Jack Caroll is trollied, eaten by lions, endures soap opera angst, does stand-up comedy, shows his backside and his dick

Mobility is a BAFTA Award-winning comedy short about three boys from Huddlesfield, Yorkshire, who get on each other's nerves as they ride the mobility bus to school.  

Surly Dan (Ruben Reuter) insults everyone, mostly by references to the sexual proficiency of "your Mum."

Upbeat Sonny (Zak Ford-Williams) announces that "the only disability is a bad attitude," and chastises Dan: his behavior is not in keeping with the spirit of the Duke of Edinburgh award. 

Entrepreneur Mike (Jack Carroll) claims to be the future Wolf of Wakefield; he's going to make a fortune on the stock market.

I researched Ruben and Zak, and discovered that they are both gay in real life.  Coincidence, or a deliberate casting decision?

Time to check out the third, Jack Carroll, who also co-wrote the script.  

He has the longest resume of the three: Born in 1998 in Bradford, Yorkshire, started his career at age 12.  Comedian Jason Manford saw a video of Jack performing at his parents' wedding anniversary, and invited him to perform at a show at St. George's Hall.  

A film of his comedy bit aired on The One Show,leading  Britain's Got Talent, where he was runner-up, and 13 episodes of the sketch comedy show The Ministry of Curious Stuff (2012). Episodes of 4 O'Clock Club, Katy, Big School, and Ministry of Justice followed.

And the feature film Eaten by Lions (2018).  After their Gran dies, half-brothers Pete and Omar (Jack, Antonio Aakeel) go off in search of Omar's estranged dad. They find him in the tawdry, seedy tourist trap of Blackpool (for Americans, think Atlantic City).  Pete gets a girlfriend, and shows his bum.  I reviewed it several years ago.  It got a low grade for heteronormativity.

Next came 25 episodes of Trollied (2014-18), about the workers in a run-down supermarket (for Americans, a trolly is a shopping cart).  Mark Addy, who stripped down in The Full Monty (1997), played head butcher Andy, and perennial nude dude Joel Fry played nice guy Leighton.

Jack's character, 16-year old Harry, is the brightest of the group: he received 9 A-grades in his GCSEs (tests taken during Year 11 of secondary school).  He's heterosexual.

In the short Newbie (2023), a new teacher is worried that students won't accept him because of his disability.   Weird-- the guy played a high school student that same year.  But Cole Sprouse was 30 when he finished playing high schooler Jughead on Riverdale.

 

Jack's biggest role to date is Bobby Crawford in 69 episodes of the soap Coronation Street (2023-25). 

In 2023, the teenage Bobby argues with his mum's boyfriend, and gets kicked out.  He looks up his birth dad, Rob Donovan (Marc Bayliss), who is in prison, and gets a referral to live with his Aunt Carla on....Coronation Street.

Ulp...maybe a soap opera community is not the best home.  Aunt Carla has a life-threatening illness, then disowns Bobby due to his friendship with his birth dad. He is kidnapped, becomes a hostage, is accused of murder....

His crush Lauren disappears, presumably murdered; then she reappears, is accused of murder, and is blackmailed.  Am I getting this right?  It seems rather repetitive.  Finally Bobby has had enough; he runs away to Majorca to work on a fishing boat with a male friend.  

Jack explains that he had to leave the show to prepare for a national tour, but maybe he was getting tired of the angst.  He's primarily a comedian, after all.

He has performed on Britain's Got Talent, Britain's Got More Talent, Loose Ladies, Pointless Celebrities, Sunday Brunch, This Morning, The Stand Up Sketch Show, and Would I Lie to You?, as well as many live venues.  In 2026 his "Fall Guy" tours Scotland, beginning in Edinburgh. 

More after the break

Matthew Beem hitchhikes naked, takes a polar plunge, builds secret rooms to spy on his internet star friends. With four of their d*cks

 I grew up before the internet, so I instinctively think of entertainment as books, movies, and tv programs written and performed by professionals and distributed by corporations. But there's a whole world out there of short form, amateur videos that I had no idea existed. 

Topper Guild posts stories about saving his friend from an evil cult, surviving the strictest school in the world, and so on to his 88 million subscribers.

Matthew Beem, who has "only" eight million subscribers, does wacky DIY projects, like turning his room into a fishbowl, or a building a minecraft maze for his hamster. 

The first two episodes of his Hulu series, Matthew Beem Creator Essentials, introduced me to more multi-million subscriber Internet stars.

 

Episode 1: Matthew renovates iShowSpeed's tour bus, and adds a secret room so he can spy on the dude as he...um...does things.  He's discovered almost immediately, but still, I have to wonder, what was he hoping to see?

