Stormzy announced as latest Brit Awards 2023 performer – joining Harry Styles, Lizzo and more
Stormzy has been added to the line-up for this year’s Brit Awards, organisers have announced.
The British grime star, who is up for three gongs at the ceremony, joins previously announced stars including Harry Styles, Lizzo, Sam Smith and Kim Petras, and Wet Leg.
Following his three previous Brits wins, Stormzy is this year up for artist of the year, best album, and best hip-hop/grime/rap act.
Stormzy’s performance on stage at the awards in 2020. Pic: Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP
One of the biggest British stars of recent years, all of his three albums have all been chart-toppers, and in 2019 he became the first black British solo artist to headline Glastonbury.
The announcement of Stormzy’s performance this year follows controversy around the nominations, with an all-male best artist of the year list leading to questions being raised about the newly introduced gender-neutral categories.
Stormzy is up for the award alongside Styles, George Ezra, Central Cee and Fred Again.
Defending the nomination choices, the awards said that while the lack of female nominees was “disappointing”, it was down to 2022 seeing “fewer high-profile women artists in cycle with major releases” than in 2021.
Why were the male and female artist categories scrapped?
Adele was named artist of the year in 2022, the first year of the new award
Organisers reportedly plan to evaluate their decision to adopt gender-neutral prizes as part of their annual review after the upcoming ceremony, which takes place on a Saturday for the first time this year, on 11 February.
The Brits announced that male and female award categories would be scrapped ahead of the 2022 ceremony, going gender-neutral in an attempt to make the awards more inclusive.
Adele won the inaugural best artist prize and cleaned up with three awards.
Picking up the best artist award, the star told the crowd that while she understood why the gendered prizes had been dropped, she loved being a female artist and wanted to celebrate women. “I am really proud of us,” she said.
Stormzy last performed at the Brits in 2020, when he also picked up the award for best male artist, before the categories were changed.
Lizzo, pictured at the Brits in 2020, is also among the performers and nominees this year. Pic: Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP
With only four nominations out of a possible 25 in mixed categories going to women that year, he paid tribute to the women in his team as he collected his award.
“To be the best male, I have got the most incredible females in my team,” he said. “You lot are the greatest, the best male is nothing without the best females. I love you guys.”
Read more:
Everything you need to know about the 2023 Brit Awards
Brits 2023: The full list of nominations
Styles and Isle of Wight indie rock duo Wet Leg lead this year’s Brit Awards race, with four nods each – coming after both were nominated for the 2022 Mercury Prize.
Cat Burns, Fred Again and The 1975, along with Stormzy, are all in the running for three awards, while Central Cee, George Ezra, Arctic Monkeys, Nova Twins, Aitch, Dave, Eliza Rose, Beyonce, Lizzo, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith all have two nods each.
Burns, David Guetta, Becky Hill and Ella Henderson are also due to perform.
David Graham, whose voice featured in some of the UK’s favourite TV shows, including Thunderbirds and Peppa Pig, has died.
The London-born star was 99.
Jamie Anderson, the son of Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson, led the tributes on X as he called Graham a “legendary” actor.
Graham brought to life the Thunderbirds puppet characters Gordon Tracy, scientist Brains, and Lady Penelope’s driver, Aloysius “Nosey” Parker, in the series about the secret International Rescue organisation.
David Graham with Parker from Thunderbirds. Pic: Geoff Pugh/Shutterstock
“We will miss you dearly, David. Our thoughts are with David’s friends and family,” Anderson’s post on X confirming the death on Friday said.
Anderson went on to pay tribute to Graham, who also voiced the evil Daleks in Doctor Who, saying: “David was always a wonderful friend to us here at Anderson Entertainment.”
‘What a talent’
Anderson also told the PA news agency: “Just a few weeks ago, I was with 2,000 Anderson fans at a Gerry Anderson concert in Birmingham where we sang him happy birthday – such a joyous occasion.
“And now, just a few weeks later, he’s left us. David was always kind and generous with his time and his talent. And what a talent.”
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Parker from Thunderbirds. Pic: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock
Highlighting all the characters played by Graham, Anderson added: “He will be sorely missed.”
Graham returned as Parker for ITV’s remake Thunderbirds Are Go, which ran between 2015 and 2020, but not for the live-action 2004 film which saw Ron Cook take on the role.
