Armada 1588: Shipwreck and Survival tells turbulent tale on bucolic stretch of Irish coast
Streedagh beach was the setting for young love in the TV drama Normal People, but its latest screen depiction reveals a dark history of plunder and slaughter on the golden sand.
Instead of romance among the dunes, viewers encounter drownings, stabbings and hangings on this bucolic stretch of Ireland’s Atlantic coast. And unlike the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, it’s all true.
Continue reading...Tony-nominated actor spent more than 90 days in hospital and had his right leg amputated
The Tony award-nominated Broadway actor Nick Cordero, who starred in hit musicals including Waitress, A Bronx Tale and Bullets Over Broadway, has died in Los Angeles from severe medical complications after contracting coronavirus. He was 41.
Cordero died on Sunday at Cedars-Sinai hospital after spending more than 90 days in the hospital, according to his wife, Amanda Kloots. “God has another angel in heaven now,” she posted on Instagram. “Nick was such a bright light. He was everyone’s friend, loved to listen, help and especially talk. He was an incredible actor and musician. He loved his family and loved being a father and husband.”
Continue reading...Despite toppling of civil war-era statues, Illinois museum says no one has complained about TV show’s Dodge Charger painted with Confederate flag
A museum in the United States has vowed to continue displaying the car from the Dukes of Hazzard television show that had the Confederate battle flag painted on its roof.
The Dodge Charger car, known as the General Lee after the head of the southern forces during America’s civil war, is in the Volo Auto Museum about 50 miles (80km) north-west of Chicago.
Continue reading...Justice secretary, Kate Forbes, among those asking for language to be prioritised
Senior politicians in Scotland’s Gaelic-speaking areas have called for the language to be given much greater priority in civil and public life to stop it dying out.
Kate Forbes, the Scottish justice secretary, and Alasdair Allan, a former minister, said Gaelic had to be given precedence or parity in all areas of public life and the economy across Gaelic areas of the Highlands and islands.
Continue reading...Pubs, restaurants, hairdressers, cinemas and theme parks reopen, and weddings and baptisms take place as the lockdown eases
Continue reading...Bermudian-born actor rose to prominence in the 1950s in films such as Pool of London and Sapphire, as well as appearing in the 007 film Thunderball
Earl Cameron, who with his debut role in the 1951 film Pool of London, became one of the first significant black actors in British cinema, has died aged 102. His agent confirmed the news to the Guardian, saying “he passed away peacefully at home surrounded by his wife and family” on Friday in Kenilworth in Warwickshire.
Cameron’s significance to the current generation of black British actors was underlined by tributes on social media. David Harewood described him as “a total legend”, while Paterson Joseph wrote: “His generation’s pioneering shoulders are what my generation of actors stand on. No shoulders were broader than this gentleman with the voice of god and the heart of a kindly prince.” Historian David Olusoga added: “A remarkable and wonderful man. Not just a brilliant actor but a link to a deeper history.”
Continue reading...Streaming platform says it is giving viewers ‘more choice’ after British singer accuses film of glamourising rape
Netflix will continue to stream hit Polish film 365 Days despite calls for its withdrawal, including by British singer Duffy, who accused it of glamourising rape and sex trafficking.
The Welsh singer-songwriter wrote an open letter to the Netflix chief executive, Reed Hastings, raising her concerns about the film based on a bestselling Polish book trilogy by Blanka Lipińska.
Continue reading...Officer Joseph Mensah was found to have acted in self-defence in two of the shootings, with another currently under review
Jay-Z’s social justice initiative Team Roc has called for a Wisconsin police officer to be fired and prosecuted, after he shot and killed three people while on duty.
Joseph Mensah, of Milwaukee suburb Wauwatosa, killed Alvin Cole, Antonio Gonzales and Jay Anderson in three separate incidents between 2015 and 2020. He is under review for the most recent killing, of Cole, but the earlier two were deemed self-defence and he did not face charges.
Continue reading...The actor has pushed the envelope for portrayals of black women and been up close with the president and Harvey Weinstein. “You come at me crazy, it’s gonna be on like popcorn,” she warns
It is 8am and Vivica A Fox, the star of two Independence Day films, two seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, both parts of Kill Bill and, latterly, two Sharknado movies, has been awake for hours. She sprang out of bed at 4am, pottered around and “did a little social media post” about her podcast, Hustling with Vivica A Fox. It’s a spin-off from Every Day I’m Hustling, her memoir-cum-self-help manual which contains health tips (“Hydrate, girl!”), social media advice (“Use hashtags to join big conversations”) and underwear secrets (“I’m a G-string type of gal”). Once the podcast was online this morning, she explains, “I said to myself: ‘Let’s get some coffee on. It’s showtime!’”
