1 hour ago Chineke! Orchestra/Heyward review – kaleidoscopic concert combines energy and complexity

Royal Albert Hall, LondonThe ethnically diverse orchestra played with vigour and spirit in a varied programme that included Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Shostakovich and Valerie ColemanThis concert was to have been conducted by Simon Rattle – a mark of the esteem in which leading artists hold Chineke! Orchestra, the trailblazing British ensemble made up of a majority of Black and ethnically diverse musicians. In the event, Charleston-born Jonathon Heyward put his own indelible stamp on a varied yet satisfying program.Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s La Bamboula, a kaleidoscopic dance with roots in the West Indies, played to Chineke!’s strengths. The performed it with vigour and spirit, while Heyward kept its likable blend of late-Victorian tunefulness and proto-Hollywood glitz gossamer-light. You could see why Henry Wood programmed it at the Proms 16 times, making its subsequent 91-year absence inexplicable. Continue reading...

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1 hour ago White House's review of Smithsonian content could reach into classrooms nationwide

Some history teachers are concerned about what may come of a White House review of the Smithsonian's public-facing content

Events

2 h. ago California Schemin’ review – James McAvoy’s directorial debut is an unlikely rap tale

Toronto film festival: the actor makes for a hit-and-miss first time film-maker with the undeniably involving true story of Scottish rappers who pretended to be AmericanAt the start of the century, a struggling Scottish rap duo decided to overhaul their image in extreme fashion: they began posing as two Americans from California, and managed to secure themselves a record deal with a label in London. Eventually the hoax was revealed, and one of them released a memoir about the charade. That wild story has now been adapted into a film, California Schemin’, which marks the alternately confident and unsteady directorial debut of actor James McAvoy.McAvoy is a son of Scotland himself, and perhaps feels some kinship with rappers Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, who found the cultural tastemakers of the south to be indifferent or even hostile to Scottish artists. Though McAvoy has fared just fine as an actor, Bain and Boyd – who would come to be known as Silibil N’ Brains – had a much tougher go...

Politics

3 h. ago Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery review – whodunnit threequel is murderously good fun

Toronto film festival: after Glass Onion underwhelmed, Rian Johnson’s self-aware, star-packed Benoit Blanc series makes a barnstorming return to formIf Glass Onion wasn’t quite the deserving follow-up to Knives Out that many of us had hoped it would be (it was more focused on the bigger rather than better), it was at the very least a deserved victory lap. Writer-director Rian Johnson’s 2019 whodunnit brought us back to the starry, slippery fun of the 70s and 80s, when films like this would be a dime a dozen and it was a surprise hit, making almost eight times its budget at the global box office. While Kenneth Branagh had seen commercial success already with his Poirot revival two years prior, his retreads felt too musty, and the actor-director too miscast, for the genre to truly feel like it was entering an exciting new period.Johnson’s threequel, Wake Up Dead Man, is the second as part of his Netflix deal (one that cost an estimated $450m) and arrives as the whodunnit genre has fou...

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4 h. ago Lewis Capaldi review – an emotional return to the spotlight for pop’s most heart

Utilita Arena, SheffieldThe singer announces he is thrilled to begin his first tour since taking time off for his mental health, but is visibly nervous and at one moment breaks into tearsLewis Capaldi is a pop star known for his patter. But tonight, he warns the crowd he is feeling too overwhelmed to perform his usual funnyman routine. “I probably won’t say lots this evening because I don’t know what to say,” he says. “I’m just genuinely thrilled that this is still a possibility for me.”The 28-year-old being lost for words tonight is understandable. In 2023, Capaldi announced he was taking a hiatus from touring, after sharing his struggles with his mental health and his diagnosis in 2022 of Tourette syndrome. Having disappeared from the spotlight for the better part of two years, he made a triumphant return at Glastonbury earlier this summer for an unannounced and emotional set on the Pyramid stage. Tonight’s Sheffield show, however, marks the Scottish singer’s first headline perfor...

Politics

5 h. ago Gino D'Acampo's secret comeback: he was cancelled for being 'inappropriate', but now GRANT TUCKER reveals the Italian chef is plotting his TV return

He regularly put a smile on viewers' faces with his cheeky innuendo as the resident chef on ITV's This Morning. But on other shows it was alleged that Gino D'Acampo often went too far.

