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The Guardian
16-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The week in TV: Adolescence; Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway; Chess Masters: The Endgame
Adolescence (Netflix)Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway (Channel 4) | Masters: The Endgame (BBC Two) | iPlayer After the horrific death of a teenage girl in Adolescence, the camera follows a day's events in a police station in one single extraordinary shot, and then does the same at her school. But the real eye-opener is which of the two locations turns out to be more redolent of crime and menace. Stephen Graham, who co-wrote this four-part series with the prolific Jack Thorne (This Is England '86/'90, Help, Kiri, Toxic Town), plays Eddie, a father who looks on in stunned bewilderment while officers process his 13-year-old son Jamie for murder as if they were filling out their timesheets. At the school, by contrast, bullying and fist fights happen under the noses of teachers who can barely keep order. Everything is the wrong way round. Even level-headed DI Bascombe, the detective leading the murder inquiry, loses his cool. The school 'looks like a fucking holding pen', mutters Bascombe, an impressive Ashley Walters, on the other side of the tracks from his drug-dealing kingpin in Top Boy. The police have studied Instagram accounts and taken at face value the heart emojis the victim sent to Jamie (strikingly assured newcomer Owen Cooper). Was this a teen romance that went horribly wrong? It takes Bascombe's son, Adam, to explain that they should be looking at the different colours of the heart symbols. The girl was calling Jamie an 'incel' in code. 'It's the 80-20 rule,' Adam goes on: the majority of young women are attracted to just a fifth of men. The inquiry leads Bascombe's team towards the rank and misogynistic 'manosphere'. 'The Andrew Tate shite,' groans Bascombe's partner, DS Misha Frank (Faye Marsay). 'I've heard the boys talk about him,' says a teacher. But this important and affecting series highlights broader issues: boys in search of an identity, and technology dividing children from their parents. Eddie has never even glanced at his son's socials. Tate isn't the only toxic male in the US who cast his shadow over last week's new television. In his latest role, the actor Michael Sheen, who has portrayed real-life figures including Tony Blair, Brian Clough and David Frost, appears as a kind of anti-Elon Musk. While the richest man in the world wants to take a chainsaw to the social security system on which poor Americans depend, the more modestly resourced Sheen is spending his own cash to help families escape the gnawing hardship of owing money. Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway attempts to do for Britain's debt crisis what the movie The Big Short – albeit without Margot Robbie in a bathtub – did for the financial crash of 2008. This is an exposé that carries the audience along with it, despite digressions about abstruse financial instruments. More than 2 million families in the UK had 'high interest' loans as of October 2024, according to Sheen, and the industry is worth £55bn. Debt is a burden if you owe it but an asset if you hold it, and one that can be traded. While a borrower's exposure increases, the miserable arithmetic of these unlikely goods means that the debt itself becomes cheaper the more it changes hands. With the help of a former insider from the murky debt collection racket, Sheen hoped to pay £100,000 to take over £1m of loans that he would write off, relieving the pressure on 900 people in south Wales, where he grew up. Unkempt but upbeat, Sheen compares his one-man campaign to a 'heist'. He establishes his 'HQ' in a disused warehouse that looks like a location from Ocean's Eleven, 'or in my case, Ocean's One', says the star. He has to set up a company and get the backing of financial service watchdogs. Sheen's mole warns him that he shouldn't draw attention to his activities because the highly secretive debt business likes to keep it that way. The actor meets a working mother in arrears to the tune of £12,000, which she can't clear. In a greasy spoon near the doomed Port Talbot steelworks, waitresses tell him that grown men wept at their tables at the sight of the last ships delivering to the plant, which leaves Sheen close to tears himself. A loan shark claims that he performs a public service but admits he would make a 'nuisance' of himself outside the house of a debtor who didn't pay up. 'I won't beat you up for a grand,' he says, as if that would be beneath him. Sheen points out that this predator has at least talked to him, unlike the bankers and regulators he approached. After an 18-month wait, Sheen's heist comes off. He rips up a piece of paper representing the debt he has cancelled. Data protection rules mean he doesn't know the names of his beneficiaries, so director Paul Taylor is denied a heartwarming payoff to his film. The programme improvises, with Sheen making a speech to a cafe full of people who express their gratitude. The documentary ends in anticlimax – somehow appropriate given that debt remains grindingly remorseless for so many. For a game with such a strict set of rules, chess has proved highly adaptable. Matches between champions of the east and west were proxies for the cold war, and garlanded players took on computers in a rehearsal of what may lie ahead for mankind and AI. The game's history