This article is taken from the July 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £25.
Northern exposure
Though originally broadly supportive of the exotically-billed “Salford Quays” providing fitting exile for blokey sports journalists and children’s entertainers, many of us residing south of Stoke-on-Trent could never have foreseen the resulting northern uprising now running amok across Radio 3, Radio 4’s Today and the once rural Midlands idyll of Ambridge!
Should we, the forgotten majority of ailing licence fee-payers, meet with predictable cries of snobbery when grumbling about the disproportionate numbers of Lancastrians/suchlike holding sway across the BBC’s national airwaves, rest assured the very same red flags would be raised were this bizarre imbalance to have favoured folk of East Anglia or the West Country — a state of affairs that would prove similarly unjust, regardless of being marginally more bearable.
With all the plum roles snapped up for the Harry Potter telly reboot, those of us lower down the food chain must fight like rats in a sack for whatever remains.
Judging by the appalling behaviour of certain long-standing character actor rivals, reduced to peddling all manner of falsehoods in the deluded hope this aids their cause, one concludes such desperate ghouls have learnt next to nothing since first being barred entry to Hogwarts 25 years ago.
Decades since memorably succumbing to the motherly charms of Ms Annis (when she was Gertrude to his Prince of Denmark), how heartening to read Mr Fiennes is offering this still-enchanting seductress one last hurrah over at Theatre Royal Bath!
Whilst excitedly hailed doctor who’s “saviour” after generously agreeing to return for a second stint at the helm, who could have anticipated the truly historic impact Mr Davies would have on the show’s fortunes?
Though detractors continue to parrot lazy newspaper talk of “plummeting ratings” and so-called “woke!” storylines ever since he regrettably crash-landed the Tardis just outside Cardiff, it goes without saying beleaguered Russell’s remaining allies strongly suspect said “ex-viewers” to possess all manner of sinister leanings, prompting a defiant “good riddance” to boot!
Should the “millions” switching off truly cause the kind of upheavals predicted at the time of writing, we can consider ourselves forewarned that this recently crusading programme, serving as so useful a platform for the views of Russell and pals, risks being reduced to little more than a popular science fiction show on Saturdays.
Idle thoughts
Having spent months making a song and dance in the press about severing ties with old comedy colleagues, publicity-minded Mr Idle’s dismayed to find the treacherous rogues taking him at his word!
Subsequently excluded from recent celebrations for (yet another) “anniversary” of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the irate fellow wastes no time wailing about the injustice of it all. Anyone imagining that endlessly badmouthing former co-stars — not to mention one of their daughters — might preclude a chap from still basking in the spotlight with the rest of the gang when it suits him, truly fails to appreciate the world Mr Idle comes from.
Weeks after my spring debut in the backstabbing world of cruise ship entertainment, the disappointing omission from subsequent Mediterranean jaunts is preposterously blamed on “audience feedback”.
Callously relegated to Norway in October, one should be “grateful for the fjords” apparently!
Supposedly now “apologising” for insufferable peacock behaviour on the set of Poirot all those years ago, Mr Suchet makes a mockery of matters when laughably claiming it was down to his superior understanding of Agatha Christie at the time! With this peculiar man’s on-set tantrums witnessed by so many back in the day, rest assured forgiveness in the trade remains in short supply …
Death duties
Whilst much of one’s social calendar is naturally taken up with bidding adieu to deceased adversaries/co-stars, those occasionally disastrous send-offs never cease to amaze.
Proceedings descended to a new low during one recent such gathering, when it became patently clear the late trouper in question had foolishly neglected to put sufficient safeguards in place — thus resulting in damaged offspring hogging the spotlight with barely-veiled attacks at his expense.
Just when it seemed this self-absorbed coup might finally be at its end, then up trotted two of the lothario’s four ex-wives, providing ghastly cameos of their own!
Shaken by said events — and all too aware that the Grim Reaper fancies his chances ever since my recent on-stage tumble outside Northampton — I speedily undertook the latest review of one’s own elaborately-staged funeral/memorial arrangements — all paid for in advance and rigorously revised every four to five weeks.
Suffice it to say, I’ve been again at pains to emphasise, IN WRITING, that ex-spouses feeling the need to attend must be discreetly confined to prearranged, supervised seating towards the exit … whilst the duplicitous lodger/nephew remains strictly prohibited from delivering any of his secretly planned “eulogy” on the day!
I note celebrity working-class actors of the day still champion that romantic notion we “rarely hear voices” like theirs.
Though one could be forgiven for quietly imagining we’re often hearing little else, such canny fellows also maintain that anything short of fulsome critical praise for their on-screen endeavours must have establishment prejudice at its core.
With theatre-school Cockney amongst leading dialects of choice, these professional rough diamonds naturally remind wide-eyed interviewers they experienced none of those career leg-ups enjoyed by pampered actor rivals — regardless of any pesky evidence indicating they were on the books of savvy telly agents from the age of 13 …
Whitehall restrictions
Long at the mercy of the second wife — a publicity-ravenous “actress” decades his junior — matters prove increasingly challenging for one’s doddery ex-agent, Mr Whitehall.
Anxious to keep the show on the road since the pair took to riding the celebrity coattails of pretty boy/comedian son Jack, I gather Mrs Whitehall’s brought the curtain down on Michael’s trademark lunchtime libations!
Speaking as amongst long-ago clients once at the mercy of this difficult man’s post-lunch whims (vino-fuelled favouritism towards Havers particularly notorious), such enforced clarity of an afternoon comes at least 30 years too late …
Spirits are raised by news of career breakthroughs for two of Ms Winslet’s promising offspring in the space of months. Whilst this elderly player often frets the “world” he understood has vanished over the horizon, reassuring examples of such ruthless industry nepotism at play — once the very backbone of our business — proves the “old ways” aren’t done yet. Thank you, Kate!
