Latest news with #Suspect:TheShootingof
Daily Mirror
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Gavin and Stacey star told to give up acting career because of mystery illness
Gavin and Stacey star Laura Aikman revealed she was advised to change her job after she was diagnosed with an illness that made her 'very unwell' Gavin and Stacey star Laura Aikman revealed she was told to give up her acting career after she was struck down a mystery illness. The 39-year-old actress, known for playing Smithy's partner Sonia in the popular sitcom, struggled with painful symptoms for many years before she learned she had ulcerative colitis. Ulcerative colitis is a chronic autoimmune condition which causes inflammation and ulcers in the colon. Symptoms include recurring diarrhoea, stomach pain, needing to poo frequently as well as extreme fatigue and loss of appetite. In a recent interview, Laura revealed it took her a 'long time' before she was diagnosed and spent a long time 'very, very unwell'. She explained The Sun: "I'd been to the doctors a lot and they kept telling me that it was probably piles, without examining me, and giving me cream because I had blood in my stool. Nothing worked. "And then I went to a homeopath and she asked me all of these questions about when I'd been poorly and she was like, 'Listen, I've written out a timeline here of when you've not been working, and that is when you've been at your most unwell'." The actor was asked whether she would consider finding another career but insisted acting was her 'entire personality'. The stress from not working between acting roles ended up worsening her illness. Laura is now in a BBC gangster drama called This City is Ours. She also stars in Disney+'s Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes as Lana Vandenberghe. Last year, she reprised her role as Sonia in the Gavin and Stacey Christmas special. She was also in ITV's Archie, Joan and The Rising. The star previously discussed her role on This City Is Ours. The actress, whose surprise appearance as Smithy's bride in the Christmas Day special shocked the nation, stars as Rachel Duffy in BBC One 's drugs drama This City Is Ours. Filming on the big-budget series took place last year, at the same time as Laura was filming Gavin and Stacey. 'It was the year of the bitch,' laughs Laura. 'But they're great to play.' While pretentious Sonia was what Laura cheerfully called a 'rotter', Rachel is a much darker character, with ambitions to become a major player in Liverpool's dark drugs scene. It was a refreshing role for Laura, having spent much of her career playing romantic love interests. 'One of the first things I fell in love with about Rachel was that she never tries to make other people feel comfortable,' explained Laura earlier this year. 'We all have that tendency to laugh at a bad joke or fill silence but Rachel doesn't give a s**t. 'She's happy for everyone to get uncomfortable. She can be quite rude, she tells people what she thinks, she doesn't like new people but she's really smart, she's determined and she's ambitious.'
Daily Mirror
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
New Disney+ drama leaves fans 'speechless' as they brand it a 'must watch'
A new four-part drama has landed on Disney+, with many TV fans praising it as 'brilliant' and a 'must watch' Disney+'s latest drama, Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, has left viewers "speechless", with many hailing the series as "utterly brilliant". The show, which dropped on Disney+ on Wednesday (30th April), is being touted as a "must watch". Based on a true story, the four-part series delves into the tragic killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was fatally shot by police after being wrongly identified as a terrorist during the London 7/7 bombings. The series aims to provide a multi-faceted view of the tragedy, exploring how "memory - both accurate and distorted - can be turned into fact and shape our understanding of the truth". The official synopsis further reveals: "This second set of planned attacks fails, setting off one of the UK's largest-ever manhunts and sparking a covert surveillance operation. "As tension and uncertainty rises across the nation, a series of extraordinary events unfolds, leading to a critical misidentification. "Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent young Brazilian electrician on his way to work, is mistaken for a terrorist and shot dead at Stockwell station. What follows is a family's fight for justice and answers, and the long-fought struggle to bring clarity to a situation that is clouded by confusion, and silence." Edison Alcaide portrays Jean, while Conleth Hill stars as former Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair and Russell Tovey takes on the role of Blair's Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Brian Paddick, reports Surrey Live. The series boasts a stellar cast including Max Beesley, Emily Mortimer, Daniel Mays, Laura Aikman and Alex Jennings. Social media has been abuzz with viewers singing the drama's praises, with one fan posting: "Just watched #Suspect on Disney re #JeanCharlesDeMenendez killing. I'm speechless that Cressida Dick was not held accountable and at Sir Blair's actions, that both continued in Policing." Another hailed it as a "must watch", while a different viewer enthused: "Just watched all 4 episodes of Suspect The shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes on Disney. Up there with shows of the year for me! 10/10." "Started watching. It's breaking my heart. What an absolutely horrific situation for everyone. Glad the story is being told," commented another deeply moved fan.
