‘I hope you don't expect us to win': rival Irish University Challenge captains join forces for a fiendish pub quiz
Oscar Despard and Kevin Flanagan were recent opponents on a semi-final of the long-running BBC show. Louise McLoughlin takes them to a London pub to see how they fare with a less academic test
I've never been great at pub quizzes. So the opportunity to team up with two of Ireland's best and brightest minds promised some vindication – even if only as part of a team. On a personal level, a friend had suggested beforehand that the experience had the potential to be humiliating. I suggested 'humbling' was perhaps a better word. A win is a win, after all.
In all honesty, I expected my contribution to be minimal. The two other members of my team were Dubliners Oscar Despard (22) from Portobello and Kevin Flanagan (29) from Dundrum, who recently went head-to-head in the semi-finals of University Challenge. Despard, who is studying for a PhD in molecular biology, went on to lead Christ's College Cambridge to its first ever victory on the show, winning a tense final by just five points. Flanagan captained the team from Bristol University, where he is doing a PhD in AI.
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The Irish Sun
25 minutes ago
- The Irish Sun
‘I was on one of the biggest TV shows in the 90s, but I ditched fame ten years ago for a very different job'
IN the 90s, TV show This Life launched the careers of some of the UK's biggest stars. While Andrew Lincoln went on to star in the Walking Dead, and Jack Davenport appeared in Pirates of the Caribbean – their co-star chose a completely different career path. Advertisement 8 This Life was a smash hit series for the BBC on its release in 1996 Credit: BBC 8 Daniela now works as a CBT therapist in Glasgow Credit: BBC 8 As the straight-talking Anna, Daniela became a TV fan favourite Credit: BBC Now Daniela Nardini, who became a fan favourite on the show as straight-talking lawyer Anna Forbes on the show, is now a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist (CBT), living life away from the spotlight in Glasgow. Daniela, now 57, was beloved as Anna on the smash-hit series, which launched in 1996 and followed a group of five friends as they navigated their twenties after graduating law school. The series saw the gang living together in East London as they try to get their foot on the career ladder, with Anna having a love-hate relationship with Miles (Jack Davenport), whom she had a fling with while studying. Daniela appeared in 32 episodes of the series, before reuniting with the cast in for TV movie Advertisement READ MORE 90S The role won her a BAFTA for Best Actress in 1998. While she continued to act – starring in multiple episodes of Waterloo Road, plus episodes of Vera and Lewis on her credit list – her performance career later took a backseat to events in her personal life. In 2020, Daniela told the She told the site: 'I went through a very dark period. Sometimes I wonder if it was all the emotional stuff I was going through that caused my cancer. Advertisement Most read in TV Exclusive 'A couple of years down the road, I now feel as if I've emerged stronger and a better person really. Anna would be proud.' However, she noted that her time on This Life feels like 'another life now', and doesn't miss the fame that came with it. Trailer for 90s Brit drama series This Life During her recovery, Daniela turned to art therapy to help her process her cancer diagnosis, admitting she 'lost interest in performing'. 'Not because I felt physically I was not right, but I just felt mentally and emotionally not ready,' she explained. Advertisement 'Acting is a very personal thing for me, as I suppose it is for other actors. But you've only got yourself to use and if there's not much 'self' there to use, it's futile even trying. At its worst, I would have struggled to even remember a line.' Proud of where she is in her life, Daniela said she came forward with her diagnosis in order to encourage others to get their breasts checked. 8 After being diagnosed with breast cancer, Daniela turned to art therapy Credit: Instagram 8 The star won a Bafta for her role in This Life in 1998 Credit: PA:Press Association Advertisement 'It took a lot of pain and heartache to get here. But I'm a survivor and I feel strong,' she said. 'I feel like I'm finally the woman I wanted to be.' After launching her CBT practice from her home in Glasgow, Daniela explained that she felt being an actress helped her understand people on a more fundamental level. 'I have worked as an actress for over 35 years. This has been an invaluable education for me to study what it is to be human and how we can all suffer at times and feel misunderstood and lonely,' she wrote on her psychologist bio. Advertisement 'I myself have struggled at times. My practice involves helping you gain insight, clarity and believe it or not humour at times. I don't shock easily so I won't judge.' 8 This Life launched the career of some of the UK's biggest stars Credit: BBC 8 Daniela credits her acting career for helping her understand people with her new life path Credit: Meridian 8 The gang briefly reunited for a 10-year anniversary special Credit: BBC Advertisement
