Londoner's Diary: Elisabeth Murdoch’s rural retreat from her split with Freud

 
Country sports: Elisabeth Murdoch has been riding with Emily Oppenheimer (Picture: Tim Whitby/Getty)
27 January 2015

When media executive Elisabeth Murdoch and PR Matthew Freud announced their divorce last October after 13 years of marriage, whispers began over how the pair would split custody of their army of influential friends. Now The Londoner hears that Murdoch has nailed her colours to the mast of a neighbouring estate.

She is staying at Cornbury Park, the estate of Bank of England Governor Mark Carney’s in-laws, Lord and Lady Rotherwick, and the site of the annual Wilderness Festival. The 5,000-acre estate in Oxfordshire has a number of houses in addition to the Grade I-listed Cornbury House.

This is not exactly new territory. It’s just six miles from Burford Priory, the country residence she and Freud shared that placed them at the heart of the Chipping Norton set, mingling with David and Samantha Cameron and Rebekah Brooks.

Mere days after the separation was announced, Murdoch left Primrose Hill for St John’s Wood where she bought what the estate agents described as an “ambassadorial residence” for a cool £38.5 million.

Her friend Emily Oppenheimer, diamond heiress and also recently divorced from film producer Will Turner, has posted a charming photograph on Twitter. It shows her and Murdoch looking very happy on horseback outside the grand 17th-century façade of Cornbury House on a Sunday morning ride.

Would this rural relocation be permanent? Freud’s people were “unable to help” with our enquiries and Murdoch’s team at her media company Shine have not confirmed the move.

West End actors down in the dumps

The Londoner was just polishing off half a dozen oysters at Covent Garden’s J Sheekey when we saw the heart-breaking sight of a troupe of West End actors drowning their sorrows, having just been handed their 12-weeks’ notice. The cast of the sadly closing Made in Dagenham, perhaps? No, t’was the dashing men and women of Shakespeare in Love. Their press office assures us the play was always set to end its run at the Noël Coward theatre in April — but then why did the thesps seem so glum?

Love of Shakespeare kept in the family

Speaking of the Bard, 11 Downing Street echoed to the sound of the Bard last night, as a brigade of very young actors brought the classics to life as part of the Shakespeare Schools Festival. Hosted by the Chancellor’s wife, the novelist Frances Osborne, the audience included National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner, who steps down from his role in two months.

But culture minister Sajid Javid got the warmest reception. One of the young actresses was so excited to see the Tory MP that she flung her arms around him in greeting. Had Javid started to drum up support among the voters of tomorrow? “She’s my niece,” he explained with a grin.

Battle of the pants, and a bit of bondage

To the Café Royal last night to celebrate Debrett’s 500 Most Influential. Search as we might, The Londoner could not find our name among the 500, although we found lesser names such as David Gandy, Kelly Hoppen, Professor Brian Cox and Gizzi Erskine, all of whom were there to hobnob with other powerhouses from fashion to food, science to music.

Erskine, minus her trademark beehive, was trading restaurant tips with Polpo owner Russell Norman.

The undisputed winner of the pants — sorry, fashion — category was David Gandy, who in his M&S tighty-whities has undeniably beaten David Beckham’s H&M offering in the underwear stakes. Gandy takes patriotic pride in this: the footballer lost, Gandy claimed, because “he didn’t choose British, that was his problem”.

Looking smart: David Gandy, Kelly Hoppen and Brian Cox (Picture: Dave Benett)
Dave Benett

Speaking of underwear and beating people into submission, Gandy plans to see Fifty Shades of Grey when it is released on Valentine’s Day — but not with his girlfriend. “I actually go to the cinema a lot on my own, just grab a Starbucks and watch a couple of movies alone.”

E L James also at the party, was thrilled. “Tell him I’m having a private screening at my house!” she squawked. We pictured the salacious James plying Gandy with her new blend of Fifty Shades-inspired wine, the “very thick, very rich” Red Satin. Poor bloke doesn’t stand a chance…

Stuck in the past?

O brave new world that has such people in’t! The Londoner recently received an invitation to a panel on “Leadership in the Digital Age: Thinking the Unthinkable” — part of the 21st-century statesmanship programme, Churchill 2015.

The forward-looking visionaries in the line-up? Lord Nicholas Stern, Sir Robert Cooper, Sir John Holmes, Sir Lawrence Freedman, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Professor Michael Clarke, Professor Ian Goldin and a Mr Charles Grant. Sounds a lot like 19th-century statesmanship to us.

Booted and suited for the special relationship

Yesterday we reported the dashing Indian PM had NARENDRA DAMODARDASMODI embroidered into the pinstripe of the suit he wore when meeting President Obama in Delhi last weekend.

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was the only other politician we could think of who had the chutzpah to wear his own name but documentary-maker Michael Cockerell reminds us of the US President and British PM, pictured above right respectively, who shared the same initials. “When Jimmy Carter visited James Callaghan in 1977, Callaghan gave him some cloth to make a suit with JC in the pinstripe,” says Cockerell. “Carter was over the moon, though he perhaps didn’t know that Callaghan kept the rest of the JC bale to make a matching one.”

Let the wine flow in NW6

While Boris Johnson may want to see less street drinking, his younger brother Leo is positively encouraging it. Sustainability expert Leo has begun producing a new wine called NW6, after the postcode for his Queen’s Park residence, and the grapes are trampled in nearby Brent. On Saturday, walking down Johnson’s terrace, the Londoners found him in his front garden surrounded by a polite but thirsty mob, all clamouring for a taste from several large barrels.

“It was a riot,” Johnson told us. “There’s now about 50 neighbours from around the Kensal to Kilburn area who have got involved. We’ve had some issues with the NW6 label — we got the year wrong and put 2015 on the 2014 batches — but this year’s will have to be 2015b.” Johnson is set to expand, with plans for a street party. And then? “Onto the cider!” We expect property prices to soar.

Beans Means Heinz?

With BP’s sponsorship of the National Portrait Gallery receiving huge criticism from activists, the reputation of corporate sponsors is often at the fore of discussion surrounding arts institutions. According to Young Vic Artistic Director David Lan, however, it has always been a problem. Lan was at Farringdon’s Theatre Delicatessen last night for the first night of Walking The Tightrope, a dramatic analysis of censorship and expression, and he recalled a production he worked on at The Royal Court in his youth. “I don’t like having to make these decisions but there’s nothing I can do about that,” he said. “I try to make good decisions. When I was in my twenties, in the seventies, I wrote a play called Homage to Bean Soup, which we did in The Theatre Upstairs. I came down from rehearsals one day and someone came over and said that, since the play was called Bean Soup, that they were thinking that perhaps they could get Heinz on board. I couldn’t believe it.”

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