Met Police boss 'wouldn't be surprised' if more allegations made about Brand
Sir Mark Rowley tells the BBC that what he heard reported from Brand's trial came close to "victim blaming".
Art
Seth Meyers on Republicans: ‘Furiously backpedalling away from Trump’
Late-night hosts spoke about how the losing party is dealing with the midterms, which saw a round of wins for the Democrats Late-night hosts ridiculed the many Republicans who are now trying to distance themselves from Donald Trump after the Democrats scored a midterms victory…
The Cat in the Hat review – Bill Hader brings plenty but this animated rework is a mess
The SNL alum has an appealing energy and this is an improvement on the 2003 travesty but it’s also far too long and strangely corporate Over a long enough timeline, perhaps every living alumnus of Saturday Night Live will play the Cat in the Hat.
If Dune is this generation’s Star Wars, we are all in big trouble
According to Florence Pugh, Denis Villeneuve’s stunningly strange and breathtaking universe is the equivalent to George Lucas’ heroic space opera.
Head On Portrait awards 2026 – in pictures
A portrait of a First Nations elder by Queensland photographer Sylvia Liber is the winning image in the annual Head On Portrait prize.
I have flung myself headfirst into Sarah J Maas’s romantasy universe and I find myself a changed woman | Johanna Cosgrove
Some dismiss books like A Court of Thorns and Roses as mere genre fiction.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has revived the midnight game launch – but was it worth the wait?
When our writer found himself among the hundreds on Oxford Street hoping to get their hands on early copies and collectibles, it was a heartwarming reminder of the shared experience of fandom • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time review – a dream come true It is Thursday night…
‘I went into a deep, deep hole’: Wynonna Judd on overcoming family tragedy and putting a lifetime of love and pain into her new album
The country star has abandoned Nashville slickness for a set of raw, pared-back songs that reckon with the death of her mother and decades of personal struggles.
The week’s best new tracks and the act you need to know: crowd-pleasing anticapitalist rockers Sans Froid
Inspired by everything from Radiohead to Deerhoof and Linda Perhacs, the west country band merge disparate styles into solid anthems From Bristol, UK Recommended if you like Puscifer, Julie Christmas, the Mars Volta Up next Supporting Every Hell at Bristol’s Exchange, 4…
How 2000s lad culture helped Russell Brand to hide in plain sight
The behaviour that formed the backdrop to Brand's prosecution also helped elevate him, writes the BBC's media editor Katie Razzall.
‘Completely original’ musical Midnight tries (and fails) to imagine a slavery-era romance
Todrick Hall’s off-Broadway show is about a doomed interracial love affair during US slavery in the 1860s During the intermission of Midnight, an off-Broadway musical about a doomed interracial love affair during US slavery in the 1860s, a woman sitting behind me lauded the show…
Simple nudes, priceless fakes and riches from an emperor’s palace – the week in art
Swap doomscrolling for treasured scrolls, human bodies in all their variety and love triangles in Bloomsbury squares – all in your weekly dispatch Constantinople to Istanbul : One City, Two Empires From the tulips and silks of the Ottoman court, back in time to the Emperor…
The best recent poetry – review roundup
The Universe is an Animal by Jessica Mookherjee; Sleep Gate by Sylvia Legris; The Other Love by Henri Cole; Stay Winter by Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe The Universe Is an Animal by Jessica Mookherjee (Nine Arches, £11.99) In this confident and capacious collection, scientific language…
His 1-year-old faced heart failure. His new book tells how to cope in a health crisis
Dr. Raj Panjabi is the author of Safer: A Playbook.
Identity, resilience and community: early Black portrait photography – in pictures
A new Washington DC exhibition aims to show how African Americans have used portrait photography to depict themselves, their communities, their aspirations and their identities.
