Latest news with #UnderMilkWood
Daily Mirror
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
David Jason details poignant moment long-lost daughter found out he was her dad
Only Fools And Horses legend Sir David Jason opens up about the emotional journey of learning he had a daughter he never knew existed Sir David Jason has opened up about the astonishing moment he found out, at 84, that he had a daughter he'd never known existed. The actor, best known for Only Fools and Horses, learned in 2023 that Abi Harris, born from a brief romance with actress Jennifer Hill during a 1970 production of Under Milk Wood, was his biological child. Discussing the revelation on Gyles Brandreth's Rosebud podcast, he recalled: '[Myself and Jennifer] parted our ways and we drifted apart and she got involved with someone else and married him and that was it.' Decades later, the truth emerged when Abi confronted her mother about her origins. ''That chap you call dad is not your father,'' Hill told her. Abi's shocked reply was: ''What do you mean he's not my father?'' Hill explained: ''I think you'll find your father is David Jason, because we had a fling together when we did these shows.'' Jason, though initially overwhelmed, described their eventual connection as a 'happy ever after' and welcomed Abi into his life. The emotional impact was detailed in his memoir This Time Next Year, where he confessed: 'There is the pang of sadness for those missing years, all that lost time.' He was blindsided when Abi reached out via a heartfelt letter. 'You will be unsurprised to learn that my hands were shaking by now. What had I just read? I had to go back and read the whole thing again. And then I had to read it again. And then again after that.' The letter included a request for an anonymous DNA test. 'At no point in the nearly fifty years that had gone by since then had that thought had cause to enter my head,' he wrote, admitting the idea that he could have fathered a child in 1970 had never occurred to him. Despite the initial turmoil - 'wonder and amazement, through anxiety and heartache, to fear and outright panic' - his wife Gill Hinchcliffe, with whom he shares daughter Sophie, was 'so supportive and understanding.' When Jason finally met Abi, there was an undeniable 'sense of distance,' something he called 'such a complicated thing to process, for us both.' Alongside the discovery of Abi, he also learned he had a grandson, 10-year-old Charlie. Abi, now an actress like her father, had long suspected the truth. Not only did she know of Jason's past with her mother, but she'd also noticed their shared features - especially the shape of their noses. She had grown up believing her father was Geoffrey Davion, who passed away in 1996. The reunion has since blossomed into a warm relationship. Abi and Charlie joined Jason's family for Christmas in Buckinghamshire. In a poetic twist, Abi - who has appeared in Doctor Who - even acted alongside her mother and Jason in a 2008 revival of Under Milk Wood, the very play that first brought her parents together.
Wales Online
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Gavin & Stacey stars reunite in huge BBC drama Death Valley
Gavin & Stacey stars reunite in huge BBC drama Death Valley Fans of the Welsh/English comedy will be thrilled to see two members of the cast coming together again for a new BBC crime drama. BBC's new comedy crime drama Death Valley will star Timothy Spall and Gwyneth Keyworth (Image: BBC/BBC Studios/Jay Brooks ) Gavin and Stacey fans will be delighted to hear that two of their favourite characters will be reuniting in BBC's Death Valley. The series is a new comedy crime drama following retired actor, John Chapel, played by Timothy Spall, and a young detective, Janie Mallowan played by Gwyneth Keyworth, who become an unlikely crime-fighting duo in the Welsh valleys. Steffan Rhodri who famously plays David Gooch aka Dave Coaches will be joined by fellow cast member and former on screen lover Melanie Walters aka Gwen West. The pair were spotted together on Monday, May 19 at the premier of the first episode in Cardiff. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter . The TV Preview was organised by BAFTA Cymru and held in Cardiff, afterwards there was a Q&A session with Paul Doolan, the writer of Death Valley, Steffan Rhodri and leading lady Gwyneth Keyworth. Content cannot be displayed without consent Fans of the comedy sitcom went wild when it was revealed that Dave Coaches was Gwen's secret love interest in the season finale. He even called her sugar tits! Article continues below However, in Death Valley the pair are not in a relationship and instead have very different connections to our leading lady, Janie. Dave Coaches and his new lover Gwen, will be reuniting in a new BBC series. (Image: BBC ) This time round, Melanie will be playing a different onscreen Welsh mam as she stars as Janie's mother Yvonne. She has quite a big storyline in the second episode as the crime fighting duo join her walking group to solve a mysterious murder on a waterfall. The mother and daughter duo seem quite close, and even replicate the same mannerisms. Throughout the series they speak Welsh to each other, to talk behind the back of Timothy Spall's character, despite him understanding bits of the language. Meanwhile, Steffan will be playing DCI Clarke, Janie's boss and mentor at the police station. His character is the complete opposite to what you would normally associate with is traditionally a toxic male environment. Instead, because he has three daughters he is incredibly sympathetic to his young protégé as he wants her to succeed. He even offers her a hot water bottle and a big bar of chocolate when he thinks she's on her period, green flag! Steffan Rhodri will be playing DCI Clarke (Image: BBC/BBC Studios/Simon Ridgway ) Melanie and Steffan have appeared in a range of various productions together. This obviously includes Gavin and Stacey, but also Submarine, Under Milk Wood, The Torchwood podcast series. Both actors from Swansea have also appeared in different episodes of Stella, the series which fellow Gavin and Stacey alum, Ruth Jones, created and starred in. The actress and writer, must have a habit of including her mates in her shows, as James Corden also had a cameo in the series. Article continues below The programme will airs on Sunday, May 25 at 8.15pm on BBC One, however the whole boxset will be launching on BBC iPlayer at the same time.
South Wales Argus
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South Wales Argus
Guy Masterson to perform Under Milk Wood in Abergavenny
The globally acclaimed solo performance will take place at the Borough Theatre on Friday, May 9, at 7.30pm. Mr Masterson, who has performed the piece more than 2,000 times worldwide since 1993, brings to life all 69 of Dylan Thomas' characters from the fictional Welsh town of Llareggub. The show captures the beauty, humour, and pathos of a single day in the town, enhanced by a soundscape from Matt Clifford, known for his work with The Rolling Stones. The production is inspired by Mr Masterson's uncle, Richard Burton. This isn't Mr Masterson's first visit to Abergavenny; he last performed a one-man show, A Christmas Carol, in December. Tickets for Under Milk Wood are priced at £18 and can be purchased from the theatre's website or box office, or by calling 01873 850805.
The Guardian
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Jess Kidd: ‘My older sister taught me to read with Mills & Boon'
My earliest reading memory One of my older sisters taught me to read using Mills & Boon romance novels. I grew up autistic and queer and feel a nostalgic bewilderment about this genre, which at that time was populated by strong heroines who would – predictably but unfathomably – go weak at the knees for their male love interests. Otherwise, we had few books in the house. There are talented storytellers in my family, particularly my mother. I preferred to hide under the stairs and deliver my stories by writing them down. The book that changed me as a teenager Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. I had known it in childhood in the vinyl format, my late father had the Richard Burton recording. Even though it is a play for voices, I found reading the text myself thrilling. I loved the opulence of the language and the narrative range of it. The book that made me want to be a writer Conrad the Factory-Made Boy by Christine Nöstlinger. As a late-diagnosed autistic person I have only recently realised why this book resonated with me. Conrad is a child packaged in a tin can who arrives in the post by accident. His chance caregiver is the feral, endearingly anarchic Mrs Bartolotti. Neither of them play by the society-designated rules for adults or children. But Conrad must learn to be a convincing 'real' child if they are to stay together. Poignant and funny; for me, more so in retrospect. It made me think that telling stories was a way to understand the oddness of being alive. The author I came back to George Saunders. A college drop-out, I studied with the Open University when my daughter was young, then received a bursary to return to university to study for an MA and PhD in creative writing studies. A lecturer introduced to me to CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. I prefer reading short stories to novels because they are usually braver in terms of the use of structure or narrative voice. Saunders feels courageous across the board. For me, Lincoln