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Entertainment

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Entertainment

‘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

The Guardian
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Entertainment

‘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

The Guardian
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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

The Guardian
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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

The Guardian
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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

The Guardian
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