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For millions of music fans of all ages, The Beatles are without a doubt rock’s most influential group. The band, comprised of John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr, broke boundaries and created bold new sounds that reverberate to this day. Behind the scenes, members of the band didn’t always get along – and this occasional tension led to a long-standing myth that Lennon once discredited Starr’s drumming skills. As it turns out, however, this rumor just doesn’t hold water, with internet sleuths figuring out that Lennon never actually made the remark in the first place.

John Lennon is often credited with making a joke at Ringo Starr’s expense

#Otd in #1964, #TheBeatles continued filming opening scenes for A Hard Day’s Night at Marylebone Station in London following the first shoot on the 5th April. pic.twitter.com/H3xdM840ZX

— The Beatles (@thebeatles...

Think of a British TV series about the royal family that launched in 2016 and features some of Britain’s best writing and acting talent. No, not “The Crown” but “The Windsors,” the royal comedy show from Channel 4 that is poised to steal “The Crown’s” well, crown. A soap opera-style sitcom, it shows Charles, William, Harry and the rest of the royals as they’ve never been seen before.

Where “The Crown” offers a sober, historical take on the royals, winning both critical plaudits and awards in the process, “The Windsors” is a cheeky younger sibling that has spent its life in the shadows. A spare to the heir, if you will. Created by writers Bert Tyler-Moore and George Jeffrie, “The Windsors” launched seven years ago with comedy king Harry Enfield in the lead as a vain and infantilized Charles while Gwynne (who has also appeared in “The Crown...

Queen Elizabeth II was the first British monarch to become a film and television character while she was still on the throne. Raucous historical romps about Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were all very well, but showing what a living king or queen got up to behind closed palace doors? That was another, almost treasonous matter. Even as recently as 1991, when Prunella Scales starred in a BBC film of Alan Bennett’s National Theatre play “A Question Of Attribution,” Bennett said “it still feels quite bold to portray her in the flesh.” And the practice was still contentious enough in 2020 for the UK’s then Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, to ask Netflix to put a disclaimer on screen before every episode of “The Crown,” explaining that the show was not actually a documentary.

But like so much else during Elizabeth II’s uniquely long reign, the protocol changed to a...

Mikhail Gorbachev walks into a Pizza Hut. The year is 1997, six years after the end of the Soviet Union, and the leader who oversaw its dissolution is in Moscow’s Red Square to star in one of the strangest television adverts ever produced. After taking a seat alongside his granddaughter Anastasia Virganskaya, Gorbachev is spotted by two men at a nearby table and a debate over his legacy ensues. “Because of him we have economic confusion!” claims a dour, middle-aged man. “Because of him we have opportunity!” fires back the younger of the pair, perhaps his son. Certainly the two are intended to represent a generational gap. While the elder complains about political instability and chaos, the younger talks of freedom and hope. It’s left to an older woman to settle the debate. “Because of him, we have many things…” she says, “…like Pizza Hut!” On that, they can all agree.

Katherine Parkinson (“The It Crowd”) and Youssef Kerkour (“House of Gucci”) have been tapped to lead upcoming Itvx comedy drama “Significant Other.”

The series, which will start filming in Manchester, U.K. next month, tells the story of Anna (Parkinson) and Sam (Kerkour). They are “two lonely neighbours in their mid-40’s, who embark on a hesitant, obstacle-filled relationship after drastic life events bring them together,” according to the logline.

After a drastic but fateful first meeting, their un-romantic relationship soon turns their lives around, with defensive Anna and emotionally vulnerable Sam finding they influence each other for the better.

Variety can reveal David Sant (“Spitting Image”) is set to direct the series, which is set to be produced by Quay Street Productions, part of ITV Studios. It is based on Yes Studios’ Israeli series of the same name, which was created by Dana Modan, Assi Cohen and Ram Nehari...

BritBox UK MD Will Harrison is to depart having led the streamer’s UK operation since its 2019 launch, as ITV gears up to roll out Itvx.

Harrison will not be replaced, with the news coming a week after major shareholder ITV said it will be folding BritBox into forthcoming AVoD/SVoD Itvx. The BBC has sold its minority BritBox UK share to ITV but BBC Studios and ITV still operate BritBox International in North America and other territories.

Once subsumed by Itvx, BritBox UK will fall within the remit of Rufus Radcliffe, ITV’s Managing Director of Streaming.

Harrison joined BritBox UK to oversee commercial and strategy shortly after 2019 launch and the streamer has since accrued 733,000 subscribers, commissioning a wealth of originals including the Spitting Image reboot, Irvine Welsh’s Crime and Cush Jumbo-starring The Beast Must Die.

He is a former MD of film and TV investor Ingenious Media...

