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The singer-songwriter’s lyric collection is free of explanation yet still explores her curiosity for life and love Trust Kate Bush , never one to explain, to complicate the straightforward lyrics collection. She doesn’t annotate this anthology, unlike Neil Tennant’s recent Faber edition. Instead, subtler direction follows an introduction by author David Mitchell , who wrote the spoken-word parts of Bush’s 2014 Before the Dawn performances. Mitchell intermingles charming fannish detail with close textual analysis that illuminates familiar songs: it is God, he points out, not the devil, who allows the man and woman to exchange their sexual experiences on Running Up That Hill, an act of divinity rather than transgression. But Mitchell is wrong on one key point. “Kate’s the opposite of a confessional singer-songwriter in the mould of Joni Mitchell during her Blue period,” he asserts. “You don’t learn much about Kate from her songs.” Which begs the question of how we might know a songw...

Deborah Treisman hosts the author Taymour Soomro, who reads his short story “Philosophy of the Foot,” from the January 7, 2019, issue of the magazine. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2CIMxqW

Good, old-fashioned monster face-off for Jodie Whittaker’s Time Lord; fifth series opener of Idris Elba’s crime drama. Plus: The Great New Year’s Bake Off An unfamiliar New Year’s Day time slot for the Doctor, although it’s one that means showrunner Chris Chibnall doesn’t feel obliged to shoehorn in a festive theme. Instead, this is a good, old-fashioned monster face-off as Jodie Whittaker’s Time Lord and her companions encounter “the most dangerous creature in the universe”, one that has designs on controlling the planet. The Daleks, perhaps – or something altogether new? Either way, this is your last Who until early 2020, so drink it in. Gwilym Mumford Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2LMoQB6

It is the weekend, but the main streets of Hengdian – one of 11 small towns in the city of Dongyang, in Zhejiang province – remain eerily quiet and deserted. Stores are closed; shops where studios and entertainment talent agencies used to be stand empty. Most restaurants, except for a few that trade in dog meat, are locked up. Movie posters hanging on lamp posts are a reminder of the town’s glory days, when up to 70 film productions were shooting simultaneously at the Hengdian... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2QZArTh

With everyone from Nick Park to Posy Simmonds discussing his bold, bizarre work, this documentary traced the life of the celebrated children’s author Over 50 years, Raymond Briggs has illustrated 26 picture books, 25 of which he also wrote. At the age of 84 he’s still working, although these days he manages only one drawing a month, for the Oldie magazine. It’s not that he can’t draw any more – he certainly can – it’s that he keeps falling asleep while doing it, leaving a little trailing pencil line as he drops off. “There’s two falling-asleep pencil marks on this,” he says, looking down at his overdue assignment, as ever both slightly annoyed and slightly amused. Coming close after the 40th anniversary of the publication of The Snowman , Raymond Briggs: Snowmen, Bogeymen & Milkmen (BBC Two) was a timely look at the long career of a man whose life and work have always been closely intertwined. If his subjects were varied (snowmen, bogeymen, nuclear war), his stories always stayed...

Comedian said of teen activists: ‘You’re not interesting because you went to a high school where kids got shot’ at 16 December set Louis CK faces new controversy over a standup routine in which he appeared to mock survivors of the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GMz8lR

US singer was taken to hospital after performing in Peter Pan in Birmingham last week The US pop singer Jimmy Osmond has suffered a stroke and will take time away from the stage, a spokesperson has said. Osmond completed a performance of Peter Pan at the Birmingham Hippodrome theatre on 27 December before he was driven to hospital and diagnosed with a stroke, the representative said in a statement on the theatre’s website. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2rYqKp2

Curtis Pritchard was left unconscious after shielding AJ, 20, from blows in Nantwich, Cheshire A Strictly Come Dancing star has spoken of how his brother saved his life – and risked his own dancing career – when the pair were attacked in a nightclub. AJ Pritchard, 24, a professional dancer, suffered bruising to his face, arms, legs and body in the incident, which took place during a night out with friends in Cheshire on 27 December. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2StBJCC

Comedian attracts 6.1m viewers, but Queen’s speech was most watched overall Michael McIntyre’s annual festive special was the surprise Christmas Day TV hit this year, beating Strictly Come Dancing and EastEnders by drawing 6.1 million viewers on BBC One. The Strictly special, which brought competitors such as Caroline Flack, Anita Rani, Jake Wood, Aston Merrygold, Ann Widdecombe and Michael Vaughan back to the dancefloor, attracted an audience of 5.8 million. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2LzUqlp

Eric Lach on Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren’s first step toward candidacy for the 2020 Presidential election. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2CGtKg2

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Garrett Ross on politico.com on December 28, 2018. Former US president Barack Obama’s favourite book of 2018 was, in his own words, obvious. In a Facebook post listing his favourite books, movies and songs of 2018, the Democrat said Becoming, Michelle Obama’s new memoir about her life before, during and after her time in the White House, was “obviously my favourite!” The best... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2Vm39ft

