COMEDIANS are worried about Will Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock. “Absolutely thrilled that the Oscars incident has already led to people threatening to come to my gigs and punch me!” wrote comic Nish Kumar, pictured right.
“I’m worried about the friends of mine who are gonna be on stage this Friday and Saturday night, in front of crowds of people,” added comedian Mitch Benn.
Smith slapped Rock on stage at Sunday night’s Oscars after the latter had made a joke about his wife. He apologised yesterday.
“All I’m saying is that if comedians are gonna get a slap for telling s**t jokes, some of us are worried,” Jason Manford said.
Benn, who contributes to Radio 4’s Now Show, said comics would have to perform in front of people, “most of whom will have been drinking”. He added they would have to “crack gags in a world where one of the most famous and respected people on the planet has made it OK to physically attack comedians if you don’t like their jokes”.
Manford was also able to see the lighter side and declared yesterday: “I’m off to the boxing gym to ‘rehearse’ for the Oliviers!” He added that the last thing he needed was actors “knocking seven bells of s**t out of me”.
Bids are in for lunch with Ben Bradshaw
BEN BRADSHAW offered himself up for a lunch date in a fundraising dinner and auction for Ukraine at the Polish Hearth Club last night, and was taken aback by the price he went for. The bidding war started at £400 and reached £2,400. “For that price they’ll expect caviar and champagne, but I don’t think they serve it in the House of Commons.” The much-loved Labour MP, who is 62, is standing down at the next general election. “I don’t want to be rattling about parliament at my age — it’s tragic.” A link to the fundraiser can be found here.
Spies like us? Jolt for Ruth’s family
RUTH WILSON was not the only family member staggered to learn the truth about her grandfather. The His Dark Materials actress, left, played her own grandmother in BBC drama Mrs Wilson, which explored the secret life of Alec Wilson, an MI6 spy with two families. Now Ruth says a screening of the show for 40 family members left the room stunned. “There was a five-minute silence at the end. People were all in tears, everyone was hugging each other.” The power of secrets.
Lynton laid low… but only for now
RUMOURS are swirling around Westminster that political guru Sir Lynton Crosby is not advising Prime Minister Boris Johnson on political strategy any more. The Londoner can confirm that it is true… for now. The 65-year-old Australian CT Group boss has been taking some time out from his busy role as, he says, “I’m in bed with Covid and not advising anyone — either officially or unofficially”. But Crosby also dismissed claims he might be about to pack it all in: “I am not resigning/retiring from anything, including the CT Group, of which I am CEO.” Get well soon.
Arts scene celebrates Kottie’s solo show
THE Arts Club hosted an afterparty to celebrate artist’s Kottie Paloma’s solo exhibition, which is currently at the Saatchi Yates gallery in Cork Street. Journalist Osman Ahmed joined artist Isabella Greenwood, Araya Solomon, Robin Katz and artist Marc Quinn. Festivities began in the Saatchi Yates gallery before guests progressed to the Arts Club where they let loose with energetic dancing amid the canapés.
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REMOTE voting had its perks. Baroness Young, the Labour peer and environmental campaigner, told us at an all party parliamentary group on the Environment event in Parliament last night that her fellow peers had a list of places they’d voted from “like the grocery aisle of Sainsbury’s”. They soon realised, though, it would be a hostage to fortune and deleted it.
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ANJI HUNTER was Tony Blair’s right-hand woman — and he wanted to keep it that way. Hunter tells the Women with Balls podcast how she once tried to get a job with BA, only for the then-prime minister to ring up the airline to say “you really shouldn’t take Anji, because she’s not very good”. Very cheeky indeed.
