Billy Joel cancels tour after rare brain condition diagnosis
"I'm sincerely sorry to disappoint our audience, and thank you for understanding," he said.A statement issued on his behalf said Joel's condition "has been exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision and balance".It continued: "Under his doctor's instructions, Billy is undergoing specific physical therapy and has been advised to refrain from performing during this recovery period."Billy is thankful for the excellent care he is receiving and is fully committed to prioritising his health."He is grateful for the support from fans during this time and looks forward to the day when he can once again take the stage."NPH is described by the NHS as an uncommon and poorly understood condition that most often affects people over the age of 60.As well as the two UK dates, he had been due to perform in the US and Canada from this July to next July.He had previously postponed shows in March because of a "medical condition", which was not specified at the time, "to allow him to recover from recent surgery and to undergo physical therapy".Joel has regularly been on tour in recent years, and ended a record-breaking decade-long monthly residency at Madison Square Garden in New York last year.He has been nominated for 23 Grammy Awards, winning five times, and was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1999.
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BBC News
17 minutes ago
- BBC News
When Superman landed for filming in a windy Milton Keynes
On a windy day in 1986 the residents of Milton Keynes were treated to an unexpected sight flying through the it a bird? Was it a plane? No, it was budget cuts forced filmmakers to shoot Superman IV: The Quest For Peace in the Buckinghamshire new town. Lead star Christopher Reeve, hoisted by a crane, was dangled above Milton Keynes Central the latest Superman reboot soaring into cinemas, now with actor David Corenswet in the famous red pants, people have been sharing their memories of when the American superhero touched down in the unlikely British location. Released in 1987, Superman IV was panned by critics, fans - and even its own cast. Reeve later wrote in his memoir, Still Me: "We had to shoot at an industrial park in England in the rain with about 100 extras, not a car in sight, and a dozen pigeons thrown in for atmosphere."Even if the story had been brilliant, I don't think that we could ever have lived up to the audience's expectations with this approach."Although the three earlier films had been shot at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, the fourth instalment was the first to be shot entirely in the UK, with most of it being done at Elstree Studios in other locations across Hertfordshire were also used. Villain Lex Luthor was driving along the then unopened M25 just outside Bricket Wood, near St Albans, when his car was lifted into the sky by his superhero nemesis. According to fan Jason Joiner, who runs the National Film and Sci-Fi Museum, about 18 minutes of the 90-minute film was shot in Milton said: "It mimics some of the new towns in America, so it didn't look look like British architecture."It was this sort of modern realistic building facades, and that was ideal for the backdrop of creating an environment like New York or Metropolis." Filming took place at office buildings and an indoor exotic garden, but predominantly outside Milton Keynes Central Station, which doubled as the UN curator Mr Joiner added: "We've got one of the paving slabs from when they resurfaced the area where the railway station is."When they lifted them up we had an opportunity to grab a paving slab. So we took one of those just to keep in Milton Keynes just because it's part of the history of the filming of Superman there." Graham Bedford, 75, worked in an office across the road and witnessed the history first-hand."It was quite gobsmacking, really," he said."I saw Christopher Reeve being hoisted up on the crane, and then him coming down and doing that graceful kind of land that he did with one foot - the other foot tucked up behind him."The photographer, who now lives in Suffolk, always carried a camera with him so was quick to snap some photos."Basically, they just turned up with all the lorries and the cranes and goodness knows what," he said."It must have cost a fortune [with] the vehicles and the camera gear and the crane and everything." Stephanie English was no stranger to a film set. She had started doing extras work in about 1976 and has since worked in the field for 40 often attends conventions, where "Star Wars is the thing that most people are interested in" - specifically her fleeting role in The Empire Strikes filming Superman IV, she posed for photos at a Daily Planet newsstand added by the production team to dress the said the set was "very convincing" and "very realistic". She recalled: "[It was a] bit of a strange area. There was no life. There's nothing about, no people, no pigeons, nothing... But you know, it was just nice to go somewhere different."Later she got closer to the star while filming a nightclub scene at London's Hippodrome, although it was footage that didn't make the final cut."You think you're in it and then they cut a bit out or they cut the whole thing," she she managed to get a photo with Reeve, who left a strong impression: "Very, very nice. Really nice guy. Pleasant and friendly and everything. Very nice." Actor David Waterman, now 73, had a front-row seat to Superman's descent on Milton Keynes."The agent phoned up and said 'I've got a nice little role for you. I'd like you to be a hot dog man on Superman'," he said."Initially I was expecting to be flown off to America - some exotic site somewhere. But, no, it wasn't to be. It was Milton Keynes."He recalled how the "dreadful" windy weather hampered rehearsals, making things tricky for Reeve and his stunt double, but the star eventually took to the skies without any trace of fear."He's done that so many times before in the previous Superman films. He totally trusted the the technicians in charge of the rigging for the flying," said Mr Waterman. He described the actor as a "nice guy" who was chatty and cheerful despite his doubts about the film's the end result was not well received, Mr Waterman has met many fans of it over the years, and in 2016 he took part in a shot-for-shot remake made by a fan in Milton Keynes."I've become quite a cult figure for that particular film," he said."I've had to do many seminars and meetings and things like that. So it's it's paid off for me. It's paid off for me in ways I couldn't have imagined at the time." Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
