1 hour ago The Testament of Ann Lee review – strikingly strange portrait of radically ecstatic Shaker leader

Venice film festivalAmanda Seyfried plays the 18th-century missionary who took her message to the New World, in Mona Fastvold’s elusive film‘Our ordeal is worth it!” This is the cry of one of the faithful in Mona Fastvold’s movie, co-written with her partner Brady Corbet, with whom she co-wrote The Brutalist. It is a vehement, fervent, striking but sometimes baffling drama about the historical figure of Ann Lee, who endured religious persecution in 18th-century England as leader of the fundamentalist Shaker movement.As the embodiment of Christ’s second coming, Lee took her radical message to the New World and in pre-revolutionary America founded an enduring community of souls, persecuted all over again by the new patriarchy for being a woman and a pacifist. Her Shakers were known among other things for their skill in stylishly elegant and minimalist furniture – although the connection with Christ’s profession is unstressed. Lee is played by Amanda Seyfried, with Lewis Pullman as her...

Politics

1 hour ago England rugby star sent off for asking ref explicit question as she faces hefty ban

England international Sinead Peach is due to face a match review panel on Thursday, which will consider disciplinary action for her vulgar outburst during match that was being streamed online

Politics

3 h. ago Kim Novak’s Vertigo review – the dizzying demands on Hitchcock’s leading lady

Venice film festivalAn intensely personal interview of the 92-year-old Hollywood star delivers showstopping moments for fans of the golden age of moviesAt 92 years old, Hollywood movie star Kim Novak – legendary of course for her doppelganger starring role in Hitchcock’s Vertigo – is a vivid and, in fact, yearningly romantic and demanding presence in this gallant, cinephile documentary-interview filmed by director and Novak superfan Alexandre O Philippe. She is one of the very few golden age stars still with us, and maybe the title of this film is a playful pun: at the very apex of Hollywood history, perhaps Novak feels dizzy looking down from her mythic height.Philippe himself is more than qualified for this kind of intensely personal exegesis, having in the past made intriguing films about David Lynch’s debt to The Wizard of Oz and about the Psycho shower scene. With a touch of mischief and misdirection, he begins his film by simply playing a voice note that Novak has sent him, in...

Events

3 h. ago 47 Skin's Solution to Banish Breakouts: Discover the secret behind its success

47 Skin has gained thousands of five-star reviews for its blemish-busting capabilities

Politics

4 h. ago Josh Barrie On the Sauce at Dante: Take two icons and serve over ice

A New York legend is in for a lengthy stay at Claridge’s. Josh Barrie goes in for a Garibaldi

Politics

4 h. ago City analyst, 28, died days after his ADHD medication was increased as coroner calls on Labour to launch a review into drug

The new warning comes following the death of London banker and musician Jacob Wooderson, originally from Hereford.

Events

4 h. ago End of the Road review – A weekend of rain reveals the resilience at the heart of this little oasis in the trees

The revellers rally when the typically sunny weekender is met with downpour

Politics

5 h. ago My honest opinion on The Lookfantastic beauty advent calendar 2025

The 2025 Lookfantastic Beauty Advent Calendar might just be the best one yet.

Politics

5 h. ago Gorillaz review – after 25 years, Damon Albarn’s cartoon band are still riveting and relevant

Copper Box Arena, LondonDressed like a vicar, Albarn leads his band – joined by a choir, a string quartet, De La Soul and more – in renewing Demon Days’ downbeat dramaGorillaz are 25. In 2000, this cartoon-fronted project seemed like something fun for Damon Albarn to do between Blur albums, hiding behind Jamie Hewlett’s comic-book animations, but they’ve overtaken Blur almost everywhere but Britain. The number of children in the audience testifies to Gorillaz’s powers of self-rejuvenation – an ever-changing vehicle for Albarn’s ceaseless curiosity.Gorillaz are marking the occasion with an immersive exhibition, House of Kong, and four era-specific shows. This second night revives 2005’s Demon Days. Co-produced by Danger Mouse, it remains the most satisfying expression of the Gorillaz concept: focused in both its themes (innocence and violence) and personnel (rappers and the rap-adjacent). Dressed like a hip vicar, Albarn serves double duty as a frontman and a conscientious host, alth...

Politics

5 h. ago Gorillaz review – after 25 years, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s cartoon band are still riveting and relevant

Copper Box Arena, LondonDressed like a vicar, Albarn leads his band – joined by a choir, a string quartet, De La Soul and more – in renewing Demon Days’ downbeat dramaGorillaz are 25. In 2000, this cartoon-fronted project seemed like something fun for Damon Albarn to do between Blur albums, hiding behind Jamie Hewlett’s comic-book animations, but they’ve overtaken Blur almost everywhere but Britain. The number of children in the audience testifies to Gorillaz’s powers of self-rejuvenation – an ever-changing vehicle for Albarn’s ceaseless curiosity.Gorillaz are marking the occasion with an immersive exhibition, House of Kong, and four era-specific shows. This second night revives 2005’s Demon Days. Co-produced by Danger Mouse, it remains the most satisfying expression of the Gorillaz concept: focused in both its themes (innocence and violence) and personnel (rappers and the rap-adjacent). Dressed like a hip vicar, Albarn serves double duty as a frontman and a conscientious host, alth...

