No regal Rumba (or Queenly Quickstep) this year, after plans to host the BBC‘s Strictly Come Dancing at Buckingham Palace were shelved, again.
The King and Queen — both Strictly fans — had mooted the idea last summer and the Beeb were mustard-keen, but in the end, there just wasn’t enough time to pull off the spectacle for the 2022 show. And following the death of HM The Queen and King Charles’s Coronation, the plans have once again been put on the back burner.
Sources at the BBC confirm it won’t be happening and royal sources add that there’s been no falling out.
The delay will be painful for judge Anton Du Beke, who claims to be Camilla’s favourite and no doubt rather fancied taking her for a twirl across the palace ballroom. Strictly runs from the end of September until just before Christmas.
No regal Rumba (or Queenly Quickstep) this year, after plans to host the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing at Buckingham Palace were shelved, again
Queen Camilla poses with (L-R) Strictly Come Dancing professional dancers Neil Jones, Amy Dowden, Brendan Cole, Janette Manrara, presenter Tess Daly, head judge Shirly Ballas, judge Craig Revel Horwood, and dancers Anton du Beke, Chloe Hewitt, Pasha Kovalev, Dianne Buswell, Karen Clifton and Oti Mabuse in 2017
Bernie the Lightning Bolt
Elton John has long boasted about how rapidly he writes the melodies to his songs. But his lyricist Bernie Taupin claims he’s even quicker with the words.
In his forthcoming memoir Scattershot, Taupin reveals that Your Song, the 1970 hit which launched Elton’s career, took just 25 minutes to create, start to finish.
Elton John has long boasted about how rapidly he writes the melodies to his songs. But his lyricist Bernie Taupin claims he’s even quicker with the words
Taupin wrote the lyrics in the time it took Elton’s mum Sheila to fry them eggs and make some toast. Elton then wrote the melody in ’15 minutes flat’.
Lifelong friends, together they have sold more than 250 million records worldwide, and the success of Your Song led to the gig at the Troubadour in LA which launched Elton into the stratosphere. Taupin’s much-anticipated book comes out in September.
There must be something in the water in Norfolk and Suffolk. Earlier this month, Wolverine star Hugh Jackman was spotted enjoying waffles in Norwich (his mum lives in the city).
And Oscar-winner Olivia Colman, who is Norwich born, moved back to the county last year.
Meanwhile, Keira Knightley, Emma Freud and director Paul Greengrass all have homes on the Suffolk coast.
Now Oscar-nominated star Bill Nighy — who himself has a place in Suffolk, and is a patron of Norfolk Screen — is to narrate a gentle documentary about the hidden joys of the area. The six-part series, called Norfolk & Suffolk, has been commissioned by Channel 5.
Sacre bleu! Why French words Challenge Amol
He may hold a degree from Cambridge but Amol Rajan admits to a potentially embarrassing bete noire when it comes to hosting University Challenge: French words.
He may hold a degree from Cambridge but Amol Rajan admits to a potentially embarrassing bete noire when it comes to hosting University Challenge: French words
‘I was worried about them before I started — and I was right to be worried,’ he said. ‘I’m fine with pronouncing Italian, Latin and German words but I’ve never studied French and I find them the hardest.’
Rajan, who made his debut on the BBC2 show earlier this month, added: ‘It’s probably the foreign language that people watching the programme care about most, so we’ve had to have the odd re-take when I’ve mispronounced something.’
It’s the Yellowstone grizzler
Kevin Costner — embroiled in a divorce fight with second wife Christine — reveals in legal papers that he is also in dispute with his paymasters at Yellowstone.
Costner, 68, is reportedly the highest-paid actor on TV, rumoured to have earned $1.3 million per episode of the award-winning show.
His ex claims that in 2022, when he appeared in eight episodes, he earned $24.5 million from Yellowstone and other sources.
But the actor says he is expecting his income to drop ‘dramatically’ now that he has left the programme, in order to make his four-film Western epic, Horizon.
‘I will earn substantially less in 2023 than I did in 2022,’ he predicted. ‘This is because I am no longer under contract for Yellowstone, the principal source of my income last year.
Kevin Costner (pictured) — embroiled in a divorce fight with second wife Christine — reveals in legal papers that he is also in dispute with his paymasters at Yellowstone.
