Latest news with #CeliaImrie
Geek Girl Authority
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Girl Authority
Underrated Horror Movie of the Month: MALEVOLENT
Hello, horrorphiles! It is time, once again, to feature a fantastic film in Underrated Horror Movie of the Month. If you are new to the column, here's the scoop. On the second and fourth Friday of every month, I talk about a horror movie I feel is underrated and underloved. I am talking about the 2018 Netflix film Malevolent in today's edition. Stick around to see why I think this movie deserves more love. About Malevolent Brother and sister, Jackson (Ben Lloyd-Hughes) and Angela (Florence Pugh), run a phony paranormal investigation business. Together, they swindle grieving individuals into believing they are convincing their deceased loved ones to move on. Eventually, they take on a case that will change everything. As part of the ruse, Angela pretends to have a psychic ability that allows her to hear and communicate with the dead. During one 'investigation,' Angela sees something she can't explain, something no one else saw. After this incident, she begins experiencing more strange occurrences. Jackson takes on a big project featuring an old foster home where several children were brutally murdered, and everything goes downhill. RELATED: Underrated Horror Movie of the Month: White Noise As Angela learns more about the house's history and experiences the supernatural at an increasing rate, terrible events unfold. Are the issues ghosts from the past or flesh and blood haunting the present? Malevolent also stars Celia Imrie, Georgina Bevan, Scott Chambers and Steven McCole. Olaf de Fleur Johannesson directed, and Ben Ketai and Eva Konstantopoulos wrote the screenplay. This film has a 58 percent Tomatometer Score and a 17 percent Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes. My Thoughts The story is, admittedly, a bit predictable. However, there is a twist at the end that I found enjoyable. A hefty part of the plot is outlined in the premise. This fact does not eliminate the ability to anticipate what is coming. My thought is that a story worth telling is worth watching, even if you know what will happen. Even with the predictability, the storytelling, atmosphere and acting are worth watching. Along the same train of thought, the dialogue fits the tale nicely. It flows naturally and provides vital information about each character. It is easy to envision the conversations occurring outside of a television screen. RELATED: Horror With a Side of Cheese: Killer Klowns from Outer Space All of the actors did an admirable job on Malevolent . My least favorite character is Jackson, and I am unsure if it is the actor or how the character is written. Perhaps it is a bit of both. As always, Florence Pugh hits all of the nuances required of the character. Her terror from experiencing the supernatural is palpable, and her interactions with other characters are spot-on. The atmosphere is incredible; an edge-of-your-seat creepiness oozes from every scene. There are a few jump scares, but it is easy to see them coming if you are a horror lover. Nevertheless, eeriness prevails, and I found myself completely engaged throughout the film. Additionally, the sets are incredible and lend to the overall creep factor. RELATED: Geek Girl Authority Crush of the Week: Annie Sawyer My biggest complaint with Malevolent is that many scenes are pretty dark. I understand this is necessary given how the setting is portrayed, but it is difficult to fully appreciate smaller details when everything is so dark. Final Thoughts Alright, horror fans, that's another underrated horror movie in the books! Do I think this film is going to win awards for originality? No, but it is a fun and intriguing watch worth the time and effort. Malevolent is streaming on Netflix and is easily one of my favorite horror movies the platform has produced. Had I not already known this is a low-budget film, I would never have guessed. Have you seen this movie? Let me know in the comments. Also, tell me which movie you think I should feature next. Until next time, stay spooky and fabulous! Check out Malevolent 's trailer below before you go. BRING HER BACK Spoiler Review RELATED: Cecilia Lee on the Wild Ride That Is FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN
The Guardian
04-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Julie Etchingham ends Garrick Club application after drawn-out process
