Stephen Fry’s Alternative Christmas Message 2023

The alternative Christmas message is a message broadcast by Channel 4 since 1993, as a sometimes humorous and sometimes serious alternative to the traditional Royal Christmas Message. Usually featuring a contemporary, often controversial celebrity delivering a message in the manner of Queen Elizabeth II (and now King Charles III), the tradition started by accident when, running a series of programs on “Christmas in […]

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Tesco to become your pop-up Coronation ‘local’ this week

Looking for a new ‘local’ leading up to this Saturday’s Coronation of King Charles III? Not to worry, the trusty blue and red supermarket will be opening a pop-up Tesco boozer to celebrate Chazza’s coronation.  The limited-time pop-up on the site of The Castle pub in Farringdon, appropriately re-named The King in the Castle, will open for […]

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Meet Buckingham Palace’s body double in ‘King Charles III’

As King Charles III premiered last night on BBC2 and when it transmits on PBS this coming Sunday evening on Masterpiece, one might immediately question how and/or why a program that imagines a future in which Prince Charles becomes King, causes havoc and won’t sign a crucial bill could actually be filmed in Buckingham Palace. Would the official London residence […]

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R.I.P. Jewel in the Crown’s Tim Pigott-Smith

Tim Pigott-Smith, the acclaimed British character actor, who catapulted to fame in the 1980s as the villainous police superintendent, Ronald Merrick, in the television series, The Jewel in the Crown, died on Friday in Northampton, England at the age of 70. Pigott-Smith won the BAFTA Award of Best Actor in 1985 for his work in The Jewel […]

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BBC/PBS partner for contemporary newspaper drama — “Press”

I absolutely love this time of year if for no other reason than it’s the annual PBS presentation at the Television Critic’s Association where we learn all kinds of brilliant things that are on the telly horizon. The first bit of news came earlier this week with the BBC/PBS/Lookout Point/Deep Indigo announcement about Press. The 6-part […]

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‘King Charles III’ creates a bit of national unrest and chaos in the future

King Charles III, the upcoming BBC2 drama which finds itself set in an alternate timeline universe where Prince Charles ascends to the throne following the Queen’s death, is based on Doctor Foster writer Mike Bartlett’s Olivier Award-winning play of the same name. Tim Pigott-Smith and Adam James will be reprising their roles from the play, as Charles and future […]

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