Latest news with #WonderWorld
The Age
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘Jana Wendt was my idol, but I was truly obsessed with Barry Manilow'
AK: Not quite. I had met her in passing, through her husband [Harley Oliver], who was working at Simon Townsend's Wonder World, when he came in as a producer years ago, at the very tail end of me working there. I remember being incredibly starstruck and shy, but she was lovely. And, after all, it wasn't as if she was Barry Manilow, who was the one I was truly obsessed with! Fitz: Barry Manilow? You must have been the most uncool teenager ever! And just quietly, I think you might have been up against it to gain his affections even on the best of days. AK: But that was part of it – because he was dorky and relatively unattractive. And I say that with great love for Barry. He was kind of … we felt he was gettable. We knew our level, and Barry was my level. You know, he lived in a New York apartment and I fantasised about sitting on a couch in front of the fire with him, having a hot chocolate. That's as far as my fantasies went. Fitz: OK, I'll sign for that. Shades of The Living Room TV show. But I digress. And you've of course since gone on to the most extraordinarily peripatetic media career, doing lots of TV shows, while having your Gold-FM breakfast radio gig Jonesy & Amanda as your solid base for at least a couple of decades. If you can park your humility for a moment, what is it you reckon you've got that has allowed you to prosper for so long on so many media platforms? AK: It is very out of my character to park the humility, but I think it's because I've just done the work. I've always felt that was the job, working hard and trying to make a good fist of it. Fitz: Given the phenomenal success of Jonesy & Amanda on Gold-FM – and its much more middle-of-the road nature, without ever being bland – does it seem strange to you that you and Brendan Jones weren't the ones syndicated to Melbourne, instead of Kyle & Jackie O? AK: No. That was their ambition, and never ours. I'm just happy turning up for work and looking out this window we have in our office in North Sydney, seeing the sun come up over the harbour city. We moved into this new building we're in now, straight after the terrible stabbings at Bondi Junction. Just felt like from our vantage point up there, I felt like I wanted to give our city a giant hug. Loading Fitz: Off the top of my head, I can only remember you being associated with one controversy – and even then it was just you making some narky comments – when Channel Ten suddenly pulled the Persian rug out from under you on The Living Room after a decade's success. You said, as I remember it, 'something, something, something, those mongrels, something, something'. AK: Yes, I don't remember the exact quote, either, but yes, of course I remember my feelings around it. And look, it really had gone for 10 years on television, which is 100 million years in human lives – so we'd had a great run – but I do know how rare that kind of chemistry is on television. And not a day goes by someone in the street doesn't say, 'Hey, what happened to The Living Room?' So I was just so surprised at the decision, and I'm still surprised at the decision. Fitz: And yet, in the patented Keller fashion, you bounced quickly into another gig, this one The Role of a Lifetime, which was all about parenting. I know you and Harley have raised two fine sons. But when you looked at all the experts on that show offering sage advice, did you and Harley come up to the mark or not? AK: It's interesting. A lot of the new parents were very intentional about the food their child eats, when it's going to have screen time, and all of that. We just did our best, and let the kids do things they wanted to do that weren't dangerous and hopefully praised and raised them in the right ways. And I think we've been really lucky with where we've ended up. Fitz: And given you and Harley were both in the media and both flat out, did you have guilt, as my wife and I did, that we're juggling a lot of balls here and we've got to make damn sure that none of the three balls that are children fall? Which is why I stopped breakfast radio myself, as she was doing breakfast TV. AK: Yes, and that is where Harley stepped up. I was doing breakfast radio, and Harley was the one who was doing freelance work, so he was the one therefore who said, 'I'll be the parent that takes them to school in the morning. I'll be the parent that will field the phone calls until you get home. I'll be the one at the bus stop.' With my friend Anita McGregor, who's a forensic psychologist, I do a podcast called Double A Chattery.... Fitz: [ Interrupting ] Of course you do a podcast! You probably also do a radio show for left-handed New Yorkers, in your spare time, while also trying to sort out peace in the Middle