Morale at the BBC is low after the furore around their chairman Richard Sharp, The Londoner hears. One journalist tells us: “It feels like we’re being hollowed out from within”. Reporters are said to be finding it hard to speak to members of the public, who say they doubt their impartiality.
Sharp has been criticised for his role as a go-between over an £800,000 loan for then Prime Minister Boris Johnson around the time he was applying for the role as chairman. A piece in the New Statesman magazine agrees the mood at the BBC is “funereal”.
Sharp is also accused of interfering in editorial matters by sitting on a panel to appoint a senior journalist. The Beeb has been dealing with cuts, with a merger of BBC News and World News particularly unpopular. We’re told: “Sharp is just touchpaper to the mood everyone is already feeling”.
Why Munroe isn’t wild about Harry
Model and transgender activist Munroe Bergdorf has suggested people don’t buy Hogwarts Legacy, a new Harry Potter computer game. Some want a boycott because of author J.K. Rowling’s comments on transgender issues. Bergdorf would prefer the game to be avoided too, saying last night: “it’s interlinked into people’s childhoods so I get it”, but she wishes punters would look elsewhere. Bergdorf was speaking at a Southbank Centre event for her new book, Transitional. The boycott isn’t working that well: the game is already a bestseller.
Corbyn defiant at Assange rally
Around 2,000 people went to a “night carnival” urging against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the US on Saturday, ending with a rally outside Parliament. Assange has been in jail since 2019. One speaker was ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was interrupted by a fan shouting “Come back, we need you”. JC retorted: “I haven’t gone away, I’m not going anywhere”. Sir Keir Starmer has other ideas.
Trouser trouble
Singer Sam Smith was the talk of the Brit Awards on Saturday night with a fetching pair of inflatable latex trousers, channeling David Bowie or perhaps a spy balloon. They caused trouble on the night, as Smith couldn’t fit in a buggy from the dressing room, and had to walk instead, to the amusement of some guests at the ceremony. We suggested booking an Uber XL next time.
Brit Awards bash with Warner and others
Late on Saturday, Warner Music and Ciroc Vodka held a lavish Brit Awards after party at the NoMad hotel. Thesps Jodie Turner-Smith, Billie Piper and Lucien Laviscount turned heads in glamourous outfits (some changed between the main show and the later bash). The Sugababes sang, and Mike Skinner of The Streets DJ’d. Last year’s Eurovision singer Sam Ryder told us he was thrilled to be rubbing shoulders with the stars after years making music from “my bedroom or my shed”. Charli XCX went too, wearing a t-shirt saying ‘Real Winner’: she’d been controversially denied nomination for best artist, which was an all male category this time.
Elsewhere, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Shania Twain attended Universal’s after party at 180 The Strand, while Sairah Pinnock, Yasin and Leigh-Anne Pinnock went to the Bacardi Rum x Manny Norte bash at The Londoner Hotel.
Jodie is such a groundbreaker
Jodie Comer won best performer in a play for her role in Prima Facie at the WhatsOnStage awards last night, the first time the prize has been gender neutral. Rebecca Lucy Taylor (aka singer Self Esteem) and actors Tracy-Ann Oberman and Marisha Wallace were also at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Actor Gwyneth Keyworth won best supporting performer in a play for her performance as Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.
