- Eurovision prize goes to Denmark, but real winner is Swedish host
Emmelie de Forest amasses 281 points, well ahead of runners-up Azerbaijan, while Bonnie Tyler limps home in 19th It wouldn't be Saturday night without a Scandinavian crime drama. This weekend the action moved to Malmö in southern Sweden. The sensible knitwear was replaced by glittering spandex and the only thing murdered were pop songs. The 58th instalment of the Eurovision song contest, which aims to draw nations together while simultaneously giving them an opportunity to punch one another in the kidneys, saw the hot favourite, Denmark's Emmelie de Forest, win with 281 points for her song Only Teardrops, well ahead of runners-up Azerbaijan. Ukraine came third and Greece was fourth with the rabble-rousing Alcohol Is Free. Sung by Koza Mostra, a hirsute group of men dressed in gymslips, it was clearly a song aimed at ensuring the destitute nation would not be saddled with the costly task of hosting next year's event – a plan that very nearly backfired by appealing for pity votes. Britain's Bonnie Tyler limped home with just 23 points despite a stirring performance, coming 19th of 26. The 61-year-old singer fared marginally better than last year's vintage act, Engelbert Humperdinck, who was cruelly defrosted for the indignity of finishing second from last with a mere 12 points. But at least both of them fared better than Ireland, which came in last with a measly five points. There was nothing wrong with Tyler's performance, although the raucous voice that once topped the charts with Total Eclipse of the Heart was surprisingly smooth. There were none of the Eurovision gimmicks her competitors relied on, just a powerful woman with hair bigger than Estonia belting out a song that, unfortunately, proved to be slightly less exciting than Armenia. The show began with an odd film about a caterpillar becoming a butterfly while travellling from Azerbaijan, host of last year's final, to Sweden via Europe's transport network – precisely the sort of abuse of Europe's open borders that Ukip's Nigel Farage has been warning us about. France opened with Amandine Bourgeois, a singer who tried to out-do Tyler with a tousled barnet, husky lungs and soft-porn lyrics. She was followed by Lithuania's Andrius Pojavis, singing a heartfelt song about his shoes. Pojavis resembled a young David Hasselhoff, but sadly lacked the young Hoff's chief attraction – a talking car. Finland's Krista Siegfrids, meanwhile, ended her performance of Marry Me with an eyebrow-raising girl-on-girl kiss, but set women's equality back to 1977 with lyrics such as: "I'm your slave and you're my master." Iceland fielded Ingi Gunnlaugsson, a man whose hairstyle bore more than a passing resemblance to Dougal from The Magic Roundabout . Perhaps he too was hoping to steal a march on Bonnie Tyler's coiffure, but forgot his curlers. Azerbaijan's Farid Mammadov, who sang atop a Perspex box containing a man who, happily, turned out not to be magician David Blaine, and Roberto Bellarosa, an 18-year-old from Belgium, also scored fairly well. Bellarosa hails from Belgium's Walloon region. Thankfully he didn't appear to be a swivel-eyed Walloon but you wouldn't know from listening to the lyrics of his song, Love Kills. Then there was Romania's Cezar. Dressed like a vampiric Elvis, Cezar sang in an alarming falsetto surrounded by men and women dancing in tight lycra. But though Denmark won easily in the end, the true winner of the evening was the event's host, Swedish comedian Petra Mede. Resplendent in a purple ballgown by Jean Paul Gaultier, Mede navigated perfectly Eurovision's unique blend of geo-political rivalries, deadly serious musical ambitions and camp nonsense. Eurovision 2013 Eurovision Pop and rock Television Europe Bonnie Tyler Barry Neild guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Emmelie de Forest of Denmark celebrates with the trophy after winning. Photograph: Alastair Grant/APEmmelie de Forest of Denmark celebrates with the trophy after winning. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP
- Doctor Who recap: The Name of the Doctor – series 33, episode 13
This wasn't just the best episode of the season, but possibly the best finale we've seen SPOILER ALERT: This weekly blog is for those who have been watching the new series of Doctor Who. Don't read ahead if you haven't seen episode 13 – The Name of the Doctor. Catch up with Dan Martin's episode 12 blog. "The Doctor does not discuss his secrets with anyone, my dear. If you are still entertaining the idea that you are the exception to this rule, ask yourself one question: what is his name?" There's a timey wimey element to the blog this week. Such is the secrecy surrounding the Doctor's greatest secret that the final scene was left off preview copies. So I'm writing this on Thursday, still unaware of the final revelations, but as you read this I'll be down there below the line, not really concentrating on Eurovision while I try to make sense of whatever has just happened. I may ecstatic or spluttering with rage. But here on Thursday, I could not be happier. This was not just the best episode of the season, but possibly the best finale we've seen. Remarkably, it felt small scale. No explosions and precious few new sets built or locations visited. Here was a finale based on ideas, and the ideas were gigantic. The Doctor visits Trenzalore – a place first mentioned by Dorium Moldovar way back in The Wedding Of River Song. It turns out to be the one place a time traveller must never go. The Tomb of the Doctor! What a wonderfully fangasmic line. This suicide mission begins as a consequence of his greatest quality: the Doctor will do anything for his friends. But to save Vastra, Jenny and Strax, our hero acts recklessly. The gravity of the course of action is illustrated by a single tear down his cheek when a suburban babysitting session goes wrong. Matt Smith, again, is electrifying , as a small and thoughtful story about death changes everything. The Name of the Doctor takes the ideas of 2008's Turn Left – what would a world without the Doctor look like? – and blasts them toward a terrible conclusion. When the vengeful Great Intelligence jumps into the Doctor's grave, infecting the open wound in time, his every victory is reversed. That's 50 TV years of saved lives and civilisations. As Vastra says, there are going to be consequences. As long-running shows continue, the tendency is to move towards darkness. There have been a lot of plot points about the Doctor as a weapon in recent years, and omens of a darkening Timelord. But while the episode itself was painted in hues of black, in the 50th year it's quite rightly time to celebrate our hero. No wonder Clara felt that she had to jump … "I blew into this world on a leaf. I don't think I'll ever land. My name is Clara Oswald. I'm the impossible girl. I was born to save the Doctor." And so the mystery of Clara is finally resolved. Your demented theories as to her true nature have been fantastic, but I always thought it would be something much more simple than her being Susan or Romana or The Rani. She chases the Great Intelligence into the grave, fracturing herself through time and space, in endless copies and versions: sometimes Clara the governess, sometimes Oswin, usually souffle girl. The Clara we meet now is the real one, with different facets of her saving the Doctor in different eras. The pre-credits sequence, with all the Doctors, actually made me fall over. The solution is both straightforward and mindbending. But that doesn't quite get over any of the question marks about what Clara is like as a person. I still don't feel I know her. Now this is all over with and we know Jenna is back for the 50th, hopefully that can change. "This planet is the property of the Sontaran Empire! Surrender your women and intellectuals!" And how great to see the Doctor's friends all together. Just a fortnight ago I wondered whether the Paternoster Gang were becoming a one-note gag. It felt like there might be only so far to go with a lesbian Silurian detective, her chambermaid ninja wife and a dim Sontaran butler. All that has flipped. Faced with real storylines, they do convincing human tragedy (some feat when two of them are not human). When Vastra thinks she's lost Jenny, you feel her lizard pain and cry along. Meanwhile, yes! My beloved River is back. And gone is the preening camp of before. She was starting to get annoying, but her smartarsery is in check. We see it briefly, in the delicious moment during the psychic conference call as she "disgracefully" turns the tea into champagne, and the prickly moment between her and Clara is superb. But beyond that it's all poetry and pathos: a woman hopelessly in love, whose love can only ever be hopeless. This, remember, is River post-Library. "When one's in love with a lonely God," she once said to Mommy Amy, "one does one's best to hide the damage." By this point, she's given up trying to hide it. For the first time, their respective timelines are in tandem with ours, and so the Doctor breaks down too. I dread the day that Alex Kingston decides not to return to Doctor Who, or Steven Moffat runs out of things to do with her. That doesn't look likely: everything is set up for this avatar version of a Professor Song to return. Fear factor Topping off all of this, there's a fantastic new villain in the Whispermen, effectively blank-faced and handy with a couplet. Their slow approach gives another chill addition to this gothic tale, even though it's not exactly clear what they actually do or how they're going to stop your heart. But no matter – as henchmen to Richard E Grant's camp Great Intelligence they get to join the top table of New Who monsters. Mysteries and questions Again, here on Thursday I don't know the final twists. But it seems unlikely Steven Moffat is really going to reveal the Doctor's name. For a moment, I almost thought it was "Please", since that was his last word before the Whispermen retreated. I'm still wondering whether it might be "Love", and that will be where the word came from. Or perhaps "Geoff". Rather, I suspect this promised great secret that will "change the course of Doctor Who forever" might be the thing we discussed above: that faced with his final destiny, this sexless man finally realises that he loves his "wife". For philandering adventurers like the Doctor, that can be a big thing to admit. Time-space debris • A fun game is to try to work out which stories the old Doctor footage came from. The Seventh Doctor is clearly the inexplicable Dragonfire cliffhanger, while the Second Doctor is the footage from his colour return in The Five Doctors. How many others did you get? • The Great Intelligence doesn't half hold a grudge; there are villains who have been defeated a hell of a lot more. • The Valeyard is indeed a name the Doctor will be known as. This was the name of the Gallifreyan prosecutor played by Michael Jayston 1984's epic and awful themed season The Trial Of A Timelord. The Valeyard was the Doctor's final incarnation, gone evil, and turned on himself. • "What were you expecting, a body? Bodies are boring, I've had loads of them." • The Doctor had one day expected to retire and take up watercolours or beekeeping or something. Maybe Matt Smith could team up with Alex Kingston for a remake of The Good Life? • Neil Gaiman revealed in an interview this week that the original plan for Clara was for her to have been a Victorian governess the whole way along. Plans for the impossible plot came along when he'd already written his first draft. • Coo! Gallifrey! Next time! It's all about the Big 50th from here, and we've got a long wait. But before the November fiesta, a huge thank you to you all for making this the liveliest Who community on the web. When we started this three years ago, the intention was to create a forum for people who wouldn't normally go on Doctor Who forums. But the fans came anyway, and the mix of old and new has made for explosive conversations. I read them all, as do Matt Smith and Steven Moffat, because they've told me they do. If any regulars are planning to attend the official Celebration event at ExCel in London in November, do hit me up on Twitter. An informal, inaugural meeting of the Guardian Blog Society could be just what the Doctor ordered … Doctor Who Fantasy Television Dan Martin guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Doctor Who: The Name of the Doctor. Photograph: Screengrabs/BBCThe Name of the Doctor: Matt Smith is electrifying. Photograph: Screengrabs/BBC
- Greggs: More Than Meats The Pie is as heartwarming as a sausage roll
