Latest news with #puppet
Daily Mail
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Mel Giedroyc claims close friend Sue Perkins was 'touched up' by ventriloquist Keith Harris' puppet Orville The Duck during 90s TV show
Mel Giedroyc has claimed that pal Sue Perkins was groped by the late ventriloquist Keith Harris' puppet Orville The Duck during filming for a TV in the 90s. Sue's best friend and presenting partner Mel has has said that Keith used the famous green bird to get handsy with the now 55-year-old Light Lunch presenter. Sue and Mel were co-hosting the Channel 4 chat show when the incident occurred in 1997 after the children's entertainer was invited on with his giant green puppet. Keith, who died in 2015 at the age of 67, had his own BBC series in the 1980s and appeared on countless other shows with the green puppet, who wore a nappy and spoke in a falsetto Lancastrian accent. Speaking on the Parenting Hell podcast, Mel said: 'It was the 90s, there was a lot going down. 'The most memorable of all of the lunches…. we had three puppeteers with their puppets for lunch, so it was like having six guests round the table. Mel Giedroyc has claimed that pal Sue Perkins was groped by the late ventriloquist Keith Harris' puppet Orville The Duck during filming for a TV in the 90s (Seen on Light Lunch in 1997) 'We had Keith Harris and Orville who got a bit naughty with Sue, Orville did, yes. Harris via Orville got a bit naughty Nineties.' Fronting the podcast, comedian Rob Beckett said: 'Of course you forget there's a hand in there,' to which Mel said: 'There's a ruddy hand.' Co-host Josh Widdicombe pointed out: 'They'd get away with it by claiming it was a grey area', and Mel replied 'Exactly'. Rob added: 'It is not a grey area. It's a hand in a beak. Get off my t**!' She also revealed how Keith, who died in 2015 aged 67, and the two fellow guests, Roger de Courcey with Nookie Bear and Matthew Corbett with Sooty, all seemed captivated by Sue, who was just 27 at the time. Mel continued: 'Then we had Roger de Courcey with Nookie Bear who used to work a bit of blue material - they were a little bit late night - and we had Matthew Corbett plus Sooty. 'I had a strong sensation that Roger de Courcey didn't like Matthew Corbett very much because he felt that Corbett's puppeteering was not the full deck. 'So there was real animosity round the table. There was a frosty bloody atmosphere round the table. Harris is in the middle of it all over Perks's grill.' She added: 'She was the honey trap, I was just the fly kind of buzzing round the edge rather desperately. They bloomin' loved Perks, all of them.' After the show ended in 1999, Mel and Sue went on to host Great British Bake Off for seven years, when it was one of Britain's biggest TV shows. But she insisted they also had happy memories of doing Light Lunch. Mel confirmed she snogged the runner on the programme, a then unknown Dermot O'Leary in one of his first TV jobs. She added: 'There was a lot going down - it should have been called Heavy Lunch.' It comes after Sue made a very x-rated confession as she recalled attending the birthday party of a spiritual friend of hers. The broadcaster was speaking to Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett on Thursday's Dish from Waitrose podcast when she told the story. Sue said she had been invited over to her friend's house and she had organised for an American Shaman to join them to 'perform a ritual'. The former Bake Off host said the group got into the hot tub at four in the morning... before revealing she had an alcohol enema. 'It was raspberry vodka, that's all we'd got left, we'd drunk everything else,' she said. 'Where he would blow it, a high strength blow into our, into our, into our a***holes.' She added: 'So, me and my, me and partner stood up, and he was just, he'd drink and then go, pfff, and you just felt this electrifying, electrifying-electrifying burn in your ring piece.' Recalling the day, Sue said: 'I went to a friend's birthday in the middle of nowhere. 'She's very spiritual and she said, look, I've got John the Shaman here. He's from the States. He will perform a shamanic ritual. 'We were all dressed up. He was dressed up very shamanically, he was wearing a sort of grass skirt and had a long sort of pipe, and, anyway, I just thought the shamanic ritual would come at some point, and it did, it came at four in the morning, when we were in the hot tub.' Sue added: 'Certainly brought me closer to a sense of myself, if not the universe. And I was thinking, this is weird, but I was, I'm not going to lie, battered.' She didn't specify which partner she was referring to in the story but she has previously dated TV presenter Anna Richardson, comedian Rhona Cameron, writer Emma Kennedy and artist Kate Williams.
