Culture

🚀 Read this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Music,Culture,Jazz 📌 Key idea: HeyWriting jazz reviews for 2026 with a story dating back to the mid-1980s might risk alienating the audience, but it was the decade in which a far-sighted young saxophonist on the UK jazz scene, called Ian Ballamy, first appeared on this writer's radar. The cross-generational lineup and catchy themes of Riversphere, his first solo release in years, are a testament to why he's been there for 40 years.Artwork for Riversphere Volume 1In their twenties, Palami and pianist/composer Jango Betts often teamed up as…

🚀 Discover this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Blue,Pop and rock,Music,Culture ✅ Here’s what you’ll learn: 'forLouie's at home / Oh, it's party time! Consider the 40-man band on Souls of the Underground, the penultimate song on this seventh album, and their fourth since their reunion in 2011. The British four-piece are keen to take us back to the heyday of the early 2000s, a time of Met bar table service, with the ladies having “a little prosecco” and the gents having a “nice cold beer”. Musically, this is almost more complex than the (relatively)…

💥 Explore this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Television,Television & radio,Culture,Taskmaster,TV comedy ✅ Key idea: New Year's treat for Taskmaster9pm on Channel 4TV chef Big Zo, former lioness Jill Scott, Eurovision star Sam Ryder, Dictionary Corner's Susie Dent and Strictly winner Rose Ayling-Ellis are the brave contestants vying to win a golden bust of Greg Davies in this two-part special - from goading a dangerous animal to playing the glockenspiel. Plus, which one of them is going to sweat it out on a foot pump for 20 minutes? Holly RichardsonWould I lie to you?7.30pm on…

💥 Read this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Television,Culture,Television & radio 📌 Main takeaway: 'WRooster hat-up! These were the words that ended the first broadcast on the smallest television station in the world. Hours earlier, four local young men had been persuaded to serve as live-in presenters at a Sunday school in a quiet village. Despite the dead air and awkward line, it was the poor quality of transmission that caused the stars - Michelle Hornby (31), Jonathan Brown (27), James Warburton (25) and Deborah Cocking (21) - to apologize and cut off the opening…

✨ Read this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Film,Paul Mescal,Culture,Josh O'Connor 📌 Key idea: All things considered, telling Paul Mescal that I once bet on him wasn't the ice-breaker I had hoped for. Or rather, it breaks the ice in an unusual way."The main question," he says, his voice revealing a hint of panic, "is what's the bet? Who's most likely to join the 27 club?"Wow: This is depressing – but funny. Josh O'Connor, who plays Mescal's lover in the tough new wartime love story History of Sound, certainly thinks so. He sat next to…

✨ Check out this trending post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Games,2026 culture preview,Culture,PlayStation 5,Xbox series S/X,Nintendo Switch 2,PC,Steam,Action games,Adventure games,Grand Theft Auto,Pokémon,Halo 💡 Main takeaway: cairnLive out your mountaineering fantasy and take on the brave elements in this beautifully illustrated climbing game. You must carefully position climber Aava's hands and feet to make your way up a forbidden mountain, camping on ledges and bandaging her fingers as you go. Like real climbing, it is difficult and somewhat brutal. PC, PlayStation 5; January 29Onward and upward... Cairn. Image: Bakers GameNew animalAn animated horror game for players in…

🚀 Discover this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: The Traitors,Television & radio,BBC,BBC One,Culture,Media,UK news ✅ Key idea: A retired police detective, a crime writer and a psychologist are among the next group of contestants to enter Castle of Traitors, as the BBC has revealed details of the latest series of its hit investigative show.Among those to be divided will also be a sweet shop assistant, a cybersecurity expert and a personal trainer into conspiring "traitors" and "loyalists" tasked with exposing them.The latest series, which launches on New Year's Day on BBC One and iPlayer, will…

💥 Read this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Film,2026 culture preview,Culture,Chloé Zhao,Park Chan-wook,Bradley Cooper,Emerald Fennell,Maggie Gyllenhaal,Paolo Sorrentino,Christopher Nolan,Denis Villeneuve,Pedro Almodóvar,Alejandro González Iñárritu,Greta Gerwig,Jesse Eisenberg,Jessie Buckley,Danny Boyle,Paul Mescal,Emily Watson,Margot Robbie,Christian Bale,Ryan Gosling,Meryl Streep,Guy Pearce,Cillian Murphy,Aaron Sorkin 📌 Main takeaway: Jessie Buckley may need to hire a carpenter for the silverware-cabinet she is expected to need for her hugely admired performance in the film based on the Maggie O’Farrell novel. She plays Anne (or Agnes) Hathaway, wife of William Shakespeare, grieving the terrible loss of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet, in 1596, which the story imagines to be…

🔥 Read this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: K-pop,South Korea,Pop and rock,Asia Pacific,Culture,Music,World news 📌 Here’s what you’ll learn: K-pop record label Ador announced it has filed a lawsuit against a former member of mega-group NewJeans for millions of dollars in damages, a day after she was booted from the group following a year-long dispute that saw the band allege abuse and attempt to leave their contract.The damages lawsuit against Danielle Marsh, a 20-year-old Australian-born singer, comes months after a Seoul District Court ruled that the five NewJeans members must honor their contracts with Ador,…

✨ Check out this trending post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Dry Cleaning,Music,Culture,Indie ✅ Main takeaway: Dry Cleaning's third album contains a lot of strikingly strange lyrics. Take your pick from “space sub-mushrooms, or go to the gym to get fit”; “My dream house is a negative space of rocks”; Or, actually, “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a horse, eating onions, carrots, and celery.” But it's a much sharper line on the surface, from the cruise ship designer, that seems destined to attract the most attention. “I make sure there are hidden messages…