lost

I can’t tell you exactly what time Phoebe Bridgers started her concert Friday night or exactly what time it ended. I’m reluctant to say which of her band members was dressed as a crocodile since I can’t check my memory against a photo.

Most regretfully, I can’t report the precise words Bridgers used to describe her difficult relationship with her late father as she introduced her song “Still Standing” — though I can say her language so quieted the thousands of people inside Inglewood’s Intuit Dome that it almost felt like you could hear her thinking.

The first of three hometown shows on Bridgers’ Lost Tour, Friday’s gig was a phone-free experience: As you walked into the arena, you surrendered your device to a venue employee, who locked it in a fabric pouch that would put you beyond the reach of the digital world, including your clock and your camera and your voice recorder, until you walked back out.

In her lengthy preamble to “Still Standing” — it’s a chilling highlight from the singer’s latest album, “Lost Weekend,” about how abuse can shape ideas of love — Bridgers thanked her fans for going along with the no-phones policy, which she framed as a necessary condition for performing such intimate material.

Had phones been allowed, she added, this very moment “would have been a TikTok video with someone who doesn’t like my face commenting on it.” (A quote that sharp I could easily remember.)

Widely expected to land multiple nominations for February’s Grammy Awards, “Lost Weekend” — which in addition to Bridgers’ dad’s death addresses the flowering of her romantic relationship with the comedian Bo Burnham — complements all the emotional bloodletting with a biting sense of humor. Friday’s show opened, as the album does, with “The Outside,” which ushers the listener into her dad’s funeral this way: “Crying in a suit and tie / But you should see the other guy / One more time for old time’s sake / I’ll watch him get carried away.”

At Intuit, after she brought out Billie Eilish to join her for her song “Savior Complex” — guaranteed Instagram content in any other circumstance — Bridgers said, “You don’t have your phones,” then added a literal “ha-ha.”

It’s anyone’s guess whether Bridgers would’ve been able to muster the deep feelings she put across Friday if she hadn’t banned the handheld computers whose bluish glow has become a ubiquitous feature of the concert landscape. For all her vulnerability on “Lost Weekend,” she remains a pro who’s been performing since she was a teenager; my suspicion is that she probably would’ve found a way to get there.

What I know is that she did get there: Wearing a Peter Pan costume the night before Halloween, Bridgers sang folky ballads like “Kill Me” and “The Governor’s Waltz” with a tenderness that belied a pretty tough view of her experiences over the last few years; relatively rowdy rock songs like “Bobby” and “Lost Boys,” meanwhile, crackled with an energy bordering on the ecstatic.

The show took place across a pair of stages: one beneath an illuminated dome that resembled either a spaceship or an old-fashioned greenhouse, the other a smaller circle positioned near the middle of the arena floor. Bridgers and her musicians (who’d dressed up as Tinker Bell and John and other Pan-related characters) moved a couple of times between the two, which was about it as elaborate as the production got.

Beyond Eilish, Bridgers welcomed the indie-pop band Muna, which did its song “Silk Chiffon,” and her younger brother, Jackson, who sang a vocal part in “I Can’t Wait” performed on the new album by Geese’s Cameron Winter. At the beginning of “Lost Weekend’s” title track, Bridgers had to futz with her keyboard when it didn’t do what she wanted.

“Of course, this happens at home,” she said.

In the audience, the lack of phones provided for a level of attention you could practically feel, never less so than in “As Above,” which she did after “Still Standing” and for which she centered herself alone at the base of a cone of light.

“I thought about my mom driving herself to the hospital,” she sang, green felt hat perched on her head, daring us not to turn away.

EXCLUSIVE: His co-star Tessa Peake-Jones, who played Raquel, says it was ‘poignant and quite sobering’ watching the comedy legend grapple with the past

Only Fools and Horses star Tessa Peake-Jones has told how Sir David Jason felt saddened watching himself playing Del Boy in lost archive clips, as he hankered to be back in his prime.

The actress, who played his wife Raquel from 1988 for 15 years, says she enjoyed sitting with him, and other actors from the hit BBC sitcom, to watch newly discovered gems that they all believed had been lost many decades ago.

But she revealed that at times the 86-year-old became maudlin as he looked back. “You know, he’d just been knighted, he was in every programme going, Darling Buds of May, all of them. And he said, ‘There I am in my prime, and now here I am as an old man sitting watching it.’ I found that really quite moving.

“He just said, ‘Oh, I’m finding it very sad,’ and I said, ‘What do you mean?’ I ended up becoming his therapist on the sofa and he said, ‘I just I look at myself then in my prime as the best I could possibly be,’ which of course he was then – in his forties and fifties, he was more famous than anyone in Britain on telly.

