Libby Purves
@lib_thinks
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12 forgotten novels,journalism, formerly Times theatre critic - now . R4 presenter & loyalist 40+yrs, thrown out 2017
moving around
Joined April 2010
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If ever there was a reason to sack the managment of an NHS trust outright , this is it. It's a lie, and a dangerous one, to pander to a fetish. Trans is fine, famlies can be many shapes, but infants are not props to reassure fetishists.
"Trans-women’s milk as good as breast milk, says NHS trust
Drug-induced ‘chestfeeding’ liquid ‘comparable’ to that from mothers when it comes to baby nourishment, claim hospitals"
The Telegraph
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I am getting to the stage when the next time someone tells me their pronoun is 'they' I will reply 'it's OK, I never plan to speak of you'.
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Even after years of reading detail and writing about it,
@ITV
Mr Bates v the Post Office fuels volcanic rage. Bang up Vennels and many of her henchmen. And
@fujitsu_uk
. The cruel irresponsible shame of it!
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Andrew Marr sez he's paid for b/cast "experience" & women unlikely to have as much.While he was a trainee on The Scotsman I presented TODAY!
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I think enthusiasm is growing for the "on no account bring your whole self to work" movement...
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Just caught up with
@Channel4
GENDER WARS. As an Oxford Union officer from aeons ago I cringe with shame at the Cambridge kid Caldicott who ignored the motion to ambush and rubbish
@Docstockk
. They is a they, fine, but it was classic male bully tactics. And poor debating. Ugh.
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If this chaos teaches us anything, it’s that you shouldn’t leave the choice of a prime minister to a few thousand people with tidy lawns and a proven, well tested tolerance for hypocrites
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The utter, historic shame of Stonewall: from a noble, decent defence of same-sex love to ignoble, mendacious denial of debate and sense.
This this this by
@timeslucy
: on the bullying, lying and now frantic backside-covering by Stonewall and Baroness Hunt. To all those men stroking their chins now about the “toxic debate”, here’s the source of it
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Give a moment amid the horror and anger to pay tribute to the reporters right in its midst: Kermani, Lloyd, Doucet, all of them.
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Labour's COP-Rishi harrumphing: only
@GuidoFawkes
points out that Labour PMs skipped 12 out of 13 summits in their years & Blair didn’t attend a single one.Johnson at least did one.
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Oh god. Have seen most famous richest interviewer on the planet fail to land a single challenge. Going bed. Sorry for the tweetalong. Rarely do it.
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Lockdown whisky nightcap habit. Lockdown over. Go to pub: genuine shock at how small a single measure is.
Thought had been having singles..
May have been on triples since November. Oh.
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@StigAbell
Adorable that its Draco the villain who has more humanity and decency than the spoilt brat hero and heroine!
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I am in awe of Mrs May’s stamina. No peacetime PM has had anything as gruelling and unrewarding to handle.
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The Willoughby person should face legal action over this, and certainly
@elonmusk
you should ban them.
This screenshot is India Willoughby outrageously blaming JK Rowling, among others, for the tragic murder of Brianna Ghey, a teenager who struggled to accept himself as male. It reminded me ... 1/5
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@bindelj
I cannot BEAR this claim that being in a room with a person you disagree with is not “safe”. Discomfort and resentment and scorn are part of life.
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It's hard, it's a mess, it's a nervous future: but OMG I have more respect for the woman pitchforked into handling Brexit than I do for the (mainly male) hacks, sniggerers and wannabe-comics taking the piss .
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Flat lie about the “restart button”. No evidence. How dare the BBC endorse this?
I am absolutely stunned by this. My children were only babies so I never saw it at the time but the words 'CBBC' and 'puberty blockers' should never be in the same sentence. What on earth were the BBC thinking?
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Haydn Gwynne! last few stage roles - Shakespeare, Stanley Baldwin, a cartwheeling Bake-off judge, a Sondheim singer...and years ago the ultimate TV newsdesk toughie in Dead Donkey. Unmatchable. RIP.
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@SusannaRustin
@HadleyFreeman
@BBCNews
Years ago in BBC News no way would we give this campaigner airtime without a serious paediatrician to counter it - the studies are minute, the effects unknown. Interviewers job was to be briefed.
