Cultural News Today

He thought they were pop lightweights – then turned them into moody megastars. The photographer recalls his adventures with the band, from desert trips to drug-induced near-death experiences By his own cheerful admission, Anton Corbijn ’s relationship with Depeche Mode did not get off to a flying start. It was 1981 and Corbijn was the NME’s new star photographer, lured to the UK from his native Netherlands by the sound of British post-punk, particularly Joy Division. His subsequent black and white portraits of the quartet tramping Manchester’s snow-covered streets became the most iconic images of their brief career, and Corbijn had gone on to take equally celebrated shots of everyone from Captain Beefheart to David Bowie. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3vJJTKE

The actor’s turn as a complex, fallible detective has been a privilege to witness, in a murder mystery that kept us guessing right to the profoundly moving end In interviews, Kate Winslet always said it wasn’t a thriller. And she was right. Yes, Mare of Easttown (Sky Atlantic) began with a murder in a small, bleak Pennsylvania town and Winslet’s police detective Mare Sheehan being called upon to investigate. But it was almost immediately clear that the seven-part drama was setting up to be so much more – and even clearer soon after that it was likely to succeed in all its endeavours. It was a character study, of how a woman ground down by life after the loss of a son to drugs and suicide, the consequent divorce from her husband and raising of her grandson in the face of a custody battle with his mother (her son’s former girlfriend, rehabbed but fragile) endures. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3uCLSiz

Modern Art Oxford An Oxford don in reverse, sticky situationism and a icon of Malawian independence are among the cultural collisions explored in this Fourth Plinth contender’s show Here they stand, two big black elephants, their trunks raised in greeting. Elephants never forget, and these symbols of ancestral wisdom are clothed in sewn-together Oxford academic gowns, their ridiculous tassels forming the animals’ tails. Referencing the dances of the Nyau secret society of the Chewa people in Malawi , who wear costumes fashioned from cut up materials, the elephants stand beneath national flags, themselves spliced together and reimagined as colourful multinational banners. Symbols of hope, then, abstractions of a better world in Samson Kambalu’s New Liberia at Modern Art Oxford . Leaning against the walls are cinema signs, loosely describing the action in a couple of the jerky, black and white short films projected on the walls in another gallery. “In a distant land by the water, a man

A three-part thriller charts the final months of Henry VIII’s pregnant queen. Plus: The Anti-Vax Conspiracy. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3uywgwB

Exclusive: actor says individuals rather than government should lead way as he launches wetlands drama Sir Mark Rylance has called on the arts to help solve the climate crisis by telling stories that persuade people to “fall in love with nature again” and prompt government to back green policies. The Oscar-winning actor is starring with Sophie Okonedo in an innovative BBC Radio 4 drama set in a nature reserve that charts the challenges conservationists face in a time of rapid environmental change. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3vE2bgd

The author discusses “Before the Valley,” her story from the latest issue of the magazine. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3uBJ9pA

New cartoons from the magazine. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3vG037G

Stephen Lang, who plays Colonel Quaritch, the bad guy in the “Avatar” franchise, walks the streets in a sandwich board promoting his daughter Lucy Lang, a progressive prosecutor running to replace Cy Vance. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3fyTLkD

When a private-equity firm bought a Philadelphia institution, the most vulnerable patients bore the cost. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/34uUe10

New cartoons from the magazine. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3yRU3Li

Reading America through more than two centuries of its favorite books. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3yQG9Jd

Fiction by Rachel Heng: “Before wasn’t talked about often; it felt unseemly somehow, self-indulgent, to dwell on one’s past life.” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3fCo3mG

A challenging puzzle. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2SGe4DR

Poetry by Sandy Solomon: “Year of forgetting in the days’ drift. Then / abruptly remembering.” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2Tm74wc

From Manchester’s Secret City to Glasgow’s Prestwick Airport, the silver screen takes a trip to the great outdoors Between the travel restrictions, social distancing, badly ventilated spaces indoors and weather outdoors, we are not exactly shaping up for a great British summer. The silver lining you seek could be the silver screen. Drive-in and outdoor cinemas are looking like the best of several worlds: you’re getting out of the house but not necessarily out of your car, you’re together with other people yet reassuringly separate. At the movies you can go anywhere you want, from Edwardian Britain to Wakanda – for less than the price of a PCR swab test. Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3p6pe0N

Lawrence Wright’s deep research reveals the oversights and errors that fatally hampered the US reponse to Covid It has become an embarrassingly well known fact that in the 2019 Global Health Security Index, the US was ranked No 1 in the world for preparedness for a pandemic (the UK, almost as embarrassingly, was No 2). Exactly how the US became the worst affected country in the world – more than 590,000 Americans have so far died from Covid – is now the subject of much finger-pointing debate. Recently, Michael Lewis’s Premonition looked at a group of people in public health in the US who warned of what was coming but were ignored. Lawrence Wright, who is a master of knitting together complex narratives, takes a much broader view of the proceedings in The Plague Year . Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3yNyOdn

The great British artist’s home in Mexico has been turned into a wonderful museum, full of her sculptures, books, diaries and unsmoked cigarettes. Our writer, Carrington’s cousin, takes an emotional tour In October 2010, a few months before her death, I said my last goodbye to my cousin Leonora Carrington. As I left her home in Mexico City, she stood waving on the doorstep. Today, I’m back for the first time – to see Leonora’s house recreated as a visitor attraction. It feels surreal, but the surreal has become the everyday since I set off to find Leonora in 2006, almost 70 years after she checked out of our family and Britain. She travelled first to Paris to be with her lover, the German artist Max Ernst , before moving on to Mexico with a diplomat she met after she and Ernst were separated by the second world war. This house, 194 Calle Chihuahua, is where she was anchored for more than 60 years. Here, she painted some of her best-known works, including The Juggler , which sold at a

As the band release their first record in a decade, the New Zealand songwriter reflects on their influences – from Fleetwood Mac to Donald Trump Neil Finn, New Zealand music’s jovial elder statesman, is remembering his best friend and bandmate Paul Hester. He recalls the Crowded House drummer holding Finn’s baby son Liam up to the heavens, recreating a scene from the 70s TV show Roots; how Hester taught Liam’s younger brother, Elroy, to play the drums. But Hester’s gone now – he took his own life in 2005. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/34uH0Bg

