101 East investigates cross-border persecution and the killing of former Cambodian opposition MP, Lim Kimya, in Thailand
Critics say the Cambodian government’s attacks on opposition members and activists have gone global.
On January 7, 2025, former Cambodian opposition politician, Lim Kimya, was gunned down outside a busy bus station in central Bangkok.
A former Thai marine confessed to carrying out the hit as a gun for hire, but two Cambodians with ties to their country’s governing party are on the run, suspected of organising the murder.
While Lim Kimya’s family and friends are seeking justice, Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Manet, denies his government had any involvement.
101 East investigates the brazen killing and Cambodia’s increasingly repressive government.
HOLLYOAKS legend Jamie Lomas has signed up for BBC’s Celebrity MasterChef after quitting the Channel 4 soap.
Jamie, 50, is best known for his long-running role as bad boy Warren Fox – but now he’s trading street brawls for saucepans in the hit cooking competition.
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Hollyoaks star Jamie Lomas has signed up for Celebrity MasterChefCredit: Getty
Filming has already wrapped, and insiders say viewers will get to see a very different side to the actor.
A source told The Sun: “Jamie was looking to do something where fans could meet the real him – not just Hollyoaks hardman Warren Fox!
“He’s actually quite good in the kitchen and he’s really competitive too. It’s already been filmed but he’s not telling anyone how far he got.”
Jamie will join the likes of Love Island star Chris Hughes, Blue singer Antony Costa, Corrie actress Katie McGlynn and RuPaul’s Drag Race star Ginger Johnson when the hit show returns later this year.
Jamie has also made headlines for his offbeat acting choices, including a divisive role in Jafaican, the Peter Andre-fronted film that raised eyebrows among critics and fans alike.
While the soap star hasn’t come under fire, Peter wears a dreadlock wig and puts on a Jamaican accent in toe-curling scenes.
Kym Marsh gushes over ex husband Jamie Lomas’ new baby after he welcomes daughter with new fiance
Viewers watched his character Warren flee abroad after leaving Mercedes McQueen behind with her children, unwilling to force them all to live on the run.
Jamie briefly returned last month for a flashback episode, which we were first to reveal
But will return for ANOTHER short stint on the show, which will no doubt delight fans.
A source told us: “Jamie’s returning for a limited stint later this month.
“He loves the show and could fit it in so jumped at the chance. It will see
“Warren return to the village in the present day but who will he come face to face with and what will happen?
“It’s definitely going to be a treat for fans.”
Celebrity Masterchef Previous Winners
The previous Celebrity Masterchef winners so far in the show
Academy Award winner Billy Bob Thornton, who plays chain-smoking crisis manager Tommy Norris in Taylor Sheridan’s latest hit “Landman,”seems like a guy who can’t be intimidated. But get him in a room with Allison Janney and the truth comes out.
“I was afraid of you,” he tells her sheepishly on The Envelope’s Emmy Roundtable for drama actors.
“Really?” says Janney, the Oscar-, Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning performer who appears as cunning Vice President Grace Penn on the Netflix political thriller “The Diplomat.”
“The first time I met Allison, it was at another press function thing,” he says to the room. “And just seeing you, as an actor, and parts you play … But also, you have this very dignified quality about you.”
“It’s my height, I think.”
“No,” he continues. “You just have the face of someone who is powerful and really intelligent. So some idiot like me comes in, and I’m like, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t talk to her.’”
This is what happens when you gather seven Emmy contenders whose performances so convincingly shape our perceptions of who they are in real life. This year’s group also included Sterling K. Brown, who plays Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent seeking the truth in Hulu’s “Paradise”; Britt Lower, who plays both wealthy heiress Helena Eagan and defiant data refiner Helly R. in Apple TV+’s “Severance”; Jason Isaacs, who plays Timothy Ratliff, an American financier desperately trying to keep a secret from his family in HBO’s “The White Lotus”; Noah Wyle, who plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, a senior attending physician at a Pittsburgh trauma center in Max’s “The Pitt”; and Kaitlin Olson, who plays the underestimated but brilliant police consultant Morgan Gillory in ABC’s “High Potential.”
Read on for excerpts from our discussion about how they tap into their layered performances, navigate the business and more — and watch video of the roundtable below.
The 2025 Emmy Drama Roundtable. Back row from left: Britt Lower, Jason Isaacs, Noah Wyle and Kaitlin Olson. From row from left: Billy Bob Thornton, Allison Janney and Sterling K. Brown.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Tell me about an “Oh, my God, did that just happen?” moment — good or bad — from your early years on a Hollywood set. Kaitlin, your first credit was “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” I can’t imagine what it’s like making Larry David laugh.
Olson: Oh, you just have to scream in his face and insult him, and then he thinks that’s really, really funny. But yeah, there were no marks and there were no lines. So I didn’t really have an “Oh, my God” moment. You just talk and shut up when you should shut up.
Isaacs: On my first day [on 1989’s “The Tall Guy”], I remember I arrived first thing in the morning. I was playing Surgeon No. 2 in a dream sequence that Jeff Goldblum was in. The director, who’s hassled and busy, he goes, “OK, we’re going to start with you. We’re coming in on the dolly. But because I’m on a very wide lens, if you could start the eyeline somewhere near the bottom of the jib and then just go to the corner of bottle, then take it to the edge of the matte box when we’re getting close.” And I went, “Right … What the f— did any of those words mean?” Jeff is just out of frame. And he’s in his underpants, and it’s a dream sequence for him. And we’re just about to go and roll the cameras, and Jeff goes, “Hold on a second.” And he stands up and he starts standing on a chair reciting Byron love poems even though he was not in the shot. I’m like, “I don’t understand what the hell is going on here.” Years later, I sat next to him at a wedding and I said, “Do you remember that night?” He went, “Yeah.”
Jason Isaacs of “The White Lotus.”
Have there been moments where you fell out of love with acting or where you felt like, “This isn’t working out”?
Janney: My career didn’t start till I was 38 or something, because I’m so tall, and I was literally uncastable. I went to the Johnson O’Connor [Research Foundation]. And I did three days of testing to see what else I could possibly do.
Issacs: What is that?
Janney: It’s an aptitude testing place. They ask you to do all this stuff, and at the end of it they say, “This is what you should be.” And they told me I should be a systems analyst. I had no idea what that was. And the next day, I got cast understudying Faith Prince and Kate Nelligan in “Bad Habits,” a play at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
Allison Janney of “The Diplomat.”
Brown: I’ve never fallen out of love with it. I was an economics major in college who wound up switching to drama. When I got out of grad school and [was] hopping around through regional theater, I wound up booking a TV show, “Army Wives,” for six years, and a few years into the show, I was like, “I think I’ve done everything that I want to do with the character.” So when they came dangling the carrot for people to reup after Season 6, I was like, “I’m curious to see what else the universe has in store.” I was able to pay off student loans. We had our first child, I had a home and I was like, “Let’s take a gamble on Brown.” I did a pilot for AMC that didn’t get picked up; then had a recurring [role] on “Person of Interest” for six episodes. I was like, “Oh, man, I got a wife and a kid and a house. Did I mess up? Should I have stayed on the show or not?”
Then I auditioned for [“The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”], and I didn’t hear anything for four months. I was down in New Mexico shooting this movie, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” and I was having this really sort of morbid moment of going through my IMDb Pro account and looking at everybody who had booked all of the things that I had auditioned for. I was like, “Oh, Bokeem Woodbine booked Season 2 of ‘Fargo.’ Good for him.” And I got a call from my manager saying, “They want you to screen test with Sarah Paulson for this thing.” I was the only person that they brought in to audition for it.
Sterling K. Brown of “Paradise.”
Your series are largely confronting or commenting on real-world anxieties or subjects that are changing in our world in real time. Noah, with Dr. Robbie and what he says about what’s going on in the healthcare system — we’re seeing him cope with the aftermath of COVID-19. We’re seeing stories that are very timely about vaccinations. Talk about what was important to you with this series and what you wanted to show through these characters.
Wyle: “ER” was very much a patient-centric show in a lot of ways. And this was more of an exercise to be practitioner- and physician-centric, to really show the toll that the last five years since COVID has taken on that community. The thesis being that it is as fragile as the mental health of the people that we have in those jobs and the quality’s what we received. Even though we had to peer into a crystal ball and try to figure out a year ago what would be the topical cases of today, we were really more interested in how everybody’s coping mechanisms have allowed them to practice what they’ve been doing for the last five years. How they’ve compartmentalized the toll it’s taken on them personally, and explore that in real time. Aggregate tension on a shift where you’re just embedded with them without release. The outset was more about identifying the mental health of the practitioner than identifying the ills in society … Can I just say how effing cool it is to sit at this table with you all and be the uncool one to say that I feel like my impostor syndrome is off the rails right now?
Olson: No way.
Noah Wyle of “The Pitt.”
Hopefully you’ll all guest star on each other’s shows by the time this is over.
Janney: I would love that.
Britt, what really spoke to me about “Severance” was its exploration of grief, but within that too, there’s the corporate overreach and the work-life balance that I think all of us can appreciate. Did it show you anything about how you navigate your work-life balance or what you could do better?
Lower: The cast talks a lot about how the “Severance” procedure is kind of like what we do for a living. We go to work and put on a different outfit and assume a new identity. There were some moments where you’re walking down the corridors on the way to your job, and there’s kind of this meta quality of being inside of a show about compartmentalizing and switching into a different part of yourself. But I think it’s so relatable. I think we do that as humans. We show up differently in different spaces in our lives, whether it’s work or home or going home for the holidays, versus your baseball team. You just put on a different person really.
