HAVING copied his wedding vows from the internet and declared “I love you” within minutes, Arthur Poremba’s marriage was off to a bumpy start.

The cheeky antics of the London tennis coach, 35, clearly didn’t impress Married At First Sight UK match Laura Vaughan, who grimaced immediately after he dropped the L bomb last series.

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Initially, she wasn’t keen on him due to him not being her normal “Chelsea boy type” and while the Tottenham charmer eventually won her over, it was far from a smooth ride.

Finance manager Laura was accused of treating Arthur like “a child or pet”, even referring to him as a puppy, and her pals were branded “vile mean girls” online for savaging him in one scene.

The Londoner was blindsided when his wife dumped him at the vow renewal ceremony, insisting she was “a fixer” but their “relationship can’t be fixed”. 

Now in an exclusive chat with The Sun, Arthur reveals she hinted they would break up in a text the night before the show ended, that he had a fling with another MAFS bride and is being ‘pursued’ by a Hollywood star.

He also gives his take on Laura and shares behind-the-scenes secrets including punishments for partying, the real reasons why he was absent during episodes and the groom who’s got a bit big for his boots.

“When I first saw Laura I thought she looked nice but I wasn’t like, ‘Mmm, I can’t wait to rip her clothes off’. The physical attraction wasn’t there at first,” Arthur tells The Sun.

“I definitely fancied her more as the weeks went on but f***ing hell that ‘Chelsea boy’ nonsense followed me throughout the show and even now after MAFS.

“It’s mad whenever I’m on the tube or bus, people yell that at me or shout “I love you” because of the wedding vow. Oh my god, Jesus Christ, it’s so embarrassing.

“I did deserve it. I took my vows from the internet but I didn’t have much time to prepare because I was moving out of my place. 

“I literally took the first vows possible, wrote it all down, and didn’t even think. The worst bit is I added the ‘I love you’ bit myself. It was all nonsense.”  

Despite the humiliating blunder, Arthur says he “loved every single second” of the show and reveals he was approached twice before accepting.  

He felt it was “a shame” Laura didn’t give their relationship a go in the real world and reveals she sent a cryptic text the night, hinting she may dump him, before she ended things.

“I didn’t have any heads up and was a little taken aback,” Arthur admits.

“The night before the vow renewal she messaged me saying, ‘Whatever happens tomorrow I want you to know I’ll always try to look after both of us’.

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“I didn’t really make anything of it at the time but looking back, it was like, ‘Oh, I see why you messaged me that the night before now.

“It was a bit of a shame but I wasn’t in love with her. It’s not like there was a massive emotional connection between us. But we had put a lot of work into the relationship.” 

Arthur says many MAFS fans have said the dumping made her bad and they often pity him over her friends pulling him apart during one of the homestays. 

“They are like, ‘Laura’s friends were awful and horrible to you’ but viewers only saw five per cent of it. The edit made me look like a softie and like I didn’t fight back but I did.”

Nice little earner

Arthur says going on MAFS UK is a no-brainer because of the chance to find lasting love, the exposure that could earn you a fortune and… the money you receive.

“They give you whatever you would have been paid at work, you have to prove what you earn so can’t say you make £10,000 a week,” he tells us.

My head was killing after most of the dinner parties. I reckon If I was sober I would have been mute, I don’t think I would have been as entertaining

Arthur Poremba

“I think they have a maximum is probably around £1,200 to £1,300 a week. It’s a good deal. You’re not working, getting everything paid for and staying in a beautiful apartment.” 

When asked if that would rule out high-earning investment bankers from the show, Arthur suspects that’s the case believing they typically like to cast “self-employed people” like him because it’s easier.  

Strict curfews

In previous years, MAFS stars have told us about secret cast parties, all-night benders and daring games that led to partner swapping. 

Arthur says last year’s season was a bit more tame due to having a strict 9pm curfew – but that didn’t stop excessive drinking and small acts of rebellion.

“We would go out for drinks and there were a lot of sore heads in the mornings,” he tells us.

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“One night three of the girls got into trouble. They didn’t get back in time so had to talk to the executives the next day. 

“I remember if we missed the curfew it would become earlier, like 7pm, meaning if we broke the rules we had less time to enjoy ourselves.” 

‘Worst thing’

Arthur says he’s learned a lot from the process, admitting he previously struggled to talk about his feelings, but says filming can be tricky. 

