questioning whether his make-up artist had used a “lighter shade than normal”.

“I think you’re high yella. That’s what they call it in America when someone isn’t deeply black,” she continued, with Andi quipping that he “didn’t even know there were shades”.

The presenter then pointed to his earpiece and revealed that bosses were intervening, explaining that they were “getting nervous”.

“There are shades and this is what we have to incorporate,” the Harry Potter actress added. “Don’t be nervous, we welcome everybody. That’s what I want to write about in my book, it’s about inclusion.”

The Merriam-Webster US dictionary defines the term – sometimes spelt high yaller – as a dated and often offensive piece of slang used to describe a black person with a light complexion.

ITV bosses have yet to issue a statement over the segment but the offensive footage has been removed from the episode on ITVX. However, the rest of her interview still remains.

Viewers were left reeling over the segment and quickly rushed to social media with one saying the term was “super racist” and many calling for further action to be taken.

One person wrote on social media: “That Miriam Margoyles clip is just about the cringiest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like a scene out of The Office.” Another agreed: “I do not accept that it’s just her age or character. She uses words and phrases that are totally unacceptable. I hope #thismorning never brings her back on the show.”

One posted: “That Miriam Margolyes interview is the most uncomfortable thing to sit through what the hell was she thinking.”

Another said: “Just watched @thismorning interview from this morning Miriam Margolyes is disgrace what she said about Andi Peters is way out of line she should be banned from @ITV @SkyNews @BBCTheOneShow she was way out of order.” They added: “@andipeters i am standing with you [sic].”

The Mirror has approached ITV, This Morning, Andi and Miriam for a comment.

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FANS are getting a sneak peak inside the new Harry Potter theme park at Warner Bros. World.

Potterheads will be able to immerse themselves into the world of Hogwarts within three magical lands.

In a teaser video, Warner Bros. has revealed what awaits fans in its upcoming Harry Potter theme park in Yas Island, Abu Dhabi.

The caption read: “It’s official! Hogwarts Castle, Diagon Alley and the Forbidden Forest are coming to @wbworldyasisland, Abu Dhabi. BackToHogwarts.”

For fans of the series, it’s believed that Mr Weasley’s car – the Ford Anglia – will form part of the new attraction.

Reports suggest that the ride will simulate scenes from the franchise when it soars over the English countryside.

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It could follow the Hogwarts Express steam train, battle the Whomping Willow and face the giant spiders in the Forbidden Forest.

Previous reports suggest it will have its own Diagon Alley and Hogwarts castle.

According to Gulf News, the project is estimated to cost somewhere between $545 million and $816 million (£600million).

The Yas Island Theme Park first announced that it was adding a Harry Potter-themed land in 2022 and it’s expected to open in 2029.

The Harry Potter development will be the first of its kind in the Middle East.

The Harry Potter land will be entirely indoors so it can be used throughout the year – even in the summertime when temperatures soar above 45C.

With it being indoors, visitors can expect some immersive-looking scenery from the world of Harry Potter.

The land is part of the Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi which is the world’s second largest indoor theme park which has a total of 29 rides.

Currently it has six themed lands such as Bedrock where visitors can explore the Flintstones Bedrock River Adventure.

Gotham City is home to Batman and the Joker attractions, Metropolis has DC characters, Cartoon Junction has rides inspired by Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo.

Other themed areas include Dynamite Gulch and Warner Bros. Plaza.

EVER watched a TV show or film and wished you could live in the characters’ worlds for a day?

Now, a growing number of iconic TV and film properties are opening their doors to fans to book to stay overnight.

Gavin and Stacey viewers, for example, can book the exact house that was home to Uncle Bryn (played by Rob Brydon) on Airbnb.

Based on the iconic Barry Island in Wales, it is decorated just as it was in Bryn’s ‘bachelor paradise’ during episode three of series three.

It can house six guests across two bedrooms, with two nights in September for three guests setting you back £455.

But it’s not the only filming location you can walk onto. 

