HICKEY

FILM star Rupert Everett, who as a child used to tell people Dame Julie Andrews was his mother after seeing her in Mary Poppins, admits the actress, pictured, was initially a “little shocked” when he informed her in person decades later. The pair have since gone on to appear together professionally – including when both voicing characters in the Shrek movie franchise. Rupert, 61, affectionately adds of Dame Julie on Radio 4: “We’ve worked together two or three times. We used to go around the world on Shrek promotions. I adore her. She says, ‘ It’s Mummy here,’ when she calls!” GREATER Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, battling with the Government over coronavirus strategy, has long disliked being described as “doe- eyed” in the media, courtesy of his prominent eyelashes. The 50- year- old has also confronted mischievous gossip he’s worn make- up in the past, insisting: “I can say, hand on heart, that I have never ever worn mascara.” AS Donald Trump fights for his political life across the Atlantic, Sir Michael Palin reckons comics attempting to send up the US President have long struggled to be funnier than the man himself. “All those little things that one might have dreamt up, exist. He’s outdone the satirists,” says the Monty Python star, 77. “There’s nothing much a comedian could add to it.” DUNDEE- born actor Brian Cox is throwing his weight behind a campaign to clear the name of another of the city’s famous sons. The award- winning Succession star wants a royal pardon to be finally granted to Captain Kidd, said to have been born in Dundee – although, I hasten to add, it’s also claimed he hailed from Greenock. Kidd was later executed in London in 1701, having been accused of piracy. Cox, 74, now announces from New York: “I wholeheartedly support moves to give William Kidd ( pictured) a royal pardon or to otherwise redeem his reputation. It’s never too late to right an injustice.” REFLECTING on 47 years as a Bond Girl, Uxbridge- born actress Jane Seymour remarks: “People still stop me in the street and say, ‘ Oh, I just saw your movie Live And Let Die. You’re a Bond Girl.’” Evidently at pains to stress she’s fared rather more successfully than some of Bond’s former love interests in the subsequent decades, 69- year- old Jane pointedly adds: “Mercifully, I’ve done other things since. Some people only got to do that.” WHILE the Prime Minister has his latest stand- off with the EU over Brexit, journalist sister Rachel Johnson recalls her parents being anxious about young Boris’s dust- ups with fellow pupils when attending the European School in Brussels in the early 1970s. Rachel says of Boris at the time: “They were always worried he was going to be kicked out for beating up the Danes.”