East. But go on. AK: [ Laughing ] And the podcast we did for Mother's Day that we recorded last week was with my two sons, and I told them how guilty I felt that I couldn't be there for the Mother's Day breakfasts, for the drop-offs, for the many things I couldn't do. I asked them, 'Did it matter to you?' And they are such lovely boys. They said, 'No, it didn't because you always said to us, 'If this really matters, tell me, and I will make a giant effort'.' They understood the nature of the family, how it must adapt to needs, and that's how we tried to do it. Fitz: Which brings us, after a run-up that would do D.K. Lillee proud, to The Piano, which starts on the ABC tonight. What was the pitch when it came to you? AK: This show is so not what the title says it is. It is just pure heart and music and beauty and tears. It's about people playing piano in public spaces, to enrich lives. And as soon as I saw one episode [of the British series], I said, 'OK, well, I'm going to have to find time in my diary for that'. Fitz: And so it began. AK: We selected five different locations around Australia, and people were chosen to come down and play. One woman was blind and deaf, and watching her was quite extraordinary. She had an interpreter who touched her hand as I was talking to her, an instant translator. And as she played, this person was standing at her back signalling to her what was happening. At one point the translator made what looked be like the pitter-patter of rain down her back, to tell her that people were applauding. It was just extraordinary. We had kids who had written songs in their bedrooms because they weren't sporty and were being bullied at school, and music was their saviour. We had older people whose partners had Alzheimer's, and music was the way the thing that still connected them. Everybody has a story, and the stories that poured out of these people, and the role that the music and the piano had played in their lives, was just wonderful. Loading Fitz: And you have a couple of pianists helping you? AK: Yes. What I probably should mention is that it's not a competition. But we have Andrea Lam, who's Australia's premier classical pianist, and Harry Connick Jr watching on, and they come out at the end and select the person who's touched them the most, or made them laugh or influence them the most. And at the end, we get all the best to put on a concert in a concert hall, and it is spectacular.
Sydney Morning Herald
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Jana Wendt was my idol, but I was truly obsessed with Barry Manilow'
AK: Not quite. I had met her in passing, through her husband [Harley Oliver], who was working at Simon Townsend's Wonder World, when he came in as a producer years ago, at the very tail end of me working there. I remember being incredibly starstruck and shy, but she was lovely. And, after all, it wasn't as if she was Barry Manilow, who was the one I was truly obsessed with! Fitz: Barry Manilow? You must have been the most uncool teenager ever! And just quietly, I think you might have been up against it to gain his affections even on the best of days. AK: But that was part of it – because he was dorky and relatively unattractive. And I say that with great love for Barry. He was kind of … we felt he was gettable. We knew our level, and Barry was my level. You know, he lived in a New York apartment and I fantasised about sitting on a couch in front of the fire with him, having a hot chocolate. That's as far as my fantasies went. Fitz: OK, I'll sign for that. Shades of The Living Room TV show. But I digress. And you've of course since gone on to the most extraordinarily peripatetic media career, doing lots of TV shows, while having your Gold-FM breakfast radio gig Jonesy & Amanda as your solid base for at least a couple of decades. If you can park your humility for a moment, what is it you reckon you've got that has allowed you to prosper for so long on so many media platforms? AK: It is very out of my character to park the humility, but I think it's because I've just done the work. I've always felt that was the job, working hard and trying to make a good fist of it. Fitz: Given the phenomenal success of Jonesy & Amanda on Gold-FM – and its much more middle-of-the road nature, without ever being bland – does it seem strange to you that you and Brendan Jones weren't the ones syndicated to Melbourne, instead of Kyle & Jackie O? AK: No. That was their ambition, and never ours. I'm just happy turning up for work and looking out this window we have in our office in North Sydney, seeing the sun come up over the harbour city. We moved into this new building we're in now, straight after the terrible stabbings at Bondi Junction. Just felt like from our vantage point up there, I felt like I wanted to give our city a giant hug. Loading Fitz: Off the top of my head, I