Screen Queen TV reviews: Long Way Home, Strife, The Piano, Live From The E! Met Gala and Play School
You might know Ewan McGregor as the A-list star of movies like Star Wars and Trainspotting. Not me! The piece of work I most associate with the Scottish actor is this project: the motorbike action/adventure series he's been involved with for the past 20 years.
What? You've not heard of it? You've been missing out: it's fab.
Essentially it sees McGregor and his long-time best mate Charley Boorman crisscrossing the world astride various kinds of motorbikes, their exploits filmed as a travelogue series.
I've been a huge fan right from the start, having interviewed the pair ahead of the release of their very first show, Long Way Round, in 2004. That series documented their epic adventure from London through Europe and Asia, up to Alaska and then down through the United States.
I absolutely adored it, so much so that I bought the book and accompanying CD (which is still on high rotation), and I've obsessively watched their two subsequent docos, Long Way Down (filmed in 2007, it saw them ride from the northern tip of Scotland all the way to Cape Town, through 18 countries in Europe and Africa) and Long Way Up, which took them on electric motorbikes from Argentina up through Central America to LA.
This time, they're off riding refurbished vintage bikes from Ewan's home in Scotland across the North Sea to Scandinavia, up to the Arctic Circle and down through the Baltics and Europe, to Charley's home in the UK.
All the crew we've come to know and love over 20 years are along for the ride again, including producers David Alexanian and Russ Malkin, as well as trusted cameraman Claudio von Planta, who's been filming them since the very beginning (weird to think he's been with them that whole time, just off-camera!)
A lot has changed in two decades, but this show is steadfast in its loveliness, and Ewan and Charley really are the most delightful travel companions. I can't wait to spend more time with them on their latest adventure.
As a survivor of the women's publishing sector, I find this series, loosely based on the career trajectory of media mogul Mia Freedman, incredibly triggering (you can take the girl out of women's magazines, and all that). But despite the fact I get an eye twitch every time the employees at Eve Life discuss diets in an editorial meeting, I am thoroughly enjoying the revisit in the second season of this locally produced show. Asher Keddie is terrific as Evelyn Jones, the imperfect powerhouse driving her media empire forwards, and the ensemble cast, which this season includes Tim Minchin, Mary Coustas and Dylan Alcott, are great as well. Well worth a look.
If you shed a tear at Old People's Home For 4 Year Olds or got over-invested in Love On The Spectrum, chances are you'll adore this new series, all about everyday people playing the piano. Amanda Keller is a delight as host — this is must-see feel-good TV. Tissues to hand!
Love yourself a good old-fashion heckle? Of course you do: you're only human. And what better way to do it than via E!'s annual Met Gala take-down? Bring it.
This great little series takes a look at the jobs kids can do when they grow up, and boasts a great selection of stars, including Tim Minchin (again!), Adam Goodes and Nate Byrne to talk the littlies through it all. Adorable.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
8 hours ago
- Perth Now
‘This is scarier!': Pedro Pascal gets candid about joining MCU with The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Pedro Pascal found it scary joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. After starring in other major franchises like Game of Thrones, Wonder Woman, The Last of Us and Star Wars through The Mandalorian, the 50-year-old actor is set to become a leading figure in the MCU as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, though Pascal has admitted doing so is quite the daunting task. Speaking with Collider, he said: "Each time you step into one, and you feel like this can't be scarier, you find out, 'Oh, this is scarier.' "Going into Game of Thrones, going into DC, going into Star Wars, and then the entire gaming world that introduced itself like an atom bomb to me. And in the best way, because I learned very, very quickly the incredible medium of storytelling that's happening within gaming." Even so, the Gladiator II actor added "anchoring" himself to his Fantastic Four co-stars Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach was the "perfect antidote to the fear and to the pressure" of joining such a major cinematic franchise like the MCU. He said: "The kind of crown, top of the mountain feels like stepping into something like this. That's why the lucky thing is to anchor yourself so completely to a partnership, to your colleagues, to the original kind of authorship of this particular telling of the Fantastic Four — under, you know, basically the best in the business. "It holds you and really, really can be the perfect antidote to the fear and to the pressure and stuff like that. You just wrap yourself around that." In The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the titular team gain extraordinary powers after a cosmic accident during their exploration of outer space. As they grapple with their new identities, the Fantastic Four must unite to stop a rising threat that could destroy Earth. Pascal previously admitted playing Mr. Fantastic was "really intimidating" because he "really wants to make people happy" with The Fantastic Four: First Steps - which will be released in July. He explained to Entertainment Weekly: "It was really intimidating. I relied on the people that I was around to hold me to the experience and help get me through it. "Stepping into something like Game of Thrones and then going into the early days of Netflix with Narcos and then Star Wars and the world of video games with The Last of Us, each time I've felt like I couldn't top how intimidating the last one was. "They're all scary because you really want to make people happy, especially if it's something that's widely known with particular expectations around it because you want those expectations to be met. "You also want to be authentic to yourself so that it can be the best that it can be for anybody who wants to be entertained by a story and travel with us into this world."
