Magnificent one rides on (From The Northern Echo)

Magnificent one rides on

3:06pm Friday 13th January 2012 in Tonight's TV By Steve Pratt

Hustle (BBC1, 9pm)
Milton Jones’s House Of Rooms (C4, 10.30pm)
The Lark Ascending (BBC4, 7.30pm)

"I’m the last man standing,” says Robert Vaughn proudly, while reflecting on his position as the final surviving actor of classic film The Magnificent Seven and cult series The Protectors.

Of course at his age, the man who was Napoleon Solo in The Man From Uncle and Harry Rule in The Protectors prefers to sit down for as many scenes as possible, and who can blame him?

At 79, the native New Yorker has been busier than ever juggling the role of Albert in Hustle and as Sylvia’s suitor Milton in Coronation Street.

Alas, this is the last ever run of slick conman caper Hustle, which also features Adrian Lester, Robert Glenister, Matt Di Angelo and Kelly Adams among its leading players.

This year marks Vaughn’s 57th year on TV and, in his time, he’s done it all. He’s also added much weight to such movies as Bullitt and The Magnificent Seven.

With a big screen version of The Man From Uncle now in the pipeline, there’s a good chance he and David McCallum will be hired for a cameo, but while mooted new Solo, Bradley Cooper, may be brushing up on old episodes of Uncle for the new movie, for millions of fans there will only be one man to fill Napoleon’s shoes.

Unlike its millions of fans around the world, Vaughn can’t recall the exact details of each episode. “We did 112 shows and it was more than 30 years ago. I don’t remember them specifically but I had a wonderful time doing it.”

He also has fond memories of making The Protectors. “I lived in London for three years and got to be very fond of my co-stars, Nyree Dawn Porter and Tony Anholt,” he recalls.

“Unfortunately, both of them have died since. I’m not only the last person from that show but I’m also the last member of The Magnificent Seven still alive. I’m the last man standing.”

Tonight’sTV By Steve Pratt email: steve.pratt@nne.co.uk THE surreal musings and one-liners of comedian Milton Jones have earned him a huge following – and a new TV show Milton Jones’s House Of Rooms. This looks set to continue the good work he’s been doing with his various comedy projects on Radio 4.

Milton and his mother live together in a big, old house, renting out their spare rooms to a variety of tenants, including Alice, a tongue-tied girl who can’t quite communicate with Milton, who’s equally awkward in her presence.

When new tenant Paul arrives, he seems to hit it off with Alice right away, forcing Milton to up his game and try to compete for her attention.

So how did he come up with the stage character for which he’s famous? “I used to go on as myself years ago and sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn’t. I’d do a few one-liners, and that went well. Then I found that if I messed my hair up and put on a silly jumper or a loud shirt, it acted as a signpost to where I was coming from.

“People got it, suddenly. They went, ‘Oh, he’s mad, I see’. People may not remember the name but they remember ‘the mad one’ and what I looked like. That became quite handy. As soon as I thought of him as a character rather than as me, it became easier to write for. Who is he, what is his world? It helped me all round really.”

IN 2010, radio listeners voted English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending the nation’s favourite piece of classical music.

In the documentary, Diana Rigg tells the story behind the work. Today the piece is viewed as summoning a quintessentially English, pastoral feel but it was actually written at one of the darkest moments in the country’s history – 1914, when Europe was heading towards war.

She sets out to discover why this particular piece continues to strike such a chord with many listeners, often providing the soundtrack to their most important rites of passage, including births, weddings and funerals.

There’s a performance of this classic piece by 15-year-old violin prodigy Julia Hwang and pianist Charles Matthews at Shirehampton Public Hall, where The Lark Ascending was performed for the very first time in December 1920.