Paul O’Grady lands new primetime Saturday night TV show with Saturday Night Line-Up
HE used to be the king of daytime chat shows, now PAUL O’GRADY has landed himself a glitzy new Saturday series.
And the Scouse superstar has a big-name guest to kick things off in the form of his old mate, Dynasty legend Dame Joan Collins.
Saturday Night Line-Up will start this autumn and see Bafta-winner Paul host a long line of celebrity guests.
Each 45-minute episode will see Paul quiz guests using “intriguing questions, scenarios and dilemmas”.
Selected members of the audience will also get to question the celebs who will be asked to line up in order of “best” to “worst”, or “most likely” to “least likely”, in a variety of situations.
A TV insider said: “After months of being stuck indoors in lockdown Paul couldn’t wait to get out and start filming again, though it was a strange experience being back in a TV studio.
“This is certainly a spectacular comeback of sorts for Paul, who we haven’t seen making this type of show for years.
“He was a master when he hosted The Paul O’Grady Show on ITV and Channel 4 and fronting Blankety Blank as his alter-ego, Lily Savage.
“Fans will be thrilled to have him returning to this kind of television format with big production values and famous faces.
“The beauty of this show is that Paul is pals with so many famous people he only has to turn to his packed address books to get people on the new show.”
Paul made a pilot for the show at the end of 2019, but before it could be progressed, the pandemic hit and most of TV production ground to a halt.
In recent years the animal lover, who lives in Kent with a menagerie of pets and farm animals, has become best known for his show For The Love of Dogs.
He has also fronted tearjerking spin-offs including Animal Orphans and For The Love Of Animals.
I can’t wait to see him return to what he did so brilliantly back in the day.
NICKY SO LOW OVER CHARLIE
NICKY CAMPBELL has revealed “vicious” insults from Charlie Brooker sparked a downward spiral in his battle with depression.
, who suffers from bi-polar disorder, told how he got so down after becoming the target of Charlie’s taunts, he couldn’t leave his bed for two days.
Charlie, the man behind critically acclaimed TV series Black Mirror, described Nicky as “the most evil man in the universe” and even compared him to the devil in his online reviews and TV shows.
Former Watchdog host Nicky explained: “He just laid into me and had this string of insults. It hit me as that kind of feeling of ‘He’s right, he’s rumbled me.’
“He’s pointing the finger and everyone is laughing. I was in bed for two days after. It sent me into a really low ebb.”
Speaking on the My Time Capsule podcast, Nicky urged Charlie to be more careful about who he targets.
He added: “Nobody knows what people are going through – it was really, really vicious.”
C4 SHOW BLING UP TO DATE
THE homes of celebs – including Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom and Lindsay Lohan – will be the focus of a new crime series on Channel 4.
The middle-class suburban teens – dubbed The Bling Ring – scanned social media and followed paparazzi websites to figured out when famous faces weren’t at home.
Their story was turned into a 2013 movie The Bling Ring starring Harry Potter actress Emma Watson.
In the C4 programme of the same name, the gang tell their side of events and how their lives have since changed.
Jonah Weston, commissioning editor at Channel 4 said: “Audiences will love the mix of celebrity and social media that led to one of the most notorious crime stories.”
Hopefully the tacky trend for showing off riches on Insta will finally come to an end
Bizbit
SHERIDAN SMITH has started filming ITV family drama No Return about the thorny issue of consent in the world of modern teenagers.
In the drama a family holiday turns chaotic when her on-screen son, played by Louis Ashbourne Serkis, meets a girl staying at their hotel.
SHAW SO GLAD TO BE BACK
FIONA SHAW quit performing when she realised she was being typecast following her role as headmistress Miss Lomax in ’90s movie Three Men And A Little Lady.
Thankfully, she had a rethink and has since taken on brilliant roles, such as MI6’s Carolyn Martens in Killing Eve and now as the central character in the new series of Baptiste.
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The drama series, a spin-off of The Missing, returns this Sunday on BBC1 with Tcheky Karyo as detective Julien Baptiste.
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Fiona plays an ambassador, whose family disappears while skiing.
She admits she left acting altogether after her brush with prescriptive Hollywood: “I once played a mad school teacher and had to leave the profession – I didn’t do anything for years. You have to run away sometimes.”