For Rob Brydon, saying goodbye to his Gavin & Stacey family was always going to be a wrench. But even he was surprised how emotional filming the sitcom’s last ever episode – to be shown on Christmas Day – turned out to be. “I thought it would be emotional at the end, and indeed itContinue reading “Rob Brydon: “Saying goodbye to Gavin & Stacey was emotional. We all love each other.””
Author Archives: paulkirkley
A Portrait of Terror
The ghost stories of M R James have been a spooky festive favourite for more than a century. Dating back to the days when the Cambridge scholar would read aloud to friends and students in his rooms at King’s College on Christmas Eve, James’ spine-chilling tales would later become a regular fixture of the BBC’sContinue reading “A Portrait of Terror”
Richard Osman: “If you’re worried I don’t have enough failure in my life, I can assuage those worries”
When I last spoke to Richard Osman, in the strange, uneasy summer of 2020, the genial TV exec-turned-Pointless host was still waiting, slightly anxiously, to see how his debut novel would be received. “I’m very proud of it,” he told me. “But as to what happens next… I don’t know.” Flash forward to today, andContinue reading “Richard Osman: “If you’re worried I don’t have enough failure in my life, I can assuage those worries””
Rod Stewart and Jools Holland on music, model railways and a lifetime of good luck
It’s not unusual for Jools Holland to pick up the phone to rock royalty. Or, indeed, actual royalty (this is a man whose friends and acquaintances include everyone from Sir Paul McCartney to the King). But when the musician and TV presenter took a call from Sir Rod Stewart a couple of Christmases ago, neitherContinue reading “Rod Stewart and Jools Holland on music, model railways and a lifetime of good luck”
David Nicholls: ‘I don’t know if authors should think too much about where they come on the brow scale.’
The year is 2009. Gordon Brown is Prime Minister, Slumdog Millionaire sweeps the board at the Oscars, and Susan Boyle outsells Beyoncé and Taylor Swift to become the UK’s unlikely new queen of pop. In publishing, meanwhile, the year marks the arrival of two very different, but equally cherished, literary sensations: Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winningContinue reading “David Nicholls: ‘I don’t know if authors should think too much about where they come on the brow scale.’”
Jack Thorne: “My autism seemed to be an open secret to everyone but me”
Jack Thorne squirms slightly whenever someone describes him as ‘prolific’. “I always feel it talks to a lack of care,” says the man The Guardian once dubbed ‘the hardest-working writer in Britain’. “I don’t want to be the guy who, when someone asks for six bananas, says ‘I can give you 12 bananas.’ So that’s why I’mContinue reading “Jack Thorne: “My autism seemed to be an open secret to everyone but me””
Notes from a Small Screen: extracts
Here are some sample extracts from my book, Notes from a Small Screen: Watching British Television, 2015-23. 29.1.15 Midsomer Murders (ITV) Forget Russian roulette: in the famously hazardous county of Midsomer, even standard roulette is deadly. That much was obvious from the opening moments of this typically deranged start to a new run of theContinue reading “Notes from a Small Screen: extracts”
Notes from a Small Screen: Watching British Television, 2015-2023
Despite what you might have read elsewhere, television in the early 21st century wasn’t all about Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and Succession. So what were the people of Great Britain actually watching in the last days of the second Elizabethan age? And who will bear witness to it? This book will. Drawn from eightContinue reading “Notes from a Small Screen: Watching British Television, 2015-2023”
Ken Bruce: “I was grateful to Gary Lineker for coming along and taking the heat off me…”
Ken Bruce never wanted to be famous. And in some ways (as he’d be the first to contend) he sort of still isn’t. Which sounds like an extraordinary claim to make about Britain’s most popular broadcaster – but, through some strange act of quantum trickery, the 72-year-old has somehow managed to become a fully-fledged nationalContinue reading “Ken Bruce: “I was grateful to Gary Lineker for coming along and taking the heat off me…””
George Takei: “Arnold Schwarzenegger made me so angry, I came out – at 68”
George Takei has always been a great admirer of the British. “I’m the son of my father,” the man known throughout the galaxy as Star Trek’s Mr Sulu tells Weekend. “He was a great Anglophile. And I was born three weeks before the coronation of George VI. Hence my name.” One thing the 85-year-old doesn’tContinue reading “George Takei: “Arnold Schwarzenegger made me so angry, I came out – at 68””
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