The Gossip - One, 4 and Five

Will you be waving your Union Jack at the Last Night of the Proms?

Every fortnight, Ben Dowell gives you exclusive behind-the-scenes whispers in the world of arts and media.

Loved the fascinating recent mega doc on 25 years of Channel 4.
My insiders at the channel told me that bosses there were planning a much more restrained celebration, but decided to blow their own trumpet after all the problems with dodgy phone ins and racism on Celebrity Big Brother to make themselves feel better…and to impress viewers.
It was a compelling programme regardless of the back patting – reminding us all of The Tube and some of those other awful programmes as well as brilliant ones like Queer as Folk and A Very British Coup.
I also noticed, with some shock, that former chief exec Michael Jackson has a really strong American accent after only being there for a few years.


After all the controversy over fakery in TV, other claims are creeping out of the woodwork which are closer to the home of the arts world.
And it’s not just Imagine’s Alan Yentob and his noddies which are causing all the fuss. For example, someone tells me that there are complaints afoot to Channel 5 because of Tim Marlowe’s long and glowing puffs of those arts world scamps Gilbert and George, Marlowe, as you know, is director of exhibitions at the White Cube Gallery…which represents G & G.


Chris Langham’s incarceration on child abuse charges is causing a loss not just to the BBC which makes the brilliant The Thick of It in which he stars.
I can reveal that ITV were forced to drop a comedy called Seven Second Delay in which he starred as a DJ and which they made a pilot for.
“Safe to say it is unlikely that this pilot will be taken forward,” an ITV1 spokeswoman tells me with some understatement.

Hold on to your comedy horns and Union Jack flags.
New Proms boss, Radio 3 controller Roger Wright tells me he has no immediate plans to “deal” with the Last Night, as suggested by the outgoing Nick Kenyon.


With Peter Fincham forced out of BBC1, the popular drama series New Tricks which gets 8 million for the BBC and which he backed may get the chop.
Director of Vision, Jana Bennett who has so far survived the sack has been gunning for the cop show which is a hit with so many people and regularly beats anything ITV1 throws at it.


Best not mess with Richard Flanagan.
The Tasmanian author of The Unknown Terrorist was so determined that his book about a Sydney pole dancer’s descent into a world of Islamist intrigue would be “unfilmable” that when Leonardo di Caprio rang in person to ask  about the rights he told the Hollywood star to “bugger off”.
 

Actress Sheila Hancock, widow of Morse actor John Thaw, is looking for a new lease of life with a young man – on the small screen.
She has optioned Patricia Duncker’s novel, Miss Webster and Cherif,  about an elederly woman’s close relationship with a young Moroccan teenager. She wants to play the part herself and is hoping to get a green light

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