Celebs no longer making a mint out of Boris

Celebrities are the latest to bear the brunt of Conservative spending cuts. Brian Coleman, a Tory London Assembly member, was furious to learn that a “minor actor from a soap opera”, identified as the man who plays Minty in EastEnders, had been promised £10,000 to appear at three London Fire Brigade Community Safety events.“Christopher Lee, an A-list international film star, read the lesson at our carol service for no fee,” argued Mr Coleman in a letter to the Fire Brigade.

Threatened with a Conservative boycott, the fire service advised that Minty (actor Cliff Parisi) came cheaper than Honor Blackman (£4,000 to launch the Older People’s Strategy) and was worth one Rageh Omaar. However, Rita Dexter, director of corporate services at the Fire Brigade, has now agreed a 20 per cent reduction in Minty’s fee to £2,666 an appearance. “I have learnt a lesson for the future,” she said. So Minty is less minted, but as an aide to the Mayor commented: “£2,666 is still steep — people queue up to be associated with Boris.”

Ruffled Barbour jackets in the Cotswold village of Barnsley, where the locals are digesting radical plans to dismantle Liz Hurley’s local, the gorgeously appointed if rather unimaginatively named The Village Pub and move it to a purpose-built housing development in nearby Cirencester. The entrepreneur Jeremy Paxton wants to take the pub apart brick by brick and transport it to his housing development, the Lower Mill estate. “It’s not as hard as you think to move a pub like this and it’s better recycled than closed,” Paxton tells us.

Lords Ashdown and Hattersley are at daggers drawn. The Labour man, in a snippy review of Paddy’s autobiography, A Fortunate Life, advised that “readers interested in politics ought to begin on page 155”. Quoting Charles Kennedy, Roy added that callers to the former Lib Dem leader’s phone should “leave a message after the high moral tone”. Says a friend of Paddy’s: “It was never supposed to be a political book and Paddy did take exception to Hattersley’s review. He is still angry about it.”

Barbara Follett tried to sneak off when Melvyn Bragg addressed the National Campaign for the Arts launch at Tate Britain. Bad idea. “Barbara, you’re not interested in staying to hear what I have to say?,” taunted Melvyn as the Culture Minister, grasping her bright red patent bag, slipped off stage and attempted a discreet exit. “No, seriously, don’t worry Barbara, you get off,” he continued, waving off the “retreating minister”, as she rushed to the top of the stairs amid gales of laughter.

The Face: Sam Mendes

Charmed would be an apt description of the life so far of Sam Mendes, whose road comedy Away We Go opens the Edinburgh International Film Festival today. The awards-laden director has Kate Winslet for a wife (and mother to their son, Joe, 5), a seemingly limitless pick of the best theatre and film projects on offer, and he’s even brilliant at cricket. It is said that he landed his first directing job because the Chichester Theatre wanted the promising young auteur’s extravagant batting skills for their match against the RSC.

After injecting “pure theatrical viagra” into Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room at the Donmar a decade ago, Mendes, 43, effortlessly jumped to the big screen with the Oscar-laden American Beauty. Mendes, now based in New York, is keeping the plates spinning with two well-received productions at the Old Vic. Can he win Wimbledon, too?

Postscript

Matthew Marsden, the Coronation Street actor who has graduated to the sci-fi blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, tells us the secrets of “blue screen” film-making. “They use poles with tennis balls on the end and they say ‘this is where the bad guy is’.” Isn’t technology great?

Dizzee Rascal, the rapper urged to run for office by Jeremy Paxman, will follow the new Poet Laureate by issuing a lyrical response to the expenses scandal. “I’ve got a song about all that on my album,” he tells us. “I sampled Money Talks. What do you expect from MPs, anyway? Not much, if you’ve got any sense. Listen to the lyrics and see what I mean.”

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