#BBC Sound of 2009

[freckliedan]

i'm sorry but if you've only been a phannie since the reniassance you really have no right to be criticizing dan gender posters.

i don't think anyone who got here post revival understands the distinction between "fans crossing the line" vs "fans listening to what dan and phil tell us even before announcing things explicitly and celebrating that". and the way people act like they need to defend dan from people who think he could be trans makes that abundantly clear.

dan especially has been so open about how this community's support is what made it possible for him to accept himself and come out, and that wasn't support that magically appeared the second BIG dropped. it didn't exist only after we got told officially.

the community support of dan and phil's queerness was the way people noticed and celebrated and understood the way they increasingly chose to be vulnerable with us over the years, and the way we shared how they made us feel safe in our identities.

they came out a million little ways before they said the words, but dan did especially: wearing nail polish, going curly, an earring in the gay ear, liking tweets that said he was gay, making increasing gay jokes. the winter before they both came out they tweeted about the bbc calling them a couple and didn't correct it. dan TOLD us in march of 2018 that he had a video planned for june that was relevant to the month but not because of his birthday.

they do the telling us with their actions before announcing it in so many other contexts too: moving, announcing tours, etc.

if you trust in and pay attention to their consistant patterns of behavior it's hard to be surprised by dan and phil.

so why is it that this one fucking thing—dan's gender—is not allowed to be posted about in the same way as everything else? those of us who do take so much care in what we say, too, if we ever do anything other than post jokingly. both for dan's sake (nobody forgets this is a public forum) and because the transphobic backlash is constant.

dan has been saying he sometimes wishes he was a girl since manchester. talking about gender since 2009. the gender conversation has been constant as long as dan's been online and we know it's been a constant since early childhood too.

dan said after BIG dropped in 2019 that he considered coming out in 2014 but then started thinking about gender and needed more time to figure it out. and you know how that ended? he did NOT say "i came out because i figured it out". it ended with dan saying that thinking about gender culminated in realizing it's okay to come out and change your mind. that you can be a formless blob. (quote)

and then sister daniel happened, and dan has been increasingly openly talking about questioning gender ever since. and hey: dan and phil commented on the possibility of a gender video from dan during dan's bday livestream. doesn't that sound familiar.

this isn't different from when dan and phil claimed heterosexuality and then were openly not in the lead up to coming out. this pattern of behavior is the same, and the way people are posting is the same, and i've never fucking once seen a dan gender poster cross the line the way people used to.

it's just a different subject.

would the people who get pissed at dan gender posters have been doing the same thing to people who thought dnp were queer before they came out? did you not realize what an rpf community is like because you got here after the fact, or are you being transphobic hypocrites?

why is the possibility of transness something dan needs to be defended from, anyways? it's a compliment and we know dan takes it that way.

figure your shit out. i'm sick of it, especially coming from other trans people. i've had so fucking many trans mutuals bullied off this website and out of this space for openly talking about the possibility that dan might not be cis over the years, and when the same transphobic talking points come from a trans sibling's mouth? it disgusts me.

you don't have to like it or agree with it or engage with it. but can you PLEASE stop acting like you have a moral high ground and are doing something beneficial to dan that he'd thank you for? just fucking block and blacklist and move on.

and know that if dan someday turns out not to be cis, you're gonna have to live with the knowledge that you made things harder for him.

us dan gender posters? we all know we might be wrong and we've had to think about whether we're happy with our actions if that's the case. and i know damn well we'll all be celebrating dan's gender nonconformity just as much for the rest of time if dan remains cis.

we're under constant scruitiny so we've had to self reflect. but i really don't think any of you have. think about your underlying biases. consider the impact a vehement defense of cisness would have on dan if he isn't. and please, for the love of god, let that impact your actions.

[fob9]

them > anyone else ever

to you (unfinished, off the top of my head), 2008 / blog, 2006 / the world’s not waiting (for five tired boys in a broken down van), 2003 / kerrang, 2008 / alternative press, 2008 / mtv.com, 2003 / camera-noise, 2004 / popularunderground.com, 2004 / believers never die vol 1, 2009 / fobr journal, 2005 / fobr q&a, 2005 / reading eagle, 2005 / diy magazine, 2013 / fobr blog, 2003 / bbc radio 1, 2007 / believers never die vol. 1, 2009 / fobr q&a, 2008 / x / nohartandsole, 2007 / stagecoachesbecomepumpkins, 2006 / fobr q&a, 2006 / big cheese magazine, 2007 / creme magazine, 2006 / twitter q&a, 2009 / friendsorenemies blog, 2006 / the kids aren't alright, 2015 / fobr blog, 2005 / meelikey, 2008 / rolling stone, 2023 / rock sound, 2023 / to you (unfinished, off the top of my head), 2008

[ro-fromthestars]

A list of characters from britcoms that I think are autistic

(All headcanons unfortunately, the lack of canon autistic rep is very limited but there's always hope for the future) Also not much description for any of these because these things are hard to explain

Rick and Vyvyan - The Young Ones (1982)

Rick (Rik Mayall) with his strong interest in poetry and activism, and Vyvyan (Ade Edmondson) the punk who is constantly hitting things (namely people tbh) and is probably undiagnosed ADHD too

Martha Fitzgerald - So Awkward (CBBC, 2015)

Martha (Sophia Dall'aglio) is a great character, and is basically the undiagnosed autistic girl of her school year. Idk how to explain but I'd recommend watching it (even if it is technically a kids show) as it's very true to the autistic school experience. Her friend Ollie is probably autistic too.