Exclusive: Anthony Horowitz believes his upcoming Magpie Murders adaptation is “the first time I’ve really got it right,” and has stated he will no longer write on classic TV murder mysteries.

The renowned UK author has adapted many of his novels for TV including Stormbreaker, The Diamond Brothers and South By South East, but Horowitz thinks PBS Masterpiece/BritBox’s Magpie Murders from Jill Green’s Eleventh Hour Films is a greater achievement.

The six-parter took two years to pen and involved around half a dozen drafts, Horowitz told Deadline, and while the mystery-within-a-mystery format threw up a multitude of challenges, the author said this is “the first time I’ve really got it right.”

“The whole book-within-a-book thing is really difficult,” he explained. “In the book the mysteries happen one at a time whereas in the show I wanted to do them simultaneously and that gave me the...

ITV, the British broadcaster behind hits including Love Island and The Voice UK, suffered a £156 million ($215M) blow to its earnings during the height of the coronavirus crisis, as the pandemic hit the ad market and shut down production.

ITV’s adjusted Ebita stood at £573M in the full-year of 2020, down 21% on £729M in 2019. Total group revenue dropped 16% to nearly £3.3 billion over the same period of time, according to financial results published Tuesday. Earnings per share fell 22% to 10.9 pence.

ITV CEO Carolyn McCall acknowledged the drop in performance, but said the company still outstripped forecasts. “While total revenues and profits were down our financial performance was ahead of expectations driven by a strong end to Q4 and our firm control over costs,” she said.

Ad revenue was £1.57B for the year, meaning it sunk 11% compared with 2019’s £1.76B. Having said that, ITV pointed to encouraging signs in Q4, when ad...

BritBox U.K., the streaming service joint venture of ITV and the BBC, said on Monday that it would launch on Amazon Prime Video Channels this spring.

The streamer will become available to Prime members in Britain with an add-on subscription.

“BritBox U.K. offers subscribers the biggest collection of British box sets, starring the finest homegrown talent and series, including Broadchurch, Downton Abbey, Vera, Only Fools and Horses, and Love Island, and original exclusive content, including Spitting Image, which will return for a second season later this year,” the partners said.

Will Harrison, BritBox U.K.’s managing director, said: “We are ...

BritBox U.K., the streaming service joint venture of ITV and the BBC, said on Monday that it would launch on Amazon Prime Video Channels this spring.

The streamer will become available to Prime members in Britain with an add-on subscription.

“BritBox U.K. offers subscribers the biggest collection of British box sets, starring the finest homegrown talent and series, including Broadchurch, Downton Abbey, Vera, Only Fools and Horses, and Love Island, and original exclusive content, including Spitting Image, which will return for a second season later this year,” the partners said.

Will Harrison, BritBox U.K.’s managing director, said: “We are ...

Tony Hendra, the British humorist and National Lampoon alumnus who played the blundering This Is Spinal Tap band manager responsible for delivering both the tiny Stonehenge and one of the film’s greatest sight gags, died Thursday of Lou Gehrig’s disease in Yonkers, NY. He was 79.

Hendra’s wife Carla confirmed his death to The New York Times. The actor first was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Als), in 2019.

A member of the Cambridge University Footlights revue in 1961 and 1962, Hendra appeared onstage with both John Cleese and Graham Chapman, establishing himself in the new British humor scene along with those future Monty Python stars. He moved to the United States in 1964 with comedy partner Nick Ullett. The duo opened for Lenny Bruce at the Café Au Go Go in New York’s Greenwich Village and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Hendra, who had...

ITV executive Reemah Sakaan has been handed the reins to the international roll-out of BritBox, the BBC and ITV-backed SVOD service specializing in British content.

Sakaan will serve as CEO of BritBox International, overseeing the expansion of the service into 25 countries worldwide. She was previously group director of ITV SVOD, managing the launch of BritBox in the U.K., as well as chief brand and creative officer for BritBox Global, where she has been responsible for the editorial and marketing activities for BritBox internationally.

The BritBox international management team, including Moira Hogan, country manager for Australia, and Emily Powers, executive VP and head of BritBox North America, will both report into Sakaan. Set to start in April, Sakaan will lead a team of around 100.

BritBox first launched in North America in March 2017, and surpassed 1.5 million subscribers last fall. In the U.K., BritBox launched in November 2019, followed by Australia a year later,...

The streaming landscape just got even more crowded: BBC Studios and ITV’s SVOD platform BritBox officially launched in Australia today.

Among the exclusive titles for the British-content streamer are A Confession, Appropriate Adult, Vera, Endeavour, Prime Suspect, Shakespeare & Hathaway, Father Brown, Victoria, Lewis, Murder on the Blackpool Express, Your Home Made Perfect, and The Curse of Ishtar. Police procedural The Mallorca Files will be available from December.

