💥 Read this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Comedy,Stage,Comedy,Culture,Soho theatre 📌 Key idea: forBritish-Iraqi comedian Hassan Al Habib's riveting show revolves around his coming from a part of the world plagued by poverty, danger and negative preconceptions about the world. But that's enough about Birmingham. There's plenty more where that came from in Death to the West (Midlands), the masterful solo debut of the so-called "interesting Arab", the son of Middle Eastern expats now coming to terms with his complex sense of belonging. The entire show balances his “Brummie” identity with his Iraqi identity, making…
💥 Read this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Come Dine With Me,Young people,Television,Television & radio,Culture,Food TV ✅ Key idea: IIf there's one tried-and-true formula when it comes to television, it's this: When you run out of ideas, bring in the kids. This formula is why everything from MasterChef to The Great British Bake Off to Taskmaster have, at some point, served a starter version. Now it's time to come have dinner with me and join the gang.Everyone said, which is probably a bit late. It took five years for MasterChef to introduce a starter version,…
🚀 Read this trending post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: David Szalay,Books,Culture,Booker prize,Awards and prizes,Fiction 💡 Key idea: WWhen we met the morning after this year's Booker Prize was announced, David Salai, the winner, seemed a very kind and gentle author, having created one of the most morally ambiguous characters in contemporary modern literature. His sixth novel, Flesh, about the rise and fall of a Hungarian immigrant to the UK, is unlike anything you've read before.Szalai (pronounced "sol-oy") is often described as a "British Hungarian," but that upset Canadians this morning, he says. His mother was Canadian,…
✨ Read this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Art and design,Culture,Festivals,Arts Council England,Arts funding,Arts policy ✅ Key idea: DOrham is a beautiful small town in the north-east of England and located in an area suffering from growing poverty and inequality. About 45,000 people, cathedral, castle, university and streets glow every two years when the Lumiere Festival fills them with light and art.Since 2009, Lumière has brought more than 250 artists from around the world to work in this exceptional city. Ai Weiwei in the cathedral chapter house. Fujiko Nakaya on the river bank. Chela Kumari…
🔥 Check out this trending post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Film,Horror films,Ukraine,Culture,World news,Feminism,Russia ✅ Main takeaway: WWhen filming began on the Ukrainian horror film The Witch: Revenge in late 2023, the costumes for Russian soldiers were sourced directly from the battlefield. “They were real Russian uniforms,” says the film's producer, Irina Kostyuk, speaking from Kiev. "Captured soldiers or dead soldiers, they took those uniforms, cleaned them, and used them." After cleaning the uniform, the filmmakers had to sand it again so it looked livable. Some of the jackets still bore written names, and many had their…
💥 Discover this trending post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Film,Andy Warhol,US television,Art and design,US news,Television,Culture ✅ Here’s what you’ll learn: Sally Kirkland, the Oscar-nominated actress who starred in Andy Warhol's The Factory, has died at the age of 84.The film star, who included Anna, JFK and Bruce Almighty, had entered a nursing home two days before her death after a period of ill health. Last year, a GoFundMe page was set up to help her following a “life-threatening infection” and a number of falls. She was also diagnosed with dementia.Kirkland began her career as a model…
💥 Read this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Jilly Cooper,Books,Culture,Gloucestershire,England,UK news ✅ Key idea: Writer Jilly Cooper suffered a fatal head injury during a fall at her Gloucestershire home, an inquest heard.Cooper, 88, whose 18 novels include Riders and Rivals, was found by her family at her home in Paisley at about 5pm on October 4.She was initially alert and paramedics took her to Gloucestershire Royal Infirmary, but her condition deteriorated, Gloucestershire Crown Court heard.She died in hospital, in the presence of her family, at 8.30 a.m. on October 5.Katie Skerritt, Gloucestershire's chief coroner, reached…
💥 Read this trending post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Games,Culture,Gaming awards,Awards and prizes 💡 Main takeaway: VVideo games have long struggled with diversity and inclusion, so it was no surprise when Game Awards host and producer Geoff Keighley announced the Future Class program in 2020. Its purpose was to highlight a group of individuals working in video games as the “bright, bold, and inclusive future” of the industry.Given the widespread reach of the annual Kelly-led show, which saw an estimated 154 million live streams last year, Future Class seemed like a real effort. Entrants were invited…
✨ Explore this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Charli xcx,John Cale,Music,Culture,Pop and rock 💡 Here’s what you’ll learn: WWhen Charli xcx says her first new material in over a year is "something completely new, completely antithetical" to the sound she pursued on Brat that defined the era, she's not kidding. Taken from the soundtrack to director Emerald Fennell's upcoming version of the novel Wuthering Heights, the dark, gothic house bears almost no relation in sound or mood to Brat's contents: she says it was inspired by John Cale's description of the sound of his old…
🚀 Read this awesome post from BBC Culture 📖 📂 Category: 📌 Here’s what you’ll learn: Jane Boleyn, a 16th-century aristocrat, faced explosive accusations: she was blamed for her husband's horrific infidelity, as were two of Henry VIII's wives, her sisters-in-law Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. Was she a “sex-obsessed” spy, guilty as charged, or a convenient scapegoat for the tyrant’s brutality? A new historical film by Philippa Gregory, Pauline is a Traitor, explores her story.In the court of the mercurial King Henry VIII, no one was safe, and those close to the queens and courtiers could quickly switch sides.…