Britt Lower of “Severance.”
Isaacs: If I go away to do a job on location somewhere, I can actually — even at my ripe old age; I’m a father and I’m a husband — just park my life and forget that. Now I see that metaphor very clearly and it’s irresponsible. I’m so much more comfortable in the fictitious world than I am in the real world.
Do you feel like there’s a misconception that you guys are just all at the pool?
Isaacs: I’m not really an actor anymore; I just do “White Lotus” publicity for a job. And in the billions of interviews, people expect you to say, “It was a holiday. We were in this resort.” Well, we’re not really in the resort. So I’ve said a few times, “You make friends. You lose friends, romances or whatever; things happen between departments and all the backstage drama that we’re all used to.” Well, the online world went mad trying to deconstruct, trying to work out who knew who and who was [doing what]. Actually, I’m talking about all the crew and all the departments — not that it’s anyone’s business. But it’s trying to deconstruct what we all think of each other. And what happened there is so much less interesting than Mike White’s brilliant stories. You shouldn’t be interested in who went to dinner with who. I kind of wish I hadn’t opened my mouth about it, but I don’t want to pretend it was a holiday. Not just the way that the show blew up but also the level of microscopic interest in anything any of us said, tweeted, posted — there aren’t many new experiences for actors who’ve been around a long time, but this one has been shocking, and I’m quite glad that it’s abating now. I’d like to return to my normal life, but I don’t know how people who are uber-famous deal with it.
The level of microscopic interest in anything any of us said, tweeted, posted, is a new — there aren’t many new experiences for actors who’ve been around a long time, but this one has been shocking.
— Jason Isaacs, on fan attention to ‘The White Lotus’
Billy Bob, how did you come to navigate it? You’ve experienced the extreme effects of that.
Thornton: You mean in the world of Hollywood and all that?
Isaacs: Do you go to the supermarket, take the subway … Do you do the stuff I do?
Thornton: It depends on what year it is. I’ve gone through times where I couldn’t go anywhere. Once my life got bigger, and that really happened with … I mean, I was a working actor doing OK, but “Sling Blade” is the one that, literally overnight, it was a crazy thing. From that point on, it’s been pretty steady. What I’ve done to not get involved in all that is I don’t really go anywhere. I’m either working or I’m at home with the family or in a recording studio or on the road. You don’t see me in the [tabloid] magazines, at the parties and all that kind of stuff.
I’ll put it this way. Right now, with “Landman,” we thought it was going to be successful. We had no idea that it was going to be like this. I mean, we’ve got fans in Iceland and stuff. I can’t go to a Walmart in Texas. It’s literally impossible. I tried it. I would walk three feet at a time. Texans, their personalities are also very big, and they don’t really come up and go, “Excuse me, mister.” It’s not like that. It’s like, “Hey man, what’s going on? Get in a picture with me.”
I’ve had a reputation — weirdo. Angelina and I were vampires. We drank each other’s blood. You look on the internet, and there’s some kind of thing you’re trying to look up and, inevitably, it’ll show something else. So you go, “I hate this. I hate the internet, but I got to see it.”
Billy Bob Thornton of “Landman.”
Isaacs: There’s no good version of you. You either look much better on the screen or much better in real life. I wanted to say [looks at Allison], because I was a huge “West Wing” fan, I did some “West Wing,” I couldn’t break out of thinking that Bradley [Whitford] and Janel [Moloney] were, in fact, Josh and Donna. Did people think you were that political? People assumed you were that character?
Janney: I’ve been such a disappointment for people who think that I am C. J. [Cregg, her character on “The West Wing”], because I couldn’t be less like her. I’m not that person who’s able to verbally cut someone down in the second that she needs to. It was so great to play her, but I remember when they had the Democratic National [Convention] in California and there were more people who came up to me and asked me, “After this is over, will you come work for us? Will you come to…” I’m like, “You don’t understand. I’m so not like that.” And now on “The Diplomat,” playing the president of the United States and the smartest person in the room, it’s so much fun for me to play those kind of women because I’m not [like that]. I mean, I’m not an idiot, but I know nothing about being in the world of politics or being manipulative.
Kaitlin, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is in its 17th season now. You’re on “Hacks.” When you’re signing on to something like “High Potential,” what factors do you consider when thinking about how long you want to commit to something?
Olson: I don’t ever want to play a character that starts to get old to me. “Sunny” doesn’t feel like that to me because it’s a satire and the world’s always providing us with new content. And we do eight to 10 episodes a season. So it’s 17 seasons, which is insane, but it’s not even 20 episodes. It’s so much fun, which is the reason I’m not sick of that character yet. But I feel the same way as you, [Allison], when I’m playing characters who are super-smart, and then I have to talk about it, I just go into panic mode.
How has it been getting into Morgan’s head?
Olson: I love the other characters that I play, but there’s heart to this, and she’s a good mom and she is very insecure but puts on a big show. I love that she’s scrappy and has to figure it out, and she trusts that she will and doesn’t rely on anybody else to help her figure it out. The most important thing are her kids. I think she’s just fascinating to play.
Kaitlin Olson of “High Potential.”
What’s the most impressive skill you picked up on the job? Noah, you know I’m going to start with you. You went to medical boot camp. You’ve done really well with sutures. You can intubate any one of us, I think.
Wyle: I’ve never performed one.
Isaacs: The night is young.
Wyle: I wish everybody an opportunity to slip into a role that you have such great muscle memory with from another aspect of your life when you play a musician or when you do circusing or whatever. When you do something you’ve done for so long, and then you get to do it again, it is just amazing how much it’s in your body and how you don’t have to worry about that stuff. There was a moment earlier where Sterling choked on the grape in the greenroom. I was so ready to intubate him, even if it wasn’t necessary.
Thornton: I went to air-traffic control school for “Pushing Tin,” so I can still say, “Delta 2376, turn left, 20-0-4-0” and “Clear the Alice approach one-four right, call the tower one-eight-three,” because you just don’t forget it. That’s not air-traffic control, that’s just a line. With Noah, he learns this skill that he has been doing over the years, and that kind of knowledge is invaluable. Anytime you have stuff to do, without just acting, like you’re doing busy work — you’re, like, here’s how you do an appendectomy — and you learn and when you’re picking up the right tools, you’re saying the right stuff, you’re making incisions — that stuff you’ve got to learn.
Isaacs: One of the great privileges of being an actor that maybe doesn’t show up onscreen is you get to walk in people’s shoes. I shadowed heart surgeons and plastic surgeons and politicians and criminals and soldiers, and it’s just an amazing privilege to be in people’s lives and talk about it. And there may be some tiny bit you pick up for the screen.
Heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury and his wife Paris are set to get a huge boost following his latest retirement as they open their doors for their own Netflix show once again
20:08, 23 May 2025Updated 20:08, 23 May 2025
Tyson Fury and wife Paris’ Netflix show is set to return(Image: Getty Images)
At Home With The Furys, which aired on Netflix in 2023, saw Tyson try to embrace retirement with wife Paris and their seven children. The no holds barred show followed the family’s lavish holidays and A-list encounters but also their reality of changing nappies and doing the school run.
It was a hit with fans the first time around, as Paris received huge praise for manning the household while Tyson focused on his career. Now, the pair are hoping to reach the same success again with a brand new series.
The show will follow Tyson and Paris with their seven children
In series two, Tyson, 36, will give retirement another shot, having previously announced his retirement several times before, only to return to the world of boxing.
There will also be a family road trip to Monaco to invest in a racehorse. Series one featured Tyson’s younger brother Tommy Fury alongside his fiancee Molly-Mae Hague.
However, since appearing on the show, Molly-Mae and Tommy shocked fans with their breakup last summer. The couple, who are parents to two-year-old daughter Bambi, have slowly been rekindling their relationship.
During their separation, Molly-Mae filmed her own candid TV show with Amazon Prime. Molly-Mae: Behind It All saw the influencer try to come to terms with single life as she navigated her career and motherhood.
However, her recently released part two saw her confirm her romance with Tommy is back on. She told viewers: “I love Tommy so much and I love our family so much that I’m willing to ride the wave.
“And that’s not something that everyone wants to do, but it’s something that I’m willing to do because I want my family.”
Not to be left out, Tommy is also getting his own show. Earlier in the year, the BBC announced a new “candid, access all areas” documentary series about the life of Tommy.
Tommy: The Good, The Bad, The Fury will see the professional boxer return to the ring and has promised to take viewers into “every aspect of his life”.
Teasing the series, the BBC said: “Just a year ago Tommy Fury seemed to have it all – victory over his biggest adversary Jake Paul, love with Molly-Mae and a beautiful baby daughter, Bambi. But in his last fight he damaged his hand and, unable to train, his life span out of control.”
The documentary filmed Tommy as he trained for a fight after a year away from the sport, featuring unprecedented access to the Love Island star and his inner circle.
Tommy said: “A lot of people see me in the ring, they see me on social media, but they don’t see ME – the person behind all of that.
“I’m excited for everyone to finally be able to see what goes on behind the scenes, how the big fights are made, all the ups and downs as well as a glimpse into my private life.”
