Surbiton Actor's Crowning Glory
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Issue 18 The best thing to come out of Surbiton since the A3 September 2014 Cycling heroes Any Surbitonian who popped down to Portsmouth Road to watch the rain-soaked Prudential riders cycle through the remnants of the Bertha storm must have been impressed by their efforts. This picture shows some passing the City Arms. l Read the background to two of the Surbiton cyclists who were among the 24,000 wet heroes p4 Surbiton actor’s crowning glory urbiton actor Paul grossed $359m, and Ridley well… and I was asked Hughes has landed Scott’s Exodus, planned for how I’d cope with 12-hour his big Hollywood a Christmas release, director filming days in Tunisia, and Sbreak, playing King Saul in Tim Chey hopes the film did I have a passport?” a $50million Biblical epic, will capture the public’s Paul heard nothing for David and Goliath. imagination and feed into a nail-biting week, then The film opens in US enthusiasm for the swords- Chey rang and organised cinemas in March 2015, and-sandals genre which another audition, sending with Paul promising an have led critics to dub this through part of the script exclusive viewing at the ‘the year of the Bible movie’. and instructing him to let cornerHOUSE arts centre in “In May I was invited his hair grow. Douglas Road, where he has to audition for the role of From the first wave of Paul Hughes, right, in a break in filming in Tunisia, playing King Saul, with fellow directed and performed. a ‘king’ figure in a film to 2,300 applicants, the final English actor Miles Sloman (alongside him) cast as David in David and Goliath Paul, who lives off Maple be shot in north Africa,” competition for the plum huge room; we were really at 11.30pm ahead of the next production stage, ahead of Road, returned last month Paul told The Good Life. role of the king was between spoilt,” he said. day’s shooting. release in the spring. from shooting in Tunisia “Two days later I turned Paul and two American On location in an ancient As in so many films, much “If it grosses a certain on desert scenes involving up at the Marriott Hotel by actors… with the Surbiton desert village surrounded of the day is spent waiting figure, it’s big money,” said David, also played by an Westminster Bridge. I still thesp winning the day. by traditional farmers with around. Fortunately Paul is Paul. Director Tim Chey, English actor, and Goliath, had the beard I’d grown from He was flown out to herds of sheep and goats, a past master at yoga, which who is aiming for a grand- played by the tallest man in performing in The Seagull in Hammamet – a popular Paul was put through the he describes as “the effective scale epic on the lines of Canada, a 7ft 4in, 32-stone London in December. tourist destination on the promised long days of use of doing nothing”, so that Lawrence of Arabia, aims to giant called Jerry Sokoloski. “I’d thought about how Tunisian coast – and put filming, with 6.30am starts. wasn’t a problem. open in 1,500 cinemas across Coming hard on the heels the character might be, and up in a four-star hotel with Then it was back to the hotel Now the classic underdog the States. of Noah, which has already I was told I took direction an impressive pool. “I had a where script rewrites arrived tale is at the editing and post- Tim Harrison Festival The Brownway Dead and dying trees have turned Tolworth’s reborn infamous Greenway into the Brownway – as Organisers say many predicted it would. that Surbiton’s Apparently, sinking cypress trees into annual festival, luridly painted resin and surrounding them rebranded The with continuous traffic isn’t a recipe for a long Surbo, will be and happy arboreal life. bigger than ever. Contractors will return in September The fun starts on to uproot the sorry specimens and plant farmers’ market new ones... but there’s no guarantee that day – Saturday the replacements will take to their strange September 20, positions any better than the current trees. with the main Ah well. At least the project to turn the parade staged street into a bilious boulevard only cost a week later. council taxpayers £3.1million. Details on p6, Meanwhile the raised, green, semi-official and see p8 for tarmac wwcrossing humps continue to baffle columnist Becky pedestrians and motorists, who still can’t Mayhew’s take Last year’s Surbiton Festival parade came up Victoria Road towards the decide who is supposed to have priority. on the festivities. station. This year’s parade, on September 27, follows the same route The Highway Code doesn’t mention them. School site mystery A new primary school will open in Surbiton in a year’s