Latest news with #DeadRingers
Scottish Sun
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Scot has becoming a mega hit with MAGA in US thanks to his ‘likeable' Trump impression
'You need to keep it light. When it gets too critical or dark then it starts to cross the line. That's something we always want to avoid. DEAD RINGER Scot has becoming a mega hit with MAGA in US thanks to his 'likeable' Trump impression MIMIC Lewis Macleod has revealed how he's become a hit with Americans thanks to making Donald Trump more 'likeable' again. The Scots copycat, who is part of Radio 4's popular long-running show Dead Ringers, saw two recent clips of him impersonating the US President receive over 22million views. 5 Lewis as Trump and his "secret service". 5 Lewis as he looks normally minus the orange tan. 5 Dead Ringers with Jan Ravens, Jon Culshaw and Lewis has been going for quarter of a century. 5 Lewis recording another episode of Dead Ringers for Radio 4. But while Hollywood stars Jamie Foxx and Alec Baldwin have become known for their brutal Trump mickey takes, US comedy legend Chevy Chase and even Make America Great Again supporters have praised Lewis's version. He says: 'Jamie does an excellent Trump as does Alec but they usually do him when he's bellowing statements out just before he steps on Air Force One. 'But I like to do him when he's talking normally, in that softer, more husky voice. That's the one people seem to really like. It's also where I believe you can get more laughs. 'I even got one message from a supporter in America saying I had made Trump more likeable again. Because when he is talking normally on the likes of Joe Rogan's podcast, he's a funny guy. 'I think his own supporters like to see more of that side of him.' In one clip Lewis says as Trump, how he's going to make, 'Elon Musk the first lady and call her Elania', adding: 'Because Melania has been malfunctioning for a while. She keeps saying things like, 'I wish I'd never met you'.' Lewis says: 'You need to keep it light like that. When it gets too critical or dark then it starts to cross the line. That's something we always want to avoid.' In 2018 National Lampoon's star Chevy Chase gave the thumbs-up to the Scots' Trump impression when they met on ITV's Good Morning. But Lewis actually quit playing The Donald after his last presidency ended in disgraceful scenes with the Capitol Hill Attacks on January 6, 2021. He says: 'I stopped doing his voice and cameos right after that tragedy. I thought, 'This isn't funny anymore.' Donald Trump stuns Glasgow punters as he dances with busker to 'Man Who Sold the World' after taking tour of Scottish Sun Christmas Shop 'He had become too divisive at the time. But when he was elected again, Dead Ringers asked me to do him again, so I was up for giving him another go.' Lewis, 55, from Torrance, near Glasgow, started doing impressions at school before landing a regular slot on BBC Scotland's Off The Ball, mimicking the great and the good of Scottish football. While in 1999 he provided the voice of pod-racing alien Sebulba in the Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace. He also played Paul McCartney in a Beatles skit on the Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse BBC sketch show Harry & Paul. And he has had several serious acting roles too including in The Crown, where he played the headmaster of Prince Charles's school Gordonstoun and the 2022 movie The Lost King opposite Oscar-winner Sally Hawkins. While in 2021 he portrayed This is Your Life host Eamonn Andrews in an episode of ITV cop drama Endeavour in 2021. But it's Trump he can't escape, as he continues to be booked to appear as the US leader at corporate dos and charity events. And Lewis, who now splits his time between homes in France with his French wife Marion and the UK, believes his 6ft 3in stature also helps him fit the bill. He explains: 'Trump is officially 6ft 3in although there are rumours he actually lied about his height during his medical, so I may actually be an inch taller. 'Donald's mum Mary MacLeod is from Lewis and so is my family. So there's a good chance we could be related. 'But I'm also born on the Fourth of July – it doesn't get any more American than that.' He adds: 'But the wig is very important. My one's made by Alex Rouse who makes wigs for loads of films from Harry Potter to James Bond and TV shows like Outlander and Game Of Thrones. 'So if you've got a good voice and a good wig - and being the right size - then I reckon you're on to a winner.' The performer also became a regular on Steve Wright in the Afternoon after he was on his Radio 2 show as a guest alongside Dead Ringers co-stars including Jan Ravens, Jon Culshaw and Duncan Wisbey. Lewis would do uncanny impressions of Steve's fellow radio host and Channel Five presenter Jeremy Vine right up until Wright's show was axed in 2022. The DJ passed away last year aged 69. The dad of two says: 'I started doing these songs with Jeremy singing and Steve absolutely loved them. 'Then these 10 second jingles just got longer and longer until we were doing whole songs. 'I would also do reworkings of Jeremy singing Dua Lipa songs, and Steve wrote all the jokes for the verbal skits. 