News about Harold Pinter

Veteran broadcaster Joan Bakewell has said she regrets becoming known as 'the thinking man's crumpet', as her image created a stereotype about a 'frivolous girl with short skirts'. The TV presenter was given the moniker in the 1960s, which stuck for many years, after she appeared in ground-breaking BBC2 discussion programme Late Night Line-Up. One of relatively few prominent female TV presenters in the sixties, she appeared on air in fashionable clothing, like chic dresses and miniskirts, becoming a sex symbol during the decade.

PATRICK MARMION: Why didn't the Germans build the bomb first? Could they have tried harder? These are some of the intriguing questions posed by Katherine Moar in her engaging, drawing-room drama set in the dying days of World War II . First seen last year, at the nearby boutique Jermyn Street Theatre, the play is based on transcripts of six leading German nuclear scientists who were gathered and held by British Major T.H. Rittner at Farm Hall in Cambridgeshire.

Danny Dyer has admitted he blanked out on stage after a drug fuelled bender while he was performing Harold Pinter on Broadway.  The actor, now 46, was in his early twenties when the British playwright took him under his wing and had him performing his plays on Broadway.  And speaking about his early acting days, Danny confessed he 'took a lot of drugs out there' and ended up forgetting his lines on stage.

Today, princes William and Harry (left, together at Windsor after the Queen's death in September 2022) seem as far apart as brothers can be - living on different continents, barely communicating, and separated by a great divide in the Royal Family. This rift was on full display when Harry returned to the UK for the Invictus Games ten-year anniversary this month - but never came close to meeting with his brother. Yet, in one corner of north-west London , the immediate predecessors to the dukedoms they were given by their grandmother, the late Queen, lie peacefully almost side by side. In an uncanny quirk of fate, the last dukes of Cambridge and Sussex before William and Harry are buried close to each other in Kensal Green Cemetery. There, among thousands of graves across 72 acres, the Duke of Cambridge (bottom right) has an Egyptian-style mausoleum for him and his wife, while, only yards away, the Duke of Sussex (top right) is buried in a grand tomb.

A trip down memory lane for the 69-year-old King, who was hidden in Le Caprice behind a side street in St James' behind The Ritz London hotel. As the pair established a restaurant empire whose brightest stars were The Ivy and The Wolseley on Piccadilly, he managed and then owned it for 17 years beginning with Chris Corbin, his business partner. Now he's back at Le Caprice for the second time after taking over the lease from former owner Richard Caring in August.

ALEXANDRA SHULMAN: People who are either visitors or hosts are divided in life. Guests love someone else arranging everything and then participating in activities planned for them, while others are dissatisfied with being on someone else's timetable or in their space. I am, by nature, a visitor. I love going to other people's parties and not knowing who will be there. Or staying in their homes and having their schedule managed by them. Despite being the best of them in several regions, I am relieved to leave the catering to someone else.

Succession and supporters have been asking if they've ever seen him before, with far right-leaning news network resident voting analyst Darwin. Well, British actor Adam Godly, 58, who plays him, isn't exactly a newbie to the scene. In the eighth episode of season four's America Decides, he made his Succession debut. But in the 2003 film Love Actually, eagle-eyed viewers discovered that he really is actually Mr Trench, a teaching assistant.

Dame Joan Bakewell has admitted she was'serene' over the possibility of death in the midst of her colon cancer battle. The illustrious broadcaster, who turned 90 on Sunday, is undergoing chemotherapy and was hospitalized in hospitalized before Christmas after her cancer was discovered during a routine check. "When you're old enough, a lot of your friends have died already, and dying is on the agenda,' a Labour peer said.'

CRAIG BROWN: Sir Noel Coward, the king of incredibly witty plays and songs, died this month. He was born in 1899, the same year as Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations' first appearance. He died on March 26, 1973, when Donny Osmond's The Twelfth Of Never was on the top charts, with Slade's Cum On Feeling The Noize at No. 2. Coward was the last of the old school and aware of it. He had begun to notice that his kind of witty, well-made drama, with characters largely from the upper classes, was being replaced by John Osborne and Harold Pinter's gruff and brooding working-class dramas by the 1950s.