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Strip Ruth Hunt of her peerage for her role in the gender medical scandal - Sign the Petition! via
@UKChange
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If you doubt there is serious and very sad mental disorder here you are lost.
Man apologizing to women for not taking periods seriously… now says he has one and is asking for advice on his newly found “TransPeriod”.
The disconnect, delusion, & lack of self-awareness is astounding.
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Embarking on the smugfest
@Glinner
ep of Things Fell Apart
@BBCRadio4
, reminded of the great Barry Humphries line. “You don’t have to be funny nowadays. You just have to IDENTIFY as a comedian”
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Why should
@GreatOrmondSt
etc hand back the money? Why not say "you're dirty stupid lechers, just double it to show you're sorry!"?
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The
@toadmeister
affair means any non-vanilla contrarian -
@gilescoren
,
@TheRodLiddle
- is presumed barred from public work,for life. Grim.
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Have some pity for the Scottish constabulary, now tasked with deciding what is "hate" and what is old fashioned scorn, dislike, shuddering incredulity and peaceful revulsion...
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God this thread is chaos. Health sec vs his own website. Clarify. Distinguish.
Matt Hancock: “The suggestion that the clinically vulnerable include people aged 70 or older regardless of medical conditions is wrong & deeply misleading”
Gov advice on website: “Clinically vulnerable people are those who are aged 70 or older regardless of medical conditions”
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@RevRichardColes
True. And the other thing is one doesn’t want anybody arguing, anywhere, about anything..
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@RevRichardColes
When my Dad died suddenly, my Mum went to bed and finished his Maigret book for him. You know what to do...
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Come on, UK directors/ ADs. We are supposed to be a people averse to bullying. Cast
@KevinSpacey
. Let him use his gift again on our stages.
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@alexmassie
@DalgetySusan
If I were a Scot now - and I am 50% Fifeshire - I would be bloody terrified of independence happening. Banana republic stuff.
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Universities: we need some suspensions, sendings down, signals that none of this is acceptable.
A remarkably distressing letter from a student at my university. I should perhaps note here that within the last week (and for a first time in 22 years in Oxford) I experienced antisemitic hate based on my surname.
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End of days for subs...
@DailyMailUK
speaks of Sturgeon’s hair as perfectly “quaffed”. Does she drink it?
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@JeremyClarkson
The only explanation is that you were drunk and writing in a sozzled rush. Because it has all the marks of a career-ending tweet. USA won't like it, any more than we did.And it was v unwise think everyone gets the Game of Thrones reference. Many don't watch it.
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In our very quiet small lane, under bright stars, tried a tentative clap at 8 pm by the gate. From next door, then over the road, another..then a hurrah in the main street past the church...Go NHS!
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“I realised I was stuck and that it was everyone else’s fault, nothing to do with my steering”
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Good thread . Heads must roll at many levels before we can call ourselves a country with respect for justice.
#PostOfficeScandal
A 🧵
1/13 This evening there is the first episode of a four part drama – Mr Bates vs The Post Office. It is a must see, if only in the hope that it will bring home to a wider public the scale and human impact of what has rightly been called .....
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@Jebadoo2
I do wish more,people realized that what they whiningly call "hate" is actually just scorn, dislike, disapproval, exasperated reasonable contempt for their attitude
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On this Christmas night, think about the 25 innocent, apolitical, hardworking crew of the hijacked Galaxy Leader: captives now for 36 days off the Yemen coast, unvisited and little reported. Sod the politics, say a prayer.
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@uniflydiscs
@TAMillennial
The endearing thing is that animals who come are not stern critics. I once had a ring of seals politely attentive to my very iffy penny-whistle serenade.
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A famous & wealthy man who got himself a beautiful wife and children in the California sunshine has just said that heavy illegal drug use did him good. How many troubled boys has the vain fool Harry encouraged towards skunk, trouble and psychosis?
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Am I alone in wincing at the line "almost unsurvivable" in a pandemic world of griefs, fears and bankruptcies?
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Even BBC gone utterly effing insane about the terrifying scandal of Princess Charlottes photoshopped cardigan....out of all proportion stupid doomy report on News.
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Love Harry's line in the doc re journalists: "It's amazing what people will do when offered a huge amount of money". He said this ON A MULTIMILLION DOC HE IS BEING PAID FOR
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RIP, dear Barry Norman. 1973, R4 Today office: Me, moaning: "I really want to write..". Barry: "Shut up and bloody write then". So I did.
