Latest news with #SianGibson
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
TV tonight: Noel Edmonds shows off his unusual new life in New Zealand
9pm, ITV1Noel Edmonds is an unusual man. On the face of it, this series simply documents his attempts to open a bar-restaurant in New Zealand with his wife, Liz. But the fun is in the journey not the arrival. Edmonds is obsessed with new-age woo, spending time on his 'crystal bed' and practising a workout regime he calls 'tranquil power'. He's also startlingly excited about his nail gun, calling it 'a sex toy', and regards Liz as 'an earth angel' believing she was 'a gift from the cosmos'. An eccentric cult classic in the making. Phil Harrison From 7pm, Sky ArtsWith Glastonbury a week away, warm up with a trip to Seaclose Park, home of the Isle of Wight festival. The Lottery Winners kick off the TV coverage followed by the Corrs. Other highlights include Justin Timberlake, Jess Glynne, Sting, Stereophonics and more. PH 8.30pm, BBC One'You all right bab?!' This series has accelerated Hammond's unstoppable trajectory towards national treasure status. It ends in a weekend with former boxer Tony Bellew. Hammond bonds with his wife, Rachael, almost instantly but Tony is a cagier sort. He's powerless to resist the Hammond charm offensive in the end, though. PH 9.30pm, BBC One This very funny comedy's clod-hopping central trio are under more stress than ever: they've killed a man! As Martin (Conleth Hill) pleads for calm and Diane (Rosie Cavaliero) tries to get through a sexually charged salsa-dancing date without arousing suspicion, Kath (co-creator Sian Gibson) goes and does the worst possible thing: engages with the police. Jack Seale 10pm, BBC TwoThis fascinating series in which Dr Orna Guralnik explores struggling relationships continues. This week, Alison and Rod try to unpack their constant bickering, while Jessica confronts her suspicion that she has made sacrifices her partner Boris doesn't understand. PH 10pm, Channel 4This swinger show stretches the definition of the word documentary. Sharmayne and Jamie are typical Open House residents: shy, nervous and on national TV for reasons that feel unclear. Gay couple Simon and Chris – who are opening up their relationship with women – prove more unconventional. Hannah J Davies Joker: Folie à Deux (Todd Phillips, 2024), 12.05pm, 8pm, Sky Cinema PremiereThe box office success of his supervillain origin story, Joker, was probably a surprise to its creator Todd Phillips. So a sequel is clearly a free hit for him, which explains why he's gone Broadway or bust with a full-blown musical. It helps that Lady Gaga is on board, carrying the vocal weight as Lee Quinzel, who falls for Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck while both are incarcerated in Arkham State Hospital. Their amour fou is realised in a series of fantastical numbers that are very entertaining, though the mental illness storyline is less effective. Simon Wardell The Entity (Sidney J Furie, 1982), 12.45am, Film4At first glance, Sidney J Furie's 1982 film is just an exploitation flick riding on the coattails of The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror. But between the lines of the woman-in-peril plot, in which Barbara Hershey's single mother Carla is sexually assaulted by an unseen supernatural assailant, is a story of controlling men. From Ron Silver's dismissive therapist to the university parapsychologists giddy over a big new case study – and even the invisible creature itself – attempts to force Carla into a corner founder as she fashions her own responses to her trauma. SW Test cricket: England v India, 10am, Sky Sports Main Event Day one of the first Test in a five-match series, from Headingley. International Rugby Union: British and Irish Lions v Argentina, 7pm, Sky Sports Action The warm-up match in Dublin.
Telegraph
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Power of Parker, season 2 review: come for the broad humour, stay for the killer 1990s soundtrack
If you're aged 65 or over, our survey says, you are watching more television than any other age group in the country. Extrapolating further from this (admittedly fictional) survey, it's a fair bet that nostalgia for past times will bullseye those remote controls. Which makes The Power of Parker (BBC One) a canny bit of demographic-baiting comedy. Sian Gibson and Paul Coleman's tale of Stockport sisters eventually doing it for themselves should really be called I Heart the (Early) '90s, it's so awash with loving period detail. Walkmans, answerphones, curly fries and more play key supporting roles as dithering heroines Kath and Diane stumble their way to a self-awareness that amounts to realising Martin Parker, the man to whom they have mystifyingly devoted their lives is, to put it politely, a… waste of space. We've moved on 'two years or so' from the first series, which climaxed with Parker's electrical store going up in an inferno, taking Martin along with it. Except, of course, he survived and, thanks to some hula-hooping exposition involving insurance fraud and a Chinese takeaway, we pick up the threads with long-suffering Diane (Rosie Cavaliero) running the rebuilt store but now under the thumb of Sandy Cooper, another sexist dinosaur (Steve Pemberton) because that's how all men were in the '90s. The comedy is still broad, slapped on in the old school style, which substitutes endless asides and one-liners for actual conversation, and does at times feel contrived. Yet somewhere around the middle of this run I began to be won over. The mood switches from a Phoenix Nights pastiche to a curious spin on Shallow Grave, Danny Boyle's hit 1994 debut movie in which… well, let's just say things take a dark turn, we are in spoiler land. The mood-switch opens the door to a very funny sequence in which Sian Gibson's perky Kath, opening up to a cop chum, floats the idea of Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis and Pat Butcher (aka EastEnders legend Pam St Clement) starring in the same movie thriller. How did that never get made? But it wasn't the increasingly black comedy which made my critical claws retract: it was the killer soundtrack. I now have a self-made Spotify Power of Parker playlist stuffed full of brilliant 1990s classics – shout out to Julian Cope's World Shut Your Mouth and Crucified by Army of Lovers – that add a subtlety to the story it quite possibly doesn't merit. The weak link is Conleth Hill's off-kilter portrayal of oily Martin Parker. Hill feels miscast. While he's adept at giving us a dose of Martin's toxic masculinity, he's much less convincing when laying on the silver fox charm that supposedly has women falling under his spell. So much so that – 11 episodes in, counting series one – when the two sisters finally have a lightbulb moment and chorus, 'How the hell did we both fall for that?' I'll admit it prompted a celebratory exclamation of, 'Finally!' from yours truly. Which surprised me. I didn't know I cared.
Daily Mail
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The Power Of Parker: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Conleth Hill and Sian Gibson star in a 1990s comedy about a northern electronics tycoon 2023
