Officials in Danbury, Connecticut, say they will name their sewage plant after the comedian John Oliver, in retaliation for an expletive-filled rant about the city on his HBO show.
Related: John Oliver: US is 'making a mockery of the phrase a jury of your peers'
Continue reading...Horrors of all kinds abound in HBO’s brilliant new drama; Afua Hirsch explores African history; and inside the mind of Derren Brown
Lovecraft Country (Sky Atlantic) | sky.com
African Renaissance: When Art Meets Power (BBC Four) | BBC iPlayer
Handmade in Africa (BBC Four) | BBCiPlayer
Derren Brown: 20 Years of Mind Control (Channel 4) | 4oD
Manctopia: Billion Pound Property Boom (BBC Two) | BBC iPlayer
Lovecraft Country was, in its ambitions and its potential heft, already a phenomenon just on paper. Add in the presence of JJ Abrams and Jordan Peele as executive producers, along with a sublime cast of strength in depth, and it landed on our screens last week with a burnished gleam of unmistakable triumph. It is that rare thing: a show that can deliver gut-punch messages of contempt (and hope), yet which remembers throughout that it’s a drama, keeping one thrillingly on the edge, ripe and reeking with surprise.
Continue reading...The comedian and actor has written a raw and compelling book about his early life, including the abuse he suffered from his father
Your memoir details personal experiences you have never talked about in public before. This includes the sexual abuse you suffered as a child, at the hands of your father, after your mother’s death from leukaemia. Why write about these experiences now?
I kept feeling their presence in their absence from so many parts of my life. I didn’t have the courage, strength or fortitude to confront them. They were never in my comedy. I’d always been focused to get to the next milestone, the next show, the next fringe. I’d also already written a memoir [2010’s Teenage Revolution: Growing Up in the 80s] but all the things that mattered were missing.
In 2016, you started a part-time MA in creative writing at Goldsmiths University. Was that to help tell this story?
I wanted to get this material out of myself, but I was writing about my life in the third person at first, workshopping it as short stories. Then, towards the end of the first year, I wrote something for an assessment, which became a chapter in the book, relatively unchanged [a chapter called Hands, which details the first incident of sexual abuse Davies suffered, at the age of “eight or nine”]. The assessment just had my student number on it, so it felt safe to write it. The tutor feedback was anonymous, too. It allowed me to present a version of myself where nothing was concealed from view.
The controversial app’s users are ignoring geopolitical battle over its digital security, says Richard Waterworth
TikTok’s UK chief has strenuously denied the video-sharing app, which Donald Trump has threatened to ban, shares data with China.
Richard Waterworth told the Observer that the UK and European arm of TikTok was growing quickly, despite the “turbulent” geopolitical battle in which the Chinese-born app has found itself.
Continue reading...A notorious ‘friendly fire’ incident during the Iraq war is picked apart in this meticulous 5 Live podcast
On the Ground (BBC 5 Live) | BBC Sounds
Audrey Gillan is known to radio lovers as the Scottish reporter who befriended two rough sleepers in Spitalfields, London, and made a six-part series about them. Tara and George was broadcast on Radio 4, and won radio programme of the year at the 2019 Broadcasting Press Guild awards. It was a tender and affecting series, with Gillan, if not at the forefront, decidedly involved: she was honest about her feelings around homelessness, her worries about Tara and George and how they were living. It was this relationship – as well as the one between Tara and George themselves – that gave the series its flavour and heart.
Continue reading...With 750,000 jobs at risk, some see pandemic as chance to reset industry and dance music
In front of an old mechanic’s workshop in Tottenham a collection of trestle tables, a makeshift bar and a pair of palm trees are being battered by an unseasonal downpour as remnants of a tropical storm soak north London.
The wilted greenery and sodden tables are part of Costa Del Tottenham, a tongue-in-cheek temporary outdoor venue in Tottenham Hale, which Stuart Glen and his business partners have created in an empty space next to the warehouse that houses their nightclub, The Cause.