‘The fixed amount, ‘pay or play’ and episodic compensation I received has ceased.
‘Now, any compensation I earn from Yellowstone will derive only from my back-end contractual participation rights.’ [A star’s percentage of the proceeds, once the show is in profit.]
‘The most recent report from the producer for Yellowstone shows I am not now owed any participation money (although I have disputed this). So far in 2023 I have yet to receive any participation compensation from Yellowstone.’
Beat Barbenheimer? Now that’s Mission: Impossible
Spare a thought for action man Tom Cruise. Even as cinephiles — and the whole movie-going world — celebrate the Barbenheimer phenomenon which has seen record audiences flocking to cinemas, his Mission: Impossible film has been left relatively high and dry, with numbers tailing off dramatically in its second week.
In the UK it topped the box office in its opening week, taking £10.3 million. But that dropped to £2.9 million last week.
You will recall that Cruise spearheaded a return to cinemas post-Covid with the smash hit Top Gun: Maverick.
But Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One has been overshadowed by the double threat of Barbie and Oppenheimer, with a lack of screens adding to its woes. (The Christopher Nolan film has booked out all the IMAX screens for three weeks.)
MI is still doing well in Asia, though, where Barbie and Oppenheimer are not such big draws.
In the UK Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One topped the box office in its opening week, taking £10.3 million. But that dropped to £2.9 million last week.
How Zendaya bagged her bosses a bumper profit…
Zendaya is the secret weapon of the world’s biggest luxury brand, LVMH. The 26-year-old actress is the face of Bulgari jewellery and since this spring has also been representing Louis Vuitton: specifically, their Capucines bags.
She’s attended numerous Bulgari and Vuitton events, and has been bigging up the brands (both part of LVMH, run by Frenchman Bernard Arnault, the world’s second richest person) in some stylish Instagram posts to her 183 million followers.
And what an effect she’s had. LVMH reported on Wednesday that its fashion and leather goods sector — including Vuitton, boosted by Zendaya (pictured above) — has grown by 21 per cent.
Zendaya (pictured) is the secret weapon of the world’s biggest luxury brand, LVMH
Meanwhile, LVMH has seen sales in its watches and jewellery section (which includes Bulgari) rise by 13 per cent.
Business Insider analyst Deborah Aitken praised the ‘long term uplift potential’ of the sector, which has come roaring back post-pandemic. And boss Arnault called the figures ‘outstanding’. A large contribution was made by Tiffany, acquired by LVMH in 2021.
Zendaya, famous for her roles in The Greatest Showman, Spider-Man and Dune, as well as smash-hit TV show Euphoria, was to have opened the Venice Film Festival with the buzzy tennis drama Challengers, in which she stars with an unrecognisably sexy Josh O’Connor (who played Prince Charles in The Crown).
However, thanks to the actors’ strike the premiere has been scrapped and the film’s release put back to 2024. Her next movie Dune Part 2, is due out in November.
Sir Anthony Hopkins shows no signs of slowing down. The 85-year-old star has been filming the megabucks BBC drama Those About To Die, direc-ted by Roland Emmerich, in Rome (he plays the Emperor Vespasian).
He’s also in the film Freud’s Last Session, playing the father of psychoanalysis. The movie focuses on Freud’s philosophical wranglings with scholar C.S. Lewis (Matthew Goode) over the existence of God. Stephen Campbell Moore appears as Lewis’s close friend JRR Tolkein.
Before either of those come out, though, Sir Anthony will be seen in One Life, a picture based on the extraordinary life of Sir Nicholas Winton, who saved 669 children from the Nazis on the eve of World War II.
The Rev Richard Coles has some way to go to pass on his passion for football to new partner Dickie Cant.
Coles said: ‘Both of the significant others in my life have not been football fans and this has been a bit of an issue.
‘Dickie is trying quite hard now. I’m just starting him off on a sort of milk diet, which is highlights on Match Of The Day.
‘He’s an actor, he’s interested in the body and space and he’s a curious person, but I did realise that perhaps I had some way to go when he said to me: ‘Is Arsenal Spurs?’
Coles’ late husband David was similarly not a fan of the beautiful game. ‘David got very impatient with my fondness for watching the football and we had to do a sort of deal, so he got two Ugly Bettys for every Match Of The Day.’ David died suddenly in 2019 after struggles with alcoholism.
