The TV personality, who also hosted the BBC show Escape to the Country, said in 2022 his lung cancer had spread to his brain
The TV presenter Jonnie Irwin has died aged 50, his agent has confirmed.
Irwin, who presented Channel 4’s A Place in the Sun and the BBC’s Escape to the Country, revealed in November 2022 that his lung cancer had spread to his brain and it was terminal.
Continue reading...Vittorio Sgarbi, who denies allegations over painting, cites separate antitrust investigation in resignation
An Italian art critic who was recently placed under investigation over allegations that a 17th-century painting in his possession was stolen from a castle more than a decade ago has resigned as a junior culture minister.
“I am resigning with immediate effect as undersecretary of the government and will inform [the prime minister, Giorgia] Meloni in the next few hours,” Vittorio Sgarbi said on the sidelines of a conference in Milan.
Continue reading...New Bond Street department store, which opened in 1890s, to close doors for final time this weekend
More than 130 years after it opened, the flagship Fenwick department store in central London, will close its doors for the last time on Saturday.
The historic four-storey shop in New Bond Street, Mayfair, is shutting after the retailer – which is owned by more than 40 descendants of John James Fenwick who founded the company with a single store in Newcastle in 1882 – sold the property to developers for £430m.
Continue reading...Pair are rumored to be reuniting for 70s-set drama The Movie Critic after last working together in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Brad Pitt is reportedly starring in Quentin Tarantino’s final film The Movie Critic, according to a Deadline report.
The pair previously worked together in 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with the role bringing Pitt his first Oscar for best supporting actor. Pitt also starred in 2009’s Inglourious Basterds and featured in 1993’s True Romance, which was co-written by Tarantino.
Continue reading...Essen’s Folkwang University took issue with the American artist’s support of a ‘letter against apartheid’ by Palestinian artists
The artist, musician and film director Laurie Anderson has withdrawn from a guest professorship at a university in Germany after officials took issue with her support for a 2021 statement by Palestinian artists titled Letter Against Apartheid.
The decision, announced days before Anderson is due to receive a lifetime achievement award at this year’s Grammys, adds to the wave of cultural events that have been scrapped in Germany after artists expressed views deemed by officials to be anti-Israel.
Continue reading...A dozen playwrights and directors meet in Kyiv and find comedy can be an important part of their creative process
In a studio theatre tucked into a courtyard behind Kyiv’s main Khreshchatyk Street, six playwrights and six directors were hammering out a fraught question: how to write plays about war, during the war.
One unexpected outcome of their workshops was: through jokes.
Continue reading...The singer argued that receiving payments from the trust of his late father, Gregg Allman, put him in danger due to his substance abuse
A judge has rejected Cher’s request that her adult son be put into an emergency court conservatorship controlling his money.
The Oscar- and Grammy-winning singer and actor had argued in a petition that 47-year-old Elijah Blue Allman’s large payments from the trust of his late father, rocker Gregg Allman, are putting him in danger because of his struggles with mental health and substance abuse.
Continue reading...The Kiowa tribe member’s debut House Made of Dawn is credited as the starting point for contemporary Native American literature
N Scott Momaday, a Pulitzer prize-winning storyteller, poet, educator and folklorist whose debut novel House Made of Dawn is widely credited as the starting point for contemporary Native American literature, has died. He was 89.
Momaday died Wednesday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, publisher HarperCollins announced. He had been in failing health.
Something like a leaf lies here within me; / it wavers almost not at all, / and there is no light to see it by / that it withers upon a black field. / If it could ascend the thousand years into my mouth, / I would make a word of it at last, / and I would speak it into the silence of the sun.
Continue reading...Open letter signed by more than 1,000 musicians from 2024 host country follows petition from artists in Finland and Iceland
More than 1,000 musical artists from Eurovision host country Sweden have signed an open letter calling for Israel to be excluded from this year’s edition of the song contest over its “brutal warfare in Gaza”.
Published in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, the open letter says that by allowing Israel to participate, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) “is exhibiting a remarkable double standard that undermines the organisation’s credibility”.
Continue reading...Terry Jon Martin, 76, who is living in hospice care, stole slippers from Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota in 2005
A dying thief who confessed to stealing a pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz because he wanted to pull off “one last score” was given no prison time at his sentencing hearing Monday.
Terry Jon Martin, 76, stole the slippers in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor’s home town of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. He gave into temptation after an old mob associate told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1m insured value, his attorney revealed in a memo to the federal court ahead of his sentencing in Duluth.
Continue reading...Renowned figure in Italian film died in her sleep at her residence in Rome, according to a family statement
The Italian actor Sandra Milo, a renowned figure in Italy’s film industry known for her performance in Federico Fellini’s 8½, has died aged 90.
