Cultural News Today

Vault festival, London In Best Dad Ever, the ex-poker player and maths nerd has constructed a meticulous show of well-turned gags K en Cheng was known as “the human calculator” at school, and quit university to become a professional poker player. No surprise then that his comedy – at least in this touring show, Best Dad Ever – can feel, well, strategic. That’s partly a positive: Cheng’s rites-of-passage narrative is meticulously constructed, skilfully weaving its family histories and strands of autobiographical standup. But it lacks wildness. Strong routine follows strong routine, but each one is delivered as moderately as the last, and the comic temperature rises only so far. Cheng won the Funniest Joke of the Fringe award in 2017, and styles himself as a mathematical master of the well-turned gag. Best Dad Ever isn’t notable for its one-liners, but there are some choice compact routines, on immigrants’ hostility to more recent immigrants, on his mum’s hoarding habit (cue topica

A new production of the Brecht classic about Europe’s thirty years’ war is opening at the Royal Exchange, starring Julie Hesmondhalgh . Here’s a look back at past productions with Glenda Jackson, Meryl Streep and others Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2BefVUG

Joseph O’Neill joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “The Pet,” by Nadine Gordimer, from a 1962 issue of the magazine. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2G2Ah7G

Ariana Grande shouts out to girls with tattoos in the first verse of her new hit single, 7 Rings, and she revealed some fresh ink of her own to celebrate the song. But Grande’s fans and critics alerted her that the characters didn’t mean “seven rings” in Japanese as she probably intended. In Japanese kanji, the characters translate to shichirin – a small charcoal grill. Ironically, the correct Japanese translation of “seven rings” can be seen at the 12-... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2MIqLXI

David Rohde on the Senate testimony of the intelligence chiefs, Dan Coats, Gina Haspel, Christopher Wray, and the possible long-term consequences of President Trump’s bullying of the intelligence agencies. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2ToMDKn

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Omnibus theatre, London A team of musicians create discord as the neglected playwright’s short, sharp drama is given a stylish revival In 1962 there were six plays by Jean Anouilh running in London. Today he is all but forgotten, so it is good to see a revival of this divertissement about the tensions inside a predominantly female cafe-orchestra pumping out familiar tunes to a French spa audience. Music may have charms to soothe a savage breast but it doesn’t seem to do as much for the players. In Jeremy Sams ’s stylish translation, the simmering rows are sexual, social and political. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2RrKawJ

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Jon Lee Anderson joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the Presidential crisis in Venezuela, and the warnings issued by the Trump Administration. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2Gbefi6

The inaugural title game in 1967 would not have been getting kudos from the media for representing women from Arts & Culture | Smithsonian http://bit.ly/2UwsXnI

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Roz Chast humorously transforms found images and text into comic collages—in this first installment of a new monthly series, using dialogue from a learn-to-speak-French booklet from the nineteen-fifties. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2Tkij3y

John Cassidy writes on Elizabeth Warren’s wealth-tax proposal, the economist Edward Wolff, and various ideas for reforming the existing tax system. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2GdNwSa

Two frank solo shows, East Belfast Boy and Every Day I Wake Up Hopeful, depict male crises with heart, humour and hip-hop Saggy and shuffling, his dressing gown flapping over a middle-aged spread, Malachy is in garrulous confessional mode. His sofa has become an analyst’s couch. This is to be his final reckoning, we realise. Depression has taken a firm hold. Simon O’Gorman brings rueful charm to the role of this solitary man in Every Day I Wake Up Hopeful (★★★★☆) . It is one of two solo works about male mental health, presented as companion pieces on an extensive cross-border tour of Ireland by Belfast’s Prime Cut Productions , who had a hit in 2016 with Stacey Gregg ’s Scorch, in which a teenager grappled with gender identity. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2UxFHuG

Sarah Larson reviews Season 2 of the podcast ”First Day Back,” in which Tally Abecassis chronicles the story of Jason Weems’s return to comedy after a life-threatening asthma attack. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2Wxxx79

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Amy Davidson Sorkin writes on the latest in the U.K.’s Brexit negotiations, including the so-called Brady amendment and Malthouse compromise, which complicate the question of the Irish border. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2WzqZEX

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Museums across the UK These drawings from the Royal Collection – dispersed around Britain – are like pure, clear windows on to the extraordinary mind of this enigmatic and visionary genius It was in Cardiff that I finally cracked the Da Vinci Code. For years I’ve been searching for the clues that would explain this weird and wonderful genius. I’ve visited the Tuscan hill town Vinci, where an illegitimate boy called Leonardo was born in 1452, and Amboise in the Loire Valley, where he died on 2 May 1519, looking for traces of his secret self. Yet it was on an icy afternoon in the Welsh capital that I finally found the killer clue to a real Leonardo da Vinci mystery: his sex life. Leonardo’s inky fingerprint has been found – it’s just barely visible with the naked eye – on his drawing The Cardiovascular System and Principal Organs of a Woman, done c.1509-10, yet this is not the revelation. This big, bold graphic dissection of a female body is a window on Leonardo’s emotions. He has dr

Leonardo da Vinci, the polymath from Tuscany, died 500 years ago this year. He was both an artist and natural scientist, who, despite his lowly origins, kept company with the most powerful men of the Renaissance. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2BeNWEG

