His talent for invention once seemed unstoppable, inspiring a cast of richly ludicrous characters, from Stavros the kebab shop owner and DJ ‘Smashie’ to Kevin the teenager and, perhaps most memorably of all, Loadsamoney, the shamelessly avaricious plasterer.
But I can disclose that Harry Enfield’s latest creative effort has been condemned not merely as ‘perfectly foul’ – a verdict bestowed on his various television personas by his own father – but as ‘harmful’ and ‘damaging’.
This time, the critics aren’t drawn from Enfield’s family – his father, Edward, died in 2019 – but from neighbours in eye-wateringly expensive Notting Hill, where Enfield, 62, and his wife, Lucy, shelled out £6million for a five-storey family house back in 2008.
Since then, Enfield has walked out on Lucy – abandoning her in the summer 2020, as I revealed – and the property has soared in value, so much so that it would now fetch at least £11million if it came on the market.
But the estranged couple, who, according to Land Registry records, still jointly own the house, have decided that it’s in need of improvement by inserting a second dormer window in the front roof and altering the dormer window to the rear.
Harry Enfield’s latest creative effort has been condemned not merely as ‘perfectly foul’, but as ‘harmful’ and ‘damaging’
Lucy Enfield and Harry Enfield attend a cocktail reception in London in 2018
Actor Harry Enfield is seen in Loadsamoney in 1987
Down on the ground floor, they’re additionally seeking permission for a patio extension and the insertion of an air-conditioning unit, new railings, a five-and-a-half foot trellis screen, and metal rooflights and ‘bi-fold’ doors.
Alas, their plans have failed to find favour with locals, who include Ruby Wax and her husband, television producer Ed Bye, and fat-cat former Chancellor George Osborne, who snapped up a house round the corner for £10million in 2022.
In a scathing summary, members of the Ladbroke Association, which battles to preserve ‘the beauty, history and character of the neighbourhood’, decries the proposed new rear dormer window as ‘enormous and overbearing’. Summarising the alterations as a whole as ‘harmful to the conservation area and damaging to the very charm and character that make people want to live in the area’, it then points out that the house ‘appears to have perfectly good timber-framed windows at lower ground level’.
These, it adds, ‘could easily be replaced by timber-framed bi-fold ones’. Indeed, it concludes, there seems to be no reason for metal ‘crittall-style’ windows – ‘except fashion’.
Enfield, himself no longer as fashionable as once he was, declines to comment. Perhaps he’s consoling himself in the arms of the younger woman with whom he was pictured after walking out on Lucy, mother of his three children?
Daisy swaps Savile Row suits for sandy acrobatics
Daisy Knatchbull made history when she became the first designer to have a women-only shopfront in London’s Savile Row – but tailoring is clearly not her only strong point.
The great-granddaughter of the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma demonstrated her strength during a family trip to the Bahamas – in which she carried out an open-legged headstand on top of her cousin Isla, 18. The bikini-clad designer (right), 31, is the daughter of Philip Knatchbull, former boss of cinema chain Curzon.
Daisy Knatchbull attends the launch of The Deck’s new London flagship store on Savile Row
The great-granddaughter of the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma demonstrated her strength during a family trip to the Bahamas
Why life is gritty for Clarkson
Life on his Diddly Squat farm is not for the squeamish, warns Jeremy Clarkson.
‘Farming on television has been portrayed as fresh straw, fluffy lambs, agreeable calves: a bit like Babe. I had it in my head that farming was much dirtier and harder, and I always wanted to show it like it actually is,’ he said ahead of the new series of Clarkson’s Farm.
‘Farming doesn’t have many happy endings, as we’ve discovered. We want to show everybody what real farming is.’
Scenes showing Clarkson’s sows firing out their newborns ‘like machine guns’ may not be for the faint-hearted.
Grieving Lady Gabriella moves back to her parents
Lady Gabriella Windsor turned 43 yesterday, but it was the saddest birthday of her life after the tragic death in February of her husband, Thomas Kingston, 45.
I hear that Lady Gabriella, known as Ella to friends, has moved back in with her parents, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, at Kensington Palace.
‘They wanted Ella to be with them, and she didn’t want to be alone in the home she shared with Tom,’ one of her pals tells me. ‘All of us are rallying round and she’s going to be OK.’
Ella, whose father is a first cousin of the late Queen, had previously lived in Notting Hill, West London, with Tom.
He died from a ‘traumatic head wound’, an inquest heard in March. A gun was found near his body in an outbuilding at his parents’ home in the Cotswolds.
His death was not being treated as suspicious, and no one else was involved.
Lady Gabriella Windsor turned 43 yesterday, but it was the saddest birthday of her life after the tragic death in February of her husband, Thomas Kingston, 45
Rock star Jon Bon Jovi says his son’s screen career is being held back by the new trend for online auditions.
‘My son is a young, aspiring actor,’ he says, referring to Jake Bongiovi, 21, a model who’s engaged to Hollywood star Millie Bobby Brown, 20.
‘He would have that magic when he walked into a room for an audition – but he came up during Covid and now everything is on Zoom.
‘All these casting agents are missing out on the personality of the young actor, winning your heart, not just reading your lines.’
Parliamentary sartorial update: black brogues are out and trainers are in. Minister Simon Hoare was at the Commons despatch box this week wearing black sports shoes. Hoare, a minor figure in the local government department, does not look a remotely sporty figure. He wore the shoes with a black suit. The combination was not easy on the eye.
Clare Balding had some barking advice for Cambridge University students when she visited her alma mater this weekend.
The broadcaster, 53, told them they ‘should think like a dog’ to achieve happiness in life as ‘there will always be a person to wag your tail’. Her cryptic words are scribbled across a blackboard in the bar of the Cambridge Union Society.
Crufts presenter Balding is a graduate of Newnham College, Cambridge.
Her latest book is Isle Of Dogs: My Canine Adventure Through Britain.
While Lily Allen says having children ‘totally ruined’ her pop music career, comic Sara Pascoe thinks motherhood is a gift to women in her trade. ‘Everyone I know who’s had children, all the women I know who do comedy, have got better,’ says Sara, who has two young sons with her husband, comedian Steen Raskopoulos. ‘[Having children] made comedy less important – it made them better at it. Comedy isn’t important, it’s throwaway, it’s inconsequential – don’t overthink it.’
