Ephraim Hardcastle
IS Boris exacting some form of Covid revenge on Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel in choosing Cornwall’s Carbis Bay Hotel for the forthcoming G7 meeting? Good Hotel Guide editor Adam Raphael gives the venue a resounding thumbsdown, saying: ‘What the world’s most powerful politicians will make of their two-day stay on a windswept Cornish beach is anyone’s guess, but they are unlikely to feel warm about British hospitality. Carbis Bay is not in the Good Hotel Guide and it is unlikely ever to feature unless reports from our readers about its performance markedly improve.’ He added: ‘It’s not just a trek for Macron, Merkel, Biden et al, but it is an odd choice of venue.’
BROADCASTER Richard Madeley curses Irish bookmaker Paddy Power for declaring him favourite to replace Piers Morgan on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. ‘The kiss of death,’ says Madeley. ‘The favourite never wins. I can say ta-ta to that.’ And his tip? ‘My money is on an all-woman line-up with a nod to diversity,’ adds Madeley, with a nod towards Strictly star and GMB journalist Ranvir Singh. Good news for her – at 3/1 with Coral, she’s not favourite. Weighed in, Ranvir!
CHRISTOPHER Marlowe’s haunting description of Helen of Troy as the face that launched a thousand ships is evoked by Petronella Wyatt, pictured, in her reaction to not being consulted about her appearance as one of Boris’s mistresses in the forthcoming series This Sceptred Isle, starring Kenneth Branagh. ‘Marlowe didn’t consult Helen of Troy,’ she declares enigmatically, prompting a tongue-in-cheek rewrite of Marlowe: ‘Sweet Petsy, make me immortal with a kiss...’
JUMPING ship for Andrew Neil’s GB News, Sky veteran Colin Brazier attempts to fly the flag for gung-ho British films, asking: ‘In a year we’ll remember the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War. Can we ask Eastwood or Spielberg to do an unashamedly patriotic film? The sort of blockbuster our arts sector is embarrassed by, even as it trousers £1.5billion of taxpayers’ Covid cash.’
WITH no indication of who will replace Meghan as National Theatre patron, Prince Charles can be safely removed from the betting. If his presidency of the Royal Shakespeare Company wasn’t sufficient, he hasn’t been forgiven for comparing the South Bank structure designed by concrete-loving architect Sir Denys Lasdun as ‘a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London without anyone objecting’.
HOW did detective Roy Grace’s creator Peter James achieve grim authenticity for the scene in the ITV drama Grace in which a bridegroom is sealed in a coffin during a stag night prank? ‘I visited a Brighton funeral parlour and asked to be locked in a coffin,’ explains James, who suffers from claustrophobia. ‘It was the worst 30 minutes of my life.’