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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/20/colbert-on-michael-cohen-the-word-innocent-is-nowhere-in-this-conversation

Late-night hosts on Thursday discussed the upcoming talks between the Trump administration and the North Korean leader, Kim Jung-un, the likelihood Michael Cohen will flip on Donald Trump, and the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia Starbucks. Stephen Colbert “Everyone is talking about Donald Trump’s potentially epic summit with Kim Jong-un,” Stephen Colbert began. “It’s the dispute of the ill-fitting suits. It’s the men with the nukes putting up their dukes.” “The stakes are huge,” the host continued, adding that Trump, according to reports, sees the North Korea crisis as his “Great Man” of history moment. “The greatest presidents end up on our currency. Donald Trump could end up on our hush money.” According to a source from Axios, Trump has said of the meeting: “Just get me in the room with the guy and I’ll figure it out.” “He’s going to wing it with a nuclear madman,” replied Colbert. “It’s like your surgeon going, ‘We’re just going to open you up and improvise.’ Moving on to the president’s escalating legal troubles, Colbert said: “There are some doubts about the president’s current attorney and man-who’s-definitely-seen-the-Trump-sex-tape, Michael Cohen. Apparently, Trump and his advisers are increasingly worried that Cohen might be susceptible to cooperating with federal prosecutors. “One Trump team lawyer says Cohen’s loyalty depends on how much prison time he’s facing,” Colbert explained. He quoted from a Politico report in which a source said that, faced with just two to four years in prison, “Michael Cohen would be a stand-up guy. I think he’d tell them to go piss up a rope.” The source added: if “it’s 18 to 22, then how loyal is he?” “Michael Cohen disclosed Sean Hannity’s name in court after being asked twice,” Colbert shot back. “He’s not five minutes loyal. “Let’s just pause a moment to notice that they have jumped immediately to whether Michael Cohen will turn state’s evidence against the president of the United States to avoid jail time, which everybody believes is coming for at least one of these guys,” Colbert concluded. “The word innocent is nowhere in this conversation.” Trevor Noah Meanwhile, Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah discussed the ongoing controversy involving two black men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, who were arrested for trespassing at a Starbucks while waiting to meet a friend. “If you’re a black person, you’re probably buzzing from some great news right now,” Noah began. “Kendrick Lamar just won a Pulitzer prize for music, the first time this award has gone to someone not in classical music or jazz. Other great news: Beyoncé tore the roof off Coachella. And guys, this was the blackest performance at the whitest festival. “All in all, it feels like a great couple of days for black America,” the host continued. “But unfortunately, if you’re a black person who is not on stage, not everything is going your way.” Noah then showed news coverage regarding Nelson and Robinson, who arrived at a Philadelphia Starbucks for a business meeting and were denied access to the restroom because it was only for paying customers. Moments later, a white store employee called 911 and police arrived on the scene to arrest the men. “How crazy is this? Two men arrested for waiting to meet someone at Starbucks,” Noah said. “There are some people saying, ‘Well, why were these guys in Starbucks doing nothing?’ Because that’s what Starbucks is for!” Noah continued: “If I can get serious for just a minute here: do you have any idea what it does to a person’s dignity to be arrested … by bike cops? Someone calls the cops on you, and instead of driving up with sirens wailing all bad-ass, they’re like ding, ding, ding ding. “America clearly has a problem with policing and black people,” the host added. “On the one hand, you have people calling the police because they see black people as inherently threatening. And then you have police who only know how to respond to a call with an arrest or violence.”

culture/2018/apr/20/colbert-on-michael-cohen-the-word-innocent-is-nowhere-in-this-conversation

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2018-04-20T15:29:42Z

Colbert on Michael Cohen: 'The word innocent is nowhere in this conversation'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/20/colbert-on-michael-cohen-the-word-innocent-is-nowhere-in-this-conversation

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/live/2018/apr/17/david-morrissey-webchat-post-your-questions-now

We’re out of time. Thanks for all your questions! Arthur Sternom asks: Miracle of Istanbul still the greatest day ever? carygrant3000 asks: What are your favourite sweets? Jamie Lemon asks: In The City and the City, do you think there is any deep metaphor for what it is like to live in the modern European city? Potato1998 asks: Are you wearing shorts today? MardyBex asks: Any chance you’ll be returning as Thorne? whitewall66 asks: Was Holding On the turning point in your career? I don’t think it’s ever been repeated – I thought it was excellent. Drust asks: Brecht urged actors to adopt a ‘gestic stance’ in order to help define the emotion within a character and the context. Are you a practitioner of his theory or do you just wing it? randomradastudent asks: What felt more life-changing; moving from Liverpool to London to attend Rada as a working-class actor or moving from London to America to become a film star? Matt08 asks: One Summer resonated with a lot of my generation, everyone watched it and talked about it school the next day. Can you remember anything about it? Did you know you were working on something pretty groundbreaking? Catchytitled asks: Mo Salah or Ian Rush in his prime? CathyWx asks: I love it when you DJ! Did you ever do it when you were younger? G A Johnson asks: I admire your work with refugees. What first inspired you to work with them and do you see yourself continuing to do that for a long time? RhondaKaySimpson asks: Besides reading the novel, what kind of research did you do for The City and the City’s Inspector Tyador Borlú? Lisa1968 asks: Hi David! What were your favourite filming locations in Liverpool and Manchester for The City and the City? I know it was special for you being in your hometown. wingers1966 asks: How was your experience of playing Mark Antony in Julius Caesar at the Bridge theatre? How did your characterisation of Antony come about? eoffwode asks: Do you regret Basic Instinct 2? midwintersnow asks: What advice would you give to a young person now without any means or support but who is really burning to go into acting? Rtho87 asks: I loved your portrayal of The Governor in The Walking Dead. Is there any chance that you’ll ever play the role again? An adaption of the Rise of the Governor novel would make a wonderful prequel! tuityfruity asks: What are you planning to do next and how do you choose such good stuff? Or are you never asked to do dross? FuzzyDunlop1982 asks: Blimey, how good was State of Play, eh?! What do you think of the movie remake?! Su_tonightwefly7 asks: I thought you were amazing in Julius Caesar at the Bridge theatre. What did you enjoy most about working together on stage with Ben Whishaw? Any anecdotes you can share? LeaFrostfromGermany asks: Your recent TV projects were European co-productions, involving international cast and filming locations. How will Brexit affect you as an actor and producer? RhondaKaySimpson asks: If you could have bring any film you have done to the stage, which one would it be? RiaHenderson asks: Which one of your characters can you relate to the most / who’s most like your personality in real life?! RhondaKaySimpson asks: How did you get ready for the swimming in Britannia. It looked very cold to be swimming … carllalala asks: Having heard you talking about music, I reckon your fave Beatles album is probably Let It Be. But John or Paul? And is here to answers your questions… David Morrissey webchat – post your questions now Stage, small screen and big screen: over the course of his career, David Morrissey has done them all and made himself one of the UK’s most respected character actors in the process. A working-class Liverpudlian, when he told his parents about his chosen career path it didn’t go down too well. “It was like telling them I wanted to be an astronaut,” he told the Guardian in 2015. “Not because it was highfalutin’, but because it was a world they didn’t know. They were worried about the unknown.” Starting out at the Everyman theatre in his home city, Morrissey studied at Rada before a breakthrough role in Anand Tucker’s Hilary and Jackie, followed by one as Captain Weber in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin in 2001. But, arguably, it’s his small-screen roles that have defined his career. His turn as a compromised politician in Paul Abbott’s State of Play astonished, as did his portrayal of Gordon Brown in The Deal, while his more recent stint as the Governor on The Walking Dead made him a global star. He is currently starring in the BBC’s sci-fi crime thriller The City and the City, a four-part adaptation of China Miéville’s award-winning novel, which is available in full on iPlayer. Morrissey plays Inspector Tyador Borlú, who is caught between two parallel worlds. David will be joining us for a live webchat at 1.15pm GMT on Friday 20 April. Post your questions about his career in the comments section below.

culture/live/2018/apr/17/david-morrissey-webchat-post-your-questions-now

pillar/arts

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Culture

liveblog

2018-04-20T13:32:58Z

David Morrissey webchat – your questions answered on working-class actors, Mo Salah and Basic Instinct 2

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/live/2018/apr/17/david-morrissey-webchat-post-your-questions-now

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/20/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

Five of the best ... films Funny Cow (15) (Adrian Shergold, 2017, UK) 103 mins A female wannabe standup in 1970s northern England is asking for trouble, you could say, but Maxine Peake’s heroine here is already no stranger to trouble, from a troubled childhood to an abusive husband. Her story is no straight rags-to-riches feelgood drama; it’s more a gritty, bittersweet character study, carried by Peake’s magnificent performance. Custody (15) (Xavier Legrand, 2017, Fra) 94 mins This realist family drama could almost be a social services case study, so convincing is the acting and so effective the execution. Instead, it steadily morphs into something more tense and terrifying. Surly ex-husband Denis Ménochet is granted access to his young son; ex-wife Léa Drucker fears the consequences. We soon find out why. A Quiet Place (15) (John Krasinski, 2018, US) 90 mins Tiptoe, don’t walk to see this great horror, whose novel post-apocalyptic scenario (Earth has been overrun by alien monsters with sensitive hearing) is primed for excruciating tension – especially as there’s a baby on the way. It’s also a moving family drama, as parents Krasinski and Emily Blunt suffer the ravages of grief, loneliness and despair, mostly in silence. A Gentle Creature (18) (Sergei Loznitsa, 2017, Fra/Ger/Rus/Lith/Neth/Ukr/Lat) 143 mins It’s ostensibly set in a modern-day Russian prison town but this unforgettable drama feels like a journey into a nightmare world, where law and order are all up for grabs. Our guide is a country wife (Vasilina Makovtseva) on a search for answers about her convict husband, but between the Kafkaesque bureaucracy, untrustworthy locals, drunkenness and exploitation, we pray she’ll make it out in one piece. Western (12A) (Valeska Grisebach, 2017, Ger/Bul/Aus) 121 mins This extraordinary film is too rich and complex to categorise. The frontier is eastern European rather than wild western: a group of German contractors working in rural Bulgaria. Cultural clashes flare up but our hero is a modern-day Clint Eastwood type: a quiet, strong, solitary (Meinhard Neumann, pictured, right) whose friendly engagement with the locals has repercussions. SR Five of the best ... rock & pop gigs Novelist Kojo Kankam, AKA 21-year-old MC Novelist, has been biding his time. Various accolades – best grime act nomination at the 2014 Mobo awards, appearing on the BBC Sound Of poll a year later – haven’t rushed him, with his long-awaited debut, the self-produced Novelist Guy, released this month. Expect to hear him rattle through it at this one-off London show. Bermondsey Social Club, SE16 Wednesday 25 April Natalie Prass After the success of 2015’s self-titled debut – a collaboration with Matthew E White’s Spacebomb collective – Prass will return in June with its follow-up, The Future and the Past. It’s an album she re-wrote to be more positive after the 2016 US elections, and first single Short Court Style adds a dose of playful pop to the immaculate Americana. London, Monday 23; Brighton, Thursday 26; Manchester, Friday 27; touring to 29 April Boy Azooga Prior to forming the intriguingly titled Boy Azooga, band leader Davey Newington drummed under the alias Bongo Fury in Charlotte Church’s covers collective Late Night Pop Dungeon. His new day job feels equally playful, taking in psychedelia, a light smattering of funk and chunky riffs. Bristol, Tuesday 24; Southampton, Wednesday 25; London, Thursday 26; Birmingham, Friday 27 April; touring to 24 June Kele Okereke Ahead of Bloc Party’s forthcoming Silent Alarm 13th-anniversary tour, Okereke focuses on solo business with this quick jaunt in support of last year’s surprisingly stripped-back Fatherland album. Fingers crossed there’s also space for some songs from his excellent, much clubbier 2010 solo debut, The Boxer. Norwich, Sunday 22; Cambridge, Monday 23; Tunbridge Wells, Tuesday 24; Cardiff, Thursday 26; Southampton, Friday 27; touring to 29 April MC Martin Speake/Ethan Iverson Quartet American pianist Ethan Iverson became a contemporary music celebrity for his now-ended 20-year association with genre-bending trio the Bad Plus. A free agent again, he rekindles his longer musical friendship with British saxophonist Martin Speake in this sharp quartet, in a creative mix of originals, standards and updated bebop. Brighton, Saturday 21; Colchester, Sunday 22; Cheltenham, Monday 23; London, Tuesday 24 & Wednesday 25; Bristol, Thursday 26; Reading, Friday 27 April JF Four of the best ... classical concerts Simpson’s Cello Concerto In 2015, the BBC Philharmonic premiered The Immortal, a choral work that established Mark Simpson as a creative force to be reckoned with in British music. Simpson has now become the orchestra’s composer-in-association, and the first product of that is a cello concerto he’s written for Leonard Elschenbroich, with Clemens Schuldt conducting. Bridgewater Hall, Manchester Saturday 21 April Occupy the Pianos This is the third annual celebration of contemporary keyboard music, curated by composer and pianist Rolf Hind. Highlights of the final two days include new works by Zoë Martlew, Luke Bedford and Loré Lixenberg, scenes from Mauricio Kagel’s groundbreaking Staatstheater, and performances of Feldman, Rădulescu and Rzewski. St John’s Smith Square, SW1, Saturday 21 & Sunday 22 April Outre-Mémoire Founded by composer Thierry Pécou, Ensemble Variances specialise in concerts that go beyond the usual assemblages of disparate new works. Their visit to this year’s Bristol New Music is devoted to Pécou’s own piece, Outre-Mémoire, a quartet described as an “exploration of the slave trade through music”. Victoria Rooms, Bristol, Sunday 22 April Eugene Onegin In contrast to some other leading British opera companies, Scottish Opera is very much on the up at the moment. The cast in Oliver Mears’s production of Tchaikovsky’s lyrical masterpiece is led by the Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw, with Samuel Dale Johnson as Onegin. Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Friday27 April to 5 May; touring to 30 June AC Five of the best ... exhibitions Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece Rodin reinvented sculpture and paved the way for modern art, yet he was also a dedicated student of the classical tradition. This bold exhibition sets his sensual, erotic and tragic figures alongside the Parthenon marbles and other ancient Greek masterpieces in what should be a sensational display of stone and bronze bodies pulsing with life and power. British Museum, WC1 Thursday 26 April to 29 July Julian Opie How simply can you draw a human face and still have it express something? Julian Opie’s art combines the graphic humour of Tintin’s creator Hergé with a philosophical investigation of what it is to make a picture. The result is a crisp, lucid vision of modern life in accessible yet intelligent works of pop art. Alan Cristea Gallery, SW1, Thursday 26 April to 16 June Bomberg The Jewish East End was a cultural dynamo before the first world war and David Bomberg was its most gifted young artist. He got thrown out of art school for being too modernist and went on to defiantly exhibit paintings such as The Mud Bath (1914), a Futurist vision of a Whitechapel steam bath. Later, he painted realist landscapes that glower with restless energy, and also taught the young Frank Auerbach. Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, to 28 May Monet & Architecture This is a thought-provoking as well as visually ravishing journey into the mind of Monet. He never lets you down. Every one of the 78 paintings is entrancing and many will be unfamiliar, for the curators have searched far and wide for images of churches, railway stations and other buildings in Monet’s art. The result is almost shocking, revealing the symbolic intensity and moral meanings of paintings so often dismissed as merely pretty. The National Gallery, WC2, to 29 July Otto Boll and Jef Verheyen The further reaches of abstraction are explored in this ethereal meeting of two elusive European artists. The German Boll’s sculptures (pictured) resemble black whips tapering away to nothingness or frames for pictures that don’t exist. The paintings by the late Belgian Verheyen are blue or pink planes of druggy mystic possibility. Two artists of contemplative purity and freedom who are worth discovering. Modern Art, EC1, Friday 27 April to 16 June JJ Five of the best ... theatre shows Everybody’s Talking About Jamie It may have been scooped by Hamilton in the Oliviers, but nobody should underestimate the achievement of Dan Gillespie Sells and Tom MacRae in creating this contemporary, original musical. John McCrea is a knockout as the teenage would-be drag queen, and if this show doesn’t send you out of the theatre on a high, then you must already be dead. Apollo Theatre, W1 to 6 October A Streetcar Named Desire Chelsea Walker’s revival of Tennessee Williams’s drama for English Touring Theatre is a slow burn, but it finally delivers in a second half that destroys both Blanche’s illusions and those of the audience too. Kelly Gough, sister to the better-known Denise, is outstanding as Blanche. Bristol Old Vic, Saturday 21; New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, Tuesday 24 to 28 April; touring to 16 June The Cherry Orchard Michael Boyd’s revival of Chekhov’s final play is full of nuance, light and shade. The dead son of Madam Ranyevskaya (an excellent Kirsty Bushell) haunts the action in an evening that comes in a fine new translation by Rory Mullarkey. It begins in period costume but gradually takes a contemporary turn. The effect is to create a Cherry Orchard that is about both a 19th-century world in a state of flux and our own times. Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, to 19 May The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk A story of creativity and love in a century of change, this show about the life and times of Marc and Bella Chagall is exquisitely done in a production by Emma Rice that really does feel as if it flies. Daniel Jamieson’s script charts Russian history from the pogroms to revolution with a light touch and the show is infused with Russian-Jewish folk music. The Oxford Playhouse, Saturday 21; Royal & Derngate, Northampton, Tuesday 24 to 28 April; touring to 10 June Mary Stuart Schiller’s political tragedy considers the differing fates of two cousins and queens: Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Robert Icke’s version and production has the raciness of a thriller and two remarkable actors – Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams – to play the two women, both prisoners in their own ways and subject to the whims of fate. The toss of a coin on the night decides who plays which role. The Lowry, Salford, Saturday 21; Cambridge Arts Theatre, Monday 23 to 28 April LG Three of the best ... dance shows Cecilia Bengolea & François Chaignaud: DFS Ballet meets Jamaican dancehall, and medieval vocal polyphony meets rap in this wildly eclectic, entertaining new work by acclaimed French choreographers Bengolea and Chaignaud, who have worked with Lyon Opera Ballet and Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch since getting together in 2005. Sadler’s Wells, EC1 Monday 23 & Tuesday 24 Phoenix Dance Theatre: Windrush Using an eclectic soundtrack of jazz, calypso, lovers rock and dub, Sharon Watson’s fine dance drama about Caribbean immigration to Britain addresses the racism and poverty that the Windrush generation encountered, but also celebrates their successes. Peacock Theatre, WC2, Thursday 26 to 28 April JV2 The excellent youth ensemble attached to Jasmin Vardimon Company are touring a punchy triple bill of short dance works. Pieces by Yunkyung Song and André Rebelo are completed by Vardimon’s own In Between. Gulbenkian, Canterbury, Tuesday 24; Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Friday 27 & 28 April JM

culture/2018/apr/20/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-20T11:29:12Z

What to see this week in the UK

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/20/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

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'composer-in-association', 'first', 'product', 'cello', 'concerto', 'written', 'leonard', 'elschenbroich', 'clemens', 'schuldt', 'conducting', 'bridgewater', 'hall', 'manchester', 'saturday', 'april', 'occupy', 'pianos', 'third', 'annual', 'celebration', 'contemporary', 'keyboard', 'music', 'curated', 'composer', 'pianist', 'rolf', 'hind', 'highlights', 'final', 'two', 'days', 'include', 'new', 'works', 'zoe', 'martlew', 'luke', 'bedford', 'lore', 'lixenberg', 'scenes', 'mauricio', 'kagel', 'groundbreaking', 'staatstheater', 'performances', 'feldman', 'radulescu', 'rzewski', 'st', 'john', 'smith', 'square', 'sw1', 'saturday', 'amp', 'sunday', 'april', 'outre-memoire', 'founded', 'composer', 'thierry', 'pecou', 'ensemble', 'variances', 'specialise', 'concerts', 'go', 'beyond', 'usual', 'assemblages', 'disparate', 'new', 'works', 'visit', 'year', 'bristol', 'new', 'music', 'devoted', 'pecou', 'piece', 'outre-memoire', 'quartet', 'described', 'exploration', 'slave', 'trade', 'music', 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'ways', 'subject', 'whims', 'fate', 'toss', 'coin', 'night', 'decides', 'plays', 'role', 'lowry', 'salford', 'saturday', 'cambridge', 'arts', 'theatre', 'monday', 'april', 'lg', 'three', 'best', 'dance', 'shows', 'cecilia', 'bengolea', 'amp', 'francois', 'chaignaud', 'dfs', 'ballet', 'meets', 'jamaican', 'dancehall', 'medieval', 'vocal', 'polyphony', 'meets', 'rap', 'wildly', 'eclectic', 'entertaining', 'new', 'work', 'acclaimed', 'french', 'choreographers', 'bengolea', 'chaignaud', 'worked', 'lyon', 'opera', 'ballet', 'tanztheater', 'wuppertal', 'pina', 'bausch', 'since', 'getting', 'together', 'sadler', 'wells', 'ec1', 'monday', 'amp', 'tuesday', 'phoenix', 'dance', 'theatre', 'windrush', 'using', 'eclectic', 'soundtrack', 'jazz', 'calypso', 'lovers', 'rock', 'dub', 'sharon', 'watson', 'fine', 'dance', 'drama', 'caribbean', 'immigration', 'britain', 'addresses', 'racism', 'poverty', 'windrush', 'generation', 'encountered', 'also', 'celebrates', 'successes', 'peacock', 'theatre', 'wc2', 'thursday', 'april', 'jv2', 'excellent', 'youth', 'ensemble', 'attached', 'jasmin', 'vardimon', 'company', 'touring', 'punchy', 'triple', 'bill', 'short', 'dance', 'works', 'pieces', 'yunkyung', 'song', 'andre', 'rebelo', 'completed', 'vardimon', 'gulbenkian', 'canterbury', 'tuesday', 'sadler', 'wells', 'ec1', 'friday', 'amp', 'april', 'jm']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/19/kendrick-pulitzer-black-artists-excellence-beyonce-grammys-creativity-equality

Did she just say … Kendrick Lamar? The satisfied little smile on Pulitzer prize administrator Dana Canedy’s face as she announced the final award of the afternoon confirmed what I thought I surely had misheard. In awarding the first Pulitzer for a hip-hop album and artist, the music jury, which included the jazz violinist Regina Carter and Columbia professor Farah Jasmine Griffin, cited Lamar’s “vernacular authenticity” and “affecting vignettes … on African-American life”. In other words, the boy can rap. It has been an abundant week for black excellence: Black Panther was certified the third highest-grossing film in US box-office history; Beyoncé delivered a jaw-dropping performance at Coachella; and yes, Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer prize. We seem to be having a moment. But is it a moment of increased creativity, or just increased recognition for what we’ve been doing all along? The surprise of Lamar’s win comes, in part, from the fact that the Pulitzers don’t announce finalists ahead of time. But there’s also, obviously, another element: no one expects a young black rapper to win one of the fanciest prizes in the land. Despite the fact that black Americans have long been at the vanguard of popular music and culture – evidenced, in part, by hip-hop overtaking rock this year to officially become the top-selling musical genre – there is still a gaping chasm between black artists’ creative achievements and how that work is acknowledged by the white mainstream. Beyoncé’s riveting performance at Coachella last weekend is just one example. With her all-black marching band and string section, Formation-infused rendition of James Weldon Johnson’s “black national anthem” Lift Every Voice and Sing, and tireless vocals and choreography, she gave us a loving salute to historically black college culture that was not only artistically impressive, but a technical feat, with abundant pyrotechnics, a giant bleacher-style set, dozens of musicians and dancers in constant, meticulous motion, and top-level live video editing that is tough to get in a single take. But she was also the first woman of colour to headline the festival in its 20-year history. She is the most beloved artist on the face of the planet, but had to watch Adele, a huge Beyoncé fan, reluctantly accept the 2017 Grammy for Album of the Year over her. In previous years, Beyoncé lost that award to Beck and to Taylor Swift. There’s a reason Kanye West ran up to a different award stage, at the Video Music awards in 2009, to snatch the microphone from Taylor Swift to deem Beyoncé’s Single Ladies “one of the best videos of all time”– because mainstream institutions rarely give black artists their due. You can hold your breath waiting on that recognition; or you can take matters – and mics – into your own hands. This reality harks back to what so many black children are taught by our parents: that we have to “work twice as hard to earn half as much”. That to succeed, compromises and considerations have to be made. Tina Knowles, in hearing her daughter’s idea for a Coachella show with an HBCU (historically black colleges and universities) theme for a mostly white audience, thought perhaps it would go over their heads. (And it did.) Beyoncé’s response? “At this point in my life and my career, I have a responsibility to do what’s best for the world and not what is most popular.” If you know you might not ever get a top award for your work, perhaps that allows you the creative licence to do whatever you want. For Beyoncé, whose racial politics did not discernibly enter her work until Lemonade (2016), that has meant celebrating the Black Panthers at the Super Bowl and talking about police brutality in the Formation video. At Coachella, it meant creating her own sorority, “Beta Delta Kappa”, complete with step show and an initiation – for a “historically Beyoncé college or university”. As someone who attended an HBCU, it felt so good, so special, to be directly spoken to like that. Beyoncé said she hoped young people of all races would feel inspired to further research the references made in her performance. But she didn’t make that beautiful performance for everybody. She made it for us. The same goes for Lamar and Damn. It’s an album that is explicitly political, openly black and undeniably good. His Pulitzer resonates, in part, because it’s a deviation from the norm of overlooking black artists for their unparalleled contributions to culture. It is also a major institution’s belated acknowledgment of a genre that has been award-worthy for decades. For the Pulitzers, Grammys and others, the first person of colour to do something often happens long after the founding of the organisation. Though it’s exciting to see Lamar, Beyoncé, Ava DuVernay, Tiffany Haddish and Donald Glover be so publicly lauded, it does raise the question: why did it take so long? Every year that black people and other marginalised groups get shut out from big awards (which could be every year), there are two reactions: the demand for inclusion, and the demand to “create our own awards”. There are those who seek the legitimising kiss of an Academy; and there are those who know it’s not by us, or for us. The Pulitzer board’s “special citations”, which are only occasionally given, illustrate a telling pattern: Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk were only honoured long after their deaths; Alex Haley was cited for Roots in 1977 when he just as easily could have won for The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It reminds me of Spike Lee’s “special” Oscar awarded in 2015; it smacks of a consolation prize. With someone as culturally invested as Lamar, it’s important to remember that a Pulitzer does not legitimate him, his work, or his art form. Though it be middle-aged, with a Harvard archive and research institute specialising in it, hip-hop has never needed formal recognition of its merits. And for black artists, who so often get passed over for recognition, many times in favour of non-black artists doing approximately the same thing (see: Macklemore beating Lamar for best rap album at the 2014 Grammys), that distinction – a guest at the table, or seated at the head – might mean the difference between the freedom to create, and the hope that one day, that kiss will be for you. It’s wonderful to see them celebrated and deified but Kendrick, Beyoncé, Lena Waithe, Jordan Peele, Cardi B, and so many more were creating works we love long before the establishment paid attention. In other words, if a black artist does her work in the woods and the white mainstream isn’t there to see it, doesn’t she still slay?

culture/2018/apr/19/kendrick-pulitzer-black-artists-excellence-beyonce-grammys-creativity-equality

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-19T17:15:58Z

From Kendrick's Pulitzer to Beychella: how the mainstream woke up to black excellence

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/19/kendrick-pulitzer-black-artists-excellence-beyonce-grammys-creativity-equality

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'performance', 'everybody', 'made', 'us', 'goes', 'lamar', 'damn', 'album', 'explicitly', 'political', 'openly', 'black', 'undeniably', 'good', 'pulitzer', 'resonates', 'part', 'deviation', 'norm', 'overlooking', 'black', 'artists', 'unparalleled', 'contributions', 'culture', 'also', 'major', 'institution', 'belated', 'acknowledgment', 'genre', 'award-worthy', 'decades', 'pulitzers', 'grammys', 'others', 'first', 'person', 'colour', 'something', 'often', 'happens', 'long', 'founding', 'organisation', 'though', 'exciting', 'see', 'lamar', 'beyonce', 'ava', 'duvernay', 'tiffany', 'haddish', 'donald', 'glover', 'publicly', 'lauded', 'raise', 'question', 'take', 'long', 'every', 'year', 'black', 'people', 'marginalised', 'groups', 'get', 'shut', 'big', 'awards', 'could', 'every', 'year', 'two', 'reactions', 'demand', 'inclusion', 'demand', 'create', 'awards', 'seek', 'legitimising', 'kiss', 'academy', 'know', 'us', 'us', 'pulitzer', 'board', 'special', 'citations', 'occasionally', 'given', 'illustrate', 'telling', 'pattern', 'duke', 'ellington', 'john', 'coltrane', 'thelonious', 'monk', 'honoured', 'long', 'deaths', 'alex', 'haley', 'cited', 'roots', 'easily', 'could', 'autobiography', 'malcolm', 'x', 'reminds', 'spike', 'lee', 'special', 'oscar', 'awarded', 'smacks', 'consolation', 'prize', 'someone', 'culturally', 'invested', 'lamar', 'important', 'remember', 'pulitzer', 'legitimate', 'work', 'art', 'form', 'though', 'middle-aged', 'harvard', 'archive', 'research', 'institute', 'specialising', 'hip-hop', 'never', 'needed', 'formal', 'recognition', 'merits', 'black', 'artists', 'often', 'get', 'passed', 'recognition', 'many', 'times', 'favour', 'non-black', 'artists', 'approximately', 'thing', 'see', 'macklemore', 'beating', 'lamar', 'best', 'rap', 'album', 'grammys', 'distinction', 'guest', 'table', 'seated', 'head', 'might', 'mean', 'difference', 'freedom', 'create', 'hope', 'one', 'day', 'kiss', 'wonderful', 'see', 'celebrated', 'deified', 'kendrick', 'beyonce', 'lena', 'waithe', 'jordan', 'peele', 'cardi', 'b', 'many', 'creating', 'works', 'love', 'long', 'establishment', 'paid', 'attention', 'words', 'black', 'artist', 'work', 'woods', 'white', 'mainstream', 'see', 'still', 'slay']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/18/comey-colbert-interview-trump-breakup-late-night-roundup

Late-night hosts on Tuesday discussed Sean Hannity’s connection to Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who appeared in court on Monday, and James Comey, who was interviewed by Stephen Colbert as he promotes a tell-all book about his tenure as FBI director. Stephen Colbert “Everyone’s still reeling from yesterday’s court hearing about Trump attorney and guy-who-looks-as-tired-as-a-Trump-attorney, Michael Cohen,” said Colbert. “Trump asked to look at all the evidence seized from Cohen’s office before the government had a chance to and the judge said, and I quote, ‘No.’” The judge is considering turning the evidence over to a “special master”, which Colbert joked is “also what Trump called Stormy Daniels while she was spanking him with that magazine”. “Trump’s got to be concerned about what the Feds are going to find,” added Colbert, who noted, citing a report from Axios, that Cohen’s work is “all side deals and off-the-books stuff”. “There was also an appearance from porn star and major historical figure Stormy Daniels,” the host added, showing the illustration, done by a forensic sketch artist, of the man who supposedly threatened Daniels not to discuss her affair with Trump. “There he is, the man who threatened her: the lovechild of Willem Dafoe, Tom Brady and Bon Jovi.” Colbert also conducted an extensive interview with James Comey, who’s currently promoting his book A Higher Loyalty. The former FBI director, in response to a question about Trump calling him a “slimeball” on Twitter, said: “I’m like a breakup he can’t get over.” When Comey compared Trump to a mob boss, noting “the leadership style is actually strikingly similar”, Colbert asked then why he was surprised he got “whacked”. “I actually was quite surprised because I thought, ‘I’m leading the Russia investigation’,” Comey said. “Even though our relationship was becoming strained, there’s no way I’m going to get fired or whacked.” “Why wouldn’t you get fired?” Colbert added. “Because that would be a crazy thing to do. Why would you fire the FBI director who is leading the Russia investigation?” Comey replied. Colbert shot back: “Because you’re leading the Russia investigation!” The two also briefly discussed rumors of a “pee tape”, alleged in the infamous Steele dossier. Colbert, who recently stayed at the same hotel suite in Moscow where Trump allegedly slept with Russian prostitutes, asked Comey if he’d like to ask anything about the room. “Is it big enough for a germaphobe to be at a safe distance from the activity?” Comey asked, referencing Trump’s claim that, because he is a germaphobe, the rumors of golden showers with Russian hookers cannot be true. “The bedroom is very long,” Colbert replied. “You’d definitely be out of, what we call at Sea World, the splash zone.” Trevor Noah Meanwhile, Trevor Noah focused on the revelation that Michael Cohen’s third, previously undisclosed legal client is Fox News anchor Sean Hannity, who in the last year has frequently covered Trump and Cohen’s mounting legal troubles without disclosing his relationship to Cohen. “Even though yesterday might have sucked for Hannity, it helped his ratings because everyone tuned in to see what creative excuse he’d come up with to explain his Michael Cohen relationship,” Noah began. “And the answer was: ‘it’s complicated’.” Noah then showed clips from Hannity’s Monday night show, in which he said he’s “never received an invoice” from or “paid Michael Cohen for legal fees”. Hannity claimed he’d only discussed real estate with the attorney. “He wasn’t your lawyer, he just answered your legal questions? Giving legal input and perspective is exactly what a lawyer does,” Noah said, noting that Hannity’s real estate excuse “makes what he said a few hours earlier on his radio show all the more confusing”. The host then played audio from Hannity’s afternoon radio show, where he said, in reference to Cohen, “I might have handed him 10 bucks” to suggest “I definitely want attorney-client privilege on this”. Noah continued: “You know, what gets me is how casually Hannity is trying to minimize his connection to Michael Cohen, like it means nothing, especially when every other day of the year he’s the guy who can bake a conspiracy cake out of nothing more than an egg and the word Hillary.”

culture/2018/apr/18/comey-colbert-interview-trump-breakup-late-night-roundup

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-18T15:15:48Z

James Comey to Stephen Colbert: 'I’m like a breakup Trump can’t get over'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/18/comey-colbert-interview-trump-breakup-late-night-roundup

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/live/2018/apr/13/shawn-mendes-webchat-interview

NeilabOsman asks: What other occupation do you think you’d be pursuing if it wasn’t being a musician? Or were you always adamant on becoming a singer? Intorisblood asks: How did you realise that you struggle with anxiety and need help? Margarida_cruz asks: Any new artist that you’re obsessed with right now? Love from Portugal x Find out about Daniel Caesar here NeilabOsman asks: What are your all time favourite Ed Sheeran songs? (hard question - i know haha) juliaportes asks: Can you say something about your collabs on the new album? NeilabOsman asks: Would you say you’re romantic-comedy type of guy? If so, what is your favourite romance movie? zahraxo asks: Shawn, what’s your go-to karaoke song? Intorisblood asks: What languages would you like to be able to speak or/and understand? ezjacksonmusic wonders: If you’re ever in a weird situation, do you ever just think, “What would John Mayer do”? Bahahah x Intorisblood asks: Thoughts on Love, Simon, before and after watching it? ezjacksonmusic asks: What was your favourite kids’ show growing up? X juliaportes says: Describe your album in 3 words! Mia Ward-Gibbs asks: When will we get a music video for in my blood? LeaMendes asks: What does your necklace mean to you? Didn’t really see it but it looks good Syazak asks: Hey will u get more tattoos? If yes, what kind of tattoo do you want to have or have in mind and where u want it to be? Btw love you Ringblee_Diphusa asks: What was cool when you were young but isn’t cool now? Love from India sukieanya asks: Did you intend for the first two singles to have completely juxtaposing views or was it something you decided close to the release of them? skyemarina asks: Would you ever consider releasing a Christmas album? janaburger asks: Do you think you are an introvert or an extrovert person? love u!❤️ hermione260504 asks: Who’s ur fav minor character in Harry Potter? Mine’s Fred and George JessMendes asks: What would you do if you got your anonymity back for one day? xx Jessie alessialess asks: Do you and your friends send each other memes? love you xx Kelseyskilbeck asks: Can you do a British accent? love you Domenica14 asks: Do you think that if you’d never become famous, you would have gone to college? And if so what would you major in? HanaZeid99 asks: What pet would you love to have? Tazminmendes asks: Are you excited to perform for the queen? Ferlovesshawn asks: What’s something that you miss about living with your parents? maya_winters asks: What was the best piece of advice you have ever received, and the best piece of advice you would give to others? xx maryamzafar asks: What’s the most important thing you’ve learnt in your recent years that you wish you could tell your younger self? SaraKarlsson asks: If you weren’t living in Toronto, where would you be living? Love you xx Myam0t0 asks: Beans on a fry up? zixiukheng asks: If you could only eat 1 food for the rest of your life what would it be? Tazminmendes wonders: Do you brush your teeth before or after breakfast? Gracelovesshawn says: Here is a really important question and think about it carefully. What is you favourite English delicacy? Fish and chips, curry, roast dinner with Yorkshire puddings or a classic English breakfast? Nicola_powell asks: What do you and the band do back stage to warm up nutmeg02 asks: What is the most embarrassing thing that happens to you on stage? selenarreyes asks: What is your most memorable accomplishment as an artist? love you x AlexandraWay asks: What was your best moment in 2018 so far ? DWFan1 asks: What’s your favourite Pixar film? neartheclocktower asks: Favourite Harry Potter character? And book/movie? Kelseyskilbeck says: I’m currently doing exams and get really stresssed really easily. What’s your advice on not stressing as much? Love you btw (Here’s a link to Calm.) Tazminmendes asks: What do you do when you are stressed out and overwhelmed with everything? Muskan_malkani asks: Whenever you doubted yourself or felt like giving up, what’s the one thought that kept you going and working towards where you are today ? I love you so much Xx WiekeSchaafsma says: In My Blood is a very personal song. Did you have second thoughts about releasing it because it shows the things that you are struggling with? (Love from Fryslân, The Netherlands) Mia Ward-Gibbs asks: What inspired you to write Lost in Japan? neartheclocktower says: In the song Lost In Japan it says, “I’m a couple hundred miles from Japan.” Where were you when you wrote that? Were you really a couple hundred miles from Japan? CarolynCiaf asks: From one writer to another, how do you keep your thoughts authentic and true to you when transferring them from your mind to paper for lyrics? Mia Ward-Gibbs asks: If you could go out and buy any guitar right now, what would you get? reaganwilkinson asks: what’s your favorite song atm? love you selenarreyes asks: If you had to listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be? love you x The last time we heard from Shawn Mendes was April 2017, when the pop idol released There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back, an irrepressible celebration of annihilating one’s inhibitions. This makes the 19-year-old’s new single, In My Blood, even more startling: it’s a tender song about Mendes’s experiences with anxiety, wrought in vulnerable, visceral terms. “Someone help me, I’m crawling in my skin,” he sings. Unsurprisingly, he has described it as “the closest song to my heart that I’ve ever written”, and he recently opened up to Beats 1’s Zane Lowe about his surprise at being floored by anxiety over the past year. It’s this emotional openness that has helped Mendes become a generational icon. Time magazine named him one of the world’s most influential teens for four years in a row, while he topped Billboard’s 21 Under 21 list in 2017 and won two of the top prizes at Radio 1’s Teen Awards in 2016. Then there are the 10m albums and 100m singles sold, more than 11bn song streams and 4bn YouTube views. Alicia Keys, Camila Cabello and Elton John are fans. Despite his phenomenal success, he only moved out of his parents’ house last year. Mendes comes across as cherubic but has said he hopes his forthcoming third album will make fans see him differently. You can still hear the influence of his long-held idols Ed Sheeran, Justin Timberlake and John Mayer, now coupled with urban touches inspired by Mendes’s love of Chance the Rapper – evident on another new single, the sweetly funky Lost in Japan. He has worked with crack songwriter Julia Michaels on the album, along with longtime collaborators Scott Harris and Geoff Warburton, and co-produced the record alongside Teddy Geiger, who announced her transition while the group were in the studio working on the album – an experience Mendes has described as a privilege. Mendes will talk about all this and more when he joins the Guardian to answer your questions in a webchat from 12.30pm GMT on Tuesday 17 April.

culture/live/2018/apr/13/shawn-mendes-webchat-interview

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

liveblog

2018-04-17T12:40:16Z

Shawn Mendes webchat: your questions answered on Heelys, memes and Hendrix

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/live/2018/apr/13/shawn-mendes-webchat-interview

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'japan', 'neartheclocktower', 'says', 'song', 'lost', 'japan', 'says', 'couple', 'hundred', 'miles', 'japan', 'wrote', 'really', 'couple', 'hundred', 'miles', 'japan', 'carolynciaf', 'asks', 'one', 'writer', 'another', 'keep', 'thoughts', 'authentic', 'true', 'transferring', 'mind', 'paper', 'lyrics', 'mia', 'ward-gibbs', 'asks', 'could', 'go', 'buy', 'guitar', 'right', 'would', 'get', 'reaganwilkinson', 'asks', 'favorite', 'song', 'atm', 'love', 'selenarreyes', 'asks', 'listen', 'one', 'song', 'rest', 'life', 'would', 'love', 'x', 'last', 'time', 'heard', 'shawn', 'mendes', 'april', 'pop', 'idol', 'released', 'nothing', 'holdin', 'back', 'irrepressible', 'celebration', 'annihilating', 'one', 'inhibitions', 'makes', '19-year-old', 'new', 'single', 'blood', 'even', 'startling', 'tender', 'song', 'mendes', 'experiences', 'anxiety', 'wrought', 'vulnerable', 'visceral', 'terms', 'someone', 'help', 'crawling', 'skin', 'sings', 'unsurprisingly', 'described', 'closest', 'song', 'heart', 'ever', 'written', 'recently', 'opened', 'beats', 'zane', 'lowe', 'surprise', 'floored', 'anxiety', 'past', 'year', 'emotional', 'openness', 'helped', 'mendes', 'become', 'generational', 'icon', 'time', 'magazine', 'named', 'one', 'world', 'influential', 'teens', 'four', 'years', 'row', 'topped', 'billboard', 'list', 'two', 'top', 'prizes', 'radio', 'teen', 'awards', '10m', 'albums', '100m', 'singles', 'sold', '11bn', 'song', 'streams', '4bn', 'youtube', 'views', 'alicia', 'keys', 'camila', 'cabello', 'elton', 'john', 'fans', 'despite', 'phenomenal', 'success', 'moved', 'parents', 'house', 'last', 'year', 'mendes', 'comes', 'across', 'cherubic', 'said', 'hopes', 'forthcoming', 'third', 'album', 'make', 'fans', 'see', 'differently', 'still', 'hear', 'influence', 'long-held', 'idols', 'ed', 'sheeran', 'justin', 'timberlake', 'john', 'mayer', 'coupled', 'urban', 'touches', 'inspired', 'mendes', 'love', 'chance', 'rapper', 'evident', 'another', 'new', 'single', 'sweetly', 'funky', 'lost', 'japan', 'worked', 'crack', 'songwriter', 'julia', 'michaels', 'album', 'along', 'longtime', 'collaborators', 'scott', 'harris', 'geoff', 'warburton', 'co-produced', 'record', 'alongside', 'teddy', 'geiger', 'announced', 'transition', 'group', 'studio', 'working', 'album', 'experience', 'mendes', 'described', 'privilege', 'mendes', 'talk', 'joins', 'guardian', 'answer', 'questions', 'webchat', '1230pm', 'gmt', 'tuesday', 'april']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/17/orwellian-dystopia-nashville-roots-how-not-to-make-a-pop-comeback

The ‘did Orwell at GCSE’ manoeuvre The best albums are those that tell you what you know already, and that’s what happens when artists suddenly remember studying 1984 in Year 10. And, by the way, did you see the subsequently debunked meme about CCTV that your mum posted on Facebook? Makes u think, right? Did you know social media’s quite addictive? And that President Trump, he doesn’t sound ideal! The “everything’s like Black Mirror!” idea was recently pulled off by Bastille – who did a good job of turning their album concept into a cross-platform marketing extravaganza. Who’s next Both Chvrches and Years & Years are using opaque dystopian imagery in their album teaser campaigns. Naturally, Muse are 100% back on their bullshit with Thought Contagion. Pivot to rodeo Nothing says “I went to Nashville for a fortnight now I think I’m Dolly Parton” quite like a “country”-inspired comeback album. Kylie, Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga have all used Nashville recently. Soundbites about Nashville’s history provide great source material for promo interviews, despite the fact that recording studios in Nashville are pretty much like recording studios anywhere else in the world: if you give them money, they let you in. Fearne Cotton could miraculously discover her authentic country roots if she chucked enough cash around. Who’s next If you see Dua Lipa on Skyscanner, grab her laptop and chuck it out of the window. The bait and switch None of us want our favourite pop personnel to just keep making the same album for ever (newsflash: actually we kind of do), but some shifts in sonic direction are pop’s equivalent of a handbrake turn. This can be an act who’ve achieved popularity through electronic pop music “going real” (as on Pet Shop Boys’ Release, Goldfrapp’s Seventh Tree, the Harry Styles album or Gaga’s Joanne) but, less testingly, this move can sometimes involve a semi-famous, semi-peripheral artist waking up one morning and thinking, as Nelly Furtado did with Maneater, that it’s time to have a massive No 1 single. Who’s next On the Maneater front, Janelle Monáe’s just teamed up with the writers behind Justin Bieber’s Sorry and is clearly not messing about. The greatest latest hits Streaming means the conventional greatest hits album is dead for artists who don’t shift most of their music via supermarkets, but the streaming world’s constant thirst for one-off single releases can result in a massive backlog of hits that don’t seem to belong to an album. By the time an album does eventually appear, it’s at least 50% smash. Who’s next It’s almost four years since Clean Bandit released an album. There have been five hits – including two No 1s – since then, but the band’s second album hasn’t yet been announced. The definitely-not-an-album album Charli XCX’s last album came out in 2014. Or did it? In the last year she’s actually released two albums, except they’re not albums because they’re mixtapes. The songs aren’t mixed together. The album-length collections are for sale, like albums. XCX recently said that one liberating thing about making a mixtape is that it’s easier to get guest vocalists – labels don’t get their contractual knickers in a twist if they’re not dealing with a “proper” project. It’s a decent marketing angle, too: mixtapes are taken less seriously than albums by most over-35s but they’re greeted more enthusiastically, and are seen as more authentic blasts of creativity by their target audience. Who’s next Stefflon Don’s about to follow up her 2016 mixtape Real Ting. The new one’s called Real Ting II. Guys! This is the real me! Anyone who’s enjoyed a hit album before their 18th birthday will at some point be keen to point out that they’re actually very musical and interesting. The modern queen of “Guys! This is the real me!” has to be Miley Cyrus, who in a six-album career has presented her definitive self no fewer than six times: with 2007’s Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus (which braced a generation for the news that Miley was an actual human), 2008’s Breakout (she was breaking out from Hannah!), 2010’s Can’t Be Tamed (which presented that old favourite – the More Mature Direction), 2013’s Bangerz (no hang on, this was the more mature direction), 2015’s Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz (Christ knows what that was), and last year’s “pivot to rodeo” masterpiece Younger Now. Who’s next Miley Cyrus.

culture/2018/apr/17/orwellian-dystopia-nashville-roots-how-not-to-make-a-pop-comeback

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-17T09:00:33Z

Orwellian dystopia? Nashville roots? How not to make a pop comeback

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/17/orwellian-dystopia-nashville-roots-how-not-to-make-a-pop-comeback

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/shortcuts/2018/apr/16/stay-eu-captain-jean-luc-picard-remainer-patrick-stewart-star-trek-brexit

Name: Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Birthday: 13 July 2305. Appearance: An absolute bloody remoaner. Can I be the first to point out the massive discrepancy in logic here? Which is, what, that Picard won’t even be born for another 300 years and yet he has still managed to find a way to side with the liberal elite who refuse to acknowledge this country’s sovereignty? Well, no, it’s more that he doesn’t exist. He’s a fictional character from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I know. We’re not even safe from pretend spacemen from the future. Can we track back a bit here? Fine. If you want to be properly specific, then Picard isn’t a remoaner at all. However, Patrick Stewart, who played the character on Star Trek, is. And he has said without hesitation that Picard would have also voted against Brexit. Oh God. I know. It’s like when JK Rowling goes on Twitter to retroactively announce that Hogwarts was definitely and canonically opposed to tuition fees. But this is a million times worse, because it’s about Brexit. What made Stewart say that in the first place? It’s because – along with Anna Soubry and Chuka Umunna – he’s the figurehead of a campaign to call for a second Brexit referendum. Even though he lost and should get over it. What did he say, exactly? He said that Picard – along with his X-Men character Professor Xavier – were “excellent, admirable individuals … intellectuals but also compassionate and concerned for the wellbeing of everyone. They would have voted remain.” And would they? Picard definitely would. He’s the walking definition of the metropolitan elite. He drinks earl grey. He likes fencing and one of his most prized possessions is a flute. Oh, and he’s French. OK, all jokes aside, why did Stewart think this was a good idea? Because he desperately wants to overturn the decision. And if that means reminding people that a fictional space pilot from a TV show that stopped being made quarter of a century ago would have tutted at the idea of Brexit, then so be it. If Picard would have voted remain, do we know which characters would have voted for Brexit? There was actually a YouGov survey about this in 2016. It revealed that Basil Fawlty, Cruella De Vil and Captain Birds Eye would have all been staunch leavers. That’s hardly a dream team, is it? Listen, you started this. God, I’m so sick of Brexit. Do say: “These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before …” Don’t say: “… using a blue passport, as nature intended.”

culture/shortcuts/2018/apr/16/stay-eu-captain-jean-luc-picard-remainer-patrick-stewart-star-trek-brexit

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-16T12:42:59Z

To boldly stay in the EU: why Captain Jean-Luc Picard would be a remainer

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/shortcuts/2018/apr/16/stay-eu-captain-jean-luc-picard-remainer-patrick-stewart-star-trek-brexit

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/16/arts-industry-report-asks-where-are-all-the-working-class-people

Working-class people continue to be hugely under-represented in the arts, and the people at the top – mostly well-paid, middle-class white men – are least likely to see it. This conclusion was reached in a new report published today, billed as the first sociological study on social mobility in the cultural industries. The study used data from interviews with 237 people who work in the creative industries to shine light on a problem that the report’s authors said is a longstanding one. The percentage of people working in publishing with working-class origins was given as 12.6%. In film, TV and radio it was 12.4%, and in music, performing and visual arts, 18.2%. “Aside from crafts, no creative occupation comes close to having a third of its workforce from working-class origins, which is the average for the population as a whole,” the report said. The research shows that the people most attached to the idea of the arts being a meritocracy – that the best jobs go to those with the most talent – were white middle-class men who occupied the highest-paid jobs and who were most able to bring about change. One of the paper’s authors, Dave O’Brien, said the sector was “quite socially closed” and “dominated by middle-class white people”. He said the sector was well aware of the problems exposed in the report, which raised questions about why things did not change. “If it knows there are these social problems, why isn’t it doing better? Why is it much more like an elite profession rather than being open and meritocratic? The sector almost congratulates itself as being the good guys.” O’Brien said it was time for people to ask: “Are we the bad guys?” The prevalence of unpaid work in the arts reinforces social inequality, the report says. But there are also more subtle barriers to entry, including “the homogeneous values, attitudes and tastes of people working in cultural occupations”. That includes the fact that cultural workers tend to be socially exclusive and are friends with other creatives and less likely to know someone like a bus driver or a factory worker. The Panic report, a detailed follow-up to research published in 2015, has been released by Create London and Arts Emergency, a charity set up to challenge the “old boys’ network” in the creative industries. The report follows a separate weekend of discussions and screenings at the British Film Institute exploring what it means to be working class in film and TV. The keynote interview was with Maxine Peake, who spoke of the prejudice she had regularly experienced from people in the industry. Many, for example, assumed that people from the north would be working class: “There is only one class in the north, and that’s working class, and if you’re a woman you will be slightly brassy and a bit blowzy; if you’re a man you’re either aggressive or you’re angsty and poetic. That is the entire north in a nutshell.” Peake revealed she had been under pressure to sound more posh in the first series of the BBC One barrister drama Silk,. “I went to Rada … and I have still got this accent, so it is a fallacy.” Many speakers talked of the problems in being the gatekeepers, the people at the top. Paul Roseby, chief executive of the National Youth Theatre, said over his decade in the job he had encountered the same Oxbridge-educated people at the BBC in the same jobs. “There does seem to be an iron curtain around opportunity at some of our national institutions; we hear the phrase ‘hard to reach’. Well, you are not hard to reach – we are,” he said. Other issues that came up at the BFI’s “working-class heroes” event were reductions in drama teaching in schools and cuts to youth services. Many actors stressed that the profession has always been incredibly hard to get into and that most do not succeed. Lesley Manville, Oscar-nominated this year for her role in The Phantom Thread, said the struggle could be a good thing. “For young people starting now, there is this pressure that it’s all got to come together very quickly. When I started, nobody ever dreamed of making films or going to America; it just didn’t happen. You just did the work. There’s so much now about young people being, ‘Are you on social media, are you this are you that, are you in this magazine?’ Get rid of that, it’s nonsense. It’s only about the work.” The Labour party last year held its own inquiry into inequality in the cultural sector, and published a report, Acting Up, which concluded that the word “class” was often missing from the debate about access and diversity.

culture/2018/apr/16/arts-industry-report-asks-where-are-all-the-working-class-people

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-16T06:00:12Z

Arts industry report asks: where are all the working-class people?

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/16/arts-industry-report-asks-where-are-all-the-working-class-people

['working-class', 'people', 'continue', 'hugely', 'under-represented', 'arts', 'people', 'top', 'mostly', 'well-paid', 'middle-class', 'white', 'men', 'least', 'likely', 'see', 'conclusion', 'reached', 'new', 'report', 'published', 'today', 'billed', 'first', 'sociological', 'study', 'social', 'mobility', 'cultural', 'industries', 'study', 'used', 'data', 'interviews', 'people', 'work', 'creative', 'industries', 'shine', 'light', 'problem', 'report', 'authors', 'said', 'longstanding', 'one', 'percentage', 'people', 'working', 'publishing', 'working-class', 'origins', 'given', 'film', 'tv', 'radio', 'music', 'performing', 'visual', 'arts', 'aside', 'crafts', 'creative', 'occupation', 'comes', 'close', 'third', 'workforce', 'working-class', 'origins', 'average', 'population', 'whole', 'report', 'said', 'research', 'shows', 'people', 'attached', 'idea', 'arts', 'meritocracy', 'best', 'jobs', 'go', 'talent', 'white', 'middle-class', 'men', 'occupied', 'highest-paid', 'jobs', 'able', 'bring', 'change', 'one', 'paper', 'authors', 'dave', 'obrien', 'said', 'sector', 'quite', 'socially', 'closed', 'dominated', 'middle-class', 'white', 'people', 'said', 'sector', 'well', 'aware', 'problems', 'exposed', 'report', 'raised', 'questions', 'things', 'change', 'knows', 'social', 'problems', 'better', 'much', 'like', 'elite', 'profession', 'rather', 'open', 'meritocratic', 'sector', 'almost', 'congratulates', 'good', 'guys', 'obrien', 'said', 'time', 'people', 'ask', 'bad', 'guys', 'prevalence', 'unpaid', 'work', 'arts', 'reinforces', 'social', 'inequality', 'report', 'says', 'also', 'subtle', 'barriers', 'entry', 'including', 'homogeneous', 'values', 'attitudes', 'tastes', 'people', 'working', 'cultural', 'occupations', 'includes', 'fact', 'cultural', 'workers', 'tend', 'socially', 'exclusive', 'friends', 'creatives', 'less', 'likely', 'know', 'someone', 'like', 'bus', 'driver', 'factory', 'worker', 'panic', 'report', 'detailed', 'follow-up', 'research', 'published', 'released', 'create', 'london', 'arts', 'emergency', 'charity', 'set', 'challenge', 'old', 'boys', 'network', 'creative', 'industries', 'report', 'follows', 'separate', 'weekend', 'discussions', 'screenings', 'british', 'film', 'institute', 'exploring', 'means', 'working', 'class', 'film', 'tv', 'keynote', 'interview', 'maxine', 'peake', 'spoke', 'prejudice', 'regularly', 'experienced', 'people', 'industry', 'many', 'example', 'assumed', 'people', 'north', 'would', 'working', 'class', 'one', 'class', 'north', 'working', 'class', 'woman', 'slightly', 'brassy', 'bit', 'blowzy', 'man', 'either', 'aggressive', 'angsty', 'poetic', 'entire', 'north', 'nutshell', 'peake', 'revealed', 'pressure', 'sound', 'posh', 'first', 'series', 'bbc', 'one', 'barrister', 'drama', 'silk', 'went', 'rada', 'still', 'got', 'accent', 'fallacy', 'many', 'speakers', 'talked', 'problems', 'gatekeepers', 'people', 'top', 'paul', 'roseby', 'chief', 'executive', 'national', 'youth', 'theatre', 'said', 'decade', 'job', 'encountered', 'oxbridge-educated', 'people', 'bbc', 'jobs', 'seem', 'iron', 'curtain', 'around', 'opportunity', 'national', 'institutions', 'hear', 'phrase', 'hard', 'reach', 'well', 'hard', 'reach', 'said', 'issues', 'came', 'bfi', 'working-class', 'heroes', 'event', 'reductions', 'drama', 'teaching', 'schools', 'cuts', 'youth', 'services', 'many', 'actors', 'stressed', 'profession', 'always', 'incredibly', 'hard', 'get', 'succeed', 'lesley', 'manville', 'oscar-nominated', 'year', 'role', 'phantom', 'thread', 'said', 'struggle', 'could', 'good', 'thing', 'young', 'people', 'starting', 'pressure', 'got', 'come', 'together', 'quickly', 'started', 'nobody', 'ever', 'dreamed', 'making', 'films', 'going', 'america', 'happen', 'work', 'much', 'young', 'people', 'social', 'media', 'magazine', 'get', 'rid', 'nonsense', 'work', 'labour', 'party', 'last', 'year', 'held', 'inquiry', 'inequality', 'cultural', 'sector', 'published', 'report', 'acting', 'concluded', 'word', 'class', 'often', 'missing', 'debate', 'access', 'diversity']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/15/mary-beard-on-my-radar-interview

Born in Shropshire, classicist Mary Beard received her PhD from Cambridge University in 1982. She joined Newnham College as a fellow soon after, then the classics faculty’s only female lecturer. She has published 18 books, including The Parthenon (2002), The Roman Triumph (2007) and Women and Power (2017), and since 1992 has been classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement. She recently presented Civilisations on BBC2; a companion programme, Civilisations on Your Doorstep, airs on 4 May. Mary Beard is also currently presenting Front Row Late on BBC2 at 11.05pm on Friday nights until 11 May. 1. Restaurant Moro, London EC1 I’m old enough to remember and, I confess, to slightly miss the era of “long lunches”. But when I get a chance to choose a place for a “semi-long” lunch, it would always be Moro, which does the best, most comforting Spanish/north African food I know. I am a slightly picky carnivore, but this restaurant can wood-roast anything to perfection (with some great Spanish wines to match). We nostalgic types also take a wry pleasure sitting in the window and looking out at the now rather gentrified and foodie scene, and remembering what it was like all those years ago when Exmouth Market was a “real street”. 2. Gallery Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge Not far from where I live is Kettle’s Yard, the University of Cambridge’s wonderfully personal collection of modern art. Its nucleus was formed by the collector Jim Ede, and it’s still displayed in his house, where 50 years ago he’d entertain students keen to learn about contemporary art (not high on Cambridge’s academic syllabus at the time). It’s always been a great place for a lazy Sunday afternoon visit, and we’ve missed it over the last two years while it’s been closed for renovations. It’s just reopened with a new education wing, and new space, adjacent to Ede’s house, for temporary exhibitions – launching now with a great two-part show, featuring Cornelia Parker, Edmund de Waal, Caroline Walker and more. Worth the wait. 3. Radio The Reunion, BBC Radio 4 This is one of those brilliant radio ideas that is set for as long a life expectancy as Desert Island Discs. Getting people back together years after they’d been involved in a major event, trauma, celebration or argument, and having them reminisce with a few prompts from Sue MacGregor, works almost every time. You can never tell whether they’re still going to be fighting the old battles, or will have mellowed into friendship, whatever they once felt. Greenham Common was a particularly good one (with tinges of warmth between old enemies) – and a whole new series is under way which will have me hooked. 4. Place Manchester Manchester hasn’t been much on my radar until recently (coming from Shropshire, I always gravitated to Birmingham, before moving much further east). But over the last few weeks, I’ve been making an additional episode for the BBC Civilisations series, Civilisations on Your Doorstep, about the art you can see in the UK. We’ve seen some amazing things in regional museums, but if there’s been one standout city for sheer civic grandeur, it’s Manchester. The great Victorian town hall (currently being given a major makeover) has a sense of intelligent self-confidence to match most of what you’d find in Florence or Venice (including a clever series of paintings by Ford Madox Brown – celebrating, and partly inventing, the city’s history from the Romans to the Bridgewater Canal). 5. Book Damien Hirst: Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable I’m a complete sucker for exhibition catalogues, whether as a memory of those exhibitions I have seen, or as a substitute for those I haven’t. We have shelves of them at home, carefully if slightly nerdishly arranged in chronological order. But I usually have one in residence on my desk for a while, to offer a bit of pleasure between paragraphs of writing. The current occupant is the catalogue of Damien Hirst’s show in Venice last year, which I didn’t see – but even in book form it’s not just beautiful, it’s also a brilliantly clever riff on the whole idea of art objects dragged up from the sea bed (like so many of the most spectacular recent classical finds actually have been!). 6. Gig David Gilmour live at Pompeii It’s probably no surprise that I don’t get to as many gigs as I once did. But a couple of years back, I did go to David Gilmour’s concert in the amphitheatre of Pompeii. It was close to heaven for a classicist who grew up as a Pink Floyd fan: to listen to Comfortably Numb on the seats where the posh people of Pompeii (yes, I was near the front) used to watch the gladiators and wild beasts was a combination of slightly unsettling and unbelievably thrilling. Happily, there’s a DVD for those who weren’t there – or for me, when I feel like recapturing the experience.

culture/2018/apr/15/mary-beard-on-my-radar-interview

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-15T09:00:09Z

On my radar: Mary Beard’s cultural highlights

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/15/mary-beard-on-my-radar-interview

['born', 'shropshire', 'classicist', 'mary', 'beard', 'received', 'phd', 'cambridge', 'university', 'joined', 'newnham', 'college', 'fellow', 'soon', 'classics', 'faculty', 'female', 'lecturer', 'published', 'books', 'including', 'parthenon', 'roman', 'triumph', 'women', 'power', 'since', 'classics', 'editor', 'times', 'literary', 'supplement', 'recently', 'presented', 'civilisations', 'bbc2', 'companion', 'programme', 'civilisations', 'doorstep', 'airs', 'may', 'mary', 'beard', 'also', 'currently', 'presenting', 'front', 'row', 'late', 'bbc2', '1105pm', 'friday', 'nights', 'may', 'restaurant', 'moro', 'london', 'ec1', 'old', 'enough', 'remember', 'confess', 'slightly', 'miss', 'era', 'long', 'lunches', 'get', 'chance', 'choose', 'place', 'semi-long', 'lunch', 'would', 'always', 'moro', 'best', 'comforting', 'spanishnorth', 'african', 'food', 'know', 'slightly', 'picky', 'carnivore', 'restaurant', 'wood-roast', 'anything', 'perfection', 'great', 'spanish', 'wines', 'match', 'nostalgic', 'types', 'also', 'take', 'wry', 'pleasure', 'sitting', 'window', 'looking', 'rather', 'gentrified', 'foodie', 'scene', 'remembering', 'like', 'years', 'ago', 'exmouth', 'market', 'real', 'street', 'gallery', 'kettle', 'yard', 'cambridge', 'far', 'live', 'kettle', 'yard', 'university', 'cambridge', 'wonderfully', 'personal', 'collection', 'modern', 'art', 'nucleus', 'formed', 'collector', 'jim', 'ede', 'still', 'displayed', 'house', 'years', 'ago', 'would', 'entertain', 'students', 'keen', 'learn', 'contemporary', 'art', 'high', 'cambridge', 'academic', 'syllabus', 'time', 'always', 'great', 'place', 'lazy', 'sunday', 'afternoon', 'visit', 'missed', 'last', 'two', 'years', 'closed', 'renovations', 'reopened', 'new', 'education', 'wing', 'new', 'space', 'adjacent', 'ede', 'house', 'temporary', 'exhibitions', 'launching', 'great', 'two-part', 'show', 'featuring', 'cornelia', 'parker', 'edmund', 'de', 'waal', 'caroline', 'walker', 'worth', 'wait', 'radio', 'reunion', 'bbc', 'radio', 'one', 'brilliant', 'radio', 'ideas', 'set', 'long', 'life', 'expectancy', 'desert', 'island', 'discs', 'getting', 'people', 'back', 'together', 'years', 'would', 'involved', 'major', 'event', 'trauma', 'celebration', 'argument', 'reminisce', 'prompts', 'sue', 'macgregor', 'works', 'almost', 'every', 'time', 'never', 'tell', 'whether', 'still', 'going', 'fighting', 'old', 'battles', 'mellowed', 'friendship', 'whatever', 'felt', 'greenham', 'common', 'particularly', 'good', 'one', 'tinges', 'warmth', 'old', 'enemies', 'whole', 'new', 'series', 'way', 'hooked', 'place', 'manchester', 'manchester', 'much', 'radar', 'recently', 'coming', 'shropshire', 'always', 'gravitated', 'birmingham', 'moving', 'much', 'east', 'last', 'weeks', 'making', 'additional', 'episode', 'bbc', 'civilisations', 'series', 'civilisations', 'doorstep', 'art', 'see', 'uk', 'seen', 'amazing', 'things', 'regional', 'museums', 'one', 'standout', 'city', 'sheer', 'civic', 'grandeur', 'manchester', 'great', 'victorian', 'town', 'hall', 'currently', 'given', 'major', 'makeover', 'sense', 'intelligent', 'self-confidence', 'match', 'would', 'find', 'florence', 'venice', 'including', 'clever', 'series', 'paintings', 'ford', 'madox', 'brown', 'celebrating', 'partly', 'inventing', 'city', 'history', 'romans', 'bridgewater', 'canal', 'book', 'damien', 'hirst', 'treasures', 'wreck', 'unbelievable', 'complete', 'sucker', 'exhibition', 'catalogues', 'whether', 'memory', 'exhibitions', 'seen', 'substitute', 'shelves', 'home', 'carefully', 'slightly', 'nerdishly', 'arranged', 'chronological', 'order', 'usually', 'one', 'residence', 'desk', 'offer', 'bit', 'pleasure', 'paragraphs', 'writing', 'current', 'occupant', 'catalogue', 'damien', 'hirst', 'show', 'venice', 'last', 'year', 'see', 'even', 'book', 'form', 'beautiful', 'also', 'brilliantly', 'clever', 'riff', 'whole', 'idea', 'art', 'objects', 'dragged', 'sea', 'bed', 'like', 'many', 'spectacular', 'recent', 'classical', 'finds', 'actually', 'gig', 'david', 'gilmour', 'live', 'pompeii', 'probably', 'surprise', 'get', 'many', 'gigs', 'couple', 'years', 'back', 'go', 'david', 'gilmour', 'concert', 'amphitheatre', 'pompeii', 'close', 'heaven', 'classicist', 'grew', 'pink', 'floyd', 'fan', 'listen', 'comfortably', 'numb', 'seats', 'posh', 'people', 'pompeii', 'yes', 'near', 'front', 'used', 'watch', 'gladiators', 'wild', 'beasts', 'combination', 'slightly', 'unsettling', 'unbelievably', 'thrilling', 'happily', 'dvd', 'feel', 'like', 'recapturing', 'experience']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/15/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-storm

The next theme for our weekly photography assignment in the Observer New Review is ‘storm.’ Share your photos of what storm means to you – and tell us about your image in the description box. The closing date is Wednesday 18 April at 10am. We’ll publish our favourites in The New Review on Sunday 22 April and in a gallery on the Guardian site. You can share your ‘storm’ pictures by clicking on the ‘Contribute’ button on this article. You can also use the Guardian app and search for ‘GuardianWitness assignments’ – and if you add it to the homepage – you can keep up with all our assignments. GuardianWitness is the home of readers’ content on the Guardian. Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others.

culture/2018/apr/15/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-storm

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-15T08:00:09Z

Your pictures: share your photos on the theme of 'storm'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/15/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-storm

