Culture
- EntertainmentThe Telegraph
David Nicholls’s secret formula to writing a hit modern romance
If somebody had asked you a quarter of a century ago to name Britain’s most successful romantic novelist, your mind’s eye would have flooded with pink as you conjured up a vision of Dame Barbara Cartland. Asked the same question today, though, most people would picture not a flamboyant aristocratic authoress but a man, indeed something of an everyman: David Nicholls.
7-min read - EntertainmentThe Telegraph
The Co-op Live catastrophe: how the opening of Manchester’s ‘ultimate arena’ became a joke
“Fuming” was the word most commonly used by Rick Astley fans on Saturday. Just an hour before the doors opened for the inaugural test concert at Manchester’s gleaming new Co-op Live concert arena, thousands of fans received an email telling them that their tickets had been cancelled. The Never Gonna Give You Up singer performed to 3,500 people rather than the planned 9,500, according to someone who was there.
8-min read - EntertainmentThe Telegraph
Why comedians throw a tantrum when babies come to their shows
The American stand-up comedian Arj Barker knew he’d suffer for asking a woman with a baby to leave his show at the Melbourne international comedy festival on Saturday. After she left – with a dozen walkouts joining her in protest – he told the crowd this was his last performance at the festival – “and probably my last in Melbourne.”
8-min read - EntertainmentThe Telegraph
12 cosy crime dramas to watch if you’re already missing Vera
Who needs flamboyant sleuths or gritty urban settings? The outpouring of grief following Brenda Blethyn’s decision to quit her ITV series Vera after 14 series shows we can’t get enough of elderly ladies solving crimes in Northumberland. , whimsically solved by deadpan middle-aged men in suits, while an all-star guest cast camp it up around them.
7-min read - EntertainmentThe Telegraph
What’s on TV tonight: Glitter: the Popstar Paedophile, Changing Ends and more
Glitter: the Popstar Paedophile ITV1, 9pm Unarguably, Erica Gornall’s documentary about Paul Gadd, who sold more than 20 million records as comical glam-rock figurehead Gary Glitter before being convicted of a string of child-sex offences decades later, makes for a skin crawling, distressing watch. Yet it is also an important one. The story of Gadd’s perversions, often hidden in plain sight by dint of his outrageous alter ego, is in one sense familiar. Compared to Jimmy Savile, however, whose de
18-min read - EntertainmentThe Telegraph
Taylor Swift explains the meaning behind her new hit songs
Taylor Swift has offered fans more insight into her new album The Tortured Poets Department with a new track-by-track commentary on Amazon Music.
5-min read - EntertainmentThe Telegraph
Why breasts are still taboo in art
Anyone crossing Venice’s Ponte dell’Accademia at night this summer might just make out an illuminated, life-size – and very naked – female form in the window of a nearby palazzo. What stands out most is a remarkably perky pair of breasts.
6-min read