As Ralph Fiennes tours his solo stage version of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, look back at some of his greatest stage performances, from Shaw and Shakespeare to The Play What I Wrote Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3c7aolr

From Kafka’s The Trial to insightful accounts from barristers on their time in the courts, here are some outstanding titles to explain the legal system No lawyer has a comprehensive knowledge of the labyrinthine law of our land, so quite how a member of the public is expected to understand all of the rules that bind us has long been a mystery to me. Nevertheless, even if the precise letter of the law will always be held captive by the legal profession, there are a number of fantastic books to help the general reader discern the law’s spirit. The book that has earned the right to sit atop any list of legal books is The Rule of Law by Tom Bingham , the former lord chief justice. It explores a principle that underpins not merely the legal system, but the edifice of our democracy. Offering a definition of the principle as “all persons and authorities within the state, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of laws publicly made, taking effect (generall

Free love and folk-singing hides a dark secret on the Scottish island of Summerisle in a film that’s bracing, exciting and downright funny • The Wicker Man is available to stream in Australia on Mubi. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here Have you seen the horror film about a gormless, well-intentioned westerner lured to a lush, sparsely populated isle in search of meaning, only to find paganism, unbridled sexual politics, folk dancing and abject violence? I’m not talking about Midsommar, the 2019 folk-horror hit by auteur Ari Aster that freaked out audiences with its broad-daylight senicide and twee ritualism. I’m referring to a film that came out nearly 50 years earlier, and which often out-weirds and out-wilds its younger cousin despite containing none of the gore or violence. I’m talking about The Wicker Man, the 1973 British horror-musical that popularised the folk-horror genre, and endures to this day as a masterpiece of the form. Continue readi

Martial arts enthusiast and Putin admirer proposes crackdown on businesses that harm the environment The Hollywood actor Steven Seagal, a long-time admirer of Russian president Vladimir Putin, has joined a pro-Kremlin party, the party said on Sunday. Seagal received a membership card of an alliance named A Just Russia – Patriots – For Truth on Saturday, a video released by the party showed. It was formed earlier this year, when three leftist parties, all of which support Putin, merged. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/34xdOKc

Court cases continue 15 years after scandal broke, with total costs expected to reach £1bn The Great British Bake Off host Noel Fielding, former Girls Aloud member Cheryl Tweedy, and singer Natalie Imbruglia are among the latest individuals to bring phone-hacking claims against the publisher of the Mirror, as companies continue to deal with the costly fallout of widespread illegal behaviour at their newspapers. Fifteen years after the phone-hacking scandal began, more than 20 individuals have recently filed legal proceedings against the owner of the Mirror, with more cases waiting in the wings. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3vC9iG6

Public can sign up for the chance to line the red carpet and meet their favourite actors TV stars and fans will follow in the virtual footsteps of Tupac Shakur , Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston by appearing in hologram form at the Bafta television awards, it has been announced. Nominees for this year’s British Academy Television Awards who cannot attend the 6 June ceremony because of Covid restrictions can be beamed on to the red carpet. The technology will be offered to TV stars who may be restricted to production filming bubbles as well as fans who had hoped to line the red carpet. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3yR5O4E

An unnamed mental illness thwarts one woman’s stab at a happy marriage in a devastating and sharply funny love story Martha is 40 and finally married to Patrick, a man who’s been secretly in love with her ever since teenagerhood. She now loves him back, but seems unable to be happy or even, on occasion, very nice to him. Ever since a “little bomb” exploded in her brain at the age of 17, she’s been on and off antidepressants, generally to little avail. Ultimately, when gentle, patient Patrick can take it no longer and walks out, Martha returns to her parents’ bohemian (AKA dysfunctional) family home in London’s Goldhawk Road and is forced to examine herself more closely. Is it simply, as she’s always felt, that she finds it “harder to be alive than most people”? Or is there some more devastating explanation – or diagnosis – which has been evading her all this time? This is a novel about mental illness but, thanks to Mason’s astute, even inspired handling of the subject (of which more

The world famous London concert hall celebrates its 120th birthday today. Its artistic director picks 12 of the hall’s greatest – and most unexpected – moments The Wigmore Hall, in Wigmore Street, London W1, opened its doors on 31 May 1901 with a concert that featured, among others, Italian composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni and the Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe . The concert hall was known until 1916 as Bechstein Hall, after the German piano manufacturer whose showrooms were next door and which had built the hall. Bechstein was forced to cease trading in Britain during the first world war and the venue was sold and renamed Wigmore Hall and opened under the new title in 1917. In these past 120 years it has become established as one of the world’s great recital venues. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3uAOHkb

The standup takes us on his tour of Australia and New Zealand. Plus: the finale of Mare of Easttown. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3i8FhK2

Submit your caption. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3c1tMjK

Royal Festival Hall, London Chineke! Orchestra had the deserved honour of welcoming audiences back to the venue, with work inspired by BLM protests and a swashbuckling finale It had been 439 days, we were told, since the Royal Festival Hall last opened its doors to a public audience. Whatever the disappointments of such a long period of closure, the mood as the players of Chineke! Orchestra took to the stage was celebratory. That this ensemble was chosen to be first back shows how far it has come in its six-year existence. There were cheers as Chineke!’s founder Chi-chi Nwanoku was presented with Making Music’s Sir Charles Groves prize, and more of them at the mention of that organisation’s campaign for amateur choirs to be allowed to rehearse together again. There is indeed always campaigning to be done in the music world – but at least Chineke!’s work as an amplifier for composers of colour is bearing fruit. This concert began with two works written last year. The first, a UK pr

Who’s in the photograph? And just what is in those journals? As the Kate Winslet thriller comes to a close, here are the mysteries we’re desperate to see solved Warning: this article contains spoilers for episodes one to six of Mare of Easttown. Mare of Easttown has become a bona fide phenomenon. A thriller revolving around an aloof, small-town detective tracking down the perps of the sexual abuse and murder of girls is pretty much the least original idea there is, but its combination of phenomenal performances ( Kate Winslet is one of the best actors working today), surprising comic chops (Jean Smart is hilarious) and breadth of suspects has proved gripping. The show even has Stephen King hooked . Who knew a bunch of bearded men in flannel shirts could be this interesting? Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3ibaMD8