John "Ludwig" Taylor - Ludwig (2024)

John (David Mitchell) is genuinely one of the best examples of an autistic person I've seen on screen. Shame it's just a headcanon, but honestly I did think they were going to address John possibly being autistic at some point in canon. There's a scene in the first episode where he walks into the police station for his new 'job' and it's very clear - along with the massive change in routine that he hates - that he finds the whole place incredibly overwhelming, and it's one of the most accurate tv portrayals of sensory overload imo. His main interest is also puzzles.

Daisy - Not Going Out (2006)

Daisy (Katy Wix) is yet another pretty accurate portrayal of the undiagnosed autistic friend in the group. I personally found her character very relatable when I first watched her episodes - she's very blunt, takes most things literally, and definitely has an alternative sense of humour to the rest of her friends. I'd recommend just watching the show tbh to see what I mean.

Karen & Ben Brockman - Outnumbered (2007)

They both remind me a lot of my (also autistic) younger siblings for sure. I reckon they both have the Autism/ADHD combo too.

Miranda - Miranda (2009)

She's incredibly relatable in the way she goes about life. Possibly just based off the vibes (or her social awkwardness in general) but I think she's autistic or possibly ADHD.

Richie - Bottom (1991)

Yet another great Rik Mayall character. Idk he just seems autistic to me, not sure why as such, but yh.

The Captain - BBC Ghosts (2019)

A very popular headcanon in the fandom from what I've seen, and for good reason. The Captain (Ben Willbond) loves routine, has aversions to sound and noise, hates change (one of the reasons he doesn't take to Alison & Mike right away), and his main interest is the War he fought in.

---------------------------

If anyone has any additions to this list I'd love to hear them

[thatscarletflycatcher]

The Jane Austen BBC Radio Drama Masterpost

(a radio drama adaptation is a dramatization of the source material, with voice actors, music, and sound effects. It differs from a full cast audiobook in that it is an adaptation of the book and not just a reading. For this reason, then tend to be much shorter than an audiobook)

Northanger Abbey

2005: starring Amanda Root (Persuasion 1995, Jane Eyre 1996) and Julia Mackenzie (Agatha Christie's Marple, Cranford 2007). 3 1 hour episodes.

This one is part of a release the BBC did titled "Jane Austen: the BBC radio drama collection", which includes one adaptation of each novel. You can find it for purchase or stream at the usual places (audible, Kobo, Hive, Libro.fm, Apple Books, Google Play, Xigxag), and there's a version on the Internet Archive.

2016: starring Georgia Groome and Luke Thompson. 10 15 minute episodes. Available for free on BBC Sounds.

Sense and Sensibility

1991: (BBC radio 7) starring Jean Leonard and Abigail McKern. 4 1 hour episodes. Available on the Internet Archive.

2010: (BBC radio 4 extra): starring Amanda Hale (Persuasion 2007) and Blake Ritson (Mansfield Park 2007, Emma 2009). 2 1 hour episodes. Available for free on BBC Sounds. Included in "Jane Austen: the BBC radio drama collection"

Pride and Prejudice

2014: starring Pippa Nixon and Jamie Parker. 3 1 hour episodes. You can find a stream-only version of an untrimmed radio recording on the Internet Archive (1,2,3) Included in "Jane Austen: the BBC radio drama collection"

Mansfield Park

1997: (Radio 4) starring Amanda Root and Robert Glenister. 3 1 hour episodes.

2003: (Radio 4 extra) starring Felicity Jones (Northanger Abbey 2007), David Tennant, and Benedict Cumberbatch. Included in "Jane Austen: the BBC radio drama collection"

2022: (Radio 4) starring Lydia Wilson and Bryan Dick. 2 1 hour episodes. Available for free on BBC Sounds.

Emma

2000: (Radio 4) Starring David Bamber (Pride and Prejudice 1995), Robert Bathurst (Emma 2009) and Tom Hollander (Pride and Prejudice 2005). Available for free on BBC Sounds. Included in "Jane Austen: the BBC radio drama collection"

Persuasion

1986: starring Juliet Stevenson and Sorcha Cusack (Jane Eyre 1973). 3 1 hour episodes. Included in "Jane Austen: the BBC radio drama collection"

[justforbooks]

Richard Chamberlain

Dashing American actor best known for his many roles in hit TV series including Dr Kildare, The Thorn Birds and Shogun

Despite becoming a lauded stage and film actor, Richard Chamberlain, who has died aged 90, carried the label of soap-opera star around his neck for most of his career of more than five decades.

It began with his huge success in the hospital television series Dr Kildare (1961-66), in which Chamberlain’s clean-cut good looks were the prime attraction, bringing him thousands of fan letters a week. Chamberlain’s other immensely successful television roles came in three mini-series, Centennial (1978-79), Shogun (1980) and The Thorn Birds (1983).

