Latest news with #MelGiedroyc
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Contestants sought for new ITV quiz show with £1million jackpot
A nationwide search is under way for contestants to join a new Saturday night quiz show. The ITV1 and ITVX series, Win Win with People's Postcode Lottery, will be hosted by comedy duo Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins. Producers are looking for "fun, enthusiastic" individuals with standout personalities to take part in the six-week series. The show's producers are seeking contestants for the new series (Image: Supplied) The show will be filmed in studio and will involve survey-based questions. A total of 40 contestants will take part in each episode. Mel Giedroyc said: "This quiz is so extra. "Imagine winning something like a car just by playing along with a gameshow you're watching on a Saturday night in your pyjamas? "I can't wait." Sue Perkins said: "If I wasn't hosting this, I'd be playing it at home; sat in my leopard print onesie, cuddling the dog whilst trying to figure out the nation's favourite chocolate bar. "Bring it on." Viewers at home will have the chance to win the same prizes as those in the studio. One contestant will also walk away with a guaranteed £1 million jackpot. Other prizes on offer include holidays, luxury cars, and tickets to major sporting and entertainment events. The ITV series is produced by Hello Dolly, and is described as the broadcaster's biggest-ever ad-funded series. It has been co-funded by People's Postcode Lottery and will air on Saturday nights. Katie Rawcliffe, director of entertainment and daytime at ITV, said: "We are delighted to have the brilliant Mel and Sue bringing this new format to life. "Forget shouting at the telly or rowing with your family about the answers – you can actually join in and be in with a chance of winning the same prize you're seeing on screen." Bhavit Chandrani, director of BE Studio from ITV, said: "This is our biggest ad-funded show yet and we're thrilled that by working with People's Postcode Lottery and Hello Dolly we're able to deliver such an interactive programme for viewers, who have real chances of bagging the same huge prizes they're seeing contestants win, from the comfort of their sofas." Imme Rog, executive board member of the Postcode Lottery Group, said: "We have 35 years of experience in creating and promoting successful TV formats in our other countries, and we are delighted to be partnering with Hello Dolly and ITV in bringing Win Win with People's Postcode Lottery to the British prime-time audience." READ MORE: Get to know Sophie from Darwen ahead of her Love Island appearance EastEnders star leaving with 'head held high' after shock soap exit news The Voice UK announces new coach with 'fantastic' track record for next series Victoria Ashbourne, CEO of Hello Dolly and executive producer, said: "We are thrilled to be working with People's Postcode Lottery and ITV to bring this innovative and exciting new format to life. "For the first time ever, viewers at home get the same winning experience as the contestants in studio – as a programme creator and producer that is super exciting." Casting is open now for applicants who are available to take part in the studio each week during the six-week series. The show promises a mix of humour, drama, and life-changing decisions.
The Guardian
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mel Giedroyc immerses herself in death: best podcasts of the week
A playful Mel Giedroyc replaces Kathy Burke for a new series of the funeral-themed podcast, which effortlessly smuggles death into the celebrity chatshow format but never feels overly flippant. Her first guest is comic Suzi Ruffell, who reckons that her clumsiness might be what leads to her demise. Perhaps she'll rollerskate off a pier, making her plans for a beach-side vigil – complete with fish and chips – all the more apt. Hannah J DaviesWidely available, episodes weekly The TV historian steers a new series of her BBC podcast, bringing female scammers from the history books to life and viewing their misdeeds through a modern lens. Among them is 'Yorkshire Witch' Mary Bateman, whose fortune-telling hen (a hoax, of course) gave way to more insalubrious business practices. HJDBBC Sounds, episodes weekly Are the robots coming for your job? Tech expert James Chandler helps 'highly average human' George Butler make sense of AI in a digestible way – from speaking with a former war zone reporter about the future of media to diving into claims that tech can translate your pets' speech. Plus, you can send in questions. Hollie Richardson Widely available, episodes weekly Mark Pougatch and Paul Hayward team up for this series about the meaty tales and curious mysteries that began on pitches, fields and courts. First up: how rugby helped to unite South Africa post-apartheid, and the significance of Nelson Mandela donning the Springbok shirt in 1995. HJD Widely available, episodes weekly This updated Sherlock Holmes series puts a 2020s spin on things ('I'm neurodiverse … prepare to be cancelled!' declares our crack detective) while remaining pleasingly in step with the source material. For this five-part arc, Holmes and Watson must unpick a blackmail plot, featuring one of Conan Doyle's most notable female characters, Irene Adler. HJD Widely available, episodes weekly
The Guardian
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
How will you remember your loved ones? With the nationwide Celebration Day – or by shouting at squirrels?