Grammy-winning singer who enjoyed success on the pop, country and gospel charts announced in March he had lung cancer BJ Thomas, a Grammy-winning singer who enjoyed success on the pop, country and gospel charts with hits including Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head and Hooked on a Feeling, has died. He was 78. Thomas, who announced in March that he had lung cancer, died on Saturday at his home in Arlington, Texas, his publicist said. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/34sLxo5

Eliane Glaser, Pragya Agarwal and Melissa Hogenboom offer challenging responses to the contradictions of so many parenting guides The theme of the indignities of post-feminist motherhood is always fresh. And yet the past year seems to have rendered the wound more raw than ever. Eliane Glaser’s Motherhood: A Manifesto has already generated social media coverage galore for the assertions that “motherhood is the unfinished business of feminism” and “the cult of the perfect mother must end”. Who would disagree with these statements? But these things need saying and loudly, especially when “the pandemic is amplifying bias against working mothers”, to quote a recent typical headline. And yet what are the solutions on offer that haven’t already been proposed decades ago by, say, Betty Friedan or Simone de Beauvoir, both, happily, quoted here? Glaser homes in on the awkward truths: “Modern motherhood somehow manages to demean women while simultaneously raising the stakes.” “For too long, th

Streaming service BritBox surprises with a gripping thriller, while Scandi noir goes to Bristol. Plus the kindness of Rankin and a superb exploration of Afrofuturism The Beast Must Die (BritBox) | britbox.com Before We Die (Channel 4) | channel4.com The Great British Photography Challenge (BBC Four) | iPlayer Dark Matter: A History of the Afrofuture (BBC Four) | iPlayer Breeders (Sky One) | sky.com BritBox can be seen a little unkindly as the Gibraltar of streaming services, or the Malta. A bit too keen to embrace expats, a touch overly wrapped in past glories, with somehow a dusty whiff of mid-70s custard creams down the back of the sofa; and no one-worldly sophisto really wants to go there unless there’s absolutely no option, as we’ve just seen with the recent government list of free-to-travel zones. It made a few headlines when it launched with a new Spitting Image , quickly and rightly forgotten, and hasn’t even attempted to engage with original programming since. Conti

(Joyful Noise) A warm new contentment becomes the formerly angst-filled lo-fi rocker It would hardly take a genius to notice the thick vein of heartbreak that has run through Lou Barlow ’s career away from Dinosaur Jr, whether in Sebadoh, the Folk Implosion or as a solo artist. As a chronicler of unrequited love and self-lacerating introspection, he has had few peers over the past three decades. But times change and, as anybody lucky enough to have caught last summer’s streamed lockdown shows from his Massachusetts home (with frequent unscripted interruptions from his young daughter) will have noticed, his life now is the very picture of domestic bliss. Far from being a creative hindrance, this change in circumstances suits Barlow’s muse. While many of the songs here differ little stylistically from his lo-fi self-recorded contributions to 1991’s brilliantly sprawling Sebadoh III – it’s largely just his voice and his acoustic guitar – the variation in tone and mood is a definite up

Growing up in the Bible Belt, MTV opened up a world that felt free for Beth Ditto. Here, the singer writes about queer visibility and why positive role models are still so vital My earliest memories of queerness come from pop culture. I was born in 1981, when it felt like queer culture was just pop culture. This was around the time that Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Material Girl came out. Prince was everywhere, as was Annie Lennox and Culture Club. Boy George was really the first explicitly queer person I saw on TV; I was four years old. My mom had me young (even though I was her fourth kid) and she was a “cool mom” – meaning we had cable TV. I remember we’d watch MTV, which was brand new, and that’s where I saw Boy George. I was so enamoured of him. It didn’t not make sense to me. I never thought: so that’s a boy dressed as a girl? Wearing makeup? It was almost like it was home. Not everybody felt that way. After I saw my first images of queer people on MTV, the channel was banne

Emily Skegg’s suburban nerd and Kyle Gallner’s runaway rocker work a treat in this abrasively funny 90s throwback Those who identified with the girl geeks of Ghost World and Welcome to the Dollhouse may also find something to love in Emily Skegg’s Patty, a wide-eyed suburban nerd whose life is turned upside down by the arrival of Simon (Kyle Gallner), a punk rock runaway. A throwback to the brightly coloured offbeat teen movies of the 90s and a rude riposte to that era’s more mainstream offerings ( She’s All That ’s sexist makeover scene is subverted), this sweet romcom is buoyed up by the chemistry between its leads. Tender moments, such as an original song penned by Patty, are tempered by the film’s abrasive and often scatological sense of humour. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2R3XGMX

From the magazine’s archive: a medley of playful and whimsical humor pieces. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3fE0QAN

Capitalism, for Her: Women make more money. If this is too much for people to handle, will settle for women making only slightly less than what men make, which is still a significant raise. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2SD16GY

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/3fvP6zY

The most pressing question now may be not whether Roe and Casey can survive but how reproductive rights can be sustained without them. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3wJll4B

Ash Barty and Aryna Sabalenka have been playing the sort of taut, highlight-laden matches that reveal the promise of the game. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3yO08YW

Why bother with getting the Botoxed gang back together when new shows are what we really need now? They’ll be there for you. Again. Cue handclaps, haircuts and fountain-dancing. Yes, last Thursday was a case of Friends reunited – not ye olde alumni hook-up website but the long-awaited reunion of the Central Perk six , toothsome stars of the definitive 90s sitcom. The quip-smart sextet, reportedly paid $2.5m apiece to indulge viewers’ nostalgia and say “pivot!” a few times for the two-hour HBO special, were joined by an A-list all-star cast – some welcome (Gaga! Malala!), some less welcome (is there no cultural event that James Corden won’t gatecrash?) and some bafflingly random (David Beckham! Justin Bieber in a potato costume!). Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3c3YZTg

Karen Tumulty’s biography, on the centenary of Nancy Reagan’s ‘official’ birth, paints a romanticised picture of a neurotic prototype for Melania Trump After Jimmy Carter’s glum diagnosis of national malaise in 1979, Ronald Reagan supposedly restored the customary swagger of the US by making the country “feel good about itself”. That folksy blessing didn’t extend to his wife: on the evidence of Karen Tumulty’s biography, Nancy Reagan spent his entire presidency in a state of seething anxiety that frequently tipped over into hysteria. Aides in the White House came to dread her passive-aggressive silences on the phone and her basilisk glare when she allowed them face time. Likening her to a missile, a friend tells Tumulty “she was good at going stealth”. She monopolised Ronnie and staff members who had to relay her phone calls to the Oval Office said they were on the “Mommy Watch”. In later years, as his mind blurred, she became his agitated attendant, whispering panicked prompts in t

