Bala's Palé Hall launches art programme with solo exhibition
Palé Hall (https://www.palehallfineartandantiques.co.uk/) will also be opening a pottery studio with classes later this year and has invested in a sculpture trail in the beautiful and extensive gardens which have been redesigned by noted New Zealand-born landscape designer Anthony Paul.
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The Guardian
30 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure review – Mr Blobby meets crystal healing in this ‘rocking' TV return
He's the same! He's the same! Noel Edmonds is the same! Even if he wasn't quite your cup of tea back in the day, I promise you'll be happy to see him. Fixed points in a universe changing unstoppably for the worse have that effect on you. Edmonds bestrode the world of 80s and 90s light entertainment like a Tiggerish colossus, presenting everything from Top of the Pops to Multi-Coloured Swap Shop to Telly Addicts – oh, how well I remember watching the latter as a woman proposed to her boyfriend and how beautifully Noel covered the deafening silence where the horrified man's acceptance was supposed to go – to Noel's House Party (let us hope Mr Blobby is ageing as well as his mentor), and more, including his last big hit Deal Or No Deal. He became a bit of a laughing stock when he tried to share with the world his discovery, via his reflexologist, of cosmic ordering (an iteration of positive thinking woowoo) but never – I think at this point uniquely among his peers – coming a vilely scandalous cropper at any stage. He was last seen on our screens being voted off 2018's I'm a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here. After that, he used some of the money restored to him after he won a huge case against bankers who had deliberately bankrupted his company group to buy an 800-acre estate in New Zealand and relocate there with his wife ('my earth angel') Liz. Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure marks his return to television and chronicles their life running what he hopes will become a popular retreat, complete with vineyard, watering hole the Bugger Inn, spectacularly good views and spectacularly bad puns. 'I am rocking!' he says, and is eager to share with us the secrets of his youthful mien; 'tranquil power' workouts in the gym, crystal healing (vibrations at 5-8Hz, obviously, or it doesn't work), structural water (post-electromagnetised, in case you are not au fait), twice weekly stints in a hyperbaric chamber, and a big statue in the garden that watches over him. 'All we are is body energy systems,' he … is 'explains' the word? 'They touch everything around us. Which is how you move into the bigger matrix, the universal energy system.' You know what? I loved Noel's House Party. And nothing has ever made me cry happier tears than Noel's Christmas Presents, perfectly-pitched every year on the side of 'warm glow' rather than 'mawkish sentiment'. He's earned this. He remains unassailably himself – emotional, childlike, open (the curiosity/credulousness that lets you embrace cosmic ordering is also what allows you to connect with people and find something interesting about them all), confident and professional. The last isn't an add-on but a part of what made him great. As he puts it at one point, he worked hard and took it seriously. He has an old-school respect for his audience and isn't about to let them down. To watch him now is to be reminded how much contempt there is threaded through our entertainment, our culture now and what we have been reconditioned to accept as the norm. He also remains unafraid of the long march towards a terrible joke, as attested by the scene in which he lowers himself into a cold plunge bath. 'It should have been three degrees! Because when will I see them – Mr Happy and the twins! – again?' If you were anything other than a wholly committed hater of the man before, you will follow him just as willingly as you did decades ago, this time through bad Kiwi weather instead of ill-fated proposals, money troubles instead of swaps, and chaos caused by tabloids instead of Mr Blobby (though we are promised a visit from the latter). When the estate reopens for the season, a local customer is asked for his opinion on the new landlord. 'Seems like a good bugger,' he replies. So he does, so he does. Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure airs on ITV1 on 20 June and ITVX.
Times
4 hours ago
- Times
Noel Edmonds is back — and it's pure Alan Partridge meets David Brent
Aah, Noel Edmonds, Noel Edmonds. Have you not all missed our cosmic pixie who once asked a man if he thought his cancer was caused by his 'negative attitude' and whose pet name for his genitals is 'Mr Happy and the Twins'? No? Fair enough; me neither. But I'll say this about Mr Light Entertainment, a man who believes you can 'ask' the universe for things, like a heavenly Evri parcel service. His comeback TV show is extraordinary. But possibly not in the way he intended. Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure confirms that Edmonds is essentially David Brent and Alan Partridge melded into the one body, with a dash of Colin Hunt from The Fast Show. He works very hard at being 'a character'. He is like a sun-kissed lion with blond highlights who is enormously pleased with himself. But who very much wants to be liked.