Continue reading...Photographs of works go on display in Manger Square to celebrate British street artist’s contribution to diversifying tourism
Photographs of 20 pieces of Banksy’s artwork in Palestine have been displayed in the centre of Bethlehem as a thank you to the anonymous British street artist for helping diversify tourism in the city.
The images were collated by Palestinian photographers for the surprise exhibition in Manger Square.
Continue reading...Research suggests musicians can reduce infections by decreasing volume
Sing softly and don’t shout to reduce the risk of Covid-19 spread, new research suggests, offering a ray of hope for musicians who have been restricted from performing in public.
Music makers have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with singing, as well as playing of woodwind and brass instruments deemed to be a potential high risk for spreading the disease – a concern fuelled by outbreaks in choirs.
Continue reading...Sign hangs next to Nicolas Rousseau artwork in Verdun asking public for information
A 19th-century oil painting stolen from Nazi-occupied France during the second world war has gone on display in an attempt to trace its rightful owners, after being returned by the son of the German soldier who was ordered to take it.
After 76 years in Germany, the small untitled artwork by the French painter Nicolas Rousseau is back in France and being exhibited at the World Centre for Peace, Liberty and Human Rights in the north-eastern town of Verdun.
Continue reading...Updated guidance suggests directors take inspiration from classic films made when sex on screen was prohibited
British film and TV directors are being encouraged to seek inspiration from classic romances such as Casablanca and ditch depictions of sex altogether when planning intimate scenes under new guidelines for directing during the Covid-19 crisis.
Directors UK, the professional association for screen directors in Britain, suggested some creative alternatives to avoid sex scenes with physical interaction while social distancing is required, in an update to its Directing Nudity and Simulated Sex guidelines, which are focused on safe working during the pandemic.
Continue reading...It was the late director Alan Parker’s most enduring hit, capturing what it was to be young and ambitious in the hot, gritty New York of 1980. The cast and crew reflect on the acting, fighting, flirting and fallout
• ‘The most important experience of my youth’: Fame star Barry Miller on Alan Parker
Forty years ago, Alan Parker’s musical about a group of teenagers at the New York High School for the Performing Arts was released.
Originally titled Hot Lunch after one of the composer Christopher Hope’s key numbers, the film is a crowd-pleaser with a heart of ice. For all the fun and legwarmers, this isn’t some starry-eyed fantasy. Rather, its edge and pessimism make it a remarkably responsible piece of film-making, with a conclusion about the wisdom of pursuing a career in the arts that is ambivalent at best.
Continue reading...Departures come amid backstage turmoil and complaints of bullying, racism and sexual misconduct against three producers
Three top producers on the The Ellen DeGeneres Show have exited the popular television talkshow, Warner Bros said on Monday, after an internal investigation into complaints of bullying, racism and sexual misconduct against them.
A spokesperson for Warner Bros, which produces the show, on Monday said that three senior producers had “parted ways” with the show.
Continue reading...Photojournalist Ada Luisa Trillo has won the Guardian’s Portfolio Review award at Format photography festival this year. Her powerful piece of work on the migrant caravan follows the people who left Central American countries to reach the US
In January 2020, fleeing violence and poor economic conditions, a group of Hondurans organised a huge migrant caravan that travelled through Guatemala into Mexico. After travelling for eight days, the caravan crossed the Suchiate River into Mexico and were met by the recently established Guardia Nacional composed of former federal, military and naval police.
Continue reading...A book of family memories paints the artist as doting dad, rather than the callous, ageing womaniser depicted by others
Pablo Picasso was still married to the former ballerina Olga Khokhlova when he became captivated by a 17-year-old girl outside the Galeries Lafayette in Paris in 1927.
He was 28 years her senior, but Marie-Thérèse Walter soon became his muse for voluptuous portraits and gave birth to his daughter before he moved on to the next of his many relationships, with Dora Maar, the surrealist photographer and painter.