Time Out
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
‘Suspect' writer Jeff Pope on his 7/7 drama: ‘I think that the Met still has questions to answer'
Londoners tend to remember where they were on 7/7. A coordinated series of suicide bombing attacks across the city's transport network – one of the biggest attacks on British soil since the Blitz – its traumatic aftermath lasted throughout the summer of 2005. For screenwriter Jeff Pope – at a primary school that day, helping his son with a project when the news came through – it wasn't the attack itself that piqued his interest, but what followed. Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes is Pope's gripping recreation of that tumultuous period in London's recent history. The four-part Disney+ drama is set in the aftermath of 7/7 and follows the lead-up to another, abortive Islamist attack on July 21, 2025, and the killing of an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes (played by Edison Alcaide). The Brazilian electrician was mistaken for a terrorist in a blundering Metropolitan Police operation and shot dead on a Victoria Line train at Stockwell Station a day later. At least, that's part of the story – and it's recreated in vivid, often upsetting detail. But for Pope, the plot thickened significantly in the ensuing days. The Met's top dogs, commissioner Ian Blair and the head of its counter-terrorist operation Cressida Dick, presided over a cover-up and a smear campaign against de Menezes. It was reported that he'd been acting suspiciously, wearing heavy clothing on a hot day and vaulting the barriers at the tube station. That he was a drug user who'd once committed sexual assault. It was, as Suspect explores, an attempt to gaslight an entire city – and it worked. To a point.'The second half of this miniseries is about [the Met] trying to tell us that what happened didn't happen,' says Pope. 'It has done a lot in its history to make us look the other way.' What was the starting point of this story for you? I didn't think about 7/7 in terms of a drama, because where was the drama? It was Islamic terrorists deciding to wreak havoc on the UK and that had been dealt with brilliantly in documentaries. When a producer friend of mine started to talk about John Charles, I had the same thought: (his killing) was an awful mistake, but it was kind of his fault because he jumped the barrier and ran down stairs, he behaved suspiciously and had bulky clothing on. But none of that happened – he didn't vault any barriers, he didn't run, he wasn't wearing any bulky clothing. As I started to dig into it, it wasn't what I remembered. I get that the Met was under a lot of pressure and was stretched like never before at that time, but the operation was poorly planned, poorly executed and it ended in the death of a completely innocent man. You show how misinformation could go viral even in the pre-Internet era. The idea that de Menezes vaulted the barriers seeped into our collective subconscious. Totally. If it happened now, the first thing people would do is get their phone out and film it. Most of the CCTV of Jean Charles on his way from his flat to the station has gone. There's a good explanation for [each of the things that have gone missing], but it's when you push it together again and again and again there's [a lot of] CCTV footage missing in the immediate post-7/7 era. We often think about the London Underground as a place of safety and refuge during the Blitz, and this show sort of turns that on its head. What was your relationship the location? I wrote a scene where there's an Asian guy on his way to work and everyone's looking at him. He turns the bag upside down and empties everything out: bag of crisps, laptop, and there's nothing in there. I vividly remember that feeling – of fear, because of what had happened, versus the politeness that we suffer from Londoners and as Brits. I remember how unfair it was for any Asian guy, God forbid, having a rucksack on the tube for years after 7/7. Like you say, in the war it was a place where Londoners could be safe, and that was turned on its head. The opening shows the aftermath of a 7/7 tube carriage. How did you recreate that? The design team were meticulous, and there were images that we could look at of the carriage that morning. It's very difficult to film in London – It's incredibly expensive and it's a huge city, so it's difficult to shut roads down and get into the tube system to shoot this stuff, but we were determined to make it as realistic as possible. I think that the Met still has questions to answer When you recreated the shattered bus from Tavistock Square, people complained that it showed disregard for the victims. How do you respond to that? We were in contact with victim support groups and we wrote to the 7/7 families a number of times to let them know what our plans were. We leafleted the area and told people what we were going to be filming. It's triggering, we get that, and we took our responsibilities to those affected by 7/7 very seriously, but it felt important to have that [shot] because it was the iconic image. The audience would look at that and know exactly where they were. Adolescence has recently shown the power of drama to start debates. Do you see Suspect as a live story that will make it back into news columns? I think the whole point of this series is that something went badly wrong at the Met that morning. In the 20 years, they've never properly owned up to that, and that is incredibly relevant now. In my opinion, something similar happened with the murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens. Ian Blair and Cressida both used the word 'regret' a lot in the aftermath of the death of John Charles. 