Martin Compston and pal to axe popular show after 3 years
The duo revealed that they are unable to 'fulfil their recording schedule' for the podcast due to work commitments, The Scottish Sun reports.
READ MORE: TV star pictured partying with Celtic team after Cup Final
READ MORE: Celtic-daft Martin Compston to star in new thriller series
It is understood that Greenock-born Compston, 41, is currently in Dublin, Ireland, filming for a new Paramount+ series.
Meanwhile, Smart, 45, is splitting his time between hosting BBC shows in London and Manchester.
Martin Compston and pal to axe popular show after 3 years (Image: Supplied) Smart said: 'Restless Natives is going on a hiatus.
'The diaries have finally imploded trying to get us together with his filming and my radio and telly stuff.
'So Wednesday and Friday this week will be the last podcasts.'
READ MORE: Martin Compston and famous pal spotted at Glasgow restaurant
Compston is known for starring in hit shows and films, including Line of Duty, Sweet Sixteen, and The Wee Man.
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The Herald Scotland
18 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
‘First-class' producer at BBC Scotland and promoter of Gaelic dies
Died: July 18, 2005 Neil Fraser, who has died aged 86, was a former head of BBC Radio Scotland and a seminal figure in the evolution of Gaelic broadcasting. He was widely respected for the high production standards he brought to all his work and the sense of ambition he encouraged in young colleagues. The former controller of BBC Scotland and lifelong friend, Pat Chalmers, paid tribute to him as 'a first-class programme maker'. He said: 'Neil was high-minded in the best sort of way. He believed in giving audiences what he thought they needed, which was not always what they said they wanted.' A notable broadcasting legacy in this vein was an epic series of 30 programmes on Scotland's Music by John Purser, which traced its history from Bronze Age to the present day with recordings commissioned including reconstructions of early music and works by many little-known composers. It is difficult to imagine such an undertaking today. One of Fraser's first acts when he took over at BBC Radio Scotland in 1987 was to ban music from the airwaves before 10.30am in order to establish a more serious news and current affairs profile. When he resigned after five years, he said it had 'become more difficult telling people you are reducing their resources and manpower'. While capable of great charm and diplomacy, there was also a steely determination, to deliver outcomes which matched his high standards, particularly where Gaelic was concerned. He navigated successfully through BBC politics and lived most of his life in Glasgow, while retaining a deep affinity with the society from which he came. Neil Fraser was born in Lochboisdale, South Uist. His father, Alexander, was a teacher and the family of his mother, Ina (née Maclennan) ran the Post Office. They were a piping family and although Neil did not play, his love of the music stayed with him throughout his life. When Neil was five, the family moved to Skye when his father was headmaster of Staffin School. He was Dux of Portree High School in 1955 and proceeded to Glasgow University to study maths. This was Gilmorehill's golden age, famed for debaters and budding politicians as well as notable Gaels. Neil flourished in this environment, played shinty and became president of the SRC, though his academic career was less distinguished. Read more 'He never gave up': tributes to patriarch of Scottish undertakers | The Herald Tributes to countess who modernised royal Scottish castle | The Herald Tributes to 'Mr Stirling': journalist dedicated to his home town | The Herald He took employment as a maths teacher in Glasgow but quickly discovered it was not his calling. Fred Macaulay was head of [[Gaelic]] at the BBC and rescued Neil from the chalkface by offering him a job. In 1973, he became the BBC's first [[Gaelic]] TV producer, making programmes across the spectrum from current affairs to light entertainment. The production standards and journalism in the Gaelic current affairs output of that era were exceptional while the twee formats associated with early Gaelic song programmes were transformed, bringing in traditional musicians who had never been seen or heard on the BBC. Neil moved into the English language mainstream as head of current affairs in 1978. Again, these were days of ambitious programmes from Queen Margaret Drive, with some outstanding journalists and broadcasters. Neil's own award-winners as producer included The Glorious Effect about the history of the great Highland bagpipe, and The Pinch based on the recovery of the Stone of Destiny. In 1983, in succession to Fred Macaulay, he became head of Gaelic. Disparity of treatment compared with Welsh was glaring and Neil had the long-term vision of moving towards a dedicated channel. Pat Chalmers recalls him as 'very persuasive' about the expansion of Gaelic content and he had another friend at court in Alasdair Milne who became the BBC's Director General in 1982 but fell out with Mrs Thatcher and was gone within five years. BBC Radio nan Gaidheal, launched in 1985, is a lasting memorial to Neil's influence during that window of opportunity, giving the language the status of having its own national broadcasting service for the first time. His last BBC job was as head of Radio Scotland with the challenging task of keeping multiple audiences reasonably happy, while entirely satisfying none. Every change met with