He explains: “It gets awkward, you’re sitting in a bed with a massive camera on top of you being told ‘Guys, talk about how you feel about each other’.

“It’s not scripted like Love Island but you are put in awkward situations, like talking about how you feel in front of 20 people in a room.”

They would whisper in your ear, ‘No more for you, you’re done’. That didn’t stop you getting drunk though, I was smashed most of the time on the show. 

Arthur Poremba

The hardest scenes for Arthur were the commitment ceremonies because filming spanned from 7am until midnight, which wreaked havoc with his anxiety. 

“I have severe anxiety, I’m not able to sit still for long so you can see my leg shaking constantly in the scenes,” he tells us. 

“You sit there for five or six hours waiting to be called up next. You just want to get it out of the way. It’s the most nerve-wracking part of the show.

“It’s the worst thing and it’s made worse by having 20 to 25 cameras there, lots of producers, directors, the experts, and then the couples too.” 

He says there was “a lot of waiting around” in holding rooms during the show which lasted “for hours and hours and hours” with only unhealthy snacks on offer. 

“There’s nothing but a few chocolate biscuits. I didn’t like that. Why do you think JJ [Slater] got bloody diabetes?” Arthur quips. 

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Mystery absences

Viewers may have noticed Arthur barely appeared in the first few weeks of the show and now he reveals why. 

He says: “I caught Covid. It must have been on the way back from the honeymoon. The guy who sat next to me on the airplane kept coughing non-stop. 

“After I was in a bad way for 10 or 11 days. They just kept me in the apartment and stopped filming, which is why I didn’t get as much exposure then.”

However, his absence at the reunion was fully self-inflicted with castmate JJ previously revealing that Arthur “was very, very ill” after a boozy night out.

It was a one-night-only thing. We had been talking for a while and then after she went quiet for three months

Arthur Poremba

“I was wasted that night and hanging the next day,” he admits. “With my anxiety, there was no way I could sit still on that couch. Laura was not happy with me missing it, which is fair.”

On the show, he says there were booze limits and producers would approach castmates who had too much to drink to tell them they had been cut off.

Arthur says: “They would whisper in your ear, ‘No more for you, you’re done’. That didn’t stop you from getting drunk though, I was smashed most of the time on the show. 

“My head was killing after most of the dinner parties. I reckon If I was sober I would have been mute, I don’t think I would have been as entertaining.” 

Secret MAFS fling

Since leaving the show Arthur has been bombarded with female attention, telling us: “I’ve had photos of every single body part you could think of. Photo, photo, photo.”

But he insists he’s not into flings and wants to find someone to settle down with, quipping that he doesn’t want to “end up like Calum Best”.

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Arthur was linked to another MAFS star – Blackburn wedding planner Amy Kenyon who is currently on TV screens in this year’s series alongside husband Luke Debono.

He says: “It was a one-night-only thing. We had been talking for a while and then after she went quiet for three months.”

Arthur says they “connected on a spiritual level” and bonded over a shared love of house music – unknown to him when she cut contact she was filming MAFS.

“I didn’t have a clue she was going on the show. She didn’t say and we didn’t talk about MAFS, which was one of the things I liked about her.”

£15k freebies

Despite not finding love, Arthur says he has no regrets about going on the show because it’s led to interest from scores of women, celebrity encounters and thousands of pounds worth of freebies.

“It hasn’t made me a millionaire, I never thought it would. The main reason I went on the show was to find love, exposure was second,” he tells us. 

Now JJ’s with Katie Price, he thinks he’s the biggest thing going. When I met her she was all over the place, but she clearly loves the attention

Arthur Poremba

Arthur’s just returned from a free cruise worth £3,000 and is due to head to Dubai for an all-expenses-paid trip with a roster of famous faces for charity football event Sellebrity Soccer.

It has allowed him to meet stars including his “favourite actor” Stephen Graham, Harry Redknapp, Calum Best, Gary Lucy and Danny Dyer. 

He tells us: “With Danny Dyer, what you see on screen is what you get with him.

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“I’ll tell you what he does that’s funny, every 25 minutes he smokes, he has a cigarette… even while playing football. 

“It’s the first thing he does in the breaks and then he’s back on the pitch, I don’t know how he does it. I would not be able to run around after that.”

He’s also been on a couple of boozy nights out with former EastEnders star Dean Gaffney, who he says “gets recognised left, right and centre”. 