His perfectly chiselled features, which made him ideal for romantic leads in soap operas, prevented many producers from visualising him in more demanding roles. However, through talent and determination he starred in numerous films and on the stage in parallel to his television work.

Born in Los Angeles, he had a cool relationship with his alcoholic father, Charles, a salesman, but a warm one with his mother, Elsa (nee Von Benzon). At Beverly Hills high school, he excelled in athletics, and his good grades enabled him to study art history and painting at Pomona College, southern California, where he was able to satisfy his dream of becoming an actor in plays by Shakespeare, Shaw and Arthur Miller. After graduating, Chamberlain served 16 months in Korea, where he was made company clerk of his infantry company, later promoted to the rank of sergeant.

On his return to the US, Chamberlain studied acting with Jeff Corey, who became renowned as a teacher after being blacklisted in Hollywood by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Although Corey’s sense-memory Stanislavskian method is not immediately apparent in Chamberlain’s performances, the actor claimed to have learned how to tap into his own emotions and psyche. At the time, he was struggling with having to “live a lie” about his sexuality.

In 1959, Chamberlain, Leonard Nimoy and Vic Morrow were among the founders of the Company of Angels, a repertory theatre in Los Angeles. While playing there in La Ronde and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, Chamberlain started to get parts in television series. His first feature films were The Secret of the Purple Reef (1960), a low-voltage, low-budget thriller shot in Puerto Rico, and A Thunder of Drums (1961), a western in which he was hardly noticeable as a young cavalry officer.

Then came the role of Dr Kildare, for which Chamberlain beat 35 other candidates. In the first episode, the senior medic Dr Leonard Gillespie (Raymond Massey) tells Chamberlain, as the young, earnest, caring James Kildare, an intern at Blair general hospital: “Our job is to keep people alive, not to tell them how to live.” Kildare ignores the advice, thus supplying the basis for most of the plots of the next 190 episodes across five seasons.

In 1962, with his popularity at its height, he recorded a hit song, Three Stars Will Shine Tonight, based on the music of the show’s hummable opening theme. It revealed that Chamberlain had a fine singing voice, which he used on a number of singles and an album, Richard Chamberlain Sings (1962), and much later as leads in stage musicals such as My Fair Lady (1993), The Sound of Music (1998), Scrooge (2004), The King and I (2006) and Monty Python’s Spamalot (2009).

When Dr Kildare ended, Chamberlain decided to prove that he was not just a pretty face, by appearing in summer stock productions of The Philadelphia Story and Private Lives (both 1966).

He then worked for three years in Britain, on television, stage and film. He was excellent as Ralph Touchett in the BBC’s six-part adaptation of Henry James’s novel The Portrait of a Lady (1968).The role got him noticed by Peter Dews, the artistic director of Birmingham repertory theatre, who offered him the chance to play Hamlet in 1969.

The play was a sell-out for its limited five and a half week run, and in the main, the British critics were positive, with the Times reflecting the consensus: “Anyone who comes to this production prepared to scoff at the sight of a popular television actor, Richard Chamberlain, playing Hamlet, will be in for a deep disappointment.” The Daily Mail commented that “the perturbed spirit of Dr Kildare may rest at last. In Mr Chamberlain we have no mean actor.”

In films, he was a noble Octavius Caesar in Julius Caesar (1970), and a striking Lord Byron in Lady Caroline Lamb (1973), and he was able to express some of his own angst and sexual liberation as a gay Tchaikovsky in Ken Russell’s The Music Lovers (1971). At this time, it was an open showbiz secret that Chamberlain was romantically involved with the US actor Wesley Eure.

The rest of the films he made in the 1970s – The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), in which he played Aramis; The Slipper and the Rose (1976), almost typecast as Prince Charming; and the disaster movies The Towering Inferno (1974) and The Swarm (1978) – were lucrative but hardly challenging. He was more stretched in Peter Weir’s The Last Wave (1977), shot in Australia, where he was the initially smug lawyer defending a group of Indigenous Australians accused of murder.

In the meantime, Chamberlain had made a triumphant Broadway debut in Tennessee Williams’s The Night of the Iguana (1976-77) at Circle in the Square theatre. According to one critic, Chamberlain, as the defrocked priest now a tour guide, “captures the self-lacerating torment of Reverend Shannon”. During the run, he started a relationship with Martin Rabbett, a production assistant on the play. They remained together until 2010, and later resumed their partnership.

In the 80s, Chamberlain established himself again on television, earning the nickname “king of the miniseries”. Shogun, based on James Clavell’s novel, starred Chamberlain as Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, an Englishman trying to gain acceptance in early 17th-century Japan. Chamberlain, long-haired and black-bearded, held his own among a cast of superb Japanese actors that included the dynamic Toshiro Mifune.

In The Thorn Birds, he was sexy Father Ralph de Bricassart, the Roman Catholic priest who carries on a tortured, illicit romance with Meggie Cleary, played by Rachel Ward, in the Australian outback. It was disliked by Colleen McCullough, the author of the original 1977 bestseller. She said: “It was instant vomit! Ward couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag and Chamberlain wandered about all wet and wide-eyed.” Nevertheless, the 10-hour, four-part, $23m show became one of the most watched TV series ever.

