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Quaint city that’s UK’s best place to live is starring in new Christmas film… with huge Traitors and Hollywood stars
FOR one city in the UK, Christmas has come early as it’s been transformed into a wintry delight for a Hollywood movie.
Stars of the screen have been spotted in one of the country’s most famous streets to film scenes for the upcoming blockbuster.
York, known for being one of UK’s oldest cities, was also named the top place in the country for the best quality of life according to the Good Growth for Cities Index.
And now it is being turned into a winter wonderland for an upcoming movie.
The film is called ‘Merry Christmas Aubrey Flint’ and is due for release in 2026.
Spotted filming was Richard E Grant, known for his roles in Withnail and I, and Star Wars.
Game of Thrones star John Bradley, who plays the titular character Aubrey Flint, was spotted filming scenes, along with fellow actor Kiell Smith-Bynoe.
Actress and more recently The Celebrity Traitors star Celia Imrie is also in the film.
According to production company WestEnd Films, the movie tells the story of a reclusive model soldier painter with a lifelong hatred of Christmas who ends up assisting with a care home production of A Christmas Carol.
Shopkeepers and passers by watched on as the stars filmed on Colliergate, a street very near The Shambles.
One of the shops used as a filming location was Barnitts, a department store that sells everything from Christmas decorations to homeware and DIY tools.
Totally Awesome Toy Shop, will also make an appearance in the film, and the owner, Jo Patton, told the BBC: “To have a film star stood literally on your doorstep, in some ways wasn’t too strange, because in York you expect the unexpected.”
The cast and crew also filmed scenes outside an empty shop on Colliergate.
It was transformed from being empty to a miniature model shop and outside table salt lined the edges of the windows to create the illusion of snow.
York was founded by the Romans in 71AD making it one of the oldest cities in the country.
It’s possibly most famous for its 233ft tall York Minster that dates back to the 7th century.
Visitors are welcome to explore the cathedral whether you fancy a guided tour, or a trip up the tower – tickets for general admission starts at £20pp.
The Shambles, which was used to film the Christmas movie, is full of independent shops selling everything from gifts to baked treats or toys,
Lots of visitors compare the street to Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley which has towering timber-framed shop fronts.
It’s not just all mooching about seeing the sights, visitors can settle in one of York’s 365 pubs.
One writer who visited suggested popping into House of Trembling Madness which serves a selection of local beers and huge sharing boards of meats and cheeses.
One travel expert even named the city the ‘best for families’ – Travel guide creator Peter Naldrett, who has visited all 76 cities in the UK, raved about York.
He said: “York is the best UK city for families because it has so many captivating activities and attractions.
“There’s enough in York to keep both junior and secondary school children entertained, from the Viking Museum to York Chocolate Story and Harry Potter-style streets and a cold war bunker.
“The Viking Museum has interactive activities for children, the Castle Museum has recreated Victorian Streets and there’s also the Shambles, the inspiration behind JK Rowling‘s Diagon Alley.”
“There’s so much to keep kids busy in York, families will be spoilt for choice.”
Here’s the UK’s ‘most beautiful town’ set to star in huge new Christmas movie with Hollywood stars…
Earlier this year, Hollywood stars like Kiefer Sutherland, Rebel Wilson and EastEnders‘ Danny Dyer descended on Knaresborough for the upcoming movie, Tinsel Town.
Between January and February 2025, cast and crew were spotted in the Yorkshire town, in areas like Castlegate, Riverside, and Green Dragon Yard.
Filming of the Sky Original Christmas movie meant that the festive decorations were up for months longer than usual.
The film, set to be released on November 28, will see Kiefer Sutherland play Bradley Mack, a failed Hollywood action star ending up in a small, snow-dusted village to star in the town’s eccentric production of Cinderella.
It’s here that he encounters a number of oddball locals, one of whom is no-nonsense choreographer Jill, played by Rebel Wilson.
It’s no wonder Knaresborough was picked as a filming location, as The Sun’s Katrina Turrill, who hails from the town, reckons it’s the “most beautiful town in the country” and “picture perfect”.
Knaresborough has pretty waterfront cafes and the opportunity to canoe down the river, while watching steam trains travel over the viaduct.
Katrina said: “If you venture down by the river from either Bond End or walking down the steps at the castle you’ll stand at the foot of the iconic viaduct.
“Amongst the cafes and houses are two boat hire places – Blenkhorn’s and Marigold Cafe & Boating. Both are open daily, weather permitting, and are a great way to soak up the stunning scenery.
“No visit to Knaresborough is complete without heading to Knaresborough Castle for the best view of the viaduct.
“You don’t need to pay to enter the castle grounds, and I recommend seeing the view during the day and at night time, with the viaduct all lit up.”
