News about Harry Secombe

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.

The ITV star and former MP, 76, claimed he 'killed' the Goons funnyman after speaking to the 79-year-old moments before he fell down the stairs of his Guildford home in 2001. Brandreth said the beloved comic was unable to come onto his LBC radio show as he 'wasn't feeling well' and so Gyles interviewed him over the phone instead. After, their conversation, Harry 'stepped back to call down to his wife, and he slipped backwards down the stairs' and died of cancer in hospital days later.

Nicholas James, who has a law degree but used to work in marketing, changed careers when he discovered there was a plumber shortage. I knew I'd never be out of work.' I never was one of those people who were not.' Though he makes a living off installing boilers and bathroom suites, the majority of his clients are obnoxious – politicians, heroin users, rock stars, and obstetricians, who, if they fail, will renegotiate the agreed price and yell him off as soon as a job is done.