Chamberlain continued to move between films, television and theatre, and his homes in Hawaii and Los Angeles, over the next decades. He was a guest star on the TV comedy series Will & Grace (2005), and his final film role came as an acting coach in Finding Julia (2019).

In 2003, in his memoir, Shattered Love, he wrote about his dislike of himself for not being true to himself in order to protect his matinee idol image, but in coming out he “finally made friends with life”.

He is survived by Rabbett.

🔔 George Richard Chamberlain, actor, born 31 March 1934; died 29 March 2025

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[zhaliacain]

Huntikmas Day 7- What kids films and team are scared of

Lok:

Watership Down. I have never met anyone in the UK and Northern Ireland that hasn't been traumatised by this film when the BBC randomly decided to air it on tv again. Its already quite an intense plot line but I think the animation made this film 10x more disturbing to watch.

Sophie:

If you ask her, Sophie hates this film because of historical inaccuracies and playing off conspiracy theories. It definitely has nothing to do with the themes of aristocracy being targeted by dark magic and a young girl being separated from her family with limited memories of those she's lost. Definitely not. She does not cry whilst watching this film.

Cherit:

Cherit spends a lot of his time pretending to be a toy, or a statue. He wonders what else around him is also pretending...

Dante:

Obviously the Skeksis are unnerving but I think that combined with the way essence is described puts me in mind of Metz's curse and his will being drained. I think he can also related to Jen being adopted into being a seeker and having the weight of the world on his shoulders so watching this when he was younger set a really bad taste in his mouth.

Den:

The land before time. Den: "Its just a stupid kids film and its not even good" He's never got passed the mother dying scene.

Harrison:

Okay so Chitty Chitty Bang Bang doesn't start scaring Harrison until after the Blood-Spiral. As a child he thought the concept of the child catcher was ridiculous and the children were just naive for being taken. That is until he joins a magic cult intent on destroying the world because they used his own anger against him and used it to lure him away from his own brother.

Zhalia:

Also the dark crystal. Dante made her watch it to justify his fears and the whole laboratories and skeksis voice thing really puts her in mind of Klaus. I don't think there's a whole lot of movies that would bother Zhalia and I think with how rough her childhood was, she either didn't watch a lot of films or didn't have the capacity to spend emotions on them.

[not technically related though, in current settings of Huntik I have (as in set in 2020's not 2009) when Zhalia and Ryder are teenagers they sneak into a cinema to watch human centipede and given some of the experiments Klaus runs it really freaks Zhalia out. Given that he's trying to raise a spy/assassin he can't really have her being terrified of one film so using scientific logic he decided to desensitise her through repetition. But Zhalia watching HC over and over in that lab may be scientifically sound but not parenting sound so it just becomes a massive trigger for her. fun times.]

[phannieconfession]

something about people especially non phannies talking about dan’s “lethal face card” makes me so…..like something about him bewitches people of all genders and sexualities it’s crazy like non fans talking about it, other youtubers having a crush on him and bringing it up to this day, random people at bbc back in the day talking about how beautiful he is like damn. and most of the time it’s people referring to 2009-2012 twink dan but he’s aged so beautifully?? Idk like that’s an ageless beauty. so androgynous such great features universally attractive. and the whole time he has eyes for no one but phil (this is not meant to sound like a jab to phil he’s gorgeous as well i just think it’s so romantic). this was inspired by a random non phannie tiktok user saying they would’ve put him on the runway in 2011

anon you posses lore i do not know about who are these people?? the only i know is joey graceffa??? people at the bbc? who??

[literatemisfit]

If you, like me, never listened to David's interview on Desert Island Discs, I highly recommend it. It's so sweet and aired in December 2009.

[lukethompsondaily]

He is best known for Netflix hit Bridgerton, but Luke Thompson’s theatre pedigree encompasses Shakespeare, Greek tragedy and Ivo van Hove’s marathon A Little Life. He talks to Fergus Morgan about his passion for the stage and his worries for its future

Luke Thompson might have shot to stardom thanks to his role as Benedict in Netflix’s smash-hit series Bridgerton, but the 35-year-old actor is most at home on stage.

“I spectate on myself,” Thompson says. “I always have done. It’s been a bit painful in my life. And the only place on earth it doesn’t happen is on stage when someone else is spectating instead and so I don’t have to worry. You’re watching me so I don’t have to watch myself. I feel free. Those are the best moments of my life.”

Fortunately, Thompson has not been short of stage work. Born in Southampton in 1988, he grew up just outside Paris, returning to the UK to study English and drama at the University of Bristol, before training at RADA. He landed his first job almost immediately after graduating in 2013: playing Lysander in Dominic Dromgoole’s staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe in London.

Since then, alongside screen roles in BBC One’s In the Club and Bridgerton, Thompson has starred in Julius Caesar at the Globe, Oresteia and Hamlet – opposite Andrew Scott – at London’s Almeida, and King Lear and A Little Life in the West End. Both he and co-star James Norton were nominated for Olivier awards for their performances in Ivo van Hove’s acclaimed adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s hard-hitting novel.

“A Little Life was such an intense experience,” Thompson says. “Intense in a good way, I mean. The material was very bleak, but acting is always pleasurable because you are indulging in a fantasy, even if it’s a dark one, and that is inherently fun.”

