12 h. ago Dare you enter the splash zone? Wet and wild selkie steals the show at Glasgow’s startling arts festival

Take Me Somewhere tucks audiences up in bed, takes them to a last supper and delights with a paddling-pool comedy-tragedy A nurse puts a steadying hand on my back and guides me to bed. She takes off my shoes, dresses me in soft pyjamas and hands me a VR headset. Mum will be along soon to read a bedtime story, she says. ZU-UK’s tender encounter Within Touching Distance is part of Take Me Somewhere, Glasgow’s biennial festival of wild-hearted international performance. With a teddy bear pressed into my hands, this is a deceptively gentle start to my day, which ends with a queering of the Apostles and a greased-up naked man being hand-fed fish.Within Touching Distance is a slow act of care-taking, walking one audience member at a time through the course of a life, from being read a story as a child to clutching a walking frame in old age. Blending the physical with the digital, this smartly choreographed piece fights against technology’s lack of intimacy; when I’m watching “Mum” squeez...

Events

5 d. ago Queen Camilla looks graceful in green as she attends Harvest Festival Service

The Queen was pictured strolling alongside the Dean of Westminster and Lord Mayor of Westminster while King Charles attended a celebration at the Australian High Commission.

Politics

6 d. ago Tragedy as married couple of four children are found dead in campervan at cider festival

Chris and Kayleigh Coll, 45 and 38, were today named as the couple who were found dead in 'unexpected' circumstances in the New Forest.

Events

6 d. ago Whitney Cummings blasts backlash over Riyadh Comedy Festival: ‘It’s just racism’

Cummings was one of many US comedians who traveled to Saudi Arabia for the festival

Events

7 d. ago Jack Vettriano painting bought for £300 at a village art festival is valued at £10,000 on Antiques Roadshow

The oil on canvas artwork, called 'Deck Chairs', was painted more than 30 years ago by Vettriano, who was found dead aged 73 at his apartment in the south of France earlier this year.

Culture

7 d. ago Shoppers slash festive spending ahead of November Budget as retailers brace for further tax raid

British retailers have seen a sharp sales slowdown ahead of the all-important 'golden quarter' as shoppers slash spending in fear of looming tax hikes in the November Budget.

Economics

8 d. ago ‘After the reading, the poets hold each other’: what happens when Ukraine’s largest literary festival comes under Russian attack

Fiona Benson was invited to Lviv’s BookForum by Ukrainian poet-soldier Artur Dron’. She recounts falling in love with the city and its thriving literary culture, before an air raid siren soundsI had been working on Exeter University’s Ukrainian Wartime Poetry project for two years when the invitation came to travel to the country’s largest literary festival. I didn’t exactly relish the prospect of a journey to a war zone, but I was assured that visiting BookForum in Lviv, a city so far west it’s practically in Poland, would be safe. I had been leading poetry workshops with exiles and editing translations of Ukrainian poetry, including soldier Artur Dron‘’s collection We Were Here, published last November. So, when Artur and his translator – the incredible poet Yuliya Musakovska – asked me and language professor Hugh Roberts to attend, I couldn’t say no.What I didn’t expect was to fall in love with the city: its gorgeous architecture, its cafes, its parks full of trees, and its write...

Events

8 d. ago 'Broken' mother of Nova music festival victim kills herself in second suicide linked to massacre in just two days

Yelena Giler, 56, (pictured) mother of Slava Giler, who was murdered at the Nova music festival, died by suicide on Thursday, just two days after the second anniversary of the massacre.

Events

1 week ago Queen Camilla remembers her old friend Jilly Cooper as she chats to Salman Rushie at opening of Cliveden Literary Festival

Speaking at the opening of the historic annual event at Cliveden House in Berkshire today, she recalled an iconic quip from her old friend and author Jilly Cooper, who died last week.

Politics

1 week ago Inside the 'biggest pumpkin festival in Europe' where you can rub shoulders with celebrities

The owner of Europe's biggest pumpkin festival has revealed how his family business became a celebrity hotspot - and how he has ambitions to become the biggest in the world.

