Steph Elmore - TV & Video Presenter and Voiceover Artist » Celebrity

Jason Manford tells Steph Elmore how he rebuffed Piers Morgan’s ‘fatty’ jibes

Steph Elmore — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:38:00 +0000

After last week’s CityLife Comedian Of The Year final I met up with Manc comedian and youngest-ever winner of the competition, Whalley Range’s Jason Manford. It’s a name you will know if you are into comedy and, if not, one you will be hearing a lot more of soon.

Jason was just 17 when he captured the title in 1999 – following in the footsteps of Kay, Spikey and Aherne. Since then, life being a comic has been good, very good for Jason.

He has received a Perrier nomination, performed in China, Singapore and Dubai, branched out into radio, writing, presenting, acting, turned down a gig on the Charlotte Church Show and landed a part in the tv series Shameless, playing a security guard who gets into an unusual situation with a dog.

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Steph Elmore gets animated over lobster while grilling Corrie’s Antony Cotton

Steph Elmore — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:37:48 +0000

These are words that you wouldn’t normally hear coming from the mouth of Coronation Street’s Sean Tully – the soap’s part-time bar man and knicker stitcher:

“I’ll have lobster and pink champagne, please.”

But Sean, aka Antony Cotton, has a taste for the finer things in life. “People will think I’m such a toff ordering this, but I’m up at 6.45am and work till 7.30pm six days a week. I’ve got to take opportunities like this.”

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Frank Sidebottom and Steph Elmore enjoy an al fresco meal

Steph Elmore — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:36:05 +0000

Would you like to go for lunch at a top hotel for your interview Frank?

“I’d rather go for a picnic.”

What would you like me to bring?

“I love Lucozade, flying saucers. Oh, and Twiglets.”

So I spent my evening shopping for food for a man with papier-mâché head not knowing if he was ever really going to eat it.

Laden with my goodies I met with the man who has appeared on more than 500 television shows, radio, concerts, comic strips, does cover versions of everything from Elvis to the Arctic Monkeys, supported Bros at Wembley, loves felt tip pens, has a mosaic of himself alongside Morrissey and Karl Marx outside Affleck’s Palace and put Timperley on the map. Although don’t tell Frank’s mum he is in showbusiness – she doesn’t know. This is why he will never do an interview for Woman’s Realm.

Where’s your sidekick, Little Frank? “Don’t be stupid he’s made out of cardboard, he can’t speak back.”

Silly me, I wouldn’t want to interview someone made out of paper, would I?

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Steph Elmore Interviews Hollyoaks star Gemma Merna

Steph Elmore — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:35:19 +0000

From Harvey Nichols make-up artist to primetime soap star – 2006 has seen Gemma Merna take quite a journey. The Worsley-born actress joined the tv series Hollyoaks as the airy, sweet-natured Carmel McQueen, just six months ago.

And since then she has hit the front pages of the national tabloids when she appeared at the National Television awards in her stunning turquoise CoCu Desgined dress with Swarovski Crystal, styled by celebrity stylist Sian Lloyd Jones.

This is one girl who knows what she wants. We’re in Numero restaurant in Casino 235, and Gemma has just sent the waitress (admittedly encouraged by myself) half-way around the place looking for some cranberry sauce to go with our very festive plate of turkey and all the trimmings:

“Christmas dinner just isn’t the same without cranberry sauce, is it,” she jokes.

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Emmerdale star Mathew Bose talks candidly with Steph Elmore

Steph Elmore — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:34:07 +0000

Matthew Bose, the dashingly handsome gay character Paul Lambert in Emmerdale, is as dishy and charming in real life as he is on screen.

I had dinner with him in San Carlo restaurant in the city centre and we chatted for more than four hours and shared a lemon tart for dessert. But, although he looks pretty, he talks tough.

“I hate the futile celebrity hollow trinket bolted onto society quite frankly!” he tells me.

“I hate it when people say they want to be famous, famous for what? WAGs were built on the back of magazines.”

This wasn’t a sudden outburst from Mathew as soon as we sat down, but more a response to why he was in Manchester that day. He had been spending time with his old school friend who has recently developed brain virus encephalitis, which causes memory loss.

For Mathew the only useful thing about having celebrity status is bringing exposure to charities, especially the smaller “less sexy” ones.

“At the moment we are trying to discover what he can remember. He’s lived here for the last 20 years, so I’ve been walking round with him all day.”

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Steph Elmore Catches up with Embrace Front Man Danny McNamara

Steph Elmore — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:33:20 +0000

Embrace frontman Danny McNamara is all set to celebrate the first birthday of his legendary The Aftershow at Moho Live and he says he’s feeling pretty cool about it.

“The initial aim was to provide a platform for some of the best unsigned acts in Manchester, and the response has been fantastic.”

“We’ve had some brilliant new bands performing way before anyone had heard of them, including The Ting Tings, Twisted Wheel and Delphic,” he said.

One year on, the night has gone from strength to strength and Danny’s taken The Aftershow to bi-monthly spots. “Manchester’s on fire, man,” he said. “It hasn’t been this way since the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays. And that was the idea: to find 50 of the best new bands on the scene. By November last year I’d unearthed 700 in Manchester alone. Any other city would have just a fraction.”

I wondered why Danny, who along with his own band has notched up numerous top 10 hits and No 1 albums, needs to take the career u-turn from being a singer in a band to promoting them?

He said: “People think i’m fu**ing mental but I love it. Every time I put a night on it’s one big party.”

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