'There's literally no grumbling, no engineered antagonism, posturing or sneering; only industrious sorts in hairnets calling sausage rolls "my little soldiers"' It's a blustery morning in Southend-on-Sea and Greggs' technical manager Ian Chivers is scowling at some pigeons. "Not good," he sighs from the depths of his quilted teal anorak. "These chaps wander into the shop looking for a free meal and then … oh dear. " Ian is accustomed to the vagaries of feathered passers-by but admits he was unprepared for the moment a pigeon broke into the window display and shat on the multipack value scones. "This is an unprecedented loss," he intones, as £200-worth of bespattered baked goods are scraped into a Biffa bin. "Still. Life goes on." Ian's struggle to implement an effective pigeon-repelling strategy is charted in the latest episode of Greggs: More Than Meats The Pie ( Monday, 9pm, Sky1 ), an unexpectedly beguiling gander at the hitherto shadowy dreamweavers behind the Sausage and Bean Melt (£1.35). Cut from the same shabby cloth as C4's The Hotel, MTMTP is a mechanically separated tube of cheer encased in a lightly buttered pastry of positivity. Here, employees, or "Greggs' loyal family members", go about their business in a state of near-constant mirth, chuckling warmly during anecdotes about faulty hairnets and slapping their thighs when Mrs Thyroid from No 37 asks to swap this crispy cornflake nest for one of them pink things because the crispy cornflakes are playing havoc with me dentures, pet. In this flour-dusted fantasia, every burnt yum yum has a silver lining and every shitting pigeon is a Messenger of Peace. "We adopted a pigeon once," coos baker Nicola by way of demonstration. "Called him Peter. Tiny. Had them little rings on his hands. Hands? No. What are they called? Yeah, claws. Anyway, he was really nice." This week's episode is called Sausage Roll and is mainly about sausage rolls. Chiefly, it's about the sausage rolls produced in Greggs' Newcastle plant: throbbing hub of the bakery's high-street pastry-pushing operation and home to statistics such as "16,000 miles of sausage rolls are produced here every year" and "something something 110 tonnes something". But oh, calamity: a fire buggers up the refrigeration system and tepid pasties start flopping off the conveyor belt like shell-less tortoises. While the palaver catapults management into an affable flap ("Derek? This is Ken. Bad news, I'm afraid… ") we wander off to the Stratford branch, where formidable customer services operative Claudette is shouting about her arse from behind a pallet of wholemeal cobs ("CAN'T GET ME BUM AROUND IT"). Interspersed throughout are talking-head segments in which Greggs staff members pontificate on the unbearable lightness of being a Greggs staff member (overriding theme: "I like sausage rolls"). There's literally no grumbling, no engineered antagonism, posturing or sneering; only industrious sorts in hairnets calling sausage rolls "my little soldiers", shots of glazed buns soundtracked by Led Zeppelin's Kashmir, and the sort of cheerily naff parochialism that tends to inspire a faint, generalised proud-to-be-Britishness. "Life can be sodding dull," chuckles MTMTP in its dough-flecked navy gilet, "so let's all pretend this refrigeration malfunction is more serious than it actually is while tucking in to one of these lovely Lincolnshire sausage bakes (47p each/four for £1.55)". Meanwhile, back in Southend-on-Sea, Operation Pigeon is in full flight. Ian is keen to affix a rubber sparrowhawk to the shop's doorway ("Old trick, that") but the door frame isn't wide enough. A suggestion to keep the doors closed is dismissed as "against company policy". Deadlock. "I'd sit here all day with a Gatling gun if I could," grumbles Ian, and suddenly the doughnut darkens. "Heh-heh, not really! I'll just have to keep thinking," he chirps, before wandering off in his anorak to the taunting squawks of The Birdie Song. Among the relentless pigeons and the enshittened scones, life goes on. Television Documentary Factual TV Sarah Dempster guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Greggs: More Than Meats The PieBehind the scenes at Greggs
- Time to pull the plug on Radio 1's Live Lounge?
The segment that brought us Natasha Bedingfield covering Coldplay has spawned seven compilation albums. Isn't it time for musicians to put those ironic tambourines away? There are some things that, at the time, seemed unlikely to endure beyond 1999. Films without Tom Hanks. Gary Barlow's career. It still being funny or interesting for an indie band to cover a pop song. But there's no shame in being wrong on every count, so long as there is nothing but unending humiliation for whoever is in charge of maintaining the existence of Radio 1 's Live Lounge, the session where taste now goes to die. Let's recap. Once upon a time, under the tender lunchtime care of Jo Whiley (and now, the permanently anodyne Fearne Cotton), the Live Lounge was the daytime go-to for musicians wanting to show off their shit-hot performance abilities and a sense of humour. So, Arctic Monkeys dropped by and did a sweet – if somewhat off-key – cover of Girls Aloud's hit Love Machine . Will Young was all charm when he sung OutKast's Hey Ya! But it was Travis (Scottish; always rained on them; serial butt of jokes for the unimaginative), who got this raggedy bandwagon rolling with their take on Britney's …Baby One More Time: one of the decade's biggest-selling singles earnestly warbled over an acoustic guitar, by a band who have since gone on to... something equally zeitgeisty. Really, the novelty pop LOLs should have stopped there. Instead, to Fran Healy's un-credit, that moment has become the gold-standard template for anyone trying to build a bit of credibility through wacky live experimentation. A sentence that in itself should serve as a colossal warning: don't do it. Put that ironic tambourine shake away. What are you trying to prove, Olly Murs, dozying on as Swedish House Mafia? Who told Everything Everything to have a go at Justin Timberlake? How did Jamie Cullum get written permission to do a cover of Pharrell 's Frontin'? Why is it still happening? This is the format that gave us The Scientist, the most boring Coldplay song, as covered by Natasha Bedingfield, a pop star so boring even her record company said so. It promoted the brainmelt that was REM doing a song by Editors, Editors being the Poundshop knock-off of REM. Editors, whose single greatest moment to date has been covering REM's Orange Crush. And yet, seven Live Lounge compilation albums have been released since 2006. People are genuinely buying them. They're not entirely filled with kooky covers from pop's past, but there's enough of them to explain how Mark Ronson got distracted from being any good whatsoever to making what was the ultimate Live Lounge-inspired album: 2007's The Version (the one with Valerie and all that other faux-funk silliness). Incidentally, Ronson's last album, the one with the criminally underrated Somebody To Love Me, bombed spectacularly. Listeners: you get everything you deserve. Radio Radio 1 Pop and rock Nosheen Iqbal guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Fran Healy of Travis, itching to get back in the Live Lounge to cover some Stooshe. Photograph: Dan Chung for the GuardianFran Healy of Travis, itching to get back in the Live Lounge to cover some Stooshe. Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian
- Erwin Blumenfeld: The Man Who Shot Beautiful Women - in pictures
The work of the fashion photographer, whose story is told in BBC4's The Man Who Shot Beautiful Women Audrey Hepburn, 1952Eveyln Tripp in Dior, 1949Self-portrait, 1961Decollete, 1952Grace Kelly for Cosmopolitan, 1955. Dress by Oleg Cassini.Lisette behind fluted Glass, 1943Nancy Berg and Cadillac, 1954Profiles, 1952Erwin Blumenfeld in his studio in New York, 1961Untitled, 1944Untitled, 1946
- Steven Moffat: how fans saved the Doctor Who finale
The showrunner explains how the last episode leaked, and how 210 Timelord fans saved the day Well that was all a bit Keystone Cops, wasn't it? Our biggest surprise, our most secret episode , a revelation about the Doctor that changes everything ... ... and we'd have got away with it too, if we hadn't accidentally sent Blu-ray copies of Name Of The Doctor to 210 Doctor Who fans in America. Security-wise, that's not GOOD, is it? I mean, it's not top-notch; it's hard to defend as professional-level, hard-line secrecy. My favourite fact is that they're Blu-Rays . Listen, we don't just leak any old rubbish, we leak in high-def – 1080p or nothing, that's us. Every last pixel in beautifully rendered detail. It's like getting caught extra naked. But here's the thing. Never mind us blundering fools, check out the fans. Two hundred and ten of them, with the top-secret episode within their grasp – and because we asked nicely, they didn't breathe a word . Not one. Even Doctor Who websites have been closing their comments sections, just in case anyone blurts. I'm gobsmacked. I'm impressed. Actually, I'm humbled. And we are all very grateful. Now you might be thinking, what does all this matter? It's a plot development in the mad old fantasy world of Doctor Who, why is that important? Well of course, it's not important, and in the scheme of things, it doesn't matter at all. Just as it doesn't matter when you're telling a joke, and some idiot shouts out the punchline before you finish. It's irritating, that's all. It's bad manners. Well, no bad manners here! Two hundred and ten Doctor Who fans kept the secret, and many, many more fans helped. I wish I could send you all flowers, but I don't know where you live (and, given our record, you really shouldn't be sharing private information with us). So instead, if we can get our act together – and I forgive you for thinking that's a big if – there will be a little video treat released on the Doctor Who site later tonight. Ten plus 11 gives you ... Doctor Who Television Fantasy Steven Moffat guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Shhhhh! Matt Smith in The Name of the Doctor. Photograph: Adrian Rogers/BBCShhhhh! Matt Smith in The Name of the Doctor. Photograph: Adrian Rogers/BBC
- Paul Shane's TV career – in videos
Best known as Ted Bovis in Hi-De-Hi!, Shane will be fondly remembered as a primetime comedy specialist who played larger-than-life roles. Here is a taster of the spark he brought to British TV in the 1980s and 90s Ted Bovis has gone to the big holiday camp in the sky. Paul Shane was a true entertainer in the old-fashioned sense of the word. He was the keystone of Jimmy Perry and David Croft's comedy repertory company, appearing in three of their biggest hits: Hi-De-Hi! as loud-mouth holiday camp host Ted Bovis; Alf Stokes in You Rang, M'Lord; and Jack Skinner in Oh, Doctor Beeching. And now with the likes of Miranda and Mrs Brown's Boys cleaning up in the ratings, it seems TV comedy has come full circle in his lifetime. Following the sad announcement of Shane's death , here's a look back at the former coalminer's illustrious British television career. Ted Bovis in Hi-De-Hi! This was Shane's most famous role. In this clip we see how, when temporarily put in charge of Maplin's holiday camp, Ted enjoys the power too much. This is how he deals with delicate ballroom champions Barry and Yvonne when they arrive with a list of complaints. In this next clip, Ted organises one of his legendary comic set-pieces involving a pantomime horse, little realising that a real horse is also being delivered to the camp's riding instructor. You have to watch to the end of the comic denouement – it's perfect, and daringly surreal for a teatime comedy show. Alf Stokes in You Rang, M'Lord In his role as faithful retainer Stokes in You Rang, M'Lord?, the second of his collaborations with Perry and Croft, he took more of a straight-man role, acting as a dignified foil for the flappy antics of the hair-brained aristos he served. Jack Skinner in Oh, Doctor Beeching Croft wrote Oh, Doctor Beeching, with Richard Spendlove, about the staff and passengers of a branch-line station at the time of mass rail closures in Britain. It was the last show in which he used most of the old Hi-De-Hi! cast, with Shane playing the acting station master, trying to keep things together under the threat of Beeching's axe. A heady mix of steam nostalgia and British seaside-postcard humour. Paul Shane the talented crooner Rather than digging up that old clip of Shane crooning You've Lost That Loving Feeling on Pebble Mill at One (Reeves and Mortimer once used it to taunt Mark Lamarr on Shooting Stars), here's the great man singing an extended version of Hi-De-Hi!'s theme tune, The Holiday Rock, instead. Comedy Television Julia Raeside guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Hi-de-Hi!'s Paul Shane Photograph: Moviestore Collection/Rex FeaturesPaul Shane in his role as Ted Bovis. Photograph: Moviestore Collection/Rex Features
- Why Nick Grimshaw can afford to lose a million listeners
