Why Simon Cowell’s brother won’t be invited to his wedding

Simon Cowell is personally taking charge of arrangements for his wedding to girlfriend Lauren Silverman — reportedly planned for Cliveden House.

Cowell, 62, famously doesn’t like big parties; and even more famously, isn’t a fan of getting married. He said in an interview that he didn’t want the fuss of a wedding planner, so is doing it all himself.

It’s going to be an ‘intimate’ gathering of friends and family. Son Eric, eight, will be centre stage, and Adam — bride Lauren’s son from her first marriage — will be there, too.

Cowell’s half-siblings Michael, Tony and June are all expected to come — June from her home in Majorca.

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Simon Cowell is personally taking charge of arrangements for his wedding to girlfriend Lauren Silverman — reportedly planned for Cliveden House next month.

However, his brother Nick, his only full sibling, looks certain to be absent.

Nick, a successful property developer, was very close to Simon. Sadly, though, the two fell out badly some years ago, for reasons never uncovered.

I can reveal that they were not even on speaking terms until recently.

A confidante of Cowell’s says: ‘There has been a thawing of relations and they are now talking to each other occasionally. There’s been perestroika, after years of no-contact, but it’s early days still. I would definitely not expect him [Nick] at the wedding.’

Another adds: ‘They are only just talking; and we don’t expect that Nick or his family will put in an appearance.’

Simon famously made vicious speeches at his brother’s wedding before Nick got his own back at Simon’s lavish 50th. ‘One of my best lines was how he met his girlfriend Terri online, through an internet dating thing,’ Nick said. ‘How for months and months they were writing to each other. And when he met her, he was surprised that Terri could be a girl’s name, as well as a boy’s name.

‘The other one I quite liked was: his favourite song when he was growing up was a song called Two Little Boys. And how he still likes Two Little Boys to this day.’ He added: ‘It’s just an easy thing. He’s completely slaughtered me in the past. I was just trying to get my own back. People found it funny. I was very pleased with myself.’

Both Cowells attended Radlett Prep and then boarded at Dover College — which they detested. Their late father, Eric, a property manager for EMI, got them both jobs as tea boys in estate agents’ offices.

Cowell, 62, famously doesn’t like big parties; and even more famously, isn’t a fan of getting married (pictured: girlfriend Lauren Silverman)

Simon hated his; and Eric then found him a position in the post room at EMI. From here, he worked his way up to global stardom as a TV show judge and format creator.

Nick and Simon used to holiday together, and biographer Tom Bower revealed that Nick, who is younger than Simon by 17 months, actually dated singer Sinitta before his brother. In the 1980s, the two men would go clubbing together. And Nick (a multi-millionaire in his own right) was on hand when Simon became globally famous.

Friends expected to be invited to the wedding include Simon’s former girlfriend Terri Seymour and her boyfriend Clark Mallon, pop star Robbie Williams and wife Ayda Field, swimwear designer Melissa Odabash and interior designer Kelly Hoppen. Ditto agent Jonathan Shalit, Cowell’s mentor Pete Waterman, and Sinitta, of whom Cowell remains fond.

Both Simon and Nick Cowell declined to comment this week.In an earlier interview, Nick said: ‘I wouldn’t compare my success with his. Not for one second. He is very successful. I’m OK.’

Lines that left Joanna in tears

She spoke Welsh when she scooped her Bafta for After Love, saying: ‘Diolch yn fawr iawn, as we say in my country! Bafta, thank you so much . . . some stories have surprising endings, don’t they?’

But actress Joanna Scanlan admits she was reduced to tears of frustration while attempting to learn her lines for a TV drama filmed in Welsh.

‘It was like swimming in the sea — in the dark, in the middle of the night — on occasions, as I failed again and again, to understand the language,’ said Scanlan, who plays grieving mother Sharon Roberts in Channel 4’s six-part The Light In The Hall.

Wirral-born Scanlan grew up in North Wales, but had only just started learning Welsh when the part was offered to her. ‘I thought I wouldn’t be able to learn so much Welsh dialogue, and had to be talked out of quitting the project by my husband,’ she recalled.

Actress Joanna Scanlan admits she was reduced to tears of frustration while attempting to learn her lines for a TV drama filmed in Welsh

‘It was only thanks to my 19-year-old niece, Robin, who is a Welsh speaker, that I finally started to learn. She caught me crying in the kitchen, after one particularly frustrating attempt to learn my lines, told me to get a grip and drilled the words into me!’

The Light In The Hall, which was filmed in both Welsh and English and co-stars Alexandra Roach, will air on Channel 4 this autumn, with Welsh subtitles. The Welsh language version, Y Golau, premieres this Sunday on S4C and on BBC iPlayer in Welsh with English subtitles.

Scanlan, who starred in The Thick Of It and The Larkins on TV, won her Bafta for playing Mary Hussein, a widow who discovers her husband had a secret family, in the feature film After Love.

She cheekily suggested, after her triumph, that she could play the next James Bond, but says: ‘So far, Barbara Broccoli hasn’t called.’ Despite that, Joanna has a busy year ahead, including series two of The Larkins for ITV.

Peaky Blinders boss builds much bigger bomb…

Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy has gone through an amazing physical transformation to play Dr J. Robert Oppenheimer, the ‘father of the atomic bomb’, in a $100 million blockbuster.

Murphy, 45, lost at least a stone to portray the tortured genius, who was a distinctively stooped and lanky figure, seldom seen without a cigarette.