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Here are 10 iconic TV and film sets around the world where you can spend the night…

De Vere House (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1)

While it may not be Hogwarts, you can also have a magical stay sleeping at Harry Potter’s birthplace and childhood home in Godric’s Hollow.

Located in medieval Lavenham, the Grade I-listed De Vere House was built in the 14th century and features four-poster beds and traditional stone fireplaces.

You can separately book one of the two ensuite rooms, which have access to a guest sitting room where you can toast marshmallows and crumpets over the fire.

The stay also includes a full English breakfast and fluffy robes – but sadly no flying broomsticks.
You are required to book two nights minimum, which costs from £390.

Yew Tree Farm (Miss Potter)

Experience a slice of history by booking the exact home owned by Beatrix Potter herself in the 1930s.

The Grade II-listed 17th-century Lake District property also doubled as Hill Top Farm in the 2006 Miss Potter movie starring Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. 

The three-bedroom holiday rental comfortably sleeps six and comes with dark oak beams, four-poster beds, and antique furniture that belonged to Beatrix Potter. 

Guests can enjoy the surrounding fells, meet roaming Herdwick sheep, and relax in a private outdoor hot tub on the estate.

You can typically book the property out for around £750 per night.

The Spice Bus (Spice World)

It’s not only bricks and mortar filming locations that you can book. 

Spice Girls fans can have a night in the Union Jack-decorated Spice Bus, which featured in the 1997 pop movie Spice World.

Parked on the Isle of Wight, the original 1978 Bristol double-decker bus is now a cozy retreat that sleeps up to three people from £99 a night.

While it can be booked for nostalgic stays, it could also be the ideal party or hen do backdrop too.

Highclere Castle’s London Lodge (Downton Abbey)

Downton Abbey fans can step into the world of the privileged family by checking into filming location Highclere Castle.

While you can’t sleep in Lord Grantham’s main bedroom, you can stay on the Crawley family’s estate at the restored London Lodge for from £350 a night.

During the day, guests can wander the estate’s rolling parklands and enjoy views of the main castle facade. 

Porthpean House (About Time)

Nestled right above the coastal waters in St Austell, Cornwall, this 19th-century manor served as the beloved family home of Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) and his dad (Bill Nighy) in Richard Curtis’s About Time film. 

Known off-screen as Porthpean House, the 12-bedroom property sleeps up to 21 guests and opens straight out onto rolling lawns that lead down to a secluded beach. 

Guests can spend their time in the grand drawing room complete with a piano, play croquet on the grass, or potter barefoot down to the water just like the Lake family. 

Not only is it available for private family rentals, but also weddings too. 

Lostwithiel Manor (Poldark)

This wildcard rental is The Lostwithiel Manor Estate that sits deep in the Cornish countryside, four miles from Lostwithiel.

It’s a property perfect for a wedding, or special event due to its sprawling size.

Lostwithiel Manor that has been the filming location for so many shows from The Three Musketeers, My Cousin Rachel, Delicious starring Dawn French and of course, Poldark.

One guest said: “Fires and candles lit every morning. Flowers from the garden on the tables. Relaxed, attentive staff with a genuine love of the house and its history.”

The nine-bedroom property has a library, gallery, a drawing room with a working fireplace, and a beautiful garden room.

If you fancy getting married or having a party at a filming hot spot, head to Oliverstravels.

Bella Swan’s House (Twilight)

If you grew up watching Twilight, you will recall the iconic 1930s home used for the interior and exterior filming of Bella and Charlie Swan’s house.

Costing around $450 (£350) per night, the Oregon property has been kept as a homage to the 2008 hit film.

Movie memorabilia and photographs fill every room of the five-bedroom property, and you can even eat at the same dining table where Charlie and Bella shared their meals on screen.

Villanelle’s Art Nouveau Apartment (Killing Eve)

Many Killing Eve fans will recall the striking flat that assassin Villanelle stayed in during the third season of the show. 

Located in Barcelona‘s trendy Gràcia district, it features lofty ceilings and stained-glass details.

