First glimpse of new Harry Potter, the next star of the small screen
Production began at Warner Bros Studios Leavesden, near Watford, where the films were made between 2000 and 2011, concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, which was released in 2011.
A picture of Dominic McLaughlin in Harry Potter's signature round glasses and school uniform has been released. McLaughlin is joined by Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger and Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley. They beat more than 30,000 actors to the roles in a casting call last year.
• My advice to the new Harry Potter kids — by a Game of Thrones child star
All seven books will be adapted and the series is reported to have a budget that is greater than House of the Dragon's $200 million per series.
More than 600 million copies of Harry Potter sold worldwide. Its big screen adaptations were hugely successful, grossing almost $8 billion at the global box office.
Other characters in the series have also been announced, including Rory Wilmot as the hapless Neville Longbottom and Amos Kitson as the spoilt Dudley Dursley.
Nick Frost, who starred in Shaun of the Dead, will play the bearded giant Rubeus Hagrid, while John Lithgow, the Conclave and The Crown actor, will star as Hogwarts' headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. Janet McTeer, who featured in Tumbleweeds and The White Queen, will play Minerva McGonagall, while Paapa Essiedu, from I May Destroy You and Gangs of London, is Severus Snape.
The series, debuting on HBO in 2027, will follow the young Potter as he discovers that he is a wizard and goes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was initially expected that each season would cover one of the seven Harry Potter books, but Casey Bloys, the head of HBO, said that the project could run for 'ten consecutive years'. The final novel, Deathly Hallows, was split into two parts for the film adaptation.
Potter, Granger and Weasley's return will be available to stream on HBO Max, which is expected to launch in the UK in early 2026. Francesca Gardiner, the British television writer, is the showrunner, while Mark Mylod of Succession is in the director's seat.
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MasterChef's John Torode alleged to have used racist language
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'For the sake of transparency, I confirm that I am the individual who is alleged to have used racial language on one occasion. The allegation is that I did so sometime in 2018 or 2019, in a social situation, and that the person I was speaking with did not believe that it was intended in a malicious way and that I apologised immediately afterwards. 'I have absolutely no recollection of any of this, and I do not believe that it happened. 'However, I want to be clear that I've always had the view that any racial language is wholly unacceptable in any environment. I'm shocked and saddened by the allegation as I would never wish to cause anyone any offence.' It comes as Greg Wallace has said he 'never set out to harm or humiliate' after a report on the MasterChef presenter's behaviour substantiated 45 complaints against him. 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'I'm relieved that the Banijay report fully recognises that my behaviour changed profoundly in 2018. Some of my humour and language missed the mark. I never set out to harm or humiliate. I always tried to bring warmth and support to MasterChef, on screen and off.' He added: 'A late autism diagnosis has helped me understand how I communicate and how I'm perceived. I'm still learning. Banijay have given me great support, and I thank them. But in the end, the BBC left me exposed to trial by media and the damage it leaves in its wake.' The vast majority (94 per cent) of the complaints received related to behaviour which occurred between 2005 and 2018, and the bulk related to inappropriate sexually explicit language and humour. Just one incident was substantiated after 2018, the year after Wallace was spoken to about his behaviour by BBC bosses. They have admitted that opportunities were missed to address Wallace's behaviour, who fronted one of its highest-profile television shows for two decades. He is estimated to have come into contact with more than 2,500 people connected to the show. 'We accept more could and should have been done sooner,' said a BBC spokesman. Wallace is said to be unable to wear underwear, an issue attributed to a neurodiversity diagnosis STEVE FINN In 2023, The Times revealed that Wallace had stepped back from presenting the BBC's Inside The Factory documentary after offending staff in a Nestlé factory. Sexually explicit comments accounted for 14 of the substantiated allegations, with a further six involving inappropriate jokes, comments and innuendo. Two involved 'being in a state of undress'. Wallace co-operated with the investigation and was interviewed three times for more than 14 hours. 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BBC News
2 hours ago
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The BBC's annual report will be published later, with Gary Lineker and Zoe Ball likely to top the star salaries list for the last time. The pair have occupied the top two slots on the rankings every year since 2020, but both have recently exited their respective left the Radio 2 Breakfast show in December, three quarters of the way through the financial year, while Lineker recently stood down from the BBC sooner than planned after reposting a controversial Instagram reel about Mills has taken over the Radio 2 breakfast show (Ball now hosts Saturday afternoons), while Kelly Cates, Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan are the new faces of Match of the Day. Their new salaries are all expected to appear in full next there are plenty of other stars who make huge sums of money from the BBC whose names never appear on the list, due to the criteria used to compile a result, the corporation's salary disclosure is far from a complete picture of what top talent at the BBC earn. Why are some names missing from the BBC salary list? The BBC publishes the names and salaries of stars and executives who earn above a certain threshold (currently £178,000) every year. But while there are many stars the BBC employs directly, the corporation also contracts a large number of production companies, including the corporation's own commercial arm, BBC Studios, to