The Guardian Culture

Paddington 4: Armando Iannucci to write bear’s next movie with Thick of It and Veep cowriter

Fourth Paddington film will be written by Iannucci and Simon Blackwell, who wrote with Iannucci on The Thick of It, In The Loop and VeepPaddington is about to develop a particularly hard stare, with The Thick of It and Veep creator Armando Iannucci set to write the bear’s next cinematic adventure.Variety reported on Tuesday that the fourth Paddington film will be written by Iannucci and his longtime collaborator Simon Blackwell, who wrote with Iannucci on The Thick of It, In The Loop and Veep. C

entertainment  May 27, 2026

The Guardian Culture

The Tempest review – Kenneth Branagh returns to the RSC in this enchanting production

Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonProspero is reimagined as a conductor in this superbly orchestrated version of Shakespeare’s tragicomedyKenneth Branagh is said to have played 35 Shakespearean parts, albeit back in the day. Seeing him speaking in verse these days is something of an event, all the more so when he is making a return to the Royal Shakespeare Company after more than 30 years to take on, for the first time, Shakespeare’s magician, deposed duke and tyrant occupier. Even t

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Magic, mastery and magisterial power: 10 of Sonny Rollins’ greatest recordings

After his death aged 95, we look back at a remarkable catalogue of work that stretches from vivacious mid-50s sets to his evocative performance after 9/11• News: Sonny Rollins, colossus of jazz saxophone, dies aged 95A 30-year-old Sonny Rollins had already made his unique mark with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk by the time this 1956 session was cut, just a year after bebop sax revolutionary Charlie Parker’s death – but hooking up with his contemporary and admirer John Coltrane happened by chan

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘The avalanche of slime has been unbelievable’: E Jean Carroll shares life post-Trump in new film

In the documentary Ask E Jean, the journalist and author provides an unflinching account of her life, career and groundbreaking legal victories“If you were concerned about being dragged through the mud,” asks lawyer Alina Habba, “Why would you choose to sue Donald Trump?”Calm and composed, E Jean Carroll removes her glasses and replies firmly: “Because he called me a liar. He called me a liar. And I couldn’t let it stand.” Continue reading...

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Hammer to rerelease 1958 Dracula in UK with long-lost footage added

Classic starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing will include footage censors decided was too gruesomeHammer Films’ horror masterpiece Dracula is to be rereleased in UK cinemas in October, including footage believed to have been lost for more than six decades after it was deemed too gruesome for audiences.The 1958 movie starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula and Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing has been fully restored in 4K. Continue reading...

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Stripteases, ecstatic embraces and a dog in a dress: the full-on photos celebrating queer dancefloors worldwide

A thrillingly unsanitised new photo book captures the liberating power of queer clubs in all their sexy, messy, kinky, cacophonous glory. ‘I wanted it to feel like a night out,’ says the woman behind itThese days, waking up after a big night out, no evidence can be good evidence. Perhaps the bar lights were too dim and the music so great that smartphones (and the outside world) were forgotten for a few blissful hours. Camera rolls: empty.However, a new photo book called Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visu

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘Shocking? It’s only what you see in ancient temples’: painter T Venkanna on his joyous carnivals of copulation

Penises, vaginas and breasts abound in the Indian painter’s work. As the son of a Hindu priest, he says his orgasmic scenes give us a way to consider religionT Venkanna’s paintings land like a sucker-punch. At the centre of his first institutional solo show at London’s Studio Voltaire is an overbearing altarpiece, modified by two squat side panels to take the overall shape of a juvenile dick drawing. Perched at the bottom, on either side, are Adam and Eve. Their backs are turned as they look out

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

125th anniversary gala concert review – back to 1901 as Wigmore celebrates birthday playing to its strengths

Wigmore Hall, LondonThe veteran chamber music venue kicked off a celebratory two-week festival with a starry lineup of performers playing works that had featured on the first ever programmeIn May 1901, Wigmore Hall’s inaugural concert began, of course, with God Save the King – the words sounding novel to an audience who, until a few months earlier, had been singing it for Queen Victoria. The programme continued with a starry lineup including the composer and piano virtuoso Ferruccio Busoni perfo

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Los Angeles Philharmonic announces Daniel Harding as next music director

The British-born maestro will replace Gustavo Dudamel as the orchestra’s chief conductorThe Los Angeles Philharmonic has announced that Daniel Harding is to be its next music director.The UK-born Harding, 50, will begin his tenure in the 2027/28 season, with an initial contract for six years. Gustavo Dudamel, the orchestra’s music director since 2009, leaves the role in August 2026 – the Venezuelan conductor is heading east to become music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic, but

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Dada Masilo’s Hamlet review – dance remix gives the tragedy some potent tweaks

Sadler’s Wells, LondonThe late choreographer heightens Ophelia and Gertrude’s stories yet squanders some speeches in an intense hourWords, words, words. Can Hamlet retain its tragic force without using most of them? This hour-long dance-theatre remix by the late South African choreographer Dada Masilo preserves few speeches and its opening is not auspicious, crashing straight into “To be, or not to be” shorn of context and characterisation.There follows, as is customary, a meeting between the pr

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

No Place for Football review – battling ice and snow to play the beautiful game in Greenland