'We regret what's happened.' Of course, you regret it – I'm sure his mother regrets it – but there's no culpability attached to regret. I think they still have questions to answer. A lot of young Londoners won't remember 7/7 and its aftermath. What do you hope they take away from Suspect? It's like my generation watching a Second World War movie – you're taken back to a time which is alien to you. It was dystopian: the entire city was locked down, everyone was scared to get on a tube train, and there were these bombers running amok. And beyond that, there are bigger themes around the truth. Because people weren't open and honest about what happened that day, it's been 20 years of agony for the de Menezes family. It's painful to them that people still think that he must have been a bit of a tearaway – he must have been involved in something. He was a young bloke, an electrician, an incredibly hard-working, completely regular guy, looked after his mum, and sent money home. He just wanted to go to work that day. He would have had no idea what was going on in the moments before his death. As a writer, what was it like to put yourself in his shoes in that moment? It haunts me. What I think happened is that he's sitting there wondering why the train is stuck at the station, then a bloke dressed in civvies bursts in and he's thinking, 'Who's this bloke? He's got a gun.' Bang. Police say that they shouted a warning – 'armed police!' – but 17 members of the public said they heard no warning. How did you go about avoiding any Four Lions comparisons with the terrorist characters? We did not want to reduce them to clichéd automatons – we wanted them to have a life and personalities. They go and play six-a side football. We took a lot of care with a scene where one of them is with his wife and they have three young boys. We tried to flesh them out so they weren't cartoon baddies. De Menezes was a young bloke and he just wanted to go to work that day One of the heroes of the story is police deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick, played by Russell Tovey. He stands up against the cover-up. Did you spend much time talking to him? I spent a lot of time with Brian. He's an inspirational figure in many respects: he was the first senior police officer to come out; he was borough commander when he called to legalise cannabis; and he's a man who is really interested in the truth. I hadn't realised this but Russell, who's also gay, idolised Brian. He was a massive help to us. We asked to speak to Ian Blair and Cressida Dick, but they declined. What do you want people to take from Suspect? I hope they get angry. Anger is an energy. Look at Mr Bates vs The Post Office, look at Adolescence – we want to wrestle with stuff. It's in our psyche more than just about any other country I can think of.
Irish Times
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes review - Horribly riveting retelling of police killing an innocent man
There is a proud tradition of British television shining a spotlight on recent history and confronting subjects powerful people would rather remain hidden. That isn't at all the case in Ireland, where our TV dramatists are merrily uncurious about the sins of the Catholic Church , the crimes of politicians or the blackening of the reputations of those with the temerity to confront the status quo. Given the choice between speaking truth to power or another round of cops and robbers, Irish TV will pick the latter 11 times out of 10. But it doesn't have to be that way, as demonstrated by Jeff Pope's Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes ( Disney + from Wednesday) – a scripted interrogation of the July 7th, 2005, terrorist attacks in London and the subsequent shooting of innocent Brazilian electrician John Charles de Menezes by trigger-happy police. The first three of four episodes are horribly riveting, while the final instalment gets bogged down in frustrating red tape as the family of the innocent de Menezes seek justice and are rebuffed at every turn. Above all, it is a maddening indictment of the wickedness of institutional power. It is baldly stated that many senior figures in the London Metropolitan Police were aware from early on that the force had shot an entirely innocent man who had done nothing more suspicious than leave his rented accommodation and take the underground on his way to work. But rather than admit they had got it wrong, they obfuscated. Worse yet, their blank denials were followed by attempts to blacken the victim's reputation and to punish a whistleblower who had leaked the truth to ITV . The searing series is also honest about the terrible crimes of the Islamists who claimed 52 lives with their co-ordinated attacks on London public transport and of the copycat extremists who attempted further bombings on July 21st. It was in during the frantic manhunt for these bombers that de Menezes was wrongly identified as a suspect. The scene in which plainclothes officers rush a train and, without warning, shoot him multiple times at point-blank range is distressing – as it should be. READ MORE Pope has previously delved into Jimmy Savile's evil deeds in the uneven Steve Coogan vehicle The Reckoning , which was unflinching about Savile's crimes while also enjoying the 1970s nostalgia a bit too conspicuously. There are no such errors of judgment here, and Suspect pulls few punches in depicting the police as unprofessional and reactionary. Edison Alcaide plays de Menezes as a normal person getting on with life; Emily Mortimer is brilliantly brittle as future police commissioner Cressida Dick . Best of all is Antrim -born Conleth Hill as Ian Blair, the stuffed shirt head of the police at the time of the killing. It is indeed a rich irony that an Irishman should play the senior figure in a British police force accused of stitching up an innocent man in the wake of a terrorist attack. If only Irish drama displayed the same willingness to unpack our own scandals and dark secrets – rather than looking down on TV as an idiot box that serves no useful purpose beyond passing the time.