Thompson also thinks that theatre has lost some of its belief in itself. “Theatre is supposed to be provocative. I’m not on social media, but I think it can be very aggressive and vicious, and I think theatres cave to that a bit. Deep down, theatre is the opposite of social media. It is about people being in a room, exchanging opinions and emotions. I worry that social media is spoiling that a bit, which is a shame.”

What production made you fall in love with theatre?

I remember standing in the Yard at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2009 and watching Thea Sharrock’s production of As You Like It, and thinking: ‘Oh, wow, this is really funny and it actually works. When done simply and confidently, Shakespeare still speaks to us today.’ For my first job to be at the Globe a few years later was magical.

What are you finding inspiring at the moment?

I love watching Ivo [van Hove]’s company do stuff. There is something so wild about the acting in his shows. We get very bogged down with facts in this country, but Ivo understands the dream logic of plays. Some of the most moving things I’ve seen don’t completely make sense. I find that inspiring.

What do you wish you could change about the performing arts industry?

I wish theatre had more confidence. Right now, it feels unsure about how useful it is and about how taboo, complex and provocative it should be. I feel as though theatre has lost confidence in its societal function.

What is the worst thing that has happened to you on stage?

There was a scene in A Little Life in which James ran around naked for a bit, then I would bring him clothes. During one show, I couldn’t find his underpants, so I just brought him his trousers and he put them on. But I forgot that people pulled his trousers off again later and they were expecting him to be wearing underpants. James knew it was coming and I knew it was coming and we couldn’t look at each other for the rest of the play. I hope he doesn’t mind me telling that story. It was so funny.

What is the best thing that has happened to you on stage?

There are so many. That sounds naff but I don’t care. I love the challenge of going on stage night after night and trying to make something feel alive in front of an audience.

What role do you really want to play?

I would work with Ivo again at the drop of a hat. And there are loads and loads of roles I would love to play. I did a reading of a rewriting of The Seagull the other day. The role of Konstantin is really beautiful. I’d love to play that. I’d love to play Iago one day, too. Of course, I’d love to play Hamlet but it’s boring to say that.

What projects are you involved in at the moment?

I’m playing Berowne in Emily Burns’ production of Love’s Labour’s Lost with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has set it on a Polynesian island owned by these big tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, of which I am one. It’s a really smart concept that unlocks a lot of very interesting stuff in the play. Season three of Bridgerton is coming out in May and June, too. And we will be filming season four soon after that. There’s a lot still to come.

Source: The Stage

[colorfulstains]

Happy Global Beatles Day!

Global Beatles Day was created by a fan of the band, Faith Cohen. The day started in 2009, and Faith calls it a “love letter” or “thank you” to The Beatles. The date was selected because it is the same date that the band participated in Our World in 1967, which was a program on the BBC that was also broadcast to a global audience. They performed their song “All You Need Is Love.”

While they started their career like most musical groups, playing cheap dive clubs all over their home town of Liverpool, their manager was an artisan of his craft and helped guide them to rise to their potential. Their explosion in popularity came on the heels of their first hit song “Love Me Do”, and love them we did, it didn’t take long before the entire world was caught up in Beatlemania.

Global Beatles Day celebrates the huge influence they brought to the world, not just with their musical sounds, but with the values they professed and believed in. Throughout their entire career they promoted the idea that we could all live in a peaceful world, built on the ideas of truth, love, and reaching beyond the boundaries of current human consciousness.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Hello! I read your post about you stopped listening to The News Quiz for extremely understandable reasons. I'm still a half regular listener, and I really want you to know that Andy Zaltzman did a pun run in the most recent show. I'm not suggesting you should check it out or anything, I just want you to know that our guy Andy finally did his torturous punny thing to a Radio 4 studio audience and got appropriate reaction for it. My opinion is that is great.

Oh that's great information, thank you! For anyone reading without context, I'd been a regular News Quiz (and Now Show) listener since around 2009, initially fuelled because I was just coming to the end of my teenage years and that was my "figuring out I'm gay" period, and I think that period in a person's life is always best accompanied by spending half an hour a week, in a six weeks on/twelve weeks off rotation, listening to a crew of lesbians talk shit about the British government. In this case, Sandi Toksvig was still hosting then and I was entirely in love with her, but they also had regular guests Susan Calman, Sue Perkins, Zoe Lyons. And some non-lesbians too, I guess. This was when I first got into Mark Steel.

I continued following it even after Sandi Toksvig quit the show and left me heartbroken (I spent several years hating QI on principal for the crime of taking Sandi Toksvig away from The News Quiz, until it occurred to me that if I want to hear more from Sandi Toksvig, I could just watch QI), and eventually I warmed to Miles Jupp as well. Got quite into some other regular contributors as well. One of my favourites was a guy named Nish Kumar, whom I assumed was about 55 years old, because I'd never seen his face and I assume most people on The News Quiz are about 55 years old. I was very surprised when I first watched Taskmaster in 2020.