UK’s biggest live action show reveals plans for new historical theme park
THE UK will be getting a brand new theme park in 2026 – but it won’t have your typical thrill rides.
Kynren – An Epic Tale of England, is the UK’s largest live action outdoor theatre production and next year it will launch Kynren – The Storied Lands, a new daytime historical theme park.
Set to open in summer 2026 in County Durham, the theme park will immerse visitors in multiple live shows and experiences that “span millennia”.
Phase One of Kynren – The Storied Lands will reveal The Lost Feather and four other live-action shows and immersive experiences, including Fina, a Medieval horse show, a viking show and a Victorian Adventure with characters from the past.
There will also be The Legend of the Wear which will transform a lake into a stage, where the Lambton Worm myth will be brought to life with water stunts and special effects.
In the future, the theme park will have even more shows, as well as educational content and themed experiences inspired by Robin Hood, Excalibur and the Tudors.
Read more on travel inspo
As a whole, the attractions will form the UK’s first live-action historical theme park.
Anna Warnecke, CEO of Kynren – The Storied Lands, said: “2026 is going to be an unforgettable year.
“Not only will our award-winning night show return, but we’ll also open Kynren – The Storied Lands a unique new experience that brings history, heritage and myth to life on a scale not seen anywhere else in the UK.”
The news follows the announcement that Kynren – An Epic Tale of England is set to return next summer, with tickets now on sale.
Located in Bishop Auckland, the show involves more than 1,000 cast and crew members and mass choreography, combat, horsemanship, stunts and fireworks – all on a seven-and-a-half acre stage.
The show takes spectators on a journey of 2,000 years of history from Boudicca’s rebellion to Viking invasions, Norman conquests, Tudor drama and even Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
The show lasts 90 minutes, beginning at sunset and ending when the stars are out.
It will run every Saturday evening between July 18 and September 12, 2026.
Tickets cost from £30 per adult and £20 per child.
Children under the age of three, are free.
If visitors book their tickets now, they will also unlock an ‘Insider Pass’, which gives them priority access for tickets to the new Kynren – The Storied Lands when it opens next summer.
Travel writer Catherine Lofthouse, who visited this year’s show, said: “If you’ve never heard of Kynren in Bishop Auckland, Durham, you’re not alone.
“Over an hour and a half, scenes that tell the tale of our homeland, history and heritage come to life across the 7.5-acre outdoor stage.
“The 1,000 professionally trained volunteers might be amateurs, but this incredible cast put on one of the best shows I’ve seen, one that really has to be seen to be believed.
“My boys aged 12 and 10 were absolutely enthralled by the evening’s entertainment from start to finish.
“The whole event is epic – from Viking ships rising from the water to the recreation of a magnificent stained glass window in the spray of a fountain.
“Battle scenes, stunts, celebrations, historic moments, lines from Shakespeare – it’s sometimes difficult to know where to look at there’s so much to take in from one moment to the next.
“It was such a high-quality performance, I’d say it rivaled a live Disney show too.”
In other theme park news, the UK’s best value theme park has been named.
Plus, the UK theme parks with the best Black Friday discounts – from extra park tickets to free waterpark entry.
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Katie Price stuns live show audience as she claims she kissed footie hunk Jack Grealish
GLAMOUR model Katie Price has claimed she once kissed footie hunk Jack Grealish.
She also said the Premier League star — who is 17 years her junior — is one of the most famous celebrities she has smooched.
Mum-of-five Katie, 47, did not specify when they kissed after making the claim on a live show of her tour with singer Kerry Katona, 45.
An audience member told The Sun: “Katie and Kerry had Instagram messages from fans to be asked at the show.
“One asked who is the most famous person they have kissed.
“Katie said to Kerry, ‘Do you know who I have? Grealish’.
“She went bright red and hid her face with a pillow.
“The audience was shocked.”
Katie was speaking in front of around 300 people at the gig in Northwich, Cheshire, on Friday.
Jack, 30 — on loan at Everton from Man City — is in a long-term relationship with Sasha Attwood, 29.
His representative was asked to comment.
Sing jazz with a live band at L.A.’s longest-running open mic night
Elliot Zwiebach was 62 years old when he sang in front of a live audience for the first time.
The retired reporter had always loved show tunes, but he’d never considered singing in public before.
“I sang for my own amusement, and I wasn’t very amused,” he said recently.
But one night, after attending a few open mic nights at the Gardenia Supper Club in West Hollywood as a spectator, he got up the nerve to step onto the stage and perform a tune backed by a live band.
For his first song, he picked the humorous “Honey Bun” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific.” It was frightening and he didn’t sing well. And yet, the following week he came back and did it again.