['next', 'theme', 'weekly', 'photography', 'assignment', 'observer', 'new', 'review', 'storm', 'share', 'photos', 'storm', 'means', 'tell', 'us', 'image', 'description', 'box', 'closing', 'date', 'wednesday', 'april', '10am', 'publish', 'favourites', 'new', 'review', 'sunday', 'april', 'gallery', 'guardian', 'site', 'share', 'storm', 'pictures', 'clicking', 'contribute', 'button', 'article', 'also', 'use', 'guardian', 'app', 'search', 'guardianwitness', 'assignments', 'add', 'homepage', 'keep', 'assignments', 'guardianwitness', 'home', 'readers', 'content', 'guardian', 'contribute', 'video', 'pictures', 'stories', 'browse', 'news', 'reviews', 'creations', 'submitted', 'others']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/apr/15/simone-lia-on-gift-giving

culture/ng-interactive/2018/apr/15/simone-lia-on-gift-giving

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

interactive

2018-04-15T07:00:11Z

Simone Lia on gift-giving

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/apr/15/simone-lia-on-gift-giving

[]

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/14/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

Five of the best ... films Custody (15) (Xavier Legrand, 2017, Fra) 94 mins What begins as a social-realist drama steadily morphs into a domestic horror movie here, and the only special effect required is actor Denis Ménochet. He plays a father granted access to his son in what has clearly been a messy divorce. Striving to make a fresh start and move on, mother Léa Drucker is apprehensive – and with good reason. A Quiet Place (15) (John Krasinski, 2018, US) 90 mins Leave the popcorn and crisp packets at home for this noise-sensitive crowd-pleaser, whose premise of post-apocalyptic monsters triggered by the slightest sound is ingeniously simple and primed for tension. Krasinski and Emily Blunt’s rural family have made lifestyle changes but will it be enough to survive? Especially with a baby on the way? 120 Beats Per Minute (15) (Robin Campillo, 2017, Fra) 143 mins Political and personal passion go hand in hand in this powerful drama documenting Act Up, a radical Aids awareness group in 1990s Paris when indifference and prejudice hampered medical progress. Campillo’s film is faithful to the debates and disagreements within this group but also celebrates their camaraderie – in politics, partying, sex and, inevitably, death. A Gentle Creature (18) (Sergei Lozintsa, 2017, Fra/Ger/Rus/Lith/Neth/Ukr/Lat) 143 mins A young woman’s (Vasilina Makovtseva) mission to find out what’s happened to her convict husband becomes a surreal, nightmare tour of a Russian prison town, taking in Kafkaesque bureaucracy, endemic drunkenness and grim sexual exploitation. The pacing is a little slow, but it’s a strange, unforgettable descent into depths of grimness. Western (12A) (Valeska Grisebach, 2017, Ger/Bul/Aus) 121 mins This tale of German construction workers in wild Bulgaria doesn’t exactly pan out into a celebration of European unity. Instead, it’s a slow burn of cultural differences, historic resentments and masculine horn-locking, as various encounters between the locals and the Germans raise the tension – with our strong, solitary protagonist (Meinhard Neumann) caught in the middle. SR Five of the best ... rock & pop gigs Hinds Since the 2016 release of their charmingly ramshackle debut, Leave Me Alone, Spanish quartet Hinds have recorded the main title track to Disney’s Cars 3 and finished a new album, I Don’t Run. Scuzzy new single The Club is peak early 00s garage or, as they put it, “more Hinds than Hinds themselves”. Glasgow Sunday 15, Manchester Tuesday 17, Bristol Wednesday 18, London Thursday 19, Brighton Friday 20 April IAMDDB Following a third place finish on this year’s BBC Sound of 2018 poll, Diana Debrito, AKA IAMDDB, takes her hazy, trap-inflected jazz on the road for her first headline UK tour. Each gig will be unique, with fans asked to adhere to specific dress codes and themes (Manchester attendees, you’ll need to revisit your 90s wardrobe, apparently). Bristol, Monday 16, Birmingham, Tuesday 17, Manchester, Wednesday 18; London, Thursday 19 April Alexis Taylor If you found Taylor’s 2016 Piano album a bit, well, piano-y, then fear not because his new opus, Beautiful Thing, sees him edge back towards the elegant dance music he occasionally makes with Hot Chip. Co-produced alongside DFA co-founder Tim Goldsworthy, if the title track is anything to go by you can expect some slow-burn bangers infused with warm nostalgia and poppers. Patterns, Brighton, Thursday 19; Omeara, SE1, Friday 20 April Method Man & Redman Rappers Method Man and Redman – AKA Meth and Red – started collaborating in 1994, since when they have starred in a film together, 2001’s How High, and a short-lived Fox sitcom, Method & Red (tagline: “Puttin’ the urban in suburban”). This one-off London show pulls focus back to the music, specifically 1999’s classic, Blackout!. O2 Academy Brixton, SW9, Saturday 14 April MC Jakob Bro Trio Jakob Bro is no rip-roaring guitar hero, but the immensely musical Danish guitarist is no ambience-exploring introvert either – his trio with empathic American partners Thomas Morgan (bass) and Joey Baron (drums) exhilaratingly confirms that. Inspired by the late Paul Motian’s ingeniously lyrical music, Bro’s subtle artistry gets richer the closer you listen. Pizza Express Jazz Club, Soho, W1, Monday 16 & Tuesday 17 April JF Four of the best ... classical concerts Panambí Juanjo Mena steps down as chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic this summer. He has conducted less of the Spanish and Latin American repertory than one hoped during his years in Manchester, but at least his latest concert includes a real Argentinian rarity: Panambí, the ballet score that made the 21-year-old Alberto Ginastera’s name in 1937. Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, Saturday 14 April The Song of the Children of the Stars Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia bring Unsuk Chin’s choral piece to Europe for the first time. Setting poems by the likes of Fernando Pessoa, Giuseppe Ungaretti and Octavio Paz for adult and children’s choirs, it explores humanity’s relationship with the cosmos. Royal Festival Hall, SE1, Sunday 15 April Colin Currie & Nicolas Hodges The percussionist and pianist celebrate the reopening of the QEH with a programme of Birtwistle, Feldman and Stockhausen. The main work is Kontakte, Stockhausen’s electroacoustic classic. Currie also plays Feldman’s King of Denmark, and there’s a new work from Birtwistle, too: Intrada for piano and percussion. Queen Elizabeth Hall, SE1, Thursday 19 April Rattle’s Mahler Simon Rattle is concentrating on Mahler’s final pair of symphonies in his latest concerts with the LSO. In Dublin, the Ninth is performed on its own, but in London it’s prefaced (Thu & 26 Apr) by the premiere of Helen Grime’s Woven Space, while his 10th (22 Apr) is paired with Tippett’s last work, The Rose Lake. National Concert Hall, Dublin, Wednesday 18 April; Barbican, EC2, Thursday 19, 22 & 26 April AC Five of the best ... exhibitions Beatriz Milhazes This Brazilian painter mixes abstract colour and flashes of reality in designs that are hard-edged, exuberant and relentlessly dynamic. There are echoes of such European 20th-century modernists as Delaunay, Kandinsky and Matisse, yet her paintings have a decorative, accessible brightness that locates them unmistakably in the present day. White Cube Bermondsey, SE1 Wed to 1 July Joseph Beuys This great German artist survived a Stuka crash in the second world war because, he said, Siberian shamans swaddled his burned body in felt and fat. Out of that symbolic rebirth he forged a vocabulary of myth and ritual that gives his sculpture intense power. This exhibition brings together his Stag Monuments. Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Ely House, W1, Wednesday 18 April to 16 June Linder Sterling Getting collage artist Linder to be a resident artist at Chatsworth House was a wonderful idea. She has delved into the history and treasures of this great stately home with madcap enthusiasm – ghosts, family mementos, neglected paintings and the renowned Devonshire collection of drawings all catching her eye. This exhibition at the house is accompanied by one at Nottingham Contemporary. Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, to 21 October Sony World Photography Awards German artist Candida Höfer gets a special display to celebrate her work alongside more than 600 entrants in this year’s global Sony competition. Höfer takes eerily perfect pictures of architectural interiors that lavishly reproduce the grandeur of baroque and neoclassical buildings all over Europe. Her magnificent images have a cool irony that stresses our distance in time and culture from these places. Alongside her is a feast of talent from the entire planet. Somerset House, WC2, Friday 20 April to 6 May Tracey Emin Margate’s finest modern artist has a direct way of communicating that makes her a natural as a public sculptor, yet she is only now taking the genre seriously. Her emotional neon text, titled I Want My Time With You, is a warm way to welcome travellers to London and the UK. Emin campaigned to stay in the EU so this is a love letter to our fellow Europeans in bright light. On display until the end of 2018. St Pancras International Station, N1 JJ Five of the best ... theatre shows Caroline, Or Change It’s your last chance – until November’s West End transfer – to see Michael Longhurst’s revival of this musical set in 1963 in a US on the cusp of change. There are many reasons to see this intelligent, offbeat and often searing show, but worth it alone for Sharon D Clarke’s performance as the black maid trapped below stairs, singing to the washing machine. Hampstead Theatre, NW3, to 21 April The Inheritance There are shades of both Howards End and Angels in America in Matthew Lopez’s absorbing seven-hour epic (staged in two parts), which explores New York’s present-day gay community. It also looks back to the Aids crisis in an evening directed with both elan and delicacy by Stephen Daldry, with a cast including Kyle Soller and Andrew Burnap. Young Vic, SE1, to 19 May The Encounter A journey into the jungle and the imagination, Simon McBurney’s one-man show – co-directed by Kirsty Housley – tells the story of National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre, who in 1969 was dropped into the Amazon rainforest and promptly got lost. Getting away from western ways of thinking is at the heart of a dense, challenging but illuminating show, delivered into the audience’s brains via headphones. Barbican Theatre, EC2, Saturday to 5 May Brighton Rock Bryony Lavery has always been fascinated by good and evil and has written some very fine plays around the subject, including current West End hit Frozen. Here, she adapts Graham Greene’s 1938 thriller for Pilot Theatre. Esther Richardson’s production plays to the atmospheric seediness of seaside Brighton in a story of coercion, deception and murder, in which waitress Rose is the only witness to a murder committed by gang leader Pinkie. Birmingham Rep, Saturday 14; Theatre Royal, Winchester, Thursday 19 to 21 April; touring to 26 May The Class Project Part of CPT’s working-class theatre festival Common People, Rebecca Atkinson-Lord’s solo show draws upon her own experience to explore social mobility, regional identity and who gets to speak in their own voice. Winning a scholarship to a private school and working in theatre has left Atkinson-Lord adrift from the rest of her family, moving in different worlds, in a thoughtful show about remembering your roots. Camden People’s Theatre, NW1, Friday 20 & 21 April; touring to 1 June LG Three of the best ... dance shows Royal Ballet: Mixed Bill The last mixed programme of the season has revivals of three very different one-act ballets. Wayne McGregor’s Obsidian Tear showcases the skill and nuance of its all-male cast, its refined abstractions of style contrasting with the turbulent romanticism of Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand, and MacMillan’s ragtime romp Elite Syncopations. Royal Opera House, WC2, Saturday 14 April to 11 May Candoco Dance Company: Face In / Let’s Talk About Dis The excellent ensemble of disabled and non-disabled dancers play with issues of prejudice, political correctness and the ferocious possibilities of the dancing body in a powerful double bill by Yasmeen Godder and Hetain Patel. Attenborough Centre For the Creative Arts, Brighton, Wednesday 18 April Kenneth MacMillan: Steps Back in Time Viviana Durante presents a fascinating programme of early MacMillan ballets. Extracts from House of Birds, Danses Concertantes and others are performed by dancers from Ballet Black with Royal Ballet principals such as Lauren Cuthbertson. Barbican Centre: The Pit, EC2, Wednesday 18 to 21 April JM

culture/2018/apr/14/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-14T08:00:16Z

What to see this week in the UK

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/14/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/13/stephen-colbert-trump-payments-hush-money-claims

Late-night hosts on Thursday discussed James Comey’s new tell-all book and reports that the National Enquirer paid off a former doorman to squash a rumor that Donald Trump fathered a child with an employee in the 1980s. Stephen Colbert on what Trump ‘did with his member’ Stephen Colbert began: “Just before I came out here, James Comey news broke. Apparently, in Comey’s new book, Comey reveals that while he was still in office President Trump asked him to investigate the pee tape to reassure Melania.” He went on: “According to Comey, he brought up what he called the ‘golden showers thing’, adding that it bothered him if there was even a 1% chance his wife Melania thought it was true. “Yes, it would bother him, because she’d be off by about 99%.” Colbert said: “Ever since the election, people have been speculating whether Trump’s presidency would be taken down by what he did with a member of the Russian government. Turns out he may go down because of what he did with his member.” The host then discussed Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels before explaining that Cohen and Trump “also had help from their friend, National Enquirer publisher and guy-who’s-name-is-a-little-too-on-the-nose, David Pecker”. Pecker, Colbert noted, had a scheme where he paid women for damaging stories about Trump and never published them. Karen McDougal, a former model, was paid $150,000 to keep quiet about a nine-month affair with Trump. “Wait, 150 Gs to keep quiet about a nine-month affair? Didn’t Stormy Daniels get almost that much and she only had to have sex with Donald Trump once? I’ve said it before: these women need to unionize.” Colbert also discussed the latest report that the National Enquirer paid a former doorman $30,000 to stop him from going public with a rumor Trump had a child with his housekeeper in the 1980s. “Wow,” Colbert said. “The president must be really ashamed of this scandal considering the children he is willing to claim.” Trevor Noah: ‘Everyone’s getting paid: doormen, porn stars, lawyers’ Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah also spoke of the report. “Trump might have a secret kid?” he said. “I bet everyone who doesn’t know their father right now is panicking. “Every week we seem to find out that someone else got money to keep quiet about one of Trump’s affairs. Everyone’s getting paid: doormen, porn stars, lawyers.” Noah then said that the big question is whether these payments constitute illegal campaign contributions. He said: “But for me there’s a bigger story here: you realize if you were born in the 1980s, you might be Donald Trump’s child. You could be in line to inherit billions of dollars in debt.” Noah then moved on to cover Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress this week. He explained that “Facebook CEO and less-charismatic-Rain-Man” Zuckerberg had spent two days of hearings before 44 senators and 55 representatives, and said: “Some of the congresspeople seemed to have done their homework, but even when they did they still didn’t seem to know how to ask the right questions. “By the looks of it, even Congress doesn’t believe that they can take on Facebook.” The host pointed to Louisiana senator John Kennedy, who said it’s “up to” Zuckerberg whether bills regulating Facebook pass or not. Noah said: “What Senator Kennedy said there is both depressing and refreshingly honest at the same time. He knows that lobbyists rule Washington and Facebook can afford a shit ton of lobbyists, so all lawmakers can really do is chastise Facebook publicly and then ask them nicely to go and think about what they’ve done.” Jimmy Kimmel: ‘Another Trump kid out there? Crazy’ Finally, Jimmy Kimmel discussed the National Enquirer’s payment to the doorman Dino Sajudin. Reading from Sajudin’s official statement on the matter, Kimmel said Sajudin was “instructed not to criticize President Trump’s former housekeeper due to a prior relationship she had with President Trump which produced a child”. Kimmel quipped: “If Trump did have a secret lovechild with an employee in the 80s, I’m going to guess that the lovechild is Eric and that employee is none other than Gary Busey.” He then described the idea of “another Trump kid out there” as “crazy to think about”.

culture/2018/apr/13/stephen-colbert-trump-payments-hush-money-claims

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2018-04-13T15:21:49Z

Stephen Colbert on Trump and hush-money claims: 'These women need to unionize'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/13/stephen-colbert-trump-payments-hush-money-claims

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/13/british-museum-director-hartwig-fischer-there-are-no-foreigners-here-the-museum-is-a-world-country

Hartwig Fischer, who took over the directorship of the British Museum from Neil MacGregor two years ago, has no decoration on the plain blue walls of his office. There are glass-fronted bookshelves. There ia a desk and chairs and two enormous sash windows looking out on to the great forecourt. (Or, more immediately, on to what some staff call the “Bake Off tent” – the ugly temporary structure through which visitors must currently pass for security checks.) But there is nothing to signal Fischer’s taste – nothing like the glimmering wall sculpture by El Anatsui that MacGregor had; nothing like the array of Staffordshire pottery that Tristram Hunt displays in his office at the V&A; no equivalent to the Paula Rego that Maria Balshaw favours in her lair at Tate. There is only a reproduction of a Cycladic figure on the fireplace, a leftover from the MacGregor years, and, on his desk lamp, a tiny figurine of Sai Baba, a spiritual master revered as a saint, which Indian friends gave him. Instead, he says, he prefers to concentrate on the people who come through his doors – and the great treasure house of the museum. But the blankness of his working space radiates through his personal manner: he is warm and friendly, but oddly remote. His employees contrast the charismatic immediacy of MacGregor, who had the disconcerting habit of plonking himself down by random staffers in the canteen and interrogating them about their work, with this more distant figure, who speaks softly and carefully, who glides modestly around the galleries, who is sphinx-like in his statements. But for all that, he is quietly formidable, and has vast ambitions for the museum – plans that will, if they see the light of day, transform the museum for generations to come. Fischer, 56, who came to London after running the state museums in Dresden, is aiming to put the museum, in all its shopworn grandeur, through a major renovation project that will culminate in a complete redisplay of its galleries. That doesn’t sound so remarkable until you begin to absorb the scale of the job. When I joke that it can’t be as big as the Palace of Westminster’s renovation, which will cost at least £3.5bn, he tells me that the museum has more rooms than parliament – 3,000 versus 1,100 – and that the state of the essential services, such as electricity, gas and water are in dire need of repair, just as they are at Westminster. He has in mind something as grand and decisive as the “projet grand” Louvre, which saw the building of IM Pei’s dramatic pyramids and cost between F6bn and F7bn (around £780m at 1993 prices). Or the recent renovation of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which saw the institution closed for a decade and a bill of €375m. Unlike Amsterdam, though, Fischer says: “We cannot close the museum. It’s entirely out of the question.” The British Museum is the most visited attraction in Britain, with 5.9m visitors last year. Work will have to be phased. It will take years. As for even a vague price tag, he is not to be drawn: assessments are still being carried out. And who will pay? Clearly, there will have to be the mother of all fundraising campaigns. But Fischer carefully notes that the Louvre and the Rijksmuseum were renewed “with the support of their governments”. What Fischer hopes to achieve by the end of all this is a display that is more coherent – and more interconnected. That means reshuffling the Egyptian, Greek and Roman collections so that they are not scattered between two floors as they are at present, and also finding ways to show that, as Fischer puts it, “human history was driven and has always been driven by exchange, by cultures communicating”. The interconnectedness he is keen to demonstrate might also be across time: towards the end of our interview we go over to the museum’s big exhibition space, where a stunning show on Rodin and ancient Greek sculpture is being installed. It’s the first exhibition to have been largely developed under his leadership, and its approach – looking at how an artist was shaped by his understanding of the past – might prove a hint at the shape of the programme to come. It’s an intriguing time to be considering the renewal of the British Museum – one of the world’s few so-called “encyclopedic museums” – as Fischer puts it, “a museum of the world for the world”. But Britain is on the brink of Brexit, turning its face away from Europe. When I ask Fischer if he would have taken the job had it been offered on 24 June 2016, he says: “Yes, without any hesitation whatsoever.” This contrasts to the view taken by the late Martin Roth, his predecessor at Dresden, whose resignation from the V&A in September 2016 was said to have been hastened by disillusion at the referendum. The museum’s job, Fischer says, is to take the long view, to confront the whole of human history, to understand that Brexit is a moment in the turbulent story of the world. But at the same time: “Everyone who knows me knows I come from a European background and that Europe, as it developed after the catastrophe of the wars is something very important and precious to me. The museum has a lot to offer to help people to contemplate and reflect on what the right decisions should be without taking a direct political stance. It’s there as a space to think, reflect, debate.” It is true that Fischer could hardly be more European. He was raised in Hamburg, studied in Italy and France, and has worked in Switzerland as well as Germany; his wife is a psychotherapist in Paris. It’s easy to imagine what his personal views might be, even if for now, they are cloaked in civil service neutrality. He simply says: “Whoever comes in here and crosses the threshold is not a foreigner. There are no foreigners here. This is a world country, this museum. While at the same time we recognise that this is a British creation, to which the cultures of all the world have contributed.” Contributed, yes – but not always willingly. The museum’s collection is inextricably entwined with Britain’s dark imperial past. Increasingly, nations want their objects back: not just the Greeks and the Parthenon sculptures, but others – there is a longstanding claim from Ethiopia, for example, about works of art plundered from Maqdala after its capture by the British in 1868. Fischer’s answer to this is that the museum will bring a much greater sense of self-scrutiny to its displays. “The museum has to be completely open about this – that’s the first duty,” he says. “Take the history of the Rosetta stone [the trilingual inscription dating from 196BC that led to the deciphering of hieroglyphs]. In a nutshell, you have the whole intricate layering of curiosity, quest for knowledge, understanding, discovery and possession. At the same time, it’s the ‘Great Game’, the story of colonial and imperialist outreach and imperial conflict. And it led to the deciphering of a language that was hitherto inaccessible, and the understanding of Egyptian culture.” It’s all very well, I suggest, talking of the museum as an international project, and even as a space where international co-operation between colleagues can continue when formal diplomatic ties are strained. (Fischer made a visit to Iran in December; when we meet, he has just returned from Egypt.) But the buck stops for many with the objects themselves, with the fact of possession and ownership. “When you go to see the Parthenon sculptures,” he says, “you can read about the different views, the conflicting views, and we respect different views.” Respecting views is one thing, but keeping the objects is another – that’s the line drawn right there, isn’t it? “It is a line. But what’s been created here is a major contribution to humanity. So while I respect these views, I always say what has been created here, which is open to everybody, creates an extraordinary opportunity to see cultural heritage in a context you have in only a very few places. That is the museum’s major value and it is very precious.” Despite the museum’s status as a symbol of Britain and a repository of global knowledge, it is under huge pressure. Its funding from central government has stayed flat during the past decade; in real terms, a 35% cut. Forty-four jobs in research, conservation or curatorship have been lost between 2006 and 2017. Fischer says that the cuts have been in proportion, and curators are no worse off than other parts of the organisation. The picture is, in fact, more complex. There has been a sharp rise in agency jobs in the public access and events departments. And overall, the fundraising department has grown – a sign of the changing times and priorities. Meantime, 60 facilities management staff, who had been outsourced to the collapsed firm Carillion five years ago, have been demonstrating outside the museum, demanding to be taken back inhouse. On this, he offers the blandest piece of director-speak one can imagine: “For the time being, we have the arrangement we have, which grew out of a long thinking process, and this is where we are now.” So you’re not going to employ them directly? He doesn’t answer, but his body language says “no”. Fischer has come into this environment from the relatively easier circumstances of Germany, where government support for culture, though under recent pressure, is understood as a given, not fought over tooth and nail every step of the way. One of the things he is really passionate about is a music festival he has organised; it will see everything from Ligeti and Nono to Japanese temple music performed in the museum’s galleries. “I’ve always worked with musicians in museums,” he says. “When you look at things listening, you look at things differently. The ears make you see more, and the eyes make you hear more.” Ironically, the festival, which is organised in partnership with the Dresden museums, is being paid for by the German foreign ministry. Still, what impresses him in London, he says, is his staff’s passionate sense of public mission. “You would never think about doing something in this place before asking who it is for. You would never get lost in an intricate scholarly debate without coming back to that question: ‘How is our public going to profit from this?’ And I cherish every day working in this environment.” The music festival Europe and the World: a Symphony of Cultures, runs from 16 to 29 April. Rodin and the art of Ancient Greece runs from 26 April to 29 July.

culture/2018/apr/13/british-museum-director-hartwig-fischer-there-are-no-foreigners-here-the-museum-is-a-world-country

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-13T15:18:20Z

British Museum director Hartwig Fischer: ‘There are no foreigners here – the museum is a world country’

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/13/british-museum-director-hartwig-fischer-there-are-no-foreigners-here-the-museum-is-a-world-country

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'runs', 'april', 'rodin', 'art', 'ancient', 'greece', 'runs', 'april', 'july']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/13/from-reinventing-harry-potter-to-suing-your-mates-the-quirky-world-of-improv-comedy

Voldemort’s robe has three pockets: a wand pocket, a badge pocket, and a secret pocket. What’s in the secret one will change the course of history – or at least the next 45 minutes. Of course Voldemort’s pockets, secret or otherwise, played no role whatsoever in JK Rowling’s novels, but this is not a story from the Harry Potter canon. This is Completely Improvised Potter: an hour-long play created entirely on the spot, based on a title suggested by an audience member for a Harry Potter book that was never written. The title and the story changes every night; the resulting performance is as unpredictable and funny as it is unscripted. “It’s addictive,” says Ryan Patterson, one of the founding members of the Soothplayers, the Melbourne-based troupe behind Completely Improvised Potter. “Jumping on the stage with no preparation ... knowing that we haven’t got anything except for the other players on stage to rely on to make this thing happen is thrilling.” The Potter show, currently on at Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF), was first performed in 2017 but it was not the Soothplayers’ first creation; that was Completely Improvised Shakespeare, which began when Patterson and his friend Adam Hembree decided they wanted to create something fun with the Shakespearean style of theatre, from garbled flowery speeches to dramatic stage deaths – in fact there were so many dramatic stage deaths that they started running a tally across the seasons. A Harry Potter show seemed a natural progression, though the body count was lower. “There were a bunch of us that just really loved Harry Potter and wanted to share that,” Patterson tells Guardian Australia. “All the players have that deep respect for the source material. And it’s just fun to play in that world.” The session I watched, early in the MICF season, had an exasperated Snape taking over all the cooking, cleaning and administrative duties of Hogwarts after the house elves went on strike. Meanwhile Voldy was trying to form an alliance with the giants to help him break into Hogwarts, but kept getting distracted by playing with his, ahem, wand. It was a legitimately funny show, but not consistently so, and at times the story seemed to spin its wheels – particularly when performers failed to make a decision about what would happen next. The common cultural touchstone for improvisational comedy is the long-running TV show, Whose Line is it Anyway? which originated in the UK in the 80s, before being adapted for American audiences in 1998 and again (inadvisably) for Australian audiences in 2017. The show followed a theatre sports model – games were mostly short skits based on prompts from the audience and host. Long-form improv is an altogether different beast, in part because of the demands it places on the performers – in an hour-long show, there’s no buzzer to come to the rescue of a floundering story, only the skill and invention of the people on stage. While the Soothplayers’ Shakespeare skits draw on the language and narrative beats that create that familiar “Shakespearean” feel, the Potter show makes use of characters and locations directly from the books. One of the advantages of the Potter show is that so much of the world-building has already been done, but Patterson says this can also be a constraint, as the performers play against their own and the audience’s very specific ideas about how characters should or shouldn’t behave. Or whether they should have highly suggestive pockets. “Sometimes we’re subverting those expectations,” he says. “What if Snape decided that he would have a mood board for this year? Or he’s trying to connect with his feelings? Those ‘what ifs’ are quite fun to play.” Another improv offering currently touring the Australian fringe festival and comedy circuit is the London-based This is Your Trial. Essentially a mock courtroom drama, audience members fill out charge sheets at the beginning of the show accusing their friends and family members of various “crimes”. Comedians take on the roles of judge and lawyers for the prosecution and defence, and haul audience members on to the stage to undergo cross examination. The first person to be put on trial at the show I attended was a man whose partner accused him of farting in the living room and blaming the dog. (He was found guilty.) The second was my friend and one-time housemate, Gillian, whom I accused of the decade-old misdemeanour of racking up a fine at the local Blockbuster Video on my card – a charge she strenuously denied. The jury (the rest of the audience) was initially divided, but after three votes she was finally found guilty. Justice at last! The conceit of This is Your Trial relies on constant willing audience participation – not everyone is open to potentially having their bodily functions openly discussed and made fun of in front of an audience of strangers – but the randomness of that material for the comedians to riff off, and the sheer volume of it, means the show is almost guaranteed to elicit giggles. For an art form as notoriously hit and miss as comedy, it’s odd that improv is often so reliably funny. In fact, the Soothplayers bank on it: they have a money-back guarantee if you don’t laugh. “If there are as many gasps as there are laughs, that’s when we are pretty proud of our work,” Patterson says. “But just through the very nature of improv and the fact that we’re making it up, there will be laughs.” • Completely Improvised Potter and Completely Improvised Shakespeare are showing at MICF until 22 April. This is Your Trial is showing at MICF until 21 April, including a PG-rated version showing on weekends until 22 April • Guardian Australia was a guest of Melbourne International Comedy Festival

culture/2018/apr/13/from-reinventing-harry-potter-to-suing-your-mates-the-quirky-world-of-improv-comedy

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-13T02:30:49Z

From reinventing Harry Potter to suing your mates: the quirky world of improv comedy

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/13/from-reinventing-harry-potter-to-suing-your-mates-the-quirky-world-of-improv-comedy

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'nature', 'improv', 'fact', 'making', 'laughs', 'completely', 'improvised', 'potter', 'completely', 'improvised', 'shakespeare', 'showing', 'micf', 'april', 'trial', 'showing', 'micf', 'april', 'including', 'pg-rated', 'version', 'showing', 'weekends', 'april', 'guardian', 'australia', 'guest', 'melbourne', 'international', 'comedy', 'festival']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/12/the-silver-caesars-renaissance-masterpieces-reunited-after-a-century

Even the Rothschilds, some of the wealthiest collectors in Victorian Europe, never saw anything like the treasure now displayed in a drawing room at one of their palatial houses, Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. The Silver Caesars – statuettes, bases and bowls known as tazze, each over a foot tall and made from more than six pounds of silver – have been briefly reunited after being separated at least a century ago. In the 19th century, the 12 Renaissance masterpieces were gilded. Some were given new bases, thought to look more imposingly historic, and the pieces were scattered across museum and private collections. One was sold recently to a member of the Qatari ruling family for around £1m. Branches of the Rothschild family had at least five at one point, but never managed to asssemble the set. Another was owned by the father of Ferdinand de Rothschild, who built Waddesdon in 1877 to hold his own spectacular collections, but the Caesar was bequeathed to the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada instead of Ferdinand. The Caesars and the 48 scenes from their lives displayed on the supporting dishes, taken from the vivid accounts of the Roman historian Suetonius, have been correctly matched partly thanks to the sharp eye of the classicist Mary Beard, who is working on a book about Suetonius. Beard visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to study the figure of Domitian. Peering at the scenes supposedly from his life, she realised that the procession illustrated was not that of Domitian, but of Tiberius, described by Suetonius scrambling out of his chariot in his hour of triumph to kneel humbly before his father, Augustus. Her insight, and the realisation that an international museum swap more than half a century earlier had muddled the statuettes and bases, led to an epic international project in which all the Caesars met at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The Met owns one Caesar and has another on long-term loan, but managed to borrow all the others. The pieces were correctly assembled and photographed together for the first time, then disassembled and sent back to their owners. Three years later they were reunited again for an exhibition in New York, and now they meet possibly for the last time at Waddesdon. The Caesars are regarded as some of the most spectacular surviving masterpieces of Renaissance metalwork, but also the most puzzling; Beard calls them “the greatest jigsaw puzzle on earth”. They are known as the Aldobrandini Tazze after one of their first owners, and were assumed to be Italian when sold in London in 1826. The pieces are now thought to have been made in northern Europe, probably for a member of the Habsburg dynasty, but nothing about them is known for certain. “We still can only surmise, based on all our research, when they were made, where and for whom,” says Julia Siemon, the art historian at the Met who led the project. The survival of all the bowls, six of the original bases and 11 of the figures is regarded as extraordinary. “Works of art in silver were literally made of money, so whenever you needed money, you just melted it down,” Siemon says. She believes the tazze were given as diplomatic gifts by a Habsburg archduke travelling to Italy for a dynastic wedding. The whereabouts of the green velvet book, last described centuries ago, which supposedly explains the whole riddle is unknown. Siemon says: “I still have a faint hope that maybe as a result of the publicity for this exhibition, somebody will open their bookcase and find it.” The Caesars are described as “heartstoppingly beautiful” by Pippa Shirley, head of collections at Waddesdon. “This exhibition will never happen again,” she adds. The Silver Caesars: A Renaissance Mystery is at Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury, from 18 April to 22 July 2018

culture/2018/apr/12/the-silver-caesars-renaissance-masterpieces-reunited-after-a-century

pillar/arts

Arts

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2018-04-12T16:19:35Z

The Silver Caesars: Renaissance masterpieces reunited after a century

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/12/the-silver-caesars-renaissance-masterpieces-reunited-after-a-century

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/12/jimmy-kimmel-trump-worst-week-stephen-colbert

Late-night hosts discussed another week of problems for the Trump administration, including a string of angry tweets and a surprise announcement from the House speaker, Paul Ryan. Jimmy Kimmel On Jimmy Kimmel Live, the host started by saying: “I feel like every week I say this has been a bad week for Donald Trump but this bad week might be the worst bad week of all the bad weeks so far.” Kimmel spoke about the long-term relationship between the president and his lawyer Michael Cohen, whose responsibilities have included threatening to sue the producer of Sharknado 3. “We have a president who made his lawyer shout at a movie producer,” he said. He referenced a story that claimed Trump was offered the role of president in the third film but was advised against it, given the fact that he was set to run for office soon after. Instead, Mark Cuban was given the role, something the president saw as a personal attack, given his distaste for him. “You realize what this means, right?” Kimmel said. “We are living in Sharknado 3. He is the president.” Kimmel also talked about the rumors that Trump might fire Robert Mueller and that it would be “a bigly mistake” if he did it. He then played a montage of clips that included Fox News correspondents suggesting that it’s something he should do. “Trump really doesn’t need a cabinet,” he said. “He needs a cabinet with a television in it, tuned to Fox News” Stephen Colbert On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert started by reading out the latest tweets from Trump, one of which calls the raid on Michael Cohen’s office “unthinkable”. “I don’t know if raiding Trump’s lawyer’s office is unthinkable sir,” Colbert said. “For example … I just thought of it.” In the same tweet thread, Trump also reiterated that he has been involved in no obstruction of justice. “Here’s some free legal advice for you,” he said. “When you’re under investigation for obstruction of justice, don’t tweet ‘No Collusion or Obstruction (other than I fight back).’ Fighting back is the obstruction part.” In reference to the situation in Syria, he added: “Jared, this would be a great time to unveil your whole Middle East peace thing.” Trump also referred to the missiles coming from Syria as nice and new and smart. “Nice and new and smart?” Colbert said. “Is there any way we could make those missiles president?” Trevor Noah On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah spoke about the concern that Trump is going to cause war via Twitter. “I feel like we joked about this and now it’s become real,” he said. “It turns out every joke about Trump is a headline that hasn’t happened yet.” He also joked about the “nice and new and smart” comment. “It sounds like he’s trying to fix them up with the missiles,” he said. Many people have noted that Trump’s earlier tweets slamming Obama for being too obvious about his Syria strategy are now hypocritical. “At this point, Trump’s hypocrisy is so unsurprising it’s not even fun any more,” he said. Noah also spoke about the long-winded process involved with Trump potentially firing Robert Mueller. “It’s like he’s been tantric-firing him,” he said. “He’s been letting it build up and build up.” This week also saw Paul Ryan announce that he won’t be running for re-election. “This is a big deal,” Noah said. “Even though Paul Ryan looks young enough to play Spider-Man, he’s actually been in Congress since 1999. That was so long ago, Britney Spears hadn’t even done it again yet.” Seth Meyers The host of Late Night with Seth Meyers also started with Ryan, who claims he will now have more time to spend with his family. “So now his family are the ones asking for thoughts and prayers,” he said. This week also saw the deputy national security adviser, Nadia Schadlow, announce that she will be retiring. “This is how bad it’s getting in the Trump administration: the first time you hear someone’s name is when they resign,” he said. Meyers also joked about Trump’s odd tweet about obstruction of justice. “That’s like saying no infidelity other than I sleep with porn stars,” he said. “Only Trump could try to obstruct justice and confess to it in the same tweet.”

culture/2018/apr/12/jimmy-kimmel-trump-worst-week-stephen-colbert

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2018-04-12T15:33:18Z

Jimmy Kimmel: this is Trump's 'worst bad week of all the bad weeks so far'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/12/jimmy-kimmel-trump-worst-week-stephen-colbert

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/11/trevor-noah-michael-cohen-witch-hunt-stephen-colbert-round-up

Late-night hosts on Tuesday discussed the FBI raid on Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s offices, as well as Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before the Senate judiciary committee. Trevor Noah Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah covered the Cohen raid and disputed Trump’s claim of the investigation being a “witch-hunt”. “Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer and VIP customer at Joseph A Bank,” Noah began. “Yesterday, thanks to the FBI, he had a really, really bad day.” After showing news segments about the raid, Noah asked: “How corrupt is your circle if your lawyer uses his one phone call to call you? “Anytime the FBI raids a lawyer’s office, it’s a really, really big deal. But it’s an even bigger deal when that lawyer is Michael Cohen,” Noah explained, summarizing Cohen’s, often called Trump’s “fixer”, close relationship with the president. “Basically, Michael Cohen is Trump’s go-to guy for everything,” Noah continued. “So if Trump has ever done anything shady – which I know sounds ridiculous, but stick with me here – this FBI raid has a good chance of finding it.” Noah went on: “Now, in Trump world, what’s happening here is a giant conspiracy, right? It’s Robert Mueller trying to take Trump down for political reasons. The only issue with that argument is the conspiracy would have to involve every single person in law enforcement.” The host then showed a news clip explaining the process by which a warrant to search Cohen’s office was secured: first, special counsel Mueller had to have found evidence of criminal activity, handed off the material to Rosenstein, who made a referral to the southern district of New York, an attorney for which sought out a search warrant and waited for a judge to sign off on it. “That doesn’t sound like a witch-hunt to me,” Noah said. “What we’re hearing is way too much legal procedure to be considered a witch-hunt. If people in Salem had this kind of due process, they would have never burned anyone.” Stephen Colbert “Right now, before anything else, I want to give a shout out to any FBI agent watching this from Michael Cohen’s hotel room,” Stephen Colbert began. “Of course, I’m talking about yesterday’s big raid on Trump attorney and man realizing he left his soul on the bus, Michael Cohen. “This exact moment, FBI agents are so far up in Trump’s business that they’re reading his emails with a proctoscope,” Colbert joked, before explaining that in the raid on Cohen’s home and legal offices FBI agents reportedly recovered Cohen’s computer, financial records, phone and materials related to the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels just weeks before the 2016 election. “When Trump found out about this he was pretty upset,” the host continued, showing clips of Trump calling the raid “a real disgrace” and “an attack on our country”. The president also characterized the raid as a “break-in”, to which Colbert replied: “They don’t break in, they used a search warrant.” “Did you see what they did to my attorney?” Colbert quipped, impersonating Trump. “They broke into his office, stole a bunch of damning evidence. I think they might kidnap him to jail.” “Here’s the thing,” Colbert said. “The Cohen raid was planned, approved and reapproved by multiple, actual Trump appointees, including Rod Rosenstein, the Republican prosecutor handpicked by Trump to serve as deputy attorney general.” Trump, the host explained, has been fuming about the investigation being a “witch-hunt”, upping the ante on Tuesday by tweeting “attorney-client privilege is dead!” “Well, it is for you,” Colbert shot back. “Because it turns out paying $130,000 to shut up a porn star right before the election is a violation of campaign finance law, and knowingly lying to a bank about why you need the $130,000 is bank fraud, and attorney client privilege doesn’t apply if they’re investigating a crime jointly undertaken by the attorney and the client.” Jimmy Kimmel Finally, Jimmy Kimmel addressed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress regarding the data breach that allowed millions of people’s personal information into the hands of Russia and Trump’s campaign data firm Cambridge Analytica. “The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, testified before the Senate judiciary and commerce committees today to explain how and why all your personal information somehow wound up in the hands of a foreign country,” Kimmel began. “Zuckerberg testified for more than five hours today,” he continued. “It was tough, but at the end of the hearing he wowed senators by presenting them with a slideshow he made of all their memories together.” The host joked that “the best part was getting to see Mark Zuckerberg in big boy clothes”, adding that the Facebook CEO, notorious for a uniform of hooded sweatshirts and jeans, “has a suit, it turns out”. “Facebook has admitted that as many as 270m accounts are or may be fake and used to spread false information online,” Kimmel added. “Although, let’s be honest, most real Facebook accounts are used to spread false information online.”

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2018-04-11T14:53:52Z

Trevor Noah on the Michael Cohen raid: 'That doesn’t sound like a witch-hunt'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/11/trevor-noah-michael-cohen-witch-hunt-stephen-colbert-round-up

['late-night', 'hosts', 'tuesday', 'discussed', 'fbi', 'raid', 'trump', 'attorney', 'michael', 'cohen', 'offices', 'well', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'testimony', 'senate', 'judiciary', 'committee', 'trevor', 'noah', 'comedy', 'central', 'trevor', 'noah', 'covered', 'cohen', 'raid', 'disputed', 'trump', 'claim', 'investigation', 'witch-hunt', 'michael', 'cohen', 'president', 'trump', 'personal', 'lawyer', 'vip', 'customer', 'joseph', 'bank', 'noah', 'began', 'yesterday', 'thanks', 'fbi', 'really', 'really', 'bad', 'day', 'showing', 'news', 'segments', 'raid', 'noah', 'asked', 'corrupt', 'circle', 'lawyer', 'uses', 'one', 'phone', 'call', 'call', 'anytime', 'fbi', 'raids', 'lawyer', 'office', 'really', 'really', 'big', 'deal', 'even', 'bigger', 'deal', 'lawyer', 'michael', 'cohen', 'noah', 'explained', 'summarizing', 'cohen', 'often', 'called', 'trump', 'fixer', 'close', 'relationship', 'president', 'basically', 'michael', 'cohen', 'trump', 'go-to', 'guy', 'everything', 'noah', 'continued', 'trump', 'ever', 'done', 'anything', 'shady', 'know', 'sounds', 'ridiculous', 'stick', 'fbi', 'raid', 'good', 'chance', 'finding', 'noah', 'went', 'trump', 'world', 'happening', 'giant', 'conspiracy', 'right', 'robert', 'mueller', 'trying', 'take', 'trump', 'political', 'reasons', 'issue', 'argument', 'conspiracy', 'would', 'involve', 'every', 'single', 'person', 'law', 'enforcement', 'host', 'showed', 'news', 'clip', 'explaining', 'process', 'warrant', 'search', 'cohen', 'office', 'secured', 'first', 'special', 'counsel', 'mueller', 'found', 'evidence', 'criminal', 'activity', 'handed', 'material', 'rosenstein', 'made', 'referral', 'southern', 'district', 'new', 'york', 'attorney', 'sought', 'search', 'warrant', 'waited', 'judge', 'sign', 'sound', 'like', 'witch-hunt', 'noah', 'said', 'hearing', 'way', 'much', 'legal', 'procedure', 'considered', 'witch-hunt', 'people', 'salem', 'kind', 'due', 'process', 'would', 'never', 'burned', 'anyone', 'stephen', 'colbert', 'right', 'anything', 'else', 'want', 'give', 'shout', 'fbi', 'agent', 'watching', 'michael', 'cohen', 'hotel', 'room', 'stephen', 'colbert', 'began', 'course', 'talking', 'yesterday', 'big', 'raid', 'trump', 'attorney', 'man', 'realizing', 'left', 'soul', 'bus', 'michael', 'cohen', 'exact', 'moment', 'fbi', 'agents', 'far', 'trump', 'business', 'reading', 'emails', 'proctoscope', 'colbert', 'joked', 'explaining', 'raid', 'cohen', 'home', 'legal', 'offices', 'fbi', 'agents', 'reportedly', 'recovered', 'cohen', 'computer', 'financial', 'records', 'phone', 'materials', 'related', 'payment', 'stormy', 'daniels', 'weeks', 'election', 'trump', 'found', 'pretty', 'upset', 'host', 'continued', 'showing', 'clips', 'trump', 'calling', 'raid', 'real', 'disgrace', 'attack', 'country', 'president', 'also', 'characterized', 'raid', 'break-in', 'colbert', 'replied', 'break', 'used', 'search', 'warrant', 'see', 'attorney', 'colbert', 'quipped', 'impersonating', 'trump', 'broke', 'office', 'stole', 'bunch', 'damning', 'evidence', 'think', 'might', 'kidnap', 'jail', 'thing', 'colbert', 'said', 'cohen', 'raid', 'planned', 'approved', 'reapproved', 'multiple', 'actual', 'trump', 'appointees', 'including', 'rod', 'rosenstein', 'republican', 'prosecutor', 'handpicked', 'trump', 'serve', 'deputy', 'attorney', 'general', 'trump', 'host', 'explained', 'fuming', 'investigation', 'witch-hunt', 'upping', 'ante', 'tuesday', 'tweeting', 'attorney-client', 'privilege', 'dead', 'well', 'colbert', 'shot', 'back', 'turns', 'paying', 'shut', 'porn', 'star', 'right', 'election', 'violation', 'campaign', 'finance', 'law', 'knowingly', 'lying', 'bank', 'need', 'bank', 'fraud', 'attorney', 'client', 'privilege', 'apply', 'investigating', 'crime', 'jointly', 'undertaken', 'attorney', 'client', 'jimmy', 'kimmel', 'finally', 'jimmy', 'kimmel', 'addressed', 'facebook', 'ceo', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'testimony', 'congress', 'regarding', 'data', 'breach', 'allowed', 'millions', 'people', 'personal', 'information', 'hands', 'russia', 'trump', 'campaign', 'data', 'firm', 'cambridge', 'analytica', 'ceo', 'facebook', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'testified', 'senate', 'judiciary', 'commerce', 'committees', 'today', 'explain', 'personal', 'information', 'somehow', 'wound', 'hands', 'foreign', 'country', 'kimmel', 'began', 'zuckerberg', 'testified', 'five', 'hours', 'today', 'continued', 'tough', 'end', 'hearing', 'wowed', 'senators', 'presenting', 'slideshow', 'made', 'memories', 'together', 'host', 'joked', 'best', 'part', 'getting', 'see', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'big', 'boy', 'clothes', 'adding', 'facebook', 'ceo', 'notorious', 'uniform', 'hooded', 'sweatshirts', 'jeans', 'suit', 'turns', 'facebook', 'admitted', 'many', '270m', 'accounts', 'may', 'fake', 'used', 'spread', 'false', 'information', 'online', 'kimmel', 'added', 'although', 'let', 'honest', 'real', 'facebook', 'accounts', 'used', 'spread', 'false', 'information', 'online']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/10/silicon-valley-star-tj-miller-arrested-for-alleged-false-bomb-threat

TJ Miller has been arrested for allegedly sharing false information about a bomb threat. The comic and actor, known for the long-running show Silicon Valley and his role in Deadpool, was taken into custody on Monday night after he made the claim in March while riding on a train to Connecticut. The US attorney for the district of Connecticut confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that the 36-year-old is being charged with “intentionally conveying” false information to law enforcement. He allegedly called 911, saying there was a female passenger with “a bomb in her bag” on a different train from the one he was catching. No evidence was found after passengers were removed and bomb squad members searched the area. An attendant on Miller’s train claimed he was “intoxicated” and “had been involved in hostile exchanges with a woman who was sitting in a different row from him”. After his arrest on Monday, he appeared in court the day after and was released on a $100,000 bond. The maximum sentence is five years in prison. Miller was previously arrested for allegedly slapping an Uber driver in 2016 over a disagreement about Donald Trump. Last month, the case was settled out of court. The comedian rose to fame with his role on the HBO comedy Silicon Valley but exited the show after creative differences with the showrunners. His screen credits also include The Emoji Movie, Ready Player One and Office Christmas Party. He will next be seen in Deadpool 2.

culture/2018/apr/10/silicon-valley-star-tj-miller-arrested-for-alleged-false-bomb-threat

pillar/arts

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culture

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article

2018-04-10T17:36:19Z

Silicon Valley star TJ Miller arrested for alleged false bomb threat

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/10/silicon-valley-star-tj-miller-arrested-for-alleged-false-bomb-threat

['tj', 'miller', 'arrested', 'allegedly', 'sharing', 'false', 'information', 'bomb', 'threat', 'comic', 'actor', 'known', 'long-running', 'show', 'silicon', 'valley', 'role', 'deadpool', 'taken', 'custody', 'monday', 'night', 'made', 'claim', 'march', 'riding', 'train', 'connecticut', 'us', 'attorney', 'district', 'connecticut', 'confirmed', 'hollywood', 'reporter', '36-year-old', 'charged', 'intentionally', 'conveying', 'false', 'information', 'law', 'enforcement', 'allegedly', 'called', 'saying', 'female', 'passenger', 'bomb', 'bag', 'different', 'train', 'one', 'catching', 'evidence', 'found', 'passengers', 'removed', 'bomb', 'squad', 'members', 'searched', 'area', 'attendant', 'miller', 'train', 'claimed', 'intoxicated', 'involved', 'hostile', 'exchanges', 'woman', 'sitting', 'different', 'row', 'arrest', 'monday', 'appeared', 'court', 'day', 'released', 'bond', 'maximum', 'sentence', 'five', 'years', 'prison', 'miller', 'previously', 'arrested', 'allegedly', 'slapping', 'uber', 'driver', 'disagreement', 'donald', 'trump', 'last', 'month', 'case', 'settled', 'court', 'comedian', 'rose', 'fame', 'role', 'hbo', 'comedy', 'silicon', 'valley', 'exited', 'show', 'creative', 'differences', 'showrunners', 'screen', 'credits', 'also', 'include', 'emoji', 'movie', 'ready', 'player', 'one', 'office', 'christmas', 'party', 'next', 'seen', 'deadpool']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/10/scott-pruitt-trevor-noah-michael-cogen-stephen-colbert-round-up

Late-night hosts on Monday discussed the FBI raid on Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s office and home, as well as the mounting scandals embroiling Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency. Trevor Noah Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah focused on the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, whose conduct while in office has led to rumors of his imminent dismissal at the hands of the White House. “Every week, another Trump cabinet official is getting caught in a scandal,” Noah began. “Ben Carson spent a fortune on furniture. Tom Price used private jets like they were Ubers.” “Recently,” he continued, “everyone has been talking about Scott Pruitt. He’s the head of the Environmental Protection Agency and the lovechild of George W Bush and a baked potato. You see, he’s taken cabinet scandals to a whole new level.” Noah then showed a CNN segment that detailed just some of Pruitt’s many scandals, including living in a DC condo rented from a prominent energy lobbyist, increasing two aides’ salaries in defiance of the White House, using sirens to cut through DC traffic, reassigning staffers concerned about EPA spending, requesting a 24/7 security detail, as well as traveling only in first class or military jets. “That’s so much scandal even Shonda Rhymes would be like, ‘OK, this is unrealistic,’” Noah joked. “The head of the EPA is spending taxpayer money like he just woke up in Chris Brown’s body. He also said he was afraid people are listening to his phone conversations, so he spent $43,000 building a soundproof booth. Noah replied: “Motherfucker never heard of whispering?” “Listen to this one,” Noah went on. “Scott Pruitt wanted to spend $75,000 on a bulletproof desk. What’s the point of a bulletproof desk? It only works if your assassin doesn’t know how to walk around stuff.” The host then noted that Pruitt’s reasoning for only flying first class was because he’d had “unpleasant interactions” with travelers, including one who said to him: “You’re fucking up the environment.” “Pruitt may be an over-entitled, self-dealing cabinet member, but he’s really good at being bad for the environment,” Noah added, alluding to the two dozen Obama-era environmental regulations Pruitt has rolled back, including vehicle emmission standards and the Clean Power Plan, as well as his support for backing out of the Paris climate accord. “It’s amazing how the only thing you need for Trump to consider you effective is to just hit delete on anything Obama did,” Noah concluded. Stephen Colbert “Since I was off last week, I barely checked the news,” began Stephen Colbert. “I know it’s my job to stay informed, but I did not once think about Donald Trump’s penis. “Well, that’s all about to change in tonight’s Stormy Watch,” Colbert added. “As long time Stormy Watchers know, porn star Stormy Daniels states that right before the election, she was paid $130,000 by Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to stay silent about her alleged doing-it-with-Donald. “Future generations will learn all about it in the Trump presidential library’s adult section,” the host joked. He then went on to show Trump answering questions aboard Air Force One. In a clip from last Thursday, Trump claimed he didn’t know about Cohen’s payment to Daniels. “Today, on a tip from Mueller, the FBI raided Cohen’s office, seizing records related to several topics, including payments to a pornographic film actress,” Colbert continued, alluding to the extraordinary search conducted on Cohen’s legal offices. Colbert went on, referencing news clips, to explain that the prosecutors for the southern district of New York had to prove both probable cause that a crime had been committed and that evidence of such a crime could be obtained via a raid. Colbert went on: “If Trump really knew nothing about this, Cohen is already in deep trouble because getting into an agreement on behalf of a client who doesn’t know that you’re doing that agreement is grounds for disbarment in New York.” Colbert then showed Stromy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti in an appearance on CNN, in which he states that Trump’s claiming ignorance of the payment is good for Daniels, since “you can’t have an agreement if one party claims they knew nothing about one of the principal terms of the agreement”.

culture/2018/apr/10/scott-pruitt-trevor-noah-michael-cogen-stephen-colbert-round-up

pillar/arts

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2018-04-10T14:47:09Z

Trevor Noah says Scott Pruitt has 'taken cabinet scandals to a whole new level'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/10/scott-pruitt-trevor-noah-michael-cogen-stephen-colbert-round-up

['late-night', 'hosts', 'monday', 'discussed', 'fbi', 'raid', 'trump', 'attorney', 'michael', 'cohen', 'office', 'home', 'well', 'mounting', 'scandals', 'embroiling', 'scott', 'pruitt', 'environmental', 'protection', 'agency', 'trevor', 'noah', 'comedy', 'central', 'trevor', 'noah', 'focused', 'epa', 'administrator', 'scott', 'pruitt', 'whose', 'conduct', 'office', 'led', 'rumors', 'imminent', 'dismissal', 'hands', 'white', 'house', 'every', 'week', 'another', 'trump', 'cabinet', 'official', 'getting', 'caught', 'scandal', 'noah', 'began', 'ben', 'carson', 'spent', 'fortune', 'furniture', 'tom', 'price', 'used', 'private', 'jets', 'like', 'ubers', 'recently', 'continued', 'everyone', 'talking', 'scott', 'pruitt', 'head', 'environmental', 'protection', 'agency', 'lovechild', 'george', 'w', 'bush', 'baked', 'potato', 'see', 'taken', 'cabinet', 'scandals', 'whole', 'new', 'level', 'noah', 'showed', 'cnn', 'segment', 'detailed', 'pruitt', 'many', 'scandals', 'including', 'living', 'dc', 'condo', 'rented', 'prominent', 'energy', 'lobbyist', 'increasing', 'two', 'aides', 'salaries', 'defiance', 'white', 'house', 'using', 'sirens', 'cut', 'dc', 'traffic', 'reassigning', 'staffers', 'concerned', 'epa', 'spending', 'requesting', 'security', 'detail', 'well', 'traveling', 'first', 'class', 'military', 'jets', 'much', 'scandal', 'even', 'shonda', 'rhymes', 'would', 'like', 'ok', 'unrealistic', 'noah', 'joked', 'head', 'epa', 'spending', 'taxpayer', 'money', 'like', 'woke', 'chris', 'brown', 'body', 'also', 'said', 'afraid', 'people', 'listening', 'phone', 'conversations', 'spent', 'building', 'soundproof', 'booth', 'noah', 'replied', 'motherfucker', 'never', 'heard', 'whispering', 'listen', 'one', 'noah', 'went', 'scott', 'pruitt', 'wanted', 'spend', 'bulletproof', 'desk', 'point', 'bulletproof', 'desk', 'works', 'assassin', 'know', 'walk', 'around', 'stuff', 'host', 'noted', 'pruitt', 'reasoning', 'flying', 'first', 'class', 'would', 'unpleasant', 'interactions', 'travelers', 'including', 'one', 'said', 'fucking', 'environment', 'pruitt', 'may', 'over-entitled', 'self-dealing', 'cabinet', 'member', 'really', 'good', 'bad', 'environment', 'noah', 'added', 'alluding', 'two', 'dozen', 'obama-era', 'environmental', 'regulations', 'pruitt', 'rolled', 'back', 'including', 'vehicle', 'emmission', 'standards', 'clean', 'power', 'plan', 'well', 'support', 'backing', 'paris', 'climate', 'accord', 'amazing', 'thing', 'need', 'trump', 'consider', 'effective', 'hit', 'delete', 'anything', 'obama', 'noah', 'concluded', 'stephen', 'colbert', 'since', 'last', 'week', 'barely', 'checked', 'news', 'began', 'stephen', 'colbert', 'know', 'job', 'stay', 'informed', 'think', 'donald', 'trump', 'penis', 'well', 'change', 'tonight', 'stormy', 'watch', 'colbert', 'added', 'long', 'time', 'stormy', 'watchers', 'know', 'porn', 'star', 'stormy', 'daniels', 'states', 'right', 'election', 'paid', 'trump', 'lawyer', 'michael', 'cohen', 'stay', 'silent', 'alleged', 'doing-it-with-donald', 'future', 'generations', 'learn', 'trump', 'presidential', 'library', 'adult', 'section', 'host', 'joked', 'went', 'show', 'trump', 'answering', 'questions', 'aboard', 'air', 'force', 'one', 'clip', 'last', 'thursday', 'trump', 'claimed', 'know', 'cohen', 'payment', 'daniels', 'today', 'tip', 'mueller', 'fbi', 'raided', 'cohen', 'office', 'seizing', 'records', 'related', 'several', 'topics', 'including', 'payments', 'pornographic', 'film', 'actress', 'colbert', 'continued', 'alluding', 'extraordinary', 'search', 'conducted', 'cohen', 'legal', 'offices', 'colbert', 'went', 'referencing', 'news', 'clips', 'explain', 'prosecutors', 'southern', 'district', 'new', 'york', 'prove', 'probable', 'cause', 'crime', 'committed', 'evidence', 'crime', 'could', 'obtained', 'via', 'raid', 'colbert', 'went', 'trump', 'really', 'knew', 'nothing', 'cohen', 'already', 'deep', 'trouble', 'getting', 'agreement', 'behalf', 'client', 'know', 'agreement', 'grounds', 'disbarment', 'new', 'york', 'colbert', 'showed', 'stromy', 'daniels', 'lawyer', 'michael', 'avenatti', 'appearance', 'cnn', 'states', 'trump', 'claiming', 'ignorance', 'payment', 'good', 'daniels', 'since', 'agreement', 'one', 'party', 'claims', 'knew', 'nothing', 'one', 'principal', 'terms', 'agreement']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/10/how-we-made-a-taste-of-honey-rita-tushingham

Rita Tushingham, played Jo Tony Richardson, the director, made it fun for everybody on set. I remember the props man was so thrilled to be working there that on the first day he went out and got drunk. My character Jo, with her innocence, toughness and cheek, was richly written by Shelagh Delaney. You can spot her in an early scene – she’s the tall lady watching the girls play basketball. My only acting experience had been as the back legs of a horse for the Liverpool Playhouse. I honestly don’t know what landed me the lead part. I think they were after an unknown, someone you wouldn’t associate with other roles. But it says much about Tony that he brought in people like me who wouldn’t usually have been considered for a movie. I was given freedom to express myself. In the classroom scene where I’m misbehaving, Tony just said: “Do what you want.” It helped that I was near Jo’s age. There’s this sort of jump-cut to my eyes when I realise the teacher has caught me. It’s one of those moments where, thanks to brilliant editing, there’s no need to say anything. I was happy with the un-made-up look. I suppose it was shocking, coming after the chocolate box 1950s, to have a female lead presented in such a raw way, but audiences identified with Jo. It was also controversial to depict a relationship between a white girl and a black guy, played by Paul Danquah, who I became great friends with. You can see it in the way we improvise that scene on the steps, where he pretends to play the bongo and I do a little dance. I’d never been in front of a camera before but didn’t feel inhibited at all. Murray Melvin had already played Geoffrey, the gentle homosexual, on the stage. He taught me so much about preparation and relaxing. His is the character your heart bleeds for, whereas Jo and her mother, unusually for the time, are presented as two females with a certain power. Whenever there is a problem, they go in with all guns blazing. Desmond Davis, camera operator I’d been working in a stuffy, studio-bound atmosphere making films by numbers for Pinewood. Tony was such a refreshing contrast: a follower of the French new wave who gave us artistic freedom. The decision to shoot the film entirely out of the studio was radical for the time, but Tony loved being different. And I was his right-hand man. Because of its realistic style, A Taste of Honey was sneeringly called a kitchen-sink drama. Yet the film has great lyricism, making beautiful use of locations in Salford found by our art director, Ralph Brinton. There’s one scene where a heavily pregnant Jo walks with Geoffrey along the canal. Tony had this idea of having a singing, wandering band of children passing them. It’s a moment of pure cinema and typically Tony. We used Arriflex handheld cameras a lot. I had form on that as I’d been in the Army film unit for three years during the second world war, shooting in near battlefield conditions. Their use is especially noticeable in the scenes on Blackpool Pier, where heavy camera tracks weren’t feasible. Shooting in black and white was a financial decision: colour was expensive. And the Eastman colour stock was slow and needed heavy lighting units, unlike black-and-white high-speed film, which was ideal for the poor lighting conditions we were often filming in. Rita was an incredible actress with very expressive eyes – just a bit of emotion would flicker over her face and convey so much. My heart turns over a little when I watch the film now: so many of the crew and cast have gone. But the film was way ahead of its time and still looks modern today. • A Taste of Honey is part of the Woodfall Films season at BFI Southbank, London, this month. The box set Woodfall: A Revolution in British Cinema is out on 28 May.

culture/2018/apr/10/how-we-made-a-taste-of-honey-rita-tushingham

pillar/arts

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culture

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2018-04-10T05:00:19Z

How we made A Taste of Honey

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/10/how-we-made-a-taste-of-honey-rita-tushingham

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/10/aussie-humour-abroad-comedy-language-lost-in-translation

On their first international tour as a young comedy band, Australia’s Axis of Awesome found themselves in the UK at the world’s biggest fringe festival. It was there they learned an important lesson for any comedian venturing abroad: comedy is contextual. “There used to be a cocktail shot called the ‘cocksucking cowboy’,” frontwoman Jordan Raskopoulos remembers. “We had a song about it, which we performed in Edinburgh.” It turned out, however, that the popularity of the drink was largely confined to Australia. Without the background knowledge, she says, “it just turned out to be a reasonably homophobic song about cowboys, with no punchline”. It was a quick learning curve for Raskopolous and her band: comedy requires a delicate process of translation; and not everyone has heard of our terrible cocktails. Australia loves the story of local comedians making it big overseas – the awards in Edinburgh, the rave reviews in New York. And for the comedians themselves, it’s part of the trajectory. This month at the Melbourne International Comedy festival (MICF), hundreds of Australian comedians will be trying out new material, hoping the festival will be a springboard for international opportunities like it has been for Adam Hills and Josh Thomas, and more recently Zoë Coombs Marr and Hannah Gadsby. But will their work translate overseas? “Standups around the world are all doing standup,” says Australian comedian and the Weekly host Charlie Pickering. “But in different places it’s almost like gymnastics. It’s almost like [using] a different apparatus.” In his current show at MICF, for instance, in a country where standup culture allows for more leisurely sets and long-form jokes, Pickering has a story that goes for 15 minutes. But in New York, where he splits his time, “the audience doesn’t really like a joke to go longer than two minutes inside a set”. In order to appeal to these international audiences you need to understand how comedy translates across borders, across cultures, across languages. “Comedy, unlike music, it’s kind of a conversation,” says Nazeem Hussain, a standup best known for SBS’s Legally Brown and his collaboration with Aamer Rahman in Fear of a Brown Planet. If you’re relying on a call-and-response between performer and audience, he says, the audience “need to be with you the whole way.” For many of the Australian comics who spoke to Guardian Australia, American audiences are the hardest. “They just really want to know what your schtick is,” Hussein says, laughing. Similar to Pickering, he finds a demand for brevity. “They’re almost impatient, and they want to know what you are and what you’re about before they start laughing.” Raskopoulos agrees that for Australian comedians the US is “the most foreign place”. In her experience, though – performing musical comedy instead of standup – it’s foreign in a different way: “The audiences there are so strange. So enthusiastic. So enthusiastic over nothing. Our shows ran, like, 20 minutes longer than they did anywhere else in the world.” Funny or not? The style of comedy we see most frequently in Australia – and the form that dominates at MICF – is the one-hour standup show. The format has origins at Edinburgh, making that festival an easier fit for Australian comics, but subtle considerations still need to be taken. Change “Woolworths” to “Sainsbury’s”, and change “pants” to “trousers”. Don’t bring cocksucking cowboys anywhere near your set. But for Zoë Coombs Marr, who won the prestigious Barry award for best show at MICF in 2016 and followed it up with a nomination for best comedy in Edinburgh, it’s not just about the literal word choices, but also the translation of intent: communicating both the meaning of the joke and “that you know you know what you’re doing, and you know how they’re going to take it”. The audience, she says, needs to feel comfortable laughing at your jokes. “That’s another part of the translation: it is about trust, really,” she says. “In order to be able to laugh at what you’re saying, they need to be able to trust that you know what the fuck you’re doing.” For Coombs Marr, the first show, whether it’s in her home town or overseas, “is always really weird because you’re working out the rhythms of an audience, and which bits they find funnier”. While Coombs Marr is mostly known in comedy circles for her character Dave, her new show Bossy Bottom is Zoë performing as Zoë, investigating a comedian’s relationship with her audience. It’s the longest relationship she has ever had, she tells the audience, but with a changing cast of characters each night. Sometimes, Coombs Marr finds herself with radically different audiences. Last year, with her company Post, she performed Oedipus Schmoedipus in Chile. The work, about the great stage deaths of history, is performed by two members of Post and a chorus of volunteers; in Chile, it was performed in English with Spanish subtitles and a chorus of locals speaking Spanish. This trilingual presentation (two spoken and one written language) meant Post “didn’t know where our jokes were going to land at all”. Now translating the work to Cantonese for performances in Hong Kong, Post is discovering a whole new form of comedy: puns that exist in the similarities between written characters. Finding home abroad Some Australian comedians only find their voice abroad. When Candy Bowers first performed in Edinburgh in 2008, she found an international, multicultural performance scene far more diverse than she had enjoyed back home. “There still wasn’t as many women as I dreamt about, or as international as I hoped for … But there were pockets,” she says. “We were able to feel a bit more aligned. “What I realised was all this time I’d been probably making comedy and theatre for a South African audience, for a South African canon, which was really crazy, because I’m like ‘how?!’” Although Bowers had grown up on Australian comedy, there was a kinship between her comedy and this audience: “It was for them. And that really blew me away.” Hussain says he found performing in his parents’ home country of Sri Lanka “almost like a homecoming”. There, he was treated like a celebrity, with a press conference before the show and an excited, enthusiastic audience. And while Hussain adapted his work for the new country (and the children in the audience; people attended with their whole families), “they were up for anything”, he says. “It was kind of nice.” And, he jokes, “I didn’t realise the shared lack of enthusiasm for British colonialism – so those jokes also went down pretty well.” For the comics that come out of Melbourne comedy festival, part of the thrill in touring their work will be finding their way into the translation and finding where the commonalities lie. It’s a discovery that, largely, can only take place in the room. “It’s sort of like a laugh is like a Rosetta Stone,” says Coombs Marr. “You can go: ‘OK, you find that funny, so we’ll use that as a jumping-off point in order to communicate.’” “The job is about finding a way to communicate to an audience,” says Coombs Marr. “People are looking for that nugget of truth. And so for some people that might be represented by a Coles joke or a Woolworths joke, and for some people it might be represented by a Sainsbury’s joke. But, essentially, at its heart, it’s the same thing.” • Zoe Coombs Marr, Nazeem Hussain and Charlie Pickering are performing at Melbourne International Comedy festival

culture/2018/apr/10/aussie-humour-abroad-comedy-language-lost-in-translation

pillar/arts

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culture

Culture

article

2018-04-10T04:34:05Z

Lost in translation? The comics trying out Aussie humour abroad

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/10/aussie-humour-abroad-comedy-language-lost-in-translation