Arthur adds: “This guy loves a female. He loves it, he’s got good chat as well.” 

He stayed close with some MAFS pals including Ella Morgan, who recently appeared on Celebs Go Dating, whom he says is “smashing it”.

Arthur is also in touch with co-stars Georges Bert, Thomas Kriaras, Terrence Edwards and JJ Slater, who is dating Katie Price. 

He quips: “Now JJ’s with Katie Price, he thinks he’s the biggest thing going… When I met Katie at a boxing event she was all over the place, but she clearly loves the attention.” 

Now more than a year on from his appearance on MAFS, Arthur says he and Laura only “occasionally exchange messages” but it’s “nice seeing her” when they do catch up.

He tells us he’s considering launching an OnlyFans page because it makes “big money” and he wouldn’t rule out appearing on future reality shows

Arthur’s one bit of advice to people considering going on MAFS is: “Do it.”

He adds: “I loved every single second of it. The team treats you well, you get paid, you’re off work for three months and you get a bit of exposure too. What could go wrong!” 

A Channel 4 Spokesperson told The Sun: “Contributors do not get paid to appear on Married at First Sight but are provided with financial compensation for loss of earnings due to the time taken for filming.”

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Jeremy Clarkson has undergone a heart procedure after experiencing sudden health “deterioration”.

The Clarkson’s Farm host, who recently cut his professional ties with Grand Tour co-stars Richard Hammond and James May, has said a doctor told him he was “maybe” days away from dying.

Clarkson first started struggling while swimming from a boat to the beach while on holiday on a small island, explaining that: “It wasn’t far, maybe the length of two swimming pools. But when I finally reached the beach, there was more water in my lungs than there is in Lake Superior, and I was mostly dead.”

His worries were heightened when he struggled to walk up the stairs without holding somebody’s hand. He told The Sunday Times: “I’m not exaggerating. These problems all manifested themselves in one day.”

He returned to the UK and, after feeling a tightness in his chest and pins and needles in his left arm, he was rushed to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford in an ambulance.

Clarkson said that the “sudden deterioration” that “began to gather pace” left him especially concerned after the death of Alex Salmond from a heart attack earlier this month.

However, after having several checks, including an electrocardiogram (ECG), the presenter was told he was not having a heart attack – but that he was “maybe” days away from death.

Clarkson wrote: “It seems that of the arteries feeding my heart with nourishing blood, one was completely blocked and the second of three was heading that way.

“So he made a hole in my wrist, inserted his Dyno-Rod equipment and went in for a closer look. The question was this. Were the arteries so ruined that I’d need an emergency heart bypass? Or could he use his Dyno-Rods and some ultrasonic battering rams to loosen them up before inserting a stent?”

Clarkson said that “mercifully”, the doctor was able to insert a stent, which he said “wasn’t especially painful – just odd”.

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The presenter said the scary experience made him think, “Crikey, that was close.”

Last month Clarkson, Hammond and May left their show The Grand Tour behind on Prime Video.

Clarkson has continued to present Clarkson’s Farm, which covers him running his Oxfordshire farm, on Prime Video, as well as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on ITV.

He recently opened a pub, called The Farmer’s Dog, in Asthall, near Burford, close to where he lives near Chipping Norton.

Additional reporting by Agencies

EASTENDERS fans have been left stunned by noticing a secret Christmas trend of Dot Cotton.

The eagle-eyed among soap fans have been left in shock after realising that the famous Walford icon had kept up a habit for 32 years without many ever knowing about it.

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Dot, played by the late June Brown, is arguably one of EastEnders‘ most famous characters but did you know that she wore the same outfit every single Christmas Day since 1988.

Each time Dot appeared on the show at Christmas between 1988 and her final festive appearance in 2020, she made sure to wrap up in the very same dress to celebrate the holiday period with her friends and family.

Her iconic look was a red patterned-dress which featured a collar and she often chose to wear it underneath a scarf, coat or jacket of some sort.

More often than not, she chose to wear a light-yellow cardigan atop the outfit with it regularly accompanying her on her festive outings.

Whilst soap characters often have their signature looks and re-wear the same clothes from time-to-time, it is fair to say that it is pretty rare for one character to hold onto a piece of clothing for over thirty years.

Moreover, Dot only wore the dress for the extra special Christmas festivites.

The decision-making process as to why the dress was worn at Christmas each year is currently unknown however it is clear that Dot would not have stepped foot on Albert Square each winter without donning it for all to see.

