TV & Showbiz

Inside the new £2.57m Love Island villa ahead of show’s return

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson - 6th June 2022

In just a few short hours, 11 contestants will head into the Love Island villa hoping to find love – and possibly £50,000.

The hit ITV2 dating show will return to our screens tonight and will run for between six and eight weeks, dominating summer evenings.

This year’s contestants include Michael Owen’s daughter Gemma, fishmonger Luca Bish, and Love Island’s first ever deaf contestant in dancer Tasha Ghouri.

Inside the 2022 Love Island villa. Credit: ITV

The young hopefuls in the eight series of the show will be spending their summers in a brand new villa back on the island of Majorca.

Reportedly worth £2.57m, the new villa features a bigger bedroom, outdoor kitchen, and 20m swimming pool.

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There are all the familiar Love Island fixtures too, like the fire pit, which will undoubtedly host the hottest drama of the season.

Inside the 2022 Love Island villa. Credit: ITV

There are several seating areas and day beds dotted around for the Islanders to gossip on, and a new outdoor gym area kitted out with dumbbells and pull-up bars.

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New sun loungers which are partly submerged in the water have been installed in the pool.

This year, all the beds in the bedroom face one another, rather than being in one long row.

The dressing room has also been given an upgrade and appears to be much larger than in previous seasons.

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Read more: This company will pay you £300 to watch Love Island and relax this summer

One concern for producers this year is a herd of ostriches who have apparently set up camp next to the villa.

The birds can run up to 45mph and can deliver a potentially lethal kick, so contestants will be warned to keep their distance.

That’s not the drama any of them signed up for.

Featured image: ITV

TV & Showbiz

Manchester United in talks with Disney over ‘multi-million-dollar documentaries’ deal

Danny Jones Danny Jones Manchester United talking to Disney Plus about documentary deal

Manchester United are said to be in talks with Disney over a potential deal to create a number of “multi-million-dollar documentaries”.

Just a week or so after the first trailer for their upcoming 99 series on Amazon Prime Video, which will follow their iconic treble-winning campaign – and only a couple weeks after Manchester City dropped their own over on Netflix – it looks like we’re getting more Manchester football media.

As per the report by The Athletic‘s Adam Crafton, the discussion between the footballing icons and entertainment giants centres around the proposal to make multiple documentaries about the club, with a specific focus on Sir Alex Ferguson and the legacy he left behind.

With Disney+ now the third biggest streaming service available, boasting more than 150 million subscribers according to the most recent estimates, and Man United still one of the most instantly recognisable brands on the planet, it goes without saying that the viewing figures would be huge.

Man United and Disney are reportedly exploring a collaboration for multiple documentaries.

The article goes on to detail how the prospective documentaries would also ideally involve “substantial interview time with Ferguson”, the now 82-year-old former manager and footballing legend who won a total of 38 trophies in 26 years as the Man United boss.

Disney would reportedly also be given access to the club’s wealth of archive footage along with key ambassadors and figures from their rich sporting heritage, including former captain Bryan Robson, goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel and more.

We’d be surprised if you didn’t see plenty of David Beckham, Gary Neville and other Class of ’92 members involved as well, sitting as arguably the most iconic and foremost serial winners in their history.

As the plans are still in their infancy, Ferguson and his former players would need to formally agree to be part of the documentaries and United would have their say over final edits.

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It is said that the current deal on the table is “in the low seven figures” and is actually lower than the terms originally offered to the club when the idea was first floated a couple of years ago.

There is still no indication as to how many projects could be in the pipeline or when we might see the first released if/when a deal is agreed upon.

As for out on the pitch itself, it’s been a turbulent season for the Red Devils, to say the least, but they have still managed to secure a place in the FA Cup final for the second year running following a game they made difficult for themselves against Coventry City.

Set to be just the second Manchester derby final in history, kick-off has once again been moved to an earlier start time to aid with travel issues and potential crowd problems.

FA Cup final confirmed for 3pm kick-off time as Metropolitan Police stress safety for fans

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Featured Images — Hquan2508 (Wikimedia)/Disney UK/minhquangle87 (Flickr)

TV & Showbiz

New narrators to take over from Sir David Attenborough for special episode of Planet Earth III

Emily Sergeant Emily Sergeant

The BBC has announced that some new narrators will be taking over from Sir David Attenborough for a special episode of Planet Earth III.

Sir David Attenborough is one of the most beloved British public figures of all time.

The BBC stalwart has been narrating nature documentaries for over 70 years now, and is known all across the world as the voice of nature – but, as our natural world faces even greater challenges than ever before, the broadcaster has claimed that “one voice alone is not enough to speak up on behalf of planet Earth”.

This is why, especially to mark Earth Day yesterday (22 April), the massively critically-acclaimed documentary series, Planet Earth III, decided to collaborate with BBC Children in Need for a one-off episode of the show.

New narrators are taking over from Sir David Attenborough for a special episode of Planet Earth III / Credit: BBC

But what exactly is it that makes this episode so “special”? Well, that’s because it’s uniquely narrated by dozens of schoolchildren.

The children – who are each aged between nine and 13, and are all said to be “budding naturalists” – can be heard reading from Sir David Attenborough’s original scripts in a bid to both “champion the power of youth voices” and, ultimately, “speak up for the planet”.

The BBC explained that the 50 student narrators were chosen from schools selected by BBC Children in Need as some of the most engaged fundraisers for the charity across the UK in recent years.

Alongside the airing of the special episode, the BBC also gave tens of thousands of children nationwide the chance to tune into a virtual assembly hosted by wildlife biologist, explorer, and presenter Lizzie Daly, as well as take part in a Q&A with the producers of the popular documentary series.

Clips from Planet Earth III were also made available so curious kids could have a go at narrating for themselves.

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The special episode of Planet Earth III narrated by the schoolchildren is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer here, but it will also be airing on BBC One on Monday 6 May too.

Featured Image – Mark Harrison (via BBC)

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