There’s a technique within this recipe that, once mastered (and it’s fun and easy to master), you’ll want to use for other vegetable dishes, said Adam Byatt. It’s a quick dish, and more of a lunch than a side dish. The leeks are steamed whole and dressed with a vinaigrette to which I have added chives, but these could be replaced by chopped tarragon or chervil, or whatever herbs you fancy. For me, this has to be one of the most beautiful things in cookery.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 6 leeks
• 100ml good-quality vegetable or chicken stock
• 100ml champagne vinegar or chardonnay vinegar
• 200ml champagne or dry white wine
• 3 sprigs of thyme, leaves picked
• 2 tsp sea salt flakes
• 2 heaped tsp Dijon mustard
• 200ml extra-virgin olive oil
• ½ bunch of chives, finely chopped
• freshly ground black pepper

Method

• Keeping the leeks intact, trim the wiry strands from the roots, remove the dark-green tops of the leeks and run under cold water to remove any dirt.
• Lay the whole leeks in a large sauté pan and pour in the stock, vinegar and wine. Add the thyme leaves and season well with the salt and some pepper. Cover the leeks with a cartouche of baking paper.
• Over a medium-high heat, bring to a rapid boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until the leeks are soft and giving. Remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly in the pan.
• Once slightly cooled but still warm, remove the leeks from the pan and transfer them to a chopping board. Remove 1cm from the root end and then slice them lengthways down the middle. Place the leeks on a warmed platter.
• Return the pan to a medium heat and reduce the braising liquid by three-quarters, then remove from the heat. Whisk in the mustard, then whisk in the oil in a steady stream and finish with the chives.
• Spoon this vinaigrette over the leeks and serve. You can also finish with extra soft herbs like chervil, if you like.

Taken from Trinity: The Cookbook by Adam Byatt

A murderous 17th-century Dutch mutineer, who inspired the hit TV show The Traitors, could have been the world’s first “corporate psychopath”, a new study has claimed.

Jeronimus Cornelisz was put in charge of around 200 survivors after the Batavia, a merchant vessel run by the Dutch East India Company, ran aground off the west coast of Australia in 1629.

Once senior officers had set off on a longboat to seek help in what is now Jakarta, Cornelisz divided the remaining survivors into factions, playing them off against each. He “quickly installed loyalists on a ruling council, demanded oaths of allegiance and isolated potential opponents”, said Lara Bowman in The Times. Over the next two months “his henchmen drowned, strangled, hacked or bludgeoned to death up to 115 men, women and children”.

Cornelisz justified the killings as a way of conserving food and water supplies but after a rescue ship arrived, he, along with six accomplices, were condemned to death, tortured and hanged.

‘World’s first psychopathic boss’

A new study published in the Asian Journal of Business Ethics has found that Cornelisz displayed all 10 core characteristics associated with psychopathic business leaders. These include “using charm to gain trust, surrounding themselves with loyal supporters, removing potential challengers, creating divisions among rivals, establishing a climate of fear, avoiding responsibility when things go wrong, and pursuing power, money and control above all else”, said The Telegraph.

Dr Clive Boddy, from Anglia Ruskin University, who conducted the research, said that Cornelisz followed the “same playbook we see in toxic workplaces today”. The 30-year-old apothecary turned merchant “removed opponents, rewarded loyalists, created fear, manipulated followers and pursued power at any cost”. This makes him the “world’s first psychopathic boss”, said The Telegraph.

From Cornelisz to The Traitors

The story of Cornelisz and the Batavia may seem an unlikely inspiration for a hit TV show, but for producer Jasper Hoogendoorn the appeal was obvious.

“It’s a story about people who murder each other, backstab each other, betray each other,” he told the Edinburgh TV Festival in 2023. “It’s a horrible story. But it was such a fascinating story and I was thinking it’s also exciting. It’s so exciting to read that story and that’s where the whole idea came to create the show.”

Hoogendoorn said the Dutch TV show “De Verraders” – which means The Traitors and on which the hit UK series is based, was initially going to be called “The Mutineers” and take place on a replica ship, with contestants pushed into the sea when voted out.

That proved too costly for producers, so the decision was made to change the location to a castle, while keeping the idea of a mutiny and rival factions working against each other.

Lincolnshire: Northorpe Hall, Northorpe

This is a remarkable Grade II, Norman-revival mansion with magnificent, ornate interiors and a wealth of gothic detailing. The property is set in approx. 6.5 acres of gardens and rolling parkland. 8 beds, 6 baths, kitchen/ breakfast room, 7 receps, garden, outbuildings, utility, 2 climatecontrolled kennels, plus garaging for up to ten cars. £2.25 million; Strutt & Parker.

Gloucestershire: East Folly, Gotherington

Picturesque Grade II, 19th century house, with gothicstyle mullioned windows and far-reaching views, set on the edge of a village. 2 suites, 2 further beds, family bath, kitchen, 3 receps, garden, parking. £875,000; Savills.

Worcestershire: Bretforton Hall, Bretforton

An eye-catching Grade II white stucco gothic house set in approx. 2 acres of landscaped gardens and grounds in the heart of the village. 6 beds, 5 baths, kitchen/breakfast room, 6 receps, garden, parking. £2.3 million; Morgan Aps.

East Sussex: The Clock House, St Leonards-on-Sea

Striking and secluded Grade II* gothic revival building designed by the architect James Burton, and set close to the sea. 4 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, garden, parking. £2 million; Strutt & Parker.

Suffolk: Bacton Grange, Bacton

Elegant and imposing Victorian house nestled within grounds of approx. 6.5 acres, comprising sweeping lawns, mature specimen trees and a picturesque pond bordered by weeping willows. 11 beds, 3 baths, kitchen/dining room, 8 receps, garden, tennis court, outdoor pool, pool house, outbuildings, parking. £2.3 million; David Burr.

Perth and Kinross: Craigievar, Perth

A superb B-listed French gothic revival house built in 1870 by the architect Andrew Heiton. The property is located on one of Perth’s most sought-after streets, close to the high street. 5 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 4 receps, outbuildings, garden, summer house, garage. OIEO £595,000; Savills.

Somerset: The Old Rectory, Cricket Malherbie

A delightful Grade II, 18th century thatched cottage with gothic arched windows, set in 1.29 acres. 5 beds, 5 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, 2-bed ground-floor annexe, parking. £1.6 million; Symonds & Sampson.

East Sussex: Wykeham Terrace, Brighton

A beautifully positioned flat in an atmospheric Grade II grey stucco Tudor gothic building close to the town centre and seafront. 2 beds, family bath, kitchen, recep. £325,000; Fox & Sons.

The UT is the second UK offering from Chinese firm Aion, following the V SUV earlier in the year, said National World. As with electric SUVs, competition in the small EV market is “fierce”, with rivals such as the Renault 5, MG4 and VW ID.3; but the UT has “an ace up its sleeve” – the price.

This all-electric family hatch starts at £28,950 and comes “loaded with kit”, plus eight years of warranty and servicing, and eight years of breakdown cover.

Powered by a 60kWh battery, the UT has a range of 268 miles, said Autocar. The electric motor makes 201bhp, and it can get from 0-62mph in 7.3secs, which “feels brisk enough”. At low speeds the ride is “comfortable” and “pliant”, but it gets “more fidgety” at higher ones.

Despite a lack of feedback, the steering is “accurate and predictable”. Wind and road noise is kept down, but some of the ADAS safety tools are very “intrusive”.

Peak charging is a “modest” 87kW, so a 30%-80% top-up takes 24mins, said What Car? Inside, the UT is “clean and modern” but far from premium, with lots of hard plastics.

The heated front seats are comfy, and visibility is excellent, with parking sensors and a 360-degree camera as standard. The 14.6in touchscreen and driver’s display are “sharp and crisp”, but there are too few proper buttons. There’s lots of passenger space, but the boot could be bigger.

Hollywood has reliably churned out rom-coms for a century, but only a handful have survived the unromantic ravages of time. These four classics helped define the genre.

‘The Philadelphia Story’ (1940)

Unusual for its time in centering a woman’s agency, “The Philadelphia Story” follows Tracy (Katharine Hepburn) as she reconsiders her plans to embark on a second marriage. The film is “far deeper and richer than its whimsical surface style might lead you to believe,” said Jeremiah Kipp at Slant Magazine. (Prime Video)

‘Say Anything’ (1989)

Aimless but charming Lloyd (John Cusack) falls for the ambitious Diane (Ione Skye) as the end of high school draws near in this hilarious but also poignant film. The love story “rings as clear and true as a bell,” said Elizabeth Nelson at The Ringer. (Prime Video)

‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ (1997)

Julianne (Julia Roberts) treks to Chicago with a secret plan to break up the wedding of her best friend in a film that helped define friendships between men and women. It also has the “chutzpah to turn the rom-com formula on its head,” said Lisa Niven-Phillips at The Guardian. (Paramount+)

‘Knocked Up’ (2007)

Alison (Katherine Heigl) realizes she’s pregnant after a one-night stand with the charming but indolent stoner Ben (Seth Rogen) in an uproarious romp that embodied the early aughts romantic comedy. This "instant" classic “captures the sexual confusion and moral ambivalence of our moment,” said A.O. Scott at The New York Times. (Netflix)

Mount Fuji has been “an object of devotion” for centuries, said Christopher Harding in The Telegraph. Located just beyond the limits of present-day Tokyo, the conical-shaped active volcano was long believed to be a place where “kami” (local deities) resided.