This exclusive picture show him outside Fuller Lodge in the Los Alamos research facility, where the Christopher Nolan film, called Oppenheimer, has had permission to shoot, and where the atomic bomb was first built.

Murphy, 45, lost at least a stone to portray the tortured genius, who was a distinctively stooped and lanky figure, seldom seen without a cigarette

Matt Damon plays General Leslie R Groves, the commanding general of the Manhattan Project which built, designed and tested the world’s first atomic weapons.

In the picture, the men are recreating the 1945 presentation of the Army-Navy ‘E’ Award (the E stands for excellence in production of war equipment) to the physicist, who was stepping down as the facility’s director.

Murphy leads an all-star cast, with British actresses Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh playing his wife and mistress, respectively.

In the picture, the men are recreating the 1945 presentation of the Army-Navy ‘E’ Award (the E stands for excellence in production of war equipment) to the physicist, who was stepping down as the facility’s director

Oscar winner Gary Oldman has a small role, said to be as President Truman. Truman met Oppenheimer after the bombs were used in 1945, killing 200,000 people, and Oppenheimer said that he felt he had blood on his hands. Truman had little use for such pangs of conscience and dismissed him as a ‘crybaby scientist’.

Kenneth Branagh is also in the film — rumour has it that he plays FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover, who was suspicious of Oppie and his ‘Communist sympathies’.

Nolan’s previous films include Batman Begins, Memento, Interstellar, Inception, Tenet and Dunkirk. He’s come a long way since we sat through Mr Turnbull’s history lessons together at Haileybury College in Hertfordshire.

Ryder whips up a storm

The UK has had some very bad Eurovision nights; not least last year, when James Newman’s Embers got nul points.

However that’s all set to change with social media sensation Sam Ryder, 32, who will be giving a characteristically big performance of Space Man — all hair, teeth and falsetto — at this year’s event in Turin.

Ryder, from Maldon in Essex, became famous during lockdown for his exuberant covers on TikTok, where he goes by @samhairwolfryder.

He has more than 12 million followers and 101 million likes, including from pop stars Justin Bieber and Sia. He says: ‘My goal is to sing with the same intention I always sing with, then come away with the joy that it has given me.’

Louis Walsh, who mentored Johnny Logan to two wins for Ireland, tells me: ‘Eurovision is going to be great for the UK. You could win! The only thing that could go wrong is Ukraine might win all the votes, for obvious reasons.’

Ryder is just behind Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra in the betting (at 11/2). The final is live on BBC1 from 8pm on Saturday.

It’s Fiennes’s coolest role — as ice man Wim

Minds boggled at the casting of Dominic West as Prince Charles… but what about Joseph Fiennes, who is set to play eccentric Dutch ice-breaker Wim Hof?

Fiennes rose to international fame in the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love, as the doe-eyed, youthful Bard, and became such an object of desire that he had a red-hot fling with supermodel Naomi Campbell. More recently, he played villain Fred Waterford in the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Now Fiennes, 51, is preparing to play postman-turned-guru Hof, 63, in a film The Iceman, which starts shooting in November. The script has been written by Brit Jeff Pope.

Hof holds the record for the farthest swim under ice; and set a world record for another obscure test of endurance: the fastest half-marathon run barefoot on ice and snow.

Minds boggled at the casting of Dominic West as Prince Charles… but what about Joseph Fiennes, who is set to play eccentric Dutch ice-breaker Wim Hof?

He promotes the Wim Hof Method — a combination of exposure to the cold, yoga and meditation — and has been demonstrating this on the BBC One show Freeze The Fear.

Hof’s wife Olaya committed suicide in 1995, and he developed his techniques to help him to deal with depression.

Director Kevin Macdonald said: ‘Wim is someone who has suffered a terrible trauma and finds an entirely new way to deal with the depression that comes with that experience.

‘Jeff Pope has written a brilliant script — full of humour, humanity and emotions. We are introduced to the Dutch suburbs, crazy stunts, a broken family, a love affair and an epiphany. This is a film about resilience, second chances and the amazing ability of the body and mind to heal.’

The claims made for Hof’s method have not been scientifically proven; and people have drowned while attempting his techniques.

Emilia wants to be a real-life forensic sleuth

Silent Witness star Emilia Fox has spent 18 years playing forensic scientist Dr Nikki Alexander — and her immersion has been so complete that she would like to do a degree in forensic science and criminology.

Ms Fox, 47, said: ‘I find the area in which my character operates absolutely fascinating and would love to acquire genuine expertise and qualifications.

‘At the moment, I am learning on the job: working with Professor David Wilson on a new series of Channel 4’s In The Footsteps Of Killers, where we re-examine unsolved murders. But when time allows, I would be keen to study the subject more formally.’

Silent Witness star Emilia Fox has spent 18 years playing forensic scientist Dr Nikki Alexander — and her immersion has been so complete that she would like to do a degree in forensic science and criminology

Ms Fox has an English degree from Oxford but complains that it doesn’t help her to learn her lines. ‘Learning lines is really hard. It’s one of the most difficult parts of the job and takes me hours and hours to do.

‘I try to come up with little riddles to aid with the line learning, but the medical and scientific terminology is never less than challenging — and there’s a lot of it in the new series.’ That kicks off on May 23, with two episodes out each week, for three weeks.

Fan favourite Amanda Burton — the previous star of the series — will feature in all six episodes. She starred as pathologist Sam Ryan between 1996 and 2004, and in the show now works for a medical company, producing health passports.

She said: ‘When I got a call asking me to come back, I was blown away! I just thought: ‘How brilliant that they’re thinking of doing that.’ I would have been mad not to do it.’