For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

American Actor John Barrowman has revealed the real reason he quit Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins after just 32 minutes on the show.

The Dancing on Ice judge was seen being violently sick on the first episode of the show on Sunday (22 September). The spin-off programme sees celebrities undergo a series of gruelling survival challenges from the Special Forces selection process.

Barrowman, 57, was joined by Strictly Come Dancing contestant Pete Wicks, as well as former prime minister Boris Johnson’s sister, Rachel. In the first episode, they began their demanding winter warfare training in the south islands of New Zealand.

However, the Doctor Who star didn’t make it very far, declaring “I’m done”, after he threw up during the first challenge.

Barrowman added: “I just… it’s not for me, I know who I am and what I’m about, it’s not for me.”

Although the TV personality was offered medical care and the support of a doctor, he told his fellow contestants: “I’m out”.

Speaking to The Sun, he explained why he made the decision to quit.

“I’m not a vegan or a vegetarian, but they made everybody eat vile tofu,” he began. “I would never eat tofu in my life, but you’re so hungry, you just eat it.”

open image in gallery

After the meal, Barrowman – who suffers from motion sickness – had to sit through a two-hour car journey to the task site.

“Then it was projectile vomit everywhere and the tofu came up,” he said. “I thought, ‘I’m not going to make myself ill or hurt myself in order to try to prove something that I don’t need to prove’.

“And it was seriously me going: ‘I am completely comfortable with who I am.

“I’m completely a happy person. We’ve all got our issues and problems, but I’ve made a mistake.’”

open image in gallery

Fans were left unimpressed at the attempt, as one person said, “It will take me longer to eat my dinner than John Barrowman lasted in the new series of Celebrity SAS“.

They added, “Know he had his reasons, could have given it a chance before quitting”.

Some were more supportive as they said, “Good on you John. At least you had a go which is more than some. It was obvious you were ill. Well done”.

Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins airs every Sunday and Monday night at 9pm on Channel 4.

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, or so the over-quoted adage of John Maynard Keynes goes. Fighting those fickle currents, then, is a Sisyphean task, where bankers and traders lurch from one crisis to another. So it is no surprise that these mercurial money markets make a suitable backdrop for drama: not least in the third season of the BBC’s prestige thriller (yes, thriller) Industry, where calm rarely descends for more than a heartbeat.

Having been fired by Pierpoint in the second series finale, off the back of a fabricated academic transcript, Harper (Myha’la) finds herself exiled to a socially conscious fund in the US. Back in London, Robert (Harry Lawtey) is working on the IPO of an energy firm, Lumi, which is run by a bullish toff, Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington – if the knighthood seems improbable, presumably calling the character “Lord Muck” would’ve been too on-the-nose). It’s a deal that also ensnares the attentions of Yasmin (Marisa Abela), who is distracted by the fallout of her father’s disgrace, not to mention becoming the focus of tabloid gossip columns, and her boss, Eric (Ken Leung), who is rapidly going off the rails. But cracks begin to show as Lumi goes public, and the foundations of Muck’s business look shaky. “Everything’s built on nothing!” he laments, as his board closes in. “That’s how you build something!”

Given the last season of Industry, broadcast in 2022, dealt with the fallout of Covid-19’s impact on global markets, then it should come as no surprise that the new series is rooted in the concerns of the past year. The Kamikwasi mini-budget and COP 27 in Sharm El Sheikh (compared to both Davos and Cannes) both feature as drivers of turbulence. ESG – “environmental, social and governance” investing – is a typically zeitgeisty target for the show. Muck’s business, Lumi, closely resembles failed start-up Bulb (down to the employee numbers), whose collapse in 2021 sparked fears about the solidity of the renewable and off-set energy industry. So, the quarry chosen by writers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay feels plenty topical.

Of course, as ever with Industry, that’s all filtered through the prism of finance’s moral repugnancy. The show’s most daring innovation has always been the sheer viciousness of its characters; their fundamental unlikability. “You work for an investment bank,” Muck tells Robert. “You’re the parasite’s parasite.” And even as Yasmin deals with the impact of her abusive, reckless father, the show never retreats into pitying her. She remains an enigmatic combination of confidence and deep-rooted insecurity (and is the lynchpin of this season’s action). Harington, meanwhile, gives his best performance to date as a brittle, over-hyped CEO. A bottle episode, following the miserable travails of associate Rishi (Sagar Radia, superb) is a virtuoso descent into risk addiction – shot like Uncut Gems in the Leicester Square Hippodrome – but equally uncompromising. Understanding someone doesn’t require forgiving them.