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After the first totally-shit night of a chemo cycle, it is gratifying to know everyone else’s head is as appalling.. Never felt so Included.
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BBC tV news not remotely interested in arts baleout. One sentence no reactions. Weird.
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Oh, & hang on - the woman (Oprah) the Duchess is tearfully educating about what's "almost unsurvivable" was born in poverty to a single teenage mother, wore potato-sack dresses, was molested & pregnant at 14 to an infant who died...
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Peerless. It is streaming now again and we are gripped. And as it is about Conservative leadership infighting.... Though sadly nobody half as beguiling as Ian Richardson....
Susannah Harker and Ian Richardson in House of Cards (9th December 1990).
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Worth noting that the first fellow-driver on the scene to help in the Sandringham crash was 75. Ran to the smoking Kia, pulled people clear. Never underestimate pensioners.
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Astonishing torrent of bilious, racist, misogynistic abuse when you praise Michelle Obama. Mostly US and Australian. Muted you all, g'bye.
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Ooh I had forgotten admitting that....but is true..
When
@lib_thinks
was the first woman presenter of Today, she had a brilliant way of dealing with trolls:
http://t.co/1eINlvacNz
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@laurenevie_
My old temp colleague Big Pam used to yell “all the better to fit into your hollow chest!”
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Hadn't seen this. Classic, classic middle-aged frightened male inability to side with women and common sense if it risks making them look behind the times. Politicians, execs, institutional leaders...same
This is the moment -almost exactly a year ago- when Leo Varadkar destroyed what was left of his reputation. He knew Barbie Kardashian had been placed in a woman's prison but lied and said he didn't. Supporting trans ideology forces you to lie.
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Love the military chap on Today breezing through how to turn Excel into a huge field hospital cos they know how to do it and will do it without fuss..they will, too.
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Twas the day before Christmas; yet all over Twitter
Proud preening commenters, graceless and bitter
Still ranted at Brexit, at Tories or Labour,
With never a mention of loving thy thy neighbour…
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Fantastic list here!!
@jk_rowling
has had patience of a saint…
With India Willoughby claiming to be the victim, if JK Rowling's "hate crime", I thought it best to have a look at how Willoughby conducted himself in the run up to JK's post.
Fair to say, there was so much It would have taken me all day to gather all the evidence.
So...
1/
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@chris_kammy
She was a rude cow and you are a polite gentleman. Don't give up. Most of us are grateful.
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Didn’t Emma do well!!!!!!
@Emmabarnett
and so calm with that mansplaining opportunist
1/ 22:15 here for the interview everyone's talking about. Some truly jaw dropping moment including the chair of trustees saying “We need to move away from the gynaecological side of this” (of endometriosis!?) so that the condition will be taken seriously.
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@AlStewartOBE
She's still talking rubbish, ignoring history, and piously condemning other people's enjoyment in the name of minorities who haven't asked for her opinion.
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Keir Starmer having demanded this is now jolly cross it happened. Would have been wiser to shut up, frankly.
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Rarely have I had to mute more rude, arrogant, silly men (& one woman) than after mildly expressing admiration simply for the PM’s stamina..
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VERY grateful to whoever told me about Netflix The Stranger. In isolated chemo winter a lifesaving binge. Drugs,raves, corpses, cops, woods, lies, teenagers, bastards, all set amid aspirational kitchen-islands and bifold doors..bliss.
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Walked in put news on. Teresa May spoke, dangly easter-egg fell off sister-in-law’s table decoration with a crash, cat fled, sky went dark.
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Why is anyone, esp BBC News, listening to Stanley Johnson? Hasn't spoken with his son or had private information - just showboating as usual...
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@bindelj
The best bit of the awful Brooks article is that the Scottish public "do not prioritise" the self-ID change. The fact is that they are not mad, and actually oppose it. How the hell can this be considered fair and decent reporting?
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@IrkthePurists
@GreggsOfficial
in my experience Greggs staff are 100% pleasanter than all the main coffee/snack chains BECAUSE they are friendly and informal. And quick. That man’s truly creepy.
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Ann Widdecombe! Mark the words of DL Sayers (a Christian, btw):
"As I grow older and older/ And totter towards the tomb,
I find that I care less and less/ Who goes to bed with whom".