Not only can you soak up the stunning architecture in the two bedroom flat, which is around £232 per night, but you also get access to a garden pool.

This is one of the country’s best-preserved medieval towns.

The UK has no shortage of amazing historical towns and villages. One in particular is famous for looking frozen in time after its primary industry collapsed, leaving the homes preserved as they looked in the 16th century.

Lavenham in Suffolk is one of the most important wool towns, and back in the 15th century, it was one of the wealthiest settlements in England thanks to the booming wool trade. Wealthy merchants built large, opulent homes in the town and used their cash to fund the late-Gothic Church of St Peter and St Paul.

However, in the late 16th century, the wool industry was decimated by cheap foreign imports and heavy taxation.

The formerly wealthy people of Lavenham saw their money disappear overnight, and people could no longer afford to rebuild or modernise their homes.

These same timber-framed Tudor homes have stood in place for centuries, untouched and now are an iconic sight on the town’s high street.

More than 300 of them are listed as historic structures, and hundreds lean at odd angles due to the warping of the timber over the years.

On Instagram, a visitor said: “This 1,000 year old village feels frozen in time!”

One of the must-sees of the village, aside from its history-lined streets, is the spectacular Lavenham Guildhall.

This 16th-century building is now managed and maintained by the National Trust.

Throughout the building there are displays you can read and admire which tell the story of the village through the centuries as well as the people who called it home.

As you wander through the town, keep an eye out for the famous Crooked House, thought to be the inspiration behind the nursery rhyme “There was a crooked man, who lived in a crooked house”.

Keen-eyed tourists might recognise the De Vere House on Water Street, which was used as a shooting location for the Harry Potter franchise.

Now, the house is a luxury accommodation where tourists can spend the night in four-poster beds, admiring the wooden beams that are an emblem of the style of architecture.

DOWNTON Abbey and Harry Potter star Dame Maggie Smith left a £16million fortune to her two actor sons, probate records published nearly two years after her death reveal.

The double Oscar winner, who died at a London hospital in September 2024 at the age of 89, left a net estate valued at £15,977,325.

Her will divides the bulk of that fortune equally between her sons Christopher Stephens, who works under the stage name Chris Larkin, and Toby Stephens.

She also left her West Sussex farmhouse, Douglas Lake Farm at Fittleworth, to a family trust she had set up with the two brothers in 2019.

The five-bedroom house, where she raised her sons and lived for more than 40 years, sits on a secluded plot with barns, a stable and a vineyard.

Born Margaret Natalie Smith in Ilford, Essex, in 1934, she was brought up in Oxford and made her stage debut at the Oxford Playhouse aged 17.

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She won her first Oscar in 1970 for playing the teacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and a second in 1979 for California Suite.

She was made a Dame in 1990 and her other films included A Room with a View, Sister Act, Gosford Park and The Lady in the Van.

A generation of children knew her as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, a role she played across a decade from 2001 to 2011.

Her role as the acid-tongued Violet Crawley in six series of ITV’s Downton Abbey from 2010 won her three Emmy awards and a fresh television audience around the world.

In all she won two Oscars, seven Baftas, four Emmys, three Golden Globes and a Tony award, and was appointed a Companion of Honour by the late Queen in 2014.

King Charles and Queen Camilla also paid tribute, saying: “As the curtain comes down on a national treasure, we join all those around the world in remembering with the fondest admiration and affection her many great performances, and her warmth and wit that shone through both off and on the stage.”

Harry Potter co-star Daniel Radcliffe, said: “I will always consider myself amazingly lucky to have been able to work with her, and to spend time around her on set. The word legend is overused but if it applies to anyone in our industry then it applies to her. Thank you Maggie.”

Hugh Bonneville, who played her son in Downton Abbey, said: “Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent.

“She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances.”

Her sons announced her death in a statement issued through her publicist, in which they thanked hospital staff for their care during her final days.

They said: “An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end.

“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother.”