['first', 'international', 'tour', 'young', 'comedy', 'band', 'australia', 'axis', 'awesome', 'found', 'uk', 'world', 'biggest', 'fringe', 'festival', 'learned', 'important', 'lesson', 'comedian', 'venturing', 'abroad', 'comedy', 'contextual', 'used', 'cocktail', 'shot', 'called', 'cocksucking', 'cowboy', 'frontwoman', 'jordan', 'raskopoulos', 'remembers', 'song', 'performed', 'edinburgh', 'turned', 'however', 'popularity', 'drink', 'largely', 'confined', 'australia', 'without', 'background', 'knowledge', 'says', 'turned', 'reasonably', 'homophobic', 'song', 'cowboys', 'punchline', 'quick', 'learning', 'curve', 'raskopolous', 'band', 'comedy', 'requires', 'delicate', 'process', 'translation', 'everyone', 'heard', 'terrible', 'cocktails', 'australia', 'loves', 'story', 'local', 'comedians', 'making', 'big', 'overseas', 'awards', 'edinburgh', 'rave', 'reviews', 'new', 'york', 'comedians', 'part', 'trajectory', 'month', 'melbourne', 'international', 'comedy', 'festival', 'micf', 'hundreds', 'australian', 'comedians', 'trying', 'new', 'material', 'hoping', 'festival', 'springboard', 'international', 'opportunities', 'like', 'adam', 'hills', 'josh', 'thomas', 'recently', 'zoe', 'coombs', 'marr', 'hannah', 'gadsby', 'work', 'translate', 'overseas', 'standups', 'around', 'world', 'standup', 'says', 'australian', 'comedian', 'weekly', 'host', 'charlie', 'pickering', 'different', 'places', 'almost', 'like', 'gymnastics', 'almost', 'like', 'using', 'different', 'apparatus', 'current', 'show', 'micf', 'instance', 'country', 'standup', 'culture', 'allows', 'leisurely', 'sets', 'long-form', 'jokes', 'pickering', 'story', 'goes', 'minutes', 'new', 'york', 'splits', 'time', 'audience', 'really', 'like', 'joke', 'go', 'longer', 'two', 'minutes', 'inside', 'set', 'order', 'appeal', 'international', 'audiences', 'need', 'understand', 'comedy', 'translates', 'across', 'borders', 'across', 'cultures', 'across', 'languages', 'comedy', 'unlike', 'music', 'kind', 'conversation', 'says', 'nazeem', 'hussain', 'standup', 'best', 'known', 'sbs', 'legally', 'brown', 'collaboration', 'aamer', 'rahman', 'fear', 'brown', 'planet', 'relying', 'call-and-response', 'performer', 'audience', 'says', 'audience', 'need', 'whole', 'way', 'many', 'australian', 'comics', 'spoke', 'guardian', 'australia', 'american', 'audiences', 'hardest', 'really', 'want', 'know', 'schtick', 'hussein', 'says', 'laughing', 'similar', 'pickering', 'finds', 'demand', 'brevity', 'almost', 'impatient', 'want', 'know', 'start', 'laughing', 'raskopoulos', 'agrees', 'australian', 'comedians', 'us', 'foreign', 'place', 'experience', 'though', 'performing', 'musical', 'comedy', 'instead', 'standup', 'foreign', 'different', 'way', 'audiences', 'strange', 'enthusiastic', 'enthusiastic', 'nothing', 'shows', 'ran', 'like', 'minutes', 'longer', 'anywhere', 'else', 'world', 'funny', 'style', 'comedy', 'see', 'frequently', 'australia', 'form', 'dominates', 'micf', 'one-hour', 'standup', 'show', 'format', 'origins', 'edinburgh', 'making', 'festival', 'easier', 'fit', 'australian', 'comics', 'subtle', 'considerations', 'still', 'need', 'taken', 'change', 'woolworths', 'sainsbury', 'change', 'pants', 'trousers', 'bring', 'cocksucking', 'cowboys', 'anywhere', 'near', 'set', 'zoe', 'coombs', 'marr', 'prestigious', 'barry', 'award', 'best', 'show', 'micf', 'followed', 'nomination', 'best', 'comedy', 'edinburgh', 'literal', 'word', 'choices', 'also', 'translation', 'intent', 'communicating', 'meaning', 'joke', 'know', 'know', 'know', 'going', 'take', 'audience', 'says', 'needs', 'feel', 'comfortable', 'laughing', 'jokes', 'another', 'part', 'translation', 'trust', 'really', 'says', 'order', 'able', 'laugh', 'saying', 'need', 'able', 'trust', 'know', 'fuck', 'coombs', 'marr', 'first', 'show', 'whether', 'home', 'town', 'overseas', 'always', 'really', 'weird', 'working', 'rhythms', 'audience', 'bits', 'find', 'funnier', 'coombs', 'marr', 'mostly', 'known', 'comedy', 'circles', 'character', 'dave', 'new', 'show', 'bossy', 'bottom', 'zoe', 'performing', 'zoe', 'investigating', 'comedian', 'relationship', 'audience', 'longest', 'relationship', 'ever', 'tells', 'audience', 'changing', 'cast', 'characters', 'night', 'sometimes', 'coombs', 'marr', 'finds', 'radically', 'different', 'audiences', 'last', 'year', 'company', 'post', 'performed', 'oedipus', 'schmoedipus', 'chile', 'work', 'great', 'stage', 'deaths', 'history', 'performed', 'two', 'members', 'post', 'chorus', 'volunteers', 'chile', 'performed', 'english', 'spanish', 'subtitles', 'chorus', 'locals', 'speaking', 'spanish', 'trilingual', 'presentation', 'two', 'spoken', 'one', 'written', 'language', 'meant', 'post', 'know', 'jokes', 'going', 'land', 'translating', 'work', 'cantonese', 'performances', 'hong', 'kong', 'post', 'discovering', 'whole', 'new', 'form', 'comedy', 'puns', 'exist', 'similarities', 'written', 'characters', 'finding', 'home', 'abroad', 'australian', 'comedians', 'find', 'voice', 'abroad', 'candy', 'bowers', 'first', 'performed', 'edinburgh', 'found', 'international', 'multicultural', 'performance', 'scene', 'far', 'diverse', 'enjoyed', 'back', 'home', 'still', 'many', 'women', 'dreamt', 'international', 'hoped', 'pockets', 'says', 'able', 'feel', 'bit', 'aligned', 'realised', 'time', 'would', 'probably', 'making', 'comedy', 'theatre', 'south', 'african', 'audience', 'south', 'african', 'canon', 'really', 'crazy', 'like', 'although', 'bowers', 'grown', 'australian', 'comedy', 'kinship', 'comedy', 'audience', 'really', 'blew', 'away', 'hussain', 'says', 'found', 'performing', 'parents', 'home', 'country', 'sri', 'lanka', 'almost', 'like', 'homecoming', 'treated', 'like', 'celebrity', 'press', 'conference', 'show', 'excited', 'enthusiastic', 'audience', 'hussain', 'adapted', 'work', 'new', 'country', 'children', 'audience', 'people', 'attended', 'whole', 'families', 'anything', 'says', 'kind', 'nice', 'jokes', 'realise', 'shared', 'lack', 'enthusiasm', 'british', 'colonialism', 'jokes', 'also', 'went', 'pretty', 'well', 'comics', 'come', 'melbourne', 'comedy', 'festival', 'part', 'thrill', 'touring', 'work', 'finding', 'way', 'translation', 'finding', 'commonalities', 'lie', 'discovery', 'largely', 'take', 'place', 'room', 'sort', 'like', 'laugh', 'like', 'rosetta', 'stone', 'says', 'coombs', 'marr', 'go', 'ok', 'find', 'funny', 'use', 'jumping-off', 'point', 'order', 'communicate', 'job', 'finding', 'way', 'communicate', 'audience', 'says', 'coombs', 'marr', 'people', 'looking', 'nugget', 'truth', 'people', 'might', 'represented', 'coles', 'joke', 'woolworths', 'joke', 'people', 'might', 'represented', 'sainsbury', 'joke', 'essentially', 'heart', 'thing', 'zoe', 'coombs', 'marr', 'nazeem', 'hussain', 'charlie', 'pickering', 'performing', 'melbourne', 'international', 'comedy', 'festival']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/09/toronto-police-yoko-ono-stone-gardiner-museum

Toronto police are searching for a woman who allegedly stole a stone from a Yoko Ono exhibition at the city’s Gardiner museum. The stone, inscribed with the words “Love yourself”, was taken from the museum on 6 April. Security camera footage showed the suspect walking away from the museum. The item was part of an installation called The Riverbed, and has an individual value of $17,500 (£12,400). The Riverbed contains a section called Stone Piece, which “features a pile of river stones that have been honed and shaped by water over time”, per the museum’s website. Visitors are invited to pick up the stones – some of which feature inscriptions by Ono – and consider the words before placing them on another pile of stones. Toronto police media officer Gary Long told the Toronto Star that the suspect “just picked it up and walked away with it”. The suspect is described as 55 to 60 years of age, and approximately five foot four. She was dressed in black and wore a red scarf with black stripes. The Riverbed exhibition runs at Toronto’s Gardiner museum until 3 June. It was first shown at Galerie LeLong & Co and Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York City in 2015. In May, the Museum of Liverpool will open Double Fantasy, a joint exhibition of Yoko Ono and her late husband John Lennon’s artwork and their Imagine Peace campaign. The show will feature personal objects alongside art, music and film. “We were a very simple couple just loving each other every day and I just wanted to show the simple truth of us,” said Ono.

culture/2018/apr/09/toronto-police-yoko-ono-stone-gardiner-museum

pillar/arts

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culture

Culture

article

2018-04-09T10:35:20Z

Toronto police hunt for woman accused of stealing Yoko Ono's £12,400 stone

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/09/toronto-police-yoko-ono-stone-gardiner-museum

['toronto', 'police', 'searching', 'woman', 'allegedly', 'stole', 'stone', 'yoko', 'ono', 'exhibition', 'city', 'gardiner', 'museum', 'stone', 'inscribed', 'words', 'love', 'taken', 'museum', 'april', 'security', 'camera', 'footage', 'showed', 'suspect', 'walking', 'away', 'museum', 'item', 'part', 'installation', 'called', 'riverbed', 'individual', 'value', 'riverbed', 'contains', 'section', 'called', 'stone', 'piece', 'features', 'pile', 'river', 'stones', 'honed', 'shaped', 'water', 'time', 'per', 'museum', 'website', 'visitors', 'invited', 'pick', 'stones', 'feature', 'inscriptions', 'ono', 'consider', 'words', 'placing', 'another', 'pile', 'stones', 'toronto', 'police', 'media', 'officer', 'gary', 'long', 'told', 'toronto', 'star', 'suspect', 'picked', 'walked', 'away', 'suspect', 'described', 'years', 'age', 'approximately', 'five', 'foot', 'four', 'dressed', 'black', 'wore', 'red', 'scarf', 'black', 'stripes', 'riverbed', 'exhibition', 'runs', 'toronto', 'gardiner', 'museum', 'june', 'first', 'shown', 'galerie', 'lelong', 'amp', 'co', 'andrea', 'rosen', 'gallery', 'new', 'york', 'city', 'may', 'museum', 'liverpool', 'open', 'double', 'fantasy', 'joint', 'exhibition', 'yoko', 'ono', 'late', 'husband', 'john', 'lennon', 'artwork', 'imagine', 'peace', 'campaign', 'show', 'feature', 'personal', 'objects', 'alongside', 'art', 'music', 'film', 'simple', 'couple', 'loving', 'every', 'day', 'wanted', 'show', 'simple', 'truth', 'us', 'said', 'ono']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/08/on-my-radar-anya-taylor-joy-interview-thoroughbreds

Actor Anya Taylor-Joy was born in Miami in 1996 and brought up in Buenos Aires and London. She was scouted as a model at the age of 16, which led to signing with an acting agent. She has starred in horror film The Witch (2015), M Night Shyamalan’s Split (2016), the BBC adaptation of Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist and was nominated for a Bafta rising star award in 2017. She stars in the black comedy thriller Thoroughbreds, directed by Cory Finley, in cinemas this week. 1. Book The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry (Allen Lane, 2016) I like Grayson Perry’s art but I wasn’t actually aware that he was writing. This was recommended to me by a friend and it was so fascinating. It’s about toxic masculinity and gender stereotypes – we all have friends or family members who accept this idea that boys can’t cry. As a reaction to #MeToo and everything that’s been going on, it was really interesting to read, from the perspective of a man, about how rigid gender roles are destructive not just to the individual but to society as a whole. 2. Music Kaleo Kaleo are an Icelandic blues rock band and I actually discovered them in Iceland. I went into a record store and just bought a record that I picked at random. And they’re brilliant. Some of the music gets pretty intense and hardcore, but it’s beautiful. I especially like listening to it on photoshoots for some reason; I’m not quite sure why. It’s incredibly atmospheric; they really build in the tone of the song before they let rip on it. I spend most of my time walking around to movie soundtracks, so atmosphere is something I really care about. Plus everyone who’s Icelandic is cool. 3. Podcast Anna Faris Is Unqualified I’d never really properly listened to podcasts before; during press for Thoroughbreds, we went in to this podcast with Anna and I just fell in love with her. It’s an agony aunt kind of situation, where people call in for advice. It’s quite surreal, all her guests speaking with, I don’t know, Mindy from Michigan, and getting so involved in this particular person’s struggle. Anna is a very welcoming presence as well as being incredibly funny and I’m enjoying listening to her other podcasts. 4. Film Coco (dir Lee Unkrich, 2017) I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was amazed by this. Animation has the ability to tear a feeling from your heart and make it universal and provoke absolutely every emotion you thought was possible to have. It follows a young boy who has ambitions of becoming a musician, but his great-grandmother was left by a musician, so she basically stopped the whole family from being able to play music. But on the Day of the Dead, Miguel steals a guitar and gets into the world of the dead – I liked how it took a really dark turn. 5. TV Love (Netflix) I’ve not had much spare time lately but I made a conscious effort to binge-watch this show. It follows Mickey, who is an alcoholic, sex and love addict, drug addict, but trying to get over it. She’s destructive but you really feel for her. That’s what I enjoy about this show – you care about the characters. She meets Gus, a nerdy teacher who falls madly in love with her and it’s about the two of them trying to work it out and making lots of mistakes. It’s wildly entertaining, really funny, quite quirky and the acting is phenomenal. 6. Documentary Whitney: Can I Be Me I have always been a huge fan of music documentaries. I just inhale them. I was obviously aware of the impact Whitney Houston had on the music industry and in breaking racial boundaries, but I didn’t know much about her personal life story. This documentary really made me feel for this woman and it gave the music a whole new light to me. I love documentaries where you spend the whole time thinking “I didn’t know that”. I thought it was fascinating and very caringly done, which I think is important.

culture/2018/apr/08/on-my-radar-anya-taylor-joy-interview-thoroughbreds

pillar/arts

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culture

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2018-04-08T09:00:25Z

On my radar: Anya Taylor-Joy’s cultural highlights

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/08/on-my-radar-anya-taylor-joy-interview-thoroughbreds

['actor', 'anya', 'taylor-joy', 'born', 'miami', 'brought', 'buenos', 'aires', 'london', 'scouted', 'model', 'age', 'led', 'signing', 'acting', 'agent', 'starred', 'horror', 'film', 'witch', 'night', 'shyamalan', 'split', 'bbc', 'adaptation', 'jessie', 'burton', 'miniaturist', 'nominated', 'bafta', 'rising', 'star', 'award', 'stars', 'black', 'comedy', 'thriller', 'thoroughbreds', 'directed', 'cory', 'finley', 'cinemas', 'week', 'book', 'descent', 'man', 'grayson', 'perry', 'allen', 'lane', 'like', 'grayson', 'perry', 'art', 'actually', 'aware', 'writing', 'recommended', 'friend', 'fascinating', 'toxic', 'masculinity', 'gender', 'stereotypes', 'friends', 'family', 'members', 'accept', 'idea', 'boys', 'cry', 'reaction', 'metoo', 'everything', 'going', 'really', 'interesting', 'read', 'perspective', 'man', 'rigid', 'gender', 'roles', 'destructive', 'individual', 'society', 'whole', 'music', 'kaleo', 'kaleo', 'icelandic', 'blues', 'rock', 'band', 'actually', 'discovered', 'iceland', 'went', 'record', 'store', 'bought', 'record', 'picked', 'random', 'brilliant', 'music', 'gets', 'pretty', 'intense', 'hardcore', 'beautiful', 'especially', 'like', 'listening', 'photoshoots', 'reason', 'quite', 'sure', 'incredibly', 'atmospheric', 'really', 'build', 'tone', 'song', 'let', 'rip', 'spend', 'time', 'walking', 'around', 'movie', 'soundtracks', 'atmosphere', 'something', 'really', 'care', 'plus', 'everyone', 'icelandic', 'cool', 'podcast', 'anna', 'faris', 'unqualified', 'would', 'never', 'really', 'properly', 'listened', 'podcasts', 'press', 'thoroughbreds', 'went', 'podcast', 'anna', 'fell', 'love', 'agony', 'aunt', 'kind', 'situation', 'people', 'call', 'advice', 'quite', 'surreal', 'guests', 'speaking', 'know', 'mindy', 'michigan', 'getting', 'involved', 'particular', 'person', 'struggle', 'anna', 'welcoming', 'presence', 'well', 'incredibly', 'funny', 'enjoying', 'listening', 'podcasts', 'film', 'coco', 'dir', 'lee', 'unkrich', 'really', 'know', 'expect', 'amazed', 'animation', 'ability', 'tear', 'feeling', 'heart', 'make', 'universal', 'provoke', 'absolutely', 'every', 'emotion', 'thought', 'possible', 'follows', 'young', 'boy', 'ambitions', 'becoming', 'musician', 'great-grandmother', 'left', 'musician', 'basically', 'stopped', 'whole', 'family', 'able', 'play', 'music', 'day', 'dead', 'miguel', 'steals', 'guitar', 'gets', 'world', 'dead', 'liked', 'took', 'really', 'dark', 'turn', 'tv', 'love', 'netflix', 'much', 'spare', 'time', 'lately', 'made', 'conscious', 'effort', 'binge-watch', 'show', 'follows', 'mickey', 'alcoholic', 'sex', 'love', 'addict', 'drug', 'addict', 'trying', 'get', 'destructive', 'really', 'feel', 'enjoy', 'show', 'care', 'characters', 'meets', 'gus', 'nerdy', 'teacher', 'falls', 'madly', 'love', 'two', 'trying', 'work', 'making', 'lots', 'mistakes', 'wildly', 'entertaining', 'really', 'funny', 'quite', 'quirky', 'acting', 'phenomenal', 'documentary', 'whitney', 'always', 'huge', 'fan', 'music', 'documentaries', 'inhale', 'obviously', 'aware', 'impact', 'whitney', 'houston', 'music', 'industry', 'breaking', 'racial', 'boundaries', 'know', 'much', 'personal', 'life', 'story', 'documentary', 'really', 'made', 'feel', 'woman', 'gave', 'music', 'whole', 'new', 'light', 'love', 'documentaries', 'spend', 'whole', 'time', 'thinking', 'know', 'thought', 'fascinating', 'caringly', 'done', 'think', 'important']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/08/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-early

The next theme for our weekly photography assignment in the Observer New Review is ‘early.’ Share your photos of what early means to you – and tell us about your image in the description box. The closing date is Wednesday 11 April at 10am. We’ll publish our favourites in The New Review on Sunday 15 April and in a gallery on the Guardian site. You can share your ‘early’ pictures by clicking on the ‘Contribute’ button on this article. You can also use the Guardian app and search for ‘GuardianWitness assignments’ – and if you add it to the homepage – you can keep up with all our assignments. GuardianWitness is the home of readers’ content on the Guardian. Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others.

culture/2018/apr/08/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-early

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2018-04-08T08:00:25Z

Your pictures: share your photos on the theme of ‘early

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/08/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-early

['next', 'theme', 'weekly', 'photography', 'assignment', 'observer', 'new', 'review', 'early', 'share', 'photos', 'early', 'means', 'tell', 'us', 'image', 'description', 'box', 'closing', 'date', 'wednesday', 'april', '10am', 'publish', 'favourites', 'new', 'review', 'sunday', 'april', 'gallery', 'guardian', 'site', 'share', 'early', 'pictures', 'clicking', 'contribute', 'button', 'article', 'also', 'use', 'guardian', 'app', 'search', 'guardianwitness', 'assignments', 'add', 'homepage', 'keep', 'assignments', 'guardianwitness', 'home', 'readers', 'content', 'guardian', 'contribute', 'video', 'pictures', 'stories', 'browse', 'news', 'reviews', 'creations', 'submitted', 'others']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/07/peter-kay-hailed-as-comedy-genius-over-car-share-finale

Peter Kay has made a rare public appearance at a charity screening of his comedy series Car Share. The comedian, who cancelled his live tour due to “unforeseen family circumstances” in December, took to the stage at the Blackpool Opera House on Saturday evening. Kay recently announced there would be three charity screenings of his BBC show at the Opera House, each one airing a special finale to the series, as well as an entirely improvised episode. The second series of the Bafta-winning programme ended on an emotional cliffhanger last year as Kay’s character, John, failed to reciprocate the advances of his car share colleague, Kayleigh, played by Sian Gibson. Viewers were dismayed when he said there were no plans to pen a further series. The event was held to raise money for the Lily Foundation, which Kay previously described as “an inspiring charity” that helps to improve the lives of children with mitochondrial disease. In footage of his brief appearance posted on Twitter, Kay, 44, told the audience: “Thank you very much for supporting the Lily Foundation raising money for mitochondrial disease. Very kind of you. I appreciate it. “Enjoy the last ever episode of Car Share. Don’t tell anyone the end. Or tell anyone about any hedgehogs.” Bowing as he left the stage, he added: “So thank you. Lots of love, enjoy, take care, bye-bye.” The audience had gathered in Blackpool to see a sneak preview of the final ever episode of Car Share. Car Share viewers were disappointed when Kay said he wanted to “quit while you’re ahead” last year. More than 100,000 fans signed an online petition demanding a conclusion to the series. The comedian later announced the special finale to reveal what happens next for John and Kayleigh, along with the improvised episode, Car Share: Unscripted. He had said at the time: “We were completely overwhelmed by the response and even though we’ve no plans to write a third series we knew we couldn’t end the story there.” Alison Moore, 45, said Kay appeared on stage after the interval between the episodes to a rapturous welcome. “People were shouting out that they loved him, some stood up to clap,” she told the Press Association. “He just said a few words for a couple of minutes, it was really good to see him. “He seemed really fine, relaxed and genuinely touched by the reaction he got. He’s held in such high regard up this way. It was just really good to see him.” A stream of fans took to Twitter to share their glee at the hit comic’s surprise appearance and praise the final episodes. One said the Car Share unscripted episode was “pure genius” and added that it was “a joy to see Peter on stage tonight”. Another said Kay’s appearance was “emotional” and “blew us away”. The screenings were initially announced on 29 March in what was the 44-year-old comedian’s first Twitter post since cancelling his live tour in December. He said in a statement the cancellation was due to “unforeseen family circumstances”. He added: “This decision has not been taken lightly and I’m sure you’ll understand my family must always come first.”

culture/2018/apr/07/peter-kay-hailed-as-comedy-genius-over-car-share-finale

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2018-04-08T07:54:20Z

Peter Kay surprises fans with appearance at Car Share screening

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/07/peter-kay-hailed-as-comedy-genius-over-car-share-finale

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/apr/08/simone-lia-on-maths-logic

culture/ng-interactive/2018/apr/08/simone-lia-on-maths-logic

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interactive

2018-04-08T07:00:28Z

Simone Lia onmaths logic

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/apr/08/simone-lia-on-maths-logic

[]

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/07/me-too-anti-porn-conference-cosmopolitan-ban

The #MeToo movement means many things to many people, but for anti-porn activists it’s the ultimate vindication. The moment has been a long time coming for religious conservatives at war with what they see as America’s culture of sexual objectification. Many see social media-fueled outpouring as a much-needed referendum on a culture that reduces a woman’s worth to her sex appeal. Fighting porn in the age of ubiquitous internet isn’t easy, but nevertheless the mood was upbeat this week as hundreds of activists gathered near Washington to share stories, talk strategy, and canvass lawmakers on their agenda at a conference organized by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), which recently notched up a major PR victory in getting Walmart to ban Cosmopolitan magazine from checkout counters. “This is what real change looks like in our #MeToo culture,” said Dawn Hawkins, the group’s executive director. The anti-pornography movement has always been an unusual coalition of religious conservatives and radical feminists, dating back to Andrea Dworkin, the feminist icon who wrote Pornography: Men Possessing Women. But in the Trump era, defined by pussy hats and pussy-grabbing, the Dworkin-meet-Mike-Pence alliance is a whole new level of weird. It’s also supercharged. With both feminism and the Christian right in the ascendent thanks to the divisive Trump White House, the anti-porn movement has gotten a new jolt of energy. The alliance has finessed a politically tricky situation by drawing on the values of both sides and using the language of #MeToo and modern feminism to cast the widest possible net. Of course, Americans have always been much better at denouncing porn than abstaining from watching it. Porn viewership is likely at an all-time high, though reliable statistics are hard to come by. In 2017 Pornhub alone averaged 81 million visitors per day, and viewership is notably growing among women, some of whom are giving porn a second look through a sex-positive lens. But at what might be described as CPAC for the anti-porn movement this week, there was no such thing as healthy engagement with pornography. As activists saw it, porn and sexual assault were but different points on a single continuum of sexual violence. The key difference was that there was an entrenched financial interest behind pornography – and to a lesser extent prostitution. “The difference between prostitution and battery, incest and rape is that there’s nothing like the money in pornography and prostitution,” said Melissa Farley, a clinical psychologist and the founder of the San Francisco-based Prostitution Research and Education, who spoke on a panel at the conference. Porn has been cast as empowering by some feminists. But Farley and other like-minded activists say that misses the “choicelessness” of the vast majority of women who work in the industry, many of whom are forced into it by economic necessity or other circumstance. What’s worse, they say, is that assuming sex workers have a choice in their profession implies they signed up for the abuse and other mistreatments to which they are often exposed. “Slaves have been blamed for their own enslavement, children have been blamed for provoking their own sexual abuse,” said Farley, “and women in prostitution have been blamed.” Liberal advocates of the #MeToo movement have said the spotlight on sexual abuses must be expanded to include all victims, especially those on the fringes of society, beyond famous actresses in Hollywood. Farley argues that, by logical extension, #MeToo must include prostitutes and porn actresses. “Our worst nightmares are their daily experiences,” she wrote in a recent piece, “given that the nature of their work constantly puts them at risk for harassment, unwanted sexual advances and rape.” Valiant Richey, a prosecutor with the district attorney’s office in Washington’s King County, which includes Seattle, contrasted the vulnerable nature of people who go into the sex trade – typically poor, minority women with a history of addiction, neglect and abuse – with the relatively privileged makeup of sex buyers, who are often white, male, and financially comfortable. It’s a “system of inequality perpetuated by race, economics and gender,” Richey said. “We should be talking about demand [for sex] as a system of oppression on its own.” Such language might seem surprising coming from a group of social conservatives. But it was everywhere at this conference, which sought to capitalize on the current groundswell of growing gender consciousness. Iceland, which is consistently ranked as among the best places in the world to be a woman, considered a countrywide ban on pornography in 2013. And in the United Kingdom, an age-requirement for all pornographic websites will be introduced this year. But calling for a crackdown on the “public health crisis of pornography” puts the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, founded as Morality in Media in the 1960s by a group of clergymen, somewhat on the fringes in the US. Early concerns that pornography would lead to rising levels of rape, first raised by anti-porn advocates a generation ago, have proven unfounded. Overall rape and assault numbers have fallen precipitously in recent years, even as pornography viewership has ballooned. The group’s founder, a Jesuit priest named Morton Hill, was selected to sit on Lyndon Johnson’s commission on obscenity and pornography, which was tasked with studying what should happen to laws on the books that banned most pornography. When the commission called for repealing the laws on free speech grounds, Hill authored a scathing dissent calling the majority report “a Magna Carta for the pornographer”. Still, real concerns remain, especially about pornography’s impact on young psyches. The scientific consensus on how, exactly, porn affects human behavior is: we don’t know. A growing body of evidence suggests that many young people, dissatisfied with the sex education available to them, are now turning to pornography to collect information about sexual practices and norms. And such findings have inspired a decidedly socially liberal pedagogy known as “porn literacy”, outlined recently in a lengthy profile in New York Times magazine. But the Council’s arguments are not completely outside the American mainstream. Writing recently in the New York Times, the popular conservative columnist Ross Douthat said of porn “the belief that it cannot be censored is a superstition”. Such confidence was behind the Council’s seemingly radical – and surprisingly successful – campaign to get Wal-Mart to remove Cosmopolitan, which they argue demeans women with cheap sex tips and the like, from its checkout aisles. Following that victory, the NCOSE’s vice-president of advocacy and outreach, Haley Halverson, told the Guardian the group would be reaching out to Target and Walgreens with similar requests. They also have designs for online ads. And conference attendees buzzed over the recent passage of a bill in Congress that will crack down on ads for sex posted on websites like Craigslist and Backpage.com. Sex industry advocates say the bill could expose legal sex workers to undue legal jeopardy. It’s a strange thing to be headed to the desk of Donald Trump for a signature, as the president faces down a high-profile lawsuit from Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who says she was paid to keep quiet about their affair. Indeed Trump – and the numerous accusations of sexual harassment and assault against him – was the elephant in the room at a conference devoted to stamping out sexual exploitation. But Matt Aujero, who came to the conference from the University of Maryland where he works for the Catholic Student Center, said he found the lack of Trump talk refreshing. “I like how it’s not overly politicized,” he said. The silence was also likely strategic. As the NCOSE put it shortly after Trump’s election in 2016: “We understand how the Trump victory has caused many to have unsettling feelings about the new administration, but we, of course, must look for every opportunity to advance our cause of ending exploitation … Many within Trump’s transition team are social conservatives for whom issues of sexual exploitation are already of great concern.” But Gail Dines, an academic and founder of the anti-pornography group Culture Reframed, saw the newly-energized movement as a fitting response to Trump’s “pussy grabbing” boasts. “Trump got women pissed, really pissed,” she said.

culture/2018/apr/07/me-too-anti-porn-conference-cosmopolitan-ban

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2018-04-08T05:00:26Z

The strange alliance between #MeToo and the anti-porn movement

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/07/me-too-anti-porn-conference-cosmopolitan-ban

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/07/molly-ringwald-revisiting-the-breakfast-club-was-troubling

Molly Ringwald, who starred in The Breakfast Club, has admitted she now finds the cult 1980s film “troubling”. Writing in the New Yorker, the actor who was 16 when she starred in the high school drama in 1985, describes rewatching the film with her daughter and reflecting on some of the scenes in the age of #MeToo. Directed by John Hughes, The Breakfast Club was a critical and commercial hit that told the story of five different teenagers forced to spend Saturday in high school detention together. Ringwald, now 50, recently agreed to watch the film again with her 10-year-old daughter. Despite fearing her child would be concerned by some of the more adult themes, including discussions of sex and drug taking, she found the way her character, Claire, was treated by one of the male students – played by Judd Nelson – to be “most troubling” to her. She said that in light of the number of women who had come forward with sexual assault accusations against Harvey Weinstein, and the #MeToo movement gathering pace, she had kept thinking about one particular scene. “At one point in the film, the bad-boy character, John Bender, ducks under the table where my character, Claire, is sitting, to hide from a teacher,” she wrote. “While there, he takes the opportunity to peek under Claire’s skirt and, though the audience doesn’t see, it is implied that he touches her inappropriately.” She said the shot of her character’s underwear was filmed by an adult woman standing in for her, but even so she had found it embarrassing and her mother had been upset by it and asked for it to be cut. “What’s more, as I can see now, Bender sexually harasses Claire throughout the film. When he’s not sexualising her, he takes out his rage on her with vicious contempt, calling her ‘pathetic’, mocking her as ‘Queenie’. It’s rejection that inspires his vitriol.” Ringwald noted that, despite all of this, the film sees him “get the girl in the end”. While praising the work of Hughes, who was responsible for two other 80s films in which she starred, Sixteen Candles and Pretty In Pink, the actor said she had recently “felt the need” to examine the role the films played in cultural life. “If attitudes toward female subjugation are systemic, and I believe that they are, it stands to reason that the art we consume and sanction plays some part in reinforcing those same attitudes.” Citing other work by Hughes, who died in 2009, including his writing for National Lampoon and troubling scenes in other films they did together, she wrote: “It’s hard for me to understand how John was able to write with so much sensitivity, and also have such a glaring blind spot.” In the essay, which has been widely praised, she also asks: “How are we meant to feel about art that we both love and oppose?” Some have criticised Ringwald, however, arguing she should not complain about the director who made her a star. However, the US author Jenny Han tweeted in response: “To all the people claiming that Molly Ringwald is ‘throwing John Hughes under the bus’ – did you even read what she wrote? “It’s a pretty tender, fair-minded piece. She’s not ‘crying’ about #MeToo. She’s a grown woman examining her legacy and that of the man who helped shape it.” The US writer Mark Harris said the article was “one of the most insightful and honest pieces of cultural criticism I’ve read in ages, and a model of how to discuss movies within the context of when they were made without excusing their faults and failings”.

culture/2018/apr/07/molly-ringwald-revisiting-the-breakfast-club-was-troubling

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2018-04-07T13:23:31Z

Molly Ringwald says The Breakfast Club is troubling in #MeToo era

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/07/molly-ringwald-revisiting-the-breakfast-club-was-troubling

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/07/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

Five of the best ... films 120 Beats Per Minute (15) (Robin Campillo, 2017, Fra) 143 mins Raise a fist and shed a tear with this remarkable story of a radical Aids-awareness group in 1990s Paris. Shock tactics and lively debates are captured in documentary style, but it’s the relationships that gradually come to dominate, particularly a new gay couple for whom the ticking clock of untreatable HIV adds to the passion and poignancy. Thoroughbreds (15) (Cory Finley, 2017, US) 92 mins Detached, deadpan and downright disturbing, this study of teen partners-in-crime follows in the tradition Heathers and Heavenly Creatures, with sharp dialogue and slick camerawork. Study partners Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke bond over privilege and bored disillusionment, co-opting hapless Anton Yelchin into their scheme to murder Taylor-Joy’s stepdad. Ghost Stories (15) (Jeremy Dyson, Andy Nyman, 2017, UK) 96 mins Almost a modern-day Dead of Night, this horror weaves its tales of terror into a grand design. Co-writer and director Nyman plays a paranormal-debunker revisiting three cases that challenge his disbelief in the supernatural: those of Paul Whitehouse, Alex Lawther and Martin Freeman. These episodes are loaded with shock and dread, but common elements hint at a larger pattern connected to Nyman. Isle of Dogs (PG) (Wes Anderson, 2018, US/Ger) 101 mins Anderson’s eye for detail and ear for deadpan go into overdrive in a lovable animated tale. It’s set on a rubbish-dump island off the coast of retro-future Japan, where a band of rogueish mutts help a kid reunite with his pet and overthrow the dog-hating mayor. The story is hardly the point: it’s all about the hand-crafted visuals, eccentric characters and perfectly timed comedy. Love, Simon (12A) (Greg Berlanti, 2018, US) 110 mins It’s almost a selling point that this romcom (pictured) is so normal, since its subject is closeted gay teenhood. Simon (Nick Robinson) is forced to contemplate coming out when an online post from an anonymous classmate declares that he, too, is gay. The stakes are raised when their secret chats become more intimate. Someone’s going to have to put their heart on the line. SR Five of the best ... rock & pop gigs Harry Styles While he spent the last One Direction tour gamely trying to muster some enthusiasm, the immaculately suited Styles seems to have found his comfort zone in 70s-style soft-rock (Two Ghosts) and blustery ballads (Sign of the Times). Expect posturing, some new songs and the requisite Fleetwood Mac cover. Genting Arena, Birmingham Saturday 7; Manchester Arena Monday 9; The O2, SE10 Wednesday 11 & Thursday 12; touring to 16 April Lil Uzi Vert Over the space of four years, Philadelphia rapper Lil Uzi Vert has moved from SoundCloud darling to A-list eccentric, scoring a US Top 10 with XO Tour Llif3, a Grammy nomination for best new artist and a supporting role on Migos’s global hit Bad and Boujee. With five albums to pick from, expect ordered chaos. Manchester, Sunday 8; Birmingham, Monday 9; London, Tuesday 10 April Girl Ray Lo-fi indie trio Girl Ray, AKA Poppy Hankin, Iris McConnell and Sophie Moss, live in their own world. Well, they live in north London, but musically – as showcased on recent debut album – theirs is a timeless conflation of C86-era indie, 70s Todd Rundgren and good old-fashioned sweet and sour heartache. Bristol, Tuesday 10; Nottingham, Wednesday 11; Hebden Bridge, Thursday 12; Glasgow, Friday 13; touring to 19 April Wiki With his leftfield hip-hop collective Ratking on hiatus, Wiki, AKA Patrick Morales arrives in the UK in support of last year’s No Mountains in Manhattan debut (there have been mixtapes, obviously). A multi-layered celebration of New York City, it features prominent rappers from the five boroughs including Ghostface Killah, Your Old Droog and Lakutis. Manchester, Wednesday 11; Liverpool, Friday 13; touring to 18 April MC Sheila Jordan Sheila Jordan, the quietly startling 89-year-old singer, was on radio in her native Pennsylvania by 14, won bebop genius Charlie Parker’s praises, and has been a celebrated jazz vocalist for six decades. She visits London and the Gateshead jazz festival with pianist Pete Churchill’s trio and a string quartet. The Sage Gateshead, Sunday 7; PizzaExpress Jazz Club Soho, W1, Wednesday 11 & Thursday 12 April JF Four of the best ... classical concerts Chineke! Orchestra Chineke!’s debut in 2015 was one of the last events in the QEH before it was closed for refurbishment, and now they give the opening concert in the renovated space. Anthony Parnther conducts a programme that opens with Britten’s The Building of the House Overture; it also includes Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and the premiere of Daniel Kidane’s Dream Song. Queen Elizabeth Hall, SE1 Monday 9 April Jack Quartet This new programme from the US’s leading new-music string quartet is typically wide-ranging, with works from the new world – Amy Williams’s Richter Textures and Marcos Balter’s Chambers – alongside two from British composers: Julian Anderson’s Third Quartet (a world premiere) and Brian Ferneyhough’s Dum Transisset. Wigmore Hall, W1, Wednesday 11 April The Gender Agenda The London Sinfonietta present an evening devoted to the provocative music-theatre of Philip Venables. Hosted by “anti-drag queen” David Hoyle, The Gender Agenda is described as a parody gameshow, highlighting issues of gender equality. It is followed by Venables’s Illusions, which combines live music with video in a wickedly funny, often scabrous tirade. Queen Elizabeth Hall, SE1, Thursday 12 April The Marriage of Figaro Irish National Opera made its debut last month with a revival of Adès’s Powder Her Face, but Patrick Mason’s production of The Marriage of Figaro will be its first bespoke show. Jonathan Lemalu is Figaro with Tara Erraught as Susanna. National Opera House, Wexford, Friday 13; Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, 17 to 21 April AC Five of the best ... exhibitions Monet & Architecture The radiance and life of Monet’s art is almost beyond compare, so a chance to see 75 of his paintings is not to be sniffed at. They won’t be the most familiar, either, as this exhibition surveys the little-noticed theme of his fascination with buildings. The paintings of Rouen Cathedral and the Venice skyline are among his most profound. The National Gallery, WC2 Monday 9 April to 29 July Bumped Bodies Sarah Lucas and Rebecca Warren are among the artists offering uneasy views of our relationships with our bodies in this exhibition taken from the ISelf collection. Warren’s sculptures of independent striding female legs (pictured) typify its surreal perspectives on the human form. Others featured include Tony Cragg and Enrico David. Whitechapel Gallery, E1, Tuesday 10 April to 12 August Linder: The House of Fame This haunting odyssey through multiverses of history and imagination is a mind-boggling delight. Linder started her career making collages for the Buzzcocks in the heyday of punk and still practises it with poetic vision. She has created a show that is a vast collage of her enthusiasms; my favourites include demonic drawings by the architect Inigo Jones and lingerie masks by Linder herself. Nottingham Contemporary, to 24 June America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper Charles Demuth’s visionary painting I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold is an American icon. It combines the complex energy of cubism with a bold eye for the modern world that anticipates pop art. This and other classics make for an eye-opening journey through the art of the jazz age. If you thought Jackson Pollock was the first modern American artist who mattered, think again. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, to 22 July Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography The genius of Julia Margaret Cameron (work pictured) stands out in this exhibition about the first photographic avant garde. Cameron, Lewis Carroll, Lady Clementina Hawarden and Oscar Rejlander were friends who shared ideas and even models. All were vivid image-makers but the depth and reality of Cameron’s portraits set her apart. National Portrait Gallery, WC2, to 20 May JJ Five of the best ... theatre shows The Last Ship It may not have been a hit on Broadway but Sting’s musical about the demise of shipbuilding has come home to the north-east in triumph and now sets off on a nationwide tour. Director Lorne Campbell provides a new book and creates a rousing evening full of heart and song. Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne Saturday 7; Liverpool Playhouse Monday 9 to 14 April; touring to 7 July Palmyra In this superb two-hander from Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas, the stage ends up covered in smashed crockery, which can be read in many ways. The obvious one is as a metaphor for the destruction of the ancient Syrian city, but it is also a playful, powerful examination of how relationships can break down and turn destructive. Battersea Arts Centre, SW11, Tuesday 10 to 14 April; touring to 9 June Secret Life of Humans This devised show is inspired by Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and the life and death of Dr Jacob Bronowski, who popularised science with the 1973 TV series The Ascent of Man. It’s a bold and daring show that melds fact and fiction to fine effect, and is stuffed with big questions about what it is that makes us human as well as our ability to solve the challenges we face as a species. The New Diorama Theatre, NW1, Tuesday 10 April to 5 May Frogman Curious Directive is a pioneering company and its latest show makes innovative use of virtual reality technology in the service of storytelling. Casting the audience as the jury in a court case, the show takes us back in time to 1995 on the Great Barrier Reef where teenager Ashleigh has gone missing. A recreation of childhood and the way memory is deceptive, this is a bold piece of theatre. Not all of it works, but it is always interesting in the way it folds VR into the experience. Shoreditch Town Hall, EC1, to 14; touring to 28 April The Birthday Party It is your last chance to catch up with Ian Rickson’s fine revival of Harold Pinter’s play, delivered both with menaces and comedy. Zoë Wanamaker is a joy as Meg, the wittering boarding-house landlady whose attempts at throwing a birthday party go badly wrong when two thugs disrupt the celebrations in search of the guest of honour, a show-stealing Toby Jones. The Harold Pinter Theatre, SW1, to 14 April LG Three of the best ... dance shows Ballet Central The always excellent graduate company embraces a typically ambitious range of contemporary and classical work for its annual UK tour, combining extracts from, among others, Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty, Wayne McGregor’s Far and Christopher Gable’s Cinderella, plus Black Swan, a new work by Jenna Lee. Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds Monday 9 April; touring to 14 July English National Ballet: Voices of America Kudos to Tamara Rojo for persuading William Forsythe to choreograph his first new ballet for a British company in 20 years. This celebration of the US ballet tradition also features Aszure Barton’s Fantastic Beings (pictured) and Jerome Robbins’s Cage. Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Thursday 12 to 21 April Cowpuncher The QEH celebrates its reopening with Holly Blakey’s swaggering, subversive take on the world of cowboy movies. Created in collaboration with composer Mica Levi, Cowpuncher uses the archetype of the outlaw to celebrate outsiders and transgressives everywhere. Queen Elizabeth Hall, SE1, Friday 13 April JM

culture/2018/apr/07/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

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Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-07T08:00:56Z

What to see this week in the UK

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/07/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

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'typically', 'ambitious', 'range', 'contemporary', 'classical', 'work', 'annual', 'uk', 'tour', 'combining', 'extracts', 'among', 'others', 'matthew', 'bourne', 'sleeping', 'beauty', 'wayne', 'mcgregor', 'far', 'christopher', 'gable', 'cinderella', 'plus', 'black', 'swan', 'new', 'work', 'jenna', 'lee', 'theatre', 'royal', 'bury', 'st', 'edmunds', 'monday', 'april', 'touring', 'july', 'english', 'national', 'ballet', 'voices', 'america', 'kudos', 'tamara', 'rojo', 'persuading', 'william', 'forsythe', 'choreograph', 'first', 'new', 'ballet', 'british', 'company', 'years', 'celebration', 'us', 'ballet', 'tradition', 'also', 'features', 'aszure', 'barton', 'fantastic', 'beings', 'pictured', 'jerome', 'robbins', 'cage', 'sadler', 'wells', 'ec1', 'thursday', 'april', 'cowpuncher', 'qeh', 'celebrates', 'reopening', 'holly', 'blakey', 'swaggering', 'subversive', 'take', 'world', 'cowboy', 'movies', 'created', 'collaboration', 'composer', 'mica', 'levi', 'cowpuncher', 'uses', 'archetype', 'outlaw', 'celebrate', 'outsiders', 'transgressives', 'everywhere', 'queen', 'elizabeth', 'hall', 'se1', 'friday', 'april', 'jm']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/06/jimmy-kimmel-on-sean-hannity-seth-meyers-late-night-trump-putin

Late-night hosts on Thursday discussed President Trump’s invitation to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to visit the White House, while Jimmy Kimmel responded to an attack from Sean Hannity about a joke he made at Melania Trump’s expense. Jimmy Kimmel “I woke up this morning and I did two hours of pilates, as I do every morning,” Jimmy Kimmel began. “And then I open my computer and find out I’m at war with Sean Hannity and Fox News.” “Because there’s nothing important going on in the country right now,” the host continued, “Sean Hannity and his fellow Fox News people spent a lot of time talking about me today. Hannity apparently took issue with a joke I made on the show on Monday night.” Kimmel then showed a clip from Hannity’s broadcast, in which the Fox News anchor calls Kimmel a “despicable disgrace” and an “ass clown” for joking about Melania Trump’s accent while covering the White House Easter egg roll. Hannity defended the first lady, adding that English is her fifth language. “Sean Hannity’s problem is for eight years while Obama was president, he was unable to get an erection,” Kimmel joked. “He tried everything: Viagra, Cialis, he tried looking at pictures of Paul Ryan with his shirt off. He went to office Christmas parties with Bill O’Reilly.” “Now that Trump is president, here’s the twist: Sean Hannity is unable to have anything but an erection,” Kimmel said. “He’s had an erection since November of 2016. It’s driving him mad.” Kimmel went on to call Hannity “the guy who defended the multiply alleged paedophile Roy Moore,” alluding to Hannity’s dogged support for the former Alabama judge in his Senate race last year. “I’m a despicable disgrace? If I’m an ass clown, and I might very well be, you, Sean, are the whole ass circus.” “You know what I think is disrespectful to the first lady?” Kimmel concluded. “Cheating on her with a porn star after she has a baby.” Seth Meyers Meanwhile, Seth Meyers covered Trump’s recent statements regarding US relations with Russia and the potential for further personnel shake-ups at the White House. “Despite Trump repeatedly bending over backwards in every possible way to kowtow to Russian president Vladimir Putin, Trump this week insisted that he has actually stood up to Putin more than any previous president,” Meyers began. He continued: “Trump says no one’s been tougher on Russia, which is true, as long as you don’t count his initial refusal to impose congressional sanctions on Russia, his refusal to blame Russia for election hacking, the time he met privately with the Russians in the Oval Office and gave them classified information, or the time he literally invited Putin over to the White House.” The host was alluding to a 20 March phone call between Trump and Putin, in which the president reportedly discussed the possibility of a White House meeting with Putin. “All this comes amid an escalating investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia,” Meyers explained, noting that Trump has been upset with his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. “Which is why it was alarming today when CNN reported that Trump floated replacing Sessions with Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as recently as this week.” “Trump just keeps moving staffers around. It’s like he’s rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic after it already sank,” the host quipped. “Our only hope is that he gets carried away and accidentally replaces himself.”

culture/2018/apr/06/jimmy-kimmel-on-sean-hannity-seth-meyers-late-night-trump-putin

pillar/arts

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culture

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2018-04-06T14:51:38Z

Jimmy Kimmel escalates feud with Sean Hannity after Fox News host calls him 'despicable disgrace'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/06/jimmy-kimmel-on-sean-hannity-seth-meyers-late-night-trump-putin

['late-night', 'hosts', 'thursday', 'discussed', 'president', 'trump', 'invitation', 'russian', 'president', 'vladimir', 'putin', 'visit', 'white', 'house', 'jimmy', 'kimmel', 'responded', 'attack', 'sean', 'hannity', 'joke', 'made', 'melania', 'trump', 'expense', 'jimmy', 'kimmel', 'woke', 'morning', 'two', 'hours', 'pilates', 'every', 'morning', 'jimmy', 'kimmel', 'began', 'open', 'computer', 'find', 'war', 'sean', 'hannity', 'fox', 'news', 'nothing', 'important', 'going', 'country', 'right', 'host', 'continued', 'sean', 'hannity', 'fellow', 'fox', 'news', 'people', 'spent', 'lot', 'time', 'talking', 'today', 'hannity', 'apparently', 'took', 'issue', 'joke', 'made', 'show', 'monday', 'night', 'kimmel', 'showed', 'clip', 'hannity', 'broadcast', 'fox', 'news', 'anchor', 'calls', 'kimmel', 'despicable', 'disgrace', 'ass', 'clown', 'joking', 'melania', 'trump', 'accent', 'covering', 'white', 'house', 'easter', 'egg', 'roll', 'hannity', 'defended', 'first', 'lady', 'adding', 'english', 'fifth', 'language', 'sean', 'hannity', 'problem', 'eight', 'years', 'obama', 'president', 'unable', 'get', 'erection', 'kimmel', 'joked', 'tried', 'everything', 'viagra', 'cialis', 'tried', 'looking', 'pictures', 'paul', 'ryan', 'shirt', 'went', 'office', 'christmas', 'parties', 'bill', 'oreilly', 'trump', 'president', 'twist', 'sean', 'hannity', 'unable', 'anything', 'erection', 'kimmel', 'said', 'erection', 'since', 'november', 'driving', 'mad', 'kimmel', 'went', 'call', 'hannity', 'guy', 'defended', 'multiply', 'alleged', 'paedophile', 'roy', 'moore', 'alluding', 'hannity', 'dogged', 'support', 'former', 'alabama', 'judge', 'senate', 'race', 'last', 'year', 'despicable', 'disgrace', 'ass', 'clown', 'might', 'well', 'sean', 'whole', 'ass', 'circus', 'know', 'think', 'disrespectful', 'first', 'lady', 'kimmel', 'concluded', 'cheating', 'porn', 'star', 'baby', 'seth', 'meyers', 'meanwhile', 'seth', 'meyers', 'covered', 'trump', 'recent', 'statements', 'regarding', 'us', 'relations', 'russia', 'potential', 'personnel', 'shake-ups', 'white', 'house', 'despite', 'trump', 'repeatedly', 'bending', 'backwards', 'every', 'possible', 'way', 'kowtow', 'russian', 'president', 'vladimir', 'putin', 'trump', 'week', 'insisted', 'actually', 'stood', 'putin', 'previous', 'president', 'meyers', 'began', 'continued', 'trump', 'says', 'one', 'tougher', 'russia', 'true', 'long', 'count', 'initial', 'refusal', 'impose', 'congressional', 'sanctions', 'russia', 'refusal', 'blame', 'russia', 'election', 'hacking', 'time', 'met', 'privately', 'russians', 'oval', 'office', 'gave', 'classified', 'information', 'time', 'literally', 'invited', 'putin', 'white', 'house', 'host', 'alluding', 'march', 'phone', 'call', 'trump', 'putin', 'president', 'reportedly', 'discussed', 'possibility', 'white', 'house', 'meeting', 'putin', 'comes', 'amid', 'escalating', 'investigation', 'trump', 'campaign', 'ties', 'russia', 'meyers', 'explained', 'noting', 'trump', 'upset', 'attorney', 'general', 'jeff', 'sessions', 'recusing', 'russia', 'investigation', 'alarming', 'today', 'cnn', 'reported', 'trump', 'floated', 'replacing', 'sessions', 'scott', 'pruitt', 'head', 'environmental', 'protection', 'agency', 'recently', 'week', 'trump', 'keeps', 'moving', 'staffers', 'around', 'like', 'rearranging', 'deck', 'chairs', 'titanic', 'already', 'sank', 'host', 'quipped', 'hope', 'gets', 'carried', 'away', 'accidentally', 'replaces']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/06/jane-birkin-serge-gainsbourg-great-man-just-pretty-photos-tell-story-exhibition

The English singer and actor Jane Birkin met Serge Gainsbourg in 1968 when she was 22, and left the French singer and songwriter more than half a lifetime ago in 1980 – yet at 71 her name is still rarely mentioned without being bracketed with his. As an exhibition of photographs – called, inevitably, Jane & Serge – opens in Calais, she seemed philosophical about the oversight. Among scores of glamorous images of the couple, the largest photograph by far, blown up to the size of a barn door, is of his handsome if haggard features cradling not Birkin but their dog Nana. “That’s what happens when you are with a great man,” she said. “He was a great man. I was just pretty.” She was equally cheerfully accepting of the fact that much of her fame still rests on one scandalous song, the ecstatic moans of Je t’aime ... moi non plus, recorded in the year she met him, and an international hit despite being banned in many countries. “It was surprising to be banned by both the Vatican and the BBC,” she said. “And it was funny to have the BBC orchestra playing it because they wouldn’t play it on Top of the Pops.” Birkin is halfway through a world tour of orchestral versions of Gainsbourg songs, and added: “If I am singing in Argentina in two weeks’ time, it is because of Je t’aime.” The photographs were taken by Birkin’s brother, Andrew, a film scriptwriter and director, who had been photographing his sister since he first bought a cheap camera in his teens. Some in the exhibition are family snaps, while others – including the couple mugging for the camera on a red doubledecker bus – come from a magazine photo shoot. All had been carefully filed away for half a century, and some he had never seen printed before. He met Gainsbourg almost as soon as his sister did, when he was working with Stanley Kubrick on the eventually aborted project for an epic film of Napoleon, and she wrote from the set of the film Slogan, begging him to come and keep her company and cheer her up from her daily encounters with “a horrible man”, who was mocking and teasing her. Gainsbourg was, and remains a giant in French cultural circles, but Birkin was already well known from film roles including a famous nude scene in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow-Up. Birkin said: “I fell in love with Serge, Andrew fell in love with Serge, Serge fell in love with Andrew, we were a trio.” Her brother had no partner or children at the time, and regularly joined the couple and their children – her daughter Kate from her marriage to the composer John Barry, and Charlotte, born in 1971 – and dogs for holidays. Andrew Birkin took photographs continuously, documenting long lunches, smoky evenings, sleepy mornings, and less familiar views of the moody Gainsbourg roaring with laughter or playing rowdy games with the children. The gallery in Calais is a few miles up the coast from many of the happy seaside settings. “I had never met anyone like him, I adored him,” Andrew Birkin said. “It was not sexual – or maybe that is not what a psychiatrist would say. We did kiss on the lips.” Their intense triangular friendship survived the breakup of his sister’s relationship. He last saw Gainsbourg a few months before his death in 1991, at his house in Paris with its black and chrome interior, where fans still lay floral and painted tributes on the pavement. “He took me back to his bedroom with the big black bed in the big black room. He had a pile of film videos – not good films, terrible American cowboy things – he put one on, and he was fast asleep in two or three minutes. I left in the small hours and I never saw him again.” “It’s a bit weird,” Jane Birkin said, looking around at walls lined with her own shining young face, and Gainsbourg’s crumpled features usually wreathed in cigarette smoke, “it’s a bit like being dead.” She left because his melancholy and heavy drinking made him impossible to live with, she said, but thinks in many ways they were better friends and he wrote her better songs after she left. “You could talk back to him for once,” she said. “You were not just his creation any more.” • Jane & Serge, Calais Museum of Fine Arts, until 4 November

culture/2018/apr/06/jane-birkin-serge-gainsbourg-great-man-just-pretty-photos-tell-story-exhibition

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2018-04-06T12:13:19Z

'He was a great man. I was just pretty': photos tell story of Jane and Serge

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/06/jane-birkin-serge-gainsbourg-great-man-just-pretty-photos-tell-story-exhibition

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/05/british-museums-and-looted-treasures

I am writing to take issue with the views of the V&A director, Tristram Hunt, as quoted by Mark Brown in his article concerning Ethiopian artefacts held by the museum (Ethiopian treasures could be on their way home after V&A offers long-term loan, 4 April). Among the reasons given by Mr Hunt for not allowing a “simple return” of items to their countries of origin is what he calls the “philosophical case for cosmopolitanism in museum collections”. I take this to mean that museums should play a role in promoting other cultures. This argument would be valid if it worked both ways. I would be curious to know how many African museums hold British artefacts acquired against the wishes of their original owners. He then implies that an obstacle to returning items is the opposition of the British public. I am curious to know the basis for this assertion. My sense is that most people are indifferent to the idea of returning items, though when asked would be likely to see the justice of the case. My third point of contention is his proposal that development aid money should be diverted to support for conservation in the countries of origin. This strikes me as doubly penalising those countries, having first plundered their treasures, then taking aid away from its proper use as a condition for returning what is rightfully theirs. Would it not be better to acknowledge the circumstances in which the artefacts were acquired by returning them unconditionally, while at the same time making financial reparations for the damage done? This might be followed by reciprocal arrangements for two-way long-term loans, leading to genuine cosmopolitanism. Does that seem unreasonable? Douglas Currie Edinburgh • Join the debate – email [email protected] • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

culture/2018/apr/05/british-museums-and-looted-treasures

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2018-04-05T16:42:33Z

British museums and looted treasures | Letters

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/05/british-museums-and-looted-treasures

['writing', 'take', 'issue', 'views', 'vampa', 'director', 'tristram', 'hunt', 'quoted', 'mark', 'brown', 'article', 'concerning', 'ethiopian', 'artefacts', 'held', 'museum', 'ethiopian', 'treasures', 'could', 'way', 'home', 'vampa', 'offers', 'long-term', 'loan', 'april', 'among', 'reasons', 'given', 'mr', 'hunt', 'allowing', 'simple', 'return', 'items', 'countries', 'origin', 'calls', 'philosophical', 'case', 'cosmopolitanism', 'museum', 'collections', 'take', 'mean', 'museums', 'play', 'role', 'promoting', 'cultures', 'argument', 'would', 'valid', 'worked', 'ways', 'would', 'curious', 'know', 'many', 'african', 'museums', 'hold', 'british', 'artefacts', 'acquired', 'wishes', 'original', 'owners', 'implies', 'obstacle', 'returning', 'items', 'opposition', 'british', 'public', 'curious', 'know', 'basis', 'assertion', 'sense', 'people', 'indifferent', 'idea', 'returning', 'items', 'though', 'asked', 'would', 'likely', 'see', 'justice', 'case', 'third', 'point', 'contention', 'proposal', 'development', 'aid', 'money', 'diverted', 'support', 'conservation', 'countries', 'origin', 'strikes', 'doubly', 'penalising', 'countries', 'first', 'plundered', 'treasures', 'taking', 'aid', 'away', 'proper', 'use', 'condition', 'returning', 'rightfully', 'would', 'better', 'acknowledge', 'circumstances', 'artefacts', 'acquired', 'returning', 'unconditionally', 'time', 'making', 'financial', 'reparations', 'damage', 'done', 'might', 'followed', 'reciprocal', 'arrangements', 'two-way', 'long-term', 'loans', 'leading', 'genuine', 'cosmopolitanism', 'seem', 'unreasonable', 'douglas', 'currie', 'edinburgh', 'join', 'debate', 'email', 'guardianletterstheguardiancom', 'read', 'guardian', 'letters', 'click', 'visit', 'gucomletters']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/05/its-what-goes-on-in-studio-144-that-matters-not-the-lino-floors

I feel compelled to write regarding Oliver Wainwright’s article (Studio 144: why has Southampton hidden its £30m culture palace behind a Nando’s?, 22 February) in defence of a city council that has stuck its neck out for more than a decade to maintain its pledge of cultural investment to Southampton – a rare exception to the national story. Granted, the road to this point has been bumpy. Design compromises have been made, in response to the groaning of economic tectonic plates, well outside the influence of local government. But Mr Wainwright’s spirited analysis fails on two fundamental counts. Firstly, he seems to posit the existence of a choice between “the public sector’s reliance on profit-driven private sector firms” and reliance on another credible sponsor. There is only one alternative in the current ecology – and that’s no new theatre. I’m not sure that’s the option that the 10,000 people that watched our opening production in three weeks would have plumped for. Which brings me on to the other, more profound, oversight – one that goes to the heart of architectural critique. Mr Wainwright criticised the “bricks and mortar” detail – exposed radiator pipes, lino floors. But at no point was there any acknowledgment, let alone understanding, of that which will be served by those bricks. This is no vanity project to be judged on aesthetic alone – but on the programmes that animate its spaces, the empathy and tolerance encouraged within, the children whose outlook will broaden and confidence will grow, perhaps on occasion, rather messily along the way. In those moments, I’m not convinced we’ll be wishing we’d gone for herringbone tiles. Samuel Hodges Director of Nuffield Southampton Theatres

culture/2018/apr/05/its-what-goes-on-in-studio-144-that-matters-not-the-lino-floors

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2018-04-05T15:29:58Z

It’s what goes on in Studio 144 that matters, not the lino floors | Letter

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/05/its-what-goes-on-in-studio-144-that-matters-not-the-lino-floors

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/05/seth-meyers-trump-is-indulging-his-obsessions-over-us-mexico-border

Late-night hosts on Wednesday discussed Donald Trump’s decision to deploy the national guard to the south-west border. “The president was very busy today,” Jimmy Kimmel began. “He issued a proclamation ordering the national guard to go to the border to fight against illegal immigration.” Kimmel noted that the memorandum Trump signed Wednesday, which did not specify the number of troops or for how long they’ll be deployed, “comes at a very interesting time”. Less than two months ago, Kimmel explained, Trump boasted in a tweet of a “45 year low on illegal border crossings this year”, adding that “Ice and border patrol agents are doing a great job for our country. “So even though border crossings are the lowest they’ve been since 1971, and everyone’s doing a great job, he’s sending in the national guard,” the host said, noting that in the last week Trump has been particularly fixated on what he believes to be “caravans” of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border into the US. “And I’m sure the members of the national guard are thrilled they will be now spending their weekends in Nogales standing next to a cactus,” Kimmel quipped. NBC’s Seth Meyers also addressed the Wednesday memorandum and Trump’s desire to militarize the border. “This has been a week of Trump indulging his various obsessions, and one of those obsessions remains our border with Mexico,” Meyers said, referencing the president’s stream of tweets regarding the southern border and Amazon. “He’s been fuming about a caravan of immigrants headed here through Mexico and claiming that the border is essentially a lawless territory.” Meyers then cut to a clip of Trump discussing his plan to deploy troops to the border; the president blames the Obama administration’s “catch and release” policy, in those caught in unlawful immigration status are released while they wait for a hearing with an immigration judge, for what he sees as lax enforcement on the southern border. “That’s right, it’s called catch and release,” Meyers said. “Or as Trump used to call it: marriage.” Meyers went on: “In reality, under Trump, immigration and customs enforcement has massively ramped up the tensions of undocumented immigrants, in many cases tearing apart families and deporting people who have lived here for decades. But this week Trump called for yet another aggressive step: he wants the military to guard the border.” In a speech given on the subject, which Meyers showed clips from, Trump states that “until we can have a wall and proper security, we’re going to be guarding our border with the military”. “Today, the Trump administration announced a plan to send national guard troops to the border,” Meyers continued. “And lately Trump has been obsessed with this idea of militarizing the border, an idea he floated last week when he said the US-Mexico border should be just as fortified as the border between North and South Korea.” The host then showed a video of Trump, in late March, touting the border between North and South Korea and its “wall of soldiers”. “We don’t get paid very much for this, do we?” Trump said. “But our own border, we don’t take care of it.”

culture/2018/apr/05/seth-meyers-trump-is-indulging-his-obsessions-over-us-mexico-border

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-05T15:21:04Z

Seth Meyers: Trump is 'indulging his obsessions' over US-Mexico border

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/05/seth-meyers-trump-is-indulging-his-obsessions-over-us-mexico-border

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/05/melbourne-comedy-festival-four-shows-that-will-make-you-feel-better-about-the-world

DeAnne Smith – Worth It Don’t expect the Barry-nominated Canadian’s show to be the skit about money that you were promised in the program. Smith apologises straight up for the misrepresentation – this will be a show from the heart rather than the head, she explains. Smith knows her audience is usually of the progressive persuasion and, while she hits a number of topics that are perhaps slightly too well-worn – from the Australian accent to kale to anxiety disorders – it’s a testament to her talent that you barely notice she’s traversing such familiar ground. Even a riff on tired old lesbian stereotypes feels fresh in her capable hands. She is a warm and welcoming stage presence – heckling latecomers is so not her style – and her show speeds past far more quickly than feels entirely fair. Why it will make you feel better about the world: Smith hasn’t just confronted her worst fears and lived to tell the tale; she also recognises that life is fleeting. We’ve got this very specific group of people in this room together for less than an hour – and that will probably never happen again, she explains, so we should make the most of it. • Worth It by DeAnne Smith is showing at the Greek Centre until 22 April Romeo Is Not the Only Fruit Jean Tong’s musical was one of the hits of the Fringe festival last year – a lesbian love story that takes the tropes of archetypal, heteronormative romance narratives and turns them inside out. Juliet (Margot Tanjutco) lives at home with her mother and grandmother and dreams of being a pilot, when Darcy (Louisa Wall) moves in down the street – lanky red-haired and approximately 12ft tall – and into Juliet’s heart. “Why, why, why do the lesbians always die?” goes the refrain in the opening number, as a chorus of dead queers (Sasha Chong, Nisha Joseph, and Pallavi Waghmode) lament the inevitable doom of these star-crossed lovers. Colourful cardboard props and dance sequences brighten up this musical, complete with original score. While it feels a bit overwritten – there are so many jokes and literary references packed into each line that the cast members sometimes struggle to get the words out clearly, let alone give the audience time to absorb them – Romeo Is Not the Only Fruit is cute and unfailingly heartwarming. Why it will make you feel better about the world: It’s a lesbian romance with a happy ending that overcomes even the greatest of narrative obstacles – death. What’s not to love? • Romeo Is Not the Only Fruit is showing at the Malthouse until 8 April Lauren Bok – Between a Bok and a Hard Place Lauren Bok’s response to the annual question of “what will my comedy festival show be about this year?” is to make a comedy festival show about making a comedy festival show. Bok explains the necessities – title, bio, picture, talent – before taking us through the process of putting it all together, complete with bot-generated review and demonstration of the telling power of walk-on music. I admit I am always suspicious of art that consists primarily of an interrogation of its own form; books mostly about the process of writing books, for example, rarely serve the reader as well as they do the anxieties or internal preoccupations of the writer. It’s to her credit that Bok avoids the worst pitfalls of this genre, mostly due to her style of delivery – she is warm, open, and easygoing – and her use of the meta-framework to spring off into anecdotes about DIY beauty disasters and revelatory moments in relationships and careers. Why it will make you feel better about the world: Bok’s friendly, upbeat style will make you feel instantly at ease and the show’s underlying principles of self-acceptance and self-confidence speak to a defiant positivity that’s very hard to dislike. • Between a Bok and a Hard Place by Lauren Bok is showing at Belleville until 8 April Laura Davis – Ghost Machine You are made of atoms, Laura Davis explains to the audience from beneath a bed sheet rigged up to look like a ghost, and if you don’t know what atoms themselves are made of, you may find the answer surprising – and perhaps a little terrifying. Ghost Machine first found life – or afterlife – in 2015, and while Davis may be reviving it only to tour Edinburgh Fringe and other sundry UK festivals later in the year, its rerun at this year’s MICF is a blessing for those of us who missed it the first time around. If you think listening to an hour of opinions from a woman underneath a bed sheet – let alone a bed sheet lit up from the inside with fairy lights, complete with “punching hole” – sounds daft, you might be right, but it’s well worth accompanying Davis on this existential journey. Why it will make you feel better about the world: Of all the comedians I saw over my long weekend of laughs, Davis took her audience to the darkest places – beginning with the existential angst stemming from a day job sorting thousands and thousands of forks in an underground bunker through to the very good reasons why she has not yet ended it all. But it is this foundation that propels Davis’s expressive and passionate delivery, which takes full flight when she finally removes the bed sheet in a euphoric final act. • Ghost Machine by Laura Davis is showing at the Butterfly Club until 22 April

culture/2018/apr/05/melbourne-comedy-festival-four-shows-that-will-make-you-feel-better-about-the-world

pillar/arts

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culture

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2018-04-05T00:49:34Z

Melbourne comedy festival: four shows that will make you feel better about the world