It's 'Celebration Day' on bank holiday Monday and it's making me feel a bit … funny. Dreamed up in 2022, this 'civilian Remembrance Day', or British Día de los Muertos, is intended 'to honour those we have loved and lost, as well as those whose lives have inspired us', according to the website. Perfectly laudable, but something about the idea of being urged to celebrate our dead by Stephen Fry and Prue Leith, to buy a star-shaped badge in WH Smith and share memories on social media with the hashtag #shareyourstar makes me feel cringey. When I get an instinctive negative reaction to something (except maggots and Nigel Farage), I wonder if I'm being unreasonable. So, am I? Well, yes – no one is forcing me to join in or buy a badge (though they benefit really good charities, including Mind, Hospice UK and the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity). Plus, Mel Giedroyc is involved, and she can do no wrong in my eyes. On top of this, could Celebration Day be meeting a real need? We're not great, as a culture, with death and grief, though I think we've improved somewhat: from grief podcasts to death cafes and a flowering of extraordinary memoirs, we've found more spaces and ways to articulate and respond to bereavement, at least the fresh and seismic kind. But that's just the tip of the griefberg. I'm not sure we've processed all those pandemic deaths very well, for a start. Our desire to move on and not look back is particularly painful for those who lost their beloveds without any of the usual – vital – ritual and communion, and for those whose grieving felt frustrated, freighted with anger or distorted by trauma. Other types of grief defy easy categorisation and response, too: how about grief that feels disproportionate to the closeness of your relationship? When you were peripheral to someone's life, but their loss hits you hard, your grief can feel overblown, even intrusive. When the death of two less than intimate friends blind-sided her last year, the writer Daisy Buchanan described her 'disenfranchised grief'. Then there are deaths you 'should' have got over by now: prolonged grief is even considered a pathology in the United States. I know I'm not alone in feeling vaguely embarrassed mentioning my dead mum, imagining people thinking, 'Is she still going on about that?' So might a Celebration Day help? Anything that normalises talking about death more, or that shushes the inner voices that tell us our feelings are wrong, our grief is too intense, too prolonged, too mixed with other feelings or misplaced, is good news. Plus, grief of all kinds is notoriously not fun; indeed, it's conspicuously lacking in the kir royale and bunting department. Why not, indeed, pick a moment to celebrate? But we already do, without Prue Leith's prompting. The lovely online gallery Projecting Grief, which explores creative responses to bereavement, features some sublimely celebratory stuff, from Marianne, who used lipsticks her mum (who 'always had her face on') left behind to make explosively colourful photographs and sculptures, to Suchandrika, who created a standup show around her long-dead parents. Asking around, I discover a group of friends who organised a dance in honour of one of their number who died last year, sharing a memory of her every time they danced with a new partner. Then there's the family who throw outrageous pudding parties in memory of their sweet-toothed nonna. 'At some point we have to use her catchphrase, 'More cream, dear?'' A friend orders his late father's favourite rum baba whenever he sees it on a menu; another eats her gran's 'Alice Jones Memorial Ice-Cream' walking the seafront at Criccieth. There's a lovely specificity to these and I think that's partly what puts me off Celebration Day: it feels too generic for our special dead people. We miss them – from partners to piano teachers, however long they've been gone and however ambivalent our experience of their lives or their dying – for who they were. That's how we should celebrate them, whether that means getting a tattoo, shouting at a squirrel or pottering down the allotment. If the spirit moves you to celebrate on Monday, wonderful. But if it doesn't, no one needs a hashtag to celebrate the dead, how and whenever they like. Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
Times