“And I knew what he meant when he said he felt sad because this is us looking back on what we were, particularly for him because he was at his absolute peak. It must have felt very peculiar. You’re not ever going to be what you were then.”

And she added: “He’s still a very vibrant man, he’s got a lot of energy, he’s doing things all the time, but it was just very poignant and quite sobering.”

At the end of the first episode, which airs on Tuesday, David can’t get over how good the pair of them looked back then. “It is difficult because we are looking back at a time when we were both beautiful,” he says. Tessa responds with positivity, telling him: “Maybe we still are but we don’t see it as easily.”

But speaking afterwards she said she had also found watching the lost archive clips and outtakes difficult at times too. “Some actors really like looking at themselves. I will run a mile, I absolutely loathe it. So it was slightly torturous for me, particularly because not only are you watching scenes that you’re acting in, but you’re 30 years older.”

She believes that the secret of the comedy’s longevity is that its humour, written by the late John Sullivan and also starring Nicholas Lyndhurst as Rodney, had universal appeal. “John didn’t leave anyone out. He really cared about family and he cared about what people shared watching on telly.

“I know we all go, ‘oh, isn’t Del awful with all his scams’, but at the end of the day he’d do anything for anyone. He was kind. Looking at comedy these days, bar the odd brilliant one like Ghosts, some of them are quite cruel. It doesn’t make me laugh when you see someone being horrid about someone else.”

Tessa, now 69, says that she has received thousands of letters from fans over the years wanting to talk about her role as Raquel.

But even though she was in Only Fools for many years, she still gets more fan mail for one tiny role that she played in 2013.

“I had 30 seconds of screen time on Doctor Who,” she laughs. “But it happened to be when one Doctor becomes another. I was in a Christmas special when it happened – it was Matt Smith leaving and Peter Capaldi coming in. I must have had six lines in it, maybe seven. But I’ve had more fan mail about that 30 seconds of screen time than anything I’ve ever done in my career.”

She said the Only Fools fans aren’t far behind the Doctor Who ones. “We have many extremely obsessive fans who are almost as as powerfully connected.”

Tessa said the remaining cast from the hit sitcom were all astonished to hear that 66 bits of film, including full scenes and outtakes, had been discovered. “What’s so hilarious is that I believe all these bits and bobs were found in like a drawer at the BBC in White City,” she laughs. “Think what other gems are in drawers somewhere in those buildings. It’s extraordinary, isn’t it?”

She said it had been hard at times to work out if she even knew whether the clips had been cut from the original upsides. “I suppose you’re you’re wound up in the general whirly gig of all of it. You’re rehearsing constantly. You’re filming every weekend – life’s marching at quite a pace. So I suppose even when you record these things, if they don’t get put in, you sort of forget them.”

But, in the films, Sir David marvels at just how much ends up on the cutting room floor. He laughs: “I remember discussing it with John – we cut more jokes out than other shows had got in their entire episode.” The extra bits span 10 episodes from the 90s and cover the stories about blow-up dolls, Peckham Spring water, Cassandra’s miscarriage and Raquel giving birth to Damian., as well as the Jolly Boys coach trip to Margate.

By the time Tessa joined in 1988 the show had been on air for seven years and was a huge hit. The actress is enormously proud of the reaction her first episode got, when Derek Trotter first met Raquel on a blind date. “John wrote that brilliant script and it’s the only time the programme’s ever won a BAFTA,” she recalls. “He did that just to see what would happen for Del Boy’s character if if he was to fall in love.”

Having conceived Raquel as a one-off character, the writer quickly changed his mind. “John saw the public response and thought he could take this character of Raquel further – that it might change the dynamics of Derek and Rodney Trotter’s relationship. He thought, ‘Iet’s bring her back and see what happens’. And then a lot did happen. Such a lot.”

Unlike Sir David Tessa does not consider Only Fools to be the pinnacle of her career. “This was one of many, many things. I wouldn’t call it the thing I’m proudest of, I don’t think it’s my greatest achievement being in Only Fools, much as I’ve loved doing it. I’ve still got to meet my peak,” she laughs. “I might reach it next year.”

And well she might because 2027 brings viewers not only the last series of ITV’s Grantchester, in which Tessa has played vicarage housekeeper Sylvia Chapman since 2014, but also new Channel 5 crime series The Last Resort, in which she stars as a sixty-something sleuth alongside Caroline Quentin and Jason Watkins.