David Sipress’s Daily Cartoon tries to craft a perfect Democratic candidate. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2DLMlaO

Danish-Icelandic artist’s Your blind passenger installation to be on display from July A 45-metre tunnel of blinding fog through which less than a handful of people will be able to walk at any given time is to be installed at the Tate Modern , part of an enormous summer exhibition by the artist Olafur Eliasson . The Danish-Icelandic artist is best known for his Weather Project installation in the gallery’s Turbine Hall in 2003 . It was one of the most popular installations in the Tate Modern’s history, with people lying down and basking in the dazzling fake sunlight. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GdDIaX

Lottery award to go towards saving habitats and heritage of forts in Dorset and Wiltshire A string of iron age hillforts that dot the landscape of the English West Country are to be rejuvenated as part of a lottery award worth almost £1m. Thirteen hillforts in Dorset and Wiltshire, which are important for their flora and fauna, especially their butterflies, as well as their rich history, will benefit from the money. The National Trust will use the funds to tackle erosion to paths and ramparts and improve fencing so that cattle can graze the areas in the summer and sheep during the winter. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Wzhg1p

Jews, Money, Myth aims to confront stereotypes of Jewish connections with money An exhibition examining stereotypes and tropes about Jewish people and money is to open next month at London’s Jewish Museum, and will include a Rembrandt painting which has not been on public display for decades. Jews, Money, Myth will trace the complex relationship between Jewish people and money from the time of Jesus to the 21st century. Taking a long view “allows nuance and context and investigation”, said Abigail Morris, the museum’s director. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2DNrILH

Sally Rooney, Sarah Perry and Michael Donkor among those longlisted for £30,000 prize for books by writers aged 39 or under From the critically acclaimed debut of Emma Glass, a 31-year-old still working as a nurse, to the first book by 33-year-old Michael Donkor, who currently teaches English in a London secondary school, a “starburst of young literary talent” makes up the longlist for the largest prize in the world for young authors. Given to the best literary work in English by an author aged 39 or under, the £30,000 Swansea University International Dylan Thomas prize is named after the beloved Welsh poet, who died at the age of 39. It is intended to “invoke his memory to support the writers of today and nurture the talents of tomorrow”. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2RwnhZc

Grade II listing given to HMS Arethusa piece on advice of Historic England A wooden figurehead depicting a mythical sea nymph which adorned a ship used in battle during the Crimean war has been named as one of the more unusual objects to get listed status from the UK government. The 3.5-metre-tall figure was used on HMS Arethusa and features an exposed right breast as it was thought in the 19th century that a naked woman would be able to calm a sea. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2WvXaW0

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Vaults, London A mother and daughter have profound discussions about identity but this drama is still searching for its centre A Muslim mother and daughter are preparing for Ramadan when their window is smashed by a bloodied pig’s head that is flung into their home. Despite this opening, Salaam is not a straight-up exploration of Islamophobia. It is set in 2017, the year of the attacks at London Bridge and Finsbury Park , and the fallout of terror and hate reverberates in the emotional lives of the British Asian mother, Mariam (Yasmin Wilde), and daughter, Rema (Raagni Sharma). But the focus of Sara Aniqah Malik’s script is on the women’s relationship with their faith. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2sWZRlJ

Let Me Finish by Chris Christie, Hachette Books 3.5/5 stars Chris Christie failed to a win a single delegate in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, and garnered less than one per cent of the votes cast in the party primary. He then left the New Jersey governor’s mansion with a 14 per cent approval rating. Let Me Finish, his bombshell of a book, could just as easily have been titled Everybody Hates Chris. In time for the second anniversary of Donald Trump’s... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2MGLJGw

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Scandinavian nations landed a gastronomic clean sweep Wednesday as Danish chef Kenneth Toft-Hansen won the prestigious Bocuse d'Or, France's prestigious culinary competition. from http://bit.ly/2RsWBZ7

French-Iraqi journalist Feurat Alani has observed and chronicled the changes that have swept Iraq, first through the eyes of a child, and later as a journalist. His animated TV series, “Flavours of Iraq” will be broadcast on FRANCE 24. from http://bit.ly/2CWNdrB

Since his initial visit to Iraq in the summer of 1989, Feurat Alani has observed and chronicled the changes that swept the country, first through the innocent eyes of a child, and later as a journalist. He tells his story in our 20-episode animated TV series, “Flavours of Iraq”. The son of an Iraqi political refugee living in Paris, Feurat Alani first visited Iraq in the summer of 1989. Still a young boy, he discovers the country of his ancestors, as Iraq enjoys a brief period of respite between the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War and the 1990-1991 Gulf War. But soon, young Feurat – whose name is derived from the Euphrates River -- begins to pay less attention to his cousin’s Toyota, and more to the growing shadow of politics, that seems to reach even the most intimate spheres of life. from http://bit.ly/2Utn62D

The 'Good Place' actress and body positivity activist joins the #AerieREAL role model family. from Culture - ELLE http://bit.ly/2Ru9RN9

Schindler's list was made world-famous by Steven Spielberg's movie. DW host Michel Friedman's parents were on that list, and survived thanks to the entrepreneur. He feels today's world needs more people like him. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2Ru3VnB

