Category Archives: Culture

Vatican puts ‘God’s architect’ Antoni Gaudí on path to sainthood

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Pope Francis recognises the ‘heroic virtues’ of the creator of Barcelona’s Sagrada Família basilica in first step of process

He’s long been nicknamed “God’s architect” by those who point to his piety and the religious imagery woven through his soaring spires, colourful ceramics and undulating lines.

Now it seems the Vatican may be ready to make it official. It said on Monday that Antoni Gaudí, the Catalan architect behind Barcelona’s Sagrada Família basilica, had been put on the path to sainthood.

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Mickey Rourke ejected from Big Brother house over ‘unacceptable behaviour’

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Actor, 72, understood to have used behaviour and language considered threatening against housemate Chris Hughes

The Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke has been kicked out of the Celebrity Big Brother house over “instances of unacceptable behaviour” and “inappropriate language”.

The 72-year-old Bafta winner is understood to have used behaviour and language that was considered to be threatening and aggressive during a task, directed towards his housemate Chris Hughes, a former Love Island contestant. No physical altercation took place, according to the PA news agency.

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Jean Marsh, co-creator of 1970s TV hit Upstairs, Downstairs, dies aged 90

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ITV drama set in aristocratic house in Edwardian London explored class and social change, and won many awards

Jean Marsh, the actor and writer best known for co-creating and starring in the 1970s TV show Upstairs, Downstairs, has died aged 90.

The film-maker Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who was a close friend of Marsh, said she died of complications with dementia in her London home on Sunday.

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Greenland documentary forces Danes to confront their colonial heritage

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As Donald Trump threatens to take over the territory, film claims its cryolite mine was plundered by Denmark

For two weeks in Denmark the subject of the documentary was “bigger than Trump”, says producer Michael Bévort. The broadcast of Grønlands hvide guld (Greenland’s white gold), a 55-minute film about the Danish exploitation over several decades of a cryolite mine in southern Greenland and the vast sums of money it generated, made waves in February in both Greenland and its former colonial ruler, Denmark. But the reaction between the two could not have been more polarised.

In Greenland, which remains part of the Danish kingdom, with Denmark still controlling its foreign and defence policies, there were feelings of anger and deep sadness. The country was in the middle of an election being watched by the world thanks to Donald Trump’s threats to take control of the Arctic island. According to a poll for Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq, more than a third of voters said the documentary would influence their vote.

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Japan’s World Expo: a positive vision of the future for our divided world?

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Fifty-five years since Osaka last hosted, rocks from Mars, domestic androids and artificial hearts are part of showcase on ‘unloved’ island

As clunky as it sounds, “designing a future society for our lives” isn’t a bad ambition for the world in these troubled times. From this Sunday, organisers of the 2025 Exposition in Osaka will be hoping that appeal will put the event’s unsettled preparations in the shade for a six-month celebration of our common humanity.

The western Japan city is preparing to host its second World Expo, 55 years after the first was held in a country eager to capitalise on fading memories of the second world war as it embarked on its postwar journey to become an industrial and technological powerhouse.

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Ted Kotcheff, director of First Blood, Weekend at Bernie’s and Wake in Fright, dies aged 94

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Prolific Canadian director also made one of the country’s first internationally successful films, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, starring Richard Dreyfuss

Ted Kotcheff, the prolific Canadian director of films including First Blood, Weekend at Bernie’s, Wake in Fright and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, has died aged 94. His daughter Kate Kotcheff told the Canadian Press that he had died of heart failure on Thursday in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, where he lived. His son Thomas said: “He died of old age, peacefully, and surrounded by loved ones.”

In an amazingly varied career, Kotcheff’s work ranged from hardhitting TV plays and low-budget features in the UK, to hit Hollywood comedies and prestige-laden award-winners and cult films. Kate Kotcheff said: “He was an amazing storyteller. He was an incredible, larger than life character [and] he was a director who could turn his hand to anything.”

