Kenny Chesney opens up about his 2009 breakdown when he cried on stage, leading to career transformation and eventual Country Music Hall of Fame induction.
The McFly singer on getting kicked out of Busted after two days, peeing himself on stage and learning to love his ‘big chin’
Born in London, Tom Fletcher, 40, attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School and founded McFly in 2003. The band had seven No 1 singles, won a Brit Award for best pop act and continue to perform. In 2016, Fletcher published his first solo-written book for children, The Christmasaurus, which was shortlisted for a British Book Award. His titles have been translated into 40 languages. Paddington: The Musical, with music and lyrics by Fletcher, is at the Savoy theatre until next May. He is married to podcaster and author Giovanna Fletcher, has three children and lives in Hertfordshire.
Passenger reworks songs from his hit musical while Tanika Gupta gives Ibsen a Hollywood makeover and TikTok becomes a stage for young playwrights
When Rachel Joyce’s bestseller about a retiree’s road trip was turned into a 2023 film, it had a couple of lovely numbers by Sam Lee. Earlier this year, fellow folkie Passenger (AKA Michael David Rosenberg) provided the music and lyrics for Chichester Festival theatre’s production, which transfers to the West End in January. Passenger’s album of renditions of the songs, One for the Road – with a few tracks that didn’t make the musical and an appearance from Jack Wolfe, who played the show’s Balladeer – is available to stream now.
Strap in for a nostalgia-stuffed jaunt through musical classics, featuring honest interviews with stars – the details of which make the record industry look appalling
Girlbands, then. Shimmering icons of empowerment or Pygmalion projects for middle-aged A&R men? Here’s a radical idea – they’re both. Two become one, baby. That’s the sense you get from Girlbands Forever (Sat, 9.20pm, BBC Two), the documentary executive produced by Louis Theroux charting the fortunes of 90s bands such as All Saints, Eternal, Atomic Kitten and Mis-Teeq through to 00s stars Little Mix. If that lineup speaks to your elder millennial soul the way it does mine, climb on board, carefully. I need some nostalgia, like I’ve never needed nostalgia before.
Of course we want the gossip, fallouts and scandals. Band members interviewed for the three-part series are happy to supply. Kelle Bryan from Eternal reveals they were sent to a facility in the countryside and put on controlled diets to manage their weight (though the head of EMI UK denies all knowledge). Kerry Katona tells how a journalist turned up at her mother’s house with a bag of cocaine to get her to sell a story. Melanie Blatt of All Saints says that when she discovered she was pregnant, she was told to abort.
The bucket hats were out in force at Marvel Stadium as Liam and Noel Gallagher made a polished – and even affectionate – return to Melbourne
The first time Oasis played in Australia, in 1998, the controversies piled up to the point that some journalists speculated it was a media strategy. Liam was slapped with a lifetime ban from Cathay Pacific due to the band’s alleged bad behaviour on the flight over. (The ban was sealed when Liam told an Australian reporter, “I don’t give a flying fuck … I’d rather walk.”) Noel got in hot water for comments he made about Princess Diana, then Liam was hauled in front of Brisbane magistrates court, charged with assault after allegedly head-butting a fan who wanted a photo. The fan dropped the charges, though Liam later called the alleged head-butt “justice”, adding: “The geezer put a camera in my face and I told him not to.”
But other than the handwringers, Australian fans seemed delighted with it all. The Gallaghers’ particular tetchy, laddish swagger has always played very well here, as has the drama of their on-off relationship. And the music too, of course: both What’s the Story (Morning Glory)? and Wonderwall went to No 1 in 1995, while in 2013 Triple J listeners voted Wonderwall the best song of the past 20 years. The affection remained even after Noel went on Triple J and said: “You fucking need us more than we need you. Your lives and the people that listen to your radio station and listen to Radiohead and fucking Blur and Robbie Williams – your lives would be lessened without me and my brother and it’s as simple as that.”
Mia McKenna-Bruce, Saoirse Ronan, Anna Sawai and Aimee Lou Wood have been cast in the forthcoming four-part film series
Sam Mendes’ ambitious four-part Beatles film has confirmed the casting of four main female roles.
Sony Pictures officially announced that Mia McKenna-Bruce will play Maureen Cox, with Saoirse Ronan as Linda Eastman, Anna Sawai as Yoko Ono and Aimee Lou Wood as Pattie Boyd. All four had been strongly rumoured to have been in line for their parts, but only now has their participation been confirmed.
The Australian rock band are ‘legit now’ with their second album, Glory. They talk about performing while underage, playing with Dave Grohl and the ‘girl band’ label
“If you want to rock, you’ve gotta break the rules. You’ve gotta get mad at The Man,” a wise man (Jack Black) once said (in School of Rock). And in 2015, four 15-year-olds in Canberra watching the Richard Linklater film at a sleepover decided they wanted to do just that, forming a rock band the morning after that has become one of Australia’s most exciting acts: Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers – a joke name suggested by one of their uncles that stuck.
The four teenagers had enough punk brio that they were soon being booked to play venues they weren’t old enough to enter unchaperoned. Adults around them would assume they were in their early 20s, when they were actually 16 or 17.
(Anti) Waxahatchee and her twin sister are joined by Lenderman and Brad Cook for an album of headstrong, tender Americana about chasing integrity and conviction
Snocaps sound exactly like the sum of their parts. A new band for fans of headstrong, tender Americana, Alabama twins Katie and Allison Crutchfield (of Waxahatchee and Swearin’ respectively) are in a new band together for the first time since scrappy, beloved PS Eliot retired in 2011. Backed by indie guitar star MJ Lenderman and storied alt-rock producer Brad Cook, Snocaps is a family record in more ways than one: the four have a tangled history of making music together, giving this one-off collection the lived-in feel of a band five albums deep.
With no need for introductions, Snocaps starts with an exercise in trust. We’re in the car, Allison’s at the wheel, and she is daring the rest of the band to close their eyes: “I got a pedal on the floor or I’m slammin’ on the brakes,” she quips, setting the pace for an album about chasing integrity and conviction, told through airborne melodies and unpretentious, freewheeling guitar.
The singer’s lyrics about an open marriage gone sour resonate with many women her age. They’re sick of pretending to be fine with relationships that are not
Lily Allen was always an enviably cool girl.
When she first burst on to the music scene nearly two decades ago at 21, it was with a breezy, don’t-care London swagger. Her songs concealed big, painful feelings under flippant, deadpan lyrics and deceptively sweet melodies, which made them easier to swallow. Even this summer, when she talked on her thrillingly unfiltered podcast Miss Me? about having lost count of exactly how many abortions she’d had, she sang the words to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s My Way.
Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
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