Your final Heyday Friday newsletter of the year

A last blast of fun and entertainment for 2023. Enjoy!

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No blog to tell you about this week, and a somewhat truncated newsletter, but hopefully one that will bring you a welcome helping of festive cheer nonetheless. Not least from those spectacular Christmas lights in Covent Garden above.

Here’s a starter from the great American actor and comedian Milton Berle, which picks up on the theme of last week’s

FRIDAY FUNNY

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FOR YOUR END OF YEAR ENTERTAINMENT PLEASURE….

…WATCH

Bad Sisters is bonkers in the best possible way. A dark comedy thriller that will have you more than rooting for the tight knit band of Garvey sisters, headed by series creator and executive producer, the ridiculously multi-talented Sharon Horgan, as they attempt to murder their odious brother-in-law in ever more outlandish and grisly ways.

It’s no spoiler to know that the ghastly John Paul does end up dead - the series begins with his funeral. And I’m certainly not about to give away any of the wildly entertaining twists and turns the plot takes over the following nine episodes as the time line shifts backwards and forwards (using quite the best screen device to keep you on track that I’ve ever seen).

I’ll just say that in amongst all the black humour and dastardly deeds, there’s powerfully believable family love and loyalty, not just between the five Garvey siblings, but in a quite different way between the insurance broker brothers who sense something is amiss in John Paul’s untimely demise and who, for reasons that become painfully clear, are desperate to avoid paying out on his life insurance policy and so embark on an almost cartoonishly inept investigation of their own into the circumstances of his death.

If you need any more encouragement to watch this memorably marvellous series, then perhaps the almighty twist it serves up towards the end might be it. Or that in amongst the uniformly note perfect performances is one by Eve Hewson as wayward youngest Garvey sister, Beka, who happens to be the daughter of none other than Bono.

You can watch BAD SISTERS on AppleTV

And see the trailer HERE

…AND

There’s bonkersness of an entirely different sort in this jaw-droppingly riveting 3-part BBC 2 documentary, filmed over no less than six years, following the project to add a five storey basement and four extra floors on top of one of the world’s most luxurious hotel, Claridges.

To say the project is ambitious in its scale is an understatement of proportions almost as gigantic as the challenges faced by the huge numbers of construction experts involved in delivering a scheme so astonishing in its logistical complexity. Not least because the hotel is situated in one of the most densely built up parts of central London.

But the truly bonkers bit, the bit that will have you scooping your jaw off the floor so often you’ll think it might actually be broken, is that this head-shakingly complicated, incredibly demanding, fiendishly difficult work is all, at the insistence of the hotel’s Managing Director, carried out whilst the hotel remains open.

In order to continue to deliver the ultra-luxurious service and environment expected by Claridges well-heeled (and extremely deep-pocketed) cliental, the build team are obliged to adjust both their working methods and schedules in order to cause the least possible disruption to the guests. The result, amongst many other extraordinary accommodations, is that the excavation and digging for the basement - all five storeys of it - is done almost entirely by hand (yes, you read that right). And just wait until you see what they do when they need to erect a crane in order to facilitate the rooftop construction.

The contrast between the lavish luxury of the hotel and the build conditions, particularly below ground, is of course, extreme, and much played on by the programme’s makers. In truth, the hotel sections play out rather too much like a glossy PR exercise, but its impossible not to be endlessly in awe of the astonishing skill, unflagging determination and sheer physical effort of the teams of construction, engineering, design and creative experts involved in bringing this mammoth project to its final, triumphant conclusion.

You can see THE MAYFAIR HOTEL MEGABUILD on BBC iPlayer

And watch a trailer HERE

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WHAT’S MADE ME HAPPY THIS WEEK

I don’t know what made me happier about this nativity news moment between a mum and her excited young son, his delight or her brilliantly unhesitating response.

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That’s is for this week and this year. I’m off away after Christmas and over New Year, so I won’t be back with you again until Friday Jan 11th.

I hope you have a marvellously merry Christmas surrounded by the people you love the most, doing everything that brings you joy. And that the New Year brings you all you wish for.

Thank you for being part of this lovely Heydays gang. If you feel like dropping a little ‘like’ heart after reading this, that would really make my Christmas.

I’ll leave the final word to the brilliant Rosie Made a Thing

Lots of love and see you in 2024

Diane x