Throughout HBO’s post-apocalyptic series “The Last of Us,” music plays a role in setting the mood for moments big and small, heartfelt and heart-wrenching. It’s not unlike the video game, which was hailed for its original soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla (who is also a composer on the show), and for the pop music covers that helped to elevate the narrative.
In the most recent episode of Season 2 of “The Last of Us,” titled “The Price,” there’s a callback to a scene from the game that fans have been waiting for: Joel (Pedro Pascal) performs a stripped down version of Pearl Jam’s “Future Days” for Ellie (Bella Ramsey). The song captures the themes of loss and losing yourself, but also of moving forward together. And it’s not the only instance of a pop song showcasing characters’ emotions — in “Day One,” the fourth episode of Season 2, Ellie performs an acoustic cover of A-ha’s “Take on Me” as Dina (Isabela Merced) walks in and gently persuades her to continue playing the tender rendition. It’s another adaptation from the video game that signals the kindling of the relationship between Ellie and Dina.
“Bella is playing the guitar in the scene where Ellie plays the guitar and sings ‘Take on Me’ to Dina. That’s Bella. No tricks,” said Craig Mazin, co-creator of “The Last of Us,” in an interview earlier this year.
For Neil Druckmann, co-creator of the series and the video game franchise, he knew that when Ramsey was cast, the actor’s musical abilities would be an asset for future installments. “I remember seeing a video of them playing and singing and talking to Craig and being like, ‘Oh, they’re ready to go for if we get to Season 2,’” he said.
Ramsey, however, isn’t alone in their musical abilities. Over the course of the season in interviews with the cast and creators of the series, it became clear that music was a shared passion that bonded them on and off screen. Here, we collect some of their thoughts on music and performing together.
Channel 5 will show four home England T20s per year for the next four years under a new deal with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), keeping the matches on free-to-air television.
The two men’s and two women’s matches, previously shown on the BBC, will also be available on Channel 5’s streaming service 5.
They will still be broadcast on Sky Sports, which shows all of England’s home matches.
Channel 5 will also stream highlights of the T20 Blast.
The first match on the channel is the women’s T20 between England and West Indies at Chelmsford on Monday.
It will also show England’s men against the Windies on Sunday 8 June, then Nat Sciver-Brunt’s England against India on Saturday 28 June and the men’s match against South Africa on Sunday 14 September.
There will also be in-play clips of all matches on the BBC Sport website and app, plus live TV coverage of eight double-headers in each season of The Hundred.
The BBC’s audio deal also means Test Match Special will have commentary of home internationals until at least 2028, along with the new four-year contract to broadcast men’s and women’s county cricket.
But, Fury has started to tease a comeback with glimpses of his return to training while the success of his series could factor into his decision to fight again.
Netflix bosses will be keen to centre a series around Fury’s preparation for what would be the nation’s biggest-ever fight.
And with the streaming service now in the boxing business – they could even make a play to broadcast the mega-bout.
YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul had 100 MILLION watch his fight in November with Mike Tyson – who controversially made a return aged 58.
The stream crashed amid the demand and Netflix also home to Katie Taylor’s July 11 trilogy against Amanda Serrano.
Eddie Hearn teases Anthony Joshua vs Tyson Fury in 2025?! + Allen KOs Fisher | Split Decision | Sun Sport
Joshua, 35, and Fury, 36, are both exclusive to DAZN per the deals their promoters Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren signed.
But DAZN gave permission for Irish star Taylor, 38, to rematch and beat Serrano, 36, on Paul’s undercard.
It would take quite some convincing for DAZN to allow a similar pass for AJ and Fury but the streaming giants are making an aggressive push in live sports.
They have exclusive UK rights to the WWE and Monday Night Raw in America while also pushing to take over UFC coverage from ESPN.
The race for the 2025 Emmy Awards is upon us, and your beloved Buzzpeople are back. As TV academy members prepare to cast their nomination ballots next month, our panel of six veteran television journalists, expert awards watchers all, are here to share their insights on the leading contenders — and what less-heralded shows and performers they think also deserve attention.
Click the links below to see the results of our ranked-choice poll in each of nine major categories, as well as our participants’ individual picks.
I was never a fan of pleasantries because they seemed like a waste of time. Something that two people said to each other before they could say real things to each other. As years go by, more and more of our verbal interaction has taken the form of extended pleasantries. Little, it feels, that people say to each other is real. It’s about how they wish to look, how they can best position themselves, agenda.
That’s one reason I always loved the character of Norm Peterson on the sitcom “Cheers,” played by George Wendt, who has now cashed out his tab at the age of 76 and left this earthly barroom for one where I hope the kegs never run dry.
Norm was universal from the first time he entered the hostelry — as perpetual student and not-very-effective waitress Diane Chambers would have put it.
There was no more artful ingress in the history of American television than any of the many made by Norm, and they were so good, and had so much room for variability, that we got to witness one in every episode of the show.
You know the gag: Norm comes through the door, ready for a cold beer, someone asks him how he’s doing, and he answers.
But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there? I’m hesitant to even call the gag a gag, because it’s replete with a quality increasingly rare in our world: authenticity.
Norm doesn’t treat the inquiry — “How’s the world treating you, Norm?” — as perfunctory pleasantry. Which is what we almost always do.
In one episode, his response is, “It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and I’m wearing Milk-Bone underwear.” A query of “What’s shaking?” prompts a reply of “All four cheeks and a couple of chins.”
But in real life, when someone asks us how we are, we say, “Good, and you?” The truth is, we’ve just answered automatically, without a single thought, and we’re unlikely to be listening to whatever answer the other person gives us.
But what an amazing idea it is to ask someone how they are and care about the answer. To be invested in their well-being from the start. To jettison pretense and formality. And how subversive it is to treat another’s tossed-off query as though they cared. Maybe that shifts us all toward paying attention.
Norm always answered truthfully. He gave his interlocutor — and the patrons of the bar who enjoyed his quips — a tart response peppered with wit. But he was also willing to go there. And where’s that? To a place of being humble. Of admitting to struggle.
Now, Norm’s life might not have seemed arduous. He owned a house, had a wife who stood by him although he spent his evenings with the gang at Cheers — often dodging her phone calls. He didn’t work that much when he worked at all.
In a world that’s now rammed with loneliness, it’s easy to watch Norm and think, “I wish I had what that barfly had.” Norm has people. He’s both liked and loved.
Times change. I don’t think you could have a Cheers-type setup in our current iteration of life, but maybe you never could have one without sitcom magic. Shows idealize. But there’s truth and wisdom in both “Cheers” and Norm, without whom Cheers wouldn’t have been Cheers. And we can still wish. We must.
In “Crime and Punishment,” Dostoevsky wrote that everyone needs a somewhere. A somewhere can be a someone. It’s what helps us to be ourselves. Naked and open. Emotionally. Spiritually.
Norm never felt a need to embellish. He owned his struggles — what may have been his depression. His failings. He dished out the bons mots with each entrance like he was a thirsty Pascal who paid for his drinks in pensées, which made him an inspiration.
The gag never became less efficacious. It was the sitcom analogue to Conan Doyle’s “the trick,” the term for when Sherlock Holmes would dazzle Dr. Watson by telling him everything about someone just by looking at their walking stick.
I remember watching Norm when I was 8 and even then thinking he was cool. This wasn’t a star athlete. He could have lived across the street. He blew me away — as he made me laugh — simply by being brave enough to tell the truth about where he was at.
With Norm, the quotidian was never just the quotidian. It’s like in baseball: Everyone says in May that it’s early in the season, it doesn’t matter, but all the games still count as much as any of the other games.
That’s how Norm lived, and we have George Wendt to thank for Norm’s example, because you can’t imagine anyone else in the part. As to the question of how the world was treating Norm, I think the answer lies somewhere in how Norm understood what was important in the world. That’s worth a round on the house.
Colin Fleming is the author, most recently, of “Sam Cooke: Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963.”
FAKING It fans have branded the show’s reboot a ‘fix’ – as it returns after 19 years.
The premise sees a brave volunteer dropped into a completely alien world and given just four weeks – and help from a handful of mentors – to master a new skill and convince a panel of experts that they are the real deal.
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Faking It has returned to screens after almost two decadesCredit: Channel 5
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Estate agent Rex swapped properties for northern markets
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He had to convince a trio of market inspectors that he was the real dealCredit: Channel 5
Channel 5‘s reboot kicked off with Surreyluxury estate agent Rex swap properties for northern street markets.
Working gruelling 10-hour shifts, viewers watched Rex struggle to keep up, blend in and sound like a proper northerner.
However, he managed to convince two out of three market inspectors that he was a proper northern market trader.
Only one of the trio said: “There was something a little not quite there for me with the butcher. He was almost convincing!”
The others, however, felt he was genuine when he went up against a real-life baker, florist and dog treat seller.
Taking to X, some viewers branded the series a “fix” as they questioned the plausibility of not sussing out Rex as the phony.
One wrote: “Im calling B******t that two out the three didnt know Rex was #FakingIt.”
Another penned: “I’m watching the judges pretending not to know which the fake guy was. #FakingIt.”
Wheeler dealer and TV personalityTom Skinner was on hand to help coach Rex through the experience.
Although he initially criticised the newcomer’s slow start, stall display and lack of sales pitches.
Channel 5 ‘to reboot’ iconic reality series after nearly two decades off air
Tom said: “To me, it looks like a warehouse storeroom doesn’t it… your store should look like Harrods. You’ve got to make as much as the space you’ve got, yeah?”
