Showbiz 10: 5 June 2021

Vivian Summers picks her top ten showbiz stories from the past week from around the web.

Indecent Report

Performer, theatre exec, and writer Chris Goode had been arrested for possessing indecent images, The Stage reported this week. The news came following confirmation Goode had killed himself on June 1. Police had been called to an address in East London on May 5 to reports of the indecent images. Googe was arrested and released under bail conditions and under investigation, while enquiries were ongoing.

The Stage report ‘It has not been confirmed to The Stage whether there were plans to charge Goode at the time of his death.’ adding ‘His company, Chris Goode and Company, closed last month’ with the reason given at the time being one of personal matters.  In 2019, Chris Goode and Company cancelled a planned Edinburgh Fringe show and put the rest of its public-facing work on hold, citing safeguarding issues for the move.

Snow Joke

Coronation Street bosses threatened to sack Sherrie Hewson and Liz Dawn after they failed to turn up for work. However, the two performers, best known as Maureen Holdsworth and Vera Duckworth in the Granada show weren’t to blame,  the pair had flown out for a winter getaway but were left stranded by a major snow storm.

This, however, wasn’t a good enough excuse for ITV Bigwigs as Sherrie recalled in the Soap From The Box podcast.

“I went to New York with Liz Dawn. It started to snow and this guy came over and said, ‘I don’t know if you need to leave New York but you’ll be stuck here for a good few weeks’.  The hotel manager said the snow would get bigger and bigger so we got our bags and got to the airport.

“Fortunately for us it was BA who had taken us so they put us up in their business class bit, in a coffee shop, and we were there for seven days! … Coronation Street were going mad because we were now a week late for filming. The pilot said, ‘Listen, we’re going to bring Concorde out.

“It’s frozen, the run way is frozen but we’ll wheel it out, we’ll get people onboard and then we’ll burn the frost off and we’ll take off. It sounds dangerous but we’ve done it many times’… “We got back to Coronation Street and the producer went insane, ‘Do you know how many days we’ve missed filming? You should both be sacked’. We both went away thinking we were going to be sacked, we really were in trouble, but it wasn’t our fault. But we weren’t sacked! Isn’t that incredible?”

Horrifying Situation

To be fair, that could be the headline for any item on ‘The GC’ Gemma Collins, but this week the famous for the sake of being famous personality revealed on her BBC funded podcast that she had been ‘poisoned. Dramatic stuff. No, of course not.

The GC had enjoyed a lunch and then as she told her followers, “Three hours later I collapsed on my kitchen floor and was being so violently sick and all the rest that goes with it – I won’t go into detail,” So having thrown up and seemingly shit herself the Essex queen added, “I was poisoned – I had food poisoning. It was absolutely awful and my whole body just got so run down recently that I had to listen to my body. I had to rest. It was awful, I had to cancel all my work and I was really looking forward to getting back to work this week – but I cancelled all of my work and just allowed my body to heal.”

That’s it Gemma, have a good rest, I hear a decade out of the spotlight does wonders when you have the shits.

Street Singer

Original, and best, Todd Grimshaw performer Bruno Langley is launching a career as a pop star following his fall from grace. In 2017, Bruno lost his job on Coronation Street after he was convicted of sexually assaulting two women in a Manchester bar.

Entertainment Daily report ‘The former actor has built up a new Instagram account for his pop career, called Bruno Langley Music. He’s already managed to get almost 40,000 followers.’ Gareth Pierce took over the role of Todd Grimshaw last year.

Price Update

It’s our weekly wander into the world of Katie Price to see what calamity has befallen our social media queen this week. The Sun reported that she ‘made a huge blunder as she accidentally shared her son Harvey Price’s address on Instagram.’ The tabloid added ‘The mother-of-five made the mistake when she posted a picture of Harvey standing outside his home to her 2.6million followers.’ Just a minor faux pas then.

The paper went onto note how ‘Katie has been very open with her millions of followers on her journey to try and conceive her sixth child with Love Island boyfriend Carl Woods, 32. The pair told both of their followers last year that they had been trying for their first baby together in lockdown.’

Soap Secrets to be Shared

Former EastEnders and Hollyoaks regular Danniella Westbrook says she has plenty to share with fans when she joins some of her fellow soap actors in a live stage version of podcast Soap From The Box.

The Mirror report ‘Danniella, who plays Sam Mitchell in EastEnders and Trudy Ryan in Hollyoaks’ will be unleashing her memories to the gathered soap fans, as well as being ready to ‘Speak her own mind’.

The live shows are being held at City Varieties Music Hall in Leeds on June 27 and 28 and are hosted by the podcast’s creator Lee Salisbury and ex Hollyoaks, Neighbours and Emmerdale star Sheree Murphy.

Better the Devil You Know

Sinead O’Connor, she’s always good for a laugh, isn’t she? Well this time her witty repertoire involved telling The Irish Times how late singer and writer Prince was, she believes, heavily involved in the occult.

The pair first met when she recorded a version of his song Nothing Compares To You. Their meeting left her feeling the Kiss performer was a devil worshipper and ‘a c**t’. She went on to note, “That is as true as God. I believe he was involved in Devil business because an old girlfriend of his told me he had the power to make s**t move around the room.”

Rolling On

Rolling Stones rocker Ronnie Wood is recovering well after fighting cancer for a second time, his ex-wife Jo confirmed The Sun reports.  The tabloid had earlier reported how Ronnie, 73, ‘secretly battled small cell cancer in the first lockdown, three years after getting the all-clear from lung cancer.’

“I’m very proud of him. I think they caught it early as he has a history of cancer in his family. It was very worrying, especially for the kids. But he’s much better. He’s going to be fine.” – Jo Wood speaking in The Sun

Past-a its Best

The Daily Mail reported how Nigella Lawson bit back after being urged to create less carb-based recipes while enjoying a pasta dish in a restaurant.

‘The culinary icon, 61, posted an image of her meal at London‘s swanky Locanda Locatelli eatery and when she was schooled in carbohydrate consumption by one of her 2.5million followers, she was swift to give a superbly sassy comeback.’ said the posh paper.

In response to criticism, she simply said ‘This was my dinner! It’s not an instruction’.

Alarm Bell

Former Nickelodeon regular Drake Bell has been accused of endangering children in Cleveland TMZ has stated, following the celebrity gossip site seeing ‘court records.’ The Drake & Josh performer is also facing charges of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles the site reports. The 34-year-old actor entered a not guilty plea to the charges when he attended the Cuyahoga County Court on Thursday. Released on a $2,500 bond he was ordered to have no contact with his alleged victim.

Metro Showbiz added, ‘The alleged incident reportedly took place on December 1, 2017 but the star was not indicted until May 2021.’

These are the views of Vivian Summers and are not endorsed by ATV.

Bruno Langley as Todd Grimshaw (centre) in Corrie