Vanessa Feltz has been accused of bullying a student who was doing work experience on her BBC London show.

Beverley Nesbit, 19, claims that she was reduced to tears after a series of incidents involving the presenter in July. She secured the post after winning a £120 bid arranged by Feltz’s daughter Saskia Kurer at a university charity event.

“I basically paid to be abused by Vanessa Feltz for a week,” she told the Daily Mail. “Vanessa was really brash, not like the bubbly person you see on television, but in a rude and arrogant way. She barely acknowledged me, and when she did she said everything I had done was rubbish.”

Recalling one incident, Nesbit said: “Vanessa turned to me and said, ‘Beverley, which is your favourite poem by Yeats?’ I’m not a stupid person, but I was honest and told her I’d never heard of Yeats and didn’t have a favourite. She was really rude and said something like, ‘That’s ridiculous, write me a 2,000 word essay on Yeats by tomorrow’. I thought she was joking.”

Feltz apparently requested the essay the following day. “I had to admit I hadn’t done it,” Nesbit added. “I couldn’t believe it. In the end I went to the toilet and just cried. I just wanted to go home. I couldn’t believe how rude and horrible she had been. In the end a producer came and asked me if I was okay.”

Feltz didn’t respond to the paper’s requests for a comment. A BBC spokesman said: “This was a private visit arranged by Vanessa and not part of the BBC work experience scheme.”

Date: Thursday 18th March
Time: 7:00pm
Location: The University of London Union, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY (nearest tube stations: Goodge Street & Russell Square)

In the wake of the recent London Dreams case, which retrospectively awarded an unpaid intern the National Minimum Wage for the hours she worked on a feature film, there has been much debate within the industry about the effect this decision will have. Does the verdict represent the long-overdue protection desperately needed by the industry’s most vulnerable workers, or the death of creativity and collaboration which often provides a stepping stone for those who are new to the industry? Should it be viewed as a victory or a disaster..? 


In order to discuss both sides of the argument, BECTU’s Writers Producers and Directors’ branch brings you: 

A DEBATE ABOUT LOW BUDGET COLLABORATIONS AND THE NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE

Please join us on Thursday 18th March at 7pm, at The University of London Union, and make your voice heard!

The proposition: 

Working for free is the only way for new entrants to get a foot in the door of the film and television industry but… are you shooting yourself in the foot? 

The meeting will be Chaired by STEVE OVERELL of The Work Foundation. JESS SEARCH from Shooting People; MARTIN SPENCE, Assistant General Secretary of BECTU; CHRIS JONES, author of ‘The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook’; and BENETTA ADAMSON of the TV Wrap campaign, will be among the key speakers to address these issues. The event will take the form of a parliamentary-style debate with prearranged speakers setting out their point of view in support of, or opposition to, the motion. The audience is invited to actively participate throughout the debate.

The aim:

We hope that this event will kick off a process leading to an industry wide charter endorsed by BECTU, Shooting People and other interested parties setting out how microbudget films can flourish while staying on the right side of the law. We really hope this will be the beginning of an end to the confusion and misunderstandings surrounding what does and does not constitute a collaboration.



THIS IS AN OPEN DEBATE AND EVERYONE IS VERY WELCOME TO ATTEND

Not only are their offices actually a lot of fun to work in, but having worked as a paid intern there for a few months now, I can safely say that they give you responsibilities that are challenging, exciting, interesting and stimulating. They pay almost all of their long-term interns I think, and the short termers get a great deal of good, relevant, and exciting experience mingling with celebs and such in a positive way.

I just can’t speak highly enough of Nickelodeon as an employer, especially for interns. Whilst I hear horror stories from my intern pals every day, my work feels like a gift – It’s just the right balance and there is a great deal of support and help provided to get you on your feet.

You put in the work for this company and they most certainly reward you for it.

The most recent outrage He Who Must Not Be Named has perpetrated was to ask me to track down a certain kind of foodstuff as a gift for some friends: and this item, believe you me, is rare as hen’s teeth. Probably rarer. So I call up Harrods, Harvey Nicks, Selfridges, all the major supermarkets and some of the minor ones too. No go. Then I trawl through the internet. No luck, except a cash and carry who demand you buy 100 of them. For a moment I’m tempted to do so, just to see his face as 100 of the dratted things are unloaded into my his hallway. Most people by this stage would give up, but my boss is made of sterner stuff; that sort of attitude did not win us the Empire. No lily-livered surrender for them. He Who Must Not Be Named resembles an angry deity, propitiated only by the sacrificial sweat of their workforce. Boss decides that the thing to do is to ring up the factory where it’s made –in China.  He reasons that everybody speaks English these days so they must have someone who can help. With some scepticism I call them, and sure enough the person on the other end of the line has no idea what I’m saying and eventually I thank them for their time (in English, since my school didn’t stretch to Mandarin) and hang up. I’m told to send an email, which I duly do. This saga has started to haunt my waking and sleeping: I’m so irrationally stressed about it that I’m almost weeping in frustration. This is compounded by being sent texts about it at 9pm on a Sunday evening, for example.

I have a Master’s degree from Durham and this is what I’m reduced to. Like an idiot, or a masochist, I take it, partly because I’ve been brought up to be helpful and partly because I’m so desperate for a job now that I’d probably Morris dance naked on the House of Commons roof if it meant someone would offer me one. I’m terrified that any refusal will lead to a terrible reference, so my boss can dangle the prospect of a permanent position at the end of this stint (which, incidentally, has no official end date, so I could be working for free forever or until I find another job), ensuring that I never refuse to do anything, no matter how absurd or mundane. In the meantime I am effectively paying, since I have to pay for my own travel expenses, to have my dignity and self-respect peeled away, layer by layer, as though flayed alive. Even prostitutes get paid for their services; interns have to pay their punters. And meanwhile employers still want their pound of graduate flesh, and we still give it to them.

I want a cocktail