Tessa believes that, for fans, these new documentaries will be the last surprise from Only Fools and Horses, which is marking its 45th anniversary having launched in 1981.. “We’re all too old and also there is no one to carry John Sullivan’s mantle,” she says. “He was a one-off genius. So I don’t think there can be any other surprises. Thank God for things like UK Gold – who knows, in 100 years people might still be watching it.”

– Only Fools and Horses: The Lost Archive, U&Gold, Tuesday 20th & 27th October

The parents of Leah Croucher spoke to This Morning hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard on Tuesday

Leah Croucher’s dad has made a heartbreaking admission.

The disappearance of the 19-year-old became one of Britain’s highest-profile missing person cases, after she vanished on her way to work in Milton Keynes on February 15, 2019. Leah’s body was eventually found more than three years later, just minutes from where she was last seen.

However, while the family were desperately searching for answers, they were wrongly targeted by online sleuths, and accused of being involved in her death. Leah’s parents, John and Claire, have now chosen to tell their story in a new documentary that shares the devastating impact that the case has had on their lives.

Ahead of the documentary airing tonight (Tuesday, October 13) at 9pm on U&W, John and Claire appeared on the This Morning sofa, where they spoke to hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard about the ordeal they’ve faced. During the interview, John spoke about his son, Haydon, who struggled to cope in the aftermath of his sister’s disappearance.

Haydon was Leah’s half-brother, who took his own life in November 2019 – nine months after Leah’s disappearance. On today’s This Morning, Cat Deeley said: “The other person it hit really hard was Haydon. When all the investigations started happening, he handed out leaflets, he tried his very, very best, but it affected him mentally in the end, didn’t it?”

John then explained how close Haydon was to his sister, Leah. “He just couldn’t cope. It destroyed him mentally, and the people played with him online. They tormented him, and it was just horrific to watch. There was no getting through to Haydon to try and calm him down.

“He suffered from bipolar, which made him worse, [and] paranoia. He was getting so angry, and I had to step back for Claire’s sake, for my own sake, to try and find Leah. It was like, ‘Haydon, you’re going to have to go and get help, [your] mum’s going to have to help you.'”

He went on: “Because his mother’s also a victim in all of this, which people forget. They all look at me and Claire, but Haydon has a mother. She’s suffering. How do you console a mother who has to read this evil stuff online about her son.”

Ben Shephard then said: “Tragically, it was too much for Haydon in the end as well, wasn’t it? So, you lost Leah and you lost Haydon. At that stage, you still didn’t know what had happened to Leah.”

Speaking about his daughter’s funeral, John later shared: “We had months to plan Leah’s funeral. If you lose a loved one, it’s days to weeks. Ours was months because of forensic tests that had to be done on Leah.

“We couldn’t dress Leah like you would dress your loved one. We’re never going to be able to give her a wedding, we’re never going to be able to do the normal things a family could do. So, I said to Claire, because Claire was so upset, ‘We can’t dress her, so let’s dress her coffin. Let’s make this the biggest thing we can ever do for her. Our princess. Let’s give her a princess funeral.’ And that’s what we did.”

Mourners lined the streets for Leah’s funeral back in 2023, which Claire said was “heartwarming”. She added: “It was crazy how many people came to pay their respects.”

This Morning airs weekdays on ITV at 10am, while The Search for Leah Croucher: A Parent’s Nightmare will air on Tuesday (October 13) and Wednesday (October 14) at 9pm on U&W

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His family has not heard from him in days

A man from the UK has vanished 5,000 miles away from home after missing his flight back. Bailey Singh did not board his scheduled flight back home.

The 20-year-old’s phone is now reportedly off, and he has not been in contact with family for days. He was reported missing on October 5 and was last seen at Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok, Thailand.

Bailey’s family is now pleading for anyone to come forward with information on his whereabouts. His sister Chardonnay said he may have travelled to the Pattaya area – a hotspot for Brits abroad and expats.

He is described as around 5ft 11 with dark brown eyes, curly brown hair and a goatee beard. Bailey is known to have two distinctive tattoos, including a jigsaw on his left inner arm and one behind his left ear which says ‘eleven’.

It is believed that at the time he vanished, he was wearing a blue tracksuit, a blue top and grey trainers. The family says they have contacted the UK Embassy in Thailand.

They state that they were unable to confirm whether he had been arrested or reported injured. Pleas have been shared across social media and amongst local Thai travel groups.

Mother Lisa Ely said: “He’s in Thailand and not heard from him in two days and his phone is off and his location, which is not like him.”

Chardonnay Ely said: “He has been missing for over a week in Bangkok and have suspicions he’s now in Pattaya. If anyone has any information on him please contact me.

“Me and my family are very worried and concerned for him and just want to make sure he is safe.”