time with an initial roll of 60… but nobody knows where. Surbiton Primary School will be a free school, as championed by ex-Education Secretary Michael Gove, with a two-form entry ultimately rising to 420 pupils. The target is to open in September 2015, meeting rocketing demand for places fuelled by the population boom. The school will be run by the education charity Gems Learning Trust, set up in Dubai in 1959. It owns 46 schools, mostly in the Gulf but with five in the UK. Uncertainty surrounds the location. Kingston Council says the government’s Education Funding Agency will supply a site. However, a spokeswoman for Gems (it stands for Global Education Management Systems) initially told the Good Life: “The local council will find the site and the building.” Gems chairman Chris Kirk said he would ensure successful students were “nurtured” via “international best practice in the curriculum, and the use of technology”. Gems will also launch a primary school in Twickenham next year, again with an initial intake of 60. news urbiton couple Paul and Liz Hunter did spectacularly well on daytime TV’s Bargain Hunt, in which rival pairs of amateur antique buyers are Sgiven £300 to make money on three auction lots. Pun-potty presenter Tim Wonnacott was impressed by Paul’s decisiveness (the rival red team were all adither), and was in awe of Liz’s knowledge of 20th Century British art glass. Retired tax adviser Paul applied to go on the show without telling Liz, and the pair were filmed trawling antique shops in Lewes in January, before seeing how the buys fared at auction in Billingshurst. Liz had set out to buy “something small and silver”… so the fact that their final choice was Scandinavian pottery, a chair and an aboriginal didgeridoo came as a surprise. The chair, one of a limited edition made by Lord Chelsea Snowdon for Prince Charles’s investiture in 1969, did them proud. Expert Thomas Plant predicted it might fetch £80-£120 at auction. Paul and Liz paid £90. At stardust auction, in a frenzy of bids, the price shot up to £320. First SW3, then New After making a £285 overall cash profit, the couple – York, now the Made in An eye Chelsea stars are hitting both keen birdwatchers – won golden gavel lapel pins. “We had a wonderful time,” said Paul. “We really the glamorous bar scene in enjoyed the experience, and everyone was so nice.” Surbiton. for a Liz is now a minor celebrity at the Surbiton YMCA, Cast members Louise where she exercises regularly, with several of her gym Thompson and Andy buddies spotting her on the programme. Jordan will be reunited l Liz and Paul are in blue fleeces, flanked by antiques at the Lounge at Hotel bargain expert Thomas Plant and the bow-tied Tim Wonnacott Bosco after a summer apart. A table has been booked for the ex-couple at the cocktail bar for Desirable market the evening of Saturday Following Kingston Market Place’s hideous September 6. Disneyland makeover, Surbiton’s farmers’ Louise has spent the market is becoming the go-to destination for summer in New York discerning shoppers. filming Made in Chelsea, With its endearing mix of stalls of different while Andy has been size, shape and style, the monthly Maple touring the UK after the Road market is an antidote to Kingston release of his new EP. market’s dull uniformity and unpopular Fans will see if the soft paving, condemned by historian June lighting of the Lounge Sampson as ‘reducing the heart of the in St Mark’s Hill might ancient royal borough to a flimsy pop-up rekindle this on-off stage set’ which has ‘lost its integrity as an romance. authentic, working market and has become Meanwhile, Bosco an Ikea designer’s concept of an open-air regulars (one pictured) mart’. have been solving clues on Market grandee David Jacobson designed Facebook to win £50 tabs this new poster to help spread the word at the boutique hotel’s bar, about Surbiton’s alternative… based on with vouchers hidden in the 1951 Marlon Brando movie A Streetcar envelopes in town centre Named Desire. shops. Gardening tips by Janice Cripps Time to zhuzh up the garden here comes a time in entertaining family or friends. After possibly a second flush of flowers. midsummer when the garden all, that’s the point of gardens, isn’t it? The same goes for early flowering begins to look a little tired; the So what can be done to zhuzh up shrubs that will benefit by forming Tlawn is not as green as it was and the the summer garden and give it back strong flower buds and a better planting which was slow to take off its self-respect? resistance to disease and weather in spring has reached its peak and is The first step is to cut back early damage in the year to come.