She married the actor Robert Stephens in 1967, the father of her two sons, and after their divorce married the playwright Beverley Cross in the mid-1970s.

Mr Cross wrote the musical Half a Sixpence and the screenplays for the fantasy adventure films Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans.

Her will directs that any copyright, royalties and unpublished works she inherited from him after his death in 1998 should be shared out separately.

The proceeds are split equally between his daughter Philippa Maughan, his son Shaun Cross and her own two sons.

She signed the will in September 1996, when Mr Cross was still alive and named as her main beneficiary, but he died 18 months later.

The full value of everything she owned came to £16,003,613, with debts and expenses of just over £26,000 taken off to reach the final figure.

Speaking in a magazine interview in 2019, she was dismissive of the two roles that had made her famous to a new generation of viewers.

She said: “It wasn’t what you’d call satisfying. I didn’t really feel I was acting.”

She added that she was grateful for both jobs, which between them introduced her to millions of filmgoers who had never seen her on stage.

Dame Maggie once summed her life up by saying: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act and one’s still acting.”

The Grade I-listed estate invites families, friends and history buffs to explore its stunning architecture, formal gardens and rich history

One UK spot feels almost too extraordinary to be real. Tucked away in the Lincolnshire countryside, just outside Grantham, Harlaxton Manor rises dramatically from around 300 acres of parkland and gardens.

With its towers, ornate stonework and imposing silhouette, it feels less like an ordinary country estate and more like something lifted straight from a storybook. The manor was built in the 19th century for Gregory Gregory, with construction beginning in 1831 and the building completed around 1851.

But Gregory wasn’t interested in creating an ordinary English manor.

Inspired by his travels throughout Britain and Europe, he brought together a remarkable collection of architectural influences, creating something theatrical, extravagant and completely unique.

Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture, Gothic details and Baroque grandeur all come together within the same extraordinary building.

Approaching Harlaxton, you can almost imagine a horse-drawn carriage disappearing around the corner, a mysterious figure watching from one of the upper windows, or an old family secret hidden somewhere behind one of its grand doors.

Today, the manor has a very different role. It is owned by the University of Evansville in Indiana and is home to Harlaxton College, a study-abroad campus where students from around the world live and study.

Yet despite its modern purpose, the manor has lost none of its extraordinary character, reports Lincolnshire Live.

Nearly two centuries after Gregory Gregory first imagined it, Harlaxton still feels like a place where reality and imagination meet.

The estate has been nicknamed ‘Lincolnshire’s hidden Hogwarts’ and is set to throw open its doors to the public later this month.

Over the August bank holiday weekend, Harlaxton Manor, will be hosting its summer open house event — a rare opportunity for visitors to discover one of the county’s most captivating and secretive estates.

On Sunday, August 30 and Monday, August 31, visitors can step inside the Grade I-listed manor, stroll through its formal gardens and soak up the atmosphere of the estate.

Harlaxton is located nearby Grantham and is an underrated market town.

Grantham is nestled along the River Witham close to the Lincolnshire–Nottinghamshire border.

With roots stretching back to Saxon times, the town developed into an important market centre by the 11th century, growing in wealth through the wool and leather trades.

Bethan Watson, events manager at Harlaxton Manor, said: “We are absolutely delighted to once again welcome visitors to Harlaxton Manor for our Summer Open House this upcoming August Bank Holiday.

“It is always a pleasure to share this remarkable estate with the public and give people the opportunity to experience the history, architecture and beautiful surroundings that make the manor so incredibly special.”

Ms Watson continued: “Guests often remark that Harlaxton Manor is simply magical, like a hidden version of Hogwarts nestled in the Lincolnshire countryside, and it’s easy to see why.

“From exploring our magnificent interiors and strolling through the gardens to relaxing with live music throughout the day, we hope families, friends and history buffs will make a day of it and create lasting memories steeped in splendour under the late summer sun.”

Those planning to attend are encouraged to secure their tickets ahead of the event, which will be open from 10am to 5pm across both days.