The Guardian
25 minutes ago
- The Guardian
TV tonight: who was the real Jayne Mansfield? Her daughter tells all
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Times
27 minutes ago
- Times
British podcasts are great — but there's a north-south problem
A few notable exceptions aside, podcasting can feel disproportionately metropolitan, often in accent, certainly in gaze. Much of the talent may originally come from afar (Alastair Campbell, Bradford; Emily Maitlis, Sheffield) but for many London feels like their pulpit. Crossed Wires, the podcast festival that last weekend took over some of Sheffield's best-known venues, including the Crucible Theatre, seeks to redress that. It was founded by the podcaster Alice Levine (My Dad Wrote a Porno, British Scandal), the producer Dino Sofos (the creator of Americast and The News Agents) and the local impresario James O'Hara (the music festival Tramlines), and the ambition is to create a podcasting equivalent to the Edinburgh Fringe, albeit for just one weekend annually. Sofos, however, wants to challenge London's cultural capital year round. He spent 14 years down south, pioneering BBC formats like Brexitcast. But to build his audio company Persephonica, he came home to Sheffield. Increasingly he perceives a north-south divide in career opportunities for young creatives, with the high cost of housing giving an unfair advantage to those already from the southeast. But podcasts can be produced from anywhere (as exemplified by two of Persephonica's highest-profile yet hardest-holidaying presenters, Dua Lipa and Lily Allen). Sofos dreams that others — perhaps even the BBC — will follow him to Sheffield and help to make England's sixth biggest city a centre for podcasting. This year's festival had the BBC Radio 1 breakfast host, Greg James, as its creative director. First, he lured back one of the city's most beloved sons, Michael Palin. The natty 82-year-old reminisced about once alighting from the London train 'wearing one of those communist-style collarless shirts'. A gruff South Yorkshireman barked, 'Hulloo!' before declaiming sotto voce: 'Bourgeois are back.' Palin has never worn that shirt since. • The best podcasts and radio shows of the week James hosted the Friday headliner Nobody Expects the Michael Palin Podcast. Then, a delightful Sheffield/Palin-themed edition of Rewinder. It was recorded at Cole Brothers, which for generations was Sheffield's destination department store, but since the closure of John Lewis in 2021 is a semi-derelict high street eyesore. Last weekend it was reclaimed as a BBC hub. So, in a sense, the bourgeoisie were back (Radio 4's controller even popped along to settle a potentially unpaid Palin guinea fee from the 1960s). But the venue's bare bulbs and wires hanging from concrete girders made this a buzzy, down-to-earth space. 'A better audience than at the Hay Festival,' said Rob Lawrie, the bluff Yorkshireman presenter of the investigative hit To Catch a Scorpion. North and south, privilege and poverty, the politics of a post-industrial landscape, all were recurring themes across a northern-accented weekend attended by more than 20,000. As Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett's guest on Dish, the Hull-raised comedian Lucy Beaumont was bleakly funny about the hunger-staving, cheap stodgy staples of Yorkshire cuisine. • The best podcasts and audiobooks for a family road trip Audiences flocked to hear a recording of Jarvis Cocker reading the Shipping Forecast. His Pulp bandmate the drummer Nick Banks joined Drunk Women Solving Crime. At the gateway to the Peak District, the novelist David Nicholls discussed his hiking romance You Are Here with Sara Cox ('delighted to be on my second favourite side of the Pennines'). At the festival's stimulating finale Pod Save the UK, Oliver Coppard, the mayor of South Yorkshire, dealt impressively with shouts of 'shame on you' for saying his office would not turn away arms manufacturing jobs, given local levels of long-term unemployment. Crucially, Crossed Wires events were great fun. The Saturday evening headliner was the class-riffing comedy Help I Sexted My Boss, presented by the Capital Radio breakfast host Jordan North and the etiquette expert William Hanson. Even before curtain up at the sold-out 2,200-capacity City Hall, its bars had run dry of 'G&D', the show's signature tipple of gin and Dubonnet. • Read more radio and podcast reviews Its innuendo-laden humour harks back to a pre-Palin(lithic) age. 'I'm more City Hall — you're sod all,' was Hanson's opening salvo to North, as if he were a snooty southern pantomime villain talking to Buttons. To cheers, North (born in York, brought up in Lancashire) explained Sheffield to Hanson (Bristol) as the city of Pulp, Arctic Monkeys, Self-Esteem and Sean Bean. For the second half's opener, he and the producer did a 'full Monty', stripping to gold lamé briefs. Hanson, more demurely, unveiled a half Sheffield United, half Wednesday strip, then came good officiating the marriage proposal of Tristan to Shona. You'd have to have been a right misery-guts to have not been borne along. Edinburgh's festivals have been pivotal to the careers of some mentioned here, including Palin. Although this was much smaller in scale, it felt like there were parallels — another walkable festival in a university town girded by hills. I hope Sheffield's Crossed Wires succeeds and helps to devolve more podcasting power to the regions. What podcasts have you enjoyed recently? Let us know in the comments below
