Showbiz 10: Artcry launch, SU2C prizes and Len’s Strictly put off

Your mid-week Showbiz 10 includes Daisy Edgar-Jones gets personal for SU2C, Katie Price gets another tabloid moment thanks to an ex and its certainly no ten from Len over Strictly’s same-sex dance partners.

Stand Up and Look Fabulous!

Stand Up To Cancer, the fundraising campaign from Cancer Research UK, is tapping into its network of famous friends this autumn with prize draws set to offer three lucky winners the experience of a lifetime.

Wannabe winners can enter any of the Stand Up To Cancer Prize Draws at standuptocancer.charityprizedraws.co.uk. One entry costs just £5 and the money raised will help fund life-saving cancer research.

The prizes include a VIP styling session with Daisy Edgar-Jones and her stylist Nicky Yates at the HURR pop up in Selfridges, including a £500 voucher to rent their favourite pieces and a night in a five-star London hotel.

A look behind the scenes at The Late Late Show with James Corden, tickets to the show, a chance to meet James and access to the green room. Flights and three nights in a Hollywood hotel included.

Brunch with Bafta award-winning Star Wars and The End of the F**king World actress Naomi Ackie. For more info about Stand Up To Cancer and to get involved visit su2c.org.uk

Used for Fame

The darling of the tabloids, the lady of the tramps, the beauty to the beast. Katie Price is back in the news yet again, although this time it appears not with a story she’ll be overly thrilled with.

Ex-Boyfriend, I know we’re losing track of how many exes’s there are too – I mean it’s quite likely there’s been less fella’s through ASDA Slough’s self-service than through our Katie’s front entrance …door, front door – anyway one recent former lover The Sun notes has gone all out tampin’ fumin’ ragin’ in a social media post after the paper claims Ms Price suggested he’d only hooked up with her to become famous.

What kind of fame? That’s another ponder for another day maybe, but Kris Boyson suggested that ‘he could destroy her career’ with unpublished inside information about the former model and ITV2 star. What is left to expose? We’ve had dead pets, a filthy mansion, kids being used to flog children’s clothes, broken feet, having to be held over a sink to pee and a song with Peter André.

Boyson, a personal trainer, posted his ‘explosive’ comments on Instagram yesterday.

No Ten from Len

Former Strictly Come Dancing head judge Len Goodman has said the forthcoming series – that features a same-sex celebrity and pro-dancer for the first time – will be a turn-off due to the inclusion of the couple.

“A lot of older people are traditionalists – they used to go ballroom dancing and most people’s nans and grandads met probably in a dance hall… The older viewers have their certain traditional ways about it all so might not be sure.” – Len Goodman speaking to The Mail on Sunday

Goodman was head judge on the show from its launch in 2004 through to 2016. He also appeared on the stateside version, Dancing with the Stars. He’s not the first to question the introduction of the same-sex dancing partnership. Graham Norton has previously spoken about it. In a view similar to why there is male football and female football and teams will never be of mixed sexes.

“As you have people who can be openly gay on that show, I don’t ­particularly need to see a man dancing with a man,” – Graham Norton speaking to Best Magazine

He said that due to the physical differences between the male and female bodies judges wouldn’t be able to ‘compare like for like’.

“If you’ve got two partners who can do lifts and men’s bodies are different shapes, how would that work? I don’t think it’s a homophobic thing. You want to be able to compare like with like.”

Norton later apologised for his ‘common sense’ pondering of the situation. Note to Graham – you can’t have common sense in these apparently woke times, even if you’re pointing out the obvious.

The GC for Vegas Gig?

Reality face Gemma Collins has teased the tabloids with news she may just be doing a one-woman show in Las Vegas as she plans to follow in real diva’s footsteps such as Mariah Carey and Britney Spears. The self-titled ‘diva’ – more ‘divvie’ who has a penchant for falling down holes giving the nation its only entertainment from her – is planning an evening of song and hopefully dance and we hope even more magic.

Yes Gemma has been hiding her singing talent under her OTT make-up and Oompa-Loompa tan for years it seems, but now she’s ready to show us she’s more than just a reality zelebrity. And about time.

She’s too sexy for his wall

Danny Dyer has spoken about his gameshow ‘co-star’ Angela Rippon as their series The Wall returned last weekend. Rippon is the ‘voice of the questions’ on the show with Danny dealing with the onscreen wall action.