As Ozzy Osbourne prepares to begin his final ever tour, we look back at the satanic highs and tepid lows of his one-time band Seventh Star was meant to be Tony Iommi’s first solo album, until label and management decided no one was going to buy it, and insisted it be billed as Black Sabbath, even if only Iommi was pictured on the cover. That it isn’t really Sabbath is apparent from the power ballad No Stranger to Love. Power ballad? Sabbath? Madness. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Wwmlb6

Produced by The New Yorker for Vanguard | Need a check up? In this episode of Cartoon Confessionals, presented by Vanguard, cartoonist Farley Katz has just what the doctor ordered. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2UuqUAU

Not one woman was nominated for this year’s best director Oscar. But some of the hottest upcoming movies are female-led – so has gender discrimination in the industry been busted? A student called Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been invited to dinner by the dean of Harvard Law School, along with the eight other women in her year. Her wide-eyed eagerness is swiftly put in check when the dean asks each woman to stand up and say something about themselves, including “why you’re occupying a place that could have gone to a man”. This is an early moment in On the Basis of Sex , a biopic about Ginsburg, who eventually became a US Supreme Court justice. It’s a scene that Mimi Leder, the film’s director, could identify with well. In 1973, Leder became the first woman to graduate from the prestigious American Film Institute Conservatory : “I never entered the world of film-making saying, ‘I’m entering a male-dominated business.’ I entered the world of storytelling because I felt compelled to tell sto

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Amid disputes over the group’s authenticity, Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Horace Panter are best when sounding both anthemic and doom-laden An interesting question hangs over the first album by the Specials since their reunion in 2008: is it actually an album by the Specials? Singer Neville Staple and guitarist Roddy Byers have left, and drummer John Bradbury died as sessions for the album began in 2015. There are fewer members of the band’s classic lineup on Encore than there were in the version of the Specials that sporadically toured and cobbled together albums of ska covers in the 90s. Still, there are more members of the classic lineup here than on In the Studio , the 1984 Special AKA album commonly regarded as canonical. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2RYkMnn

Richard E Grant has shared a letter he wrote to Barbra Streisand when he was 14 years old, in which he invited her to stay with him and his family in Swaziland for two weeks, and promising “not many people will know who you are, so no chance of being mobbed”. The actor shared the letter on Twitter this morning, after taking a photograph outside her home. (“Asked Security for permission, and he replied, ‘It’s a public road, but thanks for asking’,” he... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2Sg9N8b

Already banned from one postcode, the duo received a prison sentence for performing Attempted 1.0 – making legal history. ‘We’re being criminalised for making music’, they say Sheltering from a sudden downpour in a parked car just off Brixton Road, London, are two of British music’s greatest new talents, and now biggest outlaws: Skengdo and AM . A fortnight ago, the Metropolitan police announced they had secured a sentence of nine months in prison for the two 21-year-old drill rappers, suspended for two years, for breaching a gang injunction issued in August last year. The nature of the breach? Performing their song Attempted 1.0 at a London concert in early December. The suppression of black music in the UK stretches back 100 years , but, according to Index on Censorship , this is first time in British legal history that a prison sentence has been issued for performing a song. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2HILSdx

Food delivery service is thought to have paid about £5m for tie-in with hit show ITV has signed up Uber Eats as the new sponsor of Love Island in a record-breaking deal that highlights the value advertisers place on targeting the increasingly hard-to-reach millennial TV audience. It is understood that Uber Eats, taxi-hailing firm Uber’s food delivery service, has paid in the region of £5m to sponsor the hit show. This is more than double the estimated £2.25m previous sponsor Superdrug paid for the record-setting last series. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GaIVjC

Dan Carroll humorously imagines an e-mail from a sick co-worker who will not leave the office. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2RYgvAt

Barbican, London Peeping Tom tackle old age with originality, warmth and humour in the second part of their eerie family-themed trilogy Last year they tackled mums, now attention turns to dad. The Belgian dance-theatre company Peeping Tom follow up their hit show Mother with the second work in a family-themed trilogy. Fathers may be the focus, but really this seems like a show about ageing, the confusion and indignity of losing your agency and your concrete grasp on the world. Before us is a desolate hall with dim lights and trestle tables. It slowly dawns that we’re in an old people’s home, albeit one where nice middle-aged ladies play drums in jazz bands and a woman’s head pops out of a saucepan of soup. This oddball company’s work is made of visual jokes, rubber-bodied dance and an eerie not-quite-normality that is all entertainingly surreal. The sense of shifting reality suits this theme – the questioning of memory, the slipping of the self – and family dynamics, as ever, make

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The singer has granted the rights for her songs to be used in the film, which will star and be directed by French actor Valérie Lemercier Céline Dion is the subject of a forthcoming biopic, The Power of Love, slated for release in 2020. French star Valérie Lemercier will direct the film and play the singer. Dion, 50, has authorised the project and granted the rights to her songs, Variety reports . The Power of Love will follow Dion from her childhood in Quebec in the 1960s, where she was the youngest of 14 children in what she has described as a poor but happy family, to her teenage rise to fame. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Tjv5PO

