Ephraim Hardcastle
IF David Beckham is found guilty of the charge of speeding in his Bentley at Paddington, west London, will it jeopardise his chance of a knighthood? In 2001, Princess Anne was fined £400 for speeding. The following year she became the first royal with a criminal record after her mutt Dotty attacked two children. Since then she has become an Admiral, Commodore-in-Chief of the royal Canadian Navy, President of the royal Society of Arts and a Grand Cross of the Order of Madagascar. On that basis Becks should have no worries.
AN IMPRESSIVE total of 13 BBC reporters, whose voices were heard in the opening two episodes of Jed Mercurio’s Bodyguard, got on-screen credits for the BBC1 drama. The list, which excluded broadcasters from other channels, featured John Humphrys, Martha Kearney, Justin Webb, Nick Robinson, Mishal Husain, Laura Kuenssberg, Sophie Raworth, Frank Gardner and Andrew Marr. Surely they were all paid Equity’s £300 rate for spouting?
DESPERATE to make headlines, terrier-like Channel 4 News political correspondent Michael Crick, 60, boorishly refused to let Theresa May get a word in edgeways when he interviewed her in South Africa on Tuesday, barking: ‘What did you do to help release Nelson Mandela? Did you go on protests? Did you get arrested outside the embassy? Did you boycott South African goods? What did you do?’ Unimpressed Theresa finally snapped: ‘I think you know full well that I don’t go on protests, Michael.’
ACTOR Robert Lindsay, 68, berates Ray Donovan star Eddie Marsan, 50, for daring to criticise Jeremy Corbyn’s handling of Labour’ s antiSemitism scandal. Pompous Lindsay – a Corbyn fan – stupidly tweets :‘ Really shocked Eddie at your slow slide into extreme Right-wing views.’ Is Lindsay, pictured in character, channelling his 1970s sitcom alter-ego, hapless socialist revolutionary Wolfie Smith?
ASKED by a sycophantic US interviewer: ‘Did you come out of the womb this glamorous and fabulous?’ Dame Joan Collins, 85, simpers: ‘Yes, yes. My mother used to put stickers on my pram saying “Please Do Not Kiss Me!”’ Described as ‘British royalty’, she purrs: ‘I’m not royalty... I’m just a Dame!’ Modest to a fault!
GYLES Brandreth, 70, recalls how the late Rex Harrison, reprising his role as My Fair Lady’s Henry Higgins 25 years after his first portrayal, walked off the stage straight into the orchestra pit because of his poor eyesight. He adds: ‘His advanced years made him insist on having Cathleen Nesbitt play his mother as she’d done in the original production. Nesbitt was in her nineties and convinced she was in a revival of Camelot rather than My Fair Lady. There were scuffles in the wings as she and Rex tussled over which of them should have access to the oxygen cylinder first.’