In two days, actor Julian Sands (circled) will join his four brothers in their regular weekly pub meeting in Yorkshire. However, there is no doubt that he will be absent now, even as the family's mood shifts between hope and fear. It's been two weeks since Julian, 65, who appeared in the 1985 film A Room With A View, received international fame, vanished when scaling in the treacherous, snow-bound San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles. With his second wife and their two children, the British actor lives close by. The family lauded their heroism this week, as California police revived their hunt for a deadly storm, despite the fact that deadly storms had hampered their earlier efforts.

EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: I can reveal that Ellen, 38, has been lovingly alerting friends of their involvement by posting the details on the internet. Chan asked me to marry her on New Year's Day, and she turned what was an amazing 2022 into an even more stunning 2023,' Ellen says. She is the niece of David Lascelles, the 8th and current Earl of Harewood, and the elder sister of David's youngest brother, Jeremy Lascelles. Events manager Ellen explains, "two plans in one day, as well as a cat ring to seal the deal before we get a real engagement ring made." She has portrayed herself as a 'left-handed free spirit and full-time dreamer' and, in other words, a'sun-chasing vegan snack queen.'

Baroness Bakewell, 89, is undergoing chemotherapy and was operated on before Christmas after her cancer was discovered during a routine exam. "I've recovered from this (surgery), she said. I'm doing well, and the chemotherapy is a mopping-up job to make sure it doesn't come back.' The English journalist and television presenter who has appeared on television before talked about how powerless she felt when her sister died from breast cancer at the age of 58, but she seems optimistic about her prognosis.

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Harry's shaming of William and Kate for reportedly endorsing his wearing of a Nazi uniform didn't just upset the Prince and Princess of Wales. Surely it also exposes Harry's incapacity for independent thought and his lack of a sense of history? At a fancy dress party hosted by William, he wore the offensive costume at a fancy dress party that had set the 'colonials and natives' theme. Prince Philip had disciplined both brothers over the affair.

RICHARD EDEN: The celebrated pianist Sir Stephen Hough and three gifted singers performed the world premiere of Lady Antonia's Songs on Sunday, based on verses she wrote to cheer herself up during lockdown. Sadly, Dame Antonia, 90, widow of playwright Harold Pinter, was unable to attend the eagerly awaited performance due to her stay in hospital, where she spent Christmas after being hospitalized in an accident.

ROGER LEWIS: A large portion of Perry's life has been spent in clinics and rehabilitation centers. "I've spent over $7 million trying to get sober," he says, much more than I've spent getting alcoholic. He's been going to therapy twice a week for the past 30 years and has attended 6,000 AA meetings. Little of it was helpful. Perry didn't listen to his doctors and called detoxification "hell." He wanted vodka to'soothe my nerves and help me have fun.' Although he was sober for 18 months at the time of writing, his prescriptions have resulted in insomnia, respiratory difficulties, pancreatitis, and a perforated bowel.

Victoria Fritz, a BBC presenter, announced her divorce, but not to her maiden name but to her mother's name. The 38-year-old mother-of-two said she returned to Trench, the name she was given to after her marriage 'felt emotionally regressive and, quite frankly, anti-feminist.' Taking her mother's maiden name, Valentine, was a "tribute to the Irish strength and community that has enslaved me as I slowly rebuilt. .. . "My heart was broken" before. Five ex-wives tell us what their names mean to them and whether or not they kept them.

"I wish longtime BBC employees (who have long stood up to the company's principles) would avoid doing it wrong after leaving,' EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE writes Emily Maitlis.

RICHARD EDEN: She's the willowy beauty who grew up in the flamboyant billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi's super-yacht world. She was the father, according to her. However, Petra Khashoggi, 18, discovered she was the niece of Jonathan Aitken, the ex-Cabinet minister who fell from grace but found redemption as a prison chaplain, despite being a prisoner. Now I can reveal that she has married a man with whom her father has not met.