make some of its programmes. The stars who are subsequently employed by those production companies are not directly employed by the BBC, and therefore not on the salaries BBC Studios is a commercial organisation, not underpinned by the licence fee, it is in competition for business with the BBC, streaming services and other a result, its salaries aren't included, so that there is a level playing field for it to compete in the commercial make things more complicated, some shows which air on the BBC are not solely funded by it. Industry, for example, is a co-production with HBO, while the last series of Doctor Who was partly funded by Disney+.That means it's not necessarily the case that the salaries of big stars associated with these shows are funded exclusively from licence fee money. Which stars do not appear on the salaries list? It would be almost impossible to come up with a full, exhaustive list, but here are a few examples of names who are absent, in no particular Clark is missing, despite hosting a weekly Radio 2 show, covering the Eurovision Song Contest, fronting an Italian travel series with his friend Robert Rinder, and his special one-off interview programmes with Cher and Mariah fellow X Factor graduate Stacey Solomon is also not listed, even though she fronts Sort Your Life Out and appears on her own reality TV series with husband Joe Brydon would be included on a more comprehensive list for hosting Would I Lie To You?, as well as his role in Gavin & Stacey's Christmas special, and his new job fronting the corporation's forthcoming competition format Destination Would I Lie To You? co-star Lee Mack would also be listed if directly employed by the BBC, thanks to his role as team captain, as well as for writing and starring in sitcom Not Going Mitchell would also have made the list, not just due to his role as the show's other team captain, but also for BBC work such as his lead acting role in drama popular Friday night panel show, Have I Got News For You would also see team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop appear on the list. On one tetchy exchange on Have I Got News For You in 2019, then-MP Johnny Mercer suggested Hislop earned £20,000 per episode - a figure Hislop did not dispute. Other stars who do not appear include Alan Carr (Interior Design Masters), Alison Hammond (Florida Unpacked and Alison Hammond's Big Weekend), Jools Holland (Later) and Dannii Minogue (I Kissed A Boy). Quiz show hosts as a breed are generally nowhere to be seen. Ross Kemp does not appear for Bridge of Lies, nor does Sandi Toksvig for Coren-Mitchell does not appear for Only Connect, while Sue Perkins is absent for Chess Masters: The Endgame (she also hosts Radio 4's Just A Minute).The weekday edition of Pointless would almost certainly land Alexander Armstrong on the list if compiled differently, along with his Pointless Celebrities co-star Richard Osman, who also fronts BBC Two's House of Games. Romesh Ranganathan hosts a variety of programmes for the BBC, including a weekend Radio 2 show, The Weakest Link and his Misinvestigations series, but is unlisted. The huge number of high-profile actors who appear in BBC dramas and comedies are missing, include Sherwood (starring Lesley Manville and David Morrissey) Mr Loverman (Lennie James), Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis), Ludwig (Mitchell and Anna Maxwell Martin), and The Responder (Martin Freeman).Other popular BBC dramas and comedies not eligible to appear on the list include The Gold, Rebus, This City Is Ours, Blue Lights, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special, written by and starring James Corden and Ruth who appear in continuing dramas such as Death in Paradise, Waterloo Road, Casualty, EastEnders and Call The Midwife also do not Morning Live presenters Michelle Ackerley and Gethin Jones are absent, as are the stars of Homes Under The Hammer, Bargain Hunt, The Repair Shop and Saturday Kitchen. There are some other stars who fall into a middle category - those who do appear on the list, but only for some of their BBC work. For example, Vernon Kay is listed for his weekday Radio 2 show, the most popular radio programme in the if he co-hosts an episode of The One Show, his fee for that is not included in his published Lauren Laverne does not have her One Show appearances included, but she appears for hosting Radio 4's Desert Island Discs and her BBC Radio 6 Music One Show's other presenters, such as Alex Jones, Roman Kemp, Clara Amfo, Angellica Bell, Ronan Keating, Alex Scott and countless others also wouldn't be listed - although some appear for other BBC presenters such as Clive Myrie, Fiona Bruce, Evan Davis and Amol Rajan are listed for their work on news programmes, but not for the entertainment and documentary formats they also front. As we reported last year, one name who would potentially be at the very top of a more complete list is Michael McIntyre. He is effectively the corporation's equivalent of ITV's Ant & Dec, hired to front Saturday night shows throughout the year such as The Wheel and his Big Bradley Walsh would likely feature for anchoring Gladiators and Blankety Blank, while Graham Norton would appear for commentating on Eurovision and his BBC One chat Winkleman is another of the corporation's biggest names, as the host of Strictly Come Dancing and The Traitors, arguably the BBC's biggest new hit of recent years. She also filled in for Norton on his chat show this year. Top Gear may have been rested, but its former lead anchor Paddy McGuinness now fronts a Sunday programme on Radio 2, and also took over from Gregg Wallace as the host of Inside The former Top Gear co-star Freddie Flintoff has similarly gone on to front Field Of Dreams following the motoring show's Wallace may have been sacked, but until his departure he would have appeared on a more comprehensive list for the huge number of MasterChef episodes he fronted, as would his co-star John big name associated with Strictly is missing, with Tess Daly, Shirley Ballas, Anton Du Beke, Motsi Mabuse and Craig Revel Horwood all Apprentice has been one of the BBC's biggest hits for two decades, but the star responsible for its success, Lord Sugar, does not have his salary listed. His assistants Baroness Brady and Tim Campbell don't the BBC's other big business-based show, Dragons' Den, does not list the salaries for its investors Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Sara Davies, Touker Suleyman and Steven Bartlett.
