69 h. ago Brotherless Night by VV Ganeshananthan audiobook review – love and conflict in Sri Lanka

The civil war transforms a young trainee doctor’s life as she copes with her feelings for a Tamil Tiger in last year’s Women’s prizewinning novelBrotherless Night opens with 16-year-old Sashi Kulenthiren, who hopes to be a doctor like her eldest brother, making tea when the kettle slips out of her hand, causing her to pour boiling water on herself. When a neighbour, K, hears her screams, he rushes over to help, cracking raw eggs over the scalds to soothe the pain. “So I began as K’s patient though he ended as mine,” Sashi reflects.Set in 1980s Sri Lanka, VV Ganeshananthan’s coming-of-age novel – which won the 2024 Women’s prize for fiction – is an epic and hard-hitting tale of family and survival as it documents life during the civil war between Tamil separatists and the Sinhalese majority that lasted three decades. Before fighting breaks out, Sashi’s most pressing problem is whether she will pass her exams at school. But soon violence and kidnapping become the norm, communities are...

Events

3 d. ago Robbie Williams flies in on a rocket and brings out star guest in stunning Manchester Co

Death-defying stage dives, big anthems, and plenty of showbiz sparkle as Robbie Williams put on quite the show in Manchester's Co-op Live

Events

7 d. ago Review Round Up: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bridge Theatre (2025)

Review Round Up: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bridge Theatre (2025)  Love London Love Culture

Politics

8 d. ago A Midsummer Night’s Dream review – Nicholas Hytner’s revels return with bawdy, uninhibited mischief

Bridge theatre, LondonThe immersive setup brings the audience into the midst of the play’s shapeshifting unreality among a comedy-gold cast of magical charactersShenanigans reign in this neck of the woods. Boogying back to the Bridge after six years, Nicholas Hytner’s rollicking production of Shakespeare’s great comedy feasts on bawdy mischief and aerial antics. Radiating charisma, Emmanuel Akwafo’s uninhibited Bottom instructs his ragtag group of am-dram players to rehearse “most obscenely and courageously”. Hytner’s production, with somewhat more rigour and expertise, takes note.Bunny Christie’s luscious set of beds, leaves and trapdoors has us at once rising from the murky depths of the forest and floating among the clouds of sleep. Half the audience mill amid the foggy underland, skilfully shuffled by stage management, while the rest of us sit up among the fairies. The immersive setup complements the play’s shapeshifting unreality; in this world, we become another set of magical...

Politics

8 d. ago A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Bridge Theatre review: I can't remember enjoying a Dream more

This acrobatic, erotic, playfully queered version of Shakespeare’s comedy is even better than it was in 2019

Politics

1 week ago Review: I went to see Stranger Things actor play his TikTok megahit ... now I understand what the fuss was all about

It's easy to be cynical about an actor turned singer. But Djo is the real deal.

Events

1 week ago PATRICK MARMION reviews Fiddler On The Roof's first night at the Barbican Theatre: Topol made the film sing, but this Fiddler dances to its own tune

The show is surely still best known from the 1971 film starring Chaim Topol as the hard-working, God-fearing milkman Tevye with five feisty daughters to marry off.

Culture

1 week ago Nightmare of how Putin would flatten Britain: Ports and airfields bombarded, oil rigs and satellites sabotaged and waves of cyber attacks feared if Russia pounces

In a 144-page document, revealed yesterday, defence chiefs outlined the five terrifying 'methods of attack' Britain should brace itself for if it was forced into a major conflict with the likes of Russia.

Events

1 week ago REVIEW: Kesha leads sweaty Manchester show with gimp masks, pig men and a United crop top

The loud and unapologetic show did not disappoint

Politics

2 w. ago Explosive plot twists make this noirish cold case thriller sizzle: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV

Are you a fan of Gary Oldman in Slow Horses? You'll like Dept Q. Love the cold cases on Unforgotten? Give Dept Q a try. Enjoy Rebus? You'll be at home with Dept Q.