Telegraph
4 hours ago
- Telegraph
Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure has more in common with Meghan Markle than Jeremy Clarkson
Never one to knowingly undersell himself, Noel Edmonds has been busily promoting his show as the new Clarkson's Farm. Having watched it all, I can tell you that this would only be true if Jeremy Clarkson abandoned all self-knowledge and spent every episode behaving like a complete prat, while sharing a shedload of pseudo-scientific woo-woo. Clarkson's Farm vs Noel's Funny Farm. There's really no contest. Edmonds upped sticks several years ago for a new life in New Zealand, where he has spent tens of millions of dollars on an 800-acre estate called River Haven. It boasts – 'boasts' being an appropriate word to use in the Noel-sphere – a vineyard, restaurant, wellness centre and a pub named The Bugger Inn. At one point he suggests taking on Clarkson in a pub quiz: 'I quite fancy The Bugger Inn taking on Diddly Squat. We'd wipe 'em out.' But however much he tries to copy elements of Clarkson's show, from farmyard sidekicks to messing around with heavy machinery, Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure actually occupies the midpoint between With Love, Meghan and Castaway with Phillip Schofield. Which is to say that it mixes prettily shot lifestyle nonsense with a transparent yearning to reclaim the affections of the British public and a determination to address perceived slights. Like Castaway, it is revealing in ways that the subject never intended. Before we get into the psychology of the thing, though, let's explore Edmonds' health regimen. The show opens with him having a cold shower in his garden, which he tells us is one of the six components of his lifestyle formula. He's undeniably in great shape for a 76-year-old, so maybe we should all give it a try. Eating well and exercising seem pretty standard, even if he refers to the exercising as 'tranquil power' (this just means using an exercise machine quite slowly, as far as I can tell). Then things get a little more mad. Edmonds has thrice-weekly stints in a hyperbaric chamber with an oxygen tube up his nose, and lies on a bed below what look like a row of cheap Christmas lights but are apparently quartz crystals surrounded with something called 'orgone' which help him to connect with 'the bigger matrix, the universal energy system'. Mm-hmm. He 'VIBEs', which stands for 'visualisation of body energy'. Then there's the 'structured water', which is somehow magnetised and 'doesn't have to process through your liver, kidneys and all that other malarkey'. Edmonds thinks he knows a lot about science. 'Why, at the point of what some people call death but I call departure, why does the body weigh less than it did when it had life? And that is a scientific fact.' Well, it isn't, but Edmonds believes it's because your soul has left your body. The best thing that Edmonds has going for him is his wife, Liz, a former make-up artist on Deal or No Deal, whom he dubs his 'earth angel'. This is the one crossover with Clarkson's Farm – Liz even looks like Lisa, Clarkson's other half. They met (in 2007) at six minutes past 11, and so the clocks in their house are perpetually set to that time as a reminder of their love. This seems a little… intense. Edmonds, a good TV presenter and a great creative mind in his day, is at pains to come across as warm, self-deprecating and brimming with humour. He taps into the zaniness that was his calling card on Noel's House Party. But there are hints of brittleness and an Alan Partridge self-regard. He has commissioned the props studio behind Lord of the Rings to make a giant sculpture of a knight which commemorates his victory in a financial case against HBOS. When an employee says they were together in a past life, Edmonds seems rather worried that the employee might have been above him in the pecking order back in Ancient Rome. He goes on about his partnership with Liz but refers to their 50:50 efforts as the work of 'Team Noel'. There is a brief reference at the outset to the fact that his arrival wasn't universally welcomed by the locals. 'There were a few people not being very kind,' he says, but glosses over it. When he relaunches his pub, the crowds seem quite sparse – in contrast with the queues at Diddly Squat – but it's unclear whether that is down to a likeability gap between him and Clarkson, or because River Haven appears to be in the middle of nowhere. Don't expect an honest, fly-on-the-wall documentary. Check the credits and you'll see that the 'series consultant' on the show is, um, Noel Edmonds.
