TV’s richest and most dysfunctional dynasty is back. The fourth and final season of Jesse Armstrong’s Succession sees battle-scarred mogul Logan Roy (Brian Cox) swagger back on to our screens, his billionaire brood squabbling in his wake. You’ll alre

What is it about Great Expectations? Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight’s new dramatisation of Dickens’s novel is the seventh BBC adaptation – the first appearing on screens in 1954. Cinema has loved it too. David Lean’s 1946 film remains the most

The rise of AI programs like ChatGPT has triggered a tidal wave of ethical handwringing, most prominently from within the industries that it threatens to destroy. After all, just because you can get a robot to instantly write code or write contracts

Hairdryers whirr, curling irons sizzle and clouds of hairspray fill the air backstage at LA fashion week, as stylists riffle through clothes rails and make frantic adjustments to hemlines. Models are lining up to be photographed, moments before the s

From Circe to Medusa via Persephone, Electra and the women of Troy, it seems there are few characters from Greek mythology left who haven’t been the subject of a feminist retelling in recent years. This year, the world of such reimaginings is expandi

Classic video games never really die. While they’re still remembered by designers and producers, their influence lives on and they can crop up in the most unexpected places. 2K Games has announced a new agreement with Lego, which will begin with Lego

A few days ago, something strange happened in a forgotten corner of the internet. The website for Blockbuster, the long-dormant obsolete VHS rental chain, twitched back into life. It doesn’t always work – there’s more than a fighting chance that you’

When an autopsy was carried out after Ludwig van Beethoven’s death in 1827, his liver was found to be “beset with nodules the size of a bean”. Now researchers say the cause may not have been alcohol consumption alone, with a genetic analysis revealin

It’s Game Developers Conference week, which means one of two things for those working in the industry: either they’re jetlagged in some hotel bar in San Francisco spending $10 a beer; or they’re at home, avoiding Twitter to lessen the Fomo. GDC has l

George and Gilbert are showing me the Himalayan magnolia they’ve planted in the freshly cobbled courtyard of the Gilbert and George Centre. It’s a tall specimen that’s already starting to unleash its ravishing red blooms. “Just like human hearts!” th

This time there aren’t any vaginas involved. I say that because half the time Gwyneth Paltrow is in the news it’s vagina-related. On this occasion, however, it’s because a lot of people are seemingly annoyed that she – a woman who has amassed a fortu

To be an artist in the Lagos of my youth, you had to be multi-disciplinary. Under this democratic artistic spirit, I learned to paint. I did it secretly. At the same time, I was learning to write. Then one day, when it rained, I decided to find out w

When Love Island stars Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury announced that they had named their daughter Bambi earlier this year, it caused a bit of a storm. Some approving fans claimed to be “obsessed” with the name, but Atomic Kitten star Kerry Katona ca

When I was a child, my parents attended an annual oyster roast whose centerpiece was a woman known as the Uniroyal Gal, a 17ft tall fiberglass woman in a low-slung blue bikini, modeled after Jacqueline Kennedy. Road trips took us through the land of

Ed Sheeran has said that following the deaths of friends SBTV founder Jamal Edwards and the Australian cricketer Shane Warne in 2022, he “didn’t want to live any more”. Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine ahead of the release of his sixth album, – (Su

Twenty years ago, Paris Hilton was the stiletto-heeled embodiment of the zeitgeist. With a chihuahua called Diamond Baby kennelled in her designer handbag, this nepotistic partygoer juggled five mobile phones while cantering across continents to sell

There wasn’t love but there was what love becomes —(sheet-wrinkle.) (skin-dune.) (Arm-ropes lassoingour neck-flesh with push-and-pull —, equal amounts;the hurt convincing its shape is false, the relation:the recorded moment (he likes to record) (to r

One unfortunate side-effect of publishing a novel is you end up fielding some strange reactions. I have one out later this year and I’ve already noticed certain patterns. People (and I have to say this is usually men) will stand with their shoulders

Welcome to the boardroom, but beware the flying F-bombs. As the fourth (and tragically final) season approaches, we ask five business insiders how true to life the super-rich saga is. Mike Soutar is a former newspaper and magazine CEO. He’s now a me

Professor Mary Beard associates the restaurant Moro, in London’s Clerkenwell, with afternoons of flowing wine and pats on the back. It’s where her publisher takes her to celebrate when she has delivered a book manuscript. She’s nearing such a deadlin

No need for more scare stories about the looming automation of the future. Artists, designers, photographers, authors, actors and musicians see little humour left in jokes about AI programs that will one day do their job for less money. That dark daw

Before The Great British Bake Off, I never thought to bake a cake in four hours or do something that elaborate. It’s so surprising how the stress and desperation pushes you. I’d call it a human instinct to survive: no matter what I do, I have to serv

On HBO’s crime-and-punishment epic The Wire, the moral arc of the universe does not bend toward justice. In the dramatized yet scrupulously realistic Baltimore mapped by creator David Simon, institutions – policing, education, politics – preserve the

Richard Milward, 38, grew up in Middlesbrough and lives in London. He is the author of three previous novels: Apples, published when he was 22; Ten Storey Love Song, told in the form of a single 300-page paragraph; and Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (

A letter from Jane Austen to her sister, in which she shares domestic news and neighbourhood gossip, is to go on display at the author’s former home. Dated 1798, the letter is one of around 160 by Austen that survive, and one of the earliest in exist

When I was recovering at home after a brief stint in hospital in 2021, I spent weeks watching British crime dramas. I became adept at telling the red-herrings from the genuine clues, and the wrong ’uns from the unfairly accused. I didn’t care that th

More straight-ahead funk than the albums that had made his name, High on You is nevertheless the last Sly Stone album that anyone but an obsessive might want to listen to all the way through. The best track is Crossword Puzzle – its tight groove subs

Pressure to look macho led a young Bono to hide his love of Abba, the U2 singer has said. He said he lacked the courage to own up to liking the Swedish pop group at a time when his contemporaries were listening to punk, but was now able to see that h

High up on the wall in the first room of the Tate Modern’s blockbuster Cézanne exhibition, there was a quote from the revered postimpressionist: “With an apple, I shall astonish Paris.” To which, surely, the only response is: “OK mate. Nobody has eve

For the past six weeks, Miley Cyrus’s Flowers, the most dominant song on the Billboard charts, was decently ubiquitous, as much as one can determine song ubiquity in my particular bubble of Brooklyn. I heard it in Ubers, at the nail salon, during at