Yes, the Radio 1 Breakfast Show has seen a big audience drop – but his job was to drive out the Chris Moyles brigade, and that's exactly what he's doing How does a breakfast-radio DJ do their show on the morning they've lost nearly a million listeners in three months? Chris Moyles would probably have let off some steam by going on one of his close-to-the-bone tirades, no doubt laying the blame with one of his endlessly scolded sidekicks. Capital's Dave Berry would have been told by middle-management to mention nothing about it, heaven forbid he stop making those banal battle-of-the-sexes observations that have tested well with focus groups. This morning, Nick Grimshaw, after hearing his Rajar fate, compared himself to Eldorado – the failed BBC cruise-ship soap from the 1990s. "It's fine, that lost loads of viewers and it ran for like 20 years, people still reference it all the time. We're the new Eldorado. Oh, apparently it just ran for one year. Oh dear." It's all part of his shtick – a breakfast show filled with pop-culture references and groaning self-deprecation, one that finds humour in the modern celebrity, the rise and fall of the once famous, and exploits it for all its worth. I am woken most mornings, not by the radio itself but by the belly laughs of someone in my flat who's already listening. Grimshaw's show can be so quick, cruel and unexpected that it goes beyond the normal "did you hear about this" banter of breakfast radio and moves into genuine comedy. This comes from Grimshaw's encyclopedic knowledge of and endless enthusiasm for all things pop, whether it's a Little Mix video faux-pas or the love life of rapper A$AP Rocky. It makes for a show rich in blink-and-you'll miss-them gags. It's at its funniest when it's all falling apart. When him and best mate Harry Styles went on air the day after the Brits, coming straight from an after-after-after party without going to sleep, it was so good it made me late for work. Full of real gossip and slurs, it was a world away from the pre-packaged red-carpet chat that was going on at other stations. That said, there are, of course, questions around how long the breakfast show can continue to haemorrhage listeners. Mark Radcliffe and Marc Riley famously performed so badly that they lasted just eight months when they were drafted in to replace Chris Evans. But Grimmy losing a million listeners isn't so bad. He was chosen by Radio 1 to appeal to younger listeners, which, naturally, means losing older ones. More than three quarters of the listeners that have drifted in the last quarter are over 25. The average age of listener is at a two-and-a-half year low. Moyles was also losing a lot of listeners to Evans before he left, so Grimshaw would have to mount a landslide swing before he starts to gain new listeners. (Take a quick look at Grimshaw's Instagram account , where his posts are regularly accompanied by abusive, sometimes homophobic, comments from people hashtagging #teammoyles – perhaps he's better without some of the old contingent, anyway.) The style of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show has long been at odds with the rest of the station. Steve Wright stayed there long after the night of the long knives, when most of the station's older DJs were fired. Evans was in a lads'-mag vacuum when the station was hiring alternative comedians such as Chris Morris and Stewart Lee. Moyles showed contempt for the station's forward-thinking dance and rap-based music policy. For a show as obtuse, hilarious, and unrelenting as Grimshaw's, 5.8 million listeners is actually pretty impressive. Finally, Radio 1 has found a DJ that can be both anarchic and on-message, one who gets the listenership, and talks to them rather than taking the piss out of them. At a publicly funded station trying to prove its worth, that's worth a million listeners, easily. Nick Grimshaw Radio industry Radio 1 BBC Rajars Sam Wolfson guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Nick Grimshaw … actually rather impressive. Photograph: Mark Allen/BBC/PANick Grimshaw … actually rather impressive. Photograph: Mark Allen/BBC/PAChris Moyles … also lost listeners. Photograph: Denis Jones/Evening Standard
- Rovers Return revamp: Corrie pub's new look – interactive
Lucy Mangan has a sneak preview of the pub's plush post-fire makeover Lucy Mangan Rovers Return restored, 2013. Photograph: Joseph Scanlon/ITV/PA
- The War on Drugs: Join us for a debate
Join David Simon, writer of The Wire, documentary maker Eugene Jarecki and other panel members at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. The debate will be chaired by Observer editor John Mulholland On Thursday 23 May, the Observer New Review will hold a debate on America's war on drugs. In what is sure to be a dynamic discussion, Eugene Jarecki , director of the hard-hitting documentary The House I Live In , and David Simon , creator and writer of the critically acclaimed television drama The Wire , will be joined by Rachel Seifert , British director of Cocaine Unwrapped , a documentary that confronts the harsh realities of the drug supply chain. The debate will be hosted by the Observer's editor, John Mulholland . America's war on drugs is 40 years old and has cost a trillion dollars. Since making his award-winning film on the fallout from the war, Eugene Jarecki has been on a crusade to change US narcotics policy. David Simon says: "After covering the drug war as a journalist and researching The Wire, it became clear that our political leadership is so necessarily wedded to the status quo, they're so consumed with the next election, there will never emerge a shred of leadership that will change the situation. It's up to us." The debate will take place at the Royal Institution of Great Britain on Thursday 23 May 2013. Doors open at 7pm and tickets cost £12. Drinks are not included in the ticket price but there will be a cash bar. Book for this event Click here to book for this event Help with offers, events and competitions •Extra is free to join. You need to be a member of Extra in order to see the redemption pages. To register your email address for the first time, press on the 'Click here ... link above. •Members also need to sign in to guardian.co.uk at the top left of the screen to be able to take up offers, book tickets or enter competitions. London & South East guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Extra WODDavid Simon (left) and Eugene Jarecki
- The Secret Actor on 'look at me' syndrome
Our series continues as the Secret Actor discusses what's OK when it comes to showing off – and what's pure peacockery In order to perform in front of people you've never met, not to mention ask them to pay their hard-earned cash for that pleasure, it stands to reason that you'll need a certain amount of chutzpah. As my mother has reminded me on many occasions, "Acting is the bizarre pursuit of trying to get strangers to like you." All actors possess some kind of "look at me" quality; if they didn't, they'd be dentists. But what separates the peacocks from the good guys is the finesse they employ when displaying this element of "look at me". It's what separates the self-important Russell Crowes from, say, the self-effacing Bill Patersons. The problems arise when actors are left to calibrate their own individual level of show-offery. There is no independent body to adjudicate. Is a website dedicated to yourself OK if you're the one running it? Is it on to text friends and colleagues alerting them to good reviews of your performances (but never bad ones)? Can you send out a group email asking people to buy full-price tickets to your show? Luckily, most actors are too solipsistic to worry about such things. A very young actor pal was invited to a get-to-know-each-other lunch before the start of a West End theatre job featuring a mammoth TV star. (This is not the norm, by the way: the lunch was part of a bespoke fluffing process deemed necessary to keep the star feeling loved.) Young Actor Pal was seated at the end of a long table, Mammoth at the other. Halfway through lunch, Mammoth regally shushed all assembled, lit upon Young Actor Pal, and asked: "Here, do you think of me as a TV star or a theatre star?" Young Actor Pal panicked. What was the right answer? All eyes upon her, she plumped for what she guessed to be the most flattering answer: "A TV star," she squeaked. Wrong. Mammoth shook his head with weary disappointment and, all eyes now upon him, pronounced, like Caesar addressing the Senate: "Do you see, right there? How is it possible: a whole generation unaware of my theatre work?" But some people don't know who Ban Ki-moon is, either, I hear. Theatre The secret actor guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds 'Let's hear it for me' ... Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Photograph: Dreamworks/Sportsphoto/AllstarLet's hear it for me ... Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Photograph: Dreamworks/Sportsphoto/Allstar
- TalkTalk extends X Factor deal
Telecoms company to retain ITV's primetime talent show as key part of its marketing campaign in the UK TalkTalk has renewed its £20m-plus deal to sponsor ITV's The X Factor as it ups the advertising ante in the battle against rivals including BT, BSkyB and Virgin Media to win customers to its new YouView-based TV service. The telecoms and broadband operator, which last week became the fastest-growing new TV business in the UK after adding 150,000 subscribers in the first quarter , has struck a three-year deal to use ITV1's flagship entertainment show as a key strand in the marketing of TalkTalk TV. TalkTalk's latest sponsorship deal, struck with ITV and co-producers Syco and FremantleMedia, is thought to be of a similar value to the approximately £20m paid in 2010. The company believes that Simon Cowell's talent show is the perfect vehicle with which to hit its target market of perhaps 8m Freeview digital terrestrial TV households that cannot record programmes on their set-top boxes and are "value-seeking customers who want a little more TV, not a lot". Three-quarters of TalkTalk's 4 million-plus customer base have Freeview, and a similar percentage of the 230,000 who have signed up to its new TV service had either Freeview or Freesat, the satellite TV joint venture between ITV and the BBC. "You could say it is a Freeview assault, it is the perfect property to be engaged with to drive our TV service," said Tristia Clarke, commercial director at TalkTalk. "One of the original reasons for the launch of YouView was a way to enhance Freeview. The sheer scale of X Factor is of course very important, it is the biggest show on UK TV, but it also allows proper engagement with customers. You can make offers, such as tickets, and drive customer engagement in a way you can't sponsoring, say, drama." The X Factor has lost some of its heat since TalkTalk struck its last three-year deal in 2010 , months after the show hit a new ratings high with Joe McElderry's win drawing 15.5 million average audience . The X Factor final in December was watched by just over 11 million viewers, the lowest audience for a series finale since 2006. TalkTalk tends to get significant mileage from its 12-week sponsorship of the show. The company's short idents will air for almost an hour in total across the series of The X Factor and the same for the US version of the show broadcast on ITV2, which the sponsorship also covers. Given the premium prices that ITV can charge for TV advertising during The X Factor, the airtime the idents take up would be worth more than £10m at rate card value. TalkTalk has been significantly ramping up its advertising spend as it seeks to battle rivals including BT, BSkyB and Virgin Media in the scrap for pay-TV customers. In the year to the end of March TalkTalk spent £51m on all advertising, excluding TV sponsorship, almost double the £26.7m spent in the previous 12-month period according to figures from Nielsen. TV advertising has seen a 34% increase (to £9m), press up 69% (to £9.2m), outdoor up 358% (to £6.8m), internet up 45% to £4.4m, and radio up 102% (to £1.4m). TalkTalk has sponsored the show for eight years. Carphonewarehouse, its former parent company, sponosred the first two years of The X Factor's now decade-long life as a TV franchise. TalkTalk Telecom The X Factor Telecommunications industry Advertising Mark Sweney guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds James Arthur performs in The X Factor final in December - the ITV show remains a part of TalkTalk's media strategy. Photograph: Ken Mckay/Rex FeaturesJames Arthur performs in The X Factor final in December - the ITV show remains a part of TalkTalk's media strategy. Photograph: Ken Mckay/Rex Features
- BBC Radio 1's Nick Grimshaw stumbles as it turns to age-old strategies
The station's bosses are focused on attracting a younger audience – but kids today have many more places to find music Radio 1's breakfast show is no longer the most listened-to programme on British radio. That distinction belongs to Chris Evans on Radio 2. Nevertheless it's the show whose performance matters most to BBC bosses. They charged incoming Radio 1 controller Ben Cooper with lowering the station's age profile. Nothing is more important to the BBC's future than keeping a line open to the teenagers they hope will become licence fee payers. That's one of the reasons why Cooper decided it was time for Chris Moyles, 38, to be replaced by Nick Grimshaw, 28. Out went Moyles's lugubrious monologues. In came Grimshaw's brittle patter. Out went long stretches of chat. In came music from the toppermost of the poppermost. The latest Rajar figures suggest a million listeners have taken this as a cue to move on. Some of this is the fallout following any change. Radio is more about habit than any other branch of the media. Once you interrupt the pattern some listeners take their custom somewhere else, possibly to Evans or Christian Connell on Absolute, both of whom showed some growth. Nevertheless, as radio consultant Matt Deegan points out, one of the things that make Radio 1's figure skew old is the number of over-55s that still listen to it. Some of it may be the move to a more music-heavy output. Despite the protestations of a million corny lyrics, music tends to divide people, not bring them together. Chat is something they're more likely to tolerate, even when it's provided by someone as idiosyncratic as Moyles. There's no task in media trickier than lowering the age profile of an audience. It doesn't necessarily go down with the age of the presenter. Nor do younger people obediently respond to the promise of "younger" music. They often draw no distinction between music made today and music made on the millions of days before that. Radio 1's motto, "in new music we trust", seems addressed to an internal audience interested in positioning rather than potential listeners. The magazine graveyard is littered with the bones of titles such as Smash Hits that tried to retrace their steps to what they perceived as their core, narrowcasting themselves into obsolescence in the process. It's been noted that these are the most pronounced falls since Matthew Bannister took over at Radio 1 in 1993 and aimed to shake off its unfortunate image. The difference now is that the radio industry, like the rest of the media, is being pushed and pulled by tides too powerful for even the most securely funded public broadcaster to resist. Adam Bowie of Absolute Radio wrote in his blog that over the past five years radio listening among 15- to 24-year-olds has fallen by 16.9%. It's difficult to imagine those people are coming back. Anyone who lives with a teenager knows that they no longer mark their territory by retuning every radio in the house to their favourite stations. The days when they reflexively employed the radio to keep the real world at bay have gone. They can easily access all the music they want. They are never bored. Instead they are constantly distracted. Radio is just one of those competing distractions. Nothing sounds more quaint today than Lou Reed's old advice that "you need two radios in case one is broken". The BBC's entire strategy is based on the idea that you can reliably segment the young audience via music and create channel loyalty among people who have grown up roaming free without need of channels, who pull things towards them rather than wait for somebody to do the pushing. Troy Carter, Lady Gaga's manager, recently said the last place he wanted her fans to find out about her new record was the radio, a statement which should have sent a shiver down many broadcasting spines. As one former Radio 1 hand said this week, "kids nowadays are their own schedulers. They're not going to 'keep it here' any longer." Radio 1 Nick Grimshaw BBC Radio industry Radio David Hepworth guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Nick Grimshaw Photograph: Rex FeaturesNick Grimshaw: lost a million listeners at Radio 1. Photograph: Rex Features