Nikita Gill: ‘I read Flowers in the Attic too young. Someone should have stopped me’
The Indian-Irish poet on the Mahabharata retelling that inspired her to write, Arundhati Roy’s courage, and the poetry of Lucille Clifton My earliest reading memory My father was a sailor and my mother a teacher. They were both voracious readers.
‘Mom encouraged me to get breast implants’: Disney child star Christy Carlson Romano on fame, family and freedom
She started acting at six and by 16 was starring in Even Stevens with Shia LaBeouf. Then her career fell apart.
La Roux: Old Flames review – a breezy, hook-packed twist on a breakup album
(Vertigo) Devastating moments are dressed up with warm production and kinetic 00s R&B in the now quiff-less singer’s grownup fourth album Over the six years that La Roux, AKA Elly Jackson, was making her fourth album, the singer ended a 17-year relationship, confronted her weed…
‘Too many stories exist only to make you think you’re on the right side’: Cristian Mungiu on Fjord, the Cannes winner that divided Europe
The Romanian auteur’s new film could have been the kind of homogenous ‘Europudding’ he’s railed against for years. Instead, it’s a culture-clash skewering of conservative and liberal values worthy of its Palme d’Or ‘Pffff!” Cristian Mungiu lets out an exasperated sigh.
True North by Paul Theroux review – an American’s view of Canada
The veteran travel writer turns his eye for detail on his northern neighbour and its people Paul Theroux’s arrival in Canada doesn’t go well. An immigration officer called Sweeney finds a small pocketknife in Theroux’s car and fines him $500 for failing to declare a weapon.
Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook review – the heir to a legendary eatery … who sets soup on fire
She is completely baffled in the kitchen, but the star valiantly resurrects her family’s famous restaurant. Her journey is chaotic, hilarious – and deeply moving It starts both very well and very badly does Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook.
‘It’s a new world. It’s a little fascistic. And it needs a different response’: U2 on 50 years together – and why Bono can’t work with Trump
After some so-so albums, can U2’s new one, Carnaval de Luz, restore them to glory?
'We had no idea how ill she was': Bono on recording Dolly Parton's last song
The rock group discuss Parton's final recording before her death, and why they refuse to be censored on stage.
Powerhouse Parramatta opens this weekend – and it’s dazzling inside and out
Coups de théâtre abound in the $915m addition to western Sydney’s skyline, which opens on Saturday with five new exhibitions – and a 23-day festival Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Dubbed the “Opera House of western Sydney”, Powerhouse Parramatta’s white lattice…
K-pop group NewJeans’s contract omitted rights to ‘sleep and free choice’ – report
New report finds that record label Ador stripped child protections from group’s contracts when they were minors The superstar K-pop group NewJeans signed restrictive record label contracts that waived their right to “sleep, rest and free choice”.
Min Jin Lee on 'American Hagwon' and why it takes a decade to write each novel
Lee's new novel is about the promise and perils for Koreans who pursue a Western education. Her previous book, the 2017 novel Pachinko , was a finalist for a National Book Award.
‘A hero’s origins’: the true story of the first Black drag queen presidential candidate
In off-Broadway show Ms Blakk for President, Oscar-winning Moonlight writer Tarell Alvin McCraney explores a slice of underappreciated queer history At the height of the Aids crisis, the Chicago activist Terence Alan Smith put on his drag persona, Joan Jett Blakk, and announced…
Feminism for a World on Fire by Natasha Walter audiobook review – an urgent call for collective action
The writer and activist finds galvanising energy in grassroots initiatives in the face of inequality and the climate crisis ‘Throughout the world confidence in progress has shattered,” notes Natasha Walter.
The Russell Brand I saw in court was not the flamboyant character most people will know
Brand stood upright in the dock as the verdicts were read out in court - ending this sometimes surreal trial.
Where to start with: John Berger
The influential British writer and critic was born 100 years ago today. Here’s a guide to his genre-bending writing on art, love, sex, mortality and more John Berger was born a hundred years ago today.