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Entertainment

Peter Asher: Everywhere Man review – music-biz face from Beatles-buddy pop act to superstar producer

Backstory of modest industry veteran who started out as one half of pop duo Peter and Gordon, and went on to produce acts such as James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt Rock’n’roll is notorious for its tales of bad behaviour: throwing TVs out of the window, mountains of cocaine, parades of groupies … but you won’t find any of that here. Peter Asher, brother of Jane, one half of Peter and Gordon, and super-successful…

The Guardian ·

Technology

Elon Musk’s AI Odyssey review – the dullest, most pointless riposte possible to Christopher Nolan’s brilliant epic

It is hardly a shock that Grok AI’s interpretation of Homer is as meaningless as a laptop screensaver. The only surprise would be if Musk accepted defeat graciously. Which he won’t Think back. Do you remember when Elon Musk, in a weird online tantrum, and without having seen the film, condemned the supposed wokery in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, for getting Elliot Page to play Sinon and Lupita Nyong’o to play…

The Guardian ·

Health · Middle East

Big Baby review – a screenwriter’s nightmares become reality in a meta-horror misfire

Spider One’s latest shocker has a few good ideas and a strong central performance, but it’s difficult to care about the gory misfortune inflicted upon these unlikable and thinly drawn characters In this slasher directed by Michael Cummings, AKA Powerman 5000 singer Spider One, Adam Lewis (Brandon Scott) is a screenwriter who spends too much time fretting about what the film reviewers he claims to despise think…

The Guardian ·

Politics · Middle East

Israeli election: A referendum on 'Bibi' Netanyahu?

PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, October 27: The Israeli, Palestinian and Lebanese papers break down what's at stake on election day for Israel and its neighbours. Also, the French government announces its first major concessions to protesting high school students, hoping to calm the movement. Finally, Harry Kane's Ballon d'Or means Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappé will have to wait their turn.

France 24 ·

Science · Asia-Pacific

Arnie & Barney review – dimwit ant double-act from Maya the Bee are on mission to entertain

From the ugly design to the lacklustre script, this is one parents might want to skip this half-term holiday In 1912 in Germany, antisemitic writer Waldemar Bonsels published The Adventures of Maya the Bee, which later became a 1970s anime series in Japan called Maya the Honey Bee, and was later dubbed into English a couple of times, including for kids TV channel Nickelodeon in the 1990s and a bunch of films…

The Guardian ·

Health

The One About Matthew Perry review – the star of one of TV’s biggest ever shows gets a loving tribute

This intimate, warm, thoughtful three-parter about the Friends actor speaks to his friends, family and ex-girlfriends – and their adoration for him is overwhelming “God, you can do whatever you want to me, just please make me famous.” So prayed Matthew Perry when he was a young unknown actor auditioning in LA, enjoying the partying and the friendships but struggling to find work. Many have offered up such a…

The Guardian ·

Entertainment · United Kingdom

Michael Gambon: the authorised biography review – a brilliant actor, and a master deceiver

From the National Theatre to Harry Potter, Gambon’s shapeshifting life leaves many questions still unanswered Michael Gambon began his acting career with a preposterous bluff. Applying for a job at Dublin’s Gate theatre, the young toolmaker from the south-east London suburbs embellished his CV with entirely fabricated theatrical experience. It was a gamble, but it worked. In 1962 he made his professional debut as…

The Guardian ·

Entertainment

City of Masks review – theatreland ghost story with female phantom of the opera out for revenge

In a West End theatre, a young actor hears a disembodied voice coaching his singing. It’s the start of an icky ghost-on-human romance This ghost story set in a West End theatre is creakier than the old wooden floorboards on stage. It’s a gender reversal of Phantom of the Opera with a female phantom: wildly talented composer Eve (Amanda Jiang), who died tragically in a theatre fire. Or did she? That’s the question…

The Guardian ·

Culture · United Kingdom

Macklemore’s Free Palestine tour review – a triumph of a show with performances from Hozier, Kneecap and more

3Arena, Dublin Several unannounced guests feature on the first European date of the rapper’s sold-out benefit tour, including video messages from Mark Ruffalo and Cynthia Nixon “We’d like to thank Ed Sheeran for organising this concert,” offers a member of Kneecap, one of several unannounced guests who have turned up for the first European date of Macklemore’s Free Palestine tour. It’s a characteristically…

The Guardian ·

Culture · United Kingdom

Escaping Idi Amin review – there’s a happy ending to this awful tale … and it should be a lesson to us all

Four Britons describe the horrors they witnessed as children as thousands were expelled from Uganda – or killed – by the Ugandan dictator. The new lives they made should teach us something important The contributors to Escaping Idi Amin hardly make any direct comparisons to the present day. They don’t say: look, this part of the story is what Britain is now heading towards. This part is where America is already.…

The Guardian ·

Culture · United Kingdom

LS Lowry review – matchstick men, or the broken denizens of a smog-filled hellscape?

