The Guardian Culture

From Gilead to Ladyland: how the rebellious women of literature offer hope in dark times

After visiting an island brothel in Bangladesh, the novelist was inspired to write an imagined uprising. She explores the radical fictional worlds where women have the powerIn the spring of 2024, I am finally able to visit Banishanta, the island in southern Bangladesh that has been haunting my dreams. When I arrive I find it is little more than a long patch of grey mud, with a string of flimsy huts lining a craggy shore. Thirteen years earlier, I was on a boat on my way to the Sun

entertainment  May 24, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘People are like: you’re a crackpot’: how Sam Campbell became comedy’s oddball superstar

Having enjoyed breakout fame on Taskmaster and Last One Laughing, the subversive Australian comic has been handed the reins of his own, very strange sitcom. Get ready for feet animations and a character called Super-Breast …The premise of Make That Movie, Australian comedian Sam Campbell’s deeply strange new Channel 4 series, is not easy to describe. A show-within-a-show, it stars its creator as an alternative Sam Campbell: rather than his real-life idiosyncratic standup self, he’s a pompous dir

entertainment  May 24, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Dear England: James Graham’s rousing, joyful football drama will make you cry and shout at the TV

This stellar adaptation of James Graham’s award-winning play is a stirring take on national identity – even if not all the actors look like the real footballers. Put it this way, Wayne Rooney will be very pleased indeedTo watch Dear England (Sunday, 9pm, BBC One) – the BBC’s stellar adaptation of James Graham’s Olivier award-winning play – you must first understand the incomparable damage to the national psyche that arose from Gareth Southgate missing a penalty in the Euro 96 semi-final. For tho

entertainment  May 23, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Boards of Canada: Inferno review – after 13 years away, their prodigal return is a big disappointment

(Warp)The Scottish electronic duo remain hugely influential – but their new album’s interrogation of religion is dubious, and the drum programming is worse stillThis is the first album in 13 years from Boards of Canada, and from the opening notes – an analogue synth rising and falling like a sound effect in a forgotten 1960s radio play – you’re thrust back into one of the most instantly recognisable worlds in electronic music.From 1995 debut EP Twoism onward, across four LPs and four more EPs, t

entertainment  May 23, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Phyllida Barlow: Disruptor review – sexy latex and gobs of gum as a stately home gets trashed

Wolterton, Norfolk From an explosion of plywood chairs to something akin to bubblegum stuck to the walls, this imaginative exhibition reverberates with Barlow’s punk irreverenceWolterton Hall is folded so deeply into the countryside of the Bure Valley that you can’t even see the grand Palladian mansion when you enter the gates to the estate. This was once one of the four power houses of Norfolk, built by Thomas Ripley for Horatio Walpole. Inside, Wolterton is dripping in 18th-century treasures,

entertainment  May 22, 2026

The Guardian Culture

What am I bid for a blown-up van? The bizarre art auction aiming to build an eco power station in Reform-held Clacton

They blew up a van full of banknotes. They sold high-end Ukrainian vodka to Selfridges. Now art duo Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn are auctioning their past works – to launch their most ambitious project to dateThis Saturday, artists Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn are auctioning off their work from the past decade and a half. The reason? To help fund a community-led renewable power station in Nigel Farage’s Clacton constituency. Former YBA Gavin Turk will be wielding the gavel and the couple hop

entertainment  May 22, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘The days I had to have sex with randoms, I thought thank God!’ Jamie Bell on eye-popping drama Half Man

His starring role in Richard Gadd’s brutal toxic masculinity series is a far cry from his days as Billy Elliot. The actor opens up about gruelling shoots, dancing on toilets – and why he can’t ever just chill outNot many actors are relieved when they have to film an eye-poppingly explicit sex scene, but that was the case with Jamie Bell on Half Man. His role involved chemsex in saunas, dogging in car parks and illicit quickies in library loos. “Honestly, I was so grateful to be shooting that stu

entertainment  May 22, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Tosca review – Puccini’s high-octane bloodbath bonanza makes for a shocking festival kick-off

Glyndebourne, SussexCaitlin Gotimer’s Tosca goes from 0-60 in mere moments while the London Philharmonic unlock the barely contained violence in Ted Huffman’s long-awaited exceptional stagingGiacomo Puccini died only a decade before the first Glyndebourne festival opened. 92 years later, Tosca – global operatic blockbuster and the work once derided as a “shabby little shocker” – has finally made its Glyndebourne debut, opening the 2026 festival with a high-octane bloodbath presided over by direc

entertainment  May 22, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘Really entertaining in a horrible way’: the indestructible appeal of Tosca