At times, it makes Industry a difficult watch. Attempts to unriddle class dynamics within the sector (“You’re born with a silver spoon in your mouth, people are going to assume you’re an idiot,” Muck tells Yasmin) butt up against the core critique of gamified, high-risk capitalism. The writing sometimes tries too hard to capture the verbosity that marks out writers like Armando Iannucci and Jesse Armstrong – both of whom, coincidentally, do a good line in shows that have no heroes – with insults such as calling a colleague “the Nobel laureate in noncing” striking a bum note. But what Down and Kay are brilliant at is creating a pressure cooker on the trading floor, where each character is both enemy and ally to one another. If the dynamics of Succession were constantly described as Shakespearean, the internal politics of Industry are more like The Weakest Link. You need each other to make money, but you also want to shaft your competitors when you get the opportunity.

open image in gallery

For people wanting a quiet evening in front of the telly, Industry is a terrible option. It’s relentless, nasty, sexy, vulgar, and all the other adjectives generally reserved for TripAdvisor reviews of Berghain. But in a world where prestige drama is so focused on humanising troubled people, it’s gripping to watch a drama that takes their humanity as a given and focuses on the troubles. It’s not just the markets that are irrational: most counter-intuitively of all, this third instalment of Industry is, somehow, a lot of fun to watch.

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Modern Family star Eric Stonestreet has said it was “hurtful” to have his spin-off series rejected by the show’s network.

Stonestreet, 53, rose to fame playing Cam Tucker on the Emmy-winning sitcom, which ran for 11 seasons on ABC from 2009 to 2020.

In an interview with Deadline, the actor recalled how there had been plans to potentially develop a spin-off series that would focus on his character and his husband Mitch (played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson) living in Missouri.

Ultimately, however, the series was not picked up by ABC.

Speaking to the publication, Stonestreet suggested that the network’s decision not to move forward with the spin-off might have been related to the fact that he and Ferguson were thought of “as the old guys”.

He said: “I don’t think it’s potential anymore. They had their chance. Chris Lloyd and a couple of the writers wrote a really great script that spun Jesse and I off in our life in Missouri, and they said, ‘No.’ They just said, ‘We don’t want to do it.’”

Stonestreet continued: “I love my character. I love the show. I love Jesse. We had a great working relationship, we had amazing chemistry.

“I think Jesse and I maybe felt like they thought of us as the old guys, or something like that, that didn’t seem worthy of keeping those characters going. It felt a little hurtful. But people make business decisions.”

open image in gallery

The spin-off series would have followed Cam, Mitch, and their adopted daughter Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) after they had moved from California to a farm in Missouri where Cam is from.

“I think it would have been a slam dunk,” Stonestreet said of the idea. “I don’t think it would have not been successful. Because you had one of the creators – who had really taken such great care of making sure that show was great for so long – willing to do it.”

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days

New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled

Try for free

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days

New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled

Advertisement

Try for free

Modern Family co-creator Christopher Lloyd had been on board as a writer. Lloyd created the show with Steven Levitan.

open image in gallery

“We had the right people in place,” said Stonestreet. “It would have been great. If ABC would have said ‘Let’s do it,’ I think we’d be on right now.”

Although the Missouri-based spin-off series is now likely never to happen, fans are hoping for a potential reunion episode in the near future.

“I wish we’d do a Christmas special,” Stonestreet said. He is not the only cast-member to have spoken about the possibility of a special.

Ed O’Neill, who played Jay Pritchett in the series, previously said that he is “open” to the idea.

“I like everybody involved, so I wouldn’t be the guy who [says no if everyone else wants to]. I wouldn’t do that,” he said.

Across its 11 seasons, Modern Family won 22 Emmy awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series five years in a row from 2010 to 2014.

The series also won Outstanding Casting thanks to its brilliant ensemble cast, which also featured Julie Bowen, Ty Burrel, and Sofia Vegara.