MK Gallery, Milton Keynes With his heaps of mud, decaying sheds and chimney-filled skies, Lowry depicts northern England as a spirit-crushing dystopia While people queue at the British Museum to see the Battle of Hastings , this excellent survey of LS Lowry at the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes takes you back to another, maybe more decisive part of our past – the age when Britain was the most industrialised society…

The Guardian ·

Culture · United Kingdom

Aberfan: From Darkness to Light review – Mealor’s requiem offers hope amid the tears

Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff A thoughtful and moving concert – with Paul Mealor’s new choral work its centrepiece – commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster A concert requiem of hope is how composer Paul Mealor describes his new choral work Aberfan: From Darkness to Light, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the disaster that killed 116 children and 28 adults . Heard first in the Aberfan Community…

The Guardian ·

Politics · United Kingdom

'An everyday habit': 2.5 billion lines of cocaine snorted in England per year

PRESS REVIEW – Monday, October 26: Brazilian and international papers react to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's presidential election victory. Next: The New York Times warns that the war in Iran is entering a dangerous new phase. Also: cocaine consumption and cocaine-related crimes are surging across Britain. Finally, it turns out that wrapping children in cotton wool isn't the best parenting strategy.

France 24 ·

Entertainment · United Kingdom

Bad Day at the Office review – gratuitously entertaining Go-Pro thriller is like Crank meets The Hangover

John Hannah parkours through gangland London in a hyperactive first-person action film that has to keep the heartrate down This ludicrous, rabid thriller, shot largely on first-person GoPros, is like Peep Show on PCP. The cumulative effect is of being crammed into a monster-truck tyre and rolled down Mount Everest. It is relentlessly committed to packing the frame with gratuitously entertaining gimmickry, and…

The Guardian ·

Culture · United Kingdom

War Is Interested in You by Gideon Rachman review – are we on the brink of world war three?

A foreign affairs expert’s bleak assessment of the state of global security Are we on the brink of a new world war? This bleak subject is increasingly invoked by leaders, soldiers and officials, from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin to the heads of our military and intelligence services. It’s an urgent theme, then, for the FT foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman to explore in his latest survey of global…

The Guardian ·

Entertainment · United Kingdom

Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li review – a virtuosic interrogation of the power of art

What does it cost, to live your life in the hope of immortality? Li examines the gulf between talent and genius through the marriage of two real-life musicians In his recently published A History of the Novel in Britain , Philip Hensher makes a bold claim. Historical novels, he tells us, don’t last. However popular and prestigious a historical novel might be in its day, it will almost always get thrown overboard…

The Guardian ·

Entertainment

Ever Since I Knew Myself review – confronting the scars of childhood

Maka Gogaladze’s debut feature looks at generational differences in the context of Georgia’s education system and emphasis on collectivism The scars imprinted on impressionable young minds can never fully fade away. Aiming her lens at a rocky beach thrashed by crashing waves, Maka Gogaladze opens her intimate film with a painful anecdote from her adolescent years. Through on-screen texts against a stormy sky, the…

The Guardian ·

Sport

A Course Called Ireland review – why did Bill Murray ever agree to this Irish golf show?

The Hollywood star is so grumpy in this new travelogue it’s like he wishes he wasn’t there. Think sulky car journeys, strained encounters and the sense of a TV series imploding A Course Called Ireland is a new documentary in which Bill Murray golfs his way around the “Emerald Isle” while reflecting on everything from his great-grandmother to worms. The heart leaps. Bill Murray? The same Bill Murray whose genius…

The Guardian ·

Health

This City Is Ours review – the Liverpudlian gang drama is back … and the acting’s as terrific as ever

Nefarious doings, tiny-headed henchmen and sockless villains – the mob saga is back. And it’s as lovable as it is bloody Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in. Seventeen months after it huffed off in its Toyota Omertà, This City is Ours is back for a second series of high-stakes gangland bastardry. Which means, all things being equal, or at least Liverpudlian, we can expect more of the following:…

The Guardian ·

Culture · United Kingdom

Derren Brown turns into Nostradamus – and I predict you’ll submit to one gasp-inducing stunt after another

Apollo theatre, London Prophecies are impossibly fulfilled by the superstar who takes his cue from the legendary French seer in his show Only Human Do we have free will – or are the words I am about to write, the four stars twinkling atop this review, pre-ordained? That’s the stuff Derren Brown conjures with in his new show Only Human, which takes its inspiration from Nostradamus’s ability to foresee the future.…

The Guardian ·

Health · Europe

The Narco Hack review – an epic tale of how detectives’ tech wizardry smashed a billion-euro drugs ring

Human heroism is celebrated in profoundly personal ways in this extraordinary tale of a mind-boggling investigation into massive criminal organisations. It’s part The Wire, part The Imitation Game We begin with the audio of a horrifying call made to the French police in 2020. Two men are driving home when their car is attacked. The police ask for the caller’s name as bullets ricochet around the vehicle. “Who…

