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Culture

The latest published reporting in this category.

Entertainment

A one-part wonder! The West End’s streamlined Harry Potter and the Cursed Child works like magic

Palace theatre, London Five hours have been trimmed to three for this new version but it is packed with magic moments and superb performances Ten years on from its premiere, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has been transformed from an epic two-part play into a richly absorbing one-part production. A similar version is already running to great acclaim on Broadway but it still feels risky to tinker with a show that has come to feel like a fixed jewel in the West End. Happily, that risk has paid off and Cursed Child hasn’t lost any of its sparkle. Admittedly, there are some drawbacks to reducin

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‘A three-minute history of England written in the tour bus toilet’: how Tenpole Tudor made Swords of a Thousand Men

‘Dressed as knights, we’d walk onstage to the sound of the William Tell overture. I’d quote Henry V and the crowd would shout, “You’re the rightful king of England!”’ I’d worked up the basic idea on Stiff Records’ three-month tour of the northern hemisphere. It’s near-impossible to write songs on the road because you lack the basic solitude, so I’d retire to the tour coach latrine. The melody was really a boogie-blues progression, part-inspired by Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky and Canned Heat’s On the Road Again. But lyrics only flowed when we came off the tour. Rehearsing near our favo

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‘We did 10 takes of it!’ Kerr Smith on Dawson’s Creek and filming US TV’s first gay kiss

As he releases a memoir, the actor opens up about the late James Van Der Beek, the magic of the Creek, and facing homophobia for playing gay in the 90s There are worse things to spend a couple of decades chasing than the feeling of being young, successful and surrounded by people who love you. For Kerr Smith, though, the particular magic of Dawson’s Creek has proved just about impossible to replicate. “I’ve spent the last 25 years of my career trying to re-create that experience,” Smith says of the WB teen drama, on which he played the sensitive jock Jack McPhee for five seasons. “I’ve been tr

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Entertainment

‘A medieval jigsaw puzzle’: rediscovering Coventry cathedral’s ‘stunning’ stained glass windows

Remnants of 15th-century artwork form a treasure trove that can now be viewed for the first time in almost 90 years In the decades after Coventry cathedral was destroyed by the Luftwaffe in 1940, the shattered fragments of what had once been its glorious medieval stained glass windows were packed into 30 wooden crates and stored in a cellar. First smashed during the Reformation and then dismantled for safekeeping before the second world war, the cathedral authorities knew the remnants made up a treasure trove of spectacular 15th-century glass, but not, exactly, what had survived five turbulent

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Entertainment

U2: Carnaval de Luz review – rousing, restorative rock from a band ready to take on the world again

(Island) On their first album of new songs in nearly a decade, even earnest Bono-isms carry weight amid music that is impassioned and rejuvenated Even artists who enjoy a seemingly unstoppable imperial period eventually seem to encounter spells of turbulence when the creative planets no longer align – which has been the story of U2’s last 20 years. Try as they might, nothing has matched their earlier albums – especially that mostly uninterrupted golden run from their 1980 debut Boy to 90s benchmarks Achtung Baby and Zooropa. They’ve tried going more pop, becoming more experimental, touring 198

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Entertainment

Crime pays: how Grand Theft Auto became a cultural colossus

Ever since it crashed on to PC and consoles in the late 90s, GTA has been tearing up the game-making rulebook. We explore how its cultural references, rebel spirit and sprawling sense of freedom make it a definitive work of art In the 00s, when the Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar Games revealed a new project, video game writers from all over the UK would make the journey to the company’s office in London. They would be ushered one by one into a darkened room to sit facing an enormous TV. There would be a dish of sweets on a low bench in front of them but, in the reverential hush that desce

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Entertainment

‘I didn’t dance until I was 45’: how Jorge Drexler went from repressed doctor to rump-shaking Oscar-winner

How did a Uruguayan medic who grew up under an anti-music dictatorship win a best song Academy award? As he looks set to scoop up more prizes at the Latin Grammys, we meet the extraordinary Jorge Drexler It makes sense that a Uruguayan doctor turned singer would write a song that begins: “Long live science! Long live poetry!” Guitar y Vos (Guitar and You) is also the first track that Jorge Drexler performs this afternoon at a music industry event in the basement of Madrid’s Movistar arena. The second is El Otro Lado del Rio (The Other Side of the River), which he composed for the Che Guevara r

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Entertainment

‘My father loved Duncan more than he loved us’: the 30-year passion at the heart of the Bloomsbury set – and the family raised in its image

As the work of Bloomsbury artist Duncan Grant features in a major exhibition, Cordelia Roche reflects on her father’s decades-long relationship with the painter – as friend, muse, but never lover After Duncan Grant died in our house, in Aldermaston in Berkshire, at the age of 93, I remember my father’s knees buckling and him falling to the ground. It was 1978, the end of their 32-year relationship, and the end of an era. My father Paul Roche, a poet, writer and translator of Greek plays, seemed to crumble before my eyes. He was 61, a father of five, and I was the youngest. Duncan, the painter,

The Guardian
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Entertainment

Look at Me by Dustin Hoffman review – an era-defining actor says his piece

At 89, the star of the Graduate and Rain Man demonstrates both brilliance and a startling lack of self-awareness The choice of title for an actor’s autobiography can be revealing. Sylvester Stallone went with The Steps, conflating life’s challenging progress with those steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that Rocky euphorically ran up. Michael Douglas cheerfully and unreflectively called his One Helluva Ride. Dustin Hoffman’s is one of those that harks back to the poignantly vulnerable youthful world in which the acting bug first took effect. Al Pacino called his Sonny Boy; Anthony Hopkins

The Guardian
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‘Thicky thicky dumb dumb’ satirist Cody Dahler on his viral videos: ‘my material is presented to me on a silver platter!’

The writer and podcaster on why politics is made to seem more complicated than it is and his mission to unpack world events for everyone Why did you get into comedy? My mum was a professional dancer and always encouraged me to perform. Given that I have zero rhythm, comedy was my other option. She wrote me a poem called Mrs Brown’s Moggy, about a cat that was often very soggy, for my school’s talent show. Because you can’t tell the difference between real and polite laughter at the age of six, I assumed I’d killed my first gig and convinced myself I was born to do nothing else. Where do you fi

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Entertainment

Stacey Dooley’s Australia: Off the Beaten Track review – presenting this fluffy show is beyond her

This trip to Kangaroo Island is pleasant enough, but the investigative reporter seems lost when tackling something that doesn’t feature exploitation or outrage For years on BBC Three, Stacey Dooley equalled strife. Child labour, sexual exploitation, poverty, religious extremism, homelessness: all were ably tackled by a presenter who stood out for her lack of lofty TV-star pretension and her knack for asking the direct questions that were in audience’s minds. Since winning Strictly Come Dancing in 2018, she has gone a bit more mainstream, so although the old Dooley is still around – she’s in th

The Guardian
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Entertainment

Bluey’s Daley Pearson on how losing his brother inspired his new film: ‘He was the best thing ever to me’

Allen, the first live-action film from Pearson’s Ludo Studio, follows a man who met an alien as a kid – and becomes obsessed with bringing him back Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email If, for whatever reason, you want to feel a bit sad, think too hard about what Elliott from ET would have been like as an adult. Or Coraline, or Matilda, or Chihiro, or those kids in Mary Poppins. The most amazing thing that ever happened in their lives – magic nanny, alien friend, psychic abilities, otherworldly adventures – was already over when they were kids. If that bad Harry Potter play taught us an

The Guardian
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