It is unsurprising that Dot opted to wear her special dress every year with June famously aiming to portray Dot as close to a real-life East End woman as possible.

Over the years, Dot played a central part to Christmas storylines and was never far away from the Queen Vic catching up with pals or back at home prepping dinner for the Cotton-cum-Branning clan.

Her most famous Christmas storyline however took place on Christmas Eve as opposed to Christmas Day.

In 2002, Dot’s soon-to-be husband Jim Branning proposed to her aboard the London Eye on Christmas Eve.

In 2016, as Christmas rolled around once more, Dot wasted no time in whipping on her annual frock for an innuendo-laced episode that had all the viewers laughing.

The episode featured classic EastEnders comedy gold thanks to Dot’s new best friend: a black pussycat.

One classic line came from Billy Mitchell’s wife Honey, who warned her daughter: “Lily please don’t touch Dot’s pussy, you don’t know where it’s been.”

Another came from Dot herself, saying to the cat, which she named Ethel after her best friend: “Don’t go licking yourself in front of the Queen.”

In 2008, Dot also donned the dress as she met her granddaughter Dotty for the very first time.

Her son Nick brought his little girl along for the Christmas holidays in 2008 as he made a grand return to the soap after seven years away.

Dot Cotton’s time on EastEnders

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Here are just some of Dot’s most memorable moments on Albert Square

By Shan Ally, Showbiz Reporter

• Dot bumps off son Nick – John Altman slipped into Nasty Nick’s leather jacket for the first time in 1985 and became the first ever EastEnders serial killer. Throughout the years, despite his breaks from the programme and until his death in 2015, Nick made his criminal life become his one and only career. Nick was responsible for his son Ashley’s death, although it was not intentional as he actually meant to kill Mark Fowler, who left him in a wheelchair a year prior. He cut the breaks on Mark’s motorbike but when Ashley had an argument with Mark about Nick, the young man stole the vehicle. Ashely crashed the motorbike into the Launderette and died. But Dot had the last laugh as she famously watched as her son die of a heroin overdose in 2015.
• Ethel’s death – Dot agreed to help Ethel die on Eastenders back in 2000. One of Dot’s most memorable pairings in EastEnders was with Ethel Skinner. The duo formed a hilarious double-act and could often be found comically bickering, reminiscing about life during the Second World War and chasing after Ethel’s dog Willy. But the whole nation was left weeping at their TV screens in 2000 when Dot agreed to go against her strict Christian beliefs and help Ethel die. After a heart-wrenching chat, Dot gave her a packet of pills and a glass of water. The episode pulled in 16.5million viewers.
• London Eye proposal on Christmas Eve – Dot eventually succumbed to Jim’s advances and said ‘yes’ when he proposed in 2001 inside one of the carriages on the London Eye on the South Bank of the River Thames. They were married on Valentine’s Day in a remarkably uneventful (in soap terms) ceremony. After a mishap with viagra, Dot decided that their marriage should remain purely platonic. The loveable pair were devoted to one another and their hilarious bickering made for some of the soap’s best scenes.
• Making soap history – In 2007, Jim Bardon – who played Jim Branning – suffered a stroke. To explain his absence from the soap, his character suffered the same fate. The result was a poignant episode in which Dot carried an entire programme single-handed. She performed a monologue in which she recorded a message for Jim to listen to in hospital. She was the first actress to have a soap episode entirely to herself and it landed her a BAFTA nomination.

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Alec Baldwin has returned to Saturday Night Live for the first time since 2021 after manslaughter charges were dropped against him following the fatal Rust shooting.

Charges against the actor were dropped by a judge in New Mexico in July after it was found that the state had withheld evidence that could have shed light on how live rounds got onto the set of the movie, where cinematographer cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed.

Baldwin returned to the show on this Saturday’s episode (19 October) but didn’t portray Donald Trump, having played the former president from 2016 until 2021. Trump is now played by cast member James Austin Johnson.

Baldwin was instead given the role of Fox News host Bret Baier who received criticism earlier this week for persistently interrupting Kamala Harris, during a rare interview for the Democrat on the conservative network.

In the cold open skit, which saw Maya Ruldolph play Harris, Baldwin received loud cheers from the audience before revealing he was playing Baier, who he joked, “Yes, I do look like someone made a businessman in Minecraft”.