resistance while the massive bureaucracy amidst a climate of cutbacks, after Milne was succeeded by John Birt, was not to Neil's taste. He left in 1992. Neil had fought Gaelic's corner tenaciously and used his extensive political connections to build support. He helped cultivate a succession of Tory Secretaries of State for Scotland who for their own, sometimes very personal, reasons were well disposed towards Gaelic. In 1992, Malcolm Rifkind provided a transformational Gaelic TV Fund worth £9.5million, £21m in today's money. In 1997, I became the first Minister for [[Gaelic]] in the Scottish Office and one of my objectives was to initiate a process which would lead to a [[Gaelic]] channel. I turned to Neil whose report, setting out the rationale, proved a crucial mechanism in moving the concept forward, though arguments about how it would be funded dragged on for far too long. Neil continued to be involved in ensuring the ultimate delivery of BBC Alba. Neil Fraser (Image: Contributed) After leaving the BBC, he took on roles which included leading a Gaelic media course at Sabhal Mor Ostaig in Skye where he was greatly respected by students to whom he imparted unique experience and shared unfailing kindness and encouragement. He continued to make films for independent companies. One of these, about the folklorists John Lorne Campbell and Margaret Fay Shaw, led him to become a key member of the Canna Advisory Group which was dedicated to maintaining their priceless recordings. His love of piping was reflected through the John McFadyen Memorial Trust which he initiated along with Alasdair Milne and as a board member of the Silver Chanter in Dunvegan. In 1972, Neil married the distinguished singer, Anne Lorne Gillies. They parted in 1990. He is survived by their three children – Robbie, a film-maker; Rachel, a clinical psychologist; and Marsaili, who has worked for humanitarian NGOs at home and abroad; and by five grandchildren. BRIAN WILSON At The Herald, we carry obituaries of notable people from the worlds of business, politics, arts and sport but sometimes we miss people who have led extraordinary lives. That's where you come in. If you know someone who deserves an obituary, please consider telling us about their lives. Contact
Scotsman
30 minutes ago
- Scotsman
Alien star David Jonsson on bringing his debut play Paldem to the Fringe: 'Theatre is everything'
One of Britain's brightest young film stars tells David Pollock why he's bringing his debut play to the Edinburgh Fringe Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... 'I've been using this term, and I kind of wish I'd never said it, but I'm saying it now,' explains David Jonsson. 'This is an anti-romantic comedy. It's one hundred percent meant to be funny, and there's definitely a great element of romance in there, but the anti part comes from all the bits that are knotty and taboo. I guess people will be confused by that description, but you have to come and see it to get it.' David Jonsson in rehearsals for his debut play, Paldem, ahead of its premiere at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe. | Contributed As an actor, 31-year-old Londoner Jonsson is one of the hottest young talents in Britain at the moment – from his breakout role as hotshot financier Gus Sackey in the first two series of the BBC/HBO banking drama Industry, to recent film roles in Rye Lane and Alien: Romulus – and he has the BAFTA Rising Star Award to prove it. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has already played a part in his story, and this year he's returning with Paldem, his full-length playwriting debut. It's a grown-up comedy about sex, friendship and modern online life. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'I did a National Youth Theatre show called Pidgeon English a very long time ago in Edinburgh, just before I went to drama school,' remembers Jonsson, referring to an adaptation of Stephen Kelman's novel - 'a very long time ago' means 2013, emphasising his youth. 'It was my first show, I was 18 at the time and I got my agent from there. It was absolutely the making of me, I've got a real special place for Edinburgh because of that. There's no place like it.' Jonsson verbally kicks himself here, noting this all happened in the same year and at the same venue that Fleabag premiered. Offered the chance to see it for free, he decided he wasn't a big fan of one-person plays and politely declined: 'And it ended up becoming f***ing Fleabag! That's why Edinburgh's an electric place, you never know if the next thing you see is the next big thing. I love it, I still come up frequently to visit and have a drink with mates.' Jonsson says he's 'always been writing. I've been waiting for the right time to express myself, but sometimes it's out of your reach, isn't it? It's like the chicken and the egg, you need one thing (acting success) for the other (interest in his writing) to happen. I've always felt an affinity to telling stories I know to be true or that say something about the world, but timing is everything and now feels like the right time for this one.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Which brings us onto Paldem, a play which Jonsson doesn't actually summarise. 'I can't put it into a blurb, I'm sorry,' he smiles, but he says the gist I've picked up from press releases is correct. It's about two old friends, Kevin and Megan, who find themselves in an unexpected one-night stand which is inadvertently caught on camera, leading them to consider the world of amateur online porn. According to the blurb, it 'crosses the murky lines of interracial dating, fetishisms and hook-ups in the digital age'. 