Summer Sunday News Round-Up

Welcome to Summer Sunday, the weekly round up of telly and soap news from the UK and beyond. This week, Peter Andre, Daybreak, Strictly Come Dancing, Katie Price, Alan Sugar, Blue Peter, Gethin Jones, Lady Penelope, Tomasz Schafernaker, The Hotel Inspector, Sacha Parkinson, The Only Way Is Essex, Joe Pasquale and Downtown Abbey, plus more…

 

 

Strictly No Ball Games

It looks like Nancy Dell’Ollio will have the chance to take the spotlight once more, after being approached to appear in the next Strictly Come Dancing series. The 49 year old former partner of ex-England Manager Sven Goran Eriksson is said to be keen to accept a role on the BBC One series the Daily Mail reported last week.

A BBC Insider said “She is under consideration but we are talking to a number of people about their availability”.

One friend said “Nancy’s a huge fan of the show – and enjoys being in the limelight. She has long been on the Strictly bosses’ radar, and now she feels the time is right to take the plunge”.

Other personalities it is claimed are being lined up for Strictly include former Cabinet ministers Lord Mandelson, and Edwina Currie. Mandelson has revealed he watches contestants with a “degree of envy”, but once turned down being one.

 

Daybreak or GMTV or is it a Dessert?

Watching Daybreak last week it appears to have turned into a television trifle. Garish colours of purple, yellow, light blue, brown and red. Someone’s gone a little wild with the set in a failed bid to brighten up ITV’s biggest bore at breakfast. And in the process had spoiled one of its best features – the window view of London, which is now half hidden by a sofa that’s far too big, and a television screen.

Seems this is ITV’s answer to the shows problems – mess about with the set. Typical ITV bosses rolling out some cosmetic surgery to a show which it’s real problems lie with who presents it and the content of the programme, even GMTV wasn’t this dumbed down surely… Its gone from one extreme to the other.

Speaking of the presenters, in last week’s Platell People columnist they noted: I’m not a WAG, Christine Bleakley constantly insists, yet pictures of her this week tell another story. If you don’t want to look like a celebrity-seeking footballer’s trophy, why the hair extensions and the Katie Price mahogany tan?

I think, if we’re honest she’s just trying to hide away by blending into the wood panelled wall of the Daybreak set.

 

Turn the Heat Down for Downton Men

The stars of Downtown Abbey – currently filming series two – are praying there won’t be a long hot summer heatwave the Daily Mail TV Mag repors. An insider on the ITV1 drama explains “The men spend all day in starchy suits or army uniforms, while the ladies have to wear corsets and dresses from their ankles to their necks. During hot days they’ve been terribly uncomfortable”. I don’t think any of the female viewers – or some of the male ones for that matter – would mind if they included a few more scenes with the blokes in the buff…

 

In Brief

  • Peter Andre, pictured right, says he won’t introduce any of his dates to his children until he knows he has met Mrs Wright. Since his split from Katie Price in 2009 he has been linked to various ladies but not has met children Junior and Princess. “It won’t happen till I find the woman I’m going to marry” the 38 yr old tells NOW magazine. “I don’t want to confuse my kids”. He also said he never bad-mouths their mother in front of them. He later revaled in the Metro papaer that his children won’t listen to his music at all. “I am a bit miffed about it” he says.

 

  • Gethin Jones cried while filming ITV1’s new grame show `Holding out for a Hero’ which starts this autumn and sees contestants trying to win money for good causes. The ex Blue Peter presenter says “It’s really moving”. Reported the Daily Mail.

 

  • Corrie’s Sacha Parkinson told Inside Soap that she still isn’t sure how Sian Powers is going to be written out. “You never know what could happen – Sophie could bump Sian off” chuckles the 19-year-old actress.

 

  • “Most of the men who sue in Hollywood are about 5ft 2ns. They wake up every day, know they’re tiny and feel very angry about it, so they go out and sue people” said story-faker, and face of all thats wrong with ITV, Piers Morgan in The Weekly News.

 

  • A 20 inch high Lady Penelope puppet used in 1960’s ATV series Thunderbirds has sold for £33,600 at auction in London. Reported The Sun last week. Speaking of wooden looking women…
  • Katie Price is less than happy with Premier Models of television’s The Model Agency who are, like her, running a search for star models, as “they have stolen my idea”. But Premier, who have teamed up with East Coast trains for theirs, say they are “going high end”. We know a place where Katie will find like-minded girls, its called Newcastle’s Bigg Market.
  • EastEnders is reportedly trying to carve out a deal to entice Patsy Palmer, pictured right, back as Biance Butcher. The actress has yet to agree to return, as she’s enjoying being a mum to son Bertie, who was born December state Inside Soap.

