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Edinburgh Live
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Live
Netflix unveils trailer for new Edinburgh crime thriller based on popular novel series
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info Netflix has unveiled the first trailer for an Edinburgh-set police drama, Dept Q. The series which is set to premiere on May 29, saw streets across the capital be taken over by crews as filming got underway Starring Line of Duty's Kelly Macdonald and Downton Abbey's Matthew Goode, the series follows a detective leading a cold case unit in Edinburgh. Based on the novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen, the show also stars Chloe Pirrie, Jamie Sives, Leah Byrne, Mark Bonnar, Kate Dickie, Alexej Manvelov, Shirley Henderson and Tom Bulpett. The two-minute teaser introduces Goode's DCI Carl Morck as he speaks to Macdonald's therapist Dr Rachel Irving about the incident. The investigation trail leads them to look into the officers themselves. (Image: Netflix) Over the course of 2024, residential and city centre areas were taken over for the crime drama series. Calder Crescent was closed for locals from 8am to 5pm on February 6 2024 while scenes were shot. Then in march 2024, Melville Street was partially closed as film crews got to work. (Image: Edinburgh Live) Locals were previously informed: "We are writing to you on behalf of LBM Dept Q Ltd to inform you of our plans to film scenes for a chilling new detective series being made for one of the large streaming channels in and around Edinburgh." The Netflix description reads: "A brash but brilliant cop becomes head of a new police department, where he leads an unlikely team of misfits in solving Edinburgh's cold cases." Sign up for Edinburgh Live newsletters for more headlines straight to your inbox Director Scott Frank previously said: "The fact that I have been a fan of Jussi's novels for a dozen years now combined with my long-standing obsession with old school British procedurals like Cracker and Prime Suspect, made this one irresistible. Join Edinburgh Live's Whatsapp Community here and get the latest news sentstraight to your messages. "There are ten novels in all, each one is a terrific mystery with great potential for a great season of television. And Carl Mørck is one of those classic detective antiheroes, funny and dark at the same time, that I can never get enough of. I think audiences will feel the same way.' You can watch the full trailer here.
Wales Online
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
BBC adds 'stonking masterclass' of '90s drama with amazing cast and raunchy scenes to iPlayer
BBC adds 'stonking masterclass' of '90s drama with amazing cast and raunchy scenes to iPlayer 1997 BBC drama The Lakes starring John Simm was considered as a coming-of-age series for many 1990s TV viewers Kaye Wragg, John Simm and Emma Cunniffe in The Lakes (Image: BBC ) If you watched TV in the late 1990s - and were over 15 - you'll have definitely tuned into Jimmy McGovern's The Lakes. The pedigree of McGovern's screenwriting, from the likes of Cracker to Hillsborough, still makes his shows a must-watch to this day and he continues turning out class act series like Time, Accused and Broken. The Lakes saw new star of the moment, John Simm, as Danny Kavanagh, a Scouser with a gambling problem who runs away to the Lake District, gets a local girl pregnant - lets her down by gambling and ends up on the sharp end of the local community's anger after three girls die after sneaking out on a boat at the rental company he's got a job at. Despite wasting no time trying to save the schoolgirls, his reticence in revealing that he was on the phone to a bookie at the time they took the boat sees him become an easy scapegoat and the four-part drama follows the web of blame and bad behaviour that ultimately leads to the girls' death. Now the show is back on the BBC thanks to iPlayer, almost 30 years after it first aired and with few repeat viewings it's a real treat for TV fans. It's a gripping and bleak affair but with stupendous performances from Simm and a supporting cast of familiar faces. Emma Cunniffe stars as Emma, Danny's wife, you'll recognise her from long-running shows like Silent Witness, Unforgotten and she was recently in Call the Midwife. Article continues below Welsh duo, Charles Dale and Robert Pugh play sex addict Chef and Father Matthew, respectively. Tenby-born Dale, who's nothing like on-screen bully Chef, is one of those faces you'll know from Corrie, The Pembrokeshire Murders, Unforgotten and he was Casualty's Big Mac for more than a decade. Pugh, also recently seen in Casualty, was Craster in Game of Thrones and has starred in Hollywood films like Master & Commander and Robin Hood. John Simm shared the news on his Instagram and said the show was a 'masterclass in screenwriting' as he effused the show was a lifechanging experience - he went on to star in Human Traffic, Life on Mars and ITV's Grace, which is currently airing its fifth series. He writes: "It was special for Jimmy because it was autobiographical and it was special for me because it was the game changer in my career. I was 26 years old and having the time of my life in the Lake District playing the wonderful role of Danny Kavanagh with an amazing cast & crew, the best director (David Blair) and of course the greatest writer of them all. I'll be forever grateful for this opportunity." Content cannot be displayed without consent Fans of John and the series itself didn't hold back in praise of the show. One wrote: "Not seen since first airing - when I think I watched it with my parents . What a stonking show." Another commented: "Amazing ! Can't wait to watch this again absolutely brilliant ! & Jimmy McGovern was my English teacher inspirational." Simm's famous followers also revealed themselves to be fans of the show. Doctor Who boss, Russell T Davies said: "Oh amazing, what a brilliant show." Daniel Mays, famed for his roles in Line of Duty, A Thousand Blows and Mrs Biggs added: "Amazing show." Article continues below As well as reairing the first series, series two isn't streaming yet, BBC iPlayer also have a mini-documentary with Jimmy McGovern who revisits the show. Both The Lakes and Jimmy McGovern Remembers are on BBC iPlayer, now. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter .
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The murky yet fascinating world of the toilet
Contrary to public opinion, Thomas Crapper did not invent the toilet. He did however open the world's first bath, toilet and sink showroom in 1850. So why start a column with such a titbit of trivia? Well, I recently wrote a column about awards and was struck, not literally, by the loo of the year award (note: there is a rival 'toilet of the year award'). Nominations for toilets outside the homestead can be made and OFSTED style unannounced visits are undertaken to judge your latrine on cleanliness, décor, signage, and customer care. The centre, Livingston, flew the flag this year and, looking back at all of the winners since the inaugural award in 1987, I was surprised to see I had visited a few of the winners, with one used when I dropped the kids off at the pool, literally, on a visit to Peppa Pigs Paulton's Park (2021 winners). Other winners, inextricably include the Wetherspoons pub chain. Having undertaken the hike numerous times (why are they all a 6km round trip from the bar?), I found nothing award worthy, in spite of the hourly 'this toilet had been cleaned by' Dave at 11.15am poster on the back of the door which I'm sure are pre-populated days in advance. On a micro scale, there are localised awards. The Lewisham community toilet scheme, recently rebranded themselves as 'Loowisham' and awarded the Corbett community library first place with a golden bog brush trophy which looks suspiciously like the original Jules Rimet. Despite this being a jocular theme from the column outset, the further I reach into the pan, the more I become enamoured by our porcelain friends. There seems to be a psychology with toilets. I remember watching 'Cracker' and Robbie Coltrane ascertained that a man, bludgeoned to death by a hammer whilst at the urinal, must have had someone else in the toilet at the same time as he didn't use the end trough (its an animalistic thing to feel protected from one side apparently). It is true though, when visiting, us gentlemen always go for the corner. Studies have shown the first toilet is the least used, and hence the most hygienic and therefore you are less likely to get ill should you use that one. Grossly, only five per cent of people wash their hands for the recommended 15 seconds and the average adult spends a total of three years of their life sitting on the pan. The average human apparently visits the bog 2,500 times annually and the amount of time spend on the throne is directly related to the number of apps we have on our smartphones. I often get angry when visiting and see the previous incumbent hasn't flushed, but I now understand having read that the average toilet flush handle has 40,000 germs per square inch. Factoids aside, it is a serious business. The British Toilet Association campaigns for better toilets through their consultancy services and are sponsored by the unfortunately named 'Reckitt' solutions. It does become sinister however when ramping up the anti and reading the world toilet association blurb where they state more than a quarter of the world's population lack basic sanitation which is a public health emergency in any language. With one of their advisors aptly named 'Royce Wee,' their movement is, nobly, to ensure the one billion people who practice 'open defecation' don't have to, and with a child dying every two minutes from diarrhoea, to ensure access to sanitation is a human right, not a want. And so, with the monotony of middle aged firmly ingrained in my chi, I may delve further into this murky yet fascinating world and make it a mission to visit the ten most recent 'toilets of the year' and feed back my findings, not that you're interested. Still, it will give me opportunity to flush away the hours as I continue to overcome the trauma of using the medicated Izal toilet paper which was favoured by my grandparent's generation, and which left your under carriage looking as crimson as a low rent slaughterhouse… Brett Ellis is a teacher
The Guardian
30-01-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
How FA mindset guru's four questions provide building blocks to sporting glory
Headlines regularly report the latest outburst on court, a striker's unexplained goal drought or a coach's touchline rant. We search to understand how the best teams make game-winning decisions, communicate almost telepathically, recover from failure and deliver breathtaking performances when it matters most. It's a confusing world of belief systems and mindsets that can be hard to navigate and dominated by urban myths. To help answer these questions more systematically, Kate Hays, one of Britain's most progressive sports psychologists, shares her insights and approach honed across Olympic sport, rugby and football in her new book How to Win. Hays, head of women's performance psychology at the Football Association, takes us behind the scenes of some epic sporting achievements, from Tom Daley's diving career to the Harlequins championship-winning team and Sarina Wiegman's Euros-winning Lionesses. A promising 800m runner growing up, Hays had twin fascinations with the worlds of sport and crime. She recalls loving