The co-star of Mae Martin’s award-winning romcom on the new series, working with a pigeon on Ghosts and accidentally dressing like a Minion Actor Charlotte Ritchie, 31, grew up in south London and was still finishing her drama degree at Bristol University when she landed the role of Oregon in Channel 4 student comedy Fresh Meat . Subsequent TV roles include Alison in Ghosts and Nurse Barbara Gilbert in Call the Midwife . She co-stars as George in Feel Good , a semi-autobiographical romcom by comedian Mae Martin , who identifies as non-binary. The show won two Royal Television Society awards earlier this year and is nominated for a Bafta at next weekend’s ceremony. Feel Good is back for its second (and final) series. Why the move from Channel 4 to Netflix? Channel 4 didn’t pick up the second series but I’m so relieved that Netflix did. I knew that Mae [Martin, creator and star] and Joe [Hampson, co-writer] had planned a two-series trajectory and had solid ideas of how it was going

After a decade in Hollywood, French actor Omar Sy returned home to star in Netflix’s much-loved hit, Lupin. He talks about playing the charming thief, growing up with Arsenal’s Nicolas Anelka and his battle with racism Actors, obliged to exhaustively market their wares, will pose for hours in front of posters of their latest film or TV show. They’ll hop between city premieres, sit on dreary festival panels, tell rehearsed comic stories on night-time talkshows, then get up early to be on breakfast radio. Before meeting Omar Sy, a 43-year-old Frenchman who stars in the massively popular Netflix drama Lupin , I’d never heard of an actor picking up a bucket and brush to spend a day gluing up their own billboard posters on the Paris metro. Sy, who is 6ft 2in, born in a working-class Parisian suburb to West African parents, explains the thinking behind this unusual marketing stunt that took place just before the first series of Lupin debuted earlier this year. “A lot of people know me in

Twenty years ago, one woman convinced her neighbours to buy, rear and train a thoroughbred racehorse, Dream Alliance. Now their unlikely story is relived in a feelgood film Ever felt stirred by a warm sense of connection to the world around you? Well, the Welsh have a word for that precious sensation: “hwyl”, sounding a little like “hoyle” to an English ear. And, as cinema projectors whirr into action again, there is one film above all others that aims to bring you this very emotion. Out on 4 June, Dream Horse is the true story of the extraordinary racehorse that brought a group of impoverished Welsh owners together and offered them fresh hope against all imaginable odds. And the concept of hwyl, a kind of mystic combination of those two more famous buzz words, the Irish “craic” and the Danish “hygge”, is right at the film’s core, according to director Euros Lyn. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2R5fojj

The actor’s remarkable life fed into the character of Arlette in the Netflix hit, from growing up Jewish in occupied France, via Left Bank jazz and a relationship with Chet Baker, to global fame in her 80s If you’re an actor in the rare position of becoming internationally famous in your 80s, then it’s rather fitting to achieve it with a role that ripely resembles you. In recent years the world has come to know the veteran French actor Liliane Rovère as Arlette Azémar, the seasoned “impresario” – as she prefers to be known – in the French TV series Dix Pour Cent , AKA Call My Agent! . The show has become a global hit on Netflix, and Arlette has struck a chord as everyone’s ideal disreputable aunt with a repertoire of outrageous stories that she just might tell if the burgundy is flowing. She is the sly, sharp-tongued doyenne of top Paris talent agency ASK, who knows where the bodies are buried, and just when to dig them up. It is easy to imagine that Arlette is Rovère. You can just

MacLeod, also known for the Mary Tyler Moore Show, died at his home in California Gavin MacLeod, the actor who achieved fame as sardonic TV news writer Murray Slaughter on the Mary Tyler Moore Show and cheerful Captain Stubing on The Love Boat, has died aged 90. MacLeod died early Saturday at his home in Palm Desert, California, said Stephanie Steele Zalin, his stepdaughter. She attributed his death to his age, saying he had been well until very recently. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3utPR0F

Kelly Reichardt’s offbeat gem about an unlikely friendship founded on biscuits is a satisfying fable of America’s past and present “The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship,” reads the William Blake quotation that opens Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow , setting the tone for a deceptively simple tale of man’s natural home – companionship – and the ongoing struggles of commerce verses comradeship. Reichardt’s intimate explorations of Oregon range from the modern drama Old Joy to the frontier western Meek’s Cutoff . Yet there’s still a profound element of discovery in this latest Oregon-based gem, a fable of land and freedom that serves as an up-close-and-personal portrait of friendship and a wider snapshot of America, rooted in the rich soil of the Pacific north-west. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3yRSq0e

The softly-spoken physicist looks back on his past 10 years of BBC documentaries in a new series. Plus: Inside KFC. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3yRdpQv

Enormes disparidades persisten en los niveles de inmunización entre las comunidades de la ciudad. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3hZjcO4

When did we all start believing that this process was a test of a teen-ager’s character? from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2SFMqad

(Savant) Snidero and band take comfort music to the next level in this hugely enjoyable, at times mind-boggling set recorded last year Believe it or not, this was recorded last October – live, before an audience (small and wearing masks) at a jazz club in rural Pennsylvania. Jim Snidero , an alto saxophonist I admire for the deceptively easy grace of his style, had not played in public for about seven months, and neither had the other members of his quartet. They play brilliantly here, especially Snidero and pianist Orrin Evans, although the whole performance is, not surprisingly, a bit more intense than usual. The programme consists of eight familiar standards: “comfort music”, according to Snidero. It brings out his perfect taste with ballads, never overdoing the decoration on My Old Flame, and releases the whole band’s glorious sense of swing in faster numbers. Bassist Peter Washington and drummer Joe Farnsworth maintain a kind of springy balance that lifts the music so that it s

The singer, 35, on childhood traumas, gaining confidence, losing her mum and her love for the northeast I lost my mum last year. She was brilliant, which is what’s so hard about it. Her name was Heather, and it would have been easier if she’d been a bit shit. My brother named her “the patron saint of misfits”. She was understanding and kind. She had time for everyone. I have a mantra now: “Be more Heather.” Social media divides us, but I don’t know where I’d have been without it during the pandemic. Sometimes I find myself on Twitter thinking: “There she goes, writing about her mum again,” but hearing from other people who’ve lost people, hearing that I’ve helped, it’s been so good for my head. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/34usMAA

