1 week ago King & Conqueror review – Battle of Hastings drama is almost unwatchably dark

Viewers will literally struggle to see what’s going on in this overripe historical drama starring James Norton and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

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2 w. ago A Noble Madness by James Delbourgo review – the dark side of collecting

From jewellery to the Parthenon marbles, why do people collect things? And what happens when interest tips into obsession?James Delbourgo, a professor of history at Rutgers University, New Jersey, says that his latest work is less a book about collecting than it is about the “cultural idea” of collecting. Does this need illuminating? Hasn’t collecting long been seen as one of the more refined arts? A way for the educated and wealthy to show off their learning, taste, urbanity? Collectors escape the shackles of the present, throw lifelines to a disappearing past, replenish the future. Sure, says Delbourgo. But he is also interested in telling the story of how – through the ages and across continents, in the popular and sometimes political imagination – collectors have been seen as introverts and perverts, as thieves and predators, as enemies of the humanity and humanism they espouse.The major religions have always been suspicious about collecting, which they associate ...

Politics

2 w. ago MOVIE REVIEW: We take a dark, intense trip with horror 'Bring Her Back'

Sally Hawkins is a true revelation in film that deals with loss and the lengths people will go to towards reuniting with a loved one.

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2 w. ago Midnight Murder Club review: A fun, frantic PS5 multiplayer shooter in the dark

Velan Studios has created a fresh-feeling new multiplayer online shooter where you'll be armed with a gun and a torch in a pitch black mansion with 5 rivals all seeking to end you

Events

3 w. ago Chasing the Dark by Ben Machell review – the original ghostbuster

An entrancing biography of Tony Cornell, who displayed a scientist’s commitment to impartiality as he investigated the paranormalMy first and only experience with a Ouija board occurred when I was 11, at a friend’s house. It was good, spooky fun until it wasn’t. I recall movement and the start of a message before we recoiled from the board. Later that evening, I learned that my grandfather had died. While I realise now that a boy with a terminally ill relative and a lurid imagination was not the most reliable witness, I remember wanting to believe that I’d had a brush with the uncanny.When Times journalist Ben Machell’s dying grandmother bequeathed him a crystal ball, he began idly searching for mediums and happened across the work of a man named Tony Cornell. Between 1952 and 2004, Cornell worked (unpaid and to the detriment of two marriages) for the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). Weeding out deception and delusion from accounts of paranormal activity to find out w...

Politics

3 w. ago The Adversary by Michael Crummey review – dark humour and depravity at the edge of the Earth

This prize-winning take on a biblical tale set in 1800s Newfoundland is grim, but has energy, empathy – and a wickedly colourful way with wordsSeveral years have passed since Michael Crummey’s last novel The Innocents was published in the UK in 2020. A pandemic has since occurred and, appropriately perhaps, The Adversary begins on a dark note of contagion. “There was a killing sickness on the shore that winter and the only services at the church were funerals,” runs the opening line, setting the tone for a book that plumbs the depths of depravity but – thanks to its energy, and its ripe and adventurous language – never loses a black sense of humour. Having now won the 30th annual Dublin Literary award, worth €100,000, The Adversary is proof that Crummey is beginning to garner the accolades he deserves beyond his native Canada.Crummey hails from Newfoundland; all six of his novels are set there. He understands the power of lashing sea, scouring wind, an eked-out existence far from wh...

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3 w. ago Ethel Cain: Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You review – a dark, Lynchian coming

The American singer-songwriter follows up her 2022 debut ‘Preacher’s Daughter’ with a concept album that’s often mesmerising

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