After Rex forgot everything Tom told him about pitching, the former Apprentice star said: “Mate, I have no heard you once talk about your stock to anyone.
“You need to be a walking advert. When they walk past… bring them in.”
Rex’s confidence grew, however, following a crash course from a dialect coach, as well as the ultimate test of hosting a pub quiz using his new northern twang.
Top Channel 5 dramas
Channel 5 has become a hub for gripping drama, these are some of the best My5 has to offer.
All Creatures Great and Small – Based on the best-selling novels by real-life vet Alf Wright, the show revolves around a trio of vets working in the Yorkshire Dales in the late 1930s. Eccentric Siegfried Farnon (Samuel West) hires James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) for his veterinary practice at Skeldale House alongside himself and his younger brother Tristan (Callum Woodhouse). There James settles into his new life and even finds love with local farmer’s daughter Helen (Rachel Shenton).
The Ex-Wife– New parents Tasha (Céline Buckens) and Jack (Tom Misson) seem to have the perfect life, but the constant presence of Jack’s overly friendly but suspicious ex-wife Jen (Janet Montgomery) puts pressure on the couple. But as the series progresses it becomes less clear who the bad guy really is and how far everyone will go to get the life they think they deserve.
Heat – EastEnders alum Danny Dyer leads this four-part action thriller, set in Australia, which sees two families holidaying together during bushfire season. But instead of rest and relaxation, secrets and lies start to unravel — and not everyone will make it out alive…
Lie With Me – Another soap legend jets off to Australia, this time its EastEnders alum Charlie Brooks who takes as a married woman trying to saving her marriage by moving halfway around the world after her husband had an affair. However it’s far from plain sailing, as a young and attractive live-in nanny comes to work with the Fallmont family, and tensions soon build and eventually, someone ends up dead.
The Drowning – Jill Halfpenny plays Jodie, a woman whose life is shattered following the disappearance of her beloved four-year-old son, Daniel. However, ten years later, the grieving mother thinks she’s finally found her missing child, and embarks on a journey to discover the truth about him. But has she really just found the son she has been missing for so long?
In addition, the posh boy was treated to an amazing hair transformation and some fake tattoos.
Faking It originally aired on Channel 4 from 2000 to 2006 and was highly acclaimed in this run.
The show, which can still be streamed on Channel 4‘s online platform, won two BAFTA awards.
George Wendt, who will be famous as long as television is remembered as Norm from “Cheers,” died Tuesday. He passed in Los Angeles, where he lived, though the cities to which he is spiritually tied are Boston, where the show was set, and Chicago, where he was born and entered show business by way of Second City, and which he unofficially represented throughout his life, and which claimed him as one of its own. One of his last Facebook posts, earlier this month, as a Chicagoan educated by Jesuits, was, “pope leo XIV is a sout’ sider my friendts. his cassock size is 4XIV.”
Entering stage right, as the assembled cast shouted his name, Norm would launch his heavyset frame across the set to a corner stool where a glass of beer — draft, never bottled — would appear as he arrived. He was the quintessence of Regular Guy, a big friendly dog of a person, with some of the sadness that big, friendly dogs can carry.
“Cheers,” which ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993 — Wendt appeared in every one of its 275 episodes — was a show about going where everybody knows your name but also, as in life and fiction, a place for people who had nowhere better to be, or nowhere else to go. Though Norm was nominally an accountant, and then a house painter, his real job was to sit and fence with John Ratzenberger‘s font-of-bad-information postman Cliff Clavin — they were one of the medium’s great double acts — and drink beer, and then another. His unpaid tab filled a binder. (“I never met a beer I didn’t drink,” quoth Norm, though there was never any suggestion of alcoholism, or even of drunkenness.)
But as a person with work troubles and a marriage that could get the better of him — Wendt’s own wife, Bernadette Birkett, supplied the voice for the off-screen Vera — he was also the vehicle for some of the show’s more dramatic, thoughtful passages. (That his service to the series was essential was borne out by six Emmy nominations.) Unlike some other “Cheers” regulars, there was no caricature in his character. His woes, and his pleasures, were everyday, and he played Norm straight, seriously, without affectation, so that one felt that the Wendt one might meet on the street would not be substantially different from the person onscreen.
Like many actors so completely identified with a part, Wendt, who spent six years with Second City, worked more than one might have imagined; there were dozens of appearances on the small and big screen across the years, including his own short-lived “The George Wendt Show,” which took off on public radio’s “Car Talk.”
After “Cheers,” he’s perhaps most associated with the recurring, Chicago-set “Saturday Night Live” sketch “Bill Swerski’s Superfans.” But he also did theater, including turns on Broadway as Edna Turnblad in “Hairspray,” as Yvan in Yasmina Reza’s “Art” and as Santa in the musical adaptation of “Elf.” There was “Twelve Angry Men,” with Richard Thomas in Washington, D.C., and he was Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman” in Waterloo, Canada. In Bruce Graham’s “Funnyman,” at Chicago’s Northlight Theatre in 2015, he played a comic cast in a serious play, breaking out of typecasting.
We were connected on Facebook, where he regularly liked posts having to do with music and musicians; he was a fan, and sometimes a friend, of alternative and underground groups, and tributes to him from that quarter are quickly appearing. (When asked, he would often cite L.A.’s X, the Blasters and Los Lobos as among his favorites.) One of his own last posts was in memoriam of David Thomas, leader of the avant-garde Pere Ubu, twinned with “kindred spirit” Chicago Bears defensive tackle Steve McMichael, who died the same day.
Once, after he messaged me to compliment an appreciation — like this — I’d written about Tommy Smothers, I took the opportunity to ask, “Do I correctly remember seeing you at Raji’s a million years ago, probably for the Continental Drifters?” Raji’s, legendary within a small circle, was a dive club in a building long since gone on Hollywood Boulevard east of Vine Street; it wasn’t the Roxy, say, or other celebrity-friendly spots around town — or for that matter, anything like “Cheers,” except in that it served as a clubhouse for the regulars.
“Yep,” he replied. “Tough to get out like I used to, but please say hi if you see me around.” Sadly, I never did, and never will.
NETFLIX has struck a new deal that will see a popular kids show come to the streaming giants service.
The show was facing an uncertain future after losing funding but has been saved by the new Netflix deal.
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The new deal will see episodes released later this yearCredit: Getty
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Sesame Street has been on TV for decades and boasts hundreds of awardsCredit: Alamy
Sesame Street will be hosted on the streaming service with 90 hours of previous episodes and a whole new season added to the Netflix catalogue.
The move comes after HBO decided not to renew the 50-year-old show’s deal.
Sesame Street was threatened with cancellation in the wake of the news but has now been thrown a lifeline.
The deal will see new episodes of the beloved children’s show run on Netflix, PBS, and the PBS Kids app later this year.
No date has been announced for the premiere as of yet.
Warner Bros Discovery, who aired the show since 2016, decided not to renew its deal for new episodes to air on HBO and Max.
However, episodes of the children’s TV series will remain there until 2027.
The new series, to be aired on Netflix, will be the shows impressive 56th season.
Episodes in the new season will revolve around a single, 11 minute story.
Sesame Workshop said in a statement: “This unique public-private partnership will enable us to bring our research-based curriculum to young children around the world with Netflix’s global reach, while ensuring children in communities across the US continue to have free access on public television to the Sesame Street they love.”
Sesame Street has been entertaining children since 1969 with beloved puppet characters.
The show has won more than 200 Emmys in its long history.
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Characters like Elmo, Bert and Ernie, Big Bird and Cookie Monster lead the episodesCredit: AP
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Episodes are led by Big Bird and a cast of characters that educate children about colours, shapes and numbers.
Funding for the show was thrown into question earlier this year when President Trump issued an executive order to block funding for TV network PBS (Public Broadcasting Service).
The move resulted in federal funding for the show, among other TV programmes for kids, being cut.
Netflix’ new deal will see the show saved from an otherwise uncertain future.
The streaming giant called Sesame Street a “beloved cornerstone of children’s educational television.”
Netflix promised to keep fan favourite segments like Elmo’s world and Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck in the show.
The streaming service did hint at changes for the new season as well though, telling viewers to “expect new ways to play along.”
Sesame Street was co-founded by Lloyd Morrisett and Joan Ganz Cooney.
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Netflix hinted at minor changes to the showCredit: Getty Images – Getty
If you’re wondering why so many goths we’re wandering around Pasadena this weekend, look no further than Cruel World. The Goldenvoice celebration of all things postpunk, new wave and alternative landed at Brookside at the Rose Bowl on Saturday for its fourth installment, this time led by New Order and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
It ran smoothly, even when the overcast turned into a hard drizzle, creating a vibe reminiscent of England’s famed Glastonbury Festival. Gen Xers and fans of the era flocked to the converted golf course to hear their favorite artists take the stage once again, with many only appearing occasionally over the course of decades.
But, as is the case with all festivals, some acts had it together, bringing their best to fans and entrancing them in a nostalgia-ridden high. And some just showed up. Here’s a list of the performances we saw at the fest, from best to not-so-great.
1. New Order In a recent chat with The Times, Bernard Sumner spoke lovingly about New Order’s revival and attributed it partially to the band’s newfound cohesion.
“In the early days, we used to get f— up quite a lot and that f— up the shows,” Sumner said. “We used to play a really good one, celebrate how great it was, and then the next one would be terrible because we celebrated too much.”
