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Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin has teased a new project with Maisie Williams, who played Arya Stark in the original HBO series.

Martin took to his blog, Not a Blog, to post about a recent trip to London, and described who he met and what he did. Mentioning Williams, the Song of Ice and Fire author hinted at a project they may have discussed.

“We also got together with Maisie Williams for pizza and pasta, and talked about…Well, no, better not get into that, do not want to jinx it,” Martin wrote cryptically. “But it could be so much fun.”

He did not provide further information, so it is unclear if the project is related to Game of Thrones or something else entirely.

Williams was cast as Arya in the hit HBO fantasy epic, created by David Benioff and DB Weiss, when she was 12 in 2009.  She spent her teenage years acting in the series, which ended after eight seasons in 2019.

Martin’s cryptic post comes amid reports that a Game of Thrones film is in development at Warner Bros.

The Independent has contacted Martin’s representatives for a comment.

Meanwhile, HBO and Max head Casey Bloys talked about working with Martin on adapting his books for television and on disagreements with the author.

“Obviously, I will say George and Game of Thrones really changed the course of HBO. So I want him to be happy,” he said on Tuesday.

“He’s very important to me, to us. But when we put shows together, you know, you’re putting a marriage together and marriages can be difficult, especially when Ryan is making creative decisions, adapting work. It can be fraught, and like any marriage, sometimes it gets rocky.”

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Casey was referring to the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, which is based on Martin’s Fire & Blood and covers the history of the Targaryen family.

Ryan Condal serves as showrunner on House of the Dragon, which has been renewed for a third season.

HBO is developing another Game of Thrones prequel called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The series is based on Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas and is due for release in late 2025.

Fans of Martin’s books have been eagerly waiting for the sixth instalment of A Song of Ice and Fire series, The Winds of Winter, which Martin began writing in 2010. A seventh and final book, A Dream of Spring, is set to follow afterwards.

In September, Martin shared an update on the book on his blog, writing: “Writing came hard, and though I did produce some new pages on both The Winds of Winter (yes) and Blood & Fire (the sequel to Fire & Blood the second part of my Targaryen history), I would have liked to turn out a lot more.”

In a wide-ranging interview with The Independent in 2022, the author revealed he’d delayed finishing A Storm of Swords because he was struggling with saying farewell to so many of his beloved characters.

“I finished the entire book, except for the Red Wedding,” Martin recalled with a grimace.

“That was such a painful chapter for me to write, losing some characters that I had come to know and love. Nine years I’d been with these characters, and now I was going to kill them horribly! That was difficult.”

MARRIED At First Sight’s Polly swills husband Adam with red wine in an explosive showdown in the series reunion.

It comes after their final vows concluded without a definitive decision being made.

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Tonight, Adam stormed off after Polly accused him of being dishonest during their relationship.

The barber was left shell-shocked by her claims, telling the camera: “I’m a good liar? Absolutely baffled me. I’ve been honest with Polly since the get go.”

As he made his exit Polly, dressed in a white wedding dress, yelled after him: “You’re walking away again, you’re a f*****g joke. You’re embarrassing.”

Adam said he felt Polly had never appreciated him, while she warned: “I’m telling you now, this is not done. He’s not going to get the chance to mug me off.”

And she stayed true to her word.

The episode ended with a dramatic teaser look at the reunion dinner party where the pair brought up their fiery vow ceremony.

They then locked horns in a blazing row that sees Adam declare “we had sex three times in 10 weeks.”

Polly is furious about him sharing intimate details in front of the group and showers him red wine.

She says “f**k you”, before storming off leaving the rest of the party in shock.

Viewers couldn’t believe their eyes, with one writing on X: “Polly there is nothing that gives you the right to throw a drink in Adam’s face.”

Another said: “I honestly didn’t think Polly could get any worse….. to throw her drink in Adam’s face like that, has really, shocked me!”

In another dramatic development, controversial cast member Hannah returns to the experiment and teases she’s hit it off with a different groom as she declares: “We’re ready for war”.

And Kristina breaks down in tears after a heart to heart with ex Kieran in which he tells her he feels “numb”.

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THE PET Shop Boys have been confirmed as the special guests for Strictly’s Blackpool Week, with Tasha Ghouri revealing she’s packing a lucky charm for the occasion.

The BBC competition — usually shot at Elstree Studios, Herts — films one episode at the seaside town’s famous dance hall every year.

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Fans can look forward not only to stunning routines from the celebrity cast and their professional partners but also to an electrifying performance from the legendary pop act.

The iconic duo, comprised of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe and famed for their hits like West End Girls, It’s a Sin, and Go West, will light up the ballroom with their signature synth-pop sound.