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Toby Jones’s next campaign? Misinformation, and a huge immersive theatre show

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Meera Syal also to star in London production reflecting producer’s experience of censorship in Georgia

Hidden from view inside a south London warehouse, a new underground movement will be fighting the international blight of misinformation this summer.

The huge immersive event – half theatrical show, half social campaign – is to involve some of Britain’s leading acting talent, including Toby Jones and Meera Syal, and has been put together by a theatre company led by a woman who learned about misinformation the hard way, at the Georgian television station Imedi.

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‘We’re location scouting’: where next for White Lotus and who will star?

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HBO renewed Mike White’s hit drama before third season aired and rumours abound about luxury settings and return of stars

You’ve only just got home from a holiday when you start planning the next one. So it is with the super-rich spa satire The White Lotus. The gunsmoke is still clearing from the finale of the third season but speculation is rife about where the HBO hit will head next.

This week’s climax of Mike White’s drama might have divided critics, but it was still group chat-dominating, column inch-gobbling TV, notching its highest ratings yet. The show was renewed for a fourth trip before the third had even aired, with White reportedly pitching HBO execs his next idea while still filming in Koh Samui. Buzz is now building about the next chapter, expected on our screens in late 2026.

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China to restrict US film releases after Trump’s tariff hike

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After the US president imposed 125% duties on Chinese imports, Beijing says it will restrict American films opening in its lucrative market

Hours after Donald Trump imposed record 125% tariffs on Chinese products entering the US, China has announced it will further curb the number of US films allowed to screen in the country.

“The wrong action of the US government to abuse tariffs on China will inevitably further reduce the domestic audience’s favourability towards American films,” the China Film Administration said in a statement on Thursday. “We will follow the market rules, respect the audience’s choice, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported.”

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Australian comedian ditches US trip due to concern she could be denied entry over Trump jokes

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Alice Fraser thought she was being paranoid until her lawyer advised her jokes about Donald Trump and Elon Musk could be scrutinised at US airport

An award-winning Australian comedian has cancelled a planned trip to the US after receiving legal advice that she could be stopped at the border due to her previous jokes about the Trump administration.

Alice Fraser, who has appeared on Australia’s ABC and the BBC and toured internationally, was due to head to New York in the first week of May to promote her recently published book.

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Anjelica Huston reveals cancer diagnosis – but says she is now ‘in the clear’

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The 73-year-old actor was diagnosed after her role in the John Wick franchise, and chose to keep it private – but is now speaking out in case it helps others

Anjelica Huston has revealed she was diagnosed with cancer six years ago, saying she is now “in the clear”.

The 73-year-old actor declined to tell People magazine what kind of cancer she had, saying she wanted to keep that private, but did reveal she was diagnosed after the release of her 2019 film John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.

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London mural by key postwar artist saved from demolition

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William Mitchell artwork saved but Blackheath community centre in which it was housed will be torn down

A rare piece of postwar art that was under threat of being demolished along with the south London building it was housed in has been saved.

The work, a mural by William Mitchell, was created for a community centre in Blackheath that is to be torn down to make way for social housing. The mural will now be preserved by Heritage of London Trust (Holt).

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Stella prize 2025: shortlist entirely women of colour for the first time in award’s history

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Michelle de Kretser and journalist Amy McQuire among six authors in contention for $60,000 prize for women and non-binary writers

The Stella prize, Australia’s award for women and non-binary authors, has made history this year with a shortlist featuring only works by women of colour, for the first time since the award was established in 2013.

Announced on Tuesday morning, this year’s shortlist includes Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist Amy McQuire’s essay collection, Black Witness (winner of the 2025 Victorian premier’s award for Indigenous writing), about the failures of mainstream media and power of Indigenous journalism; two-time Miles Franklin-winner Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & Practice, a reckoning with fiction, memoir and colonialism; and playwright, poet and author Samah Sabawi’s family memoir, Cactus Pear For My Beloved, tracing her roots from British-occupied Palestine through to contemporary Queensland.