A powerful study of the EU’s border system In 1990, 20 countries had walls or fences on their borders. By 2016 that figure had risen to almost 70. According to Trilling, the EU “has perhaps the world’s most complex system to deter unwanted migrants” and its external frontier is becoming increasingly fortified. Since 1993, more than 33,000 people have died as a result of the EU’s “militarised border system”, which forces migrants to take ever greater risks. Yet the 1951 Refugee Convention obliges states to assess asylum seekers as individuals and not to force them back into countries where they are in danger. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2MHcLNU

Historian and Holocaust survivor Saul Friedländer is the guest speaker at the German parliament's commemorative ceremony for the victims of the Nazis. Here's the story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://www.dw.com/en/saul-friedländer-historian-of-the-holocaust-and-beyond/a-47299011

Naomi Fry writes on Jamie Diamond, whose two photography series “I Promise to Be a Good Mother” and “Forever Mothers” show the photographer and other subjects interacting with synthetic “reborn” dolls. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2RsxeqC

Rivka Galchen reviews “Wigger,” a dark, little-known children’s book by William Goldman, the author and screenwriter of “The Princess Bride.” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2WwDD7N

Isaac Chotiner interviews Sophia Rosenfeld, the author of the book “Democracy and Truth: A Short History,” about Trump’s Presidency, global warming, evolution, and whether fact-checking is a solution to fake news. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2RtAXnB

Masha Gessen writes about how the idea of a Mafia state helps make sense of the Robert Mueller investigation into Russian interference in American elections. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2WwDvoP

Eight teenagers from Yan Chai Hospital Tung Chi Ying Memorial Secondary School, in Ma On Shan, are now on police bail pending further investigation after one of their classmates was filmed, in a video clip that went viral, “trapped, stripped and abused”, according to recent media reports. The school manage­ment’s public response – that the incident was just “over-enthusiastic playing” is a typical rejoinder to peer-group bullying within the Hong Kong... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2sXpdjK

New sitcom Russian Doll sees a wise-cracking, chain-smoking woman trapped between life and death. Along with The Good Place and Black Mirror, it’s yet more proof of TV’s fixation with the great beyond Warning: this article contains spoilers for Russian Doll and Forever In new Netflix show Russian Doll, the main character, Nadia, dies approximately nine minutes into the first episode. She dies again 10 minutes later. By the end of the second episode, it has happened five more times. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2TnhRl7

Marnie has a form of OCD called Pure O, which manifests as constant invasive thoughts about sex. But this comedy-drama never resorts to cheap laughs. It is brave, bold and barely short of a miracle Marnie, the 24-year-old heroine – and I use the word advisedly – of new drama (or comedy-drama, possibly, but one that really wrenches its laughs out of darkness) Pure, suffers from a very specific form of OCD. Called Pure O, it manifests not as external physical acts such as compulsive handwashing or repeatedly checking things, but as powerfully intrusive thoughts, often about subjects considered taboo; such as violent, even murderous, acts or – as happens in Marnie’s mind, brutally colonised by the condition 10 years ago – sex. We meet Marnie (played by newcomer Charly Clive) shivering by a roadside after fleeing her parents’ wedding anniversary party. During her supposedly celebratory speech, which begins as an ordinarily exquisite agony for us all to watch, her treacherous thoughts str

This horror thriller shocked the games industry with its tense world of terror – and its monstrous vision is as fearsome as ever A father and daughter are driving through a remote area of America when a ghostly figure steps into the road, forcing the car to swerve wildly. As the man regains consciousness, he realises the car is a wreck and his daughter is missing. Shocked and confused, he staggers into the nearby town of Silent Hill, where his nightmare truly begins. Loaded with dread, this scene could be the opening of a nasty horror movie. In fact, it’s the setup to the classic video game Silent Hill, launched on this day 20 years ago by the Japanese gaming company Konami. Alongside Capcom’s Resident Evil, the title helped popularise the survival horror genre of action thrillers, which are characterised by tense exploration, expressionistic camera angles, fiendish environmental puzzles and limited access to weaponry, making every encounter with a monster a mortal challenge. Contin

Galleries are finally choosing to exhibit works by women – but will they stay on the walls once the trend for representation has passed? It’s all of our jobs to ensure they do On the face of it, 2018 was a good year for female artists. Museums and galleries across the UK staged exhibitions on historic and contemporary female artists, with events that celebrated 100 years since British women won the right to vote. But now that the bunting has been taken down and the suffragette sashes stowed away, will women still get wall space in our public museums? Are they here to stay or will they have to make way for the next fad? It’s certainly true that over the past few years, public museums have begun redressing the gender imbalance in their collections. When Tate Modern opened its major extension in 2016, director Frances Morris made a point of dedicating half of the new gallery space to women artists, increasing the percentage on display across the museum from 17% to 36%. And in 2020, the

After Hugh Grant’s hit turn as Jeremy Thorpe, the series will spotlight a different case, effectively becoming an anthology show A Very English Scandal , the Golden Globe-winning BBC drama about the Jeremy Thorpe affair, will return for a second series by looking at a very different scandal: the notorious divorce case of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, known by some back in 1963 as the “Dirty Duchess”. “We’re going to focus on the very public divorce from her second husband. He went through her private desk and found a list of all the men she’d slept with,” producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins told the Radio Times. He also found compromising Polaroids of her wearing nothing but pearls with a man whose face was not in the pictures. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2DHZ6mM