Around that time Miles Jupp left as well, and the hosting job was taken over by frequent News Quiz guest Andy Zaltzman. He was, of course, great at it. However, I stopped following The News Quiz in about 2023, for several reasons:

By that time I'd finished listening to The Bugle's back catalogue, and was listening to each new episode as it aired. A lot of Andy's jokes on The News Quiz are just condensed (due to a shorter runtime) and watered-down (to meet BBC standards) versions of what he did on The Bugle that same week. Also, if any guest on The News Quiz was really good, then Andy would invite them on The Bugle and I'd get to hear them there anyway. So it felt redundant to listen to both.

They took the podcast out of regular podcast feeds, and I couldn't be bothered to mess with the BBC Sounds app.

I found myself skipping News Quiz episodes more and more often, due to them having guests I don't want to listen to, who were brought in for BBC balance. Across-the-board right-wingers like Geoff Norcott or Simon Evans, and TERFs - they went from occasional drop-ins, to a point where at least one person like that was turning up most weeks. And I don't want that in my entertainment. I do my duty as a citizen and listen to CBC news regularly, to get the facts and balance from people doing proper journalism, and sometimes that involves listening to people say things that make me angry. I don't need to also have that in my comedy shows, when I'm trying to be entertained.

The news was getting increasingly depressing, and while I do stay informed, I don't need to hear the same horrific news stories repeated that many times, by that many different people. I already follow the real news (via actual journalists at CBC) every day, The Bugle once a week, and Last Week Tonight. I dropped The Daily Show around that time too, for the same reason. Just don't need more way to re-hash it.

Obviously the person who sent me that ask does not need all this recapped, as you said you already know my reasons. However, none of my reasons for dropping The News Quiz from my regular listening schedule are that I hate that show and never want anything to do with it again, so I am happy to jump in and hear this as a one-off chance at a pun run on the BBC. I went and listened to the whole episode, and it was quite a good one. Mark Steel's not been on The Bugle for a while, so fun to hear him being livid at the news again, although I find it more fun when he has time to bounce off Andy. And I love that Zoe Lyons is still there.

Anyway, here's the only part of this post that's actually worth looking at, the pun run itself:

Fucking great. I love how he just casually worked his way into it, and you don't get that "penny drop" moment of when the others realize where it's going, because unlike Bugle co-presenters, they're not expecting it. He just kept talking and they let him. I'm glad Taskmaster success hasn't changed him.

[denimbex1986]

'David Tennant had it all. As the tenth Doctor he was a fan-favourite with a run of episodes that reached more than 13 million viewers in the UK – a record for the modern revival of Doctor Who, which almost rivalled its 1970s heyday. He left on his own terms in 2010 rather than being shoved aside for a younger, cooler star (in fact, the BBC wanted him to stay longer). His legacy set him up for lucrative convention appearances and fan worship for life, while his post-Who career is flourishing. So why risk it all by returning?

“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” Tennant laughs. “Thank God I made it to this point! It never really occurred to me to worry about that. Perhaps it should have done…but with Catherine [Tate] being part of it, and with Russell [T Davies] writing the scripts, I never actually worried about anything other than my own ability to run as fast as I used to.”

In fairness, while the return of old favourites to a stage they’ve vacated can sometimes tarnish a legacy, Tennant’s Doctor is a special case. Apart from Tom Baker, it’s hard to think of a Doctor Who star who so captured the public’s imagination. At the height of his career on the show, Tennant was plastered on magazine covers and lunchboxes; he was accosted in the street. In 2009, he was the BBC’s Christmas ident. By the time he left, aged 39, one suspects he could have been reading the phone book to a Dalek and viewers would still have tuned in.

Happily this comeback, announced to great fanfare last year, is a little more involved than that. “The first conversation we had about it was very casual,” Tennant recalls. “Russell and Catherine were talking about the notion of: ‘What if we got the band back together for one last special? But David would never do it.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean I’d never do it? I’d do it in a shot. And then suddenly, we were back for three in a row.

“I mean, why not?” he laughs. “It was such a joyous time, and these are people I love as humans, and certainly love as people to work with. And Doctor Who is something that will always be hugely important to me.”

In fact, there’s a case to be made that the 52-year-old Tennant – who’s speaking to us the day after his birthday, ever committed to the show – never really left Doctor Who behind in the first place. Yes, he’s had many successes since – Broadchurch, Good Omens, Des, Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Staged to name but a few – but he’s always kept a foot in the TARDIS door. After all, it was just three years after his dramatic regeneration that he teamed up with his successor Matt Smith for 2013’s 50th-anniversary special.

“I was sort of a member of the guest cast on that, because it was Matt’s show,” says Tennant now. “It’s different when you’re in charge of the TARDIS again. There’s a lot more work to do. I remember on the 50th, going, ‘Oh, this is easy. I used to have to learn far more lines than this!��”

Two years after that, Tennant was back headlining his own Doctor Who stories for a series of audio dramas co-starring – and this sounds familiar – ex-companion Catherine Tate. He’s kept playing the Doctor that way ever since, lending his voice to audio plays and (more recently) video games starring his character.

The Doctor even looms large in Tennant’s personal life. He married a guest actor on the series – Georgia Moffett, who appeared in a 2008 episode with him – which means his father-in-law is former fifth Doctor Peter Davison. He also has a police box cut-out in his garden. Given all this, it’s hard to imagine why Davies and Tate thought this on-screen return would be a hard sell.

