Cultural News Today

4/5 starsMental illness and altered psychological states have been popular subjects for bleak human dramas, and served as plot devices to make high-concept crime thrillers or nonsensical horror movies tick. But filmmakers in Hong Kong have rarely come up with nuanced romantic psychodrama to match those of peers in the art-house circuit abroad. Beyond the Dream is a first step towards correcting that.A fairy-tale urban romance complicated by one party’s unreliable mental state and the other’s… from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/3igw681

It’s the only place in the world where jokes about local councillors work. But is Belfast’s sharp-tongued comedy circuit becoming less hostile to outsiders? Patrick Kielty ’s first Belfast standup set won him a keg of beer. It was freshers’ week 1989 at Queen’s University and his housemates had nominated him for a talent competition. As well as the booze, he earned a termly gig on campus, but across Belfast comedy barely existed. Until, that is, BBC producer Jackie Hamilton approached him with an idea: The Empire Laughs Back, the city’s first dedicated comedy night. “There was no scene, so we decided to make it,” Kielty says. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/38iwjTO

Like the female lead character she played in the hit drama 1995 TVB series The Return of the Condor Heroes, Carman Lee Yeuk-tung has had to overcome adversity.Little Dragon Maiden, whom she played with verve in the series based on the novel of the same name by Louis Cha (also known as Jin Yong), suffered a sexual assault and survived a plunge from a cliff before being reunited with the love of her life.Lee withdrew from the limelight at the height of her career in 2004 at her then boyfriend’s… from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/3iiBqrG

Verdi’s La Traviata reimagined with cast and orchestra wearing face masks Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage The opening scenes of merriment have taken on a sombre tone, with the chorus clad in black and white and spaced exactly 2 metres apart. Minutes into the staging of La Traviata, the surgical masks come off, timed with the rising notes of an orchestra led by a conductor standing behind a plastic screen. Spain’s Teatro Real will reopen its doors to the public on Wednesday, becoming one of the world’s first opera houses to return to the stage with a production that includes a chorus, orchestra and soloists after months of lockdown. On offer is Verdi’s La Traviata, tweaked to reflect life in the time of Covid-19. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/38h5SO5

Young actresses Awkwafina, Zendaya and Constance Wu were among those invited to join Hollywood’s Academy on Tuesday, as the Oscars-awarding club opened its prestigious doors to a diverse crop of new members.Slammed again at the Oscars this year for nominating just one non-white actor, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has boosted its efforts to increase female and ethnic minority membership in recent times.The majority of actors invited to join this year were women, and more than… from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/31wd2wA

Cineworld and AMC push restarts back three weeks to end of July, blaming rescheduled summer blockbusters – while debate over hygiene rules continues The UK’s largest chain of cinemas has pushed back its scheduled reopening date by three weeks, in response to further delays to the opening of key titles such as Mulan and Tenet. Cineworld, which runs multiplexes and the Picturehouse chain in the UK, as well as Regal cinemas in the US, will now open the doors to its venues on 31 July. In a statement, the company attributed the move to shifts for release date to Christopher Nolan’s Tenet (now due 12 August) and Disney’s Mulan (now due 21 August). Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/31ufe7P

An excerpt from Henry McCausland’s new surreal graphic novel, about a group of runners searching for themselves, to be published by Fantagraphics. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2ZldgE1

Sara Lautman’s Daily Cartoon depicts “Crucible”-inspired characters talking about social distancing with the Devil. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2YIdki5

On the “Writer’s Voice” podcast, Deborah Treisman hosts the author Hari Kunzru, who reads his story “A Transparent Woman,” from the July 6 & 13, 2020, issue of The New Yorker. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3ibAxRH

Stars including Russell T Davies, Joe Lycett, Nick Grimshaw, Will Young and Jade Anouka remember the TV shows that gave a voice to the LGBTQ+ community Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2YKcph5

A huge children’s TV star in the 1980s, Mallett is now an artist and has written a new memoir. It charts the bike ride he took, inspired by his older brother, who had Down’s syndrome and lived an extraordinarily rich life Children’s television presenters occupy a strange place in one’s memory, somewhere between grandparents and primary school friendships. They are not mere celebrities, but a part of your childhood, and if you grew up in the 80s and spent most of your time watching TV, as I did, then Timmy Mallett will occupy such a space. In the mid 80s, he was one of the team of presenters of Wide Awake Club, the Saturday-morning children’s show, although it is only Mallett, with his garish clothes and colourful glasses, that I can really remember. He quickly also became the face of the school-holiday show Wacaday. A whole generation of children grew up hitting their siblings over the head with a cushion, or worse, as they recreated his word association game Mallett’s Mallet at home

Musician, composer and arranger who also won five Grammys hailed by Michael Bublé as ‘a genius, a beast’ Johnny Mandel, the Oscar and Grammy-winning composer behind the theme from M*A*S*H and more, has died aged 94. Details of his death have not been released. The news was announced by musician and friend Michael Feinstein, who said: “A dear friend and extraordinary composer arranger and all-around brilliant talent Johnny Mandel just passed away. The world will never be quite the same without his humour, wit and wry view of life and the human condition. He was truly beyond compare, and nobody could write or arrange the way he did. Lord will we miss him. Let’s celebrate him with his music! He would like that.” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ZlPyro

Documentary John Lewis: Good Trouble traces the life and influence of the civil rights leader and congressman in his 60-plus year fight for racial equality John Lewis, the civil rights leader turned 17-term congressman from Georgia, has seen plenty in his 80 years that would test one’s faith in the long fight. As a young man, Lewis, the third of 10 children from a sharecropping family in Alabama, led sit-ins to integrate lunch counters in Nashville, marched with Martin Luther King, and was beaten by the Klan as part of the Freedom Riders in the South Carolina; he’s been arrested over 40 times, five as a legislator, and spent months in jail. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3eGENGx

The filmmaking career of Evans Chan has come full circle. In 1992 his first film, To Liv(e) – about the angst of Hong Kong people uncertain of their future after the June 4, 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy students in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square – had its international premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.In January this year, Chan’s latest film, We Have Boots – which documents the political upheaval in Hong Kong from 2014 to 2019 – also had its world premiere at the Dutch film… from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/38edMYt

