HICKEY
DAVID WALLIAMS is right to observe that he has “some very big shoes to fill” after being chosen to host a revival of the popular 1970s and 1980s BBC quiz Blankety Blank. When the late comedian Les Dawson was hired as Sir Terry Wogan’s replacement on the show in 1984 he too acknowledged the challenge of measuring up to his predecessor.
“Quite frankly I feel about as comfortable as a lame turkey sat on a pack of Paxo listening to Christmas carols,” he announced to the studio audience on his debut. Holding the trademark stick microphone that Wogan had used on the programme, Dawson, pictured, who died in 1993, aged 62, then symbolically snapped it in half. CURRENTLY to be found hosting ITV’s latest quiz show 500 Questions, Giles Coren confesses to a lifetime of rivalry with his sister Victoria, who presents the BBC Two brainteaser Only Connect. “I have probably been jealous of her quiz for a while,” he says.
Admitting that the pair were “terrible” as children, Giles adds: “Victoria is a tiny bit cleverer than me but I am tiny bit older than her so it evens out.
“We used to play Trivial Pursuit with two kids next door who were very much younger than us, so we’d win.” Isn’t it fortunate for Giles that at least these days no one finds him the slightest bit insufferable? THERE is a certain irony to the embarrassing release by Virgin Trains of CCTV footage suggesting that seats were available during a recent rail journey made by Jeremy Corbyn when he sat ostentatiously on the floor. After all, who was it four years ago in Parliament during a debate on funding for Transport for London who complained about “inoperative” CCTV cameras on our rail network? That would be the Labour leader. At least the train companies appear to have smartened up their act since then, eh, Jeremy? POP royalty Petula Clark, who is about to embark on her latest UK tour, cannot relate to today’s generation of performers who moan about the challenges and demands of being on the road. “I hear people say they hate being on tour because they find it exhausting,” says the Downtown legend. “I find it absolutely energising.”
Referring to the successful career she has also enjoyed on the other side of the Channel, Pet says of her new stage show: “It will be very simple. It is something I learned perhaps from France… I don’t have an enormous set, I don’t have costume changes and I don’t take my clothes off.” For the record, the tireless Ms Clark is 83. IT IS the comfort food of British television but that doesn’t mean The Great British Bake Off’s two biggest stars are not above letting the rest of us into unflattering details about each other.
Paul Hollywood tells Woman’s Weekly magazine that when his co-star takes an occasional nap in the show’s green room: “Mary snores!” He then confides that she “drinks the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc too quickly as well!”
For her part Ms Berry accuses Hollywood of nothing more than being too impatient. “I’m a granny. I have to get everything perfectly right, if I’ve got 12 buns to ice I’ll do them intricately and slowly. He’s always saying, ‘Oh come on, Bez!’”
Bez? Surely such unforgivable lesemajeste on Hollywood’s part towards the country’s foremost baking doyenne should not be countenanced?