Alexander Larman

Many people find the idea of actors breaking the fourth wall while on stage mortifying. As such, they will react to the news that Rosamund Pike, the Olivier award-winning star of the new play Inter Alia, berated an anonymous member of the audience during the curtain call for her show last weekend with skin-crawling embarrassment. Yet Pike was wholly justified in her actions. During the performance of a play which deals with some hot-button issues of family and sexual abuse, the actress observed someone sending a text in the particularly emotional denouement. After taking her applause, she decided to say something about it. Pike expressed her justified displeasure at the texter’s actions.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was photographed driving yesterday with a large bruise on his face. Whichever unfortunate ‘well-placed source’ that has the responsibility for reassuring the public about the disgraced former royal’s wellbeing insisted that the injury was not down to some outraged former lover or member of the public attacking him. Nevertheless, they said, it could not be revealed for ‘medical confidentiality’. However disfiguring the injury, however, it seems insignificant when compared to the even more bruising round of revelations that have emerged about Andrew’s financial situation – this time involving his former home of Royal Lodge.

If you were one of the millions of Ozzy Osbourne fans who mourned the death of the Black Sabbath frontman when he died last summer, then you may, or may not, be delighted at the news that he is soon to be resurrected, albeit in holographic form. Granted, a return from the dead might not seem entirely unlikely for the one-time ‘Prince of Darkness’, but the form that his comeback will take is purely down to AI wizardry. The idea of a gleaming, sanitised Ozzy is a depressing one both technologically and in terms of what it represents for the music industry The digital companies Hyperreal and Proto Hologram are promising a whizz-bang experience that will allow no doubt grateful audiences not only to view Osbourne in his pomp, but also to interact with him.

As King Charles returns to Britain this weekend, secure in the knowledge that his state visit to the United States has been a great diplomatic success, he is also heading back into renewed controversy when it comes to his family. For once, this has nothing to do with his errant younger brother, or even his wayward younger son – who, of course, he did not see while he was in America. Instead, a three-part documentary series, Diana: The Unheard Truth, will be broadcasting previously unheard tapes, courtesy of her friend Dr James Colthurst, when it is aired on 31 August 2027: 30 years after her premature death. Charles is no stranger to the embarrassment caused by amateur recordings Charles is, of course, no stranger to the embarrassment caused by amateur recordings.

The news that Gordon Ramsay – that most self-publicising of restaurateurs – has increased service charges at his Lucky Cat restaurant in the City should strike terror into anyone who cares about the future of the hospitality industry. Ramsay introduced a 20 per cent charge, rather than the industry standard of 12.5 per cent or (increasingly) 15 per cent, for the seasonal special menus that the restaurant offered last year. The chef – who claims to have invested £20 million of his own money into the Asian-influenced restaurant – has also stated publicly of Lucky Cat, that ‘if it was to fail, I’m fucked.

It has, on balance, been one of Prince Harry's busier fortnights in recent times. As if to upstage his father’s state visit to the United States next week – surely not! – he has not only been on his own quasi-royal tour of Australia with his wife, but he has also popped over to Ukraine. There he sternly announced that he was visiting 'not as a politician, but as a humanitarian and a soldier who understands service.' It was in Ukraine that Harry made remarks about how his adopted country of America should uphold its 'international treaty obligations', given its 'enduring role in global security'. Although he did not make any explicitly disparaging remarks about Donald Trump, the implication was quite clear.