Latest news with #FameAcademy
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'This isn't just a tribute' - singer stages special performance at York venue
A YORK singer songwriter is staging an all-new candlelit spectacular. Alistair Griffin's Ignite Concerts has organised the concert, called The Greatest Shows following the sell-out success of A Night at the Movies. Recommended reading: 'It's been a really hard decision to close' - York bar shuts its doors Cheeky Girls to perform at city venue for York Pride 'I'll be raising several glasses of champagne to you all' - campaign victory The singer will return to York Minster with an all-new show on Friday, October 31. He said: 'There's something magical about hearing these iconic songs echo through York Minster. 'We wanted to take what we created with A Night at the Movies and go even further — adding new layers of storytelling, theatricality, and musical surprises. This is only the beginning. "This isn't just a tribute – it's a celebration of the entire world of musical theatre, reimagined in one of the UK's most breathtaking venues. "Under the glow of thousands of candles, and performed by the acclaimed Ebor Quartet, the show will feature powerful string arrangements, unforgettable melodies, and special guest performances including rising star vocalist Maggie Wakeling." Alistair Griffin will host The Greatest Shows event in York Minster in October (Image: Mark Strodds) Taking inspiration from Broadway and the West End, The Greatest Shows features songs from the world's most beloved musicals – from Les Misérables and The Lion King to Wicked, Phantom of the Opera and The Greatest Showman. Hosted by Alistair, who will take on the role of the Ringmaster for the night — weaving together stories, songs, and surprises. With ambitions to grow The Greatest Shows into a touring spectacle, Ignite is pulling out all the stops to create a uniquely immersive and emotional experience — one that brings the drama, joy, and magic of the stage into the sacred space of the Minster. Alistair first appeared on Fame Academy in 2002 Back in 2022 Alistair, who shot to fame on the BBC talent show Fame Academy in 2002, scored a number 5 hit with a track co-penned with his former mentor, BeeGee Robin Gibb. Doors for the event will open at 6.45 pm, with the performance starting at 7.30 pm. A licensed bar will be available, allowing guests to enjoy refreshments throughout the evening. Tickets are expected to sell quickly. To get yours go to: A previous candlelit performance (Image: Mark Strodds)
The Guardian
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Million Dollar Secret review – you won't be able to get enough of this shameless rip-off of The Traitors
Sometimes, the best way to describe a new competition series is to triangulate it between a couple of shows that already exist. So Fame Academy was The X Factor meets Big Brother, and The Great British Sewing Bee is Bake Off meets Project Runway. However, this is impossible to do with Netflix's new competition series, Million Dollar Secret. That's not because it is so fiercely original that it defies comparison. No, it is because Million Dollar Secret is The Traitors. It is transparently, baldly, shamelessly The Traitors. Million Dollar Secret feels like the result of a careful scientific procedure designed to make something as identical to The Traitors as humanly possible, while remaining just legally distinct enough to prevent it from being sued into oblivion by All3Media. It barely even feels worth explaining how Million Dollar Secret works, such is the comprehensiveness of its unoriginality, but here goes. A number of strangers gather in a big luxurious house. One of them has a secret they desperately need to protect, and the others must do everything they can to discover their identity. Each day they take part in group tasks that will give them an advantage when it comes to voting each other out. The voting happens around a large, ornately decorated table. Sometimes, the action will be punctuated by slow-motion footage of the contestants, while an incongruously dramatic pop song plays in the background. Million Dollar Secret is The Traitors, and I really don't think I can underscore this enough. Herein lies the problem. My head is telling me that favourably reviewing Million Dollar Secret is tantamount to rewarding plagiarism. It would be like giving a high exam grade to someone who openly copied all their answers from the smartest kid in class. However, I just watched four episodes of Million Dollar Secret in a row – even though I only meant to watch one. It might be a rip-off, but it is apparently a rip-off I cannot get enough of. The gimmick of Million Dollar Secret is that all the contestants have boxes in their bedrooms, and one of them contains a million dollars in cash. The others have to guess who has it, and whoever is left holding it at the end gets to keep it. This means things get febrile pretty fast. Everyone has seen enough of these shows (mainly The Traitors, let's be honest) to come with a gameplan, which means that everyone finds themselves in a paranoid frenzy of hypervigilance from the outset. Early on, one contestant suggests that everyone should hold hands at lunch to give thanks for the food, and everyone immediately turns on him, because by the game's logic this is exactly the sort of thing a secret millionaire would do. It is worth pointing out that this is an American series, so compared to the BBC version of The Traitors everyone is incredibly loud and performative, with camera-ready personas locked and ready to go. One of them is a former New York police officer who cries about infertility then boasts that she only did it to win people over. One is an older woman from Texas who acts as though she fell out of a charming network TV show about a cunning amateur detective. One quickly announces that he is 'the king of nonverbal communication'. All three come out of the gates way too hot, and it isn't a spoiler to say that it backfires spectacularly for one of them. Then there is the host. Million Dollar Secret is presented by Peter Serafinowicz, who gives a knowingly batty performance destined for meme immortality. Serafinowicz takes the role of the owner of the fictional hotel where everyone is staying, and conducts himself with a genuinely bizarre upper-class aloofness. The beauty of it is that, for most global viewers, he probably seems quite generically British. But if you know his work, it is hysterical. Towards the end of the first episode, when everyone is tearing each other apart to discover the identity of the millionaire, there is a cutaway of Serafinowicz happily munching away on his dinner. It is as if he is doing his own private one-man show unbeknownst to everyone else. It's incredible. This may well be the role he was born to play. So, Million Dollar Secret is The Traitors. But guess what? The Traitors is great, and so is this, too. If you liked The Traitors, I'm afraid that this will be your new obsession. Turns out originality is overrated. Million Dollar Secret is on Netflix now.