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Robin Wright on the Tunisian television reporter Abderrazak Zorgui, whose death by self-immolation sparked days of protests and clashes with police. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2RodgRF

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Games, food and even gyms are becoming more popular than hitting the dancefloor An estimated £200m has been wiped off the value of the UK nightclub scene in the past five years as partygoers desert the dancefloor in search of new pleasures. More clubs closed in 2018 as people swapped thumping bass for alternative entertainment including indoor golf, trampolining and, in east London, a vegan food festival described as “the wildest plant-based party” in the capital. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2rZq42P

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The 1968 television show known as Elvis Presley’s comeback special is experiencing its own return and revitalisation. Producer Steve Binder, who worked with Presley to create the show that helped return the singer to prominence, says he never expected the Singer Presents … Elvis special to endure. But endure it has, and NBC has planned a tribute to the special in February. The network has said the Elvis All-Star Tribute will be hosted by Blake Shelton and will include well-known... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2s42nGk

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This isn’t a collection of books about drunkenness or alcoholism, though both feature. Rather, it is a celebration of those who write well about alcoholic drinks. With drink, and especially wine, it’s easy to write in a technical way and leave out what makes alcohol interesting for most people: its intoxicating properties. From Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan: the most popular books of 2018 Most drink-soaked fiction – by Graham Greene, Patrick Hamilton and others – ignores the... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2LIqeo2

Royal & Derngate, Northampton Mildred Hubble’s misadventures are told with wit and ingenuity in a touring production based on Jill Murphy’s books Jill Murphy was 15 when she invented Mildred Hubble , the clumsy girl who is deemed the “worst witch” after she arrives by accident at Miss Cackle’s Academy. Murphy’s books about Mildred have now sold more than 5m copies. One of the many joys about this new stage version for the over-sevens, created by Emma Reeves who also does the brilliant CBBC adaptation , is the way it empowers its young audience by sparking their imagination. You could do all this yourself, it seems to continually suggest. The spells, the slo-mo action sequences, the song-and-dance routines, even the handmade glove-puppet cats, beg to be recreated at home. That’s partly because the show is framed as a school play written by Mildred and put on by the students and teachers at the academy (rated “fantastical” by Ofmag in such core subjects as charms and chanting, we...

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His first role on the big screen garnered him international fame: In 1982, British actor Ben Kingsley played Mahatma Gandhi. Many more films followed, not all of them successful. Sir Ben Kingsley turns 75 on December 31. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2ApqOmg

The numbers have spoken. In a year that saw Apple releasing three new iPhones, Huawei launching its triple-lens P20 Pro, and digital entertainment/streaming becoming more prevalent, statistics suggests that online readers are more interested in stories about Netflix, Chinese smartphone brand Vivo and … whether kaki is a Singaporean or Malay word. 1. Marvel’s Iron Fist Will Colleen Wing, played by British actress Jessica Henwick, be the first Asian leading lady in Iron Fist, one of... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2s3VUv2

Ginny Hogan writes a humorous list of alternatives to the Irish Exit inspired by American cities. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2CHE7Ak

Man who died fleeing Mount Vesuvius eruption is one of several important finds in latest dig Teresa Virtuoso is more than used to digging up tombs. But when the archaeologist found the skeleton of a man who died while trying to escape the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79, she couldn’t help but think about his final moments. “At that moment, it wasn’t only about doing a job,” Virtuoso, who is coordinating excavations in part of Regio V, an entire quarter of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii that is yet to open to the public, told the Guardian. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2EXuQp9

With his acute observations on David Bowie, Paul Weller and Radiohead, Cavanagh combined a passion for music with an eye for the small details of human behaviour David Cavanagh had a brief go at Twitter, then stopped. He didn’t use Facebook. No one thought to write him a Wikipedia page. Four days after Christmas, when news came of his death, his former colleagues and readers paid him no end of tributes, all of which were suffused with both a deep sense of shock and a fitting sense of someone who had lived and worked outside the ephemeral cycles of the modern media. Anyone who spent time with him would recognise most of the following: the fact that he could be introverted and silent, but also talkative and extremely funny; his fondness for the unfashionable pleasure of a couple of lunchtime beers; his astounding brilliance at pub quizzes. I still don’t know the year he was born (1965, at an informed guess), but I am reasonably certain he was brought up in Belfast, had a violinist fath...