the TV drama series Cracker, based on Robbie Coltrane's colourful criminal psychologist, and was gripped by Paul Britton's book The Jigsaw Man. Britton, a forensic psychologist, looks for the 'mind trace' left by criminals rather than fingerprints or bloodstains, and asks himself four questions when faced with a crime scene: 'What happened, who was the victim, how was it done and why?' Hays likewise uses four questions to create the building blocks to sustainable performance: who are we? Why are we here? How do we play? And how do we win? These simple but not easy questions develop the deep roots needed to underpin long-term performance in the constantly volatile, unpredictable world of high-performance sport. A turning point came when Hays led sports psychology for Team GB. After the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Hays and her colleagues were troubled by the athletes' adverse stories, despite the impressive medal tally. They believed the human costs were unnecessarily high and detrimental to future performance. Project Thrive emerged, based on a double ambition of performance and thriving for every Team GB athlete. This thinking continues to underpin Hays' approach. 'I just do not buy into this idea that performance needs to be separate from an environment in which people can flourish and thrive,' she told me. 'I think the mistake is when you look at those as two separate things.' Although acknowledging 'people can be successful when they're not in the greatest place', Hays is convinced that success garnered in that way 'can't be sustained'. While discussions about the future of sport focus on fast-evolving technology, virtual reality headsets and AI, Hays emphasised to me: 'At the heart of those things is still a human being that needs to execute those skills under the highest pressure (constantly increasing from social media). To do that, they have to be able to emotionally regulate and maintain focus on the right thing at the right time.' Emotional regulation is a theme throughout the book. Daley explains in the afterword how Hays helped him manage 'main character syndrome' where a person believes, wrongly, that all eyes are on them. By creating a purpose beyond diving, Daley unlocked the freedom necessary to excel across five Olympics: 'The truth is that we're all supporting characters, and if we can learn to live like no one's watching, it's possible to free ourselves from embarrassment and fear. This attitude allows me to do whatever I think is best for success.' I first met Hays 10 years ago when I was supporting the coaches of the Cambridge University crew preparing for the first women's Boat Race to be held on the London Tideway Championship course. We were on a steep learning curve facing fast-rising standards and a global audience. That first year would bring unprecedented levels of media and public interest plus an Oxford crew with Olympic and international experience far beyond any of the Cambridge student rowers. Our chances of winning were nonexistent, yet we needed the 2015 race to be a success for the students, the club and the wider sporting world. Knowing of Hays' reputation and versatility across sports, we invited her to help us. Hays helped reimagine and redesign what success looked like: firstly, a challenging but achievable performance ambition for the Cambridge women's crew to give their best performance and go as fast as they were capable of on race day with measures around that; secondly, the goal to be brilliant ambassadors for this pioneering moment in women's sport; thirdly, taking a strong first step towards creating a sustainable high performance system to develop the rowing talent at Cambridge over the long-term. Hays worked collaboratively with the coaching team – a constant feature of her work and integral to her deep impact wherever she goes. Although the Cambridge women lost that year, they walked away knowing they had given their best performance in a race that attracted huge positive coverage. As a team, we took a giant step towards building a culture and performance system that would lead to a stunning course record in 2017 and an unbeaten streak since. Fast forward to her current work with the Lionesses. Hays talks of the 'meeting of minds' in her first conversation with Wiegman whom she describes as 'so psychologically well-informed.' Asked about the challenges of the upcoming Euros where the Lionesses will defend their title, Hays sets this calmly within the wider context and infinite game of sport: 'There is always change. So you're constantly readjusting, reflecting, re-evaluating … whether you haven't won yet, whether you've won multiple times, it almost doesn't matter because that change happens anyway.' Like Hays, her book is grounded in the practical application of psychological principles, leading us firmly away from popular myths, cliches and superstitions. There are no silver bullets for mastering our minds but Hays' four fundamental questions provide a map for anyone inside or outside sport to set themselves up for sustainable success. How To Win: Lessons in Success From the Front Line of Performance Psychology by Kate Hayes is published on Thursday by HarperCollins