The Mexican author won the Dublin literary award last week for Lost Children Archive. She reflects on how reading and writing have helped her through the pandemic I read an article the other day about a computer program that writes fiction. You feed it a few lines, tell it the genre – science fiction, horror – and it produces the rest. And it’s not bad at it. It writes in full grammatical sentences; comes up with metaphors and analogies; emulates a writer’s particular style and so on. The author of the article, who seemed a little too thrilled about the existence of this diabolical toy from the depths of Silicon Valley says, at some point, that this “tool” was going to be the “salvation” for writers who dislike writing, which, according to him, is nearly all writers. I want to say to this writer: you are wrong. And to this robot that writes fiction I want to say … well I don’t want to say anything to it because, you know, robots are robots. Fiction is one of the most pleasurable of

Charlotte’s influence has been downplayed, says a new book on how women are written out of history In the climactic final scene of George Bernard Shaw ’s masterpiece Pygmalion , Henry Higgins famously threatens to wring Eliza Doolittle’s neck. “Wring away!” she replies. “Oh, when I think of myself crawling under your feet and being trampled on and called names, when all the time I had only to lift up my finger to be as good as you, I could just kick myself.” Until now, Shaw’s play about the flower girl who is transformed into a duchess by a wealthy professor was thought to have little in common with the great playwright’s own life. But this summer, a new book will shine a spotlight on the important contributions that Shaw’s wife, Charlotte, an heiress and intellectual, made to his work – and reveal how her connections and influence utterly transformed Shaw’s life and career. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3wENyti

Glyndebourne, East Sussex; Ragged School Museum, London Janáček’s darkest of operas provided a searing start to Glyndebourne’s new season. Plus, spellbinding chamber music from Pavel Kolesnikov, Samson Tsoy and friends Swirling currents of infidelity, hypocrisy and suicide meet in tragic confluence in Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová (1921). For its first new production of the season, Glyndebourne has turned this darkest of operas into a dazzle of white light and painful lucidity. Negating literal details of Czech village, church, countryside, the director Damiano Michieletto and designer Paolo Fantin have laid bare Káťa’s troubled mental state and translated brutal action into metaphor. The set looks airy and minimal, Káťa’s sense of imprisonment and desire for freedom achieved by Alessandro Carletti’s intense use of lighting and high white walls that shut out the world. Three standard visual motifs, drawn from references in the libretto, are brought into play: bird, cage and angel. Magrit

Culture department hopes temporary stay will allow Renaissance piece to find a domestic buyer The UK has placed a temporary export ban on a late 15th-century bronze roundel made in the Lombardy city of Mantua and valued at £17m. The Renaissance roundel, which depicts Venus, the Roman goddess of love, surrounded by her lover Mars, husband Vulcan and son Cupid, is at risk of being sold overseas unless a UK buyer can be found. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3fVDYvq

From TikTok-assisted drill stars to a ‘ghetto house’ pioneer, here are the acts to watch this season Nu-soul star Greentea Peng: ‘I have no interest in being a pop star’ Jazz-funk outfit Hiatus Kaiyote: ‘Loss is not a new thing to me’ Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3yLccKA

Whether lurking in the background of The Real Housewives, or starring in their own show, a generation have had their childhoods captured on screen. How did it change them? Shane Keough’s mother, Jeana, is a former Playboy model. His father, Matt, was a professional baseball player. He grew up in a sprawling mansion and wanted for little. When a TV executive called Scott Dunlop decided to make a reality show about the rich, glamorous and drama-loving residents of Orange County, California, he had the Keough family in mind. In 2006, the Keoughs featured on the first episode of The Real Housewives Of Orange County on the US network Bravo. Over the next decade, Real Housewives became a global franchise of women with acrylic nails lustily splashing glasses of wine in each other’s faces. There are now Sydney housewives, Cheshire housewives, even The Real Housewives Of Hungary (Feleségek Luxuskivitelben). Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/34GXuXr

From Velvet Goldmine to Sound of Metal, the rock’n’roll life has provided a rich seam for cinema It can be hard for cinema to convey the body-shaking rush of rock’n’roll. There’s something fundamentally different about the performative nature of the rock star and the actor – one possessed and in the moment, the other considered and artfully observed – that can make attempts by the latter to play the former ring strangely false. The charge of live music, meanwhile, doesn’t always penetrate the essential remove imposed by the camera. Two recent films about rock musicians demonstrate the potential pitfalls and rarer rewards of portraying that scene on screen – both are out on non-premium VOD and DVD this week. Stardust , an anaemic biopic of David Bowie, is the dud. Hamstrung by the failure to secure rights to any of its subject’s actual music, Gabriel Range’s dramatisation of Bowie’s disastrous first US tour, it wastes a pretty valiant attempt by Johnny Flynn to channel the young star’

As the G.O.P. seeks to deny Americans knowledge of their own history, Nikole Hannah-Jones is denied tenure. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/34uHlUS

The impresario behind Union Square Café and Shake Shack, appointed by Bill de Blasio to lead the city’s reopening, wants to put diners in the Museum of Modern Art’s sculpture garden. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3fuqurh

In the fall, I’ll be giving up my current vibe of Sweet, Middle-Aged Lady Who Is Easily Distracted by Any Mention of “Mansfield Park.” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3c2g1RW

After a life marked by abuse, fame, scandal and struggle, the Irish singer-songwriter says she never lost faith Read an exclusive extract from her new memoir Sinéad O’Connor has been pretty much invisible for the past few years. There’s a good reason, though, she tells me with her usual disregard for social niceties. “I’ve spent most of the time in the nuthouse. I’ve been practically living there for six years.” She pauses, takes an intense drag on her fag, and warns me off being similarly politically incorrect. “We alone get to call it the nuthouse – the patients.” O’Connor is a music great – her 1990 version of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U is one of the most transcendent five minutes in pop history, the solitary tear falling from her eye in the accompanying video one of its most beautiful images. The single topped the charts worldwide, as did the album it was taken from, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. Astonishingly, in the 31 years that have passed, she has never had anothe

