TV Weekly: ‘let my beautiful daughter rest in peace’

ATV Today’s weekly round-up of telly news, newswrapped into one bitesize bundle update.

Enough Flack

In a statement, the mother of late television personality Caroline Flack, Chris Flack has hit out at comments by Ed Beltrami, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) north London division, who said they, the CPS, were right to bring charges against Caroline following an altercation with her boyfriend at their home.

The stress of the public humiliation, the suspension from ITV2 and the pending court case is believed to have lead to Flack taking her own life aged just 40 in February.

“It is deeply regrettable that Mr Beltrami could not have let my beautiful daughter rest in peace. It is as regrettable that he should choose to repeat some of the untruths about my daughter. My daughter was unable to defend herself during her life and is unable to do so now. Shame on you.” – Chris Flack

Ruthie rules the roost

Former Sky News and GMTV host Eamonn Holmes has said his wife Ruth Langsford, is the “boss” in their relationship. The presenters married in 2010 and currently host their own series for Channel 5 as well as the Friday edition of This Morning for ITV.

Talking to Pete Snodden on his podcast recently the Belfast-born broadcaster, who started his television career with UTV, noted ‘She is nobody’s fool. She is nobody’s pushover. She is the boss in this relationship.’

“She’s a domestic goddess, she loves being a mother, she loves walking the dogs – she packs so much into her day. I’ve so much admiration for her, but we are different people.”

Praying Maitlis brings complaints

Bosses at the BBC have received almost 24,000 complaints about Emily Maitlis’ “biased” rant regarding Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings The Sun newspaper reported.

The Newsnight host took to the airwaves to ‘slam’ Cummings the tabloid notes however police found that his incredibly long eye-test was not breaking lockdown rules.

Newswrap Quickies

This week we learned that Chris Bisson has had a hair transplant, the Emmerdale actor hopes it will keep him employed for longer. There are of course plenty of ‘slap heads’ on telly, even in Emmerdale. You don’t need hair to succeed in acting roles these days, just acting ability…

A rights issue saw The Inbetweeners removed from its official YouTube channel. Channel 4 noted in a statement that the programme had not been removed due to any content, and it was to do with the world rights changing to a new distributor. Ch4 hope the YT channel will be restored soon.

Coronation Street has also seen major re-writes due to the Covid-19 situation. The wedding of Sally and Tim has had to undergo several changes while the ITV saga’s big 60th-anniversary plot, that would have seen a ‘Hollywood blockbuster’ style affair entirely changed to adapt to the Coronavirus working restrictions including social distancing.

RTÉ will air a Comic Relief telethon later this month. The top stars from Irish comedy and entertainment will come together to raise a laugh, as well as much-needed funds on Friday, June 26. Comic Relief on RTÉ One will be presented by Deirdre O’Kane, Nicky Byrne, Jennifer Zamparelli and Eoghan McDermott.

Channel 4 appointed Khalid Hayat as Director of Strategy and Consumer Insight. The new role has been devised to ‘lead both the Corporate Strategy and Consumer Insight functions’. Sounds fun.

Telly handyman, pop star (yes, remember that one song?) and former Big Brother winner Craig Phillips has announced that he is expecting a second baby with wife Laura Sherriff.

Emmerdale exec John Whiston hinted that a shocking murder could be set to horrify the residents of the village formerly known as Beckindale. Talking on Sky News about what is to come in the ITV Yorkshire saga he noted the pending demise of a character when noting the death would be their first ‘socially distanced murder’.

Little Britain and Come Fly With Me DVDs go for ‘mad prices’ on auction sites following both shows being dropped from streaming services due to their ‘inappropriate’ content. Some DVDs are being listed for over £100 following the shows being deemed ‘unacceptable’ following the BLM movement. Ant and Dec also apologised for ‘blacking up’ in prosthetics as part of their Saturday Night Takeaway show in the early 2000s.

In similar news, UKTV is to restore an episode of Fawlty Towers they removed from their online content offering due to it containing “racial slurs”. The episode will return to UKTV Play with a pre-titles warning about the content.

However, not everyone has been rushing to erase their back catalogue for anything that someone may find offensive with comedian Harry Enfield taking a different view.

“If Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister I would find it difficult that I would not be allowed to play him because of the colour of his skin.”

“I’ve done it several times in the past. I’ve played Nelson Mandela in one thing for laughs. I did it because this thing had come round from the BBC that we couldn’t do it any more.”

“I wouldn’t do it now, but I don’t think I regret it.”

Goodman going was good timing

Len Goodman told the RadioTimes that he left Strictly Come Dancing ‘at the right time’ and he’s been impressed with his ‘replacement’ of Head Judge, Shirley Ballas. Len was with the show from its launch in 2004 through to the Christmas special of 2017.

“I do think it was the right time for me to leave because I’d done the show for 12 years and I couldn’t think of what else to say about the Viennese Waltz!”

“I suppose I could have carried on until people wanted rid of me, but I was still quite popular, so that was good. I think Shirley has done a wonderful job, she stayed true to herself and didn’t try to be like me. The show is still great and I think it’s good that there are two men and two women on the panel.”

Hollyoaks latest

Hollyoaks confirmed this week that Rachel Adedeji is to leave the early evening Channel 4 saga. Rachel, who plays Lisa Loveday, will depart the popular North West based soap later this year.

Lime Pictures, the company behind the programme, said her departure was something the actress decided upon herself last year and has nothing to do with the recent reports in the press of racist activity on the set of the show.

In a statement Lime Pictures said:

Hollyoaks has been deeply shocked and saddened by issues that have been brought to our attention over the weekend.  Lime Pictures strives to have zero tolerance of racism or any form of discrimination across all of its shows but it is clear we have further work to do. We must stamp out implicit bias which means calling out racism wherever and whenever we see it. We will continue to add to our action plan as we continue and broaden our dialogue with cast and staff. We have already launched a series of next steps, set out below:

We are reaching out to all of our cast and staff that have raised matters to make sure that we address individual issues and concerns;

We have asked all cast, staff and freelancers to share with us any further issues of concern or instances of unacceptable behaviour that they have not previously raised;

We are working with unconscious bias trainers to augment Lime’s all staff training to help address concerns raised by cast and staff;

All BAME staff, freelancers and cast will be offered mentoring from Lime’s senior management;

We will build on our work towards making Lime as diverse and inclusive as possible across all aspects of recruitment and talent retention, on and off screen;

Lime’s BAME writers and directors schemes will be reviewed and augmented to drive greater inclusivity within the industry;

We are undertaking an immediate and in depth review of company and cast liaison across Lime;

We will be producing a Hollyoaks podcast where our black cast will share their experiences on racism to their audience.

We are very conscious that we need to do more and are committed to making changes that we need to make. The onus is upon our company collectively and us all as individuals within our community to tackle racism, and it is a responsibility which all of us here at Hollyoaks are taking on fully.