All posts tagged: Bridgerton

Bridgerton and White Lotus stars Nicola Coughlan and Aimee Lou Wood next SNL UK hosts

Bridgerton and White Lotus stars Nicola Coughlan and Aimee Lou Wood next SNL UK hosts

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Saturday Night Live UK has announced its next hosts ahead of the sketch show’s return from a mid-season hiatus. Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan will present the series on 25 April, with musical guests Foo Fighters, while Aimee Lou Wood, known for her roles in Sex Education and The White Lotus, will guest host on 2 May. She’ll be joined by the singer Meek. Since the launch of SNL UK on Sky last month, Tina Fey, Jamie Dornan, Riz Ahmed and Jack Whitehall have fronted the comedy series. The show is taking a break this weekend, but will be back the following week with Coughlan, who made a brief appearance in the show’s debut episode. Nicola Coughlan and Aimee Lou Wood are hosting ‘SNL UK’ (Getty Images) Musical guests so far have included Wet Leg, Wolf Alice, Kasabian and Jorja Smith. The …

Bridgerton season 5 casts Mobland star as “cheeky Casanova” seies regular

Bridgerton season 5 casts Mobland star as “cheeky Casanova” seies regular

Published by Daniella Wilson

The world of Netflix’s Bridgerton has just expanded, with the unveiling of a trio of new additions for the upcoming fifth season. Viewers will remember that the previous chapter ended on a sombre note, as Fran (Hannah Dodd) lost her husband, Lord John Stirling (Victor Alli), suddenly to an aneurysm. The devastating loss, which went unexplained by the medicine of the period, was a nasty surprise in the second half of Bridgerton season 4 – but it’s not the end of Fran’s story. She and John’s cousin, Michaela (Masali Baduza), are set to lead season 5 – and we now know a few of the new faces that will be popping up in their story. Tega Alexander (above) has been cast as “Regency-era Casanova” Christopher Anderson, who “could give the Bridgerton bachelors a run for their money” according to the early details. Want to see this content? This page contains content provided by Google reCAPTCHA. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as Google reCAPTCHA may use cookies and other technologies. To view …

The Testaments review – This is Bridgerton meets Lord of the Flies, a young adult epic for the ages

The Testaments review – This is Bridgerton meets Lord of the Flies, a young adult epic for the ages

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter In the 34 years between the publication of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and its sequel, The Testaments, her 1985 book became a classic. It was adapted for film, for television, and became a staple of classrooms across the world. So, there was an anxiety about this delayed extension of the saga. Was this a cash grab? A desperate stab at relevance? Would it sully its predecessor? And then The Testaments came out and it was… good. So good it won the Booker Prize. That’s where the new Disney+ adaptation picks up: with a story that feels fresh and vital and every bit as compelling as the original. Agnes Mackenzie (Chase Infiniti) is the daughter of a commander in the theocratic, patriarchal state of Gilead. She attends an elite finishing school run by the formidable Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), where she …

Best Streaming Shows Of 2026 To Binge-Watch Over Easter Weekend

Best Streaming Shows Of 2026 To Binge-Watch Over Easter Weekend

Published by Sam Flores

We’ve made it, folks. The four-day Easter weekend is here. Many of us will be using that extended time off to get out into the world and cram as much as possible into their social calendar. But if you’d rather use that time to catch up on some much-needed R&R at home, we salute you. If that sounds appealing, the four-day break might seem like a great opportunity to catch up on the best telly of 2026 that you’ve been too busy to check out until now. With that in mind, here are 17 of the year’s best TV offerings if you’re looking for something to binge during your downtime… After an extended break, fans finally made a return visit to the ’Ton earlier this year, for a new love story with Luke Thompson’s Benedict Bridgerton at its heart. Fans loved seeing the Cinderella story between Benedict and Yerin Ha’s Sophie Baek playing out (even if there were a few uncomfortable bumps in the road), while the slow developments between his sister Francesca and intriguing …

Streaming Ratings March 2-8, 2026

Streaming Ratings March 2-8, 2026

Published by Daniella Wilson

The first week of March was a big one for streaming shows set in 19th century England. Prime Video’s Young Sherlock got off to a solid start in its premiere week, recording 678 million minutes of watch time in Nielsen’s streaming ratings for March 2-8. The series, which follows Sherlock Holmes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) as a college student and budding detective, was the top series debut of the week. Bridgerton, meanwhile, spent a second week as the overall No. 1 title, coming in at 1.99 billion minutes of viewing. It was one of three series to score more than a billion viewing minutes, along with The Night Agent (1.12 billion) and The Pitt (1.11 billion), neither of which are set in 1800s England. Two other shows also made their first appearances in the original series top 10: Netflix’s Steven Spielberg-produced nature series The Dinosaurs drew 612 million minutes of viewing, and Apple TV’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters had 467 million a week into its second season. Hulu’s Paradise accumulated 694 million minutes of watch time …

Rege-Jean Page opens up on Bridgerton fame: ‘It was strange, intense and not normal’