Courtney Barnett and Jarvis Cocker also join lineup for eclectic West Country summer gathering End of the Road has announced that Michael Kiwanuka, Metronomy and Spiritualized will be headlining the festival this year, hosted at Larmer Tree Gardens, on the Wiltshire-Dorset border, from 29 August to 1 September. British soul musician Kiwanuka supported Adele on her world tour in 2011 and won the BBC’s Sound of 2012 poll; more recently won the 2017 Ivor Novello award for best song, for his politically engaged Black Man In a White World. This is his first major festival headline slot, and suggests new material will be released later this year. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Gcghyy

Singer was hoping for a Japanese translation of the title of her hit 7 Rings. Instead she ended up with a tattoo which means ‘small charcoal grill’ Too bad pop star Ariana Grande is vegan – she just tattooed an accidental homage to a Japanese barbeque grill on her palm. The US singer’s attempt to ink an ode to her hit single 7 Rings backfired Wednesday after social media quickly chimed in to tell her the characters actually translated to “shichirin”: a small charcoal grill. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2S9nENR

Handwritten 13th-century parchment pieces spotted in unrelated work at library An intriguing, previously unknown 13th-century version of a tale featuring Merlin and King Arthur has been discovered in the archives of Bristol central library. The seven handwritten fragments of parchment were unearthed bound inside an unrelated volume of the work of a 15th- century French scholar . Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2SbeBvP

Youth Music poll shows 39% rise in music-making among young people since 2006 New research has found that more than two-thirds of young people are active musicians. The study by music charity Youth Music, in tandem with Ipsos Mori, polled more than 1,000 British children aged seven to 17 about their music habits. Unsurprisingly, 97% of them had listened to music in the previous week – but 67% had also engaged in “some form of music-making activity”. It’s a huge rise from 39% in 2006, when Youth Music conducted their previous survey. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2B9T7pi

All the excitement of the earlier films has been lost in this third outing for the animated series based on Cressida Cowell’s books Here is the third and – we have to hope – the last in a franchise that could be renamed How to Drain Your Dragon. All the fire and lifeblood of this idea has been sucked out and we are left with something bland. The first two films from 2010 and 2014 , amiable enough, emerged during the 3D boom and the theme-park-type dragonback ride was an important part of the show. That novelty is now long gone. What we’re left with is screensaver cinema: a swirly succession of pretty pictures and colours. This insipid spectacle has nothing like the strong flavour of Cressida Cowell ’s Milliganesque illustrations in her original books. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2G0nbb2

Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, Harris ... were the apostles of atheism as fearless as they thought? Whatever happened to “New Atheism”? It was born in the febrile aftermath of 9/11, when belief in a deity – or, let’s be honest, specifically in Allah – seemed to some people a newly urgent danger to western civilisation. Sam Harris began writing The End of Faith (2004) immediately after the World Trade Center attacks, and it became a bestseller. There followed the philosopher Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell , Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion , and Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great . The men toured vigorously, but they all met together only once, and this book is the transcript of what ensued, with new brief introductions by the surviving members, Hitchens having died in 2011. Contrary to the book’s subtitle, the “atheist revolution” was not sparked by this cocktail-fuelled pre-dinner round of chat and backslapping, which took place in 2007. By then the participants could alre

This strange, compelling autobiographical novel, first published in 1979, explores an unfamiliar aspect of the Third Reich A woman, emaciated and filthy, worms her way beneath barbed wire that may be electrified. We know this scene: we’ve watched or read it scores of times. In Luce d’Eramo’s variation, the woman beneath the fence is not trying to escape from a Nazi prison camp. She is trying to get in. D’Eramo died in 2001. Deviation , her autobiographical novel, first published in Italy in 1979, covers her experiences between the summer of 1944, when she went voluntarily to join the slave labourers in the IG Farben factory in Mainz, and late 1945 when, paralysed from the waist down, she returned to Italy. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2sYp0wy

PC; Failbetter Games This imaginative and darkly humorous sci-fi survival game has you fearfully chart a vast, hostile universe Depending on what you want from it, Sunless Skies is a merciless odyssey of oddball sci-fi survival, or a fantasy novel trilogy’s worth of wild, written ideas. You’re the captain of a spacefaring locomotive, braving cosmic fiends, blunderbuss-toting pirate trains and encroaching madness as you explore a darkly fantastical British empire’s faltering colonisation of the malevolent stars. Travel is slow, lonely and lethal: your crew is at constant risk of starvation, your hull at constant risk of destruction and your mind at constant risk of snapping. At each dock you pull into, an assortment of strange characters awaits. Each has their own unexpected short stories to tell – if you can draw them out by meeting their demands or passing tests of chance. The frequently twisted flights of both fancy and language in these tales are delightful. Characters and places

US singer Mariah Carey is set to play a show in Saudi Arabia this week. Women's rights activists are up in arms, as they fear the country's rulers could instrumentalize the gig for their own aims. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2SdtuxI