How the Texan trio’s woozy sound, inspired by Thailand, Mexico and west Africa, perfected the art of ‘Earth music’ Onstage, the Texan trio Khruangbin are a strange sight to behold. At their sold-out show at London’s near-5,000 capacity O2 Academy Brixton last December, guitarist Mark Speer and bassist Laura Lee, dressed in long, black, heavily fringed wigs, sway in unison, while bald drummer DJ Johnson sits calmly in his poncho, pensively holding the groove. All three sing amorphous vowel sounds over Speer’s downtempo, wailing guitar melodies while the crowd of teens, jobbing musicians and parents savouring a night out howl along to the strings, trying to keep up with their electric range. Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/31v1KZm

2/5 starsThe directorial debut of critic and novelist Sohn Won-pyung has been billed as the year’s “most intense mystery thriller”, but she doesn’t appear to have gleaned much inspiration from her time writing for Korean film journal Cine 21. Intruder is contrived, derivative and relentlessly dumb from the off.Kim Mu-yeol plays Seo-jin, a recently widowed architect who is struggling to manage his grief while juggling work and caring for his young daughter (Park Min-ha). He is determined to find… from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/2Bd9d4R

With clubs shut, thousands of young people are breaking the Covid-19 rules to attend parties organised on social media – and more are being set up every day Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage When Daisy Nook started trending on Twitter on the evening of 13 June, many users of the site thought it was a reference to the popular video game Animal Crossing , which features characters called Daisy and Nook. But Paul Carroll knew better. The 59-year-old police trainer had seen the saucer-eyed teenage girls and lads swigging from cans of beer flooding into Daisy Nook country park, in Greater Manchester, as he took his dogs for a walk that evening. Carroll stared at the revellers in astonishment. Illegal raves simply do not happen in Daisy Nook. It was not a restful evening. The traffic outside Carroll’s house was relentless, as was the whoosh of the nitrous oxide balloons the young people were huffing as they marched through the country park to the rave site,

Darren Maxwell’s Batman collection spans everything from badges to branded ice-creams. But a new documentary shows fandom is not all fun and figurines In the community and in the media there is widespread awareness about many kinds of addictions – from drug and alcohol dependencies to food , sex , pokies and video games . As far as I am aware, however, there is a dearth of knowledge about a more, erm, esoteric kind of addiction: collecting Batman merchandise from the 80s and 90s. This rather niche fixation beleaguered Darren “Dags” Maxwell, a former collector, a Melburnian and an active member of the Australian science fiction fan community for more than three decades. He is, along with his extensive Batman merch assemblage, the subject of Batman and Me, an Australian feature-length documentary premiering on Tuesday 30 June at this year’s online-only Melbourne documentary film festival. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2VxGIFI

Stars including Lin-Manuel Miranda and Neil Patrick Harris perform lyrics of hope and solidarity from home in these five videos Counting the minutes until you can stream the Hamilton film on 3 July ? Then watch – and rewatch – this addictive lockdown cut of Helpless, led by the phenomenal Phillipa Soo, along with Lin-Manuel Miranda and the original Broadway cast. Not that you’d need any other incentive, but hiphop crew the Roots also join in. Instruments include spoons and whisky glasses – no one’s throwing away their shot here. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2CRbbIp

Williamson Art Gallery & Museum in Birkenhead hosts today’s quiz, setting questions to explore collections of museums closed due to coronavirus This quiz is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK , the online home for the UK’s public art collections, showing art from more than 3,000 venues and by 45,000 artists. Each day, a different collection on Art UK will set the questions. Today, our questions are set by Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead. The Williamson has a broad collection specialising in British art and decorative art, particularly local to the Merseyside and North Wales area, and with a strong maritime slant with many ship models on show. You can see art from Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead on Art UK here . Visit the museum’s website here . Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NIZzt7

This week, Tim Ashley finds freshness in locked-down Hugo Wolf, takes a whistlestop tour of European opera houses, and applauds the young singers showcased in the last of the ROH’s galas I’ve been listening to some rather special Hugo Wolf this week. The young pianist Keval Shah has spent lockdown recording a virtual performance of the Italienisches Liederbuch, and has been uploading it in the last few days as a thread on his Twitter timeline . 1. Auch kleine Dinge - @AilishTynanEire #ItalianSongbook pic.twitter.com/cygnDF8HvF Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2BTMGtu

Pallant House Gallery gets Leonard Rosoman’s paintings of John Osborne play Paintings that show the first gay kiss in British theatre history and an extravagant drag ball have been acquired for the nation in lieu of inheritance tax. Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, West Sussex has announced it is now the owner of five paintings by Leonard Rosoman from the 1960s. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3icHVMt

Show won’t go on for 41 venues in New York’s world-famous theatrical centre, in a devastating blow for the industry Broadway shows will not return this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the industry’s trade association. All 41 venues in New York’s world-famous theatrical centre have been closed since March as the city entered lockdown to halt the spread of Covid-19. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/31zVu2R

Candice Carty-Williams and Bernardine Evaristo take book of the year and author of the year categories, as publishers face criticism for treatment of black authors Candice Carty-Williams and Bernardine Evaristo have become the first black authors to win the top prizes at the British Book awards, landing the book of the year and author of the year gongs respectively. Carty-Williams took the book of the year accolade on Monday night for Queenie , her debut novel about a young black woman navigating life and love in London. She beat titles including Three Women by Lisa Taddeo and My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite to the award, which is judged on quality of writing, innovation of publishing, and sales. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/38fRINo

Moment of Grace revisits princess’s boundary-breaking visit to UK’s first Aids ward The prejudice that has affected some communities during the Covid-19 pandemic is akin to that faced by gay men at the height of the Aids crisis, according to the creators of a play about Diana, Princess of Wales’s visit to the UK’s first Aids ward. The playwright Bren Gosling and producer Paul Coleman were young, gay men living in London in the 1980s and their play, Moment of Grace , goes back to that era, following the lives of three fictional characters who are affected by the royal’s opening of the Broderip ward at Middlesex hospital in April 1987. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2YHSC1H

