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The Guardian
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘You wouldn't pick us out as mother and daughter!': Imelda Staunton and Bessie Carter on acting together for the first time
'It's amazing that I came from you,' says Bessie Carter to her mother, Imelda Staunton, during a break in rehearsals for the forthcoming revival of George Bernard Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession, in which they'll play a mother and daughter and share a stage for the first time. She has a point. Carter, 31, best known as Bridgerton's Prudence Featherington, is 5ft 10 and aquiline, glamorous in a maroon leather coat and silver-studded shoes. Staunton, 69, is barely 5ft tall, quiet and unassuming in slacks and a blouse, short grey hair pinned back. There's no hint of grandeur to this theatrical dame, who was Oscar-nominated for her performance in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake in 2004, played Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter series from 2007 and was the last iteration of Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix's The Crown. Staunton's stellar stage career in both straight plays and musicals also brought her a fifth Olivier award for her recent performance in Hello, Dolly! at the Palladium. If anything, she seems slightly in awe of her only child with her husband of 41 years, Jim Carter (AKA Downton Abbey's Mr Carson). 'She's everything I could never be, this tall, elegant, confident, gorgeous woman,' Staunton says. 'I just sit here and think: 'In God's name, how did that happen?'' 'I've got your eyes and dad's legs,' Bessie comments. (Both women do indeed have piercing blue eyes.) 'Fortunately there's a line in this play about how you can't tell that the characters are mother and daughter, because you wouldn't really pick us out in a crowd [as related]. But it's always been a life dream of mine to work together.' The dread term 'nepo baby' hangs in the air for a moment before Staunton exorcises it. 'Surgeons' children become surgeons,' she says. 'Should they be penalised because their parents have done the job before them?' Bessie says the acting profession was demystified for her as a child: their West Hampstead home was frequently visited by the likes of Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson, with whom Staunton appeared in the 1992 comedy Peter's Friends. Also she observed her parents as jobbing actors before Vera Drake, and then Harry Potter and Downton, kicked them into a different league of celebrity. Acting, when she was at school, 'was all about fun and dressing up, and being able to carry that on as a grownup seemed like the biggest privilege. But I didn't want any handouts,' she says. 'One of my biggest things is that I got into the National Youth Theatre and then Guildhall [School of Music and Drama] without them knowing who my parents were. Of course, if this were my first gig out of drama school it'd be very different.' Staunton says that for her and Carter, it would only have been a difficult decision to let their daughter act if they didn't believe she could make a success of it: 'That would have been hard, because you've got to be honest in those situations. But she was fine, and she's had to make her own way. We didn't want her to be handed into the business by us because that wouldn't have shown any respect.' After parts in Cranford, Doc Martin, Howards End and Beecham House, Bessie landed the role of Prudence, the snooty and sexually unfulfilled older sister of Nicola Coughlan's Penelope Featherington, AKA Lady Whistledown, in Bridgerton in 2020. It's hard to recall now what a boon that show's blend of costume drama, ethnic inclusivity and unbridled rumpy-pumpy proved during lockdown. 'It gave everyone a hopeful escapism, which we needed so badly at the time,' recalls Bessie. 'And I got one of the few funny, awkward sex scenes in it, which I thought was really important, because not all sex is steamy and romantic.' Being in a long-running TV series was a great technical education, comparable in its way to the six years her mother spent in repertory theatre after leaving Rada in 1976 (though Bessie concedes she had a head start in TV, 'because I grew up visiting film sets and knew what a first AD did, what a runner and a dresser did'). She proved her stage acting ability in the pivotal role of Fenny in Dodie Smith's Dear Octopus at the National last year and will soon be seen in Outrageous, the forthcoming drama about the aristocratic Mitford sisters, who remain a source of perennial fascination to biographers and producers. She'll play writer Nancy alongside Joanna Vanderham as fascist sympathiser Diana, with Anna Chancellor as their mother, Sydney. 'I know a weird amount about Nancy Mitford,' Bessie says. 