He was spot-on with this point, as the band’s performance at Cruel World illustrated. Across entire set, it seemed everything was in the right place for the new-wave icons, who delivered perfection to fans. From the get-go, “Age of Consent” had the entire crowd bouncing around — an impressive accomplishment considering that the band was the last to perform on a wet and muddy day.
But the sky seemingly opened for New Order, who looked all too cool and casual while shouting out, “This is a protest song, and it’s time for a protest song” before treating the audience to “State of the Nation.”
The set would have been incredible enough on its own, gracefully fitting “Sub-Culture,” “Bizarre Love Triangle,” “True Faith” and “Blue Monday” into a one-hour window, but the group brought more than that to the table. After Sumner bowed out to “Temptation,” a minute went by before the band was back out onstage to play Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”
Emotions ran high in a celebratory and touching performance, as images of the late Ian Curtis and the words “Forever Joy Division” flashed on screens behind the band. Headliners are headliners for a reason, and there was no better group than New Order to lead festivalgoers on a victory lap during its stroll through the past.
Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo performs at Cruel World
(Dick Slaughter)
2. Devo
Devo was incredibly close to topping this list, as the band brought its signature wacky and whimsical show to Pasadena. After being pelted by rain, fans gathered around the festival’s Sad Girls stage to welcome the new-wave quintet.
A tape rolled on the screens, featuring returning character “Rod Rooter,” played by Michael W. Schwartz. In the footage, Rooter meets with the group, pitching the idea of Devo dolls: “We even got your jumpsuits!”
This was followed by another video, once again featuring Schwartz as Rooter, only years later.
“That was me 40 years ago, dispensing invaluable advice to the band that couldn’t shoot straight,” he said, sitting on an indoor bike and wearing a boldly colored tracksuit. “Now here they are, my biggest career regret, Devo.”
All four then danced out onto the stage, wearing all-black suits for “Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man).” It wasn’t long until the musicians donned their signature “devolution” caps, which were later thrown to the crowd as the band launched into “Whip It.” This was followed by a quick outfit change into those yellow jumpsuits, which frontman Mark Mothersbaugh tore off during “Uncontrollable Urge.”
Devo brought everything to the table and gave fans the show they deserved. It’s no wonder Goldenvoice invited the band back after it lighted up the Pasadena stage in 2022, and it likely won’t be the group’s last appearance on a Cruel World lineup.
3. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
It was always going to be a great performance from Nick Cave and his ensemble — it’s just their business. Over the entire course of the festival, no one was able to entice a crowd like they were. Throughout the entire set, it felt like gospel was ringing out across the Rose Bowl lawn, and Cave would extend a hand to his adoring worshippers at the stage’s front.
“You’re f— incredible,” he said. “Full of drugs and still able to clap.”
Throughout its one-hour set, the band played everything from lively, invigorating tracks like “Wild God” to mellow, meditative numbers like “Joy.” Of course, the group made sure to fit in “Red Right Hand,” which received an eruption of cheers. Cave would often make a mad dash between his piano and downstage, making a show of it as he danced his fingers across the keys.
But the perfomance’s peak likely came with a live debut of “Hollywood,” a 14-minute song (played in full) off 2019’s “Ghosteen.”
“We’re gonna try this song, we’ve never played it before,” Cave said. “It’s extremely long and it’s written for … Hollywood.”
The song, explained in a post to Cave’s 2018 project “The Red Hand Files,” is a tale referencing a series of images that came to him while sitting in the back seat of a car driving through Oslo, Texas. In it, a narrator finds himself on a beach, looking out at the sun.
Poetically and almost prophetically, the post said, “Malibu is on fire and the animals have been driven down from the hills to the shore.”
Shirley Manson of Garbage performing at Cruel World
(Dick Slaughter)
4. Garbage
Overlapping Garbage and Devo during Cruel World’s sets was a decision that left many attendees divided. It was no surprise that many larger groups split up around 7 p.m. and set off to either the Outsiders or Lost Boys stages.
Even lead singer Shirley Manson felt bummed about missing out on Devo and said she expected a much smaller crowd.
“I’m gonna be very honest with you … in rehearsal yesterday we were really freaking out because, of course, the great Devo!” Manson said. “We are so gutted that we’re playing at the same time as one of our hero bands.”
“We’re amazed that you’re here,” she continued, laughing. “Thank you so much.”
But Garbage put on an excellent performance — it was all smiles among those who had chosen the alt-rock group. A bonus was Manson’s outfit, which was undoubtedly the best of the day.
5. OMD
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark was an unexpected favorite among the lineup. The group came out with high energy and maintained it throughout its entire set. This kept fans on the edge of their seats, as did just the right amount of commentary from the bandto engage them.
“Everybody put two hands up,” lead singer Andy McCluskey said before performing “Talking Loud and Clear.”
“You have to do it with two hands, otherwise you’ll look like Elon Musk!”
It was an expected yet hilarious quip from the band, which has never shied away from making a political statement. Years later, it still felt awkward dancing away to “Enola Gay,” and even more so after the group flashed images of the notorious aircraft and a mushroom cloud on screens.
During “If You Leave,” the screens showed images of Molly Ringwald as Andie Walsh in “Pretty in Pink,” which was a nice nod to the song’s inclusion in the film’s soundtrack.
6. Alison Moyet
A great performance from an incredible artist — it’s no wonder she received an MBE for music service in 2021. During the set, she floated back and forth between songs from her solo career and those she made with Yazoo alongside Vince Clarke, who had previously served as keyboardist for Depeche Mode.
Perhaps the most impressive part of her set was her vocals. It’s no secret that some of these singers’ voices have declined after 40 or so years. But Moyet, though not as crisp, still delivered on the main stage. In fact, the touch of grit to her voice only added to the songs, which she commanded with gravitas.
7. She Past Away
The Turkish postpunk duo took the stage around 2 p.m. and granted festivalgoers a pleasant peek of what was ahead of them. For a group that formed in 2006, it fit in comfortably in the lineup, entrancing listeners with sounds reminiscent of what its new-wave peers were creating in the ’80s. To put a cherry on top, bandmates Volkan Caner and İdris Akbulut adorned their classic black eye shadow and lipstick combo.
She Wants Revenge performing at Cruel World
(Dick Slaughter)
8. She Wants Revenge
Another postpunk outfit from the aughts, She Wants Revenge attracted quite the crowd. Lead singer Justin Warfield strutted around the stage in an all-black, all-leather outfit that featured a belt with golden ankhs hanging below it. As far as presence, the group had it down.
Its performance was solid, and fans applauded when the band whipped out a cover of the Psychedelic Furs’ “Sister Europe” mid-set. Hunter Burgan of AFI was brought out and introduced as not only “one of the raddest bass players ever ripping” but also “a mean sax player.” In a sentimental touch, the song was dedicated to the Furs’ late saxophonist Mars Williams.
9. Death Cult
This one was an odd one. As a preface, the Southern Death Cult was a Bradford, England-born band and a leader of the postpunk movement in the early ’80s. The group garnered a bit of attention, played about 20 shows, split after two years and released one album, titled “The Southern Death Cult.”
After the breakup, frontman Ian Astbury joined forces with guitarist Billy Duffy to form Death Cult in 1983. The band released one EP under this name, simply titled “Death Cult,” before becoming the Cult less than one year later. In 2023, Astbury and Duffy would revive Death Cult for a series of shows across the U.K. and a one-off performance at what was then the Theatre at Ace Hotel. For Cruel World, the pair followed suit and performed under the name Death Cult, while also celebrating the music of the Cult and the Southern Death Cult.
Going into the show, fans were confused about what they would possibly be hearing from the band, who walked out onstage to the theme from “A Clockwork Orange.” Needless to say, most attendees were fans of the Cult, the most well known of the three band iterations, and Astbury was seemingly frustrated that the crowd wasn’t more reactive to tunes from Death Cult and the Southern Death Cult.
It’s no surprise, then, that attendees rejoiced when they heard the Cult’s most popular song, “She Sells Sanctuary,” as well as others from the band.
It didn’t help that the sun had just gone down, leaving the small Lost Boys stage dimly lighted, and there were no visualizers to back the group. This meant fans could hardly make out the band unless they were close to the stage.
It’s not that Death Cult’s musicians were bad showmen. On the contrary, Astbury’s vocals were great, and everyone seemed to be on the same wave, except the crowd. Given all the factors at play, the set was just odd altogether.
10. The Go-Go’s
Fans arrived in droves, eager to hear their favorites from one of the biggest undercards on the lineup. I mean, it’s the Go-Go’s; you don’t want to miss “Our Lips Are Sealed” and “Vacation,” even if you’ve just spent hours in the rain, shelled out $20 on a cocktail and your soles are starting to scream at you.
It’s difficult to put a finger on what exactly went wrong for this performance; the hits were there and the crowd was packed. But every song felt uncoordinated, like the band could have spent a few more hours in rehearsal. The group was not only out of sync from the jump but the entire set was also plagued by feedback and sound mix issues.
“All right, I’m sitting back here motherf— … come on now, I’m working my f— a— off,” drummer Gina Schock said before diving into “Head Over Heels.” “I wanna see some movement out there, OK?”
But the crowd stood still. Even when the band finished off with “We Got The Beat,” the musicians’ attempt to lead a H-O-T-T-O-G-O chant — as they had done just weeks before at Coachella — fell flat on its face.