Genocide in former German South West Africa, looted art on show: For some, the Humboldt Forum's plan to draw attention to the crimes of German colonial rule in Africa doesn't go far enough. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2GaYl7B

At the Bahoda mask festival in India, people dress up as characters from myth. But I wanted to have real people in real situations – as well as a rat In 2014, I was working in rural Maharashtra, in western India, when I heard about the Bahoda festival , in which papier-mache artists create masks of characters from Hindu and tribal myth. People are chosen to wear them and are consecrated by a priest, after which they “become” their characters and parade through their village over several nights. The masks are spectacular. But I began to wonder why what is represented in rituals is often so idealised. Why are there no people with grey hair or big noses? Why is no one wearing spectacles? Why can’t routine gestures, such as sweeping the floor, be enacted too, as opposed to the drama of slaying a demon? Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Be1tMK

3.5/5 stars The Lego Movie took the much-loved plastic childhood toy and built a whip-smart, meta-comedy that played equally well for kids and adults. Already spawning a direct spin-off, 2017’s The Lego Batman Movie , now comes the sequel, The Lego Movie 2, which is fast and funny, if not exactly fresh. Alita: could this project be Hollywood’s breakthrough manga movie? Scripted by the first film’s makers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, but directed by Trolls ’ Mike Mitchell... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2t0MpNH

Acclaimed Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson announced on Thursday that he is working on a documentary about the making of The Beatles’ classic album Let It Be 50 years ago. The New Zealander said the film was based on 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio from the Fab Four’s recording sessions. The wheels come off Peter Jackson’s mega flop Mortal Engines Jackson said it provided an unprecedented insight into to band’s creative process and... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2Sgvk0C

Too bad pop star Ariana Grande is vegan – she just tattooed an accidental homage to a Japanese barbecue grill on her palm. The American singer’s attempt to ink an ode to her hit single 7 Rings has backfired after social media quickly chimed in to tell her the characters actually translated to shichirin – a small charcoal grill. Kris Who? The Chinese rap star who bumped Ariana Grande off iTunes charts Grande, 25, had posted a now-deleted photo of the new body art on Instagram... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2Rwy3Pi

Hong Kong will soon pass a law that criminalises disrespectful behaviour when China’s national anthem is played. China’s first official anthem, Cup of Solid Gold, was adopted by the Qing government in 1911, in emulation of other modern nation states that had one. Between then and 1949, the country had several official and unofficial anthems until March of the Volunteers, originally a song from a patriotic film released in 1935, was made the national anthem of the newly founded... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2G8CFJj

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Paige Williams on Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, the African-American-owned restaurant that began making the spicy dish eighty years ago. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2B7jYCa

Meet the woman playing Joe's new love interest, Love Quinn. from Culture - ELLE http://bit.ly/2B9ud9i

Alex Ross writes on Gabriel Kahane’s album “Book of Travelers,” whose songs are compiled from stories heard while riding trains across the country, after the 2016 Presidential election. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2sXG4mm

Eric Lach on how the bad deal Wisconsin made with Foxconn to open an L.C.D.-screen factory in Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin, is only getting worse. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2RWrbzE

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Elisabeth Zerofsky writes about Claas Relotius, a reporter who was discovered to be fabricating stories for the German magazine Der Spiegel. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2CRoEMJ

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Sheelah Kolhatkar reviews the book “Villa Air-Bel,” by Rosemary Sullivan, which recounts the French château that housed artists and intellectuals who were fleeing the Nazis during the Second World War. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2CTLN12

The Cut Out Girl is the gripping tale of a Jewish girl who escaped the Nazis, written by her saviours’ grandson. Here, author and heroine talk about their life-affirming collaboration ‘ I must tell you a secret,” Lien de Jong’s mother said to her gently one day. “You are going to stay somewhere else for a while.” It was August 1942 in occupied Holland and De Jong was eight years old. The family was Jewish, but not observant. She would never see her parents again; they were murdered in Auschwitz six months later. She was sent to live with a non-Jewish family, the Van Eses, the first in a series of temporary homes in the Netherlands’ wartime underground network. Bart van Es is a Dutch-born English literature professor at Oxford University, who usually “writes scholarly books and articles on Shakespeare and Renaissance poetry”. He is also the grandson of Jans and Henk van Es, who, as part of the Dutch resistance, sheltered Jewish children such as Lien de Jong during the occupation. His

The writer Jason Adam Katzenstein and the illustrator Nick Thorburn compile a humorous list of ways one’s behavior might change when one’s roommates are all out of town. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2Sidv1k

By Dong Sun-hwa Fans of K-pop titans BTS have expressed outrage over a South Korean report that leaked details of the private life of singer Jungkook. The seven-member band’s main vocalist recently bought a 740 square foot (69 square metre) residence in Seoul’s Seongsu-dong area for more than 1.9 billion won (US$1.7 million), according to the report on Monday. But the report also disclosed specific details such as the residence’s floor number, sparking controversy that the... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2Wujsr0

Sophie Haigney writes about Timehop and features on Facebook, Spotify, and Instagram that encourage reminiscing. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2RZVRji

Andy Borowitz jokes about President Trump taking a stand against intelligence. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2S1YzVT

