Category : Culture

Soema Montenegro: Círculo Radiante review – an intoxicating journey around South American song

(Mais Um)This fifth album by the Argentinian singer, poet and shaman is a passionate celebration of Latin music – and the sunRaised on the margins of Buenos Aires, the young Soema Montenegro was drawn to wilderness rather than the Argentinian metropo...

Fallen Leaves review – Aki Kaurismäki’s almost feelgood romance is a droll delight

Two lonely souls connect in a rain-lashed Helsinki in this unexpectedly uplifting drama from the Finnish master of melancholyThe films of the Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre, The Man Without a Past) rank alongside abandoned teddy bears stra...

Kevin McCloud: ‘We thought Grand Designs was going to be watched by one surveyor and his dog’

The TV presenter, 64, on his Footlights days, hatred of selfies, first embarrassing bike and the joys of just lying in his hammockI grew up in a tight-knit family without much money. Once a year we’d go camping in Snowdonia or Scotland or France or A...

Persona 5 Tactica review – Famous Five-style Jungian urban warfare anyone?

Atlus, P Studio; Sega; PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, Nintendo SwitchThis stylish if undemanding instalment has some nice touches, but its saccharine dialogue will appeal to only the most committed Persona fansThe long-running Persona series marries Famous F...

The week in classical: The Barber of Seville; Apartment House – review

St George’s Hall, Bradford; St Paul’s Hall, HuddersfieldIan McMillan’s Rossini in ‘proper Yorkshire’ flummoxes and charms, while Huddersfield clings on at the cliff edge of experiment“Hod on theer!/ What’s all this fuddle/ Would yore mind tellin?/ Wh...

‘People are being penalised’: Hollywood divided over Israel-Hamas conflict

Stars like Susan Sarandon and Cynthia Nixon are raising their voices in support of Palestine, but many others are paying a steep price for speaking upOn a chilly day outside the White House, tourists milled about, Secret Service agents stood guard an...

Bill Bailey looks back: ‘My comedy audience is similar to Strictly’s demographic – an eight-year-old next to an 80-year-old’

The comedian on his punk years, being the ‘wurzel’ on Buzzcocks, and his late pal Sean Lock’s Strictly warningBorn in Bath in 1965, Bill Bailey is a comedian, actor and writer. Combining his multi-instrumentalism with humour, he was nominated for the...

Classical home listening: Delius’s A Mass of Life; Thomas Weelkes: Gentleman Extraordinary

Mark Elder, the Bergen Philharmonic and co are powerful advocates for Delius’s epic choral work, while Irish vocal group Resurgam showcase the distinctive brilliance of Weelkes• Frederick Delius’s A Mass of Life (1905), or Eine Messe des Lebens, open...

From Piketty’s Capital to Hawking’s The Theory of Everything: can one book explain it all?

Millennia-spanning takes on history, evolution and economics are booming. But who buys these ‘grand theory’ books? And do they actually read them?Ten years ago, French economist Thomas Piketty wrote a book trying to explain the fundamental economic f...

‘I left the cinema, walked home and announced I was moving’: films that made people emigrate

If The Lord of the Rings had you yearning for New Zealand, or Julia Roberts on a bike made you fall in love with Bali, you’re not alone. But did you grab your passport and start packing? Meet the people who did The Lord of the Rings led Jason to New...

Denise Welch: ‘Who would I like to say sorry to? The people I hurt when I was addicted to alcohol and cocaine’

The actor and Loose Women panellist on getting sober, being a helicopter parent, and an unfortunate event in New YorkBorn in Tynemouth, North Tyneside, Denise Welch, 65, has acted in Byker Grove, Spender, Soldier Soldier, Coronation Street, Waterloo...

Bridget Jones, Santaland Diaries and A Christmas Carol: 25 literary treats to read this December

From David Sedaris’s comic diaries to Maya Angelou’s poem Amazing Peace, count down to Christmas with our Advent calendar of festive readsThe Corrections by Jonathan Franzen Continue reading...

Mark Kermode on… director Joanna Hogg: ‘Her films have always been haunted by ghosts’

From her striking debut to The Souvenir and new release The Eternal Daughter, the British film-maker circles around loss, memory and rebirth in dramas of piercing intensityJoanna Hogg’s latest film, The Eternal Daughter (in cinemas now), is a ghost s...

The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild by Mathias Énard review – life, love, language

From a bedbug squashed by Napoleon to a priest who comes back as a wild boar, this riotous French tale of resurrection is a tribute to ‘translators everywhere, at all times’French author Mathias Énard, winner of the Prix Goncourt and nominated for th...

‘We’d roll joints and watch Netflix with him!’ Irish folk artists on the creative genius of Shane MacGowan

Lankum, the Mary Wallopers, Lisa O’Neill and John Francis Flynn recall their encounters with late Pogues singer – and explain how his music got to the heart of Irish identity‘There would be all sorts of rumours flying around. ‘He’s in Eamonn Doran’s...