The Guardian ·

Climate · United Kingdom

UK government to make unprecedented intervention in setting of water bills

Exclusive: Angela Eagle tells utility bosses next price review ‘must focus on value for money for customers’ Ministers will make an unprecedented intervention in water bills and how companies prioritise investment, directing bosses to bring down costs and stop leaks and sewage overflows. Angela Eagle, the environment secretary, has told suppliers in England and Wales she plans to intervene in the next price…

The Guardian ·

Culture

Junk review – David Schwimmer is lost in Mubi’s frustrating LA-set misstep

The Friends alum makes up half of a messy and pretentious comedy drama that boasts some visual panache but is dragged down by a confused tone You could be forgiven, upon watching the first scene of Junk, for believing that this debut feature will boldly, perhaps ill-advisedly, dare to satirize the industry it’s purporting to join. At a swanky restaurant in LA, four people aglow with self-importance embark on the…

The Guardian ·

Culture · United Kingdom

Last One Laughing: Halloween review – still a total treat, despite the new twist

No screaming is allowed in the spooky spin-off, but the stars are only in danger of cracking up over these golden comedy moments. Even Jack Dee looks delighted to be there! British comedy is a broad church united by a simple adage: less is more. The most acclaimed and beloved shows – Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones, Brass Eye, The Office – tend to be exceptionally short-running. Compared to the Americans, our…

The Guardian ·

Entertainment · United Kingdom

Black Bag by Luke Kennard audiobook review – brilliant Booker-shortlisted campus comedy

The author reveals his mastery of comic timing in his narration of this novel about a cash-strapped actor paid to live inside a black leather bag The unnamed narrator of Luke Kennard’s novel is an out-of-work actor living in London. His last job was three months ago, he is behind with his rent and has “measured out my life in coffees I cannot technically afford”. So when he comes across an advert – “Male actor…

The Guardian ·

Entertainment

Nobody Wants This review – prepare to fall in love again … with a different couple

Adam Brody and Kristen Bell’s hit romcom is still gorgeous as Noah and Joanne move in together. But if you’re thirsty for the fizz of new romance … their siblings might set hearts aflutter Just as you and your true love can’t have a second first date or another first kiss, romantic comedies can never go back. Nothing replaces the giddy spell of the movie’s opening act or the TV show’s debut season. Sure, there…

The Guardian ·

Sport · United States

Female Life on Planet Earth by Laleh Khadivi review – a mother’s secret past in the Iranian revolution

A woman living in California discovers her mother may have been a merciless enforcer of the Islamic revolution, in an intriguing novel of inheritance and identity “It’s a little scary, isn’t it, inheritance?” That’s what Heti, the protagonist of Laleh Khadivi’s latest novel, remarks to a “soccer mom” as they watch their daughters play. “We don’t get to choose what we inherit. Or what we pass on.” Heti, who lives…

The Guardian ·

Culture

The Mystery of What Befell in the Ditch by Thure Erik Lund review – is this the greatest living Norwegian writer?

Translated into English at last, this portrait of a man appalled by modernity and desperate to get back to nature is brimming with Nordic weltschmerz T-O-M. The initials of Tomas Olsen Myrbråten, the narrator in Thure Erik Lund’s The Mystery of What Befell in the Ditch, spell out the Norwegian word for “empty”. Approaching 38, he’s already a relic. He spends his days slumped at the kitchen table or staring out of…

The Guardian ·

Entertainment

The New Stanford Prison Experiment review – surely no one believes this insulting TV show is real?

This rehash of the notorious study in which volunteers role-play as prisoners and guards pretends to be science. It isn’t – it’s patronising reality television Television has rerun the Stanford prison experiment before, most notably in 2002 when the BBC aired The Experiment, which advertised itself as a more rigorous version of the stunt where volunteers role-play as prison guards and prisoners. The creator of…

The Guardian ·

Science · Africa

On Another Planet They Can Save Me by Lieke Marsman review – an astonishing memoir of terminal illness

Published four months after her death, the poet’s reflections on mortality are both agonising and profoundly life-affirming There are no atheists in foxholes, goes the saying, and indeed social scientists and evolutionary biologists have argued that the experience of war or conflict drives religious belief; in 2019, Joseph Henrich and others surveyed almost 2,000 people in three post-conflict societies – Uganda,…

The Guardian ·

Culture · United States

Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History by Benjamin Moser review – the deep roots of a contemporary movement

A biographer’s affecting account of prominent critics of Zionism, from Hannah Arendt to Nan Goldin “Everyone in America – at least as far as I knew – was a Zionist,” recalls Benjamin Moser, “especially but not only if you were Jewish.” A Pulitzer-winning biographer of Susan Sontag, he remembers being brought up short in his 20s, when a friend described Israel as “a bunch of foreigners who had no business in the…

The Guardian ·