With its screams, sex, bells and bloodshed Puccini’s opera was initially derided as a noisy disaster. Ahead of Glyndebourne’s first ever production, we look the ‘shabby little shocker’ that’s become one of opera’s most bankable masterpiecesGustav Mahler hated it. Its publisher was convinced it would be a commercial disaster. Critics complained it was mostly just “noise” and predicted that it would quickly be forgotten. But more than 125 years since Tosca’s premiere in January 1900, Giacomo Pucci

entertainment  May 21, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Hulda Guzmán review – lizards and ghosts gather for an art freakout in the rainforest

Turner Contemporary, MargateThe young Dominican painter’s dizzyingly beautiful jungle scenes will transport you to the tropics – and remind you of the wonders of the natural world Deep in the Dominican rainforest, high up on a mountain, miles from anywhere, Hulda Guzmán stares at an endless expanse of jungle. From her modernist wooden studio, built by her architect father Eddie, she looks out into the vast greenness of her world, the deep blues of the ocean in the distance, the warm oranges and

entertainment  May 21, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen album review – Luisi has a keen sense of the operatic architecture

Dallas Symphony Orchestra/Luisi/Lindstrom/Delavan /Johansson(Delos)Captured live in concert performances, Fabio Luisi’s clear-sighted command and strong orchestral playing make this Wagner set frequently impressive, with Mark Delavan an authorative Wotan Concert performances of opera can provide ideal conditions for live recordings. This ambitious release of Wagner’s Ring Cycle on 13 CDs, captured in 2024 with the Dallas Symphony under music director Fabio Luisi, is a fine example.The Italian ma

entertainment  May 21, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Forza Horizon 6 review – classic open world racing sim roars beautifully into Japan

Microsoft; PC, Xbox Series X/S (PS5 due later) Dreamy vistas of the country’s natural beauties are stunningly delivered – but won’t distract from thrilling high-end driving adventuresThe Forza Horizon games have always been about drama. Not just the tension and excitement of racing, but also the sensory impact of the natural environment – the sun rising over a dense city, rain clouds hovering above a valley floor. There are moments in this game – perhaps after emerging from a dense forest, or co

entertainment  May 19, 2026

The Guardian Culture

How Forza Horizon took on Japan with deep research – and 360-degree cameras

The open world driving sim has roared through locations from Colorado to Australia, its authentic feel resting on exhaustive research. But, as the team explain, this was the toughest challenge yetSince the arrival of the original Forza Horizon in 2012, a game that revolutionised open world driving sims by setting players loose in a virtual Colorado, British developer Playground Games has promised authenticity with its settings. For each instalment, design teams are sent out on location to take t

entertainment  May 15, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Stuffed possums and sunken gold coins: the podcast that explains America in 100 unlikely items

Roman Mars’s pod 99% Invisible is a worldwide hit. Now he has teamed up with the BBC for new series A History of the United States in 100 Objects, an insight into the secret significance of everyday stuffIn 2010, the audio producer Roman Mars launched 99% Invisible, a podcast about the hidden designs and inventions most of us overlook. At the time, he didn’t have high hopes for it. Not only was the subject matter wilfully niche – early topics included building acoustics and the ergonomics of the

entertainment  May 14, 2026

The Guardian Culture

In the 60s and 70s, Black students demanded a voice on radio. A new project ensures that history isn’t lost

The HBCU Radio Preservation Project celebrates stations that were an outgrowth of the civil rights movement, to help people understand their importanceAfter Shaw University’s WSHA radio station went on air in 1968, several other historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) followed the North Carolina school’s lead, launching a wave of their own.For decades, the students who worked on these channels used them to inform listeners about happenings on campus, while also playing musical selec

entertainment  May 6, 2026

The Guardian Culture

The second act of Sam Neill: ‘The truth was, I didn’t know how long I had to live’

He is one of the world’s best actors – but can still go to Starbucks without anyone recognising him. He discusses cancer, remission, happiness, fame and video nastiesSam Neill, 76, is speaking to me via Zoom from Vancouver, where he is filming Untamed, a new Netflix series. We’re here, though, to discuss the new season of The Twelve, a pacy Australian courtroom drama in which Neill plays barrister Brett Colby SC. It’s a heightened murder mystery and subtle social commentary, and “the second seri

entertainment  Aug 5, 2024