Bookend of an era
Author blows full-time whistle on rugby jock novels
JADA Pinkett supports husband Will Smith at his Bad Boys: Ride or Die Hollywood premiere, seven months after revealing they had separated years ago.
Also with actor Will, 55, was son Trey, 31, daughter Willow, 23, wife Jada, 52, son Jaden, 25, and Jada’s mum Adrienne, 70.
Co-star Martin Lawrence, 59, also got in on the blue carpet action.
AUTHOR Paul Howard is “heartbroken” to be bringing his popular South Dublin rugby jock, Ross O’carroll Kelly, to an end.
The writer says his next book on Ross, Don’t Look Back In Ongar, will be the final one after almost 25 years of penning books and newspaper columns about his exploits.
The last novel will be released in August and Howard admits it will be a wrench to leave him behind.
Ross first appeared as the writer of a satirical column in the Sunday Tribune in 1999.
Since then Paul has written 24 Ross novels, three spin-off books and four stage plays, as well as continuing a weekly column.
He said: “I am, naturally, heartbroken to be bringing the Ross O’carroll-kelly series to an end after 24 hugely enjoyable years. I’ve been writing these books for the greater part of my adult life and have loved every single minute of it. Twenty-seven books in 24 years is a hell of a run, and
Author Paul Howard now I feel that the time is right to move on and pursue other projects.”
He thanked all his readers, many of whom he said have literally grown up with Ross, adding: “I also want to say a huge thank you to the country’s booksellers, who have played a big part in making the Ross series so successful for so long. It’s one of the happy quirks of writing a book in Ireland that you end up on first-name terms with dozens of people who work in bookshops, and I want to say thank you to all of you for your wonderful support over the last two decades. I suspect that life is going to feel a lot different for me without a Ross O’carroll-kelly book deadline always on the next horizon. But I’m very excited about moving on to tell different stories.”
Ross added: “It’s been an absolute blast and I can’t wait to find out what life has in store for me next. And if you’re reading this, Leo Cullen, don’t be too proud to call me. You have my number, dude.”
It will be Jack Rhodes’ first rodeo in the Britain’s Got Talent final, but was he a semi-final rookie earlier this week or has he impressed the judges with his magic tricks before?
When the 27-year-old magician joked in his audition that he “might be” The Phantom – the invisible act that made the semi-finals in Series 15 – speculation grew about his identity.
“Am I The Phantom? I can’t tell you,” Jack quips, refusing to give anything away before tomorrow’s final on ITV.
Whether he has unmasked himself or not, telly mogul Simon Cowell thinks he has what it takes to secure the final’s €294,000 cash prize.
“You really are one in a million, you’ve got everything,” Simon, 64, told Jack after his “jaw-dropping” semi-final performance, describing him as “the favourite to win”.
Jack, born in the Lake District, didn’t see it coming and was left speechless by the praise.
“I was not expecting Simon to say those words,” he says. “My act was a risk and hearing that feedback made me feel as though I’d done myself proud. It couldn’t have gone any better.”
After the cameras stopped rolling, Simon shook Jack’s hand before telling him: “I’m looking forward to seeing what you do in the final.”
But how is he going to top his mind-blowing card trick from inside a box of dynamite that so impressed judges including Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon?
“I’ve tried hard to make each act different from what anyone has seen before, and I’m going to be continuing that theme in the final,” Jack reveals.
The finale at the Eventim Apollo, in West London, will be a surreal moment for the Youtuber, who used to watch the show as a youngster on his TV at home.
Jack recalls fondly: “I got into magic when I was 10. Learning how to shuffle a deck of cards was a rite of passage in my family and my grandad used to do the old cliche trick of pulling a card from behind my ear.”
As well as cards, he played the banjo, ukulele and guitar growing up, and even as an adult, when he went into nuclear engineering, magic tricks remained
Jack’s hobby.
“I did magic tricks around the office. I just liked to make the other lads laugh. Then I started doing it at small parties and weddings.”
After working in his high-pressure job for nearly a decade, Jack left it all behind last August to pursue a magic career full-time and now he has 200,000 Youtube subscribers.
“I just do card tricks in my garage these days, it’s wonderful. It’s a massive shift,” he says. “The biggest change is that I’m by myself a lot now, filming videos in front of a lens. Although I see
comments and views going up, it’s not the same as performing to a live crowd. The buzz of the Britain’s Got Talent audience is crazy.
“The semi-final was the best gig I’ve ever done. It was amazing. Seeing the crowd’s reaction to my performance was the best feeling in the world.”
The former engineer hopes to top that incredible moment tomorrow as he takes on opera singer Innocent Masuku, taekwondo group Ssaulabi
DEJA-WHO?