Milo died in her sleep at her residence in Rome surrounded by her family and her dogs, Jim and Lady, according to a statement from the family carried by state-run RAI television.
Continue reading...First two episodes inaccessible to viewers in city, with some attributing censorship to umbrella protest scenes
Amazon’s big-ticket series Expats, set and filmed in Hong Kong, is not available for viewing in the city despite being billed as a worldwide release.
The first two episodes of the drama, starring Nicole Kidman and directed by The Farewell’s Lulu Wang, were released on Friday but listed as “currently unavailable” for viewers in Hong Kong. The series, based on a 2016 novel, The Expatriates, focuses on the lives of three American women in Hong Kong.
Continue reading...Visitors at Louvre look on in shock as Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece attacked by environmental protesters
Two environmental protesters have hurled soup at the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, calling for “healthy and sustainable food”. The painting, which was behind bulletproof glass, appeared to be undamaged.
Gallery visitors looked on in shock as two women threw the yellow-coloured soup before climbing under the barrier in front of the work and flanking the splattered painting, their right hands held up in a salute-like gesture.
Continue reading...Singer told to rest for two weeks, forcing him to cancel gigs in California and Los Angeles
The singer Morrissey is being treated for “physical exhaustion” after cancelling a number of dates on his current tour.
His tour manager said on Saturday he had been told to rest for two weeks.
Continue reading...Estate says Dudesy podcast outlet had no license to Carlin’s likeness or copyrighted material, which was used to create special
The estate of George Carlin is suing the media company behind a fake, hour-long comedy special whose creators boasted of using artificial intelligence to re-create the late standup comic’s style and material.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Thursday asks that a judge order the podcast outlet Dudesy to immediately take down the audio special, George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead, in which a synthesis of Carlin delivers commentary on current events. Carlin died in 2008.
Continue reading...The artist once known as Jenny from the block is spearheading an animated feature about a Latino construction worker voiced by Anthony Ramos
Move over Barbie: the latest Mattel property set for cultural domination has been unveiled as Bob the Builder, the chirpy construction worker who debuted 25 years ago on CBBC and is being belatedly brought to the big screen by booty-shaking multi-hyphenate Jennifer Lopez.
In something of a spin on the original series, the film’s plot will see Roberto (AKA Bob) travel to Puerto Rico for a major construction job, where he “takes on issues affecting the island and digs deeper into what it means to build”.
Continue reading...Famed and derided for his minimalist aesthetic, the artist’s career was overshadowed by suspicions about his role in the death of his wife Ana Mendieta
Carl Andre, the minimalist sculptor whose life’s work was overshadowed by accusations that he had murdered his third wife, has died aged 88.
The artist was a pioneer of minimalism, and famed for austere works such as 1966’s Equivalent VIII, an arrangement of 120 fire bricks on the gallery floor. But he was also notorious for being a suspect in the murder of Ana Mendieta, who fell from the couple’s apartment window after an argument in 1985. Despite being acquitted of second-degree murder in 1988, the accusations continued to follow Andre for the rest of his life, with supporters of Mendieta turning up to protest at his exhibitions.
Continue reading...Objects to go on show at the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi as part of Asante king’s silver jubilee celebrations
Gold and silver treasure looted from west Africa by the British army in colonial wars are to be lent to Ghana in a three-year deal, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum have announced.
The precious regalia, which had belonged to the Asante royal court, is regarded as part of the “national soul” of Ghana. Under the deal, 17 objects from the V&A and 15 from the British Museum, will go on show later this year at the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, the capital of Asante region. Many of the items have not been seen in Ghana for 150 years.
Continue reading...Canadian-born director of Moonstruck and Fiddler on the Roof was a three-time Oscar nominee
Norman Jewison, the acclaimed and versatile Canadian-born director whose Hollywood films ranged from Doris Day comedies and Moonstruck to social dramas such as the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night, has died at the age of 97.
Jewison, a three-time Oscar nominee who in 1999 received an Academy Award for lifetime achievement, died “peacefully” on Saturday, according to his publicist Jeff Sanderson. Additional details were not immediately available.
Continue reading...Films include a sci-fi about a man who rents out his dead wife’s body and a documentary about a hippo owned by Pablo Escobar
Colombian cocaine hippos, a Star Wars parody set in northern France and an unlikely father-daughter pairing of Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham all feature in an eclectic lineup at this year’s Berlin film festival, which was unveiled on Monday.
The 74th edition of the 10-day Berlinale will open on 15 February with the world premiere of Small Things Like These, based on Irish author Clare Keegan’s bestselling historical novel. Adapted to the big screen by Enda Walsh, the film sees Cillian Murphy reuniting with Belgian director Tim Mielants, who directed the third series of Peaky Blinders.
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