Australian Strictly Come Dancing star Dianne Buswell picks up BAFTA alongside dance partner Chris McCausland
Strictly Come Dancing star Dianne Buswell won the BAFTA TV Awards' memorable moment gong for her waltz with comedian Chris McCausland, the show's first blind contestant.
The pair danced to You'll Never Walk Alone during the 2024 series of the BBC program, which they ultimately won.
'In one minute and thirty seconds of a dance, I feel like this told such a story — a story of hope, determination, resilience and vulnerability,' Buswell said.
'I had something completely different that I was going to say but somebody asked me outside what I thought of when I was doing that dance.
'Honestly, I held Chris' hands and I was set off from the minute we started because he closed his eyes and he smiled a smile that I've never seen from him before and that meant it came straight from his heart.
'This moment meant so much to the both of us so I'm just so thrilled that we have this.'
It was a first BAFTA win for both Buswell and McCausland.
The award was decided by public vote and Buswell said she was 'shaking like a leaf' as she collected it.
McCausland did not join his co-star at the ceremony but he did have a light-hearted message, which Buswell delivered.
'Chris did have something he wanted me to say and that is after 22 years in comedy he wins a BAFTA for dancing,' Buswell said.
'He said: 'Di, I'll take it, but please let them all know it hurts'.'
Buswell's boyfriend Joe Sugg, a YouTube star who she met when they were partnered together during the 2018 series of the show, was in tears while listening to her deliver her speech.
Buswell and McCausland's dance was nominated alongside moments from Bridgerton, Gavin and Stacey, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, Rivals and The Traitors.
'That BAFTA is SO deserved. What Dianne Buswell achieved with Chris McCausland was nothing short of extraordinary,' one fan wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
'She's also an absolute delight.'
The Aussie dancer is originally from Bunbury, south of Perth in WA.
She previously appeared on Australia's Dancing with the Stars before moving to the UK in 2017.
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Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
What's worse than a broken bone? A playground that plays it too safe
James Bond creator Ian Fleming famously named one of his most notorious villains after the modernist architect Erno Goldfinger. For critics disdainful of Brutalist social housing, this was convenient casting. They saw the creators of these pared-back, concrete structures as criminally responsible for the social ills – and shredded elbows – that befell residents in housing projects such as Goldfinger's Balfron Tower in London and Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith's Park Hill Estate in Sheffield. 'Surrounding the Balfron Tower was this series of windswept concrete walkways and this quite weird concrete playground,' says Australian artist Simon Terrill, who had a residency in Balfron Tower. 'If you fall over you lose the skin off your knee or your elbow.' Yet, like many defenders of Brutalist architecture, Terrill recognised 'a distinction between the exterior, which was quite bleak, and the interior, which was completely amazing'. Working with British architecture collective Assemble, Terrill created the Brutalist Playground, an interactive installation series that recast three rough-textured concrete playgrounds in pastel-coloured foam. 'Remaking those objects at one-to-one scale in foam gives an opportunity to revisit those utopian ideas and reflect on our changing relationship with ideas of risk and agency and what play means,' says Terrill. Their foam version of Park Hill Estate's playground features in the latest incarnation of the international touring exhibition The Playground Project. Since 2013, the exhibition has travelled to eight countries, from the US to Russia and Ireland to Switzerland, adding regional examples with each incarnation. Travelling to the Southern Hemisphere for the first time, it is showing at Incinerator Gallery in Aberfeldie, which is housed in a disused incinerator designed by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony in 1929. Curated by Swiss urban planner Gabriela Burkhalter, the exhibition is a fascinating social history incorporating early childhood development, psychology, architecture, urban planning, landscape design and art. The Incinerator's Jade Niklai commissioned local content including BoardGrove Architects for the exhibition design and a new exterior playground called Ringtales. Visitors wend in and out of the various colourful floors and stairwells of the building, which itself feels like a playground writ large. Burkhalter's playground story is essentially a response