Latest news with #FieldofDreamsonTour
Daily Mirror
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
BAFTA Awards snub Freddie Flintoff despite his inspiring television comeback
Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff missed out on a BAFTA Award in London on Sunday after making his return to the small-screen following a near-death crash while filming for Top Gear Former sports star and Top Gear presenter Freddie Flintoff was snubbed by BAFTA after making an emotional comeback to our screens. The ex-athlete was left fighting for his life Freddie was up for Best Factual series at this year's ceremony, which was held at London's Royal Festival Hall. His BBC One series Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams on Tour had hoped to gain the gong, as it showcased the former cricketer taking a team of unlikely lads from Lancashire to India However, he didn't bag the award, which instead went to a Channel 4 show. The eventual winner was To Catch a Copper, a show which investigated officer misconduct within the Avon and Somerset Police. It shed light on misogyny, abuse of power and racial profiling in the process of the show. Despite Freddie not being honoured at the BAFTAs this time around, he has signed up for another series of the show. This time, the team will be all girls, according to reports. Speaking to the Sun, a source said: "Freddie didn't see why the young women in Preston shouldn't get the same chances as the boys, particularly as more and more female teams are popping up across the country. "After all, the whole point of the show is to provide equal opportunities and use the sport to help people regardless of their background. So why should gender be a barrier?" Following his first time back on screen, Freddie has since candidly shared his recovery in a revealing documentary on Disney+. The show revealed his horrifying injuries. It also shows a close up of the three-wheeled car he was driving for the first time. Surgeon Jahrad Haq, who treated Flintoff at the time, told the documentary the star's injuries were "very complex'. Following his near-death crash, Freddie suffered a mixture of hard and soft tissue injuries, broken teeth, lost teeth and elements of the upper jaw bone that were also fractured and displaced. Mr Haq went on: 'He lost a really significant portion of his upper lip - the skin and some of the underlying muscle - and also his lower lip.' Mr Haq said the injuries were in the "top five" in terms of severity of those he had seen during his career. The injuries were so bad that Freddie's wife fought back tears when she first saw him. She also warned their four children of what to expect. She recalled in the documentary: 'When I did see him, I walked in the room, and he was just in the bed, and he was bandaged up.
Scottish Sun
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Freddie Flintoff snubbed by BAFTA after inspiring television comeback – as he loses out on factual series award
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) FREDDIE Flintoff has missed out on taking home a Bafta Award after his triumphant return to TV. The cricket player-turned-TV host was up for Best Factual series at this year's ceremony, being held at London's Royal Festival Hall today. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 6 Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams on Tour missed out on the Bafta Credit: BBC 6 The cricket series has become beloved by fans Credit: BBC 6 A third series has already been given the go ahead Credit: BBC He was nominated for his BBC One series Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams on Tour, taking a team of unlikely lads from Lancashire to India. The adventure was dubbed "the most unlikely cricket tour that almost didn't happen". However, he faced stiff competition from Netflix's American Nightmare, Channel 4's The Push: Murder on The Cliff, and To Catch a Copper, which also aired on Channel 4. To Catch a Copper - which investigates officer misconduct within the Avon and Somerset Police, shedding light on misogyny, abuse of power and racial profiling in the process - ultimately took home the prize at the ceremony. Field of Dreams has proven a massive hit for the BBC, with a third series already being greenlit. Freddie will work the same magic on another gaggle of teenagers from his home city on the new show - but The Sun exclusively revealed they will all be girls this time round. A TV insider said: 'Freddie didn't see why the young women in Preston shouldn't get the same chances as the boys, particularly as more and more female teams are popping up across the country. 'After all, the whole point of the show is to provide equal opportunities and use the sport to help people regardless of their background. So why should gender be a barrier?' The snub for the series comes after the star was widely praised for another documentary, Flintoff, which followed the star's mental and physical recovery from a near-death car crash on the set of Top Gear. Released on Disney+, Flintoff gave cameras access to his life, doctors' appointments and home as he dealt with life-changing injuries to his face. TV Baftas 2025: Maura Higgins, Tasha Ghouri and Ella Morgan lead the glamour as stars arrive on glitzy red carpet His family also share the impact it had on them, with Freddie's three-year-old being too scared to go near him in the wake of the accident. In a brutally honest chat, he admits he got so low that he wished the crash would have killed him, and refused to leave the house for eight months. The release comes amid a very busy year for Flintoff, who has also already committed to a series of Bullseye for ITV. Bafta TV 2025 Winners List Here's everyone who has taken home an award at tonight's ceremony Entertainment: Would I Lie To You? Factual Series: To Catch a Copper