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
10 TV Shows You'd Totally Forgotten Holly Willoughby Presented Before Celebrity Bear Hunt
After more than 20 years in telly, Holly Willoughby looks poised to be introduced to a whole new audience as the host of Netflix's latest reality offering. Best known to those of us for her work on shows like Dancing On Ice and This Morning, Holly is the host of Celebrity Bear Hunt, a new survivalist series that sees a star-studded cast of contestants being put through their paces in the wilderness by Bear Grylls. While Holly is already one of the UK's most recognisable presenters, you might not realise she has a fair few less well-remembered shows to her name, too. In that spirit, we've had a rummage through the TV vaults to bring you all the shows you'd probably forgotten she'd presented... Holly landed her first TV gig at the age of 19 in 2000, when she was cast as one of the hosts of CITV show S Club TV. The magazine series was an extension of the S Club universe, after the success of S Club 7. Westworld fans might have also spotted that actor Ben Barnes – who played Logan in the HBO series – was one of Holly's co-hosts. This isn't Holly's only connection to S Club though, as in the same year she appeared in the band's TV movie Artistic Differences as an old flame of singer Paul Cattermole. After cutting her teeth on S Club TV, Holly also began working on CBBC's X-Change. She was one of a host of presenters who hosted the daily magazine show in the early 2000s. Holly actually spoke about her stint on the kids series on This Morning in 2018, when the ITV daytime show began broadcasting from Television Centre in the studio next door to where X-Change was recorded. During her time with CBBC, Holly was drafted in to front the kids channel's coverage of BBC One talent show Fame Academy. During the first two main series in 2002 and 2003 and the Comic Relief special in 2003, Holly and co-host Jake Humphrey would host daily updates from the Fame Academy mansion, including interviews with the contestants and judges and behind the scenes gossip. When the show returned in 2005 for a Comic Relief special, Sophie McDonnell fronted the CBBC coverage alongside Jake, with the late Caroline Flack taking over in 2007. Holly landed her biggest gig yet when she was drafted in to guest present the hugely popular Saturday morning chart show CD:UK in 2005, following the departure of Cat Deeley. She appeared on a rotational basis alongside the likes of Dave Berry before new regular hosts Myleene Klass, Lauren Laverne and Johnny Pitts took over in 2006. It was around this time that Holly was announced as the face of SM:TV Live's Saturday morning successor, Ministry Of Mayhem, which she hosted with Stephen Mulhern and Michael Underwood. The mid-2000s also saw Holly begin to transition into more grown-up entertainment shows, and she was handed an ITV2 spin-off of her very own in 2005. Celebrity Wrestling: Bring It On was the companion show to ITV's Saturday night show Celebrity Wrestling, and saw Holly co-hosting with Jack Osbourne. However, Celebrity Wrestling was not a hit with fans, and the main show was shunted out of its Saturday night slot mid-series due to low ratings, with the remainder of episodes airing on Sunday mornings. Despite the fate of Celebrity Wrestling, Holly had begun making a name for herself thanks to Dancing On Ice, and continued to front companion shows for ITV2. In 2007, she was handed Greased Lightnin' – essentially The Xtra Factor equivalent for ITV talent competition Grease Is The Word – which saw Sinitta, David Gest, Brian Friedman and David Ian tasked with casting the roles of Danny and Sandy for a new West End production of Grease. Grease Is The Word was dreamed up by Simon Cowell in response to the success of the BBC's musical talent shows, which were fronted by Andrew Lloyd Webber. While it proved to be much less popular than its BBC equivalents, Holly's career went from strength to strength and the following year, Simon brought her in to replace pal Fearne Cotton on The Xtra Factor, which she hosted for two series before leaving to concentrate on her commitments to This Morning and Dancing On Ice. Streetmate is most commonly associated with Davina McCall, with the hit dating show airing on Channel 4 between 1998 and 2001. However, six years later, Holly fronted a revival of Streetmate for ITV2, but it only lasted one series. Scarlett Moffatt went on to host another brief revival for Channel 4 in 2017. Holly was very busy matchmaking in 2007, because as well as fronting Streetmate, she also teamed up with pal and future Celebrity Juice co-captain Fearne Cotton for Holly & Fearne Go Dating. The ITV2 show saw Holly and Fearne each search for a potential suitor for a singleton, before they eventually had a date with both of the presenters' picks and had to choose a match at the end of the night, resulting in a win for either Holly or Fearne. Much like Streetmate, it only lasted one series. The UK version of The Voice has been going since 2012, with Emma Willis hosting eight series of the talent show. But when the show launched on the BBC, Holly was one of the original presenters alongside then Radio 1 DJ Reggie Yates. Holly even quit her presenting role on Dancing On Ice to front The Voice UK, but only stayed with the show for two series, before she and Reggie were replaced by Emma and Marvin Humes. After Christine Bleakley hosted three series of Dancing On Ice alongside Phillip Schofield in Holly's place prior to the final series in 2014, she returned when it was rebooted by ITV in 2018. Meet The Parents was a hybrid format that mixed in elements of Blind Date and First Dates with a twist – the singleton's parents got to pick a suitor for their spouse. After assuming the Cilla Black role on Surprise Surprise, Holly also stepped into the late presenter's shoes on Meet The Parents, but it only lasted for one series in 2016. 11 Forgotten TV Shows Claudia Winkleman Presented Long Before Wowing Us In The Traitors These Are Our Top 10 Picks Of The New Shows And Films Streaming On Netflix This February 25 Things To Get Excited About From The World Of Entertainment In 2025