Likened to Erykah Badu and Amy Winehouse, the south Londoner’s nu-soul sound looks set to reign supreme this summer – whether she likes it or not A polluted intersection on the A1 does not seem like Greentea Peng’s natural habitat. Its ear-splitting soundtrack – of screaming horns and the odd exploding crisp packet – could not be further from the 26-year-old’s preferred sonic mode: blissed-out, dub-inflected psychedelic soul that speaks of renouncing ego, embracing love and bringing down Babylon. But it is her chosen location: the south London-born musician, otherwise known as Aria Wells, discovered this Turkish roadside cafe on her current visit to the capital and has returned repeatedly. “This place does amazing baklava,” she enthuses, before asking a slightly confused waitress to dollop some chilli sauce into her soup. Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3wGpPZB

As our thoughts turn to life after the pandemic, authors from this year’s Hay festival choose books that have inspired lasting change in them Ali Smith, novelist Books, and all the arts, naturally and endlessly inspire change because they free up the possibilities between reality and the imagination, and the possibilities for change in us. They never stop doing this. It’s one of the reasons the current powers that be are hellbent on controlling the arts, devaluing them, removing easy access to them and controlling history’s narratives. Last week I read a debut novel called Assembly by Natasha Brown. It’s a quiet, measured call to revolution. It’s about everything that has changed and still needs to change, socially, historically, politically, personally. It’s slim in the hand, but its impact is massive; it strikes me as the kind of book that sits on the faultline between a before and an after. I could use words like elegant and brilliantly judged and literary antecedents such as Kath

The jazz-funkers beloved of Beyoncé are back with a new album inspired by grief, lockdown and a big white station wagon Other artists to watch out for this summer For most people on the planet, 2020 was a year spent stuck indoors. During that period Naomi Saalfield, AKA Nai Palm, lead singer of the Australian band Hiatus Kaiyote , had one room in particular on her mind: a childhood bedroom that used to glow red for an hour every sunset. It has become the subject of a standout track, Red Room, on their latest, third album, Mood Valiant, and it is a song that has taken on new meaning. “It’s become an anthem celebrating us all being in our rooms in the context of the pandemic,” Saalfield says. “It’s a perfect example of how music veins its way in and lives different lives with different people.” Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3wIb0Ws

Announcement by culture secretary for 2025 title is part of government’s levelling-up agenda Groups of towns will be able to bid to be the UK’s city of culture for the first time as the government hopes to use the competition to promote its levelling-up agenda. The culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, also hopes the competition will help areas recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2RS5SjK

The costumed reality spin-off kicks off a week of ballroom battling. Plus: Blinded – Those Who Kill reaches its finale. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3c10jXl

Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo bring star power to a tale of trauma and romantic doom. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/34uAA5b

Temporary exhibition will launch with survey to discover what people think should happen next to statue The statue of the slave trader Edward Colston will go on display in a Bristol museum almost a year to the day after it was hauled from its plinth in the city centre by Black Lives Matter protesters and thrown into the city’s harbour. Colston’s statue will form the centrepiece of a temporary exhibition at the M Shed museum and a survey will be launched to try to find out what people think should happen to it next. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Sybr72

BritBox’s first original drama is a taut thriller, with Jumbo playing the mother of a hit-and-run victim who hunts down odious prime suspect Jared Harris I love a drama premise you can really get behind. The Beast Must Die (BritBox) follows the hunt by bereaved mother Frances ( Cush Jumbo ) for the driver of the vehicle that killed her six-year-old son in a hit-and-run on the Isle of Wight three months earlier. Partly because the police have failed to find the culprit and partly so that when she does, she can kill him. As she points out, if the boy had been killed by someone with his own hands instead of with his car, there would be a national outcry, and no one would rest until the beast was caught. By the end of the first two episodes made available for streaming (the remaining three will drop weekly on Thursdays), Frances has followed up on clues and extracted information from repair shops about damaged bumpers. She has also befriended the emergent key witness Lena (Mia Tomlinson)

Stephanie Zari’s thriller debut aims for black humour but also deals with child abuse and mental illness This low-budget indie set in the dark heart of the rural English suburbs begins with a woman plunging an eight-inch kitchen knife into her husband’s head. The tone that director Stephanie Zari is going for seems to be that blend of violence and black humour that Fargo and Killing Eve make look so easy. But Zebra Girl’s quirky comedy is not quite distinctive enough, and the script lurches iffily into serious issues of child abuse and mental illness in the second half. Sarah Roy plays the murderer, Catherine, who grabs a knife from the cutlery drawer after catching husband Dan (Tom Cullen) watching unpleasant porn at 3am in the study of their country pile. A shrieky horror movie score blares as she does the deed and afterwards she wraps a fluffy pink towel around his head. The next morning, she calls in childhood friend Anita (Jade Anouka), who is shocked – but not exactly surprise

Attempt to tackle racial bias long overdue say practitioners, but it’s not just about the equipment Christina Ebenezer first started taking photos with a group of friends when she was a 17-year-old student. Even then, she noticed the difference in how her camera captured people of different skin tones. “I didn’t think much about this until I got older and became more experienced in photography. It was when I learned that the early Kodak Vericolor Shirley Cards were based on various white women that I thought OK, this was an industry standard that was not made with people like me in mind,” Ebenezer, who has photographed for British Vogue, British GQ, and Vanity Fair, said. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3fsTWy0

The Tudor queen’s downfall is turned into a psychological thriller, while it’s time for more Saturday night mask-based mayhem Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2SyKa4y

Tobacco Factory theatre Shakespeare’s words are repurposed as reverence to the city in a heartfelt play let down by its forced format Blending sonnets and street art, The Place at the Bridge attempts to convey a love of Bristol through contemporary characters speaking Shakespeare’s words. It’s an admirable experiment, but the result is clumsy and unsatisfying. Written by Chinonyerem Odimba, the piece cuts up Shakespeare’s sonnets and borrows lines from his plays, haphazardly weaving them together to create a call for community through its cast of five. They force connections with Bristol on to the words (“Bristol, shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”). The effect is jarring rather than revelatory. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3oYZq6O