The sketch with British stars started out in English music halls. Its filmed version holds the Guinness World Record for the most repeated TV program. But the classic has never aired on British television — until now. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2VlwkPS

TV drama addicts have never had it better, with digital entertainment streaming platform Netflix releasing some of its most popular titles yet (in Mandarin, Korean and Hindi), as well as one stand-out Chinese period drama series that had viewers glued to their TV (or mobile phone) the entire summer. Here is a recap of the hottest Mando- and K-dramas of 2018. Story of Yanxi Palace Chinese TV dramas never looked more slick than this super popular series (which Yazhou Zhoukan named the best TV... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2BUZQmn

Many of the treasures in the ancient Forbidden City were evacuated when Japan invaded China. The Palace Museum’s collection took to the road for 14 years, traversing some 75,000km. The unique flight successfully preserved one of humanity’s most important artistic legacies Launch special feature here from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2EYyH63

Andrew Scrivani writes on a new Annals of Obsession video featuring a New York City community of knife forgers, who work with the elements to create modern versions of ancient tools. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2CGQtsl

Hua Hsu writes about how some of his favorite music to listen to in 2018 altered his perception of time, including new releases from Pusha T and Tierra Whack and a John Coltrane remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things.” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2CI1d9S

Françoise Mouly and Genevieve Bormes talk to Harry Bliss, who, for the January 7, 2019, cover of The New Yorker, chose to riff on the Puck Building, one of the great surviving structures of New York’s old publishing district. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2CGQ8pz

Sketchbook by Liana Finck: Congratulations, your “free book” came with a bonus: bedbugs! Skip nineteen turns. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2R2OB60

“This Mournable Body,” “The Lonesome Bodybuilder,” “Tigerland,” and “Hungover.” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2BOKnUX

Elizabeth Anderson thinks we’ve misunderstood the basis of a free and fair society. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2R0oZH0

Europeans celebrate a wide variety of New Year's Eve traditions. From Scotland to Turkey, here are the most remarkable customs to ring in the New Year. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2QeePNt

Months after lambasting the animated British TV series, Beijing has endorsed a Peppa Pig film for Chinese New Year. The movie introduces a new character called "Glutinous Rice Ball." from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2VkksO3

Kirill Petrenko gave a foretaste of his time at the Berlin Phil; at 92, Kurtág finally took Beckett to the opera; and young Leeds winner Eric Lu astonished BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London Kirill Petrenko does not take over as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic until next autumn, but this summer’s two programmes of Dukas and Franz Schmidt, Richard Strauss and Beethoven, not only gave a tremendous lift to what was otherwise a rather ordinary season of Proms, but confirmed that the future of this great orchestra is in very safe hands. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2QSl5Q6

We look ahead to rich offerings in next year’s genre-challenging nonfiction list and thrilling new fiction writing for all tastes The beginning of 2019 promises a genuine thrill in terms of genre-defying nonfiction, when Julia Blackburn publishes Time Song: Searching for Doggerland (Cape, February), in which she tells the story of the huge, fertile plain that once connected the east of England with mainland Europe using a singular combination of memoir, verse and story. Like lots of people, I adored Blackburn’s last book, Threads , a biography of a fisherman-turned-embroiderer called John Craske, and I expect this one to be every bit as charming and strange. It will also be timely, for by then – just maybe – we’ll once again be about to break away from Europe, albeit in a somewhat different manner than occurred in 5,000 BC. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GMypRI

As 2018 ends, the author reveals the books he has finally got round to reading this year – hardy survivors, he explains, of years of house moves and bookshelf clear-outs What do the following books, from my list of books read in 2018, have in common? The House in Paris ( Elizabeth Bowen ), I Will Bear Witness (Victor Klemperer), The All of It (Jeannette Haien), Storm of Steel (Ernst Jünger), Son of the Morning Star ( Evan S Connell ), The Death of the Heart (Bowen), Alamein to Zem Zem ( Keith Douglas ), Burger’s Daughter ( Nadine Gordimer ), What Mais ie Knew ( Henry James ). Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2VexFrH

So . . . Bird Box. If you’ve seen it, you’re aware of the multitudes that brief statement contains. If you haven’t, let us shed some light: Bird Box is the Netflix movie that has taken over social media via memes about its blindfolded characters who attempt to navigate a post-apocalyptic world where simply opening your eyes outdoors somehow drives you into a suicidal state. It has earned comparisons to A Quiet Place, another recent thriller that features an unfortunately timed... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2CHtJsk

Isaac Cordal’s 15cm sculptures, part of his project Cement Eclipses, are a social commentary on the spaces they inhabit The Spanish sculptor Isaac Cordal sees the city as his playground. He specialises in miniature street art, producing tiny figures as a social commentary on the spaces they inhabit. “My work is a filter to try to understand and change the world we have created,” Cordal says. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2AhCsjd

Author Aminatta Forna recommends a canine history by Konrad Lorenz, and Karen Joy Fowler’s novel about a family that raises a chimp, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves A pack of wolves follows a sled, picking off the sled dogs and then the occupants one by one, to the last man. So begins Jack London’s White Fang , published in 1906. The wolf pack is led by a wolfdog, Kiche. The ensuing story is told from the viewpoint of Kiche’s wolf pup, White Fang, through whose gaze we view the violence of the parallel worlds of animals and humans. White Fang is the narrative mirror of London’s earlier The Call of the Wild , in which a pet dog, kidnapped and used as a sled dog, runs away to join the wolves. Wildness is the true nature of animals, though the challenges of survival in the wilderness can also turn man into a beast, London seems to say. White Fang ends up enjoying domesticity with his new master, many miles away from the Yukon. Humans have triumphed over nature, but nature is stil...