“The truth is, it’s a rather lovely, benevolent, generous thing to be connected with. I love it. I always have, and I’m sure I always will,” says Tennant. “I grew up with posters on my wall signed by Tom Baker. It’s very peculiar that I should end up in the show that was, to a greater or lesser extent, the thing that inspired me to be in the profession I’m in.

“It runs through my life as if through a stick of rock, really. As you say, I met my wife on the set of Doctor Who, and I’m now a father. I’ve given up trying to resist the inevitability that Doctor Who will be following me around for the rest of time.”

Instead, he’s embraced it. So, this week he returns as the Doctor on BBC1 – but not the same one he played before. Originally, Tennant says the plan was for him and Tate to return for the anniversary in a flashback episode, set during their shared 2008 series and with a storyline completely different from the specials as they now exist.

“It would have been an unseen adventure from years before,” he says. “Russell immediately had an idea for a story, which I’m not going to mention because I don’t think it’s yet seen the light of day. It certainly wouldn’t have been part of an ongoing story. But I hope one day he does use it because it sounded great.”

But Davies’s return to the BBC fold as the new Who showrunner changed everything. “Then Russell decided he was coming back full-time and the whole thing blossomed,” says Tennant. Suddenly, the one-off had turned into a trio of specials for Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary.

Davies tells me later: “It was simply as many episodes as David and Catherine could do. If they had said, ‘We’ve got time to make 12,’ we would have made 12. If they had said, ‘We’ve got time to make one,’ then we’d have made one. But I think a one-off would have been a disappointment.”

And it was a flashback no longer. Instead, Tennant plays a new (and official) incarnation of the Doctor that follows on from his younger self and the Doctors that came after – Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi and Jodie Whittaker – in a way that’s woven into the story of the specials (titled The Star Beast, Wild Blue Yonder and The Giggle).

“That’s part of what the Doctor himself is struggling with: why is he here?” says Tennant. “Why has he got this face back, and what might that mean? Though you’re still in a recognisably Doctor Who world, and I think that’s right and proper,” he adds. “It gets you back into those stories that you know and love and recognise, with some elements in there that are unexpected.”

In particular, he says that the second and third specials go in unusual directions. “With two and three, Russell has written Doctor Who like I have never seen it before,” he reveals. “He’s come back to it with a whole new raft of ideas and enthusiasm. I’m just very chuffed to be able to be part of that.”

But of course, he’s not going to be part of it for long. Davies describes Tennant’s new incarnation as a “Magnesium Doctor” – in other words, he burns brightly but not for long – because at the end of the third special, airing on 9 December, he’ll regenerate into new Doctor Ncuti Gatwa. The 31-year-old Sex Education star takes over for the Christmas special, followed by a full series next year (and beyond – he’s already filming episodes that will be shown in 2025).

“I have seen a bit of Ncuti, and he’s magnificent,” Tennant says. “He’s just got such an energy. He’s so creative, and he’s inventive, and he’s funny, and he’s a proper actor. I think he’s going to be great.

“I’ve met Millie Gibson [new companion Ruby], and she seems lovely, too. I haven’t got a chance to see any of her stuff yet, but they seem great together. I’m jealous of the adventure they’ve got in front of them.”

When asked if he has any advice for his successor, Tennant seems vaguely horrified – “What would I say? I mean, literally, what would I say?” I suggest he might prepare Gatwa to return in about 18 years. “Well, he’s young,” Tennant laughs. “He’ll get into the 100th anniversary, probably. I don’t know if I’ll make it that far. Though if I can keep running fast enough –

I don’t know. I never imagined that I would be sitting there for the 60th anniversary, talking about three specials we’d made. This show continues to surprise everyone involved with it.”

Still, it must be hard to hand over the TARDIS so soon after getting hold of it again. Was there a moment, just for a second, where he thought about snatching back the sonic screwdriver, barricading the studio and staying on for a full series?

Even as a lifelong fan, he says not. “It was never on the table,” Tennant says firmly. “The story – well, as soon as I start to talk about this, we get into the area of spoilers, so I’m not going to say any more. All I know is that I’m excited and jealous of everything that Ncuti has in front of him. And I can’t wait to enjoy it as a viewer, because I think he’s magnificent.”

He laughs. “I think they thought, ‘Let the old man run around for a minute – and then we’ll get a nice, young bloke in.’ ”'

[gone2soon-rip]

JOHNNY WALKER (1945-Died New Years Eve,December 31st 2024,at 79).English radio disc jockey and broadcaster. He began his career on Radio England before joining pirate radio, most notably on Radio Caroline. He joined BBC Radio 1 in 1969 and BBC Radio 2 in 1998. From 2009 to 2024, he presented Sounds of the 70s on Radio 2 on Sunday afternoons and The Radio 2 Rock Show on Friday nights from 2018 to 2024.Johnnie Walker (DJ) - Wikipedia

[jaeausten]

Hi Everyone!

This post is for anyone wanting to request a gifset. Below the cut is a list of all films and tv shows that I am able to produce an gifset for.

Pre Medieval:

Vikings 1-4a.

Tristan and Isolde.

Rome (HBO) 1-2

Cleopatra (1963).