The author and classicist on the greatest play ever written – and the enduring appeal of Calvin and Hobbes The book I am currently reading For fun, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I loved Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell ; I’ve been looking forward to this. I’m lost in a strange labyrinth and I’m not sure how to get out, or even if I want to. For work, I have Ovid’s Metamorphoses on the go, because I’m writing a novel about Medusa and I am nicking all of it from him. The book that changed my life Euripides’ Medea (which I read before I saw, books being easier to find than stagings of Greek tragedy in Birmingham in the 90s). I have never recovered: I still think it’s the greatest play ever written. I must have seen it 20 times in different productions, languages, settings. Every time I read it I find something new. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3hYs9qQ

The LA musician, who has unleashed another of her psychedelic funk and hip-hop beat tapes, talks about social justice, her time in Brixton and the battle over ‘woke’, a word she helped popularise Georgia Anne Muldrow may be more than 20 albums into her career and the woman who brought the word “woke” to wider consciousness, but she is not one for counting off milestones. “I’m the type of traditionalist that wants to give meaning to life,” she says. “My [concept of] success is directly linked to how Black folks see themselves; it’s not enough for me to be filthy rich or something, owning an island somewhere in the midst of what we live through.” Since debuting with her EP Worthnothings in 2006, she has become known for her chameleonic ability to master different genres – soul, G-funk, jazz, electronic – under a number of aliases (for instance Jyoti ) and collaborative projects. Last week, the 37-year-old vocalist, songwriter and producer released Vweto III , the latest in a series of

The most memorable getaways, from Cliff Richard’s classic to some chilling, perpetual-daylight horror in Sweden “We’ve seen it in the movies, now let’s see if it’s true.” Cinema has always had a soft spot for the azure skies, sun-blessed landscapes and limpid seas of the ideal getaway destination. Peter Yates’s musical gave us four lads on a very British, of-its-time caper through Europe on a London omnibus, buoyed by that title song, sung by Cliff Richard with a tone of summery longing. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3wJDK1f

A promising premise, involving an anxious British Asian guy finding peace in the Spanish city, is let down by cliched dialogue The premise of Granada Nights, the directorial debut from Abid Khan, seems promising enough, in that it reimagines the tired subgenre of a sad white guy going to a foreign country and learning how to live, love and laugh. Unfortunately, while refreshingly centring a British Asian protagonist, Khan’s film is hopelessly bogged down by a thin plot and cliched dialogues. Square, Instagram-like framing opens this journey of self-discovery, capturing reserved 24-year-old Ben (Antonio Aakeel) en route from London to Granada, Spain, to surprise his long-distance girlfriend, Helen. The tight composition oozes anxiety, and Ben’s apprehensions are sadly proved right: Helen doesn’t even want to see his face. Heartbroken and sneering at hostels, Ben is persuaded by spunky backpacker Amelia (Quintessa Swindell) to stay and explore the city. One night turns into weeks and m

The star of Peaky Blinders on his late colleague, how he convinced the producers to cast him rather than Jason Statham as Tommy Shelby – and returning to the monster-movie genre in A Quiet Place Part II Cillian Murphy, star of the new horror sequel A Quiet Place Part II, is something to behold: X-ray eyes at once penetrating and ethereally blue, cheekbones so pronounced you could stretch out and go to sleep on them. Unfortunately, the beholding will have to wait. We have barely exchanged greetings over Zoom when his voice breaks up, the screen freezes and the room falls silent. A quiet place, indeed. We switch to phones. We can do this, I tell him. “I have faith,” he replies, in a soothing Cork accent that compensates for the lack of visuals. Murphy’s gift for intensity has made him a natural fit for characters damaged ( Dunkirk , The Edge of Love ) or outright villainous ( Batman Begins , Red Eye ), but today he is quick to laugh and keen to talk. He is speaking from a flat in Manch

The much-anticipated special brought back the stars of the long-running sitcom along with celebrity guests but was it worth the hype? Now that it is out in the world, it’s clear that the much-heralded Friends reunion is actually several shows in one. It’s a clip show, it’s an interview show, it’s a celebrity talking heads show. And, as you’d expect from a format this muddled, some of it worked better than others. For every moment that managed to be genuinely touching, there was another where it felt like everyone was simply letting the clock run out. Perhaps the best way to approach this is to break the reunion down into its constituent parts, from most to least successful. Beware: here be spoilers. Related: Friends: the Reunion review – The One That Is a Nostalgia Fest and No More Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3fSjZxr

The young star of Peter Murimi’s intimate documentary is as poor, religious and conservative as his peers – and fearful of a violent backlash, he says Samuel Asilikwa grew up in rural Kenya. There was a strict template for masculinity, informed by centuries of tradition – and intolerance. In a new documentary about his life, we see his father, a pastor, question Asilikwa about why he is yet to find a wife. We then watch as he relocates to Nairobi in search of work and adventure. He finds community, friendship and intense romance with a man called Alex. Peter Murimi’s film I Am Samuel , shot verité-style over the course of five years, is at its most powerful contrasting city and countryside. Kenya’s farmland, clay roads, shrubbery and corn fields are evidence of a still, yet cyclical, pattern of life compared with the infinite noise and claustrophobia of Nairobi. But it is also a film about a shifting political landscape, where “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” is punisha

Growing Old Disgracefully sees the actor meet over-70s ripping up the rulebook. Plus: Moya Lothian-McLean investigates how slavery continues to intersect with British society Growing Old Disgracefully Sniggering at an older dominatrix or bodybuilder is a popular theme in many a voyeuristic TV show, but Miriam Margolyes is having none of that. As she speaks to over-70s ripping up the rulebook, she handles their stories sensibly and sensitively. First up is Sherry, billed as a dominatrix, but she’s so much more – a woman whose career change was fuelled by the end of a marriage blighted by her husband’s affairs and financial fraud. These are stories of strength, innovation and the will to enjoy life. Hannah Verdier Human Resources Journalist Moya Lothian-McLean has a keen eye for highlighting stories on social injustice and political unrest. This new podcast series, launched in late April, sees her consider her own background as a descendant of both black African slaves and white slav

Continuing our series of writers defending films hated by most is a tribute to the remake of Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi thriller Some films are sacred. Ghostbusters and Point Break are among the late-80s and early-90s classics that sparked howls of outrage at the very idea of remaking them, as if glossier effects are the worst crime that could be visited on a filmgoer. The 2014 reboot of the techno-thriller Robocop fell victim to just such a backlash, but that’s hardly fair for a film that is smarter and angrier than your average blockbuster – perhaps even smarter than the original. Related: Hear me out: why Equilibrium isn’t a bad movie Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3fSpcFv