Mail & Guardian
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Mail & Guardian
Sudan's General Burhan is a paper prime minister
Sudan's army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burha. Photo: Supplied At a critical juncture marked by a devastating war and unprecedented institutional collapse, Sudanese military leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan unilaterally appointed a new prime minister — a move widely seen as a thinly veiled attempt to bestow civilian legitimacy upon a deeply unpopular military regime. Yet the most pointed response did not come from the Sudanese street or revolutionary movements. Instead, it emerged from the dignified halls of the British House of Lords, where Lord Jeremy, a senior member, described the newly appointed prime minister as a 'puppet'. This was not a casual insult but a symbolically dense diagnosis of a situation defined by absent will, hollow legitimacy, and elusive political truth. Lord Jeremy was not engaging in diplomatic mockery nor seeking to shift power dynamics. Rather, he was laying bare the context of the appointment: a prime minister with no public support, no electoral mandate, no inclusion in any national consultation or dialogue. This was not the result of a political settlement or a unifying national initiative — it was an imposed decree by a military leader whose legitimacy is eroding rapidly both at home and abroad. Worse still, the newly appointed 'leader' lacks a clear political programme or the background necessary to guide a country plagued by civil war, mass displacement, economic collapse and crumbling institutions. The term 'puppet' should not be read as a personal attack but as a precise reference to the political dependency of the appointee on Burhan, and by extension, on the Islamist-military alliance attempting once more to disguise authoritarian rule behind a fragile civilian façade. This fragile context raised concerns not only in London but also highlighted a deeper contradiction exposed by the African Union's hasty endorsement of the new government. Lord Jeremy expressed clear bewilderment at the AU's stance, questioning the ethical and political integrity of a continental body expected to represent the will of African peoples — yet one that appeared to bless a government born not of national consensus but of military fiat. How could the AU overlook a record of systematic abuses and celebrate a government that represents no one but the ruling camp? To many observers, this position not only underscores the AU's limited independence but reveals a chronic structural bias in favour of regimes that wield de facto power, even when cloaked in the hollow garb of civilian rule. The official British response came from Lord Collins, the minister for Africa at the foreign office, who articulated a clear yet composed position: no recognition for any government formed by the warring parties. The priorities must be stopping the fighting, delivering humanitarian aid, and resuming a genuine political process that leads to a civilian government with real popular representation. This carefully measured stance reflects not only Britain's traditional foreign policy approach but also a growing awareness in the West of the dangers of legitimising imposed governments that serve only to extend the life of collapsing military regimes. The message is unmistakable: legitimacy is not declared; it is earned — from the people, through political process, not military decrees. In the end, what took place in the House of Lords cannot be dismissed as routine diplomatic commentary. It was, in essence, an early vote of no confidence in a political figure who had not even begun his tenure, yet failed to convince the international community that he possessed the independence required of national leadership. To be branded a 'puppet' on one's first day is not merely a political or moral fall — it is an indictment of the entire political project he represents. It is a blunt reminder that what emerges from the barrel of a gun, even when dressed in civilian clothes, remains part of the crisis, not its solution. What the Sudanese people — and increasingly, the international community — demand is not just a new government or fresh civilian faces reading scripted speeches in Port Sudan. What is urgently needed is a new legitimacy: one drawn from the suffering of the people, anchored in a unifying national vision, not brokered through military muscle or elite compromise. What we are witnessing in Port Sudan is not a functioning political system, but a poorly staged theatrical production —r ecycling the same scenes: the stern general, the pitiful civilian front, and the tired, incoherent rhetoric. But this time, the audience is neither unaware nor silent. When the British, before the Sudanese themselves, call this 'prime minister' a puppet, it is not satire — it is the political obituary of a stillborn government. Perhaps one day, when the history of this moment is written, it will read: the general pulled a puppet from his hat, the sycophants applauded, and the world chuckled. But the people, as always, did not laugh. Dr Waleed Adam Madibo is a Fulbright scholar and the founder and president of the Sudan Policy Forum.