Julie Etchingham has withdrawn her candidacy to join the Garrick Club, uncomfortable with the protracted process of being vetted by the London club's membership of 1,500 men. The broadcast journalist said she would not comment on her decision, but she is understood to have been uneasy at the level of hostility displayed by men opposed to the admission of women during a candidacy lunch at the club, when members have the opportunity to question prospective members. One member said he understood that with 'hardly any women being elected, it is very uncomfortable to walk into a room full of men scrutinising (and ogling) you'. Only three women have been admitted in the year since members decided to drop the club's men-only rule last May, 193 years after the club was founded. The comedian Matt Lucas was one of six men elected last month alongside one woman, Celia Imrie, who joins fellow actors Judi Dench and Siân Phillips, named as members last year. Several women from the first batch of female nominees for membership have expressed frustration at the club's 'half-hearted' steps towards admitting women. After decades of internal wrangling over the issue, 60% of members voted last May to confirm that women could be admitted to the club. But none of the seven women nominated as prospective candidates last year, all of whom occupy senior roles in journalism, law or academia, have yet been voted in as members. One woman whose candidacy is being considered by the club described the vote to admit women as a cynical public relations gambit, designed to allow the club to continue functioning quietly as essentially a men-only club. She said she found the vetting process absurd. 'We're all being made to feel we need to beg to join; most of us don't give a toss whether we join or not and think they should be making every effort to persuade us,' she said, asking not to be named to avoid alienating her sponsors at the club. She said it was clear that men who opposed women's membership were continuing to fight against the swift admission of women. 'It's frankly ridiculous and embarrassing. What are they scared of?' The actor Juliet Stevenson said she had heard nothing further from the club since she received a phone call from a member early in 2024 asking her if she would like to be nominated. She was uncertain about whether her candidacy had been dropped. 'I was asked if my name could be cited as a potential candidate and I agreed, but since then I've heard nothing more,' she said. 'I haven't set foot in the place. It wouldn't surprise me if they've decided they don't want a troublemaker like me in there.' One recent visitor to the club said the vote to admit women had had no impact on the atmosphere there, with just two women in a dining room full of approximately 50 men. A cohort of men who remain opposed to the rule change have set up a WhatsApp group named Status Quo where they continue to protest against the admission of women. The classicist Mary Beard, the former home secretary Amber Rudd, the Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman and the Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika were among the first nominees to join the club, along with Stevenson, Margaret Casely-Hayford, who was chair of Shakespeare's Globe and was chancellor of Coventry University until last year, and Elizabeth Gloster, a former appeal court judge. None of them have yet been approved for membership. Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Another female prospective candidate said she understood that there was a 'dead man's shoes' element to the process of becoming a member (new members can only be appointed when old members die) but she hoped that the club would soon vote in some female lawyers, to balance the high concentration of senior barristers, judges and solicitors at the club. The club has consistently said it would not fast-track female members, stressing that women may have to wait three or four years for approval. 'It would be a helpful change if they brought in some female members of the legal profession; it would demonstrate the keenness of members to modernise themselves,' she said. A string of high-profile names resigned from the Garrick last year after the Guardian published a long list of senior figures from the civil service, politics, the arts and the judiciary who were members of a club that had repeatedly blocked the admission of women since the 1960s. Listed alongside the king were the then deputy prime minister, dozens of members of the House of Lords and 10 MPs, as well as heads of influential thinktanks, law firms and private equity companies, academics, senior journalists, the head of the Royal Opera House and the head of the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The head of the MI6, Richard Moore, and the then head of the civil service resigned from the club after deciding that membership was incompatible with their organisations' commitment to improving diversity. Several judges also left the club. The Garrick club did not respond to a request for comment.