Finance minister calls measures the ‘biggest cultural subsidy programme’ since end of the second world war Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage A €2.5bn (£2.15bn) package has been agreed by the German government to help the culture industry get back on its feet as the country slowly emerges from a third wave of the Covid pandemic. The finance minister, Olaf Scholz, has called the package “the biggest cultural subsidy programme” since the end of the second world war. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3hYGmnD

Caped Crusader battles villains across the globe in Batman: the World – but he’s in Spain to relax Given his 82 long years of rooftop vigilantism, the dank, lonely surroundings of his home office – not to mention the tickly throat irritation caused by all those growled threats – few would begrudge Batman some sun, a nice paella and a cheeky mid-morning pint. Or five. Benidorm, fortunately, is only too happy to oblige. The eastern Spanish resort is among the exotic locations that feature in Batman: the World , a new global anthology to be published by DC Comics in September. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3vzgsuI

One half of TV’s twin doctor duo, Chris van Tulleken, gorges on ultra-processed, sugar-and-salt-filled foods to find out whether profits are being put before our families’ health Maybe we will come to measure out the pandemic in Tulleken time. The identical twin brothers – and practising doctors – Chris and Alexander (Xand) van Tulleken have had a busy year; they have rarely been off our screens for long. Respectively, they are a virologist at University College hospital, London, and an experienced public health doctor with years of experience on the frontline of disaster zones. The pair would doubtless have been commissioned to educate us on Covid – even if Xand hadn’t caught the virus and brought a personal view to the gig ( Surviving the Virus: My Brother and Me ). Their series Operation Ouch, and other online contributions, helped parents desperately trying to home school, in between fending off unemployment, sourcing supermarket deliveries and caring for shielding parents. Alone

Come for the insight, stay for the behind-the-scenes footage of the late Paul Ritter. Plus: Mary Beard goes inside culture. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3vGXFOl

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A country that cannot even agree to investigate an assault on its Capitol is in big trouble, indeed. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3c0Cbnv

Property seized from a Black family a century ago is being returned to their descendants. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/34q4kQU

Once Upon a One More Time will debut on 30 November at company’s flagship theater in Washington DC Broadway producers and Washington DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company are teaming up to host the world premiere of Britney Spears Once Upon a One More Time, a musical wrought from the pop star’s songbook, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. This Tony award-winning theater is hosting the “pre-Broadway tryout of a commercial musical inspired by a pop phenom” which, the Post notes, is “the first such event in the company’s 35-year history”. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/34nqmUd

An online petition to get the This Time With Alan Partridge duo to present the real-life TV magazine show must not succeed – and here’s why If you are a fan of putting your name to inconsequential things that have no real impact on the world, I have good news. There is a new online petition to sign. It’s called “Allow Coogan and Fielding to present an episode of The One Show”, and, at time of writing, it has just over 1,500 signatures. This makes it slightly less successful than a petition by the Brimscombe Port Community Interest Businesses in Gloucester, who are trying to get a six-month lease extension for a municipal skate park. The Coogan and Fielding petition, as you might expect, concerns the television series This Time with Alan Partridge. The show, broadly, spoofs magazine programmes such as The One Show, and so the creator of the petition wants Steve Coogan and his co-star, Susannah Fielding, to host a real episode of the actual One Show, presumably in character. This is

(Def Jam Recordings) The New York rapper, who died in April, is strong and unsettling over grimy, atonal production, with guest turns from Alicia Keys, Jay-Z and Bono Hip-hop loves a posthumous album, but DMX’s has arrived sooner than most because it wasn’t supposed to be posthumous at all. Earl Simmons’ career had been in decline since the mid-00s, eventually grinding to a halt amid a litany of legal problems, health issues and financial woes – he filed for bankruptcy three times, was jailed for everything from tax fraud to animal cruelty; struggled with bipolar disorder and addiction and released only one, poorly received official album, 2012’s Undisputed, in the last 15 years. But prior to his death from an apparent drug overdose this April, he was already on the comeback trail. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3fSsKaO

Disney should be the antichrist to true punk aficionados, but Cruella tips the hat to the forgotten DIY fashionistas who made the movement so visible There was a time the very thought of Cruella would have been met with outrage. I know this because I would have been outraged. Of all subcultures to be hijacked by Disney, 70s London wasteland punk is surely the most heinous. Now? Well, what punk could even mean in 2021 is open to offers. While Disney releases Cruella – a pop blockbuster filtered through $200m of corporate compromise – Danny Boyle is making Pistol, a TV adaptation of the memoir of the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones. And yes, one of these instinctively feels more punk than the other. And yes, it is Cruella . Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3oUMjU8

France’s move to prevent the import of Covid variant B.1.716.2 – now on the increase in the UK – could deter British film-makers and press from attending British participation in at the Cannes film festival is under threat after new quarantine regulations put into place by the French government as the country seeks to successfully exit lockdown. After delays caused by Covid, the festival confirmed it would take place in early July , but France has announced a seven-day isolation period for visitors from the UK in response to rising concerns over the Covid variant B.1.617.2, first detected in India . The move is likely to affect thousands, both among the press corps and industry delegates, and large numbers of unregistered attendees. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3vr90ll

This month, the Irish singer turned 60 – but her popularity belies how radical her Celtic futurism really is With the plinking, clipped synths and infernally moreish chorus, Orinoco Flow is the Enya song that everyone knows, yet it is arguably the least interesting moment on her breakthrough album, Watermark. Indeed, for years it seemed that its ubiquity obscured the stranger treasures in her discography. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3fqw4eh

By bigging up blockbusters and superheroes, the PM’s former chief adviser proved himself the pop culture motherlode in his explosive Commons performance There are three ways to look at Dominic Cummings ’ explosive appearance at yesterday’s joint session of the Commons health and science and technology committees. The first is that we witnessed a brave whistleblower speaking truth to power about a wave of horrifically preventable deaths. The second is that Cummings was spitefully acting out, rewriting history in order to further a handful of personal grievances. And the third is to notice that he referenced quite a lot of films, and to just concentrate on that instead. Today, we will be doing the third. It should surprise nobody that Cummings is a fount of pop culture references. During the pandemic, the entire Conservative government has fallen back on cinema in an attempt to find a way through, from Matt Hancock’s revelation that the film Contagion helped to inform his vaccination