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Mel Giedroyc: ‘I lost my mum last year — here's how I remember her'
Every morning Mel Giedroyc drinks from a white mug decorated with blue flowers. It belonged to her mother, Rosemary, who died last year and used to drink from it every day. 'It's the little things,' Giedroyc said. 'They're not expensive, they don't have a lot of consequence, but for me they are tiny and universal and very powerful.' The comedian and former Great British Bake Off presenter described the ways she remembers her mother before Celebration Day, which is dedicated to honouring the lives of loved ones who have died. The national day began in 2022 and is inspired by traditions such as Mexico's Day of the Dead, which have the aim of remembering people in positive rather than sombre ways. It is held annually
The Irish Sun
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Former Bake Off host lands new job replacing acting legend just weeks after show axe
SONY Music's hit podcast Where There's A Will There's A Wake is making a grand return later this month - with a brand-new host in the form of a former Bake Off host. Comedian and television presenter Mel Giedroyc will be taking over the hit podcast as the new 'Mortician-in-Chief' - replacing national treasure Advertisement 4 Mel Giedroyc will be taking over the hit podcast Credit: Getty 4 This comes after Kathy's fond - and typically foul-mouthed - farewell from the show Credit: Getty The former Bake Off star steps into Kathy's shoes after her fond - and typically foul-mouthed - farewell from the show. Mel will now lead the darkly hilarious podcast where celebs get morbidly creative, mapping out their dream death day from start to finish - coffin, casket and all. Along with Sue Perkins, Mel has previously co-hosted series including Light Lunch for Channel 4, The Great British Bake Off for the BBC and chat show Mel and Sue for ITV. Mel has also brought her cheeky charm to shows like Taskmaster, The Magic Request Show and Eurovision: You Decide. Advertisement more on bake off Now she's bringing that same playful flair to the afterlife, as she gets stuck into grave matters with a glittering line-up of celebrity guests. Mel said: 'What a complete honour it is to step in as the new resident mischief-maker at Where There's a Will There's a Wake. 'I'll be gleefully rifling through the coffins of the great and good, unearthing their deathly daydreams, and scrubbing up my halo (or perhaps pitchfork) as I guide them into the great beyond… Now, where did I put my scythe and clipboard?' This season, all episodes will be available in video for the first time. Advertisement Most read in Reality Previous guests of the show have included Claudia Winkleman, Stanley Tucci, Kim Cattrall, New episodes release weekly on all major podcast platforms starting Tuesday 20 May. Channel 4 quietly shelves beloved competition show after three series This comes just weeks after on Mel's television version of the beloved game The classic guessing game in which one team member draws a scenario for a group to guess didn't capture fans and grab ratings. Advertisement An ITV spokesperson said: 'There are no plans at this stage to make any more Pictionary.' The programme featured celebrity guests including Britian's Easiest Quiz Shows Which of these gameshows, if any, do you think you'd find the easiest to win? Tipping Point - 21% The Chase - 10% Pointless - 7% Ant and Dec's Limitless Win - 7% The Weakest Link - 7% The 1% Club - 6% Mastermind - 5% Beat the Chasers - 3% Tenable - 3% Only Connect - 2% None of these - 29% It offered cash prizes and holidays for the winners when it ran from Christmas 2024 through to February of this year. A source said: 'So many quiz shows have been inspired by beloved board games and the assumption was Pictionary would become an instant hit. Advertisement 'Sadly the ratings were poor and celebrity-led panels require a budget, which in this case wasn't deemed worth expending.' Watch and listen to new episodes of Where There's A Will There's A Wake with Mel Giedroyc every week from Tuesday 20 May. 4 Mel is best known for co-hosting The Great British Bake Off with Sue Perkins Credit: BBC Press Release 4 Mel's television version of Pictionary has been axed after a single series Credit: ITV Advertisement