'I narrated the audiobook of her novel The Pursuit of Love a few years ago; she worked in St Mary's hospital in Paddington, where I was born, and she went to Francis Holland School, which I dipped my toes into for a few years. It's my first lead role. It's a brilliant script by Sarah Williams, and it's a story about six women, all of them totally unique and all of them raised under the same roof. I originally said quite vehemently to my agent that I didn't want to do another period drama, but he said: 'I don't think you're going to want to say no to this one … '' Similarly, Bessie characterises Mrs Warren's Profession as 'a play with two women at the helm in a masculine world – which unfortunately we still do live in – and them not wanting to play by the rules'. In Shaw's 1893 play, Mrs Warren's Cambridge-educated daughter Vivie discovers that her mother is a sex worker turned madame, setting up a debate where sex, marriage and commerce intersect. 'Basically it's about capitalism and it could have been written in the last two years,' Bessie adds. 'It asks how much longer can we all look away before we have to turn and face what's really going on in the underbelly of the world?' The genesis of the show came when Staunton was discussing potential projects with director Dominic Cooke, a trusted collaborator. They'd never worked on a play before but a musical wasn't an option because, as she says without vanity, 'I've done all the big ones'. She graduated from the chorus of Guys and Dolls in the National's groundbreaking production in 1982 – where she and Jim Carter met on the first day of rehearsals – to play Miss Adelaide in the 1996 revival. Thereafter, she steadily knocked off Stephen Sondheim's major works with Sweeney Todd (2012), Gypsy (2014) and Follies (2017). Cooke, who directed her in Follies, finally persuaded her to do Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart's light 1964 tale of a turn-of-the century matchmaker, Hello, Dolly!, which she initially dismissed as 'sugary'. Staunton had reservations about Mrs Warren's Profession, too, having played the role of Vivie during her rep days. 'I think at that time I didn't know what it was about,' she says. 'Dominic said read it again. I did and realised that the combination of Dominic – knowing the care he takes – and myself and Bessie might be something interesting.' Acting with her daughter will be another first: 'The Crown and Harry Potter, they're two firsts because there'd never been seven books made into eight films [with the same central cast]. And never on television had you had one long story with three casts playing the same characters.' The Crown was a particular challenge as – following on from Claire Foy and Olivia Colman – she was playing the version of the queen that contemporary viewers knew best. 'That body, that shape, that hair…' she says. 'Plus I think it was hard for audiences to accept a new queen if they'd been fond of the previous one.' Bessie chips in: 'I found that really exciting as an audience member, seeing the new version.' It was, we agree, like getting a new James Bond, except that the queen was allowed to age. Appearing in a straight play after Hello, Dolly! is something of a relief for Staunton. 'It's odd for me to be in a room where we're not choreographing, but it's great because I don't have to worry about my voice or all that technical side of it,' she says. She and her daughter ran lines together before rehearsals started, either in the family home or at Bessie's flat in Brixton. 'If we'd done that in the first day of rehearsal, looking into each other's eyes, pretending to be another person, that would have been weird,' she says. 'What we have no idea of is what it will be like for an audience watching a mother and daughter playing a mother and daughter. We will be doing things that we have no idea we're doing just because we are genetically connected.' Both Staunton and Jim Carter were in BBC One's Cranford when a teenage Bessie won a part in it as a maid in 2007-8, but none of them shared scenes together. And Staunton and her husband haven't acted opposite each other since that fateful meeting in Guys and Dolls. In the past she's said they avoided working together 'so you bring home different things'. They have also famously rarely spent more than two weeks apart for work. Couldn't she and Bessie have found a part for him in the Shaw play? 'Wouldn't happen,' grimaces Staunton. 'Try as you might, he's had it with theatre. He'd rather be in the garden.' Bessie adds: 'He'd better bloody come and see it, though.' At this point it's probably worth mentioning that Yorkshire-born Carter dropped out of a law degree at the University of Sussex to join a theatre group called the Brighton Combination in 1968, which put him in early plays by Howard Brenton, but also required him to learn circus skills. 'He doesn't unicycle any more, but he can still juggle and he's still got all his magic gear,' says Staunton. 