The best-known depictions of the peak come from the pen of Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). In “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” (1831), the mountain sits “impassive in the distance” as tiny figures in boats scramble to face the titular wave: as many as 15,000 impressions were made of it, making it “the viral content of its day”.

But this was just one of 36 views of Fuji that Hokusai produced – a series that was later expanded to 46 “in response to heavy public demand”. Some depict pilgrims climbing the mountain; others feature it as a background, seen through a tea house window or behind a “bustling” timber yard. This exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery marks the first time the full set has ever been shown in Britain. It shows how the artist celebrated the “ubiquity of this guardian mountain in everyday life”.

“You might think there are only so many times you can look at the same mountain, but Hokusai pulls rabbit after rabbit out of his conjurer’s hat,” said Laura Freeman in The Times. Sometimes, Fuji itself is the star of the picture, as in “Clear Day with a Southern Breeze” (c.1830, pictured above), where there’s “nothing but mountain” and sky. Sometimes, we see it glimpsed in the distance from “a cherry-blossom-viewing party”, or reflected in still waters, or as a backdrop to a blustery day, as “the wind whips skirts, steals hats and sends papers flying”.

Hokusai “revels in his own cleverness”, and his framing and tricks of perspective are “ingenious”. He depicts Fuji through a waterwheel, against soaring kites, beneath a ship’s rigging. Whatever he does, every scene is “rich in incident and amusement”. This is an exhibition that is “full of beauty, humour and technical interest”.

The show demonstrates just how profoundly Hokusai’s approach influenced artists in the West, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. His touch is immediately apparent in the work of van Gogh, Monet and Whistler but I hadn’t until now noticed Cézanne’s “debt” to the Japanese master: certainly, the French painter’s repeated efforts to paint Mont Sainte-Victoire in Provence owe something to Hokusai’s views of Fuji.

Hokusai, essentially, taught these painters “to see landscape as metaphysical”. A case in point is “The Great Wave” itself: it “is out of control, murderous, yet it is also a passing moment”. Hokusai, a devout Buddhist, offers the consolation that all is but ephemeral; that we must suffer “the nightmare of mutable appearances” in order to find “inner peace”. Fuji, meanwhile, stands permanent – “timeless” as the picture itself.
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. Until 17 January.

“What a transformation,” said Clive Davis in The Times. Three years ago, actor Danny Lee Wynter’s debut play, “Black Superhero”, was staged at the Royal Court and I found it “so self-indulgent and overwrought that it had me squirming in my seat”.

But now he has produced a second piece – a family drama about growing up gay and mixed-race in 1990s east London – and it is brilliant: quietly moving, “extraordinarily funny, endlessly thought-provoking, and propelled by some electrifying performances”. It is “quite simply the most entertaining” new British play I’ve seen since “Till the Stars Come Down”, Beth Steel’s wedding-day masterpiece that premiered at the National Theatre in 2024.

As in Steel’s “zinging” play, the focus here is on a big, working-class family gathering, said Fiona Mountford in The Telegraph. Rather than a wedding, though, it’s a funeral that has drawn a large cast of characters back to the family home, including the dead woman’s grandson, biracial 14-year-old Ted, and her daughters – a witty and acerbic trio whom I could have happily watched “strop and bicker all day”.

Ted’s white mother, Tilly (Ria Zmitrowicz, “who always lights up a stage”), now only sees his Black father Ken (a terrific Gershwyn Eustache Jnr) once a week when he arrives to take Ted to a boxing lesson, said Nick Curtis in The Standard. Ken wants to bond with Ted over boxing, but Tilly’s Black gay best friend Patrick (Craig Stein) blows in and broadens Ted’s horizons.

The play is mostly set in 1995 but it flashes back to the 1980s, as “Wynter captures the camaraderie and affection that unites the characters” before revealing “the legacy of prejudice and violence that divides them”.

Ultimately, Wynter “crams too much into his narrative”, said Sarah Crompton on What’sOnStage, and his play never quite escapes the sense of being a “therapeutic outpouring”. But it is “wonderfully vital”, the “dialogue crackles, and Tim Sheader directs the whole with energy and warmth”.
Donmar Warehouse, London. Until 28 November

I am not sure if I have ever seen a stop-motion film as “intricate or lavish” as “Wildwood”, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph, nor if I will again. This “surpassingly beautiful” fantasy adventure – every frame of which was handcrafted with breathtaking artistry – is the latest gem from the American animation studio Laika.

A “beguiling modern day Narnia fable”, adapted from a book by the folk-music star Colin Meloy, it is about two children: the tenacious Prue (voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee), and her “anxious” classmate Curtis (Jacob Tremblay). They venture outside their home city (hipster-ish, modern-day Portland) into the “impossibly deep and tangled forest” beyond, to rescue her baby brother. He has been spirited there by a murder of crows, working for a wicked duchess (Carey Mulligan) who lives in the forest – a storybook world full of bandits, talking animals and unsettling sights.

A story about the “terrible fear and wish-fulfilment euphoria of being called upon to confront secret forces that the grown-ups know nothing about”, “Wildwood” is an exuberant, old-fashioned tale, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. It lacks the scary punch of Laika’s “Coraline” but its stop-motion animation is a very refreshing change from Pixar’s “digital look”.

I think it’s even better than “Coraline”, said Phil de Semlyen in Time Out. Every scene is extraordinarily realised, from Portland’s hip shops to the battlefield strewn with corpses; and it takes some genius to borrow from Stephen King, J.R.R Tolkien and Alfred Hitchcock, and forge a story that feels this fresh.

In 1804, upon being proclaimed emperor, Napoleon decided that he needed a new office of state “to bind his most important military commanders to his regime”, said George Owers in The Times. The “Little Corsican” therefore resurrected the “medieval title of marshal, which had been abolished during the Revolution”. Initially, 14 marshals were created, but by the time of Napoleon’s “final, desperate throw of the dice” in 1815, he’d bestowed the title on 26 men.

The marshals were indispensable to his “imperial project”: they led the armies that conquered Europe, and several became “vastly rich”. Yet they were a fractious and unpredictable group, intensely rivalrous, and ultimately willing to turn on their master.

As Napoleon’s regime unravelled, his marshals “began quietly to abandon him”, and, “at Waterloo, just two fought by his side”. In his “ambitious” new book, Andrew Roberts tells the story of the marshals – a saga that is “Tolstoyan in scale”. At first, he struggles under the weight of his material but the book gains “momentum as it goes on”, and becomes “irresistibly exciting”.

The marshals were envisaged as an “elite leadership team”, and many were supremely talented, said The Economist. Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Napoleon’s chief of staff, was instrumental in devising the intricate system of orders and updates that enabled the emperor to keep a close watch on “every unit of the Grande Armée”. Louis-Nicolas Davout, one of five marshals who came from an aristocratic background, was a brilliant strategist.

Yet, while the system worked well at first, cracks increasingly began to show – partly as a result of Napoleon’s hectoring management style, and partly because of his deliberate policy of stoking “continual jealousy” between his various marshals. As a result, Roberts notes, these men came to view warfare as a “race among rivals for individual triumph”, and this left Napoleon critically bereft of support when he “desperately needed” it.

As the “colourful parade” of the Napoleonic era goes by, Roberts “proves an engaging Dimbleby in our ear”, said Jonathan Boff in Literary Review. He “gets the level of military detail just right, giving us enough to understand what happened without overwhelming us”. And the result is that his book rattles along like a “gun carriage charging into action”.

Roberts, who has “walked 53 of Napoleon’s 60 battlefields”, has an unparalleled grasp of the complexities of war, said Philip Mansel in The Spectator. This is “great military history”.

Derren Brown’s “dazzling” new West End show features tricks that had me “waking up in the early hours convinced I’d managed to work out how they were done”, said Clive Davis in The Times. But a few minutes of “befuddled reflection” quickly proved me wrong.

Almost four years on from his last London stage spectacular, the “ever affable illusionist” is back with his signature blend of “pop psychology, nimble storytelling and an instinctive ability to bond with his audience”.

While “Only Human” doesn’t quite reach the dizzying heights of “Showman”, it’s a “thoroughly entertaining, at times mind-warping exploration of how magical we still find the idea of being able to predict the future, five centuries after Nostradamus”, said Chris Harvey in The Telegraph.

Brown has injected the show with the same “warmth and vulnerability” that makes his live performances so compelling. Yet he also “retains an edge” that hints there is a “Hannibal Lecter-like figure lurking within that revels in the feeling of tricking us all”.

The stunts featured in the first half don’t feel “all that high-powered”, said Brian Logan in The Guardian. Predicting whether an audience member will say yes or no to a series of questions is “amazing” but “low stakes”.

But act two “raises the bar”. Without giving anything away, the second half kicks off with a routine that is “extraordinary and disconcerting in equal measure”. From here, the audience is left reeling as Brown puts in motion “one gasp-inducing stunt after another”.

