8 h. ago Voices: Coming to a big screen near you  Elon Musk is undermining Britain again

Calling for ‘revolutionary government change’ at Tommy Robinson’s ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally is a reminder that the tech billionaire is not best qualified to lecture anyone on free speech and democracy, says Sean O’Grady

Politics

4 d. ago All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert review – excruciating to read

The Eat Pray Love author’s account of her relationship with her late partner Rayya is solipsistic and self-indulgentThe first chapter of Elizabeth Gilbert’s much anticipated new memoir closes on a four-page love letter to Gilbert from her late partner Rayya, who, dead for five years, comes to her in a “visitation”. In Rayya’s voice, Gilbert calls herself babe, baby, or “sunshine baby” multiple times, emotes in all-caps, and grants herself permission to write the details of Rayya’s terrible, humiliating final year. “Let me just look at you for a minute,” “Rayya” says to Liz. “Look at your little rainbow eyes! Look at your sparkling tears! You’re so beautiful!” The letter is deeply self-indulgent and excruciating to read. “You’re going all the fucking way this time – all the way to the enlightenment.”I believe that the dead are gone and that artists don’t need their permission to evoke them. But I was stunned that this solipsistic mess opens the book, because Gilbe...

Politics

2 w. ago Voices: When it comes to Reform, Labour and the Tories are making the same mistake

In directing their fire at Nigel Farage, Reform’s opponents risk building him up, helping him seize the agenda – and further exposing their own limitations and failures over immigration, says Andrew Grice

Politics

2 w. ago The Occupant review – air crash survival thriller gets Rob Delaney’s voice for company

Ella Balinska is excellent alongside Delaney’s disembodied voice, but it’s a shame the film isn’t as sharply sketched as they areHere is a survival sci-fi thriller in which Abby (Ella Balinska) is trying to save the life of her sister, who is stricken with apparently terminal cancer. Abby’s tenacious sense that the possibility of a cure exists is the major guiding force behind a narrative that goes to some strange and unexpected places. For most of the run time, Abby is trying to return home from the site of a helicopter crash in the remote wilds of of Georgia, where the odds of survival are minimal and her only companion is the disembodied voice of comedian Rob Delaney, who plays a pilot – or is he? – who has also crashlanded somewhere in the wilderness.Delaney, best known for his work in comedies such as the excellent Catastrophe, gives an excellent voice-only performance, but it’s Balinska’s show, and she delivers the kind of turn that made Sigourney Weaver a legend in Alien: bra...

Events

3 w. ago Voices: I went to the Edinburgh Fringe in disguise to avoid my exes

As the Edinburgh Festival winds down for another year, Victoria Richards relays the desperate measures she took to avoid bumping into people she knew on her first visit to the Fringe

Politics

3 w. ago Voices: ‘Yes, this accent comes in melanin’ sums up the trouble with being Scottish and Black

Thanks to a viral TikTok video featuring a dreadlocked Scottish ‘fitfluencer’, African-Americans are discovering that some Black people come with Glaswegian accents – let’s not judge them too harshly, says Ava Vidal

Events

4 w. ago Sir Billy Connolly: Scottish comedian issues warning about online voice scamming using AI

Comedian Sir Billy Connolly has issued a statement about online scamming using his voice.

Events