A dark and mind-bending debut collection of short stories set in a twisted America Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Friday Black made the New York Times bestseller list recently, an astonishing feat for a debut collection of short stories. It’s not surprising because his dark and strange tales are so inventive and stirring that they read as the male counterpart to Leone Ross’s recent first collection, Come Let Us Sing Anyway , with its amazing realist and magic realist concoctions around black women’s lives. Adjei-Brenyah ’s stories are equally ingenious, but through a male lens and, like Ross, they’re so daring and mind-bending that you haven’t a clue where he’s going to take you. The opening story, The Finkelstein 5, is one of the most topical and devastating. A young man called Emmanuel talks about dialling his blackness up or down according to the situation. Speaking to a possible future employer on the phone, he code-switches his voice to “1.5 on a 10-point scale” of blackness, whic...

Film-goers spent 60 billion yuan (US$8.7 billion) at Chinese cinemas in 2018. If that sounds like good news, the reality is that growth in box office takings in China appears to be slowing. From 2009 to 2015, box office receipts for films in China rose from 6 billion yuan to 44 billion yuan, with growth averaging over 30 per cent a year. Takings in 2016 rose only 3.7 per cent, to 46 billion yuan. Ranking every Hong Kong film released in 2018, from worst to best The 60 billion yuan box office... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2Amn8C2

A few home truths helped save the standup from a lifetime of misery I was in my mid-20s and living in a house I shared with some old friends and new mice. One night, I was waffling on about something trivial, but giving it great weight. My best friend, Jules, looked at me with pity and disdain and said: “Lou, I can’t bear to be around you, you’re just so negative.” Best thing she ever said! The finality, the rawness, the reality – she saved me from my own silly self. I didn’t know it at the time, of course – too negative to see it, I suppose. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2St4zTv

Zadie Smith shares why she loves this almost ‘anti-Italian’ story from Giuseppe Pontiggia, then reads the story, as part of our seasonal series of short stories selected by leading novelists ‘I was assigned the story by the American literary magazine McSweeney’s to translate from Italian. I’d never read Pontiggia before. As I translated it I really admired its economy and humour, and its somewhat anti-Italian spirit. There’s nothing beautiful in it, and no reverie. It’s all hard edges, like a piece by Moravia – but funnier. I think it’s interesting to see a writer working against the grain of his culture.’ Other episodes to curl up with this holiday period: Penelope Lively on MR James; Neil Gaiman on Rudyard Kipling; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reading Ama Ata Aidoo and Sebastian Barry returning to James Joyce’s short story Eveline, forty years after he first read it. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2SsxXJJ

A Fraser family reunion! from Culture - ELLE http://bit.ly/2SvyDOo

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Liberally scattered with talent from Dominic West and David Oyelowo to Lily Collins, this mercifully song-free adaptation was a rich feast to end the year Andrew Davies’s six-part adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel Les Misérables (BBC One) begins with an explanatory caption. “After 20 years of war, France is defeated and Napoleon is exiled. A new king is waiting to be crowned. The old order is to be restored. The revolution is to be forgotten. And there are no songs.” It didn’t really say that last bit. But it could have, because the USP of this version is that it is not the musical that long ago usurped the novel as What We Mean When We Talk About Les Misérables. “Boo!” shouts the half of the country that also likes fancy-dress parties, board games and other terrible, terrible things. “Hurrah!” shout the rest of us. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2EVzC6t

Monica Racic writes about the best visual and interactive stories produced by The New Yorker in 2018. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2F0lrNo

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At only 24, the Irish actor has already had three Oscar nominations. On the eve of the release of her new film, in which she plays Mary Queen of Scots, she reflects on her country’s changing social landscape and her habit of playing oddballs In a hotel room somewhere in London, Saoirse Ronan lies on a sofa, her back rigid against one of its arms, her legs straight out in front of her. She looks a bit like a doll: one that has joints at its hips, but not at its knees. “Sorry,” she says, seemingly unable to get up as I offer her my hand. “It’s these clothes! They’re not mine, and I can’t walk in them.” In an interview she gave not so long ago, Ronan insisted that away from the film sets and the red carpets, she looks a bit like a mother of one who’s “gone mad” in Anthropologie. Her mufti comprises “a lot of knit and some pink slacks that are very comfy”. Not today, though. Today, she is straight out of the last days of disco: her high-waisted, flared jeans are tighter than tight; her ve...