I found the new show “far more unsettling” than “Showman”, said Grace Beard in Time Out. The lighting and special effects were “masterful”, and Brown pushes the boundaries by bringing his “more extreme psychological manipulation, usually reserved for television, to the stage”. Parts of it will leave you feeling “completely baffled. In a show all about uncertainty, one thing is certain: in ‘Only Human’ Brown is at his astounding best.”

At the Apollo Theatre, London, until 30 January

Netflix’s three-part documentary about Matthew Perry is “at heart a simple, sad story”, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. But the series is “unexpectedly candid, thoughtful and genuinely intimate”, helping to give “nuance and depth” to the life of the late actor and star of “Friends”.

You might expect his fellow “Friends” actors to feature in the documentary, said Carol Midgley in The Times. Instead it includes interviews with his “closest lifelong friends” and his sister, Mia Perry Bowick, who sketch a portrait of the “sensitive soul they loved and lost to a remorseless drug and alcohol addiction”.

In 2023, at the age of 54, Perry was found floating, face down, in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home. An autopsy found that he died from the acute effects of ketamine.

Speaking to the people who “really knew him, long before he was famous” makes it feel as if we are getting the “full, complete picture” of Perry. This was a man who was “likeable, self-deprecating, hugely generous and considerate to his friends but who was also afraid of intimacy, the thing that, ironically, he craved most”.

The show serves as a “cautionary tale” about fame. Despite his privilege and “huge amounts of wealth”, he was also in the “dangerous position” of being surrounded by “vultures” who sought to exploit his addiction to “enrich themselves”. We learn about a doctor who overcharged him for ketamine, writing in a message: “I wonder how much this moron will pay”.

If director Mary Robertson had cut back the “generic padding” and trimmed the series down to a 100-minute feature-length documentary it “probably would have been a better project”, said Daniel Fienberg in The Hollywood Reporter. Still, she handles the key moments with “subtlety and intimacy” and there’s “a lot of good stuff” in her “sincere and generally non-exploitative examination of addiction and celebrity”.

It’s a “tragic tale but a familiar one”, said Benji Wilson in The Telegraph. Perry was “desperate to be famous” so he could “distract everyone from how miserable he was by being funny. Chandler Bing in ‘Friends’, in other words, was his alter ego.”

New York City’s big new Roy Lichtenstein show turns out to be “far more touching than I had anticipated,” said Jason Farago in The New York Times. Lichtenstein, who’s routinely celebrated as one of pop art’s visionaries, is usually credited with deflating high art by borrowing from comic books while reducing painting to components simple enough that a machine could reproduce them. In truth, the native New Yorker rendered each of the famous Ben-Day dots on his canvases “with something a lot like love,” a revelation that helps make the show “the most momentous exhibition of the season.” At a time when many of us are routinely deluged with AI-generated images, we see Lichtenstein (1923–97) modeling a constructive, decades-old response. With each dot painted by human hand and each choice he made in selecting from existing images and reworking them, he was insisting on the importance of a singular human vision, answering his own era’s flood of mass-market imagery by “keeping faith with a beauty that could last for all time.”

Lichtenstein wasn’t a lazy plagiarist, said David Smith in The Guardian. At the Whitney show, the artist’s sketchbooks and preliminary drawings show how often he altered the images of his source materials, “re-engineering line weights, cropping compositions, and shifting color fields to agitate the viewer’s eye.” The impact of his innovations was immediate, and the museum has re-created his breakthrough 1962 solo show at the Leo Castelli Gallery. His prescience was also such that by 1968, he was already speaking about his Ben-Day dots in relationship to new technologies that were translating visual imagery into transmittable data.

There’s no doubt that Lichtenstein is one of the winners of the American century, said Jerry Saltz in NYMag.com. He changed art forever, and “his style is one of the most recognizable in all of art history.” But while the Whitney show is “jazzy, bright,” and “packed to the rafters” with “paintings that jump off the walls,” its thesis falls flat. “The curators say every picture is an argument about seeing,” but Lichtenstein’s argument is the same every time, making “Like New” an illustration of “what happens when a revolutionary visual language becomes so familiar that the revolution disappears and leaves little to chew on.”

Lichtenstein’s best works, all from 1962 to 1965, were “satirical commentaries on American consumerism, the good life, the heroic male, and standardized beauty,” said John Yau in Hyperallergic. Unfortunately, he exposed the limitations of his style as soon as he began using it to produce mock re-creations of works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, and other past masters. “He went from being a satirist of America’s ideals of comfort and beauty to being a parody of himself.” If we’re being honest, he never recovered.

Science fiction is a broad genre, and in one of its most beloved forms, it’s fused with the dynamics of a thriller. The best of these films are simultaneously suspenseful, thought-provoking and dazzling.

‘Aliens’ (1986)

Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the lone survivor of the slow-burn rampage in 1979’s “Alien,” reluctantly tags along with a squad of Marines to a colony menaced by the Xenomorphs. This “perfect sequel” is a “war movie fused inextricably with science fiction,” said Ian Nathan at Empire. (Netflix)

‘12 Monkeys’ (1995)

Convict James Cole (Bruce Willis) is sent back in time from 2035 to find the source of a manufactured virus that wipes out 99% of the global population. The film succeeds as a “vigorous work of dark surprise-filled science fiction,” said Janet Maslin at The New York Times. (Prime Video)

‘Children of Men’ (2006)

As a long fertility crisis threatens total societal collapse, Theo (Clive Owen) escorts a pregnant woman to safety through a bleak U.K. teeming with refugees and fear. This masterful parable is a “fast-paced, kinetically shot dystopia,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (Prime Video)

‘Annihilation’ (2018)

Biologist Lena (Natalie Portman) joins an expedition into a slowly expanding extraterrestrial bubble in which plant and animal life, as well as reality itself, are subject to bizarre mutations. Watching this “shimmering sci-fi art installation” is a “foreboding, unique and wholly challenging experience,” said David Crow at Den of Geek. (MGM+)

‘The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East’ by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Simon Sebag Montefiore’s latest best seller is “a triumph of blood-and-thunder narrative history,” said Sean McMeekin in The Wall Street Journal. At a time when conflict in the Middle East is again touching lives around the world, the British historian has delivered a sweeping and energetic account of the region’s turbulent last 125 years. Beginning in 1902, when the young prince Ibn Saud seized Riyadh to puncture Ottoman dominance, “Montefiore doesn’t play favorites, subjecting all his characters to scrutiny.” We get British and French meddling during and after World War I, the dramatic reset brought on by the next global conflict, and Cold War machinations that enflamed new conflicts. Then comes the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which Montefiore characterizes as epochal in its impact. “Not all his stories are original,” of course, “but he enriches them with fascinating details.”

“While vast in scope, The Cauldron is written in a way that is equally accessible to regional experts and neophytes,” said Jonathan Harounoff in the New York Post. Often, his story is carried by “the compelling and, at times, insidious characters who helped forge the Middle East we know today.” Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani, Qatar’s founding emir, sired 56 children. King Farouk, who ruled Egypt for 16 years, was addicted to gambling, food, and sex. As Montefiore marches readers though various crises and flashpoints, said Mark Urban in The Times (U.K.), he shows a determination to nail down which actors deserve blame. “Time and again,” he shows that the region’s leaders have been more than mere puppets, having more agency than self-regarding Westerners might suspect. And though he rips into Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, today’s Israeli right wing, and many other regional players, “this is not a polemic but a work of history in which his judgments are rooted in deep research.”

The astonishing scope of the book is “both its greatest strength and its principal weakness,” said Sam Kiley in The Independent (U.K.). At his best, Montefiore “can make a complicated political order suddenly legible through a few deft sentences,” but the pileup of rulers, coups, and wars at times becomes “so dense that the reader can struggle to retain a firm sense of causation.” He also “distributes sympathy unevenly,” favoring pragmatists over fervent believers and, subtly, Israelis over Palestinians in the Middle East conflict that so often looms largest in the minds of outsiders. Montefiore is “too candid about Israeli wrongdoing to be described as an apologist.” Better yet, he’s written a book that anyone could learn from. “Its scholarship, range, and vitality make it an impressive achievement.”

‘Death of an Ordinary Man’ by Sarah Perry

“Death of an Ordinary Man is not a remarkable story,” said Amy Bloom in The New York Times. “What is remarkable is this book.” In 2022, a 77-year-old man was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and died nine days later. Because the man was her father-in-law, British novelist Sarah Perry watched that small drama unfold at close range after she and her husband moved in to provide 24-hour care. In Perry’s attentive account of those nine days, “there are no celestial visits, no shocking reconciliations.” Instead, there’s incontinence, there’s paperwork, and there are good and bad medical people—“all the things people ordinarily don’t write about.” Those details belong in this gift of a work, though, because “Perry’s entire point is that this condition of being alive includes, inevitably and properly, the process of dying.”

In speaking of her own experience in those final days, Perry “captures the feeling of existing in a strange, panicked void,” said Karin Altenberg in The Wall Street Journal. Perry and her husband, Robert, both previously busy with other things, suddenly find themselves caretakers sleeping on the floor of their patient’s bungalow. The world outside ceases to exist as nurses, relatives, and clergy visit. Meanwhile, Perry and Robert are figuring the logistics of end-of-life care in real time straight through to their charge’s final breath. Many of us are likely to find ourselves in a similar situation one day, and through her “deeply tender” account, Perry has “extended a hand to the reader with profound grace.