Politics

7 h. ago Campaigners fighting controversial Galloway power line project taking battle to court

Galloway Without Pylons have been granted a judicial review into the Kendoon to Tongland Reinforcement project, which was approved in February.

Events

7 h. ago Anhell69 review – an impassioned eulogy for Colombia’s queer renegades

Theo Montoya collages an unfinished phantom horror film, gothic Medellín cityscapes and interviews with lost friends into a transgressive work of cine-protestThe best kind of goth is the Latino goth. That much is clear throughout this documentary lament for the Colombian city of Medellín, for which director Theo Montoya narrates his elegy from within a casket. Luckily, he is still alive – unlike eight of the doomy-looking LGBTQ+ renegades who speak about their lives on camera here, having killed themselves or died of drug overdoses since filming. It is implied they are victims by proxy of a kind of ambient socio-cultural violence that is a hangover from the cartel days.Partly constructed out of audition interviews with actor hopefuls, Anhell69 is the remnant of Montoya’s unfinished movie, of which we see extracts: it takes place in a dystopian Medellín in which the preponderance of the dead and a lack of cemetery space has led to red-eyed phantoms walking the streets. These revenant...

Politics

7 h. ago Vilhelm’s Room by Tove Ditlevsen review – a portrait of catastrophic mental illness

Originally published a year before her death, the Danish author’s final novel is an autofictional suicide noteTove Ditlevsen’s last novel, Vilhelm’s Room, was originally published in Denmark in 1975. As it begins, the protagonist, Lise Mundus, has just been abandoned by Vilhelm, her husband of 20 years. He’s a celebrity newspaper editor; she’s an acclaimed writer with a history of addiction. From a bed in a psychiatric ward, Lise publishes a lonely hearts ad: “Recently escaped a long, unhappy marriage – aged 51, but youthful in spirit – wonderful son, aged 15 – household literary name – summerhouse – large flat in the city centre – temporarily incapacitated by a nervous breakdown – prefers a motorist.”The ad is seized upon by Lise’s malicious upstairs neighbour, Mrs Thomsen, who shows it to her young lodger/lover, Kurt, hoping he can financially exploit Lise. Kurt is duly installed in Lise’s home, but finds himself treated there with total indifference. Lise is wholly cons...

Politics

8 h. ago The Wizard Of The Kremlin review: Jude Law is riveting as a humiliated Putin in this razor sharp political thriller, raves BRIAN VINER

It is a riveting account of how political power evolved in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and how it all ended up in the hands of a former KGB agent.

Politics

9 h. ago Mother Mary Comes To Me by Arundhati Roy review – brave and absorbing

In this remarkable memoir, the Booker-winning novelist looks back on her bittersweet relationship with her mercurial motherTwelve minutes into an interview with Allen Ginsberg for the BBC’s Face to Face, Jeremy Isaacs asks him about the extraordinary long poem he wrote about his mother: “In Kaddish, you mourn your mother. What was the effect on you of living with a mother who was mad?” Ginsberg’s answer, mildly inflected by a laugh, is: “It gave me a great sort of tolerance for eccentric behaviour.”Arundhati Roy, whose memoir is partly an account of her life with her mother Mary Roy, might recognise this insight. Arguably, all mothers appear to their children as mad: madness here meaning an unbounded force, at odds with what society imagines normal parenting to consist of. The manifestations of this madness are as disparate as those of love, and these two aspects – the abnormal, the overbearing, and the protective, the nurturing – can be, in our mothers, intimately intertwined (“She...

Politics

10 h. ago BBC's electric new thriller The Guest proves there's more to Wales on TV than Gavin & Stacey

The Guest starring Eve Myles and Gabrielle Creevy is a series like we've never seen before on the BBC - here's our spoiler-free review

Science

18 h. ago The Inheritance review – Liz Hurley is the only thing keeping this high camp reality show alive

Hurley hams it up as a wealthy, recently deceased aristocrat in Channel 4’s attempt to woo ‘Traitors’ fans

Politics

18 h. ago I Fought the Law review – Sheridan Smith is utterly believable in this true crime story worth sharing with the world

Like the groundbreaking legal case at its centre, the carefully made four-part series can feel slow in parts

Events

18 h. ago I Fought the Law review – no one does this kind of drama better than Sheridan Smith

This true crime drama about a woman who forced the government to change the law so her daughter’s killer could be jailed is totally elevated by Smith. Her brilliance turns it into genuinely moving TVIs there any comfort to be had in knowing that police incompetence is not a new phenomenon? Not really, no. But it might be all you can find to cling on to during this harrowing, heartbreaking four-part drama. I Fought the Law is based on the true story of Ann Ming ,the murder of her 22-year-old daughter Julie in 1989 and her 30-year campaign to change the double jeopardy law so Julie’s acquitted killer could be tried again for the crime.I Fought the Law has two great strengths. First, the awareness that although the overturning of a law that had existed since Magna Carta is technically the most astonishing part of Ming’s tale, it is not the most televisual. That, for better or worse, will always be the body blows she withstood, from finding her daughte...

Events

19 h. ago Review: 12 hours of psychedelia at Manchester Psych Festival 2025

"Dyed-in-the-wool, leather-clad punk rockers stand shoulder to shoulder with teenage hipsters"

Politics