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/05/melbourne-comedy-festival-four-shows-that-will-make-you-feel-better-about-the-world

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/04/kimmel-on-trump-v-amazon-hes-jealous-because-jeff-bezos-is-actually-a-billionaire

Late-night hosts on Tuesday discussed president Trump’s attacks on Amazon and its owner Jeff Bezos, as well as his comments regarding the administration’s relationship with the Kremlin. “The president has been lashing out at Amazon this week, repeatedly,” Jimmy Kimmel began. “He says Amazon has been taking advantage of the US Postal Service after he claimed the post office loses $1.50 for every Amazon delivery which, by all accounts, isn’t true.” “He tweeted this one-star review of Amazon defending that,” the host continued, reading Trump’s tweet aloud: “I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy. Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne by the American Taxpayer. Many billions of dollars. P.O. leaders don’t have a clue (or do they?)!” “Why insult the people at the post office by calling them Amazon’s delivery boy?” Kimmel replied. “They deliver things, that’s what they do!” The host went on to explain that Trump’s vendetta against Amazon, which has lost $60bn in valuation since Trump began attacking them, spawns from the company being owned by Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post. “And also Trump is jealous because Jeff Bezos is actually a billionaire,” Kimmel joked. Meanwhile, NBC’s Seth Meyers touched on a number of stories having to do with Trump, including his latest comments on US-Russia relations, the Stormy Daniels scandal and his criticisms leveled against Amazon. “President Trump said today that nobody’s been tougher to Russia than Donald Trump,” Meyers began. “And Vladimir Putin said: ‘It’s true, he’s been a terrible employee.’” “Never come to work, always golfing,” the host joked in a Russian accent. “I’m starting to think he doesn’t speak in the third person,” Meyers said. “He just has no idea who Donald Trump is.” Meyers then noted that on Tuesday Trump nicknamed former president Barack Obama for the first time, referring to him as “Cheatin’ Obama” in a tweet about approval ratings. “That’s a pretty lame nickname,” the host said. “You know what’s a cool nickname? Stormy.” Referring to Stormy Daniels, who sued Trump to be released from a non-disclosure agreement he never signed, Meyers went on: “President Trump’s legal team has asked a federal judge to force arbitration over this alleged hush agreement with adult film star Stormy Daniels, which would cause the case to be conducted entirely behind closed doors and out of the public eye.” “Which means we may just have to rely on Trump’s own personal courtroom sketches,” Meyers joked, showing a drawing of two stick figures. Finally, the host brought up Trump’s tweets about Amazon, which began on Monday when Trump said of the postal service: “They lose a fortune.” “This is when I appreciate Twitter,” Meyers said. “It used to be if you wanted to hear a 71-year-old man whining about the post office, you had to go to the post office.”

culture/2018/apr/04/kimmel-on-trump-v-amazon-hes-jealous-because-jeff-bezos-is-actually-a-billionaire

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-04T15:04:25Z

Kimmel on Trump v Amazon: 'He's jealous because Jeff Bezos is actually a billionaire'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/04/kimmel-on-trump-v-amazon-hes-jealous-because-jeff-bezos-is-actually-a-billionaire

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/04/lean-on-pete-british-directors-andrew-andrea-arnold-

On the face of it, Lean on Pete is a plain, pure-of-heart example of what some might call the “boy and his horse” genre. The fourth film by the humanist British auteur Andrew Haigh – whose sure, sensitive hand guided the Nottingham-set gay heartbreaker Weekend and the late-life marital crisis study 45 Years – might be his most narratively classical to date, following the enterprising, orphaned Oregon teenager Charley (Charlie Plummer) and his ageing steed Pete on a trek across middle America, in search of sanctuary with an estranged relative in Wyoming. Delicately adapted from Willy Vlautin’s 2010 novel, it follows classical narrative arcs of both the coming-of-age story and the great American road movie, yet with precious little of the romanticism and sentimentality that tends to accompany them: Haigh, rather like his stoic protagonist, keeps his eye quietly and pragmatically on the destination. Beneath that simple, serene surface, however, lies a spirit of roiling anger and discontent, as Haigh’s camera perceptively captures a landscape riven with poverty and social inequality: crowded soup kitchens, ill-stocked convenience stores cruised by can-filching shoplifters, and rusty trailers spilling out on to the pavements, their inhabitants gnarled by hunger, brutality and substance abuse. Charley drifts through it with his head down, resorting to theft and violence where necessary to get by, and with little display of overt shock or pique: this is all he’s ever known, after all, and he’s learned, perhaps prematurely, to roll with the punches. Without resorting to clunky commentary at script level, Lean on Pete seethes on his behalf: its images and characters alike are born of a broken America. Lean on Pete’s 21st-century update of the Oregon Trail is far from the first film to examine social discord and disarray through the prism of a single interstate journey: Haigh himself describes it in a recent Sight & Sound interview as “a modern version of the American myth”, citing a break from tradition in that Charley goes “the opposite way, not looking for freedom, but for security and stability.” And Haigh certainly isn’t the first foreign film-maker to bring a wary or critical eye to the land of the free. From Jean Renoir (The Southerner) to Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas), from Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala) to Antonio Mendez Esparza (the shattering recent festival hit Life and Nothing More), some of the most powerful portraits of the American Dream’s scrappier, more fragmented reality have come from outsiders — their perspective perhaps inflected with their own sense of alienation, and their sympathies duly directed toward those US cultures and classes on society’s fringes. Yet Haigh is the latest in a notable recent run of British directors to turn their gaze to America – middle America, in particular – with a mixture of wonder at its vast geographical and spiritual strangeness and sceptical inquiry into its social malfunctions. Lean on Pete would make a complementary double bill with Andrea Arnold’s swirling 2016 odyssey American Honey, also her first foray across the Atlantic after three astute portraits of particularly British flavours of unhappiness. Like Lean on Pete, Arnold’s film follows a rootless teenager in search of some form of familial belonging – in her case, with a gang of likewise aimless youths hawking magazine subscriptions across the midwest – but is supersized and expressively unruly where Haigh’s is contained and watchful. Arnold decides to meet America’s gaudy excess on its own terms, though through its kinetic, pop-scored energy, the film simmers with anger, even revulsion, at the social corruptions and injustices it encounters along the way, whether in the shape of sexually threatening cowboys, hypocritically Bible-thumping suburban madams or starving, dumpster-diving makeshift families. It premiered six months ahead of Donald Trump’s presidential victory, but pointedly profiled the belt of red-state America that enabled it. Some American critics took issue with Arnold’s ugly-beautiful portrait as a kind of inauthentic burlesque of their country, skewed by foreign preconceptions and blind spots — though not as many as those who took against Martin McDonagh’s Oscar-winning Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which weathered a firestorm of political and moral debate, backlashes and counter-backlashes, between its rapturous first reception in Venice and the Academy Awards. McDonagh would probably be the first to admit that his all-guns-blazing parable of midwestern revenge and arguable redemption wasn’t deeply embedded in the culture and vernacular of small-town Missouri. Centered on a doughty single mother, Mildred Hayes, and her one-woman crusade against the unidentified man who raped and murdered her daughter and the male cops who have failed to solve the crime, it’s a carnival of grotesques in which characters largely speak the hard, heightened, expletive-riddled McDonagh dialect heard in all the Irish-British playwright’s work – and has a subjectively twisted worldview to match. Many went with his selective vision; others found his film fatally tone-deaf to complexities of American race relations, class conflicts and police resistance movements. On the debates went, with US critics on both sides – though it’s perhaps telling that the film enjoyed its two biggest hauls of the awards season at Britain’s Baftas and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globe awards. Outsiders unite. Restrained, humane and trading in universal needs for nurturing and belonging, Lean on Pete won’t prove remotely as divisive, but its outside gaze is just as integral to its storytelling and its aching emotional payoff. You can understand the lure of America to British film-makers: the sheer scale of its geography and population is irresistibly inviting to restless foreign artists in search of new subjects and stories, with a global reach and recognisability that closer-to-home stories can rarely find. Haigh, Arnold and McDonagh have all benefited richly from the change of scenery – not to mention Lynne Ramsay, whose US-set films We Need to Talk About Kevin and You Were Never Really Here both offer sharp, trauma-shaken meditations on uniquely American cultures of violence and domestic dysfunction. One hopes, however, that their voices, and others like theirs, aren’t lost to a Brexit-era Britain with more than its own share of crippling social damage, disintegration and prejudice to ponder: there are many English Honeys and Three Billboards Outside Ebbsfleets demanding to be made, and the UK industry can ill afford to export all its anger. Lean On Pete is released in US cinemas on 6 April and in the UK on 4 May

culture/2018/apr/04/lean-on-pete-british-directors-andrew-andrea-arnold-

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-04T10:30:08Z

Found in translation: how British film-makers are capturing America

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/04/lean-on-pete-british-directors-andrew-andrea-arnold-

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/03/ian-hislop-and-paul-merton-under-fire-for-women-host-remarks

The quiz show captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton have faced a backlash over their claims female politicians are too reticent and modest to host Have I Got News For You. Their comments prompted a surge of calls for gender parity on comedy panel shows, with female comedians challenging the BBC One programme’s producers to “hire us and the MPs will follow”. Critics accused Hislop and Merton, who were interviewed for the Radio Times, of “mansplaining” the gender ratio on the show. Merton said: “The producers always ask more women than men. More women say no.” Hislop theorised: “On the whole, women are slightly more reticent and think, maybe modestly, ‘I can’t do that’.” The remarks prompted a hands-up on Twitter from the Conservative MP Anna Soubry, who said she would be delighted to guest host. However, her fellow Conservative Nadine Dorries, a former panelist, vowed never again to appear on the show, describing the format as “too vicious” and “too abrasive”. Of the 11 politicians to have sat in the host’s chair in the show’s 28-year history, Ann Widdecombe is the only woman. There have been several other female hosts, the most regular being the comedian Jo Brand and the presenter Kirsty Young. Deborah Frances-White, a standup comedian and host of the podcast panel shows Global Pillage and The Guilty Feminist, said that far from being reticent or modest, women were “dying to do” her shows – even female MPs. “This week’s Guilty Feminist episode features the brilliant Stella Creasy MP, who is both high-profile and very funny. Jess Phillips MP was amazing on our suffragette special at the Palladium,” she said. Any reticence was down to environment, she added. “If panel shows regularly booked at least 50% women, things would change quickly. Being the sole MP among comedians at the same time as being the sole woman among men isn’t very enticing. “You’d find many fewer male MPs would be keen to come on a show populated entirely by female comedians. There are definitely many exceptional female comics who’d love to do the show. Start there and the MPs will come.” Catherine Mayer, a journalist, author and co-founder of the Women’s Equality party with Sandi Toksvig, said on Twitter that HIGNFY’s original host, Angus Deayton, “got the job over Toksvig who was told ‘we couldn’t possibly have a woman in charge of the news’.” Toksvig now hosts the BBC Two quiz show QI. When Jo Brand, who has hosted HIGNFY on 19 occasions, rebuked Merton and Hislop over #MeToo in November, the clip went viral, said Mayer, because it “punctured the whole sniggering schoolboy ethos” of the show. The late comedian Victoria Wood previously criticised panel shows such as HIGNFY and Mock the Week for being “male-dominated” and “testosterone-fuelled”, while Brand once announced she would never appear on Mock the Week because of its aggressive bear pit atmosphere. Tiff Stevenson, a standup comedian and actor whose solo show Bombshell is on tour in the UK, has appeared on Mock the Week, 8 Out of 10 Cats and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Usually she is the sole woman, and she said she felt the burden of the comedian sisterhood on her shoulders. “Suddenly, you are representing an entire gender,” she said. If panels were more balanced, “you would be less under the spotlight”, she said. Shows should cast their nets wider and aim for gender parity. “If you are getting a female politician on, then also have a female comedian on.” Women also faced more criticism, Stevenson said. While men – especially male politicians – “fail upwards”, any woman putting her head above the parapet “is going to have arrows fired at your head”. It had got better, she said, “but it’s still there”. Putting more women on such shows was one solution. Angela Barnes, a standup comedian, Mock The Week regular and host of BBC Radio 4 Extra’s Newsjack, said the lack of women on such shows meant that while a man might be dismissed as “you’re not funny”, criticism of a woman was just as likely to be “women aren’t funny”. “You have the weight of the reputation of every female performer on your shoulders,” she said. For women, criticism was not restricted to performance, either. “I don’t think I have ever appeared on TV without at least one person on Twitter commenting on my looks or my weight,” said Barnes. “Then, of course, there is the abuse. The degrading, often violent, often sexually threatening abuse that is inevitable when a woman puts herself in the public eye. Particularly for female MPs who are currently the targets of some of the most vile behaviour you can imagine.” In 2014 the BBC decreed that panel programmes without women were “not acceptable” and said things were changing. Barnes said gender parity on panels was the key. “The fact remains that when you enter the game, it simply isn’t a level playing field.”

culture/2018/apr/03/ian-hislop-and-paul-merton-under-fire-for-women-host-remarks

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-03T17:46:38Z

Ian Hislop and Paul Merton under fire for female host remarks

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/03/ian-hislop-and-paul-merton-under-fire-for-women-host-remarks

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/03/jimmy-kimmel-seth-meyers-melania-donald-trump-easter-egg-roll

Late-night hosts on Monday discussed the annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House. Jimmy Kimmel “Today, on the day after Easter, they had the 140th annual Easter Egg Roll,” began Jimmy Kimmel. “This has been going on since 1878, when Rutherford B Hayes was president. This year was different, though: Trump heard ‘egg roll’ and promised to make the Chinese pay for it.” Kimmel went on: “It was a fun day for the president. He got to eat chocolate. He even met a nice kid named Barron who he really liked.” “This event is officially hosted by the first lady every year,” Kimmel explained, “in this case, Melania Trump, who joined the president on the balcony to get things going.” The host then showed a clip of the president and the first lady giving introductory remarks before the event. Trump thanks Melania for organizing the event, saying that “she worked so hard”. “Not a chance she did one thing to help set that up,” Kimmel joked. “She didn’t dye eggs. The only thing she’s been working on is an escape tunnel.” Seth Meyers The Late Night host also discussed the White House Easter festivities, including Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks about the state of the economy and the military. “Yesterday was Easter, the holiest day of the Christian calendar,” Seth Meyers began. “So Trump woke up bright and early and tweeted to his followers, ‘Happy Easter!’, and all was right with the world for 90 minutes. And then Trump started raving about caravans of immigrants.” The host then showed Trump’s tweet, which read: “Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!” “Who could forget how Christ rose on the third day and said unto his followers: ‘We gotta do something about all these Mexicans,’” Meyers joked. “Trump picked up right where he left off today at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll,” the host continued. “His only job was to come out, say hello to the families participating, thank the first lady, and thank the White House Historical Association. Yet he still could not stop himself from rambling, even about something as mundane as the White House itself.” Meyers then showed footage of Trump thanking the people “who keep this incredible house, or building, or whatever you want to call it because there really is no name for it” in good shape. “No name for it?” asked Meyers. “There’s a name for it. It’s the name everyone calls it. It’s the White House.” “The weirdest part came when Trump started bragging, as he always does, about his supposed accomplishments,” Meyers said. “Remember: this is to an audience of young children who are just there to play games with eggs.” The host showed more clips of the event, in which Trump boasts that “we’ve never had an economy like we have right now” and talks about securing $700bn in funding for the military. “I’m shocked the kids didn’t start booing,” Meyers joked. “‘Stop making us think about the military! We want eggs!’”

culture/2018/apr/03/jimmy-kimmel-seth-meyers-melania-donald-trump-easter-egg-roll

pillar/arts

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culture

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2018-04-03T15:17:55Z

Kimmel on Melania Trump: 'all she's been working on is an escape tunnel'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/03/jimmy-kimmel-seth-meyers-melania-donald-trump-easter-egg-roll

['late-night', 'hosts', 'monday', 'discussed', 'annual', 'easter', 'egg', 'roll', 'white', 'house', 'jimmy', 'kimmel', 'today', 'day', 'easter', '140th', 'annual', 'easter', 'egg', 'roll', 'began', 'jimmy', 'kimmel', 'going', 'since', 'rutherford', 'b', 'hayes', 'president', 'year', 'different', 'though', 'trump', 'heard', 'egg', 'roll', 'promised', 'make', 'chinese', 'pay', 'kimmel', 'went', 'fun', 'day', 'president', 'got', 'eat', 'chocolate', 'even', 'met', 'nice', 'kid', 'named', 'barron', 'really', 'liked', 'event', 'officially', 'hosted', 'first', 'lady', 'every', 'year', 'kimmel', 'explained', 'case', 'melania', 'trump', 'joined', 'president', 'balcony', 'get', 'things', 'going', 'host', 'showed', 'clip', 'president', 'first', 'lady', 'giving', 'introductory', 'remarks', 'event', 'trump', 'thanks', 'melania', 'organizing', 'event', 'saying', 'worked', 'hard', 'chance', 'one', 'thing', 'help', 'set', 'kimmel', 'joked', 'dye', 'eggs', 'thing', 'working', 'escape', 'tunnel', 'seth', 'meyers', 'late', 'night', 'host', 'also', 'discussed', 'white', 'house', 'easter', 'festivities', 'including', 'trump', 'off-the-cuff', 'remarks', 'state', 'economy', 'military', 'yesterday', 'easter', 'holiest', 'day', 'christian', 'calendar', 'seth', 'meyers', 'began', 'trump', 'woke', 'bright', 'early', 'tweeted', 'followers', 'happy', 'easter', 'right', 'world', 'minutes', 'trump', 'started', 'raving', 'caravans', 'immigrants', 'host', 'showed', 'trump', 'tweet', 'read', 'border', 'patrol', 'agents', 'allowed', 'properly', 'job', 'border', 'ridiculous', 'liberal', 'democrat', 'laws', 'like', 'catch', 'amp', 'release', 'getting', 'dangerous', 'caravans', 'coming', 'republicans', 'must', 'go', 'nuclear', 'option', 'pass', 'tough', 'laws', 'daca', 'deal', 'could', 'forget', 'christ', 'rose', 'third', 'day', 'said', 'unto', 'followers', 'gotta', 'something', 'mexicans', 'meyers', 'joked', 'trump', 'picked', 'right', 'left', 'today', 'annual', 'white', 'house', 'easter', 'egg', 'roll', 'host', 'continued', 'job', 'come', 'say', 'hello', 'families', 'participating', 'thank', 'first', 'lady', 'thank', 'white', 'house', 'historical', 'association', 'yet', 'still', 'could', 'stop', 'rambling', 'even', 'something', 'mundane', 'white', 'house', 'meyers', 'showed', 'footage', 'trump', 'thanking', 'people', 'keep', 'incredible', 'house', 'building', 'whatever', 'want', 'call', 'really', 'name', 'good', 'shape', 'name', 'asked', 'meyers', 'name', 'name', 'everyone', 'calls', 'white', 'house', 'weirdest', 'part', 'came', 'trump', 'started', 'bragging', 'always', 'supposed', 'accomplishments', 'meyers', 'said', 'remember', 'audience', 'young', 'children', 'play', 'games', 'eggs', 'host', 'showed', 'clips', 'event', 'trump', 'boasts', 'never', 'economy', 'like', 'right', 'talks', 'securing', '700bn', 'funding', 'military', 'shocked', 'kids', 'start', 'booing', 'meyers', 'joked', 'stop', 'making', 'us', 'think', 'military', 'want', 'eggs']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/01/mary-bride-nicholson-obituary

My mother, Mary Bride Nicholson, who has died aged 86, had a deep and long-lasting relationship with Dartington Hall, home of the Dartington Hall Trust, which was founded by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst in 1925 and supports projects in the fields of the arts, social justice and sustainability. The daughter of one of the founders of Dartington Hall school, John Nicholson Wales, she was educated there and was later secretary to the trust’s chairman as well its archivist. In 1930, John and his wife, Peggy (nee Robbins), left for London so that he could study for a degree at the London School of Economics. Mary Bride was born in the capital, their second daughter. Four years later the family moved back to Dartington, John to teach at the school and Peggy to become the matron. Mary Bride attended the school with her sister, Shirley. Mary Bride grew up during a whirlwind of construction at Dartington Hall, alongside the arts, music, dance and philosophy and the personalities (many fleeing Nazi persecution) who contributed to the excitement and fervour that was the Elmhirsts’ vision for the Dartington Experiment. It made my mother independent and adventurous. After training as a secretary, she moved to London in 1951, taking up roles at the Council of Industrial Design and the US embassy. Then in 1956, with $50 in her pocket, she went to New York on a cargo boat. She soon found work as personal assistant to the director general of the British Information Services. Once back in Britain, Mary Bride took the decision to become a single mother, a difficult path at that time. Without financial support she returned to Dartington, where I was born in 1962. Six weeks later she was offered the post of Dorothy Elmhirst’s personal secretary, a role in which she served until Dorothy’s death in 1968. She went on to become Maurice Ash’s personal secretary during his time as chairman of the Dartington Hall Trust, before serving as archivist and keeper of the Trust’s collection of paintings and ceramics. Mary Bride had grown up singing with her mother in the choir at Dartington founded by Imogen Holst. In 1982 she became a founder and chair of the Dartington community choir, which is still going strong. She was also secretary of the Elmgrant Trust, a charity founded by the Elmhirsts. My mother wrote about her life in her memoir, A Life at Dartington. She is survived by me, my wife and our son.

culture/2018/apr/01/mary-bride-nicholson-obituary

pillar/arts

Arts

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Culture

article

2018-04-01T16:15:07Z

Mary Bride Nicholson obituary

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/01/mary-bride-nicholson-obituary

['mother', 'mary', 'bride', 'nicholson', 'died', 'aged', 'deep', 'long-lasting', 'relationship', 'dartington', 'hall', 'home', 'dartington', 'hall', 'trust', 'founded', 'leonard', 'dorothy', 'elmhirst', 'supports', 'projects', 'fields', 'arts', 'social', 'justice', 'sustainability', 'daughter', 'one', 'founders', 'dartington', 'hall', 'school', 'john', 'nicholson', 'wales', 'educated', 'later', 'secretary', 'trust', 'chairman', 'well', 'archivist', 'john', 'wife', 'peggy', 'nee', 'robbins', 'left', 'london', 'could', 'study', 'degree', 'london', 'school', 'economics', 'mary', 'bride', 'born', 'capital', 'second', 'daughter', 'four', 'years', 'later', 'family', 'moved', 'back', 'dartington', 'john', 'teach', 'school', 'peggy', 'become', 'matron', 'mary', 'bride', 'attended', 'school', 'sister', 'shirley', 'mary', 'bride', 'grew', 'whirlwind', 'construction', 'dartington', 'hall', 'alongside', 'arts', 'music', 'dance', 'philosophy', 'personalities', 'many', 'fleeing', 'nazi', 'persecution', 'contributed', 'excitement', 'fervour', 'elmhirsts', 'vision', 'dartington', 'experiment', 'made', 'mother', 'independent', 'adventurous', 'training', 'secretary', 'moved', 'london', 'taking', 'roles', 'council', 'industrial', 'design', 'us', 'embassy', 'pocket', 'went', 'new', 'york', 'cargo', 'boat', 'soon', 'found', 'work', 'personal', 'assistant', 'director', 'general', 'british', 'information', 'services', 'back', 'britain', 'mary', 'bride', 'took', 'decision', 'become', 'single', 'mother', 'difficult', 'path', 'time', 'without', 'financial', 'support', 'returned', 'dartington', 'born', 'six', 'weeks', 'later', 'offered', 'post', 'dorothy', 'elmhirst', 'personal', 'secretary', 'role', 'served', 'dorothy', 'death', 'went', 'become', 'maurice', 'ash', 'personal', 'secretary', 'time', 'chairman', 'dartington', 'hall', 'trust', 'serving', 'archivist', 'keeper', 'trust', 'collection', 'paintings', 'ceramics', 'mary', 'bride', 'grown', 'singing', 'mother', 'choir', 'dartington', 'founded', 'imogen', 'holst', 'became', 'founder', 'chair', 'dartington', 'community', 'choir', 'still', 'going', 'strong', 'also', 'secretary', 'elmgrant', 'trust', 'charity', 'founded', 'elmhirsts', 'mother', 'wrote', 'life', 'memoir', 'life', 'dartington', 'survived', 'wife', 'son']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/01/on-my-radar-jamael-westman-hamilton-kendrick-lamar-julius-caesar-black-panther

Actor Jamael Westman was brought up in Croydon, London, by a Jamaican father and an Irish mother. He is currently playing the title role in the West End production of Lin‑Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop musical Hamilton, for which he has been nominated for this year’s Laurence Olivier award for best actor in a musical.Since graduating from Rada in 2016, he has also performed in Torn at the Royal Court and The White Devil at Shakespeare’s Globe. 1. Gig Kendrick Lamar at the O2 Kendrick Lamar has effectively taken on the ethos of someone like Tupac Shakur, who was my favourite rapper growing up. This performance was just incredible. He wasn’t relying on running around the stage and hyping people up – he had faith in his talent and in his work, and knew he had everyone on his side. He’s an actor as well: in his lyrics he takes on different guises, uses satire – he’s changing how rap can be perceived. You can’t question his integrity: he’s trying to raise up not just black America but people of colour across the world. He’s an inspiration. 2. Theatre Julius Caesar at the Bridge theatre It was a little while since I’d seen any Shakespeare, so it was great to see this, which was brilliant. The set was constantly forming and morphing around the cast, and they made great edits – it was just constant action, from one thing to the next. The actors were phenomenal. I love watching Ben Whishaw, his mastery of the language is something to admire. And the story is so relevant to today: they didn’t push on it too much, but the person you’d liken Julius Caesar to in many ways would be Donald Trump. 3. Book Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge I’m only on the second chapter, but it’s touching on a nerve that I’ve had many discussions about, and it’s good to have it so eloquently expressed. This is from the perspective of someone who has long tried to explain white privilege and racial oppression and is just goddamn tired of it. It’s about something I’ve wrestled with for a long time: race relations, identity, and a sense of Britishness now being brought in to question. 4. TV Seven Seconds I’ve just seen this on Netflix and I cried so many times. It’s a really painful watch but definitely needs to be seen. The premise is a young black boy has been killed: he’s been run over and left to die. The perpetrators were actually police and they’re trying to cover it up. It’s about the justice system, the value of black lives, and the effect the murder has on the family. It’s just plot twist after plot twist. Every character has depth, and the acting is heartbreaking – Regina King and Clare-Hope Ashitey especially. 5. Film Black Panther This was the most uplifting thing I’ve seen in a long time. Just think about young children of colour seeing themselves reflected on screen. I love this idea of going back to Africa and reclaiming our roots. Black Panther and his nemesis in a sense represent Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. I think it’s something that exists in a lot of the black community – which choice do we make? I’ve seen this three times and I’ll see it again. The last thing I say to my friends before we part ways now is “Wakanda for ever” – it becomes a state of mind. 6. Podcast Playwright’s Podcast There are two series of this on the Royal Court website, and it’s wicked. Simon Stephens hosts discussions with different playwrights: the one I was listening to recently was a double whammy of Joe Penhall and Dennis Kelly. Sometimes amazing playwrights like these can feel unreachable. You can’t imagine them as normal people because all you see is their name in shiny lights under an amazing play. But this humanises them – it’s like chilling in a writer’s room, exploring the first plays they saw, points of inspiration, why they wrote what they wrote.

culture/2018/apr/01/on-my-radar-jamael-westman-hamilton-kendrick-lamar-julius-caesar-black-panther

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-04-01T09:00:14Z

On my radar: Jamael Westman’s cultural highlights

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/01/on-my-radar-jamael-westman-hamilton-kendrick-lamar-julius-caesar-black-panther

['actor', 'jamael', 'westman', 'brought', 'croydon', 'london', 'jamaican', 'father', 'irish', 'mother', 'currently', 'playing', 'title', 'role', 'west', 'end', 'production', 'linmanuel', 'miranda', 'hip-hop', 'musical', 'hamilton', 'nominated', 'year', 'laurence', 'olivier', 'award', 'best', 'actor', 'musicalsince', 'graduating', 'rada', 'also', 'performed', 'torn', 'royal', 'court', 'white', 'devil', 'shakespeare', 'globe', 'gig', 'kendrick', 'lamar', 'o2', 'kendrick', 'lamar', 'effectively', 'taken', 'ethos', 'someone', 'like', 'tupac', 'shakur', 'favourite', 'rapper', 'growing', 'performance', 'incredible', 'relying', 'running', 'around', 'stage', 'hyping', 'people', 'faith', 'talent', 'work', 'knew', 'everyone', 'side', 'actor', 'well', 'lyrics', 'takes', 'different', 'guises', 'uses', 'satire', 'changing', 'rap', 'perceived', 'question', 'integrity', 'trying', 'raise', 'black', 'america', 'people', 'colour', 'across', 'world', 'inspiration', 'theatre', 'julius', 'caesar', 'bridge', 'theatre', 'little', 'since', 'would', 'seen', 'shakespeare', 'great', 'see', 'brilliant', 'set', 'constantly', 'forming', 'morphing', 'around', 'cast', 'made', 'great', 'edits', 'constant', 'action', 'one', 'thing', 'next', 'actors', 'phenomenal', 'love', 'watching', 'ben', 'whishaw', 'mastery', 'language', 'something', 'admire', 'story', 'relevant', 'today', 'push', 'much', 'person', 'would', 'liken', 'julius', 'caesar', 'many', 'ways', 'would', 'donald', 'trump', 'book', 'longer', 'talking', 'white', 'people', 'race', 'reni', 'eddo-lodge', 'second', 'chapter', 'touching', 'nerve', 'many', 'discussions', 'good', 'eloquently', 'expressed', 'perspective', 'someone', 'long', 'tried', 'explain', 'white', 'privilege', 'racial', 'oppression', 'goddamn', 'tired', 'something', 'wrestled', 'long', 'time', 'race', 'relations', 'identity', 'sense', 'britishness', 'brought', 'question', 'tv', 'seven', 'seconds', 'seen', 'netflix', 'cried', 'many', 'times', 'really', 'painful', 'watch', 'definitely', 'needs', 'seen', 'premise', 'young', 'black', 'boy', 'killed', 'run', 'left', 'die', 'perpetrators', 'actually', 'police', 'trying', 'cover', 'justice', 'system', 'value', 'black', 'lives', 'effect', 'murder', 'family', 'plot', 'twist', 'plot', 'twist', 'every', 'character', 'depth', 'acting', 'heartbreaking', 'regina', 'king', 'clare-hope', 'ashitey', 'especially', 'film', 'black', 'panther', 'uplifting', 'thing', 'seen', 'long', 'time', 'think', 'young', 'children', 'colour', 'seeing', 'reflected', 'screen', 'love', 'idea', 'going', 'back', 'africa', 'reclaiming', 'roots', 'black', 'panther', 'nemesis', 'sense', 'represent', 'martin', 'luther', 'king', 'malcolm', 'x', 'think', 'something', 'exists', 'lot', 'black', 'community', 'choice', 'make', 'seen', 'three', 'times', 'see', 'last', 'thing', 'say', 'friends', 'part', 'ways', 'wakanda', 'ever', 'becomes', 'state', 'mind', 'podcast', 'playwright', 'podcast', 'two', 'series', 'royal', 'court', 'website', 'wicked', 'simon', 'stephens', 'hosts', 'discussions', 'different', 'playwrights', 'one', 'listening', 'recently', 'double', 'whammy', 'joe', 'penhall', 'dennis', 'kelly', 'sometimes', 'amazing', 'playwrights', 'like', 'feel', 'unreachable', 'imagine', 'normal', 'people', 'see', 'name', 'shiny', 'lights', 'amazing', 'play', 'humanises', 'like', 'chilling', 'writer', 'room', 'exploring', 'first', 'plays', 'saw', 'points', 'inspiration', 'wrote', 'wrote']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/apr/01/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-steep

The next theme for our weekly photography assignment in the Observer New Review is ‘steep.’ Share your photos of what steep means to you – and tell us about your image in the description box. The closing date is Wednesday 4 April at 10am. We’ll publish our favourites in The New Review on Sunday 8 April and in a gallery on the Guardian site. You can share your ‘steep’ pictures by clicking on the ‘Contribute’ button on this article. You can also use the Guardian app and search for ‘GuardianWitness assignments’ – and if you add it to the homepage – you can keep up with all our assignments. GuardianWitness is the home of readers’ content on the Guardian. Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others.

culture/2018/apr/01/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-steep

pillar/arts

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2018-04-01T08:00:14Z

Your pictures: share your photos on the theme of 'steep'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/01/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-steep

['next', 'theme', 'weekly', 'photography', 'assignment', 'observer', 'new', 'review', 'steep', 'share', 'photos', 'steep', 'means', 'tell', 'us', 'image', 'description', 'box', 'closing', 'date', 'wednesday', 'april', '10am', 'publish', 'favourites', 'new', 'review', 'sunday', 'april', 'gallery', 'guardian', 'site', 'share', 'steep', 'pictures', 'clicking', 'contribute', 'button', 'article', 'also', 'use', 'guardian', 'app', 'search', 'guardianwitness', 'assignments', 'add', 'homepage', 'keep', 'assignments', 'guardianwitness', 'home', 'readers', 'content', 'guardian', 'contribute', 'video', 'pictures', 'stories', 'browse', 'news', 'reviews', 'creations', 'submitted', 'others']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/apr/01/simone-lia-on-easter-2018

culture/ng-interactive/2018/apr/01/simone-lia-on-easter-2018

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

interactive

2018-04-01T07:00:14Z

Simone Lia on Easter 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/apr/01/simone-lia-on-easter-2018

[]

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/31/peter-kay-announces-second-charity-screening-of-car-share

A second charity screening featuring new episodes of Peter Kay’s television show Car Share has been added after tickets to the first event sold out in minutes. The comedian had announced the screening on Thursday in his first Twitter post since cancelling his first live tour in eight years last December due to “unforeseen family circumstances”. Tickets for the event at the Blackpool Opera House on 7 April were sold out in minutes after they went on sale at 9am Saturday. Shortly afterwards, a post on Kay’s Twitter feed said: “Due to demand a further Car Share showing will take place on Friday 6th April.” The Ticketmaster website said the new date was added due to “overwhelming demand”. On Thursday, Kay said that the charity screening would raise money for the Lily Foundation, which helps children with mitochondrial disease, an incurable condition with symptoms including seizures and muscle weakness. The comic said that he had “first-hand experience” of the foundation, adding: “I’m proud to raise both awareness and much-needed funds to help with the inspiring work they provide to children and their families.” The second series of the BBC One show ended on an emotional cliffhanger last year as John (Kay) failed to reciprocate the advances of his car share colleague Kayleigh (Sian Gibson). When John refused to say how he felt, Kayleigh walked out of his vehicle. Kay admitted in November that fans had been angry about how the series had ended. The comedian, 44, later announced that a special finale to reveal what happens next for the pair and an entirely improvised episode, Car Share: Unscripted, will be broadcast on the BBC in May. He described Car Share: Unscripted as “half an hour of us basically making the script up and improvising,” adding: “It’s nothing to do with the story – just us having a laugh.” Car Share won two Bafta TV Awards in 2016 for best scripted comedy and best male performance in a comedy programme.

culture/2018/mar/31/peter-kay-announces-second-charity-screening-of-car-share

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-31T10:16:57Z

Peter Kay announces second charity screening of Car Share

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/31/peter-kay-announces-second-charity-screening-of-car-share

['second', 'charity', 'screening', 'featuring', 'new', 'episodes', 'peter', 'kay', 'television', 'show', 'car', 'share', 'added', 'tickets', 'first', 'event', 'sold', 'minutes', 'comedian', 'announced', 'screening', 'thursday', 'first', 'twitter', 'post', 'since', 'cancelling', 'first', 'live', 'tour', 'eight', 'years', 'last', 'december', 'due', 'unforeseen', 'family', 'circumstances', 'tickets', 'event', 'blackpool', 'opera', 'house', 'april', 'sold', 'minutes', 'went', 'sale', '9am', 'saturday', 'shortly', 'afterwards', 'post', 'kay', 'twitter', 'feed', 'said', 'due', 'demand', 'car', 'share', 'showing', 'take', 'place', 'friday', '6th', 'april', 'ticketmaster', 'website', 'said', 'new', 'date', 'added', 'due', 'overwhelming', 'demand', 'thursday', 'kay', 'said', 'charity', 'screening', 'would', 'raise', 'money', 'lily', 'foundation', 'helps', 'children', 'mitochondrial', 'disease', 'incurable', 'condition', 'symptoms', 'including', 'seizures', 'muscle', 'weakness', 'comic', 'said', 'first-hand', 'experience', 'foundation', 'adding', 'proud', 'raise', 'awareness', 'much-needed', 'funds', 'help', 'inspiring', 'work', 'provide', 'children', 'families', 'second', 'series', 'bbc', 'one', 'show', 'ended', 'emotional', 'cliffhanger', 'last', 'year', 'john', 'kay', 'failed', 'reciprocate', 'advances', 'car', 'share', 'colleague', 'kayleigh', 'sian', 'gibson', 'john', 'refused', 'say', 'felt', 'kayleigh', 'walked', 'vehicle', 'kay', 'admitted', 'november', 'fans', 'angry', 'series', 'ended', 'comedian', 'later', 'announced', 'special', 'finale', 'reveal', 'happens', 'next', 'pair', 'entirely', 'improvised', 'episode', 'car', 'share', 'unscripted', 'broadcast', 'bbc', 'may', 'described', 'car', 'share', 'unscripted', 'half', 'hour', 'us', 'basically', 'making', 'script', 'improvising', 'adding', 'nothing', 'story', 'us', 'laugh', 'car', 'share', 'two', 'bafta', 'tv', 'awards', 'best', 'scripted', 'comedy', 'best', 'male', 'performance', 'comedy', 'programme']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/31/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

Five of the best ... films Isle of Dogs (PG) (Wes Anderson, 2018, US/Ger) 101 mins After Fantastic Mr Fox, Anderson doubles down on the stop-motion creature-craft with a story so packed with labour-intensive detail, star voiceovers and eccentric digressions, it’s hard to fathom how he fits it all in. The setting is a retro-future Japan, where a quarantined island of diseased dogs fight for rotten food, human companionship and civic justice. Ready Player One (12a) (Steven Spielberg, 2018, US) 140 mins Spielberg proves he can still create a grand adventure and explore new frontiers: in this case, a virtual reality world where humans escape the dystopian drudge, tick off 80s pop-culture references, and compete in its creator’s high-stakes treasure hunt. Tye Sheridan plays the gamer who could bring the rebellion. The Square (15) (Ruben Ostlund, 2017, Swe/Ger/Fra/Den) 151 mins Is it art or satire? Ostlund’s entertaining film invites us to tell the difference. Centred on a charming, imprudent gallery director (Claes Bang), it’s a series of encounters both absurd and sobering: a phone theft that borders on performance art; an ape impersonator who gets too method; an awkward tryst with a journo (Elisabeth Moss). It all adds up to a provocative interrogation of culture and privilege. You Were Never Really Here (15) (Lynne Ramsay, 2017, UK/Fra/US) 95 mins Joaquin Phoenix is in bad shape physically and psychologically in this fractured thriller, but he’s never been better. He is a freelance loner on a mission to rescue an abducted girl, which takes him down a rabbit hole of political conspiracy and traumatic memories, all powerfully conveyed by Ramsay’s expert construction. It could almost be a Taxi Driver for our times. Blockers (15) (Kay Cannon, 2018, US) 102 mins Why should teens have all the fun? Or, indeed, any fun? Parents John Cena, Leslie Mann and Ike Barinholtz do their best to stop that in this raunchy yet good-natured comedy. Their mission is clear once they learn of their daughters’ prom-night “sex pact” to lose their virginity. Gross-out set pieces and a flow of witty banter keep things moving along. SR Five of the best ... rock & pop gigs Let’s Eat Grandma While Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth’s 2016 debut I, Gemini flitted frustratingly between Coco Rosie-lite folk and wafty psych-pop, new album I’m All Ears focuses more on pure pop thrills. The Horrors’ Faris Badwan lends his production nous, as does rulebook-shredding electronic pioneer Sophie, whose fingerprints are all over the ecstatic rush of crunchy lead single Hot Pink. Stereo, Glasgow 4 April; Riverside, Newcastle upon Tyne 5 April; touring to 13 April Kojo Funds The so-called king of Afroswing (a mix of dancehall, Afrobeats, new jack swing and R&B; do keep up) plays a one-off London date this week, riding a commercial wave following Finders Keepers, his UK No 8 with Mabel. Current single Check, which samples Craig David and also features Raye, currently sits at 7m YouTube views, so we’re talking real deal here. Electric Brixton, SW2, 5 April Eleanor Friedberger Named after an 80s goth disco night in Athens “where everyone does the chicken dance” that we should absolutely all go to, the Fiery Furnaces co-founder’s new solo album Rebound, her fourth, eschews the full-band set-up of 2016’s New View for something more electronic. Lead single In Between Stars suggests she hasn’t lost any of her melodic idiosyncrasies, so practise your best jerky, shuffling dance moves, please. Moth Club, E9, 5 April Panda Bear Noah Lennox, AKA Panda Bear, AKA one quarter of often-talked-about-but-rarely-enjoyed sonic experimentalists Animal Collective, arrives in the UK in support of recent vinyl-only EP, A Day With the Homies, a collection he described as “something without frills or much embellishment”. If you would rather wait until the full band is back together, Animal Collective return to the UK in June. Gorilla, Manchester, 2 April; Village Underground, EC2, 3 April MC Lizz Wright Powerful Georgia singer Lizz Wright has become a soul-jazz star for her smoky eloquence in genres from gospel to folk to Broadway balladeering, and a live presence mixing sermonising power and self-effacing charm. This one-off UK show features her Grace album’s expressive covers of Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Nina Simone and more. Union Chapel, N1, 6 April Four of the best ... classical concerts Theodora After an afternoon performance of James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross, Aldeburgh Music’s Easter celebration ends with Handel’s penultimate dramatic oratorio, Theodora, which has become recognised as one of his supreme achievements. Christian Curnyn conducts the Britten-Pears Baroque Orchestra and singers from the Britten-Pears young artist programme. Snape Maltings, nr Aldeburgh, 31 March Tallis Scholars Peter Phillips and his outstanding vocal group bring variety to the regular diet of Bach at St John’s Holy Week festival, with a programme devoted to choral music from the Spanish golden age. All the usual suspects are represented: Victoria’s Requiem ends the programme, preceded by motets by Francisco Guerrero and Alonso Lobo. St John’s Smith Square, SW1, 31 March St Matthew Passion Tenor Mark Padmore’s multi-tasking has become a regular feature of Easter music. This year, it’s Bach’s St Matthew Passion, in which Padmore both directs the orchestra and chorus – the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and its choir – and sings the role of the Evangelist. The Anvil, Basingstoke, 31 March Mass The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain join forces with the Chineke! Junior Orchestra and singers and dancers from a range of London schools and colleges to perform Leonard Bernstein’s unclassifiable, evening-long piece: part opera, part oratorio, part sheer pantomime. Marin Alsop conducts and the Celebrant is Paolo Szot. Royal Festival Hall, SE1, 6 & 7 April Five of the best ... exhibitions Designed to Impress One student who was inspired by the Fitzwilliam’s collection of prints was Charles Darwin. He spent hours looking at them and it made him fall in love with art. They might seem dowdy compared with the gallery’s paintings by Titian, Rubens and Cézanne. Yet the power of Rembrandt’s etchings and Dürer’s forceful woodcuts make this a monochrome treasury. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, to 2 September The Classical Now Yves Klein’s Blue Venus is an ancient statue whose sensuality is enhanced by covering it in his trademark blue pigment. It looks like a dream of an undersea goddess, a statue from a wreck. This is just one of the ways artists including Picasso, Lichtenstein, Marc Quinn and Damien Hirst interpret the classics in this epic update of the antique. King’s College, WC2 to 28 April Egypt Uncovered: Belzoni and the Tomb of Pharaoh Seti I Giovanni Battista Belzoni was an early 19th-century circus strongman before he became one of the first Europeans to excavate ancient Egypt. His finds included Seti I’s tomb and the British Museum’s huge head of Rameses II; his transfers of wall paintings are eerie wonders. Sir John Soane’s Museum, WC2, to 15 April Gideon Rubin In 1938 Sigmund Freud became one of the 20th century’s most celebrated refugees, as the unification of Austria with Nazi Germany was marked by outbursts of antisemitism in Vienna. Freud escaped to London, although he would die the following year. Rubin has collected images from the Nazi era and painted over faces and Nazi banners in an exhibition about migration and memory entitled Black Book, evoking the Europe from which Freud fled. Freud Museum, NW3, to 15 April Fate Unknown At the end of the second world war, the horror of Nazi genocide started to become known. Yet millions of people remained unaccounted for. Had they died in camps or were they shot in east European forests? Had some survived? This exhibition traces the search for the missing in a Europe of bomb-blasted ruins, and how researchers tried to discover the terrible truths of stolen lives. Yet the exact fate of many Nazi victims is still unknown. The Wiener Library, WC1, to 30 May Five of the best ... theatre shows Rhinoceros Eugène Ionesco’s 1959 absurdist farce was written as a parable about the rise of the far right he had seen 30 years earlier. Premiered at Edinburgh last summer, Zinnie Harris’s smart new version – a Scottish-Turkish collaboration – has a cartoonish rambunctiousness as the inhabitants of a small town turn into rhinos, and the comic and sinister walk hand in hand. Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh to 7 April The Duchess of Malfi There is largely an all-female creative team behind Maria Aberg’s revival of John Webster’s feverish Jacobean revenge tragedy, which boasts severed hands, lycanthropy and madness. But there are also subtleties in a production that puts Joan Iyiola’s duchess centre stage. Royal Shakespeare Theatre: Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon, to 3 August The Damned United Brian Clough’s doomed reign as manager of Leeds United in 1974 lasted a bare 44 days but there is longevity to Red Ladder’s production, adapted by Anders Lustgarten from David Peace’s book. It creates the atmosphere of a football match to tell a story of sporting rivalry, male friendship, loyalty and – most of all – obsession. West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, to 7 April Séance Binaural technology is currently having its moment in theatre. Complicite’s The Encounter heads back to the Barbican next month, and here is another chance to experience Glen Neath and David Rosenberg’s clever, creepy little 15-minute show. Ushered into a container, you take your seat, put on a pair of headphones and are then plunged into complete darkness. But are the monsters conjured of our own making or do they really exist? Smart work, like a 21st-century Victorian sideshow. Almeida Theatre, N1, 3 to 6 April The Cherry Orchard There is delicacy and directness in Michael Boyd’s staging of Chekhov’s drama about personal uncertainty and societal change. Rory Mullarkey’s zippy translation makes the play seem sharply contemporary and funny, but there is also real emotion. Kirsty Bushell makes for a very fine Ranevskaya, keeping disaster at bay with a painted smile. Clever, too, in the way it dissolves the line between theatre and reality. Bristol Old Vic, to 7 April; Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, 19 April to 19 May LG Three of the best ... dance shows Scottish Ballet: Highland Fling Matthew Bourne’s funny, funky take on La Sylphide makes a welcome return in a staging by Etta Murfitt. Telling the story of hard-drinking James and the new-age fairy with whom he falls in love, it translates the world of 19th-century Romanticism to a contemporary Scotland of drug-induced fantasies and crime. Theatre Royal, Glasgow 4 to 7 April; touring to 4 May Royal Ballet: Manon Kenneth MacMillan’s morality tale set in 18th-century Paris remains one of the most popular story ballets in the repertory and will be danced this season by some stellar casts. Guests Vladimir Shklyarov and Roberto Bolle feature alongside Natalia Osipova, Marianela Nuñez and others. Royal Opera House, WC2, to 16 May DeNada Dance Theatre: Toro – Beauty and the Bull Carlos Pons Guerra has a flamboyantly distinctive voice as a choreographer – pungent, sensual and rude. In Toro, he relocates the classic story of Beauty and the Beast to a South American circus. The Lowry: Quays Theatre, Salford, 1 April; touring to 27 April JM

culture/2018/mar/31/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-31T08:00:08Z

What to see this week in the UK

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/31/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

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'current', 'single', 'check', 'samples', 'craig', 'david', 'also', 'features', 'raye', 'currently', 'sits', '7m', 'youtube', 'views', 'talking', 'real', 'deal', 'electric', 'brixton', 'sw2', 'april', 'eleanor', 'friedberger', 'named', '80s', 'goth', 'disco', 'night', 'athens', 'everyone', 'chicken', 'dance', 'absolutely', 'go', 'fiery', 'furnaces', 'co-founder', 'new', 'solo', 'album', 'rebound', 'fourth', 'eschews', 'full-band', 'set-up', 'new', 'view', 'something', 'electronic', 'lead', 'single', 'stars', 'suggests', 'lost', 'melodic', 'idiosyncrasies', 'practise', 'best', 'jerky', 'shuffling', 'dance', 'moves', 'please', 'moth', 'club', 'e9', 'april', 'panda', 'bear', 'noah', 'lennox', 'aka', 'panda', 'bear', 'aka', 'one', 'quarter', 'often-talked-about-but-rarely-enjoyed', 'sonic', 'experimentalists', 'animal', 'collective', 'arrives', 'uk', 'support', 'recent', 'vinyl-only', 'ep', 'day', 'homies', 'collection', 'described', 'something', 'without', 'frills', 'much', 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'baroque', 'orchestra', 'singers', 'britten-pears', 'young', 'artist', 'programme', 'snape', 'maltings', 'nr', 'aldeburgh', 'march', 'tallis', 'scholars', 'peter', 'phillips', 'outstanding', 'vocal', 'group', 'bring', 'variety', 'regular', 'diet', 'bach', 'st', 'john', 'holy', 'week', 'festival', 'programme', 'devoted', 'choral', 'music', 'spanish', 'golden', 'age', 'usual', 'suspects', 'represented', 'victoria', 'requiem', 'ends', 'programme', 'preceded', 'motets', 'francisco', 'guerrero', 'alonso', 'lobo', 'st', 'john', 'smith', 'square', 'sw1', 'march', 'st', 'matthew', 'passion', 'tenor', 'mark', 'padmore', 'multi-tasking', 'become', 'regular', 'feature', 'easter', 'music', 'year', 'bach', 'st', 'matthew', 'passion', 'padmore', 'directs', 'orchestra', 'chorus', 'orchestra', 'age', 'enlightenment', 'choir', 'sings', 'role', 'evangelist', 'anvil', 'basingstoke', 'march', 'mass', 'national', 'youth', 'orchestra', 'great', 'britain', 'join', 'forces', 'chineke', 'junior', 'orchestra', 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'ways', 'artists', 'including', 'picasso', 'lichtenstein', 'marc', 'quinn', 'damien', 'hirst', 'interpret', 'classics', 'epic', 'update', 'antique', 'king', 'college', 'wc2', 'april', 'egypt', 'uncovered', 'belzoni', 'tomb', 'pharaoh', 'seti', 'giovanni', 'battista', 'belzoni', 'early', '19th-century', 'circus', 'strongman', 'became', 'one', 'first', 'europeans', 'excavate', 'ancient', 'egypt', 'finds', 'included', 'seti', 'tomb', 'british', 'museum', 'huge', 'head', 'rameses', 'ii', 'transfers', 'wall', 'paintings', 'eerie', 'wonders', 'sir', 'john', 'soane', 'museum', 'wc2', 'april', 'gideon', 'rubin', 'sigmund', 'freud', 'became', 'one', '20th', 'century', 'celebrated', 'refugees', 'unification', 'austria', 'nazi', 'germany', 'marked', 'outbursts', 'antisemitism', 'vienna', 'freud', 'escaped', 'london', 'although', 'would', 'die', 'following', 'year', 'rubin', 'collected', 'images', 'nazi', 'era', 'painted', 'faces', 'nazi', 'banners', 'exhibition', 'migration', 'memory', 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'walk', 'hand', 'hand', 'royal', 'lyceum', 'theatre', 'edinburgh', 'april', 'duchess', 'malfi', 'largely', 'all-female', 'creative', 'team', 'behind', 'maria', 'aberg', 'revival', 'john', 'webster', 'feverish', 'jacobean', 'revenge', 'tragedy', 'boasts', 'severed', 'hands', 'lycanthropy', 'madness', 'also', 'subtleties', 'production', 'puts', 'joan', 'iyiola', 'duchess', 'centre', 'stage', 'royal', 'shakespeare', 'theatre', 'swan', 'stratford-upon-avon', 'august', 'damned', 'united', 'brian', 'clough', 'doomed', 'reign', 'manager', 'leeds', 'united', 'lasted', 'bare', 'days', 'longevity', 'red', 'ladder', 'production', 'adapted', 'anders', 'lustgarten', 'david', 'peace', 'book', 'creates', 'atmosphere', 'football', 'match', 'tell', 'story', 'sporting', 'rivalry', 'male', 'friendship', 'loyalty', 'obsession', 'west', 'yorkshire', 'playhouse', 'leeds', 'april', 'seance', 'binaural', 'technology', 'currently', 'moment', 'theatre', 'complicite', 'encounter', 'heads', 'back', 'barbican', 'next', 'month', 'another', 'chance', 'experience', 'glen', 'neath', 'david', 'rosenberg', 'clever', 'creepy', 'little', '15-minute', 'show', 'ushered', 'container', 'take', 'seat', 'put', 'pair', 'headphones', 'plunged', 'complete', 'darkness', 'monsters', 'conjured', 'making', 'really', 'exist', 'smart', 'work', 'like', '21st-century', 'victorian', 'sideshow', 'almeida', 'theatre', 'n1', 'april', 'cherry', 'orchard', 'delicacy', 'directness', 'michael', 'boyd', 'staging', 'chekhov', 'drama', 'personal', 'uncertainty', 'societal', 'change', 'rory', 'mullarkey', 'zippy', 'translation', 'makes', 'play', 'seem', 'sharply', 'contemporary', 'funny', 'also', 'real', 'emotion', 'kirsty', 'bushell', 'makes', 'fine', 'ranevskaya', 'keeping', 'disaster', 'bay', 'painted', 'smile', 'clever', 'way', 'dissolves', 'line', 'theatre', 'reality', 'bristol', 'old', 'vic', 'april', 'royal', 'exchange', 'theatre', 'manchester', 'april', 'may', 'lg', 'three', 'best', 'dance', 'shows', 'scottish', 'ballet', 'highland', 'fling', 'matthew', 'bourne', 'funny', 'funky', 'take', 'la', 'sylphide', 'makes', 'welcome', 'return', 'staging', 'etta', 'murfitt', 'telling', 'story', 'hard-drinking', 'james', 'new-age', 'fairy', 'falls', 'love', 'translates', 'world', '19th-century', 'romanticism', 'contemporary', 'scotland', 'drug-induced', 'fantasies', 'crime', 'theatre', 'royal', 'glasgow', 'april', 'touring', 'may', 'royal', 'ballet', 'manon', 'kenneth', 'macmillan', 'morality', 'tale', 'set', '18th-century', 'paris', 'remains', 'one', 'popular', 'story', 'ballets', 'repertory', 'danced', 'season', 'stellar', 'casts', 'guests', 'vladimir', 'shklyarov', 'roberto', 'bolle', 'feature', 'alongside', 'natalia', 'osipova', 'marianela', 'nunez', 'others', 'royal', 'opera', 'house', 'wc2', 'may', 'denada', 'dance', 'theatre', 'toro', 'beauty', 'bull', 'carlos', 'pons', 'guerra', 'flamboyantly', 'distinctive', 'voice', 'choreographer', 'pungent', 'sensual', 'rude', 'toro', 'relocates', 'classic', 'story', 'beauty', 'beast', 'south', 'american', 'circus', 'lowry', 'quays', 'theatre', 'salford', 'april', 'touring', 'april', 'jm']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/30/stephen-colbert-mocks-trump-for-saying-roseanne-is-about-us

Late-night hosts on Thursday discussed Donald Trump’s appointment of White House physician Ronny Jackson as secretary of veterans affairs and Trump’s comments on the success of the Roseanne reboot. Stephen Colbert “Today, the president was in Ohio talking about infrastructure,” began Stephen Colbert. “Check your calendars: it is always infrastructure week.” Colbert showed a clip of Trump extolling “his favorite part of building”: the smell of a construction site. “I love it, it’s the smell of loans from my daddy and looming bankruptcy,” the host joked. “But again, this was an infrastructure rally, so naturally he talked about Roseanne.” In more footage from the speech, Trump praised the new season of Roseanne, in which Roseanne’s character is a Trump supporter. “Look at her ratings!” Trump yelled, referencing the 18 million people who tuned into the premiere. “And it was about us!” “I haven’t seen it yet, but Roseanne is about the Trumps?” said Colbert. “I can’t wait for the episode where John Goodman blows the vacation money paying off a porn star.” “Trump, at the same rally, bragged about the changes he made in the veterans affairs,” explained the host, noting the dismissal of David Shulkin and appointment of Ronny Jackson. “One of the reasons that Shulkin lost his job is that he abused his travel privileges and was accused of lying about it,” Colbert said, before examining Jackson’s credentials for the job. “Now, I’m sure he’s a good doctor. No reason to believe he’s not. He was Obama’s doctor, too. The VA is the second largest agency in our government, serving 22 million veterans. And Jackson is just some guy he met wearing a paper robe.” “Evidently, Trump just hires people he sees around him,” he concluded. “We are one delivery away from having defense secretary Dominos guy.” Trevor Noah Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah also addressed the personnel change at the VA. “Yesterday, President Trump tweet-announced that he was appointing the White House physician Adm Ronny Jackson to be the new secretary of veterans affairs,” said the host. “As with most Trump decisions, it seemed like this might be a very terrible, bad idea.” The host then showed various news clips in which commentators wondered if Jackson was unprepared, given that he’s never managed a government agency before, let alone one as big as the VA. “Unprepared? They say this about every Trump person,” Noah joked. “They said the same thing about Trump and look, everything’s going great.” “In my opinion, anyone who has held Trump’s scrotum while he coughs is prepared for anything in this world,” Noah continued. “This guy has probed deeper than even Robert Mueller has. But while fingering Donald Trump’s prostate may sound like a joke, the veterans affairs department does not.” Noah then explained that the government’s second-largest agency has a budget exceeding $200bn per year and over 360,000 employees. “Managing a $200bn a year organization is no small task,” Noah said. “That’s bigger than General Motors. Like, you wouldn’t say, ‘Yo, my friend Ralphie’s a great driver. I think he should run GM.’” Noah concluded: “But that’s basically what Trump does. He wants his personal pilot to run the FAA. For Housing and Urban Development he was like: ‘Yo, Ben Carson. You’re urban. You work. And now, for veterans affairs, Trump is like, ‘He’s my doctor, he’s a veteran, I have affairs. It’s perfect.’”

culture/2018/mar/30/stephen-colbert-mocks-trump-for-saying-roseanne-is-about-us

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-30T15:10:49Z

Stephen Colbert mocks Trump for saying Roseanne is 'about us'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/30/stephen-colbert-mocks-trump-for-saying-roseanne-is-about-us

['late-night', 'hosts', 'thursday', 'discussed', 'donald', 'trump', 'appointment', 'white', 'house', 'physician', 'ronny', 'jackson', 'secretary', 'veterans', 'affairs', 'trump', 'comments', 'success', 'roseanne', 'reboot', 'stephen', 'colbert', 'today', 'president', 'ohio', 'talking', 'infrastructure', 'began', 'stephen', 'colbert', 'check', 'calendars', 'always', 'infrastructure', 'week', 'colbert', 'showed', 'clip', 'trump', 'extolling', 'favorite', 'part', 'building', 'smell', 'construction', 'site', 'love', 'smell', 'loans', 'daddy', 'looming', 'bankruptcy', 'host', 'joked', 'infrastructure', 'rally', 'naturally', 'talked', 'roseanne', 'footage', 'speech', 'trump', 'praised', 'new', 'season', 'roseanne', 'roseanne', 'character', 'trump', 'supporter', 'look', 'ratings', 'trump', 'yelled', 'referencing', 'million', 'people', 'tuned', 'premiere', 'us', 'seen', 'yet', 'roseanne', 'trumps', 'said', 'colbert', 'wait', 'episode', 'john', 'goodman', 'blows', 'vacation', 'money', 'paying', 'porn', 'star', 'trump', 'rally', 'bragged', 'changes', 'made', 'veterans', 'affairs', 'explained', 'host', 'noting', 'dismissal', 'david', 'shulkin', 'appointment', 'ronny', 'jackson', 'one', 'reasons', 'shulkin', 'lost', 'job', 'abused', 'travel', 'privileges', 'accused', 'lying', 'colbert', 'said', 'examining', 'jackson', 'credentials', 'job', 'sure', 'good', 'doctor', 'reason', 'believe', 'obama', 'doctor', 'va', 'second', 'largest', 'agency', 'government', 'serving', 'million', 'veterans', 'jackson', 'guy', 'met', 'wearing', 'paper', 'robe', 'evidently', 'trump', 'hires', 'people', 'sees', 'around', 'concluded', 'one', 'delivery', 'away', 'defense', 'secretary', 'dominos', 'guy', 'trevor', 'noah', 'comedy', 'central', 'trevor', 'noah', 'also', 'addressed', 'personnel', 'change', 'va', 'yesterday', 'president', 'trump', 'tweet-announced', 'appointing', 'white', 'house', 'physician', 'adm', 'ronny', 'jackson', 'new', 'secretary', 'veterans', 'affairs', 'said', 'host', 'trump', 'decisions', 'seemed', 'like', 'might', 'terrible', 'bad', 'idea', 'host', 'showed', 'various', 'news', 'clips', 'commentators', 'wondered', 'jackson', 'unprepared', 'given', 'never', 'managed', 'government', 'agency', 'let', 'alone', 'one', 'big', 'va', 'unprepared', 'say', 'every', 'trump', 'person', 'noah', 'joked', 'said', 'thing', 'trump', 'look', 'everything', 'going', 'great', 'opinion', 'anyone', 'held', 'trump', 'scrotum', 'coughs', 'prepared', 'anything', 'world', 'noah', 'continued', 'guy', 'probed', 'deeper', 'even', 'robert', 'mueller', 'fingering', 'donald', 'trump', 'prostate', 'may', 'sound', 'like', 'joke', 'veterans', 'affairs', 'department', 'noah', 'explained', 'government', 'second-largest', 'agency', 'budget', 'exceeding', '200bn', 'per', 'year', 'employees', 'managing', '200bn', 'year', 'organization', 'small', 'task', 'noah', 'said', 'bigger', 'general', 'motors', 'like', 'would', 'say', 'yo', 'friend', 'ralphie', 'great', 'driver', 'think', 'run', 'gm', 'noah', 'concluded', 'basically', 'trump', 'wants', 'personal', 'pilot', 'run', 'faa', 'housing', 'urban', 'development', 'like', 'yo', 'ben', 'carson', 'urban', 'work', 'veterans', 'affairs', 'trump', 'like', 'doctor', 'veteran', 'affairs', 'perfect']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/30/tennessee-williams-lacked-confidence-letters-to-friends-reveal

He found fame with The Glass Menagerie and won Pulitzer prizes for his stage masterpieces, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but Tennessee Williams was plagued by self-doubt, previously unpublished letters reveal. The American dramatist’s lack of confidence emerges repeatedly through his correspondence with trusted friends – his publisher, James Laughlin, and editor, Robert MacGregor – over 25 years until his death in 1983. In 1964, he wrote of his “self-contempt”, adding: “I must confess that I have doubts and fears.” In 1972, he confided: “You know how badly I need reassurance about my work.” His successes included screen adaptations of Streetcar Named Desire, starring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, with Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. But theatrical flops and the death of his lover, Frank Merlo, to cancer in 1963 took their toll on Williams, who found solace in drink and drugs, writing in 1969: “I am waking up late from a very bad dream … How terribly I have abused myself and my talent in the years … since Frankie’s death.” In a poignant letter in 1960, he wrote: “I am tired of writing and writing is tired of me.” In 1970, he revealed that writing “came very close to destroying me”. Two years later, he mused: “I have been a writer nearly all my life … but it adds up to almost nothing.” The correspondence will be published by WW Norton & Co on 13 April. The book, titled The Luck of Friendship: The Letters of Tennessee Williams and James Laughlin, casts new light on his life and work. The 170 letters have been edited by Peggy L Fox and Thomas Keith. Keith said: “None of the witty, playful, serious and heart-felt letters in this volume from the last 25 years of their correspondence, 1958 to 1983, have ever been published before. The story that emerges is how Williams’s creative life flourished while his commercial success waned, how he maintained a strong focus on writing from 1963 to 1983 – in spite of his battles with drugs, alcohol and depression. “That story is in dramatic contrast to popular narratives about how he was merely a man so drug and alcohol-ridden and diminished that he was unable to even function. Williams’s own voice along with Laughlin’s view of Williams create a more complex and richer understanding of what Williams was like after his critically and financially successful plays were behind him.” The letters also reveal creative struggles. In 1973, referring to plans to publish his play Out Cry, which explores reality and illusion, he wrote: “Something will survive the Holocaust of these years of half-crazed, often impotent effort.” In 1963, he expressed concerns about interpretations of his plays, including The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore: “I don’t want Milk Train directed by [Herbert] Machiz again. He camped it up too much. It needs more serious treatment.” Keith said Williams’s friendship with Laughlin, a daring publisher who founded New Directions Publishing, bolstered him in his darkest hours. They gave strength to one another, despite each facing mental health challenges. Williams had depression while Laughlin was diagnosed with hereditary bipolar disorder. In 1963, Laughlin encouraged his friend: “These dark days will pass, even though at the moment things look black.” When Williams was struggling to write in 1962, Laughlin offered advice: “I hope you will let yourself go in one play, be wilder, perhaps savager, pour out all your resentments at the state of things.” Keith observed: “This is exactly what Williams then proceeded to do in plays like The Mutilated and Gnadiges Fraulein in 1966. Williams’s contribution to the worlds of theatre and literature was always, at its core, his portrayals of resilience, grace and endurance in the face of human suffering. He gave voices to, and told the stories of, the lost, defeated, sensitive, peculiar, defiant, and often invisible people who make up the bulk of humanity. “In these letters, readers are reminded that Williams not only kept writing to the very end of this life, but that his lesser-known work, late plays, one-acts, and critical failures are now part of the canon of his writing.”

culture/2018/mar/30/tennessee-williams-lacked-confidence-letters-to-friends-reveal

pillar/arts

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culture

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2018-03-30T13:38:16Z

Tennessee Williams lacked confidence, letters to friends reveal

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/30/tennessee-williams-lacked-confidence-letters-to-friends-reveal

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/30/hey-babe-by-juliana-hatfield-roared-as-loud-as-the-riot-grrls

