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Iggy Pop is mother nature: best podcasts of the week | Television & radio

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Pick of the weekSweet Little HumanFor a sideways take on the climate emergency, look no further than this series featuring Iggy Pop as a potty-mouthed Mother Nature. Skip the opening episode and its slightly overwrought attempt at world-building and head straight to Fire Animals for an entertaining take on a vital – but often destructive – element. HJDWidely available, episodes weeklyTubbyThis weight-themed podcast from Canadian outfit Left of Dial can be a difficult listen, with host Alan Zweig sometimes a self-flagellating guide. But it is candid and far-reaching; the Washington Post’s Shane O’Neill is strong on what it means to…

‘A hunger for wild, physical sensation’: Alan Hollinghurst on painter and writer Denton Welch who died tragically young | Art and design

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What Denton Welch’s life was like before his accident we know from the books he wrote after it. They give a picture of a teenager’s experience unparalleled in its vividness and oddity. Welch was born in Shanghai in 1915, to an American mother and an English businessman father, and brought to England when he was four. In his first book, 1943’s Maiden Voyage, he describes his return to China in 1932, after he’d run away from Repton school in Derbyshire.All his characteristics as a writer are evident from the start: an astonishing candour of response to sensations of all kinds,…

Jade review – pop’s quirkiest star transcends manufactured past | Pop and rock

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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the public imagination. They usually follow certain rules – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least one single featuring a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time in the years before the inevitable reunion tour.It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade…

‘Death to Spotify’: the DIY movement to get artists and fans to quit the music app | Spotify

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This month, indie musicians in Oakland, California, gathered for a series of talks called Death to Spotify, where attenders explored “what it means to decentralize music discovery, production and listening from capitalist economies”.The events, held at Bathers library, featured speakers from indie station KEXP, labels Cherub Dream Records and Dandy Boy Records, and DJ collectives No Bias and Amor Digital. What began as a small run of talks quickly sold out and drew international interest. People as far away as Barcelona and Bengaluru emailed the organizers asking how to host similar events.A Death to Spotify event at Bathers library in…

Riot Women review – Sally Wainwright’s menopausal punk drama is one of her best | Television

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Sally Wainwright should be prescribed on the NHS as a form of HRT. Alongside oestrogen and progesterone tablets, patches, gels and sprays to counter the myriad ills female flesh is heir to, doctors could prescribe a weekly dose of Scott & Bailey for those who are just beginning to feel that Summat’s Up, moving on to Last Tango in Halifax for the lightly but definitely perimenopausal, followed by a daily hour of Gentleman Jack to alleviate more intense symptoms and culminating in a nightly binge of Happy Valley once you’re fully entangled in menopause’s proliferating tentacles and need to bring…

La Bohème – noirish reframing of Puccini’s classic weepy | Classical music

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Ditching the penguin suits and picnic hampers for affordable tickets and a smart-casual elegance, Glyndebourne’s autumn season opened with Floris Visser’s stylish La Bohème. Seamlessly revived by Rachael Hewer, it not only looks good, it does full justice to Puccini’s classic weepy while finding novel ways to raise the odd goosebump.Dieuweke van Reij’s set – a metaphorical highway to heaven – serves for all four acts with more than a nod to Brassaï’s noirish photos of 1930s Paris. Bare walls and glistening cobblestones are breathtakingly lit by Alex Brok, while Jon Morrell’s monochrome costumes ooze couture. Visser’s bohemians inhabit a…

John Lodge obituary | Pop and rock

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The Moody Blues were a spectacularly successful band known for grandiose lyrics and flamboyant musical arrangements, but the deadpan title of their 1973 chart hit I’m Just A Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band) summed up the self-effacing approach of their songwriter, John Lodge.As the band’s co-lead vocalist and bass player, Lodge, who has died aged 82, was the antithesis of the wild rocker, largely resisting the hedonistic temptations that accompanied stardom in the 1960s and 70s and making no bones about his commitment to family and evangelical Christianity.Lodge was a member of the Moody Blues for 50 years,…

From Annie Hall to Something’s Gotta Give: Diane Keaton was the quintessential comedy queen | Diane Keaton

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Plenty of great female actors have starred in romantic comedies. Usually if they want to win an Oscar, however, they have to reach for more serious roles. The late Diane Keaton, who died unexpectedly this week, followed a reverse trajectory and made it look disarmingly natural. Her first major film role was in The Godfather, about as serious an American masterpiece as has ever been made. But that same year, she reprised the part of Linda, the object of a nerdy hero’s affection, in a film adaptation of Broadway’s Play It Again, Sam. (Keaton originated the role opposite playwright Woody…

‘I wanted to write more than I wanted to have children’: author Sarah Perry on rejecting motherhood | Sarah Perry

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Fifteen years ago, having said all my life that I never wanted a baby, that I couldn’t fathom why any free woman would do such a thing to her body and her mind, I suddenly and passionately wanted a child. I remember where I was when this feeling, so heretical to me, arrived: it was early morning in London, and having come down Fleet Street on my way to work, I was standing at the till of a newsagents to pay for a Diet Coke, a flapjack and a pack of Silk Cut. There were no children there and no pregnant women; nothing had been said or done to…

The Intruder review – the daftest thriller of the entire year | Television

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You wear a tightly belted beige trenchcoat and you live in a cavernous show-home bedecked with mid-century pine and fashionably inadequate lighting. You are French. You have two uncommonly beautiful teenage children and are preparing to return to your prestigious role at a maison de couture after the recent birth of your uncommonly beautiful baby. But mon Dieu, you are anxious! You fear your glamorous workload will interfere with your ability to care for l’enfant. The solution? You will hire an enigmatic au pair. Alas, you have never watched television and are thus unaware that this will expose faultlines in…