Irish Post
3 hours ago
- Irish Post
'The Irish take their ghost stories with them': Uncanny creator Danny Robins tells us about his Irish roots ahead of terrifying new tour
FOR someone who has found success by allowing other people to tell their personal stories on his paranormal series, Uncanny, it's perhaps no surprise that Danny Robins learned a lot about his Irish roots through stories handed down through his family over generations. "All the family I haven't met over in Ireland existed as stories," says the third-generation Irishman, who will embark on a new Uncanny live tour in September. "I felt like I was surrounded all the time by these brilliant tall tales and legends about all these different people. I knew that we had a great aunt who was a nun and a great uncle who was a monk and there were all these brilliant characters in the family, who you heard stories about all the time." One story in particular stands out, with Robins' pride in his Irish roots clear from the enthusiasm with which he relays these colourful tales. Danny Robins' grandparents emigrated from Ireland to Manchester (Image: Tim P. Whitby / Getty Images) "The family legend is that my grandad's mum was this eccentric character who was an opera singer and who was apparently the first ever female driver in Cork," he says. "She used to career around in a very old-fashioned car, perhaps slightly under the influence of sherry, so I'm told!" Robins reveals that his mother's family are all from Cork — 'a mixture of O'Sullivans and O'Learys' — while his grandparents were 'movers and shakers on the Cork social scene'. His grandfather played rugby for Munster and his grandmother was picked to play hockey for Ireland but never turned out due to the onset of the Second World War. His grandfather fought in the conflict after the couple emigrated to England and later set up a GP practice. "They went from being part of quite gentile, well-off Cork society to living in a really quite rough and poor part of Manchester," says Robins. "My grandad was a GP in an area where there were a lot of economic problems and worked to try and make the world a better place." Paranormal profession His grandfather's vocation may have been in saving lives, however, Robins' own career has taken him to the other end of the spectrum, very much in the realm of those who have shaken off this mortal coil. The writer and broadcaster is the creator of the wildly successful BBC podcast and TV series, Uncanny. He was already an accomplished comedy writer, working on everything from The Basil Brush Show to Mock the Week and creating the award-winning children's BBC comedy drama, Young Dracula. "I've done comedy shows and travel journalism and music documentaries and all sorts but I feel like I've really found my niche now," says Robins. "I've found the subject that has always fascinated me, that I've been obsessed by since I was a kid, love talking about and in giving myself over to that I'm just allowing myself to make the kind of programmes I'd want to listen to or want to watch. Finding an audience of people who feel the same way, it's just been magical really." Shona McGarty, Jay McGuiness, Laura Whitmore and Colin O'Donoghue during last year's Irish run of Robins' acclaimed play, 2:22 A Ghost Story (Image: Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland) The paranormal has served him well, with his 2017 Haunted podcast capturing the ears of the Beeb, for whom he wrote and presented the 2021 Battersea Poltergeist drama-documentary. The podcast was based on the real-life story of Shirley Hitchings, who was reportedly tormented by a poltergeist in 1950s London. A request at the end of the series for listeners' own stories sparked a deluge of paranormal tales and from that, the Uncanny podcast and subsequent TV series and live show, I Know What I Saw, was born, while Robins also created the drama-documentary Witch Farm podcast for the BBC in 2022. On stage, Robins' award-winning 2021 supernatural play, 2:22 A Ghost Story, is preparing for a second British tour later this year, having also racked up six successful West End runs. The show, which sees two couples debate the existence of ghosts during a dinner party as they await recurring eerie phenomena that begins at the same time every night, had a successful run in Dublin last year with Irish stars Laura Whitmore and Colin O'Donoghue among the cast. The upcoming British tour, which kicks off in Manchester in August, will star second-generation Irishwoman Stacey Dooley. For Uncanny fans though, what is most eagerly-anticipated is the brand new Uncanny live tour, Fear of the Dark, with Robins saying fans should 'definitely expect a show that is unlike any other podcast live show'. The 'serious' paranormal show with Belfast roots For those unfamiliar with Uncanny, each