Life is tough on the autonomous territory – not least for its footballers, as this documentary testifiesAs the football-industrial complex churns out ever more eyeball-aimed product, precision engineered to trigger either triumphalism or nostalgia (or both), there’s occasionally room for stories like this about Greenland’s eight team championship playoff: scrappy chronicles of big-hearted underachievers in obscure corners of the football universe. (One of them, about perennial losers American Sa

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

007 First Light review – a triumphant James Bond game made by obsessive fans

PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5; IO InteractiveThe stealth masters behind Hitman go loud for this game about Bond’s brilliant beginningsGiven that we’ve not had a great James Bond video game in decades – or any Bond film at all in five years – there’s a lot of pressure on 007 First Light to reinvigorate a British cinematic hero. But developer IO Interactive has been auditioning for this role for some time. It’s there in the globetrotting nature of its Hitman assassination games, starring a besuited hero

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘If you try to fix Holmes, you’ll get your arse handed to you’: do we really need another Sherlock remake?

Rafe Spall will play Conan Doyle’s super sleuth in a huge new drama next year. While some fans fear ‘Sherlock fatigue’, others – including Steven Moffat – insist he will always make great tellyIn 1893, in The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, Arthur Conan Doyle introduced Sherlock Holmes’s older brother, Mycroft. Meeting Dr Watson for the first time, Mycroft shakes his hand and sighs: “I hear of Sherlock everywhere since you became his chronicler.”Spare a thought for the rest of us, Mycroft. M

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘Everyone is equal in this space’: the cosmic world of neurodivergent-friendly club night Robyn’s Rocket

Trumpeter Robyn Steward thought clubs weren’t for her until she encountered Fabric’s accessible upgrade – the new home for her radically inclusive, space-themed nightUntil May last year, trumpeter Robyn Steward had never been in a nightclub space, save for playing trumpet with Lancaster duo the Lovely Eggs at London’s Heaven, and a few nights in a university hall that doubled as a lunch room. Steward is autistic and has multiple disabilities including cerebral palsy. “Sometimes strobes can trigg

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Fairyland review – moving memoir of queer parenting and new kinds of family in 70s San Francisco

Andrew Durham’s tender adaptation of Alysia Abbott’s book finds warmth, humour and heartbreak in an unconventional family unit shaped by love and lossFor anyone familiar with the Bay Area in the 1970s and 80s, this offers a glorious wallow in nostalgia, from the grainy archive footage of San Francisco Gay Freedom parades to the novelty of sushi at a book launch and the new wave hairstyles. But this film is not just about the set dressing and the costumes; at the story’s core is what was then a n

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Untold UK: Vinnie Jones review – this chaotic biopic is an unexpected amount of fun

Does the footballer have any regrets? This documentary doesn’t care to ask deep questions. Still, his colourful career from midfielder to movie star is an undeniably great story Do not come to the Untold UK documentary series about some of our greatest – or at least most famous – or at least most infamous – footballers looking for insight, interrogation, reflection, analysis or contemplation. Come for energetic hagiography and celebration. Or fuck off, as its latest subject, Vinnie Jones, would

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Crossing the Wine Dark Sea by Emily Wilson review – a masterclass in translation

The polarising translator of the Odyssey and the Iliad sets out her philosophy in this fascinating collectionEmily Wilson’s translations of the Odyssey in 2017 and the Iliad in 2023 are now the standard English-language versions, acclaimed for their conciseness and fluency. Her infatuation with Homer began at the age of eight, when her primary school put on a production of the Odyssey, with her in the role of Athena, and the excitement hasn’t worn off. You can question some of the choices she ma

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Landmarks review – Lucrecia Martel’s beautiful account of an Indigenous murder case

Martel’s documentary about the shooting of Javier Chocobar is a mannered and dignified work, laden with post-colonial tension and the weight of institutionsThe great doyenne of Argentine cinema, writer-director Lucrecia Martel (La Ciénaga, The Holy Girl, The Headless Woman), ventures into documentary to cover a murder trial, the issues of which spill out into very Martelian areas of concern: land and terrain as an active force in people’s lives, the tension between Indigenous people and the desc

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Medieval King Arthur manuscript could fetch £2m at auction

Book containing early versions of the Merlin and Grail legends has remained in private hands for 700 years In one illustration, painted on vellum and decorated with gold leaf, the sorcerer Merlin is depicted as a powerful shape-shifter who has transformed into a talking stag. In another, the Knights of the Round Table are shown returning, victorious, from battle.The illustrations appear in one of the earliest manuscripts to tell the tale of King Arthur and the search for the holy grail – a rich

entertainment  May 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘I’m an absolute gurner. I’m worried’: The Archers stars on their flower power stage show

The hallowed radio show is celebrating 75 glorious years – by stepping out of the studio and on to the stage. We sent the Guardian’s food writer (and Ambridge obsessive) along to meet her heroes and find out moreI’m very careful not to betray my true levels of excitement when I speak to The Archers actor Susie Riddell, before a nationwide theatre tour to mark the rural radio drama’s 75th anniversary. I may be an Ambridge superfan but I still don’t want to scare the horses (nor indeed the cows, p

entertainment  May 26, 2026