Timothy West, one of Britain's most distinguished and versatile actors, has died at the age of 90, his family have announced.

He was known for roles on stage and screen including in TV sitcoms Not Going Out and Bedtime, dramas such as Bleak House and Gentleman Jack, and soaps Coronation Street and EastEnders.

A statement released by his children said the actor died "peacefully in his sleep" and was "with his friends and family at the end".

The actor is also survived by his wife, Fawlty Towers star Prunella Scales, to whom he was married for 61 years.

In recent years, the couple had been followed in 10 series of Channel 4's Great Canal Journeys.

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West was born in 1934 in Bradford, the son of actors Lockwood West and Olive Carleton-Crowe.

He attended Bristol Grammar School, where his contemporaries included Julian Glover and Dave Prowse, who would later play Darth Vader in Star Wars.

West began his career in entertainment as an assistant stage manager at th

Dick Pope, the legendary two-time Oscar nominated British cinematographer and longtime collaborator of auteur Mike Leigh, has died at the age of 77. News of Pope's passing was confirmed by the British Society of Cinematographers in a statement shared on their website earlier today.

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A keen still photographer during his youth in Bromley, Kent, Pope cut his cinematographic teeth on documentarian fare, including ITV current affairs programme World In Action, Pope first made a name for himself as the videographer responsible for shooting some of the most iconic music videos of the 80s. Having lensed everything from Iron Maiden's 'Women In Uniform' and The Specials' 'Ghost Town' to Madness' 'It Must Be Love' and Queen's 'I Want To Break Free', Pope's keen eye for visual storytelling and versatility behind the camera made him an obvious candidate to make the leap from shooting for the box to the big-screen.

In 1990, Pope shot two movies that changed the course of his career.

Janey Godley, who has died aged 63, turned an early life full of pain and tragedy into a successful comedy career.

A tough upbringing in the east end of Glasgow was the thread which ran through her humour. Often angry, she specialised in wringing laughs out of the most unlikely material.

Her act mirrored the city that shaped her: working-class, foul-mouthed, simultaneously angry and sentimental. She delivered her comic broadsides at high speed, jabbing her points home like a street-fighter.

For her fans, she was one of them - and as her reputation grew so did her influence. The former pub landlady became close friends with Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister, after her videos voicing-over the FM's Covid press conferences became a viral sensation.

Geoff Capes, who competed for Great Britain in the shot put at three Olympic Games, won two Commonwealth titles and twice won the World’s Strongest Man competition, has died aged 75.

A family statement said: “The family of Geoffrey Capes would like to announce his sad passing today, 23rd October. Britain’s finest shot-putter and twice world’s strongest man.”

Capes was at the height of his sporting prowess in the 1970s, competing in the Great Britain team for 11 years, and racking up the largest number of athletics caps in history for his country. He became a household name after his track and field career was over, starring in the hugely popular Superstars TV programme which attracted 10 million viewers at its height and then winning the famous World’s Strongest Man title in 1983 and 1985.

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Guinness World Records posted on X: “In 1978, Geoff threw a standard 2.27 kg (5 lb) building brick 44.54 m (146 ft 1 in) at Braybrook School in Cambridgeshire, UK. His record has

Paul Di’Anno, an English singer who was an early frontman for the popular heavy metal band Iron Maiden in the 1970s and ’80s, has died at his home in Salisbury, England. He was 66.

Conquest Music, a label that represented Mr. Di’Anno, announced his death in a statement on social media on Monday. No additional details were given.

Mr. Di’Anno, whose legal name was Paul Andrews, gained popularity on the heavy metal scene in the late 1970s after he joined Iron Maiden as the band’s lead singer. He performed with the band from 1978 through 1981.

After leaving Iron Maiden, Mr. Di’Anno performed with other bands such as Battlezone and Killers and also played solo. He released his first career retrospective album, “The Book of the Beast,” in September.

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Mr. Di’Anno said in a recent interview with Metal Hammer magazine that he didn’t blame the band for replacing him with Bruce Dickinson, who would go on to lead Iron Maiden during its most successful years.

“In the end I

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/17959083

RIP professor McGonagall

Kenneth Cope, who starred in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Coronation Street and the Carry On films, has died aged 93.

The actor made his name as the ghost detective Marty Hopkirk in the ITV supernatural detective series Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), and he played Jed Stone in Britain’s longest-running soap opera.

Cope’s former agent Sandra Chalmers, of the Artists Partnership, shared a statement from his family that read: “Ken passed away yesterday peacefully in his sleep with his wife and family by his side.”

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A character actor, proud Liverpudlian and a loyal supporter of Everton, Cope began his career in theatre before his natural talent for comedy made him a regular fixture in the acting industry and a name across film and TV.

Speaking to the PA news agency in 1994, Cope said he had “happy times” making Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). He added: “I used to think people liked it because they were happy times when we made it. The sun was always shining.

“A

Trueman spent 20 years at Granada TV and while there he wrote and presented the TV series Cinema and conceived, produced, wrote and presented House for the Future.