Saturday night’s show will kick off with the boys performing a medley of their greatest hits, joined by the Strictly professional dancers for a dazzling opening number.

Then, on Sunday night’s Results Show, they’ll treat viewers to a live performance of their brand-new single All The Young Dudes.

With over 100 million records sold worldwide, the Pet Shop Boys remain one of the UK’s most celebrated music acts, promising a thrilling spectacle that will elevate Blackpool Week to new heights.

Adding to the excitement, Tasha Ghouri has shared that she’s bringing along her beloved soft toy, Flat Ted, as her personal good luck charm.

She said: “I’d take my soft toy Flat Ted as my good luck charm because, honestly, I can’t go anywhere without him.

“He has to be there with me – he’s my good luck charm.”

Despite Tasha’s popularity with the judges, last week’s episode sparked a social media storm, with viewers accusing the panel of “overmarking” her and Aljaž Škorjanec.

They took to social media as they claimed the performance was ‘flat’ and they even said the band ‘butchered’ the song.

The week before the infamous Blackpool Tower Ballroom episode, the pair performed the Quickstep.

All the judges apart from Craig Revel Horwood seemed to have rave reviews for the first dance of the night.

Both Motsi Mabuse and head judge Shirley Ballas gave the highest score of ten points as she received an overall score of 37.

However, it seems viewers were in complete disagreement as they took to X, formerly known as Twitter, in their droves.

One fan said: “Tasha & Aljaz didn’t deserve 10s I’m sorry.

A second raged: “I liked Tasha’s dance but I don’t think it was 10 worthy.

“Tasha and Aljaz was Overmarked. I agreed with Craig on this one.”, commented a third.

While a fourth noted: “As usual Tasha was good, yawn. Sorry I just find her really dull to watch, there’s been zero journey and I feel like the judges are favouring her massively.”

And a fifth added: “Shirley going in on that when Tasha was bland as anything and she gave a 10. F****** get this woman off that judging panel already. CHRIST.”

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Keke Palmer has claimed that one of her white Scream Queens co-stars made a racially insensitive comment to her on set.

The actor, 31, worked on both seasons of Fox’s 2015 slasher comedy alongside actors Emma Roberts, Billie Lourd, Skyler Samuels, and Lea Michele.

In her new memoir, Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative, Palmer shared anecdotes from her career spanning nearly two decades. At one point during the book, she recalled how a white actor on the show – whom she referred to as “Brenda” – once made a racist remark to her on set.

Palmer wrote that “Brenda” was upset over a clash with a colleague, and she tried to calm down her co-star by suggesting that everyone “have fun and respect each other.”

“Keke, literally, just don’t. Who do you think you are? Martin f***ing Luther King?” the co-star replied.

In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Palmer reflected on the incident and said that she didn’t allow her unnamed co-star’s comments “to be projected on me.”

“It was such a weighted thing that she said, but I didn’t allow that weight to be projected on me, because I know who I am,” the Nope star said. “I’m not no victim. That’s not my storyline, sweetie. I don’t care what her a** said. If I allow what she said to cripple me, then she would.”

Scream Queens, which aired from 2015 to 2016, followed the college sorority Kappa Kappa Tau at the fictional Wallace University, where students were being targeted by a serial killer using the university’s Red Devil mascot as a disguise.

Elsewhere in the LA Times interview, Palmer said she clashed with Scream Queens director Ryan Murphy while working on the series.

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In her book, Palmer wrote that she had been given a shooting schedule and arranged to fulfill another business obligation on her day off. But when that day came around, she was informed by production that she was needed on set.

Although she decided to attend her prior obligation, she wrote that the decision resulted in an angry phone call with Murphy, in which he “ripped” into her and told her she was being unprofessional.

“It was kind of like I was in the dean’s office,” Palmer told the publication when asked about the incident. “He was like, ‘I’ve never seen you behave like this. I can’t believe that you, out of all people, would do something like this.’”

The Independent has contacted Murphy’s representative for comment.

The Nickelodeon alum said she had imagined she could possibly become one of the people “you keep seeing in Ryan’s world – Sarah Paulson, Emma Roberts.” Palmer reckoned that possibility went out the window when she pushed back on the scheduling changes.

Palmer said she apologized to Murphy for not being able to film that day, and she thought that would be the end of the disagreement. However, days later, Palmer recalled talking to a co-star in her trailer who said Murphy was still agitated.

“I said, ‘Ryan talked to me and I guess he’s cool, it’s fine.’ And she was like, ‘It’s bad,’ trying to make me scared or something, which was a little irritating,” Palmer said.

“I’m still not sure Ryan cared, or got it, and that’s okay because he was just centering his business, which isn’t a problem to me,” Palmer wrote in the memoir, via LA Times. “But what I do know is even if he didn’t care, and even if I never work with him again, he knows that I, too, see myself as a business.”