'He always worked at high-speed and would basically direct me in the studio. But he was a genius. That's the best way to describe him.' AI IS BETTER THAN ME BUT NOT AS FUNNY LEWIS knows that AI is a threat to the voiceover industry but believes that people still prefer the human touch. A big part of the impressionists' day job is recording trailers and radio ads and promos, which he has done for three decades. But earlier this year his fellow Scots voiceover artist Gayanne Potter claimed her voice had been cloned for ScotRail's new AI-generated announcement system against her will. Lewis says: 'AI can mimic voices so perfectly now that it's indistinguishable from speech. 'More and more radio ad campaigns are using it, but I think the voices sound soulless and I'm not sure it connects with listeners. 'The difference is when I am in a studio I can make a suggestion, even just a subtle one. 'And directors still want to be able to give you instructions on exactly what they're wanting from your voiceover too.' He adds: 'I mean you can get AI versions of Trump that can do him better than I will ever be able to, but again where is the fun in that? 'People still love coming to see us recording Dead Ringers and like everything about it, including when we can't stop laughing or muck up the script. 'No one wants a robot perfectly delivering lines. They want to feel part of it and have a laugh and some fun with you too, especially when you make a mistake.' Lewis was back on Radio 2 last month (June) as a guest on Zoe Ball's new Saturday show, where he pretended to be Vine again, this time talking about the Glastonbury festival. He says: 'Zoe asked what Jeremy would talk about at the festival and I said it would have to be all about health and safety and how to find your tent. It was great. She had me on for ages.' And far from feeling ridiculed Jeremy, 60, has previously praised Lewis, saying his 'impersonation of me was so good it fooled even my own children'. But Lewis believes that even the notorious touchy Trump would find his mimicry funny. He says: 'People are always trying to do satirical sketches with Trump but how can you keep up with a man who tells the world that Israel and Iran 'don't know what the f**k they're doing?' 'Trump will continue to say things that will make everybody go, 'what the hell?'. So he owns all of that and the sketch writers can't compete.' He adds: 'But I think you can still find the laughs in the softer kind of Trump, which is why I've chosen to do him like that. 'I honestly believe It's the kind of thing that Trump would laugh at himself.' *Dead Ringers - The 25th Anniversary Tour will play Edinburgh Playhouse on August 17 then dates across the UK from September.
Elle
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Elle
'Sirens' Shows We Just Can't Get Enough Of Toxic Sisterhood
Lately, it feels like every time I turn on the TV, a sister is doing something unthinkable. Gaslighting her sibling. Stealing her boyfriend. Faking her own death to ruin her life. Sisterhood, that age-old shorthand for unconditional love, has gone dark – and we can't stop watching. From the calculating twin gynaecologists in Dead Ringers and the scheming siblings of Bad Sisters to the most recent Netflix and Prime thrillers: The Better Sister and Sirens, mainstream culture is fascinated with the kind of bond that cuts both ways – deep love and deeper resentment in one fraught, inseparable package. Because nothing hurts like family, and sisters have an unmatched capability to twist the knife. FIND OUT MORE ON ELLE COLLECTIVE And it's not just on our screens, our bookshelves are also amuck: Esther Freud's My Sister and Other Lovers, lays bare the complex mesh of fear and mistrust between sisters whilst Favourite Daughter by Morgan Dick has two women working together as therapist and patient – with no idea that they're in fact sisters. I should admit upfront: I'm part of the hysteria. In my new novel Selfish Girls, I write the about an uninhibited, dysfunctional family. It's a pressure-cooker narrative about the pain we inflict on those we love most: our sisters. Writing it, I kept asking myself: what happens when a sibling becomes both your witness and your rival? It's true that toxic sisterhood has always been in the narrative fold. From Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? where sibling rivalry curdles into psychological horror, to Atonement and the O'Haras in Gone with the Wind, fiction loves to recognise the emotional volatility built into sisterhood. Even soap operas from Dynasty to EastEnders have mined the vein of sisterly sabotage for decades. We have ancient archetypes of this uneasy alliance with the Graeae: three sisters who shared a single eye and a single tooth, passing them back and forth in a choreography of dependency and distrust. There's something eerily familiar in this arrangement. It mirrors the way sisters – in fiction and real life – must negotiate shared identity, resources, even attention. The myth captures the essence of what today's tales are digging into: how love and resentment often share the same body. If we're in a golden age of complicated women and problematic sisters are the star, where has the sudden surge in interest come from? What links all these stories is a shared fascination with how female closeness can curdle. We're no longer in the land of heart-warming sisterly support (no offence, Little Women). Instead, we're watching women who grew up in each other's shadows, trying to forge identities outside the sibling dynamic, and often failing spectacularly. This duality is exactly what gives these relationships their cataclysmic charge. Sisters know your history; they know your secrets. They share your DNA and your damage. 