Rudolph’s Harris nervously laughed after shaking hands with Baldwin’s Baier, saying, “The pleasure is neither of ours”.

The skit poked fun at Baier’s real-life treatment of Harris, with Baldwin repeatedly interrupting Rudolph in rapid-fire fashion.

The skit also mocked a moment Baier acknowledged was a mistake by playing the wrong clip of a Trump response.

The clips allowed SNL to bring in mini-skits including one with Dana Carvey as Joe Biden, who has played the role since the beginning of the comedy sketch show’s 50th season.

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The skit closed with Harris asking: “Before I go, can I just say the thing I’ve been trying to say this whole time? Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!”, with Baldwin joining her.

This week’s episode was hosted by Batman and Beetlejuice actor Michael Keaton with musical performances by Billie Eilish.

Baldwin had previously hosted SNL 17 times but had been absent from the show due to the manslaughter case against him.

The armourer for the film, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was given the maximum 18 month-sentence in April after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

Halyna Hutchins was rehearsing a scene with Baldwin, the film’s producer and star, when he drew a replica pistol and fired. However, the gun contained a live round which hit Hutchins, mother of a young son, in the chest and killed her.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

JEREMY Clarkson has revealed he underwent life-saving heart surgery following a “sudden deterioration” in his health.

The 64-year-old Clarkson’s Farm presenter said he experienced worrying symtoms such as feeling “clammy”, “tightness in my chest”, and “pins and needles in my left arm”.

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The Sun columnist said he was alerted to changes in his health while on holiday after he struggled to walk up the stairs following an “attempt” at swimming.

Recalling Alex Salmond‘s recent fatal heart attack, Jeremy immediately sought medical advice when he returned to the UK.

He revealed in his Sunday Times column an ambulance rushed him to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital where tests ruled out a heart attack.

However, further examinations revealed one artery was fully blocked and another was nearly blocked, putting him at serious risk.

The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire host said he was then taken to surgery for urgent treatment.

A stent was inserted into the blocked artery to keep it open and restore blood flow to the heart.

He wrote: “It wasn’t especially painful. Just odd,” and said he thought at the time, “Crikey, that was close.”

The TV star previously said he is worried about his health and admitted: “I don’t have long left”.

He said in an interview with The Guardian in April: “I don’t have long. I’ve probably only got what, 70,000 hours left, maybe?”

He also shared his fears over developing dementia, telling The Times his “memory is shot” and his hearing loss “doubled his chance” of getting the disease.

He said he was fitted with “very snazzy” hearing aids last year.

But the TV legend has shown no signs of slowing down.

The Diddly Squat Farm owner is releasing a new book about life on the farm.

Series four of Clarkson’s Farm has also officially kicked off production, with his partner Lisa Hogan giving fans a behind-the-scenes look.

Lisa, who joins longtime partner Jeremy on the show, shared a glimpse of the camera crew on the set of their Chipping Norton farm.

He has also expanded his business further by buying a pub selling beer made from produce from his land.

The Farmer’s Dog opened in Cotswolds this September, but Jeremy has made no secret he’s found the project a “nightmare”.

He completely refurbished the formerly defunct building, spending over £1million to make it perfect – even suspending a tractor from the ceiling.

The TV presenter has tried to keep his prices affordable, with prices averaging £5.50 for a pint, £9 on small plates and up to £19 on a full meal.

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Recently, whenever Peter Capaldi has been shown rough footage of himself acting in scenes, he’s done a double-take. “I’m horrified,” he says. “I go: who is that old, weird, gaunt guy with the white hair? Oh, it’s me. That’s what I’ve become. But that’s OK,” adds the 66-year-old with a shrug. “I always loved Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price. Playing those villains, all those horror movie types, is great fun.”

Capaldi has certainly made a speciality out of sulphurous ne’er-do-wells with something of the night about them. On Friday, the crepuscular character actor who was more Doctor What? than Doctor Who returned to our screens in Prime Video’s twisty, time-bendy, supernatural thriller The Devil’s Hour as Gideon Shepherd, a mysterious criminal with a biblical name who may or may not be a serial killer. Meanwhile, details are scant on who or what he’s playing in the upcoming series of Black Mirror, but it’s a reasonable bet it’s a role with a whiff of the devil. Capaldi is happy with his run of malevolent characters – broadly. “I used to do voiceovers for Anchor butter. One day they said to me: ‘Could you try and sound a little less sinister?’ I thought: ‘I don’t know what’s happened, I’ve suddenly gone sinister.’ But sinister is good. I’ve always been a great fan of the sinister.”