on British TV has been chequered. Matches haven't been screened for 30 years, but now BBC Two has co-opted chess for its Monday-night brainbox slot. Buttressed by Mastermind and University Challenge, two valuable pieces on the BBC's grid, Chess Masters: The Endgame sees a dozen enthusiasts compete against one another while Sue Perkins MCs. Like aficionados studying games of the past, the producers have borrowed signature moves from other shows: MasterChef's slo-mo walking shot of the contestants; excited experts following events remotely, courtesy of The Piano; and The Traitors' flaring candelabra and backstage gossip. Competitors are invited to solve a chess problem. But programme-makers also face a puzzle from which there is no easy escape, known to chess grandmasters as zugzwang. What to do about the viewers who don't understand the rules? Will they be bored stupid? To get around this, various camera angles and sound effects made the loss of a piece as dramatic as a WWE grappler hitting the canvas. And the players are furnished with nicknames and backstories. Lula, AKA the Chess Princess, took up the game after she watched 2020 film The Queen's Gambit, starring Anya Taylor-Joy. Fifty-six-year-old Londoner Nick, 'the Swashbuckler', has a spell in prison behind him and now teaches inmates the game to help build mental resilience. He brings an unlikely vibe of Commissioner Selwyn Patterson from Death in Paradise to his matches. In another familiar ploy, one contestant is removed from the board each week. I was disappointed not to see an eccentric genius among the players, such as the old Russian master David Bronstein, who is said to have begun one game by staring at the board for 50 minutes without touching a piece, though admittedly that might not make great TV. But I'm punching my clock and waiting for the showrunners to make their next move. So far, so good. No need to go back to square one. Star ratings (out of five) Adolescence ★★★★Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway ★★★★Chess Masters: The Endgame ★★★ Death in Paradise (BBC One) The beating heart of this Caribbean Cluedo is Don Warrington's Commissioner Selwyn, with his motorcycle sidecar, rumpled fatigues and RSC-honed command of the elusive Saint Marie accent. Match of the Day(BBC One) We'll miss Gary Lineker when he goes at the end of the season. The BBC chairman is daft to suggest there should be more analysis and less football. Television is about show and tell, not one or the other. Saturday Night Live (X) Mike Myers (Austin Powers, The Cat in the Hat) makes a welcome comeback as a madcap Elon Musk on the long-running comedy revue. His impersonation ('Glitch!') is even more of a tonic than whatever pick-me-up his wired tech bro appears to be taking.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Michael Sheen helped 900 strangers in Secret Million Pound Giveaway
Michael Sheen becomes a modern day Robin Hood in his Channel 4 documentary Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway. But how did the star manage to help 900 strangers in a life-changing act of generosity? The Good Omens star has shared his wealth with people living in his Welsh hometown of Port Talbot, writing off their debt with his own fortune from acting success. A Channel 4 documentary about the project aims to "expose how big banks and credit finance companies profit from the most vulnerable in society" – but for hundreds of those who Sheen helped, it meant a fresh start free from debt. Frost/Nixon star Sheen will wipe out the debt of 900 strangers in his hometown of Port Talbot by buying £1m of debt with £100,000 of his own money in a documentary that highlights social injustice, financial hardship and the need for the Fair Banking Act. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. A Channel 4 programme description says: "In an audacious plot, designed to expose how big banks and credit finance companies profit from the most vulnerable in society, actor and activist Michael Sheen uses £100,000 of his own money to buy £1m of debt belonging to hundreds of people in South Wales – and then writes that debt off. "As the cost-of-living crisis continues to hit hard working people, Michael takes on the banks, investigates alternative more affordable solutions for borrowing and calls on the government to demand a fairer, more inclusive credit system in the UK." The documentary will see Sheen meet with former prime minister Gordon Brown to talk about how to progress with the Fair Banking Act, having thrown his star power behind a campaign to change laws on banking. Sheen says in the documentary: "Over the two years that I've been working on this, I've tried to engage with the banks to just start a conversation about this stuff. I've tried to talk with the government. And nobody will talk to me, nobody. And so I need someone." Brown vows to help him, but as the actor sets about trying to change financial rules on a wider scale, he has already transformed the lives of 900 Port Talbot people by writing off their debt with his own money. Sheen will never know who he has helped because of data protection laws, but each of the people whose debts he bought were contacted to let them know. If viewers are wondering how the sums involved add up, simply put, Sheen has chosen to write off debts owed by 900 people. The debts total £1m, but Sheen has bought them for £100,000 as creditors can sell debt to a new purchaser at a discounted rate, which usually allows the