- Letter: Paul Shane and Alan Bennett's day out
Paul Shane was too modest in his summary of his performance in Alan Bennett's A Day Out ("All I had to say was, 'My bum's numb!'"). In a scene at Fountains Abbey, in North Yorkshire, his character explains enthusiastically how a medieval arched bridge has been constructed, and how modern bricklayers wouldn't do it that way. His cycling companion says the bridge would have been made by a monk, to which Shane's character replies "I don't care if he were [the criminal] Charlie Peace – he could lay right bricks." It was a gem of a scene and I'm sure it marked him out for bigger things. Television Alan Bennett guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Paul Shane in 1995. He made his TV debut in Alan Bennett's A Day Out. Photograph: ITV/Rex FeaturesPaul Shane in 1995. He made his TV debut in Alan Bennett's A Day Out. Photograph: ITV/Rex Features
- Eurovision performance was best I could do, says Bonnie Tyler
Singer says despite finishing 19th, she enjoyed her experience in Malmö, as BBC enjoys peak viewing figures of 9.2 million Bonnie Tyler said she gave it her all after the UK's entry finished 19th out of 26 countries in the Eurovision song contest. The 61-year-old singer produced a stirring performance of Believe in Me on Saturday night in Malmö, Sweden, but was awarded just 23 points. Nevertheless, that was 11 more than last year's British entry by Engelbert Humperdinck, who finished second from last. "I'm sure a lot of people will be disappointed on my behalf but I have really enjoyed my Eurovision experience," said Tyler. "I did the best that I could do with a great song. I don't feel down and I'm ready to party." The contest was won by the favourite, Denmark's Emmelie de Forest, who received 281 points for her song Only Teardrops, well ahead of the runners-up, Azerbaijan. Tyler, best known for her 1980s power ballad, Total Eclipse of the Heart, which topped the singles chart in the UK and several other countries, was a 50-1 outsider to win. The Welsh singer said she had hoped to do better but could not argue with the countries that finished top of the pile. "Of course I would have liked to bring it back to the UK but it's been a night to remember." Tyler, who has been nominated for three Grammy awards, added: "I'm so glad and so happy that I did it because it was an incredible experience. It was like the Grammy awards all over again." Tyler had the consolation of outshining Ireland's entry, sung by Ryan Dolan, who finished last after Only Love Survives received just five points. Overnight viewing figures showed that an average of 7.7 million people tuned into the contest in the UK on BBC1, reaching a peak of 9.2 million at 10.45pm–11pm. Bonnie Tyler Eurovision Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Bonnie Tyler gave a rousing performance in Malmö but only clocked up 23 points. Photograph: John Macdougall/AFP/Getty ImagesBonnie Tyler gave a rousing performance in Malmö but only clocked up 23 points. Photograph: John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images
- Be Awesome: Modern Life for Modern Ladies, by Hadley Freeman – review
Hadley Freeman's memoir masquerading as a survival guide is fresh, witty and packs a serious punch Anyone who professes to hate the Daily Mail while being addicted to its "sidebar of shame" (the celebrity-packed right-hand feed on its website) will feel very at home with this book. The Nora Ephron opening quote, "Be the heroine of your life not the victim", sums up the style and the theme. Like Ephron's non-fiction books, it's a series of anecdotes dressed up as a survival guide: "Sex tips for smart ladies; Every dating guide you'll ever need; But do you like him?" It's packed with cultural references: Nancy Mitford, The Devil Wears Prada , Nina Simone, Miss Piggy, The Princess Bride . New York-born Freeman manages to get away with a lot: she can be both scathing and serious about being "awesome" in a way no British writer could. Obviously this book is aimed firmly at fans of Caitlin Moran, but there are shades of Tina Fey's Bossypants here, another memoir that isn't really a memoir. Freeman only opens up when she writes about eating disorders: "I lost a lot of important years in hospital and even after I finally left for good, I lost more time to my two full-time jobs: being anorexic and trying to cover up being anorexic." Like her columns , the writing is fresh, original, in-your-face. It's tempting to gorge on this collection at breakneck speed. But it works just as well – possibly better – if you read it as a series of separate witty polemics on women's place in society (basically, Daily Mail -style, in the wrong). Recommended, especially to fans of How to be a Woman . Autobiography and memoir Society Health, mind and body Biography Women Anorexia Nora Ephron Caitlin Moran Tina Fey Viv Groskop guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Hadley Freeman: 'fresh, original, in-your-face'. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the GuardianHadley Freeman: 'fresh, original, in-your-face'. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
- Anne-Marie Duff: 'I wondered if I should lie about my background'
On the day the actor bids farewell to her character in the last episode of Shameless, she will open in a very different role in Eugene O'Neill's marathon, Strange Interlude, at the National Anne-Marie Duff holds out her hand – a shy shake. She is wearing what looks like a child's white vest, jeans and no jewellery. There is nothing to give her away, apart from her face. Even her feet are bare – maroon nail varnish excepted. It is a sunny day – warm upstairs at the Jerwood rehearsal space in south London – and we have two reasons to meet. She is about to star in Strange Interlude at the National , a Eugene O'Neill marathon. And the final episode of Channel 4's Shameless (now in its 11th series) is about to be aired, featuring Fiona – peroxide hair and tarty Gypsy earrings to the fore – taking a last stand. Anne-Marie's range is incredible: Elizabeth I, Margot Fonteyn, Saint Joan, Berenice, John Lennon's mum… and now Nina, complicated, ardent, neurotic war widow. "Interlude", incidentally, misleads. Uncut, the drama is four hours long. Anne-Marie tells me it is one of the plays that made Nicholas Hytner want to be a director. Michael Grandage is another of its champions. I run into Simon Godwin, director of this trimmed version for the Lyttelton and wish him good luck and he laughs, as if acknowledging he may need it. Anne-Marie is one of those actors who is a chameleon and yet, unmistakably, herself. Her face is uncommonly expressive. It has a wicked gaiety but sorrow comes easily, too. "I am not precious about the way I look. Never having been defined as a great beauty makes that easier." How does she control the detail of what is going on in her face? Here is a test – O'Neill's confounding stage direction to Nina from scene two: "She appears older than in the previous scene, her face is paler and much thinner… In her fight to regain control over her nerves, she has overstriven after the cool and efficient poise, but she is really in a more highly strung, disorganised state than ever, although she is now more capable of suppressing and concealing it. She remains strikingly handsome and her physical appeal is enhanced by her pallor and the mysterious suggestion about her of hidden experience." Duff erupts into peels of laughter. "He is like a novelist, O'Neill, isn't he? Our characters are all described forensically at the beginning of these huge scenes. With screenplays, you are advised to ignore stage directions." But she is not about to ignore O'Neill. The trick, she explains, is to rise above literalness and "get the smell of it, breathe it in, see if you can exhale it – that is all you can do". Lashings of white makeup may also be needed to acquire Nina's pallor (Anne-Marie looks as though she spent the Bank holiday weekend in the sun). But the real challenge is to become "more yourself as an actor, visiting every corner". At first she felt unequal to the role, almost turned it down, asked herself: "How can I create this panorama of character? It is not just about charting the years. These people have extraordinary colours that you are trying to find every day in rehearsal. The fluidity of O'Neill's writing is like the ocean – he is obsessed with the sea – it seems to swell in his characters." Duff almost turned down Shameless , too. This seems to be typical of her. She is careful and carefree – such a mixture. It was her mother who swung it, in the end, saying Paul Abbott's script rang true because "it is about what people have when they don't have anything except laughter, sex and the stars". Or, as Shameless 's Frank rephrases it, addressing us from jail: "It is the boredom that gets you. You miss the simple things – drugs and alcohol…" Duff grew up in Hayes, west London. Her parents are from rural Donegal. Her father was a painter and decorator, her mother worked in a shoe shop. "They taught me many things. Most of all that it is vital in life just to turn up." How does she mean? "To turn up for people, to be present, to have the conversation. This has emboldened me, given me greater empathy." As she says this, her arms are folded and she has a resigned look – sad but in a funny way. She hopes, in time, to pass this "great lesson" on to her three-year-old son. His name is Brendan – after her father. It is a subject that tends to be treated as if it were a non-issue but I want to know whether it has been difficult to move from one class to another? "My parents were of a generation of Irish people who came here because there was nothing there – out of necessity they came to England. They weren't able to fulfil their dreams." She describes growing up with no sense of "entitlement" – in one sense an advantage. "I knew if I wanted to do this for a living, I really had to pursue it. When I was auditioning for drama schools, the girls around me were from very different backgrounds. I remember thinking, 'Should I lie about my family?'" She is 42 now, and looking back sees "a tomboy – androgynous until I was 19. Desperately shy. The only confidence I had was in drama." She had been at a comprehensive school in the 80s, "deeply affected by the state of the country: kids weren't interested in politics or the arts". And she adds: "If you had questioned me about anything to do with boys… I was a virgin when I went to drama school [the Drama Centre in north London]. I was naive with the self-righteousness of youth." What about? "It's biological, isn't it? You think you know everything." The Drama Centre was run by Christopher Fettes and Yat Malmgren – "brilliant but terrifying men". It was a "masochistic" but "exciting" time. "It put me through my paces. I toughened up. I was by no means the star of the year. It taught me to be resourceful, to go away and do the work myself. Invaluable." She points out that it is easier to become an actor from a working-class background than, say, a barrister because "acting is a sublimely egalitarian world". What's more: "I don't feel I've left my parents behind because of the sort of family I come from." It helps to be married to James McAvoy. They met on Shameless 's council estate 10 years ago (he played Steve – he and Fiona had to make passionate love against a Formica worktop). But he comes from a similar family: "Very encouraging and working class." As a result, neither of them has had to suffer "anger or confusion". But it is not a non-issue for her and sometimes it is a joke. She recalls a funny conversation with actor Robert Carlyle, also from a working-class background: "We were laughing, the two of us, saying, 'Just think: our children know what Parma ham is.'" Anne-Marie Duff has a keen critical intelligence – plenty of sense and sensibility. But she has learned to be careful what she says – and reads – about herself. She avoids reviews: "It is better not to look at them; it is like reading someone's diary. What you think about me is none of my business. It's important to keep faith in the project you are working on." And then there is the question of what she says in public about herself. "My husband has an extraordinary ability to receive a lot of exposure and still maintain a sense of self without giving anything away. I think it's very powerful." She talks eloquently