Nineteen-ninety-two was the inaugural year of the “women in rock” era: a stretch of several years when artists from Courtney Love and PJ Harvey to Meredith Brooks unwittingly formed a cohort of so-called girls with guitars and the phrase “girl power” seeped into the popular lexicon from the underground precincts of the riot grrrl scene. Juliana Hatfield was at the heart of this zeitgeist. In 1992, Hatfield had just broken up her college band Blake Babies and released her solo debut Hey Babe on Mammoth Records. Hey Babe was among the most successful independent releases of the year; 25 years on, it remains a largely forgotten minor masterpiece. But the release of a newly remastered Hey Babe on the American Laundromat label this month will reintroduce listeners to a coming-of-age album for the solitary female misfit. At the time of Hey Babe’s release, the riot grrrl movement was normalising the expression of female rage, offering a crucial framework of empowerment for female listeners. But Hey Babe offers a landscape of emotion – self-disgust, second-guessing, depression, cautious optimism – that has no place in a reception model so narrowly hinged on “empowerment”. The album dwells on muddled feelings, elevating confusion and insecurity over anger. Its 11 songs build entire worlds out of the state of feeling small, delivered in a voice that skids from girlish wail to shattered mumble. The album’s centrepiece is the song Ugly, an acoustic instruction manual on living with low self-esteem. “I’m pretty lost but I don’t want to be found/ My tiny screams don’t make a sound,” sings Hatfield. Hey Babe’s tone of disquiet has made it all too easy to overlook Hatfield’s foundational role in the “women in rock” genealogy. This reflects our cultural preference for so-called “vehement passions” over “minor feelings”. Cultural critic Sianne Ngai notes of the western literary tradition: “Something about the cultural canon itself seems to prefer higher passions and emotions, as if minor or ugly feelings are not only incapable of producing ‘major’ works, but somehow disabled the works they do drive from acquiring canonical distinction.” This explains a lot about the record’s unfairly diminished role in the alternative rock narrative. Hatfield herself stopped playing its songs shortly after it was released. “Immediately after recording the album, I was really embarrassed by it,” she explained to Billboard, “but now I’m really proud of myself.” Hey Babe will strike a chord with a new generation of listeners who are shy, ambivalent, inward and emotionally complex. The 25th-anniversary vinyl reissue of Hey Babe is out now

culture/2018/mar/30/hey-babe-by-juliana-hatfield-roared-as-loud-as-the-riot-grrls

pillar/arts

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culture

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article

2018-03-30T11:59:20Z

Quiet storm: why Juliana Hatfield’s Hey Babe roared as loud as the riot grrrls

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/30/hey-babe-by-juliana-hatfield-roared-as-loud-as-the-riot-grrls

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/29/peter-kay-reveals-charity-screening-of-new-car-share-episodes

The comedian Peter Kay has announced a charity screening of new episodes of his hit TV show Car Share. In his first post on Twitter since the comic cancelled a national tour late last year, Kay said that a charity screening of the new episodes would take place early next month in Blackpool. The 44-year-old has not spoken publicly since he was forced to axe his first live tour in eight years in December, due to “unforeseen family circumstances”. The post on Twitter reads: “Exciting news: A charity screening of new Peter Kay’s Car Share episodes will be held at Blackpool Opera House on Saturday 7th April. Tickets on sale Saturday at 9am.” The second series of the BBC show ended on an emotional cliffhanger last year as Kay’s character John failed to reciprocate the advances of his car share colleague Kayleigh, played by Sian Gibson. Fans of the programme were dismayed when Kay announced that he had no plans to write another series, but the comic later announced special episodes. He also announced a special finale to reveal what happens next for the pair and an entirely improvised episode, Car Share: Unscripted. Both the unscripted episode and the finale were filmed last year.

culture/2018/mar/29/peter-kay-reveals-charity-screening-of-new-car-share-episodes

pillar/arts

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2018-03-29T15:26:40Z

Peter Kay reveals charity screening of new Car Share episodes

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/29/peter-kay-reveals-charity-screening-of-new-car-share-episodes

['comedian', 'peter', 'kay', 'announced', 'charity', 'screening', 'new', 'episodes', 'hit', 'tv', 'show', 'car', 'share', 'first', 'post', 'twitter', 'since', 'comic', 'cancelled', 'national', 'tour', 'late', 'last', 'year', 'kay', 'said', 'charity', 'screening', 'new', 'episodes', 'would', 'take', 'place', 'early', 'next', 'month', 'blackpool', '44-year-old', 'spoken', 'publicly', 'since', 'forced', 'axe', 'first', 'live', 'tour', 'eight', 'years', 'december', 'due', 'unforeseen', 'family', 'circumstances', 'post', 'twitter', 'reads', 'exciting', 'news', 'charity', 'screening', 'new', 'peter', 'kay', 'car', 'share', 'episodes', 'held', 'blackpool', 'opera', 'house', 'saturday', '7th', 'april', 'tickets', 'sale', 'saturday', '9am', 'second', 'series', 'bbc', 'show', 'ended', 'emotional', 'cliffhanger', 'last', 'year', 'kay', 'character', 'john', 'failed', 'reciprocate', 'advances', 'car', 'share', 'colleague', 'kayleigh', 'played', 'sian', 'gibson', 'fans', 'programme', 'dismayed', 'kay', 'announced', 'plans', 'write', 'another', 'series', 'comic', 'later', 'announced', 'special', 'episodes', 'also', 'announced', 'special', 'finale', 'reveal', 'happens', 'next', 'pair', 'entirely', 'improvised', 'episode', 'car', 'share', 'unscripted', 'unscripted', 'episode', 'finale', 'filmed', 'last', 'year']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/29/stephen-colbert-stormy-daniels-trump

Late-night hosts on Wednesday discussed the Stormy Daniels lawsuit, funding for the border wall, and more personnel shake-ups in Donald Trump’s cabinet. Stephen Colbert: ‘The same urgency that funded the Veronica Mars movie’ “The darned Stormy Daniels scandal will not go away for Donald Trump, no matter how many times he clears his browser history,” began Stephen Colbert. The host then explained the latest news from Daniels’ lawsuit against Trump, including a motion filed on Wednesday by Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, seeking to depose Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen. “That means Trump is going to have to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions under oath,” said Colbert. “Like, ‘Did you have an affair with Stormy Daniels?’ and ‘Is this now, or has it ever been, your penis?’” The host then explained that Avenatti “intends to prove that the hush agreement” – which Trump never signed – “did not have a lawful object or purpose”. “The odd thing,” Colbert continued, “is that Trump has not made any public comments. He hasn’t even tweeted about it. Instead of tweeting about Stormy, yesterday Trump retweeted himself from last weekend after he signed the government budget.” Colbert then read aloud Trump’s tweet, which read: “Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!” “What does that mean? What does M stand for? Build wall through Mexico?” Colbert asked. “Turns out, it stands for military, because the president wants to take this money out of the Pentagon budget.” Colbert also noted that, according to a Washington Post report, advisers of the president’s have suggested creating a GoFundMe campaign. Colbert replied: “Our national sovereignty will be secured with the same urgency that funded the Veronica Mars movie.” Trevor Noah: ‘The White House that has more turnover than the throne of Wakanda’ Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah discussed David Shulkin’s dismissal from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Sarah Sanders. “Believe it or not, today someone got fired,” he began, before showing news coverage of Shulkin’s firing by tweet. “I believe it was the great philosopher DJ Khaled who once said, ‘Another one’.” “Yup, President Trump has fired this secretary of veterans affairs and he replaced him with the official White House doctor, the man who gave Trump his presidential physical,” Noah continued, referring to Adm Ronny Jackson, who was also the physician for Bush and Obama. “I guess Trump was probably like, anyone who’s seen me naked deserves a reward,” the host joked. “It was either this promotion or paying him $130,000.” Noah continued: “In a White House that has more turnover than the throne of Wakanda, there’s probably only one person who’s never going to get fired, and it’s the woman who’s out there consistently defending the president, White House press secretary and living-side-eye-emoji Sarah Huckabee Sanders.” “She’s formidable, she’s calculating and, most importantly, she’s not this guy,” Noah said, showing clips of former press secretary Sean Spicer. Noah then showed footage of Sanders ducking numerous questions at the podium over her tenure. “Wow, any leader would be lucky to have a press secretary who can crush questions like that,” he said. “She could be working back in the day, people would ask her if Pontius Pilate killed Jesus, and she would just be like, ‘Pontius Pilate couldn’t have killed him because last I checked Jesus is alive and well. Are you saying our Lord and Savior is dead?’”

culture/2018/mar/29/stephen-colbert-stormy-daniels-trump

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2018-03-29T14:55:45Z

Stephen Colbert: Stormy Daniels 'won't go away, no matter how often Trump clears his browser history'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/29/stephen-colbert-stormy-daniels-trump

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/28/viola-player-wins-royal-opera-house-case-for-hearing-damage

A classical musician has won a landmark case for damages against the Royal Opera House after claiming his hearing was irreparably damaged by the horn section during a thunderous rendition of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. In the first case of its kind, Christopher Goldscheider, a viola player, claimed he was exposed to unacceptable noise levels in the pit at Covent Garden as the orchestra rehearsed Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) in 2012. Goldscheider, 45, from Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, said he suffered “acoustic shock” after a blast from the 18-strong brass section, situated directly behind him, caused the overall volume in the pit to reach at least 137 decibels – about the volume of a jet engine from 100ft away. Mrs Justice Nicola Davies ruled in his favour on the issues of breach of duty and causation of injury, with damages to be assessed. Goldscheider’s claim for lost earnings alone is £750,000. He says he has been forced to give up playing or even listening to music. The Royal Opera House Covent Garden Foundation was refused permission to appeal against the ruling, although it can still apply directly to the Court of Appeal. Theo Huckle QC, representing Goldscheider, said the effects of the injury - including hypersensitivity to noise - had “seriously diminished his life in all significant respects”. Goldscheider, he added, was exposed to an average noise level of 91 decibels over a three-hour period and, despite him wearing ear plugs, that gave rise to a “substantial risk of injury”. The foundation had argued that Goldscheider’s condition was not caused by playing in the orchestra, but had in fact been the result of his coincidentally developing Meniere’s disease at around the same time. David Platt QC said he had been provided with ear protection and the opera house had gone “as far and, if anything, further than the reasonable employer” to reduce noise levels. The judge said the foundation was in breach of a number of control of noise at work regulations, and that it was this noise that had led to Goldscheider’s hearing problems. Had the foundation complied with its statutory duty, Goldscheider would not have been exposed to the level of noise he endured, she added. She was satisfied that the noise levels at the rehearsal were within the range identified as causing acoustic shock. “The index exposure was the playing of the principal trumpet in the right ear of the claimant whether it was one sound or a cluster of sounds of short duration,” Davies said. “It was that exposure which resulted in the claimant sustaining acoustic shock which led to the injury which he sustained and the symptoms which have developed, from which he continues to suffer.” Goldscheider’s solicitor, Chris Fry, said the acoustic shock had brought his client’s glittering career to an end. Goldscheider, who took up the viola at the age of five, and studied music in Prague and the UK, had played on stage with Kylie Minogue and live with the Three Tenors in front of 100,000 people in Barcelona. “This is the first time that the court has explored the music industry’s legal obligations towards the hearing of musicians, and the first time that acoustic shock has been recognised as a compensatable condition by the court,” Fry wrote in a blog reporting the ruling. “The decision leaves insurers for the Royal Opera House responsible for a £750,000 compensation claim, and legal costs in addition, an urgent need to rethink its policies and procedures, a possible re-design of ‘The Pit’, and probable claims against them by other musicians.”

culture/2018/mar/28/viola-player-wins-royal-opera-house-case-for-hearing-damage

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2018-03-28T17:18:36Z

Viola player wins Royal Opera House case for hearing damage

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/28/viola-player-wins-royal-opera-house-case-for-hearing-damage

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/28/trevor-noah-on-war-horny-john-bolton-dont-be-thrown-off-by-his-title

Late-night hosts on Tuesday addressed the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the US and John Bolton’s appointment as Trump’s national security adviser. Stephen Colbert: ‘A fish filet wrapped in a hundred-rouble bill’ “We all know Donald Trump loves to trash-talk people,” Stephen Colbert began. “But strangely, he has never said one bad thing about Vladimir Putin.” “In fact, last week, Trump called Putin to congratulate him on winning a shady election in which Putin was really the only candidate,” the host continued, citing a Washington Post report detailing Trump’s call with the Russian president. “He congratulated him despite the fact that his advisers gave him notes in all capital letters stating ‘DO NOT CONGRATULATE.’” Colbert then explained that, despite Trump and Putin’s chummy relationship, the US joined more than 20 other countries this week in expelling 60 Russian diplomats from the country in retaliation for the Kremlin’s 4 March poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in the UK. “It turns out all these Russians were identified as intelligence agents and their expulsion has lead to the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle,” explained Colbert, before moving on to the latest from Trump’s legal battle with porn star Stormy Daniels. “The president has a brilliant new defense,” the host said, referencing another article in the Post. “He’s telling people that Stormy Daniels isn’t his type. What? She’s a buxom blonde. She couldn’t be more his type if she was a fish filet wrapped in a hundred-rouble bill.” “But evidently, the scandal is starting to affect Trump’s reputation in Washington,” Colbert said, showing a CNN interview in which one pundit said Trump’s come to be known around Washington as “Spanky”. “I think that’s a wonderful thing but, in all seriousness, we should show some respect,” Colbert replied. “It’s President Spanky.” Trevor Noah: ‘Bolton’s been on the Cap’n Crunch box for 40 years’ Trevor Noah discussed John Bolton, the former UN ambassador who replaced HR McMaster as Trump’s national security adviser last week. “Recently we saw another major personnel shakeup in the Trump administration,” Noah began. “HR McMaster is out, and he’s been replaced by Geppetto cosplayer John Bolton.” Noah then noted that Bolton is Trump’s third national security adviser in just over a year. “One more,” Noah joked, “and Trump gets the fifth one free.” “If Bolton looks familiar to you, it may be because he’s been on the Cap’n Crunch Box for over 40 years,” the host quipped, noting that Bolton also makes regular appearances on Fox News. “Bolton is more than just another Fox pundit, right?” Noah explained that Bolton has served in three republican administrations, most recently as George W Bush’s recess appointee as ambassador to the United Nations. Noah went on: “But don’t be thrown of by his title as diplomat, because while Bolton may look like a harmless model-train enthusiast, he’s developed a notorious rep as a guy who really wants to bomb everyone.” Noah then referred to multiple clips of Bolton on Fox News, and op-eds he’s penned for various newspapers, in which he called a preemptive strike on North Korea “perfectly legitimate” and advocated bombing Iran, saying “the earlier you strike the more damage you can do”. “Damn. I think that’s a horrible strategy for keeping peace in the world,” Noah said. “Although it is a great strategy for tackling an all-you-can-eat buffet.” “Here’s the best example of how war horny John Bolton is: he’s still defending the one war everyone agrees was a terrible idea,” the host explained, showing Bolton calling the Iraq war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein a “resounding success”. Finally, Noah brought up the fact that Bolton’s behavior in past government jobs has been sharply criticized, as he’s reported to have chased a female staffer around a hotel room and thrown staplers at employees. “So, congratulations, John Bolton, on your new position as national security adviser,” Noah said. “Although, if you think about it, you would have probably had a better chance of Trump listening to you if you just stayed on Fox News.”

culture/2018/mar/28/trevor-noah-on-war-horny-john-bolton-dont-be-thrown-off-by-his-title

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2018-03-28T14:42:13Z

Trevor Noah on 'war horny' John Bolton: 'Don't be thrown off by his title'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/28/trevor-noah-on-war-horny-john-bolton-dont-be-thrown-off-by-his-title

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/27/stephen-colbert-on-stormy-daniels-and-trump-the-least-surprising-story-ever

Late-night hosts on Monday discussed the Stormy Daniels interview on 60 Minutes and a stream of news coming out of the White House, including John Bolton’s appointment as national security adviser and the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the US. Stephen Colbert “Just like the rest of America, I tuned into 60 Minutes last night to see the big story everybody’s talking about,” Stephen Colbert began. “60 Minutes aired Anderson Cooper’s exclusive interview with porn star Stormy Daniels, which drew the highest ratings for 60 Minutes in 10 years.” “That means Stormy Daniels got higher ratings than Donald Trump did right after he was elected president,” Colbert noted. “The interview covered everything: the president had sex with a porn star, she spanked him with a magazine with his face on it, he didn’t wear a condom, later they watched Shark Week, then his lawyer paid her to keep her mouth shut, now Trump’s suing this porn star for $20m.” Colbert went on to call the story “an insane, salacious tale about a sitting president, and the least surprising story I have ever heard”. In a clip from the interview, Daniels talks about how, after spanking Trump with a magazine, he became more appropriate and inquisitive. “John Kelly,” Colbert quipped. “You know what to do.” “Years later, Stormy sold her story to InTouch magazine,” the host explained. “Trump found out, got the story killed, and then this happened.” Colbert then showed another clip from the interview, in which Daniels describes being threatened by a stranger in the parking lot of a fitness studio with her infant daughter. “It would be a shame if something happened to her mom,” the man reportedly said, gesturing to Daniels’ daughter. Trevor Noah Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah addressed a string of news stories, noting in his introduction that Trump made so much news this past weekend that he could not cover it all. “This weekend’s March for Our Lives may have been the biggest news in terms of quality, but when it comes to news quantity nobody beats President Trump,” Noah said. “Let’s start with the big news of the day: Trump is getting tough on Russia.” Noah proceeded to show news coverage of the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats from the US and the closing of the Russian consulate in Seattle, all in retaliation for the nerve agent attack by the Kremlin on a Russian spy and his daughter in the UK. “Before he kicked out the Russians, Trump also got rid of his national security adviser, HR McMaster, and replaced him with elderly Lorax John Bolton,” Noah added. “Bolton taking over for McMaster is terrifying, because unlike McMaster, Bolton is horny for war with North Korea and Iran, and he’s one of the very few people left who still thinks the Iraq war was a good idea.” Noah continued: “We could talk about how Bolton’s policies could throw America into a never-ending spiral of unwinnable wars but we don’t really have the time, because thanks to another Trump decision America is actually going to have fewer troops.” The host was referencing Trump’s decision to ban transgender troops from the military except under “limited circumstances”, a plan outlined in a memo from the president that claims transgender troops undermine unit cohesion and lead to disproportionate costs. “I really don’t understand this decision,” Noah said. “If you’re looking for brave people to join the military, you don’t have to look any further than trans people. You think it takes guts to fight in Syria? Try being trans and walking into a restroom in Alabama.” Finally, Noah got around to the Stormy Daniels interview, showing the clip in which the adult film actor describes spanking Trump. “You know Bob Mueller is watching this interview, right?” Noah joked. “He’s going to walk into the interrogation room with a rolled up magazine, like, ‘OK, Donald. Time to talk about Russia.’”

culture/2018/mar/27/stephen-colbert-on-stormy-daniels-and-trump-the-least-surprising-story-ever

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2018-03-27T15:13:27Z

Stephen Colbert on Stormy Daniels and Trump: 'The least surprising story ever'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/27/stephen-colbert-on-stormy-daniels-and-trump-the-least-surprising-story-ever

['late-night', 'hosts', 'monday', 'discussed', 'stormy', 'daniels', 'interview', 'minutes', 'stream', 'news', 'coming', 'white', 'house', 'including', 'john', 'bolton', 'appointment', 'national', 'security', 'adviser', 'expulsion', 'russian', 'diplomats', 'us', 'stephen', 'colbert', 'like', 'rest', 'america', 'tuned', 'minutes', 'last', 'night', 'see', 'big', 'story', 'everybody', 'talking', 'stephen', 'colbert', 'began', 'minutes', 'aired', 'anderson', 'cooper', 'exclusive', 'interview', 'porn', 'star', 'stormy', 'daniels', 'drew', 'highest', 'ratings', 'minutes', 'years', 'means', 'stormy', 'daniels', 'got', 'higher', 'ratings', 'donald', 'trump', 'right', 'elected', 'president', 'colbert', 'noted', 'interview', 'covered', 'everything', 'president', 'sex', 'porn', 'star', 'spanked', 'magazine', 'face', 'wear', 'condom', 'later', 'watched', 'shark', 'week', 'lawyer', 'paid', 'keep', 'mouth', 'shut', 'trump', 'suing', 'porn', 'star', '20m', 'colbert', 'went', 'call', 'story', 'insane', 'salacious', 'tale', 'sitting', 'president', 'least', 'surprising', 'story', 'ever', 'heard', 'clip', 'interview', 'daniels', 'talks', 'spanking', 'trump', 'magazine', 'became', 'appropriate', 'inquisitive', 'john', 'kelly', 'colbert', 'quipped', 'know', 'years', 'later', 'stormy', 'sold', 'story', 'intouch', 'magazine', 'host', 'explained', 'trump', 'found', 'got', 'story', 'killed', 'happened', 'colbert', 'showed', 'another', 'clip', 'interview', 'daniels', 'describes', 'threatened', 'stranger', 'parking', 'lot', 'fitness', 'studio', 'infant', 'daughter', 'would', 'shame', 'something', 'happened', 'mom', 'man', 'reportedly', 'said', 'gesturing', 'daniels', 'daughter', 'trevor', 'noah', 'comedy', 'central', 'trevor', 'noah', 'addressed', 'string', 'news', 'stories', 'noting', 'introduction', 'trump', 'made', 'much', 'news', 'past', 'weekend', 'could', 'cover', 'weekend', 'march', 'lives', 'may', 'biggest', 'news', 'terms', 'quality', 'comes', 'news', 'quantity', 'nobody', 'beats', 'president', 'trump', 'noah', 'said', 'let', 'start', 'big', 'news', 'day', 'trump', 'getting', 'tough', 'russia', 'noah', 'proceeded', 'show', 'news', 'coverage', 'expulsion', 'russian', 'diplomats', 'us', 'closing', 'russian', 'consulate', 'seattle', 'retaliation', 'nerve', 'agent', 'attack', 'kremlin', 'russian', 'spy', 'daughter', 'uk', 'kicked', 'russians', 'trump', 'also', 'got', 'rid', 'national', 'security', 'adviser', 'hr', 'mcmaster', 'replaced', 'elderly', 'lorax', 'john', 'bolton', 'noah', 'added', 'bolton', 'taking', 'mcmaster', 'terrifying', 'unlike', 'mcmaster', 'bolton', 'horny', 'war', 'north', 'korea', 'iran', 'one', 'people', 'left', 'still', 'thinks', 'iraq', 'war', 'good', 'idea', 'noah', 'continued', 'could', 'talk', 'bolton', 'policies', 'could', 'throw', 'america', 'never-ending', 'spiral', 'unwinnable', 'wars', 'really', 'time', 'thanks', 'another', 'trump', 'decision', 'america', 'actually', 'going', 'fewer', 'troops', 'host', 'referencing', 'trump', 'decision', 'ban', 'transgender', 'troops', 'military', 'except', 'limited', 'circumstances', 'plan', 'outlined', 'memo', 'president', 'claims', 'transgender', 'troops', 'undermine', 'unit', 'cohesion', 'lead', 'disproportionate', 'costs', 'really', 'understand', 'decision', 'noah', 'said', 'looking', 'brave', 'people', 'join', 'military', 'look', 'trans', 'people', 'think', 'takes', 'guts', 'fight', 'syria', 'try', 'trans', 'walking', 'restroom', 'alabama', 'finally', 'noah', 'got', 'around', 'stormy', 'daniels', 'interview', 'showing', 'clip', 'adult', 'film', 'actor', 'describes', 'spanking', 'trump', 'know', 'bob', 'mueller', 'watching', 'interview', 'right', 'noah', 'joked', 'going', 'walk', 'interrogation', 'room', 'rolled', 'magazine', 'like', 'ok', 'donald', 'time', 'talk', 'russia']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/26/alan-cumming-instinct-cbs-gay-lead-means-for-mainstream-tv

It is hard to believe, given the wellspring of queer-centric entertainment we’ve been graced with over the last few years, that Alan Cumming’s character in the new police procedural Instinct is the first openly gay lead of an American broadcast drama, ever. Even with Oscar plaudits for Moonlight and Call Me by Your Name, with shows like Transparent, Looking and reboots of Will & Grace and Queer Eye, progress has remained slow in the mainstream. In truth, the vacancy has gone pretty much unnoticed. One can find quality television in so many places that the cautious incrementalism with which the major US networks approach inclusion and diversity has become more or less a moot point. But still, since broadcast television is in many ways a reflection of what Instinct showrunner Michael Rauch refers to as “corporate apprehension”, Cumming’s character is certainly a step forward. In it he plays Dylan Reinhardt, a brilliant and quick-witted CIA operative-turned-college professor who studies abnormal behavior and published a Gladwellian best-seller called Freaks, about psychopaths, murderers and others on the fringes of society. One imagines Reinhardt’s own experience as a gay man allowed him to empathize with his subject’s sense of isolation, but no such reckoning is revealed. In what’s either a refreshing surprise or a kind of equivocation, his sexuality is mostly irrelevant, surfacing only in brief, domestic scenes with his husband Andy or offhand remarks to Lizzie, the intrepid cop with whom Dylan partners up to solve various heinous crimes in New York City. On one hand, it’s nice to see a queer character on TV whose sexual preference doesn’t define them. After all, Instinct (adapted from James Patterson’s book Murder Games) is a standard law enforcement procedural and thus most of the storylines involve the mechanisms of crime-solving and psychology-probing. On the other, the fact that Reinhardt’s sexuality bears so imperceptibly on the show will inevitably fan the flames of those who accuse CBS of fashioning the character in a way that’s conservative and palatable to its audience. With that, Instinct is in a bit of a catch-22, in that the show seems to want to pat itself on the back for featuring the first gay network lead while also making the character’s sexuality subordinate, and justifiably so, to his other qualities and responsibilities. “While I hope that some viewers do talk about Dylan’s sexuality, I’d like him to be judged by his virtues, flaws and quirks, not by who he loves,” wrote Rauch in a guest column for the Hollywood Reporter. “The success of every good TV show is built on the strength of the characters, and how dimensional and relatable they are.” Thanks to Alan Cumming, who brings to the character boundless personality and panache, Reinhardt is a new kind of TV sleuth: he invokes Lady Gaga in a college lecture, wears a colorful rotation of sweater vests, and approaches the job with cheerful, professorial determination. Outright mentions of his sexuality, though, are sparse, at least in the show’s first three episodes. “Most times when we see gay characters on American TV, their gayness is the prime thing,” Cumming, who’s openly bisexual, told THR. “And [being gay] is also the fourth or fifth most interesting thing about this character.” As a result, Reinhardt’s sexuality seems to matter more in network television’s greater, institutional firmament than it does in the actual show. Depending on how you look at it, this is either progress or passivity. But with visibility, of course, comes the question of its varying gradients. Gay people have been straining to be seen and, now that we’re finally in front of the camera, rightfully want to be seen in totality. Therefore, films like Call Me by Your Name and Love, Simon have fielded criticisms of sanitization, as members of the LGBT community regard their portrayals of gay men and gay romance to be too conservative, drawn with an eye toward what straight audiences will stomach. And naturally, more flamboyant depictions of homosexuality run the risk of being caricature-like and borderline farcical, evincing a rather thin and stereotypical notion of queerness. Somewhere in the middle of these poles is Cumming’s Reinhardt, who seems perfectly at ease with himself, even if questions of identity don’t really surface. But the fact remains that, for so long, Cumming’s character would have been a set piece in a crime show just like this one, consigned to the mostly ancillary, thankless task of delivering slick punchlines once or twice an episode. Without question, Cumming belongs here, at center stage, using cartomancy to solve crimes and chafing at feckless coroners. In that, there’s something worth celebrating. Instinct airs in the US on CBS on Sundays with a UK date yet to be announced This article was amended on Tuesday 27 March 2018. We mistakenly wrote that Alan Cumming was gay while he is actually bisexual. This has been corrected.

culture/2018/mar/26/alan-cumming-instinct-cbs-gay-lead-means-for-mainstream-tv

pillar/arts

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culture

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2018-03-26T10:00:23Z

What Alan Cumming's role as a gay lead means for mainstream TV

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/26/alan-cumming-instinct-cbs-gay-lead-means-for-mainstream-tv

['hard', 'believe', 'given', 'wellspring', 'queer-centric', 'entertainment', 'graced', 'last', 'years', 'alan', 'cumming', 'character', 'new', 'police', 'procedural', 'instinct', 'first', 'openly', 'gay', 'lead', 'american', 'broadcast', 'drama', 'ever', 'even', 'oscar', 'plaudits', 'moonlight', 'call', 'name', 'shows', 'like', 'transparent', 'looking', 'reboots', 'amp', 'grace', 'queer', 'eye', 'progress', 'remained', 'slow', 'mainstream', 'truth', 'vacancy', 'gone', 'pretty', 'much', 'unnoticed', 'one', 'find', 'quality', 'television', 'many', 'places', 'cautious', 'incrementalism', 'major', 'us', 'networks', 'approach', 'inclusion', 'diversity', 'become', 'less', 'moot', 'point', 'still', 'since', 'broadcast', 'television', 'many', 'ways', 'reflection', 'instinct', 'showrunner', 'michael', 'rauch', 'refers', 'corporate', 'apprehension', 'cumming', 'character', 'certainly', 'step', 'forward', 'plays', 'dylan', 'reinhardt', 'brilliant', 'quick-witted', 'cia', 'operative-turned-college', 'professor', 'studies', 'abnormal', 'behavior', 'published', 'gladwellian', 'best-seller', 'called', 'freaks', 'psychopaths', 'murderers', 'others', 'fringes', 'society', 'one', 'imagines', 'reinhardt', 'experience', 'gay', 'man', 'allowed', 'empathize', 'subject', 'sense', 'isolation', 'reckoning', 'revealed', 'either', 'refreshing', 'surprise', 'kind', 'equivocation', 'sexuality', 'mostly', 'irrelevant', 'surfacing', 'brief', 'domestic', 'scenes', 'husband', 'andy', 'offhand', 'remarks', 'lizzie', 'intrepid', 'cop', 'dylan', 'partners', 'solve', 'various', 'heinous', 'crimes', 'new', 'york', 'city', 'one', 'hand', 'nice', 'see', 'queer', 'character', 'tv', 'whose', 'sexual', 'preference', 'define', 'instinct', 'adapted', 'james', 'patterson', 'book', 'murder', 'games', 'standard', 'law', 'enforcement', 'procedural', 'thus', 'storylines', 'involve', 'mechanisms', 'crime-solving', 'psychology-probing', 'fact', 'reinhardt', 'sexuality', 'bears', 'imperceptibly', 'show', 'inevitably', 'fan', 'flames', 'accuse', 'cbs', 'fashioning', 'character', 'way', 'conservative', 'palatable', 'audience', 'instinct', 'bit', 'catch-22', 'show', 'seems', 'want', 'pat', 'back', 'featuring', 'first', 'gay', 'network', 'lead', 'also', 'making', 'character', 'sexuality', 'subordinate', 'justifiably', 'qualities', 'responsibilities', 'hope', 'viewers', 'talk', 'dylan', 'sexuality', 'would', 'like', 'judged', 'virtues', 'flaws', 'quirks', 'loves', 'wrote', 'rauch', 'guest', 'column', 'hollywood', 'reporter', 'success', 'every', 'good', 'tv', 'show', 'built', 'strength', 'characters', 'dimensional', 'relatable', 'thanks', 'alan', 'cumming', 'brings', 'character', 'boundless', 'personality', 'panache', 'reinhardt', 'new', 'kind', 'tv', 'sleuth', 'invokes', 'lady', 'gaga', 'college', 'lecture', 'wears', 'colorful', 'rotation', 'sweater', 'vests', 'approaches', 'job', 'cheerful', 'professorial', 'determination', 'outright', 'mentions', 'sexuality', 'though', 'sparse', 'least', 'show', 'first', 'three', 'episodes', 'times', 'see', 'gay', 'characters', 'american', 'tv', 'gayness', 'prime', 'thing', 'cumming', 'openly', 'bisexual', 'told', 'thr', 'gay', 'also', 'fourth', 'fifth', 'interesting', 'thing', 'character', 'result', 'reinhardt', 'sexuality', 'seems', 'matter', 'network', 'television', 'greater', 'institutional', 'firmament', 'actual', 'show', 'depending', 'look', 'either', 'progress', 'passivity', 'visibility', 'course', 'comes', 'question', 'varying', 'gradients', 'gay', 'people', 'straining', 'seen', 'finally', 'front', 'camera', 'rightfully', 'want', 'seen', 'totality', 'therefore', 'films', 'like', 'call', 'name', 'love', 'simon', 'fielded', 'criticisms', 'sanitization', 'members', 'lgbt', 'community', 'regard', 'portrayals', 'gay', 'men', 'gay', 'romance', 'conservative', 'drawn', 'eye', 'toward', 'straight', 'audiences', 'stomach', 'naturally', 'flamboyant', 'depictions', 'homosexuality', 'run', 'risk', 'caricature-like', 'borderline', 'farcical', 'evincing', 'rather', 'thin', 'stereotypical', 'notion', 'queerness', 'somewhere', 'middle', 'poles', 'cumming', 'reinhardt', 'seems', 'perfectly', 'ease', 'even', 'questions', 'identity', 'really', 'surface', 'fact', 'remains', 'long', 'cumming', 'character', 'would', 'set', 'piece', 'crime', 'show', 'like', 'one', 'consigned', 'mostly', 'ancillary', 'thankless', 'task', 'delivering', 'slick', 'punchlines', 'twice', 'episode', 'without', 'question', 'cumming', 'belongs', 'center', 'stage', 'using', 'cartomancy', 'solve', 'crimes', 'chafing', 'feckless', 'coroners', 'something', 'worth', 'celebrating', 'instinct', 'airs', 'us', 'cbs', 'sundays', 'uk', 'date', 'yet', 'announced', 'article', 'amended', 'tuesday', 'march', 'mistakenly', 'wrote', 'alan', 'cumming', 'gay', 'actually', 'bisexual', 'corrected']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/25/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-sparkling

The next theme for our weekly photography assignment in the Observer New Review is ‘sparkling.’ Share your photos of what sparkling means to you – and tell us about your image in the description box. The closing date is Wednesday 28 March at 10am. We’ll publish our favourites in The New Review on Sunday 1 April and in a gallery on the Guardian site. You can share your ‘sparkling’ pictures by clicking on the ‘Contribute’ button on this article. You can also use the Guardian app and search for ‘GuardianWitness assignments’ – and if you add it to the homepage – you can keep up with all our assignments. GuardianWitness is the home of readers’ content on the Guardian. Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others.

culture/2018/mar/25/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-sparkling

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2018-03-25T08:00:25Z

Your pictures: share your photos on the theme of 'sparkling'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/25/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-sparkling

['next', 'theme', 'weekly', 'photography', 'assignment', 'observer', 'new', 'review', 'sparkling', 'share', 'photos', 'sparkling', 'means', 'tell', 'us', 'image', 'description', 'box', 'closing', 'date', 'wednesday', 'march', '10am', 'publish', 'favourites', 'new', 'review', 'sunday', 'april', 'gallery', 'guardian', 'site', 'share', 'sparkling', 'pictures', 'clicking', 'contribute', 'button', 'article', 'also', 'use', 'guardian', 'app', 'search', 'guardianwitness', 'assignments', 'add', 'homepage', 'keep', 'assignments', 'guardianwitness', 'home', 'readers', 'content', 'guardian', 'contribute', 'video', 'pictures', 'stories', 'browse', 'news', 'reviews', 'creations', 'submitted', 'others']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/25/simone-lia-on-how-man-discovered-fire

culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/25/simone-lia-on-how-man-discovered-fire

pillar/arts

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interactive

2018-03-25T07:00:24Z

Simone Lia on how man discovered fire

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/25/simone-lia-on-how-man-discovered-fire

[]

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/25/humphrey-repton-landscape-gardener-exhibition-london-squares

Russell, Bedford, Tavistock and Fitzroy; the roll call of grand architectural squares around Bloomsbury is as familiar to Londoners as the tube stops of the daily commute. Yet only a few of these mighty residential developments near the British Museum still show traces of the luxuriant, leafy gardens once at their centres. Wartime bombing and the pressures of commerce have taken their toll. Chief among the survivors is the garden of Russell Square, a large public space with circular walkways and criss-crossing, meandering paths that was restored to its original shape in 2002. It stands as the crowning urban legacy of the Suffolk-born designer now widely regarded as a visionary: the 18th-century landscape gardener Humphry Repton, who died 200 years ago this weekend and is being celebrated in a new exhibition at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire. “Russell Square is my favourite London square, as it’s the most generous in size and scale,” said Matthew Hirst, who curated the exhibition at Woburn which examines Repton’s aesthetic and puts several of his most innovative designs on display for the first time. “It is a sensitive piece of landscaping, with the statue of the Duke of Bedford on the edge of the square in a little apse, where it can be seen. He also cleverly creates a line of sight down to the statue at the top of Bedford Place.” Fans of the country houses and stately homes of England will associate Repton’s name with rolling acreage and endless vistas. And it is true many of the 400 commissions he took during a 30-year career were to design the land around aristocratic family seats, including grounds at Betchworth House in Surrey, Longleat, Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, Tatton Park and at Woburn Abbey. But Repton also brought green flashes into the heart of the city. In fact his influence is behind the ordered lawns and flower beds now emblematic of the capital around the world. “Repton brought nature into the city. He wanted order in a layout, but he wanted variety within that sense of order, or he felt it would be boring. He wanted to allow people to spend time as they moved through a square,” said Hirst. Lord John Russell first employed Repton to work on the grounds of his house in Bedfordshire, Hirst explained, before his brother continued development of the Bloomsbury estate, bringing in the same designer. “That area was ripe for development because it was close to the City yet looked straight out on open fields to the north, with views up to the hills of Highgate and Hampstead,” said Hirst. “Repton’s square gardens had areas to sit, with wandering, gravel pathways and areas where children could play. He wanted them to be places for relaxed play. They were tamed versions of the natural world.” Pushing against a romantic trend for faux wilderness, Repton brought back terraces, gravel walks and flower beds with ornamental or themed planting around the house and gave birth to the modern suburban garden. In London a new elite fashion for walking and entertaining in squares was mocked by the press, as Edward Walford noted in 1878 in his book Old And New London, writing: “It is said that the Duchess of Bedford sent out cards to her guests, inviting them to ‘take tea and walk in the fields’; and sarcastic persons remarked, that it was expected that syllabubs would soon be milked in Berkeley Square, around the statue of his Majesty.” Repton was born in 1752, the son of a wealthy Bury St Edmunds tax collector, and was sent to the Netherlands to learn Dutch and prepare for a commercial career. By 1773 he was married and in business in Norwich. But it did not suit him. He travelled to Ireland to work as private secretary to William Windham, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and made contacts he could call upon as an “improver of the landscape”. In 1788 the 36-year-old put his skills on the market, aiming to fill the gap left by the death of Lancelot “Capability” Brown five years earlier. Repton became renowned for his “red books”, folios of his drawings. Packed with maps and descriptions, they included a low-tech equivalent of the PowerPoint presentation: watercolours with overlays showing “before” and “after” views. “At Woburn we have the most elaborate of his red books, the biggest and the best, and it is on show for the first time in our exhibition, Humphry Repton: Art & Nature for the Duke of Bedford,” said Hirst. Repton outlined four key principles for good design in his book, Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening. “First, it must display the natural beauties and hide the defects of every situation,” he wrote. “Secondly, it should give the appearance of extent and freedom by carefully disguising or hiding the boundary. Thirdly, it must studiously conceal every interference of art. However expensive by which the natural scenery is improved; making the whole appear the production of nature only; and fourthly, all objects of mere convenience or comfort, if incapable of being made ornamental, or of becoming proper parts of the general scenery, must be removed or concealed.” For Hirst, the distinction with Capability Brown is evident in the way Repton introduced a decorative railing between the house and deer and sheep to “reassure” the aristocracy, where Brown used a sunken barrier, the ha-ha. Towards the end of his life Repton feared his profession would “become extinct”. He died on 24 March 1818, and was buried at Aylsham, Norfolk. Two hundred years later Alan Titchmarsh paid tribute to Repton at the opening of the Woburn exhibition. Repton, he said, had brought back the garden and was one of those in the “beautification business” who saw the potential for improvement. Repton would not disagree. “In every place I was consulted I found that I was gifted with a peculiar facility for seeing almost immediately the way in which it might be improved,” he wrote in his memoir.

culture/2018/mar/25/humphrey-repton-landscape-gardener-exhibition-london-squares

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2018-03-25T06:00:24Z

How visionary designer Humphry Repton created the glorious squares of London

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/25/humphrey-repton-landscape-gardener-exhibition-london-squares

['russell', 'bedford', 'tavistock', 'fitzroy', 'roll', 'call', 'grand', 'architectural', 'squares', 'around', 'bloomsbury', 'familiar', 'londoners', 'tube', 'stops', 'daily', 'commute', 'yet', 'mighty', 'residential', 'developments', 'near', 'british', 'museum', 'still', 'show', 'traces', 'luxuriant', 'leafy', 'gardens', 'centres', 'wartime', 'bombing', 'pressures', 'commerce', 'taken', 'toll', 'chief', 'among', 'survivors', 'garden', 'russell', 'square', 'large', 'public', 'space', 'circular', 'walkways', 'criss-crossing', 'meandering', 'paths', 'restored', 'original', 'shape', 'stands', 'crowning', 'urban', 'legacy', 'suffolk-born', 'designer', 'widely', 'regarded', 'visionary', '18th-century', 'landscape', 'gardener', 'humphry', 'repton', 'died', 'years', 'ago', 'weekend', 'celebrated', 'new', 'exhibition', 'woburn', 'abbey', 'bedfordshire', 'russell', 'square', 'favourite', 'london', 'square', 'generous', 'size', 'scale', 'said', 'matthew', 'hirst', 'curated', 'exhibition', 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'distinction', 'capability', 'brown', 'evident', 'way', 'repton', 'introduced', 'decorative', 'railing', 'house', 'deer', 'sheep', 'reassure', 'aristocracy', 'brown', 'used', 'sunken', 'barrier', 'ha-ha', 'towards', 'end', 'life', 'repton', 'feared', 'profession', 'would', 'become', 'extinct', 'died', 'march', 'buried', 'aylsham', 'norfolk', 'two', 'hundred', 'years', 'later', 'alan', 'titchmarsh', 'paid', 'tribute', 'repton', 'opening', 'woburn', 'exhibition', 'repton', 'said', 'brought', 'back', 'garden', 'one', 'beautification', 'business', 'saw', 'potential', 'improvement', 'repton', 'would', 'disagree', 'every', 'place', 'consulted', 'found', 'gifted', 'peculiar', 'facility', 'seeing', 'almost', 'immediately', 'way', 'might', 'improved', 'wrote', 'memoir']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/25/museums-disturbing-fall-in-domestic-visitors-britons

The number of visitors going to England’s major museums and galleries is in steady decline – and the pinch on personal incomes, ticket prices and the terror threat are thought to be to blame. New analysis of official government figures carried out by the Art Newspaper, and studied in comparison with the journal’s attendance statistics, confirms that Britons are making fewer trips to see exhibitions. According to a report to be published on Monday, and shared with the Observer, the “disturbing trend” remains dominant, despite the short term impact of a succession of one-off blockbusters, such as Tate’s popular David Hockney show. Sandy Nairne, who was the director of the National Portrait Gallery until 2015, suspects that money worries are behind the drop in visitor numbers, adding that “pressures on people’s personal budgets are real, and the consistently rising cost of travel has to be a factor”. Mark Jones, who ran the Victoria and Albert Museum until 2011, agrees, putting the slump down to “static or declining household incomes”. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s figures show that while 50.8 million visitors went to the 15 museums funded by the central government over the financial year from April 2014, the number for the financial year ending next week will be down to about 46.5 million. The Art Newspaper’s annual attendance survey, carried out over each calendar year, reflects the same sudden fall that followed a peak figure of 25.5 million visitors to the six main national art museums in 2014. Last year almost two million fewer made a visit. The depth of the fall can be partly explained by the government’s exclusion since 2016 of figures for the museums in Tyne & Wear, which are no longer funded in the same way. Yet, even taking this into account, 2.5 million, or 5%, of visitors have disappeared over the past three financial years. And it is the British who are failing to show up, rather than international tourists, the Art Newspaper will explain in a special report carried to mark its 300th edition. Foreign tourism to the UK has been increasing at around 5% a year since 2015, encouraged by beneficial exchange rates since the Brexit referendum. This should have boosted museum attendance figures, so it seems that it is the British who are staying at home. The experience at the National Gallery in London underlines the point. When visitor numbers declined last year, director Gabriele Finaldi told his trustees that “overseas visitor numbers were not down and the fall in numbers seemed to be from the United Kingdom”. Despite standout hits, including the Pink Floyd show at the V&A, which helped drive attendance up by 26% to 3.8 million, and three blockbuster art exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London, experts from the museum and gallery world believe ticket price rises introduced following government cuts have put off the public. Standard tickets for Tate Modern’s current exhibition Picasso 1932 cost £22. Two years ago, tickets for the gallery’s hit show Henri Matisse: the Cut-Outs cost £16.30. This is a rise of 35% in four years. School visits and educational group trips have been particularly affected by both financial concerns and the fears that have followed terror attacks in public spaces. Visits by children aged under 16 were down 6% on the previous 12 months in the financial year 2016-17. Earlier this month, British tourism chiefs blamed a drop in visitor numbers at London’s top attractions on the high cost of travel, food and drink. Bernard Donoghue of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions said visiting London was now proving too expensive for many. Tristram Hunt’s top attractions There is a whole world outside London – and a host of great museums. The director of the V&A chooses his pick in the rest of the country 1 Leeds City Museum On the 300th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Chippendale, a definitive exhibition of this son of Otleyis a perceptive account of how he defined the 18th-century aesthetic. Ends 8 June 2 Great North Museum Newcastle-upon-Tyne The key regional museum to head to as Tyne and Wear hosts the Great Exhibition of the North, complete with spectacular loans and a superb public programme. From 22 June to 9 September 3 Turner Contemporary Margate Exhibition exploring Margate’s influence on the writing of The Waste Land by TS Eliot and the response of visual artists to the work. Ends 7 May 4 Sheffield City Museums Over its two sites of Weston Park and Millennium Galleries, two highly-politicised exhibitions champion Sheffield’s radical history. Ends 1 July 5 Potteries Museum Stoke-on-Trent After the V&A, of course, this Hanley jewel contains the finest collection of ceramics in the country and, with the Staffordshire Hoard, the greatest display of Anglo-Saxon treasure outside the British Museum. 6 Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester A dynamic, democratic and socially engaged city museum producing great scholarship and accessible art. And don’t forget V&A Dundee, which opens on 15 September.

culture/2018/mar/25/museums-disturbing-fall-in-domestic-visitors-britons

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-25T00:05:16Z

High costs and terror fears keep Britons from museums

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/25/museums-disturbing-fall-in-domestic-visitors-britons

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'accessible', 'art', 'forget', 'vampa', 'dundee', 'opens', 'september']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/24/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

Five of the best ... films Have a Nice Day (15) (Jian Liu, 2017, Chi) 78 mins Somewhere between Pulp Fiction, Takeshi Kitano and Daniel Clowes, this deadpan, lo-fi crime caper almost feels like an authentic snapshot of modern-day China, despite the fact it’s animated (rather beautifully). Centred on a stolen bag of cash, the entertainingly tangled plot takes in gangsters, chancers, cosmetic surgery and even some corrupt Buddhist monks. The Square (15) (Ruben Östlund, 2017, Swe/Ger/Fra/Den) 151 mins The absurdity of the art world is fully embraced in this Elisabeth Moss-starring satire, whose exhibits include annoying installations, pretentious marketing gurus and an ape impersonator. Claes Bang plays the Stockholm gallery director supposedly in control of all this, but who struggles to separate the sublime from the ridiculous. You Were Never Really Here (15) (Lynne Ramsay, 2017, UK/Fra/US) 95 mins This superbly controlled thriller takes us into the mind of a troubled loner (Joaquin Phoenix) who is sucked into a political conspiracy on his mission to retrieve an abducted girl. The details are only vaguely sketched out; it’s more of a fragmented collection of moments (many of them brutal, a few darkly comical), but it all adds up to an unforgettably intense experience. Sweet Country (15) (Warwick Thornton, 2017, Aus) 113 mins A panoramic western and a powerful history of 1920s Australia – a time when racism went unchecked and an Indigenous Australian farmhand (Hamilton Morris) and his wife could expect no justice for having killed an abusive white settler. On the run across the stark wilderness of the Northern Territory, with Bryan Brown’s posse in pursuit, their story becomes almost a biblical parable, told with breathtaking cinematography. The Third Murder (15) (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2017, Jap) 125 mins An original take for a murder-mystery: the only thing we can be certain of is the killer’s identity. A strange man (veteran actor Kôji Yasuko) confesses to killing his factory boss, but his story keeps changing. Is he even the killer? It’s down to his defence lawyer (Masaharu Fukuyama) to investigate. This thriller’s spiritual as well as criminal. SR Five of the best ... rock & pop gigs Ms Banks The 23-year-old London rapper Ms Banks (her real name is Tyra, hence the moniker) got a massive boost last November when Nicki Minaj declared herself a fan via the medium of Twitter. This one-off gig will showcase her forthcoming EP, The Coldest Winter Ever, as well as her ever-growing list of dexterous guest verses and mixtape deep cuts. Omeara, SE1 Wednesday 28 March The Aces Do you enjoy Haim’s fusion of sun-dappled melodies, 70s nostalgia and immaculate hair but wish they had better songs? Same. Good news, though, because Utah quartet the Aces are pretty good at the songcraft bit, with recent single Lovin’ Is Bible a big, unselfconscious slab of glittery guitar pop. Expect more on their debut album, When My Heart Felt Volcanic. Thousand Island, N5, Tuesday 27 March Amber Mark Raised across Europe and Asia before eventually settling in New York, newcomer Amber Mark’s pillow-soft, slow-burn output reflects this sense of restlessness. She’s into storytelling and concepts too, with last year’s self-produced 3:33am EP detailing grief, while next month’s Conexão EP focuses on creating a new love. Expect to be a bit overwhelmed by it all. The Camden Assembly, NW1, Friday 30 March Friendly Fires Dig out that old Hawaiian shirt and practise your wobbly indie dance moves – everyone’s second-favourite sixth-on-the-festival-bill trio are back, back, back after a six-year hiatus. Those hoping to just bask in the warm glow of nostalgia be warned: in a recent interview they said their new music is “long and expansive and drawn-out”. Plan your toilet breaks accordingly. Leeds Beckett University SU, Thursday 29; The Waterfront, Norwich, Friday 30 March; touring to 5 April MC Zhenya Strigalev European and US jazz clubs, the adopted homes of exciting St Petersburg-born saxophonist Zhenya Strigalev (pictured) for a decade, have been steadily nourishing his bebop-to-Ornette-Coleman sound and quirky composing skills. This gig launches Strigalev’s jazz and electronics fusion album Blues for Maggie, with like-minded expat Russian pianist Boris Netsvetaev in a powerful lineup. The Vortex, N16, Wednesday 28 March JF Four of the best ... classical concerts Holy Week festival Nigel Short curates this year’s traditional pre-Easter week of choral music. Short’s own group Tenebrae give one of the concerts, joining up with the Aurora Orchestra for Arvo Pärt’s Passio (Wednesday 28 March), and there are also appearances by Ex Cathedra, the Gesualdo Six, the Tallis Scholars, Polyphony and the Gabrieli Consort. St John’s Smith Square, SW1 Monday 26 March to 1 April Tombeau de Debussy The second weekend of concerts marking the 100th anniversary of the death of Debussy includes Birmingham Contemporary Music Group’s specially commissioned programme of tributes. New pieces by Jungeun Park, Sinta Wullur, Frédéric Pattar and Julian Anderson are interleaved with Dukas, Bartók, Satie, Ravel and Goossens. Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Sunday 25 March The Royal Opera: Coraline Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera is adapted from Neil Gaiman’s fantasy novella for children, about a girl who opens a mysterious door in her house to discover the Other World. Mary Bevan is Coraline in Aletta Collins’s production, with Kitty Whately and Alexander Robin Baker as her parents. Barbican Theatre, EC2, Thursday 29 March to 7 April Contemporary Evenings The BBC National Orchestra of Wales continues its 90th birthday celebrations, with a programme conducted by Jac van Steen that mixes new works with pieces previously premiered by the NOW. The premieres come from Mark D Boden and Guto Puw, the revivals from Alun Hoddinott, Michael Berkeley and Sarah Lianne Lewis. BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, Wednesday 28 March AC Five of the best ... exhibitions Damien Hirst Still painting dots after all these years, Hirst shows his latest canvases, plus several sculptures, in the sublime setting of Houghton Hall. It was built for Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first – and most corrupt – prime minister. Walpole might have found Hirst’s art bewildering but would admire his wealth. Rich man’s art in a rich man’s house. Houghton Hall, nr King’s Lynn Sunday 25 March to 15 July The House of Fame Punk artist Linder is not one to do anything by the book: instead of staging a retrospective, she has “convened” this show in which her work is juxtaposed with favourites from the 1600s to today. Inspired partly by a residency at Chatsworth, her choices range from Jacobean architect Inigo Jones to pieces by Mike Kelley and Heidi Bucher. Nottingham Contemporary, Saturday 24 March to 24 June Ken’s Show Ken Simons is an art handler, which means he is professionally qualified to touch and move works of art. I saw his team do great work once, when an artist demanded her entire exhibition be rehung in hours. But Simons has seen it all in his 30 years at Tate Liverpool and gets to choose the artists that have meant the most to him, Turner and Rothko (pictured) among them. Good for him: let’s have more real people choosing real art for our galleries. Tate Liverpool, Friday 30 March to 17 June All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life Some of the greatest British art of the 20th century is brought together in this treasury of perception, paint and feeling. It is not a head-to-head comparison of Bacon and Freud. The show is nearly stolen by another formidable duo: Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. Everyone should see their fierce, paint-laden visions of the streets of London. They’ll show you something that will make you change your mind. Tate Britain, SW1, to 27 August NOW Jenny Saville gets a mini-retrospective as part of this survey of Scottish art. Saville is a pungent painter of the human body and should perhaps be considered in a Scottish context. A graduate of Glasgow School of Art, her expressive realism has a lot in common with older Glasgow painters such as Peter Howson and Ken Currie, making up in passion for what it lacks in subtlety. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Saturday 24 to 16 September JJ Five of the best ... theatre shows Minefield Memory is a minefield in this remarkable show, made by Argentinian artist Lola Arias with veterans from both sides of the Falklands war. These are men who would once have tried to kill each other but now stand on stage and hug. It’s a moving, delicate piece that uses individual lives as a historical document. Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne Saturday 24; York Theatre Royal Wednesday 28 to 31 March; touring to 14 April Buggy Baby Innovation is synonymous with The Yard, which has proved itself one of the most risk-taking and invaluable theatres over the last few years. Josh Azouz’s bold, hallucinogenic play about two refugees and a baby trying to survive in a space without hope is another cracker, director Ned Bennett mixing horror and comedy to brilliant effect. The Yard, E9, to 31 March Summer and Smoke Anyone who has seen Patsy Ferran on stage will know that she is a talent to be reckoned with, but she announces herself as a bona fide star in this rare revival of Tennessee Williams’s sizzling boy-meets-girl drama. In Rebecca Frecknall’s deceptively simple production, she is mesmerising as the buttoned-up young woman who discovers erotic desire, playing the drama’s constant tug between body and soul, flesh and spirit with exquisite control. Almeida Theatre, N1, to 7 April Love from a Stranger Who would have thought an Agatha Christie could be such fun? But this one is, in Lucy Bailey’s atmospheric production which doesn’t entirely disguise the creaks but more than makes up for that in the way it builds tension. The show taps into the current paperback vogue for psychological domestic thrillers in which a woman chooses a man who is not to be trusted, throws in a dash of Peeping Tom and then springs a few subversive surprises of its own. Oxford, Saturday 24; Guildford, Tuesday 27 to 31 March; touring to 21 July The Little Matchgirl and Other Happier Tales Arriving back at the theatre where it began and that fits it like a glove, Emma Rice and Joel Horwood’s reworking of Hans Christian Andersen’s tear-jerker is a real treat. There is nothing mawkish about these reworkings of well-known tales, often given a contemporary spin to remind us that we still live in a world where the lives of the poor can be snuffed out like a match. Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, SE1, Tuesday 27 March to 21 April LG Three of the best ... dance shows Sutra One of the great dance-theatre creations of the early 21st century, Sutra is a playful, witty and humane exploration of the rituals and philosophy of the Shaolin monks. It is choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and performed by the monks themselves, perfectly framed by Antony Gormley’s designs. New Theatre, Oxford Saturday 24; Sadler’s Wells, EC1 Monday 26 to Wednesday 28 March Ballet Lorent: Rumpelstiltskin This is the third collaboration between choreographer Liv Lorent and poet Carol Ann Duffy, an updating of the fairy story that explores the forces of greed and love, and the experience of being an outcast in a regimented society. The music is by Murray Gold. Pitlochry, Saturday 24; London, Friday 30 & 31 Mar; touring to 29 September Joan Clevillé Dance: Plan B for Utopia Joan Clevillé utilises the vividly contrasting, charismatic talents of Solène Weinachter and John Kendall in this playful meditation about the nature of utopia, how we communicate our hopes and how we imagine a better world. Skipton, Saturday 24; Bournemouth, Thursday 29, Totnes, Friday 30 & 31 March JM

culture/2018/mar/24/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-24T09:00:01Z

What to see this week in the UK

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/24/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/23/seth-meyers-jimmy-kimmel-late-night-trumps-lawyers-joining-titanic-after-hit-the-iceberg

Late-night hosts on Thursday discussed the fighting words exchanged between president Trump and Joe Biden, as well as the mounting legal troubles Trump faces as three different women file lawsuits against him. Jimmy Kimmel “Are you up to date on Trump v Biden?” Jimmy Kimmel began. “Joe Biden was at a rally in Miami. He was talking about Trump’s alleged behavior around women, and said if we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.” Addressing Trump’s treatment of women and his “locker-room talk” defense, Biden said: “I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms my whole life. I’m a pretty damn good athlete. Any guy who talked that way was usually the fattest, ugliest SOB in the room.” “Trump, being the president, took the high road and ignored it because he’s too busy running the country for stupid stuff,” Kimmel joked. “Oh, he didn’t? Of course he didn’t.” Kimmel then read aloud Trump’s response to Biden on Twitter: “Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people, Joe!” “This is what it’s come to: two old men arguing about who could beat the other one up,” Kimmel said. “Do you think Joe Biden, when they were in high school, could he have kicked Trump’s ass?” The host then showed a class photo of Trump in 1964 at the New York Military Academy: “Based on the fact that he showed up to class every day dressed like a Christmas nutcracker, probably.” Seth Meyers Meanwhile, NBC’s Seth Meyers addressed the legal troubles facing the president, including the Mueller probe and the continued personnel changes on Trump’s legal defense team. “Of course, Trump is already being scrutinized as part of a wide-ranging criminal investigation of his campaign and his ties to Russia, his financial entanglements, and his attempts to obstruct justice,” Meyers said. “You’d think it would be hard to add more legal problems to that list and yet, this week, Trump has been bombarded by one lawsuit after another.” Meyers then showed news coverage of three separate suits facing Trump. One is from Stormy Daniels, who claims the NDA she signed before the 2016 election is null and void because Trump never signed it; the second is from playmate Karen McDougal, who’s also filing to be freed from her non-disclosure agreement; the final suit comes from Summer Zervos, who accused Trump of sexual assault and is filing a defamation suit after Trump called the allegations “lies”. “Following this presidency is like trying to binge watch entire seasons of Days of Our Lives, Law and Order: SVU and Survivor on three TV screens at the same time,” Meyers joked. He continued: “These stories aren’t just salacious gossip. In each case, we’re talking about potential violations of civil and criminal law. Zervos is accusing Trump of sexual harassment and defamation. And in the cases of Daniels and McDougal, the payments could have potentially broken federal election law.” Meyers went on to note that on Thursday, Trump’s lead defense attorney in the Russia probe, John Dowd, resigned. “Trump,” Meyers added, “is apparently having trouble finding people to replace him.” Meyers explained that the Trump team reached out to Ted Olson, former solicitor general in the Bush administration. According to the Washington Post, Olson rejected Trump’s offer. “He didn’t want to work for Trump?” Meyers asked. “I can’t imagine why. That’s like asking to join the crew of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.”

culture/2018/mar/23/seth-meyers-jimmy-kimmel-late-night-trumps-lawyers-joining-titanic-after-hit-the-iceberg

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-23T14:48:36Z

Seth Meyers: Trump's lawyers are joining the Titanic 'after it hit the iceberg'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/23/seth-meyers-jimmy-kimmel-late-night-trumps-lawyers-joining-titanic-after-hit-the-iceberg

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/22/samantha-bee-trump-mueller-stephen-colbert-trevor-noah

Late-night hosts on Wednesday discussed threats to the Mueller investigation, the Stormy Daniels fiasco and how Cambridge Analytica harvested data from Facebook to help Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Samantha Bee The Full Frontal host discussed the firing of the former FBI deputy director, Andrew McCabe. “On Friday, Donald Trump combined two of his favorite things: firing people and screwing them out of their money,” Bee began. “If Andrew McCabe were a porn star, Trump would’ve scored a hat-trick.” “Firings happen around this White House all the time,” Bee explained, “but this one is especially sinister because of the connections to the Mueller investigation, which Trump is just openly admitting he wants to shut down now.” Bee then turned to news reports on the heels of Trump’s tweets about the investigation that wondered if he was considering firing Mueller. “Of course he is. How is that in question?” Bee asked. “Trump is considering firing Mueller the way you consider ordering a third margarita on girl’s night. ‘God, you know you’re going to do it, Stacy. You say that every time!’” The host went on: “At times like these when the government is falling apart and the Saturday Night Massacre has turned into an 11-week bender, it’s easy to lose track of important stories, even when they really, really matter. “Not tonight,” she said. “I cannot let another week go by without saying: fuck you, Hope Hicks.” Referring to a New York magazine report about the weeks preceding Hicks’s departure from the White House, Bee noted the former communications director did not particularly like politics and was compelled to leave because of West Wing infighting. Hicks reportedly baked cookies with notes in silver gel pen for her co-workers before her resignation. “So, at least we all know what it would look like if Zooey Deschanel joined the alt-right,” Bee joked. Stephen Colbert “The Stormy Daniels story just won’t go away, no matter how many photos of her bust line Anderson Cooper slowly zooms in on every night,” the Late Show host began. “I’ll catch you up on the latest in the Daniels controversy in tonight’s Stormy Watch.” Colbert explained that Daniels alleged she had an affair with Trump and was paid $130,000 days before the election to sign a non-disclosure agreement. “Imagine how damaging an affair with a porn star would’ve been to the image of a family-values pussy grabber,” Colbert said. “The president has a long history of non-disclosure agreements. In fact, we’ve just learned that Trump made the White House senior staff sign NDAs.” “This is troubling in two ways,” the host explained. “One: that’s totally illegal. Government officials work for us, not Trump. He can’t make them sign NDAs. And, two: it really makes me think Trump has had sex with his entire staff.” Colbert went on to note that, in an appearance on CNN, Daniels’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said his client was physically threatened to stay silent about what she knew. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, claims he never threatened Daniels. Colbert read aloud from a statement in which Cohen wrote, “I truly care about him [Trump] and the family, more than just as an employee and an attorney.” “Yes, this porn star payoff is just Michael Cohen showing the care of a simple country lawyer,” Colbert joked. “As Atticus Finch once said, ‘I’m no idealist to firmly believe in the integrity of a married man’s God-given right to bang a porn star.’” Trevor Noah Meanwhile, the Daily Show host broke down the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal. He began: “This is a story involving Facebook and a company called Cambridge Analytica, which I know sounds like a Harry Potter spell that does your homework, but it’s actually a data analytics company dedicated to one thing: figuring out how to manipulate you at all costs.” Noah explained that, in a Facebook security breach, Cambridge Analytica acquired users’ private information by targeting 270,000 accounts and thereby accessing 50m user profiles. “Because your friend took this dumbass quiz this company you’ve never heard of got access to your account?” Noah asked, responding to reports that CA acquired data from the accounts of user’s Facebook friends. “It’s like your friend boned someone and you got the STD. “In the wrong hands, our data can be used to do some pretty sinister things,” the host said. “We know that Cambridge Analytica got people’s data from Facebook. We know that they figured out how to use this data to manipulate people. What you may not know is who they gave all that power to.” The host then explained that Cambridge Analytica was the data firm used by the Trump campaign, assisting with its research, analytics, and even television and digital advertising. “Here’s an example of how the Trump campaign used Cambridge Analytica’s tools,” Noah said, adding that the firm’s methodology is known as “electronic brainwashing”. “Cambridge Analytica figured out that the phrase ‘Drain the Swamp’ made people angry at career politicians and this would make them want to vote for Donald Trump. Trump told us this himself,” Noah said, showing footage from a Trump speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee in which he recounts being advised to use the phrase. “Thanks to Cambridge Analytica, Trump knew Drain the Swamp would drum up anti-establishment votes,” Noah said. The host did note, though, that the firm’s efforts weren’t always successful, as the Ted Cruz campaign was also a client. “All the electric brainwashing in the world can’t make people like Ted Cruz,” Noah quipped.

culture/2018/mar/22/samantha-bee-trump-mueller-stephen-colbert-trevor-noah

pillar/arts

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culture

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2018-03-22T15:12:31Z

Samantha Bee on Trump and Mueller: 'The Saturday Night Massacre turned into an 11-week bender'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/22/samantha-bee-trump-mueller-stephen-colbert-trevor-noah

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/21/trevor-noah-trump-gollum-late-night-tv

Late-night hosts on Tuesday discussed Facebook’s data breach, continued personnel shakeups at the White House, and the Trump administration’s approach to the opioid epidemic. Trevor Noah: ‘Teenagers think Donald Trump is totes lame’ Trevor Noah discussed Trump’s plans to combat drug trafficking and the opioid crisis. He began with footage of the president doubling down on his proposal to execute drug dealers; in the clip, Trump says he can understand if “our country is not ready for that,” but then says he “personally can’t understand it”. “One of my favorite things about Trump is that he inner-monologues out loud,” Noah joked. “It’s like America elected Gollum.” Noah continued: “Today’s epidemic is complicated in many ways. Let’s say you kill all the drug dealers. In this opioid crisis, that’s hardly the only kind of person involved. Do you also kill doctors who overprescribe painkillers? Do you kill family members who buy opioids for their addicted loved ones? Do you kill the people who sell drugs to pay for their own addiction?” “I’m not saying all of Trump’s plans are bad, but some of these drug-fighting ideas seem to come straight out of the 80s,” Noah added, referencing Trump’s idea of airing commercials that will “scare” kids away from using drugs. “Again, I see why Trump thinks that this idea makes sense,” Noah said. “If the president of the United States believes everything he sees on TV, then why wouldn’t teenagers?” The host explained, though, that America has spent money on ad campaigns of this sort before. “They weren’t just corny,” he noted. “Studies have shown that those commercials didn’t actually work.” Noah referenced one from the National Institutes of Health that showed kids were no less likely to use drugs after seeing the commercials. “I believe that the president sincerely wants to keep young people away from drugs. You see, typical anti-drug PSAs don’t work on the kids. What Trump needs is a way to make drugs seem really uncool to young people,” Noah suggested. “And for once, I think he’s the right man for the job. Because according to polls, two-thirds of American teenagers think Donald Trump is totes lame. So to keep them off drugs all the president needs to do is pretend that he takes drugs, which shouldn’t be that hard.” Stephen Colbert: ‘Wear hat, yell at wall’ “Does anybody here use Facebook?” began Stephen Colbert. “Because the company is reeling from revelations that they allowed the private information of 50 million Americans to be harvested by the Trump campaign’s consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.” Colbert then explained that Cambridge Analytica, partly owned by Trump donor Robert Mercer, acquired its data from personality quizzes that claimed to be for research purposes and harvested psychological data from Facebook users and those users’ friends. “People are blaming Facebook for this because they handed over all your data willingly; after this revelation, Facebook’s stock value dropped by $36bn,” Colbert explained. “It seems like now would be a very good time for some damage control from Facebook CEO and guy-who-wants-you-to-play-a-complicated-board-game-he-invented Mark Zuckerberg.” Colbert then showed investigative footage acquired by the UK’s Channel 4. In it, Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix can be seen detailing his firm’s involvement in the Trump campaign, which he says included handling all research, data, analytics, targeting, and digital and television advertisements. In the footage, Nix says the candidate is “always” the puppet. “Wow, so it was their meticulous data and analytics that informed Trump’s strategy of Wear Hat, Yell about Wall,” the host joked. He then showed more of the undercover video, including a section in which a Cambridge Analytica staffer explains the origins of the nickname “Crooked Hillary”. “Wait, they made up Crooked Hillary?” Colbert responded. “Coming up with demeaning nicknames was the one skill we knew Trump had!” Jimmy Kimmel on the ‘secretary of interior decorating’ Jimmy Kimmel addressed the revolving door of employees in the Trump administration. “As all this sex stuff is going on,” he began, “here’s what’s up with our secretary of interior decorating, Dr Ben Carson.” Kimmel showed Carson addressing the reports, including several from the Guardian, that he has spent lavish amounts of taxpayer money to furnish his office at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “I love that with all this madness going on, Ben Carson is being grilled about a dinette set,” Kimmel joked, referencing the Carson’s $31,000 payment. “Ben Carson, by the way, is one of the few remaining members of Trump’s original cabinet.” “Last week, he fired his body-man, his personal assistant, and his secretary of state Rex Tillerson,” the host explained. “Rex Tillerson had a two-hour meeting with his replacement yesterday, Mike Pompeo, who currently runs the CIA.” “If you’re Mike Pompeo, do you even do anything to your new office?” Kimmel quipped. “You put up pictures or just live out of a banker’s box and gather your stuff when it’s time to go?”