“If she were in the studio with me, I’d be flirting with her,” he previously noted, and this week went further adding in an interview with Woman magazine “She gets sexier every day, more and more attractive… She brings the class, a bit of sophistication.”

Stormy Daniels accuses Melania Trump of ‘selling her pussy’

And she’s not talking about a cat. Donald was famously caught on audiotape saying of women, “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” And in another leak of audio, earlier this week The First Lady of America labelled Stormy Daniels – real name Stephanie Clifford – a “porn hooker” after newspapers reported of an alleged affair Trump had undertaken with the actress.

Stormy took to social media, following the revelations in the press this week, and directed a number of comments towards Melania. Posting on Twitter she observed her opinion, “Hahaha! Although I wasn’t paid for sex and therefore technically not a ‘hooker’ I’ll take being that over what you are any day.”

“You sold your pussy AND your soul…and I’m legal, Keep talking about me. I like your new tits btw…”

And now for some culture…

Hear the Artcry

A committee of prominent cultural leaders, artists and activists have teamed up this week to launch a new artists funding platform. Artcry was launched on the 5^th October 2020 and across October there will be events, artworks and talks in support of the campaign.

Although plans were in place to establish the initiative prior to the realities of Covid-19, the panel, realizing support for the arts is was needed now more than ever have chosen to launch their fundraising initiative now, despite the challenges of raising donations in the midst of a pandemic and a recession. The initiative aims to raise and distribute £50,000 in its first year of operations, and all artists from any discipline at any stage in their career are welcome to apply. Work must be free for audiences and presented in the public realm and be time-critical.

The fund will encourage and support artists to create work responding to social and political events with fast- turnaround funding which enables fast action. Artcry will fund small grants (up to £5k) with decisions on applications made within a week of applying so that artists know within seven days whether they have received funding so they can start work.

More details: www.artcry.co.uk

Keep a mirror handy

Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris appeared on Good Morning Britain on Monday to discuss this week’s episode of Top Gear, due to air on Sunday. The pair spoke about the Wall of Death, where drivers steer vehicles around a wooden cylinder travelling along a vertical wall held in place only by friction and gravity.

Talking live from his home in Cheshire, Paddy told Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid: “We don’t tell our families when we’re doing these things because once you tell them they start getting worried and they put a seed of doubt in your head… We all turned up to do the Wall of Death… it was genuinely terrifying, that was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in the show, full stop. Even Freddie [Flintoff] said he’d sooner do the bungee any day.”

Chris added: “I trust the team, but there’s always a risk. Like anything in life, a good part of success is risk management… Fred takes it a long way and you always want to match him.”

Talking about how laidback their co-presenter Freddie Flintoff is, Paddy said:

“When you use the word ‘thrill-seeker’, you’d imagine someone who’s quite lively and bouncy but Fred, we’ve got to put a mirror under his nose sometimes to check he’s still breathing. He’s got the heart rate of a whale, about three beats a minute, but he’s one of these adrenaline junkies so it’s a tricky one, but it works.”

Good Morning Britain, weekdays from 6am on ITV.

Time for a break

Kim Kardashian West has said Keeping up with the Kardashians is coming to a close as the family need a rest. I think we all need a rest, it’s after all been a cultural phenomenon that zipped the culture out of television and gave us a host of banal ‘scripted reality’ toss.

The show launched in 2007 and made a star of Kim’s arse, that also was apparently not particularly 100% real either. Speaking to Grazia Kim said ‘This was a dream of all of ours. We never imagined we would get on to season two. …We [now] just live such big lives. And we have kids.. and they need us. There’s so much going on that, even just for a minute we need a break.’

The Kardashian clan released a statement last month saying the show was coming to an end. And, yes, we might slate it but its just one of those things you either love or hate or love to hate. In a few months time, we may be missing the stories from the show so much we’ll be begging Kim to put her backside back on TV. …but unlikely.

RIP

Farewell to musician Eddie Van Halen, best known for the 1980s hit Jump, who died at the age of 65 after a long battle with throat cancer on October 6th. It was also goodbye yesterday to Johnny Nash, best known for his 1970s song I Can See Clearly Now.

An opinion feature by Vivian Summers. ATV Today, ATV News and ATV Network do not endorse any views expressed by the author in this piece.