Pic: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock
The original 1965 Thunderbirds was created by Gerry Anderson, who died in 2012, and his second wife, Sylvia, the voice of Lady Penelope, who died in 2016.
Graham also played Grandpa Pig in children’s show Peppa Pig, and provided the voice for characters in Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom.
His in-person acting roles included Doctor Who, Coronation Street and Casualty.
“Trailblazing” actress Cleo Sylvestre who starred in films, soap operas and stage plays has died aged 79, her agent has said.
Sylvestre, also known as Cleopatra Palmer, appeared in productions as diverse as Crossroads, Shakespeare’s As You Like It and the first Paddington movie.
A spokesperson for Fulcrum Talent said: “It is with deep regret that I have to announce the sad news that Cleo Sylvestre MBE died this morning.
“Much loved and admired by her peers, she will be remembered as a trailblazer and a true friend. She will be sorely missed by so many.”
Sylvestre and Susan Hanson in Crossroads. Pic: ITV/Shutterstock
Sylvestre was also a singer and recorded with The Rolling Stones, who backed her on a 1964 cover of To Know Him Is To Love Him. She later worked as a musician with her blues band Honey B Mama And Friends.
Born in Hertfordshire in April 1945, she was brought up in London by her mother Laureen Sylvestre and studied at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.
She was made an MBE in 2023 for services to drama and charity and was married to Ian Palmer until his death in 1995.
Sylvestre enjoyed roles in some of TV’s best-known shows, including playing Melanie Harper, the adopted daughter of Meg Richardson in ITV’s long-running Crossroads, during the 1970s.
Other TV roles came in The Bill, New Tricks, Till Death Do Us Part, Grange Hill, Doctor Who and Coronation Street.
Sylvestre in 1968. Pic: ITV/Shutterstock
Her more recent parts included ITV thriller Platform 7, and Channel 5’s revamp of All Creatures Great And Small.
Sylvestre began her acting career on the stage and was the first black actress to take a leading role in a National Theatre production – in National Health in 1969.
She made her Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) debut playing Audrey in a 2023 production of As You Like It.
Her film roles have ranged from the 2014 film Paddington, Kidulthood from 2006 and 1993’s The Punk.
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US-born playwright and author Bonnie Greer wrote on X that Sylvestre was “one of the reasons that-from my vantage point in NYC (New York City) that I thought that this country has the best anglophone theatre, and the best place to be a Black woman in it”.
She added: “I still think that. Thank you, Cleo!”
Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, the UK’s first sickle cell nurse specialist, wrote that she was “devastated” at the death of her “wonderful, kind friend”.
A painting of a nude woman with her legs open has prompted a police visit to an art gallery in Mid Wales.
The painting is on display in the window of The Table in Hay-on-Wye, Powys.
Warning: The image below shows the painting
According to gallery owner Val Harris, the police have asked her to remove the painting under the Public Order Act, but she has refused to do so.
Ms Harris told Sky News the response the painting had received from some people was “shocking” and “rather sad”.
“We had the police here under the Public Order Act. They’d had complaints,” she said.
“I’m not prepared to take it out of the window. I run an art gallery, I support my artists, so that’s where we got to.
“And Poppy [Baynham, the artist] wants to keep it in the window, if she wanted to move it ’cause she was finding it too traumatic, I would have respected whatever she wanted.”
The painting formed part of the gallery’s It’s Party Time exhibition.
Some of the complaints were read out in a public meeting on Thursday afternoon, called so people could ask questions about the artwork.
One complaint was that the painting was “not suitable for children”, while another described it as “very sexualised”.
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Baynham told Sky News it was “only supportive people” who attended the meeting after the complaints had been made.
“I think everyone who didn’t like the painting was just a bit scared to show their faces obviously. So it turned out really, really great, a lot of people showed up,” she said.
“I couldn’t do it without the support, I think I would have given in if it was all hate.”
The painting on display at The Table. Pic: Val Harris
The discussion that has been sparked by Ms Baynham’s painting is “all an artist dreams of”, she added.
“The publicity has been amazing for my work, I’ve never had so much people talk about it.”
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A spokesperson for Dyfed-Powys Police confirmed it had received a report and that officers had attended the gallery.
They added the neighbourhood policing team was monitoring the situation.
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