culture/2018/mar/21/trevor-noah-trump-gollum-late-night-tv

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2018-03-21T15:12:42Z

Trevor Noah on Trump's dialogue with himself: 'It's like America elected Gollum'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/21/trevor-noah-trump-gollum-late-night-tv

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/20/andrew-mccabe-firing-stephen-colbert-trevor-noah-seth-meyers-round-up

Late-night hosts on Monday discussed Donald Trump’s attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller, the firing of Andrew McCabe, and Cambridge Analytica, the data firm under scrutiny for taking private information from Facebook users to to help the Trump campaign’s data operation. Stephen Colbert “We’re on the brink of another crisis because it really feels like Donald Trump is gearing up to fire special counsel Robert Mueller,” Stephen Colbert began. “This past Saturday, Trump’s attorney and shaved Peter Pettigrew John Dowd called for the immediate shutdown of the special counsel probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.” Colbert noted that Dowd’s statement was sent in an email to a reporter, and was followed by Trump’s tweet about Mueller, the first time he’s mentioned the special counsel by name, in which he called the investigation a “witch-hunt.” “This is significant because until now Trump had never attacked Mueller by name in a tweet,” Colbert continued. “Republican senators have implied that firing Mueller would be a mistake, like South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham. Colbert then showed a clip of Graham’s interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, in which he said firing Mueller would spell “the beginning of the end” of Trump’s presidency. “It’s not even the beginning of the end of his presidency? I thought we were at least at the middle of the beginning of the end,” the host quipped. “I should have gone to the bathroom when Reince Priebus left.” “We know Trump is in a firing mood because this weekend former FBI deputy director and extra from Apollo 13 Andrew McCabe was fired just two days before his retirement,” Colbert added, noting that McCabe was set to retire on his 50th birthday and earn a $60,000-a-year pension. Colbert went on: “This could all be perfectly innocent. McCabe had been under investigation of the inspector general of the FBI so to avoid looking like he’s trying to shut down the Russia investigation, all Trump had to do was not dance on McCabe’s grave.” “So he tweeted,” Colbert said, before reading the message aloud: “Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI – A great day for Democracy. Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!” Trevor Noah Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah also zeroed in on the McCabe firing. “Andrew McCabe, number two at the FBI, has been fired,” he began. “Now, the justice department says it’s because McCabe lied about leaking information to the press. But McCabe has a different theory.” McCabe, per a statement released shortly after his firing, believes he’s being singled out because of events he witnessed after the firing of James Comey. “Just because McCabe was closely involved in the investigations into Trump and his campaign doesn’t mean Trump was going to come after him,” Noah said. “However, it doesn’t help that for the last year Trump has been trashing McCabe on Twitter.” Noah went on to read many of Trump’s McCabe-centric tweets aloud while also bringing up an anecdote from a Trump encounter with McCabe, reported by NBC News, in which the president supposedly told McCabe to ask his wife how it feels to be a loser, an apparent reference to Jill McCabe’s unsuccessful run for Virginia state senate. “Donald Trump is a proper asshole,” Noah replied. “If being an asshole was an arcade game, he would have all the top scores.” “So in the end, Trump appears to have been extra vindictive about this,” Noah said, noting that the president had tweeted about McCabe trying to retire “with full benefits” and then fired him two days before his 50th birthday, causing him to lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits. “Because Trump involved himself so personally in the McCabe case, you can see why it’s easy to think McCabe’s firing was about politics and not process,” Noah said. “Because of that, people are now saying Comey got fired, McCabe got fired, who could possibly be next?” Noah concluded: “Robert Mueller, I don’t know when your next birthday is, but something tells the president may be planning a surprise.” Seth Meyers Finally, Seth Meyers discussed Cambridge Analytica, the data mining firm hired by the Donald Trump campaign. “While his lawyer was trying to cover up an alleged affair with a pornstar,” Meyers began, “Trump’s campaign data firm was being suspended by Facebook for a truly massive breach of users’ personal data, a breach Facebook has known about for two years.” Meyers went on to note that the firm tapped social media profiles of 50 million users in order to learn more about and target voters and influence the 2016 election. The host added: “Really, Facebook? You forgot to mention that 50 million people had their private data breached, but every time it’s my uncle’s friend’s sister’s dog’s birthday I get a notification?” “On top of everything else, Cambridge Analytica is also being scrutinized by special counsel Robert Mueller for its entanglements with Russia,” Meyers explained. “Mueller’s investigation came under serious threat this weekend when President Trump went on a Twitter tirade and for the first time targeted Mueller by name.” The host then noted that McCabe’s firing “may backfire on Trump” because the FBI official reportedly kept contemporaneous memos detailing his conversations with Trump. The memos, Meyers explained, have been given to special counsel Mueller, who may be building an obstruction of justice case against the president.

culture/2018/mar/20/andrew-mccabe-firing-stephen-colbert-trevor-noah-seth-meyers-round-up

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2018-03-20T15:18:26Z

Late-night hosts on McCabe firing: 'On the brink of another crisis'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/20/andrew-mccabe-firing-stephen-colbert-trevor-noah-seth-meyers-round-up

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'weekend', 'president', 'trump', 'went', 'twitter', 'tirade', 'first', 'time', 'targeted', 'mueller', 'name', 'host', 'noted', 'mccabe', 'firing', 'may', 'backfire', 'trump', 'fbi', 'official', 'reportedly', 'kept', 'contemporaneous', 'memos', 'detailing', 'conversations', 'trump', 'memos', 'meyers', 'explained', 'given', 'special', 'counsel', 'mueller', 'may', 'building', 'obstruction', 'justice', 'case', 'president']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/20/oliver-mears-interview-royal-opera-house-director-covent-garden

‘One day all this will be yours,” I joke to Oliver Mears as we shake hands in the champagne bar at the Royal Opera House. It’s a stupid thing to say and I’m not quite sure what prompts it, except that Mears is so slight and vulnerable looking that you can’t quite believe he is already director of opera at this famous, glitzy, occasionally poisonous place. His appointment in 2016 was greeted with surprise. He was just 37, the youngest head of opera in Covent Garden’s history, and he was jumping from the relative obscurity of Northern Ireland Opera, with a budget of £1m, to a house with a budget of more than £130m. He insists the move never fazed him. “You have to have complete faith in your ability to do a job. The scale is different to Northern Ireland, but the principles of running an opera company are the same. Finding a story for an organisation, having a mission, driving it forward.” He was given a warm welcome, he says, with music director Antonio Pappano and head of casting Peter Katona (a fixture at Covent Garden for 35 years) helping to provide stability and continuity. Pappano’s current contract expires in 2020, but Mears suggests he is likely to continue in place beyond that date. Mears has been in his new role for a year, and today launches the Royal Opera House’s 2018-19 season. Most of these plans will have been set years ago under his predecessor Kasper Holten, but some of his fingerprints are already visible, in particular a production of Billy Budd directed by Deborah Warner that he has bought in from the Teatro Real in Madrid, and a Hansel and Gretel for Christmas that he hopes will tempt parents to bring their children to Covent Garden. “It’s not going to be set in a gas chamber,” he says when I suggest that some productions of this fairytale can be very dark. “That’s not the kind of show we’re after.” Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera – one of the first of a series of shows conceived for young people and designed to counter “negative preconceptions” – has replaced another Holten production. Mears won’t say which, but it’s a fair bet it was seen as either too expensive or too likely to bomb at the box office. With Arts Council England, aware of accusations of being London-centric, reducing the ROH’s funding (cut by 6% in real terms in last year’s settlement), these are relatively straitened times. Covent Garden needs to be a little more frugal and, in these days of Brexit and Corbynism, a little more of the people. That may be one reason behind Mears’s appointment. He showed both in Northern Ireland and with the opera company he founded in his mid-20s, Second Movement, that he could demystify opera, appeal to all ages and build a community of opera-goers. (That thinking may also underpin the recent announcement that Stuart Murphy, who has spent his career in television, is to be chief executive of English National Opera – a decision that bemused the opera cognoscenti.) Covent Garden will stage only five new productions in 2018-19, and only two of those will be produced in-house: Katya Kabanova directed by ROH stalwart Richard Jones, and Hansel and Gretel. There are also three new international co-productions, with The Queen of Spades, directed by the much-vaunted Stefan Herheim, and a starry La Forza del Destino (Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann under the baton of Pappano) joining the Billy Budd. Five new productions seems a bit thin, but Mears says the expense of reviving the Keith Warner production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle for its final outing means less money for everything else. In 2019-20 he promises eight new productions, and says in a typical season a third of all the productions staged will be new. Full as it is with revivals of tried-and-trusted productions – Tosca, La Traviata, The Marriage of Figaro, La Fille du Régiment – the 2018-19 season feels a little conservative, with operas that will keep the box office where the opera house management likes it to be, at around 95% capacity. Mears demurs, aware of the dangers of being labelled a safe pair of hands. “I think some would say that Janáček is not necessarily completely core repertoire,” he argues, “nor The Queen of Spades, or Billy Budd.” Barrie Kosky’s controversial new production of Carmen will return in the new season. “We actually had someone heckle last night,” says Mears. “They stood up and said: ‘This isn’t Carmen; this is a scandal.’ People who haven’t liked it say: ‘You’ve ruined Carmen.’ But what does that mean? We don’t know what Carmen is. Bizet never went to Spain. His opera was in itself a construct. What ‘You’ve ruined Carmen’ actually means is there is a disjunction between my interpretation of what Carmen should be and what’s on stage. What we can’t do as an artistic organisation is take these great, complex, pulsating masterpieces literally or at face value. Our job is to do something more than that – to dig deep and come up with work that generates an emotional reaction.” But he is wary of subversion for subversion’s sake. “You can lose the work if a production is completely conventional,” he says. “You can also lose the work if a production is too overly concerned with stodgy philosophy. What we need to find is the golden area in the middle where we have practitioners who are able to give life to these operas, which are often hundreds of years old, and make them live as if they’d been written yesterday.” He echoes his predecessor’s view that opera must never become a museum and that new work is crucial – “commissions are the lifeblood of the art form,” he says – but adds that commissioning new work is also very expensive. “It’s very difficult in the current financial climate to commit to a brand-new commission every single season,” he says. More likely is that there will be a new commission every other year. In 2013, Holten had announced to great fanfare four new commissions “inspired by the writings of philosopher Slavoj Žižek”. These new operas – by Kaija Saariaho, Jörg Widmann, Luca Francesconi and Mark-Anthony Turnage – were supposed to “challenge opera writers to write about their fears and hopes for the world now”, and the outgoing ROH chief executive Tony Hall said they would be staged by 2020. Oddly, they have never been heard of again, and there is no sign of them being programmed. I ask Mears what happened. “Two have fallen by the wayside for different reasons,” he says. “The other two – by Turnage and Saariaho – are still in our long-term schedules.” Mears accepts that one of his tasks is to broaden the ethnic mix of the audience, but how will that age-old problem be tackled? “We will have more diversity on stage and in our workforce,” he says. “But it really comes back to how we can entice a wider range of young people to see our work.” Opera in cinemas is great, he says, but nothing can replace the live experience. He will also address gender diversity. The new season features only one female director, Deborah Warner, and two female conductors, Keri-Lynn Wilson and Julia Jones in Carmen. “It’s a long-term project and it’s going to take time,” he says. The ROH will not follow the lead of the Proms and set quotas, but insists that the company does have firm targets and that a 50-50 gender split is the long-term aspiration. Gender equality, audience diversity, countering negative preconceptions, putting opera back into the cultural mainstream – what an agenda. It will, as Mears says, all take time. But will he be given that time? Holten lasted just six years, barely long enough, given the five-year planning cycle for operatic seasons, to get your feet under the table. Mears is a young man with time on his side. Now he needs to get everyone else on his side, too.

culture/2018/mar/20/oliver-mears-interview-royal-opera-house-director-covent-garden

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-20T10:00:36Z

ROH's Oliver Mears: 'Our job is to generate an emotional reaction'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/20/oliver-mears-interview-royal-opera-house-director-covent-garden

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/20/michael-sheen-launches-campaign-against-high-cost-lenders

Michael Sheen has decided to scale back his acting career to devote himself to campaigning against high-interest credit providers, like Wonga and BrightHouse, and working to find fairer alternative sources of credit. He will begin his new undertaking on Tuesday in Glasgow, where he will launch the End High Cost Credit Alliance, a campaign group of politicians, charities and tech companies he has brought together, working to promote more affordable ways of borrowing money. His dedication to tackling problem debt has been inspired by witnessing difficulties faced by friends in the Welsh town of Port Talbot where he grew up, a region struggling with the decline of the local steel industry. Sheen wants to analyse the flaws of universal credit, discuss the shortcomings of the government’s welfare reform programme and focus on ways to reduce household debt levels. He is enraged by curtailment of government crisis loans and by the spread of chronic debt but he is also exceptionally well-informed about the subject and passionate about finding ways to improve things. Best known for playing Tony Blair, Sheen has finished a five-year stint in Los Angeles, where he acted in Twilight and took other roles that allowed him to be close to his daughter studying in the US. Since she started college, Sheen has been able to spend more time in the UK, relocating to Port Talbot, where he has been confronted daily by the problems associated with spiralling household debt. “I’ve become increasingly aware of friends and family dealing with being in debt – with overdrafts, credit card payments, pay day loans, home credit,” he said. “It’s a really hard subject to talk about but I’ve had friends breaking down in tears talking about how it is affecting their relationship, their self-esteem, their children’s lives. It touches buttons about your own sense of dignity and pride.” Sheen has set about “learning in a turbo-charged way” everything he can about high-cost lenders, and speaking to people who have gone badly into debt trying to cover daily necessities. “People often say: ‘Well if someone can’t afford something, they shouldn’t be paying for it’. But people have told me ‘in order to travel to a job interview, I had to get a bit of credit’ or ‘my child has a disability, in order to cover just basic needs I have to go into debt.’ More and more this is about people needing to pay for basic needs.” As he points out, 3 million UK households are paying more than 25% of their income to creditors – representing 10 million people, or more than 10% of the population. Although he hasn’t had personal experience, he is aware that it’s something that cuts through society. “It’s not them over there … if you’ve ever gone into overdraft situation and you’re not sure you can come out of it, you’re already dealing with stress.” Initially he wondered if he could spend some of his savings on buying back bad debt to wipe it out – inspired by John Oliver, the host of the US chat show Last Week Tonight, who bought back nearly $15m (£10m) worth of medical debt on his show, forgiving the debts of about 9,000 people. When that proved too complex – in part because failed business debts are often bundled together with personal loans in the secondary debt market – he decided to focus on promoting more ethical and cheaper alternative providers of instant credit. These exist already, but lack the investment that companies like Wonga have, so aren’t advertising on daytime television and Facebook, and are not widely known. His campaign group’s manifesto promises: “We will back fair finance providers, equipping them with the resources to compete and win against high-cost credit providers.” He hopes to be able to raise awareness about not-for-profit loan organisations, like Moneyline, Scotcash, or Street UK. Sheen is using “a significant” amount of his own money to fund the campaign, and hopes to unlock donations from other philanthropists. He will continue acting, but will make this project his priority when he isn’t working, and hopes to be involved in working on debt for the long-term. “My leverage depends on me having both money and profile, so there’s no point giving up my access to both of those things. It’s about finding a balance.” He recognises that there may be cynicism about the capacity of a Hollywood star to bring about change in this incredibly complex area. “It is absolutely right that people should be suspicious. We should always question people’s agendas. People should be asking: Is this just stuff I say, or am I making a difference?” Ideally, he says, he wouldn’t be the face of this campaign. “I’d rather no one knew what I was doing at all, the problem is that’s what I bring to the table.” Conservative politician and sports minister Tracey Crouch is one of the alliance’s members, as is Ed Miliband, along with academics and debt charities. The movement aims to be pragmatic and Sheen believes it will have succeeded in five years’ time, if things are simply better. “This is about trying to move things in the right direction. There’s no point saying unless we can get the absolute perfect answer, there’s no point doing anything. There is a financial landscape out there at the moment that could be fairer. There could be a better deal for people. We need to work together to find it.”

culture/2018/mar/20/michael-sheen-launches-campaign-against-high-cost-lenders

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-20T06:00:31Z

Michael Sheen launches campaign against high-cost lenders

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/20/michael-sheen-launches-campaign-against-high-cost-lenders

['michael', 'sheen', 'decided', 'scale', 'back', 'acting', 'career', 'devote', 'campaigning', 'high-interest', 'credit', 'providers', 'like', 'wonga', 'brighthouse', 'working', 'find', 'fairer', 'alternative', 'sources', 'credit', 'begin', 'new', 'undertaking', 'tuesday', 'glasgow', 'launch', 'end', 'high', 'cost', 'credit', 'alliance', 'campaign', 'group', 'politicians', 'charities', 'tech', 'companies', 'brought', 'together', 'working', 'promote', 'affordable', 'ways', 'borrowing', 'money', 'dedication', 'tackling', 'problem', 'debt', 'inspired', 'witnessing', 'difficulties', 'faced', 'friends', 'welsh', 'town', 'port', 'talbot', 'grew', 'region', 'struggling', 'decline', 'local', 'steel', 'industry', 'sheen', 'wants', 'analyse', 'flaws', 'universal', 'credit', 'discuss', 'shortcomings', 'government', 'welfare', 'reform', 'programme', 'focus', 'ways', 'reduce', 'household', 'debt', 'levels', 'enraged', 'curtailment', 'government', 'crisis', 'loans', 'spread', 'chronic', 'debt', 'also', 'exceptionally', 'well-informed', 'subject', 'passionate', 'finding', 'ways', 'improve', 'things', 'best', 'known', 'playing', 'tony', 'blair', 'sheen', 'finished', 'five-year', 'stint', 'los', 'angeles', 'acted', 'twilight', 'took', 'roles', 'allowed', 'close', 'daughter', 'studying', 'us', 'since', 'started', 'college', 'sheen', 'able', 'spend', 'time', 'uk', 'relocating', 'port', 'talbot', 'confronted', 'daily', 'problems', 'associated', 'spiralling', 'household', 'debt', 'become', 'increasingly', 'aware', 'friends', 'family', 'dealing', 'debt', 'overdrafts', 'credit', 'card', 'payments', 'pay', 'day', 'loans', 'home', 'credit', 'said', 'really', 'hard', 'subject', 'talk', 'friends', 'breaking', 'tears', 'talking', 'affecting', 'relationship', 'self-esteem', 'children', 'lives', 'touches', 'buttons', 'sense', 'dignity', 'pride', 'sheen', 'set', 'learning', 'turbo-charged', 'way', 'everything', 'high-cost', 'lenders', 'speaking', 'people', 'gone', 'badly', 'debt', 'trying', 'cover', 'daily', 'necessities', 'people', 'often', 'say', 'well', 'someone', 'afford', 'something', 'paying', 'people', 'told', 'order', 'travel', 'job', 'interview', 'get', 'bit', 'credit', 'child', 'disability', 'order', 'cover', 'basic', 'needs', 'go', 'debt', 'people', 'needing', 'pay', 'basic', 'needs', 'points', 'million', 'uk', 'households', 'paying', 'income', 'creditors', 'representing', 'million', 'people', 'population', 'although', 'personal', 'experience', 'aware', 'something', 'cuts', 'society', 'ever', 'gone', 'overdraft', 'situation', 'sure', 'come', 'already', 'dealing', 'stress', 'initially', 'wondered', 'could', 'spend', 'savings', 'buying', 'back', 'bad', 'debt', 'wipe', 'inspired', 'john', 'oliver', 'host', 'us', 'chat', 'show', 'last', 'week', 'tonight', 'bought', 'back', 'nearly', '15m', '10m', 'worth', 'medical', 'debt', 'show', 'forgiving', 'debts', 'people', 'proved', 'complex', 'part', 'failed', 'business', 'debts', 'often', 'bundled', 'together', 'personal', 'loans', 'secondary', 'debt', 'market', 'decided', 'focus', 'promoting', 'ethical', 'cheaper', 'alternative', 'providers', 'instant', 'credit', 'exist', 'already', 'lack', 'investment', 'companies', 'like', 'wonga', 'advertising', 'daytime', 'television', 'facebook', 'widely', 'known', 'campaign', 'group', 'manifesto', 'promises', 'back', 'fair', 'finance', 'providers', 'equipping', 'resources', 'compete', 'win', 'high-cost', 'credit', 'providers', 'hopes', 'able', 'raise', 'awareness', 'not-for-profit', 'loan', 'organisations', 'like', 'moneyline', 'scotcash', 'street', 'uk', 'sheen', 'using', 'significant', 'amount', 'money', 'fund', 'campaign', 'hopes', 'unlock', 'donations', 'philanthropists', 'continue', 'acting', 'make', 'project', 'priority', 'working', 'hopes', 'involved', 'working', 'debt', 'long-term', 'leverage', 'depends', 'money', 'profile', 'point', 'giving', 'access', 'things', 'finding', 'balance', 'recognises', 'may', 'cynicism', 'capacity', 'hollywood', 'star', 'bring', 'change', 'incredibly', 'complex', 'area', 'absolutely', 'right', 'people', 'suspicious', 'always', 'question', 'people', 'agendas', 'people', 'asking', 'stuff', 'say', 'making', 'difference', 'ideally', 'says', 'would', 'face', 'campaign', 'would', 'rather', 'one', 'knew', 'problem', 'bring', 'table', 'conservative', 'politician', 'sports', 'minister', 'tracey', 'crouch', 'one', 'alliance', 'members', 'ed', 'miliband', 'along', 'academics', 'debt', 'charities', 'movement', 'aims', 'pragmatic', 'sheen', 'believes', 'succeeded', 'five', 'years', 'time', 'things', 'simply', 'better', 'trying', 'move', 'things', 'right', 'direction', 'point', 'saying', 'unless', 'get', 'absolute', 'perfect', 'answer', 'point', 'anything', 'financial', 'landscape', 'moment', 'could', 'fairer', 'could', 'better', 'deal', 'people', 'need', 'work', 'together', 'find']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/19/rising-camp-how-an-arch-sensibility-got-political

There are few more mercurial cultural concepts than camp – or more enduring ones. America’s current king of TV camp, Ryan Murphy, is winning new accolades with his arch, neon-lit true-crime drama The Assassination of Gianni Versace. The Winter Olympics’ breakout star, ice skater Adam Rippon, set gay Twitter aflame by arriving at the Oscars wearing a Jeremy Scott tux and leather harness. Jonathan van Ness, long-haired, plaid-skirted grooming expert of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, has ensured that viewers of the Netflix show now “spray, delay and walk away” when applying cologne. So far, so fabulous. But also so familiar: camp is, after all, a perennial feature of style for white gay men. Yet camp can also be radical. At Paris fashion week this month, Japanese label Comme Des Garçons presented an alternative vision. On displaywere ruffles, clashing polka-dot and tartan patterns, voluminous panto-dame petticoats and endless puckering layers. Designer Rei Kawakubo declared that the collection had been inspired by the cultural critic Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay Notes on Camp, which helped define and explain this cultural phenomenon. Kawakubo echoed Sontag’s claim that camp is not simply clumsy over-exaggeration or bad taste. “On the contrary,” the designer said, “camp is really and truly something deep and new and represents a value we need.” Kawakubo had a point. When vulgarity has become not just a matter of bad taste in curtains but a political strategy that can put you in the White House, camp is an aesthetic tool that needs re-evaluating and refreshing. For Sontag, camp was ineffable. Notes on Camp was structured as a series of jottings rather than a formal essay because camp is a sensibility – a way of seeing – rather than a tightly definable idea. Still, she drew out a whole bouquet of its possible characteristics. Above all else, she said, camp is about artifice. Even when it takes nature as its source, it revels in stylising it – like the art nouveau lamps of the Paris Metro which are absurd renditions of orchids, or the ceiling of Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, a vaulting arrangement of serrated stone leaves. Camp also blurs high and low culture. The same extravagant artifice of Gaudí’s campy forest canopy can be found in the reality TV show franchises The Real Housewives or Made in Chelsea, where authenticity is rejected in favour of fabricated drama, all big hair and outsized personalities. Sontag sees nuance of character and the development of emotional complexity as anathema to camp. “What camp taste responds to is ‘instant character,’” she wrote. “Character is understood as a state of continual incandescence – a person being one, very intense thing.” This is what makes camp so slippery. It requires a constant switching of aesthetic and emotional registers, of finding an ironic joy in ridiculous drama while still, somehow, sincerely loving and identifying with it. Strictly Come Dancing could not have survived 15 seasons on knowing irony alone: to read camp, one must recognise how artificial so much in our lives is, and then revel in its glittering falseness. It’s this puffed-up love of artifice that Kawakubo celebrates. For Sontag, however, the best camp has no idea that it is camp. Fifty years on from her essay, our own arch icon must surely be Vladimir Putin: the frequent photoshoots portraying the Russian premier riding horseback topless, or scuba-diving for Greek urns, are performances of masculinity so overblown they become comic. Putin isn’t playing camp, but we can’t help but read him that way. As Sontag stresses, “in naive, or pure, camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails.” Putin now finds his mirror in the White House. It’s not just his love of parades and big hair that renders Trump camp. His very language is full of camp affect and hyperbolic overstatement, as comedian Peter Serafinowicz reveals in Sassy Trump, his dubbed reworkings of Trump’s speeches. For years, gay people have played withthe concept of “butch”, making it silly, sexy and subversive, so it’s no wonder there is confusion between camp masculinity and homosexuality. Camp regards gender as something you can perform. As Sontag said: “To perceive camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role.” She highlights the “corny flamboyant female-ness” of such actresses as Gina Lollobrigida. These days we might see a ripped Channing Tatum, or an eyelash-fluttering Cardi B, as consciously playing up a camp shtick of gender norms. Sontag remarked that camp’s obsession with style at the expense of content rendered it “depoliticised … or at least apolitical” – an idea that history has since overturned. Camp’s obsession with playing up, and subverting, the performance of gender and sexuality has clearly had a significant effect on our society, and the queer audience has become a powerful force in the face of discrimination and oppression. A sensibility is a way of seeing, consuming and enjoying culture; sharing a sensibility in the social media age creates a community that can see and talk to itself. Put another way, how some queer people consume culture is an art form in itself. Take RuPaul’s Drag Race, the cult reality show where queens pitch themselves in fierce competition for the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar. The show is pasted thick with irony (it models itself as a take-off of America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway). Drag Race has become a cultural lodestone in gay communities with obsessive championing of favourite queens and endless rumination on tactics making ready-made topics of conversation among strangers. In other words, it’s football for gay people. Social media has amplified and made global this queer fan culture. This audience is far from apolitical, as RuPaul discovered. After telling the Guardian earlier this month that he would “probably not” let a trans woman compete on the show, large sections of its fanbase, as well as former queens, spoke out against him. Despite RuPaul being the titular figurehead, the fans know that what produces the show’s richness is the shared culture created by those who bond over it – and that culture increasingly recognises the role played both in the show, and in wider LGBT culture, by trans and non-binary people. This is what has changed since Sontag wrote her notes: the idea of culture being something produced in one sector and passively consumed in another is over. In the social media age, the audience makes the culture through the sensibility it displays. It makes new connections, remixing and recontextualising cultural objects as it goes. The role of self-defined “creative” in the modern aesthetic economy is not so much one of creating new trends, but spotting them as they arise from the general population, amplifying them and appropriating them. Artists themselves are largely at the mercy of their fans’ creativity, and when that creativity is camp, it brings into play powerful forces that allow the audience to produce new meanings, and celebrate unlikely and dangerous protagonists. Perhaps Kawakubo is right – camp is a value we need. When absolutism is becoming the order of the day, camp insists upon nuance. It knows that what makes something serious and heavy for one viewer makes it hilariously silly for another. And it knows that to fully appreciate culture, all these meanings must sit together in the object, to be wrestled and played with. It empowers the audience to undermine authority, to destabilise meaning, to change art. Camp regards nuance, enjoyment and brocade ruffles as virtues in their own right – although it would never be so vulgar or boring as to say so.

culture/2018/mar/19/rising-camp-how-an-arch-sensibility-got-political

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-19T06:00:12Z

Rising camp: how an arch sensibility got political

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/19/rising-camp-how-an-arch-sensibility-got-political

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'camp', 'brings', 'play', 'powerful', 'forces', 'allow', 'audience', 'produce', 'new', 'meanings', 'celebrate', 'unlikely', 'dangerous', 'protagonists', 'perhaps', 'kawakubo', 'right', 'camp', 'value', 'need', 'absolutism', 'becoming', 'order', 'day', 'camp', 'insists', 'upon', 'nuance', 'knows', 'makes', 'something', 'serious', 'heavy', 'one', 'viewer', 'makes', 'hilariously', 'silly', 'another', 'knows', 'fully', 'appreciate', 'culture', 'meanings', 'must', 'sit', 'together', 'object', 'wrestled', 'played', 'empowers', 'audience', 'undermine', 'authority', 'destabilise', 'meaning', 'change', 'art', 'camp', 'regards', 'nuance', 'enjoyment', 'brocade', 'ruffles', 'virtues', 'right', 'although', 'would', 'never', 'vulgar', 'boring', 'say']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/18/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-narrow

The next theme for our weekly photography assignment in the Observer New Review is ‘narrow.’ Share your photos of what narrow means to you – and tell us about your image in the description box. The closing date is Wednesday 21 March at 10am. We’ll publish our favourites in The New Review on Sunday 25 March and in a gallery on the Guardian site. You can share your ‘narrow’ pictures by clicking on the ‘Contribute’ button on this article. You can also use the Guardian app and search for ‘GuardianWitness assignments’ – and if you add it to the homepage – you can keep up with all our assignments. GuardianWitness is the home of readers’ content on the Guardian. Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others.

culture/2018/mar/18/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-narrow

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-18T09:00:05Z

Your pictures: share your photos on the theme of 'narrow'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/18/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-narrow

['next', 'theme', 'weekly', 'photography', 'assignment', 'observer', 'new', 'review', 'narrow', 'share', 'photos', 'narrow', 'means', 'tell', 'us', 'image', 'description', 'box', 'closing', 'date', 'wednesday', 'march', '10am', 'publish', 'favourites', 'new', 'review', 'sunday', 'march', 'gallery', 'guardian', 'site', 'share', 'narrow', 'pictures', 'clicking', 'contribute', 'button', 'article', 'also', 'use', 'guardian', 'app', 'search', 'guardianwitness', 'assignments', 'add', 'homepage', 'keep', 'assignments', 'guardianwitness', 'home', 'readers', 'content', 'guardian', 'contribute', 'video', 'pictures', 'stories', 'browse', 'news', 'reviews', 'creations', 'submitted', 'others']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/18/simone-lia-on-the-life-of-a-flower

culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/18/simone-lia-on-the-life-of-a-flower

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

interactive

2018-03-18T08:00:03Z

Simone Lia on the life of a flower

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/18/simone-lia-on-the-life-of-a-flower

[]

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/17/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

Five of the best ... films The Square (15) (Ruben Ostlund, 2017, Swe/Ger/Fra/Den) 151 mins High culture comes in for a kicking in this sly satire, following a Stockholm gallery director through a series of first-world/art-world crises. There are moments of social discomfort and farce (not least an ape impersonator who goes full method), in a film with much to say about culture, privilege and liberal guilt. You Were Never Really Here (15) (Lynne Ramsay, 2017, UK/Fra/US) 90 mins This intense movie from the Scottish film-maker might be a Taxi Driver for our times. Joaquin Phoenix plays a freelance retriever of abducted children, whose new assignment sucks him into the depths of his own psychological torment. Rendered with artistry and economy, it’s an unforgettable experience. Sweet Country (15) (Warwick Thornton, 2017, Aus) 113 mins Australia’s not-so-historic legacy of racist oppression is revisited in this “western”, which tracks an outback manhunt with striking imagery and understated storytelling. On the run are an Indigenous Australian farmhand (Hamilton Morris) and his wife, the former wanted for shooting dead an abusive “whitefella” in self-defence. Concepts of justice are relative in this lawless, almost abstract landscape. A Fantastic Woman (15) (Sebastián Lelio, 2017, Chi/Ger/Spa/US) 104 mins Daniela Vega carries a remarkable (recently Oscar-winning) modern-day melodrama that renders a Santiago trans woman’s plight with sensitive restraint and the odd surreal flourish. Compounding her grief over the death of her long-term partner are his grasping family and the authorities, most of whom view her with suspicion or outright hostility. She’s the model of dignified resolve – up to a point. Gook (15) (Justin Chon, 2017, US) 95 mins Set during the post-Rodney King LA riots of the 90s, this black-and-white indie feels like something that could have been made at the time – in a Clerks-meets-Do the Right Thing way. Our central characters are two Korean-American brothers who run a shoe shop, aided by an 11-year-old black girl. Confrontation is on the cards, but there’s time for goofing around, too. SR Five of the best ... rock & pop gigs Fever Ray A boundary-crushing queer electronica star, and one of the few artists who could make the line “I want to run my fingers up your pussy” sound playful rather than pervy, former Knife member Fever Ray is rather memorable. And, of course, a talent, to boot; after a nine-year break from the biz, she recently returned with acclaimed album Plunge. Troxy, E1 Tuesday 20; Albert Hall, Manchester Wednesday 21 March Young Fathers The Mercury-winning Scottish hip-hop trio continue to tread a singular path without being self-indulgent. Following a prominent spot on the Trainspotting T2 soundtrack last year (Danny Boyle described their tracks as “my heartbeat for the film”), they recently released their third album, Cocoa Sugar. Birmingham, Tuesday 20; London, Wednesday 21; Bristol, Thursday 22; Manchester; Friday 23; touring to 28 March Dream Wife This grunge-pop trio started life as a performance art project, but when your social commentary is this sharp, why not go the whole hog and make it into a real, nouveau-riot grrrl band? From the #MeToo-themed message of Somebody to the Spice Girls-sampling snarl of FUU and the invigorating, Strokes-ish Fire, the Brighton band’s debut album is sure to make for a varied, confident live show. Bristol, Tuesday 20; London, Wednesday 21; Glasgow, Friday 23 Chic ft Nile Rodgers A disco pioneer-turned-pop fairy godfather, Nile Rodgers (pictured, below) has an appeal that doesn’t seem to dim. And, having pepped up everyone from Daft Punk to Madonna, Bowie to Diana Ross, he has the kind of CV most producers could only dream of. Get ready for Good Times as he and Chic play the Royal Albert Hall for the first time in support of Teenage Cancer Trust. Royal Albert Hall, SW7, Wednesday 21 March HJD Electric Lady Big Band Imaginative Bristol guitarist-arranger Denny Ilett unveils his new big band, including trumpeter Laura Jurd and saxophonist Iain Ballamy, in a spectacular reinvention of Jimi Hendrix’s 1968 classic Electric Ladyland. Launched on Sunday at Bristol’s annual jazz festival, the band also visits Ronnie Scott’s, where Hendrix played his last gig in 1970. Colston Hall, Bristol, Sunday 18; Ronnie Scott’s, W1, Tuesday 20 & Wednesday 21 March JF Four of the best ... classical concerts Debussy festival The CBSO and BCMG are spreading their centenary tribute to Debussy across two weekends. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla will conduct five orchestral concerts, placing the composer’s works alongside modernist pieces influenced by him. BCMG’s first programme (Sun) features Boulez and Murail; its second (25 Mar) includes premieres of four works written as tributes. Symphony Hall, Birmingham Saturday 17, Sunday 18, 24 & 25 March Ensemble Intercontemporain The leading French new-music group have become regular visitors to the Wigmore, often introducing composers whose music is very rarely heard in London. Their latest concert includes the world premiere of Blaise Ubaldini’s wind quintet, In the Backyard, alongside music by Birtwistle, Carter, Holliger and Cage. Wigmore Hall, W1, Monday 19 March Voices of the Revolution Vladimir Ashkenazy takes charge of the Philharmonia’s concerts marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution. The first programme concentrates on music written to reflect the radical energy of the new Soviet Union: Mosolov’s The Iron Foundry, Glière’s The Red Poppy and Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No 3. The Anvil, Basingstoke, Wednesday 21; Royal Festival Hall, SE1, Thursday 22 March Ariadne auf Naxos After a few years in the doldrums, Scottish Opera is reasserting itself as a company of real significance. Now comes a new staging of Strauss’s multilayered comedy, directed by Antony McDonald and starring Mardi Byers and Kor-Jan Dusseljee. Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Thursday 22 to 28 March; Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 5 & 7 April AC Five of the best ... exhibitions America’s Cool Modernism Modernism was made for the United States: the skyscraper cities were its destined home. While European artists dreamed of utopia, Americans could just look out of the window to see strange new realities. Edward Hopper’s spooky urban spaces and Charles Demuth’s masterpiece I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold (pictured) star in this survey of jazz-age art. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Friday 23 March to 22 July Anthea Hamilton This surrealist, whose architectural sculpture of a giant bum stole the show at 2016’s Turner prize show, is back with more fantastical ideas. Expect big boots, rude furniture and general imaginative mayhem from a subversive who is unfazed by today’s increasingly stringent moral codes. A liberating visionary, guaranteed to raise a smile. Tate Britain, SW1, Thursday 22 to 7 October A Revolutionary Legacy Two centuries ago, Haitian leader Toussaint L’Ouverture defied Napoleon, making him a hero of resistance ever since. This engaging display includes radical art from William Blake’s America to a portrait by Jacob Lawrence (pictured). As Wordsworth put it in his poem To Toussaint L’Ouverture: “There’s not a breathing of the common wind/ That will forget thee … Thy friends are exultations, agonies,/ And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.” British Museum, WC1, to 22 April Francis Bacon The fierce, unforgiving vision of Francis Bacon burns like a laser through modern art. His hellish visions of popes in glass booths and bodies struggling in strangely decorated airless rooms influenced everything from Hannibal Lecter’s glass-fronted prison cell to Damien Hirst’s vitrines to the portraiture of his friend Lucian Freud. This display is a chance to fathom the power and originality of an artistic great. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, to 30 May Another Kind of Life Casa Susanna was a safe resort for heterosexual cross-dressers in New York State in the 1950s and early 60s. Just over 10 years ago, a cache of photographs taken there turned up at a Manhattan flea market. These haunting pictures (above) are among the documents of alternative cultures and subversive ways of life in this exhibition, featuring people who make their own identities, often using photography as an aid. Barbican Art Gallery, EC2, to 27 May JJ Five of the best ... theatre shows Nina: A Story About Me and Nina Simone Josette Bushell-Mingo is superb in a solo show that takes its inspiration from the songs and activism of Nina Simone. Threading together biography and autobiography, this is a searing evening full of justifiable anger, as she considers the continuing struggle to make Black Lives Matter and ensure voices are heard and change is made. Unity Theatre, Liverpool, Saturday 17 to 24 March The Grinning Man It may be based on a novel by Victor Hugo, but don’t go expecting Les Misérables from this musical about a man who had his face slashed from ear to ear when he was a boy. Created by writer Carl Grose, composers Tim Phillips and Marc Teitler and director Tom Morris, it is macabre, utterly distinctive and surreally entertaining. Trafalgar Studios, SW1, to 14 April Joan This show keeps on touring and deservedly so. Lucy J Skilbeck’s sleeper hit scrutinises the Joan of Arc story and packages it in a hugely enjoyable cabaret-style evening that combines audience participation with lyrical writing. Drag king champion Lucy Jane Parkinson is a joy as the medieval gender warrior. Broadwell Memorial Hall, nr Coleford, Friday 23 March; touring to 1 June Brighton Rock Bryony Lavery’s Frozen, currently in the West End, is a play about good and evil, and although her latest appears very different it covers similar territory. It’s a pared-back adaptation of Graham Greene’s 1938 thriller novel about death, damnation and redemption. In Brighton, teenage gang leader Pinkie marries waitress Rose, the only witness to a murder he committed. Esther Richardson’s production for Pilot Theatre captures the run-down seediness of the seaside town and boasts a fine ensemble. Mercury Theatre, Colchester, Saturday 17; Hull Truck Theatre, Tuesday 20 to 24 March; touring to 26 May Girl from the North Country There is only one week left to catch this unique show, in which Conor McPherson entwines the songs of Bob Dylan with real delicacy to tell the story of the residents of a boarding house in a small US town in the shadow of the Great Depression. Fantastic performances, particularly from Shirley Henderson and Sheila Atim, make this a spine-tingling experience, releasing all the drama in the songs. Noël Coward Theatre, WC2, to 24 March LG Three of the best ... dance shows Richard Alston Dance Company: Mid Century Modern Alston looks back over five decades of dance-making, revisiting key works such as the witty luminous solo Dutiful Ducks, and Proverb, created for the 70th birthday of composer Steve Reich. Completing this fine retrospective is a new solo, set to Debussy’s flute piece Syrinx and created for Vidya Patel. Sadler’s Wells, EC1 Friday 23 & 24 March Rambert Ben Duke’s funny and searing Goat forms a welcome addition to Rambert’s touring repertory, seen in this programme with the pure dance piece Symbiosis and a guest appearance from Julie Cunningham & Company in To Be Me, set to the rhythms of poet Kate Tempest. Theatre Royal, Brighton, Wednesday 21 to 24 March Les Ballets C de la B: Requiem Pour L Director Alain Platel collaborates with composer Fabrizio Cassol on this multicultural reinvention of Mozart’s Requiem, using movement and film to construct a ritual ceremony of mourning that veers into a celebration of life. Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Tuesday 20 & Wednesday 21 March JM

culture/2018/mar/17/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-17T09:00:20Z

What to see this week in the UK

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/17/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

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'decorated', 'airless', 'rooms', 'influenced', 'everything', 'hannibal', 'lecter', 'glass-fronted', 'prison', 'cell', 'damien', 'hirst', 'vitrines', 'portraiture', 'friend', 'lucian', 'freud', 'display', 'chance', 'fathom', 'power', 'originality', 'artistic', 'great', 'scottish', 'national', 'gallery', 'modern', 'art', 'edinburgh', 'may', 'another', 'kind', 'life', 'casa', 'susanna', 'safe', 'resort', 'heterosexual', 'cross-dressers', 'new', 'york', 'state', '1950s', 'early', '60s', 'years', 'ago', 'cache', 'photographs', 'taken', 'turned', 'manhattan', 'flea', 'market', 'haunting', 'pictures', 'among', 'documents', 'alternative', 'cultures', 'subversive', 'ways', 'life', 'exhibition', 'featuring', 'people', 'make', 'identities', 'often', 'using', 'photography', 'aid', 'barbican', 'art', 'gallery', 'ec2', 'may', 'jj', 'five', 'best', 'theatre', 'shows', 'nina', 'story', 'nina', 'simone', 'josette', 'bushell-mingo', 'superb', 'solo', 'show', 'takes', 'inspiration', 'songs', 'activism', 'nina', 'simone', 'threading', 'together', 'biography', 'autobiography', 'searing', 'evening', 'full', 'justifiable', 'anger', 'considers', 'continuing', 'struggle', 'make', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'ensure', 'voices', 'heard', 'change', 'made', 'unity', 'theatre', 'liverpool', 'saturday', 'march', 'grinning', 'man', 'may', 'based', 'novel', 'victor', 'hugo', 'go', 'expecting', 'les', 'miserables', 'musical', 'man', 'face', 'slashed', 'ear', 'ear', 'boy', 'created', 'writer', 'carl', 'grose', 'composers', 'tim', 'phillips', 'marc', 'teitler', 'director', 'tom', 'morris', 'macabre', 'utterly', 'distinctive', 'surreally', 'entertaining', 'trafalgar', 'studios', 'sw1', 'april', 'joan', 'show', 'keeps', 'touring', 'deservedly', 'lucy', 'j', 'skilbeck', 'sleeper', 'hit', 'scrutinises', 'joan', 'arc', 'story', 'packages', 'hugely', 'enjoyable', 'cabaret-style', 'evening', 'combines', 'audience', 'participation', 'lyrical', 'writing', 'drag', 'king', 'champion', 'lucy', 'jane', 'parkinson', 'joy', 'medieval', 'gender', 'warrior', 'broadwell', 'memorial', 'hall', 'nr', 'coleford', 'friday', 'march', 'touring', 'june', 'brighton', 'rock', 'bryony', 'lavery', 'frozen', 'currently', 'west', 'end', 'play', 'good', 'evil', 'although', 'latest', 'appears', 'different', 'covers', 'similar', 'territory', 'pared-back', 'adaptation', 'graham', 'greene', 'thriller', 'novel', 'death', 'damnation', 'redemption', 'brighton', 'teenage', 'gang', 'leader', 'pinkie', 'marries', 'waitress', 'rose', 'witness', 'murder', 'committed', 'esther', 'richardson', 'production', 'pilot', 'theatre', 'captures', 'run-down', 'seediness', 'seaside', 'town', 'boasts', 'fine', 'ensemble', 'mercury', 'theatre', 'colchester', 'saturday', 'hull', 'truck', 'theatre', 'tuesday', 'march', 'touring', 'may', 'girl', 'north', 'country', 'one', 'week', 'left', 'catch', 'unique', 'show', 'conor', 'mcpherson', 'entwines', 'songs', 'bob', 'dylan', 'real', 'delicacy', 'tell', 'story', 'residents', 'boarding', 'house', 'small', 'us', 'town', 'shadow', 'great', 'depression', 'fantastic', 'performances', 'particularly', 'shirley', 'henderson', 'sheila', 'atim', 'make', 'spine-tingling', 'experience', 'releasing', 'drama', 'songs', 'noel', 'coward', 'theatre', 'wc2', 'march', 'lg', 'three', 'best', 'dance', 'shows', 'richard', 'alston', 'dance', 'company', 'mid', 'century', 'modern', 'alston', 'looks', 'back', 'five', 'decades', 'dance-making', 'revisiting', 'key', 'works', 'witty', 'luminous', 'solo', 'dutiful', 'ducks', 'proverb', 'created', '70th', 'birthday', 'composer', 'steve', 'reich', 'completing', 'fine', 'retrospective', 'new', 'solo', 'set', 'debussy', 'flute', 'piece', 'syrinx', 'created', 'vidya', 'patel', 'sadler', 'wells', 'ec1', 'friday', 'amp', 'march', 'rambert', 'ben', 'duke', 'funny', 'searing', 'goat', 'forms', 'welcome', 'addition', 'rambert', 'touring', 'repertory', 'seen', 'programme', 'pure', 'dance', 'piece', 'symbiosis', 'guest', 'appearance', 'julie', 'cunningham', 'amp', 'company', 'set', 'rhythms', 'poet', 'kate', 'tempest', 'theatre', 'royal', 'brighton', 'wednesday', 'march', 'les', 'ballets', 'c', 'de', 'la', 'b', 'requiem', 'pour', 'l', 'director', 'alain', 'platel', 'collaborates', 'composer', 'fabrizio', 'cassol', 'multicultural', 'reinvention', 'mozart', 'requiem', 'using', 'movement', 'film', 'construct', 'ritual', 'ceremony', 'mourning', 'veers', 'celebration', 'life', 'sadler', 'wells', 'ec1', 'tuesday', 'amp', 'wednesday', 'march', 'jm']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/16/london-tourism-flatlined-in-2016-due-to-terror-fears-rail-issues-and-cost

Rail problems, fears of terrorism, and the high cost of getting to and eating in London have contributed to a “flatlining” of tourism in the capital last year. But the newly released figures from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (Alva) also show big tourism increases in Northern Ireland, and Scotland in particular. The overall figures show an average increase of 7.3% on 2016 visitor numbers to UK attractions. In Scotland the increase is 13.9%, in Northern Ireland it is 6.5% and in London 1.2%. Bernard Donoghue, director of Alva, said: “There are lots and lots of amazing stories, some concerning stories, but overall we are really delighted about continued growth and the popularity of visitor attractions.” One of the main concerning stories is in London where visitor numbers were “flatlining”, he said. There were many reasons including the “quite boring but fundamentally huge” issue of Waterloo being partially closed in August and the inconsistency of Southern Rail. Other factors are worries about terrorism and the high cost of travel, food and drink for families coming to London. The British Museum continues to be the most popular visitor attraction in the UK for the 11th year running, despite an 8% fall in numbers. Tate Modern was in second spot, down 3%, and the National Gallery was in third, down 16.5%. The biggest fall was at the National Portrait Gallery, partly because it had a great 2016 thanks to its Vogue and Picasso shows. It was down 35%. The big climbers were the V&A in fifth place, up 26% thanks largely to the popularity of its Pink Floyd exhibition; Tate Britain, up 61% which can partly be put down to its David Hockney show; and Kensington Palace, up 62.4% thanks to its display of Diana dresses. Donoghue said it was “particularly eye-catching” that visitor numbers to Scotland outperformed the rest of the UK for the sixth year running. Among the reasons were an increase in flights from the US and Europe to Glasgow and Edinburgh; and the full reopening of all the galleries of the National Museums of Scotland. For the first time, the most visited attractions outside London were in Scotland. The National Museum of Scotland was up from 15th to 11th spot with a 20% increase. Edinburgh Castle is in 12th place with a 16% increase. Northern Ireland’s increase was mostly down to a big rise in visitors from the Republic attracted by the euro making it about 16% cheaper. Donoghue said: “That proves our point that any sense of a hard border between the north and the south would be disastrous for Northern Ireland tourism. So many of those people who have grown tourism over the past year are day trippers from Dublin.” The most popular attraction in Northern Ireland was the Giant’s Causeway, in 33nd position overall, followed by Titanic Belfast at 46th. The most visited visitor attraction outside London was Chester Zoo, albeit down 1.8%. Alva said gardens and outdoor spaces were strikingly popular, with Wakehurst in West Sussex having a 17.8% increase in visitors, WildPlace Bristol up 28.5%, and WWT Welney in Cambridgeshire up 25%.

culture/2018/mar/16/london-tourism-flatlined-in-2016-due-to-terror-fears-rail-issues-and-cost

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-16T00:01:03Z

London tourism flatlined in 2017 due to terror fears, rail issues and cost

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/16/london-tourism-flatlined-in-2016-due-to-terror-fears-rail-issues-and-cost

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/15/cuts-to-drama-teaching-in-schools-is-a-scandal-says-lenny-henry

Sir Lenny Henry has criticised cuts in school drama teaching as a scandal as it means children are not being properly prepared for the outside world. The comedian and actor has launched a new National Theatre initiative to encourage better drama and theatre-making in primary schools. Henry, who recalled on Thursday his secondary school drama lessons as “basically, running round the school hall pretending to be the Avengers”, said good arts and drama education was crucial. “I’m learning there have been massive cuts in teaching the arts in schools and it is cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you are not teaching children how to be creative and curious, what are you preparing them for? You are not preparing them for the outside world,” said Henry. Andrew Lloyd Webber has condemned as a “national scandal” cuts to music lessons in UK schools. “It is the same thing for drama,” said Henry. “We have an issue in this country in terms of working class people having access to activities like writing and plays and music. Working class people are under-resourced when it comes to the arts and we need to rebalance that.” He said there was one rule for private schools, which often have extensive, well-resourced arts lessons, and another rule for all other schools. Henry launched the National Theatre programme, called Let’s Play, at Hill Mead primary school in Brixton, London. “The more you see kids like this having structured play and structured activity in the theatrical arts the more you get a sense of them stretching out. You wonder whether that’s a thing: ‘You don’t need to do that, you’re only going to work in a factory any way!’ If there were factories to work in.” Lisa Burger, executive director of the National Theatre, said theatre should be available to all children across the UK, but budget cuts and an increasing focus on testing and assessment around literacy and numeracy was squeezing out drama. “Let’s Play comes from our general concern about the state of drama education in the school curriculum,” she said. The new initiative is based on an idea from the theatre director Katie Mitchell. It involves the National Theatre commissioning new plays with songs and music for primary aged children to perform. It hopes to recruit at least 700 schools to the programme over the next three years and train 1,000 teachers. The aspiration is that by 2020, 50,000 pupils will have taken part in Let’s Play. Many arts leaders have spoken about what they see as a decline of arts education in UK schools. One issue is the lack of a compulsory arts subject in the English baccalaureate. Last month Arts Council England (ACE) announced more details of the Durham commission on creativity and education, which will explore the best ways of nurturing creativity in young people. It will be chaired by the ACE chairman, Sir Nicholas Serota, who said the commission was an opportunity to “step back, review the evidence, see what has worked, and come up with some proposals” that could be considered by his organisation and the government.

culture/2018/mar/15/cuts-to-drama-teaching-in-schools-is-a-scandal-says-lenny-henry

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-15T15:00:59Z

Cuts to drama teaching in schools are a scandal, says Lenny Henry

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/15/cuts-to-drama-teaching-in-schools-is-a-scandal-says-lenny-henry

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/15/birth-water-sweat-and-menstrual-blood-museum-of-waters-australian-donations

On a large shelf in the main gallery of Fremantle Arts centre sits a tiny jar containing a tablespoon of liquid: dark, thick and red, not unlike the artisan jam you’d expect in a jar like that. But, according to the handwritten label, it’s filled with something else entirely. “Menstrual blood,” it reads. “Collected Sunday 18.2.18. Created between 9am and 2.15pm.” After that comes the name of the donor (Sarah Thomason), and the item’s catalogue number: “1194.” The blood is the 1194th sample of water to be donated to the Museum of Water, an ongoing project from London-based live artist Amy Sharrocks. Since 2013, the museum has travelled across the UK and the Netherlands, accumulating ever-more items for display – three bottles of 129,000-year-old water here; a jar of birth-water there; a melted snowman; and some holy water. And since last year’s Perth festival, the Australian public has been invited to donate a sample of their own. Dam water. Bath water. Breath, sweat, tears. The project ‘custodians’ set up shop in Fremantle in 2017, but also travelled to remote communities across Western Australia, collecting the stories of the people who brought them water for an audio project that runs alongside the exhibition. And for the next month the full Perth collection – 541 bottles, along with 20 more from the global museum – is on display. The museum is billed as “an invitation to ponder our precious liquid”, but it’s more than that, too: it’s a way to give people a chance to share their story, and a musing on the role of museology itself. “Who curates our collections? Who decides what goes into a museum? Who do we look to for authority?” Sharrocks tells Guardian Australia. “The world is hurtling in a certain direction right now, and it’s time to reconsider who we listen to, and to hear different voices in the world.” The brief – to “choose what water is most precious to you” – is broad, and the way people interpret it speaks volumes. “People amaze me regularly with what they bring,” Sharrocks says. The project has been addictive; she travelled from the UK to Perth four times for the Australian iteration, and spent the rest of it checking her messages every morning to find out what new waters had been added overnight. When you give everyone a voice, she says, “extraordinary things happen”. In Perth, there’s a baby’s bottle filled with water from a bath shared by two infant children, born after “four miscarriages, three unsuccessful IVF implants and countless drugs, scans and hormones”. There’s the melted snow of Kilimanjaro; 19,490-year-old water collected from Berkner Island in Antarctica (the scientist also brought in an ice core); and three jars of water from the three dams that irrigate the first avocado farm in Torbay, WA. With each item comes a handwritten note – and in some cases an audio recording – detailing what the water is, and what it means to the person who brought it. From a child called Tobias comes one of my favourites: “Water that my mum cooked her egg in four times.” Sharrocks has focused on water in much of her work. In 2007, she invited 50 people to swim across London, through its lakes, lidos and private pools; in 2011, she completed her series of public walks tracing the city’s forgotten and long-buried rivers. The element lends itself to art because it exists both within and around all of us: a shared reality that transcends the personal, social and environmental to tell a political story too. “The war in Syria, one of the causes was a drought – it is one of the world’s first water wars,” Sharrocks says. “It’s caused millions of people to leave Syria ... I never expected to see images of people in boats as we’ve seen over the last few years. They are images from history books brought to life, and the most disgusting reality.” One jar in Perth contains bottled water an asylum seeker bought for her son; she and her two infant children spent 21 days on a boat to Christmas Island, packed in with 83 others. “There’s a lot of people on islands not being allowed into Australia,” Sharrocks says. Climate change has also had a profound impact on Perth’s dwindling water supply, and the collection contains hope for a solution: a small bottle of water from the Groundwater Replenishment Scheme, donated by Minister for Water Dave Kelly. The year after the project began in Soho in 2013, it was installed at Somerset House in London. Sharrocks remembers a woman arriving one day, waiting and listening for almost an hour while others told their stories, before simply placing a tiny bottle on the table and leaving the room. Sharrocks picked it up and read the label. “It was a bottle full of tears after the death of her baby. And she walked out. I ran out after her – she never told me much more than what is on the label she attached, we just cried and hugged,” she remembers. “Sometimes stories are unutterable. There were so many tears in that bottle.” Walking through the museum you’re struck by the generosity of the people who donated. Some of the bottles are so personal, so meaningful, it’s almost shocking that they’d let them go. “The woman who gave me her breaking waters and the water her baby was born into – I’ve never met her, but she emailed me saying, ‘I have this bottle, do you want it?’” Sharrocks says. “I was like, ‘What?’” The woman, in the end, thanked Sharrocks for the opportunity. “She said, ‘I never would have thought to keep the water of her birth, and I don’t need to own it, but I’m so glad that it exists ... Now when my daughter is older I can bring her to see it. It’s part of the world.’” “I wish I’d thought of this piece 10 years ago, so I could have brought my own children’s birth water ... There’s this extraordinarily careful sense of give and take in the museum, where everybody gains.” The museum’s Australian iteration features sound art by Rachael Dease, workshops and the audio archives, as well as short documentaries made by school children in WA – one, from kids in Perth, traces the passage of water across the city through pipes under the ground; another, from children in Karratha in the Pilbara, documents a spear-fishing trip and a turtle rescue. In one room of the historic sandstone complex, which was once used as a psychiatric hospital, visitors without a donation are asked what water they would have brought. They have written or drawn their responses, and fixed them to cover the walls. “I would have brought water from the part of the river where it suddenly drops off. The part of the river where I planned to drown,” reads one. “I would have brought the water from the river on the day I chose life, and courage, and everybody who I love.” The Australian collection has ended up slightly different to those in Europe. “In Australia, people seem really happy to get into the grit and dirt of the land, and the rivers, and the bodies of water,” Sharrocks says. “People have bored holes, and dredged up water – there’s this sense of river-in-a-jar.” She brings it back to a connection to country that has been part of Australia’s history for millennia. “I’ve met so many Indigenous elders, so many Noongar people, who talked to me about the community of water. They said actually it’s not just about the water; the waterhole is an epicentre of social cohesion. It’s the water, but it’s the reeds and it’s the dragonflies, it’s the wind that’s in the trees,” she says. “Everything happens in a context. This world is composite, not exclusive.” Of course, by its nature, the exhibition is ephemeral. In most of these jars the water will find a way out, evaporating through the glass, the plastic, through the porosity of the lid. For one woman, who collected her sample five years ago – the day her partner died – the water’s leakage represents an evaporation of grief. “She has associated the lowering levels of her water with a kind of recovery. Her pain wasn’t over, her grief wasn’t gone, but her mourning had changed from desperate pain to a calmer, abiding grief,” Sharrocks says. “It’s absolutely intended, in the museum, that the bottles are evaporating. But if the water is going out of the bottles, where is it going to?” she asks. The answer is that we’re breathing each other’s stories in. “All of us are implicated in this process. This sense of: how are we going to share this world? The bounty of this world? How are we going to save it, and share it amongst these countries, among these little islands? “That’s the question for all of us to answer – I would not want that question answered by a few white Western men. I don’t feel they do well at answering questions like that.” • The Museum of Water is on display at Fremantle Arts Centre until 23 March and can be viewed online

culture/2018/mar/15/birth-water-sweat-and-menstrual-blood-museum-of-waters-australian-donations

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-15T02:40:01Z

Birth water, sweat and menstrual blood: Museum of Water's Australian donations

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/15/birth-water-sweat-and-menstrual-blood-museum-of-waters-australian-donations

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/14/youth-takes-centre-stage-at-edinburgh-international-festival

The Edinburgh international festival is to celebrate the virtuosity of youth and mark the harrowing loss of teenage lives in the trenches, a century after the first world war ended. This August’s festival will bridge the century by opening with a mass audience light show featuring five telegrams sent home by young soldiers, contemporary music from acts such as St Vincent and Mogwai, and a programme of concerts by some of the world’s finest youth orchestras. Fergus Linehan, the festival’s director, said the classic music sector felt under huge pressure to make itself attractive to younger audiences – Scotland is holding a year of young people in 2018. “It feels like an opportunity to say, in this year, let’s just celebrate virtuosity among young people,” he said. The festival’s opening concert will feature Scotland’s national youth choir singing Haydn’s Creation, the youth jazz orchestra from Carnegie Hall in New York and YOA Orchestras of the Americas, an acclaimed ensemble from North and South America, as well as the national youth orchestra of Canada. Theatre will be heavily represented in this year’s programme, featuring Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot by the Tony-award winning Irish theatre group Druid, and Home by Geoff Sobelle, where a house is built as its residents live there and leave as a party takes place. The French company, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, will have a long residency this year, presenting three shows including The Prisoner, a production which meditates on justice and guilt with a multinational cast from Sri Lanka, Rwanda, India and the UK. The commemorations of the end of the first world war will also feature Xenos, the last full-length production by the dancer Akram Khan, examining the experience of a shell-shocked Indian soldier trapped in a trench on the Western Front, thousands of miles from home. Part of the 14-18 Now season to mark the war, Khan’s production is one of several shows which the festival has made in its first collaboration with the BBC proms and Sadler’s Wells theatre in London, which will present Xenos in May. The Five Telegrams light show from 59 Productions, which like its previous show Harmonium Project will be broadcast onto the Usher Hall in central Edinburgh, is being featured too at the Royal Albert Hall in July. For opera-goers, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord will present John Gay’s 300-year-old satire The Beggar’s Opera, while the Hallé orchestra will put on Siegfried, in the third part of Wagner’s ring cycle, which Edinburgh is staging over four years, with Christine Goerke as Brünnhilde. In 1918, young men of the same age were being slaughtered in the trenches in an “unnecessary sacrifice”, Linehan said. “There was at the end of the first world war a sense there was no way back, when the [previous] order was being discredited. It was the end of empire and the beginning of universal suffrage.” Linehan said he was untroubled by the risk that audiences may have already seen Xenos or Five Telegrams in London before they were put on in Edinburgh. He said premiers were risky: complex or ambitious shows often improved over time. And collaborations were now routine in the international arts world. “We have just stopped worrying about it,” he said. “There is nothing to indicate that there’s a diminishing audience from it.” Objecting to coproductions “just shuts down so many healthy conversations.” Edinburgh international festival tickets will go on general sale at 10am on 24 March

culture/2018/mar/14/youth-takes-centre-stage-at-edinburgh-international-festival

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2018-03-14T18:30:14Z

Youth takes centre stage at Edinburgh international festival

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/14/youth-takes-centre-stage-at-edinburgh-international-festival

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/14/late-night-hosts-on-trump-firing-tillerson-the-strange-part-of-this-is-everything

Late-night hosts discussed Donald Trump’s surprise firing of Rex Tillerson and the unusual way in which it unfolded. Stephen Colbert On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert announced himself as “the one person Donald Trump hasn’t fired”. He joked that “the strange part of this is everything” while discussing Trump’s decision to fire the secretary of state via Twitter. “It’s too bad Twitter wasn’t around when Trump ended his first two marriages,” he said. “Back then he had to do it by fax.” The news was seen as especially odd given the timing. It occurred the day after Tillerson agreed with Theresa May about Russian involvement in the death of a spy. “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck the duck probably has something on your boss so kill it with nerve agent,” he joked. During Tillerson’s emotional farewell speech, he reminded those remaining in the government that they need to remember why they are there. “It’s not that comforting that the secretary of state has to remind government employees that they work for the constitution,” he said. “That’s like the retiring administrator of a hospital saying ‘I just want to remind the surgeons, yes, you’ve got a lot of knives but they’re not for stabbing people.’” A Republican-led House investigation has found that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, a result that disagreed with all other reports. “After a yearlong investigation, they have examined all the evidence and concluded that they do not want to be sprayed with a nerve agent,” he said. Trevor Noah On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah briefly recapped the ups and downs of Trump and Tillerson’s stances on North Korea. While Tillerson had originally suggested talks were possible, Trump disagreed. Tillerson changed his messaging to fall in line with this and then Trump changed his mind. “These are some serious mind games,” he said. “It’s like Trump was trying to get Tillerson to break up with him.” During Trump’s interview with the press, he claimed that Tillerson would be much happier now that he has left his position. “Trump is right,” he said. “Rex Tillerson will be much happier now. Everyone who leaves the White House ends up happier.” Tillerson was reportedly unsure about originally taking on the job but it was his wife who urged him to say yes. “Some wives ask their man to take out the garbage,” he said. “This one told Tillerson to go live in it.” Seth Meyers On Late Night with Seth Meyers, the host also spoke about the decision to fire Tillerson via Twitter. “Even when you get fired from Domino’s, the manager takes you into that crappy little office and tells you to your face,” he said. “Tweets are for finding out which band is in town or which airline was mean to Chrissy Teigen.” Meyers noted that it was similar to the firing of James Comey. “Basically, if you’re over six feet tall, Trump wants no part of giving you bad news,” he joked. “That’s why he’s jumping at the chance to meet Kim Jong-un.” He then went on to describe Tillerson. “He had the energy of a 14-year-old bloodhound on his third mint julep,” he said. “He always looked like he was walking through a fart cloud.” He called the firing of Tillerson “the end of this myth that serious people can rein in Donald Trump” and said he felt sympathy “the same way I feel sympathy when someone gets attacked by a gorilla at the zoo”.

culture/2018/mar/14/late-night-hosts-on-trump-firing-tillerson-the-strange-part-of-this-is-everything

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2018-03-14T14:58:02Z

Late-night on Trump firing Tillerson: 'The strange part of this is everything'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/14/late-night-hosts-on-trump-firing-tillerson-the-strange-part-of-this-is-everything

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/shortcuts/2018/mar/13/contact-details-get-famous-jumanji-instagram

Fate came calling for Bethany Walker late last year. Her name happened to be the same as that of a character in the Jumanji movie reboot. That character took some selfies on an Instagram-style app. And now, Walker’s Instagram handle, @Bethanywalker, is being besieged by fans of tedious remakes starring Dwayne Johnson. This is a problem. Walker, 22, from south London has asked Sony to cut the offending scene from the film. The question “Why don’t you just change your Insta handle?” seems oddly remote from the debate. But Walker is not the first to suffer in this way. Tommy Tutone’s hit 1981 single, 867 5309/Jenny, hammered the fictional Jenny’s digits so hard in its repetitive chorus that they remain off-limits with many phone companies in the US to this day. (One radio station acquired the number and received 22,000 calls over four days.) That was the highest-charting phone number of all time, until Logic, Khalid and Alessia Cara improved on it last year, with 1-800-273-8255. The number is a suicide prevention hotline. On the day the song was released, the service had the second-highest call volume in its history. The size of the deluge can be extraordinary. In Pets Or Meat: The Return to Flint, the film-maker Michael Moore inadvertently included footage of himself mumbling his home phone number. He had 314 calls within a few hours of the film being broadcast. In 2009, an Oldham family found itself being “bombarded” with calls from fans of tween-rapper Soulja Boy, when theirs was the 12-digit number featured in the opening lines of Kiss Me Thru the Phone. People will phone any number, it seems. The 2003 Jim Carrey comedy Bruce Almighty gave God’s phone number as 776-2323. Universal Pictures claimed that it had blocked off the number for New York state – where the film is set. But a woman in Florida threatened to sue after receiving 20 calls an hour. In North Carolina, the number belonged to a pastor, who happened to be called Bruce. He was not amused. A sandwich shop manager in Manchester who received 70 calls a day was also less than impressed. Others have attempted to use that deluge for savvy marketing. The Elizabeth Olsen vehicle Ingrid Goes West shared snaps from the lead character’s road trip via a real-world Instagram account also featured in the film. Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia featured the telephone number (877) TAME-HER in Tom Cruise’s Seduce and Destroy infomercials. Dialling it once led callers to a recording of Cruise giving his pitch. Later, it connected to a Los Angeles-based health club called Meridian’s Bodies in Motion. The fact that the club has since closed down is presumably unrelated.

culture/shortcuts/2018/mar/13/contact-details-get-famous-jumanji-instagram

pillar/arts

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article

2018-03-13T17:05:05Z

‘Don’t @ me!’ – what happens when your contact details get famous?