'He still pulls out a card trick or a coin trick now and again,' Bessie adds. In the early years of their marriage, Carter was a more visible face on film and TV than Staunton. I tell her how fondly I remember his role as a French resistance fighter called Déjà Vu ('Haven't I seen you somewhere before, m'sieu?') opposite the late Val Kilmer in the Zucker brothers' 1984 war spoof Top Secret!. 'Jim's first screen kiss was with Val Kilmer,' she says with a rueful smile. Talk turns briefly to mortality. Alan Rickman, who died in 2016, was one of Staunton's contemporaries at Rada and preceded her in the Harry Potter franchise as Severus Snape. 'We weren't close friends but I miss his presence and his kindness,' she says. 'Once 15 of us went to see a show with him and we ended up at [theatre hangout] Joe Allen's. It was long before I was in Harry Potter but he must have started in it because at the end he just got the bill and said' – here she does a terrific impersonation of Rickman's bone-dry drawl – 'Harry Potter's paying.' Bessie, delighted, says that Anna Chancellor recounted a similar story about Rickman during the filming of Outrageous. A larger absence in Staunton's life is Stephen Sondheim, who died aged 91 in 2021. 'He was a great champion of me but he loved all his stars,' she recalls. 'The great thing about him is he would never say: 'When Patti [LuPone, his Broadway muse] did this part…' He would just be in the now and you were the best one on that day. After we did Sweeney Todd in 2012 he insisted I should play Mama Rose in Gypsy in London, but I wasn't famous enough then, and apparently neither was he, which seems inconceivable.' Gypsy did happen at Chichester in 2014 and duly became a smash hit in London. When he died, Bessie gave Staunton a framed photo of Sondheim sitting in their West Hampstead kitchen during rehearsals for Sweeney Todd. At the Olivier awards Staunton paid tribute to her late Irish Catholic mother while accepting the award for best actress in a musical for Hello, Dolly!. 'If I may say something to my late mum, whose name was Bridie McNicholas,' she said. 'Great name, must renew [my] Irish passport. Mum, I'm here at the Albert Hall, I've got a prize, but more importantly, I'm about to do a play with your granddaughter. I wish you were here.' Bridie, a talented singer and musician who ran a hairdressing salon, and her construction worker husband, Joe, emigrated to Archway in north London from County Mayo in the 1950s. Bridie and Joe split up when Staunton was in her late teens but got on well even when they found new partners. Bridie died in 2004, a week before Staunton received news of her Oscar nomination. Carter and Bessie accompanied Staunton to that Oscars ceremony, and they took ham salad sandwiches to eat in the limo on the way. 'We've got our packed lunches for rehearsal today,' says Staunton matter-of-factly. 'You've got to be sustained.' Joe died in 2010. I wonder how he and Bridie would have felt about their daughter being made a dame by King Charles in 2024. 'I don't think they'd have believed it but they'd have been extremely proud,' says Staunton. Bessie says: 'We toasted them on the day.' Has ennoblement changed her mother, I ask Bessie. 'Yeah, dad and I have to bow to her now,' she grins. What's the secret of a long marriage? I ask Staunton. 'I don't think there's one secret but respect, kindness and humour are the secret to ours,' she says. Bessie is now single, having split with her Bridgerton co-star Sam Phillips. 'Everyone always goes, 'Oh, God, you don't want to date an actor.' And I say, but my parents are totally happy and they're both working actors.' They've given her a romantic and a professional pattern for life, proving it's possible to move between film, TV, stage drama and musicals. Bessie lets slip she's been having singing lessons: 'I'd love to be in Guys and Dolls, genuinely.' Would she want to play Miss Adelaide, her mum's old role and the more comic part, or Sarah Brown, the missionary who gets the romantic songs? 'Adelaide, because I like the funny,' she says. 'Do both,' says Staunton. Mrs Warren's Profession is at the Garrick theatre, London, 10 May to 16 August
Gulf Today
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
Mike Leigh talks about his new film, life and career