First on the agenda is the droll new thriller Arkansas, in which she plays the mysterious “Her”, who works as go-between in a drugs ring and is first seen in curlers, toe separators and a jazzy kaftan; Liam Hemsworth, Vince Vaughn and John Malkovich struggle in vain not to be outshone. Down the line from her villa in the San Fernando Valley, where she has a spectacular living room view of the Santa Susana mountains, Fox talks through the various traits of Her: the character’s serenity (“That came from my mother, who’s religious”); her cool control (“I brought in a presidential thing there”); her no-nonsense efficiency (“A lil’ bit of my gangsta style”). But we are done with Arkansas in under five minutes, which is roughly the combined length of her scenes in the film.
Continue reading...The Woman’s Hour presenter has written a book about her lifelong struggle with her weight. She discusses fat-shaming, body positivity and what happened when she had bariatric surgery
A few years ago, Jenni Murray was out walking with her son and dogs when she saw a potential vision of her future. While she was strolling painfully around the park, stopping to rest at benches where she could, a woman not much larger than Murray passed them on a mobility scooter, her own dogs’ leads attached to the handlebars. If Murray – at 24 stone (152kg) – didn’t do something about her weight, her concerned son said, that might be her before long. How did she feel about herself at that point?
“Extremely obese,” she says. “I was not the fit, active person that I wanted to be. I just lumbered everywhere. I’d had breast cancer and a double hip replacement in my 50s, but it was the obesity that was going to kill me.” It was the final push Murray needed, after a lifetime of dieting, and a warning from her doctor that she was on the way to developing type 2 diabetes. “I thought, I’ve got to do something about it, I’m 64 and I’m not going to make it to 70.” She adds, triumph in her voice, “And I did make it to 70!” She reached the milestone birthday in May.
Continue reading...This new track sees Kanye at his very best, corralling his anger with masterful focus into an apocalyptic vision of America
America, divided along racial and political lines and led by its own Herod, faces an invisible plague and a public reckoning against its history of violence. It’s against this Biblical backdrop that Kanye West imagines the next apocalyptic event, in one of his most focused and arresting tracks for years.
Wash Us in the Blood sees the rapper call for a blood rain to deliver black America from evil. We’re at the point, perhaps, where normal water won’t wash; an emergency where we need something stronger. That sense of alarm is amplified by the two-note siren motif, a flattened-out version of the feedback sound on The Life of Pablo’s Feedback or Yeezus’s Send It Up, another of his warnings that puts the listener on alert. It gets your blood up.
Continue reading...Director of Steve Martin comedies The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains was also famed for his collaboration with Mel Brooks
Carl Reiner, the veteran comic and film-maker renowned for his double act with Mel Brooks as well as directing a string of hit comedies including The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains, has died 98.
Variety confirmed the news, reporting that his publicist said he died of natural causes on Monday night at his home in Beverly Hills.
Continue reading...Leading black British poets including Linton Kwesi Johnson, Grace Nichols and Raymond Antrobus share their thoughts on protest, change and the trailblazers who inspired them. Introduction by Kadish Morris
Performance poetry revolutionised me. When I was 13, my mother invited me to a group called Leeds Young Authors, which she co-ran with founder and poet Khadijah Ibrahiim. Together, along with visiting poets, they ran writing workshops for teenagers. The selling point was that I would get the chance to travel to the US to compete in a poetry slam festival, but the excitement of getting on an aeroplane was soon overshadowed by what I can only describe as enlightenment. Poems performed at the festival taught me about police brutality, gentrification and climate change before I even owned a computer. Performance poetry immersed me in a world of critical thinking, but also, a community of black poets. I shared stages, shook hands and was taught by some of the greatest black British and African American poets before the age of 20. From Sonia Sanchez to Saul Williams to Lemn Sissay and Jackie Kay.