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Her multimedia artworks dwelt on the persistence of the past and the phantoms of cultural anxiety, entertaining, challenging and terrifying viewers You never knew what Susan Hiller was going to do next, and I sometimes think neither did she. Experiments in automatic writing, burning all her paintings, creating a museum collection of detritus, communicating with the dead. Her art was not programmatic, but driven by curiosity and an alertness to her surroundings. She recognised that what an artist does happens in the context of place, and society, and the culture in which she finds herself. Hiller’s training as an anthropologist sharpened her view and provided something of her methodology, such as it was. She mistrusted objectivity. In her art, in her curating and in her teaching, she was full of curiosity, insight, integrity, humour and irony. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2FWRrn3

The Hollywood studio’s stable of horror classics should be ripe for reinvention. The key to its Dark Universe surely lies in the hands of emerging talent If the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes down in film history as a textbook example of how to build a perfect spider-web of interconnected movies, with each new arrival in multiplexes enriching and adding nuance to those that came before, Universal’s recently deceased “ Dark Universe ” will surely be remembered as the exact opposite: a cinematic end of line, full stop, dead end. The rumblings that this one might have breathed its last breath – before it ever really emerged from a thousand-year slumber to embark on a reign of terror – were there from the beginning. After the studio released a weird-looking shot of Tom Cruise (star of The Mummy) with Johnny Depp (the Invisible Man), Russell Crowe (Dr Jekyll) and Javier Bardem (Frankenstein’s monster) in 2017, it emerged that the image had in fact been put together via composite techniq

Hosted by political correspondent Georg Matthes, the new DW series "Baking Bread" explores a traditional bread recipe from each of the European Union's countries and humorously links it to the nation's political context. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2FYFWeO

Artist’s 1956 painting hung in legendary house in Wicklow mountains for half a century A tender and rarely seen portrait of a boy by Lucian Freud that hung in a legendary Irish house tucked away in the Wicklow mountains for more than 50 years is to appear at auction for the first time. The 1956 painting Head of a Boy is of Garech Browne, the wealthy Guinness heir who became a patron of Irish arts and music and hosted wild, dazzling, parties at the fairytale-esque Guinness home and estate . Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2SgkJml

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Lila Ash’s Daily Cartoon starts a new band with a radiator. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2sUcnm7

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Kamala Harris and Viola Davis have spoken out as Chicago police investigate attack on the Empire actor as a possible hate crime Politicians and celebrities spoke out in support of Empire star Jussie Smollett after he was attacked in an incident Chicago police are investigating as a hate crime. Related: Jussie Smollett: Empire actor attacked in apparent 'Maga' hate crime Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2UsZIlI

The Danish actor reveals the staggering life-change triggered by his role in Ride Upon the Storm – and looks back at his days in House of Cards with Kevin Spacey With unforgettable turns – Troels Hartmann in The Killing, Russian president Vik tor Petrov in House of Cards – Lars Mikkelsen has become one of Denmark’s most successful exports. He has even played super-villain Charles Augustus Magnussen in Sherlock. But on a stopover in London between shoots, the laidback 54-year-old startlingly reveals that his latest TV role has truly transformed him, prompting a shocking life-change that still bewilders everyone he knows. The decision that rocked the Mikkelsen clan occurred while he was shooting the show for which he recently won best actor at the International Emmys. He plays Johannes Krogh, a pastor who feels an intense personal connection with God, in Ride Upon the Storm . The ecclesiastical TV drama – written by Adam Price, creator of the Danish political epic Borgen – started in

Mahershala Ali plays a jazz musician who confronts the racism of his driver, played by Viggo Mortensen, in a warm but tentative real-life story M ahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen are two excellent actors outclassing their material in this amiable feelgood-liberal entertainment, inspired by a true story. Mortensen plays Tony Vallelonga, a 60s nightclub bouncer from New York who got a job as personal driver and minder to African-American jazz musician Don Shirley (Ali) on a tour through the Jim Crow south – armed with the “green book”, which was a guide to hotels and restaurants hospitable to black people. The movie, in fact, has its own green book, negotiating subjects and areas where it needs to tread carefully. Class and race aren’t the only issues – there is also sexual identity, which the film touches on once and then moves on without the principals ever saying a word about it. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Wwd2Yo

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Melissa McCarthy is magnificent as an odious literary forger abetted by Richard E Grant as her lounge-lizard drinking buddy The law about movie characters needing to be sympathetic is defied in this horribly fascinating true-crime black comedy about failed biographer and serial literary forger Lee Israel, co-written by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty, and directed by Marielle Heller. In the leading role, Melissa McCarthy has absolutely zero relatability. No one is rooting for her at any time. As they ponder the manky apartment in which she lives, with cat excrement piling up under the bed, audiences will not want to be her, or be with her. Her character’s passionate devotion to her cat is matched by an irritable contempt for the human beings who have variously let her down, or got too close, or impeded her literary career. And her final courtroom promise to give up alcohol is succeeded by a scene in which she gets drunk in a bar and gigglingly fantasises about how funny it would

