Stuart Murphy says other cities in running but stresses chances of either northern city hosting opera company
Liverpool and Manchester are “really strong contenders” to be the new home of the English National Opera (ENO), its chief executive has said, after the cultural body was forced to leave London.
Stuart Murphy, who steps down later this year, said three potential bases would be selected by the end of May and a winner chosen by the end of this year.
Continue reading...Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Nigella and Marco Pierre White among those giving emotional tributes to late chef ahead of 15th series
Celebrity chefs including Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson and former boss Marco Pierre White have remembered Jock Zonfrillo in a televised tribute dedicated to the late MasterChef Australia judge a week after his sudden death.
Network 10 aired the first episode of the new season of MasterChef Australia on Sunday night, having delayed the premiere until Zonfrillo’s family gave their blessing for it to air. Filming of the series was completed last month.
Continue reading...Jaws star went on to defend Laurence Olivier’s performance in blackface in the 1965 adaptation of Othello
Academy Award-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss has harshly criticized the Oscars’ new diversity and inclusion standards, saying “they make me vomit.”
In an interview with PBS’s Firing Line, the co-star of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 thriller Jaws told host Margaret Hoover that he disagreed with the new set of rules that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has imposed for films to qualify for best picture nominations.
Continue reading...The actor will take to the stage as the Scottish king in December, in the last production of the London theatre’s 30th-anniversary season
Hot on the heels of the news that Ralph Fiennes will play Macbeth in a tour of repurposed UK warehouses comes the announcement that David Tennant will also star as the Scottish king at London’s Donmar Warehouse.
It is the Scottish actor’s first Shakespearean stage role since he played Richard II for the Royal Shakespeare Company, on and off, from 2013 to 2016. In 2022 he was Macbeth in a two-part BBC Radio 4 broadcast. The Donmar production will be directed by Max Webster and will conclude the 30th-anniversary season for the London theatre, which was previously home to a banana-ripening warehouse.
Continue reading...Re-edited version omits opening scene after claims of fatphobia and replaces original on ABC and BBC platforms
The ABC has removed part of a Bluey episode that sparked accusations of fat-shaming and fatphobia.
It has now republished a version of the popular cartoon without a bathroom scene that showed Bluey’s parents complaining about their weight.
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Continue reading...Actor shared a message on Instagram three weeks after he was hospitalized in Atlanta for an unknown ‘medical complication’
Jamie Foxx has released his first public statement since his hospitalization nearly three weeks ago for an unknown “medical complication”.
“Appreciate all the love!!! Feeling blessed,” the Oscar-winning actor posted on Instagram along with a prayer hands, heart and fox emoji.
Continue reading...Remains of once vast riverside structure granted legal protection against unauthorised change
Three sections of a huge but little-known Roman wall, discovered under the City of London, have been given protected status as scheduled national monuments.
The riverside wall was a once vast stone structure that formed part of the defences of Roman London. Built in the third century AD along the Thames, it connected to the city’s landward fortifications, large sections of which still exist.
Continue reading...Sex scene in Bruno Le Maire’s book provokes ridicule and anger among opposition politicians
An explicit sex scene in a newly published novel by the French economy minister has left the government facing fresh accusations it is not listening to the concerns of the country just as it tries to contain anger over the unpopular rise in the pension age.
The toe-curling sexual descriptions in the novel, Fugue Américaine, written by the economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, have angered opposition politicians and inspired anti-government slogans and graffiti at street demonstrations as the government struggles to contain the political crisis over Emmanuel Macron raising the minimum pension age to 64.
Continue reading...The Writers Guild of America have announced a strike will begin tomorrow, after talks broke down with major studios and streamers
Hollywood’s writers are going out on strike for the first time in more than 15 years.
The Writers Guild of America announced on Monday night that its 11,500 members will stop working on Tuesday afternoon, after negotiations between the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), a group representing most major studios and streaming services, broke down.
Continue reading...Writers Guild of America calls first work stoppage in 15 years as industry grapples with streaming boom
Hollywood productions have ground to a halt after thousands of film and television writers went on strike following the breakdown of last-minute pay talks with major studios.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) called its first stoppage in 15 years after failing to reach an agreement on higher pay, pitting its 11,500 screenwriters against old-guard companies, such as Universal, Paramount and Walt Disney, as well as tech newcomers, such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple.
Continue reading...The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has overhauled rules around campaigning for Oscars after incidents involving Andrea Riseborough, Jerry Bruckheimer and Michelle Yeoh
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced its “most significant overhaul” of rules around campaigning for Oscars, fresh after Andrea Riseborough’s controversial nomination for best actress.
The changes and clarifications come after several incidents were flagged as possibly breaking the rules around campaigning for nominations at this year’s Academy Awards. These included Riseborough’s nomination for her performance in To Leslie, after an aggressive guerrilla campaign that saw actors including Kate Winslet, Amy Adams and Gwyneth Paltrow endorse the low-budget indie film. The British actor had not been considered a contender for a nomination, with some suggesting her inclusion had come at the expense of Black actors.