can only remember you being associated with one controversy – and even then it was just you making some narky comments – when Channel Ten suddenly pulled the Persian rug out from under you on The Living Room after a decade's success. You said, as I remember it, 'something, something, something, those mongrels, something, something'. AK: Yes, I don't remember the exact quote, either, but yes, of course I remember my feelings around it. And look, it really had gone for 10 years on television, which is 100 million years in human lives – so we'd had a great run – but I do know how rare that kind of chemistry is on television. And not a day goes by someone in the street doesn't say, 'Hey, what happened to The Living Room?' So I was just so surprised at the decision, and I'm still surprised at the decision. Fitz: And yet, in the patented Keller fashion, you bounced quickly into another gig, this one The Role of a Lifetime, which was all about parenting. I know you and Harley have raised two fine sons. But when you looked at all the experts on that show offering sage advice, did you and Harley come up to the mark or not? AK: It's interesting. A lot of the new parents were very intentional about the food their child eats, when it's going to have screen time, and all of that. We just did our best, and let the kids do things they wanted to do that weren't dangerous and hopefully praised and raised them in the right ways. And I think we've been really lucky with where we've ended up. Fitz: And given you and Harley were both in the media and both flat out, did you have guilt, as my wife and I did, that we're juggling a lot of balls here and we've got to make damn sure that none of the three balls that are children fall? Which is why I stopped breakfast radio myself, as she was doing breakfast TV. AK: Yes, and that is where Harley stepped up. I was doing breakfast radio, and Harley was the one who was doing freelance work, so he was the one therefore who said, 'I'll be the parent that takes them to school in the morning. I'll be the parent that will field the phone calls until you get home. I'll be the one at the bus stop.' With my friend Anita McGregor, who's a forensic psychologist, I do a podcast called Double A Chattery.... Fitz: [ Interrupting ] Of course you do a podcast! You probably also do a radio show for left-handed New Yorkers, in your spare time, while also trying to sort out peace in the Middle East. But go on. AK: [ Laughing ] And the podcast we did for Mother's Day that we recorded last week was with my two sons, and I told them how guilty I felt that I couldn't be there for the Mother's Day breakfasts, for the drop-offs, for the many things I couldn't do. I asked them, 'Did it matter to you?' And they are such lovely boys. They said, 'No, it didn't because you always said to us, 'If this really matters, tell me, and I will make a giant effort'.' They understood the nature of the family, how it must adapt to needs, and that's how we tried to do it. Fitz: Which brings us, after a run-up that would do D.K. Lillee proud, to The Piano, which starts on the ABC tonight. What was the pitch when it came to you? AK: This show is so not what the title says it is. It is just pure heart and music and beauty and tears. It's about people playing piano in public spaces, to enrich lives. And as soon as I saw one episode [of the British series], I said, 'OK, well, I'm going to have to find time in my diary for that'. Fitz: And so it began. AK: We selected five different locations around Australia, and people were chosen to come down and play. One woman was blind and deaf, and watching her was quite extraordinary. She had an interpreter who touched her hand as I was talking to her, an instant translator. And as she played, this person was standing at her back signalling to her what was happening. At one point the translator made what looked be like the pitter-patter of rain down her back, to tell her that people were applauding. It was just extraordinary. We had kids who had written songs in their bedrooms because they weren't sporty and were being bullied at school, and music was their saviour. We had older people whose partners had Alzheimer's, and music was the way the thing that still connected them. Everybody has a story, and the stories that poured out of these people, and the role that the music and the piano had played in their lives, was just wonderful. Loading Fitz: And you have a couple of pianists helping you? AK: Yes. What I probably should mention is that it's not a competition. But we have Andrea Lam, who's Australia's premier classical pianist, and Harry Connick Jr watching on, and they come out at the end and select the person who's touched them the most, or made them laugh or influence them the most. And at the end, we get all the best to put on a concert in a concert hall, and it is spectacular.
