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Culture

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Entertainment

‘Frighteningly of the moment’: Steven Sater on his emperor Nero musical and turning JFK’s assassination into a Greek tragedy

It took the Tony winner 20 years to bring his ‘showman’ tyrant to London. He reflects on its Trumpian parallels, the death of Spring Awakening’s Duncan Sheik and the horrific accident that led him to ancient classics Before Spring Awakening won eight Tony awards in 2007, its dramatist and lyricist Steven Sater had “been struggling financially and professionally for quite a while,” he remembers. “Everyone said at the time: this is where it all starts!” Sater and composer Duncan Sheik thought their next success would be Nero, about the Roman emperor who murdered his mother among many others, whi

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time review – a dream come true

Nintendo Switch 2; Nintendo This ambitious remake transforms a landmark Zelda game into a modern masterpiece, clearer and easier to navigate, more beautiful to look at, with playful musical touches. Yet the melancholy remains It’s always a worry, returning to a formative piece of art from your childhood. Will your jaded adult sensibilities render you unable to locate the magic that captivated your child self? Will revisiting it reveal that it was never actually that good, and that your tastes are built on a foundation of lies? With video games, there is the added complication of technological

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‘Every family has silences’: Kathryn Hunter on despair, desire, dislodgeable limbs – and her acting genius

She has played King Lear, all three witches in Macbeth and an ape turned variety performer in Kafka’s Monkey. As she prepares for a new show, she discusses the soaring highs and deep lows of her extraordinary life Kathryn Hunter pulls off her black beanie and sits down. She hates having to keep still: “It’s torture.” On aeroplanes, she is always in the aisle, bobbing up and down. She has an inner restlessness, an energy looking for the right outlet – one that even eight hours of rehearsing hasn’t quieted. With the beanie, a body warmer and a cup of builders’ tea, the acclaimed actor looks as i

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Entertainment

Judi Dench says Daniel Craig ordered her death. James Bond just got a lot scarier

Not only did Craig insist his 007 die at the end of his run, but now we learn from Dench’s memoir that it was his idea to kill her off too. How will the next Bond top that? Shoot a puppy? Now that the next James Bond actor is on the brink of being unveiled, it may be a good time to take a proper look at the prior 007 with clear eyes. Because, while the reputations of all the previous Bonds have ossified over the years – in chronological order: sexy, wooden, camp, boring and silly – the Daniel Craig era is finally coming into focus. And it turns out that he was actually the angel of death. Obvi

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Entertainment

Stick review – you really need Owen Wilson’s beautiful golf comedy in your life

TV’s biggest dopamine hit is back, and it is thoroughly spoiling us with amazing new guest stars. What’s more, our hero is coming out of retirement to try to win the US Open! It’s tee time Pryce Cahill (Owen Wilson) isn’t worried about his midlife crisis. “Moses had a crisis! Churchill had a crisis! Charlie Sheen had a crisis!” We’re not worrying, either: Pryce has been living fairly happily through a midlife crisis for as long as we’ve known him, which is for the one previous season of the superficially inessential yet sneakily deeply emotional golf comedy Stick. Stick is the sort of chummy h

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Entertainment

‘May every data centre crumble to dust!’ How can we stop the tech bros, tyrants and tycoons? With quilts!

Taking aim at every modern malaise, anarchist artist CJ Reay is going viral with his witty, call-to-arms slogans on beautiful tapestries. Altogether now: ‘Tyrants of today will be the compost of tomorrow!’ CJ Reay quilted so hard all summer that now he needs glasses. “After four months of doing it, I found myself getting really bad headaches towards the end, so I had an eye test,” says Reay. “I totally ruined my summer!” If that sounds extreme, he had given himself a relatively extreme task: to produce 14 of his Anarchist Prayer Quilts, adapting the slogan-forward graphic poster work that has

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Entertainment

Constantinople to Istanbul review – you won’t want to leave this lavish celebration of double imperial splendour

V&A, London Treasures from the two world-defining cultures that somehow coexisted in one mighty city keep on dazzling in this gorgeous, unmissable show Two empires compete to bewitch you in this exhibition that offers a double bubble of beauty. It collides the Byzantine empire, whose capital Constantinople was officially inaugurated on 11 May AD330, with the Ottoman Turks who conquered this great city in 1453 and turned it into Istanbul. The combined glories of two lost worlds – the Ottoman empire was dissolved in 1922 – beget an utterly enrapturing blockbuster. I lost all track of time in thi

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Entertainment

Tall Tales and Murder review – this Irish version of The Wire makes for mile-a-minute TV

You definitely won’t be bored by the TV take on the first of the Dublin Trilogy novels. But you might well feel confused by this Bonnie and Clyde-style caper through gangland Ireland (featuring Aidan Gillen) Tall Tales and Murder is likely to elicit varied responses from viewers, but boredom will surely be low on the list. This Irish caper – based on the first of the Dublin Trilogy novels by Caimh McDonnell, and written for TV by Stuart Carolan – moves at a mile a minute, taking in disgruntled gangsters; a dysfunctional care home; buried treasure; bedroom cuckoldry; a Paul Mescal lookalike con

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Entertainment

Latest Sarah J Maas book becomes UK’s fastest-selling adult fantasy novel

A Court of Splintered Harmony also records biggest single week of sales since Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman in 2015 Sarah J Maas’s long-awaited return to her bestselling romantasy series has smashed UK sales records, with A Court of Splintered Harmony becoming the fastest-selling adult fantasy novel since accurate records began in 1998. The novel, the sixth in Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses (Acotar) series and her first return to it in more than five years, sold 188,914 copies in the UK between publication day on 27 October and 31 October, according to NielsenIQ BookData. That also makes

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‘A trailblazer in the truest sense’: poet Grace Nichols wins £10,000 Pioneer prize

The Guyana-born, British-based writer takes home the Royal Society of Literature prize honouring women writers over 60 who have broken barriers The poet Grace Nichols has been named the winner of the 2026 Royal Society of Literature Pioneer prize, a £10,000 award that recognises women writers over 60 who broke through at a time when the literary world was less open to them. Nichols, 76, who was born in Guyana and moved to the UK in 1977, made her name with I Is a Long-Memoried Woman, which took the Commonwealth poetry prize in 1983, and The Fat Black Woman’s Poems, a collection published the f

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They fell in love on The Simpsons and married in real life. Meet the French Homer and Marge

They have brought TV’s most famous cartoon couple to life in France for the last 38 years. Philippe Peythieu and Véronique Augereau tell all about working and living together for so long, still being lovebirds – and rarely arguing The Simpsons is the biggest cartoon comedy in the world, with suburban couple Homer and Marge at its heart. From their beginnings as high-school sweethearts to the travails of married life, they’re an unbreakable pair. Gag-heavy as it may be, it’s also a series with plenty of sentimental plots, from Homer giving up his beloved Duff beer for a month to prove his love

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