Like the action in his widely acclaimed new film 'Hard Truths,' veteran British director Mike Leigh swings between gratitude and despair as he reflects on his life and career. The 82-year-old is aware of the great fortune he has had to make more than a dozen films over a glittering five-decade run, including 'Secrets and Lies' and 'Vera Drake.' But he is also conscious of the difficulties for the younger generations coming through — and is scared by the 'profoundly worrying' changes underway in the world under US President Donald Trump. 'It's a privilege to be able to make films and it's a privilege which is getting tougher to experience,' he told AFP during a retrospective of his work at the prestigious Cinemateque in Paris. 'I consider myself very lucky. Filmmaking is a joyous experience.' Already working on his next project despite his growing mobility problems — he suffers from a genetic muscular disease called myositis — Leigh says he is troubled by a sense of the world being on the brink. 'It feels like World War Three may be around the corner. 'Now, I never thought I'd say that and I'm old enough to remember the end of World War Two, just about. I was born in the war,' he added. 'It's profoundly worrying and one feels helpless.' 'Hard Truths', praised as one of the Leigh's strongest recent films, is a poignant and sometimes darkly comic story of two sisters that whiplashes viewers with similarly contrasting emotions. Lead character Pansy is a clearly depressed, anxious and aggressive married mother-of-one, played with brio by British actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Her sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) is friendly, sociable and easy-going, with a home and family life that stands in sharp contrast. The film reunites the two black British actors from 'Secret and Lies', nearly 30 years after it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes festival and a host of Oscar nominations. While the 1996 hit was about family and identity, 'Hard Truths' is a study in what makes some people pessimists and self-pitying, while others seem to glide through life's difficulties with smiles on their faces. As is his custom, Leigh offers no obvious answers on screen — and he dodges a question about his thoughts on the issue. 'You're asking me what's the secret of life? I'm not so pretentious or so self-opinionated as to pontificate about how to live,' he replied. 'I've worked very hard. I've used my imagination. I was engaged. For me, it's about engaging with people.' 'Hard Truths' is the first time Leigh has worked with an almost all-black cast, portraying London's vibrant Caribbean-origin community. He has no time for suggestions that he, a white director, should hesitate about taking on such a challenge. 'It seemed a natural thing to do. It's not a quantum leap. 'I raised my kids in north London and they were at school there and black kids were always running in and out of our house,' he explained. 'But on the other hand, it goes without saying, I couldn't sit in a room and write a conventional script for such a film.' He used the same collaborative approach he has deployed throughout his career, starting out with an idea, and then running workshops with the actors to develop the characters, dialogue and plot. 'In making the decision to centre on black characters. 'One of the deliberate things that I've very consciously done is to say: 'This is not going to be a film that deals in tropes and stereotypes and troubles with the law and drug issues and all the gang stuff',' Leigh continued. 'The main issues in the film are universal and are not endemic or exclusive to black people,' he added. He declines to talk about his next project but says finding financing is becoming increasingly difficult because backers — particularly the streaming platforms — want so much say in the final product. Agence France-Presse
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The One Show is the most unapologetically weird programme on the BBC
What do Mike Leigh and Steven Bartlett have in common? Very little, surely. I can't see the octogenarian auteur behind Bafta-winning films like Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake kicking back after a long day's shoot with a nourishing glass of Huel and a motivational episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast. Their incongruence is so overwhelming that there's only one cultural force powerful enough to bring these two men together on the same sofa. And that cultural force is The One Show. Since 2006, the 7pm weeknight slot on BBC One has belonged to the broadcaster's premier something-for-everyone-and-no-one grab bag of a magazine show. The delirium-inducing theme tune – trumpet fanfares accompanied by someone shouting 'ONE… ONE… ONE!' at increasing volume and pitch – heralds the start of a televisual rollercoaster, presided over by the perma-cheery Alex Jones, alongside whichever reliable BBC stalwart has been rostered in to be her presenting partner. Each 30-minute episode is an odyssey through current affairs, uplifting local stories and every possible echelon of celebrity. It's like kids' TV for adults, an evening show that should by all rights be airing at 10.30am. The tonal shifts are enough to give you whiplash, defying all accepted rules of cohesive broadcasting. The agenda follows the nonsensical logic of a fever dream: unconnected scene follows unconnected scene with zero explanation. And that's precisely how what should by all rights be one of the BBC's most boring programmes has instead become unapologetically unhinged viewing. I like to think this is why around 3 million people tune in