My standup career stalled when the pandemic arrived. But I get my kicks as a football manager on Twitch – and giving each player a storyline I began 2020 full of optimism, excited about returning to the Edinburgh fringe in August with a new show and feeling quite good about my standup. Then the pandemic arrived. As well as worrying about the health of family and friends, all my work disappeared overnight. The majority of my income is from performing standup in clubs around the country. On 1 April, it was announced that the Edinburgh fringe was cancelled . (Yes, they did it on April Fools’ Day.) Everything I had been carefully planning and working towards vanished. Lots of comedians perform live on social media. I’ve live-streamed on Facebook, which only reached my cousins and a bunch of strangers, and I tried Instagram Live, where people would join by accident and immediately leave. Since lockdown began, I’ve been asked to do a few online gigs. They’re quite nice but doing my standup

‘People think Bonny is about my father’s death, but he wasn’t dead then – I imagined grief’ I grew up in Witton Gilbert in County Durham and started Prefab Sprout with my brother [Martin, bass] and Michael Salmon, who lived down the street. Michael borrowed a drum kit and Martin and I shared an amplifier. We rehearsed in my dad’s run-down wooden-framed petrol station. We were as rough as can be, but we sounded like a band, at least to ourselves. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/38bH89S

By Lee Gyu-leeG-Dragon, the leader of K-pop boy band BigBang, is facing accusations of animal cruelty after allegedly neglecting his pet dogs at a hotel operated by his parents.The accusations came after pictures of the artist’s two Shar-Peis – Gaho and Jolie – were posted on an online community earlier this month. The pictures showed the dogs with long nails and locked inside fences.The user wrote that the dogs did not seem to have been taken care of for a long time. “Their eyes were watering… from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/38c7kRS

Akeem Roberts’s Daily Cartoon depicts God and an angel watching the world catch fire in an event they thought had been scheduled for 2012. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2BT5aub

A sketchpad by Jason Adam Katzenstein: The city is open again—sort of. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2ZkQw7i

Jeffrey Toobin on President Trump’s obstructions of justice, which were broader than those of Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton, and why the special counsel’s report didn’t say so. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2NHsJJ2

Letters respond to Elizabeth Kolbert’s reporting on Iceland’s coronavirus response, Peter Schjeldahl’s essay about the art of Edward Hopper, and Joan Acocella’s piece on Andy Warhol. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/31qeOzp

In an era that fetishizes form, Oates has become America’s preëminent fiction writer by doing everything you’re not supposed to do, Leo Robson writes. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/31s6hvG

The stars of Amazon Prime’s new Indian drama speak out on the backlash surrounding their gritty portrayal of crime, corruption and caste inequalities Anushka Sharma is one of Bollywood’s best-known actors and is married to Virat Kohli, captain of the Indian cricket team. She recently co-produced Paatal Lok, the hit Amazon Prime thriller, but when she posted a screenshot of her virtual wrap party after shooting she had no idea just how controversial the show would be. While its nine episodes were hailed for their accurate portrayal of India’s caste, religion, fake news and crime issues, the series also attracted a long list of complaints. Right-wing Facebook groups labelled it “anti-national” and “Hindu-phobic” for portraying how minorities are treated and a legal notice was served for a scene where a woman is raped by Sikhs. Soon the hashtag #BoycottPaatalLok was trending on Twitter. Nandkishor Gurjar, a member of the Legislative Assembly of the ruling BJP party, even filed a compl

The threat to cinemas is real. But the collapse of old business models could unleash a new wave of creativity Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage Ever since the first cinemas were built, film has been the great egalitarian art form. Wealthy people went, the middle classes didn’t sniff, but you could also take a date if you weren’t rich and wanted a night out. Film’s cultural function is intimately allied to price. If it wasn’t cheap, its power would diminish. This is one of the things that drew me and many others to it: going to the movies is for everyone. That’s over. Maybe not quite yet, maybe not entirely, but it’s hard to foresee a future in which film-going as we know it doesn’t become an elite experience. Poorer people will be priced out because the best way to insulate yourself from risk is with distance. And – as with houses or airplanes or iClouds – space is expensive. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3dL8BjU

As the veteran German director releases his latest underwhelming film, it feels as if he’s spreading himself too thin It used to be that a new movie by Werner Herzog was an anticipated event; these days it’s more of an “Oh, another one”. Herzog sure seems to be churning them out. His latest, Family Romance, LLC, is his sixth feature in four years. Pretty impressive for a 77-year-old, but as well as the worry that he is spreading himself too thinly, is there a danger that Herzog is becoming a brand? It is almost sacrilege to suggest such a thing. The German director is a living legend, and one of the most admired, adventurous film-makers ever, but there is a feeling that Herzog the personality is beginning to overshadow Herzog the film-maker. Partly this is a result of high-profile acting gigs in Star Wars spin-off The Mandalorian and Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher. Also, Herzog possesses one of the most distinctive and imitable voices on the planet. His tender yet disdainful, German-accen

The 1973 Bruce Lee classic was a genuine education for a white suburban boy growing up in the north of England. Nothing was the same again It was the summer of 1984 and while most of my friends were engaged in the bitter culture war that was Duran Duran v Culture Club, I was obsessed with a dead movie star called Bruce Lee. Our video store in Bramhall, Cheshire, was a classic early 80s den of rental iniquity, crammed with unclassified horror and martial arts flicks, and I wanted to see all of these morbid and violent treats before someone came along and banned them. My parents weren’t quite irresponsible enough to let me rent Last House on the Left or Driller Killer, but they had an open-door policy on kung fu, so one afternoon I went home with Enter the Dragon and nothing was the same again. Everything about Bruce Lee’s first American-produced movie (after three pictures made by Hong Kong studio Golden Harvest) is ludicrous and over-stylised in a way only the 1970s could manage. Fro

Next year’s awards season continues to be pushed back due to coronavirus, with Oscars and Golden Globes already switching dates The 2021 Brit awards have been postponed from February until 11 May. Amid the ongoing threat of coronavirus, the biggest awards ceremony in the UK music industry is keen to run as normal, with star guests and a full show to a live audience at London’s O2 Arena. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2BT30e3

