Timothy Spall
‘liberated’ after
slimming down
By Hannah Furness
ARTS CORRESPONDENT
FOR decades, life as an ac-
tress has meant losing
weight or staying slim to win
parts. In an age of equality, it
seems, that requirement in-
creasingly extends to men.
Timothy Spall, the British
actor, has spoken of how his
dramatic weight loss has
transformed his career, “lib-
erating” him from being pi-
geon-holed as characters of a
“certain shape”.
Spall, 62, shocked fans af-
ter being photographed
looking significantly slim-
mer in 2017, with his appear-
ance so drastically altered it
led some to fear for his
health. He has since attrib-
uted the change to the sim-
ple decision in 2014 to cut
down on food and alcohol.
The actor has gone on to
win roles he would not oth-
erwise have been physically
suited to, he said, including
that of LS Lowry in a new bi-
ographical film Mrs Lowry &
Son.
“As a character actor, it’s
put me in a position where
I’m not hobbled by being a
certain shape,” he told
Radio Times. “I’m no longer
that avuncular round bloke.
Bake Off contestant was
inspired by famous tent
A STUDENT hoping to
triumph in The Great British
Bake Off said he only started
baking after walking past
the show’s celebrated big
tent every day as a child.
Henry, 20, said he started
baking after he was inspired
by seeing the show being
filmed. He said: “I started
baking at around 12 years old
when Bake Off was filming
very close to my house and I
would walk past the tent
every day. Bake Off really has
a lot to answer for!”
The Durham University
student added he was
desperate to win over judges
Prue Leith and Paul Holly-
wood, saying: “Paul and
Prue are incredible judges
and you want to impress
Paul as the Bake Off custo-
dian, but the thought of dis-
appointing Prue is crushing- it’s impossible to choose.”
Tonight’s first episode of
the new series sees a baker’s
dozen of contestants – the
youngest in the show’s his-
tory with an average age of
31 – tasked with creating a
fruit cake and a show-stop-
per based on their dream
childhood birthday cakes.
The Great British Bake Off
is on Channel 4 at 8pm.
Feature: Page 19Spall in Summer of Rockets this
year, left, and as he was in 2010u Lift
weights: a
20-minute
workout
three times
a week
helps fight
middle-
aged spread
u Drink
water:
avoid lattes
and take
two days offalcohol a
week
u Eat
protein: it
helps stop
snacking
between
meals
u Fast:
keep meals
within a
strict
eight-hour
windowFat facts How to lose
weight in later lifeNews
Proms accused of
straying off key in
warning on planet
By Hannah Furness
ARTS CORRESPONDENT
IT was billed as a “unique event for all
the family” but instead the BBC Proms
delivered a catastrophic climate change
warning “designed to terrify” the
young audience.
The celebration of classical music
opened its 49th Prom of the season
with a new composition based on the
words of Swedish climate activist,
Greta Thunberg, warning: “We are in
the midst of the sixth mass extinction.”
The concert was based on illustrated
book The Lost Words, which aims to
revive little-used or disappearing
words that describe the natural world.
A spokesman for the BBC said the
Proms team believe music should
“react to the times in which we live”, so
that it is “not divorced from reality”.
But Ivan Hewett, the Daily Telegraph
music critic, said Sunday’s concert was
instead a “statement of the most
extreme form of eco-catastrophism,
designed to terrify and intimidate the
mostly young audience, who clearly
lacked the maturity to challenge it”.
“It’s unfortunate that the supposedly
impartial BBC turned a promising
event into an opportunity for eco-
propaganda,” he said, in a two-star
review, accusing the broadcaster of the
“blatant politicising of an event aimed
at children”.
The concert opened with the voice
of 16-year-old Greta, who has become
the face of youth climate change
activism, on a loop with excerpts from
her speech to the EU Parliament in
Strasbourg in April.
“You need to listen to us, we who
cannot vote. What we are doing now
can soon no longer be undone,”
she said.
Robert Macfarlane, author of The
Lost Words, said he was “so thrilled”
when he heard Greta’s words would be
used in the Prom, praising her “voice
ringing with force and need and
urgency but also breaking”.
The concert was said to have
received a rapturous response from
some members of the audience with
some tweeting to say they had been
moved to tears.
A BBC spokesman said this year’s
Proms were celebrating 50 years of themoon landings, the earth and the influ-
ence nature has had on composers pre-
sent. “It’s important for art to reflect
topical debate and to bring this to the
attention of the audience,” he said.
In July, The Guardian described how
this year’s Proms is “sounding the
alarm for a planet in peril”, interview-
ing director David Pickard about what
it called “this year’s theme, nature, and
our part in destroying it”. Mr Pickard
said: “When you ask someone to write
about nature now, they are not neces-
sarily writing about it in a romantic
way, in the way Beethoven did. They’re
writing about the danger of loss.”Editorial Comment: Page 15
Review: Page 23 The actress Indigo Griffiths brings The Lost Words to life in celebration of the rich musical landscape of nature at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London on SundayCHRIS CHRISTODOULOUIt does feel liberating on
many levels.”
Spall’s recent parts have
included Lord Wallington in
Stephen Poliakoff ’s BBC pe-
riod drama Summer of Rock-
ets and thief Terry Perkins in
ITV’s version of the Hatton
Garden raid.
In Mrs Lowry & Son, he
stars alongside Vanessa Red-
grave, who plays the artist’s
domineering mother.
“This is a man who never
had any intimate relation-
ships as far as we know, andwas brought up in thrall to
this difficult woman,” he said
of the role.
“Yet he’s compelled to
paint the world as he sees it,
even though she doesn’t like
his paintings.”
Spall, who has now taken
up painting himself, said his
preparation for playing a
new character is still based
on working “from the inside
out”, adding: “You have to
empathise with [the charac-
ter’s] feelings, in the mo-
ment, and to do that you
have to get to the root which
made that happen.
Asked about his weight
loss earlier this year, he said:
“If I was going to write a diet
book, it would be two pages.
The first one is, food and
booze is lovely and exercise
is horrible. Right, turn over
the page. If you eat too much
and drink too much, you put
on weight. If you eat about
the right amount, you don’t.”‘It’s unfortunate the
supposedly impartial BBCturned a promising event
into eco-propaganda’The Daily Telegraph Tuesday 27 August 2019 *** 9
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