purchaser to chase up the people owing money and charge their own interest. But Sheen has chosen not to add interest and did not chase the debtors for money either – instead, opting for a life-changing act of cancelling the debt himself by not pursuing payment. It took nearly two years for Sheen's company to get the go ahead to buy debt from the Financial Conduct Authority, working with former debt collection company director Roland Roberts. They then had the tricky task of finding someone willing to sell Sheen £1m of debt as Roberts explained that many businesses would not want to draw attention to debt collection work. Sheen added: "So then the idea of me, with my £100,000 buying a million pounds of people's debt; that is something that it is a possible thing for me to do." While some Hollywood stars splurge fortunes on multiple house and the luxuries that fame and success affords them, Sheen made headlines in 2021 when he announced himself as a not-for-profit actor. That means that he ploughs a large amount of his earnings back into charity and community projects. He had moved back to Port Talbot, where he grew up, after funding the 2019 Homeless World Cup himself. The tournament in Cardiff, which included people from 50 countries, cost £2m to stage but when funding fell through, Sheen decided to pay for it out of his own money rather than see it cancelled. The star sold homes in Los Angeles and Wales to cover the costs, but has said he is still paying it off now. Back in 2017, Sheen set up the End High Cost Credit Alliance after being impressed by a similar scheme run by John Oliver's Last Week Tonight show in the US which bought up and cleared $15m medical debt with $60,000. Sheen says in the documentary: "I want a system that is fair, where those in need can access credit at rates that won't send them spiralling into further debt. I want to be able to do something which grabs attention, so I can challenge the banks, the politicians, to try and force wider change on the system to make it fairer. I'm prepared to take a massive financial hit myself to try and make it happen. I'm going to make some enemies doing this. There are people doing very well, thank you very much, out of the way things are." He also details how his own financial circumstances have changed during the two years he has worked on the debt-clearing project, leaving him worried about whether he could still afford it. "We've been doing this for quite a long time," he says. "Things have changed for me a lot...I've lost family members during this time. I wasn't sure that we would ever get to this point. It didn't look like it was going to happen for a long time. "Financially, things have changed. Ironically, I genuinely am not sure if I can afford to do this. But I'm still going to do it, because I've made a commitment." He explains: "We're sitting in a cafe at the moment with the steel works right behind us and the ladies that work here told me that tomorrow is the last ship coming into the dock here to deliver stuff to the steel works. They've described people sitting in here just crying at these tables. So it couldn't be more this programme will make a tiny difference, or maybe it won't, but I can't walk away from it now." Talking to The Guardian about his plan, he said: "I'm not doing it because I want people to think I'm great; I want us to be able to imagine an alternative to this, because this doesn't work. And in my own little way, I'm trying to create my own alternative. It doesn't have to be the way it is." Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway airs on Channel 4 at 9pm on Monday, 10 March.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Why Michael Sheen used $130,000 of his own money to buy $1.2m worth of debt owed by people in his hometown
Michael Sheen used £100,000 ($130,000) of his own money to buy £1 million ($1.2 m) worth of his neighbors' debts. He made the documentary "Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway," to raise awareness of credit debt. Sheen said that using his own money proves he's "serious" about solving the issue of credit debt. Michael Sheen has paid off £1 million ($1.2 million) of debt held by 900 strangers in his Welsh hometown, to highlight the issue of credit debt in the UK. According to the charity Debt Justice, personal debt has reached "new highs" in the UK, with 10 million people heavily in debt due to increases in outgoing such as rent and utility bills. Debt is also a considerable problem in the US: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said that the total household debt increased by $93 billion by the end of 2024, to $18.04 trillion. Sheen — best known for his roles in "Frost/Nixon," "The Queen," "Tron: Legacy," and "The Damned United" — told The Guardian on Monday that he used £100,000 ($130,000) of his own money to buy £1 million of debt, to spotlight what he sees as the unfair way that credit companies operate. Debt acquisition companies are legally allowed to purchase bundles of existing debt for a lower amount. When speaking to the BBC's "The One Show" on March 4, Sheen said he was able to set up one of these companies to pay off the debt. His efforts are depicted in the new documentary "Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway," which premieres Monday on Channel 4 in the UK. Due to data protection laws, Sheen doesn't know whose debt he paid off, but told The Guardian he wants to "encourage banks to offer affordable credit to people previously