'Essentially it's a play about relationships, and how do we love the people that we love?' says Jonsson. 'I've always been really interested in people, in when we get it right, when we get it wrong and how we navigate someone in their whole entire self, as opposed to what we think is them. It's a tricky thing, especially today, where I think we have the most empathy we've ever had, yet we can put our foot in it quite a bit. This play is funny and silly and a bit offbeat, and you probably shouldn't be laughing, but you do. Then underneath it all you have something that feels extremely raw, that's what I'm really interested in.' Jonsson is on a Zoom link from a rehearsal room near London Bridge, on a break from first day's rehearsal. He's flanked by the play's actors Tash Cowley and Michael Workeye and its director Zi Alikhan, who he worked with on Industry, and although he's the star name attached, there's a real sense of collaboration in the air as the quartet figure the play out. 'If somebody's looking at Kevin and Megan's value system from a generation above, they'll be like, 'I do not understand the way they make decisions',' says Workeye, who met Jonsson at an audition for an as-yet-unreleased short film directed by the latter. 'But what's interesting is, we're of that generation and even as the actor I'm going, 'I don't understand these decisions!' There's something about these two people that teeters on the edge of amorality, and this process for me is about understanding their communicative style and how much easier it is for them to lead with their bodies than their words.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'There are really interesting moments between them, where they move from emotional intimacy to physical intimacy and back again,' says Cowley, who met Jonsson in drama school. 'These people live in each other's pockets, but you question how much they really see and hear each other. They're best friends, but it always feels that there's something teetering on the edge. They both end up in a very different place to where they started, and that's fundamental with friendships, with any relationships – you either grow together through the movement of your life, or you grow apart.' 'I keep thinking about the difference between shock and taboo,' says Alikhan. 'When we see something with shock value, the experience feels so far away. You think, 'oh, I would never do that, that would never happen to me'. What's titillating about something taboo is it's about what we don't want people to see that we do, and what makes this play special is, it really penetrates everybody. It's about our sexuality, our identity, everything, and it manages to really make you feel a delightful discomfort, then to get on the other side of that and have new ideas about it.' The ingredients are all there for a Fringe hit, not least the sheer enthusiasm and engagement from all involved. Yet in the nicest possible way, I wonder, why is Jonsson doing this now and what does he want from it, just as his acting career is beginning to explode? 'I'll do my best to answer that, because I guess I'm still figuring it out,' he smiles. 'I think about Gary Oldman, who I love and idolise, having an amazing screen career and then making Nil By Mouth because he just had to. It was something he had to say about the world at the time, and maybe there's an echo of that here. Theatre is everything to me, the Fringe was literally one of my first experiences of finding community, and you have to be able to pull back into that, but only if you've got something worthwhile to say. I'd like to think maybe I do. We'll see.'
New Statesman
30 minutes ago
- New Statesman
Peter Kosminsky: We need a BBC that is brave
Photo by Bailey-Cooper/Alamy One could be forgiven for thinking that British television is at the strongest it has ever been. More than 12 million of us tuned in to watch the Gavin and Stacey finale. Mr Bates vs The Post Office sparked a wave of national anger and forced the government into action after years of journalist trying to raise awareness of the Horizon Post Office scandal. Baby Reindeer, Adolescence and Toxic Town have all been enormous successes on both sides of the Atlantic. But those at the very top of the industry are worried. 'We're in dire straits,' Peter Kosminsky, one of the UK's most highly respect TV professionals and the man behind the BBC's Wolf Hall, told the New Statesman podcast. While we are able to watch a variety of high-quality programming, dramas that are 'peculiarly British' are under threat of extinction. The likes of Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video and Apple TV will not make them. 'The streamers say they're speaking to an international audience, and they make programmes that are of interest to an international audience,' Kosminsky explained. 'What they actually mean is American audiences.' 'Mr Bates vs The Post Office doesn't get made' in this world, he warns Kosminsky has worked in the television industry for 45 years, and for all of the UK's major public service broadcasters. A director, writer and producer, he has won every accolade possible: multiple Baftas, Royal Television Society awards, Golden Globes along with individual recognition for what he has personally contributed to British television. His most recent triumph was the final part of Wolf Hall, broadcast in 2024. But the cost of making high end drama, documentary and comedy has soared in recent years – 'by a factor of five or six', Kosminsky says. Not because of inflation, but because the streamers have driven up the costs. 