The retail chain, now in administration for the second time, weaves music culture into the fabric of our cities – something Spotify can never do This particular music nerd dutifully filled out his HMV application form in April 1997, and on it wrote that his musical hero was the maverick and frequently unlistenable industrial auteur Jim “ Foetus ” Thirlwell. Amazingly, the manager of the Southampton store appeared not to view this as a reason to hurl the document into the nearest wastebasket. Sixteen years later, when HMV first sank into administration in 2013, it seemed unlikely that such an allegiance would still be viewed as an asset. To a great extent, the company – if not its beleaguered, yet still enthusiastic, workforce – had lost its identity: a long period of turbulence had finally seen HMV diversify into selling jeans and speaker docks to the consternation of many and the delight of few. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2BQ8LG1

The 1960s TV sketch airs in the UK for the first time, decades after it became integral to New Year’s Eve for Europeans Ten years ago, on New Year’s Eve, my mother grabbed my English boyfriend’s arm and led him to the television. “It’s time for Dinner for One ,” she said excitedly as the whole family gathered – as we do every year – to fall about laughing at an old British black-and-white comedy sketch. As the opening credits appeared to the sound of a crackling string orchestra, my boyfriend was perplexed but too polite to ask what this was all about. The familiar elegant dining room came into shot with silver chandeliers on a white table cloth. We Germans started to giggle in anticipation of a scene we all knew so well. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GVh3lM

Instituting a UK ‘town of culture’ award alongside the existing ‘city of culture’ title might look like a desperate post-Brexit search for meaning. But the idea could bring real benefits to Britain’s communities A group of Labour MPs, among them Yvette Cooper, are bringing in the new year with a call to institute a UK “town of culture” award. The proposal is that it should sit alongside the existing city of culture title, which was held by Derry-Londonderry in 2013 , by Hull in 2017 , and has been awarded to Coventry for 2021 . Cooper and her colleagues argue that the success of the crown for Hull, where it brought in £220m of investment and an avalanche of arts, ought not to be confined to cities. Britain’s towns, it is true, are not prevented from applying, but they generally lack the resources to put together a bid to beat their bigger competitors; only one, Paisley, has ever made the shortlist. A town of culture award could, it is argued, become an annual event, attracting fundin...

Catastrophe star spoke publicly about death of two-year-old Henry in effort to ‘destigmatise grief’ The American actor and comedian Rob Delaney has revealed that his wife gave birth to their fourth child in August, months after the death of their son Henry . The star of the sitcom Catastrophe told the Sunday Times Magazine that his wife, Leah, became pregnant before Henry died and Henry was the first person they told. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Q9bv6k

The critical cachet of games continued to grow, Tetris got a Japanese makeover and Fortnite delighted everywhere. See our top five list below • Read the Observer critics’ review of 2018 in full here The Canadian journalist turned award show host Geoff Keighley tweeted, the morning after he hosted the Game awards in Los Angeles in early December, that he “built this show” to “demonstrate the power, potential and influence of this medium”. The annual event, which debuted in 2014, is Keighley’s attempt to establish an Oscars for video games. This year’s effort featured a clutch of luminaries, not only from the game industry, but also, with performances from composers such as Hans Zimmer, from film. “Gaming,” Keighley continued, boldly, “has been marginalised and dismissed for far too long.” The use of the loaded word “marginalised” was careless, but Keighley captured a feeling, shared by many who play games, of ongoing ostracism. Indeed, the general resistance to video game criticism ...

Yorgos Lanthimos’s tragicomedy set in the court of Queen Anne boasts daring performances from its three female stars and lashings of lust, intrigue and deceit A trio of pitch-perfect performances from Olivia Colman , Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone drive Yorgos Lanthimos ’s spiky period drama – a tragicomic tale of personal and political jealousy and intrigue in 18th-century England. Set in the court of Queen Anne (the last of the Stuart monarchs), it balances foreign wars with home-grown tussles in often uproarious and occasionally alarming fashion. Written by Deborah Davis (whose original script dates back to the late 90s) and Tony McNamara, this boasts razor-sharp dialogue which at times reminded me of Whit Stillman’s deliciously acerbic Jane Austen adaptation Love & Friendship – albeit with more sex and swearing. Colman is Queen Anne, overweight and depressed, riddled with gout, and plagued by suicidal thoughts. An unconfident ruler, she relies upon the advice of her friend and ...

A zombie film about making a zombie film, with actual zombies crashing the undead party For a movie about the undead, Japanese director Shin’ichirô Ueda’s horror comedy is certainly lively. Beginning with a single take that lasts more than a third of the film (that’d be one way of reading the “one cut” referenced in the film’s title), it opens in an abandoned water treatment plant, where a film crew are shooting a low-budget zombie movie. Director Higurashi (Takayuki Hamatsu, scruffy beard and puppyish eyes) fancies himself something of an auteur (though later he’ll describe himself as “fast, cheap but average”), insisting that the camera continue to roll as filming is interrupted by actual zombies. After a 40 minutes of sprightly, spirited shlock, out of nowhere, a set of end credits roll and the film’s cheaply shot aesthetic breaks. We’re then shown the manic runup to the shoot before returning to set with new knowledge; behind-the-scenes mishaps beget happy accidents in this satire...