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/shortcuts/2018/mar/13/contact-details-get-famous-jumanji-instagram

['fate', 'came', 'calling', 'bethany', 'walker', 'late', 'last', 'year', 'name', 'happened', 'character', 'jumanji', 'movie', 'reboot', 'character', 'took', 'selfies', 'instagram-style', 'app', 'walker', 'instagram', 'handle', 'bethanywalker', 'besieged', 'fans', 'tedious', 'remakes', 'starring', 'dwayne', 'johnson', 'problem', 'walker', 'south', 'london', 'asked', 'sony', 'cut', 'offending', 'scene', 'film', 'question', 'change', 'insta', 'handle', 'seems', 'oddly', 'remote', 'debate', 'walker', 'first', 'suffer', 'way', 'tommy', 'tutone', 'hit', 'single', '5309jenny', 'hammered', 'fictional', 'jenny', 'digits', 'hard', 'repetitive', 'chorus', 'remain', 'off-limits', 'many', 'phone', 'companies', 'us', 'day', 'one', 'radio', 'station', 'acquired', 'number', 'received', 'calls', 'four', 'days', 'highest-charting', 'phone', 'number', 'time', 'logic', 'khalid', 'alessia', 'cara', 'improved', 'last', 'year', '1-800-273-8255', 'number', 'suicide', 'prevention', 'hotline', 'day', 'song', 'released', 'service', 'second-highest', 'call', 'volume', 'history', 'size', 'deluge', 'extraordinary', 'pets', 'meat', 'return', 'flint', 'film-maker', 'michael', 'moore', 'inadvertently', 'included', 'footage', 'mumbling', 'home', 'phone', 'number', 'calls', 'within', 'hours', 'film', 'broadcast', 'oldham', 'family', 'found', 'bombarded', 'calls', 'fans', 'tween-rapper', 'soulja', 'boy', '12-digit', 'number', 'featured', 'opening', 'lines', 'kiss', 'thru', 'phone', 'people', 'phone', 'number', 'seems', 'jim', 'carrey', 'comedy', 'bruce', 'almighty', 'gave', 'god', 'phone', 'number', '776-2323', 'universal', 'pictures', 'claimed', 'blocked', 'number', 'new', 'york', 'state', 'film', 'set', 'woman', 'florida', 'threatened', 'sue', 'receiving', 'calls', 'hour', 'north', 'carolina', 'number', 'belonged', 'pastor', 'happened', 'called', 'bruce', 'amused', 'sandwich', 'shop', 'manager', 'manchester', 'received', 'calls', 'day', 'also', 'less', 'impressed', 'others', 'attempted', 'use', 'deluge', 'savvy', 'marketing', 'elizabeth', 'olsen', 'vehicle', 'ingrid', 'goes', 'west', 'shared', 'snaps', 'lead', 'character', 'road', 'trip', 'via', 'real-world', 'instagram', 'account', 'also', 'featured', 'film', 'paul', 'thomas', 'anderson', 'magnolia', 'featured', 'telephone', 'number', 'tame-her', 'tom', 'cruise', 'seduce', 'destroy', 'infomercials', 'dialling', 'led', 'callers', 'recording', 'cruise', 'giving', 'pitch', 'later', 'connected', 'los', 'angeles-based', 'health', 'club', 'called', 'meridian', 'bodies', 'motion', 'fact', 'club', 'since', 'closed', 'presumably', 'unrelated']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/13/late-night-hosts-on-trump-does-he-think-acting-like-a-buffoon-is-mandatory

Late-night hosts took aim at Donald Trump’s “unhinged” rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend and shared concerns over his planned meeting with Kim Jong-un. Stephen Colbert On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert discussed the president’s announcement of a new slogan, unveiled at the rally to endorse local candidate Rick Saccone. Make America Great Again will now be Keep America Great! for the 2020 election. “He’s replacing Maga with Kag,” he said. “Keep America Great? Where have I heard that before? Well, it turns out it’s the tagline for the movie The Purge: Election Year.” Trump also decided to criticize Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd. Colbert quipped: “Chuck Todd is not a sleeping son of a bitch. He’s a goatee host organism.” Then followed a strange impression of Trump acting in the way he thinks people expect a president to act. “Is Trump really making fun of what he thinks normal presidents are like?” he said. “That’s like an alcoholic going: ‘Ooh look at me, I can hold down a job without drinking wine in the bathroom.’” He claimed it’s harder to act in the way that he does but it’s something he has to do. “You have to do this?” Colbert said. “Does he think acting like a buffoon is mandatory? Is this some sort of Speed situation? Somebody strapped a bomb to the country and if the president’s IQ goes above 55, America explodes?” When Trump brought up his meeting with Kim Jong-un, the audience booed and he told them not to react so harshly. “Don’t boo Kim Jong-un,” Colbert said. “He’s just a murderous dictator who fed his own uncle to dogs.” Trevor Noah On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah also played footage from Trump’s rally, including a line about his wife, claiming that she doesn’t have an easy life, despite what many think. “Who thinks Melania has it easy?” he said. “The number one story in America right now is that her husband had an affair with a porn star and then forgot to sign his own non-disclosure agreement. Melania still has to pretend that she’s happily married which is really hard. Sally Hawkins had an easier job acting like she wanted to fuck a fish.” He moved on to the meet with Kim Jong-un and commented on how unprecedented it will be: “It’s like a Sesame Street episode about group sex: it’s never happened.” Noah continued: “The experts have been trying to solve North Korea for 20 years and it’s only gotten worse so if the smart people can’t do it then why not try Trump? It’s like if you had a rare disease that the world’s top doctors couldn’t cure so you were like, ‘Why not let that dog in a hat have a try?’” Seth Meyers On Late Night with Seth Meyers, the host also spoke about Trump’s “unhinged performance” as well as Betsy Devos’s “trainwreck of an interview” on 60 Minutes. Meyers remarked on how little time Trump devoted to Saccone during the rally, despite the fact that he was the reason he turned up. “Trump’s like the friend you invite to your karaoke party who shows up late, doesn’t bring a gift and then sings Stairway to Heaven 10 times in a row,” he said. Trump also spoke about Oprah as a potential opponent, claiming he knows her weakness. “He talks about Oprah the way Lex Luthor talks about Superman,” he said. Meyers continued: “If Trump ever does debate Oprah, there’s a good chance it will end with Trump sobbing at the podium.” He then moved on to Betsy Devos who stumbled her way through an interview on Sunday. “She’s the highest-ranking education official in the country and she acts like a substitute teacher who is just realizing her US history isn’t up to speed,” he said. Finally, Meyers also brought up the meeting with Kim Jong-un and the possibility that Trump could fall “ass backwards” into some sort of resolution. “If that happens, I will be the first to admit that he wasn’t Darth Vader, he was Mr Bean,” he said.

culture/2018/mar/13/late-night-hosts-on-trump-does-he-think-acting-like-a-buffoon-is-mandatory

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2018-03-13T15:03:07Z

Late-night hosts on Trump: 'Does he think acting like a buffoon is mandatory?'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/13/late-night-hosts-on-trump-does-he-think-acting-like-a-buffoon-is-mandatory

['late-night', 'hosts', 'took', 'aim', 'donald', 'trump', 'unhinged', 'rally', 'pennsylvania', 'weekend', 'shared', 'concerns', 'planned', 'meeting', 'kim', 'jong-un', 'stephen', 'colbert', 'late', 'show', 'stephen', 'colbert', 'discussed', 'president', 'announcement', 'new', 'slogan', 'unveiled', 'rally', 'endorse', 'local', 'candidate', 'rick', 'saccone', 'make', 'america', 'great', 'keep', 'america', 'great', 'election', 'replacing', 'maga', 'kag', 'said', 'keep', 'america', 'great', 'heard', 'well', 'turns', 'tagline', 'movie', 'purge', 'election', 'year', 'trump', 'also', 'decided', 'criticize', 'meet', 'press', 'moderator', 'chuck', 'todd', 'colbert', 'quipped', 'chuck', 'todd', 'sleeping', 'son', 'bitch', 'goatee', 'host', 'organism', 'followed', 'strange', 'impression', 'trump', 'acting', 'way', 'thinks', 'people', 'expect', 'president', 'act', 'trump', 'really', 'making', 'fun', 'thinks', 'normal', 'presidents', 'like', 'said', 'like', 'alcoholic', 'going', 'ooh', 'look', 'hold', 'job', 'without', 'drinking', 'wine', 'bathroom', 'claimed', 'harder', 'act', 'way', 'something', 'colbert', 'said', 'think', 'acting', 'like', 'buffoon', 'mandatory', 'sort', 'speed', 'situation', 'somebody', 'strapped', 'bomb', 'country', 'president', 'iq', 'goes', 'america', 'explodes', 'trump', 'brought', 'meeting', 'kim', 'jong-un', 'audience', 'booed', 'told', 'react', 'harshly', 'boo', 'kim', 'jong-un', 'colbert', 'said', 'murderous', 'dictator', 'fed', 'uncle', 'dogs', 'trevor', 'noah', 'daily', 'show', 'trevor', 'noah', 'also', 'played', 'footage', 'trump', 'rally', 'including', 'line', 'wife', 'claiming', 'easy', 'life', 'despite', 'many', 'think', 'thinks', 'melania', 'easy', 'said', 'number', 'one', 'story', 'america', 'right', 'husband', 'affair', 'porn', 'star', 'forgot', 'sign', 'non-disclosure', 'agreement', 'melania', 'still', 'pretend', 'happily', 'married', 'really', 'hard', 'sally', 'hawkins', 'easier', 'job', 'acting', 'like', 'wanted', 'fuck', 'fish', 'moved', 'meet', 'kim', 'jong-un', 'commented', 'unprecedented', 'like', 'sesame', 'street', 'episode', 'group', 'sex', 'never', 'happened', 'noah', 'continued', 'experts', 'trying', 'solve', 'north', 'korea', 'years', 'gotten', 'worse', 'smart', 'people', 'try', 'trump', 'like', 'rare', 'disease', 'world', 'top', 'doctors', 'could', 'cure', 'like', 'let', 'dog', 'hat', 'try', 'seth', 'meyers', 'late', 'night', 'seth', 'meyers', 'host', 'also', 'spoke', 'trump', 'unhinged', 'performance', 'well', 'betsy', 'devos', 'trainwreck', 'interview', 'minutes', 'meyers', 'remarked', 'little', 'time', 'trump', 'devoted', 'saccone', 'rally', 'despite', 'fact', 'reason', 'turned', 'trump', 'like', 'friend', 'invite', 'karaoke', 'party', 'shows', 'late', 'bring', 'gift', 'sings', 'stairway', 'heaven', 'times', 'row', 'said', 'trump', 'also', 'spoke', 'oprah', 'potential', 'opponent', 'claiming', 'knows', 'weakness', 'talks', 'oprah', 'way', 'lex', 'luthor', 'talks', 'superman', 'said', 'meyers', 'continued', 'trump', 'ever', 'debate', 'oprah', 'good', 'chance', 'end', 'trump', 'sobbing', 'podium', 'moved', 'betsy', 'devos', 'stumbled', 'way', 'interview', 'sunday', 'highest-ranking', 'education', 'official', 'country', 'acts', 'like', 'substitute', 'teacher', 'realizing', 'us', 'history', 'speed', 'said', 'finally', 'meyers', 'also', 'brought', 'meeting', 'kim', 'jong-un', 'possibility', 'trump', 'could', 'fall', 'ass', 'backwards', 'sort', 'resolution', 'happens', 'first', 'admit', 'darth', 'vader', 'mr', 'bean', 'said']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/13/kings-of-war-review-ivo-van-hoves-stunning-shakespeare-marathon-somehow-falls-short

Richard III (Hans Kesting) stands on a stage that has been stripped back of nearly everything, manipulating Lady Anne (Hélène Devos) into marriage. He oversaw the death of her father-in-law; she is distraught. He holds the power of life and death in his hand; she holds none. Although they speak Dutch in front of a largely English-speaking audience, their performances are so captivating, the minutiae of their body movements so delicate and nuanced, you can turn your head away from the surtitles and still understand what’s happening. This is towards the end of Ivo van Hove’s Kings of War, the centerpiece of the theatre program of this year’s Adelaide festival. The scale of Van Hove’s work here is huge: a four-and-a-half-hour performance of Shakespeare’s Henry V, Henry VI and Richard III, a cast of 19 actors and musicians – and one videographer – playing to a theatre of 2,000 seats. The work weaves the onstage world with the backstage, streams of conversations transferred to twisting white hallways where a corner is turned and suddenly the space is filled with dead bodies or a rave. But in spite of this largesse, what makes Van Hove’s treatment of these plays fascinating is the way he has distilled them into, essentially, office dramas. We are used to seeing contemporary productions of Shakespeare’s tragedies presented as bombastic sound and fury. Here, conversations are quieter: kings are disposed of and royal marriages are manipulated because of thought games and a greed for power that is all together more insidious than many productions would lead us to believe. In this, it is in the scenes where the work is at its quietest – a leering, posturing Richard III softly talking to a bereft Anne – that Kings of War is at its strongest. The ensemble formation of actors at Toneelgroep Amsterdam has no contemporary equivalent in Australian theatre and the depth of the cast’s performances and the nuances of their relationships with each other are stunning. Van Hove was last in Adelaide with Roman Tragedies, itself a six-hour Shakespearean adaptation – and the most talked about production at the festival since The Mahabharata in 1988. Comparisons are inevitable but it is perhaps not fair that an artist like Van Hove become judged on such a sliver of his work. In some ways, it feels like the Adelaide festival – or at least its marketing strategy – has been trying to play catch-up ever since, first with The James Plays and now with Kings of War. These plays – long, epic in scale, either based on plays or history from 16th century – have taken up a particular place in the Adelaide festival consciousness. Four years ago, just before the last South Australian election, there was a ferocious contemporaneousness to Roman Tragedies: footage from news reports from the campaign ran on the stage; the work ended on the streets of Adelaide with footage broadcast back into the theatre. In light of this, Kings of War feels all at once more removed – and certainly not engaged with the strangeness of this year’s election. But it is technically a stunning achievement. Van Hove plays with large images on his expansive sweep of a stage, not least of all in the video work that walks us through backstage worlds impossible to be formed in the theatre but woven in so carefully you almost – almost – feel the backstage area of the Festival theatre is truly filled with sheep. The brass band of act one gives a intriguing out-of-world regality to this contemporised world; the electronic score of act two beats under the growing discomfort of an evil Richard III. Four-and-a-half hours is long for a single production but it is short for a trilogy of Shakespeare, and Van Hove rips through them, breaking them down into the most important beats in a story not of one man but of decades of men, civil war and unjust power. The translation from English to Dutch and then back to English through surtitles throws up Shakespeare’s text in surprising ways: not beholden to fidelity, we can see these scenes truly new. Indeed, on the page, all of the elements are there: an intriguing trilogy, inventive staging, powerhouse performances. But, at the end of the night, something fails to bind. Perhaps it is Roman Tragedies looming too large; perhaps it is that the lure of framing these stories by their smallness makes them not big enough to fill four-and-a-half hours. Tease apart the elements, you have something outstanding: step back and see the whole and, somehow, they all add up to less than their parts. • Kings of War is at the Adelaide festival until 13 March

culture/2018/mar/13/kings-of-war-review-ivo-van-hoves-stunning-shakespeare-marathon-somehow-falls-short

pillar/arts

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culture

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2018-03-13T02:16:27Z

Kings of War review – Ivo van Hove's stunning Shakespeare marathon somehow falls short

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/13/kings-of-war-review-ivo-van-hoves-stunning-shakespeare-marathon-somehow-falls-short

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/13/womadelaide-2018-all-singing-all-dancing-festival-of-joy

“We’re here to make you dance,” declared Bixiga, the big, brassy Hawaiian shirt-clad opening act who revved up the Womadelaide crowd on Friday with a blast of Latin-spiked Afrobeat. The Brazilian band’s statement of intent could well have been the manifesto for this year’s festival of global music and dance, which threw off the shackles of last year’s overly political event for four days of sheer, uninterrupted joy. Where last year’s Womadelaide fell in the dark shadow of Donald Trump’s inauguration, this year’s all-ages crowd mostly just wanted to forget about the world beyond Adelaide’s Botanic Park and have fun in the (blazing hot) sun. The only person with politics 100% on their mind was Jay Weatherill, the Labor premier who could be spotted shmoozing up some extra votes on the eve of the South Australian election. On opening night, the good times continued with New Orleans funk-soul-hip-hop ensemble Tank and the Bangas, its frontwoman and spoken word artist Terriona “Tank” Bell pairing cartoon character goofiness with proudly gigantic hair. Just about every Triple J listener in Adelaide under the age of 20 crammed in to see rising young Yolngu artist Baker Boy. Although relatively new to the scene, he arrived on stage a fully fledged rapper, sporting a slick black outfit and sharp hip-hop moves as he and his crew powered through upbeat Hottest 100 favourites Cloud 9 and Marryuna. Baker Boy’s confidence has soared in the two months since I last saw him perform – in the interim he has supported both 50 Cent and Dizzee Rascal, and some of the star quality has clearly rubbed off. Those who turned up to Baker Boy’s Saturday afternoon dance workshop saw a sweet and nurturing side to the 21-year-old. He reminded us to keep hydrated as he walked us through the moves to Marryuna – part of his campaign to turn the song into the next Gangnam Style-esque dance sensation. Baker Boy also made a cameo during the blistering set of his cousin, Yirrmal, who showcased what must be some of the finest vocal cords in Australia right now. No one begrudged Anoushka Shankar for breaking out the politics as she performed her 2016 concept album Land of Gold, written in response to the refugee crisis. It was the sitar virtuoso’s first Womadelaide appearance since 2010 when she performed with her now late father, Ravi, in a set that was faithful to the Indian classical tradition. This year’s mesmerising show married the centuries-old Indian instrument with full-blown fusion: electronica, jazz and even industrial sounds complemented the nasal wail of the shehnai and the steady pulse of the hang as Shankar’s swaying black curls threatened to launch into all-out headbanging. After the darkness of Shankar’s music, Rodrigo y Gabriela’s instrumental set was total euphoria as the Mexican buskers-turned-international superstars proved two people with chemistry and flamenco guitars can lift a crowd of thousands. But the most uplifting performance of the long weekend belonged to word-of-mouth phenomenon Place des Anges (Place of Angels): a large-scale aerial ballet by French acrobatic troupe Gratte Ciel, which took over the skies before popping up all over Instagram. Every night mischievous spotlit angels ascended towering cranes and glided on ziplines over the crowd, a stonkingly good soundtrack blaring as their wings moulted, they had celestial pillow fights and a blimp-sized inflatable white cherub wended its way through the audience. Children were enraptured while baby boomers wondered if they were having acid flashbacks. The performance culminated in one tonne of white duck feathers gently raining down upon the audience, joyous smiles facing skyward, arms aloft in the illuminated blizzard. I wouldn’t be alone in admitting the finale brought tears to my eyes. Unfortunately it also brought feathery bits into my eyeballs, which took hours to dislodge. The performance also got up the noses of animal rights advocates who questioned how many ducks had to suffer for our viewing pleasure. The 35C heat that dogged the first half of the four-day festival saw many punters retreat beneath trees during the day while opting for low-key acts including the sepia-tinged folk of Syrian-born Armenian American singer Bedouine; the melancholic ballads of young Melbourne crooner Didirri; and the floaty kora-led sounds of Canadian-Iranian-Senegalese ensemble Constantinople and Ablaye Cissoko. It was a testament to the infectious cumbia of Chile’s Chico Trujillo and the knees-up renditions of Yiddish drinking songs by 22-piece Melbourne band YID! that plenty of people were willing to risk dignity and heatstroke by emerging from the shade to dance wildly in front of the stage. Gypsy-punk-ska rockers Gogol Bordello were fortunate enough to be granted a cool late-night slot, the perfect platform for 45-year-old Ukrainian frontman and one-time fashion icon Eugene Hütz to demonstrate he’s still got boundless energy, a rippling torso, effortless style (the plastic sunflowers in the gun holster really set off his crotch-strangling jeans) and the ability to make his anarchic and perpetually frowning troupe look like the most fun band in the world to be in. Kamasi Washington was a treat for anyone who likes extended saxophone solos and the chance to hear from his father, Rickey, the man who taught the American jazz guru “everything I know” and who joined him on stage. In another highlight, Aussie sample masters the Avalanches brought out Baltimore rapper Spank Rock to perform his 2006 hit Bump before a verse on Frontier Psychiatrist. Downtempo duo Thievery Corporation had a rollcall of magnetic guest vocalists, including former Miss Universe Jamaica contestant Racquel Jones. Remi and Sampa the Great – the new political face of Australian hip-hop, who won the $30,000 Australian music prize last week for her debut album – was another collaboration that delighted crowds. Womadelaide is what happens when you’re on the way to see another band – and anyone who caught sight of Ghanaian performer Jojo Abot would have halted in their tracks. Her latest EP, NGIWUNKULUNKULU, means “I Am God” in Zulu, and gracing the stage as the sun was setting with her gold-painted palms and matching eyelids, violet talons, red hair extensions and Geisha-goes-to-West-Africa-to-play-lawn-tennis-inspired outfit, she certainly looked – and sounded – every bit the deity. (The white angels from Place de Anges, who stood watching in full costume from the stage wings, added to the impression.) Flanked by two extraordinary dancers, Abot’s set was an exercise in precision performance art, incorporating smoking rituals and her signature “Afro-hypno-sonic” music that is a polyrhythmic blend of Afrobeat, jazz, kwaito, electronica, reggae and neo-soul. Other strange but satisfying acts included Israel’s Victoria Hanna, who plucked saucy passages from the Bible and turned them into avant garde hip-hop tracks; and Cie Pernette, a dance troupe made up of local volunteers who pirouetted around with garden sprayers, shooting out liquid arcs in time to Strauss’s Blue Danube waltz. As always, the Planet Talks tent was the brains and social conscience of Womadelaide, featuring the likes of former al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste in conversation about press freedom with the Guardian’s own Ben Doherty, and Pacific island climate justice activists Ursula Rakova and Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner talking with Julian Burnside and Tim Costello about how to turn the tide on climate change. (Solutions ranged from sending Tony Abbott to the Marshall Islands to engineering a global paradigm shift.) Over in the Taste the World tent, where artists cook their favourite dish from their homeland in a kind of multicultural MasterChef, Nano Stern, who became increasingly loose-lipped on Chilean wine while his bandmate made sopaipillas, had the chutzpah to address the elephant in the room. He applauded the diversity of Womadelaide’s lineup (this year artists hailed from 25 countries) but called out the whiteness of the audience. The long-haired Chilean folk star continued to serve food for thought in his Monday afternoon performance, where he spoke against the genocide of his country’s indigenous people as well as the treatment of refugees in Australia’s offshore detention centres (he read out an impassioned statement from a refugee on Manus Island). But ultimately, he said, he was just there to make us happy. “When you go home [after Womadelaide] and look in the mirror – with the dirt on your face and feathers in your hair – if you see someone happier than the person who came to the festival, we have done our job.”

culture/2018/mar/13/womadelaide-2018-all-singing-all-dancing-festival-of-joy

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-13T02:07:08Z

Womadelaide 2018: all singing, all dancing festival of joy

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/13/womadelaide-2018-all-singing-all-dancing-festival-of-joy

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'political', 'face', 'australian', 'hip-hop', 'australian', 'music', 'prize', 'last', 'week', 'debut', 'album', 'another', 'collaboration', 'delighted', 'crowds', 'womadelaide', 'happens', 'way', 'see', 'another', 'band', 'anyone', 'caught', 'sight', 'ghanaian', 'performer', 'jojo', 'abot', 'would', 'halted', 'tracks', 'latest', 'ep', 'ngiwunkulunkulu', 'means', 'god', 'zulu', 'gracing', 'stage', 'sun', 'setting', 'gold-painted', 'palms', 'matching', 'eyelids', 'violet', 'talons', 'red', 'hair', 'extensions', 'geisha-goes-to-west-africa-to-play-lawn-tennis-inspired', 'outfit', 'certainly', 'looked', 'sounded', 'every', 'bit', 'deity', 'white', 'angels', 'place', 'de', 'anges', 'stood', 'watching', 'full', 'costume', 'stage', 'wings', 'added', 'impression', 'flanked', 'two', 'extraordinary', 'dancers', 'abot', 'set', 'exercise', 'precision', 'performance', 'art', 'incorporating', 'smoking', 'rituals', 'signature', 'afro-hypno-sonic', 'music', 'polyrhythmic', 'blend', 'afrobeat', 'jazz', 'kwaito', 'electronica', 'reggae', 'neo-soul', 'strange', 'satisfying', 'acts', 'included', 'israel', 'victoria', 'hanna', 'plucked', 'saucy', 'passages', 'bible', 'turned', 'avant', 'garde', 'hip-hop', 'tracks', 'cie', 'pernette', 'dance', 'troupe', 'made', 'local', 'volunteers', 'pirouetted', 'around', 'garden', 'sprayers', 'shooting', 'liquid', 'arcs', 'time', 'strauss', 'blue', 'danube', 'waltz', 'always', 'planet', 'talks', 'tent', 'brains', 'social', 'conscience', 'womadelaide', 'featuring', 'likes', 'former', 'al-jazeera', 'journalist', 'peter', 'greste', 'conversation', 'press', 'freedom', 'guardian', 'ben', 'doherty', 'pacific', 'island', 'climate', 'justice', 'activists', 'ursula', 'rakova', 'kathy', 'jetnil-kijiner', 'talking', 'julian', 'burnside', 'tim', 'costello', 'turn', 'tide', 'climate', 'change', 'solutions', 'ranged', 'sending', 'tony', 'abbott', 'marshall', 'islands', 'engineering', 'global', 'paradigm', 'shift', 'taste', 'world', 'tent', 'artists', 'cook', 'favourite', 'dish', 'homeland', 'kind', 'multicultural', 'masterchef', 'nano', 'stern', 'became', 'increasingly', 'loose-lipped', 'chilean', 'wine', 'bandmate', 'made', 'sopaipillas', 'chutzpah', 'address', 'elephant', 'room', 'applauded', 'diversity', 'womadelaide', 'lineup', 'year', 'artists', 'hailed', 'countries', 'called', 'whiteness', 'audience', 'long-haired', 'chilean', 'folk', 'star', 'continued', 'serve', 'food', 'thought', 'monday', 'afternoon', 'performance', 'spoke', 'genocide', 'country', 'indigenous', 'people', 'well', 'treatment', 'refugees', 'australia', 'offshore', 'detention', 'centres', 'read', 'impassioned', 'statement', 'refugee', 'manus', 'island', 'ultimately', 'said', 'make', 'us', 'happy', 'go', 'home', 'womadelaide', 'look', 'mirror', 'dirt', 'face', 'feathers', 'hair', 'see', 'someone', 'happier', 'person', 'came', 'festival', 'done', 'job']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/13/talking-heads-the-kosovo-war-life-in-the-hitler-youth-and-the-trials-of-turning-21

The year Ms Krconovic turned 21, in Belgrade during the Kosovo war, she was afraid for her life. Her father assured her that their town wouldn’t be bombed – he would shake his fist at the war planes in the sky – but Krconovic was terrified. She packed a bag with canned goods and personal items and dragged her mattress down the stairs into the basement of her apartment, and locked herself in. Her parents didn’t join her there – they thought she was being ridiculous – but she set up photos of them near her makeshift bed and waited for the bombing to start. After a few days, she sheepishly emerged. She opened the building door, walked through the quiet streets. Nothing had changed. When she recounted this story 15-odd years later, for Swiss artist Mats Staubs, Krconovic told it with humour and detachment. She joked about how young she was, and how overwrought. But when she listens to the audio of her story played back to her, three months after it was recorded, she began to cry. Belgrade did get bombed, targeted by a 78-day Nato campaign that killed more than 2,000 civilians. They destroyed the building next to the theatre in which she worked and Krconovic was lucky to survive. For the first time, she hears how she has been dealing with the trauma of the war: by downplaying it, and making jokes. “I’m acting there – and I’m doing a good job,” she says. Listening to her story as if it was someone else’s, she allows herself to think of herself as “that poor girl” for the first time. Krconovic is one of about 300 people – identified only by their surnames – who have so far taken part in Staubs’ audiovisual project, 21: Memories of Growing Up. The artist travelled the world recording 10 to 20 minutes of audio from people of all ages, races, backgrounds as they described their 21st year. Three months later, the project revisited these people – but this time there was a camera, not a microphone, that was turned on them. The audio of each person telling their story was played back to them, and their reaction filmed, as they listened to one past version of themselves describe another. Some 100 of these people are featured across 14 screens at the State Library of South Australia, in a moving, honest, often surprising installation that’s part of this year’s Adelaide festival. Watching these strangers grapple with their memories, and how to construct their own narratives, you think of the story you would tell: where were you when you turned 21? What kind of person were you? And which words would you use to describe that? At its most basic, the work questions the concept of adulthood, as it’s experienced around the world and across history, and how it’s changed over time. In the four hours I spend flicking through the faces at the exhibition (it’s addictive, and I could have spent four more) I hear from a German woman who was a member of Hitler Youth at 21; a young Maldivian who followed her family to Australia from Sri Lanka in 2011, curious to see the first world; and Ms West, a 45-year-old Indigenous Australian from Queensland with adopted parents, who was a dental assistant by day and a go-go dancer by night. “I still feel like an infant in my journey of working out who I am,” she says. I find Mr Cirilov, a man who turned 21 in the same city as Krconovic – but 47 years earlier, during the cold war. Cirilov grew up in extreme poverty, and watched his father die of a heart attack in front of him. “I felt very young and old at the same time, like I feel to the present day,” he says. But listening back to his own story months later, he’s struck by something else: “When I listen to myself, I remember that young boy,” Cirilov, now 77, says to the camera. “He was more daring and fresh – and at this moment I like that boy much more than I like [who I became].” The most interesting part of the work is what it reveals about how we tell our own stories. Miss Genevieve, a 37-year-old from England, talks of her 21st year with lightness, joy, good humour; she was idealistic and artistic back then, with huge hopes for herself and the world. But after listening back three months later, her body language shifts and tenses; she pushes the hair back from her face, holds her head in her hands. She looks a bit distressed. When the project recorded her story, she tells us, Genevieve’s marriage had just broken up, leaving her devastated and a sole parent. The audio is a reminder of the worst time of her life. “I sound so happy there but I was so destroyed,” she says, after it finishes. She compares the recent break-up to the one she had in her 21st year: the pain is the same, it’s still just as devastating, but the demands of age and of parenting have forced her to piece herself back together faster. And perhaps that’s the true definition of adulthood. “You have to get out of bed in the morning now,” she says. “You have to put your socks on.” • 21: Memories of Growing Up is installed at the State Library of South Australia as part of Adelaide festival. Guardian Australia travelled to Adelaide as a guest of the festival

culture/2018/mar/13/talking-heads-the-kosovo-war-life-in-the-hitler-youth-and-the-trials-of-turning-21

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-12T17:00:16Z

Talking heads: the Kosovo war, life in the Hitler youth and the trials of turning 21

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/13/talking-heads-the-kosovo-war-life-in-the-hitler-youth-and-the-trials-of-turning-21

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/11/christopher-eccleston-macbeths-very-insecure-about-his-masculinity-i-am-most-men-are

Within minutes of meeting the man, it becomes clear that Christopher Eccleston is the sort of person who would be very good in a crisis. He has an air of soothing security about him – an ardent calm, if you will – that encourages other people to pause, take a breath, and become mellower. By other people, obviously, I mostly mean me. But he has a similar salving effect on the staff in the bar where we meet, and on the photographer, too. We are all seduced. For Eccleston is quite the charmer. But as much as he is a great actor – from his debut as Derek Bentley in Let Him Have It through playing Steve Baxter, son of God, in Russell T Davies’s The Second Coming to his role in HBO’s acclaimed The Leftovers – his turn today is no performance. Overused a word it may be, but Eccleston seems authentic. When he says, “I think when you’re working at your best you’re constantly humble,” you believe it. And you believe him when he says: “Because I grew up with not much, I’ve always been a rainy day person. I’ve always put money away. And I know that doesn’t make me rock’n’roll, but I never imagined really that I’d get another job.” It’s different for him now, he admits. “I’ve got to the point where I believe I will work. But for the first 15, 20 years, I saved. I saved because I thought: ‘This is all going to fall through. And when it falls through, I want something to show for it.’” Eccleston’s energy – of which there’s lots – is invigorating. He gets animated – even angry – when discussing UK politics, or the moment in his career that he felt he might lose everything, or his regrets over taking roles primarily for financial reward. “Working on something like GI Joe was horrendous,” he says, emphasising that the responsibility was his and not anyone else’s. “I just wanted to cut my throat every day. And Thor? Just a gun in your mouth. Gone in 60 Seconds was a good experience. Nic Cage is a gentleman and fantastic actor. But GI Joe and Thor were … I really paid for being a whore those times.” Eccleston may not be a total stranger to hyperbole, then. After all, he is an actor, so he likes an audience – and he commands a room when he tells a story. But overall, he seems deeply decent and thoroughly thoughtful. Honesty, along with integrity, dignity – and Mancheser United – matter a lot to Eccleston. His own, and other people’s. When he left Doctor Who after the first series of the revived show, his decision was greeted with speculation and ultimately hostility, much of it exacerbated, says Eccleston, by the BBC’s mishandling of the situation. “What happened around Doctor Who almost destroyed my career,” he says. “I gave them a hit show and I left with dignity and then they put me on a blacklist. I was carrying my own insecurities as it was something I had never done before and then I was abandoned, vilified in the tabloid press and blacklisted. I was told by my agent at the time: ‘The BBC regime is against you. You’re going to have to get out of the country and wait for regime change.’ So I went away to America and I kept on working because that’s what my parents instilled in me. My dad always said to me: ‘I don’t care what you do – sweeping the floor or whatever you’re doing – just do the best job you can.’ I know it’s cliched and northern and all that bollocks, but it applies.” Working clearly works for Eccleston. Through this process, he has also developed compassion for himself. He talks of putting self-hatred to bed “a good few years ago … because it’s a waste of everybody else’s time, never mind my own. It’s a form of arrogance in itself.” And arrogance, like entitlement, does not pass the Eccleston Test. “I’ve seen those people and been in those corridors of power, and they smell of fear and shit.” Peter Bowker, the writer of the BBC series The A-Word that stars Eccleston, has known him since he cast him in The King and Us in 2002. When Eccleston acts, he says: “It’s almost as if you can see his soul ... saying that probably makes me sound like a twat, but I don’t care. With Chris, it’s true. He was just mesmerising – in Our Friends in the North, Cracker, Hillsborough – I just knew that instinctively he would understand and land my rhythms. He talks with intelligence and insight, and what he never does is pull rank. There are actors who remain curious – and it makes them continually interesting to watch.” For his part, Eccleston seems at ease with himself – and life – now. You suspect he could deal adeptly with whatever slings and arrows are flung at him – from strangers’ random rudeness and the challenges of fatherhood, to retiling a bathroom or wrestling a grizzly bear. His physicality helps – tall, broad and fit, he has hands like shovels – but it’s more an emotional than a physical presence. Like so much else in his life, Eccleston attributes his way of being to his upbringing and his quite-wonderful-sounding parents. He has pursued acting “largely in honour of my beloved mum and dad, who gave me everything, including a great love of literature, while they worked at Colgate Palmolive as a pallet packer and stacker truck driver, in the workplace at 14, the pair of them, working 40-hour weeks”. His parents’ values are crucial to who and where Eccleston is today. From the emphasis they placed on learning, reading and being curious about the world, to their work ethic and unerring support for his career choice, Eccleston owes them. “They were 100% behind me,” he smiles. “Which may not have been the case if they had had any idea of the statistics of actors not working.” Eccleston’s parents grew up in the 1930s, and he grew up on stories of “the terror of unemployment or not having enough money”. But that never translated into timidity. “There was never a poverty of ambition in our house. That’s why one of my brothers was very, very good at art, and the other was just this amazing raconteur. My parents never really said: ‘You’ve got a gift.’ The gift was your body, your concentration, your effort. It brings to mind my favourite Alex Ferguson quote, and I love Alex Ferguson: ‘See hard work? It’s a talent.’” This brings us to Macbeth; the official reason for our meeting is that Eccleston is playing the King of Scotland at the RSC. It has been an ambition ever since he first encountered the play, taking on the role of Macduff and the Sargent to Ayub Khan-Din’s thane. It was 1982, and Eccleston was 17 and a student at Salford college of technology. “We began rehearsals on the day that the Falklands war was declared and we went on to tour around the north-west: Liverpool, Oldham, Farnworth, Buxton. We lived in digs and drank enormous amounts. I fell in love with two women, one playwright, and his greatest play and role.” Eccleston says that it was listening to a “breathtaking Ayub” night after night that cemented his decision to become an actor and formulated an ambition to play Macbeth at the RSC. “Very apt, considering the play and the fact that all the posh fuckers ruled the RSC and British theatre top to bottom,” he notes, dryly. Eccleston has given his Hamlet in 2002, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, “but I never felt like a Hamlet”. He identifies much more with Macbeth “because he’s a soldier, a traditionally proletarian job. There’s no doubt that [director] Polly Findlay wanted me in this role because of what I bring, the things we’re talking about. And without jemmying it in, there are definitely things I can access – about being very capable, but being overlooked. Macbeth is fantastic at his job. He lays his life on the line, and then he sees a chinless, milky blue-blood become King of Scotland. So of course I’m going to use that. But it’s much more interesting to do that about the psychology of the character, rather than just wholly about my take on class politics in Britain. But it is definitely there.” But also there, says Eccleston, is so much more, not least an examination of masculinity (“He’s very insecure about his masculinity. As I am. As most men, I hope, are”) and a portrait of a relationship curdling from love into co-dependency. “Macbeth has a very solitary journey into depravity, but it is definitely a play about relationships, and hence Niamh Cusack [who plays Lady Macbeth] and I are both on the poster – it’s not just some image of me. Everything comes back to the marriage. That’s fed my Macbeth, because, I always felt there was a much more interesting dynamic than just him being chauvinistic and patriarchal. Though he is both those things.” By his own admission, Eccleston is primarily a television actor and doing Macbeth also feeds a need to take a break from “the constipation of screen acting”, as well as addressing the voice in his head that says “rightly or wrongly, to be a really good actor you have to be able to do it on stage”. “I needed to stretch my legs and test myself a bit, and I am doing that. When I did Hamlet, I said to all the cast: ‘I’m not going to read the reviews.’ But, of course, I read them. Genuinely this time, though, in a very healthy way, I’m not going to read them because I understand now that it doesn’t matter. Because, apparently, I’m reasonably secure in my career, and if this finishes me as a theatre actor …” An exit, then, perhaps pursued by a bear. Possibly waving a copy of the Stage. (I’m not a betting man, but my money’s not on the bear). Macbeth is at the RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, from 13 March.

culture/2018/mar/11/christopher-eccleston-macbeths-very-insecure-about-his-masculinity-i-am-most-men-are

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-12T10:07:05Z

Christopher Eccleston: ‘I gave Doctor Who a hit show and then they put me on a blacklist'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/11/christopher-eccleston-macbeths-very-insecure-about-his-masculinity-i-am-most-men-are

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'point', 'believe', 'work', 'first', 'years', 'saved', 'saved', 'thought', 'going', 'fall', 'falls', 'want', 'something', 'show', 'eccleston', 'energy', 'lots', 'invigorating', 'gets', 'animated', 'even', 'angry', 'discussing', 'uk', 'politics', 'moment', 'career', 'felt', 'might', 'lose', 'everything', 'regrets', 'taking', 'roles', 'primarily', 'financial', 'reward', 'working', 'something', 'like', 'gi', 'joe', 'horrendous', 'says', 'emphasising', 'responsibility', 'anyone', 'else', 'wanted', 'cut', 'throat', 'every', 'day', 'thor', 'gun', 'mouth', 'gone', 'seconds', 'good', 'experience', 'nic', 'cage', 'gentleman', 'fantastic', 'actor', 'gi', 'joe', 'thor', 'really', 'paid', 'whore', 'times', 'eccleston', 'may', 'total', 'stranger', 'hyperbole', 'actor', 'likes', 'audience', 'commands', 'room', 'tells', 'story', 'overall', 'seems', 'deeply', 'decent', 'thoroughly', 'thoughtful', 'honesty', 'along', 'integrity', 'dignity', 'mancheser', 'united', 'matter', 'lot', 'eccleston', 'people', 'left', 'doctor', 'first', 'series', 'revived', 'show', 'decision', 'greeted', 'speculation', 'ultimately', 'hostility', 'much', 'exacerbated', 'says', 'eccleston', 'bbc', 'mishandling', 'situation', 'happened', 'around', 'doctor', 'almost', 'destroyed', 'career', 'says', 'gave', 'hit', 'show', 'left', 'dignity', 'put', 'blacklist', 'carrying', 'insecurities', 'something', 'never', 'done', 'abandoned', 'vilified', 'tabloid', 'press', 'blacklisted', 'told', 'agent', 'time', 'bbc', 'regime', 'going', 'get', 'country', 'wait', 'regime', 'change', 'went', 'away', 'america', 'kept', 'working', 'parents', 'instilled', 'dad', 'always', 'said', 'care', 'sweeping', 'floor', 'whatever', 'best', 'job', 'know', 'cliched', 'northern', 'bollocks', 'applies', 'working', 'clearly', 'works', 'eccleston', 'process', 'also', 'developed', 'compassion', 'talks', 'putting', 'self-hatred', 'bed', 'good', 'years', 'ago', 'waste', 'everybody', 'else', 'time', 'never', 'mind', 'form', 'arrogance', 'arrogance', 'like', 'entitlement', 'pass', 'eccleston', 'test', 'seen', 'people', 'corridors', 'power', 'smell', 'fear', 'shit', 'peter', 'bowker', 'writer', 'bbc', 'series', 'a-word', 'stars', 'eccleston', 'known', 'since', 'cast', 'king', 'us', 'eccleston', 'acts', 'says', 'almost', 'see', 'soul', 'saying', 'probably', 'makes', 'sound', 'like', 'twat', 'care', 'chris', 'true', 'mesmerising', 'friends', 'north', 'cracker', 'hillsborough', 'knew', 'instinctively', 'would', 'understand', 'land', 'rhythms', 'talks', 'intelligence', 'insight', 'never', 'pull', 'rank', 'actors', 'remain', 'curious', 'makes', 'continually', 'interesting', 'watch', 'part', 'eccleston', 'seems', 'ease', 'life', 'suspect', 'could', 'deal', 'adeptly', 'whatever', 'slings', 'arrows', 'flung', 'strangers', 'random', 'rudeness', 'challenges', 'fatherhood', 'retiling', 'bathroom', 'wrestling', 'grizzly', 'bear', 'physicality', 'helps', 'tall', 'broad', 'fit', 'hands', 'like', 'shovels', 'emotional', 'physical', 'presence', 'like', 'much', 'else', 'life', 'eccleston', 'attributes', 'way', 'upbringing', 'quite-wonderful-sounding', 'parents', 'pursued', 'acting', 'largely', 'honour', 'beloved', 'mum', 'dad', 'gave', 'everything', 'including', 'great', 'love', 'literature', 'worked', 'colgate', 'palmolive', 'pallet', 'packer', 'stacker', 'truck', 'driver', 'workplace', 'pair', 'working', '40-hour', 'weeks', 'parents', 'values', 'crucial', 'eccleston', 'today', 'emphasis', 'placed', 'learning', 'reading', 'curious', 'world', 'work', 'ethic', 'unerring', 'support', 'career', 'choice', 'eccleston', 'owes', 'behind', 'smiles', 'may', 'case', 'idea', 'statistics', 'actors', 'working', 'eccleston', 'parents', 'grew', '1930s', 'grew', 'stories', 'terror', 'unemployment', 'enough', 'money', 'never', 'translated', 'timidity', 'never', 'poverty', 'ambition', 'house', 'one', 'brothers', 'good', 'art', 'amazing', 'raconteur', 'parents', 'never', 'really', 'said', 'got', 'gift', 'gift', 'body', 'concentration', 'effort', 'brings', 'mind', 'favourite', 'alex', 'ferguson', 'quote', 'love', 'alex', 'ferguson', 'see', 'hard', 'work', 'talent', 'brings', 'us', 'macbeth', 'official', 'reason', 'meeting', 'eccleston', 'playing', 'king', 'scotland', 'rsc', 'ambition', 'ever', 'since', 'first', 'encountered', 'play', 'taking', 'role', 'macduff', 'sargent', 'ayub', 'khan-din', 'thane', 'eccleston', 'student', 'salford', 'college', 'technology', 'began', 'rehearsals', 'day', 'falklands', 'war', 'declared', 'went', 'tour', 'around', 'north-west', 'liverpool', 'oldham', 'farnworth', 'buxton', 'lived', 'digs', 'drank', 'enormous', 'amounts', 'fell', 'love', 'two', 'women', 'one', 'playwright', 'greatest', 'play', 'role', 'eccleston', 'says', 'listening', 'breathtaking', 'ayub', 'night', 'night', 'cemented', 'decision', 'become', 'actor', 'formulated', 'ambition', 'play', 'macbeth', 'rsc', 'apt', 'considering', 'play', 'fact', 'posh', 'fuckers', 'ruled', 'rsc', 'british', 'theatre', 'top', 'bottom', 'notes', 'dryly', 'eccleston', 'given', 'hamlet', 'west', 'yorkshire', 'playhouse', 'never', 'felt', 'like', 'hamlet', 'identifies', 'much', 'macbeth', 'soldier', 'traditionally', 'proletarian', 'job', 'doubt', 'director', 'polly', 'findlay', 'wanted', 'role', 'bring', 'things', 'talking', 'without', 'jemmying', 'definitely', 'things', 'access', 'capable', 'overlooked', 'macbeth', 'fantastic', 'job', 'lays', 'life', 'line', 'sees', 'chinless', 'milky', 'blue-blood', 'become', 'king', 'scotland', 'course', 'going', 'use', 'much', 'interesting', 'psychology', 'character', 'rather', 'wholly', 'take', 'class', 'politics', 'britain', 'definitely', 'also', 'says', 'eccleston', 'much', 'least', 'examination', 'masculinity', 'insecure', 'masculinity', 'men', 'hope', 'portrait', 'relationship', 'curdling', 'love', 'co-dependency', 'macbeth', 'solitary', 'journey', 'depravity', 'definitely', 'play', 'relationships', 'hence', 'niamh', 'cusack', 'plays', 'lady', 'macbeth', 'poster', 'image', 'everything', 'comes', 'back', 'marriage', 'fed', 'macbeth', 'always', 'felt', 'much', 'interesting', 'dynamic', 'chauvinistic', 'patriarchal', 'though', 'things', 'admission', 'eccleston', 'primarily', 'television', 'actor', 'macbeth', 'also', 'feeds', 'need', 'take', 'break', 'constipation', 'screen', 'acting', 'well', 'addressing', 'voice', 'head', 'says', 'rightly', 'wrongly', 'really', 'good', 'actor', 'able', 'stage', 'needed', 'stretch', 'legs', 'test', 'bit', 'hamlet', 'said', 'cast', 'going', 'read', 'reviews', 'course', 'read', 'genuinely', 'time', 'though', 'healthy', 'way', 'going', 'read', 'understand', 'matter', 'apparently', 'reasonably', 'secure', 'career', 'finishes', 'theatre', 'actor', 'exit', 'perhaps', 'pursued', 'bear', 'possibly', 'waving', 'copy', 'stage', 'betting', 'man', 'money', 'bear', 'macbeth', 'rsc', 'stratford-upon-avon', 'march']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/11/bonfires-of-the-writers-vanities

I was surprised that Blake Morrison’s fascinating piece on literary estates (Up in smoke: should an author’s dying wishes be obeyed?, Review, 10 March) omitted W Somerset Maugham. Ted Morgan’s biography includes this wonderful description of the author deciding what to preserve from a lifetime of writing: “He and his secretary, Alan Searle, held a series of ‘bonfire nights’ in the large stone fireplace in the drawing room of the Villa Mauresque in 1958. Piles of letters were thrown in, as well as some of Maugham’s manuscripts. Searle – horrified to see so much valuable material go up in smoke – tried to rescue choice items. Coming down to breakfast after a bonfire night, Maugham would rub his hands and tell Searle: ‘That was a good night’s work. Now we’ll burn everything you’ve hidden under the sofa’.” Still a very interesting piece of work. Congrats. Norman Moore London • Join the debate – email [email protected] • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

culture/2018/mar/11/bonfires-of-the-writers-vanities

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-11T18:00:04Z

Bonfires of the writer’s vanities | Letters

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/11/bonfires-of-the-writers-vanities

['surprised', 'blake', 'morrison', 'fascinating', 'piece', 'literary', 'estates', 'smoke', 'author', 'dying', 'wishes', 'obeyed', 'review', 'march', 'omitted', 'w', 'somerset', 'maugham', 'ted', 'morgan', 'biography', 'includes', 'wonderful', 'description', 'author', 'deciding', 'preserve', 'lifetime', 'writing', 'secretary', 'alan', 'searle', 'held', 'series', 'bonfire', 'nights', 'large', 'stone', 'fireplace', 'drawing', 'room', 'villa', 'mauresque', 'piles', 'letters', 'thrown', 'well', 'maugham', 'manuscripts', 'searle', 'horrified', 'see', 'much', 'valuable', 'material', 'go', 'smoke', 'tried', 'rescue', 'choice', 'items', 'coming', 'breakfast', 'bonfire', 'night', 'maugham', 'would', 'rub', 'hands', 'tell', 'searle', 'good', 'night', 'work', 'burn', 'everything', 'hidden', 'sofa', 'still', 'interesting', 'piece', 'work', 'congrats', 'norman', 'moore', 'london', 'join', 'debate', 'email', 'guardianletterstheguardiancom', 'read', 'guardian', 'letters', 'click', 'visit', 'gucomletters']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/11/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-unusual

The next theme for our weekly photography assignment in the Observer New Review is ‘unusual.’ Share your photos of what unusual means to you – and tell us about your image in the description box. The closing date is Wednesday 14 March at 10am. We’ll publish our favourites in The New Review on Sunday 18 March and in a gallery on the Guardian site. You can share your ‘unusual’ pictures by clicking on the ‘Contribute’ button on this article. You can also use the Guardian app and search for ‘GuardianWitness assignments’ – and if you add it to the homepage – you can keep up with all our assignments. GuardianWitness is the home of readers’ content on the Guardian. Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others.

culture/2018/mar/11/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-unusual

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-11T09:00:42Z

Your pictures: share your photos on the theme of 'unusual'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/11/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-unusual

['next', 'theme', 'weekly', 'photography', 'assignment', 'observer', 'new', 'review', 'unusual', 'share', 'photos', 'unusual', 'means', 'tell', 'us', 'image', 'description', 'box', 'closing', 'date', 'wednesday', 'march', '10am', 'publish', 'favourites', 'new', 'review', 'sunday', 'march', 'gallery', 'guardian', 'site', 'share', 'unusual', 'pictures', 'clicking', 'contribute', 'button', 'article', 'also', 'use', 'guardian', 'app', 'search', 'guardianwitness', 'assignments', 'add', 'homepage', 'keep', 'assignments', 'guardianwitness', 'home', 'readers', 'content', 'guardian', 'contribute', 'video', 'pictures', 'stories', 'browse', 'news', 'reviews', 'creations', 'submitted', 'others']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/11/simone-lia-on-mothers-day

culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/11/simone-lia-on-mothers-day

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

interactive

2018-03-11T08:00:41Z

Simone Lia on Mother's Day

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/11/simone-lia-on-mothers-day

[]

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/11/dustyesky-russian-folk-songs-accent-comedy-womadelaide

When Dustyesky first took the stage at dusk on Saturday for Womadelaide, my 14-month-old son raced down the hill towards them at breakneck speed, so overwhelmed was he by the sheer magnetism of their lusty masculinity. Or perhaps because he too has a nascent love for Russian folk music, despite not being Russian or speaking a single word of the language. That sums up the somewhat gimmicky backstory to Duskyesky, which was formed in Mullumbimby four years ago for the Mullum Music festival by beardy men who bonded together through a shared love of vodka and Russian choral music. Since then the now 28-member choir have become regulars on the festival circuit and become a cult act for Russians amazed and delighted that a bunch of blokes from regional New South Wales are performing their music, even if they’re not entirely sold on the accents. With a backstory like that, it’s amazing a trend-conscious spirits brand hasn’t signed Dustyesky for a series of ads – not least because they also dress in a bibs-n-braces style that simultaneously evokes Soviet Russia and contemporary Fitzroy. It’s no shock that they’re playing in Adelaide at the moment since their schtick – and schtick it undeniably is, starting with the groan-inducing pun of the name – would work equally well as a Fringe show as it does a Womadelaide set. And, indeed, they were a Melbourne Fringe hit, and the choir also have performed at Falls festival. For a joke, it’s one with remarkable staying power. And there is a rough beauty to their performance, it should be made clear. The primal power of the unaccompanied, untrained voices of these men shines through as they perform the Russian national anthem, Orchy Chornye, The Red Army is the Strongest and Kalinka. For those not especially across Russian political songs, it’s remarkable how many of the songs are familiar from film and television. It’s offset by the choir’s MC, Mark Swivel, performing in character as Comrade Swivelsky, who introduces each song in a faux-Russian accent that would make Yakov Smirnoff blush. Accent comedy is a hard thing to pull off in 2018 and while he thankfully steers clear of any “in Soviet Russia, music folks YOU!”-style jokes, there’s still something slightly jarring about swapping from stirring massed voices celebrating the proletariat to Swivel’s comic patter about “Mullumgrad”. And yet, somehow, it works. The crowd sang along, they danced in front of the stage, and rejoiced in the joyful silliness of a bunch of Byron shire dudes singing about the Volga. Swivel plugged the following day’s set and Monday workshop, although he claimed they did not understand why they were having one since “normally workshop for make tractor or ladder”. Cult act? Definitely. Womad must-see? Indubitably. • Dustyesky performs at Womadelaide at 4pm on Sunday 11 March. The festival is on at Botanic Park, Adelaide, until 12 March

culture/2018/mar/11/dustyesky-russian-folk-songs-accent-comedy-womadelaide

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-11T01:41:03Z

Dustyesky's Russian folk songs and accent comedy – it shouldn't work, but it does

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/11/dustyesky-russian-folk-songs-accent-comedy-womadelaide

['dustyesky', 'first', 'took', 'stage', 'dusk', 'saturday', 'womadelaide', '14-month-old', 'son', 'raced', 'hill', 'towards', 'breakneck', 'speed', 'overwhelmed', 'sheer', 'magnetism', 'lusty', 'masculinity', 'perhaps', 'nascent', 'love', 'russian', 'folk', 'music', 'despite', 'russian', 'speaking', 'single', 'word', 'language', 'sums', 'somewhat', 'gimmicky', 'backstory', 'duskyesky', 'formed', 'mullumbimby', 'four', 'years', 'ago', 'mullum', 'music', 'festival', 'beardy', 'men', 'bonded', 'together', 'shared', 'love', 'vodka', 'russian', 'choral', 'music', 'since', '28-member', 'choir', 'become', 'regulars', 'festival', 'circuit', 'become', 'cult', 'act', 'russians', 'amazed', 'delighted', 'bunch', 'blokes', 'regional', 'new', 'south', 'wales', 'performing', 'music', 'even', 'entirely', 'sold', 'accents', 'backstory', 'like', 'amazing', 'trend-conscious', 'spirits', 'brand', 'signed', 'dustyesky', 'series', 'ads', 'least', 'also', 'dress', 'bibs-n-braces', 'style', 'simultaneously', 'evokes', 'soviet', 'russia', 'contemporary', 'fitzroy', 'shock', 'playing', 'adelaide', 'moment', 'since', 'schtick', 'schtick', 'undeniably', 'starting', 'groan-inducing', 'pun', 'name', 'would', 'work', 'equally', 'well', 'fringe', 'show', 'womadelaide', 'set', 'indeed', 'melbourne', 'fringe', 'hit', 'choir', 'also', 'performed', 'falls', 'festival', 'joke', 'one', 'remarkable', 'staying', 'power', 'rough', 'beauty', 'performance', 'made', 'clear', 'primal', 'power', 'unaccompanied', 'untrained', 'voices', 'men', 'shines', 'perform', 'russian', 'national', 'anthem', 'orchy', 'chornye', 'red', 'army', 'strongest', 'kalinka', 'especially', 'across', 'russian', 'political', 'songs', 'remarkable', 'many', 'songs', 'familiar', 'film', 'television', 'offset', 'choir', 'mc', 'mark', 'swivel', 'performing', 'character', 'comrade', 'swivelsky', 'introduces', 'song', 'faux-russian', 'accent', 'would', 'make', 'yakov', 'smirnoff', 'blush', 'accent', 'comedy', 'hard', 'thing', 'pull', 'thankfully', 'steers', 'clear', 'soviet', 'russia', 'music', 'folks', 'you-style', 'jokes', 'still', 'something', 'slightly', 'jarring', 'swapping', 'stirring', 'massed', 'voices', 'celebrating', 'proletariat', 'swivel', 'comic', 'patter', 'mullumgrad', 'yet', 'somehow', 'works', 'crowd', 'sang', 'along', 'danced', 'front', 'stage', 'rejoiced', 'joyful', 'silliness', 'bunch', 'byron', 'shire', 'dudes', 'singing', 'volga', 'swivel', 'plugged', 'following', 'day', 'set', 'monday', 'workshop', 'although', 'claimed', 'understand', 'one', 'since', 'normally', 'workshop', 'make', 'tractor', 'ladder', 'cult', 'act', 'definitely', 'womad', 'must-see', 'indubitably', 'dustyesky', 'performs', 'womadelaide', '4pm', 'sunday', 'march', 'festival', 'botanic', 'park', 'adelaide', 'march']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/10/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

Five of the best ... films You Were Never Really Here (15) (Lynne Ramsay, 2017, Fra/UK/US) 85 mins This daring thriller discards conventional storytelling in favour of an intense, almost hallucinatory approach, but it’s told with expert control and ruthless efficiency. The plot takes us deep into the damaged psyche of a freelance lone wolf (Joaquin Phoenix, at his best) who locates missing children. Something like Taxi Driver without the talking. A Fantastic Woman (15) (Sebastián Lelio, 2017, Chi/Ger/Spa/UK) 104 mins Deserved winner of the best foreign film Oscar last week, Lelio’s modern melodrama highlights a trans woman’s dignity in the face of considerable adversity: firstly, the death of her partner, and then the reaction from his family and the authorities. Daniela Vega is tremendous in the role. She will survive. Mom and Dad (15) (Brian Taylor, 2017, US) 86 mins From the man who brought us Crank, a grindhouse Home Alone. For mysterious reasons, millennial kids find themselves under attack from their parents. That’s especially bad news if your folks are Selma Blair and Nicolas Cage. Nasty, trashy and unpredictable (apart from Cage’s reliably unhinged performance), it fully commits to its premise of all-out generational warfare. I, Tonya (15) (Craig Gillespie, 2017, US) 119 mins What really went down with ice-skater Tonya Harding and the plot to sabotage her arch rival? This lively comedy-drama admits it doesn’t know, but spins a good yarn anyway: a tale of trailer-park aspiration that’s both sympathetic and satirical, and often laugh-out-loud funny. Margot Robbie excels as the poor but talented Harding, Allison Janney even more so as her hideously sour mother. Sweet Country (15) (Warwick Thornton, 2017, Aus) 113 mins This powerful, panoramic outback western revisits historic race issues in a way few American ones ever have. It’s an almost biblical tale: an Indigenous Australian farmhand and his wife take flight after he shoots dead a bigoted white rancher in a surreal landscape where the relationship between indigenous people and “settlers” is anything but settled. SR Five of the best ... rock & pop gigs Sigrid BBC Sound of 2018 winner Sigrid makes the kind of happy-sad electropop that fellow Scandinavian Robyn seems reluctant to create any more. Elegant banger Strangers recently gatecrashed the UK Top 10, a few weeks after a star-making performance on Graham Norton, while this headline tour finds her stepping up to mid-sized venues. One to watch, obvs. Brighton 12 March; London 14 March, touring to 24 March Tune-Yards Wild musical genius or children’s TV presenter with too many percussive instruments? Merrill Garbus’s critically lauded music project has always been divisive and recent album, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life, is unlikely to change that. But if you are a fan, remember your kazoo. Gateshead, 13 March; Edinburgh, 14 March; Manchester, 16 March; touring to 20 March Rae Morris Blackpool’s finest musical export since Little Boots has already released one of 2018’s best albums in the shape of the delicately experimental Someone Out There. In theory, she could take the rest of the year off. Obviously that’s not how major label pop works in the age of depleting sales revenues, so she’s off on a quick UK tour. Newcastle upon Tyne, 15 March; Glasgow, 16 March; touring to 28 March Frightened Rabbit Like the Sugababes before them, Scottish indie rabble Frightened Rabbit have gone through various lineup dramas. Initially a solo project, they then became a duo, then a trio, then a five-piece, then two of them went off to do their own album, then they all reconvened in time for one of the National to co-produce their last album, Painting of a Panic Attack. Phew. London, 10 & 16 March; Glasgow, 11 March; Edinburgh, 12 March; touring to 17 March MC Joan Jonas With Jason Moran American pianist Jason Moran follows nobody’s rulebook about a jazz musician’s true path. His instinct for the unexpected has distinguished him since the 90s in mixed-media ventures, movie scores, world-music crossovers and more. This collaboration with video and performance artist Jonas extends a unique creative partnership that began in 2005. Tate Modern: The Tanks, SE1, 16 & 17 March JF Four of the best ... classical concerts La Traviata English National Opera’s last production of Traviata – a spare, wonderfully perceptive staging by Peter Konwitschny – has inexplicably been jettisoned. In its place comes a production by newly installed artistic director Daniel Kramer that was first seen in Berne last autumn. Claudia Boyle sings the role of Violetta and Lukhanyo Moyake is Alfredo, while Leo McFall conducts. Coliseum, WC2 16 March to 13 April Arditti Quartet The world’s leading contemporary-music quartet have been regular visitors to the Wigmore Hall in recent seasons. Their latest concert includes three UK firsts: new works for string quartet by Philippe Hurel and Marc Andre, and Cosa Resta, a piece for countertenor and string quartet by Salvatore Sciarrino, with Jake Arditti as the vocalist. Wigmore Hall, W1, 11 March Gardiner’s Schumann Familiar and less familiar Schumann dominates John Eliot Gardiner’s pair of concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra. Each programme contains a symphony (the second and fourth respectively), and one of Schumann’s neglected masterpieces, Overture, Scherzo and Finale, is also included (15 March). Barbican Hall, EC2, 11 & 15 March WAKE For more than 30 years, Graham Vick has been achieving remarkable results with the opera company he founded, and whose productions include a major role for local communities. Birmingham Opera Company’s latest venture is a new work from Giorgio Batistelli, WAKE, a retelling of the story of Lazarus. B12 Warehouse, Birmingham, 14 to 20 March AC Five of the best ... exhibitions Tacita Dean When does something become old? As photographic film went digital, Dean was there to turn her camera on a suddenly archaic lab. She also photographed the decaying hulk of Donald Crowhurst’s boat Teignmouth Electron. Her poetic vision gets a national stage here and at the Royal Academy later in spring. National Gallery & National Portrait Gallery, WC2 15 March to 28 May Joan Jonas This revolutionary New York artist has been questioning gender and identity since the 1960s. She was one of the first artists ever to use a video camera to record her explosive performances. In installations such as The Juniper Tree (1976), featuring a Japanese kimono, silk paintings, mirrors and video, Jonas broke all the boundaries. Tate Modern, SE1, 14 March to 5 August POP! Art in a Changing Britain As early as the 1940s, Eduardo Paolozzi collaged pages from US magazines he acquired from GIs to create the first pop art (a technique also used by his contemporary, Nigel Henderson). British pop was driven by the gap between austere postwar reality and images of US consumerism. From Richard Hamilton’s fast cars to David Hockney dreaming by his LA pool, they pictured a modern utopia. Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, to 7 April Eric Fischl How good a painter is Fischl, who became famous in 1980s New York for bringing figurative art back into fashion? He was scorned by the critic Robert Hughes, but who wasn’t? Fischl’s seriousness seems proven by the fact that he is still at it: painting eerie, unresolved scenes from American life that keep you guessing at their hidden narratives. Donald Trump appears here as a nightmare clown. He makes Pennywise look cute. Skarstedt Gallery, SW1, to 26 May Ten Days Six Nights This year’s BMW Tate Live festival celebrates the influence of Joan Jonas on performance art, video and installation. Participants include Mark Leckey, Sylvia Palacios Whitman and jazz pianist Jason Moran (see p25). Palestinian folklore becomes installation in the work of Jumana Emil Abboud, while Jonas presents a new retrospective and will orchestrate a live outdoor ritual by the Thames. Tate Modern, SE1, 16 to 25 March JJ Five of the best ... theatre shows Mary Stuart A coin toss will decide which queen Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams will play at each performance of Schiller’s drama, which pits the Protestant Elizabeth against her Catholic cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. It’s no gimmick in a riveting production that highlights the random nature of fate. No matter who you see in which role, you will be gripped. The Duke of York’s, WC2 to 31 March; touring to 28 April Matilda Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin capture all the gleeful nastiness of Roald Dahl’s original – then add some more. It is not just the wit of Minchin’s songs and the cleverness of Kelly’s book (often the element that lets a musical down), but how they make it look so effortless. Like their lovable heroine, this is a highly intelligent production that wears its learning lightly. Cambridge Theatre, WC2, to 10 February The York Realist The ambiguities in Peter Gill’s 2001 play, set in York in the early 1960s, are finely excavated in Robert Hastie’s delicate revival, which boasts two fine performances from Ben Batt and Jonathan Bailey as the agricultural labourer and London theatre director who fall in love during a staging of the York Mystery Plays. There are gulfs between country and town, and the middle and working classes, in a play that is full of emotional evasions and things left unsaid. Donmar Warehouse, WC2, to 24 March; touring to 7 April Long Day’s Journey Into Night It is a big play and it’s got the big acting to match in Richard Eyre’s revival, which stars Lesley Manville and Jeremy Irons as a couple who have spawned a deeply unhappy family. Eugene O’Neill described his 1941 play of terrible addictions as one written “in tears and blood” and it was so grounded in autobiography that he forbade it to be published until 25 years after his death. That wish was ignored, and Eyre’s production reveals it as a play of despair and rage, but also one of love. Wyndham’s Theatre, WC2, to 8 April Education, Education, Education The Wardrobe Ensemble takes you back to school and back in time to 1997 and the election of Tony Blair as PM in this sharply comic show about how governments fail schools and schools fail their pupils. Take That, Oasis and the Spice Girls provide the soundtrack, but this smart piece of theatre is far more than an exercise in nostalgia. Penryn, 10 March; Newbury, 14 March; Lincoln, 16 March; touring to 8 June LG Three of the best ... dance shows Ballet Black A fable about desire and possession set in 1950s South Africa, Cathy Marston’s The Suit promises to be a serious addition to Ballet Black’s repertory of story ballets. For this double bill, it is paired with a revival of Arthur Pita’s deliciously maverick riff on Shakespeare, A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Barbican Theatre, EC2, 15 to 17 March Royal Ballet: Bernstein triple bill The Royal pays tribute to Leonard Bernstein with three ballets composed to scores by the US composer. On offer are premieres of Wayne McGregor’s Chichester Psalms, a new work by Christopher Wheeldon and a revival of Liam Scarlett’s The Age of Anxiety. Royal Opera House, WC2, 15 March to 9 April Northern Ballet: Kenneth MacMillan programme Former Royal Ballet principal Zenaida Yanowsky makes a starry guest appearance in Las Hermanas, a hothouse study of sexual rivalries. Completing the programme are Gloria and dance showcase Concerto. Leeds Grand Theatre, 16 to 17 March JM

culture/2018/mar/10/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-10T09:00:14Z

What to see this week in the UK

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/10/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