in the Bardo is a work of genius, complete but fragmented, grotesque and poignant, with a bleak seam of gallows humour. I love the traffic between the dead and the living in his work. The book I reread We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Or in fact anything by Shirley Jackson, who is the perfect writer to lead me somewhere twisted and wry and difficult. The book I could never read again Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Thinking about the story as a hallucinatory clash between good and evil – and the disastrous consequences that might arise if you had the freedom to act on your worst impulses – is fun and satisfying. But on the line, it's just a gaggle of wealthy bachelors bumbling around London. The female characters are relegated to a small girl mown down by Hyde and a maid who faints. For such a small book it throws a big shadow. The book I am currently readingI usually have two on the go, fiction and nonfiction. North Woods by Daniel Mason, which takes the setting of the same house in New England through four centuries. I'm also reading Joan Schenkar's excellent biography The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith which shifts dizzyingly through time, although not chronologically. It is strong and sinewy but light on its feet, like a boxer with a terrifying left hook. I came to it intrigued by Highsmith's obsession with snails and stayed for insights into someone as fascinating and disturbing as the fictional killers she invented. My comfort readAnything by Kelly Link. Her fiction is wonderfully off-kilter but makes perfect sense to me. She's been variously called a writer of magical realism, or modern fables, or postmodern fairytales. I feel she ought to be in a genre of her own. I wouldn't say the read would be entirely comforting, but her stories are always original and that offers its own comfort. Murder at Gulls Nest is published by Faber on 13 March. To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply. copy go to. Delivery charges may apply.
BBC News
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Mr Burton: Film shines light on Richard Burton's Welsh roots
A film telling the story of actor Richard Burton's formative years in a Welsh mining village is to be released during the centenary year of his birth. Mr Burton stars Harry Lawtey as a young Burton and Toby Jones as teacher Philip Burton who took the actor under his wing after spotting his talent for who died in 1984, aged 58, starred in Hollywood blockbuster Cleopatra, and was known for his powerful performances in Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood and Shakespearean stage Ed Talfan said the film shines a spotlight on relationship which a "profound impact" on Burton's life. The film tells the true story of wayward schoolboy Richard Jenkins, born in Pontrhydyfen in the Afan Valley, Neath Port Talbot, in father Richard Jenkins was a miner and the film, which will be released in April, delves into the pressures his family faced as he was growing talent for drama catches the attention of his teacher, Philip Burton, played by Bafta winner Toby Jones who starred recently as Alan Bates in Mr Bates vs The Post Office. Philip, with the help of landlady, Ma Smith, played by Lesley Manville, helps Richard to get his first acting later became Richard's legal guardian, after which he took the Burton surname. Burton is well known for his alcoholism and turbulent love life - he was married five times, twice to Elizabeth Taylor with whom he starred in 11 his rags-to-riches story, from poverty in a Welsh mining town to Hollywood fame, is one that continues to inspire."I think there is a huge national pride in Richard Burton," the film's producer Ed Talfan said. "He's the North Star in many ways of Welsh cinema.""He came from a very tough, impoverished background and made this incredible leap to global stardom," he said. The film, which was directed and written by fellow Welshmen Marc Evans and written by Tom Bullough, focuses primarily on Richard in his late teens, during World War Two, when Philip Burton tutored also stars Steffan Rhodri as Richard's father Dic Jenkins, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Aneurin Barnard as Cis and Elfed, Richard's sister and trailer hints at the roots of his alcoholism and shows the prejudice faced by working class actors in 1940s the early 1950s."It is very much the first chapter in his story," Mr Talfan in previous generations would have been expected to speak "Queen's English", but Burton embraced where he was from, Mr Talfan said."He managed to change his voice and not jettison or sacrifice any of his Welshness. You hear the same thing in Anthony Hopkins," Mr Talfan said."He was just a huge breath of fresh air."