Politics

8 h. ago 'I tried the new Laura Mercier setting spray to see if it makes makeup last longer'

The setting spray has been hailed 'the absolute best' by Space NK shoppers so our beauty writer put it through its paces

Politics

9 h. ago Review: 70mai 4K T800 dash cam offers a premium triple channel experience

It's pricey, and you'll need to spend extra on the 4G kit, but the T800 has you and your car covered in crystal clear quality

Politics

10 h. ago The Duck & Rice, London SW11: ‘Filling, but largely unmemorable’ – restaurant review

The Duck & Rice, London SW11: ‘Filling, but largely unmemorable’ – restaurant review  The Guardian

Politics

14 h. ago Winter of the Crow review – Lesley Manville commands cold war thriller

Toronto film festival: the Oscar nominee makes for a compelling heroine in a solid and intermittently suspenseful tale of a professor stuck in a nightmareThe specific brilliance of Lesley Manville had been on display for those who knew where to look long before her first Oscar nomination. She’d been part of the enviable Mike Leigh troupe (her first nomination should have been for Another Year) and a permanent small-screen fixture, even if the size of her roles hadn’t correlated to the size of her talent. But after Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson’s singular magnum opus, Manville has enjoyed a spectacular boom, a long-deserved reward for her and an even bigger one for those of us watching.The role came as she was entering her 60s, a period that can often leave female actors with grimly limited options, but she’s bucked the trend, not just through the sheer amount of work she’s found but also the unusual variety. She’s avoided the post-Book Club subgenre of mostly patronising come...

Events

22 h. ago Legal capture of endangered manta ray sparks bipartisan outrage in Florida

Haul for Abu Dhabi aquarium leads state officials to agree to review the issuing of ‘marine special activity licenses’Florida authorities have agreed to review the issuing of special permits allowing companies to capture endangered creatures to sell, after an outcry over the netting of a huge manta ray for an aquarium in Abu Dhabi.The review comes after a viral video released on 12 July showed a boat crew capturing a giant manta ray off a Panama City beach in Florida and pulling it onto their boat, sparking outrage among the community. A dolphin tour operator who witnessed and filmed the scene confronted the crew and asked whether they would release the manta ray, but they explained they had a legal permit. Continue reading...

Politics

23 h. ago The Lost Bus review – Paul Greengrass wildfire movie is as stressful as you’d expect

Toronto film festival: the director retells the worst wildfire in California’s history with expected technical prowess but he’s hampered by a soapy scriptEven before the wildfire has started to rage in fact-based docudrama The Lost Bus, Paul Greengrass has us on edge. We’re inside a schoolbus for the morning drop-off and we’re reminded of the dangers already faced on the day-to-day, young children without seatbelts being driven around the precarious rolling roads of the California hills, the director cranking up every little sound of a vehicle we’re told is in delayed need of a maintenance check. The world is dangerous enough.That nervy tension soon gets considerably ramped up and then rarely lets up for the next two-plus hours, an exhausting, assaultive experience aiming to both take us back to the horrors of 2018’s historically destructive Camp fire and to show us what Californians have been facing ever since and will bleakly continue to in the future. It’s ruthlessly efficient in...

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27 h. ago Salter Digital Pet Food Scale review: smart bowl now 20% off with code

Salter’s Digital Pet Food Scale impressed in testing, and right now you can save 20% with code BAKE20 – making it a smart buy

Politics

28 h. ago The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return at Southwark Playhouse Borough review: full of sweaty urgency

This play’s poetic eloquence translates badly to the cold light of the London stage

Events

29 h. ago Arijit Singh at Tottenham Hotspur review: An education in soulful vocals

A near perfect gig by Bollywood’s master musician - the first Indian-born artist to play at a UK stadium - was marred by sound problems and unnecessary dancers

Politics

30 h. ago Gregg Wallace's replacement on MasterChef: The Professionals announced

Gregg Wallace's replacement on MasterChef: The Professionals has been announced after Wallace was sacked from the BBC show earlier this year following an independent review

Politics

31 h. ago The Hoxton Poblenou: Where the chic set hang out in Barcelona's coolest neighbourhood

Need somewhere to stay for the next Primavera festival, or just want to beat the crowds in bustling Barcelona? This El Poblenou stay is the place to be, says William Hosie

Politics

32 h. ago ‘Insane’ new Netflix show from Tinder Swindler star has fans hooked

The six-part series shines a light on victims of romance fraud

Technology

32 h. ago 'I tried Kayali's new oud perfumes, and they're so luxurious'

Shopping writer Lauren got her hands on the latest launch from the viral fragrance brand - here's what she thought

Politics

33 h. ago Obsession review – nasty horror sees a wish for true love go horribly wrong

Toronto film festival: Writer-director Curry Barker follows up $800 YouTube hit Milk & Serial with a frighteningly effective, and head-smashingly gory, cautionary taleThis year’s Sundance saw the real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie play with the grotesque reality of being literally stuck to one another in the body horror Together, a wincingly effective lark that turned codependency into a curse. It didn’t really find its audience upon too-wide release this summer, a campaign that couldn’t succinctly explain the plot or convey a tone that went from horror to comedy and back again.At Toronto, YouTuber turned film-maker Curry Barker’s similarly themed Obsession should be an easier sell when it gets swiftly bought and packaged (it’s entering the festival as a sure-to-be-fought-over sales title). It’s a cleaner, more concise pitch – love spell gone wrong – and its reaction-securing moments of horrible violence even more alarming, a Midnight Madness winner that will probably ...

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