Ephraim Hardcastle
EXASPERATED at having to apply his own make-up because of Covid, Huw Edwards is perplexed at the BBC’s failure to reinstate make-up artists. ‘He’s been doing his best with the make-up for eight months but he is sick of it now,’ says a colleague. His point is, if he can go to the dentist or the barber, what’s the problem with make-up? Does Huw’s do-it-yourself powder puff cause facial over-orangeing on News at Ten? Not if he can help it. ‘My top make-up tip is: don’t trowel on the foundation or you’ll end up in Trumpland,’ advises Huw. ‘Of course, I could go on without any make-up. That would need a warning to viewers.’
DOES ex- royal butler Paul Burrell empathise with Adamo Canto, awaiting sentence for stealing from Buckingham Palace? A police raid on Burrell’s home in 2001 found 342 items owned by Diana, Princess of Wales, including an Indiana Jones whip, a box of nightwear, signed CDs, a Chanel handbag and personal letters. He was at the Old Bailey charged with theft when the Queen suddenly remembered that he had told her he was storing stuff lest it fall into the wrong hands. The trial collapsed. ‘The Queen has come through for me,’ he gushed. ‘I’m thrilled.’
PLAYING Dynasty’s shoulder padded grimalkin Alexis Colby, Joan Collins, pictured, thought she’d struck a blow for women’s financial equality when she exacted a big pay rise. ‘But when I went to report (on set) the first day, I was told, “Oh Joan. I am sorry. You are getting so much money now we can’t afford to have you in every scene. So you are only going to be in ten (episodes)”. In other words my salary was actually cut in half.’ She adds: ‘Speaking subjectively, the series went down the tube.’
LIKE a shih tzu with a wool ball, Sky’s Kay Burley embarrassingly persists in keeping Michael Gove to his pledge of inviting her to his for Christmas. ‘You did promise,’ she mewls on air. ‘You always keep your word?’ Poor Govey waves the white flag: ‘Yes, well, erm, we’re allowed to have three bubbles of three households... if you really want to Kay, I’ll have a word with my wife.’
HOW often is physicist Brian Cox mistaken for his namesake? Referring to Succession star Brian Cox, he says: ‘He was on Question Time a while ago supporting Scottish independence and I did get a load of tweets after that.’ Anyone mistaking a burly Scot for a weedy stargazer from Oldham should make a beeline for Specsavers.
PLAYING Commander Harper in George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky, David Oyelowo asks to change his character’s name to Adewole: ‘I told George that I’d never seen an African astronaut in space, and I wanted my character to have a Nigerian name.’
CORONATION Street’s Bill Roache, celebrating 60 years as Ken Barlow, says he’s never had any difficulties separating his own personality from Barlow’s, conceding: ‘Though even my father once said, “Put the kettle on, Ken”.’