Now at pains to publicly dismiss longtime talk of a feud with her Dynasty co-star Linda Evans, Dame Joan Collins diplomatically insists: "No, it was our characters – and just because we didn't socialise.” But isn’t Joan, who famously played Alexis Colby opposite Linda’s Krystle Carrington, attempting to rewrite history? I distinctly recall her recounting in recent years how the bad blood between the pair dated back to their characters’ first ever scene together, when she was required to yell insults in Linda’s direction.
Claiming flustered Evans considered the barbs real at the time, Joanie cattily recalled: “I said, ‘Linda, it’s called acting.’” She added: “From then on, she felt that I didn’t like her, and she didn’t like me.”
Two months since announcing she was leaving The Great British Bake Off after almost a decade as a judge on the show, Dame Prue Leith still intends to make her presence felt during filming of the next series.
While Nigella Lawson is confirmed as her successor, I hear Prue plans to turn up and host a farewell party with Bake Off colleagues when the cameras are rolling again in the coming weeks.
I trust competitive Prue won't attempt to steal Nigella’s thunder!
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Promoting his Channel 5 portrayal of disgraced BBC News anchor Huw Edwards, Martin Clunes concedes it's unlikely he was the first choice for the role.
“I don’t know because I didn’t ask, but I bet Michael Sheen was offered this,” the Doc Martin star remarks.
Chameleon Sheen, who's played Tony Blair, David Frost and Brian Clough in the past, also memorably portrayed one Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in 2024.
While busy publicising his latest unflattering book on Harry and Meghan, who’s next in the sights of hard-hitting biographer Tom Bower?
“It’s Nigel Farage,” he told LBC’s Nick Ferrari this week. "I'm always intrigued by someone who is either going to be our saviour... or our total undoing!"
Confirmation Alan Cumming is to be replaced as Baftas host by comedian Greg Davies - just a year after he landed the job - will come as little surprise to regular readers. I reported three weeks ago that show pony Alan would be parting company with the prestigious event.
Spotted in Rathangan, County Kildare, filming her latest Irish movie role in Walk the Blue Fields, let’s hope London-born Emily Blunt has more luck with the accent this time around. Emily's previous attempt at an Emerald Isle brogue in 2020 romcom Wild Mountain Thyme regrettably met with widespread mockery.
Back in the news after it was revealed a planned segment showing his joke books being restored on BBC's The Repair Shop was ludicrously pulled after a production employee took exception to “sexist” gags (not identified to date), the late, great Bob Monkhouse once quipped: “I can still enjoy sex at 74 - I live at 75, so it's no distance.”
