Ephraim Hardcastle
WITH little likelihood of May’s State opening of Parliament being pandemic free, the Queen’s advisers are actively exploring ways of HM appearing virtually. She could read the Gracious Speech from the throne room at either Buck House or Windsor. or, more daringly, HM could be beamed into the Lords as a hologram. Labour toyed with the idea of Jeremy Corbyn as a hologram at the 2017 election and Matt Hancock considered making his party conference speech as a 3-D image. Would Her Majesty be up for the wheeze? She has overcome her dislike of video calls and made her debut as a Bond girl at the age of 86, so never say never.
TRANSMISSION of Mark Lawson’s obituary tributes to Diana Rigg and John le Carre signals a welcome return after his mysterious sacking from BBC Radio 4’s Front Row in 2014. His ambition to reprise Mark Lawson Talks To… with the likes of Tom Stoppard, Judi Dench and Alan Ayckbourn has not been assisted by Alan Yentob jealously guarding such territory for his arts excitement Imagine. A friend and favourite of former director-general Tony Hall, Yentob is less influential under new DG Tim Davie. That, and Lawson’s impeccable credentials as a cultural commentator, could signal his renaissance.
ABOUT to reprise her role as cellist Dana Barrett in the new Ghostbusters film, Sigourney Weaver, pictured, confides a passion for John Lennon. After discovering his favourite New York restaurant she wrote him a perfumed letter. ‘I was so in love with him,’ recalls the 71year-old. ‘I dropped it off at this restaurant. The man was very nice: he said he’d keep it for him.’ Did the ex-Beatle ever receive it? ‘I don’t know,’ she adds. ‘I was 12 at the time.’
FRESH from portraying Marlon Brando at a fancy dress party, journalist Catherine Mayer fetched up at one of David Cameron’s cocktail receptions. ‘The first person he introduced me to was Theresa May. I made the mistake of trying to explain why I had chest hair coming out of the top of my dress,’ she tells BBC Radio 4. ‘Then she walked away!’
IS Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Nazi jibe at Donald Trump’s supporters payback time for Arnie’s sudden departure from The New Celebrity Apprentice in 2017 when Donald was still producer? Tweeted Trump: ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t voluntarily leaving the Apprentice, he was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me.’ one all I’d say.
THE February issue of World of Interiors (ed: Alan Bennett’s boyfriend Rupert Thomas) has a book review of Callaway publishing’s The Sistine Chapel, which costs £16,500. Readers who buy all three volumes are offered a free bookstand. Then there’s the cost of three coffee tables…
NOW making a TV comeback 23 years after their debut, the fiftysomething Sex and the City cast might heed ricky Gervais’s ungallant Golden Globes barb: ‘Girls, we know how old you are. I saw one of you in an episode of [ancient TV western] Bonanza.’