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Culture

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Entertainment

Russell Brand suspected to have attacked at least 10 other women

Met police chief says ‘many more’ victims could come forward, as actor and comedian awaits sentencing Police are bracing themselves for more victims of Russell Brand to come forward, with at least 10 more women suspected of having been attacked by the disgraced star. Brand, 51, will be sentenced on Monday to what is expected to be a lengthy jail sentence for rape and sexual assaults after he abused his fame to become a “predator” targeting women, and got away with it for years. Continue reading...

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Entertainment

‘It’s the final goodbye’: Monty Don bows out with a blissful last Gardeners’ World

TV’s most soothing gardener bids viewers farewell in his own inimitable style: poetically, and with barely a hint of fuss Monty Don paces through his garden, slowly and deliberately. “Welcome to a beautiful day,” he announces. Autumn has hit and the greens of Longmeadow have modulated into soft yellows and oranges. He’s right. This is as idyllic as his place will get. “But,” he warns, “we know winter will come.” And with winter comes change, and death, and a final loss before regrowth. Don is talking about gardens, about how it won’t be long before the first frosts arrive. But maybe, just mayb

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Entertainment

Sebastián Lelio was a fascinating film-maker of great passion and poetry

Chilean director of films including Gloria and A Fantastic Woman could expertly capture both the personal and political Sebastián Lelio, director of A Fantastic Woman and Gloria, dies aged 52 The last 20 years have seen an amazing flowering of creativity from Chilean film-makers. The standard bearers of the Novisimo Cine Chileno, or New Chilean Cinema, have included Pablo Larraín, Patricio Guzmán (who sadly died this year) and Sebastián Silva, directors who brought to global audiences news of what it has been like in their country to have submitted to Augusto Pinochet’s rule, a tinpot tyranny

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Entertainment

Macklemore says that nine US arenas turned down his Free Palestine tour

Rapper called out ‘intimidation and suppression’ in post, claiming major arenas refused to host him after he was dropped from Ed Sheeran’s tour Macklemore says that nine leading US arenas have refused to host his Free Palestine fundraising tour, calling out “intimidation, manipulation and suppression” tactics. In an Instagram post, the rapper says that he hoped to bring the tour to the US, but nine top arenas refused to host the event, including New York City’s Madison Square Garden, Los Angeles’s Crypto.com Arena and Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Continue reading...

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Entertainment

Sebastián Lelio, director of A Fantastic Woman and Gloria, dies aged 52

Chilean film-maker, whose films starred Florence Pugh, Julianne Moore and Rachel Weisz, died at his home in Santiago Chilean film-maker Sebastián Lelio has died at the age of 52. He was best known for the Oscar-winning trans drama A Fantastic Woman and his English-language films included Gloria Bell and The Wonder. Continue reading...

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Entertainment

Russell Brand books withdrawn by UK publishers after his conviction for rape and sexual assault

Pan Macmillan and Hodder & Stoughton have both confirmed that work by the comedian and writer will be pulled, and other publishers’ books are no longer available Two major British publishers have confirmed they have pulled Russell Brand’s books from sale after he was convicted of rape and sexual assault. The comedian and author, 51, was found guilty at Southwark crown court on Thursday of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault involving four women. He was cleared of two further counts of rape and one count of attempted indecent assault. Continue reading...

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Entertainment

‘He left the world in ruins’: the author who defied the Taliban and burning tyres to tell Alexander the Great’s epic story

He is the most powerful ruler ever – and his first biographer was crucified. What drew Edmund Richardson, winner of the £50,000 Baillie Gifford prize, to his short tumultuous life? He was the most powerful man in the world but he was brought down by one battle too many after a decade at the top. The story of Alexander the Great might be more than 2,000 years old, but it seems timely that a new biography of the ancient ruler won the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction just as President Trump took a battering in the US midterms. “This is a moment,” says its author Edmund Richardson, “where peop

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Entertainment

Marilyn Monroe is a magnetic misfit in Speculations, a spicy conspiracy drama full of bombshells

Marylebone theatre, London Trevor Nunn directs Torben Betts’s intriguing but flawed play following US journalist Dorothy Kilgallen’s theories about the Kennedys A smartly dressed woman hammers away at an old-style typewriter in a drawing room. She is the real-life American journalist and conspiracy theorist Dorothy Kilgallen (Janie Dee) and bears the gimlet-eyed look of Angela Lansbury in Murder, She Wrote. Torben Betts’s play could be called Marilyn, She Wrote. It is the 1960s, Marilyn Monroe has been found dead in her bed and Kilgallen thinks both John F Kennedy and his brother Robert F Kenn

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Entertainment

Spice Girls: The Singles Collection review – stop fleecing your fans right now, thank you very much

(Virgin) The reunion that fans were hoping for turns out to be a cash-grab box set – though there is a worthwhile curio featuring Posh on lead vocals Is there a more taunted fanbase than that of the Spice Girls? Seemingly every other week a story – usually perpetuated by Mel B, the band’s number one cheerleader – appears in the tabloids hinting at some sort of reunion. Or film. Or documentary. Swift denials then emerge, typically linked to Geri or Victoria, and all is calm until a week or so later. So when teasers showing landmarks from 1996’s Wannabe video suddenly appeared on the band’s offi

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Entertainment

‘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. ‘This is a labour of love,’ she says When Wynonna Judd appears on my laptop screen – hair a deep shade of crimson, makeup perfect and sporting a huge black baseball cap with Kentucky Queen spelt out across its brim – she looks both fabulous and confident. Which is a good thing, as the Nashville star has been off the radar for a decade. On the occasions her name has made the news, it’s more often been linked to family tragedy than musi

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Entertainment

‘I’m never going to be bloody Robert De Niro!’: Rob Brydon, the most chipper man on TV

The nicest man in acting is back with new comedy, Bill’s Included. He talks about rejecting Hollywood, refusing to play a villain – and why he just can’t make fun of Steve Coogan ‘I’m a nice person, you know,” says Rob Brydon, as I met him in a basement green room of the BBC, where probably nobody with such a mellow ego has ever sat. “I am a people-pleaser. That’s who I am.” It’s an unnecessary clarification – at 61, he’s been nice on TV, as himself and in character, for most of our adult lives. We’re here to talk about his new six-parter, Bill’s Included, but his character in it, the eponymou

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Entertainment

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 and I am sat blurry-eyed and runny nosed outside the Argos on Oxford Street. Incredibly, I am far from alone. This is not some strange protest against the popular retailer. When the clock strikes midnight, the lavish 4K Switch 2 remake of beloved N64 classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time will be released, and I h

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