Comedian Sean Lock, best known for panel shows 8 Out Of 10 Cats and 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, has died aged 58, his agent told the PA news agency.
Lock, also known for the sitcom 15 Storeys High, died from cancer.
A statement from his agent Off The Kerb Productions said: “It is with great sadness that we have to announce the death of Sean Lock.
“He died at home from cancer, surrounded by his family.”
The statement added: “Sean was one of Britain’s finest comedians, his boundless creativity, lightning wit and the absurdist brilliance of his work, marked him out as a unique voice in British comedy.
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“Sean was also a cherished husband and father to three children.
“Sean will be sorely missed by all that knew him.”
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The world of comedy has paid tribute to Lock, including his friend comedian Lee Mack, who said: “I’ve known this day was coming for some time, but it’s no less heartbreaking.
Image: Sean Lock performing at the annual Teenage Cancer Trust’s benefit week in 2006 at the Royal Albert Hall
“A true original both in comedy and life. I will miss him so much.”
John Bishop described Lock as a “great person” and Bill Bailey said he was a “wonderful” comic.
“It’s heartbreaking to lose my dearest friend Sean Lock, he was a true original, a wonderful comic. All my thoughts are with his family,” Bailey tweeted.
The TV star, who was known for his surreal content and deadpan style, has been a team captain on Jimmy Carr’s comedy panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats and the spin-off 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown since 2005.
Image: In 2010, Lock appeared alongside Katherine Jenkins on the Graham Norton Show
He was one of the team captains for the first 18 years, alongside host Jimmy Carr, Jason Manford and Jon Richardson.
Lock exited the show in 2015 and was replaced by Rob Beckett.
He was born in Woking, Surrey and began working on building sites in the early 1980s but developed skin cancer which he blamed on over-exposure to the sun.
He made a full recovery and focused on a career in comedy.
Image: Lock was known for his appearances on popular panel shows, including 8 Out Of 10 Cats
His early professional TV appearance was in 1993, starring alongside Rob Newman and David Baddiel on Newman And Baddiel In Pieces.
In 1998, he script-edited Is It Bill Bailey? on BBC Two and had his own show called 15 Minutes of Misery on BBC Radio 4, which later expanded into 15 Storeys High.
The show was set in a tower block and centred on a pessimistic character called Vince (played by Lock) and his flatmate Errol, played by Benedict Wong.
Lock also appeared on panel shows including Have I Got News for You, QI, and They Think It’s All Over.
Image: Lock performing during Amnesty International’s Secret Policeman’s Ball in 2008 at the Royal Albert Hall
In 2000 he won best live stand-up at the British Comedy Awards.
In 2006, Lock presented and produced TV Heaven, Telly Hell on Channel 4, where guests discussed their likes and dislikes about TV.
At the time, Lock spoke to the PA news agency and he said: “I think one of my all-time favourite shows is Catchphrase with Roy Walker. I loved it.
“I used to like Roy’s restraint, because, for a comedian, the opportunity to take the mick out of some of the ridiculous answers could have been too hard to resist.”
Guest appearances included Alan Davies, Johnny Vaughan, David Mitchell, Bailey, Johnny Vegas and Nick Hancock.
Fellow comedians, Richard Osman, Eddie Izzard and Davies paid tribute to Lock on Twitter.
Osman described Lock as a “unique and brilliant comic voice”, Izzard said he “brought a wonderful comedic talent to the world” and Davies, who met Lock at the start of their careers in 1988, said he was “funny on stage, hilarious off”.
He was married to Anoushka Nara Giltsoff and had three children with the comedian.
British Airways (BA) has paused its sponsorship of The Louis Theroux Podcast following an interview with Bob Vylan’s frontman.
Pascal Robinson-Foster, one half of the controversial punk duo, told Theroux in an episode which aired earlier this week that he was “not regretful” of chanting “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” at this year’s Glastonbury.
British Airways said on Saturday that the content “breaches” its sponsorship policy and has since paused its advertising on the podcast, the Jewish News first reported.
An airline spokesperson said: “Our sponsorship of the series has now been paused and the advert has been removed.
“We’re grateful that this was brought to our attention, as the content clearly breaches our sponsorship policy in relation to politically sensitive or controversial subject matters.
“We and our third-party media agency have processes in place to ensure these issues don’t occur and we’re investigating how this happened.”
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Image: Bobby Vylan crowd surfs during his performance at Glastonbury Festival. Pic: PA
Following Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance, the band were dropped by a number of festivals and performances including Radar festival, a show at a German music venue and their US tour after their visas were revoked.
The comments were condemned by the US as a “hateful tirade” and “appalling hate speech” by British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
The band have also had to reschedule dates of its upcoming We Won’t Go Quietly UK tour in Manchesterand Leeds after Jewish leaders and politicians called for the show to be postponed.
Image: Theroux has not commented on BA pausing its sponsorship of his podcast. Pic: AP
In a statement on Facebook, the group said: “Due to political pressure from the likes of Bridget Phillipson and groups in the Northwest of England we have had to reschedule our Leeds and Manchester shows.
“All tickets remain valid and all other shows are continuing as planned.”
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Calls for Bob Vylan concert to be cancelled
When asked by Theroux, Vylan said he was taken aback by the uproar the chant has caused, saying: “It wasn’t like we came off stage, and everybody was like [gasps]. It’s just normal.”
He added that he wanted an end to “the oppression that Palestinian people are facing”.
Despite the criticism, the group have seen support from fans, with their album Humble As The Sun re-entering the charts and climbing to number one in the UK Hip Hop and R&B album category.
A spokesperson at Mindhouse Productions – which was founded by Theroux and produces The Louis Theroux Podcast – has not commented on the BA sponsorship, but told Sky News: “Louis is a journalist with a long history of speaking to controversial figures who may divide opinion.
“We would suggest people watch or listen to the interview in its entirety to get the full context of the conversation.”
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”