Events

2 w. ago Heathrow boss slept through first six hours of Heathrow fire shut

A review into the fire on the night of March 20 into March 21 found that the airport's chief executive, Thomas Woldbye, was called when the fire broke out but did not answer his phone.

Events

2 w. ago Elden Ring Nightreign review – FromSoftware brings multiplayer mayhem to the Lands Between

FromSoftware/Bandai Namco; PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Fortnite meets Elden Ring in a matchup where a three-person team faces so many high-speed challenges you may feel distinctly short-handedA standalone spin-off from FromSoftware’s incredibly successful yet mostly single-player dark role-playing game Elden Ring, the multiplayer-oriented Elden Ring Nightreign is a curious beast, often feeling like an amalgamation of several different experiences all at once.Each session begins with players, either solo or in teams of three, dropping into a small but dense world, working to urgently gain as much strength as possible as a rapidly closing ring tightens around them – a very Fortnite experience. Rather than other players, they fight a variety of monsters and explore locations lifted directly from the Elden Ring universe. After each match, they also gain upgrade materials to modify future runs and advance the game’s story, similar to a rogue-like game so it’s a Fortnite/Elden Ring...

Sport

2 w. ago Elden Ring Nightreign review – it shouldn't really work but against all odds...it does

Elden Ring Nightreign is a surprising release from FromSoft, but a very welcome one, and after spending plenty of time killing and dying in Limvell, I'm desperate to do it all again

Economics

2 w. ago This chippie owner took a battering trying to learn how to make sushi... CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV

Why anyone pays a fortune for sushi, those little Japanese rolls of fish, rice and vegetable, is a mystery.

Politics

2 w. ago Imagine being the nitwit publisher who rejected Jane Austen's work! CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV

The list of hapless nitwits who rejected megastars-to-be is a long one, but none blundered more badly than Thomas Cadell, writes Christopher Stevens.

Politics

2 w. ago Imagine being the nitwit publisher who rejected Jane Austen's work! CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV

The list of hapless nitwits who rejected megastars-to-be is a long one, but none blundered more badly than Thomas Cadell, writes Christopher Stevens.

Politics

3 w. ago Labour set to free killers and rapists earlier under new soft

The Government's sentencing review was last night savaged by victims and senior police officers, while the Tories dubbed it a 'recipe for a crimewave'.

Events

3 w. ago 'Tate McRae is Gen Z incarnate of Britney Spears as seriously sexy shows sell out at O2'

REVIEW: Tate McRae spent the last two nights splitting, pole-dancing and grinding at an impressive sell-out debut at the O2. At just 21, the TikTok dancer turned singer is already a superstar

Politics

3 w. ago Nightingale by Laura Elvery review – Florence Nightingale inspires a luminous historical novel

Elvery’s prose is both sensual and brutal in this richly imagined account of war, memory and the life of history’s most famous nurseGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailThe year is 1850, the eve of the Crimean war, and Florence Nightingale is watching a group of boys at play. From a distance, she composes the scene, preparing to describe it in a letter to her aunt. “How did she want this part to sound?” she wonders – less concerned with what is happening than how it might be narrated. When she realises the boys are not kicking a ball but tormenting a baby owl, she doesn’t recoil. The horror of the image lands alongside another realisation: the story “might be better” now, though she is left considering how best to reframe the violence for her aunt: “Knowing she would narrate it later back in the house Florence would have to tell the story a different way”. That instinct – to reshape the unbearable into something legible – sits at the core of Nightingale, Laura Elvery’s rich an...

Culture

3 w. ago Poirot's on his hols, but all we get is a dreary lecture on the evils of empire: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV

Sir David Suchet on a surfboard is quite the mental image. In a striped 1920s bathing costume, the great thespian would be a picture of Hercule Poirot on his holidays.

Politics