30 h. ago Gary Neville faces backlash after saying Arsenal have 'gone backwards' as star name slammed

Gary Neville took aim at Arsenal as he cited their notable drop off this season but his opinion was quickly challenged by his fellow pundit, who offered an alternative view

Events

30 h. ago ‘Beautifully, awfully funny’: why Withnail and I is my feelgood movie

The latest in our ongoing series of comfort movies is a pick for Bruce Robinson’s cult British comedyIn the words of its writer and director, Withnail and I is a comedy that “doesn’t know it’s funny”. To its star, it’s about “the nobility of failure”. It ends with its title character alone in the rain, his one friend gone, delivering a Hamlet soliloquy to an indifferent wolf. It’s my feelgood movie.Bruce Robinson’s British classic was released in 1987. He and Richard E Grant made the remarks above in 2007, at the British Film Institute. I was there, eager to hear Robinson discuss a movie based on his own experience. Themes abide. As he said recently about The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman, his imperishable novel about his brutal childhood: “It’s very funny but also sad as fuck.” Robinson’s first film was a novel before it was a screenplay. At the BFI, he said he knew he’d got his film right at an early screening, when a “girl sort of threw up, laughing”. She had a point. Withna...

Politics

33 h. ago The Balcony Movie review – funny/sad film that offers a view into strangers’ lives

Pawel Lozinski’s documentary collects conversations with passers-by he talks to from the window of his Warsaw flatPolish film-maker Pawel Lozinski has curated this amusing, cumulatively melancholy documentary which he has shot from the first-floor balcony in his flat in the Saska Kępa district of Warsaw. Over a number of years, and with a microphone discreetly attached to the chainlink fence at street level, he simply calls down to people going past and asks them to stop and talk about something, anything.There are a lot of dog-walkers and people with babies; most people smile or grimace politely and say they are not special enough to be featured in a film. A priest says he can’t talk because he is carrying the Holy Sacrament. Others obligingly talk: one woman sings a rather beautiful song, a man talks about being homeless, having just got out of prison. People confide their sadness at the loss of a loved one, though one woman sheepishly confesses her profound happiness that her abu...

Culture

4 d. ago Hacks season four review – the return of this extremely funny, hugely raw comedy is a sheer pleasure

This moving, hilarious tale of two comedy frenemies is so good it should be one of the best-loved things on TV. Jean Smart’s performance is a masterclass in how to break an audience’s heartHacks should, by rights, be one of the biggest and best-loved shows on TV. It beat The Bear for outstanding comedy series at last year’s Emmys, and is a triumph of dazzling wit and some of the most lethal backstabbing ever committed to the small screen. In the UK, at least, it hasn’t made the largest impact: probably because, until recently, new seasons hadn’t streamed here since 2022. It recently found a home on Sky (thank goodness), just in time for this fourth outing, which comes complete with a load of starry cameos that HBO have demanded that journalists keep stumm about. If you thought that the toxic frenemy vibe between The White Lotus’s blond BFFs was lacking, say, 500% more shrieking; multiple HR complaints; comedy-flavoured barbs; and a drug-fuelled night out in Vegas, this is the show f...

Politics

6 d. ago Palau president backs Australia’s bid to host Cop31 climate summit after Dutton labels it ‘madness’

Surangel Whipps Jr says he would be ‘deeply disappointed’ if attempt were abandoned under CoalitionElection 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaignGet our afternoon election email, free app or daily news podcastThe president of Palau has strongly backed an Australian bid to host a UN climate conference on behalf of the Pacific, arguing that it would boost regional solidarity and clean energy investment and he would be “deeply disappointed” if the attempt were abandoned under the Coalition.Speaking in Sydney, Surangel Whipps Jr stressed he did not want to offer a view on the Australian election but said leaders should heed the results of a Lowy Institute survey that suggested 70% of the population supported Labor’s proposal for the country hosting the Cop31 climate summit late next year.Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago International Booker Prize shortlist 2025: ‘Truly disturbing and achingly beautiful’ global stories

Selection features stories that offer ‘a miraculous lens through which to view human experience’

Politics

1 week ago How GuestPix is helping couples organise and enjoy their wedding photos faster

GuestPix offers couples a smart way to collect and view their wedding photos without the long wait.

Culture

2 w. ago Ian Wright makes feelings clear on Marcus Rashford as Man United forward given reality check

Former Arsenal striker Ian Wright has offered his view on Marcus Rashford and his performances for England

Events

3 w. ago Labour government must look urgently at energy prices and do the decent thing

Record View says John Swinney's administration has at least offered a solution.

Politics

3 w. ago There’s No Time Like the Present by Paul B Rainey review – a funny, unpredictable and wild comic

Three characters stuck in the past are given access to the future in the former Observer/Faber prize winner’s mordant and misanthropic sci-fi graphic novelPeople who enjoy science fiction love to imagine the future: time travel, spaceships, something wobbly with a green face. But what if those fans really had access to it – the future, I mean – courtesy of something very similar to the internet? This is the possibility Paul B Rainey floats in There’s No Time Like the Present, in which a crowd of misfits from Milton Keynes (once the future itself) are able, if not to visit Mars, then at least to watch episodes of Doctor Who that have not yet been screened.Mordant and misanthropic in almost equal measure, Rainey’s book has three central characters, each one somewhat stuck, unable fully to escape their childhood. Barry, an obnoxious lazybones, still lives at home with his parents; he makes his living selling bootleg recordings of TV shows he has lifted from the “ultranet”, which provid...

Politics

3 w. ago Retrograde at the Apollo Theatre review: wickedly funny history lesson on Hollywood racism

Ivanno Jeremiah reprises his riveting performance as Sidney Poitier in this must-see thiller

Culture

3 w. ago Space telescope makes 'rare' discovery as 'goldmine of data' revealed

New data from the European Space Agency's Euclid offers an unprecedented view of the cosmos

Politics