'Sisters are our first friends and first enemies,' writes Tessa Hadley. And when things go wrong between sisters, it's never just about what's happening now; it's about decades of unspoken competition and those roles inherited in childhood that are never quite escaped. 'When you look in the mirror, your difficult sibling always looks back, though the image is distorted. In the shadows lurk parts of yourself and your past that you don't want to notice. Behind the reflection, silently influencing the interaction, stand your parents, your grandparents, and all their siblings,' writes the psychotherapist, Jeanne Safer, in her book Cain's Legacy: Liberating Siblings from a Lifetime of Rage, Shame, Secrecy, and Regret. How fascinating then, that the crux of our relationship with our sisters is steeped, not just in our own dynamic, but in the lineage of misgivings from the past. Tensions sharpened across generations. Perhaps that's why the emotional pitch of sisterhood can feel so extreme, so polarised, capable of flipping without warning from love to hate. In fiction, these bonds tilt toxic not because sisterhood is broken, but because it's perceived as unbreakable. Sisters have become the stage on which we can rehearse the ethics of our desire – betrayal, manipulation, cruelty is all made permissible by the assumed resilience of the bond. Only a sister could be trusted to hold our most dangerous fantasies and unimaginable transgressions. It's this unique containment, this charged intimacy, that makes for reckless, potent, unfettered (and ultimately interesting) characters. These stories don't erode the sanctity of sisterhood; they prove its strength. Afterall, we would forgive our sister that which we would not forgive anyone. In fiction – if not also in real life - when she fakes her own death, steals your identity, or frames you for a crime she committed – that's not betrayal. That's just not-so-sisterly love. Selfish Girls by Abigail Bergstrom is out on 10 July. Pre-order here. ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE.
Edinburgh Live
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Live
BBC announce iconic series will return nearly 18 years after being axed
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info Celebrating 25 years since its launch, the iconic BBC comedy Dead Ringers is making waves as it prepares for something quite extraordinary. The show, a favourite among fans that has been off-air for nearly two decades, is set to take an exciting new direction. Marking its quarter of a century legacy, Dead Ringers will venture outside the studio for its inaugural UK-wide tour. Renowned for its biting political satire and uncanny impersonations, the series aims to continue delivering laughs to live audiences from across the country. Original cast members such as Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis McLeod, and Duncan Wisbey will lead the expedition, revisiting beloved sketches and providing the top-tier comedy commentary the show is famed for. READ MORE - ITV Helen Flanagan 'dealt huge blow' as she eyes-up return to Coronation Street READ MORE -Paula Radcliffe's daughter's heartbreaking cancer journey as she runs marathon Although the cast have rendezvoused for stage shows in London and the Edinburgh Festival in the past, this impending tour signifies their first full-scale trek around the UK together. The tour not only brings laughter but also stands as a commemoration of Bill Dare, the esteemed creator and producer of Dead Ringers, who tragically passed away this March following an accident abroad. JFL Agency, through which Dare was represented, announced the sad news, with their spokesperson expressing: "We are shocked and greatly saddened to have to announce the death of our brilliant client Bill Dare, who died at the weekend following an accident overseas.", reports Belfast Live. "Our thoughts are with his wife Lucy, daughter Rebecca, and with all of Bill's family and friends who will be devastated by his loss. Bill was a truly legendary producer and writer, and his comedy instincts were second to none." Bill stood as a giant in the world of radio and TV comedy, having played a key role in the creation of seminal shows like The Now Show, Spitting Image, and The Mary Whitehouse Experience. The Dead Ringers crew have shared their excitement about embarking on a tour to honour his legacy. Starting in September, fans can expect a classic mix of satire, mischief, and uncanny impressions that Dead Ringers is celebrated for. Before they take to the stage, the radio iteration of Dead Ringers is set to air this June on BBC Radio 4's Friday Night Comedy. It's important to note that the tour will offer an exclusive live experience that won't be broadcast. The TV version of Dead Ringers was axed in 2009 after seven series. At the time, leading lady Jan Ravens remarked: "It's bizarre, there was no announcement or anything. "The producer just rang me and said it's not going to be re-commissioned. It would be nice to make an announcement or do a farewell edition of the show." Throughout its nine-year run, Jan masterfully mimicked a host of personalities, from Amy Winehouse to Ann Robinson, showcasing her remarkable talent for impersonation.
