Mary Macnamara: Last News

Billy Ray, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director and producer who has used his downtime during the Hollywood labor strife between shifts on the picket lines to turn Strike Talk into a tour de force that has demystified the issues and explained the inflection point that made this standoff unavoidable, this week strikes his most hopeful tone in the 21 podcasts he has done so far.

I had just arrived at a small dinner party several years ago when a surprise guest, Johnny Carson, seated himself across from me and promptly invoked the dreaded “L” word. “We haven’t met before, so I should explain that I’m not a very ‘likable’ dinner companion,” he advised. “I’m paid to be entertaining on TV but dinner is a ‘no laugh’ zone.”

Good Morning Britain co-star Piers Morgan last week, in scenes which later led to the latter quitting the show.The weather presenter has since been praised in America for coming to the defence of a woman who was, in his own words, being “trashed” by the former GMB host.“Can we all stop talking about Piers Morgan and start talking about Alex Beresford?” a journalist for the Los Angeles Times wrote last week.The culture columnist said that Alex had “come out of nowhere” and offered a “genuinely courageous and emphatic opinion”, during the row over Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.Mary McNamara said he we was “remarkably brave” to highlight the rift between Piers and the Duchess of Sussex on camera.“He’s the guy

Alex Beresford has rocketed to overnight fame in America after he called out Piers Morgan live on air.