Peter Shinkle has written a superb and harrowing history of a dual life in a dark era of official oppression This is a remarkable a book about an extraordinary man who was Dwight Eisenhower’s “right hand” for foreign policy. Related: Presidents of War review: Michael Beschloss and the Vietnam scoop that wasn't Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Ap0ZTp

From opera to bus stop signs, Insiders/Outsiders will tell the stories of arts figures who fled Nazis They are far from household names but perhaps should be: Fritz Busch, Carl Ebert and Rudolf Bing in the field of opera, the photographer Gerty Simon, and Hans Schleger, the graphic designer behind the London bus stop sign. All fled the Nazis as refugees, and each played an important part in shaping different aspects of British culture. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2AmbsPm

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Fans of classic Hong Kong kung fu films were spoiled this year with the release of books detailing the lives of the city’s top martial arts stars. Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly, released in June, was a long-overdue account of the rise of Hong Kong’s most famous son, and made headlines by offering a bizarre new theory of how the star died in 1973. Sympathy for Jackie Chan: in defence of a damaged man But Polly’s book was overshadowed earlier this month by the release of... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2GMPsmq

Josh Lieb writes a humorous list of the books he most regrets having read in the previous year, including work by Betty White, Ted Cruz, and Cormac McCarthy, Jr. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2BOkOUc

Michael Schulman interviews the actor Robert De Niro on getting a pipe bomb in the mail, on his acting career, and on his public denunciation of Donald Trump. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2GJWqZz

M. R. O’Connor writes on “The Snow Leopard,” Peter Matthiessen’s account of searching for the reclusive animal in the Himalayas, and how the Zen Buddhism philosophies within it can help clarify the fight against climate change. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2Rja5uI

Jill Lepore on a book of technology predictions that makes distressing reading at the end of a year that, a golden anniversary ago, looked positively thrilling. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2Tk8oul

From The New Yorker’s archive, pieces by Saul Bellow, Muriel Spark, Arthur Miller, Jhumpa Lahiri, Janet Flanner, Lillian Ross, John Cheever, and Ian Parker, on writers and their sources of inspiration. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2ET2bBs

A monumental work draws striking parallels between 30s Germany and a race-torn 60s United States Born under the Third Reich, Uwe Johnson began this dense, bustling and surprisingly playful magnum opus in 1966, having left East Germany with his family for the United States; it wasn’t completed until 1983, a year before his death, by which time his marriage had broken down and he was living alone in the island town of Sheerness, in Kent. Juxtaposing the tumult of 60s America with everyday life in Nazi Germany, Anniversaries chronicles 20th-century turmoil through the eyes of Gesine Cresspahl, who leaves postwar Mönchengladbach to raise her young daughter, Marie, on New York’s Upper West Side. In the original German, the book appeared in four parts over 13 years; an abridged English text came out in 1987, but only now can anglophone readers taste it uncut, in Damion Searls’ two-volume translation. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2RpEKXd

In the first volume of Old Hong Kong Photos and The Tales They Tell, local historian David Bellis highlighted surprising details in a range of historic images that revealed much about the time and place they were taken. The photos, selected from the more than 15,000 images on his photo blog Gwulo: Old Hong Kong, included close-ups of the devastation caused by a typhoon in 1906 and a “rat bin” in a market during the plague outbreak in the 1930s, among many others. What’s in a... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2Al0Pg2

Something cheery sounding is just what’s needed as we slide into another year of global chaos. Hymn of Death is the obvious contender, broaching the topics of freedom versus spirit-crushing oppression and the heartache that comes with the pursuit of proscribed love. Appalling as it undoubtedly was, if something mildly positive (although admittedly trivial) has been salvaged from Japan’s vicious occupation of Korea in the early 20th century, it’s that it has allowed Seoul... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2AmrmcJ

Whitfield’s wonderful nature led her to roles as matriarchs, nuns and even God. But let loose, she always shone – and she held her own with everyone from Tony Hancock to Jennifer Saunders The greatest asset a performer can have is that people want to work with them. From her Frankie Howerd spoof song to her bad gran in Absolutely Fabulous and playing God, June Whitfield reflected this quality to a rare degree. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2CFR5hO

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Actor who worked in entertainment for seven decades ‘passed away peacefully’ on Friday Veteran comic actor Dame June Whitfield has died aged 93, her agent has confirmed. Related: June Whitfield: 'The main reason that I've worked for so long is because I'm no trouble' Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2CFL58W

Richard Brody reviews the new superhero films “Aquaman,” “Bumblebee,” and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2Q6dJn3

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Hailee Steinfeld shines in this charming Transformers movie featuring a teen outcast and a robot disguised as a VW Beetle In its turbulent opening set piece, the pineapple-yellow robot B-127 (later nicknamed Bumblebee) has his voice box ripped out. Yet this instance of brash spectacle is the only real similarity between this origin story and the five previous Transformers instalments, all directed by Michael Bay. Though the film is live-action, it is directed by animator Travis Knight of Laika Studios ( Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, Knight’s feature debut). Knight’s touch gives the proceedings an old-school feel; the machines seem more tactile than their smoothly designed descendants, helped along by the 1987 period setting. Charlie ( Hailee Steinfeld , a marvel) is a teenage outcast desperate for her own car and putting in shifts at the local garage. It’s here she comes across Bumblebee, in disguise and hiding from the Decepticons (voiced by Justin Theroux and Angela Bass...