Black British history and literature are intrinsically connected. Poems such as Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Five Nights of Bleeding explored the 1981 Brixton riots, while Benjamin Zephaniah’s The Death of Joy Gardner lamented on the killing of a Jamaican student who died in 1993 after being detained during a police immigration raid at her home. Literature was a forum for idea-sharing, community-building and support too. The Caribbean Artists Movement, founded by Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite, Trinidadian publisher John La Rose and Panamanian-Jamaican writer Andrew Salkey in London in 1966, set about promoting the work of marginalised Caribbean artists, writers and poets. More than 50 years later, black writers are yet to be fully absorbed into the mainstream. A 2018 study found that only 7% of work published in poetry journals were by people from BAME backgrounds. Black voices have often felt like guests in UK literature, despite being routinely summoned during political events. “No one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark” – a line from Home by the British-Somali poet Warsan Shire – was a prominent slogan of the migrant crisis in 2015.
Continue reading...India’s film-makers accused of hypocrisy for supporting Black Lives Matter while keeping silent on bias for fair complexions
The Bollywood film industry is a global phenomenon built on glitz and glamour. But it has also faced accusations of being among the biggest purveyors of racism for glorifying fair complexions in its hyperbolic love stories and catchy songs. Now, amid anger over what some consider Bollywood’s hypocritical stance on Black Lives Matter, the industry has finally been forced to confront one of its most enduring taboos.
Bollywood has witnessed considerable liberalisation in recent years. But while taboos such as same-sex relationships have been relegated to a past in which stars hid behind a rose bush to steal a kiss, the industry’s determination to cling to colourism – prejudice against people of your own race on the basis of skin colour – has become a cause of anger and dismay.
Continue reading...Glaser’s bold logo, created for free in 1977, helped boost New York’s image and he was also part of the team that founded New York magazine
Milton Glaser, the groundbreaking graphic designer who adorned Bob Dylan’s silhouette with psychedelic hair and summed up the feelings for his native New York with “I (HEART) NY,” died Friday, on his 91st birthday.
The cause was a stroke and Glaser had also had renal failure, his wife, Shirley Glaser, told The New York Times.
Continue reading...Move comes amid widespread reckoning for American pop culture following mass protests after George Floyd’s death
The Simpsons is ending the use of white actors to voice characters of colour, the show’s producers have said.
“Moving forward, ‘The Simpsons’ will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters,” they said in a statement on Friday.
Continue reading...Continuing our series of cross-generational conversations between black British artists, poets Roger Robinson and Rachel Long discuss the prejudices of the white publishing world and the power of today’s youth
Roger Robinson, 52, is the 2020 winner of the TS Eliot prize and the Ondaatje prize for his latest collection A Portable Paradise. Having previously explored his memories of Trinidad, where he moved to from Britain when he was four, his fifth collection focuses on the lives of black Britons, from Grenfell to the birth of his son. Rachel Long, 31, has recently published her debut, My Darling from the Lions, and in 2015 set up Octavia, a poetry collection for women of colour hosted monthly at the Southbank Centre in London.
Roger Robinson: I wanted to start with a poem. It is called Won’t You Celebrate With Me by Lucille Clifton:
Continue reading...Ex-partner who has avoided limelight since divorce is seeking high court injunction
Sir Elton John’s ex-wife, Renate Blauel, has launched legal proceedings against the singer at the high court, in a rare intervention by a woman who has been avoiding publicity for decades.
Blauel filed the legal paperwork last week and is seeking an injunction against her former partner, according to filings seen by the Guardian.
Continue reading...Rifkin’s Festival, which was shot in the Spanish city last year, chosen to headline annual film festival
Rifkin’s Festival, the new film by Woody Allen, has been selected to open the San Sebastián film festival in Spain.
Starring Elena Anaya, Louis Garrel and Gina Gershon, Rifkin’s Festival was shot in and around the city in 2019, and according to the plot synopsis takes place during the festival itself. “It tells the story of a married American couple who go to the San Sebastián festival and get caught up in the magic of the event, the beauty and charm of the city and the fantasy of movies. She has an affair with a brilliant French movie director, and he falls in love with a beautiful Spanish woman who lives there.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: Founder says another cancellation would ‘be curtains’ for festival and has hopes for testing scheme, with daughter Emily saying they will ‘mutate to survive’
Glastonbury organisers Michael and Emily Eavis fear they could be in serious financial danger if the festival was cancelled again due to coronavirus.
Speaking exclusively to the Guardian to mark the festival’s 50th anniversary, Michael said: “We have to run next year, otherwise we would seriously go bankrupt … It has to happen for us, we have to carry on. Otherwise it will be curtains. I don’t think we could wait another year.”
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