‘She’s Just Glorious’: David Tennant On Rivals Reunion With Doctor Who Star

David Tennant has revealed that his ‘favourite days on set’ Disney+’s new TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s famous 1988 novel involved a familiar face.

David appears alongside Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, Danny Dyer, Katherine Parkinson and Victoria Smurfit in the ‘raunchy’ new drama, which is set in the English countryside in the mid-1980s.

But the Doctor Who star’s on-screen wife, Lady Monica Baddingham, is played by none other than former co-star Claire Rushbrook, who starred alongside Tennant in season 2 episodes The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit as Ida Scott.

“And to have that husband and wife relationship. When she embodied Monica, there was no doubt of exactly who that woman was,” he added.

“She’s just glorious, and she’s also one of the loveliest, funniest people with the dirtiest sense of humour. I think possibly my favourite days on set were the Mr and Mrs Baddingham days.”

So far, the show has won unanimous praise from critics, with the Mail pointing out the show stays true to “Jilly’s obsession with bonking, boozing, groping and relentless political incorrectness”, while The Telegraph’s review hailed it as an “un-PC romp” that “stays true to Jilly Cooper’s spirit”.

Rivals arrives on Disney+ on 18 October.

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GBBO’s Cornucopia Showstoppers Have A Kaos-Worthy History

After last week’s falls, frights, and quittings, you’d think the Great British Bake-Off had had its fill of Kaos.

But it turns out this week’s showstoppers, mouth-watering cornucopia, have a history that’d fit right into the Greek mythology-based Netflix hit.

Also known as a “horn of plenty,” cornucopias symbolise abundance.

They date back to Ancient Greece and originally consisted of a goat’s horn filled with fruits and grain ― and were supposedly once used to conceal a very important guest.

What’s the myth behind cornucopias?

According to Dictionary.com, a Roman retelling of the Greek legends from Ovid says that Hercules wrestled the horn from a river god called Achelous. Nymphs then turned it into a horn of plenty, always brimming with food.

One of those nymphs, Amalthaea, fed her foster child Zeus (Jeff Goldblum to fans of the Netflix show) food from the cornucopia in some Greek myths while he was hiding from his father, Brittanica’s online encyclopedia shared.

A Greek legend goes on to say that Zeus went on to place the horn of plenty along with the rest of the goat among the stars, the encyclopedia adds.

The motif stuck around, becoming part of Ancient Roman myths and even appearing in a 1630 Rubens painting of the goddess Abuntia who was associated with the horn.

Its image is so enduring that we recognise it today, featuring it in movies like The Hunger Games and, apparently, attempting to recreate it in flour on the telly.

And we put it in our Fruit Of The Loom T-shirts! Right?

Some people think they remember seeing the produce-filled horn on the cartoon fruit-bearing label of Fruit Of The Loom T-shirts when they were younger.

I’m one of them, but according to the company, we’re wrong ― the company shared on X that “The Mandela Effect is real, the cornucopia in our logo is not.”

Sounds like something a regretful Zeus would make the brand say after an overzealous Earhtly marketing campaign, but okay…

You can watch The Great British Bake-Off every Tuesday at 8 pm on Channel 4.

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So THAT’S How The Celebs For Strictly Come Dancing Are Chosen

We all love a bit of Strictly, don’t we?

In the final months of the year, we cosy up in front of the TV with a cuppa and for a couple of hours, we’re suddenly dance experts, choreographers, the Best of the Biz when it comes to dancing.

However, our real expertise comes into play before the show is even back on air. The second that the Strictly contestants are announced, the real judges are us: “Who is that guy?” “Wait, wasn’t he in an advert or something?” “How is she a celebrity?”.

We know better than not just the dancers but the casting directors, too. We reckon we either don’t know people or they’re long-since washed up celebs.

However, Richard Osman pointed out on his podcast with Marina Hyde, The Rest Is Entertainment, that actually, Strictly is often the making of celebs and our assumptions about them is often wrong.

He said: “A large proportion of the biggest stars on British TV come from reality shows. Strictly has been the absolute making of them. I mean the wonderful late Caroline Flack absolutely went from minor TV presenter to presenting the X Factor and Love Island because she won Strictly.

″[As an agent] if you have a client who is on the cusp of becoming huge, and they have a personality that people like watching on television, then doing something like Strictly… it’s almost impossible to think of a better show.”

Talent executive at Strictly revealed details behind choosing contestants

Speaking on the Strictly Confidential podcast in 2018, the show’s talent executive Stefania Aleksander revealed that the process is actually quite complicated, saying: “You come up with ideas for the cast of Strictly, present them to the executives and commissioners, and together decide who we want to go for.

“The list is endless. We approach people that we really want to go after and we’d love to see on the show and then we meet them to have a chat about the show, and the commitment, and find out how much they want to learn to dance. Then we present that to the channel between us – it’s a long process.”

…Maybe we need to be a little less judgemental.

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Joker Director Says *That* Shock Ending Was A Response To 1 Major Criticism Of First Film

This article contains major spoilers for Joker: Folie À Deux.

Joker director Todd Phillips has opened up about Folie À Deux’s shock ending.

The new sequel stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, taking viewers on a two-hour journey that’s part jukebox musical, part gritty prison movie, part courtroom drama and part dystopian political satire.

After all of that, the film ends on a shocking note with Joaquin’s Arthur Fleck being killed by a fellow patient, credited simply as Young Inmate in Arkham, who tells him a nonsensical joke before stabbing him repeatedly in the stomach.

This unidentified patient, played by Connor Storrie, then goes on to mutilate his own face while laughing off screen, suggesting that he is actually the Joker character known in the Batman comics, instead of Arthur, as had previously been assumed.

Grim, right?

During an interview with IGN, Todd confirmed this theory to be the case, revealing the scene was partly inspired by one major criticism of the first Joker film in which Joaquin encounters Bruce Wayne as a young boy.

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“One of the things that people never understood about the first movie was, ‘I don’t get it. He visits Bruce Wayne and he’s 30 years older than Bruce Wayne. What kind of geriatric Joker is going to fight in the future?’,” the filmmaker said.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the script of the first movie. The first film is called Joker. It’s not called The Joker, it’s called Joker.”

Todd continued: “The first film under the script always said ‘An origin story’. It never said the origin story. It was this idea that maybe this isn’t the Joker. Maybe this is the inspiration for the Joker.

“So, in essence at the end of this movie, the thing you’re being left with is ‘Wait, what is that thing happening behind him? Is that the guy?’.”

Lady Gaga, Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix in London
Lady Gaga, Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix in London

via Associated Press

Meanwhile, Todd also confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that a scene towards the end of the film in which Harvey Dent’s face is disfigured in the courtroom bombing is intended as a new origin story for the Batman villain Two Face.

“All we’re doing is saying, let’s use this lore as a foundation, but run it through a realistic lens, or at least a different lens than it’s been run through in other things, to make it our own,” he said, claiming that Industry actor Harry Lawtey is “playing the character before that character” in Folie À Deux.

Joker: Folie À Deux is in cinemas now.

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