'They've arrived here, competed to use our crews and our facilities, and they have deep pockets, and they pay a lot of money.' The homegrown sector – BBC, Channel 4 and ITV – have been priced out. They can't compete. 'It's interesting talking to Patrick Spence, the producer who developed Mr Bates vs The Post Office,' Kosminsky says. 'He said he wouldn't develop it now. Why? Because there would be no prospect of it getting made. And that's really worrying.' Both Mr Bates and Wolf Hall were turned down by all the big streamers, Kosminsky told the New Statesman. Actors and executives on both took significant pay cuts to make sure they even made it to screen. Both Kosminsky and executive producer Colin Callender waived 90 per cent of their production fee. Peter Straughan who wrote the adaptation and actor Mark Rylance who played Cromwell 'also made a huge financial sacrifice'. Kosminsky dismisses those who cite the success of Adolescence or Toxic Town – both written by Jack Thorne and both snapped up by Netflix – as a challenge to his argument. 'Adolescence was a fantastic drama, and I applaud Netflix for making it. But just stop and think for a moment. What's adolescence about at root? It's about a murder carried out in a school of one pupil by another pupil. Not a problem they're unfamiliar with in America.' The same goes with Toxic Town, Kosminsky says of the drama depicting the fight by a group of Corby mothers to get justice for their children damaged by contaminated waste from the nearby steelworks. Stop again and think about the subject, Kosminsky says. 'Anyone watched Erin Brockovich recently?' Reflecting on his career, Kosminsky is someone trying to 'challenge the orthodoxy'. He wants to ask uncomfortable questions of the rich and powerful. A television maker, yes, but a public service journalist at heart. Audiences don't want to be 'harangued all the time', he says, 'but occasionally it's our job to say, hang on a minute, have you thought about it like this? And actually, are you really comfortable with this? And if not, what could we possibly do about it?' He has made powerful dramas on the Israel-Palestine conflict (The Promise), British peacekeepers who bear witness to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia (Warriors), the experience of young British Muslims post 7/7 (Britz), and the role of scientist Dr David Kelly in the run-up to the Iraq War (The Government Inspector). Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Kosminsky places the blame for the British TV's current predicament firmly at the Government's door. He says they 'refuse' to help public service broadcasters make these programmes by rejecting the idea of a streamer's levy. A levy would make it compulsory for the streaming giants to pay 5 per cent of all money earned from British subscribers into a separate fund to be used to make programmes where a UK public service broadcaster is part of the commission. Similar schemes are in place in 17 European countries, including France and Germany where Netflix unsuccessfully tried to take legal action to prevent the levy being introduced. 'When I asked one of the founders of Netflix, whether they would challenge it in the court if it was brought in here in this country, he said, 'No, as long as it was a level playing field across all the streamers,'' Kosminsky said. So why is the Government saying no? 'Because they fear that it would be perceived by the current administration in America as a tariff.' This misses a fundamental point, he stressed. The streamers can get some of the levy back if they partner with UK broadcasters on productions. 'So, it's not a tariff,' Kosminsky insists: no other tariff allows you to get some of your money back. 'And the British government has failed to make that argument… I think the truth is that… the British government currently is disappointingly craven,' Kosminsky said in a damning rebuke. 'There's a proud 100-year tradition of public service broadcasting in this country. Stand up for it. Defend it. Don't just say, 'Yes, Donald; you're not very happy. Allow us to bow down and lick your boots.' It's pathetic. It's embarrassing.' On 22 July, the Guardian reported that Kosminsky had written to the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, accusing her of trying to 'bully' the BBC over its Gaza coverage. In recent weeks, Nandy has levelled intense criticism the corporation, refusing to say she has confidence in the leadership of its director general, Tim Davie, and asking why no one has lost their job over the broadcast of a documentary about Gaza, narrated by the 13-year-old son of a Hamas official. The letter reminded Nandy that past attempts by government to place political pressure on the BBC had ended badly. 'There's a dreadfully dishonourable tradition of this,' he told the New Statesman. (He cited both the suicide of David Kelly shortly after being revealed as the source for a BBC's reporting on the dodgy dossier behind the Iraq war, and the Thatcher government's attempt to pull a 1985 BBC documentary on Northern Ireland.) 'I think you have to be very careful as a government when you hold the purse strings of what is supposed to be an impartial broadcaster whose job is to speak truth to power in a democracy,' Kosminsky said. 