Premier League return for Leeds with Liverpool clash
The new Premier League season gets under way, episodes of East Enders return and Heritage Open Days begin. Laura Reid reports on the week ahead.
NEWLY- PROMOTED LEEDS United are set to travel to the home of defending Premier League champions Liverpool when the new top- flight football season gets underway on Saturday.
Fixtures due to take place that day include Fulham vs Arsenal, Crystal Palace vs Southampton and West Ham vs Newcastle before the Liverpool- Leeds game in the evening.
It will be the first game in the Premier League for Leeds for 16 years after they won the Championship title and secured promotion.
HORSERACING
THE ST Leger already enjoys a rich history befitting a race – the world’s oldest classic – that was inaugurated in 1776.
Yet this Saturday’s renewal, the culmination of Doncaster’s fourday flagship fixture, will see a contemporary chapter written in its history.
Just over 6,000 paying spectators are expected to be on Town Moor as part of a nationwide trial to permit sports fans to attend major events for the first time since the Covid- 19 lockdown.
The biggest attendance at a sporting fixture since March, it will still be a fraction of the 30,000 spectators who attend St Leger day but will, nevertheless, be a welcome sight.
ENTERTAINMENT
FANS OF EastEnders will be pleased that new episodes of the soap will begin this evening on BBC One.
Over the past few weeks, in a programme entitled Secrets from the Square, some of Walford’s biggest stars have been joining Stacey Dooley to relive classic episodes, share behindthescenes stories and reveal filming secrets normally kept under wraps.
EastEnders has had a transmission break after running out of episodes in June, as a result of the nationwide coronavirus lockdown which saw production halted.
Elsewhere on BBC One, Saturday will see the broadcast of The Last Night of the Proms, featuring South African soprano Golda Schultz with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Though there will be no live spectators at the Royal Albert Hall, millions are expected to tune in to watch and listen worldwide.
In other entertainment news, TV duo Ant and Dec will take part in an ‘ in conversation with’ live- streamed event, through Fane Online.
Broadcast on Friday evening in aid of The Prince’s Trust, the show will see the pair look back on three decades in the spotlight in celebration of their new book Once Upon a Tyne: Celebrating 30 Years Together on Telly.
HERITAGE
THE ANNUAL Heritage Open Days Festival returns on Friday and for the first time in its history will feature digital and online events, as well as inperson activities.
The festival’s ethos is about encouraging people to discover stories, sites, places and people that traditional history has overlooked or forgotten by exploring close to home and further afield.
This year, there are virtual tours and online discussions as well as the opportunity to visit sites. The full list of events for the festival, which runs until September 20, can be found at heritage open days. org. uk
ENVIRONMENT
THE UK- WIDE citizens assembly on climate change will publish its report The Path to Net Zero on Thursday.
Set up to highlight public preferences on how the UK should tackle climate change, the Climate Assembly UK brings together people from all walks of life to discuss how greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced to net zero by 2050.
It is expected that the report will be used by Parliament in work to scrutinise the Government’s climate change policy and progress towards the target.