to industrialisation, urban migration and density pressures. Equally it pulses with an adrenaline rush of risk. The show peels back the layers of protective bubble wrap, revealing 19th-century qualms about potentially contaminated sand gardens – ironic given children worked in dangerous factories – to legitimate safety concerns over the so-called 'junk' or adventure playgrounds pioneered in Europe in the 1940s. Junk playgrounds contained loose elements – building and scrap materials, natural elements and tools – that kids controlled themselves, sharing and negotiating with each other. English landscape architect Marjory Allen, who imported them to Britain, the US and Japan, declared: 'Better a broken bone than a broken spirit.' This plucky ethos suited a postwar generation that grew up scampering over London bomb sites. The Blitz spirit transferred nicely to the relatively safe terrain of the junk/adventure playground. The adventure playground movement spawned regional examples worldwide. Well-loved local versions sprang up in St Kilda, Fitzroy and The Venny in Kensington. As The Venny's honorary principal, David Kutcher, explained in the first of a series of accompanying talks for the exhibition: 'The risk of any loss through physical injury is actually low. Children require exposure to setbacks, failures, shocks and stumbles in order to develop strength and self-reliance and resilience. The road to resilience is paved with risk.' As modernism took hold in the 1950s and '60s, industrialisation infiltrated the playground. Concrete was one response. Steel and plastics were another. For Burkhalter, the Swiss-designed modular play sculpture the Lozziwurm from 1972 is emblematic of the new industrial materials. It also prompts one of the key forms of socialisation – negotiating with others. There is no one way to travel through the worm. The idea is that kids sort it out. Loading Risk aversion reached its apotheosis in the 1970s in the US. 'It made sense at the beginning because playgrounds were so badly maintained that there were a lot of accidents,' says Burkhalter. Today, while all manner of regulations govern community facilities, there is also recognition that safety needn't hamper creative play and risk-taking. Risk is built into artist Mike Hewson's controversial Southbank playground Rocks on Wheels. Its ad hoc charm – part Heath Robinson, part Wile E. Coyote – looks set to detonate at any time. Its teetery quality encourages risk and creativity as the playground itself looks like it's been built by a child. Artists feature prominently in the exhibition. Burkhalter's initial interest in playgrounds was inspired by the heroic dedication of Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi. For more than 30 years, from 1933 to 1966, Noguchi planned a range of playgrounds, from landscapes to sculptural equipment. Most went unrealised. He once recalled pitching his Play Mountain to Robert Moses, New York's imperious city planner, who 'just laughed his head off and more or less threw us out'. Among Burkhalter's own urban planning colleagues, the reaction to the playground project was almost as dismissive as Moses. 'Playgrounds were considered small and not very prestigious,' she says. And this despite the outsized influence of Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, who said that 'play is the work of childhood'. Burkhalter remained undaunted: 'I understood that the people who were active in these fields had visions about design, society, childhood. That fascinated me.' Terrill is one of three Australian artists who feature in the Melbourne show. Trawlwoolway multidisciplinary artist Edwina Green won the competition to design a First Nations playable public art sculpture. Her abstracted oyster honours the cultural significance of the Maribyrnong River and 'invites children to play, imagine, and connect with Country', she says. Artist Emily Floyd and designer Mary Featherston literally bring the politics of play and community cooperation to the table. The pair's Round Table includes a child-height table and chairs; each of its elements – day care, infant health, kindergarten – is a seat at the table. Indeed the exhibition highlights that playgrounds aren't just about children. Professor Mel Dodd, dean of art, design and architecture at Monash University, says: 'The health and wellbeing of families in smaller, increasingly denser environments relies on public places that you not only can safely bring your child to play, but also socialise yourself. Amenity of that nature is absolutely critical.' Playgrounds also offer citywide lessons. 'The design of the public realm can be playful for adults as well as children,' says Dodd. 'It's definitely the case that playfulness aids health and wellbeing. We need our public environments to look fantastic, to look exciting.'