Music news worldwide – including at the South China Morning Post – was dominated by the global success of K-pop and the genre’s breakthrough act, boy band BTS. The seven-member act made music history in May by becoming the first South Korean artists to hit No 1 on the US album chart. As BTS fever spread around the world, fans showed an insatiable appetite for news about the band, led by the charismatic frontman RM. K-pop superstars BTS ‘worth US$3.6 billion a year... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2EWuIqB

If you were adapting a story that has already been turned into a colossus of a stage musical and a triple-Oscar-winning Hollywood film, you might be expected to be slightly overawed by the task. The actors and producers of the latest iteration of Les Miserables – a six-part BBC take on Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel – are suitably diplomatic about the stage show seen by 70 million people in 51 countries, giving verdicts that range from “perfectly good” to “... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2EVtLhJ

In a humor piece, Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell illustrates a TV-themed depiction of major life milestones. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2GLkY4u

Sarah Larson reviews “Surviving Y2K,” a new podcast hosted by Dan Taberski, the creator of the 2017 series “Missing Richard Simmons.” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2Ss2dnO

Ceridwen Dovey interviews Emily Martin, an anthropologist who has been studying the people who study human behavior. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2AlTXPf

Nicolas Niarchos writes about the renewed attempt to begin peace talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front over the disputed desert land of the Western Sahara. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2SsFvfh

The actor on a very embarrassing photoshoot, his inability to be on time, and ending up in a Mexican jail Born in Sheffield, Dominic West , 49, studied at Trinity College Dublin. He found fame playing Jimmy McNulty in the HBO series The Wire , from 2002 to 2008. He stars in the Sky Atlantic series The Affair and the new BBC1 adaptation of Les Misérables, which starts on 30 December. His films include Pride , Testament Of Youth and Colette , which opens on 11 January. He is married with five children, and lives between London and Ireland. When were you happiest? Last year. I was with my wife and all my kids in northern California, driving an RV. I remember thinking that life couldn’t possibly get any better. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2CFfEvm

A guide to everything you’ll need to know about TV, film and music next year, including Tarantino’s Charles Manson obsession and what’s next for Richard Madden’s bum “Have you been heartbroken again, lately, Adele ?” the label bosses said to me, and I had to sing mournfully back to them: “No–ooh–oh, ooh–oh–ooh–oh.” I’ve been happily loved up since 2011, haven’t I? Big massive son in 2012. Married to my long-term partner in 2016. Mainly just drink tea and that now. I paid for Alan Carr ’s wedding essentially out of boredom. “You can’t sing about Alan Carr’s wedding,” they said. Which is bollocks because planning that was actually very fraught and we had to have at least two big barneys about the table settings and four (four!) about whether we’d have bows on the chairs, so actually, Sony, there is a lot of material there. They still said no. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2rZkkWA

Three Wishes in Bardo by Feng Chi-shun 3.5/5 stars Feng Chi-shun’s Three Wishes in Bardo is a rather engaging oddity. A genuinely original work of fiction, it’s well plotted, with believable characters and genuine emotional impact, although it’s sometimes a little too keen to explain itself. The book is so original, in part because it’s so impossible to classify, a fantastical melange that takes in elements of family saga, supernatural fable, legal procedural and science... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2CFMLiN

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In this regular feature series on some of the most talked-about films, we examine the legacy of classics, re-evaluate modern blockbusters, and revisit some of the most memorable lines in film. We continue this week with the best quotes from 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption . 1. Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins): “On the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.” Looking back at Cool Hand Luke, classic Paul Newman prison drama 2. Warden... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed http://bit.ly/2ESYxIF

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Connolly recounts his thrilling escape from the shipyards in a vivid portrait of 1960s Glasgow ‘When I was nominated for a knighthood, the woman interviewing me said, very nicely, ‘It’ll be strange for you, having a knighthood, coming from nothing.’ And I said, I don’t come from nothing. I come from something.” There are many reasons to cheer Billy Connolly. Him being possibly the greatest standup comedian of all time is a sound one. But in his documentary dotage, he’s brilliant at being himself on TV and knowing how much limelight to hog. He knows he’s a big deal, but he wants to share things that interest and delight him – and they are usually other people. So it was that the first half of his televisual autobiography Billy Connolly: Made in Scotland (BBC Two) – it concludes next week – was often not directly about him. Instead it was an almost tangibly vivid portrait of 1960s Glasgow. Connolly’s horrible, well-documented childhood was skipped over as he rhapsodised about the liv...

