Category : Articles

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...

Shane MacGowan's wife reveals details of singer's last days and 'unexpected' love for royals

The wife of The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan has said he "wasn't ready to give up" when he died.

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...

I’m A Celebrity apologises for liking offensive comment about contestant

I'm a Celebrity's producers have apologised after liking a social media post that contained "unacceptable language" about a contestant on the show.

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...

Actress apologises after claiming black people have been 'brainwashed to hate Jews'

Julianna Margulies has said she is "horrified" to have offended people after she said that black people have been "brainwashed to hate Jews".

‘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...

Fiona Phillips believes early starts may have brought on Alzheimer's

Television presenter Fiona Phillips says she believes that early starts while working at GMTV may have played a part in her developing Alzheimer's disease.