WEEK IN SHOWBIZ

URBAN COWBOY

Catching up with Grammy-winning rock star Keith Urban, he revealed the secret to keeping love alive with wife Nicole Kidman and their two daughters when he’s on the road. ‘I’m very lucky that I can tour and go out and come home. I don’t go for weeks at a time,’ he says. How does he cope with so many women in his life? ‘I have a male dog!’

ALAS SMITH & THRONES!

Ex Doctor Who star and The Crown’s Prince Philip, my mate Matt Smith plays conniving Prince Daemon in Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon – and it’s as racy as its predecessor. ‘There are times you’re like, don’t make me get my bum out again!’ he laughs. He said he’d sneak out of the premiere for the saucy scenes, telling me he’d be embarrassed in front of his mum: ‘I’m going out for a swift half so I don’t have to sit next to her!’

GIVING IT LIPMAN

Her candour and comedy timing are contagious, and completely unapologetic: ‘If you don’t like me, don’t come see it,’ Dame Maureen Lipman jokingly says of her hit one-woman theatre show, Rose. Of course, her other alias is battleaxe Evelyn in Coronation Street, and Dame Maureen loves her. ‘She’s a real Corrie character. She is solidly unpleasant, and I like that. And I like being back up north.’ The Dame will be back as Evelyn on the cobbles in November.