about how "judgmental" our culture is, deploring its casual cruelty – especially online. She wonders: "How on earth do you teach your child not to be spiteful in the playground when online you can say whatever you like?" She is "no fan" of celebrity culture. She talks, too, about autograph hunters, commenting that it is a racket. (I check later: a photo signed by Duff – as Fiona – can be bought for £24 on eBay). We talk about the insecurity of her profession. "It comes in waves. I bumped into Olivia Colman recently. She's riding high – she's a brilliant actor and one of the nicest people I have ever worked with [on Jimmy McGovern's Accused ]. She said, 'I'm worried I will never work again', which I thought was hysterical." It is important to "be grateful and keep going". She adds: "Nothing is more diminishing than trying to control success or hold on to things." How does she let go – relax? What would be an ideal holiday? "Right now, as a working mum: Four Seasons, Bali! No, actually, my favourite would always be a muddy tent holiday. Don't get me wrong: there is nothing more delightful than a dirty martini by the pool but I like being in nature." She would pick New Zealand because "there are no natural predators there". She goes off into another of her peals of laughter. She believes she has changed now she is in her 40s: "I didn't really inhabit myself until I was in my 30s. And motherhood is an epic event. You can't help but be altered by it – and it is important to be." She understands better with age that "just because you feel something, that feeling isn't always the priority. I guess that is being an adult, isn't it?" The ways she lives have changed, too. "Pre-baby, I was a real yoga bunny." Can she still bend in every direction? "I'm pretty loose…" More laughter. But she doesn't officially exercise now. No time – acting is sport enough, alongside running after Brendan. "But I'm always dancing in my kitchen. And I love to sing. I've always sung. My father was a lovely singer. Always sang Jim Reeves at parties. I sing to my boy and he sings too." Spark – spirit – is the key to Duff. She illuminates even the darkest roles. (She giggles about being cast as demented women like Edith Duchemin in BBC2's Parade's End – and hushes me before we can joke about whether this is typecasting. "She was bonkers, wasn't she? Like a mad racehorse.") As to spirit, she comments: "I am a sanguine individual. Most people are having a difficult time at the moment but still get up in the morning… As a species, we thrive. And I am interested in that ability to thrive. Things have to be about hope. On stage you need to convey hope or you'll lose an audience. It is too soon to say how this will apply to Nina, but already the role is taking possession of her "as if drawing the calcium out of my bones". It is what director Howard Davies described as Duff's way of "throwing herself on parts as if bruising herself on them". She suggests she is "still that 19-year-old masochist that goes, 'F-ing great.'" And meanwhile, offstage, how much acting is involved just in being herself? "You know what? I can only be who I am." Strange Interlude is at the Lyttelton, London SE1 from 28 May. The final episode of Shameless is on C4 on 28 May Shameless Anne-Marie Duff Theatre James McAvoy Eugene O'Neill National Theatre Paul Abbott Kate Kellaway guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds 'Uncommonly expressive': Anne-Marie Duff at the Jerwood Space in Southwark, London. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer'Uncommonly expressive': Anne-Marie Duff at the Jerwood Space in Southwark, London. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer'Uncommonly expressive': Anne-Marie Duff at the Jerwood Space in Southwark, London. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer
- Eurovision 2013: Denmark take the Eurovision crown - in pictures
Winners and losers from the Malmö Arena Denmark's Emmelie de Forest wins the contestCezar of Romania gives an operatic performanceFinland's Krista Siegfrids and the controversial kiss that caused Turkey to withdraw from the competitionIreland's Ryan Dolan in leatherBonnie Tyler managed to get more votes than EngelbertMalta's Gianluca, one of presenter Graham Norton's favourite entriesMoldova's Aliona Moon performs in an extraordinary dressHost Sweden's entry, Robin StjernbergMargaret Berger of Norway was surprisingly popularHungary's ByeAlex offered up a homespun performanceAlyona Lanskaya of Belarus didn't quite have what was needed to winKoza Mostra, featuring Agathon Iakovidis of Greece, were popular in the Malmö ArenaZlata Ognevich of the Ukraine performs her song Gravity and finished in the top fiveFarid Mammadov of Azerbaijan didn't quite upset the bookies favourite of Denmark
- Eurovision 2013: live blog
Stuart Heritage: Coverage of the contest in Malmo Stuart Heritage
- Farewell, Shameless … Gallagher joie de vivre has no place in austerity UK
The fictional family were acclaimed when they hit our screens 10 years ago. As the final series ends, it's the right time to leave A derelict, dipsomaniac addict, addled by breakfast-time, at the mercy of his rampant libido, driven by the hunt for the next free drink or drug, flogging his baby's milk for a lager. This is the life of benefits baron Vernon Francis Gallagher, useless single parent to six of his eight children by two women, resident of 2 Windsor Gardens on the fictional Chatsworth Estate, Manchester. Frank and his supporting cast of offspring, mates and mistresses were introduced to the British viewing public in January 2004. Nobody had seen anything quite like Shameless before and, initially at least, Channel 4 audiences and critics alike couldn't get enough. Created by the award-winning and gifted Paul Abbott (who wrote Clocking Off and State of Play ), this was a portrait of an underclass with elan; a joyful celebration of free-spirited ne'er-do-wells whose every activity is a two-fingered salute to those who live plodding, respectable lives. Apart from Frank, beautifully played by David Threlfall, they were grafters all, looking out for each other and the long arm of the law, not to mention social workers, bailiffs and anyone resembling an employee of Jobcentre Plus. The first series began with a view of a council estate, an abandoned car in flames and Frank's voice telling us: "Now nobody is saying the Chatsworth Estate is the Garden of Eden, least I don't think they are, but it's been good to us …" It's been a blast, but 10 years and 11 series later, the final episode of Shameless is broadcast next week. During those 10 years, as Frank led a charmed life on the run from responsibility, the debate surrounding his real-life equivalents has hardened and soured – especially over the last three years, as austerity Britain turned on a supposed "benefits culture". When the Conservative leadership looks to dismiss Labour as the "welfare party", it means to damn the opposition by association with the Frank Gallaghers of this world. The benefit cap has been introduced to prevent abuse of taxpayers' generosity. George Osborne's budget references to the curtains of the workshy, which remain closed as honest people go to work, has driven home a supposed distinction between "strivers" and "shirkers", or the deserving and the undeserving poor. Frank once memorably mocked the audience – us – by chanting: "We are worth every penny for grinding your axes … We're off our 'eads but you pay the taxes." That no longer seems quite so funny or mischievous. Perhaps it's the right time for Shameless to bow out as altogether harsher winds blow across the social landscape. Some might say that reality has trumped the Chatsworth estate. What began in Shameless as the depiction of a unique non-working-class family – fallen angels or, depending upon your point of view, spirited experts in survival – has been outstripped by alleged real-life moral turpitude of a depressingly high order. When Frank abandons his children and moves in with agoraphobic Sheila so he can milk her benefits, then sleeps with her daughter,who also happens to be the girlfriend of Frank's son, it seems small beer compared to the antics of those who appear on the repugnant Jeremy Kyle Show or, more cruelly, the rare cases of chaotic lives that end in violence and death. Nine-year-old Shannon Matthews was kidnapped and drugged by her mother for money and fame. Tia Sharp was murdered by Stuart Hazell, her grandmother's boyfriend. And, notoriously, Mick Philpott, an aggressive long-term sponger and father of 15, was assiduously courted by the media until he became a child killer. The right points to the rise in cohabiting couples (3 million) and the growing numbers of lone parents (2 million) as indicators of breakdown. But changed family formation is not a vice. Dysfunctional families undoubtedly exist – as do those parked on benefits because work doesn't pay – but what's missing in this false analysis of a society-wide malaise promulgated by ministers such as Iain Duncan Smith is a sense of proportion; a healthy ministerial respect for statistics and policies that go to the root of the matter. Shameless is not a prophetic vision of a large swath of society in imminent danger of collapse, but it does have at its roots a very personal truth – the exceptionally difficult upbringing of its creator, Abbott. Born in Burnley in 1960, he was the seventh of eight children. Both parents abandoned the family by the time he was 11. They lived in an unheated house with no running water, guarded by the eldest, a 16-year-old girl. Abbott was raped at 13 and "went turtle", as he put it, and had a breakdown at 15. In an interview five years ago, he described how, at the same age, he won his first award for writing. A woman who ran a corner shop with "teeth like a graveyard" offered him the use of her electric typewriter and spare room. She smelled of boiled ham and nylon because after cutting the meat she would wipe her hands on her overall. He could smell her coming. "She used to fuck the brains out of me to use her electric typewriter … Oh God, it was gruesome," he recalled. "But it was worth it … I couldn't go back to manual." Abbott's intimate acquaintance with dystopian horror inspired Shameless . And as it found its way on to C4, the series had the perfect PR backdrop in the shape of New Labour's "social exclusion agenda". Even as the plots of cocaine dealing, gay prostitution, teenage pregnancy and lesbianism ducked and dived through one series after another, making stars of Maxine Peake, James McAvoy and Anne-Marie Duff among others, Tony Blair was launching New Labour's campaign to correct working-class behaviour. Antisocial behaviour orders in 2005 were followed by the Respect Action Plan, offering carrots and sticks relating to housing, parenting, truancy and juvenile offending. Then came Think Family, supposedly identifying 140,000 families – 2% of the 18 million total: hardly an epidemic – who were costing the public purse billions by behaving exactly like the Gallaghers. Now, even as the TV family bid their last farewell, the hunt for their clones is still going on. Louise Casey is overseeing the reform of 120,000 "troubled families" by 2015. Each apparently costs the public £75,000 a year. A significant part of that sum is run up not by welfare dependency so much as by professionals duplicating each other's tasks and nobody really knowing what works or what doesn't. The government itself admits it's not clear how the figure of 120,000 was arrived at – and some local authorities are finding it difficult to actually identify their own cohort of dysfunctional Gallaghers. But the notion that our communities are divided between leeches and worker bees has taken root. The result is that blame is increasingly directed at individuals who are, in many instances, handicapped by an economic system that can no longer deliver sufficient unskilled and semi-skilled jobs at a wage that works. Two-thirds of children in poverty, for instance, live in households where at least one person works. And those who claim that Shameless -style fecklessness has become a feature of our poorest estates should look at the work of academic David Gregg. He analysed some earlier intervention projects and discovered that many of the "feckless" were not exercising indulgent lifestyle choices but had chronic mental health, housing and disability problems that were not being addressed. The rhetoric continues regardless. "When I took this job, I discovered there were some people who got £100,000 a year in housing benefit," Osborne said last month. A freedom of information request reveals that there are indeed families on benefits living in mansions and receiving almost £2,000 a week – a total of between five and 14 in the whole of the country. The main issue is not moral depravity: a housing crisis is principally to blame for the soaring housing benefit bill. The welfare state needs remodelling, as Frank would be the first to advocate in his own way: "Make poverty history – cheaper drugs now!" But the current manipulation of statistics amounts to an unpleasant bullying of the poorest. So farewell, Frank. He will live on, immortalised in all his manic glory on the internet. "Bringing up kiddies," he reflected once, "you can't remember their names." But as Abbott says of his fictional family: "No one should have to live like that." And that's the truth. Social exclusion Shameless Public services policy Public finance Poverty Paul Abbott Austerity Economics Television Channel 4 Public sector cuts Yvonne Roberts guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Shameless: the Gallagher family, with patriarch Frank seated centre.Shameless: the Gallagher family, with patriarch Frank seated centre.