['five', 'best', 'films', 'never', 'really', 'lynne', 'ramsay', 'fraukus', 'mins', 'daring', 'thriller', 'discards', 'conventional', 'storytelling', 'favour', 'intense', 'almost', 'hallucinatory', 'approach', 'told', 'expert', 'control', 'ruthless', 'efficiency', 'plot', 'takes', 'us', 'deep', 'damaged', 'psyche', 'freelance', 'lone', 'wolf', 'joaquin', 'phoenix', 'best', 'locates', 'missing', 'children', 'something', 'like', 'taxi', 'driver', 'without', 'talking', 'fantastic', 'woman', 'sebastian', 'lelio', 'chigerspauk', 'mins', 'deserved', 'winner', 'best', 'foreign', 'film', 'oscar', 'last', 'week', 'lelio', 'modern', 'melodrama', 'highlights', 'trans', 'woman', 'dignity', 'face', 'considerable', 'adversity', 'firstly', 'death', 'partner', 'reaction', 'family', 'authorities', 'daniela', 'vega', 'tremendous', 'role', 'survive', 'mom', 'dad', 'brian', 'taylor', 'us', 'mins', 'man', 'brought', 'us', 'crank', 'grindhouse', 'home', 'alone', 'mysterious', 'reasons', 'millennial', 'kids', 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'bigoted', 'white', 'rancher', 'surreal', 'landscape', 'relationship', 'indigenous', 'people', 'settlers', 'anything', 'settled', 'sr', 'five', 'best', 'rock', 'amp', 'pop', 'gigs', 'sigrid', 'bbc', 'sound', 'winner', 'sigrid', 'makes', 'kind', 'happy-sad', 'electropop', 'fellow', 'scandinavian', 'robyn', 'seems', 'reluctant', 'create', 'elegant', 'banger', 'strangers', 'recently', 'gatecrashed', 'uk', 'top', 'weeks', 'star-making', 'performance', 'graham', 'norton', 'headline', 'tour', 'finds', 'stepping', 'mid-sized', 'venues', 'one', 'watch', 'obvs', 'brighton', 'march', 'london', 'march', 'touring', 'march', 'tune-yards', 'wild', 'musical', 'genius', 'children', 'tv', 'presenter', 'many', 'percussive', 'instruments', 'merrill', 'garbus', 'critically', 'lauded', 'music', 'project', 'always', 'divisive', 'recent', 'album', 'feel', 'creep', 'private', 'life', 'unlikely', 'change', 'fan', 'remember', 'kazoo', 'gateshead', 'march', 'edinburgh', 'march', 'manchester', 'march', 'touring', 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'includes', 'three', 'uk', 'firsts', 'new', 'works', 'string', 'quartet', 'philippe', 'hurel', 'marc', 'andre', 'cosa', 'resta', 'piece', 'countertenor', 'string', 'quartet', 'salvatore', 'sciarrino', 'jake', 'arditti', 'vocalist', 'wigmore', 'hall', 'w1', 'march', 'gardiner', 'schumann', 'familiar', 'less', 'familiar', 'schumann', 'dominates', 'john', 'eliot', 'gardiner', 'pair', 'concerts', 'london', 'symphony', 'orchestra', 'programme', 'contains', 'symphony', 'second', 'fourth', 'respectively', 'one', 'schumann', 'neglected', 'masterpieces', 'overture', 'scherzo', 'finale', 'also', 'included', 'march', 'barbican', 'hall', 'ec2', 'amp', 'march', 'wake', 'years', 'graham', 'vick', 'achieving', 'remarkable', 'results', 'opera', 'company', 'founded', 'whose', 'productions', 'include', 'major', 'role', 'local', 'communities', 'birmingham', 'opera', 'company', 'latest', 'venture', 'new', 'work', 'giorgio', 'batistelli', 'wake', 'retelling', 'story', 'lazarus', 'b12', 'warehouse', 'birmingham', 'march', 'ac', 'five', 'best', 'exhibitions', 'tacita', 'dean', 'something', 'become', 'old', 'photographic', 'film', 'went', 'digital', 'dean', 'turn', 'camera', 'suddenly', 'archaic', 'lab', 'also', 'photographed', 'decaying', 'hulk', 'donald', 'crowhurst', 'boat', 'teignmouth', 'electron', 'poetic', 'vision', 'gets', 'national', 'stage', 'royal', 'academy', 'later', 'spring', 'national', 'gallery', 'amp', 'national', 'portrait', 'gallery', 'wc2', 'march', 'may', 'joan', 'jonas', 'revolutionary', 'new', 'york', 'artist', 'questioning', 'gender', 'identity', 'since', '1960s', 'one', 'first', 'artists', 'ever', 'use', 'video', 'camera', 'record', 'explosive', 'performances', 'installations', 'juniper', 'tree', 'featuring', 'japanese', 'kimono', 'silk', 'paintings', 'mirrors', 'video', 'jonas', 'broke', 'boundaries', 'tate', 'modern', 'se1', 'march', 'august', 'pop', 'art', 'changing', 'britain', 'early', '1940s', 'eduardo', 'paolozzi', 'collaged', 'pages', 'us', 'magazines', 'acquired', 'gis', 'create', 'first', 'pop', 'art', 'technique', 'also', 'used', 'contemporary', 'nigel', 'henderson', 'british', 'pop', 'driven', 'gap', 'austere', 'postwar', 'reality', 'images', 'us', 'consumerism', 'richard', 'hamilton', 'fast', 'cars', 'david', 'hockney', 'dreaming', 'la', 'pool', 'pictured', 'modern', 'utopia', 'pallant', 'house', 'gallery', 'chichester', 'april', 'eric', 'fischl', 'good', 'painter', 'fischl', 'became', 'famous', '1980s', 'new', 'york', 'bringing', 'figurative', 'art', 'back', 'fashion', 'scorned', 'critic', 'robert', 'hughes', 'fischl', 'seriousness', 'seems', 'proven', 'fact', 'still', 'painting', 'eerie', 'unresolved', 'scenes', 'american', 'life', 'keep', 'guessing', 'hidden', 'narratives', 'donald', 'trump', 'appears', 'nightmare', 'clown', 'makes', 'pennywise', 'look', 'cute', 'skarstedt', 'gallery', 'sw1', 'may', 'ten', 'days', 'six', 'nights', 'year', 'bmw', 'tate', 'live', 'festival', 'celebrates', 'influence', 'joan', 'jonas', 'performance', 'art', 'video', 'installation', 'participants', 'include', 'mark', 'leckey', 'sylvia', 'palacios', 'whitman', 'jazz', 'pianist', 'jason', 'moran', 'see', 'p25', 'palestinian', 'folklore', 'becomes', 'installation', 'work', 'jumana', 'emil', 'abboud', 'jonas', 'presents', 'new', 'retrospective', 'orchestrate', 'live', 'outdoor', 'ritual', 'thames', 'tate', 'modern', 'se1', 'march', 'jj', 'five', 'best', 'theatre', 'shows', 'mary', 'stuart', 'coin', 'toss', 'decide', 'queen', 'juliet', 'stevenson', 'lia', 'williams', 'play', 'performance', 'schiller', 'drama', 'pits', 'protestant', 'elizabeth', 'catholic', 'cousin', 'mary', 'queen', 'scots', 'gimmick', 'riveting', 'production', 'highlights', 'random', 'nature', 'fate', 'matter', 'see', 'role', 'gripped', 'duke', 'york', 'wc2', 'march', 'touring', 'april', 'matilda', 'dennis', 'kelly', 'tim', 'minchin', 'capture', 'gleeful', 'nastiness', 'roald', 'dahl', 'original', 'add', 'wit', 'minchin', 'songs', 'cleverness', 'kelly', 'book', 'often', 'element', 'lets', 'musical', 'make', 'look', 'effortless', 'like', 'lovable', 'heroine', 'highly', 'intelligent', 'production', 'wears', 'learning', 'lightly', 'cambridge', 'theatre', 'wc2', 'february', 'york', 'realist', 'ambiguities', 'peter', 'gill', 'play', 'set', 'york', 'early', '1960s', 'finely', 'excavated', 'robert', 'hastie', 'delicate', 'revival', 'boasts', 'two', 'fine', 'performances', 'ben', 'batt', 'jonathan', 'bailey', 'agricultural', 'labourer', 'london', 'theatre', 'director', 'fall', 'love', 'staging', 'york', 'mystery', 'plays', 'gulfs', 'country', 'town', 'middle', 'working', 'classes', 'play', 'full', 'emotional', 'evasions', 'things', 'left', 'unsaid', 'donmar', 'warehouse', 'wc2', 'march', 'touring', 'april', 'long', 'day', 'journey', 'night', 'big', 'play', 'got', 'big', 'acting', 'match', 'richard', 'eyre', 'revival', 'stars', 'lesley', 'manville', 'jeremy', 'irons', 'couple', 'spawned', 'deeply', 'unhappy', 'family', 'eugene', 'oneill', 'described', 'play', 'terrible', 'addictions', 'one', 'written', 'tears', 'blood', 'grounded', 'autobiography', 'forbade', 'published', 'years', 'death', 'wish', 'ignored', 'eyre', 'production', 'reveals', 'play', 'despair', 'rage', 'also', 'one', 'love', 'wyndham', 'theatre', 'wc2', 'april', 'education', 'education', 'education', 'wardrobe', 'ensemble', 'takes', 'back', 'school', 'back', 'time', 'election', 'tony', 'blair', 'pm', 'sharply', 'comic', 'show', 'governments', 'fail', 'schools', 'schools', 'fail', 'pupils', 'take', 'oasis', 'spice', 'girls', 'provide', 'soundtrack', 'smart', 'piece', 'theatre', 'far', 'exercise', 'nostalgia', 'penryn', 'march', 'newbury', 'march', 'lincoln', 'march', 'touring', 'june', 'lg', 'three', 'best', 'dance', 'shows', 'ballet', 'black', 'fable', 'desire', 'possession', 'set', '1950s', 'south', 'africa', 'cathy', 'marston', 'suit', 'promises', 'serious', 'addition', 'ballet', 'black', 'repertory', 'story', 'ballets', 'double', 'bill', 'paired', 'revival', 'arthur', 'pita', 'deliciously', 'maverick', 'riff', 'shakespeare', 'dream', 'within', 'midsummer', 'night', 'dream', 'barbican', 'theatre', 'ec2', 'march', 'royal', 'ballet', 'bernstein', 'triple', 'bill', 'royal', 'pays', 'tribute', 'leonard', 'bernstein', 'three', 'ballets', 'composed', 'scores', 'us', 'composer', 'offer', 'premieres', 'wayne', 'mcgregor', 'chichester', 'psalms', 'new', 'work', 'christopher', 'wheeldon', 'revival', 'liam', 'scarlett', 'age', 'anxiety', 'royal', 'opera', 'house', 'wc2', 'march', 'april', 'northern', 'ballet', 'kenneth', 'macmillan', 'programme', 'former', 'royal', 'ballet', 'principal', 'zenaida', 'yanowsky', 'makes', 'starry', 'guest', 'appearance', 'las', 'hermanas', 'hothouse', 'study', 'sexual', 'rivalries', 'completing', 'programme', 'gloria', 'dance', 'showcase', 'concerto', 'leeds', 'grand', 'theatre', 'march', 'jm']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/09/jimmy-kimmel-trump-kim-haircuts

Late-night hosts on Thursday discussed Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit against Donald Trump, the president’s focus on video games to curb gun violence, and the possibility of diplomatic talks with North Korea. Stephen Colbert: ‘Cohen’s never getting that 130 grand back’ “Stormy’s suing the president, claiming that their non-disclosure agreement can’t be enforced because the president didn’t sign it,” Stephen Colbert explained. “If she wins, she’ll then be free to discuss her affair with Donald Trump and share texts and pictures he sent her. “That’s a terrifying prospect for Trump lawyer and man-who’s-never-getting-that-130-grand-back, Michael Cohen,” the host continued, noting that Cohen obtained a restraining order against the porn actor in order to silence her. Colbert went on: “Now, the White House has shown surprisingly disciplined silence about the Trump-paid-a-porn-star-thing. And they might be able to get the story to go away completely as long as they never admit that the president is involved in legal proceedings or any arbitration in any way with Stormy Daniels. Sarah?” Colbert then cut to footage of the press secretary, Sarah Sanders, who on Thursday said “this case has already been won in arbitration”. President Trump was apparently angry at Sanders for her response to the question. “He’s blaming Sarah Huckabee Sanders for the fallout from his affair with a porn star?” Colbert asked. “Happy International Women’s Day!” Trevor Noah: ‘Well done, Florida’ Trevor Noah discussed the administration’s blaming video games for gun violence. “Trump is not a big fan of video games, partly because the controllers are too big and also because he believes they inspire real-world violence,” Noah began. “Trump is hardly the first person to blame gun violence in part on video games,” the host continued. “You see, it turns out politicians have been warning about the dangers of violent games way back when.” Noah went on to show footage of various lawmakers, including former senator Joe Lieberman, denouncing video games for supposedly inciting violence. Noah replied: “Here’s the thing: there have been hundreds of studies on this issue, and they have shown that there isn’t any connection between violent video games and violent activities. That doesn’t mean video games have no influence, because, let’s be honest, everything we consume as human beings affects us somehow.” “You can’t take violence out of the world,” Noah added. “What you can do is limit the tools violent people have. Which is exactly what they’ve done in Japan.” The host then cut to news coverage explaining the prevalence of video games in Japan, where gun laws are extremely strict and there are less than 10 gun-related deaths per year. “The truth is, many countries around the world have figured this out,” Noah said. “The most effective and realistic way to limit gun violence is to regulate who has access to guns. While the president is talking about video games, lawmakers in Florida have decided to take action.” Noah explained that Florida has proposed legislation, set to land on Governor Rick Scott’s desk, that raises the minimum age of purchase to 21, enforces a three-day waiting period, bans bump stocks, and adds mental health programs to schools. “I’m going to say a sentence that I’m assuming has never before been uttered on this show,” Noah concluded. “Well done, Florida.” Jimmy Kimmel: ‘You know these two are going to hit it off’ Finally, Jimmy Kimmel discussed North Korea’s invitation to conduct talks with Trump. “South Korean officials delivered a letter today from Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, to Donald Trump inviting him to meet and promising to halt his missile tests,” Kimmel explained. The messaged was relayed from the South Korean national security adviser, a stunning development given Trump and Kim’s back-and-forth saber-rattling. “The president was very excited about this, so excited that he went into the White House press room where he’s never gone before to tell reporters off the record,” Kimmel said. “And they’re like, ‘We can’t do it off the record, we’re in the press room.’” Kimmel continued: “Then he announced that there would be a major announcement without even telling his staff there was going to be an announcement. It’s like the uncle you know will blow a surprise party if you tell him about it.” Imagining the North Korean and American leaders meeting for the first time, Kimmel said, “The two worst haircuts in the world, together; you know those two are going to hit it off.”

culture/2018/mar/09/jimmy-kimmel-trump-kim-haircuts

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-09T15:50:25Z

Jimmy Kimmel on Trump's meeting with Kim Jong-un: 'The two worst haircuts in the world'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/09/jimmy-kimmel-trump-kim-haircuts

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/09/great-exhibition-of-the-north-bae-systems-northern-powerhouse-jake-berry

The government minister responsible for the “northern powerhouse” has described campaigners who forced the arms firm BAE Systems to withdraw as a sponsor of a flagship arts festival in north-east England as “subsidy-addicted artists” and “snowflakes”. The Great Exhibition of the North, which will run from 22 June to 9 September in Gateshead and Newcastle, is being funded by £5m from the government’s northern powerhouse fund, with a further £7.5m to be found from other sources, including sponsorship. BAE Systems, which employs 18,000 people in the north of England, was lined up for an estimated £500,000 sponsorship deal, but decided to pull out after an online petition calling for the event to sever ties with the arms manufacturer garnered more than 2,000 signatures. The singer-songwriter Nadine Shah; the Commoners Choir, founded by the ex-Chumbawamba member Boff Whalley; and the BBC radio DJ Lauren Laverne were among those to have criticised the sponsorship deal. On Thursday, Jake Berry, the northern powerhouse minister and MP for Rossendale and Darwen – where BAE Systems has a huge manufacturing plant – rounded on the petition’s organisers. He tweeted: In later comments to the media, Berry said: “In the north of England after the last couple of weeks we are used to a bit of snow – we just don’t need any more snowflakes, thank you very much.” BAE Systems said: “With our significant presence in the north of England, BAE Systems is a strong supporter of the northern powerhouse, which recognises the important contribution that the region makes to the UK. “While BAE Systems remains supportive of the aims of the Great Exhibition we have decided to redirect our support to other initiatives better suited to both our skills and innovation objectives and in support of the industrial strategy of the north of England.” The petition organisers said BAE Systems’ decision showed “that arms corporations cannot hide their war profiteering behind arts events”. “The protest was a collective response from artists, cultural workers, and every one of you who signed the petition,” they said. “The campaign does not end here – we will be asking for transparency in how BAE came to be a ‘premier partner’ of the exhibition, and watching arms companies as they attempt to sponsor education and other arts events.” Earlier this week, Shah – who withdrew from the event after finding out about the company’s sponsorship – urged her fans to press the exhibition’s organisers to drop BAE Systems as a sponsor, tweeting: Announcing they would also be pulling out of the event, the Commoners Choir said last week: “There are plenty of researched and nuanced reasons for not wanting to make work that links to BAE which we won’t go into here, but suffice to say that we felt completely unhappy being represented alongside a corporation with a track record in supplying weaponry to countries waging war on their own people and boasting appalling human rights records.” A spokesperson for the Great Exhibition of the North said it accepted and respected the arms company’s decision. “Working with all of our partners, funders, supporters and contributors, we remain focused on delivering a successful event which will shine a spotlight on the north’s great art and culture, design and innovation,” they said. Uneasy bedfellows: art and corporate sponsorship This is not the first time a multinational’s decision to sponsor the arts has sparked anger. In 2016, campaigners promised to escalate their protests after BP announced a £7.5m renewal of its sponsorship deals with the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Opera House and the Royal Shakespeare Company. The move was described by the campaign group BP or Not BP as “wildly out of touch with the mood across the cultural sector”. Earlier that year, BP ended its longstanding deals with both the Tate and the Edinburgh international festival, a move attributed to a feeling in both organisations that the partnerships were causing damage to their reputations. Groups such as Liberate Tate have been known to stage spectacular protests at institutions taking money from the oil industry, including dousing a naked man in oil at Tate Britain. In April 2016, more than 1,000 healthcare experts signed an open letter calling on leading cultural institutions to sever their financial ties to big tobacco. Japan Tobacco International (JTI) has corporate sponsorship deals with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts. British American Tobacco is a corporate sponsor of the London Symphony Orchestra and an associate member of the Royal Academy of Arts.

culture/2018/mar/09/great-exhibition-of-the-north-bae-systems-northern-powerhouse-jake-berry

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-09T12:16:33Z

Minister criticises 'snowflake' artists who opposed arms firm sponsorship

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/09/great-exhibition-of-the-north-bae-systems-northern-powerhouse-jake-berry

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/08/trevor-noah-donald-trump-late-night-tv-round-up

Late-night hosts on Wednesday discussed Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit against Trump and how the NRA influences lawmakers. Stephen Colbert “I know we’re getting numb to the Trump presidency – it’s a natural defense mechanism – but let those words sink in for a second,” said Stephen Colbert upon showing news coverage of porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit against president Trump. “A porn star is suing the president,” he repeated. “We have not seen anything like this since the famous headline ‘Dewey boinks Truman’.” “Miss Daniels received $130,000 right before the election to keep their affair a secret,” the host explained. “Now, Daniels is suing Donald Trump over the confidentiality agreement, alleging that iti’s invalid because while both she and Trump’s attorney signed it, Trump himself never did.” Colbert replied: “So this is the thing Trump thought was too sketchy to put his name on? What about Trump University or Don Jr?” The host then noted that the lawsuit mentions that Daniels is in possession of “confidential information” including images and/or texts from Trump. He also added that the confidentiality agreement referred to Trump as “David Dennison” and Daniels as “Peggy Peterson”. “Now, it turns out using campaign funds to pay off your porn star mistress could be a violation of campaign finance law,” Colbert said, before explaining that Trump’s personal attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen set up a company called Essential Consultants LLC for the purpose of paying off Daniels. “Monday we learned that Cohen’s payment to Stormy Daniels was reported suspicious by a bank,” the host said, before revealing that Cohen reportedly complained to friends that he had yet to be reimbursed by Trump. “Well, Mr Cohen. Maybe now you’ll sympathize with Stormy Daniels because Donald Trump has screwed you both.” Samantha Bee TBS’s Samantha Bee compared the NRA to the church of scientology. “While these amazing kids were providing the leadership on guns we sorely need, our actual leaders continue to do nothing but hope that the news cycle will move on,” she began, in reference to the students who survived the shooting in Parkland. Bee then discussed how the NRA wields its power in Washington, noting that monitoring “how the NRA actually influences lawmakers is a little more complicated than buy and sell”. Bee went on to mention the NRA’s disproportionate spending on television advertisements versus campaign contributions. “It works,” she said. “Lawmakers know they have to appeal to these faithful disciples of the NRA. Most of us know the NRA as a lobbying group for gun manufacturers, but to its hardcore members it is more than that.” The host then showed footage of an NRA-sponsored video in which a member refers to the organization as a religion. “Yes, the NRA is like a religion,” Bee added. “Specifically, the best religion: Scientology.” Bee continued: “At first, I thought it was ridiculous to compare these two organizations, but then I did a Google image search and I thought maybe there is something here. Both of these cults are based on fanciful myths that when repeated enough their otherwise intelligent followers start to believe.” The host noted that both groups “despise” the media and push narratives that “only they can save the world”. “One says that 75m years ago an intergalactic warlord nuked billions of people in volcanoes,” Bee said. “And then there’s the really crazy myth that guns have nothing to do with gun violence.” Trevor Noah Finally, Trevor Noah addressed another chaotic day in the White House. He began: “Yesterday morning the president tweeted, ‘The new Fake News narrative is that there is CHAOS in the White House. Wrong! People will always come & go, and I want strong dialogue before making a final decision. I still have some people that I want to change (always seeking perfection). There is no Chaos, only great Energy!’ “I’ve got to say, if this whole president thing doesn’t work out, Trump would be dope at writing fortune cookies,” Noah joked. “Look, Trump always says things that are easily disproved. But yesterday was particularly entertaining. Because at 7.55am he tweeted ‘no chaos’ and then the rest of the day was nothing but chaos.” The host then explained that Kellyanne Conway was found to have violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials from using their position to influence political campaigns. “The Hatch Act? I didn’t know that was a thing,” Noah said. “But that’s what’s great about the Trump administration. We’re learning about all of America’s laws because they keep on breaking them.” Noah went on to note that, that same day, senior adviser Gary Cohn resigned. “Maybe I’m being a hater,” he said. “One adviser caught breaking the law, another adviser quit. It’s a bad day, but it’s not exactly chaos.” Then, Noah showed news of Daniels’ lawsuit against Trump: “This is amazing,” he quipped. “How incompetent are you if you didn’t sign your own NDA?” Noah concluded: “To recap: in the 12 hours following the ‘Everything’s Fine’ tweet, a senior counselor busted breaking the law, a senior adviser said ‘F this, I’m out’, and a senior citizen apparently forgot to sign the hush money contract with his porn star mistress.”

culture/2018/mar/08/trevor-noah-donald-trump-late-night-tv-round-up

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-08T15:42:04Z

Trevor Noah on Trump: 'We're learning about laws because they keep breaking them'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/08/trevor-noah-donald-trump-late-night-tv-round-up

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/07/stephen-colbert-trump-tariff-late-night-tv

Late-night hosts on Tuesday discussed Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, Sam Nunberg’s erratic cable news appearances, and Trump’s tweet about the Academy awards. Stephen Colbert: ‘Trump’s not afraid to make war, mister’ “The big story continues to be Trump’s trade war,” began Stephen Colbert. “On Thursday, he slapped a 10% tariff on aluminum and a 25% tariff on steel. It could spark a trade war, especially after Trump’s trade adviser said there would be no exceptions made for allies.” The host then explained that the EU has threatened to retaliate with tariffs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles, bourbon and bluejeans. “But Trump’s not afraid of no trade war, mister,” Colbert joked, showing the president’s tweet in which he wrote “trade wars are easy to win.” “Yeah, wars are easy to win,” the host shot back. “The war starts, you get your dad to get you five draft deferments, the war ends. So easy.” Colbert then explained that the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, is among the Republicans opposed to Trump’s tariffs, showing footage of Ryan advocating for a more “surgical” and “prudent” approach. “It turns out surgical is not the adjective Trump would use,” Colbert joked, showing a clip of the president saying the tariffs will be “loving”. “What’s a loving tariff?” Colbert asked. “I don’t understand what a loving tariff is. That’s the sort of thing you say if you don’t know what a tariff is, or what love is.” Trevor Noah: ‘And then he started snitching’ Meanwhile, Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah discussed Sam Nunberg’s infamous string of TV appearances on Monday afternoon. “Today, there was yet another resignation,” Noah began. “Chief economic adviser Gary Cohn quit today. So I think, at this point, the White House staff is just John Kelly and a fax machine that Jared isn’t allowed to use.” Noah went on: “Yesterday, we were introduced to [Robert] Mueller’s latest victim, a former Trump aide by the name of Sam Nunberg, who was so freaked out when get a subpoena from Mueller that he went on national television and lost his goddamn mind.” The host began by showing Nunberg’s early afternoon TV appearances, in which he vowed to defy Mueller’s subpoena and said that if he went to jail because of it he would laugh. “Yesterday, Nunberg decided to go on TV and tell everyone that he was not a snitch,” Noah added. “And then, he started snitching.” Noah showed more clips from Nunberg’s interviews, in which he said, among other things, that Mueller has something on Trump, called Paul Manafort a crook, claimed Carter Page colluded with the Russians, said Sarah Sanders is a “terrible press officer”, called Trump the “most disloyal person you’ll ever meet”, and added that Hope Hicks and Corey Lewandowski were having an affair on the campaign trail. “The stereotype is that women gossip, but every man who works for Trump has proven that stereotype wrong,” the host continued. “The women, though, they keep their shit on lock. Kellyanne Conway never snitched. You actually leave interviews with her knowing less than when you started. Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Fort Knox. Hope Hicks: she was communications director and we never even heard her speak.” Jimmy Kimmel: ‘An authentic Trump hand … gold and tiny’ Finally, Jimmy Kimmel, who hosted Sunday night’s Oscars, responded to Trump’s criticism of the ceremony. “I got a little surprise this morning,” Kimmel began. “I woke up, I brush my teeth, I look at my phone, I got a text saying look at Trump’s Twitter account, as if I wasn’t going to do that anyway. So I did, and this is what I see.” Kimmel then read Trump’s tweet aloud, which said: “Lowest rated Oscars in HISTORY. Problem is, we don’t have Stars anymore - except your President (just kidding, of course)!” “Trump loves saying the ratings are down to insinuate that it’s a show of some kind of support for him,” Kimmel said. “But the truth is, every year since Netflix happened, ratings are down for every big TV show: the Super Bowl, Grammys, Emmys, Golden Globes, but Trump thinks he caused the ratings to go down. “Since I was the host of the Oscars, I felt like it was incumbent upon me to respond, so I tweeted: ‘Thanks, lowest rated President in HISTORY.’” “I want to point out that my tweet got more than twice as many likes as his tweet,” Kimmel quipped. “The president’s self-titled son took a break from selling tickets to the White House to tweet about the Oscars, too.” Trump Jr, in response to a tweet asking who didn’t watch the Oscars, added a small raised-hand emoji. “If you look closely, you know that’s an authentic Trump hand because it’s gold and tiny,” Kimmel said.

culture/2018/mar/07/stephen-colbert-trump-tariff-late-night-tv

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-07T15:57:36Z

Stephen Colbert on Trump's 'loving' tariff: 'That's what you say if you don't know what a tariff is'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/07/stephen-colbert-trump-tariff-late-night-tv

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/07/adelaide-fringe-festival-fleabag-the-manchester-club-scene-and-a-glittery-clitoris

In the two years since the debate about the size of the Adelaide fringe exploded, the noise may have settled but the debris has not. Year on year, the festival talks about its increased size but each year there is a noticeable lack of companies working in innovative spaces in theatre and dance, and an increase in the comedians who are performing at Perth fringe and the Melbourne International Comedy festival but skipping Adelaide in between. And with the Royal Croquet Club threatening to withdraw from the 2018 festival if they weren’t granted a five-year licence from the Adelaide city council, many have been asking who owns the power in such a sprawling festival, and how these venues – and the money behind them – will shape the fringe in future. Still, when there are more than 1,200 shows hitting the city over five weeks, there are more than enough artistic gems to be discovered. These are my top five Adelaide fringe festival shows so far. Fleabag ABC iView’s screening of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s award-winning TV series, Fleabag, coincides with the original stage show of the same name touring Australia with Maddie Rice in the title role. This story of a young angry woman, reeling with grief and trying desperately to feel herself and hold herself together – largely through sexual encounters – comes from a dark core but the work itself is bitingly funny and heartbreakingly real. Rice as Fleabag is a beautifully affable performer. Sitting on a chair in the middle of an empty stage, augmented only by lighting changes and limited sound effects – including the voices of some scene partners – Rice is captivating. Fleabag shows us all the worst parts of herself and the way young women judge themselves as they move through the world, yet you cannot help but love her. Waller-Bridge’s script is a masterclass in writing for a solo performer: a stunning distillation of life. • Fleabag plays at The Box at the Garden of Unearthly Delights until 18 March, and then at Malthouse theatre for the Melbourne International Comedy festival, 28 March – 22 April. The Institute of Invisible Things The Adelaide central markets are a staple of the city centre. They bustle and move with produce hawkers and shoppers, the scent of fresh flowers mingling with the smell of fresh bread. Locals learn the flow of the crowds, how to lean into the steady stream of people to carry them to their favourite fruit shop. As you wait to enter The Institute of Invisible Things, held inside the Gallery Next Door, a pop-up venue inside the market, you sit and watch this familiar movement and listen to the familiar noise. Then, quietly, you are asked to go through a door into a space that feels impossibly quiet and removed. The room, inhabited by artists Emma Beech and Sarah John, is dimly lit, quiet and gentle. You’re guided alone through four spaces of stories, asking you to contemplate your place in the impossibly empty universe. The artists play with words and images: a book to read alone; the outline of a dead leaf playing in light over a steaming bowl of tea; an almost whispered conversation about the constellation that makes your family yours. In the bustle of the markets in the bustle of the festival season, Beech and John have created a beauty of a place to sit and breathe. To remember who you are; to remember you are here. Season closed Glittery Clittery: A Consensual Party It seems the Fringe Wives Club – Australian festival circuit staples Tessa Waters, Rowena Hutson and Victoria Falconer-Pritchard – have nailed the recipe for your standard fringe show: singing, dancing, comedy, audience interaction, several kilograms of sparkles, some political commentary and a rebuttal or two to a heckler. If they’ve left out the circus, they’ve replaced it with a human-sized replica of a vagina, complete with anatomy lesson – so all is forgiven. No one, it feels, is having a better time on stage this fringe festival than these women. The show is a fiercely political claiming of space – both as female artists on stage but also as women out in the world. It is, like most feminist conversations, depressing in the ways it makes you consider the truth of power and inequality, yet elating in the way these conversations create joy through empowerment. It’s a celebration of consent, of friendship and of fringe. • Glittery Clittery plays at Le Cascadeur at The Garden of Unearthly Delights until 18 March; and then at the Melba Spiegeltent for Melbourne International Comedy festival until 7 April. We Are Ian When We Are Ian opens, and large projected words tell us we will dance, we feel a bit sceptical. Slowly we get up, encouraged by these three wordless young women in white coveralls as we tentatively follow along, feeling silly and awkward, relieved when we sit down. By the end of the show, we are a messy, sweaty, dancing party. We Are Ian is documentary performance – a light bulb stands in for Ian as we hear his stories on DJing in the Manchester club scene in the 1980s. The voice leads the artists on a wild journey, balls of energy across the stage and into the audience: panting and hugging and loving. As well as being a celebration of the Manchester club scene, We Are Ian expands to comment on the need for cultural spaces and community; the way that these spaces – and, yes, the drugs that were consumed in them – created a place where young men who felt out of step with the world could embrace happiness. Its loss is traced through news footage, a contemporary history of conservative politics: from Thatcher to May; but also Hanson, Turnbull and Trump. Strange works of contemporary performance aren’t going to create a community like the world Ian knew. But they serve to remind us that art can create a family. An intense love of people you meet for only a moment and then leave as you walk off into the night. • We Are Ian plays at the Parasol Lounge at Gluttony until 18 March Wet Sounds When I was a kid, the 3m diving platform at the Adelaide aquatic centre felt impossibly high. I would stand on the edge, looking down at the water, trying to build up the energy to leap. For Wet Sounds, I float and look up at the diving platform, taken over by composer Joel Cahan, as he sits at his computer to operate the music score that takes place over and under the water. The company, perhaps, has misjudged the capacity of the pool – this is the first performance I’ve been to where I’ve been kicked square in the eye. But when you find your space and place in the water it can be incredible: I alternate between gently floating, finding places where the music melds at a point I feel it in my body, and diving as deep as I can, circling a speaker dropped low in the pool, observing this strange underworld of scuba diving performers; the legs that kick on the surface and the few other audience members who have also taken the deep plunge. Wet Sounds is not so much that you are part of the performance, but the performance is part of you: music and water becoming one in this strange place disconnected from the rest of the world. Season closed • Adelaide fringe runs until 18 March

culture/2018/mar/07/adelaide-fringe-festival-fleabag-the-manchester-club-scene-and-a-glittery-clitoris

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-07T05:18:12Z

Adelaide fringe festival: Fleabag, the Manchester club scene and a glittery clitoris

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/07/adelaide-fringe-festival-fleabag-the-manchester-club-scene-and-a-glittery-clitoris

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'pool', 'first', 'performance', 'kicked', 'square', 'eye', 'find', 'space', 'place', 'water', 'incredible', 'alternate', 'gently', 'floating', 'finding', 'places', 'music', 'melds', 'point', 'feel', 'body', 'diving', 'deep', 'circling', 'speaker', 'dropped', 'low', 'pool', 'observing', 'strange', 'underworld', 'scuba', 'diving', 'performers', 'legs', 'kick', 'surface', 'audience', 'members', 'also', 'taken', 'deep', 'plunge', 'wet', 'sounds', 'much', 'part', 'performance', 'performance', 'part', 'music', 'water', 'becoming', 'one', 'strange', 'place', 'disconnected', 'rest', 'world', 'season', 'closed', 'adelaide', 'fringe', 'runs', 'march']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/07/adelaide-biennial-of-australian-art-a-contemporary-snapshot-tackling-big-social-issues

At the launch of the 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, guest of honour and Adelaide festival co-director Neil Armfield offered his summary of the exhibition and its theme: Divided Worlds. “Somehow we are longing for healing and becoming whole,” he says. “When it’s in art, it’s just one step from the real world.” Divided Worlds is an exhibition that aims to describe the divide between ideas and ideologies, between geographies and localities, between communities and nations, and the subjective and objective view of experience and reality itself. On a more modest level, the Biennial also offers visitors a snapshot of the state of Australian contemporary art, featuring the work of 30 artists at venues across the city. The Art Gallery of South Australia and the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art host the majority of the Biennial. At AGSA there are major installation pieces, such as Amos Gebhardt’s monumental four-screen video work Evanescence (2018) and Timothy Horn’s exquisite sculptures, scaled up from classic jewellery pieces to massive wall hangings. At the Samstag, Emily Floyd’s playful text and arctic bird sculpture, Icelandic Puffins (2017), takes up almost the entire downstairs gallery, while smaller works such as Douglas Watkin’s intriguing twin videos are tucked away behind walls. The JamFactory, the Adelaide Botanic Garden and the Museum of Economic Botany venues are much smaller in scale and have fewer works, but feature standout pieces, including Tamara Dean’s arresting commissioned photo series In Our Nature and Kirsten Coelho’s Transfigured Night (2017), an elegant collection of spotlighted pottery that recalls Morandi. Where for decades galleries elsewhere in Australia shied away from large-scale survey exhibitions by local artists – and have only recently got back into the game – the Art Gallery of South Australia has been staging the Biennial since 1990. Curatorially speaking, the survey show is a difficult balance to achieve. Although there’s no real expectation of a greater cohesion beyond what one might think of as the art world equivalent of a degustation menu, one naturally hopes that some kind of overarching logic is apparent. To the credit of Erica Green, the curator of the 2018 show, Divided Worlds manages to do two things well. The first is that Green has captured the larger concerns of the contemporary art scene, which is essentially a desire to tackle big social issues, from race relations to the environment, from gender identity and social justice, to grand themes of history and to time and space itself. Your enjoyment of that will of course vary, but I respect the effort – and sometimes the art as well. The second aspect of Divided Worlds that I found interesting was that, through all the big works and the major commissioned pieces, there are also a number of virtual outsiders to contemporary art’s big game, such as two figurative realist painters: Lisa Adams and Louise Hearman. Their works represents a different but related art world of traditional art skills mixed with an eye for the surreal. Those kinds of inclusions make for a successful show, and perhaps meet the expectation that a survey show be all things to all people. Green acknowledges the Biennial carries the weight of expectation. “It has been challenging to think through a show that [implies] it’s a survey,” she says. “At first I thought there are so many artists that have already been in all these biennials – and all the number of artists who could have been included is huge. “So it became a process of asking, who do you exclude? With 30 artists you’re not going to be able to do a survey justice. How many artists could I squeeze in? It’s a sampler of what’s happening now.” The show is a mix of well-known interstate names and local South Australian artists. The work is also a familiar mix of contemporary art media: sculpture, photography, installation, video and painting. Among the work there are some genuine surprises, such as Roy Ananda’s massive sculptural tribute to the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons – a representation of a space between an imagined world and a real one. “This is a monument to fandom, reflecting my love of the game,” Ananda says. “It transposes a map that describes an underground lair of monsters and so on, that exists within the game and on paper, but also in the imaginations of tens of millions of people. It has a relation between reality and unreality.” One of the key aspects of contemporary Australian art is a concern with its own history and how certain histories are more privileged than others. Barbara Cleveland is the collective pseudonym of the artists Kelly Doley, Francis Barrett, Kate Blackmore and Diana Baker Smith, a group formerly known as Brown Council. The collective has produced work as though Cleveland was a real person active in avant-garde art in the 1960s and 70s. In Divided Worlds, Cleveland is represented by working sketches and notes for a performance as well as a video of a Cleveland-choreographed piece. “The Barbara Cleveland project in general looks at the way particular artists are curated, and the way art historicisation works, which is pretty relevant to a show like this,” says Doley. “I guess it’s a long-term project about who is included and who’s not. We speak from a gendered position about that process.” Paris–based Australian artist Angelica Mesiti’s Mother Tongue – a sumptuous two-screen installation – is in many ways a perfect distillation of Divided World’s themes. Mesiti’s video juxtaposes the musicians and performers of immigrant communities in Aarhus, Denmark, with Danish-born choirs singing traditional songs. Like her recent work that combines music of various cultures, the video finds a commonality between people. “The political context of how Europe is treating the immigration crisis and also the rise of nationalism of rightwing parties is the environment that I’m working in right now,” says Mesiti. “Also, as an Australian artist with an immigrant heritage and policies here around those issues. A lot of us in the show are thinking about the contemporary moment and how we can respond to it.” Does living in Europe offer Mesiti a different perspective on Australian art? “I think that we have a diversity of practice here that is unique, in that we have the benefit of Indigenous culture and contemporary Indigenous practice, as well as artists who are interested in gender and sexuality. As a postcolonial nation, we have so many things that are particular to us … It’s a unique type of art.” For curator Green, Divided Worlds is a mixture of careful thought on where the exhibition sits in a national context as well as what it offers to the average art punter. “I wanted to do something distinctive, that did say something about Adelaide, that came from this place,” says Green. “I’ve seen a lot of biennials in my time and I wanted this to be a show that I would walk into and be genuinely excited. I could have done with double the space, or included this person or that person … The whole show grew from an organic dialogue with the artists. Once they were chosen, we went on a journey together.” • The 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Divided Worlds is on until 3 June 2018 • Guardian Australia was a guest of the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art

culture/2018/mar/07/adelaide-biennial-of-australian-art-a-contemporary-snapshot-tackling-big-social-issues

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-07T02:51:20Z

Adelaide Biennial of Australian art – a contemporary snapshot tackling big social issues

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/07/adelaide-biennial-of-australian-art-a-contemporary-snapshot-tackling-big-social-issues

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/06/homer-swander-obituary

My friend Homer Swander, universally known as Murph, who has died aged 96, was a lecturer whose impact on the teaching of Shakespeare was unique and groundbreaking. He would hold up a copy of a Shakespeare play and announce: “This is not a poem to be studied, it is a script for performance.” I met him in the early 1970s when he knocked on my dressing room door after a performance in Stratford-upon-Avon. A tall, sunburnt, handsome man, he was in England leading a group of students and theatre lovers, and, as he was conducting a teaching session the next morning on the play I had just performed, would I come and talk to the group? No, I replied, I don’t do that kind of thing. How I work is my business. I respect that, he replied, but you have a more intimate, complex, unique understanding of Shakespeare and his work than any academic. He pulled a bottle of Johnnie Walker out of his bag and said, we can’t pay you but this is yours if you come. The next morning I was there in his temporary classroom, the first of scores of visits I paid to his classes in Stratford, London and the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) over two decades. Being invited to analyse and articulate, to delve into the actor’s processes, illuminated for me aspects of Shakespeare in performance that I had never contemplated before. Murph – whose nickname came from his mother’s maiden name – was born in Michigan to Homer Swander Sr, an executive with the Michigan Bell Telephone Company, and Grace (nee Murphy). Homer Jr studied at the University of Michigan, where he met Laura, whom he married. In 1956, he took up a job at UCSB. Three years after my initial contact with Murph, I set out with four RSC colleagues for an eight-week tour of US colleges. Actors in Residence was born. This work continues, for a while known as Alliance for Creative Theatre, Education and Research, and now as Actors from the London Stage. Murph influenced my work on Shakespeare as much as anyone. He also, if indirectly, changed my life. In 1986 I was assisting a Shakespeare scholar, David Rodes, in a lecture he was giving in Los Angeles. Also signed up for this course of public lectures was a Hollywood producer, Robert Justman, who was involved in preparing a revival of Star Trek. Robert always claimed that at one point in the evening he turned to his wife and said: “We’ve found the captain.” I went on to play Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation for seven years. Murph retired after 30 years at UCSB but continued to work and teach. Laura died just over a year ago aged 93; they had been married for 73 years. Homer is survived by their children, Susan and Michael, and their grandson, Timothy. Another daughter, Beverley, died in 1999.

culture/2018/mar/06/homer-swander-obituary

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-06T17:51:37Z

Homer Swander obituary

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/06/homer-swander-obituary

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/06/colbert-nunberg-mueller-investigation-trevor-noah-kimmel-round-up

Late-night hosts on Monday discussed former Trump aide Sam Nunberg’s bizarre appearances on cable news, the fallout from Trump’s tariffs and the 2018 Oscars. Stephen Colbert “Right before we taped the show the entire news cycle jumped on the bus to Crazy Town,” said Stephen Colbert. “At the wheel: former Trump campaign aide and guy-telling-the-stripper-how-much-he-loves-his-kids Sam Nunberg.” “Here’s what happened: Robert Mueller issued a subpoena to Nunberg to get him to testify about the Russia investigation,” Colbert explained. “And not only did Nunberg say he won’t show up; he was planning to go on Bloomberg TV and tear up the subpoena.” But before that happened, Colbert explained, Nunberg called into MSNBC’s Katy Tur for a strange interview in which he explained he would not comply with Mueller’s subpoena because he does not want to take the time going over his emails with Roger Stone, Steve Bannon and Hope Hicks. Nunberg added that it “would be funny” if he was arrested or held in contempt of court for his refusal to comply. “Nunberg seemed to acknowledge how far he was flying off the handle here,” Colbert added, showing a clip from the interview in which Nunberg says “my lawyer’s gonna dump me”. Colbert went on: “Nunberg took over cable news like a car chase. He was on MSNBC at 2.45, CNN at 3.30 and CNN again at four o’clock. I believe at five he called into HGTV to incriminate himself on Flip or Flop. I’m pretty sure after Mueller gets through with him, it’s gonna be flip.” The host also showed footage of Nunberg saying the Russia investigation was caused by Donald Trump “because he’s an idiot”, and then showed a statement Nunberg made to the Washington Post that read, “Donald Trump won this election on his own. He campaigned his ass off. And there is nobody who hates him more than me.” In one of his final cable news appearances, Nunberg said defiantly, “I’m not cooperating; arrest me.” “You know Mueller can arrest you, right?” Colbert asked. “That’s like saying ‘Eat me’ to Hannibal Lecter.” Trevor Noah Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah addressed the Republican pushback to Trump’s idea of imposing tariffs. “Unsurprisingly, a lot of people were against Trump’s idea to impose tariffs on every nation in the world,” Noah said. “But the strongest opposition came from within the president’s own party.” Noah showed footage of senators Orrin Hatch and Lindsey Graham voicing their opposition on cable news. “Am I the only person who still thinks it’s weird that lawmakers have to go on TV just so they can speak directly to their president?” Noah said. “It’s only a matter of time before lobbyists start planting their agendas inside Happy Meals. Because you know Trump will find it.” The host went on to explain that economists warn starting a trade war could increase the cost of living for Americans. “The problem is that when America imposes a tariff like this, other countries could retaliate and then things escalate,” Noah said, explaining that other countries have already stated plans to tax US goods like Harley-Davidson, Levi’s jeans and Jim Beam. “It starts with steel and aluminum, and now we’re up to whiskey and jeans,” the host quipped. “You’d think Trump getting all these bad Yelp reviews on his tariffs idea would make him think twice, but joke’s on you. He doesn’t think once.” The host then showed Trump’s tweet, in which he says “trade wars are good and easy to win”. “The truth is, trade wars aren’t easy to win,” Noah said, mentioning the pitfalls of George Bush’s steel tariffs and Barack Obama’s tire tariffs. “Even if it’s bad policy, America could be headed for a trade war. To be honest, of all the wars we thought Trump could get us into – nuclear war, race war – a trade war is the least bad option.” Jimmy Kimmel Jimmy Kimmel, who hosted Sunday night’s Oscars, discussed the show. “We had a long night last night,” he began. “The show is a lot of work. It’s a monster production.” Kimmel went on to thank a multitude of people who helped the show come to life, “especially … my amazing and talented writing staff who put in months of hard work and late nights to write not only the Academy Awards but this over-congratulatory statement I am currently reading”. Kimmel went on to share various anecdotes from the show, about the jet ski awarded to the winner with the shortest acceptance speech and the hot dog cannon built for Kimmel’s mid-show visit to a movie theatre across the way. “Best picture went to The Shape of Water. Shape of Water, if you have not seen it, is a love story between a mute woman who eats a lot of hard-boiled eggs and a fish man with magic powers who also eats hard-boiled eggs,” the host explained. “And the most remarkable thing is Guillermo del Toro wrote this movie before marijuana became legal in California for recreational use.” Kimmel then brought up best actress winner Frances McDormand, whose Oscar was reportedly stolen after she set it down on a table at an after party. “After the guy snatched it, he did the smart thing,” Kimmel joked. “He immediately made a video of himself and posted it on Facebook.” “So then he was arrested for grand theft, which is a felony,” the host concluded. “I would rather steal from Mike Tyson than Frances McDormand. She’ll beat your ass.”

culture/2018/mar/06/colbert-nunberg-mueller-investigation-trevor-noah-kimmel-round-up

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-06T15:58:35Z

Colbert on Nunberg's threat to Mueller: 'You know he can arrest you, right?'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/06/colbert-nunberg-mueller-investigation-trevor-noah-kimmel-round-up

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'write', 'academy', 'awards', 'over-congratulatory', 'statement', 'currently', 'reading', 'kimmel', 'went', 'share', 'various', 'anecdotes', 'show', 'jet', 'ski', 'awarded', 'winner', 'shortest', 'acceptance', 'speech', 'hot', 'dog', 'cannon', 'built', 'kimmel', 'mid-show', 'visit', 'movie', 'theatre', 'across', 'way', 'best', 'picture', 'went', 'shape', 'water', 'shape', 'water', 'seen', 'love', 'story', 'mute', 'woman', 'eats', 'lot', 'hard-boiled', 'eggs', 'fish', 'man', 'magic', 'powers', 'also', 'eats', 'hard-boiled', 'eggs', 'host', 'explained', 'remarkable', 'thing', 'guillermo', 'del', 'toro', 'wrote', 'movie', 'marijuana', 'became', 'legal', 'california', 'recreational', 'use', 'kimmel', 'brought', 'best', 'actress', 'winner', 'frances', 'mcdormand', 'whose', 'oscar', 'reportedly', 'stolen', 'set', 'table', 'party', 'guy', 'snatched', 'smart', 'thing', 'kimmel', 'joked', 'immediately', 'made', 'video', 'posted', 'facebook', 'arrested', 'grand', 'theft', 'felony', 'host', 'concluded', 'would', 'rather', 'steal', 'mike', 'tyson', 'frances', 'mcdormand', 'beat', 'ass']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/05/historic-england-to-record-memorials-to-the-less-known-immortalised-project

Memorials to those whose names never left more than the lightest impression on history, commemorated by paintings on walls, plaques on park benches, or a posy of flowers left on tombstones worn into illegibility, are to be recorded in a project by Historic England. The Immortalised project, which launches on Monday, will involve the public in recording not just the memorials, but the local ceremonies and rituals associated with them, including the flowers left every year on Alan Turing’s birthday at the statue in Manchester honouring the scientist. Flowers also appear every year at the foot of Oliver Cromwell’s statue in Westminster and nearby at the gates of the Banqueting House in Whitehall where Charles I was executed. Contemporary memorials already noted by the researchers for Historic England include the shrines that invariably spring up within hours of a fatal accident or terrorist attack, and an installation made of spoons on a wall at Mount Pleasant in London believed to commemorate dead heroin users. A YouGov survey for Historic England, as part of the project, suggests that one in seven woman and one in 10 men have created some form of memorial themselves. Historical monuments include a 19th-century statue in a Dorset marketplace to an 18th-century woman, Ruth Pearce, who, according to local legend, cheated a trader, then exclaimed when challenged that God might strike her dead if she was in the wrong – and was promptly killed by lightning. A memorial far from the sea in Telford, inscribed with the words “Nothing great is easy”, commemorates Capt Matthew Webb, who is recognised as the first man to swim across the Channel. He learned to swim in the nearby river Severn before mastering the Channel in 1875 coated in porpoise oil and fuelled by slugs of brandy administered by members from his support party travelling in a small boat. He drowned eight years later attempting to swim the rapids below Niagara Falls. More recent political memorials include the huge gable-end mural in the East End of London that celebrates the Battle of Cable Street, when local people joined socialist, Jewish and Irish groups in 1935 to prevent a fascist march coming through the area. The mural was begun in 1979 and completed in 1983, but recently needed major restoration work after repeated vandalism by far-right groups. A pedestrian bridge in Bristol, designed in 1999 by the Irish artist Eilis O’Connell, was named in honour of Pero Jones, who came to the city in 1783 with slaveowners the Pinney family from their Caribbean plantation where he had worked after being bought at the age of 12. The Immortalised season follows demands for the removal of memorials to colonial and controversial figures, including to Cecil Rhodes in Oxford. The project will include music, an exhibition next autumn, a commission for a new memorial and a public debate in May about the recent rows over such memorials. Speakers at the Contested Statues event will include the historian and broadcaster David Olusoga, who has called these rows “the history wars”. The Historic England project will seek out memorials to under-represented groups, including women, black and minority ethnic as well as working-class figures. The YouGov survey also found that a fifth of young people do not believe conventional memorials genuinely represent those who have made significant achievements. Duncan Wilson, the chief executive of Historic England, said: “We are creatures of memory and every generation has commemorated people in the built environment. Their stories may involve episodes of heroism or generosity and be inspirational or they may involve episodes which are shameful by today’s standards. They all tell us something about the lives of our ancestors.”

culture/2018/mar/05/historic-england-to-record-memorials-to-the-less-known-immortalised-project

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-05T06:00:07Z

Historic England to record memorials to the less known

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/05/historic-england-to-record-memorials-to-the-less-known-immortalised-project

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/04/on-my-radar-audrey-niffenegger-cultural-hghlights

Audrey Niffenegger is an American writer and artist born in Michigan in 1963 and now living in Chicago. In 1997, she had an idea for a sci-fi romance graphic novel about involuntary time travel. It became The Time Traveler’s Wife, her bestselling 2003 debut novel (and subsequently a film). Her books since include Her Fearful Symmetry, The Night Bookmobile, and Raven Girl. Bizarre Romance, a collaboration with her husband, Eddie Campbell, is out now (Jonathan Cape). 1. Exhibition Charlotte Salomon. Life? Or Theatre? Charlotte Salomon made her extraordinary graphic memoir, Life? Or Theatre?, to stave off despair during her exile from her native Berlin to her grandparents’ home in France during the Nazi occupation. [In hundreds of paintings and drawings] she recounts the suicides of family members, the disastrous effect of the Nazis on her life, and the philosophical education she receives from her stepmother’s singing teacher. I have seen this several times, most recently at the Royal Academy. It is now at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, with extra, revelatory pages that have been in her family’s collection. 2. Documentary Jazz (Ken Burns, 2000) I’ve always liked jazz, especially early New Orleans and Chicago style jazz, but I never felt knowledgeable about it, not in the deep way I know about rock’n’roll. My collaborator and husband, Eddie Campbell, loves it, knows about it and is always playing it at our house, and so it seemed desirable to improve my sense of jazz history. Ken Burns’s documentary TV series did the trick. It’s not light-hearted: racism, drug abuse and poverty have informed this divine music. Watching the series has intensified my respect for jazz musicians. It’s a place to begin to listen. 3. Place House of Illustration, Granary Square, London N1 I have fallen in love with the House of Illustration, near King’s Cross in London. This beautiful new gallery, founded by Quentin Blake in 2014, is dedicated to illustration and the graphic arts. At the moment they have a quirky exhibit of North Korean graphics – until 13 May. They have a charming bookshop, and they want you to draw. To help, they have loads of fun workshops: Medical Illustration, Creating Graphic Novels, Illustrating the Animal Kingdom. It’s easy to be happy there. 4. Television The Magicians, Syfy I did not own a TV until two years ago and so I never had a clue about television shows – and I was pretty snobby about that. Now I watch TV and some of it is delightful. Anyway, I am a devoted fan of author Lev Grossman’s beautiful Magicians Trilogy – he gets at the yearning confusion of late adolescence, the need to transcend our human limitations and the certainty that we will fail at this. But, oh, wait: magic is real. The TV show – The Magicians, on Syfy – is fun, occasionally brilliant, and diverges from the books in interesting ways. 5. Library The London Library, St James’s Square, SW1 It is difficult to choose only one library, because all libraries are manifestations of the continuous library that includes every library that is, was or will be. But I’m choosing a library of my aspiration, one I have wandered through but not yet used: the storied, glorious London Library. It was founded by Thomas Carlyle, opened in 1841, possesses more than 1 million books and will lend almost any of them if one becomes a member and pays a yearly fee. I think that very soon I will succumb to its charms. 6. Music Landfall by Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet Landfall is the first collaboration between Laurie Anderson and the Kronos Quartet, both longtime favourites of mine, released on Nonesuch Records. It is a mournful and wondering elegy for things lost in Hurricane Sandy and a lush evocation of the events of that storm. Another thing I’m excited about musically is the Royal Opera production of Coraline at the Barbican. It’s a new opera based on Neil Gaiman’s spooky, lovely children’s book, with music by Mark-Anthony Turnage and directed by Aletta Collins, and looks quite otherworldly.

culture/2018/mar/04/on-my-radar-audrey-niffenegger-cultural-hghlights

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-04T10:00:02Z

On my radar: Audrey Niffenegger’s cultural highlights

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/04/on-my-radar-audrey-niffenegger-cultural-hghlights

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https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/04/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-cosy

The next theme for our weekly photography assignment in the Observer New Review is ‘cosy .’ Share your photos of what cosy means to you – and tell us about your image in the description box. The closing date is Wednesday 7 March at 10am. We’ll publish our favourites in The New Review on Sunday 11 March and in a gallery on the Guardian site. You can share your ‘cosy ’ pictures by clicking on the ‘Contribute’ button on this article. You can also use the Guardian app and search for ‘GuardianWitness assignments’ – and if you add it to the homepage – you can keep up with all our assignments. GuardianWitness is the home of readers’ content on the Guardian. Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others.

culture/2018/mar/04/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-cosy

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-04T09:00:01Z

Your pictures: share your photos on the theme of 'cosy'

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/04/your-pictures-share-your-photos-on-the-theme-of-cosy

['next', 'theme', 'weekly', 'photography', 'assignment', 'observer', 'new', 'review', 'cosy', 'share', 'photos', 'cosy', 'means', 'tell', 'us', 'image', 'description', 'box', 'closing', 'date', 'wednesday', 'march', '10am', 'publish', 'favourites', 'new', 'review', 'sunday', 'march', 'gallery', 'guardian', 'site', 'share', 'cosy', 'pictures', 'clicking', 'contribute', 'button', 'article', 'also', 'use', 'guardian', 'app', 'search', 'guardianwitness', 'assignments', 'add', 'homepage', 'keep', 'assignments', 'guardianwitness', 'home', 'readers', 'content', 'guardian', 'contribute', 'video', 'pictures', 'stories', 'browse', 'news', 'reviews', 'creations', 'submitted', 'others']

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/04/simone-lia-on-art-critics

culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/04/simone-lia-on-art-critics

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

interactive

2018-03-04T08:00:13Z

Simone Lia on art critics

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ng-interactive/2018/mar/04/simone-lia-on-art-critics

[]

https://content.guardianapis.com/culture/2018/mar/03/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

Five of the best ... films A Fantastic Woman (15) (Sebastián Lelio, 2017, Chi/Ger/Spa/US) 104 mins An empathic study of transphobia and a restrained modern-day melodrama, with a magnificent heroine in the form of Daniela Vega. A Santiago trans woman, her grief following the death of her male partner is compounded by her treatment at the hands of his family and the authorities, who barely consider her a legitimate human being. Game Night (15) (John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein, 2018, US) 100 mins The presence of Jason Bateman tells you plenty about this comedy, but it is more cleverly constructed than the average, with some entertaining players (Rachel McAdams, Sharon Horgan, Jesse Plemons among them). A quiz night takes a spicier turn when a kidnap-manhunt element is introduced. I, Tonya (15) (Craig Gillespie, 2017, US) 119 mins Notorious skater Tonya Harding is rehabilitated in this playful (rather than truthful) biopic, which remains on her side even as it mocks her disadvantages. Those would include her monstrous mother (played by Allison Janney) and abusive husband (Sebastian Stan), whose plan to harm her arch rival was destined to backfire. Margot Robbie glams down to give a career-best performance. Black Panther (12A) (Ryan Coogler, 2018, US) 134 mins The superhero movie of the moment cuts deeper than your standard comic-book fare, with a story that resonates beyond its fictional setting of Wakanda, a high-tech African nation whose self-imposed isolation creates problems for newly crowned warrior-king Chadwick Boseman. It’s a satisfying blockbuster all round, packed with colourful detail, epic spectacle and redeeming humour. Lady Bird (15) (Greta Gerwig, 2017, US) 94 mins Gerwig’s lovable coming-of-ager breaks little new ground formally but barely puts a foot wrong, either. Saoirse Ronan carries the show as the spiky, self-motivated hero of the title, for whom small-town Sacramento life is a series of challenges and frustrations: school, boys, friends, money, and in particular, her combative relationship with her mother (Laurie Metcalf). SR Five of the best ... rock & pop gigs Stefflon Don Call off the search: UK rap finally has its very own Nicki Minaj. Fusing hip-hop, dancehall and R&B, the gloriously OTT Stephanie Allen, AKA Stefflon Don, has so far featured on two massive hits – her own Hurtin’ Me and Jax Jones’s Instruction - and recently collaborated with Skepta on unwarranted dick-pic anthem, Ding-A-Ling. Bristol Tuesday 6; Brighton Wednesday 7; London Thursday 8; Birmingham Friday 9; touring to 10 March C2C festival The annual country hoedown returns across three venues, headlined by Kacey Musgraves (above), Faith Hill & Tim McGraw and Little Big Town. If you’re looking for less mainstream fare, somewhere among the London leg’s 12 stages you’ll find two ex-girlband members in the shape of the Saturdays’ Una Healy and Liz McClarnon, AKA one third of Atomic Kitten. London, Dublin & Glasgow, Friday 9 to 11 March Superorganism There’s a slight whiff of primary-coloured cult about BBC Sound of 2018 longlisters Superorganism, whose eight members live together in a large terrace house-turned-studio in east London. Musically, they’re suitably all over the place: just-released self-titled debut apes their influences – Devo, Beck and the Avalanches – adding a dash of extra pop nous. Birmingham, Monday 5; Manchester, Wednesday 7; London, Thursday 8; Brighton, Friday 9; touring to 12 March Yasiin Bey & Robert Glasper This one-off London show features hip-hop great Bey AKA Mos Def (who recently teased a new collaboration with Kanye West), performing with genre-defying pianist Robert Glasper and drummer Chris “Daddy” Dave. Expect the unexpected, obviously, but also hopefully some songs from Mos Def’s 1999 classic Black on Both Sides in among all the jazzy experimentation. Troxy, E1, Thursday 8 March MC Joe Locke and Gwilym Simcock A duet for jazz piano and vibraphone might seem a sparse menu, but not with California-born vibes virtuoso Locke on one side of the conversation, and UK piano whirlwind Simcock on the other. The pair balance graceful sophistication, blazing improv and tight grooves, and the musical games they play are gleefully irresistible. Watermill Jazz, Dorking, Tuesday 6; 606 Club, SW10, Wednesday 7 March JF Four of the best ... classical concerts Conquest of the Useless The first complete performance of David Fennessy’s work forms the centrepiece of New Music Dublin 2018. Inspired by the making of Werner Herzog’s Amazonian epic Fitzcarraldo, Conquest of the Useless is played by the RTE Symphony Orchestra, with Jennifer Johnston as the mezzo soloist, and the composer on electric guitar. National Concert Hall, Dublin, Sunday 4 March Gerald Barry Premiere Thomas Adès’s returns to the CBSO almost always include something new and intriguing. The novelty in his latest concert, alongside works by Britten, Stravinsky and his own Polaris, is the world premiere of Gerald Barry’s Organ Concerto, co-commissioned by the orchestra; the soloist is Thomas Trotter. Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Wednesday 7 March From the House of the Dead The Royal Opera ticks one more off its list of unperformed Janáček with its first staging of his final stage work, based upon Dostoyevsky’s novel. The production also sees the ROH debut of director Krzysztof Warlikowski. Mark Wigglesworth conducts a cast headed by Willard White and Johan Reuter. Royal Opera House, WC2, Wednesday to 24 March A Celebration of Louise Farrenc Laurence Equilbey brings her orchestra Insula to London on International Women’s Day to present a portrait of 19th-century French composer Farrenc, whose music was much admired by Berlioz and Schumann. Equilbey conducts Farrenc’s Third Symphony, prefaced by Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Alexandra Conunova, Natalie Clein and Alice Sara Ott as the soloists. Barbican Hall, EC2, Thursday 8 March AC Five of the best ... exhibitions Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy The greatest artist of the 20th century had two golden epochs: before the first world war when he and Braque invented Cubism, and the 1930s when he explored sex, violence and mythology in the bedroom, the bullring and Guernica. This exhibition delves into the diary that is his art to explore a single brilliant year of his surrealist period. Tate Modern, SE1 Thursday 8 March to 9 September Ian Cheng; Sondra Perry Two US artists at the cutting edge of tech hold mirrors to our time. Perry finds new ways to see black lives and history in videos and performances. Cheng constructs gaming scenarios that mimic the natural world. Do their experiments reveal the future of art? Serpentine Gallery, W2, Tuesday 6 March to 28 May; Serpentine Sackler Gallery, Tuesday 6 March to 20 May Lorna Simpson This Brooklyn artist says that her collection of vintage Jet and Ebony magazines “informed my sense of thinking about being black in America” and that the publications “are a reminder of my childhood and a lens through which to see the past 50 years of history.” Pages from the magazines feature in her latest exhibition exploring gender, race and identity. Strange forms erupt from fashion images to question the ways we define one another. Hauser & Wirth, W1, to 28 April In the Land In, and not on, the land: the art here delves deep into the British landscape to find sculptural echoes of natural form and ripe, loamy painted textures. It explores how British modern artists returned to nature in the mid-20th century and how abstraction was enriched by the feel of place. The Cornish sky blows salt air into Peter Lanyon’s paintings. John Piper, Roger Hilton and more share their Romanticism. The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester to 28 October Jasmina Cibic In a trilogy of films shown in a specially created installation, Cibic explores how modernist design can create a national consciousness. One film focuses on how Mies van der Rohe’s pristine architecture provided designs for a new Germany in the 20s. Another shows how Arne Jacobsen helped create the image of modern Denmark. We also see Vjenčeslav Richter’s sleek Yugoslav Pavilion for the 1958 Brussels Expo. BALTIC, Gateshead to 28 May JJ Five of the best ... theatre shows How (Not) to Live in Suburbia Not just a broadside against Twickenham and book groups where nobody wants to actually read the book, but more an investigation into the loneliness that descends when the gods conspire against you. Annie Siddons’s show is a real pleasure: a brilliantly funny, blisteringly truthful and often quite surreal scream of pain. Theatre Royal: Ustinov Studio, Bath Friday 9 to 10 March; touring to 15 May How to Act Theatre director Anthony is giving a masterclass, explaining the technique he discovered while travelling in Nigeria. But Anthony’s view of himself and the world are about to be blasted apart by a participant called Promise. Post-Oxfam controversy, Graham Eatough’s two hander about power and exploitation should have added welly. Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Tuesday 6 to 10; touring to 23 March Girls & Boys Dennis Kelly’s devastating play, boasting an astonishing Carey Mulligan, is sold out, but Monday seats are available on the day. It has the hurtling dread of a Greek tragedy as a woman tells the story of meeting a man, merging their lives and having children. Kelly constructs his play with care and compassion, and Lyndsey Turner directs with forensic precision, moving from the wickedly funny to the unbearably desolate. Jerwood Theatres at the Royal Court, SW1, to 17 March Hamlet The Empire may be a big barn of a place but Paapa Essiedu – the RSC’s first black Hamlet – will have no difficulty filling it, such is his charisma. Simon Godwin’s production transposes the action from Denmark to contemporary west Africa, and this engaging revival puts Essiedu up there with the most memorable Hamlets of recent years. Derngate Theatre, Northampton, Saturday 3; Hackney Empire, E8, Tuesday 6 to 31 March Manwatching How often do we hear female sexual desire being talked about on stage? Almost never, but this solo show – performed by a different man each night, sight unseen – offers a no-holds-barred examination of one woman’s sexual fantasies. The play is written by a female Royal Court writer who wishes to remain anonymous. It’s not just its Elizabeth Bennet fantasy that’s fascinating, but also the way it probes why teenage boys boast about masturbation, but girls feel shame. Royal Festival Hall: Level 5 Function Room, SE1, Friday 9 & 10 March LG Three of the best ... dance shows Ballet British Columbia Female choreographers dominate this triple bill from the excellently contemporary Canadian company, with works by Emily Molnar, the Tel Aviv duo Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, and Crystal Pite, whose setting of two Brahms sonatas for cello and piano explores themes of acceptance and loss. Sadler’s Wells, EC1 Tuesday 6 & Wednesday 7; Brighton Dome Friday 9; touring to 24 March Northern Ballet: Jane Eyre Cathy Marston’s adaptation of Brontë gets a fully deserved tour. Marston shows a novelist’s eye for detail in the layering of her heroine’s character – ironic, angry, clever and passionate – and brings a freshly minted choreography to the telling of her story. Grand Theatre, Leeds, Wednesday 7 to 14 March; touring to 9 June Akademi: The Troth Gary Clarke marks the centenary of the first world war with this new dance-theatre piece exploring the stories of the Indian soldiers who travelled hundreds of miles to fight in the trenches of an unknown land. Music is by Shri Sriram and the cast includes Vidya Patel. The MAC, Belfast, Monday 5; touring to 16 March JM

culture/2018/mar/03/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

pillar/arts

Arts

culture

Culture

article

2018-03-03T09:00:15Z

What to see this week in the UK

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/03/what-to-see-this-week-in-the-uk

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