Daily Mirror
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
BBC hit comedy set for return after 18 years - but with a huge twist
The cast of a popular TV and radio series are set for a big reunion after it the BBC show unexpectedly axed over a decade ago - but there is a twist in its return A popular BBC comedy series is set to make a return after 18 years off air. However, fans won't take in the show in the same way as bosses have announced a big change. To celebrate its 25th anniversary, a former BBC Radio 4' show is taking to the road. The multi-award-winning topical satire show Dead Ringers is heading on full UK tour for the first time. The tour will feature long-standing cast members Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis McLeod, and Duncan Wisbey. It will take its audience on a journey through a quarter century of classic sketches, uncanny impressions, and the cutting-edge political and cultural satire that has defined the series. While the format's stars have previously performed together on stage shows, including in London and at the Edinburgh Festival, the upcoming tour will be the first of its kind for the show. The tour will be a tribute to Dead Ringers creator and producer Bill Dare, who died suddenly in March. In a statement Dare's agent JFL Agency confirmed he died, with has spokesperson saying at the time: 'We are shocked and greatly saddened to have to announce the death of our brilliant client Bill Dare, who died at the weekend following an accident overseas. 'Our thoughts are with his wife Lucy, daughter Rebecca, and with all of Bill's family and friends who will be devastated by his loss. Bill was a truly legendary producer and writer, and his comedy instincts were second to none.' Bill was a legendary figure in radio & TV comedy having also been behind such classic series as The Now Show, Spitting Image, and The Mary Whitehouse Experience. Now, the Dead Ringers team say they are honoured to hit the road to celebrate his work in this way. Audiences are set to watch the trademark Dead Ringers mix of wit, mischief, and impressions when it hits the road in September. Before that, the radio show returns in all its topical glory this June on BBC Radio 4 as part of Friday Night Comedy. This tour is a special event and will not be for broadcast. The TV series of the show was axed in 2009 after seven series. Star Jan Ravens revealed at the time: "It's bizarre, there was no announcement or anything. "The producer just rang me and said it's not going to be re-commissioned. It would be nice to make an announcement or do a farewell edition of the show." Jan took on the mimicking roles from characters including Amy Winehouse to Ann Robinson during its nine years on air.
Wall Street Journal
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘The Shrouds' Review: David Cronenberg Peers Into the Grave
The term 'body horror' was first used, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in a 1983 essay about Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, and that was before he made the movie that shows a woman giving birth to a maggot (the remake of 'The Fly,' 1986), the one about twin gynecologists who use an array of exotic surgical tools that look like torture instruments ('Dead Ringers,' 1988), or the one about people who seek car crashes for erotic thrills ('Crash,' 1996). Mutation, disfiguration and amputation are Mr. Cronenberg's bread and butter. After 50 years in feature filmmaking, Mr. Cronenberg at age 82 is continuing to play with what seems fair to call an obsession. In 'The Shrouds,' he devises one of his wittier setups, and the film at first promises to be uncharacteristically light and wry, almost a self-sendup. Karsh, who as played by Vincent Cassel looks a lot like Mr. Cronenberg, is a grieving Toronto widower (as Mr. Cronenberg has been since losing his wife eight years ago) haunted by dreams about his beautiful wife, Becca (Diane Kruger). You know you're in Mr. Cronenberg's twisted world when Karsh casually talks to his dentist about looking at X-rays of her dentistry, as though this might provide him some relief.