each night, not just because they've forgotten to turn over after News at Six. Take Thursday (23 January) night's broadcast, hosted by Roman Kemp and the unflappable Jones, a One Show veteran of 15 years. First up, Bartlett had to sit through a short video of Harry from season two of The Traitors taking part in an immersive Agatha Christie whodunnit. Then, Leigh and longtime collaborator Marianne Jean-Baptiste joined him on the famous green sofa. All three of them looked on as Carol from the Isle of Wight was praised for her work with service dogs (then enjoyed a ride in a monster truck as a reward). The paradox of The One Show is that every single episode is somehow wildly different and entirely the same. And so Thursday's lineup was at once head-scratchingly unpredictable in the specifics, but utterly representative of the programme's classic formula. We begin with some sort of vaguely topical human interest story. We're introduced to a star guest, there to field softball questions about their latest project. Then, it's time to meet more celebs. For maximum dissonance, they usually hail from a very different strata of fame to the one occupied by their new sofa-mates. Think Tom Fletcher from McFly sitting alongside Kerry Washington. Strictly's Shirley Ballas chatting with Hollywood's go-to villain Mads Mikkelsen. Or Harry Hill thrown together with Dakota Fanning, a woman who has surely never heard of TV Burp. Next up is another VT, which might cover anything from fly tipping to fraudsters (with the bad guys usually played by a game production assistant, wearing a hoodie as a shorthand for dodginess). The celebrities are held hostage throughout – as Al Pacino found out when he tried to walk off mid-broadcast in 2020, wrongly believing that his presence was no longer required. You see the cogs moving in the A-listers' brains as they wonder why their publicist has signed them up to sit and nod politely while they watch Jeff Brazier walking down a suburban high street. Sometimes, they're quizzed on what they've just watched, like when Dame Judi Dench was asked whether she'd ever put her feet up on a train seat (answer: of course not). This quirk is what makes The One Show unique. On ITV, This Morning covers a similarly eclectic array of concerns, but their famous guests are spirited away during the ad breaks, so they never have to weigh in on, say, the UK's pothole epidemic. The Graham Norton Show has a comparably mish-mash approach to celebrity bookings, but Norton doesn't force his A-listers to feign outrage or delight over various mundane concerns that never darkened their own gilded lives. Plus, you get the sense that the Hollywood stars have at least a vague idea who he is, and what show they are on (unlike Pacino, who looked utterly baffled when Jones jokingly asked him if he'd 'been dreaming of The One Show?') The cumulative effect is simultaneously banal and bizarre. None of it makes any sense at all – if historians look back at any random One Show episode in a few centuries, they'll be deeply, existentially confused about what British society deemed important and/or entertaining at the dawn of the third millennium. The comedy icon Mel Brooks put it best during his 2017 One Show appearance. Moments after he'd had Jones and her then-co-host Matt Baker cracking up with his jokes, the presenters performed a tonal handbrake turn and started telling the story of a woman trying to track down her long-lost father. 'What a crazy show this is!' Brooks said, neatly summing up what every guest (and every viewer) had been thinking for years. Of course, it speaks volumes that the jolt from wisecracking celebs to missing family members is by no means the show's most jarring transition. That honour goes to the time when Jones glided from a nature segment to an interview with Ozark's Jason Bateman, using the immortal line: 'Now, from the transformation of the dragonfly… to the transformation of Jason Bateman.' It takes a real lightness of touch to make a clanger like that one work – even if her smiles and enthusiasm grate on your cynical soul, you still have to admit that Jones is very good at her job. Off screen, though, the show's unsung hero is surely its talent booker, who clearly has a) one of the most capacious contact books in the UK entertainment industry and b) the vision and panache required to boldly put together some unfathomable highbrow – lowbrow celebrity pairings. Netflix film Scoop was based on the work of Sam McAlister, the producer who organised Prince Andrew's interview with Newsnight, and I'd just as happily watch a drama about the machinations of The One Show's celeb liaison staff. Perhaps Sheridan Smith, a classic green sofa guest, could star in the lead role. She'd be able to draw on the time when she got stuck in a lift with Stephen Fry moments before they were both set to appear on the programme, in scenes that would've been cut from W1A for being too on the nose. As that gaffe proved, live TV often goes off-piste, and The One Show is no exception. In 2022, the actor Dan Stevens, formerly of Downton Abbey, appeared on the sofa to promote his new show Gaslit, a drama about the Watergate scandal. 