'When you call for sackings and by implication the sacking of the chief executive of the BBC, I think that is deeply troubling… It feels like you're placing financial pressure on the organisation. You're saying, 'Do what I'm asking you to do and otherwise you won't get the money that we all know you want.'' Was the Culture Secretary really 'bullying' the BBC, or was she simply saying to its upper echelons, on behalf of the nation, 'get your house in order; we've had enough'? Davie's tenure has been plagued with difficulties. Soon into his role it emerged that the BBC religion editor Martin Bashir had misled Princess Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, to secure a Panorama interview with her 25 years earlier. Davie bears no responsibility whatsoever for the original misdemeanour. A host of scandals followed: the failure to tackle multiple and ongoing complaints against former MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace; bullying allegations levelled at senior staff; serious criminality on the part of former news anchor Huw Edwards. Others involved editorial failures, including the live broadcasting of an anti-Semitic rant by Bob Vylan at this year's Glastonbury and the broadcasting of a Gaza documentary linked to Hamas. Does Nandy speak for the public when she says the corporation has 'a problem of leadership'? A spokesperson for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport told the Guardian that license fee payers rightly expect 'serious failures' to be acted upon so that they don't happen again. 'The BBC is operationally and editorially independent of government, and we will always defend this principle. However, there is an important distinction between being independent and being accountable.' If something has gone wrong, Kosminsky counters, it is for Ofcom or the BBC Board to hold the corporation to account. It is not the job of government. 'What I'm worried about is the chilling effect of this. You can see [it] in other Gaza programmes that the BBC has backed away from in recent years,' Kosminsky says, referring to the BBC's decision not to broadcast Gaza: Doctors under Attack, leaving it instead to Channel 4. Programmes like these, he says, are 'just too hot to handle because they're nervous of what the reaction will be in certain quarters. We need a BBC that is brave enough to not care about ruffling a few feathers.' Few would disagree with that final sentiment. But there are many in the industry, both inside the BBC and out, who see a wider problem. That perhaps the exodus of senior, long-standing editorial staff over the past five years has left the corporation depleted. There is a lack of diversity of thought, and years of both editorial and life experience have been lost, providing a vacuum at times in sound editorial judgement. 'Just because I'm saying the government should lay off the BBC and let [the board] and Ofcom do their job, it doesn't mean I'm saying I would personally endorse everything that's going on at the BBC. The two are not linked,' Kosminsky explained. While having the 'highest respect' for Tim Davie 'as a person', for example, Kosminsky expressed his 'surprise' that 'a man with no journalistic or editorial experience in his past' should have been made the BBC's editor-in-chief. 'If I'd been asked my opinion of the appointment – and I knew Tim well as head of BBC Worldwide – I would have said, 'No, I'm not sure that is quite right.' He's a great bloke, fantastic asset to the organisation, but I don't think he has enough editorial experience. I think the governors got that wrong.' For Kosminsky, the failure of the government to address the impossibility for UK public service broadcasters to compete with the streamers and its recent criticism of the BBC are inextricably linked. 'It seems to be the tentpole of our foreign policy is to butter up the Americans and unfortunately our domestic broadcasting is going to be the casualty,' he said. 'Lisa Nandy has had virtually nothing to say about all the problems that broadcasting is facing in this country… The only time she's popped her head above the parapet is to start calling for sackings at the BBC.' While this 'may get lot of sort of nods from certain quarters' – the US – 'it's extremely dangerous'. Kosminsky believes we have a government 'too susceptible to pressure from outside' and unwilling to stand up for and defend our national institutions. Instead, it is 'prepared to grovel to outside forces for reasons of limited financial and political gain'. And, Kosminsky believes, this attitude comes from the top. 'We have seen the way our Prime Minister behaves around Donald Trump… Actively fanning the ego of this man in the way he has been is really quite an unpleasant thing to observe and it filters down through everything. Anything that might upset Donald Trump and therefore by extension anything that might upset Israel is stamped on. And dear old Lisa Nandy, in my opinion, is part of this government. Keir Starmer is her boss and she's performing her role.' We are in a delicate place. When broadcasters can no longer make programmes that hold truth to power, 'that's just a little bit of our freedom of speech gone', Peter Kosminsky argues. And while future governments might be relieved about that, 'our democracy is the worse for it'. Perhaps a streamers levy is not the answer, but the government does not seem to be coming up with any solutions of its own. If it does not intervene, we will 'end up with a situation where the editorial decisions about everything we watch here in the UK on our television, are made half a world away in California,' Kosminsky warns. 'I regret that.' Hannah's full conversation with Peter Kosminsky is available as a New Statesman podcast. [Further reading: The BBC is afraid] Related
