Trading body blows is a science

Are Professor Robert Winston’s award-winning documentaries simply “dumbed down” programmes that “contain no science”?

The accusation, made by Ben Goldacre, author of the Bad Science blog, on the Today programme on Radio 4, has prompted a stern riposte from the fertility expert.

“I will be speaking to Mr Goldacre,” Professor Winston told People. “It is an act of cowardice. It’s not easy to get a series about evolutionary psychology on BBC One which is watched by 9 million people. Students say these programmes have encouraged them to pursue science.”

Professor Winston may consult his lawyers over some of Goldacre’s claims. To think that the radio discussion asked why scientists can’t be more civil to each other.

The time to push for Ms Unpushy

The Face: Anna Maxwell Martin

Despite her low public profile, Anna Maxwell Martin has become required casting for hard-hitting dramas. On Sunday she won the Bafta award for Best Actress for Channel 4’s Poppy Shakespeare. It was her second Bafta – last year she won for Bleak House – but she missed the ceremony because she had been giving birth to her daughter.

Martin, from Yorkshire, got her first break in 2004 playing the 12-year-old Lyra in His Dark Materials at the National Theatre. She was 25. She attributes her early success to the “rawness” she felt after her father died.

Her partner is the film director Roger Michell, who is 22 years her senior. Although she is much in demand, she is not seeking stardom. “I’d just like to do more of the same really. I’m not hugely pretty, so it’s sort of in the hands of fate.”

The winner of the reshuffle in The Thick of It is the comedian Rebecca Front, who will play Nicola Murray, Social Affairs Secretary, when the satire returns to BBC Two in the autumn. Murray is the new nemesis of Malcolm Tucker, the splenetic spin doctor played by Peter Capaldi. Harriet Harman will be glued to her screen, we imagine.

Derek Draper is to make a return to the public stage at the Hay Festival next month. The blogger caught in the Labour e-mail scandal will discuss, in his capacity as a psychotherapist, how to make life “happier and better” in a session titled Life Support. It should be a soul-baring session.

Barbara Follett, the Culture Minister, will bang the drum for British film in Cannes next month. She should also put in a word for White Wedding, a new comedy from South Africa. Why? The film’s promising director, Jann Turner, happens to be her daughter and its producer, Ken Follett, her husband.

Daniel Craig managed to make a suitably James Bond-style entrance to Damien Hirst’s new exhibition in Kiev. “I’ve just flown in from New York. It’s a bit decadent but it was worth coming for the show,” he said, surrounded by ten bodyguards belonging to the gallery’s owner, the industrial magnate Viktor Pinchuk.

Hirst, who revealed his latest plan to “make meteorites out of bronze”, drummed up passing business in the street: “You may love it, you may hate it, but come on down!”

Postscript

The Duchess of Cornwall “could do with updating her look”, Joan Collins has told Hello!. “Camilla should invest in a one-piece bodysuit that hugs her figure and pulls her in at the waist. A light cream blusher on the apples of the cheeks gives a youthful look.” The former star of Dynasty adds that “shoulder pads are excellent for improving shape”.

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