Also on the platform is the reboot of All Creatures Great and Small, featuring Nicholas Ralph, Rachel Shenton and Callum Woodhouse, and the service’s first commission, a revival of ’80s sketch comedy Spitting Image, from original creator Roger Law.

The launch coincides with ‘Doctor Who Day’, with the service offering the entire collection of the show from 1963 – 2019, with all 13 Doctors. Other classics will include Mr Bean, Blue Planet, Planet Earth, Kingdom, The Vicar of Dibley, The Office, Top Gear, Luther,...

U.K. broadcaster ITV’s revenues for the nine months of 2020, ending Sept. 30, have plunged by 16% compared to 2019 levels.

The company in its Q3 results on Thursday posted total external revenue at £1.86 billion ($2.45 billion), down from £2.21 billion ($2.91 billion) in 2019. Revenues for ITV Studios, the broadcaster’s production-distribution engine, were down 19% to £902 million ($1.18 billion), compared to £1.1 billion ($1.45 billion) in 2019.

Broadcast revenue was down 13% at £1.27 billion ($1.67 billion), compared to £1.46 billion ($1.92 billion) in 2019, with ITV total advertising down 16% and online revenues up 2%.

However, despite the debilitating effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the broadcaster managed to get 85% of the 230 productions that were impacted or paused by the lockdown delivered or back in production.

These results were on the back of the “Love Island” broadcaster’s plans to pivot to a VOD focus, and reduce its physical footprint in London. Under the plan, ITV will establish a new Media and Entertainment division with two...

John Sessions, a Scottish actor and comedian best known for his role on the U.K. version of “Whose Line Is It Anyway,” died on Monday at his home in South London, his agency Markham, Froggatt & Irwin confirmed to Variety. He was 67.

Sessions appeared on several other British comedy shows, including “Have I Got News for You,” “Qi,” “Stella Street” and “Spitting Image.” A noted character actor, he appeared in a wide variety of TV shows and films from the 1980s through the 2010s.

Born on Jan. 11, 1953, in Ayrshire, Scotland, Sessions trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, studying alongside director Kenneth Branagh. The two would go on to work together on “Henry V” in 1989 and “Five Children and It” in 2004.

In the late 1980s, Sessions was part of the cast of the original radio broadcast of the improv comedy series “Whose Line Is It Anyway.” He...

John Sessions, the Scottish actor and comedian famous for shows including Whose Line Is It Anyway?, has died at the age of 67.

Alex Irwin, his agent at Markham, Froggatt & Irwin, said Sessions died at his home in London from a heart condition after a career that spanned film roles including The Iron Lady and The Merchant of Venice.

Born in Ayrshire, Scotland, Sessions made his name on shows including the UK version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and the original Spitting Image, on which he honed his impression skills.

He was a regular on the British comedy panel show circuit, popping up on Have I Got News for You and Qi, as well as starring in comedies such as the cult hit Stella Street, in which he impersonated Keith Richards and Joe Pesci.

The BBC show Qi was among those that paid tribute. “John Sessions was a panelist on...

U.K. commercial broadcaster ITV is restructuring its business as it struggles to weather the coronavirus pandemic. The company has laid out plans to pivot to a VOD focus, and reduce its physical footprint in London.

Variety understands the “Love Island” broadcaster informed staff of its plans via an internal vodcast on Monday afternoon, noting that it is “resetting the business” and will more keenly focus on its digital strategy. The broadcaster has been hard hit by the pandemic, revealing in August a 17% dip in both broadcast and production revenues to £824 million ($1.08 billion) and £630 million ($830 million), respectively. It’s believed the SVOD strategy is a 15-year plan that will be overseen by director of television Kevin Lygo.

Under the plan, ITV will establish a new Media and Entertainment division with two new business units: broadcast and on-demand.

Crucially, the on-demand business unit will be the focus of digital product development and growth for the broadcaster.

An ambitious original drama about Black Tudors living in 17th-century London is in the works for U.K. streamer BritBox.

Produced by ITV Studios-backed Silverprint Pictures, “Southwark” is in paid development for the BBC and ITV-backed SVOD platform. Set in the 1600s, the series will be written by novelist and screenwriter Catherine Johnson, best known for the 2004 Ashley Walters-fronted film “Bullet Boy.”

The story, which was inspired by Miranda Kaufmann’s historical book “Black Tudors,” will combine both factual and fictional characters as well as true events to reflect a different perspective of Tudor England.

The Tudor period technically spanned the late 1400s to early 1600s, and “Black Tudors” is set towards the end of the era, in 1600. Kaufmann’s book focuses on the stories of 10 Africans who came to England from Africa, Europe and the Spanish Caribbean and lived in England during the Tudor and Stuart times.