The Importance of Being Earnest at National Theatre review December 4, 2024 Max Webster’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest opens with Ncuti Gatwa’s Algernon swathed in hot pink ballgown and draped over a piano. Start as you mean to go. The play is a luscious, saturated explosion that unfolds like a musical number of carefully choreographed wordplay. It is a celebration of appetite and queerness, [...]
Christmas food shop: The pros give their top tips December 4, 2024 With less than a month to go, it’s time to start thinking about your Christmas food shop… Or is it? I spoke to some top chefs and restaurateurs about how they approach the most important meal of the year and asked them for their pro tips on making it one to remember (for the right [...]
The best gifts for toddlers 2024: From Paw Patrol to Barbie December 3, 2024 If you want to make sure your little one wakes up with a big smile on Christmas morning, check out our guide to the best gifts for toddlers 2024. Ravensburger Bluey Mini Memory Game Enhance your toddler’s cognitive skills with the Ravensburger Bluey Mini Memory Game, perfect for children aged 3 and up. This classic [...]
To find the soul of another country, head to the supermarket December 3, 2024 My favourite thing about travelling abroad isn’t the sun, the sand, nor the sea – it’s going to the local supermarket. Walking through the doors of a foreign grocery store is like passing through the looking glass into a place where everything is both familiar and alien, a fairground mirror that reflects a strange, distorted [...]
Best gifts for teenagers: From Star Wars to Warhammer December 3, 2024 Teenagers are notoriously hard to buy for but in our guide to the best gifts for teenagers you’re sure to be a winner on Christmas morning. 3-In-1 Crawling RC Car Looking for a versatile and exciting gift for your teenager? The 3-In-1 Crawling RC Car is an exceptional choice! This remote-controlled buggy features a robust [...]
Last Orders: An appreciation of the takeaway menu, a dying cultural artefact December 3, 2024 When I walked through my front door in Gateshead as a teenager, the doormat would be covered in a carpet of brightly coloured paper. A cherry-blossom pink menu from the local Chinese takeaway, the red and gold of an Indian place, and pictures of row upon row of bargain buckets from the local chicken shop. [...]
Pearl Mackie: The Doctor Who star on her dream last supper December 3, 2024 Pearl Mackie, star of Netflix thriller The Diplomat and the upcoming production of Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes at the National Theatre, tells us what she would eat for her last meal on earth My mum was vegetarian so I was veggie when I was growing up, until I was about 12. Back then it wasn’t great [...]
The weird and wonderful world of Japanese model food December 2, 2024 Japan is famous for the way its cultural artefacts seem to evolve separately from the rest of the world. Travel to Tokyo and you can find fax machines that have continued to develop new bells and whistles long after their use in the west began its terminal decline in the 1990s. Shokuhin sanpuru (literally: food [...]
Will our Christmas dinner guests soon be AI chatbots? December 2, 2024 Glad tidings of comfort and joy! Christmas has traditionally been a time for congregating with your fellow homo sapiens – but play nice over the turkey and sprouts this year: it could be one of the last where unmediated human interaction is still the norm. We’re about to enter a world in which AI bots [...]
Social medium: Why Gen Z turned to Tiktok tarot readers December 2, 2024 My demographic – middle class, urban, Western Gen Zers – are the least likely of all generations to say they have a religion, according to a Policy Institute study in 2022 (though paradoxically they are also the most likely to say they believe in hell). So it is perhaps surprising that they are behind a [...]