However, he was best known for his work writing for the animation company Cosgrove Hall Films, particularly Chorlton and the Wheelies, some of the scripts for Count Duckula, and the original Danger Mouse episodes, which were voiced by Sir David Jason.

Cosgrove Hall Films Archive paid tribute to Trueman on Instagram, saying: “We’re very sad to hear of the passing of Brian Trueman.

“For many years Brian worked for Cosgrove Hall Films as writer, voice actor and narrator.

“Brian’s writing and humour had the unique ability to appeal to both adults and children, which contributed to the success of Cosgrove Hall series such as Danger Mouse, The Wind in the Willows, Jamie and the Magic Torch.

Tributes have been shared to a ‘great and splendid’ former SAS officer who helped free hostages in the siege of the Iranian Embassy. Warrant Officer John Thompson, originally from Liverpool, died yesterday, Saturday August 31, aged 82 following a period of ill health, The Mirror reports.

Mr Thompson began his military career with the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers. He went on to serve with the United Nations before being transferred to a new role in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps for the Parachute Brigade back in 1969.

Half a decade later, having spent a year working in Korea, he was awarded the Republic of Korea Service Medal during a ceremonial parade. A pivotal role in his military career came when he joined Operation Nimrod, the SAS-led effort to free hostages being held by terrorists at London's Iranian embassy.

The soldier was part of the SAS A squadron that stormed the building in 1980 after being flown in by helicopter, firing gas canisters during a successf

Born in the small town of Sunne in Värmland, a province of western Sweden noted for its lakes and streams, he was brought up in the nearby and even smaller town of Torsby by his parents: Sven, a bus conductor, and Ulla, who worked in a textile shop. At 16 he made his debut at right-back for Torsby IF before moving to study electronics in Säffle, where he played for SK Sifhalla. Aged 25, and now working as a PE instructor in Örebro, he joined Karlskoga, in the Swedish second division. There he was coached by Tord Grip, who later become one of his assistants with England.

Grip passed on the lessons he had absorbed from two managers, Bob Houghton and Roy Hodgson, who had successfully brought English tactics to Swedish football – particularly the 4-4-2 formation, with four defenders, four midfielders and two forwards. When the 29-year-old Eriksson was given his first coaching job, with Degerfors, he took that influence with him. After winning a divisional title, he was hired by IFK G

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/20192096

His voice is still burned into my brain even now all these years later. Good childhood memories.

Roger Corman, the writer and director who helped turn out such low-budget classics as Little Shop of Horrors and gave many of Hollywood’s most famous actors and directors early breaks, has died aged 98.

Corman died on Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, California, his daughter Catherine Corman said on Saturday in a statement.

“He was generous, open-hearted and kind to all those who knew him,” the statement said. “When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, ‘I was a film-maker, just that.’”

Across a career spanning more than 60 years, Corman developed a cheap and cheerful style that led some to refer to him as the “king of the B-movies”. His films were notable for their low-budget special effects and attention-grabbing titles such as She Gods of Shark Reef (1958) and Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957). Yet he also played a significant role in developing the talents of a number of acclaimed directors, including James Cameron and Martin Scorsese, and launching

Bernard Hill, the stage, television and film actor who first became famous for his unforgettable portrayal of Yosser “gizza job” Hughes, has died at the age of 79.

Hill played the character in Alan Bleasdale’s 1982 BBC series Boys from the Blackstuff.

It helped launch a stellar career that included playing the captain of the Titanic in James Cameron’s 1997 film, and Théoden, king of Rohan, in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Field, who died on Tuesday aged 81, is perhaps best known for his decades campaigning to end poverty. But on the Wirral it seems almost everyone has other lasting memories of him.

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In 2017 he reduced other MPs to tears when he described how one resident said they had had a “lucky week” because their family had been invited to a funeral and so they could eat the food left over after the wake.

Three years earlier, Field had established Feeding Birkenhead, which brings together churches, food banks, community groups and other organisations to try to eliminate hunger in the town, one of the UK’s poorest.

A decade later, that pioneering initiative has grown to become Feeding Britain, which now feeds 100,000 children during the school holidays.

“We thought this was going to be a stopgap for people but it’s getting worse,” said Judy Mellor, 67, a volunteer at the community centre. “There are more people coming through our doors now than there have ever been. It’s horr

Peter Higgs, the Nobel prize-winning physicist who proposed a new particle known as the Higgs boson, has died.

Higgs, 94, who was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 2013 for his work in 1964 showing how the boson helped bind the universe together by giving particles their mass, died at home in Edinburgh on Monday.

After a series of experiments, which began in earnest in 2008, his theory was proven by physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern in Switzerland in 2012; the Nobel prize was shared with François Englert, a Belgian theoretical physicist whose work in 1964 also contributed directly to the discovery.

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Prof Peter Mathieson, the university’s principal, said: “Peter Higgs was a remarkable individual – a truly gifted scientist whose vision and imagination have enriched our knowledge of the world that surrounds us.

“His pioneering work has motivated thousands of scientists, and his legacy will continue to inspire many more for generations to