3/5 starsRecalling Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal, in which Tom Hanks played an East European refugee marooned at New York’s JFK airport, Eric Lartigau’s #Iamhere sees a French chef become an unlikely internet sensation after he is stood up at Seoul’s Incheon airport. Korean actress Bae Doona cameos as the elusive quarry of the protagonist’s misguided adventures in this well-meaning and intermittently successful romantic comedy.Spielberg’s film was based on the true story of Iranian national… from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/38cjv1e

Are seatless, stroll-through shows the future of theatre? Can one-way dancing save nightclubs? Could budding indie bands storm Wembley stadium? Scientists imagine the arts after Covid-19 The day before museums began closing in Britain, I saw Aubrey Beardsley at the Tate and Titian at the National Gallery. It was a strange experience, the power of the art undercut by the unsettling feeling that something deadly could be among us. “Don’t come too close to me,” I found myself thinking, or: “I can’t believe you’re coughing in public.” I wondered if it was wrong of me to even be there. With the words “global health emergency” ringing in my ears, I resolved not to leave the house again for pleasure. Soon, there was no choice anyway. Those thoughts have resurfaced now that lockdown is easing and arts institutions face enormous pressure to reopen – and keep visitors safe. “The virus has produced a great deal of anxiety,” says Gabriel Scally, honorary professor of public health at the Univers

Jeffrey Katzenberg’s short-form content platform has struggled to make an impact with bad reviews, lack of interest and legal issues swirling Nearly three months ago, in early April, the $1.75bn content experiment known as Quibi lurched from its rocky, much-maligned promotional campaign into full-scale launch. The service offered a tsunami of celebrity-fronted shows segmented into “quick bites” (hence, “qui-bi”) of 10 minutes or less – a Joe Jonas talk show, a documentary on LeBron James’s I Promise school, a movie with Game of Thrones’s Sophie Turner surviving a plane crash, all straight to your phone. At the time, many of us wondered if Quibi could deliver on its central promise – to refashion the style of streaming into “snackable” bites – or if, teetering under the weight of its massive funding and true who’s who of talent as the world shut down, it would become shorthand for an expensive mistake. The service, the brainchild of the DreamWorks Animation cofounder Jeffrey Katzenbe

Can a person ever truly change? This three-part series follows a Texan prisoner who had his death sentence quashed – and his victim’s family, who believe he will kill again Don’t let the title of A Killer Uncaged (Sky Crime) put you off. While it sounds like your average inflammatory, exploitative true-crime documentary, this three-part series is actually a balanced and nuanced look at capital punishment and the moral complexities of justice in the US , and Texas in particular. “Thirty years ago, I killed a man,” says Dale Wayne Sigler, in an interview given when he was still behind bars. Softly spoken and emotional, he gives a crisp, but devastating account of his early life. He says his mother was “a child having children”; his father was violent and abusive. Sigler was molested when he was 10. His early adult life was a mess of drugs and petty crime. He lived on the streets. In 1990, he robbed a Subway sandwich shop at gunpoint. When the shop assistant, John William Zeltner Jr,

The writer unleashed her gift for black comedy to excoriate British attitudes to property and possessions in this sprightly drama Caryl Churchill is rightly admired for many qualities : her formal inventiveness, her questing intelligence, her dystopian vision of everything from cloning to climate catastrophe. But she has one gift that is rarely discussed: her wild humour. It is there in the sudden eruption of a 10-foot bird into the family brouhaha in Blue Heart (1997) and in the backyard banter in the more recent Escaped Alone (2016). It is also vividly present in one of her earliest stage plays, Owners. Given that the piece had a brief run at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in 1972 and, as far as I know, only one revival, it is one of Churchill’s least-known works yet cries out to be rediscovered. On the surface, it sounds bleak. It is about the urge for ownership and shows Marion, a rampant property developer, eating up everything around her: she’s not only prepared to turf two

The singer made a call to action as she was given a humanitarian BET award by Michelle Obama, who said ‘her activism demands justice for black lives’ Beyoncé has been awarded the humanitarian award at the BET awards, using her speech to encourage viewers to vote “like our life depends on it” in the upcoming US election, and calling on them to “dismantle a racist and unequal system” in the country. Michelle Obama highlighted Beyonce’s commitment to the black community before presenting her with the award, saying: “You can see it in everything she does, from her music that gives voice to black joy and black pain, to her activism that demands justice for black lives.” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/31phf5a

Lloyd Russell-Moyle accused author of using her experience against trans people Labour frontbencher Lloyd Russell-Moyle has apologised to Harry Potter author JK Rowling after accusing her of using her own sexual assault as “justification” for discriminating against trans people. Russell-Moyle, a shadow environment minister, made a public apology to Rowling after he wrote a piece in the Tribune saying he felt she had used her past experience to pass comment on a group of people who were not responsible for it. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2CQKgN1

The Queen’s House, Greenwich hosts today’s quiz, setting questions to explore art collections of museums closed due to coronavirus This quiz is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK, the online home for the UK’s public art collections, showing art from more than 3,000 venues and by 45,000 artists. Each day, a different collection on Art UK sets the questions. Today, our questions are thanks to the Queen’s House, Greenwich. One of the first buildings in the UK to be constructed in the Palladian style, it has long been an important site for women’s history. Today this London building is home to the National Maritime Museum, spanning old master paintings to contemporary installations. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2CR0zJH

Rap, with its often misogynistic lyrics and tendency to treat women as objects, isn’t always a musical genre that’s friendly to females. Meanwhile, in conservative Asia, several cultures still believe women shouldn’t be involved in important matters. But one Malaysian rapper wants to switch up both these narratives.Zamaera is a rapper whose songs challenge her country’s cultural norms. On her track Wanita – which means “woman” in English – she raps in Malay about what it means to be a “boss… from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/2NBxL9Y