'What you've got is a criminal for a leader who is wrapped in a messy war, embroiled in a stupid scandal and surrounded by ambitious idiots, who really should resign,' he said, before quipping that he'd just read 'the intro to Boris Johnson'. The gasps in the studio were audible. It's not just the guests who go off script, either. One of the show's most memorable moments came in 2011, just as the credits were about to roll at the end of an interview with then-prime minister David Cameron. In true One Show style, he'd been seated next to an owl and its handler throughout. 'Just very quickly, how on earth do you sleep at night?' Baker asked, with seconds of screen time to go. The former Blue Peter presenter delivered his zinger with a cheerful charm that gave him plausible deniability. It's entirely possible that he was simply asking Cameron about his nighttime routine, rather than alluding to the impact of Tory austerity – but I like to think of the exchange as a light entertainment Trojan horse. When so much TV now feels like it's been created by an algorithm to provide a frictionless viewing experience, The One Show's unapologetic weirdness makes it feel like an endearing outlier. As Brooks said, this programme is undisputedly 'nuts' – but that's the joy of it. Long may it reign as the most baffling thing on the BBC.
The Independent
28-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
The One Show is the most unapologetically weird programme on the BBC
What do Mike Leigh and Steven Bartlett have in common? Very little, surely. I can't see the octogenarian auteur behind Bafta-winning films like Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake kicking back after a long day's shoot with a nourishing glass of Huel and a motivational episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast. Their incongruence is so overwhelming that there's only one cultural force powerful enough to bring these two men together on the same sofa. And that cultural force is The One Show. Since 2006, the 7pm weeknight slot on BBC One has belonged to the broadcaster's premier something-for-everyone-and-no-one grab bag of a magazine show. The delirium-inducing theme tune – trumpet fanfares accompanied by someone shouting 'ONE… ONE… ONE!' at increasing volume and pitch – heralds the start of a televisual rollercoaster, presided over by the perma-cheery Alex Jones, alongside whichever reliable BBC stalwart has been rostered in to be her presenting partner. Each 30-minute episode is an odyssey through current affairs, uplifting local stories and every possible echelon of celebrity. It's like kids' TV for adults, an evening show that should by all rights be airing at 10.30am. The tonal shifts are enough to give you whiplash, defying all accepted rules of cohesive broadcasting. The agenda follows the nonsensical logic of a fever dream: unconnected scene follows unconnected scene with zero explanation. And that's precisely how what should by all rights be one of the BBC's most boring programmes has instead become unapologetically unhinged viewing. I like to think this is why around 3 million people tune in each night, not just because they've forgotten to turn over after News at Six. Take Thursday (23 January) night's broadcast, hosted by Roman Kemp and the unflappable Jones, a One Show veteran of 15 years. First up, Bartlett had to sit through a short video of Harry from season two of The Traitors taking part in an immersive Agatha Christie whodunnit. Then, Leigh and longtime collaborator Marianne Jean-Baptiste joined him on the famous green sofa. All three of them looked on as Carol from the Isle of Wight was praised for her work with service dogs (then enjoyed a ride in a monster truck as a reward). The paradox of The One Show is that every single episode is somehow wildly different and entirely the same. And so Thursday's lineup was at once head-scratchingly unpredictable in the specifics, but utterly representative of the programme's classic formula. We begin with some sort of vaguely topical human interest story. We're introduced to a star guest, there to field softball questions about their latest project. Then, it's time to meet more celebs. For maximum dissonance, they usually hail from a very different strata of fame to the one occupied by their new sofa-mates. Think Tom Fletcher from McFly sitting alongside Kerry Washington. Strictly 's Shirley Ballas chatting with Hollywood's go-to villain Mads Mikkelsen. Or Harry Hill thrown together with Dakota Fanning, a woman who has surely never heard of TV Burp. Next up is another VT, which might cover anything from fly tipping to fraudsters (with the bad guys usually played by a game production assistant, wearing