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@VictoriaPeckham
Illiberal, silly, unnecessary. So disappointing esp from a woman leader. Dimwit opportunism..
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@EvanLowenstein
Y'welcome. No connection, just a theatre critic,met him only once, in 2010. Admired the work esp re Old Vic, believe in fallibility, redemption and roads back. Got sick of prurient homophobic bullying, so wrote. Too old to give a damn about trolls.
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Right. 90 minutes of Dolly Parton and I have changed my mind about wigs. Want one. Or six. None lower than 12 inches high.
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Hilarious for
@piersmorgan
to preach mental toughness and fighting on to young Emma. Anyone got a gif of him flouncing out when a weatherman disagreed with him?
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“Remember how the streets ring out for every soul that thought and felt and passed through them in weakness and in strength”. Nicholas Heiney’s words still in stone
@CburyCathedral
gardens.
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Shattering about Helen McCrory's early death. Particular memories of her fine, faithful, heartbreaking Hester in
@NationalTheatre
The Deep Blue Sea. Did the platform with her about it: the best kind of actor, honest, perceptive, sharp emotional intelligence.
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Riveted by Wootton/ Spacey interview. Poor, poor bastard. Did so much good work, not least at Old Vic. Cleared in multiple courts. Admits to being berk at times. It’s bullying.
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@sajidjavid
The problem - and I have always rather admired you otherwise - is that unless the party MPs call and throw the PM out, not one of you who support him now will be respected. And it IS a problem. Many of you are good people. But you have to accept how bad this is.
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Kind of
@BBCr4today
to donate the top 20 MINUTES of the morning to St.Novak of the Unvax to inspire the jab-refusers with barely-challenged heroic scepticism...
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Bored with well-paid hacks and others who couldn’t organize themselves out of a paper bag tweeting that everything government does is a disaster.
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Aha. In Tomorrow's Times
@thetimes
a paean (by me) on the importance of people going out to shop just like Vonnegut and not ordering every damn thing onlime
I don’t think enough people have seen this. It’s Kurt Vonnegut talking to his wife about going out to get an envelope (we’re here on earth to fart around):
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ohhhhh...Why are entertainers now so rarely devoted to daft fun...???
The Morecambe and Wise Show (3rd October 1971). Cilla Black joins the boys in a special version of 'Bring Me Sunshine'.
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Thank you. Live radio does matter. We need some that is not purely news. Is about the trust of and dignity given to guests, unedited.
Another bit of
#liveRadio
bites the dust v undemocratically
@bbcRadio4
😞 but thank you
@lib_thinks
for another fab show
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Hand it to the ceremonial system. On Thursday lunchtime nobody knew this would happen on Saturday morning. Not Mordaunt, not a single trumpeter, herald, or brusher-off of uniforms...
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STOP SAYING it's "her" show and her flop. It's a misogynistic, illconceived van Hove vanity project ,and she is the only good thing in it . He was lucky to get her.
Sheridan Smith's West End show Opening Night closing two months early in surprise flop
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When I finally crack up & a therapist tells me to "go to your happy place" it will be Scarborough beach on a windy summer day, with donkeys.
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At Lille Eurostar terminal the floor has been decorated with poppy, cornflower, daisy symbols for us, France, Belgium. Suddenly very moved. Nous sommes tous freres.
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There is real power - not least in George Takei himself - in ALLEGIANCE -
@allegiancebway
- at the Charing Cross Theatre. An old injustice, a family divided in the fog of wartime political hysteria. Rvw up now, . Worth seeing.
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@BCWLindsay
It is mad. But note that women do that all the time and have learned gloomily to accept it. Make common cause!
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Have you heard? it's in the stars - Next July we collide with Mars...
Thanks to Aldeburgh cinema for a wet afternoon showing of HIGH SOCIETY, and God Bless Bing Crosby
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Not good enough to hint at the baby’s-colour conversation then refuse to say who, or context. Leaves entire Royal tribe placed under suspicion. Either don’t say it or be open. Oprah shd say that.
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Oh no. Even though we knew it was coming. RIP Antony Sher, wonderful artist, writer, actor, generous soul. Grief for all, and
@TheRSC
itself.
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Just an audience, only met her once, but we spent tonight watching
#haydngwynne
early and late - 1st Dead Donkey and the last Windsors. RIP. Great lady, source of joy.
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