IShowSpeed, real name Darren Jason Watkins, Jr. started with gaming, and moved into livestreaming and rap music, gaining 53 million subscribers. He has livestreamed in 67 countries. The Speed Goes Pro tour ended with a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. 

Plus he's won about a dozen Streamer Awards.  And posted pictures of his d*ck. Maybe that's what Matthew wanted to see in his secret room.

In Episode 2. Matthew and his crew do some home improvement projects for his internet star friends:

A custom dog house for Salish Matter, who started with posts about her daily skincare routine, gaining 3.5 million subscribers.  She started her own skincare brand at age 16, and also posts about gymnastics and family "matters" with her father, Jordan (here being pranked by another youtuber).

Next Matthew and his crew create  a gaming room for the Costco Guys, including mock-ups of their Juiceful packages, a giant chocolate chip cookie, and the world's biggest Pokemon card. 

More after the break

16 hot/hung Gemstone guest stars, from Semen Load Blair to Purple Dildo Nick

Since we're winding down the recaps of The Righteous Gemstones, I thought I'd post a list of my favorite Gemstone extras and guest stars, guys who appeared in only one or two scenes, but still made a big impression.  

And a bigger impression when I checked on their other roles and physique photos.

1.  Blair Jackson, the Semen Load Thug.  The boyfriend of Dot Nancy, who Kelvin and Keefe are trying to draw away from Satan.  Keefe finds a used condom, and when Blair approaches, says "I bet that was his semen load."  Modeling and nude photos.

2. Dakare Chatman. A member of Kelvin's youth group, and later the guy who buys Junior's illegal gambling operation.  The actor is gay.

3. Jak Kristowski (left). Appears with Pontius when he is sent to the Citadel, a military college in Charleston.  Then his scene was cut, but he still showed us his stuff.

3. Braxton Alexander (left).  A boy who rejects the teenage Judy.  To get even, teenage Jesse pulls down his pants, revealing his butt and cock to the school.  And this is a humiliation because....

5. Ian Winningkoff.  The teenage Cousin Chuck Montgomery appears in two scenes.  I don't remember if he has any lines.  Cute but straight.

6. Cullen Moss (left).  The security guard who flirts with Scotty, and later is shown reading a muscle magazine.  Nude photos from another tv series or movie.

7. Gogo Lomo-David.  The probably-gay brother of homophobic rival megachurch pastor Vance Simkins. Gay in real life.

8. The Naked Thugs.  Three guys hired by the evil Rev. Seasons to destroy Eli's satellite church.  Eli captures them and forces them to run naked through the mall.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Olly Rhodes: Two soap opera murderers, one with a bare bum, two gay teens, one just coming out, and two cocks.

 

I decided to profile Olly Rhodes (no relation to Robert Rhodes) based on this photo on the teen idol site: black and white, grinning shyly at his boyfriend.  Olly is either gay in real life or is playing a gay character.

Olly grew up in Scarborough, a seaside town in Yorkshire, and graduated from the Pendleton School of Theater (like a secondary school in the U.S.),  in 2021.  

He moved directly into the role of Joseph Holmes on the soap Hollyoakes (2021-22).  His parents discover that he is having a secret romance with his foster sister, Vicky, so they send her away -- to Hollyoakes.  Joseph follows, to continue abusing Vicky and terrorize her good buddy, DeMarcus, presuming that they are secetly dating.

He shows his bare bum in his first on-screen role.

Later he murders police officer Saul Reeves (Chris Charles, left), and frames DeMarcus to get him out of the way.  But he kept Saul's ring, which leads to his arrest and confession.  He leaves the series crying in his jail cell.

After guest spots in The Last Kingdom and All Creatures Great and Small, Olly was cast in a recurring role on Waterloo Road (2024-25).  He plays headmaster's son Billy Savage, who is bedeviled by the bully and child abuse survivor Schuey  (Zak Sutcliffe, right).  Don't worry, Olly states that they became good friends off-camera.

After numerous incidents, Billy sets a wire trap across a road, so Schuey will be thrown off his bike and humiliated.  But he accidentally catches -- and kills -- Schuey's non-bullying sidekick Boz.  

Dad plants evidence in Schuey's locker so he'll be blamed for the murder, but eventually he and Billy are both arrested, and leave the series. 

Departures (2025) sounds like one of those "dying of AIDS" tearjerkers from the 1980s, but the title refers to the departures gate at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, where Benji and Jake (Lloyd Eyre-Morgan, David Tag) meet and fall in love.  

Olly plays the teenage Benji.  The trailer shows him kissing his boyfriend, but it goes by too fast to get a screenshot.

More after the break