excluded based on their income, background or where they live." Responsible Finance, which says it represents "responsible finance providers" in the UK, argues on its website that greatly increasing the size and number of credit unions and Community Development Finance Institutions could result in a 13-fold increase in the amount of affordable credit available for businesses and people on low-incomes rejected by larger banks. There is a misconception that people who get into debt are making "extravagant" purchases, but that isn't typically the case, Sheen said. "By talking to people who are working, maybe working two jobs — these are people who are incredibly resourceful, incredibly resilient. They're not going on extravagant holidays or anything like that. It's just basic," he added. "The system doesn't work any more. But people find it easier to imagine the end of the world than something that's a credible alternative to capitalism. "I think people really feel there's something intrinsically wrong and flawed with the system, and recognize that it needs radical change, but the only people who are offering radical change are people who are dangerous. And there's no good end to that." Sheen said that poverty was rife when he was growing up in the city of Newport and Port Talbot, but he was "unaware" of it at the time. His father worked at the steelworks and his mother was a secretary, and he "always felt like we were doing all right, but in retrospect we were barely getting by." Sheen said he is aware that by using his own money, he risks being accused of using the cause to boost his profile. But he said "it shows that you're serious about what you're doing, but it also encourages other people to take that step." He added: "I never feel like it's about me — mainly it's about working with other people or highlighting what they do. I'm not doing it because I want people to think I'm great; I want us to be able to imagine an alternative to this, because this doesn't work." Read the original article on Business Insider
BBC News
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Michael Sheen: Debts for people across south Wales wiped by actor
Hollywood actor Michael Sheen said unaffordable credit options were leaving people to rely on loan on the Channel 4 documentary Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway, Sheen said him writing off £1m-worth of people's debts was a "drop in the ocean" compared to the wider issue across the UK. More than eight million people across the UK were in debt and over 12 million more lived on the edge in 2023, according to the Money and Pensions Service."Until the government makes the banks responsible for affordable credit, the problem will only get worse," Sheen said. Sheen told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast on Monday: "There's a lot of myths out there, I've heard over the years people saying 'well these are feckless people who are making terrible choices and living extravagantly outside their means'."That is not the case. These people are incredibly hard-working, who are doing their absolute best."Sheen said one of the women he interviewed was working both within the NHS and as a painter/decorator to "try to make ends meet" but was "still getting into trouble with debt"."If you are living at the very edge of what you can deal with and then something unexpected happens, it can put you under the water, and then it becomes incredibly difficult to get back out again."He said over the years, exploitative practises by companies like Wonga and BrightHouse had been prevented but "people still need access to credit" and if affordable options were not supported then "people find themselves in even more extreme situations".The actor said he had discovered "loan sharks were on the rise again" with people telling him they had been "taken up the mountain and threatened with violence".A loan shark Sheen interviewed described himself as a "community hero because he was giving people options that weren't available to them otherwise".He said while it was a "huge deal" to have helped 900 people, what he wanted was "to create a systemic change" so that "thousands upon thousands of people" were helped. Sheen said he was "shaped" by south Wales' communities which had a history of "helping each other". He said watching people in his community "doing what they can with what they've got" inspired him."Its not going to be around forever, I'm not going to have the opportunity to earn the kind of money that I have been able to earn over the years and I really want to do something worthwhile with it while I've got it." The show follows Sheen's journey starting a debt acquisition company with the aim of clearing £1m pounds worth of debt, using £100,000 of his own money. After two years of trying to speak with UK banks and the UK government, Sheen said he had to bring in former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown to urge the UK government to pass legislation to help tackle unaffordable credit. "We have got to look transparently at what can be excessively high rates of interest charged by certain organisations," said Brown. In his debt campaign, Sheen was calling on the UK government to pass the Fair Banking Act - a bill which requires mainstream banking institutions to disclose their performance on financial exclusion. This would create a system which showed the banks that were doing well, and the ones that needed to believes the legislation, which was already