Young people from working-class backgrounds are being “blocked” from entering the creative industries, which remain “elitist” and inaccessible, according to research.

A report from the Sutton Trust found stark overrepresentation in the arts for those from the most affluent backgrounds, which it defines as those from “upper middle-class backgrounds”.

About 7% of people educated in the UK attend private fee-paying schools. However, 43% of Britain’s best-selling classical musicians and 35% of Bafta-nominated actors are alumni of private schools.

Additionally, more than half (58%) of classical musicians have attended an arts specialist university or conservatoire, and one in four attended the Royal Academy of Music for undergraduate study. These institutions are dominated by students from the most affluent backgrounds. Twelve per cent of classical musicians attended Oxford or Cambridge.

Among the top actors, 64% have attended university, with 29% attending specialist arts institutions (including conservatoires). A total of 9% attended Oxbridge and a further 6% attended other Russell Group institutions.

However, pop stars appear to better reflect the educational backgrounds of the UK population, with only 8% privately educated and 20% university-educated, both close to the national averages.

The report said: “There are clear class inequalities in creative higher education and the creative workforce, with high-profile creative figures in fields like television more likely to have attended private school and university than the population overall …

“It also means many talented young people from poorer homes are blocked from highly sought after careers in the arts.”

The charity said access to creative degrees in subjects such as music and art was skewed towards those from upper middle-class backgrounds at the most prestigious institutions. At four universities – Oxford, Cambridge, King’s College London and Bath – more than half of students on creative courses come from the most elite upper middle-class backgrounds.

The universities with the lowest proportions of creative students from working-class backgrounds are Cambridge and Bath (4%), Oxford and Bristol (5%), and Manchester (7%).

There is also a significant class divide in specialist institutions, such as conservatoires and higher education institutions specialising in music and the performing arts. The Royal Academy of Music (60%), Royal College of Music (56%), Durham (48%), King’s College London (46%) and Bath (42%) all have high proportions of privately educated students studying creative subjects. All of these institutions have higher proportions of privately educated creative students than Oxbridge (32%).

The trust called for a range of measures to improve access to the arts. These included introducing an “arts premium” so schools could pay for arts opportunities such as music lessons, and ensuring that conservatoires and creative arts institutions that received state funding were banned from charging for auditions. It also suggested socioeconomic inclusion should be a condition of employers receiving arts funding, and that unpaid internships lasting more than four weeks should be banned.

The trust, which champions social mobility from birth to the workplace, added that the wider value of creative degrees should be taken into account when making funding and policy decisions for the higher education sector. It said measuring the quality of creative degree programmes on graduate earnings alone did not take into account the nature of the sector, with its prevalence of freelance work and unpaid internships.

It is developing a partnership with the British Screen Forum, which aims to address socioeconomic diversity through targeted skills and career initiatives.

Nick Harrison, the chief executive of the trust, said: “It’s a tragedy that young people from working-class backgrounds are the least likely to study creative arts degrees, or break into the creative professions. These sectors bear the hallmarks of being elitist – those from upper middle-class backgrounds, and the privately educated are significantly over-represented.”

Harrison said Britain’s creative sector was admired around the world, but no young person “should be held back from reaching their full potential, or from pursuing their interests and dream career, due to their socioeconomic background”.

He said it was “essential that action is taken to ensure access to high quality creative education in schools, and to tackle financial barriers to accessing creative courses and workplace opportunities”.

THE CROWN star Imelda Staunton got royal approval as she was made a Dame by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle.

The 68-year-old, who earned Bafta TV and Golden Globe nominations for the role in Netflix’s hit drama The Crown, was honoured for her services to drama and charity by Prince William yesterday.

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She is also known for playing the evil Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter films, with her other film credits also including Downton Abbey, Paddington and Nanny McPhee.

Asked if it felt surreal to be recognised with her damehood by Charles in the King’s Birthday Honours having played his mother, Dame Imelda said: “It was a huge privilege. That was two years of filming, and I absolutely adored it.

“It was of course devastating when Her Majesty died – we were filming as well, it was tricky.”

Dame Imelda starred as the former monarch in the fifth and sixth series of the royal drama.

She joined Duran Duran frontman Simon Le Bon, former Liverpool and Scotland midfielder turned pundit Graeme Souness, plus M People lead singer Heather Small as well as X Factor’s Rebecca Ferguson at the gong ceremony. 

Graeme Souness has said fundraising for a charity has allowed people to see “the real me” as he was made a CBE at Windsor Castle.

Souness, who represented his country at three World Cups and won five league titles and three European Cups with the Reds, was honoured for his services to football and charity with a CBE.

Le Bon and Heather Small were both made an MBE.

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