Rege-Jean Page opens up on Bridgerton fame: ‘It was strange, intense and not normal’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Rege-Jean Page has described his experience of navigating global stardom following his breakout role in Netflix’s Bridgerton as “strange” and “very intense”. The 38-year-old actor, who captivated audiences as the Duke of Hastings in the raunchy period drama, departed the series after its hugely successful first season. Speaking to Esquire UK, Page reflected on adapting to life in the spotlight since the Regency romance propelled him to fame. He said: “It is strange, it’s not normal. “How I navigate it is very much about what is useful, what serves me in my job, in being able to deliver what I need to deliver to an audience, and a lot of that is just grounding. “It does get quite loud on the inside, like it was very, very intense, that combination of conversation, and I think I worked quite consciously to be …

Queer Characters to Lead Bridgerton Season 5

Queer Characters to Lead Bridgerton Season 5

Published by José Betancourt

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. What It’s Like to Be a Romance Cover Model File this under: we all contain multitudes. In 2019, Andrew Flanagan was a welder living in Franklin County, Alabama. Now, he’s the cover model on dozens of romance novels. It’s a transformation that began, as so many things do these days, on TikTok. Flanagan built an audience–now more than 1.7 million–by sharing short videos about his daily life. When he first received a message asking if he’d like to model for a romance novel, he thought it was scam. Flanagan has since quit welding, sold more than 100 photos directly to authors seeking cover art, and traveled to photo shoots and book events, where he’s sometimes asked to appear, around the country. Delightful. Queer Characters Take Center Stage in Bridgerton Season 5 They’re coming to the manor. Netflix announced Bridgerton’s fifth season yesterday with a teaser that revealed the series’s first major queer story as Francesca …

Francesca And Michaela’s Bridgerton Season 5 Storyline Will Celebrate ‘Queer Joy’

Francesca And Michaela’s Bridgerton Season 5 Storyline Will Celebrate ‘Queer Joy’

Published by Sam Flores

Bridgerton boss Jess Brownell has lifted the lid on what fans should expect from the show’s upcoming fifth season. On Tuesday, Netflix announced that the next season of the hit period drama would focus on the romance between Francesca Bridgerton and Michaela Stirling, marking the first time the show has had a same-sex love story at its centre. Speaking to the Netflix outlet Tudum following the announcement, Jess said: “What is most exciting about season five is that it is going to be a season about queer joy. It is not going to be a season about queer trauma. “There are going to be difficulties for the characters and conflict in the same way there is for every Bridgerton character. But we are still always grounding our love stories in the fact that this series is about joy. It’s about humour.” “If there’s anything really specific about this season, it is the yearning,” she added. “It’s big-time yearning. “Those of us who know what it’s like to be in a sapphic relationship or have a …

Bridgerton season 5 confirmed to focus on fan-favourite pairing

Bridgerton season 5 confirmed to focus on fan-favourite pairing

Published by Daniella Wilson

*Contains spoilers for Bridgerton season 4.* It’s been confirmed that season 5 of the hit Netflix show Bridgerton will deviate from the storyline of the books to instead focus on a fan-favourite couple, with production already under way. The fifth Bridgerton book follows Eloise finally finding love but in a major change the fifth season of the TV adaption will centre on the relationship between Francesca and Michaela Stirling. Season 3 of the globally popular series saw Francesca, played by Hannah Dodd, marry John Kilmartin and temporarily leave London to spend the summer at his estate in Scotland, alongside his cousin Michaela (Masali Baduza). In the latest season, the newly wed couple are back in London and unsuccessfully trying for a baby before John’s sudden death in episode 6 from what is implied to be a brain aneurysm. The new fifth season is set two years after John’s death and follows Francesca navigating grief whilst also re-entering the marriage market. However her feelings are complicated upon Michaela’s return to London. A first-look trailer for the …

The Last Of Us casts Bridgerton and Star Wars actors as Yara and Lev

The Last Of Us casts Bridgerton and Star Wars actors as Yara and Lev

Published by Daniella Wilson

The Last of Us TV series has found its Yara and Lev, as production continues for the third season of the dystopian series. Deadline confirmed the news that Michelle Mao (Bridgerton) and Kyriana Kratter (Star Wars: Skeleton Crew) will star as siblings Yara and Lev respectively. The publication also reported that as in the game, Lev is a 13-year-old transgender boy – and HBO held an inclusive casting call for the character, with Kratter part of the “young performers of different backgrounds” who auditioned. As per the second game, Yara and Lev are a major part of Abby Anderson’s (Kaitlyn Dever) arc, acting as loyal allies who help Abby during later parts of the game. Kaitlyn Dever as Abby in The Last of Us. Liane Hentscher/HBO Kratter is just 15 years old and has starred in Disney Channel’s Bunk’d and Star Wars series Skeleton Crew, alongside Jude Law and Kerry Condon. Fans will have recently seen Mao in the latest outing of Bridgerton as Rosamund Li, though her other credits include A Big Bold Beautiful Journey …