“You know that one,” Jane Wiedlin pleaded, to no avail.
Ahmaud Arbery. His name is just one that we’ve come to associate with senseless racial violence in America. On the afternoon of Feb. 23, 2020, in Georgia’s Glynn County, Arbery, 25, was out running when three white men chased him down and shot him. His death ricocheted across the nation just three months before the murder of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer.
Now, five years later, the Grammy-winning choral ensemble Tonality is dedicating a show to Arbery at the Wallis in Beverly Hills. The May 24 program, “Put Your Guns Down,” includes the world premiere of founding Artistic Director Alexander Lloyd Blake’s piece “Running From, Running To: A Musical Reflection on Ahmaud Arbery.”
Tonality choral ensemble during a performance.
(Dorian Bonner)
Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, will attend the concert and has already heard Blake’s 30-minute work for choir, orchestra and soloists. She took time while traveling to answer questions via email about experiencing the music.
“When I first heard the composition, I was overwhelmed. It’s beautiful. I wish I could play it over and over again,” Cooper-Jones wrote. “The fact that someone took the time to honor Ahmaud in this way — it means more than I can put into words. One of the movements is called ‘Running Free,’ and when I heard that, I told Alex that it was like we were made to make a connection.”
After Arbery’s death, Cooper-Jones channeled her grief into creating the Ahmaud Arbery Foundation, which champions mental health awareness and provides scholarships and youth development camps for young Black men.
“One of my favorite quotes from Ahmaud is, ‘When life gets hard, you gotta get hard with it,’” Cooper-Jones wrote. “I hear his voice saying that all the time, especially when I get to the point where I want to give up. Starting the Ahmaud Arbery Foundation hasn’t been easy. It’s hard work. But those words keep me going.”
Arbery, Cooper-Jones explained, inspired everything she does.
“He had a way of leaving every person with ‘I love you,’ no matter who they were. Since losing him, I try to do the same, letting people know I love them, just in case I leave here tomorrow,” she said. “Through the foundation, I’m working to be the change for young Black men like Ahmaud who may be facing mental health challenges or simply struggling to find their place in the world. If they choose running as their outlet, I want them to be able to run free, without fear. That’s what this work is about, honoring Ahmaud’s legacy by fighting for freedom, for justice, and for love.”
Tonality’s Blake also wants to honor Arbery’s life with his music.
“I remember reading about Ahmaud Arbery’s story in 2020 and feeling a deep frustration at how little attention it received. That frustration led me to create a project in 2020 with 60 Black musicians to honor the countless Black lives lost without consequence,” Blake wrote in an email. “‘Running From, Running To’ is my way of ensuring his story is not forgotten — a reflection of our need to remember, to heal, and to strive toward justice that has yet to be fully realized.”
Tonality founding Artistic Director Alexander Lloyd Blake.
(Dorian Bonner)
“Put Your Guns Down,” begins at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets can be purchased at thewallis.org.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, grateful for Cooper-Jones’ reflections on the power of love. Here’s a rundown of this week’s other arts news.
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Best bets: On our radar this week
‘Califas Trilogy’
Playwright and actor Roger Q. Mason made waves with their play “Lavendar Men,” which reimagined Abraham Lincoln’s life through a queer lens. Now Mason has launched the “Califas Trilogy,” plays exploring the California dream at various points in the past, present and future. Times contributor Amanda L. Andrei sat down with Mason to discuss the works, two of which are up and running. Check them out and dive into Mason’s story. “California Story” runs through June 3 at Caminito Theatre of Los Angeles City College “Hide and Hide” runs through May 29 at Skylight Theatre in L.A.; “Juana Maria” runs May 25-June 1 at Caminito Theatre. www.califastrilogy.com
‘Schoenberg in Hollywood’
Tod Machover’s opera “Schoenberg in Hollywood” is based on a remarkable incident from 1935: In the office of legendary Hollywood producer Irving Thalberg, composer Arnold Schoenberg asks for more than an astronomical fee to score the MGM feature film adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s “The Good Earth.” He also asks for full control of the movie’s sound — and wants the actors to recite their lines to his musical rhythms. Three more performances of “Schoenberg in Hollywood” by the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music are scheduled this week at the Nimoy Theater in Westwood. Until then, you can read music critic Mark Swed’s take on Schoenberg and his contribution to the L.A. sound. 7:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd., L.A. schoolofmusic.ucla.edu
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Elizabeth Reaser and Jason Butler Harner, who star as Nora and Torvald in “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” at the Pasadena Playhouse on Friday, May 2, 2025.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Since Henrik Ibsen’s classic play “A Doll’s House” premiered in 1879, one thing has not changed: It’s still shocking for a woman to walk out on her child. Which is where playwright Lucas Hnath’s starts his 2017 play, “A Doll’s House, Part 2”: 15 years after Ibsen’s female protagonist, Nora, left her husband and daughter to find her own way in life. In a new production at Pasadena Playhouse, screen actors Elizabeth Reaser and Jason Butler Harner play Nora and husband Torvald, coming up with their own answers about what these two former life partners may now think and feel about each other. Read all about the show here.
Times theater critic Charles McNulty, a part-time professor at CalArts, enjoyed reading playwright Sarah Ruhl’s new book, “Lessons From My Teachers.” Ruhl is a playwriting instructor at Yale who finds plenty to learn from her students. “Even in the classroom, with its necessary hierarchies and rigorously observed boundaries, teaching isn’t a one-way street,” McNulty writes in review of the book. “Authority is enriched, not undermined, by intellectual challenge. The most thrilling moments in my years of teaching drama have come when in the dialectical heat of class discussion, a new way of understanding a scene or a character’s psychology emerges from conflicting perspectives.”
Maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Pierre-Laurent Aimard at piano at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
(David Swanson/For The Times)
The classical music world is abuzz with the thought that conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen might return to lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic after Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel leaves at the end of next season to take over the New York Philharmonic. Times critic Swed ruminates on the possibility of Salonen playing a transitional role for a couple years while the search continues for a permanent successor.
Joe Ngo, Abraham Kim, Kelsey Angel Baehrens, Jane Lui and Tim Liu in “Cambodian Rock Band” at East West Players.
(Teolindo)
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Massive cutbacks to the National Endowment for the Artscontinue to send shock waves through L.A.’s arts community. East West Players announced that it lost a $20,000 grant meant to support the creative team behind the world premiere of Prince Gomolvilas’ “Paranormal Inside,” scheduled for the fall. “The loss of this funding represents more than a financial setback; it is a symbolic blow to our mission and to the creatives who rely on institutional support to tell vital, underrepresented stories,” the theater wrote in an email to supporters. The loss, which represents 10% of the budget for the project, couldn’t come at a worse time for the company, which in April was forced to layoff five full-time staff members. The theater is calling on members of the community to help fundraise and to contact their local representatives to protest the Trump administration’s proposed elimination of the NEA.
A massive art installation created by transgender and nonbinary artists in support of visibility and acceptance for their community was unveiled Saturday in Washington, D.C. The “Freedom to Be” project was spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union and helped kick off World Pride in the capital by displaying hundreds of quilts meant to build on the legacy of the 1987 AIDS Memorial Quilt.
The Getty has announced the lineup for its free outdoor summer concert series, “Off the 405.” This year’s performers include Bartees Strange, Cate Le Bon, Helado Negro, Alabaster DePlume and Moses Sumney. Check out the full schedule here.
And last but not least
Times travel writer Christopher Reynolds, who may have the best job at the paper, just released this list of “the 34 coolest, kitschiest, most fascinating motels in California,” which appeals to just about every aspect of my personality and taste. Now I just need a few months off — and a lottery win — to stay at each and every one.
NEW YORK — Charles Strouse, the three-time Tony Award winner and Broadway master melody-maker who composed the music for “Annie,” “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Applause,” died Thursday. He was 96.
Strouse died at his home in New York City, his family said.
In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Strouse wrote more than a dozen Broadway musicals, as well as film scores and “Those Were the Days,” the theme song for the sitcom “All in the Family.”
Strouse turned out such popular — and catchy — show tunes as “Tomorrow,” the optimistic anthem from “Annie,” and the equally cheerful “Put on a Happy Face” from “Bye Bye Birdie,” his first Broadway success.
“I work every day. Activity — it’s a life force,” the New York-born composer told the Associated Press during an interview on the eve of his 80th birthday in 2008. “When you enjoy doing what you’re doing, which I do very much, I have something to get up for.”
Deep into his 90s, he visited tours of his shows and met casts. Jenn Thompson, who appeared in the first “Annie” as Pepper and directed a touring version of “Annie” in 2024, recalls Strouse coming to auditions and shedding a tear when a young girl sang “Tomorrow.” She said: “He’s so gorgeously generous and kind. He has always been that way.”
His Broadway career began in 1960 with “Bye Bye Birdie,” which Strouse wrote with lyricist Lee Adams and librettist Michael Stewart. “Birdie,” which starred Dick Van Dyke and Chita Rivera, told the tale of an Elvis Presley-like crooner named Conrad Birdie being drafted into the Army and its effect on one small Ohio town.
Strouse not only wrote the music, but he played piano at auditions while Edward Padula, the show’s neophyte producer, tried to attract financial backers for a production that would eventually cost $185,000.
“We never stopped giving auditions — and people never gave money at all. The idea of using rock ‘n’ roll — everybody was so turned off,” Strouse said.
