Entertainment

Hands up if you've ever felt sad? Or fat? Yeah, I thought so. Oh Le Gateau Chocolat, we meet at last. Back in the annals of time when I used to work in PR, I was on the press team for a little show called Blanc de Blanc by Strut and Fret - the same Strut and Fret who worked with Le Gateau Chocolat at the Sydney Opera House - and I've been waiting to see him since then. It...

Yesterday, Seattle band Chastity Belt shared "Caught in a Lie," the second single from their highly-anticipated new album I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone, out June 2nd on all formats and streaming services. The track, which maintains the reflective, cathartic, and poignant tone of previous single ‘Different Now,’ can be streamed here. Additionally, the band has announced both a UK and EU tour for this coming autumn and a North American summer tour. https://soundcloud.com/hardlyartrecords/chastity-belt-caught-in-a-lie North American tour1st June...

It was 50 years ago this June 1st when The Beatles’ John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr ushered in the Summer of Love with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a groundbreaking masterwork that became popular music’s most universally acclaimed album. To salute the occasion, The Beatles will release a suite of lavishly presented ‘Sgt. Pepper’ Anniversary Edition packages on May 26 (Apple Corps Ltd./Universal Music). The album is newly mixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell in stereo and 5.1 surround audio and expanded with early takes from the studio...

Never have I laughed more than when reading a website of mis-translations with my brother as a teenager. Highlights included such classics as: “Tiny grass is dreaming”, “Itty Bitty Baby" and the undeniable champion, “The Loin King” (Hakuna My-groina). The well of hilarious translation errors may be well tapped on reddit, but the comedy gold has yet to be successfully mined by the theatre industry. Until now. Maybe because producing such a show would be an absolute minefield. Even the...

As UK theatres fret over how to respond to the increasing national and global crises that are hitting or emerging from our shores in wave after wave of tsunami like proportions: Brexit, Syria, the refugee crisis, Russia, Crimea, Ukraine, Belarus, the Greek meltdown, Egypt, Spain, the Occupy movement, Trump, Brexit, Brexit again, back to Trump etc, the Young Vic, in partnership with Totally Theatre Productions, have come up with an unusual way of trying to make sense of it all...

Stephen Tiller, the director of charity Kent Opera’s latest production, explains why Pretty Woman got everything wrong about opera, except the fact it is so good it might just make you want to pee your pants, (metaphorically speaking). For many people, trips to the cinema and even the theatre are part of their life. Cost may not mean they are a weekly or even monthly treat but they are enjoyed on a regular basis and they are very much on...

The recent controversy over the placing of the small statue of a brave girl opposite the huge statue of a bull in Wall Street, New York, reveals the ongoing lack of female representation in our public spaces. In the UK, statues of men outnumber those of female figures by 16 to 1 and if Queen Victoria were removed from the equation, those numbers are far worse. Virginia Woolf, one of the founders of modernist literature, has been commemorated with a...

It's tempting to write something completely unrelated for the next 500 words. Just not talk about the play at all. Maybe chat about the weather! Or Article 50! Because Custody is so good, I don't want to spoil it for you. I don't want to hype it up, or give away all the good bits. So please, do me a favour: go and see the play, then let's reconvene when you've seen it. ***** Welcome back! Did you enjoy it?...

If you are a wobbly great BBC nerd and have an unfortunate proclivity for being star struck, the press night for a play written by a 27-year Have I Got News For You veteran is both a bounteous gift and a terrible curse. Because I am British and middle class, I wouldn’t dream of actually going up to and talking to famous people like they are normal humans, so instead I dither and sweat and panic eat whatever is in...