Continue reading...Musician best known for folk-pop hits such as If You Could Read My Mind and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald continued to tour in his later years
The Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, best known for folk-pop hits such as If You Could Read My Mind and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, has died at the age of 84, his family has announced.
His longtime publicist Victoria Lord said Lightfoot died at a Toronto hospital on Monday evening.
Continue reading...Extra 100,000 visitors expected amid £1bn lift for UK hospitality in May helped by coronation, bank holidays and Eurovision
Liverpool is likely to receive a £40m boost as tens of thousands of Eurovision fans descend on the city to celebrate the annual song contest next week.
Liverpool, which saw off Glasgow to be chosen as host after last year’s winners, Ukraine, were unable to hold the event amid Russia’s invasion, is expecting an influx of visitors.
Continue reading...Writers Guild of America could call stoppage as early as Tuesday if pay agreement is not reached
Negotiators for Hollywood writers and film and television studios are engaged in 11th-hour talks in an effort to avert a strike that would disrupt TV production across an industry grappling with seismic changes.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) could call a work stoppage as early as Tuesday if it cannot reach a deal with companies such as Walt Disney and Netflix. A strike would be the first by the WGA in 15 years.
Continue reading...The actor, who was diagnosed aged 29, said advancing disease had caused him a string of injuries but he was still able to remain optimistic
Back to the Future star Michael J Fox described Parkinson’s as a “gift that keeps on taking” in an interview on CBS Sunday Morning, in which he described his struggles with the illness.
The 61-year-old activist and former Hollywood actor was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s disease a year after Back to the Future Part III was released in 1990.
Continue reading...Project hopes Beatles classic will ‘unite the world’ and show victims of the conflict that they’ll never walk alone
An ambitious campaign to create the world’s biggest sing-along as an expression of solidarity with Ukraine during the Eurovision song contest is gaining momentum.
The #HelpUkraineSong project is aiming to “unite the world through music” by getting as many people as possible to sing the Beatles’ With a Little Help from My Friends at noon on Saturday 13 May.
Continue reading...Chair says small changes could make big difference to cultural and educational interests on both sides of Channel
An influential House of Lords committee is urging the government to start working with EU capitals to remove Brexit barriers that block musicians, young people and professionals working easily in Europe.
After six months of research and evidence from 40 witnesses the European affairs committee says it has identified 72 areas where small changes could make a huge difference in areas of cultural and educational interests on both sides of the Channel.
Continue reading...The 1599 author on the difference between historians and novelists, looking at Shakespeare differently and hitchhiking to the Edinburgh festival to immerse himself in the bard’s work
• James Shapiro wins Baillie Gifford anniversary prize with ‘extraordinary’ Shakespeare biography 1599
Serendipity dictated that the American writer and academic James Shapiro received the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction’s Winner of Winners award, given to celebrate its 25th year, at a ceremony in Edinburgh. In his teens and early 20s, Shapiro tells me as we talk over Zoom the morning after his victory, he would often hitchhike from London to the Edinburgh festival as part of his immersion in the plays of Shakespeare. This period in his life sowed the ground for his acclaimed book, 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, first published in 2006. He was, he explains, recovering from the “awful experience” of studying the playwright in middle school; every summer for several years, he would save up enough money to come to the UK on a Freddie Laker plane, “where you could fly from New York to London for $100 round trip and sleep in church basements and for 50p see spectacular productions”.
In London, Stratford and Edinburgh, he’d see 25 plays in as many days, “and they’re all tattooed inside my skull to this day. The greatest one I saw was Richard Eyre’s Hamlet at the Royal Court in 1980 or so. Richard wrote me a note this morning, and it was so moving to me because that’s where it came from, seeing productions like his.”
Continue reading...First HMV shop was opened in 1921 by British composer Sir Edward Elgar and closed in 2019
HMV is to return to its former flagship store on London’s Oxford Street after a four-year absence. It is expected to reopen towards the end of this year, in time for Christmas.
The store was empty for an extended period after the music and entertainment company vacated the site in 2019, before most recently becoming home to one of the many American candy stores that popped up on Oxford Street during the pandemic.
Continue reading...British singer testifies about songwriting practices and plays guitar during trial over whether he copied Gaye’s classic Let’s Get it On
Ed Sheeran played the chord progression to his hit song Thinking Out Loud and sang on the witness stand in Manhattan federal court on Thursday, during a trial over whether he copied Marvin Gaye’s classic Let’s Get it On.
Testifying as the first witness in his own defense to a packed courtroom, the British singer-songwriter described his process for writing the song about everlasting love in 2014, shortly after he began a new romantic relationship and after his grandfather died.
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