Manchester Apollo Pouring their pain into pulverising metalcore, the Australian group earn chanting adoration from their audience Three years ago, everything was going swimmingly for Australian rockers Parkway Drive. Their fifth album, Ire , had taken them from their Byron Bay metalcore beginnings to a global breakthrough, including a No 1 in their own country. Then tragedy unfolded around them. Friends in the band the Ghost Inside were involved in a bus crash that killed two drivers and left band members with life-changing injuries. A band member’s partner and fellow musician – Architects’ guitarist Tom Searle – died of cancer, as did Parkway frontman Winston McCall’s beloved dog, Monty, who died in the singer’s arms. Such events have given Parkway’s music a powerful emotional edge. McCall channelled his grief into 2018’s Reverence , which has taken his band to arena status. At the first of two nights in the cavernous Apollo, his cries of “welcome to a world of pain” and “we’re s

Chefs from around the world have gathered in the eastern French city of Lyon on Tuesday to compete for a shot at gold in the Bocuse d’Or, also known as the Olympics of cooking. from http://bit.ly/2RZhKzg

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New passport, new identity, new home? The Guardian's Berlin correspondent Kate Connolly applied for German citizenship after the Brexit vote. She explains why in a new book. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2ThHqE1

With an assemblage portrait of her mother as the focal piece, the artist’s work is surrounded by the works of those who inspired her from Arts & Culture | Smithsonian http://bit.ly/2S1Azlt

Tramway, Glasgow The Minnesotan trio blend their recent electronic experimentation into their brutally beautiful aesthetic, offsetting despair with sweetness It has been hailed by some critics as the masterpiece of Low’s 26-year career, yet 2018’s Double Negative ought to present the Duluth, Minnesota slowcore indie-rock lifers with a dilemma. How will they recreate the sound of their most adventurous record to date – a product of studio-as-instrument experimentation, a harshly textural triumph constructed with dolorous drones, raw static hiss, ragged noise and swirling electronic bass whomps – live in concert? Unfazed guitarist and vocalist Alan Sparhawk, his drummer and vocalist wife Mimi Parker and bassist Steve Garrington render opener Always Up – the cautiously optimistic centerpiece of Double Negative – with a tender clinch of softly beaten toms, crunching distortion and harmonies so close it’s as if they’re fastened with Velcro. Low have never been a band likely to break ou

The acclaimed Montreal troupe are on tour to celebrate a quarter-century of astonishing shows, performed for more than three million people around the world. See how their motley crew of acrobats, clowns, jugglers and musicians have shaped contemporary circus Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2MEafbl

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Novelist David Keenan picks fiction, history and reportage that record the devastating conflict that convulsed Northern Ireland for three decades When I was writing my second novel, For the Good Times , it never occurred to me that we might be approaching a kind of Troubles “moment” in literature, but I did wonder. Were we finally far enough away from the events of 1968-98 to start fictionalising them? Is it necessary for there to be a sort of cultural/historical gap before we can interrogate trauma? And then Anna Burns’s superb Milkman won the Booker, Michael Hughes published Country, his inspired Homeric reimagining of the Iliad set during the Troubles, and with exciting new voices such as Wendy Erskine emerging, Belfast suddenly seemed to be ground zero for radical literary fiction, with borders once more in the news. Related: For the Good Times by David Keenan – review Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2ThKakU

From Strictly to Big Brother, race issues have blighted TV talent shows before. But is this the most egregious example yet? Russian-trained ballet dancer Yassaui Mergaliyev steps up to perform. For two minutes, he does a staggering routine of superhuman spins and mid-air split jumps to try and wow the studio audience of BBC’s The Greatest Dancer. The presenters, Jordan Banjo and Alesha Dixon , have their jaws on the floor. The celebrity dance captains Cheryl , Oti Mabuse and Matthew Morrison are screaming themselves hoarse: “You have to vote for this guy!” But the Kazakh dancer does not get enough votes to go through to the next round. Someone in the crowd yawns. “It just wasn’t that exciting , was it?” another audience member whispers to her neighbour. The BBC’s latest Saturday night competition has a unique twist: it hands the “power to the people” (and we all know how that goes). Members of the public have complete control over who progresses from the very start. Each dancer has

The project will restore archive footage filmed in 1969 as the band recorded last album Following his successful first world war documentary They Shall Not Grow Old , Peter Jackson has signed on to direct a second archive project: a film edited from the full 55 hours of footage of the Beatles’ Let It Be recording sessions. A feature-length documentary, entitled Let It Be, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg and culled from footage from the sessions as well as a celebrated rooftop concert in London’s Savile Row, was released in 1970 after the band had informally split up, but before Paul McCartney launched legal proceedings to dissolve the group. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2CSth9u

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Goya’s bleak visions were originally painted onto the walls of his house – and remain some of the most disturbing artworks ever made A boggle-eyed pagan god feasts on the headless carcass of his own son. A humanoid billy goat in a monkish cassock bleats a satanic sermon to a gasping congregation of witches. A desperately expressive little dog appears to plead for rescue, submerged up to its neck in a mud-coloured mire beneath a gloomy, void-like firmament of negative space. “Well, these are quite a pick-me-up,” remarks one visitor to Madrid’s Prado museum , as his group moves quickly past the Black Paintings of Francisco de Goya . I have overheard that kind of thing many times in this room: a jokey, defensive sort of irony in response to the spectacular weirdness and bleakness of these 14 images. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2BbTCzb