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Erin Overbey reviews the articles from The New Yorker’s archive that were the most popular with readers this year. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2CCXF8C

On The New Yorker Radio Hour, how the late Philip Roth captured the heart of the twentieth-century United States. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2Tin3pY

From a 50-year-old political scandal to swarms of genetically engineered mosquitos, here are Smithsonian.com's most-read stories from Arts & Culture | Smithsonian http://bit.ly/2ETqrUg

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Alan Jacobs on the life, spiritual journey, and writings of the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who died in 1968. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews http://bit.ly/2Tg8cfr

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The former US president is still releasing his best-of lists, and 2018’s includes everyone from Lauren Groff to Nancy Wilson, via the Carters and The Death of Stalin Barack Obama has continued his tradition of publishing end-of-year lists, compiling the books, songs and films that the former US president has most enjoyed over the passed 12 months, with Zadie Smith, Beyoncé and Jay Z’s Apeshit and Armando Iannucci’s political satire The Death of Stalin all included. “As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favourite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists,” Obama wrote on Facebook, adding that the list included work that he found “thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved”. The lists – which started in 2015, while he was still in office – are meant to highlight work from famous and lesser-known writers, directors and musicians. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2CCmt0y

Radio 4 guest edit featured warnings of upsetting content, but it was more likely listeners would abandon all faith in humanity The lasting memory of Angelina Jolie’s one-day Christmas tenure as editor of the Today Programme will be the horrific descriptions of violence: Rohingya Muslim women describing gang rapes; Denis Mukwege, Nobel peace prize-winning doctor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, describing injuries so barbaric that no “common sense of humanity” could survive them. Every second interview was prefaced with a warning to listeners that they may find it upsetting: but what an inadequate phrase that was. Swear words, natural disasters, sudden, high-pitched noises are upsetting; these testimonies went to a deeper place. The warning should have been: “Some listeners may find themselves bereft of all faith in humanity.” And it wouldn’t have put anyone off: the value of beholding barbarism is only properly understood against its opposite, ignoring it. Continue readin...

High-street super chains are a thing of the past. Thankfully, small record shops will continue to serve true music fans The latest victim of the current high‑street extinction event seems to be HMV (again): 2,200 people might lose their jobs , and in the current precarious employment climate that in itself will be devastating. But the loss of the sole high-street purveyor of pop music has extra significance, even for someone who was not a fan of the store. I have many fond memories of record shops, but not one misty-eyed recollection involves buying the music that changed my life from HMV. HMV began to sell books and equipment, but event such such obvious diversification didn’t save it Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2rYG8ll

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The most often translated Israeli author was a co-founder of the movement "Peace Now" and an advocate of the two-state solution in the Arab-Israeli peace process, but his works go far deeper than political positions. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2Au7dld

The movie showcases the famed comedy duo at the twilight of their illustrious careers from Arts & Culture | Smithsonian http://bit.ly/2Q3DUL7

Birthday suit, but make it festive. from Culture - ELLE http://bit.ly/2CDRjpB

As the Bauhaus celebrates its centennial, DW visits its place of origin. And learns that the world-famous school of architecture has more to offer than white facades and right-angled corners. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2ESqgZl

From Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries fame to "Queen of Soul" Aretha Franklin and writer Tom Wolfe, we celebrate those dearly departed musicians, directors and artists whose legacy continues to resonate. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2EUvTaf

The author of books including Black Box, A Tale of Love and Darkness and In the Land of Israel, has died after fighting cancer The esteemed Israeli novelist Amos Oz has died at the age of 79, from cancer. The author of 18 books in Hebrew and hundreds of articles for newspapers around the world, Oz was best known for novels including Black Box, In the Land of Israel and A Tale of Love and Darkness, his bestselling autobiographical novel. Much of his work, both fiction and non-fiction, explored kibbutz life and picked apart his characters’ often complex relationships with Israel and modern politics. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2QSugQG

In As Others See Us, Neil MacGregor hears the views of people from five countries A new BBC Radio 4 series written and presented by the former British Museum director Neil MacGregor finds other nations dismayed and distressed by Britain’s “incomprehensible” decision to leave the EU. In As Others See Us, MacGregor talks to people from Nigeria, Canada, Egypt, Germany and India, some of whom are shocked at the public discourse around Brexit in the UK. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2ESk7x3

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It’s easy to stick the boot in to the U2 frontman’s grating form of activism but at his core isn’t he just trying to do the right thing? First things first. It’s somewhere beyond obvious that it would be preferable if U2 had not moved some part of their business to the Netherlands in order to avoid paying tax on royalties in Ireland . It would be significantly better for what I am about to write if Bono had not been named in the Paradise Papers for engaging in a (wholly legal) investment in a Lithuanian shopping centre , via the tax haven that is Malta. In fact, there are about a million things Bono could do that would make it easier to stick up for him. He could make the many and varied charities he is involved in devote more of their resources to aid than to the sometimes nebulous concept of “raising consciousness”. He could perhaps not describe those working in the aid sector as “cranks carping from the sidelines” when they raise concerns about the practical problems of his campai...

As the Bauhaus celebrates its centennial, DW visits its place of origin. And learns that the world-famous school of architecture has more to offer than white facades and right-angled corners. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://bit.ly/2rZGt7m