implemented in the US, would force banks in the UK to offer affordable credit to low income households. "I think it could be game-changing," he said. "My worry is this will get snarled up in the political process and take forever and we haven't got forever." Sheen said he contacted all five major UK banks, including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Natwest, Nationwide but none agreed to be interviewed. BBC Wales has also contacted these banks for comment. The hour-long documentary will be aired on Channel 4 at 21:00 on 10 March - five months after the last remaining blast furnace was closed in Port closure brought an end to the traditional method of steel making in south Wales and cut 2,800 jobs. In the documentary, Sheen speaks to workers in a cafe opposite the steelworks who describe people crying at the tables as the closure loomed. Choking on his words, Sheen said: "It couldn't be more real how much people are hurting."Maybe this programme will make a tiny bit of difference, maybe it won't, I can't walk away from it now." Sheen cleared banking debt, overdrafts, credit cards and store cards, plus personal loans. "Ironically, I am genuinely not sure I can afford to do this, but I'm still going to do it, because I've made a commitment and because I know this problem isn't going to go away." How did Sheen do this? When a person is unable to pay their debt, it gets put into bundles with other people's, which can then be bought by debt-buying companies, Sheen said. "The debt-buying company then owns that debt and tries to get it back at its face value."But if they want to then sell that debt on to another debt-buying company, the price of the debt goes down."The people whose debt it is still owe the same amount but the debt-buying companies have been able to sell it on and on and on again with the value going down so companies can buy it cheaper," Sheen said he set up a debt-buying company to buy people's debt in south Wales, but he "wasn't able to know who these people were individually"."I knew the kind of debt they had and I knew the areas they were living in."I was then able to use £100k of my own money to buy a £1m worth of debt, which seemed like a good deal to me."
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Michael Sheen Writes Off Over $1M Worth of Debt for 900 People Using His Own Money
Michael Sheen has written off £1 million ($1.29 million) of debt for 900 people using £100,000 ($129,000) of his own money. The Welsh star, famed for roles in Good Omens, Twilight and more recently, A Very Royal Scandal, has started a debt acquisition company to help the group in his native south Wales. The business venture is documented in an upcoming Channel 4 documentary Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway, set to air in the U.K. next week. More from The Hollywood Reporter Neil Gaiman Says WhatsApp Messages Prove Former Nanny's Claims of Rape Are a "Sham": "She's a Fantasist" TKO Officially Enters Boxing Business in Deal With Saudi Arabia TNT Sports Snags FIFA Club World Cup Rights in Deal With DAZN Sheen's show aims to reveal how banks and finance companies are profiting from the country's most vulnerable. 'The shocking thing is that people have started having to use credit cards, overdrafts to pay for basics, to pay for necessities, rather than luxuries or anything like that, so the debt that I was able to buy included credit card debt, overdrafts, car finance, that kind of stuff,' he said. 'You need some help to get through these times. And people are getting into spirals of debt. Once you're underwater it's very hard to get out again. That's why I wanted to do this — to draw attention to the fact that this is going on, and there is a way to change it, there are alternatives, and we need to push to try and make a difference for people.' The actor was initially cautious about spending the money, he told BBC's The One Show on Wednesday, saying he does not have £100,000 to 'throw around' and therefore wanting the project to be 'effective.' It was only when he met a woman in a Port Talbot cafe who told him about 'steelworkers in tears' that Sheen decided to see the debt acquisition company through. Sheen's efforts, directed at the Port Talbot region, come five months after the closure of a blast furnace in Wales, marking the end of traditional steelmaking in the region and prompting in the widespread loss of jobs. Sheen has become a champion of Wales in recent months, self-financing a new national theater to fill the gap left by the 2024 shutdown of National Theatre Wales, forced to close after a 1.6 million pound ($1.96 million) funding cut. The actor said the closure of National Theatre Wales was 'incredibly sad, but not a surprise' and that it motivated him to find a solution. '[I realized] if we don't find a way to reimagine the way forward, it may be a long time — if ever — that we have the opportunity to have a national theater in Wales again.' He added at the time: 'I want it to be something that represents the rich culture that we are and always have been in this country,' he continued, explaining that the company is seeking private and public funding but self-financing initially allows the business to stand 'on its own two feet.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter The Cast of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' Then and Now 'Yellowstone' and the Sprawling Dutton Family Tree, Explained A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise
