Ephraim Hardcastle
AS I predicted last summer, the Duchess of Cambridge will take over the Queen’s patronage at Wimbledon. This is unlikely to go down well with the Duke of Kent, the Wimbledon president, who will have to give up the best seat in the house and maybe even his trophy presentation duties to Kate. Will the latter also become president of the Lawn Tennis Association? Some members of the royal household who don’t care for tennis hope so. The sitting LTA president, the Duchess of Gloucester, is suspected of taking delight in inviting them to the royal box at Wimbledon, knowing it is hard for them to decline.
THE Queen was not the only member of the Royal Family who enjoyed the late Sir Terry Wogan’s BBC Radio 2 show. Prince Edward listened to him every morning until the broadcaster’s retirement in 2009. Mercifully for Sir Terry’s reputation, Edward failed to persuade him to take part in the disastrous 1987 It’s A Royal Knockout.
BOLTON-bred actress Maxine Peake, 41, pictured, thinks London luvvies have it all their own way. At the Stage Awards – held in London – she says: ‘I get so annoyed because theatre is so London-centric. People say to me, “Oooh, you’re not doing another play in Manchester?” Well, why not? I think with awards like the Oliviers, why should they just be London? It’s shocking.’ By gum the lass is right!
HAVING played a key role in the damning report on disgraced charity Kids Company, Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the public administration committee, still smells blood. Referring to BBC man Alan Yentob, chairman of the collapsed charity, he says: ‘Have there been conversations at the top of the BBC about how it was possible that a senior person in the BBC... should finish up standing over the shoulder of a BBC producer while [Kids Company boss] Camila Batmanghelidjh i s being interviewed?’ I doubt he’ll get very far, though. Yentob resigned his role of creative director. Besides, he is close to director general Tony Hall.
DAME Joan Bakewell, 82, says she still resents being labelled ‘the thinking man’s crumpet’ by the late entertainer Frank Muir. ‘It stopped me being taken seriously,’ she complains to Radio Times. Happily, it didn’t stop the dame taking herself seriously.
AM I mistaken in detecting a certain chemistry between Sky presenters Jayne Secker and Colin Brazier? During a discussion about lost property on the London Underground, happily married mother-of-two Mrs Secker, 41, touchingly confides: ‘I lost my heart once on the Jubilee Line.’ Contentedly wed fatherof-six Brazier, 47, inquires: ‘Did you get it back?’ She replies, coyly: ‘I did.’