New Statesman
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes brings horror flooding back
Photo by Stefania Rosini/Disney+ Jeff Pope's meticulous drama Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes would be a harrowing watch wherever you were in July 2005. But if you happened then to be living or working in London, I must warn you that it brings it all flooding back: the shock, the horror, the fear; the sudden mistrust we all carried with us whenever we travelled by Tube or bus. Those dread-filled weeks. The bombings on 7 July, in which 52 people died and more than 700 were injured. The failed bombings on 21 July (this time, only the terrorists' detonators exploded). The shooting by the police of an innocent, young Brazilian electrician called Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Underground station on 22 July. In the past, I haven't always been kind about Pope's work: The Reckoning, the 2023 drama he produced about Jimmy Savile, was, for me, loathsome. But Suspect is brilliantly done, a piece that smoothly dispenses with certain myths even as it delivers what will be new information to some. How attentive it is to all those who were involved. Until now, I was unaware of the quiet bravery of Lana Vandenberghe (Laura Aikman), a Canadian secretary at the Independent Police Complaints Commission, who acted as a whistleblower when it became apparent that what the public was being told about De Menezes's death was contrary to the evidence the IPCC had gathered. There are four parts, the first two of which are devoted to the bombings – a reminder of the highly febrile atmosphere in which the Metropolitan Police were working. So much is happening. In a tunnel, Cliff Todd (Daniel Mays), a forensic officer, is dealing with 40-degree heat and thousands of body parts. In Whitehall, politicians are holding Cobra meetings and panicking. At New Scotland Yard, Commissioner Ian Blair (Conleth Hill), Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick (Russell Tovey) and the head of the Anti-Terrorist Branch, Andy Hayman (Max Beesley), are running the biggest investigation of their lives. De Menezes is, at this point, a peripheral, happy-go-lucky figure; we see him working, we see him eating toast. He doesn't know – he will never know – that he lives in the same building in Tulse Hill as Osman Hussain, one of the perpetrators of the failed attacks of 21 July. Pope must have read hundreds of documents before he went to his desk. His minute-by-minute depiction, in the third episode, of how De Menezes came to be mistaken for Hussain, and of the lies that were told about this afterwards, is unmuddied, dramatic enough in itself to need no writerly embellishment; ditto his reconstruction, in the fourth episode, of the 2008 inquest into De Menezes' death (though the sight of Alex Jennings as Michael Mansfield KC in a long grey wig does briefly threaten the solemnity). But elsewhere, Pope can't resist getting into character, making much of the difficult relationship between Blair and Paddick (the latter is appalled by Blair's handling of events, the way he rushes to make statements before he's in possession of the facts) – and here I wonder slightly at Paul Andrew Williams's direction. Procedural obfuscation doesn't always announce itself loudly, as if it was arriving at a party. Hill makes Blair not only seem like a fool, but a ridiculously camp one at that, his pomposity threatening to bust the buttons of his uniform at moments. I much prefer the portrait of Cressida Dick (Emily Mortimer), the commander of the surveillance operation that led to the killing of De Menezes: her implacability, her sophistry, her refusal to admit to mistakes. In the end, though, this is the definition of an ensemble piece: James Nelson-Joyce, the star of the BBC's This City Is Ours, plays a firearms officer, and has about three lines. I don't know if the cast were motivated by any cause, but the result, generous and committed, not only pays tribute to De Menezes, and the shameful circumstances of his death; this is also 'J'accuse', on a scale both subtle and grand. No officer ever faced charges for his killing. The Metropolitan Police was merely fined £175,000 for breaching health and safety rules. Dick rose to become its commissioner. Blair (like Paddick) sits in the House of Lords, where the lunches are subsidised, and the recent past is a land only dimly recalled. Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes Disney+ Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe [See also: Louis Theroux: The Settlers is a deathly warning] Related