The Independent
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
The 1980s ‘British Disneyland' that is now a housing estate
Plans were established earlier this year for a major new Universal theme park to be built in Bedford, but this is not the first time that a huge project like this was once in the works. In the 1980s, developers envisaged a theme park that was to be the British answer to the US ' successful Disney parks, putting £346m behind the project to build the park in Corby. The park was to be called WonderWorld, with plans including 13 themed villages, hotels and rides designed by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam, according to the BBC. A BBC Look East report from 1989 shows that the park was planned to be constructed on a 1,000-acre site in Weldon, around where Priors Hall Park is now, next to Corby. The concept was initially created in 1980, but near the end of the decade, there was still nothing to show of the 'equivalent to America's Disneyland'. Plans for a mock safari, a 10,000-seat stadium for indoor sports, a concert arena and a family resort with hotels were also floated to be included in the designs. The video report from four decades ago shows the WonderWorld chairman handing over the keys to an international construction group to start work. Plans were in place for a 39-month construction programme, hoping for an initial summer opening by 1992. The report stated that WonderWorld would welcome four million visitors a year, with parking for seven thousand vehicles. The park was also supposed to provide much-needed employment, with 2,000 jobs on site during construction, 1,000 full-time staff at the park and 350 seasonal workers. Unemployment had risen in Corby following the 1980 closure of the steelworks, which led to 10,000 job losses and nearly a third of the town out of work. Yet, the park wasn't built, and WonderWorld never opened its doors to the millions of visitors it was hoping for. The park's blueprint was inspired partly by Disney's Epcot Park in Orlando, which opened in 1982 and features the distinctive large Spaceship Earth ride inside a spherical golf-ball-like structure – a defining trait of the park. Around Spaceship Earth are lots of small 'villages', many modelled after different destinations around the world, from Mexico to the UK. WonderWorld was also to have a themed village built around a central bowl, 700m in diameter, the BBC said. A brochure promised "a unique resort set in beautifully landscaped surroundings", with an "accent very much on participation". In 1985, one of the architects, Derek Walker, told the publication: "The basic ingredients [for WonderWorld] are very simple: entertainment at the very highest level. It's participatory and it's incredibly educational. "[WonderWorld] will offer the best of British design." Despite positive buzz around the project early on, rising costs, planning delays and difficulties in finding long-term funding all contributed to WonderWorld's downfall. The only thing to show of the park was a large WonderWorld sign constructed at the site and a small wooden cabin, the BBC said. While the park never came into fruition, more than 1,000 houses were built at Priors Hall Park, and there are now plans to build a further 5,000 on the site.
Daily Mail
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The £346million theme park that wanted to be 'England's Disneyland' - but was never built
If Brits want to go to Disneyland, they need to travel to Paris, at the very least – but the UK almost had a rival theme park built in the 1980s. Called WonderWorld, the park was granted planning permission in 1981 to be built on Priors Hall Park, a 1,000-acre disused quarry, around two miles from Corby, Northamptonshire. The ambitious £346 million project promised a British answer to Disney World's Epcot, which opened to the public in Orlando in 1982. Like Epcot, the attraction was to include 13 themed villages built around a central bowl, measuring 700m in diameter. Six of these areas were due to open in the summer of 1992, and were expected to welcome four million visitors a year. WonderWorld would also be home to high-tech rides, including one designed by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam, which would take riders on a canoe through the human body. If the park had opened, there would have been an open-air concert hall designed to look like one of the Martian tripods from Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds and a 10,000-seat sports stadium. Meanwhile, botanist David Bellamy was helping to plan a mock safari and astronomer Sir Patrick Moore was involved in creating an observatory. There would also be educational centres, themed restaurants, a conservation area and lots of places to shop. The theme park was only going to be the start of the resort too, as seven hotels were due to be built, as well as an 18-hole golf course, and 100 villas. The overall ambition was to launch a new leisure industry built around 'British heritage, folklore, science and innovation'. In 1985, one of the architects, Derek Walker, told the BBC: 'The basic ingredients [for WonderWorld] are very simple: entertainment at the very highest level. It's participatory and it's incredibly educational. '[WonderWorld] will offer the best of British design.' The project was estimated to cost £346million in total and aimed for an initial opening in 1985. And Group Five, who were due to be the developers, even had support from the local area including county authorities and the Commission for New Towns. However, due to rising costs, planning delays and difficulty securing long-term funding, some of the backers pulled out. The plans eventually faded into obscurity and a large WonderWorld sign and a small wooden cabin were the only two parts of the entire resort that were built. There are now more than 1,000 houses where WonderWorld was meant to stand and there are plans to build around 5,000 more in the future. And, while WonderWorld didn't succeed, a huge new Universal theme park is officially set to open in Bedford in 2031 - after a deal was closed by the Government. The Bedfordshire attraction will be one of the largest and most advanced theme parks in Europe, with a 500-room hotel and a retail and entertainment complex planned along with the theme park.