episode sees a listener tell their own, deeply-personal story of the paranormal. However, this is not your stereotypical ghost-hunting show where presenters run around castles in night vision goggles, wielding spirit boxes and thermal cameras as psychic mediums seemingly channel ghosts on demand. If those shows are the equivalent of a cheap Hollywood jump-scare, Uncanny provides the genuine chills you might experience watching a tense, atmospheric chiller where the fear is in what you might uncover. Meanwhile, Robins — who admits to never yet having had his own paranormal experience — is aided not by a team of monomaniacal devotees but by two open-minded experts representing both Team Sceptic and Team Believer, usually Dr Ciarán O'Keeffe and Evelyn Hollow respectively. Nor are the subjects unreliable narrators or attention seekers but rational professionals you wouldn't normally expect to entertain the existence of ghosts, let alone have a chilling tale of their own locked away. Indeed, the very first episode of Uncanny heard from Ken, a top genetic scientist telling his story of an eerie apparition and poltergeist activity during his time in the Alanbrooke halls of residence at Queen's University Belfast in the 1980s. The episode, Room 611, went viral, sparking national headlines, uncovering corroborating stories and historical records and even creating the show's catchphrase: "Bloody hell, Ken!" Robins will be joined on the upcoming Uncanny: Fear of the Dark tour by the show's regular experts Dr Ciarán O'Keeffe, representing Team Sceptic, and Evelyn Hollow, representing Team Believer (Image: Sama Kai / Dave Benett / Getty Images) "It's what set up the whole world of Uncanny really, the fact that you had a very ordinary and very sceptical person who didn't believe in ghosts telling you that they felt they might've seen one," says Robins. "I always think of Belfast because it does feel like a place that's synonymous with Uncanny. There's quite a few different Irish people that come into the Uncanny picture at various points and I know in the next series that comes out in the autumn, we've got a really good Irish story as well." He adds: "Uncanny is still entertaining but it tries to take the subject a little bit more seriously. It also keeps an open mind so it's not just preaching to the converted. We're there, saying, 'It might be a ghost but it might not'. You hear from sceptics and believers and that has made it easier for a lot of people to talk. "There's a lot of people who wouldn't have felt comfortable going on some of those slightly louder, brasher more fantastical paranormal shows. I just felt there was a massive amount of people, you could almost say a kind of silent majority out there, who've had strange experiences and who didn't know how to talk about it. A lot of the emails I get are from people who say, 'I haven't even discussed this with my partner', people who didn't know how to talk about it, didn't know where to talk about it, were worried they'd be judged, that they'd be laughed at, ridiculed, even have their mental health questioned. Uncanny's created a safe space, it has legitimised being able to say this out loud." 'The Irish are natural storytellers' As well as Room 611, there are other Irish tales featured on Uncanny, all told by level-headed, rational, down-to-earth guests. They include The Ghost who Hated Parties, which recounts how an imposing presence terrifies visitors to a student house in Waterford in the 1980s. An Angel Called Bernie sees a software engineer and former Irish soldier tell how his grandmother intervenes from beyond the grave on numerous occasions to save people's lives. The Beast of Langeais hears from two men from Belfast, a teacher and a former police officer, who encounter a devilish hoofed creature during a school trip to France in 1983. Meanwhile, The Haunting of Tanfield House sees the daughter of staunch Catholics who emigrated from Ireland recall a terrifying childhood exorcism after she encounters poltergeist activity in a student house in Surrey. With yet another Irish tale included in the next series of Uncanny, Robins isn't surprised at the proliferation of stories from the Emerald Isle. "I think Ireland is a place with a really, really rich tradition of ghost stories, some fantastic ghost stories stretching back into folkloric things, tales of fairies and banshees and all those kind of things and I feel like we've only touched the tip of the iceberg in terms of exploring stories from Ireland on Uncanny," he says. Uncanny began life as a podcast before being adapted for television in 2023 and a first live show, I Know What I Saw, in 2024 (Image: Uncanny / Facebook) "One of the things I love about coming across is when we ask people for their local ghost stories and the things that have happened to them. Last time when we came to Dublin, we had some fantastic stories and I'm looking forward to hearing more again. There's loads of ghost stories but there's also just loads of brilliant stories. I think it's a