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Giles Watling fears sector will not survive without help during coronavirus crisis Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage There are few people in parliament, or even the UK, who know more about regional theatre than the Conservative MP Giles Watling. That is why the actor turned politician is leading a push for the government to save the sector, which he said was weeks from oblivion. “I’ve worked in pretty much every theatre in the country, not once but on several occasions,” he said. “In 55 years of being a touring actor, you take it all in. But all these wonderful theatres, cultural centres, which bring the performing arts to the people – we are in danger of losing them, and we are in danger of losing them now.” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NBy70v

The inevitable fallout between the president and his national security adviser makes for a punchy but self-aggrandising memoir Any hairdresser could have told them it wouldn’t work. Trump initially refused to hire John Bolton because he disliked his moustache. That walrus brush, which looks like a grizzled version of the cow-catching guard rails on an ancient locomotive, annoyed the elderly combed-over dandy. Trump’s spun-sugar plumage starts behind one of his ears, circles round his scalp, hardens under a toxic rain of spray, then tapers into a jaunty duck tail above his collar: did he envy a man who brandished such stiff bristles on his upper lip? But the Fox News sex pest Roger Ailes recommended Bolton as “a bomb thrower”, so Trump, avid for explosions, made him national security adviser. They resolved to play good cop and bad cop, although the partnership turned out to be more like bad cop and worse cop. After a mere 18 months it fell apart. Bolton says he resigned, Trump claims

The first woman to win the UK’s biggest comedy prize has written a guide to the menopause. She discusses HRT, getting sacked and how much she liked her female comedy peers – until their fame eclipsed hers Jenny Eclair has written Older and Wider, “a survivor’s guide to the menopause”, one part helpful, sisterly advice, four parts jokes and memoir. The thing is, often when she writes about the menopause, and always when she talks about it, she makes it sound quite fun. There’s just something zinging in her delivery. “I’ve done the most terrible thing,” she says as she picks up the phone, a mid-sentence immediacy, as if we’ve already been talking for half an hour. “I sprayed weedkiller on my roses; I feel like killing myself.” The self-deprecation is mainly shtick, a comic through-line of “Oh God I’m so useless” that connects her early incarnation as a punk poet in the 80s to her recent, resurgent persona as a Grumpy Old Woman (first on the BBC Two show, later writing Grumpy Old Women

Theatre can provide respite from the real world – but it can also share our confusion at the chaos that surrounds us and show us that we are not alone The director Peter Brook was once asked, “What is the future of theatre?” Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied: “Tell me, what is the future of food?” In the middle of huge social upheaval, civil unrest, deep-seated injustice and a devastating worldwide pandemic that has caused economic chaos and widespread personal tragedy, why put on a play? When the world feels so profoundly uncertain, why do theatre? Let’s say one even finds the time, resources and outlets to do some sort of play; when there are no theatres open or live audiences, what sort of play do these times require, if any? Does theatre have a role in a world in flux that is in so much pain, is protesting and is facing profound uncertainty? Or does it have a responsibility? Maybe even an opportunity? Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2BJxq

Joel Christian Gill illustrates a humorous comic about a professor dealing with racism in the classroom. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/31sExqP

The screenwriter and actor talks about lockdown life, Black Lives Matter, and his latest film about a pop producer dealing with mental illness Several months into lockdown and Simon Pegg has grown a beard. It’s a pointy affair. “I’m going for the jazz nerd look,” says Pegg. “Sort of free drum solo.” “Catweazle!” calls his wife, Maureen, passing through. Jazz-weazle, maybe? It quite suits him. Pegg is Zoom-ing from his kitchen table at home in Hertfordshire, looking relaxed and cheerful. Though Covid-19 restrictions have put his acting work on pause – just at the start of a Mission Impossible shoot (for the seventh picture in the series) – he’s been coping well. There’s other work to be done. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Z9KDcM

From The New Yorker’s archive: pieces by Chang-rae Lee, Dana Goodyear, Anthony Lane, and Joan Acocella about alcohol and the cultural influence of various spirits. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/38ac3Ub

Anna Wiener writes about the ghost-kitchen model, in which a number of delivery-only providers share kitchen space, offering food for purchase solely through delivery apps and Web sites, without maintaining a brick-and-mortar restaurant. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2A9wNib

Amy Davidson Sorkin on the pandemic’s shifting epicenter and the Republican governors who need to decide if they will act responsibly, even if Trump refuses. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2VGXWkn

A free, online cryptic crossword puzzle from the New Yorker’s archive, with answers and clues that exhibit the wit and intelligence of the magazine. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3i76yKp

The rapper and radio presenter on the problem with online activism, the power of protest, and the moment Oprah squeezed her hand Ashley “Dotty” Charles is the host of BBC’s 1Xtra breakfast show. Charles, 32, grew up in south London with two brothers and a sister and began rapping at 13. After a brief spell in Los Angeles with her family as a teenager, Charles moved back to the UK, graduated from Kingston University and, in 2012, signed to Virgin Records – the first British female MC to sign a major label album deal in more than a decade. She now lives in Surrey with her wife and their three-year-old son, with another baby on the way. Her forthcoming debut book, Outraged: Why Everyone Is Shouting and No One Is Talking , is published by Bloomsbury. Your book is a swipe at the empty rhetoric of activism that only exists with a hashtag online. It’s timely now, but what prompted it? I was on holiday in Thailand when I checked my phone – I shouldn’t have – and landed on an online feedin

The teen star of Stranger Things can’t wait for lockdown to end so he can get his teeth back into acting, directing and being in his rock band. But first there’s the little matter of a Ghostbusters sequel to finish... Not long into our conversation, the Canadian actor Finn Wolfhard rises from a couch and begins pacing the bright hallways of his parents’ Vancouver home, where he has been waiting out the pandemic. We are talking over Zoom, which he has downloaded on to his phone. And while he walks – while he carries me from one room to the next, describing the roles he’s played, the directors he admires, how he has been occupying himself during this odd time – he holds his phone at chest-height, so all I can do is gaze up at him, at his straight-line features and his long hair – a dark, thick tangle – and beyond him at the ceilings of his parents’ home, which are mostly wood-panelled and whitewashed, like the ceilings of a seaside cottage. Once he gets up, he never sits down. It’s not