- Rewind TV: The Fall; The Murder Workers; Skint; Made in Chelsea – review
Yet another serial killer? Gillian Anderson can fix it… unless, of course, it's one of Britain's 700 real-life murders The Fall (BBC2) | iPlayer The Murder Workers (C4) Skint (C4) | 4oD Made in Chelsea (E4) | 4oD Another week, another serial killer. There's a pattern emerging here, a whole succession of serial killers occupying the centre stage of drama. I'm afraid to say that we're dealing with that television phenomenon known as serial serial killers, an endless continuum of fictional homicidal psychopaths designed, it seems, with the express purpose of generating work for locksmiths and security alarm firms. The latest example is The Fall 's Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan), an enigmatic grief counsellor by day who likes to unwind at night by spooking, then torturing and murdering Belfast's attractive brunettes. A handsome father of two small children, Spector does not fit the bill of alienated loser or crass misogynist from whose clammy ranks murderous stalkers usually tend to hail on TV and, for all I know, in real life. Instead it was his social capital – his brooding looks, quiet charm, professional standing and apparent familial devotion – that Spector drew on and which made The Fall so grippingly unnerving. The story unfolded slowly, confident in its movement and direction, building and releasing tension with the same composed menace with which Spector tormented his victims. The mark of an intelligently crafted script is one that shows rather than tells, and here an impressive economy of information drove the plot effortlessly into the dark interior of Spector's deviancy. There was a scene in which he doodled a naked drawing of a grieving woman he was counselling along with her intimidatingly well-built husband. Later the husband confronted him in the lift on another matter and the drawing slipped on to the floor. Spector simply looked the man in the eyes while furtively placing his shoe over the offending image. Without a word needing to be uttered, we learned that Spector was sexually compulsive, superficially convincing, morally detached and alarmingly cool-headed. But every smart psycho requires an even smarter nemesis, and Spector's came in the smartly attired form of Gillian Anderson, as Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson, seconded from the Metropolitan police to review the murder inquiry. Effectively reprising her ice queen role in the Belfast-set Shadow Dancer , Anderson was a delight. When warned of the political sensitivities that needed to be observed in Northern Ireland, she drawled like some louche aristocrat: "You mean 'my Jesus is better than your Jesus'?", an almost perfect summary of religious bigotry. She then put a tabloid journalist in his place but not before offering her hotel room number to a strapping copper she eyed in the street. Also present in a fine cast was John Lynch, sporting a grey beard that made the actor who once portrayed George Best look uncannily like that other Manchester United legend, Eric Cantona. But perhaps the most welcome presence was Belfast, a location that in the past has only got to play a televisual backdrop to paramilitary violence. If sectarian apologists for terror have down the years lent the Belfast accent a familiar quality of understated menace, the opener of this five-part series expertly sourced that association without overtly playing on it. There were a few hints to remind you of the city's divisions but overall the sense was that Belfast had reached that state of normality where killers are motivated not by ideology or religion but good-old fashioned sexual perversion. The Murder Workers was a grim reminder that murder is seldom premeditated, much less choreographed, or even dramatic. It's messy, often thoughtless and pathetically mundane. A punch here, a beating there, a sudden stabbing and moments later someone is dead. That's when the unseen drama of bereavement and survival begins. This Cutting Edge film showed extraordinary scenes of young children discussing the murder of their mother by their father. The eldest boy vainly tried to save his mother's life by putting her in the recovery position. "It doesn't seem like a big thing," he said, struggling to verbalise the experience, "but it is." The eponymous workers were members of Victim Support 's national homicide service – of whom there are 35. As there are around 700 murders in Britain a year, that works out at about 20 families a year to support for each member of the squad. That's a lot of grief and anger to be dealing with. One of the workers was asked what's the most difficult part of the job. She said it was when she was asked by a victim's family member if life was ever going to get any better. The problem is that everything reminds them of their loved one's murder. With a homicide rate more akin to 700 a week , TV drama must be a no-go area. Almost every cliché of the chain-smoking, chain-wearing, joyriding, shoplifting, tattooed, tracksuited, benefit-claiming, feral-child rearing, dangerous dog-pulling, sink-estate-inhabiting underclass lifestyle was revisited in Skint , a documentary that focused on the Westcliff council estate in Scunthorpe, which bore a striking resemblance to the fictitious Chatsworth estate in Channel 4's long-running anti-soap Shameless . "Crime," announced Jay, a toothless burglar, "pays better than a fucking job." Judging by the look of him, you'd have to assume that the jobs in Scunthorpe pay very poorly because crime didn't seem to be doing Jay too many sartorial or dental favours. It was hard to watch the heroin addict who fed her habit from the proceeds of £15 blowjobs, or the attention-deficient lad who repeatedly got into trouble because, he explained, there was "nothing to do", without seeing a savage indictment of Britain's political and social policies of the past three or four decades. It's true that, as in Shameless , there were characters with wit and spirit and ingenuity but the main picture was of chronic under-education and systemic demotivation. Linguistic articulacy was in shorter supply than shirts with buttons but Conner's assessment of his environment was unimprovable: "It's shit." Which brings us neatly to Made in Chelsea , newly crowned winner of the Bafta for best reality and constructed reality show. "Constructed reality" is one way of describing the show but it doesn't quite do justice to its creepy plasticity and contrived machinations. In terms of verisimilitude, it makes Hollyoaks look like the work of Ken Loach. There's really nothing but a series of encounters in which indistinguishable men and women with good teeth and fine hair flirt with each other in the slightly awkward fashion of casual acquaintances arranging a personal loan or a murder. But people – some people – apparently love it. Is it the artifice and what, for want of a better word, we must call irony that they appreciate, or the good teeth and fine hair? Who can say, other than some pointy-headed postmodernist academic who understands these important issues? All I know is that I would like to transport Spencer and the rest of them to a re-education camp on the Westcliff estate. With a serial killer. Now that's television. Television Drama Documentary Factual TV Reality TV Crime drama Andrew Anthony guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds 'Every smart psycho requires an even smarter nemesis': Gillian Anderson as DSI Stella Gibson in The Fall. Photograph: Steffan Hill/BBC/Artists Studio/Steffan Hill‘Every smart psycho requires an even smarter nemesis’: Gillian Anderson as DSI Stella Gibson in The Fall. Photograph: Steffan Hill/BBC
- Rewind radio: Sony awards; The Danny Baker Show; PM; Cerys on 6 – review
Danny Baker, Eddie Mair and Cerys Matthews were deserving winners at last week's Sony awards The Sony Radio Academy awards The Danny Baker Show (5 Live) | iPlayer PM (R4) | iPlayer Cerys on 6 (6 Music) | iPlayer To the Sony Radio Academy awards last Monday, radio's annual big bash. The Sonys have improved over the past few years: slicker and (slightly) quicker, with host Chris Evans ditching his cringey comments on women's appearances and, instead, this time, putting his son Noah on stage, for the "Aw" factor . Still, despite our host's best efforts, the evening was still an endurance test: five hours of awards, to a hall so packed that half the crowd couldn't see the stage, with winner after winner using the microphone wrongly so no one could hear what they were saying. Plus, you can never get a mobile signal at the Sonys, so no hilarious tweeting opps. Boo! There was musical entertainment, in an effort to sparkle things up. Ultra-pro Robbie Williams, audience-pleasing with his Butlins-style banter, and Jamie Cullum, who played wonderfully, to a drunk and distracted room. Also Blue, with a new song (why?), and four-fifths of the Saturdays, who displayed the on-stage charisma and God-given performance talent of a family pack of Kit-Kat. Winners? Sony Golds and big hoorays for Radio 1, which bagged best documentary, best music documentary, best news and current affairs programme, best use of multiplatform and some Golden Headphones (listeners' favourite presenters) for Dan and Phil. It was lovely to witness Steve Lamacq being honoured with a special award for his 20 years' radio service, to see John Humphrys and the Today programme grinning onstage with their gongs and to applaud 5Live's bagging of UK station of the year, best sports programme and best coverage of a live event after its excellent Olympic summer. Christian O'Connell had a top night, too, winning music radio personality and best use of branded content. But my three favourite Golds went to Danny Baker (entertainment programme), Eddie Mair (speech radio broadcaster) and Cerys Matthews (music radio broadcaster). Danny Baker 's Saturday-morning 5 Live show is just as you'd expect: if you don't know Danny's broadcast style, then what have you been listening to for the past 20 years? Baker begins every programme with no prepared topics other than what's rattling around his quick and strangely wired mind. Thus you get a show that wonders about cramped spaces, double-crossing your mates, not realising your own strength. He knows a lot about football (a requirement for 5Live), a lot about music (less so, but endearing) and a lot about what gets people going. "Does any woman wear a nightdress any more?" he wonders and the listeners call in. I once did an interview with Chris Tarrant when Tarrant was presenting the Capital breakfast show. He told me that if the phones weren't ringing there were three topics that guaranteed an instant response: religion, men versus women and nasty neighbours. At no point would Danny Baker ever resort to such tawdry tactics. Last Saturday he gave us: "Don't talk to me about… petals." "If we get one phone call about this it justifies it," he said, on air, "because I like to challenge an audience. There's no point in saying, 'Don't talk to me about… the government, Manchester United.' All we'll get is nuisances and professional people who call the radio all the time." That's why he's brilliant. Eddie Mair didn't pick up his award at the Sonys, because he's cool. Mair doesn't appear to be cool – he looks like a banker with morals – but he is. Anyone who combines his scrupulous politeness with scalpel-sharp yet sympathetic interviewing is cool: add an offbeat sense of humour and you get, as André 3000 had it, ice-cool. PM both breaks stories and rounds up a day's news without sounding irrelevant (harder than you think in the internet age), and Mair has a rare, cherished connection with PM 's listeners. Hands off, telly, that man is ours. And Cerys Matthews 's show, every Sunday morning on 6 Music, is a proper delight. Early on in her 6 Music career, on weekday afternoons, Matthews was almost impossible to listen to: her mic technique was terrible, she ummed and aahed and dithered and blathered. Just four years later she's a different broadcaster: relaxed, warm, enthusiastic, eccentric. She switches from in-studio to outside broadcasts without a blink; her interviews are excellent. Her chat with Tom Jones last year was funny and sensitive, bringing out a side of him I'd not heard before. "I wore fluorescent orange," said naughty Cerys, "to remind you of the flamingo catsuit you wore on your show. Skin-tight with orange-pink ruffles!" Plus her choice in music is mind-boggling: from yodelling Bulgarians to finger-picking US folkies, yet she makes it seem all of a piece. Great stuff. Radio industry Danny Baker Eddie Mair Cerys Matthews Radio 5 Live 6 Music Radio 4 Radio 1 Radio Miranda Sawyer guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Danny Baker with his best entertainment programme award, at the Sony Radio Academy Awards. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA‘Brilliant’: Danny Baker with his Sony Gold. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA‘A delight’: Cerys Matthews, music radio broadcaster of the year. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