way that people in Ireland express themselves. I think the Irish are natural storytellers, they have a gift of the gab, a wit and enjoyment of language and I think some of the greatest literature ever written has been written by Irish writers. Growing up and reading things by a whole host of different Irish writers, I definitely felt a kinship with it. I love that enjoyment of language that you see in a lot of work that's emanated from Ireland." Likewise, Robins sees that love of storytelling kept alive in the English cities where Irish people flocked to over the centuries, just as his own grandparents did. "I see a huge interest [in the paranormal] in Ireland," says Robins. "I sometimes say that there are a certain parts of the country that seem to love their ghost stories more. A part of the country that I always find I get great ghost stories from is Liverpool and of course [there was] a massive influx of Irish people and the same true of Manchester. Places over here in the UK where Irish people have settled, you get a lot of ghost stories. It's like the Irish take their ghost stories with them. It's one of the great things the Irish have given to the world, this huge treasure trove of stories that have emanated from this island." 'A really big, epic night out' So popular is Uncanny within those Irish hubs in Britain that the upcoming Uncanny: Fear of the Dark tour has had to add extra shows at venues in Greater Manchester and Liverpool to meet demand. The extensive tour gets underway in Salford on September 18 and takes in other cities with traditionally large Irish populations, including Birmingham and Glasgow. Dublin and, of course, Belfast are also on the schedule. However, while the tour will no doubt seek to replicate the successful format of the Uncanny podcast and TV show, Robins promises it will be so much more, an immersive experience utilising the full capabilities of its theatrical venues. He promises this will not merely be a normal Uncanny podcast episode recorded on stage in front of an audience. "This is way more theatrical in that this really brings these real-life ghost stories to life in a very theatrical way using video projection, amazing sound effects and illusions," he reveals. "You'll see things flying across the stage like poltergeist activity, so it's a proper theatrical show that embraces all the magic that you can achieve in a theatre. The first live show, I Know What I Saw, featured two real-life cases that were brand new and had never been heard on the pod or the TV series before. We examined them together and got the audience involved in contributing their theories. Fear of the Dark has taken that one step further. We're featuring a whole selection of new cases and will be looking at not just ghosts but UFOs, cryptozoology — that idea of strange beasts that may or may not exist, like the yeti and the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot — and examine these cases doing some experiments live in the theatre to test sceptic theories. We'll be looking at some classic cases of paranormal history as well, so very much like the TV series come to life on stage in front of you. Robins with the Best New Play Award for 2:22 A Ghost Story at the 2022 WhatsOnStage Awards (Image: David M. Benett / Dave Benett / Getty Images) "It's going to be a really big, epic night out where, whether you're interested in the paranormal or not, there's going to be so much to talk about — these fascinating human interest stories, amazing science, amazing history and hopefully a night that will really get you talking. That question, 'Do you believe in ghosts' or 'Do ghosts exist', it's the one question you could ask of anyone, anywhere in the world and spark a great debate. There'll be a chance for the audience to tell us their own ghost stories, we'll probably dive into some local stories and then you can ask us your questions." And for Robins, who listened to those stories of his own Irish heritage with awe and wonder, returning to the Emerald Isle will be like coming full circle. "It feels in a weird way like coming home, there is a huge cultural lineage for me stretching across the generations," says Robins, who obtained his Irish citizenship last year. "My mum was the first one of her family to not be brought up in Ireland and it's a place I feel a deep connection with and I can't wait to get there again. I've got lots of family in Dublin as well and I feel like I'm connecting, plugging into my family origins when I come that way. When we head to Belfast, I feel like I'm tapping into the very birthplace of Uncanny with the Room 611 story, so they're both destinations on the tour that have huge significance for us." For tickets and more information on Uncanny: Fear of the Dark, please click here. To book tickets for 2:22 A Ghost Story, please click here. All Uncanny podcast episodes can be found on the BBC website by clicking here and are also available on the BBC Sounds app, while the Uncanny TV series is available on iPlayer by clicking here.