Home at last after seven weeks in intensive care, the poet pays tribute to ‘incredible’ NHS doctors and nurses Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage The poet Michael Rosen is only alive because his wife, Emma-Louise Williams, and a GP friend recognised that his condition was deteriorating and took him to A&E in the nick of time, he told the Observer Magazine in an emotional interview this weekend. Rosen, 74, who came down with coronavirus in mid-March, returned home last week after spending 48 days in intensive care at the Whittington hospital in north London. He spent a further three weeks on a rehabilitation ward, learning to walk again. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2B87M7N

Eyebrows were raised over the casting for the young Prince of Denmark, but it could give the play new life At first it seems preposterous. Aged 81, Ian McKellen has announced he is to play Hamlet . Who knows what age he will be when Sean Mathias’ production is finally able to open at the Theatre Royal Windsor? We think we know how old Hamlet is at the end of Shakespeare’s play. The not altogether reliable gravedigger says that the prince is 30. Which makes him a year younger than McKellen was when he opened in the part at Nottingham Playhouse, wearing a fringed leather jerkin, alongside a psychedelic ghost. Of the twin Shakespearean peaks, he is now much nearer the summit approached by an actor late in life: he has played King Lear three times. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3eGMEnp

Urgent new perspectives on George Floyd’s death and the slave trade’s place in art; pastoral meditations from David Rudkin and an unforgettable wartime soundscape Every week, a new catastrophe: on the day that Boris Johnson announced plans for the reopening of pubs and cinemas, but did not mention theatres, the Theatre Royal Plymouth announced that it was beginning redundancy consultations, with more than 100 jobs likely to vanish. Every week, dramatic ingenuity. When the Bush theatre asked six black British artists to respond to the killing of George Floyd, the results, collectively called The Protest , were varied, disturbing, urgent. Matilda Ibini supplied advice to her younger self: don’t try to please. Kalungi Ssebandeke raps to footage of confrontations between police and protesters. Fehinti Balogun shows, in a text-message conversation, a white friend slithering away from acknowledging privilege. Roy Williams provides a graphic study of what it is to be terrorised: speakin

The Observer’s critics recommend the best art, theatre, music and more on TV and online this week Music Paul Weller Delayed by the pandemic, On Sunset finally comes out this week, offering both familiarity and experimentation from the restless, evergreen singer-songwriter. Out on Friday. Kitty Empire Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2CRHS8R

Test your arts knowledge with these questions from our critics Shirley MacLaine is a firm believer in reincarnation. Which of the following does she not claim as one of her past lives? An orphan raised by elephants The Moorish peasant girl mistress of the Emperor Charlemagne A Tahitian pearl diver who perished in a shark attack Who was the first African American to win an Academy Award? Dorothy Dandridge for Carmen Jones Paul Robeson for King Solomon's Mines Hattie McDaniel for Gone With the Wind A UK No 1 by which artist namechecks author Vladimir Nabokov? David Bowie The Police Cockney Rebel Which whisky company uses a modified version of a Landseer painting as its logo? Famous Grouse Glenfiddich Johnnie Walker Who ordered her husband a pink carpet made of flamingo feathers with a border of peacock plumes for his 66th birthday? Alma Mahler Cosima Wagner Anna Magdalena Bach Christopher Plummer starred as Captain von Trapp in The Sound Of Music, but he hated w

Old Vic, London In a physically distanced stage production, performed live to a Zoom audience, Duncan Macmillan’s play acquires new pertinence More than three months after UK theatres were closed by the pandemic, it is both poignant and uplifting to watch actors walk back on stage. Just about keeping a metre apart, Matt Smith and Claire Foy have returned to London’s Old Vic for a handful of physically distanced performances of Lungs, resuming roles they played in 2019 . This time, however, the auditorium is empty and the audience on Zoom. Duncan Macmillan’s nimble play, about a couple anticipating parenthood, suits this streaming experiment directed by Matthew Warchus, the first in the theatre’s In Camera initiative. It’s a two-hander, so there’s no supporting cast to swerve, and the script specifies no costume changes, props or interval. Lungs was written for a bare stage. The effect can be especially immediate and communal: my memories of Paines Plough ’s 2014 in-the-round product

Alan Bennett’s masterly monologues were rebooted with top-notch performers; Matthew Rhys makes a superb young Perry Mason; and Channel 4 conducted an anti-racism experiment Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads (BBC1) | iPlayer Perry Mason (Sky Atlantic) | sky.com The Luminaries (BBC1) | iPlayer The School That Tried to End Racism (C4) | All 4 Occasionally an alignment of the heavens is nudged into place that has you believing in the concept of serendipity. The first weeks of lockdown happened to see a sprawl of empty Elstree studios (what with ’Stenders taking a break from its relentless uplifting smileathon) coincide with Nicholas Hytner and a dozen of our seriously finest, wisest actors thrumming their actorly knuckles in savage uncreative boredom. And hadn’t Alan Bennett just last year added a couple of monologues to his ’88 and ’98 Talking Heads , which gobbled a slew of awards and were due a revival; and, actually, did the BBC have anything better to do? Continue reading...

Leading black British poets including Linton Kwesi Johnson, Grace Nichols and Raymond Antrobus share their thoughts on protest, change and the trailblazers who inspired them. Introduction by Kadish Morris Performance poetry revolutionised me. When I was 13, my mother invited me to a group called Leeds Young Authors, which she co-ran with founder and poet Khadijah Ibrahiim. Together, along with visiting poets, they ran writing workshops for teenagers. The selling point was that I would get the chance to travel to the US to compete in a poetry slam festival, but the excitement of getting on an aeroplane was soon overshadowed by what I can only describe as enlightenment. Poems performed at the festival taught me about police brutality, gentrification and climate change before I even owned a computer. Performance poetry immersed me in a world of critical thinking, but also, a community of black poets. I shared stages, shook hands and was taught by some of the greatest black British and Af

The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins, PublicAffairs. 3/5 stars In 1965, the Indonesian military killed as many as one million of their own country­men, destroying the third-largest communist party in the world and taking with it pretty much anyone seen as having left-wing tendencies (as well as hundreds of thousands who had nothing to do with anything). Not many people were killed in the streets or officially executed, but rather disappeared into the night. On the island of Bali, at least 5… from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/31jqO5I

