5 h. ago Review: The Bodyguard brings Whitney Houston’s iconic hits to life at the Palace Theatre

Based on the 1992 film, The Bodyguard is an entertaining mix of drama, romance, thrill and even some comedy

Events

23 h. ago 'I lost 6 stone on WeightWatchers and still have wine and chocolate buttons'

A woman has shared her WeightWatchers weight loss success story

Politics

28 h. ago Out in the Hills, Pitlochry review: 'a whirlwind celebration of LGBTQ life'

The first Out in the Hills festival was a stunning success, writes Joyce McMillan

Politics

3 d. ago Woman's 6 stone weight loss transformation after cutting drink: 'I got my life back'

'I have all this energy... I feel amazing'

Politics

4 d. ago Katie Price's weight loss explained amid fans concerns for her

Katie Price has said she doesn't use weight-loss 'fat jabs' but recently branded herself 'stick woman'.

Economics

4 d. ago Igor Stravinsky: Late Works album review – kudos to Reuss for bringing this spellbinding music to life

Daniel Reuss/Noord Nederlands Orkest/Cappella Amsterdam(Pentatone)Noord Nederlands Orkest and Cappella Amsterdam breathe colour and light into work from the composer’s most austere periodIn his later years, Igor Stravinsky became fascinated by serialism, both as a means of distilling musical thought and as an intellectual and stylistic challenge for a composer entering his 70s and 80s. The results struck some contemporary listeners as austere, but there’s a self-effacing purity and beauty about this complex, intellectually probing music that deserves a wider audience than hitherto. Kudos, then, to conductor Daniel Reuss, whose precise yet vital interpretations teem with colour and light.There are four main works here. In Memoriam Dylan Thomas from 1954 is an extended, impassioned setting for solo tenor of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Threni, a spiny, multifaceted jewel from 1958, sets words from the Book of Lamentations. The haunting Introitus and bristling Requiem Canticl...

Culture

6 d. ago A Gangster’s Life review – funny in parts, but not always deliberately

Despite some interesting visuals, not even Tony Cook and Jonny Weldon can lift this poorly produced tale of a pair of dodgy lads hiding in Greece from a gangsterHere is an odd film about a couple of dodgy lads who get on the wrong side of a bona fide gangster and have to hide out in Greece. It’s not thoughtless per se; rather, it lacks the resources to bring its vision successfully to screen. Its quirks are sometimes appealing and sometimes amateurish and, while a mixture of influences swirl about, from Bond to Kingsman to Guy Ritchie and even Mission: Impossible, the film-makers don’t have the necessary budget, meaning that it feels at times like a TikTok parody of more expensive films.It is a shame, because there are some interesting visual ideas that go beyond route one filming. Example: a goon beating a man tied to a chair on a crispy manicured lawn is filmed in a lovely wide shot, with a guy in the far distance calmly clipping the hedge. But it’s the post-production that is the...

Events

7 d. ago State of Statelessness review – Dalai Lama presides over intimate dramas about Tibetans’ life of exile

Tibetan directors, who all live outside Tibet, deliver a quartet of films that explore the pain of separation and migrationThe wrench of exile is the theme of this quartet of short films from Tibetan directors, who themselves all live outside Tibet. Their intimate, emotional family dramas tell stories of separation and migration. In two of them, the 90-year-old Dalai Lama smiles out from photographs on shrines, a reminder of the precariousness of Tibet’s future. As a character in one of the films puts it bluntly: will there be anything to stop China erasing Tibetan identity when its rock-star spiritual leader is no longer around?In the first film a Tibetan man lives in a kind of complicated happiness in Vietnam. He loves his wife, and they both adore their sunny-natured little daughter, but he has mournful eyes. Home is a town on the banks of the Mekong River, which has its source in Tibet. The river is a constant reminder of the region – and of Chinese might too, since Chinese hydr...

Events

1 week ago Latymer vs The Crown at Bray: What to eat when you’re bored of eating

When tasting menus feel like homework and smash burgers feel like punishment, the only solution is to get out of London. In this month’s Fine and Dime, two very different meals – one robed and Michelin’d in Surrey, one chaotic and French-ish in Bray – reminded Hannah Twiggs what restaurants are actually for

Politics

1 week ago Katie Price reveals frightening health scare and brands herself 'stick woman'

Katie Price has issued a health update after fears over health following dramatic weight loss that left her looking like a 'stick woman' pushed the star to see doctors

Economics

1 week ago Katie Price reveals her family are desperately trying to persuade her to get medical help after dramatic weight loss as she brands herself a 'stick woman'

The former glamour model, 47, has revealed her family are urging her to seek medical help after growing concerns about her dramatic weight loss.