“It’s not easy to account for what makes this book so special,” said Joe Moran in The Guardian (U.K.). David Perry, the ostensible subject, was such a content, reserved Englishman that “some may even find him a little boring.” In part, Perry’s beautifully written book “works its magic through the adamantine detail and quiet lyricism with which it recounts a particular, unrepeatable life.” More than that, though, “what makes this book gem-like is that it succeeds in conveying the reality of death as this monumental, mythic thing that coexists surreally with the mundane world of council bin collections.” Though the breakdown of David’s body isn’t dignified, Perry notices that it’s also transfiguring, right down to this ordinary man’s fingertips.

Given the variability of last year’s snowfall, you would think heading to larger, more accessible resorts would give you the best guarantee for a full week of skiing. But “smaller, lesser-known resorts can often have bigger snowfalls, more vertical, fewer skiers and better off-piste”, said Alf Alderson in The Telegraph. Cheaper lift passes, shorter queues and fewer interruptions on the slopes also sweeten the deal, without compromising on skiing quality. Here are some of the best spots.

Heiligenblut, Austria

This tiny village beneath Austria’s highest mountain is “blissfully quiet”, said Sean Newsom in The Sunday Times. Each winter, the main road to Heiligenblut is “closed by snow”, and “few bother” to “wriggle in round on the back roads to ski its modest but spectacular area of intermediate-friendly slopes”. Heiligenblut is home to “mind-blowing” views of the 3,798-metre Grossglockner and a “non-existent (in a good way)” après-ski culture, allowing for proper relaxation. Anyone with an interest in ski touring or off-piste skiing will be “thrilled by its back-country potential”.

Tetnuldi, Georgia

The Georgian resort has “deserted slopes, deep powder and truly wild alpine panoramas”, said Alderson in The Telegraph. As you approach, you can see the “eponymous 4,858-metre Mount Tetnuldi, one of four Georgian peaks higher than Mont Blanc, glowering down at the pistes”. The resort has “consistently good snow and almost 1,000 metres of vertical” to explore. The long journey there is definitely “worthwhile”. “The 25km of marked pistes are a good warm-up for the world-class back-country skiing that’s the area’s big attraction.” At its foot, there is the town of Mestia, which is “famed for its stone Svan towers that date back to the 12th century”.

Brundage Mountain Resort, Idaho, US

This North American resort has an “uncrowded and unpretentious” vibe, said Ted Thornhill in The Independent. Just above the small mountain town of McCall, the resort offers a “classy experience”, welcoming both “strong skiers craving room to roam, and families who enjoy the low-stress atmosphere”. The après-ski is “friendly and relaxed”, once you’ve finished for the day on the area’s “famously light, dry snow”. “The average annual snowfall is around 320 inches and there are plenty of runs on which to relish it.”

Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise, France

“Sit in a lift queue at Val d’Isère or Tignes for long enough and someone will eventually mention Sainte-Foy, the resort a few minutes down the valley that regulars would rather keep to themselves,” said In the Snow. The whole area is “refreshingly uncrowded”, and though it only has 26 marked trails, its lift-accessed off-piste and powder terrain is “some of the best in the Tarentaise”. The low-key resort is in a prime location, with Val d’Isère, Tignes and Les Arcs “all easy day trips if you fancy a change of scenery”.

Vogel, Slovenia

“Vogel is one of the most spectacular ski resorts in Slovenia, if not in the whole of Europe,” said Tristan Kennedy in Snow. Most of the pistes are suitable for easy and intermediate skiers and expand on to “plenty of open, rolling terrain”. Vogel sits above Lake Bohinj – “just around the corner from that Instagram favourite, Lake Bled” – and has views over the Julian Alps and Triglav National Park. The resort’s “biggest selling point” is that it relies “entirely on natural snow, with no artificial snowmaking”.

As leaves fall and the nights draw in, every coffee shop’s “non-negotiable” autumn fixture is sweeping consumers up in a “sea of spice-infused foam”, said Metro. You’d be hard pushed right now to find a menu where pumpkin spice latte is not on offer, with every establishment “from high-end bakeries to budget spots offering their own signature twist”.

The pumpkin spice latte made its debut in US Starbucks outlets in 2003 but it wasn’t until 2015 that it contained “any actual pumpkin”, said Britannica. The name came from the fact that the original cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg spice blend was the same as that used in pumpkin pie. The aim was to create a drink that captured the essence of autumn, and it’s proved such a hit that Americans now “guzzle about 20 million” Starbucks “PSL”s every year.

The pumpkin spice latte has “become a cultural phenomenon greater than itself”, said NPR. Over the years, it’s been seen as “shorthand” for everything from “basicness” to “femininity, and even for white culture”. But its most enduring impact is the “$500 million-dollar industry” it generates every year.

With the average pumpkin spice latte now costing £5.25, you may want to try swapping your coffee shop’s “autumn favourite” for a homemade creation, said The Telegraph.

The “real secret to the drink’s success” is in the “warming” blend of spices that is sweetened with pumpkin purée. Even if you don’t have a milk steamer to produce the signature latte froth, you can create a delicious “all-in-one” version of the PSL by putting 200ml milk, 50ml espresso and 1 tbsp tinned pumpkin purée in a pan, adding 1 tbsp brown sugar and a pinch each of ground cinnamon, ground ginger and ground nutmeg. Heat gently, whisking once steaming. Pour into a mug and top with a swirl of cream and another pinch of cinnamon.

John Steinbeck grew up among the fertile fields and mountains of Monterey County, California – a landscape he “vividly” described in his novels.

Fans who wish to explore his “beloved homeland” could start at his childhood home (now a restaurant) in Salinas, said Jacqui Agate in The Telegraph. At the nearby National Steinbeck Centre, you can see Rocinante, his camper truck.

Next, take the River Road Wine Trail through “a Steinbeckian swoop of sun-baked hills” to Pinnacles National Park, with its “tawny” crags and canyons. You could also visit the V6 Ranch in Parkfield – a cattle ranch that’s “about as close to Steinbeck’s agrarian beginnings as you can get” – and the coastal Post Ranch Inn, now a luxury resort, where he worked as a ranch hand in the 1920s.

A welcoming city in northern Spain

It’s not a “fashionable” place, but I love the city of León in northern Spain, said Annie Bennett in The Sunday Telegraph.

As a key point on the pilgrimage route to Santiago, it has a long history of “welcoming” visitors, and has some glorious architecture, including a gothic cathedral that is among the most “magnificent” in Spain, and the Basílica de San Isidoro, a Romanesque masterpiece with dazzling 12th-century frescoes depicting bible stories and scenes of rural life.

But it’s León’s tapas bars, more than anything, that “keep luring me back”. A glass of wine costs about €2.50 and is always served with a snack – perhaps a local speciality such as croquetas with local cured beef and Valdeón blue cheese. And the Parador de León is a gem – a former 16th-century pilgrims’ hostel, including a “sumptuous” breakfast.

Fair Isle’s magnificent migrants

Fair Isle is the UK’s most remote inhabited island – part of Shetland, but isolated from the rest of the archipelago, lying as it does 25 miles to the south of the main island of Mainland.

With sea cliffs up to 200 metres high, it is wild and spectacular, said Mike MacEacheran in The Times – and, thanks to its unique position, it’s a dream for birdwatchers, particularly during the autumn migration.

On a nine-night (two spent on the ferry) trip with Naturetrek, I stayed at the Fair Isle Bird Observatory, in a “cosy” room with “terrific sandy bay views”. Our guide, ornithologist Nick Boyd, was excellent, and we saw dozens of species, including a common rosefinch, a rare Fair Isle wren, and a buff-bellied pipit, “blown thousands of miles off course from North America” – a “once-in-a-decade sighting” that left me feeling “ecstatic”.

The Atlantic was the largest private yacht ever built when it emerged from a New Jersey shipyard in 1903. Two years later, it set a record for the fastest transatlantic sail crossing for a monohull yacht that would remain unbeaten for nearly 100 years. Sadly, the Atlantic suffered the “ultimate ignominy” in old age, said James Stewart in the Financial Times, becoming a floating tea room, before being broken up in 1982.

Later, however, a faithful replica, also called the Atlantic, was built. Completed in 2010, this 65-metre three-masted schooner is “a vision from yachting’s golden age to inspire romantics and dreamers” – and, following a refit last year, it will be available from this December to book on a weekly basis as it embarks on an “epic” journey around the world. “Few objects inspire devotion like great sailing yachts” – and on a recent day trip from Saint-Tropez, I found that the new Atlantic’s dozen crew (all dressed in matching navy trousers and monogrammed shirts) spoke of it with a “zeal” that was “way beyond professionalism”.

The biggest replica schooner afloat, it is a thing of great beauty, with a dozen sails, shiny brass fittings, and a “glossy raven-black hull”. Standing at its tip, with the “blue-black sea racing below”, I felt like I was “flying” – and it wasn’t hard to imagine its predecessor’s record-setting voyage as one of 11 cruiser-racers competing in the 1905 Kaiser’s Cup race. In that event, it sailed from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to Lizard Point in Cornwall in 12 days, four hours, one minute and 19 seconds, despite having to contend with a three-day gale. Below decks, the new Atlantic has six double cabins, with carved panelling, mahogany parquet, green marble and walk-in showers with unlimited hot water.