International: Shogun Supporting Actor: Ariyon Bakare, Mr Loverman Supporting Actress: Jessica Gunning, Baby Reindeer Limited Drama: Mr Bates Vs The Post Office Male Performance in a Comedy: Danny Dyer, Mr Bigstuff Female Performance in a Comedy: Ruth Jones, Gavin and Stacey News Coverage: BBC Breakfast: Post Office Special Reality: The Jury: Murder Trial Scripted Comedy: Alma's Not Normal Short Form: Quiet Life Single Documentary: Ukraine: Enemy in the Woods Special Award: ITV - Mr Bates Vs The Post Office Soap: EastEnders Live Event Coverage: Glastonbury 2024 Specialist Factual: Atomic People Sports Coverage: Paris 2024 Olympics, BBC One Children's Non-Scripted: Disability and Me (FYI Investigates) Children's Scripted: Cbeebies As You Like It At Shakespeare's Globe Current Affairs: State of Rage P&O Cruises Memorable Moment: Daytime: Drama Series: Entertainment Performance: Factual Entertainment: Fellowship: Leading Actor: Leading Actress: 6 To Catch a Copper took home the Bafta for Factual series Credit: Gareth Iwan Jones / Channel 4 6 Flintoff has already been praised this year for his eye-opening personal documentary series Credit: Getty
The Irish Sun
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Freddie Flintoff snubbed by BAFTA after inspiring television comeback – as he loses out on factual series award
FREDDIE Flintoff has missed out on taking home a Bafta Award after his triumphant return to TV. The Advertisement 6 Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams on Tour missed out on the Bafta Credit: BBC 6 The cricket series has become beloved by fans Credit: BBC 6 A third series has already been given the go ahead Credit: BBC He was nominated for his BBC One series Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams on Tour, taking a team of unlikely lads from Lancashire to India. The adventure was dubbed "the most unlikely cricket tour that almost didn't happen". However, he faced stiff competition from Advertisement READ MORE BAFTAS Field of Dreams has proven a massive hit for the BBC, with a Freddie will work the same magic on another gaggle of teenagers from his home city on the new show - but The Sun exclusively revealed A TV insider said: 'Freddie didn't see why the young women in Preston shouldn't get the same chances as the boys, particularly as more and more female teams are popping up across the country. 'After all, the whole point of the show is to provide equal opportunities and use the sport to help people regardless of their background. So why should gender be a barrier?' Advertisement Most read in TV The snub for the series comes after the star was widely praised for another documentary, Flintoff, which followed Released on Disney+, Flintoff gave cameras access to his life, doctors' appointments and home as he dealt with life-changing injuries to his face. TV Baftas 2025: Maura Higgins, Tasha Ghouri and Ella Morgan lead the glamour as stars arrive on glitzy red carpet His family also share the impact it had on them, with In a brutally honest chat, he admits he got so low that he Advertisement The release comes amid a very busy year for Flintoff, who has also Bafta TV 2025 Winners List Here's everyone who has taken home an award at tonight's ceremony Entertainment: Would I Lie To You? Factual Series: To Catch a Copper International: Shogun Supporting Actor: Ariyon Bakare, Mr Loverman Supporting Actress: Jessica Gunning, Baby Reindeer Limited Drama: Mr Bates Vs The Post Office Male Performance in a Comedy: Danny Dyer, Mr Bigstuff Female Performance in a Comedy: Ruth Jones, Gavin and Stacey News Coverage: BBC Breakfast: Post Office Special Reality: The Jury: Murder Trial Scripted Comedy: Alma's Not Normal Short Form: Quiet Life Single Documentary: Ukraine: Enemy in the Woods Special Award: ITV - Mr Bates Vs The Post Office Soap: EastEnders Live Event Coverage: Glastonbury 2024 Specialist Factual: Atomic People Sports Coverage: Paris 2024 Olympics, BBC One Children's Non-Scripted: Disability and Me (FYI Investigates) Children's Scripted: Cbeebies As You Like It At Shakespeare's Globe Current Affairs: State of Rage P&O Cruises Memorable Moment: Daytime: Drama Series: Entertainment Performance: Factual Entertainment: Fellowship: Leading Actor: Leading Actress: 6 To Catch a Copper took home the Bafta for Factual series Credit: Gareth Iwan Jones / Channel 4 6 Flintoff has already been praised this year for his eye-opening personal documentary series Credit: Getty 6 The in-demand star will return later this year for a new series of Bullseye Credit: Rex Advertisement
The Guardian
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Flintoff review – so traumatised he can't even speak to his ex-Top Gear pals
Freddie Flintoff is numb. As the 98-minute Disney+ documentary Flintoff begins, we find its subject sitting in a hospital room. He can't feel his lip, the one that was torn from his face in a nightmarish car accident on the Top Gear track in 2022. But more than that, he is mentally checked out. As one doctor after another tells him that he is recovering well and looking good, he stares at the ground dejectedly. He just wants everyone to stop sugarcoating everything and tell him the truth, he says. What he wants to hear is that he looks like 'a fucking mess'. Flintoff was designed as the big unveiling of the new, post-accident Freddie Flintoff. His days as a cricketing prodigy are over and so, it seems, are his days as a permanent light entertainment fixture. He is older, slower and more reflective. He is also plagued, night after night, by looping footage of the accident that ended Top Gear. Ostensibly this is where we'll get to watch his comeback. But a few things stand in the way of that. The first and most glaring is that Flintoff's comeback has already been conducted in public. This documentary is preceded by two others – Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams on Tour and Freddie Flintoff: Living With Bulimia – that already covered a lot of its ground. Oddly, both of those shows and this were all made by the same production company. More recently Flintoff hosted last year's Bullseye Christmas special, which undermines the central question in Flintoff of whether he'll be able to pull himself back from the brink. The second problem is the format. To watch the Freddie Flintoff story told in a film is to realise that it would have made an incredible series. Very few people have had a life as spectacular. He was a blazingly talented cricketer from the off, burly and powerful and fast and charismatic, which gave him enough of a platform to transcend the sport. But he could also be his own worst enemy; a hard-drinking lad's lad who brought shame upon the England team by – of all things – getting hammered and falling off a pedalo. He retired from cricket and lost his way again, before finding even greater fame as the host of multiple television programmes. He was brought in to save Top Gear, the jewel in the BBC's crown, before the accident that sent him into retreat from the public. Told chronologically, with an episode dedicated to each chapter, Flintoff could have been a definitive deep-dive into an effortlessly compelling character. Instead, though, the film whiplashes backwards and forwards in time. Really, the hook of the thing is the crash and its aftermath, which Flintoff has largely kept to himself. But every time he starts to open up about the loneliness he felt, or the fear of frightening his children with his scars, we're hauled back to a golden-days segment about the 2005 Ashes, or a talking heads clip of James Corden discussing A League of Their Own. It's a profoundly frustrating way to tell a story. And then there is Flintoff himself. At one point in the film he is asked if he prefers to be called Freddie or Andrew, and jokes that there are two of him, or 'maybe more'. This is extremely evident here. One of the things that makes him stand out from most of his peers is his readiness to discuss the hard topics. He is incredibly open about the pressures of fame, his eating disorders, and the PTSD that his crash understandably left him with. But he slams down the shutters at speed whenever he isn't comfortable. This is most evident when he's asked about his Top Gear co-hosts, Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris. Harris has spoken publicly about the crash before, but not here. This, it turns out, may have something to do with Flintoff essentially cutting off contact with them, partly out of shame at how the crash affected their careers. Even the fact that Flintoff is a Disney+ film, when he's one of the faces of the BBC, speaks to a level of unhealed trauma that he refuses to broach here. Make no mistake, Freddie Flintoff is a fascinating man and it's clear that his story is far from over. Had this film been afforded a little more time and distance, it could have been something very special. As it is, though, it may be for fans only. Flintoff is on Disney+ now
The Independent
18-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Freddie Flintoff reveals he was unable to leave the house for eight months after Top Gear crash
Freddie Flintoff has revealed he couldn't leave the house for eight months after his terrifying Top Gear accident. The 46-year-old sportsman was involved in a near-fatal incident that left him with significant facial injuries and broken ribs while filming the motoring show in December 2022. Britain's most renowned cricketer subsequently developed anxiety over leaving his house and almost entirely stepped away from public life following the crash. Speaking to Jonathan Ross on his ITV chat show, Flintoff said of the aftermath: 'The only times I was leaving the house was for medical appointments and surgeries. 'I was struggling with crippling anxiety. I had to have about five or six goes at leaving the room – had to have a chat with myself in the mirror. 'I'd not shown myself without a face mask to anyone. It was like starting again,' he added. Flintoff said that he eventually travelled to London while wearing a bucket hat, glasses, and a mask. In the capital, he was spotted by a friend, who said: 'F*** me – it's the invisible man.' The cricketer has been driving a Morgan Super 3 three-wheeled sports car when it flipped over and crashed off of the Top Gear test track in 2022. The crash led the BBC to suspend production for the 'foreseeable future', deeming it inappropriate to continue. He received £9m in compensation as a result of his injuries. Flintoff returned to screens last year with a BBC series titled Freddie Flintoff 's Field of Dreams on Tour, in which he opened up about that crash. He revealed that he still suffers nightmares and flashbacks. Speaking in Field of Dreams, he said: 'I don't want to sit and feel sorry for myself. I don't want sympathy. I'm struggling with my anxiety, I have nightmares, I have flashbacks – it's been so hard to cope. But I'm thinking if I don't do something, I'll never go. I've got to get on with it.' This month, Flintoff will explore the ramifications of his accident in a new Disney+ documentary, Flintoff, which will premiere in the UK and Ireland on 25 April. 'I've lived under [the] radar for seven months,' Flintoff said in the trailer. 'One of the real frustrations was the speculation – that's why I'm doing this now. What actually happened.' Speaking about his 'life-altering' injuries, the cricketer said: 'I'm not saying I'm embracing them, but I'm not trying to hide my scars.' He added: 'It's almost like a reset. I'm trying to find out what I am now. I've always seemed to be able to flick a switch, I've got to find that switch again.' The Jonathan Ross Show airs on ITV on Saturdays at 9.20pm