Finally, Padula found Texas oilman L. Slade Brown. When he heard the score, he said, in a Texas twang, “I like those songs,” pushed Strouse aside and picked out the tune of “Put on a Happy Face” on the piano.
Brown then said, “How much do you fellas need?” and wrote out a check for $75,000 to cover the start of rehearsals. “Suddenly, the world turned Technicolor,” Strouse remembered.
The popularity of “Birdie” spawned a film (with Van Dyke, Janet Leigh and Ann-Margret) in 1963 and a television adaptation with Jason Alexander and Vanessa Williams in 1995.
Strouse and Adams gave several non-musical theater stars, including Sammy Davis Jr. and Lauren Bacall, stage successes for “Golden Boy” and “All About Eve,” respectively.
But it was “Annie” (1977) that proved to be Strouse’s most durable — and long-running — Broadway hit (over 2,300 performances). Chronicling the Depression-era adventures of the celebrated comic strip character Little Orphan Annie, the musical featured lyrics by Martin Charnin and a book by Thomas Meehan.
It starred Andrea McArdle as the red-haired moppet and Dorothy Loudon, who won a Tony for her riotous portrayal of mean Miss Hannigan, who ran the orphanage. The musical contained gems such as “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” and “It’s the Hard Knock Life.”
The 1982 film version, which featured Carol Burnett in Loudon’s role, was not nearly as popular or well-received. A stage sequel called “Annie Warbucks” ran off-Broadway in 1993. The show was revived on Broadway in 2012 and made into a film starring Quvenzhané Wallis in 2014. NBC put a version on network TV in 2021 called “Annie Live!”
Strouse and Charnin, who both won Grammy Awards for the “Annie” cast album, found shards of their work included in Jay-Z’s 1998 Grammy-winning album “Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life.”
“Tomorrow” has been heard on soundtracks from “Shrek 2″ to “Dave” to “You’ve Got Mail.” In 2016, Lukas Graham used parts of the chorus from “Annie” for his “Mama Said” hit.
Strouse had his share of flops, too, including two shows — “A Broadway Musical” (1978) and “Dance a Little Closer,” a 1983 musical written with Alan Jay Lerner, that closed after one performance. Among his other less-than-successful musicals were “All-American” (1962), starring Ray Bolger, “It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman” (1966), directed by Harold Prince, and “Bring Back Birdie” (1981), a sequel to “Bye Bye Birdie.”
Among Strouse’s film scores were the music for “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) and “The Night They Raided Minsky’s” (1968).
Theater beckoned when he and Adams got a chance in the early 1950s to write songs for weekly revues at an Adirondacks summer camp called Green Mansions. Such camps were the training ground for dozens of performers and writers.
“I would write a song and I would orchestrate it and copy the parts,” he said in the AP interview. “And rehearsal was the next day at nine, so at four in the morning, I am crossing the lake with the parts still wet. I just loved it. I never was happier.”
His wife, Barbara, died in 2023. He is survived by four children, Ben, Nick, Victoria and William.
EXCLUSIVE: Coronation Street actress Farrel Hegarty has opened up about her storyline on the ITV soap opera and admits she hopes it enables women to speak up
Coronation Street actress Farrel Hegarty has opened up about the importance of her ongoing storyline
Poised to emigrate to Australia before she landed her Corrie role as neighbour-from-hell Lou Michaelis, actress Farrel Hegarty is already being likened to hellraising battleaxe Janice Battersby. Flattered by the comparison, there is no such thing as being too gobby, according to Yorkshire-born Farrel.
She tells The Mirror: “Lou is gobby, loud, irrational and it’s lovely to be compared to such a big character, like Janice Battersby. You always dream of landing a part like Lou. So to get it later in life, is overwhelming and I cried. I was so happy.”
At 37, Farrel will not be considered to be “later in life” by many of us, but age is an issue in the acting profession. “Working as a jobbing actress can be hard,” explains Farrel. “There were 50 people in my year at drama school 15 years ago and when we recently counted how many were still acting, it was only seven.”
When the Corrie audition came, she was about to leave her home in London to move Down Under and live with her girlfriend of 18 months. She says: “I was about to move to Australia to move in with my partner and the audition came up. Either way, my life was about to go in a different direction, as I knew I’d either be going to Australia or joining Coronation Street.
Farrel almost had a completely different life before her Coronation Street audition
“I knew if I got the role, then it was my time. Having a long-distance relationship is definitely not for the faint-hearted but my partner was never going to be angry that I was going to be in Corrie. She knows how much it meant to me and how tough it has been.”
The moment Lou, her husband Mick Michaelis (Joe Layton) and their son Brody (Ryan Mulvey) arrived on the cobbles, they began wreaking havoc.
For Chesney and Gemma, they have become nightmare neighbours, while thug Mick has bullied Leo, battered his stepdad Gary and is tormenting bent copper Kit with threats to reveal his bad boy past, when they were both delinquent teenagers.
And Farrel is at pains to point out that, while she loves playing her, she is nothing like Lou in real life. She says: “Lou loves an insult. She’s called people a cow, bimbo and witch and sometimes I find myself going ‘take a minute, Lou’ when I read the scripts.
“I am obviously nothing like her and the only thing we do have in common, other than being close to family, is we have the same face!” So far, despite Mick’s thuggery, there has been no indication of any aggression towards Lou.
But in tonight’s episode, it will be revealed that he has been abusing her physically and mentally. Bombshell revelations in Friday’s episode lifted the lid on Lou and Kit’s affair years earlier, which cast doubt on whether the policeman or Mick was Brody’s dad.
And when Brody is caught shoplifting, enraged Mick makes his feelings clear with viewers seeing Lou taken to A&E with a head wound by Tim Metcalfe (Joe Duttine) . There is no doubt who caused it, yet Lou is besotted with Mick. “She is so infatuated and in love with Mick that she is willing to overlook things,” explains Farrel.
Tim took Lou to the hospital after noticing a cut on her head
“She loves him so much that when he is being scary, she soon forgets it when he tells her an hour later how sorry he is and how much he loves her. The fear disappears.”
Farrel says the hard-hitting storyline is an important one: “We want women in horrendous situations like this to realise they aren’t alone and to also show it’s not always (happening to) the person you might expect.
“Yes Lou is loud and gobby and you wouldn’t expect this to happen to her, but there is a vulnerable side to her too. Mick is all she has ever known and her love for him will always outdo everything.”
Farrel won’t divulge whether Lou will leave Mick, but she says her relationship with Brody becomes strained, now he has found Kit may be his real dad.
“Lou sees the best in Brody, but he’s turning into Mick,” she reveals. “But, to be fair, Brody has had a hard life and to discover his life may have been a lie is bound to test a relationship.” Farrel says Joe is a joy to work with: “He is the opposite of Mick, such a lovely human and the most caring man. ”
Farrel explained she and soap bosses hope women in situations similar to her characters will realise they’re not alone
Knowing the destruction unleashed on Weatherfield by the Michaelises would be short-lived, as their Coronation Street contracts were finite, Lou plans to make the most of every second.
Due to depart in the summer, she says: “I’ve loved it all and even now, a few months in, it’s surreal walking on the cobbles. So much has happened in such a short time, and we’ve caused chaos. I’ve never had so many arguments!
“To get this role is a dream come true, but I always knew I would one day be leaving. Joe and I came in together and will leave together. How we do it, I can’t say, but it’s brilliant being part of the show. Watching the other actors is like a masterclass in acting. When I do film my final scenes, I’ll probably cry.”
After leaving East 15 acting school in Essex 15 years ago, Farrel has had small roles in Brassic and Johnny Vegas’ Murder They Hope, as well as creating comedy content on TikTok and appearing in Corrie in 2019, as a reporter looking into Robert Preston’s shooting.
Between roles, she has sometimes taken temporary office jobs. “It’s hard going to auditions, but when you get a part like Lou, it’s an incredible feeling.”
Her dream now is to land a role in a sitcom. “I enjoy doing silly skits,” says Farrel, who plans to go to Australia first. “I will need a holiday by then. It will be great to see my partner too.”
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Abuse Helpline 24/7 on 0808 2000247.
Coronation Street airs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 8pm on ITV1. Also on ITVX.
ITV’s Good Morning Britain has been on the air since 2014 and has boosted the profiles of the likes of Susanna Reid and Piers Morgan – but the long-running series could be getting a major overhaul
22:51, 18 May 2025Updated 22:51, 18 May 2025
A report has suggested there could be major changes coming to Good Morning Britain(Image: ITV)
There are fears of a “mutiny” at ITV over plans to revamp breakfast news show Good Morning Britain. The topical news show has been on the air since 2014 and features Susanna Reid, Richard Madeley and Kate Garraway as regular hosts.
However, things are tipped to change at the Television Centre in London, where the ITV show is filmed—and there will be a major “shake-up” over the way the show is filmed. It has been suggested that the overall aesthetic of the show could be changed to be more hard-hitting and in line with ITV’s news reports, which are produced by ITN.
It has been suggested that a new studio could be constructed to house the morning show, sparking alarm among staff that this could affect roles behind the scenes. Changes are said to be in consideration in the hope that the ITV show can overtake BBC Breakfast, which regularly pulls in over one million viewers each morning, compared to around 700,000 for GMB.
The suggestion of changes comes months after former ITV News boss Andrew Dagnell was appointed director of news and current affairs at ITV. While Unions reportedly expressed “concern” in a memo to staff.