Rates for a week on board start at €150,000 – which sounds only “slightly less scary” when you work out that that comes to £10,725 per head, assuming a party of 12, including all meals and wine.

James Stewart was a guest of Atlantic (atlantic-yacht.com).

One of the greatest privileges of my craic-riddled culinary career has been to work in the hallowed grounds of Ballymaloe House, said Oisín Davis. It is the epicentre of Irish cuisine, and I’ve been lucky enough to guide hundreds of the world’s best bartenders through its walled gardens to share the simplest of philosophies with them: farm-to-table food and farm-to-glass cocktails. It’s also where I grew to love lemon verbena, a wonderfully perfumed, citrus-tasting herb that adds a deliciously fragrant note to this dessert.

Ingredients (serves 6)

• 12 fresh lemon verbena leaves or 1 tbsp of coarsely chopped fresh rosemary, plus extra to decorate
• 100ml (plus 4 tsp) boiling water
• 300g fresh or frozen blackcurrants (thawed if using frozen)
• 60ml Glendalough Single Grain Double Barrel Finish Irish Whiskey
• 200g caster sugar
• 3 egg whites

For the whipped cream

• 250ml double cream
• 1⁄2 vanilla bean, split in half lengthways and seeds scraped out

Method

• The day before, put the lemon verbena or rosemary needles in a jar with the boiling water. Get the lid on, then once cooled, shake for a few seconds and let it infuse overnight in the fridge.
• Preheat your oven to 110C (230F). Line a large baking sheet with non-stick baking paper.
• Strain the liquid from the lemon verbena or rosemary, then pour into a saucepan on a medium heat. Add the blackcurrants and half of the whiskey. Simmer until the blackcurrants start to break up, then stir in 50g of the sugar until it’s dissolved. You now have a compote but you’re going to need some purée from it, so press 4 tablespoons of the compote through a fine mesh sieve. Discard the pulp in the sieve but set aside both the purée and the compote.
• Put the egg whites in a spotlessly clean, dry bowl and use an electric mixer to whisk to stiff peaks. Add the remaining sugar a little bit at a time, while continuously whisking until the meringue is stiff and glossy. Turn off the mixer, then slowly drizzle in the purée. Fold it through with just one stir to create a marbled look.
• Dollop six equal portions on to the lined sheet, using the back of a spoon to shape them into circles. Bake for 1.5 hours, then set aside to cool completely on a wire rack.
• To serve, whisk the cream, remaining whiskey and vanilla until it forms soft peaks. Dollop on top of each meringue, then add a spoonful of compote and decorate with extra lemon verbena or a rosemary sprig.

Taken from The Irish Whiskey Cookbook: 50 Recipes to Cook, Sip and Savour by Oisín Davis.

Because a handful of authors dominate mainstream horror fiction, it can be easy to miss how rich and diverse literary horror is, including, of course, the work of Stephen King. These four novels combine sharp prose with well-crafted terror.

‘The Haunting of Hill House’ by Shirley Jackson (1959)

An enormously influential work of dread, Shirley Jackson’s classic haunted house tale remains one of the rare horror books to receive literary awards. It is “one of the 20th century’s finest horror novels — and maybe the definitive haunted house story,” said Lara Zarum at The New York Times.

‘The Stand’ by Stephen King (1978)

Among Stephen King’s dozens of fiction books, “The Stand” remains his epic masterwork. It is about a flu named Captain Trips that wipes out 99.4% of the world’s population and forces the survivors to choose between the forces of good and evil. King’s “most sweeping horror novel” is also a “kind of inventory of American culture,” said Kirkus Reviews.

‘Come Closer’ by Sara Gran (2003)

Short enough to read in a single sitting, Sara Gran’s chilling story of an architect succumbing to demonic possession will leave readers stunned and unsettled. A “book that could damage the unwary psyche,” its “genius is in making the strange details so commonplace and incidental that ambiguity survives,” said Neil McRobert at Esquire.

‘The Grip of It’ by Jac Jemc (2017)

A troubled young couple moves from the big city and buys a small, haunted house, in a familiar set-up made terrifyingly unsettling by the way the reader is plunged into nonlinearity and fear alongside the characters. In “prose that is poetic and bereft of consolation,” Jemc “unsettles our notions of the boundaries between ourselves, our partners and anything else that may hurt us,” said Ahsan Butt at The Rumpus.

London: Bezier Apartments, Aldgate EC1

A truly impressive duplex penthouse located on the 14th and 15th floors, and with a spectacular terrace which offers panoramic views over London. Next to Old Street station, the property is an easy walk to anywhere in the City. 3 suites, open-plan kitchen/living/ dining room, lift, residents’ services including a 24-hour concierge, gym, sauna, steam room, parking. £2.95 million; Frank Harris.

Birmingham: Paradise Street

Elegant penthouse in the Queen’s College Chambers building with a roof-top garden boasting views across the city skyline. 3 suites, kitchen, recep, daytime concierge, underground parking. £699,950; Maguire Jackson.

London: Clubhouse Apartments, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham TW1

A delightful penthouse in an art deco-inspired building with a spectacular terrace. 2 beds, 2 baths, open-plan kitchen/living/dining room, communal garden, terrace, parking. £700,000; Property Partnership.

Dorset: Quayside, West Bay

Handsome penthouse (3rd from the right) in a prime harbourside location with a terrace giving stunning 360° views across the Jurassic Coast. 2 beds, 2 baths, open-plan kitchen/ living/dining room, parking. £520,000; Stags.

Dorset: Apartment 51, The Cooperage, Dorchester

Beautifully presented penthouse with a wraparound terrace set within an architectdesigned building in the heart of Dorchester. This awardwinning development offers an array of amenities including an Odeon cinema, a fitness centre, a medical centre and a variety of restaurants. 3 suites, open-plan kitchen/ living/dining room, lift, parking. £1.1 million; Strutt & Parker.

Hampshire: Abbey Hill, Netley Abbey

A delightful duplex penthouse in a Grade II* 16th century castle. The property enjoys four private terraces, two of which have uninterrupted views across Southampton Water towards the New Forest and Southampton Docks. 4 beds, 3 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, lift, utility, beach access, communal gardens, parking. £1.1 million; Hamptons.

London: Port East Apartments, West India Quay E14

A characterful waterside duplex in a Grade I warehouse conversion with vaulted ceilings and timber beams. 3 beds, 3 baths, open-plan kitchen/ living/dining room, lift, 24-hour concierge, parking. £975,000; Strutt & Parker.

Glasgow: South Frederick Street

Striking duplex with great views across the Glasgow skyline. Located in the city centre close to George Square and Merchant City, the property is close to the Theatre Royal, Royal Concert Hall and Gallery of Modern Art. 2 suites, open/plan kitchen/recep, 1 further recep, laundry, terrace. OIEO £550,000; Savills.

“Massive, ambitious, controversial, and expensive”, Jaguar’s luxury electric GT is here at last, said Top Gear Magazine, and setting a new tone for the marque – “all electric, more luxurious, rarer, bespoke”. The Type 01 is also the “last-chance saloon” for the carmaker. “If this car bombs, Jaguar dies.”

With more than 150 prototypes, and put through its paces from the Arctic to Death Valley, it is the most extensively tested Jaguar. It’s also the most powerful, aerodynamic and patented Jaguar of all time. At two metres wide and 5.2 metres long, it’s got “immense presence”, though its low stance and raked rear do make it look rather like a “cartoon villain getaway car”.

Jaguar has ripped up the rule book with the Type 01, which is built on an all-new platform. It is made from 73% aluminium but still weighs about 2.9 tonnes, said Evo. It is “unapologetically imposing”, with “towering proportions”, yet it only seats four.

With a 120kWh battery, and three e-motors – a 260kW front motor and twin 310kW rear motors – for a combined 1,015bhp, it has a claimed range of 450 miles. It can do 0-62mph in 3.2secs, with a top speed of 150mph, and charges from 10%-80% in just 22 minutes on a fast charger.

The Type 01 sits on massive 23-inch wheels, and the low profile and long bonnet make it look “a bit like a Batmobile”, said T3. Its interior is “gentler”, with a choice of NeoGrain fabric or leather. The driver gets a 24-inch OLED screen, and there’s a smaller 7-inch infotainment screen in the centre.

There’s no rear windscreen, just a digital rear mirror on the dash, which houses a panoramic soundbar. There’s a voice assistant for hands-free operation in 18 languages. Orders are expected to open early next year.

A movie doesn’t have to be set on Halloween to be scary, but it doesn’t hurt. The holiday atmosphere can provide an extra element of suspense when done right, as in these four notable films.