- TV review: Leopards: 21st Century Cats
In night-time Rajasthan, leopards play cat and mouse with humans In India, the cats chase the dogs. And when they catch them, they eat them. These are Leopards: 21st Century Cats (BBC2). Rom Whitaker, who lives in Tamil Nadu and whose film this is, had his favourite dog, a dirty great German shepherd called Karadi, taken. All they found was bones and a bit of fur. And they don't just eat the dogs; the leopards eat people, too, more and more of them. In the northern state of Uttarakhand especially, where 70 people a year are killed. One maths teacher got so fed up with having his students eaten – 12 of them – that now he's shot 39 leopards. But it's not stopping the attacks; when one leopard is killed another one moves in to take its place. In other parts of India, it's different. Like in Rajasthan, where there are plenty of leopards living close to plenty of people, but no attacks. And, most spectacularly, in the suburbs of Mumbai, where man and big cat have learned to live side by side. I'm never going to get even the tiniest bit excited by a fox in my garden ever again. OK, so when it's very hot and these people sleep outside, they do put the kids in the middle just to be on the safe side; but you would, if there were leopards, even friendly ones, on the prowl. What do these urban big cats eat? Dogs, of course, of which there are plenty, so no one cares very much. Mmmm, slumdog for tea. It's shocking – the footage of attacks, by leopards on people, by people on leopards, and of angry captured animals consumed by murderous hatred. It's very beautiful, too – in the hills of Uttarakhand with the snowy peaks of the Himalayas behind. And especially in Rajasthan at night, shot with special cameras so the leopards glow like Ready brek leopards, while trains pass. Whitaker's conclusions? That the maneaters are manmade, and that tolerance and understanding are the key. BBC2 Sam Wollaston guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- How to get more older women on TV | Anna Ford
This week's finding that just 18% of presenters are women over 50 doesn't surprise me – but it does make me angry I enjoyed my life in news and current affairs, which started at Granada TV in 1974 and ended at the BBC in 2006. I was privileged to have visiting rights in many different worlds. I interviewed every prime minister from Harold Wilson to Tony Blair, was entertained at Chequers and Nos 10 and 11, and over the years had access to people and places most people never have the luck to experience. It meant being paid to read all the papers every morning. Language and clear communication were a passion, as were politics and examining how and where power is exercised. I liked the buzz of the newsroom and I'm a natural (and comfortable) outsider, intrigued by society in all its layers and the eternal difference between what people see as the truth, and what the real truth might be. Appearing on screen wasn't the bit I enjoyed most but I could do it and felt a calm presentation style was what fitted. Yes, there were bullies and sexual harassment that was, on the whole, not dealt with by the bosses. You fought your own corner, which is not a good management system. I worked hard, I hope did a good job, I made friends, and left voluntarily at 63 to do other things. I was told once by Sir Robin Day that I got my job because "men wanted to sleep with me". If he was right, were men chosen on the same basis? Did some ageing old-school dame and trusty of Lord Reith secretly lust after David Dimbleby's youthful body? Or was it that he was already part of a male dynasty with the right connections, Oxbridge education and voice of authority? Have the criteria changed? Forty years ago, attitudes were different, and I and other women were breaking the barriers down. Angela Rippon at the BBC, then me at ITN. The papers had a field day, one comparing our hair and eye colours, ages, bust sizes, heights and so on, and giving us marks out of 100. We met privately and laughed, we thought things were moving forward, although one question on an entrance exam for trainees at Merrill Lynch in 1972 read: "When you meet a woman, what interests you most about her?" The correct answer was "beauty". Low scores were given to those who answered "intelligence". I don't see a great change in parts of the City today. But other barriers have been overcome. Prime minister, supreme court member, leader of the TUC, senior police officers, home secretary, foreign secretary are all jobs filled by talented women in the past few decades. So why are we women, who are 51% of the population, still subject to appalling discrimination? Why are we so absent from the places where power lies and decisions are made? Why aren't there more women over 50 gracing our screens? Just 18% of presenters at major broadcasters belong to this demographic was the finding of this week's research. Why aren't there more women in the cabinet, or being appointed as high court judges or joining the boards of companies? How is it that we've had an Equal Pay Act for 40 years and women are still not paid equally for doing the same work as men? How can it be that women are still deemed unemployable because they have babies? Whose babies do they have? Why is it that in these times of austerity, the majority of people who will pay the price of the cuts are women, and poorer women in the regions? Why, when large numbers of women experience violence and rape, are conviction numbers so paltry ? Who in Britain speaks out for women and who takes notice? (Women's ministers have often been excluded from the cabinet and the job too often has been an "add-on", bundled in with something else.) Feminists do speak out but they get a bad name and are often dismissed with a barrage of derogatory words, for which there are no male equivalents. Is a man ever referred to as strident, high-pitched, shrill or a battleaxe? There's a firmly held conviction in our society that women "talk a lot", often about trivia and gossip. And yet research has shown that men, in many different situations, talk far more than women and expect women to listen. I'm reminded of a full-page headline that was written about me: "Angry Anna hates men." This is not true, now or ever, but was the result of my having criticised sexist adverts. I got used to being portrayed as a man-hating woman for ever "hitting out" at powerful men. So is this what happens when you step out of the box of femininity? Yes, and too often the degree of bullying involved confines and constrains women. To quote Jeanette Winterson: "Women have become adapters to an environment that doesn't suit us." So what are we missing? What would women of the age of John Humphrys (69) or David Dimbleby (74) or David Attenborough (87) bring to our screens? Women of age often (but not always) have wisdom, beauty, tolerance and humour, intelligence, experience, empathy, understanding, are highly qualified and show boundless energy. Even more importantly, they bring another point of view. So why aren't they being chosen when they want to be? Why has equality of opportunity proved so hard to achieve? Partly because those who do the choosing (not always men) do not see or value those qualities, and partly because society has an obsession with a narrow form of youthful beauty (which doesn't explain Humphrys et al, but they are deemed to have authority and gravitas often misconstrued as male attributes). Audiences have said they want to see more older women on screen as positive role models, yet despite years of broken promises the BBC has not acted. I hope Tony Hall, the new director general, and his peers in other organisations will see the problem and fix it. All this is not a deficiency in women but in the systems we inhabit, and the change to these systems needs to be for everyone. Men too suffer from harsh, demanding and family-unfriendly work environments, where corporate interests have gained supremacy. For the invisibilty of women over 50 isn't just a problem of representation on television. It's far more deep-seated than that. It's to do with levels of misogyny that lie so deep as to remain unrecognised and as yet not fully explained. It's the "male-as-norm" with men always in the foreground, thereby relegating women to the slightly out-of-focus background. As to remedies, first we need quotas for women's advancement in politics, law and business. A company director said to me recently that quotas would lead to mediocrity, but they wouldn't: the UK is bursting with hidden female talent. Second, we need an independent, high-level public investigation into the place of women in our society, to look into why we are so poorly represented, and so poorly served, with some legally binding recommendations. (I keep being told the next generation will be different, that women will rule the roost. To that I would say: we thought we'd done that in the 60s.) Third, we need more female writers for front-page articles to help change the portrayal of women in the newspapers. Fourth, we need to change the ways we make decisions so power is less centralised and shared more equally. And finally, we need early education about gender and how "equality of opportunity" must mean just that. Oh, and enforcement of existing discrimination laws please. I'm reminded of the bravery of the suffragettes who won us the vote. Women from all classes broke the law by walking down Bond Street breaking windows with hammers and then endured sickening levels of violence in prison. One hundred years ago Ethel Smyth, suffragette and political prisoner , said: "There is something hateful, sickening in this heaping up of art treasures, this sentimentalising over the beautiful, while the desecration and ruin of the bodies of women and little children by lust, disease and poverty are looked upon with indifference." Gender TV news Television industry BBC ITN The news on TV Television Women Anna Ford guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Anna Ford ... 'Women of age often have wisdom, beauty, humour – and another point of view. So why aren't they chosen?' Photograph: Hugo GlendinningAnna Ford ... ‘Women of age often have wisdom, beauty, humour – and another point of view. So why aren’t they chosen?’ Photograph: Hugo GlendinningA different era? … Robert Kee, Angela Rippon, David Frost, Anna Ford and Michael Parkinson at the launch of TV-am in 1983. Photograph: Daily Mail/Rex/Alamy
- Q&A: Miss Piggy
