To the National Theatre Christmas quiz on Friday, where the cast of The Red Barn took on actors from Peter Pan. Perhaps they had been at the mulled wine for their wits seemed rather addled. In one round, they had to describe famous actors for their team-mates to guess. Handed “Judi Dench”, Mark Strong was unable to think of a single play or film that she had been in, eventually giving the clue: “She’s very short-sighted.” This was topped by Anna Francolini, who is Captain Hook in Peter Pan. Asked to describe Daniel Radcliffe, she struggled before finally saying: “He has the same name as the guy who played Harry Potter.”
South West Trains decided to have some festive fun with its weekend travellers. The electronic departure boards included such destinations as London Winterloo, Deck the Vauxhall, Haslemyrrh and Basingstocking. Wo(Three)Kings was stretching the joke too far, but still better than the jingle balls-up on Southern.
UNBEARABLE FAMILY
Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey, tells The Lady that his most treasured possession is the teddy bear his parents gave him for his fifth birthday during a holiday on the Norfolk Broads. Their 62-year-old relationship had a soggy beginning. No sooner had Fellowes unwrapped the bear than it was grabbed by his brother Rory, who leant out of the boat and fell in. “Quickly,” his mother shouted as another brother held out a boat hook towards Rory. To Julian’s eternal gratitude he then heard her cry: “Not the boy, the bear.”
Ozzy Osbourne, the chemically enhanced heavy metal singer, tells Mojo magazine about his parents’ reaction to his debut album with Black Sabbath in 1970. “After hearing it, my father turns to me and goes, ‘May I ask you something, son?’,” Osbourne said. “ ‘Are you sure you’re just drinking the occasional beer?’ ”
TWENTY YEARS’ CLEAN LIVING
After almost 20 years of watching blurred advertising go past at 150mph, Kevin Eason has retired as The Times’s motor-racing correspondent. It may seem a glamorous life but Kevin spent two weeks of every year on an aeroplane (always turning right, never left) and, with 21 grands prix around the world, was fed up of living in hotels. Asked about his new life, he reflects: “I suppose for the first time in 20 years I’m going to have to buy my own soap.”
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To have a thankless child, as Glenda Jackson recently noted in her acclaimed King Lear, is sharper than a serpent’s tooth. Not as sharp as her own tongue, especially when it comes to lacerating Tories. Andrew Boff, their leader in the London assembly, took part in a radio debate with Jackson and asked for an autograph as a gift for his husband. She wrote: “How do you live with this awful man?”
WAKE UP, IT’S VODKA O’CLOCK
Everyone has their quaint Christmas traditions. For Jess Phillips, the straight-talking Birmingham Yardley MP, it’s being able to hit the advocaat early. “Christmas is the only day when it is acceptable to drink from 6am,” she says. “On holiday it is 12 o’clock; on Christmas Day it is 6 o’clock. That is the rule my family live by.” Ms Phillips, left, is one of those MPs who, every time the Speaker shouts “order, order”, you expect her to reply: “A large vodka and tonic.”