Politics

1 week ago Moss and Freud review – Kate meets Lucian and they get on brilliantly with absolutely no funny business at all

London film festival: The supermodel comes across as a dippy trustafarian and the artist like her soppy old grandpa in this bland, legacy-protecting depiction of their friendshipWhen Lucian Freud met Kate Moss turns out to be the encounter of a sweet, cuddly old gentleman and a guardedly opaque hedonist. Both look defanged.Freud’s sensational Naked Portrait 2002 is a nude study of the supermodel, to whom he had been introduced by his daughter, the fashion designer Bella Freud. Moss was pregnant when she sat for him – which lent a fierce, additional frisson to the painting’s candour and intimacy. Ellie Bamber plays Kate and carries off the unclothed moments with great directness and aplomb. Freud is played with Germanic R sounds by Derek Jacobi (who incidentally played Freud’s contemporary Francis Bacon in John Maybury’s Love Is the Devil in 1998) and he has Freud’s buzzard-like look but not quite the sharpness and severity. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago ‘AI is here to stay and change things’: Mad Max director George Miller on why he is taking part in an AI film festival

The director believes AI has made film-making ‘way more egalitarian’ – and is set to lead the judges at Omni AI film festival in AustraliaThere’s no arguing the use of artificial intelligence in film-making is getting a bad rap. Last week’s unveiling of Hollywood’s first AI “actress”, Tilly Norwood, generated howls of protest from actors’ unions across the UK and US, where the industry is still reeling from last year’s 118-day strike over, among other issues, the threat of AI.And earlier this week, Australia’s Productivity Commission was pilloried by Liberals and Greens alike for failing to recognise the dire impact AI may have on the country’s creative industries. Continue reading...

Culture

1 week ago 40 people killed as paraglider drops bombs on festival in Myanmar

Hundreds of people were gathered in central Myanmar's Chaung U township for a festival on Monday evening when the military dropped bombs on the crowd.

Events

1 week ago Nova music festival survivor who was gunned down by Hamas tells of his escape for the first time... and reveals why he's named his dog after the massacre

EXCLUSIVE: Two years have passed, but Yoav Haver says he will never be able to unsee the trail of corpses on the blood-soaked roads as he fled for his life during the Nova music festival massacre.

Events

2 w. ago Mother of Israeli hostage snatched by Hamas at Nova festival hopes peace deal talks will see her 'strong, beautiful' son released

Hamas took Ditza Or's son Avinatan hostage two years ago today, but she dreams that soon she may finally be able to put her ear to his chest and hear his heartbeat.

Economics

2 w. ago Healing through discomfort at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival

Reflecting this year’s theme of “Comfort & Disturb”, the films in this year’s Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival show how embracing discomfort can lead to understanding, empathy and healing, writes Rob Dickie

Politics

2 w. ago Heartbreaking final phone call of Nova festival victim who rang family to send final message of love after being shot three times by Hamas... only to be executed as her mother could only listen

Libby Cohen Meguri, described by her mother as 'the happiest person this world has ever known,' was one of the 1,200 victims murdered during Hamas' attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Events

2 w. ago Wigtown Book Festival diary: AI's thoughts on love and how a small town can rally emergency musicians

Local pub comes to the rescue after annual ceilidh cancelled due to bad weather

Culture

2 w. ago The moment I knew: as the countdown reached one, something instinctive pulled us together

At an eclectic performance, contemporary dancer James Websley was instantly taken with Jarred. A midnight kiss confirmed a deeper connectionFind more stories from The moment I knew seriesIt makes sense that Jarred and my story began among handstanding nude performers. It was 2009, I had just wrapped up a dance performance at Melbourne fringe festival and I was unwinding in the artists’ bar when circus performers began doing outrageous naked tricks. Over the crack of whips, my eyes found Jarred in the audience. He was absolutely gorgeous.Wasting no time, my friend Amy introduced us. Jarred told me he was studying circus arts; I was a contemporary dancer, so we bonded over a love of movement. His beauty drew me in but his passion for his craft held me captive. The world is a complicated place, but it was clear we both believed in making life fun through our work. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Wigtown Book Festival Diary: How Lord Robertson's talk made the lights go out and the bonkers world of Wigtown

Jane Bradley’s festivals diary is on tour to Wigtown Book Festival this weekend

Culture