Beleaguered Edinburgh Fringe responds to financial struggles of key London festival April 12, 2023 The future of the Edinburgh Fringe festival is hanging in the balance due to rising costs, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society’s chief executive Shona McCarthy has said. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that this festival is under existential threat,” said McCarthy, speaking on Barry Fearn’s Leading Conversations podcast. “We’ve come into 2023 with a [...]
New Netflix show scores rare 100 per cent Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes April 12, 2023 Only a handful of shows have done it, but one new Netflix series has landed a rare 100 per cent Certified Fresh’ rating on review platform Rotten Tomatoes. It means critics and viewers think it’s one of the best shows out there at the moment, and it joins just a few dozen shows to have [...]
A Little Life review: 4 hours of misery but James Norton is electric April 12, 2023 Author Hanya Yanagihara has said of her 814-page, million-copy bestseller that she set out to create the literary version of an ‘ombre cloth’, a piece of material that’s light at the top and becomes increasingly saturated towards the bottom. It’s a fitting metaphor for A Little Life in its book form. The doorstop of a [...]
Elon Musk drops DogeCoin logo, restores Twitter bird, plus the Blue Tick latest April 11, 2023 Twitter has restored its bird logo after Elon Musk, one of the world’s funniest richest men, had temporarily switched it for the meme dog best known as the logo of cryptocurrency DogeCoin. Internet sluths went into overdrive trying to work out the reason. Was it a hack? A disgruntled employee? No, it was of course [...]
Edinburgh Fringe could be forced to close due to rising costs, warns chief executive April 11, 2023 The head of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has warned the annual Edinburgh Fringe event is under “existential threat” due to rising costs faced by companies and venues. Speaking on Barry Fearn’s Leading Conversations podcast, Society chief executive Shona McCarthy said the lack of support had left the Fringe “cracking at the seams” before the [...]
These photos of Paul O’Grady as Lily Savage in London in the 1980s show what an icon she was April 7, 2023 Paul O’Grady, who has sadly died, was beloved as a TV and radio presenter. But in the 1980s and 1990s he was more famous as pioneering drag queen, Lily Savage, who was integral LGBTQ representation on British TV in an era before drag queens were mainstream. Many of the UK Drag Race queens today owe [...]
One Fine Morning, film review: Lea Seydoux’s Parisian portrait lacks focus April 7, 2023 Léa Seydoux, aka Dr. Madeleine Swann in Spectre and No Time To Die, is a fine actor with huge range. She’s immensely watchable in One Fine Morning, whether she’s casting a flirtatious eye across a road or acting the repercussions of a heart-rending break up, and in ponderous new drama One Fine Morning she gets [...]
Ai Weiwei: Making Sense at the Design Museum is a triumph April 6, 2023 There is a saying among locals in the Chinese city of Xi’an that the worst thing that could happen during a trip there would be to miss the world famous Terracotta Army. The second worst thing would be to see the Terracotta Army. You see, despite this lifesize army of clay soldiers being a genuine [...]
Fake QAnon Shaman falling off his bike: A frame-by-frame analysis April 5, 2023 As Donald Trump arrived in New York to be charged with falsifying accounts, his rag-tag bunch of MAGA supporters were out in force. One of them looked familiar: a man dressed as the infamous QAnon Shaman, who was part of the raiding party that stormed the White House after Trump lost the last election. We [...]
Portraits of Dogs at the Wallace Collection will make your tail wag April 5, 2023 From taxidermy to Hockney’s adorable dachshunds, Portraits of Dogs, a new exhibition at the Wallace Collection, explores how the portrayal of our canine friends has changed over the centuries. Three huge portraits greet you as you enter: George Stubbs’ ‘aristocratic dogs’, which are among the exhibition’s finest pieces. More than almost anyone else on display [...]