‘Halloween’ (1978)

Horror legend John Carpenter’s lean franchise-launching slasher deftly adds a supernatural aspect to his unkillable knife-wielding mental institution escapee, Michael Myers. The classic puts “viewers through a troubled nightmare of suspense and uncertain dread,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (AMC+)

‘Ginger Snaps’ (2000)

In this Canadian cult classic that doubles as a coming-of-age story, a sardonic goth transforms into a werewolf in the days leading up to Halloween and terrifies her younger sister. The movie, through character-building and atmosphere, “has fun with its own premises without turning into an empty camp exercise,” said Dave Kehr at The New York Times. (Peacock)

‘Trick ’r Treat’ (2007)

Arguably the best horror anthology ever, the movie features four intersecting segments centered around a demonic, pumpkin-headed trick-or-treater seeking to avenge sins of the town’s past. It’s a movie that “feels less like it was merely set on the holiday and more like it was built out of everything people love about it,” said Arleigh at Through the Shattered Lens. (HBO Max)

‘Hell House LLC’ (2015)

In this found footage gem, a documentary team seeks the truth about a haunted house massacre by tracking down its sole survivor, who has tapes. With a slow-burn buildup, this “genuinely suspenseful” movie “carefully sets up its scares in a way that actually contributes to the story,” said Luiz H.C. at Bloody Disgusting. (AMC+)

The TV doctor and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s “What’s Up Docs?” picks his favourite books. He is talking about his own latest book, “Make Me Well”, at the Stratford Literary Festival on 30 October.

It’s So Easy (And Other Lies)

Duff McKagan, 2011

I thought this book by the Guns N’ Roses bassist would be all tales of rock’n’roll excess by my favourite childhood band. Instead, it is a fascinating account of his struggle with drink, drugs and health. He is saved by creativity, martial arts and a loving family. An antidote to the wellness industry, it changed my thinking about health and family.

Empire of Pain

Patrick Radden Keefe, 2021

I am from the generation of doctors who were educated about pain by Purdue Pharma. Its vast influence reached far beyond marketing – I never once saw an ad for OxyContin. We are still undoing the damage.

Calypso

David Sedaris, 2018

Sedaris is the funniest essayist alive. His stories help me make sense of my family, and find humour in the everyday.

Super-Infinite

Katherine Rundell, 2022

John Donne, the subject of this amazing book, is perhaps our greatest love poet. He’s raunchy, funny, and ended up as the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. No matter how little you know about poetry, this book will sweep you up and leave you breathless at the genius of both the subject and the author.

The Persian Boy

Mary Renault, 1972

The story of Alexander the Great, told by his slave and lover, Bagoas. It is an adventure story and a love story and, despite being set over 2,000 years ago, feels contemporary and relevant. Renault is one of the greats of historical fiction.

The White Road

Edmund de Waal, 2015

Edmund de Waal is perhaps best known as a potter, but he is also a wonderful writer. This book is his pilgrimage to understand the mysterious white clay. I defy you not to get sucked into porcelain mania as he tours the world.

This stirring production of Anton Chekhov’s final masterpiece features “glorious” performances “across the board and the generations”, said Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph.

Kristin Scott Thomas is “hypnotic” as the superficially carefree, inwardly agonised Lyuba Ranevsky, who returns to her failing estate after years of exile in Paris. Stephen Mangan is “brilliant” as the low-born but now wealthy businessman Yermolay Lopakhin. And the excellent supporting cast includes Vinette Robinson as Lyuba’s adopted daughter Varya, and Jeff Rawle as the hard-up Boris Simeonov-Pishchik. This is not quite top-drawer Chekhov: it is not as good as the 2007 production of “The Seagull” that won Scott Thomas an Olivier. But it’s assured and “quietly riveting”.

In his new adaptation, playwright Conor McPherson “cranks up both the bitter and the sweet as he massages the plot and dialogue for some big laughs”, said Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out. Here, for example, the “old codger” servant Firs (the terrific Karl Johnson) is as “mad as a hatter and swears like a trooper”. And it’s a “storming performance – dare I say a career best – from the perennially underestimated” Mangan. Even while plotting to buy the estate, his Lopakhin remains “bound to these people, forever cowed by them”.

Mangan is a “wonderful” actor, but I’m afraid he’s miscast as Lopakhin, said Dominic Maxwell in The Times. He delivers plenty of “beaming charm” but there is no grit and precious little sense of inner turmoil. And, while Scott Thomas is convincing, this is the “least outstanding stage performance” I’ve seen of hers. The evening overall is “diverting” but, ultimately, disappointing.

This is a “handsome and engaging” staging, with some funny moments, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. And the individual performances are all effective. But somehow, “you don’t feel much pathos” for the group as a whole, and “the drama never quite enters dark or tragic territory”. There’s elegance and insight here, but insufficient emotion.
Harold Pinter Theatre, London SW1. Until 9 January.

For his new crime drama, director Dominik Moll found inspiration in the real-life cases of protesters who were badly injured by French police during the 2018 “gilets jaunes” demonstrations, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. Léa Drucker stars as Stéphanie, a conscientious police internal-affairs investigator, whose routine life is upended when she is handed the case of the title – that of a young man who was left with brain damage as a result of being struck in the face by a rubber bullet during anti-tax protests in Paris.

Sifting through the evidence, she discovers that he is from her own home town, in the “left behind” northeast, and her mother knows his. She comes up against other complications too, including the resentment of her police officer ex-husband, who thinks she is a traitor to the force. The film is “nowhere near as complex” as Moll’s dark psychological thriller “Harry, He’s Here to Help” (2000), but it is serious and often compelling.

Moll “expertly maps how justice can stall in a near-broken system”, said Danny Leigh in the Financial Times. Stéphanie initially pursues the case with vigour but soon finds herself caught in an impossible position: loathed by her colleagues but, to “a sceptical world”, just another cop.

I was gripped by Stéphanie’s painstaking efforts to uncover the truth, said Hadley Freeman in The Times, but what stuck with me were the long conversations she has, with her family and other officers, about the “morality of it all” – the police’s actions, and those of the protesters. Moving and intelligent, “Case 137” makes a “strong argument for less gloss and more reality” in films.

Most of us have access to “thousands of films” at home but there is something special about the “big-screen communal experience”, said Tim Robey in The Telegraph.

“Shockwaves from the pandemic” saw 150 operating cinemas close permanently but there are still many “British movie palaces” to explore. Here are our favourite independent cinemas worth paying a visit to.

The Odyssey, St Albans, Hertfordshire

In 2014, this “single-screen, 500-seat arthouse” became the town’s first cinema to open in years, said Robey in The Telegraph. The historic building has been used as a picture palace since 1908 and has been renovated to highlight its “1930s Art Deco glory”. It is now called The Odyssey to honour Stanley Kubrick; the famed director was known to be a “St Albans habitué” in his later years.
odysseypictures.co.uk

Campbeltown Picture House, Argyll & Bute

Constructed in 1913, this charming cinema is one of the first “purpose-built” venues in Scotland and is known locally as The Wee Pictures, said Madeleine Silver in Country Life. Architect Albert Gardner designed the “Art Nouveau spectacle”. In 1935, the cinema was revamped by Gardner, who gave it the “ambiance of a Mediterranean courtyard” by projecting a blue sky “complete with moving white clouds” onto the ceiling of the auditorium.
campbeltownpicturehouse.co.uk

Aldeburgh Cinema, Suffolk

The history of this cinema dates back to 1919, when it was opened by local draper Walter Hill. Back then, it was up against the “silent films and magic lantern shows” at nearby Jubilee Hall but it managed to survive the competition, said Silver in Country Life. Today, Aldeburgh Cinema offers a vibrant programme that balances “offbeat films with blockbusters”.
aldeburghcinema.co.uk

The Magic Lantern, Tywyn, Gwynedd

As a community cinema, this venue is flourishing, said Shaurya Thapa in Time Out. The Magic Lantern was crowned winner of Cinema of the Year Award at last year’s British Independent Film Awards. The cinema was built in 1893 to be used as the Town Assembly Room but it has embraced today’s technology and some of its screens are “equipped with state-of-the-art 4K projection and Dolby Atmos sound”.
tywyncinema.co.uk

Barbican, London 

This “fiercely independent” venue is “unrivalled”, said Mike Daw in The Standard. With a line-up of films that is “impossible to overlook”, the Barbican makes the most of its “power” as a bigger arts establishment to help keep “even the most niche tickets relatively affordable”. It also manages to book “fabulous enriching names for Q&A sessions and talks”. This is “independent cinema at its finest”.
barbican.org.uk

Somewhat “miraculously”, Bonnie Garmus managed to make science and feminism “fun” in her bestselling debut novel “Lessons in Chemistry”, said The Boston Globe. In her second book, she is “poised to do the same thing for even more esoteric loves: poetry, fonts and literary publishing”.

The novel follows the life of Batter Gray, a middle-class Californian boy who possesses a “deep love” of poetry, much to his parents’ dismay. After graduating from college, he moves to New York to pursue his passion. “Like so many people coming of age in the city, he rents a terrible apartment, works three crummy jobs, and finally finds a girlfriend.”

Gray seems “destined” to end up at Peck & Peck, a “rarefied, pricey poetry journal”, though he’s the “copy guy”, working in the basement. Down there, “as is not uncommon in literary circles, he finds both mentors and nemeses” as he negotiates his way upwards.

In telling her story, Garmus creates a “Ferris wheel of characters”, like his font designer mother and “chaotic tyrant” of a boss. They and the many plot twists all “snap together delightfully” and make for a “rollicking good story”. If her debut novel “made you love chemistry, this one might just make you fall for poetry. Such is the force of happiness.”