 

  • BBC bosses have decided the grave of George the tortoise will be left behind in London when the Blue Peter garden is rebuilt at the new BBC studios in Salford. A spokesman said, in the Daily Mail TV Mag, “We think George should be left to rest in peace”. George, who died in 2004 aged 83, is the only Blue Peter pet buried in the garden. I think if we’re all honest, looking at the state of the one-time popular children’s show, it too should be put out of its misery and buried for the last time too.
  • Liz Hurley has been cast in the US hit series Gossip Girl reported Metro paper. The 46 yr old former Austin Powers actress is to play a “sexy, smart, self-made media mogul” called Diana Payne in the US teen drama. “Diana’s entrance on the Upper East Side will change the lives of all our characters – including, and especially Gossip Girl herself” executive producers Stephanie Savage and Joshua Safran revealed. “Elizabeth’s sense of humour, intellegence and beauty fit the Gossip Girl world perfectly. We feel very fortunate to have her” reports Metro paper.
  • What will happen to Rebekah Brooks the News International star, mate of PM David Cameron and currently wrapped in the gossip of the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World? Well if past history is anything to go by, she’ll end up becoming a face of ITV with her own chat show, isn’t that right Piers?
  • “There’s only room for one big mouth in my organisation and that’s me” said Lord Alan Sugar the figurehead of Amstrad and star of BBC One’s The Apprentice series.
  • Fiona Bruce is amazed by speculation over the glasses she wore while reading the BBC News. Fiona, who shunned contact lenses due to an eye infection said “Some of the theories show great imagination – the idea that I wanted to come across as a dominatrix topped the lot”. Reported the Daily Mail.

 

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Former Rovers Return landlady Liz MacDonald may have said farewell to Weatherfield when the actress behind Liz, Beverley Callard, quit Coronation Street earlier this year. Now Beverley’s daughter, Rebecca, is joining the cast. Rebecca, who has already appeared in TV dramas `The Grand‘ and `Sunburn‘ is joining Corrie to play a sinister new character, Ruth. Ruth will appear in dsix episodes and is a prison inmate and will cause trouble for Fiz Stape.

Rebecca says “I’ve been going to the Corrie set for over 20 years (with Mum Beverley), so to turn up as an actress was a bit different. It was daunting, but also lovely, as I know some of the people there. It feels like the right role at the right time” Inside Soap reported.

 

The Price Is Right for Loo Tours

Former Price is Right host, the worst in the entire history of the long running game show, Joe Pasquale has resorted to doing a travel series…about toilets.

The comedian, who found fame on ITV’s New Faces talent show admits “I don’t want to be remembered as a comedian with a funny voice. I’m doing a travel show called One Man And His Loo. I’ve just bought an electric loo that does 20 miles an hour like a wheelchair and runs on batteries,” reported today’s embattled News of the World.

Joe of course got the Price is Right gig after winning the title of ‘King of the Jungle’ in the 2004 series of reality show I’m A Celebrity… and ITV assumed he was so popular with viewers he could step into the shoes of Bruce Forsyth and the late Leslie Crowther, no he’ll just be remembered as that annoying bloke with the high pitched voice we think…

 

A Reality Check for Lancashire

Actress Sarah Lancashire has lashed out at todays TV reality shows, saying their stars don’t deserve to be called actors. It has been 12 years since Sarah, now in the West End, played Rovers Return barmaid Racquel Watts in Coronation Street.

The 46-year-old actress told the final News of the World: “I was watching the BAFTAs a few weeks ago and it was announced that the cast of The Only Way is Essex were there. I thought to myself `Cast?’ My heart sank and I screamed at the television”

 

Hotel Inspector Is Checking Out

The Hotel Inspector Alex Polizzi has been poached by the BBC from Channel 5. Posh Alex who is the grand-daughter of Lord Forte he of the Trusthouse Forte Hotels will front a Gordon Ramsey style series in which she helps to turn around ailing family businesses.

The six part series called Alex Polizzi : Business In The Blood will see her tackle a different failing family firm every week. More than 75% of UK businesses are run by families. Just one in ten survive three generations.  An insider said “We’ve lined up some really emotional situations for Alex to deal with”. The Sun reports. Of course unlike Ramsay, Alex has a real talent and doesn’t need to find a gimmick ‘aka swearing a lot’ to increase her fame.

 

Quote of the Week

”I was 22 when I presented my first forecast a decade ago, making me the youngest man on BBC Weather. It was nerve racking stuff. Not long ago I left the Met office to try my hand at other presenting, having become better known for bloopers than my forecasts. The “finger incident” is probably the most famous : I was caught gesturing at a colleague unaware that I was live on air. It was very embarrassing.” Tomasz Schafernaker told the Radio Times.

So for the rest of the summer Saturday @ Six will be with you every Sunday @ Six to make amusement out of celebrities while hopefully the sun shines down.