Medieval:

The Hollow Crown 1-2.

A Knight's Tale.

Robin Hood (BBC) 1-3.

Ophelia (2018).

Ever After- A Cinderella Story.

The White Queen.

Braveheart.

Tudor: (If requested on here, I will actually post the request on tudorerasource, but will answer the ask on this blog with a link.)

The White Princess.

The Spanish Princess 1-2.

The Other Boleyn Girl.

Anne of the Thousand Days.

The Tudors 1-4.

Wolf Hall.

Lady Jane.

Elizabeth R.

Shakespeare in Love.

Anonymous.

Mary Queen of Scots (2013).

Mary Queen of Scots (2017).

Elizabeth I (2005).

The Virgin Queen.

Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

Stuart:

The Favourite.

Tulip Fever.

The Three Musketeers (2012).

The Musketeers (BBC) 1-3.

Stage Beauty.

Charles II: The Power and the Passion.

Georgian:

Harlots 1-3.

Pirates of the Caribbean 1-4.

Poldark 1-5.

The Scandalous Lady W.

Belle.

The Affair of the Necklace.

The Duchess.

The Abduction Club.

The Aristocrats (BBC).

Casanova.

Marie Antoinette.

The History of Tom Jones.

Dangerous Liaisons.

The Madness of King George.

Amadeus.

Outlander 1-5.

Regency:

Becoming Jane.

Miss Austen Regret's.

War and Peace (2015).

Mr Malcom's List.

Vanity Fair (2005).

Vanity Fair (BBC) (2005).

Jane Austen:

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Pride and Prejudice (2005).

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Mansfield Park (1999).

Mansfield Park (2007).

Emma (1996).

Emma (BBC) (1996).

Emma (2009).

Emma (2020).

Persuasion (1995).

Persuasion (2007).

Sense and Sensibility (1995).

Sense and Sensibility (2008).

Northanger Abbey (2007).

Sanditon 1.

Love and Friendship.

Death comes to Pemberley.

Lost in Austen.

Victorian:

The Young Victoria.

Victoria 1-3.

The Count of Monte Cristo.

Little Dorrit.

Wives and Daughters.

To Walk Invisible.

Gentleman Jack 1-2.

Cranford.

Return to Cranford.

Jane Eyre (2007).

Jane Eyre (2001).

Little Women (1994).

Little Women (20019).

North and South.

Crimson Peak.

Bleak House (2006).

The Age of Innocence.

Far from the Madding Crowd.

The Phantom of the Opera.

Anna Karenina.

The Gilded Age 1.

Dr Thorne.

Edwardian:

Somewhere in Time.

The Secret Garden (1993).

A Room with a View.

Miss Potter.

Titanic.

Colette.

Anne of Green Gables Trilogy (1985-2000).

My Fair Lady.

20th Century/Modern/Everything Else:

Austenland.

A discovery of Witches 1-3.

Merlin 1-4.

Me before You.

Letters to Juliet.

The Da Vinci Code.

Angels and Demons.

Cinderella (2015).

Beauty and the Beast (2017).

Stardust.

Dracula (NBC) (2013).

Maleficent.

The Sound of Music.

[jwood718]

Florence Welch by Andy Paradise

While it's available: Florence + the Machine at the Proms -- Symphony of Lungs.

Kate Solomon for The Guardian: "As the grand high witch of maximalism, the Proms is the ideal way for Welch to revisit the pained howl of Lungs, her 2009 debut album that wears its heartbreak like a scar. 'When I first heard Jules [Buckley's] orchestration, I cried,' she tells the audience in her whisper-soft speaking voice. 'This album is about feeling and I never thought anyone could add more feeling. But Jules did.'"

at BBC Sounds through October 14.

[qworflordking]

dan howell and phil lester have been internet creators since 2006/2009. they are kind of the first and last vloggers who genuinely rose to fame out of pure authenticity and doing youtube as a hobby, rather than meaning to be influencers; they were hired to be bbc radio announcers in.. i think it was 2013? i dont remember. but that whole time it's been an open secret that they're together. they, dan in particular, were deep in the closet for a long time, and their fans were all feral preteens who were mostly queer (although many of us didn't know it yet) and we kind of imprinted on them as "best friends" who lived together, were older than us, and had a lot of freedom to be themselves and live the lives they wanted, with each other. there was a lot of trauma the "phandom" unwittingly put them through vis a vis being gay and coming out. they finally came out in around 2019/2020 and haven't blatantly said 'we are in a relationship' but have honestly hinted at it pretty explicitly, as well as making it clear that they know the hints and clues they drop as to the nature of their relationship are, at this point, a fun little game they like to play with their fans. like for example phil reblogged the poll post. they are major figures in the lgbtq+ community, dan does a ot of mental health outreach work, and they've gone on like three or four genuine honest-to-god world tours

lol thank u for the indepth answer... i never got into vlogging tbh, but when i rejoined the Internet i did do a catch-up, looked in to see wtf happened in fandom, and i can absolutely see the level of parasocialism that mustve developed wrt this one in particular. also the fact that they are on tumblr.... uhm, sorry for the shitposting if u see it sirs but it wasn't personal and it sounds like you've seen some Real Shit