Perth Now
a day ago
- Perth Now
James Blunt hoped godmother role would help Carrie Fisher
James Blunt asked Carrie Fisher to be his son's godmother in the hope the honour would encourage her to "look after [herself]" better. The You're Beautiful' singer lived with the late 'Star Wars' star in the early 2000s while recording his debut album 'Back to Bedlam' and they remained close over the years, so when he and wife Sofia Wellesley welcomed the first of their two boys into the world, he asked Carrie to take on a special role in the youngster's life. And James revealed there was an underlying motivation in asking his friend - who died in December 2016 aged 60 after going into cardiac arrest, with drugs found in her system during post-mortem tests - to be godmother. He told People magazine: 'I told her everything. I told her when I met my wife, we chose engagement rings together. She's godmother to my child. I was with her the day before she died, and it was very, very sad. 'What was saddest, I suppose, is how I asked her to be godmother to my child, saying, 'I'm asking you to do this in the hope that you'll look after yourself a little bit better.' And she didn't, really.' James first met Carrie when he was dating one of her family friends and during a group lunch in London, he told the 'Sibling Rivalry' actress he was a musician and planning to head to Los Angeles, but when he admitted he didn't know where he was going to live, she instantly invited him to stay with her. He reflected: 'It was remarkable. The first three months, I didn't speak to her. I literally didn't. Her mom, Deborah Reynolds, was on the property. I'd see them around, but I would leave in the morning. I'd go off to the studio. I'd come back late, late, late at night, and I just didn't speak to her.' But after three months, the 51-year-old singer went into the kitchen late at night and found Carrie's staff talking about the actress, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 24. He recalled: 'They were saying, 'She's having an episode,' and that she was going mad. She needed to change her medication and maybe they needed to get help. 'What was interesting about all of this, while they were talking about her, she was in the room.' From there, James and Carrie began chatting and quickly became firm friends. He said: 'I just could see she was just skipping between subjects rather quickly, [but] her brain was still working. "Suddenly, we just had this kind of moment where I went and sat on the end of her bed, and she spoke to me until five in the morning. "And the next day, I came in after the studio. I sat on the end of the bed, and we spoke until five in the morning, and we kind of did that for the rest of the time that she was alive. She became my best friend, really, at that stage."
News.com.au
3 days ago
- News.com.au
Star Wars: Andor creator reveals Disney spent over $1 billion dollars making the show
The creator of Disney+ series Andor has revealed the staggering amount that Disney spent on the critically acclaimed show. The series, which has run for two seasons and comprises 24 episodes in total, has been a major success for the streaming giant and has helped revive interest in a franchise that has suffered major flops in recent years. Despite the huge financial losses from projects like Solo: A Star Wars Story, Andor creator Tony Gilroy was speaking on a panel during the ATX Television Festival when he revealed just how much money Disney had thrown at the project. 'I mean, [for] Disney this is $650 million [USD$1 billion],' Gilroy said. 'For 24 episodes, I never took a note. We said 'F**k the Empire' in the first season, and they said, 'Can you please not do that?' … In Season 2, they said, 'Streaming is dead, we don't have the money we had before,' so we fought hard about money, but they never cleaned anything up. That [freedom] comes with responsibilities.' Gilroy revealed that Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy was the show's biggest champion and the reason a lot of this got done. He said that his previous work on a Star Wars project, the critically lauded Rogue One, help him gauge what Disney might allow him to include in the show, and then he put those limits to the test by including phrases such as 'genocide' in the script and opening the series in a Brothel. 'I worked on 'Rogue [One]' so I knew what the [permissible] levels of violence were, and actually the rules loosened up considerably,' Gilroy said. 'Yeah, we can't have skin, but I very consciously started the first scene in a brothel just to see what would happen and how far we could go. There's sex. … It's something that probably seemed at some point like it was going to be a big anxiety, and it really turned out to be a nothing-burger all the way through.' Gilroy previously told Variety that he 'wrote a legal brief' to Disney when he was trying to get the studio to allow him to say 'f**k the empire' in the show. However, despite his best efforts, Disney execs refused to let him get it into the show. 'I wrote a memo on it and said, 'Here's why I think it's economically prudent, and here's why I think it's good'. Disney wouldn't let us use it,' director Benjamin Caron added. 'So we changed it to 'fight the empire.' I remember having a call with Tony Gilroy saying, 'Are we gonna get away with this?''