Piers Morgan flounced off Good Morning Britain and then quit in 2021 after throwing a strop about Meghan Markle(Image: ITV)
The Daily Mail reported the rumours of changes with a source telling the outlet: “Obviously any talk of major change starts panic – lots of the staff were immediately worried about the security of their jobs.
“This is about streamlining ITV’s news output across the whole day, and having separate teams doubling up just doesn’t make sense. So it may well be that some correspondents end up appearing across the whole day’s schedule, rather than being specifically attached to GMB or ITV News.
“There could be a new set and a new feel, and a more continuous feel to ITV’s news bulletins throughout the whole day as a result. But people are very much likely to lose their jobs, so there is a lot of upset, anger and in some cases, mutiny.”
One of Good Morning Britain’s biggest stars was Piers Morgan who served as an anchor on the show from 2015 until 2021 and was known for his outspoken opinions. His inclusion on the show helped GMB reach some of its biggest ratings in it’s 11 years history.
However, he sensationally walked away from the show four years ago after hitting out at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex after they gave an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Piers sparked a backlash when he criticised Meghan Markle after she opened up about past mental health struggles during her interview.
Quitting the show, he later wrote on X: “On Monday, I said I didn’t believe Meghan Markle in her Oprah interview. I’ve had time to reflect on this opinion, and I still don’t. Freedom of speech is a hill I’m happy to die on.”
Piers has struggled to find steady work since leaving the ITV show, however, as he joined News UK’s TalkTV channel – only for the network to be wound down. He now broadcasts a show on YouTube.
Piers has enjoyed viral success, however – particularly with an interview with Scottish lawyer Fiona Harvey, who is suing Netflix as she claims she was defamed by their hit show Baby Reindeer.
For her seventh time hosting “Saturday Night Live” (the most times ever for a woman, NBC says), actor Scarlett Johansson closed the show’s historic 50th season.
It was a night that didn’t deliver any news on the rumors that Johansson’s husband, Colin Jost of “Weekend Update,” or his co-host Michael Che, would be leaving the show. Instead, the two engaged in their joke exchange ritual, and multiple guest stars showed up in sketches, including Mike Myers, Gina Gershon and Emily Ratajkowski in a video piece, and musical guest Bad Bunny.
Johansson did her usual ace job throughout the show, bringing her crisp delivery to sketches about a New York morning show where puns about hard-news stories land very badly, a Please Don’t Destroy video about a vacation flight to Newark Airport (it also lands badly), and a barroom sketch about two men (Marcello Hernández and Bad Bunny) who commiserate in Spanish about the terrible relationships they’re in with characters played by Johansson and Ego Nwodim.
The trio of sketches were followed by another video chapter in the “Bowen Yang’s Not Gay” series, in which Johansson has an affair with Yang before finding out how many other women he’s having sex with, including Gershon, Ratajkowski and cast members Nwodim and Heidi Gardner.
After a strong “Weekend Update” finale featuring Johansson in the joke exchange, the show took a hard dive with four sketches in a row that just didn’t work. There was a very dated and awkward elevator sketch about Mike Myers running into Kanye West (now Ye, played by Kenan Thompson), one about intimacy coordinators who don’t know how lesbians have sex, a TV interview panel in which female actors get asked more personal questions than their male co-star, and a gross-out season-ender about Victorian women eating disgusting foods including eels and BLTs (bunnies and little turtles).
On top of the bad run of sketches, Johansson was cut off while giving a tribute to Lorne Michaels as the show ended on broadcast and Peacock with no closing credits or cast hugs (the full goodnights were later posted online). That’s no fault of Johansson (who received a bouquet of roses and a kiss from her husband before that goodbye snafu), but it was a sloppy way to end an otherwise strong season of TV featuring a host who’s always proved solid.
Musical guest Bad Bunny, who appeared in the bar and Newark airport sketches, performed “NUEVAYoL” and “PERFuMITO NUEVO” with RaiNao.
The majority of Season 50’s cold opens have leaned on James Austin Johnson’s uncanny President Trump impression, and the finale followed suit. The president’s recent Middle East trip was the topic, with Trump having some friend time with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Emil Wakim). “We are vibing,” Trump said, “dipping our fingers into various goops and spreads,” although he says he ended up eating at a mobile McDonald’s set up for him nearby. Trump addressed the $400-million plane he wants to accept from Qatar (“It’s a pre-bribe”), saying he prefers it to flying an American plane. “No thanks, sonny. Have you seen what’s going on … screen is blank. Newark!” Trump narrated himself breaking the fourth wall by going out into the audience and commenting on the attractiveness of women in the front rows and promised audiences they wouldn’t forget him while “SNL” goes on summer hiatus. “I’m everywhere, even in your dreams, like the late, great Freddy Krueger. See you in the fall if we still have a country, right? It’s a coin toss.”
In her monologue, Johansson led the cast in a song with lyrics about the show set to the tune of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” “Sing us a song, it’s your monologue / sing us a song tonight. / ‘Cause we’ve made 50 years of great memories / every Saturday Night.” At one point it looked like Joel himself might join in when Johansson announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Billy Joel… wrote this song!” The host took audience questions while still singing and jokes were made about a surprised Sarah Sherman finding out she’s leaving the show (it was a joke). The cast (with Jost and Che absent) concluded the song with, “The 50th season is through / it lasted forever / we did it together / and we got to spend it with you.”
Best sketch of the night: Let’s go home for some soup made from cow feet
Two men (Hernandez and Bad Bunny) on dates at a bar with women they don’t particularly want to be with (Nwodim and Johansson) get into a fight at their girlfriends’ urging, but instead they tell each other in Spanish about their problems and become friends. The two realize they’re both attracted to volatile relationships and will probably end up back in bed with the women they should break up with. The subtitles are on point and the attempts by the girlfriends to chime in with Spanish (“Nipple crazy cafeteria!”) also work nicely. For some reason, a couple of men (Andrew Dismukes and Johnson) sit at another table and serve as the sketch’s Greek chorus.
Also good: ‘Is something going on at Newark?’
The Please Don’t Destroy boys are visited by Johansson, who asks why they’re so down. “Are you sad the season’s over and you only did like two videos?” she asks. The actor invites them to fly first class with her and a Lonely Island-style rap video is interspersed with the reality of the situation: They’re on a very bad flight to Newark airport, which has been having some problems. There are some great visual jokes like a prayer symbol on the overhead panel and a Microsoft blue screen of death on the TV panels. But then Bad Bunny shows up as an air traffic controller who helps save the day all alone and on his first day at work. It might say something that the two best sketches this week featured Johansson as well as Bad Bunny; he didn’t get a chance to host this season but did a great job in 2023.
‘Weekend Update’ winner: Did Lorne Michaels know about this?
Miss Eggy (Nwodim) returned with another fire monologue similar to the one from last month, but it was the traditional joke exchange, in which Jost and Che force each other to read racist and/or embarrassing material that is taken to new heights (lows?) each time. Jost was forced to tell the show’s producer, “Retire, bitch, let me run the show,” while Che was given the line, “I haven’t been that excited since I saw a white woman drinking unattended.” Jost had to ridicule rap feud master Kendrick Lamar and with Jost’s wife sitting next to him, Che was forced to apologize and say about his time on the show, “I’ve told thousands of jokes and gotten dozens of laughs,” and of Jost, “I love you.” But it was Jost who got the worst of it, getting tricked into saying the name Nick Kerr, son of Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, and applying lipstick to tell Michaels, “I’ll do anything to run this show.” If this is the last time we see Jost and Che as “Update” hosts, at least we’ll know they left no depths unplumbed.
AN X Factor legend has passed away aged 64 after working closely with Simon Cowell on the show for eight years.
Bodyguard Tony Adkins – known as Big Tony – died on Easter Sunday while on a rugby tour, a family member confirmed on social media.
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Simon Cowell’s former bodyguard Big Tony has passed awayCredit: X
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Tony – pictured with George Sampson – worked on The X Factor for eight yearsCredit: WireImage
Sharing a photo of Tony, his cousin wrote: “It is with great sadness my family would like to announce that my Cousin Big Tony, Simon Cowell‘s ex bodyguard, passed away on Easter Sunday while on a Rugby Tour.
“He was a loveable Rogue and will be missed very much, RIP Big T.”
It read: “It is with immense sadness that the club pays tribute to a true gent and great Hammer, Tony Adkins, who passed away whilst on tour with the Club in Poland on Easter Sunday.”
Viewers will remember dealing with upset contestants on The X Factor, often being forced to remove them from the audition room when things didn’t go their way.
After his time working for Simon and the show came to an end, he revealed what his former famous boss is really like.
He told the Mirror: “Simon was so laid-back and a very nice guy.
“He was generous, too. Whenever the show finished – and at Christmas – you’d get an envelope as a thank you. The last one I got had £700 stuffed in it.”
Tony continued: “He’s a very private person. He doesn’t give much away. You never see him drunk or out of control.
“Simon is vain – he does his hair all the time.
Multi-millionaire Simon Cowell brands rich people ‘obnoxious, snobby and unhappy’ and insists he’s NOT worth £500m
“If there are five breaks in filming then Simon will do his hair five times.”
He added: “And I think he has about 20 identical T-shirts. I remember once he had a hole in one, so he just reached into a bag and pulled out another from a big pile.”