UPI
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- UPI
Watch: Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan investigate in 'Thursday Murder Club'
1 of 4 | Celia Imrie, Sir Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan star in "Thursday Murder Club." Photo by Giles Keyte/Netflix May 29 (UPI) -- Netflix is teasing The Thursday Murder Club starring Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan. The actors, who also star opposite one another in MobLand, portray retirees Elizabeth and Ron, who enjoy solving cold cases alongside Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley) and Joyce (Celia Imrie). The film takes its inspiration from Richard Osman's 2020 book, and follows the group as "their casual sleuthing takes a thrilling turn when they find themselves with a real whodunit on their hands," according to an official synopsis. "There's been a murder, an actual murder," Joyce says in the trailer released Thursday. "Now we've got a real case to solve. Isn't it wonderful? Obviously, RIP and all that." Chris Columbus, known for his work on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, directs the film. "This is the finest cast I've worked with since Potter," he told Netflix's Tudum. "They're just so incredibly well-prepared, and it's because they do everything. They do theater, they do television, they do film, and they've developed those sorts of muscles." "Thematically it's interesting that we've got four elderly people who are living in a retirement community and who are fascinated by death and murder," he said. "They are facing their own demise, yet at the same time they are obsessed with studying cold cases. I fell in love thematically with that. It's comedic, but it's also very emotional." Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Tom Ellis, Jonathan Pryce, David Tennant, Paul Freeman, Geoff Bell, Richard E. Grant and Ingrid Oliver also star in the film, which arrives on Netflix Aug. 28.
Edinburgh Live
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Live
Celebrity Traitors' Celia Imrie suffered ‘horrific' treatment in doctor's ‘sleep room'
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 Former patients of psychiatrist William Sargant have revealed the horrifying treatment they received at a renowned London hospital. Author Jon Stock has collected stories from several of Sargant's victims, including well-known actress and star of 'Celebrity Traitors', Celia Imrie. Speaking to the Mirror, Jon said that a majority of the people subjected to Sargant's cruel "Sleep Room" therapies were women and young girls. The troubling revelations include Sargant's preference for lobotomising unhappily-married women, rather than allowing them to go through with divorce. Sargant justified his disturbing stance by saying: "A depressed woman, for instance, may owe her illness to a psychopathic husband who cannot change and will not accept treatment. Separation might be the answer, but... we have seen patients enabled by a [lobotomy] to return to the difficult environment and cope with it in a way which had hitherto been impossible." (Image: Hilary Stock) The unethical doctor went as far as humiliating his female patients by having them parade nearly-nude before audiences of medical students. Amongst those mistreated by Sargant is acclaimed actress Celia Imrie, whose credits include hits like 'Bridget Jones's Diary' and 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'. She is set to appear again on television screens in the BBC's 'Celebrity Traitors'. Imrie confided to Jon about developing an eating disorder during her youth after being labelled "too big" to realise her ambition of becoming a ballet dancer. (Image: GL Weekend) She detailed her extreme efforts to lose weight, stating: "I worked out every means possible to dispose of food, determined to get 'small' enough to be a dancer, and I was soon little more than a carcass with skin." Her experience under the care of Sargant was disturbing, as she recounted: "The side effects were startling. My hands shook uncontrollably for most of the day, and I'd wake up to find clumps of my hair on the pillow." Celia described the harrowing ordeal: "But the worst consequence was that everything I saw was in double vision. When Sargant came into the room, there were two of him. It was horrific and terrifying." She further explained the treatment's impact: "Even simple tasks such as picking up a glass of water became impossible. I was injected with insulin every day too. Sargant was a big believer in fattening up his patients to get them well and you soon put on weight with insulin. "I think I had what was called 'sub-coma shock treatment'– you weren't given enough insulin to induce a hypoglycaemic coma, but it was enough to make you drowsy, weak, sweaty and hungry." She added: "I will never know for