Newbie Ian Douglas, left, and longtime singer Elliot Zwiebach look over a sign-up sheet at the Gardenia’s long-running open mic night.
Sixteen years later, Zwiebach, now 78, is a core member of what the event’s longtime host Keri Kelsey calls “the family,” a group of roughly 25 regulars who sing jazz standards, show tunes and other numbers from the Great American Songbook at the longest-running open mic night in L.A.
“It’s very much like a community,” Zwiebach said on a recent evening as he prepared to sing “This Nearly Was Mine,” another song from “South Pacific.” “Everyone knows everyone.”
For 25 years, the small, L-shaped Gardenia room on Santa Monica Boulevard has served as a musical home for a diverse group of would-be jazz and cabaret singers. Each Tuesday night, elementary school teachers, acting coaches, retired psychoanalysts, arts publicists and the occasional celebrity pay an $8 cover to perform in front of an audience that knows firsthand just how terrifying it can be to stand before even a small crowd with nothing more than a microphone in your hand.
“You are so vulnerable up there with everyone staring at you,” said Kelsey, who has hosted the open mic night for 24 years and once watched Molly Ringwald nervously take the stage. “But it’s also the most joyous experience in the world.”
Director and acting coach Kenshaka Ali sings “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” by Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
The singers are backed by a live, three-piece band led by guitarist Dori Amarilio. The rotating group of musicians — a few of them Grammy winners — arrive not knowing what they will be playing that night. Some singers bring sheet music, others chord charts. And there are those who just hum a few bars and allow the musicians to intuit the key and melody enough to follow along. Poet Judy Barrat, a regular attendee, usually hands the evening’s piano player a copy of the poem she’ll be reading and asks him to improv along with her.
“It’s totally freeform,” said Andy Langham, a jazz pianist who toured with Natalie Cole and Christopher Cross and often plays the Gardenia. “I read the stanzas and try to paint pictures with the notes.”
Keri Kelsey, singing “Mack the Knife,” has hosted the Gardenia’s open mic night for 24 years.
The Gardenia, which opened in 1981, is one of the few venues in L.A. specifically designed for the intimacy of cabaret. The small, spare room has table service seating for just over 60 patrons and a stage area beautifully lit by an abundance of canned lights. Doors open at 7 p.m. on Tuesday nights, but those in the know line up outside the building’s nondescript exterior as early as 6 p.m. to ensure a reasonable spot on the night’s roster of singers. (Even though there is a one-song-per-person limit, the night has been known to stretch past 12 a.m.) Nichole Rice, who manages the Gardenia, takes dinner and drink orders until the show starts at 8:30 p.m. Then the room falls into respectful silence.
Pianist Andy Langham and guitarist Dori Amarilio perform live music accompaniment for each open mic participant at the Gardenia.
“This is a listening room,” said singer-songwriter Steve Brock, who has been attending the open mic night for more than a decade. “I’ve been to other rooms where I’m competing with tequila or the Rams. Here, when anyone goes up in front of that microphone, everyone stops.”
On a recent Tuesday night, the show began as it always does with an instrumental song by the band (a piano, guitar and upright bass) before an opening number by Kelsey. Dressed in a black leather dress and knee-high boots, she had this time prepared “Mack the Knife.” “This may be one of the loungiest lounge songs ever,” she said. “Maybe that’s why I really like it.”
People begin to line up outside the Gardenia at 6 p.m. to get a spot for the Tuesday open mic night.
The first singer to take the stage was Trip Kennedy, a bearded masseur who performed “The Rainbow Connection” in a sweet tenor. When he finished, Kelsey shared that she was cast as an extra in “The Muppets Take Manhattan.”
“It was the most ridiculous thing,” she said, filling time as the next singer consulted quietly with the band. “I was a college student who dressed up as a college student for the audition.”
Dolores Scozzesi, who sang at the Hollywood Improv in the ’80s between comedy sets, performed a moody arrangement of “What Now My Love.” “This is a [chord] chart from 2011,” she told the audience before she began. “I want to try it because these guys are the best.”
Monica Doby Davis, an elementary school teacher, sings the jazz standard “You Go to My Head” at the Gardenia.
Zwiebach performed a medley of two Broadway hits, “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” (which he altered to “his face”) and “This Nearly Was Mine,” easily hitting all the notes. After, his young friend Ian Douglas, a relative newbie who started attending the open mic night in the spring, sang the jazz standard “You Go to My Head.” Zwiebach praised the performance.
“I know that song very well and you did a great job,” he said.