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
What's worse than a broken bone? A playground that plays it too safe
James Bond creator Ian Fleming famously named one of his most notorious villains after the modernist architect Erno Goldfinger. For critics disdainful of Brutalist social housing, this was convenient casting. They saw the creators of these pared-back, concrete structures as criminally responsible for the social ills – and shredded elbows – that befell residents in housing projects such as Goldfinger's Balfron Tower in London and Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith's Park Hill Estate in Sheffield. 'Surrounding the Balfron Tower was this series of windswept concrete walkways and this quite weird concrete playground,' says Australian artist Simon Terrill, who had a residency in Balfron Tower. 'If you fall over you lose the skin off your knee or your elbow.' Yet, like many defenders of Brutalist architecture, Terrill recognised 'a distinction between the exterior, which was quite bleak, and the interior, which was completely amazing'. Working with British architecture collective Assemble, Terrill created the Brutalist Playground, an interactive installation series that recast three rough-textured concrete playgrounds in pastel-coloured foam. 'Remaking those objects at one-to-one scale in foam gives an opportunity to revisit those utopian ideas and reflect on our changing relationship with ideas of risk and agency and what play means,' says Terrill. Their foam version of Park Hill Estate's playground features in the latest incarnation of the international touring exhibition The Playground Project. Since 2013, the exhibition has travelled to eight countries, from the US to Russia and Ireland to Switzerland, adding regional examples with each incarnation. Travelling to the Southern Hemisphere for the first time, it is showing at Incinerator Gallery in Aberfeldie, which is housed in a disused incinerator designed by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony in 1929. Curated by Swiss urban planner Gabriela Burkhalter, the exhibition is a fascinating social history incorporating early childhood development, psychology, architecture, urban planning, landscape design and art. The Incinerator's Jade Niklai commissioned local content including BoardGrove Architects for the exhibition design and a new exterior playground called Ringtales. Visitors wend in and out of the various colourful floors and stairwells of the building, which itself feels like a playground writ large. Burkhalter's playground story is essentially a response to industrialisation, urban migration and density pressures. Equally it pulses with an adrenaline rush of risk. The show peels back the layers of protective bubble wrap, revealing 19th-century qualms about potentially contaminated sand gardens – ironic given children worked in dangerous factories – to legitimate safety concerns over the so-called 'junk' or adventure playgrounds pioneered in Europe in the 1940s. Junk playgrounds contained loose elements – building and scrap materials, natural elements and tools – that kids controlled themselves, sharing and negotiating with each other. English landscape architect Marjory Allen, who imported them to Britain, the US and Japan, declared: 'Better a broken bone than a broken spirit.' This plucky ethos suited a postwar generation that grew up scampering over London bomb sites. The Blitz spirit transferred nicely to the relatively safe terrain of the junk/adventure playground. The adventure playground movement spawned regional examples worldwide. Well-loved local versions sprang up in St Kilda, Fitzroy and The Venny in Kensington. As The Venny's honorary principal, David Kutcher, explained in the first of a series of accompanying talks for the exhibition: 'The risk of any loss through physical injury is actually low. Children require exposure to setbacks, failures, shocks and stumbles in order to develop strength and self-reliance and resilience. The road to resilience is paved with risk.' As modernism took hold in the 1950s and '60s, industrialisation infiltrated the playground. Concrete was one response. Steel and plastics were another. For Burkhalter, the Swiss-designed modular play sculpture the Lozziwurm from 1972 is emblematic of the new industrial materials. It also prompts one of the key forms of socialisation – negotiating with others. There is no one way to travel through the worm. The idea is that kids sort it out. Loading Risk aversion reached its apotheosis in the 1970s in the US. 