Economics

1 week ago Katie Price reveals frightening new health scare after dramatic weight loss as she brands herself ‘stick woman’

KATIE Price has revealed a new health scare as she continues to shock fans with her worrying weight loss. The reality star branded herself a "stick woman" as she chatted about the findings of a recent doctor's appointment with her little sister Sophie on an episode of her podcast. Former glamour model, Katie, shared that...

Economics

1 week ago Fat jab users pile fat back on FOUR TIMES faster than regular dieters – as docs call for ‘jabs for LIFE’

SLIMMERS who use weight loss jabs pile flab back on four times faster than dieters, a study has found. Oxford University experts said injections like Mounjaro and Wegovy should be taken for life. A review of 9,341 people in 37 studies found most put all the weight back on within two years of stopping medication....

Events

1 week ago This, My Second Life by Patrick Charnley review – an astonishing debut of recovery

Drawing on his own near-death experience, the author finds a powerful intensity in this tale of a young man’s convalescence in a Cornish village“I had to pick through the wreckage, blind at first. I had to find all the pieces of me, scattered all around, and put them back together, one by one.” Following a cardiac arrest which left him clinically dead for 40 minutes, Jago Trevarno, the young narrator of Patrick Charnley’s moving debut novel, has retreated to the Cornish village where he grew up, to shelter under the protection of his “off-gridder” uncle, Jacob.His mother dead of cancer and his father long gone, at 20 Jago’s world seems to have shrunk to nothing but the hard daily labour of working a subsistence farm high above the rugged Atlantic coast. The life Jago had begun to construct in the city, “a runaway train” in flight from his mother’s death and everything that reminded him of her, has evaporated abruptly in the aftermath of his near-death experience....

Politics

2 w. ago The Score by C Thi Nguyen review – a brilliant warning about the gamification of everyday life

From Duolingo to GDP, how an obsession with keeping score can subtly undermine human flourishingTwo years ago, I started learning Japanese on Duolingo. At first, the daily accrual of vocabulary was fun. Every lesson earned me experience points – a little reward that measured and reinforced my progress.But something odd happened. Over time, my focus shifted. As I climbed the weekly leaderboards, I found myself favouring lessons that offered the most points for the least effort. Things came to a head when I passed an entire holiday glued to my phone, repeating the same 30-second Kanji lesson over and over like a pigeon pecking a lever, ignoring my family and learning nothing. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Boulanger: La Ville Morte album review – The celebrated teacher’s early opera is brought back to life

Harvey/Rubin/Dennis/Williams/Talea Ensemble/Goren(Pentatone) This early work by Nadia Boulanger - better known as the influential teacher – was never performed and survived only in vocal score. Despite the best efforts of conductor Neal Goren and his hard-working cast it never quite coheresNadia Boulanger (1887-1979) is best remembered now as a hugely influential teacher, who spread the gospel of neoclassicism through several generations of composers on both sides of the Atlantic. She was also a conductor and organist, and at the beginning of her career, at least, had ambitions as a composer in her own right, which she largely abandoned in the early 1920s some years after the deaths of both her enormously talented younger sister Lili, and her mentor, the pianist and composer Raoul Pugno.It was in collaboration with Pugno that Boulanger composed La Ville Morte, a four-act opera based upon a play by Gabriele D’Annunzio; it was scheduled to be premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in...

Culture

3 w. ago Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell audiobook review – the life and loss of the woman behind the Bard

The wife of William Shakespeare takes centre stage in a rich, sensitive examination of parental grief, sensitively narrated by Jessie Buckley The jury is still out on the merits of Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, which arrives in cinemas next month, but there is no arguing with the quality of the source material. Maggie O’Farrell’s lyrical and immersive novel, which won the Women’s prize in 2020, imagines the relationship between William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes Hathaway, and their grief over the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet, from the plague in 1596. The book opens with the young Hamnet realising his twin sister Judith is unwell and searching for an adult to attend to her, while unaware that he is the one who is fatally ill.Shakespeare – who is never named and instead referred to as “the husband” or “the father” – is depicted not as a literary superstar but a flawed man who is rarely home. The focus is on Hathaway, a free-spirited woman with deep connections to the landscape. ...

Politics