“We are spirits in the material world,” warbled Sting, inadvertently predicting the advent of Netflix series Mystic Pop-Up Bar. And that’s precisely what the staff of a temporary Seoul eatery turn out to be: a couple of spectres at their own feasts, served at their seemingly normal downtown cafe. There, they delve into the secrets of the subconscious, helping enraged, aggrieved, sorrowful or otherwise disturbed humans settle scores or make amends, all by entering their dreams. The impossibly… from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/38bGJVc

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From a practical guide to an escapist novel, Alice O’Keeffe picks her favourite reads for those locked down with kids Books offering support to parents have come on in leaps and bounds since the days when Gina Ford and Supernanny-style discipline reigned supreme. My go-to book for practical advice is The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (Penguin Life) by Philippa Perry . Perry, who is a psychotherapist with more than 20 years’ experience, is not interested in manipulating children’s behaviour with naughty steps and sticker charts. Her approach may incidentally help to get your children to brush their teeth and eat their vegetables, but her emphasis is on the far deeper and more important business of how to build a mutually respectful and cooperative relationship. Her voice is wise and refreshingly nonjudgmental. This is one for parents who, in Perry’s words, “not only love their children, but want to like them, too”. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.

After years of pressure over the character of Apu, the producers of The Simpsons have announced that white actors will no longer voice non-white characters. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/3g1OQGs

Carolyn Kormann writes about record temperatures thawing permafrost across Siberia, resulting in greenhouse-gas emissions and dramatic destabilization of the land—which, in late May, helped cause the Russian Arctic’s largest ever oil spill. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/31jOlU4

Jeannie Suk Gersen writes that Justice Neil Gorsuch’s textualist decision protecting gay and transgender individuals from discrimination may have laid the groundwork for a conservative case against race-conscious school-admissions policies. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3g47vkZ

Isaac Chotiner interviews Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard, about contract tracing, what states should be doing to contain the coronavirus, and the relative safety of time outdoors. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3eFgyIT

Gregg Wallace and John Torode are joined by Apprentice also-rans and Casualty cast-offs for more food-based escapism I’m trying to think what there is new to say about Celebrity MasterChef (Wednesday, 9pm, BBC One), a TV format as ancient as the earth beneath us, a weeknightly appointment where Gregg Wallace – a man with one of the most multifaceted energies alive: at once capable of sparking you out in one punch, cheerfully selling you an organically farmed sausage, marrying your friend’s quiet adult daughter and somehow buying your car off you for scrap – prowls around a test kitchen, vacuum-sealed into a waistcoat, raising his eyebrows at turbot. John Torode is there, too. You’ve got the narrator, you’ve got the trips to outside restaurants, you’ve got a high-pressure lunch service where someone panics at 60 scallops. You know what it is by now. Although now it isn’t Celebrity MasterChef, not in the traditional sense. See, Celebrity MasterChef hasn’t changed but, and I don’t know

The bestselling sequel features a gay central character, challenging the last taboo for representation in gaming A withdrawn-looking 19-year-old leans against the bar in a rustic barn decorated with fairy lights, watching other people dance, taking nervous sips. She is looking at another young woman who is spinning around the room with a couple of different guys. “I hate these things,” says a friend standing next to her. “Tell me about it,” she replies. Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Z9Uu2q

I was a successful magazine editor, working my dream job in New York. But alcohol, and the ghosts of my childhood, took me to breaking point My life began in the village of Inkersall, just north of the Derbyshire town of Chesterfield. Mum and Dad collided when she was just 15 and living in a house teetering on a faultline. Their love crackled bright and quick after meeting in the pub, and a wedding was arranged for the day after her 16th birthday. My grandad, horrified and furious, made Mum an offer: a horse in exchange for her calling off the wedding. She loved riding more than anything; anything, it would seem, except my dad. The offer was rejected. In another act of easy-seeming rebellion, my brother was in her belly almost immediately, entering the world a month before her 17th birthday. I joined them one year and 364 days later. The marriage was a disaster, their fights turning physical after Grandad died. There was a story she shared of the Christmas she couldn’t see the turkey

Author says he takes a hard-hearted approach to character and planned to kill him off Me and my detective by Lee Child, Sara Paretsky and more Jack Reacher has millions of fans all over the world, but his creator, Lee Child, has revealed he doesn’t “like Reacher that much” and originally planned to end his bestselling thriller series by having his character “bleed out on some filthy motel bathroom floor”. Child said he had a motto about his 6ft 5in former US army military policeman: “I need to like him less than you’re going to like him.” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2BhKH2h

The artist on a touching moment with an elephant, treasuring his hair and his love of bats Born in London, Jeremy Deller , 54, gained an art history degree at the Courtauld Institute in 1988. He went on to become a conceptual, video and installation artist. In 2004, he won the Turner prize for his mixed media installation Memory Bucket , which documents his travels through Texas. In 2010 he was awarded the RSA ’s Albert Medal and in 2013 he represented the UK at the Venice Biennale . From 2007 to 2011 he served as a Tate trustee. He lives in London. Which living person do you most admire and why? Either Stevie Wonder or Willie Nelson . Hopefully, no explanation required. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3fXbFLk

The Invisible Man, now available to stream, is the latest in cinema’s chilling tradition of psychodramas, from Gaslight to The Girl on the Train In the before times, when films were still being released in cinemas, The Invisible Man staked an early claim as the year’s best mainstream blockbuster. A steely, sharp-witted reimagination of a dusty old Universal fantasy franchise, Leigh Whannell’s film succeeded by flipping audience expectations of whose story to tell from its far-fetched premise: not the millionaire playboy scientist who discovers ingenious means of invisibility, but the ordinary, unassuming woman – played with frenzied commitment by Elisabeth Moss – he chooses to torment with these powers, in ways only she can see and feel. Now out on streaming and DVD, it’s a horror film that assumes the victim’s perspective in ways both bracing and classical: there may be a rich tradition of imperilled horror heroines pursued by violent, insistent men, but The Invisible Man builds h