Leaning in close over our lunchtime minestrone, eyes bulging, Scottish brogue bewitching, the Glasgow-born actor and Oscar-winning director is head-to-toe in black at a tiny table in a private members’ club in central London. Conversation turns to Criminal Record, this year’s low-key hit for Apple TV+ that is about to begin production on its second series. Capaldi plays an old-school copper with old-school values. You know, a bit of casual misogyny here, a bit of institutional racism there. All of which, naturally, rubbed up his counterpart, played by Cush Jumbo, an exemplar of “woke” modern policing. In a knotty drama developed by Capaldi’s producer wife Elaine Collins, the fact that DCI Daniel Hegarty was a barely likeable character was part of the attraction.

“Absolutely,” he affirms. “But also that he was complicated. That he wasn’t so simple to understand. We wanted to engage the audience in some sympathy for him. And understand that people are complex. He’s not black and white. But, yeah, in essence his role was to carry that darkness. That was appealing.”

Capaldi and Collins are both executive producers on Criminal Record. But he defers to his wife of 33 years – they met in 1983 on a touring theatrical production in Scotland but have long been based in north London – as “the boss, the creator”. While employed at the BBC, Collins developed Vera and Shetland – cosier police procedurals for sure. “Eventually she left, and went out on her own, and was keen to do a show that was maybe a bit harder.”

By “harder”, does he mean challenging woke sensibilities? “Well, I don’t know what woke sensibilities are. It’s trying to tell a story that’s interesting, arresting and makes people think – and is responsible. I’ve got the general picture [of what woke is]. It’s used all over the place. I don’t think half the people who use it know [what it means]. It’s just another word. This constant polarisation is not useful. It’s another tool to keep people apart.”

When I ask whether that’s what cancel culture is partly about, too, he professes confusion. “I don’t know – seriously. There have been points where there has been definite political motivation to cause [division]. To place people on the other side of the fence to each other. And it was contingent – it was more useful to the Tory party to have these wars than to try and find out what could bring people together.”

What he means is: it’s easier to foment a culture war than it is to tackle the problem of, say, social exclusion. “Yes. It’s all complicated, and simplifying it to black and white doesn’t help anyone.”

open image in gallery

Now in late middle age, and a grandfather of two, Capaldi admits to feeling a bit surprised at the way his career has turned out. “When I started off, I was an easygoing buffoon – a gangly youth in a Bill Forsyth gentle comedy,” he says of his breakout role opposite Burt Lancaster in the great Scottish director’s beloved Local Hero (1983). “But The Thick of It changed everything for me.”

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Armando Iannucci’s excoriating political satire, which ran for four series between 2005 and 2012, rebranded Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker: the sweary spin doctor extraordinaire, a machiavellian operative who simultaneously oozed no-f’s-given superiority and radiated all-the-f’s rage. It exposed the inner machinations of government as both farcical and toxic. But this workplace comedy now feels very much of its time. Because surely post-get-Brexit-done, post-Parytgate and post-Liz-the-lettuce, politics today is beyond satire?

“We all felt that. I’m constantly asked by the press if I would do a new one,” he says of a show that won him a Bafta in 2010. “But [under the Tories] things were just too serious. The corruption was too deep. We’d be letting them off the hook by being funny.”

Capaldi was raised in a working-class household in Glasgow and it’s not hard to divine his political sensibilities. But while he’s “glad, obviously” that the Tories lost the election, he insists that he’s “not politically engaged”. Why not? “I was forced to be politically engaged,” he answers, presumably a reference to the demands placed on him by Iannucci’s typically nuanced scripts. “I’m not interested in it. In fact I hate it. I don’t want to spend my life thinking about all this stuff. Of course I was relieved the Tories lost. But it’s not that simple, is it?” He pauses and twitches a salt-and-pepper eyebrow. “Sorry, I sound mournful, don’t I?”

