Throng

In Brief

• The Samoan Government will sue TVNZ over a ONE News item about gun running and drugs in Samoa.
• There's plenty more Tony Veitch saga analysis and letters to the editor, if you're still interested.
• Sunday Star Times interviews Brendan Telfer, now home from hospital, a month after collapsing with a brain haemorrhage.  He's hopeful he'll make a full recovery.
• Petition to get Samantha Hayes to dye her hair red again.
• Shane Cortese (Outrageous Fortune) is starring in Cats, the musical, which starts in June in Auckland.
• Sale St bar in Auckland has created a Susan Boyle cocktail.  It costs $16 and contains vodka, wild strawberry and sour rhubarb liqueurs, blossom water, cranberry juice and mixed berries.

Dancing with the Stars

Tamati Coffey talks to Sunday News about his grandparents, ANZAC day and being gay:

"I've been out to my family and friends and everybody that knows me.  It's never been a secret.  I came out when I was about 15 and I have never, ever hid that."

Spy says: "Rumours from behind the scenes at Dancing with the Stars... suggest not all was as hunky dory as suggested.  In fact, I could have sliced the air with a knife when I spoke with one precious lovely about an alleged encounter with the spouse of someone on the show.  Rumour has it said spouse plucked up the courage to articulate certain anguishes at the celebratory after-party on Tuesday night, and this did not go down well with the lovely. Allegations in public of hanky panky are no good for the image.  Her response to me: 'It was all a storm in a tea-cup, really.'"

TV Highlights this week

Stars in their Eyes is back for a second season.  This time the public can vote!  The 45 contestants include a caravan-park resident, a paramedic, a man who calls himself "the Billy Elliot of Rangiora".  Producers promise a lot more talent in this second season and more modern artists.

Trading Houses mixes reality shows "Wife Swap" and "Changing Rooms" and asks "would you swap your spouse for a better house?".  Two wives trade husbands and houses for four days while they do up two rooms in the other's house with a $10,000 budget.  In the first episode well-known record producer Tracy Magan swaps with Manurewa mum Carmel Williams.

Sonny with a Chance starts tomorrow on Disney Channel.  Star Demi Lovato (16) is said to be the next Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana.  She plays an ordinary girl whose home-made internet videos win her TV fame on a kids' comedy show.  She has her own album out, "Don't Forget".

TV Developments

• Coronation Street may be sold to an independent production company to cut costs.
• Flight of the Conchords may be made into a movie.
• Chuck may be cancelled.
• Sonia Grey is returning to work at Wheel of Fortune earlier than expected, only a month after giving birth.
• On May 24, Juice TV will try and beat the world record for the number of people strumming a song.  They've chosen "Why Does Love Do This to Me?".  The record to beat is 1951 Polish guitarists playing "Hey Joe" (Jimi Hendrix).

Blind items

"Which newsreader has been described on a website by an Old Friend as "like Hitler"?"

Interviews

There's an interview with Ricky Gervais in the Herald on Sunday talking about immortality, his work with Steve Merchant and his latest project, directing for "This Side of the Truth".  Gervais says: "I do this for the fun, for the creative process, not to see my fat face on the telly.  It's about bringing something into the world.  All my DNA is in the work that I've done."

Dominic Monaghan talks to Sunday News about playing Wolverine in the new X-Men movie, Lost and his time in New Zealand for Lord of the Rings.

Sacha McNeil (3 News) shares a photo of her as a kid with Sunday.

Gossip

• Spy reports that a male Shortland Street star was reportedly seen kissing a well-known married past Shortland Street actress.
• Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy) is pregnant with her first child.
• One of the Kardashians is having radical plastic surgery - but it's not Kim.
• Jennifer Aniston is now dating Gerard Butler.
• ONE News correspondent Tim Wilson's love life (or lack thereof) is discussed in Spy.  He's said to be being groomed for the Close Up role, or another current affairs show of his own.