'It made sense at the beginning because playgrounds were so badly maintained that there were a lot of accidents,' says Burkhalter. Today, while all manner of regulations govern community facilities, there is also recognition that safety needn't hamper creative play and risk-taking. Risk is built into artist Mike Hewson's controversial Southbank playground Rocks on Wheels. Its ad hoc charm – part Heath Robinson, part Wile E. Coyote – looks set to detonate at any time. Its teetery quality encourages risk and creativity as the playground itself looks like it's been built by a child. Artists feature prominently in the exhibition. Burkhalter's initial interest in playgrounds was inspired by the heroic dedication of Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi. For more than 30 years, from 1933 to 1966, Noguchi planned a range of playgrounds, from landscapes to sculptural equipment. Most went unrealised. He once recalled pitching his Play Mountain to Robert Moses, New York's imperious city planner, who 'just laughed his head off and more or less threw us out'. Among Burkhalter's own urban planning colleagues, the reaction to the playground project was almost as dismissive as Moses. 'Playgrounds were considered small and not very prestigious,' she says. And this despite the outsized influence of Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, who said that 'play is the work of childhood'. Burkhalter remained undaunted: 'I understood that the people who were active in these fields had visions about design, society, childhood. That fascinated me.' Terrill is one of three Australian artists who feature in the Melbourne show. Trawlwoolway multidisciplinary artist Edwina Green won the competition to design a First Nations playable public art sculpture. Her abstracted oyster honours the cultural significance of the Maribyrnong River and 'invites children to play, imagine, and connect with Country', she says. Artist Emily Floyd and designer Mary Featherston literally bring the politics of play and community cooperation to the table. The pair's Round Table includes a child-height table and chairs; each of its elements – day care, infant health, kindergarten – is a seat at the table. Indeed the exhibition highlights that playgrounds aren't just about children. Professor Mel Dodd, dean of art, design and architecture at Monash University, says: 'The health and wellbeing of families in smaller, increasingly denser environments relies on public places that you not only can safely bring your child to play, but also socialise yourself. Amenity of that nature is absolutely critical.' Playgrounds also offer citywide lessons. 'The design of the public realm can be playful for adults as well as children,' says Dodd. 'It's definitely the case that playfulness aids health and wellbeing. We need our public environments to look fantastic, to look exciting.'
Perth Now
an hour ago
- Perth Now
Star Wars legend Kenneth Colley dead at 87
Star Wars icon Kenneth Colley has died aged 87. The late actor - who is best known for playing Admiral Piett in George Lucas' sci-fi franchise - 'peacefully' passed away on Monday (30.06.25) in Ashford, Kent, after contracting Covid and pneumonia, his agent Julian Owen has said. In a statement, Owen said: 'He had been admitted after a fall with an injured arm, however he quickly contracted Covid which developed into pneumonia. He passed away peacefully with friends at his bedside. 'Ken Colley was one of our finest character actors with a career spanning 60 years. 'Ken continually worked on stage, film and television playing a vast array of characters, from Jesus in Monty Python's Life of Brian to evil and eccentric characters in Ken Russell films, and the Duke of Vienna in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure for the BBC.' Colley appeared in 1980's Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back as Admiral Piett, the commander of Darth Vader's flagship, The Executor, and reprised the role for the 1983 sequel Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi. The actor also voiced Piett in the LEGO animation LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out in 2012. The statement continued: 'Ken's favourite part was playing Estragon in the stage production of Beckett's classic Waiting for Godot at the Cockpit Theatre in London in 2014. 'Ken's participation in Star Wars led him to being invited to conventions and official fan events all over the World where he remains one of the best-loved actors from the original trilogy. 'Ken loved his garden, art collecting and had a passion for fast cars.' Colley was born on 7 December 1937 in Manchester, and started his acting career in 1961 at the Leicester repertory theatre as a stagehand and ensemble player. Colley soon joined esteemed companies like the Old Vic in London, the Royal Court, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. The actor's early TV work included a minor role in The Avengers in 1963, and appearances in series such as The Sweeney, and The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. Colley's first movie role came in 1964, where he portrayed a Covent Garden Porter in the drama Seventy Deadly Pills. Colley would later appear in Monty Python's Life of Brian with John Cleese and Michael Palin, in which he portrayed Jesus Christ. He also worked with Clint Eastwood on the 1982 film Firefox, in which he portrayed Colonel Kontarsky. In later years, Colley featured in shows like Holby City and a two-part Doctor Who special. His final on-screen role came in 2016, where he played Vincente Changretta in Series 3 of the BBC TV drama Peaky Blinders.