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‘Incompatible with the symbolism’: Yorgos Lanthimos denied permission to shoot new film at the Acropolis

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The country’s best-known director was refused by Greece’s culture ministry when he applied to shoot scenes for sci-fi comedy Bugonia at iconic Athens site

Greece’s leading contemporary director has had a request to shoot footage for his new film at the Acropolis in Athens denied by his country’s culture ministry.

Yorgos Lanthimos had filed a request to film scenes for sci-fi comedy Bugonia at the fifth-century BC site in April. But in a statement on Thursday, the culture ministry said permission had been refused because “the proposed scenes are incompatible with the symbolism … and the values the Acropolis represents”.

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Olivier awards 2025: Giant, Benjamin Button and Fiddler on the Roof triumph

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John Lithgow, Imelda Staunton, Romola Garai and Layton Williams are among the winners at the annual stage awards

The play Giant, which portrays children’s author Roald Dahl amid an outcry about his antisemitism, has triumphed at the Olivier awards on a star-studded night at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

US star John Lithgow took home the best actor prize for his performance as Dahl, Elliot Levey won best supporting actor (for playing publisher Tom Maschler) and Mark Rosenblatt received the award for best new play.

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Olivier awards 2025: Giant, Benjamin Button and Fiddler on the Roof triumph

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John Lithgow, Imelda Staunton, Romola Garai and Layton Williams are among the winners at the annual stage awards

The play Giant, which portrays children’s author Roald Dahl amid an outcry about his antisemitism, has triumphed at the Olivier awards on a star-studded night at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

US star John Lithgow took home the best actor prize for his performance as Dahl, Elliot Levey won best supporting actor (for playing publisher Tom Maschler) and Mark Rosenblatt received the award for best new play.

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Lesley Manville calls for better funding for UK regional theatre

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Actor, who won an Olivier for Oedipus, says her ‘bugbear’ is that venues outside London do not get enough money

Lesley Manville has called for better funding for theatres around the UK, saying her biggest “bugbear” with the stage industry was “there is not enough money thrown into regional theatre”.

Manville was speaking on Sunday night at the Olivier awards in London, where she was named best actress for her performance as Jocasta in Oedipus at Wyndham’s theatre.

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Lesley Manville calls for better funding for UK regional theatre

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Actor, who won an Olivier for Oedipus, says her ‘bugbear’ is that venues outside London do not get enough money

Lesley Manville has called for better funding for theatres around the UK, saying her biggest “bugbear” with the stage industry was “there is not enough money thrown into regional theatre”.

Manville was speaking on Sunday night at the Olivier awards in London, where she was named best actress for her performance as Jocasta in Oedipus at Wyndham’s theatre.

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‘So resonant’: the 19th-century Russian opera being revived across Europe

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Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina – set in the troubled 1680s – can almost describe current events, say directors

A Russian political leader sings about war with Ukrainians and the need for a “durable peace”. The fractured political elite argues over whether they should pursue closer ties with Europe or embrace Russian traditions.

The plot of Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina was written in the 1870s and is set in the 1680s. But, as the characters lament the fact that their homeland is mired in an endless cycle of violence and unhappiness, the dark and brooding work can feel alarmingly contemporary.

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US authors’ copyright lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft combined in New York with newspaper actions

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California cases over AI trainers’ use of work by writers including Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Chabon transferred to consolidate with New York suits from John Grisham and Jonathan Franzen and more

Twelve US copyright cases against OpenAI and Microsoft have been consolidated in New York, despite most of the authors and news outlets suing the companies being opposed to centralisation.

A transfer order made by the US judicial panel on multidistrict litigation on Thursday said that centralisation will “allow a single judge to coordinate discovery, streamline pretrial proceedings, and eliminate inconsistent rulings”.

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