From the medallist to the festival star, what happens when your best-laid summer plans come undone? Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Harry Kane, Mabel and others share their might-have-beens. Interviews by Joe Stone , Zoe Williams and Sam Wolfson ‘There’s no such thing as a socially distanced mosh pit’: artists on the thrill of the crowd Olympic Games, postponed from July to July 2021 Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2BIyfIY

Once upon a time, I devoured books. Then all I read was Facebook and texts. Now, thanks to Covid-19, I’ve fallen in love all over again The man behind the camera gave me an odd look. “The spider from Charlotte’s Web ?” I had travelled to the television set in Scotland by train, which had broken down at Preston, and been forced to improvise the rest of the journey on smaller trains and taxis, while ill, arriving on set with 15 minutes to spare before my interview started. Someone had put a plate of food in front of me, and someone else had taken me away from it, to record a “quick bit of extra content for socials”. That’s why my brain wasn’t working when I was asked who my favourite fictional character was. The spider from Charlotte’s Web. A book I hadn’t read in 25 years. “What’s her name?” I added, a coup de grâce that established me as not just odd, but actively stupid. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2VpMhWL

A lack of care from family, friends and government makes solitude a terrifying prospect. Covid-19 reveals how vital social institutions have been demolished In recent years loneliness has been much in the news. Prior to Covid-19 it was regularly described as an epidemic. Now that we are in the middle of a real global health crisis the language has changed. For some people, most likely those with secure incomes and comfortable homes, social distancing and enforced isolation bring “solitude”, a much happier condition than loneliness. The contrast is insisted on, and social media crowded with people discovering the joys of solitariness. Sara Maitland, who lives alone in rural south-west Scotland, has instructed us to “savour solitude, it is not the same as loneliness” . The solitude/loneliness distinction is modern, a product of the late 19th century. For millennia “solitude” did service for both. In 1621 the Oxford don Robert Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy , summed up centuries o

Poet laureate Simon Armitage and comedian Lolly Adefope love the buzz of performance. Here’s what we’re all missing Ready, steady... Oh: Olympics, Glastonbury and Euro 2020 stars on the summer we’ve lost There can be no such thing as a socially distanced mosh pit, can there? This is the centre of a gig, a place where semi-legitimised frenzy and mayhem take place, where drinks are lobbed, shoes are lost, clothes are torn, human beings are borne aloft, and where entanglements of bodies move in unpredictable directions to the push and pull of invisible forces, like a glass in the centre of a Ouija board in contact with a particularly violent spirit. (If you’re thinking, “Blimey, poetry readings aren’t what they used to be,” then bless you.) True, spaces of two metres or more do occasionally open up in the mosh pit, breaches and rents in the crowd where the actual floor becomes visible, but they are momentary and quickly mended. The music stops, the crowd settles and finds its level, o

Move comes amid widespread reckoning for American pop culture following mass protests after George Floyd’s death The Simpsons is ending the use of white actors to voice characters of colour, the show’s producers have said. “Moving forward, ‘The Simpsons’ will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters,” they said in a statement on Friday. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3dEFm2n

Ex-partner who has avoided limelight since divorce is seeking high court injunction Sir Elton John’s ex-wife, Renate Blauel, has launched legal proceedings against the singer at the high court, in a rare intervention by a woman who has been avoiding publicity for decades. Blauel filed the legal paperwork last week and is seeking an injunction against her former partner, according to filings seen by the Guardian. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2VhKEdU

Strangers on the Praia: A Tale of Refugees and Resistance in Wartime Macau, by Paul French. Published by Blacksmith Books. 4/5 stars While World War II may have ended more than 70 years ago, new stories from that era continue to emerge even now. Paul French’s new book, Strangers on the Praia: A Tale of Refugees and Resistance in Wartime Macau, tells the little-known history of Jewish refugees in Shanghai who fled to the neutral Portuguese enclave of Macau. Strangers on the Praia began life as… from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/2YFgCmp

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John Cassidy recounts the results of a number of recent polls, all of which signal that Donald Trump’s appeal among senior voters is slipping, perhaps due to his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the protests following George Floyd’s killing. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/31gugOu

Pragmatism and resilience aren't usually words associated with high-end fashion, but that was before the Covid-19 pandemic. FRANCE 24 takes you around the world to see how designers are innovating. In Beirut, fashion house Tony Ward is turning its attention away from high-end ball gowns and towards other more immediately useful creations. In Marseille, Atelier Bartavelle is sourcing locally and prioritising artistic collaborations. Last but not least, in Taipei, we discover two labels pushing the boundaries of innovation: DYCTeam and Just In XX. from https://ift.tt/2ZgbP9S

After the global success of his flamboyant debut, the Singaporean novelist talks to Nosheen Iqbal about growing up with old money, living next to Bob Dylan in New York, and why publishing’s problems with diversity are no surprise It’s difficult to square Kevin Kwan, modern master of high romp, with the dark and brooding personality he claims as his default setting. “I’m actually a very melancholy, serious person,” he says seriously. Sitting at his kitchen table on a video call, bright Los Angeles light blinking through the blinds, Kwan is keen to draw a firm line between the parodic glamour of his blockbuster novels and the “very tense, mordant introvert” he sees himself as in real life. “It was such a surprise to my friends that I wrote Crazy Rich Asians ,” he says. “They couldn’t believe this was the book I was writing because it’s not in my natural voice which, in terms of writing, is very surgical, very precise, very minimal, very devastating, you know?” Continue reading... fr

More time-travel thrills from the German mystery series, plus flashbacks to 50 years of rock, pop and rap at Worthy Farm Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2CAxWQH

Princeton University Press will publish a selection of ‘candid, forthright and innovative’ stories by Hermynia Zur Mühlen A set of radical fairytales, written by an Austrian aristocrat in the early 20th century to promote social justice, will be published in English for the first time. Hermynia Zur Mühlen was born in Vienna to a wealthy Catholic family in 1883, but rebelled against her upper-class life to become a prolific left-wing author. Next month, Princeton University Press will publish a selection of her stories, which focus on equality and the plight of the working class. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/383rOfo