Category : Culture

On my radar: Chris Steele-Perkins’s cultural highlights

The photographer on the latest Tarantino film, a psychedelic flower show, and where he goes for a good fry-upPhotographer Chris Steele-Perkins was born in Burma in 1947 to a British father and a Burmese mother, then moved to England aged two and grew...

Midnight Family review – superb documentary on Mexico’s private ambulances

Luke Lorentzen’s film follows an enterprising family exploiting the gap in Mexico City’s dire emergency servicesThere’s a twilight zone that the Ochoa family, the subjects of this superb observational documentary, inhabit. It’s a very dirty grey area...

Like a natural woman: how the female gaze is finally bringing real life to the screen

From Portrait of a Lady on Fire in cinemas to Fleabag on television, realistic women are at last being shown looking back at the world that is looking at themFilm and television makers have never been shy about the female form. Hollywood always valia...

Don Letts: ‘Punk was a refuge from racism’

The DJ and musician, 64, on being black and British, finding a scene, and why punk’s not deadJamaican people love country and western. My first musical memory is sitting at home with my dad, listening to incarnations of what would become reggae on hi...

The Murder Capital review – people really need this band

SWX, BristolHailed as one of the most intense live acts around, the Dublin post-punk band rarely falter in front of their growing fan armySomething is happening to boys in bands up and down the country and across the Irish Sea. They are singing about...

Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg review – inside the Brontës’ dreamworld

The imaginary realms of the Brontë sisters offer an escape from Victorian constraints in a graphic novel that blurs fiction and memoirBefore Jane Eyre and before Heathcliff, there was Glass Town. Isolated on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, the Bront...

‘Noel Edmonds seemed to radiate calm': how a gameshow changed my life

Velimir paid off his debts, Julia got her dream job, Alex fell in love – former contestants recall their transformative appearancesIn early 2010, I was on the brink of bankruptcy and living in a friend’s flat in Clevedon, near Bristol. I’d been made...

Nixon in China review – a gripping human drama

Theatre Royal, GlasgowThe seismic 1972 meeting of Mao Zedong and Richard Nixon, as depicted in John Adams’s inspired 1987 opera, still resonates in Scottish Opera’s potent new stagingAsk a Chinese person, or one trusted to speak to tourists, about th...

BBC broadcaster Simon Warr dies aged 65

Former teacher, who also appeared on Channel 4’s That’ll Teach ’Em, dies of cancerThe BBC broadcaster and former teacher Simon Warr has died from cancer aged 65 after announcing days ago he was in a hospice with a “very serious health condition”.On T...

I didn’t love Taika Waititi’s movie, but I feel his shoulder – and back, and neck – pain | Hadley Freeman

After the director picked up his Oscar for Jojo Rabbit, he launched into the most powerful speech I’ve ever heardApologies for bringing up the Oscars again, but I need to talk about a speech that touched the core of my very being. Not Joaquin Phoenix...

The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel – read the exclusive first extract

The first chapter of the final volume of Mantel’s award-winning Thomas Cromwell trilogy opens at the execution of Anne Boleyn Hear Ben Miles read the audiobook Once the queen’s head is severed, he walks away. A sharp pang of appetite reminds him that...

Streaming with laughter: the 50 best standup comedy shows

From Bill Hicks to Hannah Gadsby, Dave Chappelle to Josie Long – here are 50 specials you can watch right nowModern Toss on standup comedyOh, how you spoil us, the internet. Watching a comedian’s latest show used to involve waiting for one of about e...

Intelligence review – never has David Schwimmer been so squandered

The former Friends star and comic Nick Mohammed fight cyber-terrorism in Sky’s comedy ... but their one-dimensional script and boilerplate plot are totally criminalHang up some bunting and buy in a cake: Intelligence is a special occasion. An otherwi...

Harvey Weinstein trial: jury appears to reach partial verdict

Jury indicated that in three counts they have reached their decision, and will now break and return to deliberations on the other two counts on MondayThe jury at Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial in New York appears to have reached a verdict on three of...

Onward review – Pixar's best film in years is Frozen with boys

The animation studio conjures some of the old magic with a touching tale of childhood grief and brotherly bondingOnce upon a time, Pixar made inventive, original family stories, but in recent years they’ve leant heavily on sequels such as Toy Story 4...