Monica Doby Davis, who once sang with the ’90s R&B girl group Brownstone and now works as an elementary school teacher, also performed “You Go to My Head.” Although she had left the entertainment business decades ago, she said finding the Gardenia open mic night 13 years ago “brought music back to my life.”
Tom Nobles, left, sings alongside bassist Adam Cohen, center, and pianist Andy Langham at the Gardenia.
There were many beautiful, intimate moments that night, but perhaps the best was when Tom Nobles, an actor and retired psychoanalyst in a purple knit cap and thick plastic glasses, forgot the words to “Lost in the Masquerade” by George Benson.
He stumbled for a moment, a bit perplexed, before turning to his friends for help.
“Whoever knows the words, sing it with me,” Nobles said to the crowd.
Quietly at first and then louder and stronger, the whole room broke out into song.
We’re lost in a masquerade. Woohoo, the masquerade.
I live in world’s best city just 3 hours from UK
A SEASIDE capital city a short flight from the UK, with no council tax or TV licence fees and you can eat outside in winter… what’s not to like?
That’s the score in my adopted home town which I moved to from the UK just over 11 years ago.
Though it’s Europe’s smallest capital, Malta’s Valetta squeezes in 320 monuments and over two dozen churches into an area half the size of Hyde Park with more history per square metre than anywhere else on the Med.
But Valletta’s more than just a pretty face.
Since it was crowned the European Capital of Culture in 2018, the once-sleepy capital has roared back to life with millions of euros invested in attractions, architecture and nightlife.
Living here has its perks. I pay no council tax, no TV licence, and car insurance costs are a fraction of what I used to pay in the UK.
Public transport is free, a recent vet check-up for my cat cost just €25 (£21.74), and with 300 days of sunshine a year, I’ve never needed the heating or a tumble dryer.
Life doesn’t grind to a halt in winter either.
In summer, it’s all alfresco dining and harbour views; in December, the city gate glows with a Christmas market – and you can still enjoy a lunch outside in the sun.
Come February, Carnival takes over with parades and costumes, and later the festas, Malta’s patron-saint celebrations, light up the streets with fireworks, brass bands and confetti.
Valletta knows how to celebrate, and food plays a big part.
For a real taste of Malta, start underground at Nenu the Artisan Baker that is hidden in a vault on one of the city’s backstreets, where even locals flock for the nation’s much-loved ftira bread.
Its founder, Carmel Debono, known as Nenu, was born into a family of Qormi bakers in the 1950s and still fires up a 100-year-old oven to make traditional Maltese loaves like Ħobża tal-Malti and ftajjar.
It’s a slice of Maltese history, served the old-fashioned way.
Then head down to the Valletta Waterfront, where locals fill the tables, especially for Sunday lunch.
Stop at Tribelli, a former warehouse from the 1600s turned into a family-run Maltese restaurant serving traditional dishes like rabbit stew, fried pasta and platters of local cheeses, sausages and bigilla, a broad bean dip.
Order a bottle of Maltese wine and sit on an outside table with one of the city’s best views of the Grand Harbour.
If looking for more of a quick bite, Valletta’s full of cheap eats.
Grab a pastizz, a golden, flaky pastry filled with ricotta or mushy peas – at under a euro each, they’re the best bargain in town and loved by everyone from builders to bankers.
Once stomachs have been lined, it’s time to head to Strait Street, which was originally Valletta’s red-light and sailors’ quarter.
Now lined with glitzy neon signs and balconies strung with fairy lights, it’s instead home to vintage shopfronts and cocktail bars like Tico Tico and Yard 32.
It’s also worth making a pit stop at The Pub, the tiny watering hole where actor Oliver Reed died while filming Gladiator.
The staff even wear his legendary last bar order on their T-shirts.
Public buses in Malta are free for residents, but the city is so compact that tourists can cover most of it on foot.
Don’t miss St John’s Co-Cathedral with its extraordinary Baroque interior, or the Upper Barrakka Gardens overlooking the Grand Harbour.
Day trips are easy too, with ferries running to the Three Cities or the sister island of Gozo.
Accommodation covers the full spectrum. At the luxury end, you’ve got five-star hotels like The Phoenicia Malta and Iniala Harbour House, both beautifully restored historic properties.
But there are also dozens of boutique hotels, guesthouses and Airbnbs that keep things affordable.
Valletta is a far cry from the all-inclusive coastal resorts that once put Malta on the package-holiday map, but you can still get very affordable return flights from £40 to the UK.
With all this going on, it’s little wonder Valletta’s just been crowned the world’s best city by Condé Nast Traveller.
Ten years on, I still pinch myself, sipping a glass of local Girgentina wine up in a city rooftop bar, with the UK reachable in three hours on a plane, but feeling like a lifetime away.
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