It’s that mournful demeanour that made him find some elements of his three-series run as the Time Lord difficult. He recalls talking to his predecessor-but-one, David Tennant, before his casting was announced in August 2013. “David said: ‘Is this true, you’re going to be the Doctor? Well, let’s go have a talk.’ It might have been here actually,” says Capaldi, gesturing round this clamorous room beloved of film and telly folk. “And he said to me: ‘What will change is your visibility. You won’t be able to walk down the street without people knowing who you are.’ I was like: ‘OK, we’ll see how that goes…’”

Capaldi ultimately found having to be nice to fans all the time “a bit of a stress… My [personal] character leans more to the melancholic and cynical. The daily good-heartedness of it all is quite a leap for me. But that’s what I was paid to do. But that’s exhausting… And that’s one of the things I’m glad to have left behind: I’m not responsible for the endless cheerfulness [of] little kids.”

He’s watched Ncuti Gatwa, yet another Scottish Time Lord, as the 15th Doctor and pronounces him “fantastic. I met him and thought he was lovely.” Add in the fact that original reboot showrunner Russell T Davies is back, and that Disney – and their money – are partners on the show, and it all makes for a show that, on paper at least, should feel very different. But as a corollary of that, some viewers feel that the world’s longest-running sci-fi show, a cornerstone of British culture, has been Disney-fied. Does he agree?

“I think that the show is… whatever those who love it want it to be,” he replies, carefully. “I come from [seeing] it in 1963. So even the show, when I came into it, was different from the show I remember. And I loved the show that I remember. I loved the show that we did, but it was different.”

Can he, though, imagine being in Gatwa’s shoes, as the brand ambassador for this new Doctor Who, one with demanding American audiences (and producers) to please?

“It must be tough,” he concedes. “That’s one of the hardest things about the job. Apart from the day-to-day business of delivering those lines, and you’ve got to have lots of ideas and energy, there’s always a knock at the door at lunchtime: ‘Can you come and talk to these visitors we’ve got onset?’ ‘Can you look at these new toys?’ ‘Can you sign these things?’ ‘Can you go to this meeting with so-and-so who’s selling this in South Korea?’ There’s always a [request]. It’s a big brand. So it’s quite a demanding job. It takes its toll.”

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Capaldi also experienced the demands of geek fandom and blockbuster IP during his brief foray into the superhero world, with his role in James Gunn’s 2021 film The Suicide Squad. He found filming alongside an all-star Hollywood cast on huge sets in Atlanta, Georgia a blast; the endless promotion less so.

Still, the three-month shoot allowed him plenty of him to reconnect with his first passion: music. In the long hours in his Suicide Squad trailer, Capaldi wrote a bunch of songs that were eventually released as an album, 2021’s St Christopher.

It was a debut that was a long time coming. While at Glasgow School of Art in the early Eighties, Capaldi was in a band, The Dreamboys. “Bizarro punk” was Capaldi’s estimation at the time. Or “showbiz Bauhaus” according to their drummer Craig Ferguson, who went on to become a stand-up comic, actor and American chatshow titan (James Corden inherited his chair on The Late Late Show).

What kind of frontman was Capaldi? “I was OK,” he demurs. “I’m sure I jumped about a lot. You’d have to ask somebody else, really.”

So I do. “Oh, spectacular!” Ferguson tells me. “My girlfriend at the time was in another band and she said: ‘Your band are rubbish, but you’ve got a really good actor as the frontman.’ Peter was very charismatic – he still is – and onstage had that ineffable presence I’ve seen in a few people. Your eye goes to him. He was a star player from the word go.”

Capaldi has since completed a second album, Sweet Illusions. It’s a robustly melodic set, with Capaldi’s voice a cross between Leonard Cohen and The Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan. Quelle surprise, the songs have a touch of midnight, too. “All the songs hanker back to that time,” he says of early Eighties, glad-to-be-grey Glasgow. “To an eternal, dark, synthesiser, guitar-y kind of vibe. Because I’m picking up where I left off.”

The first single is out now. It’s called “Bin Night”, a lullaby that’s a tribute to his infant grandchildren, to the “ticking clock” of his own mortality and to the domestic concerns of a Muswell Hill grandpa.

“I love bin night. It’s the one night when I can control the chaos of the world. The one night when I can restore some order to the entropy. Everything goes out on bin night.”

Even if Peter Capaldi’s borough, like my neighbouring borough, only takes recycling weekly but waste is fortnightly and garden refuse God knows when?

He splutters and straightens up. “They might only take one of them. But then I’ll just take the other one back in. That’s my rules. Bin night is my rules.”

‘The Devil’s Hour’ is on Prime Video from 18 October. The single ‘Bin Night’ is out now, and the album ‘Sweet Illusion’ is released on Last Night From Glasgow in March 2025