Irish Times
15 hours ago
- Irish Times
Doctor Who? Billie Piper appears to be the new Time Lord in surprise on-screen regeneration
In a surprise for viewers of Doctor Who on Saturday evening, Ncuti Gatwa, who stars as the Doctor in the popular BBC series, is seen regenerating into Billie Piper in the season finale. Piper, 42, first appeared in the series as the companion to the ninth Doctor in 2005, playing Rose Tyler alongside Christopher Eccleston's Time Lord – and appeared again with the 10th Doctor, played by David Tennant. Piper appears to be replacing Gatwa, who is leaving Doctor Who after two seasons in the science-fiction series. Piper said: 'It's no secret how much I love this show, and I have always said I would love to return to the Whoniverse as I have some of my best memories there, so to be given the opportunity to step back on that Tardis one more time was just something I couldn't refuse – but who, how, why and when, you'll just have to wait and see.' READ MORE Shortly after the finale aired, the actress shared a post on Instagram holding a rose with the caption that read: 'A rose is a rose is a rose!!!' Born in Rwanda before moving to Scotland, Gatwa's time on the long-running science fiction programme came to an end as the episode entitled The Reality War brought this season to a close on Saturday. The two-part season finale saw the Doctor face the Rani in a battle to save the world after making the decision to save the life of one little girl. As he bade farewell to companion Belinda Chandra, played by Varada Sethu, he said: 'I hope you'll see me again, but not like this.' Ncuti Gatwa in his final episode of Doctor Who. Handout photograph: BBC Studios/Bad Wolf/James Pardon/PA Wire Speaking about his decision to leave the series, Gatwa said: 'You know when you get cast, at some point you are going to have to hand back that sonic screwdriver and it is all going to come to an end, but nothing quite prepares you for it. 'This journey has been one that I will never forget, and a role that will be part of me forever. There are no words to describe what it feels like to be cast as the Doctor, nor are there words to explain what it feels like to be accepted into this iconic role that has existed for over 60 years and is truly loved by so many across the globe. 'I've loved every minute of it, but now is the time to hand over the keys to that beloved blue box and let someone else take control and enjoy it every bit as much as I have. I'll truly miss it, and forever be grateful to it, and everyone that has played a part in my journey as the Doctor.' The finale also saw Jodie Whittaker, the 13th doctor, make a guest appearance as Gatwa's Doctor appeared to be travelling through alternate universes. Sex Education and Barbie star Gatwa has played the 15th Doctor since Scottish actor David Tennant bi-generated in 2023, after his version of the character was brought back to life as the 14th Doctor. Whittaker, the first woman to play the Time Lord, announced in July 2021 that she would depart after three series as the 13th Doctor. [ Is that a harp in the Doctor Who time vortex? Irish screen industry travels far to reach the Whoniverse Opens in new window ] Russell T Davies, Doctor Who showrunner, said: 'What a Doctor! Thank you, Ncuti! As his final words say, this has been an absolute joy, and the team in Cardiff and everyone who has worked on this show for the past few years, are so lucky to have been part of Ncuti's great adventure as he shoots off to stratospheric new heights. 'Billie once changed the whole of television, back in 2005, and now she's done it again! It's an honour and a hoot to welcome her back to the Tardis, but quite how and why and who is a story yet to be told. After 62 years, the Doctor's adventures are only just beginning!'