sure if I was given electric shocks during my stay," due to missing medical records, a situation Celia blames on Sargant: "Some years back, I tried to find my hospital records, to see the details of my treatment. Unfortunately, Sargant seems to have taken away a lot of his patients' records, including mine, when he retired from the NHS in 1972." (Image: Alamy Stock Photo) She concluded with lingering doubts, expressing: "Either that, or they were destroyed. I can't remember ECT happening to me, but I can remember it happening to others." Sargant's methods were brutal and included electroshock therapy. "I vividly recall every sight, sound and smell," Celia remembered. "The huge rubber plug jammed between her teeth; the strange almost silent cry, like a sigh of pain, she made as her tormented body shuddered and jerked; the scent of burning hair and flesh. It was a terrible thing for a fourteen-year-old to witness." (Image: Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Women were placed in Sargant's care for the most trivial of reasons. Jon told the Mirror that patient Mary Thornton was admitted to The Sleep Room after her parents suspected she was having a romance with an "inappropriate" boy. She told Jon that she also only has patchy memories of her treatment: "One is of the electrodes being attached to the side of my head. I remember the complete, utter terror because I didn't even know who I was." Jon says this was a common reason for young women's hospitalisation: "In the mid 1960s, for example, a wealthy businessman contacted Sargant, explaining that his daughter had fallen in love with an "unsuitable" local man in Europe and wanted to marry him." Sargant was tasked with curing the young girl's love-struck "madness." He explains: "A photo later emerged of Sargant, the father and a heavily sedated daughter standing at the door of the aeroplane that had returned her to the UK." A former student at the hospital told Jon: "Basically, Sargant brought this attractive young woman back at the end of a needle." Rumours link Sargant to the CIA's infamous MK Ultra "mind control" programme, with speculation that the US spy agency may have funded some of his work. Jon states: " The minutes of St Thomas' Research Advisory Committee meeting reveal that in September 1963, Sargant announced that an anonymous donor would fund the salary of a research registrar (£80,000 a year in today's money) for two years. Sargant refused to reveal the donor's identity." (Image: Chris Floyd) Jon confirms that Sargant did have ties to the intelligence community, stating: "Sargant did regular work for MI5 – in 1967, for example, he was called in to assess the mental health of Vladimir Tkachenko, a suspected Russian defector." However, Jon admits that proving Sargant's association with the CIA is one of the most challenging aspects of the story. One former serviceman, Eric Gow, who participated in drug trials under the impression he was helping to cure the common cold, reported being given massive doses of LSD. Jon says that Gow claims to recall seeing Sargant overseeing some of these experiments at the MOD's chemical and biological research facility at Porton Down. The Sleep Room: A Very British Medical Scandal by Jon Stock is published by the Bridge Street Press (£25).
Wales Online
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Celebrity Traitors star opens up on ‘coma shock treatment' at hands of cruel doctor
Celebrity Traitors star opens up on 'coma shock treatment' at hands of cruel doctor Celia Imrie, who is set to appear in the BBC's upcoming Celebrity Traitors series, was subjected to a series of cruel treatments at the hands of psychiatrist William Sargant - including being put into a 'sub-coma' Celia Imrie was one of many young women entrusted to the care of psychiatrist William Sargant (Image: Karwai Tang, WireImagevia Getty Images ) Former patients of a secure psychiatric ward at a prominent London hospital have come forward to share the traumatic experiences they endured under the care of psychiatrist William Sargant, who subjected them to inhumane and unethical treatments. For his new book, The Sleep Room, author Jon Stock spoke with several of Sargant's victims, including actress Celia Imrie, known for her roles in films such as Bridget Jones's Diary and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as well as her upcoming appearance in the BBC's Celebrity Traitors. A disturbing pattern emerged, revealing that the majority of Sargant's patients in the notorious "Sleep Room" were women and young girls. In some cases, Sargant even recommended lobotomies as a solution for unhappy wives, rather than suggesting divorce or separation. His twisted rationale was that this drastic procedure would enable them to cope with their difficult circumstances. Jon Stock spoke to several of Sargant's former patients (Image: Hilary Stock ) Sargant's blatant disregard for his female patients' dignity and well-being was exemplified by his practice of parading them, semi-naked, in front of rooms filled with medical students. Celia Imrie, who was also under Sargant's care, told Jon how she had developed an eating disorder as a young girl, after being told she was "too big" to pursue her dream of becoming a ballet dancer. She recalled: "I worked out every means possible to dispose of food, determined to get 'small' enough to be a dancer, and I was soon little more than a carcass with skin." Article continues below She found herself under the care of Sargant. Celia shared: "The side effects were startling. My hands shook uncontrollably for most of the day, and I'd wake up to find clumps of my hair on the pillow." Celia Imrie says that all records of her treatment have mysteriously vanished (Image: GL Weekend ) Celia said that one of the most disturbing side-effects of Sargant's treatment was that everything she saw was in double vision: "When Sargant came into the room, there were two of him. It was horrific and terrifying. "Even simple tasks such as picking up a glass of water became impossible. I was injected with insulin every day too. Sargant was a big believer in fattening up his patients to get them well and you soon put on weight with insulin. I think I had what was called 'sub-coma shock treatment'– you weren't given enough insulin to induce a hypoglycaemic coma, but it was enough to make you drowsy, weak, sweaty and hungry. "I will never know for sure if I was given electric shocks during my stay," Celia added. "Some years back, I tried to find my hospital records, to see the details of my treatment. Unfortunately, Sargant seems to have taken away a lot of his patients' records, including mine, when he retired from the NHS in 1972. "Either that, or they were destroyed. I can't remember ECT happening to me, but I can remember it happening to others." Celie is one of the stars in line for the BBC's Celebrity Traitors Sargant's brutal methods included frequent electroshock treatments. Celia recounted the harrowing experience, "I vividly recall every sight, sound and smell," describing the distressing scene she witnessed at just 14-years-old. Women were entrusted to Sargant for the most trivial of reasons. Jon revealed to the Mirror a case where patient Mary Thornton was placed in The Sleep Room because her parents disapproved of her relationship with an "unsuitable" boy. She shared with Jon her fragmented memories: "One is of the electrodes being attached to the side of my head. I remember the complete, utter terror because I didn't even know who I was." Many of the records of Sargant's work at the Royal Waterloo have been lost (Image: Universal Images Group via Getty Images ) Jon noted that this was often the reason for young women being admitted to the hospital: "In the mid 1960s, for example, a wealthy businessman contacted Sargant, explaining that his daughter had fallen in love with an 'unsuitable' local man in Europe and wanted to marry him." Sargant was tasked with treating the girl's infatuation, which was seen as insanity. He detailed, "A photo later emerged of Sargant, the father and a heavily sedated daughter standing at the door of the aeroplane that had returned her to the UK." A former student at the hospital told Jon about the incident: "Basically, Sargant brought this attractive young woman back at the end of a needle." Sargant himself underwent psychiatric treatment earlier in his life (Image: Alamy Stock Photo ) It has even been claimed that Sargant may have had ties to the CIA's infamous MK Ultra "mind control" programme. According to Jon, there are whispers that the US spy agency may have provided funding for some of Sargant's work. Jon explains: "The minutes of St Thomas' Research Advisory Committee meeting reveal that in September 1963, Sargant announced that an anonymous donor would fund the salary of a research registrar (£80,000 a year in today's money) for two years. Sargant refused to reveal the donor's identity." Jon confirms that Sargant did have links to the intelligence community, stating: "Sargant did regular work for MI5 – in 1967, for example, he was called in to assess the mental health of Vladimir Tkachenko, a suspected Russian defector." Article continues below He also admits that solid proof of Sargant's association with the CIA is hard to find. However, he notes that Eric Gow, a former serviceman who participated in drug trials under the guise of helping to cure the common cold, was administered large doses of LSD. Jon believes that Gow may have seen Sargant overseeing some of these experiments at the MOD's chemical and biological research facility at Porton Down. The Sleep Room: A Very British Medical Scandal by Jon Stock is published by the Bridge Street Press (£25).