'What is my favourite smell? Wet amphibian' Miss Piggy began life in the mid-1970s as a minor character in The Muppet Show, the TV series created by Jim Henson. She went on to become one of the show's central characters. In The Muppet Movie in 1979, she met Kermit the Frog, the love of her life. She has guest-starred on Dolly Parton's variety show, appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and sung with Olly Murs on The X Factor. She is featured in The Muppets by Tommy Hilfiger , a collection of children's clothing launched in partnership with Disney. When were you happiest? Whenever I am with Kermie. What is your greatest fear? That I will forget to thank someone when I win an Academy Award. What is your earliest memory? Performing at Master Wong's Charm School & Karate Dojo. Which living person do you most admire, and why? Besides moiself, Oprah – she has her own network. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Humility. Sometimes I'm just too self-effacing. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Narcissism. What is your most treasured possession? My looks. What would your super power be? The power to make frogs marry. What makes you unhappy? Not having that super power. Who would play you in the film of your life? Moi . Or Meryl Streep, if I was busy starring in the story of her life. What is your most unappealing habit? I take a lot of time to get ready. I don't mind, but others seem to get really ticked off, especially on movie sets. What is your favourite smell? Wet amphibian. What is your favourite word? " Moi! " What is the worst thing anyone's said to you? "We're all out of desserts." Cat or dog? Dog. My adorable Foo-Foo is a constant companion. Is it better to give or to receive? From personal experience, moi has learned that it is better to receive. But, for the sake of appearances, I'd have to say it's better to give. What do you owe your parents? The bus fare. If it wasn't for them, I might still be living on a farm. To whom would you most like to say sorry and why? My fans. That I can't meet each and every one of you and let you have your picture taken with me for a small fee. What does love feel like? Exactly like lust, but with a lot more dinners and jewellery. Have you ever said 'I love you' and not meant it? I'm a diva. Of course I have! Which words or phrases do you most overuse? "Moi", "Vous", "Kissy-kissy" and "Hiii- yaaa! " In that order. What is the worst job you've done? Besides having to answer this endless series of questions? I guess it was when I was starting out and had to do that unfortunate series of bacon ads. If you could go back in time, where would you go? To Paris in the 1920s, so Picasso could paint my picture, Hemingway could write about me and I could give fashion tips to Gertrude Stein. What is the closest you've come to death? I once paid retail for a dress. Horrible experience. It will never happen again. • Follow Rosanna Greenstreet on Twitter . The Muppets Children's TV Rosanna Greenstreet guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Miss Piggy: 'My most treasured possession? My looks.' Photograph: Getty ImagesMiss Piggy: 'My most treasured possession? My looks.' Photograph: Getty Images
- What I see in the mirror: Rebecca Front
'I'm half a stone too heavy and I colour my hair, but I know I can look quite nice when I want to' I'm pretty relaxed about my body image – it's not arrogance, I'm just not terribly fussed about it. Of course, I'm half a stone too heavy and I colour my hair, but I know I can look quite nice when I want to. In the acting profession, looks are important, particularly for women, but I think a combination of being in comedy and living in the UK means things are more laid-back than they might be. As a feminist, I don't like the notion that women have to look a certain way: I think confidence is the most attractive thing. Sadly, going grey – which I am, a little, at 48 – is quite a radical change for an actor because it can limit your roles. So even though I have quite a young face, it's easier to colour my hair. I go to a salon where they use nice organic dyes. I watch what I eat but I don't diet. If I did, I'd be resentful about all the things I was depriving myself of. When it comes to clothes, I think I subconsciously dress for the occasion. When I go on Have I Got News For You , say, I wear sharp suits to boost my confidence because it's quite a male environment. But I can also be "actressy", as my daughter calls it – a bit more showbiz. My fitness regime is hit and miss. If I'm filming, I won't get a chance to go to the gym, but if I'm writing from home, I will go three times a week. I take my iPad, sit on the exercise bike and read the Guardian – anything to distract me from the pain. Rebecca Front is appearing on • Rebecca Front is appearing on Jo Brand's Great Wall Of Comedy , starting on Gold next month. Beauty Comedy Television Comedy Radio comedy Radio Rebecca Front guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Rebecca Front: 'In the acting profession looks are important, particularly for women, but I think a combination of being in comedy and living in the UK means things are more laid-back than they might be.' Photograph: RexRebecca Front: 'In the acting profession looks are important, but being in comedy and living in the UK means things are more laid-back.' Photograph: Rex
- Next week's radio: from The Truth And Nothing But The Truth to Private Passions
David Hepworth on lie detection, not catching Casualty, Jarvis's tall stories, and Harman's bassoon With today's headlines full of confessions of crimes and misdemeanours which took place 40 years ago and new technologies promising to extend lie detection into the world of brain scanning, it seems a good time to look at whether technology can ever reliably reveal The Truth And Nothing But The Truth ( Tuesday, 11am, R4 ). Dr Geoff Bunn looks into the history of wiring up the suspect in both reality and fiction and finds that the two are often intertwined. American boffins William Marston and Leonarde Keeler pioneered lie detection in real life and at the same time inspired its use in the comic strips Wonder Woman and Dick Tracy, thus encouraging the public belief that it was possible to distinguish between the truth and a lie. Lie detection operates on the premise that you can identify the way people behave when lying and then look for repeats of the pattern. A couple of eminent neuroscientists counsel caution. Any TV sports fan can tell you that all the technology in the world merely tells you how much you don't know. Thankfully lie detector evidence is not admissible in US or UK courts. However confessions that result from use of the technology can be. As Bunn's investigation reveals, half the power of the lie detector lies in the intimidating effect it has on the suspect, which ought to make us uneasy. The latest in Paul Jackson's Britain In A Box series ( Saturday, 10.30am, R4 ) is about Casualty, a TV programme I have yet to see. But since it was introduced to take the place of Juliet Bravo 27 years ago and seems to hold up BBC1's Saturday night, and thereby the entire BBC, I should have plenty of opportunities to see it in the future. This programme talks to the people who commissioned it, the young writers whose first break it was (and who initially wanted the whole thing to take place at night), and the team who work on it seven days a week. Britain In A Box doesn't quite live up to its promise of explaining why the hit shows fitted in with the times and resorts too readily to that laconic tone which you might pick up in the BBC club, the sound of fearfully bright people discussing programmes they probably wouldn't watch themselves if they weren't working on them. It has provided work for "a veritable who's who of actors" and "if it ain't broke they won't be trying to fix it any time soon". Some people in Radio 4 would like to make looser, more abstract radio. Wireless Nights ( Thursday, 11pm, R4 ) is a step in that direction. The idea is to find three enthralling personal experiences and plait them together using ethereal music, sound effects, and the voice of Jarvis Cocker on a ferry crossing the Channel, thereby creating the ideal accompaniment between wakefulness and sleep. The problem is that only one story – the one told by Jeni, who fell off a North Sea ferry – has the power to enthral. The one about the young wrestler having his first bout can't really be passed off as a voyage, and the fact that Jarvis doesn't actually seem to meet any of the story tellers robs the idea of the crackle of authenticity. Private Passions ( Sunday, 12noon, R3 ) gives Harriet Harman the chance to play Bartók, Mozart and West Side Story and talk about how, since her daughter became a bassoonist, she primarily follows that single instrument while listening to music. There's another good thing about Private Passions: it plays plenty of music. Radio David Hepworth guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Jarvis Cocker. Photograph: Karen RobinsonJarvis Cocker. Photograph: Karen Robinson
- Catch-up TV guide: from Scott & Bailey to 10 O'Clock Live
Scott & Bailey | BBC4 Collections – Archaeology At The BBC | Community | Electric Dreams: The Giorgio Moroder Story | 10 O'Clock Live TV: Scott & Bailey Picking up from the charging of detective Bailey's brother for the murder of her ex-boyfriend, the riveting third series of the police drama has been full of agreeably twisted murder plots, from the gruesome murder of elderly Eunice Bevan beside her bed-ridden husband to the uncovering of four skeletons under their home, as well as bust-ups galore as Janet Scott and Rachel Bailey negotiate the breakdown of their marriages and friendship. In anticipation of the two-part finale this week catch up on the most recent episodes of the drama on ITV Player. ITV Player TV: BBC4 Collections – Archaeology At The BBC From the dawn of time (televisually speaking) come these BBC treasures, released to coincide with BBC4's recent archaeology season. Ranging from panel game Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? in the 1950s to prehistoric travelogue Chronicle in the 70s, the selection is remarkable not only for the period technique, but also the Blimpish presence of Sir Mortimer Wheeler, a moustachioed titan of early popular factual TV. bbc.co.uk/bbcfour TV: Community You might have missed season three of the hugely inventive sitcom, tucked away as it is in the awkward slot of Fridays, 10pm on Sony Entertainment, so it's fortunate that new episodes are being added to iTunes the morning after transmission. This year's antics at Greendale Community College include blanket forts, Glee parodies, and the dizzying, "multiple timelines" episode Remedial Chaos Theory. iTunes Radio: Electric Dreams: The Giorgio Moroder Story You'll have to be quick to catch the first part of this Radio 2 doc on the producer – it expires Monday on the iPlayer – but you'll be rewarded for your efforts. Just look at the names involved: Nile Rodgers on narration duties, with contributions from Debbie Harry, Bernard Sumner and the Mael brothers from Sparks. Plus, of course, an interview with the great man himself. BBC iPlayer TV: 10 O'Clock Live Quickfire bedtime chopsing about current affairs is all very well, but sometimes 10 O'Clock Live is like being in a pub at closing time with a bunch of blokes who all think they're the funniest. So it's refreshing to see Lauren Laverne fulfilling her potential at last in this third series, all of which is available to view on 4oD. She's funny in a way that means she doesn't need to shout about it, which is the sort of behaviour that would lead a woman to be burned at the stake on Mock The Week. 4oD Television Gwilym Mumford Hannah Verdier guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Scott & BaileyScott & Bailey
- Forgotten Broadchurch already? – quiz
It's the hit thriller series of the year so far, but how much do you actually remember about it? Take our nerve-jangling test Michael Hogan Broadchurch. Photograph: Patrick Redmond
- The new Cadbury Crispello advert
'Accompanied by a band of grinning wood-sprites, she begins to sing a dubious number about the apparent insatiable desire that teenage girls have for paunchy middle-aged men' Reading this on mobile? Click here to view We've all been there: a family stroll through woodland with a new beau as our parents flit and fuss on the periphery, any last vestiges of cool evaporating in the heat of their embarrassing remarks. Cadbury Crispello, snack choice for the not really hungry, know what's up. "Darling, your collar!" exclaims Home Counties Female Cipher No 1 to Surly Teenage Boy Archetype v2.4. How awkward, what with the inherent complexity of teenage courtship rituals and/or his fringe and everything! Luckily his girlfriend, Smugly Overconfident Pixie Girl Compound No 6, has a chocolate bar in her bag that has been laced with extremely potent anti-zeitgeist drugs and, accompanied by a band of grinning wood-sprites, begins to sing a dubious number about the apparent insatiable desire that teenage girls have for paunchy middle-aged men. "You're trying to be impressive … but you're not," she twee-de-lees, showing the same concern for her partner's feelings as she would for a symptomless STD, "your mum is nice, your dad is … hot," before turning her wickedly provocative tongue on to an appreciation of his father's parallel parking and carvery skills. The rest of the cast stand still with shock, presumably waiting for her to announce an appearance on the Jo Whiley show. "The corduroys, the Argyle sweater, I want to see what's un-der-neath," she finishes, admiring his carefully neutered frame while shining coy enamel off his forehead and back into her sinister, wanton eyes. I'll save you the trouble. Figuratively and literally, it's a penis. Advertising Television Television industry Andrew Falkous guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Cadbury Crispello
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