a hoodie as a shorthand for dodginess). The celebrities are held hostage throughout – as Al Pacino found out when he tried to walk off mid-broadcast in 2020, wrongly believing that his presence was no longer required. You see the cogs moving in the A-listers' brains as they wonder why their publicist has signed them up to sit and nod politely while they watch Jeff Brazier walking down a suburban high street. Sometimes, they're quizzed on what they've just watched, like when Dame Judi Dench was asked whether she'd ever put her feet up on a train seat (answer: of course not). This quirk is what makes The One Show unique. On ITV, This Morning covers a similarly eclectic array of concerns, but their famous guests are spirited away during the ad breaks, so they never have to weigh in on, say, the UK's pothole epidemic. The Graham Norton Show has a comparably mish-mash approach to celebrity bookings, but Norton doesn't force his A-listers to feign outrage or delight over various mundane concerns that never darkened their own gilded lives. Plus, you get the sense that the Hollywood stars have at least a vague idea who he is, and what show they are on (unlike Pacino, who looked utterly baffled when Jones jokingly asked him if he'd 'been dreaming of The One Show?') The cumulative effect is simultaneously banal and bizarre. None of it makes any sense at all – if historians look back at any random One Show episode in a few centuries, they'll be deeply, existentially confused about what British society deemed important and/or entertaining at the dawn of the third millennium. The late comedy icon Mel Brooks put it best during his 2017 One Show appearance. Moments after he'd had Jones and her then-co-host Matt Baker cracking up with his jokes, the presenters performed a tonal handbrake turn and started telling the story of a woman trying to track down her long-lost father. 'What a crazy show this is!' Brooks said, neatly summing up what every guest (and every viewer) had been thinking for years. Of course, it speaks volumes that the jolt from wisecracking celebs to missing family members is by no means the show's most jarring transition. That honour goes to the time when Jones glided from a nature segment to an interview with Ozark 's Jason Bateman, using the immortal line: 'Now, from the transformation of the dragonfly… to the transformation of Jason Bateman.' It takes a real lightness of touch to make a clanger like that one work – even if her smiles and enthusiasm grate on your cynical soul, you still have to admit that Jones is very good at her job. Off screen, though, the show's unsung hero is surely its talent booker, who clearly has a) one of the most capacious contact books in the UK entertainment industry and b) the vision and panache required to boldly put together some unfathomable highbrow – lowbrow celebrity pairings. Netflix film Scoop was based on the work of Sam McAlister, the producer who organised Prince Andrew's interview with Newsnight, and I'd just as happily watch a drama about the machinations of The One Show 's celeb liaison staff. Perhaps Sheridan Smith, a classic green sofa guest, could star in the lead role. She'd be able to draw on the time when she got stuck in a lift with Stephen Fry moments before they were both set to appear on the programme, in scenes that would've been cut from W1A for being too on the nose. As that gaffe proved, live TV often goes off-piste, and The One Show is no exception. In 2022, the actor Dan Stevens, formerly of Downton Abbey, appeared on the sofa to promote his new show Gaslit, a drama about the Watergate scandal. 'What you've got is a criminal for a leader who is wrapped in a messy war, embroiled in a stupid scandal and surrounded by ambitious idiots, who really should resign,' he said, before quipping that he'd just read 'the intro to Boris Johnson'. The gasps in the studio were audible. It's not just the guests who go off script, either. One of the show's most memorable moments came in 2011, just as the credits were about to roll at the end of an interview with then-prime minister David Cameron. In true One Show style, he'd been seated next to an owl and its handler throughout. 'Just very quickly, how on earth do you sleep at night?' Baker asked, with seconds of screen time to go. The former Blue Peter presenter delivered his zinger with a cheerful charm that gave him plausible deniability. It's entirely possible that he was simply asking Cameron about his nighttime routine, rather than alluding to the impact of Tory austerity – but I like to think of the exchange as a light entertainment Trojan horse. When so much TV now feels like it's been created by an algorithm to provide a frictionless viewing experience, The One Show 's unapologetic weirdness makes it feel like an endearing outlier. As Brooks said, this programme is undisputedly 'nuts' – but that's the joy of it. Long may it reign as the most baffling thing on the BBC.