Business Mayor
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
The £346milion theme park that wanted to be the ‘English Disneyland' in the 1980s… but was never built
A THEME park that wanted to be the UK's version of Disneyland was nearly built in the 1980s. The theme park, called WonderWorld, hoped to open in Corby in Northamptonshire. 6 The site of England's Disneyland was due to be in Corby, Northamptonshire Credit: 6 The park would have featured a stadium theme on one of the Martian tripods from Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds Credit: BBC 6 In total, the park would have had 13 themed villages Credit: BBC In 1981, planning permission was granted for a the theme park to be built on a 1,000-acre site, around two miles from Corby. Located at Priors Hall, the park was to be built on a disused quarry which was once linked to the town's former steelworks. Group Five, who were due to be the developers, claimed that support from the local area including county authorities and the Commission for New Towns. The attraction was to be modelled on Walt Disney World's Epcot which opened in Orlando in 1982 and would include 13 themed villages built around a central bowl measuring 700 metres in diameter. Six of the worlds would open in 1992 and were expected to draw in four million visitors annually. The attraction would have featured high-tech rides, educational centres, themed restaurants, a conservation zone and several shopping areas. There would have also been an open air concert hall designed to look like one of the Martian tripods from Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds and rides designed by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam. A brochure produced on the planned park suggested that it would be a 'unique resort set in beautifully landscaped surroundings'. Later in 1985, one of the architects, Derek Walker, said: 'The basic ingredients [for WonderWorld] are very simple: entertainment at the very highest level. It's participatory and it's incredibly educational. Paulton's Park reveals first look at new £3.5million ride opening next month '[WonderWorld] will offer the best of British design,' according to the BBC. In addition, botanist David Bellamy was involved in planning a mock safari and astronomer Sir Patrick Moore was set to contribute an observatory. There would also have been a 10,000-seat stadium for sports. A family resort with seven hotels initially, an 18-hole golf course and 100 holiday villas were due to be a part of the destination too. The overall ambition was to launch a new leisure industry built around 'British heritage, folklore, science and innovation', which was particular supported following the closure of the nearby steelworks in 1980. 6 The park was due to provide new jobs, following the closure of the steelworks in 1980 Credit: 6 If the park went ahead, it would have opened in 1985 Credit: The project was estimated to cost £346million in total and aimed for an initial opening in 1985. However, due to rising costs, planning delays and difficultly securing long-term funding meant that some of the backers pulled out. Eventually the plans faded into obscurity and the only parts of the attraction that were built were a large WonderWorld sign and a small wooden cabin. Today, the site is home to more than 1,000 houses and here are plans to build around 5,000 more in the future . A £2.5billion 'UK Disneyland' theme park was also announced in 2012, before being scrapped – and images were released of what it could have looked like. However, there is a Universal theme park coming to the UK in the next decade.
