Focus / Culture - 11 hours ago
Whether she’s a chicken-obsessed schoolboy or a hapless cop fighting a plot to bring down Notting Hill carnival, the comic actor’s dizzying range means she may soon need a bigger awards shelfIn 2020, as long-overdue conversations about race rippled out across the world, Gbemisola Ikumelo, now 39, ma...
Focus / Culture - 11 hours ago
The Bonfire Party by Sean O’Brien; Plastic by Matthew Rice; Retablo for a Door by Michelle Penn; Jonah and Me by John F Deane; Intimate Architecture by Tess JollyThe Bonfire Party by Sean O’Brien (Picador, £12.99)This sombre collection showcases O’Brien’s varied use of forms and subject matter, expl...
Focus / Culture - 11 hours ago
Brian King Joseph claims the rapper and actor was ‘priming’ him for ‘sexual exploitation’. Smith’s lawyer has called the allegations ‘false, baseless and reckless’Will Smith is being sued by a violinist from his 2025 tour, who claims the rapper and actor exhibited “predatory behaviour” and was “deli...
Focus / Culture - 12 hours ago
From Doom and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to Metropolis, Hollywood hasn’t predicted the most stable of years ahead2025 sounds more futuristic. Maybe it’s the “f” sound on “five.” But 2026 is one step beyond, and it’s where we are now, with every science-fiction-style development – principally the...
Focus / Culture - 13 hours ago
The return of hit bonkbuster Rivals, the horny hockey show taking the world by storm, Richard Gadd’s follow-up to Baby Reindeer … and Buffy is back! Here’s your complete guide to 2026’s unmissable televisionAs the writer of conspiracy thriller Utopia and Covid-era relationship drama Together, Dennis...
Focus / Culture - 13 hours ago
The novelist on how The Rainbow made him want to write, the strange genius of Penelope Fitzgerald and finding comfort in TintinMy earliest reading& memory Sitting on the sofa with my mum reading Mabel the Whale by Patricia King, with beautiful colour illustrations by Katherine Evans. I think it was...
Focus / Culture - 13 hours ago
Reports say actor, 34, found unresponsive in corridor of Fairmont hotel in early hours of New Year’s DayVictoria Jones, the daughter of the actor Tommy Lee Jones, has been found dead in a San Francisco hotel.Jones, 34, was discovered in the early hours of New Year’s Day, according to TMZ, which cite...
Focus / Culture - 14 hours ago
(Babel Label)The 80s sax star leads an A-list quartet, plus a shared trumpet role for Laura Jurd and Ballamy’s son CharlieOpening 2026’s jazz reviews with a story from the mid-1980s might be risking audience restiveness, but that was the decade in which a far-sighted young saxophonist on the UK jazz...
Snow and ice had apparently settled on the road
Focus / Culture - 15 hours ago
(Blue Blood International/Cooking Vinyl)The four-piece try to tap into modern pop’s deep well of nostalgia but come off like Westlife on a bad day‘Blue’s in the house / Oh it’s party time!” muse the fortysomething man-band on Souls of the Underground, the penultimate song on this seventh album, and...
Focus / Culture - 16 hours ago
In this energisingly original novel, an emotionally detached English student at college in New York tells a big lieLies offend our sense of justice: generally, we want to see the liar unmasked and punished. But when the deception brings no material gain, we might also be curious about what purpose t...
Focus / Culture - 16 hours ago
All sorts of mischief with animals, glockenspiels and footpumps in the New Year Treat. Plus: what did the year look like from space? Here’s what to watch this evening9pm, Channel 4TV chef Big Zuu, former Lioness Jill Scott, Eurovision star Sam Ryder, dictionary corner’s Susie Dent and Strictly winne...
Focus / Culture - 17 hours ago
Artist’s daughter Marguerite features in most of the pieces, kept in the family until ‘complete surprise’ donationThe Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris has received an “extraordinarily generous” donation of 61 works by Henri Matisse that have been kept in the artist’s family.Most of the donated art – whi...
Focus / Culture - 18 hours ago
Both stars have bigger films on release but are hugely proud of The History of Sound, which has been four years in the making. They talk about the vulnerability of singing, the cost of inhabiting a role – and rationing future partsAll things considered, telling Paul Mescal I once placed a bet on him...
Additional bricklaying workshops and plastering and decorating pods will be created if the scheme gets the go-ahead