7 h. ago Remembering Mama Africa: struggle of fearless singer Miriam Makeba told in daring dance drama

Mimi’s Shebeen, choreographed by Alesandra Seutin, charts South African legend’s exile and ascendancy with ‘beautiful songs, strong messages and moments that hit’“You speak about Miriam Makeba in South Africa and it’s like speaking about a queen,” says Alesandra Seutin. The legendary singer Makeba was known as Mama Africa, and the Empress of African Song; but she also hung out in Greenwich Village with Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. She was a teenager sent out to work to support her family in Johannesburg who later became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the UN. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife of a Black Panther. And her rich life and legacy are the inspiration for choreographer Seutin’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, about to get its UK premiere.Mimi’s Shebeen blends dance, live music and spoken word in a piece of theatre that’s no straightforward biodrama but draws on Makeba’s history, particularly her story of exile: after moving to N...

Events

9 d. ago The Traitors winner signs up for first acting role in Netflix's upcoming supernatural thriller

The Body is a coming-of-age drama that follows a dance troupe in a Catholic school who trigger mass hysteria in their town when they begin to experience prophetic visions

Politics

2 w. ago BBC Strictly Come Dancing fans spot 'drama' between couple as they're 'underscored'

Strictly Come Dancing viewers were left fuming as they claimed one couple were 'massively underscored' after their Waltz failed to attract the points they thought it should.

Sport

2 w. ago Strictly Come Dancing fans say one couple were 'underscored' after 'drama' on screen

Strictly Come Dancing viewers have been left outraged after they claim one couple received lower scores than they should have for their first dance of the series on Saturday (September 27)

Sport

2 w. ago Strictly Come Dancing fans spot 'drama' between couple as dance was 'underscored'

Strictly Come Dancing 2025 kicked off in earnest this weekend, with the celebrities taking to the dance floor to show off their very first choreographed routines

Sport

last month Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang review – a daughter of China speaks again

The bestselling author returns with an account of how her homeland has changed – and the personal costs of fameRemarkable success notoriously brings its own problems. Wild Swans, first published in 1991 and written by Jung Chang with the help of her husband, Irish-born historian and writer Jon Halliday, had a global impact few authors dare to dream of. It told the story of three generations of women in 20th-century China – Chang’s grandmother, her mother and herself – and became one of the most popular nonfiction books in history, selling more than 13m copies in 37 languages and collecting a fistful of awards and commendations. For any author, following that would be a challenge. Now, Fly, Wild Swans returns to the story, picking it up after Chang’s own departure from China in 1978, and revisiting episodes from the earlier work with added detail.Wild Swans was Chang’s second book: her first was a biography of Soong Ching-ling, the wife of the early 20th-century revolutionary Su...

Politics