Continue reading...Agency to review historical photographs after issue raised on website and social media
Magnum Photos, one of the world’s most celebrated photographic agencies, is to re-examine the content of its archive of more than 1 million images after accusations it made available photographs that critics said may show the sexual exploitation of minors.
In a statement, the president of Magnum, Olivia Arthur, said the agency, whose founders included Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson, had begun an “in-depth internal review to make sure that we fully understand the implications of the work in the archive, both in terms of imagery and context.
Continue reading...(Atlantic)
By rooting modern production in traditional melody, and drawing on various musical styles while staying true to African pop, Burna Boy defines multilayered black identity
For a vivid snapshot of what Burna Boy is capable of, head for track 12 of new album Twice as Tall, entitled Monsters You Made. The music is modern Africa, in the same way grime precisely captured young London of the day. Drill down, and the cleverly deconstructed phrases echo familiar-sounding black music concepts – in this case, roots reggae – but as a whole it’s totally of its immediate environment, and utterly original. Lyrically, the song is a sharp focusing of the singer’s never-far-from-the-surface rage into a furious condemnation of an under-considered aspect of global black life. He addresses the ruling classes, arguing that it is they who have fomented any black anger, even crime, through colonial oppression. If Black Lives Matter organisers were looking for a theme song, they’d be hard pushed to find a better fit.
Monsters You Made also has an in-song pairing we’re never likely to see again: 78-year-old Ghanaian feminist, political activist and playwright Ama Ata Aidoo and Coldplay’s Chris Martin. The former is in the shape of a snatch of TV interview about the damage done to Africa by colonialism, in which she rinses the host and hangs him out to dry; the latter finds Gwyneth Paltrow’s ex-husband singing a chorus warning that there’s only so much people are going to take.
Continue reading...Move over payment guideline violations prompts maker Epic Games to take legal action
Apple and Google have removed the enormously popular video game Fortnite from their app stores for violating their in-app payment guidelines, prompting the maker, Epic Games, to take legal action challenging the tech giants’ iron grip over the industry.
Its removal from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store came after Fortnite circumvented the companies’ in-app payment system and hefty fees, encouraging users to pay the gaming company directly.
Continue reading...He was the star of the Scream films, became a heavyweight world champion – and, with the deaths of his sister Alexis and best friend Luke Perry, still has demons to grapple with
I always had a soft spot for David Arquette. From the first time I spotted him, in a bit part in Beverly Hills 90210, and ever after, whether he was playing the dorky policeman in the Scream films, carrying offbeat indie films such as Dream with the Fishes, or playing a Jewish rebel in the Holocaust film The Grey Zone, he radiated a sweet likeability you just can’t fake. It was cheering to spot his goofily handsome face onscreen, like finding your brother’s funny friend hanging out in your kitchen when you got home from school.
The baby brother of acclaimed actors Rosanna, Patricia and Alexis, his talent was obvious; he was on the cover of Vanity Fair’s 1996 Hollywood issue alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith and Benicio del Toro. He was so watchable that, even though his character was supposed to die in the first Scream, Wes Craven rejigged the script so that he became the backbone of the franchise.
Continue reading...Visitors can view work by likes of Olafur Eliasson and Tacita Dean and take guided tours of venue
Berlin’s legendary Berghain nightclub will relax its notoriously strict door policy for art lovers from next month as the venue turns into a gallery while the German capital’s nightlife remains on hold because of the pandemic.
Berghain, housed in an old power plant on the border between the Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg districts, will from 9 September show works produced during the Covid-19 lockdown by 85 Berlin-based artists, including established figures such as Olafur Eliasson, Tacita Dean and Wolfgang Tillmans and younger names such as Shirin Sabahi, Christine Sun Kim and Sandra Mujinga.
Continue reading...Among the many homes and buildings damaged by the Beirut explosion were the Sursock Palace and Museum. The 19th-century palace was once one of Beirut’s grandest town houses, and the mansion housing the museum was left to the city of Beirut in 1952
Continue reading...