There is a certain “mawkishness” that creeps into “Peck & Peck”, said The Guardian. As in Garmus’ first book, there is a “preternaturally intelligent dog”, added to a fragile love story and a hasty courtroom scene. But it is impossible not to be beguiled by the “freewheeling exuberance of her imagination”, and the “fierce exhortation to all of us to make words count”.

You might not have thought a novel set in the world of poetry could be funny, but “you’d be wrong”, said the Los Angeles Times. “The repartee sparkles” and the “farcical touches lighten the tone”. But it’s inspiring too. Batter, for all his quirks, is “perhaps the best poetry ambassador to have ever graced the pages of a novel”. Readers will be “hard-pressed to resist becoming a poetry stan”.

Above all, this is a “workplace comedy, a New York City coming-of-age story, and a giddy satire wrapped in a sometimes-ungainly bundle”, said Laura Miller on Slate. The Peck & Peck office, home to a whopping 39 editors and crowned with a “spectacular glass dome”, is “pure fantasia”, but Garmus does at times “ladle gooey dollops of sentimentality” into her work.

There is an “almost Wodehousian giddiness” to the book, but Garmus’ satire never comes across as “mean or bitter”. Characters sceptical of poetry and its place in the world are treated as generously as those who love it, because the form “is in truth both boring and transcendent”.

“Peck & Peck” may not reach the heights of “Lessons in Chemistry” but it is a “rare work of popular fiction that has prompted me to look up a William Carlos Williams poem, and I suspect I won’t be the only one on whom it has that particular, and very welcome, effect”.

‘Live at Carnegie Hall’ by Cameron Winter

★★★★

While listening to this album’s opening track, “I hear the Great American Songbook compressed into a brilliant point of light,” said Walden Green in Pitchfork. Cameron Winter, the frontman of the rock band Geese, was just 23 when he took the stage at Carnegie Hall last December for a single solo performance in which he put away his guitar to accompany himself alone on a grand piano. The resulting album—and the concert film that’ll soon accompany it—may be exercises in mythmaking, but Winter earns his acclaim here. The more he strips down his sound, “the closer he gets to some platonic ideal of music,” and though his 2024 solo album provided most of his set, the three new tunes are “some of Winter’s very finest.”

Still, this record “might drive a further wedge between the believers and the skeptics,” said Mark Richardson in The Wall Street Journal. Winter’s “unusual” singing style is even more conspicuous here; if you can’t get past that, his gifts as a songwriter may escape you. Still, the album is inspiring “precisely because it’s challenging.” It’s fun engaging with music “that needs time to sink in.”

‘She’s the Best’ by Troye Sivan

★★★

“There seems no reason why Troye Sivan should still be a relative cult figure within pop rather than an actual multiplatinum star,” said Alexis Petridis in The ­Guardian. The fourth album from the 31-year-old Aussie native is packed with “very hooky” songs and evidence of his many A-list backers. They include Madonna, who signed off on his cribbing of a past hit for “Party,” a deadpan good-times anthem. But at least Sivan “seems to be using the space he occupies to his advantage, to push and experiment,” and to write lyrics “as unapologetically queer” as they are here.

She’s the Best is “easily his finest collection of songs to date,” said Craig Jenkins in NYMag.com. “On the surface, the album is an ode to women Sivan has called friends, collaborators, and defenders,” but it’s “perhaps more interested in unpacking the invisible strings of lust and yearning that drag Sivan off the couch night after night.” For now, club life answers his worries about failing to find a forever mate, and an array of producers help him connect to today’s “time-travel-pop wave” as he expresses those feelings. The effort leaves him “redefining himself from song to song.”

‘Dedicated to You’ by Branford Marsalis Quartet & Dianne Reeves

★★★

The 1963 album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman “will always remain sacred,” said Jim Hynes in Glide. But in Coltrane’s centennial year, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and singer Dianne Reeves have reinterpreted the most revered ballads album in jazz and made it newly stunning. “For so many of us who have grown used to Hartman’s warm baritone over countless listens,” hearing a new vocalist sing the same six standards “can be ear-bending.” But Reeves “wrings every drop of emotion from the title track,” delivers a “flawless interpretation” of “You Are Too Beautiful,” and teams with pianist Joey Calderazzo for an endearing “My One and Only Love.”

Marsalis and his quartet fill out the album with three Coltrane instrumentals, said Chris Pearson in The Times (U.K.). Still, “it’s those vocals that stay with you.” Reeves, to her credit, “becomes very much part of the band, embedded, one of the instruments.” On “Lush Life,” she does so by singing the intro alone, then stopping halfway through for solos from Marsalis and Calderazzo that “echo and expand on her initial vocal, as if they are her thoughts.” It’s an “exceptionally brilliant” take.

Many horror hits are more fascinating or engrossing than terrifying. But these four films manage to create genuinely unnerving atmospheres of dread.

‘The Exorcist’ (1973)

Director William Friedkin’s classic brought demonic terror straight to the heart of the postwar American suburbs with this story of a young girl’s possession. It retains its capacity to unsettle, leaving the “audience subject to devilish, claustrophobic torment,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (HBO Max)

‘The Blair Witch Project’ (1999)

The film that invented the “found footage” trope is also viscerally scary, following a group of students into the woods to investigate a local supernatural legend. Relying on atmosphere instead of flashy special effects, it “set up a convincing everyday reality and furtively sneaked the horror in,” said Steve Rose at The Guardian. (HBO Max)

‘Session 9’ (2001)

A group of workers is sent to clear asbestos from an abandoned mental hospital and slowly succumbs to claustrophobia, paranoia and fear. This “character-driven take on the classic haunted house movie” is “one of the great American horror films of the 21st century,” said Matthew Monagle at Roger Ebert. (AMC+)

‘The Witch’ (2015)

Director Robert Eggers delivers a taut, terrifying period piece with this tale of a 17th-century New England family expelled from their village and stalked by a witch — a movie that also put the then-fledgling studio A24 on the map. Suffused with “quiet, tangible malevolence,” the tale “carefully strips you of modern sensibilities, pulling you into a world without irony or awareness,” said David Crow at Den of Geek. (Prime Video)

“Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner’s marriage was not a marriage of equals,” said Sebastian Smee in The Atlantic. “Pollock was weak and Krasner was strong.” That dynamic comes across in the new joint exhibit at the Met. More importantly, the show “does each artist the honor of representing them at their best” and, by gathering so many of their exhilarating paintings, “makes a powerful case for abstract expressionism as an unassailable peak of 20th-century American visual expression.” It’s plainly “thrilling” to stand before a great Pollock or a great Krasner. And while Pollock’s groundbreaking drip paintings, the ones that made him America’s most famous artist, have lost none of their visceral power, this show “establishes beyond a doubt” that Krasner was both more talented than her hard-drinking, insecure husband and equally as accomplished and original. At Krasner’s peak in the late 1950s and early ’60s, the paintings she produced were better than any made by more celebrated contemporaries. Unfortunately, being Pollock’s wife, then widow, “meant being relegated to second place.”

“Right off the bat, the show opens with a big blast of Krasner,” said Holland Cotter in The New York Times. A half dozen large collage paintings, all from the mid-1950s, “look like a lineup of ghostly raised arms, but also like a garden grown wild.” One of them, 1955’s powerful Bald Eagle, incorporates scraps of both her husband’s drawings and her own earlier work. “Inevitably, and justifiably,” Pollock’s history-making canvases are presented in a huge gallery at the heart of the exhibition. These are the pictures that “brought a merging of paint, choreography, and gravity to the point of explosion,” prompting Life magazine to canonize Pollock in 1949 as arguably the country’s greatest living artist. But abstract expressionism, “like all radical art impulses,” soon lost its freshness, even for Pollock. He hit a creative block in the ’50s, returned to heavy boozing, and died in 1956 while driving drunk, about a mile from the eastern Long Island home he shared with Krasner. His young mistress survived the crash.

“By any reckoning, ‘Krasner and Pollock’ is one of the most gorgeously designed and ingeniously installed exhibitions in the Met’s history,” said Lucy Ives in Hyperallergic. And there’s little mystery about its subtext: We come seeking insight into how Krasner survived her entanglement with a needy, art-world comet, and how it all affected her art. As it unfolds the story in politely phrased wall text, the show “has all the sweetness of a gossip session with a cherished confidante.” Yet there’s “something breathtaking” about the way it “simultaneously undercuts Pollock and demonstrates why his priceless canvases remain relevant.” Here, amid 48 of his pieces and 74 of hers, his work matters most in the ways it contributed to Krasner’s artistic development. “I’ve never seen an upending quite like this.”

Kate Atkinson is the celebrated author of Life After Life, Case Histories, and 12 other novels set mostly in her native U.K. In her latest, Our Noble Selves, a former POW becomes a murder suspect while helping stage a 1951 festival intended to boost national morale.

‘Middlemarch’ by George Eliot (1871–72)

Essentially, Middlemarch is a historical novel, set in the period 50 years prior to its publication. Eliot’s breadth and ambition and energy in painting a picture of a society in the midst of cataclysmic change is astounding. I also think it’s a very romantic book—not something Eliot is often accused of.

‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)

It took many years before Vonnegut felt able to give fictional shape to his experiences as a POW in the Dresden firestorm. The time-­ traveling, science-­fiction elements along with Vonnegut’s typical off-­kilter style work against the odds to make this—along with its ­ brother-in-arms, Heller’s Catch-22—one of the most powerful novels about World War II.

‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen (1817)

I could have simply picked all six of Austen’s novels, but if I had to choose one, then this final one—a profound exploration of the human heart—would be the one. It is also about the pain of the path not chosen and the absolute powerlessness of women.

‘Parade’s End’ by Ford Madox Ford (1924–28)

This is cheating perhaps, because it’s actually a tetralogy that follows the fortunes of Christopher Tietjens from before the First World War and into its aftermath. It’s one of those novels—sorry, four novels—that I have trouble describing and am inclined to say, “Just read it.”

‘The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman’ by Laurence Sterne (1759–67)

Tristram Shandy is a very funny, digressive novel about a man trying to write his autobiography and failing to get past the first scene. I always remember my English tutor at university introducing it by saying that it was one of the first novels and also one of the first antinovels, although nowadays I think they would probably call it metafiction.

‘Just William’ by Richmal Crompton (1922)

I had a quietly passive only-­childhood, but ­William provided an alternative, escapist universe of naughtiness and high spirits. Even now, I would, if I could, be happy to live in William’s world. And have a dog called Jumble.

“It is a shame how many people wouldn’t dream of reading James Marriott’s eloquent, learned, and admirably brief book,” said Daniel Akst in The Wall Street ­ Journal. Reading is dying, as the 33-year-old London Times columnist tells us, so it’s inevitable that most of the public will miss out on the joys of following him as he lays out his concerns. The causes of his worries aren’t new. A 2022 survey found that in the previous 12 months fewer than half of American adults had read a book. A year later, another study found that in an average day only 16% read anything for pleasure. Of course, there’s “a lot more at stake” in this decline than good books being left unread. Marriott, by revisiting ties between the rise of mass literacy and mass democracy, “makes a strong case” that long-form reading is a necessary ingredient to sustaining the kind of rational and probing collective dialogue that has made mass democracy possible.

Marriott “might be insufficiently pessimistic,” said George F. Will in The Washington Post. Though he’s right that smartphones and the short-form videos they spawn have contributed to reading’s decline, the larger problem is that too many of our fellow citizens have become “pathetically nostalgic for the mental lassitude of pre-literate people.” It was not until the 18th century that large numbers of our forebears began reading widely, but we have them to thank for launching the modern age, and today, as childish thinking spreads, we’re seeing that “reason, tolerance, and progress are contingent, not inherent, facets of humanity’s story.” Marriott, “like many alarmists,” builds his argument on ­ cherry-picked data, said Chris Ferguson in Reason. He reports that reading scores for U.S. students hit an all-time low in 2024 without mentioning that they’d peaked in 2012, several years after the advent of smartphones. Meanwhile, the supposed link between literacy and healthy democracies is undermined by the highly literate societies that gave birth to the fascist regimes of 20th-­century Germany, Italy, and Japan.

“The New Dark Ages is too ominously titled,” said Michael O’Donnell in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Throughout the book, Marriott “thoughtfully acknowledges” evidence that reading and reason might not be utterly doomed, though he could have done more to acknowledge that the work many of us do still requires a lot of reading and writing. “Are we courting the same scenario as the Middle Ages, when a select few held the keys to knowledge, to the exclusion of all others? Probably not.” Still, “the thrust of Marriott’s ­argument — there is a decline in reading that is antithetical to the progress of the ­Enlightenment — strikes me as persuasive.”

‘You Can See Everything’

Directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim (R)

★★★★

“No two people will draw the same conclusions from this movie. That is part of what makes it a masterpiece,” said Shane O’Neill in The Washington Post. Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s unsettling portrait of convicted Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes became “the most anticipated documentary of the decade” when an “unnerving” teaser was released last month showing a smiling, unblinking Holmes in extreme close-up staring at Fielder and insisting on her guilelessness. Word spread that shortly before she reported to prison in 2023, she had invited Fielder, the idiosyncratic mastermind behind The Rehearsal, to bring his cameras into her home, and in the resulting three-hour film, “she doesn’t get any less weird or more scrutable.”

Somehow “more shocking, thornier, and revealing than billed,” You Can See Everything “plays like an unraveling of certainty in real time,” said Adrian Horton in The Guardian. Holmes continues to insist she did nothing wrong when she became a billionaire a decade ago by touting a breakthrough medical device that her company couldn’t build, said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. Yet when she heads to prison halfway through, bidding goodbye to her husband and two children, this already riveting film “truly takes wing.” Bringing in a stand-in for Holmes, Fielder keeps pushing to understand his subject’s apparent detachment from reality, until the movie becomes “an intricate investigation into, among other things, the incomprehensibility of love,” said Nick Schager in The Daily Beast. In the end, “it’s not just the film of the year.” It’s also “a documentary that stands shoulder to shoulder with the form’s all-time greats.”

‘Sense and Sensibility’

Directed by Georgia Oakley (PG)

★★★

The new screen adaptation of Sense and Sensibility is “not the lush, buttoned-up period drama of tradition,” said Nikki Baughan in Screen Daily. Director Georgia Oakley, coming off an acclaimed 2022 art house debut, clearly wanted to foreground relatable emotions over Regency-era costumery with her take on Jane Austen’s tale of the cash-strapped Dashwood sisters. “That’s not to say the film doesn’t look gorgeous.” But compared with Ang Lee’s “candy-colored” 1995 version, Oakley’s is “decidedly more grounded” as it once again lets us watch sensible Elinor and free-spirited Marianne pursue husbands after their father’s death lands them in relative financial peril. “For those of us who adore the 1995 film, unfavorable comparisons seem inevitable,” said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter.

Despite a “more than capable cast,” led by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles, the new movie has “a low-energy feel” in part because Oakley and her screenwriter “lean so heavily into Elinor and Marianne’s crushing disappointments and the forces holding them back in a period of vast gender inequality.” Fortunately, none of Oakley’s tweaks “dim the roiling passions of the sisters as they approach love from opposite ends of the emotional spectrum,” said Derek Smith in Slant. By focusing on Elinor and Marianne’s bond and how it’s tested by their different outlooks, this Sense and Sensibility “manages the difficult feat of breathing new life into these familiar characters’ interior lives.”

‘Misty Green’

Directed by Chris Rock (R)

★★★

“If Misty Green never comes apart at the seams,” it’s because Rosalind Eleazar “simply won’t let it,” said David Ehrlich in IndieWire. The Slow Horses actress is “never less than great” in the title role of Chris Rock’s new drama about a hot-mess Hollywood has-been who might just land a comeback role nearly 20 years after her peak if she can refrain from sabotaging herself for once. Rock’s “unkempt” script strains to combine a poignant character study with a scalding takedown of L.A.’s dream factory, and its excesses might have tanked the film if Eleazar didn’t hold it all together by “sheer force of will.”

The movie has “nothing insightful” to tell us about Hollywood’s dark corners that we haven’t heard already, said Alison Willmore in NYMag.com. The despicable side characters “feel a little easy,” starting with a producer, played by Adam Driver, who tempts Misty with drugs and lucrative sex work. Only one industry player comes across as noble—“probably because he’s played by Rock himself.” Fortunately, none of Rock’s misfires matter “once you lock into what Eleazar is doing,” said David Fear in Rolling Stone. She brings “nuance, shade, and emotional depth” to every story beat in Misty’s quest for redemption. “Eleazar doesn’t just make the movie work; she is the movie.” The TV veteran has never previously landed such a robust role, and “dear god, does she make the most of it.” She “deserves every accolade and every bit of the spotlight that Misty Green affords her.”

Rising flight and hotel costs, combined with “stubbornly finite” annual leave, means most holidaymakers can take “one or two big trips” in a year, said Sarah Rappaport on Bloomberg. So a “growing cohort” of time-poor travellers are treating their holidays as an “investment” in themselves. The desire to “come home with more than Instagram shots as souvenirs” has given rise to “purposeful travel”: the skillcation.

From ‘fly and flop’ to ‘skilliday’

According to recent research by Mastercard, nearly half of Europeans plan to learn a new skill on their summer holiday – and over half of 18- to 34-year-olds have already planned a skill-based trip this year.

More than half of the 27,000 holidaymakers from 28 European countries surveyed said skill-based trips felt more meaningful than traditional holidays, especially when curated by locals. One in three (37%) booked a trip this year specifically to learn a skill, with a new language topping the list. The “era of the ‘fly and flop’” is “giving way to the ‘skilliday’”.

Tourists are looking for experiences that “create muscle memories”, said Mastercard economist Natalia Lechmanova. From “winemaking and woodworking” to pottery and painting, consumers are “opening their wallets” for a taste of local culture, and a “lesson that lasts long after they’ve arrived home”. Skill-based travel also “tends to draw people beyond the crowded hotspots”, into smaller towns and lower seasons, reducing the impact of overtourism.

These trips tend to cost more than conventional holidays, but the pay-off is high. People often see “longer-lasting positive effects on psychological well-being” than when taking holidays focused on “sun, sea and partying”, psychology professor Andrew Stevenson told Bloomberg. Spending time learning a new skill gives you the added “feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment”.

Over the years, “I’ve clumsily thrown myself into swing dancing lessons in Italy, free-diving sessions in French Polynesia, and Spanish intensives in Ecuador”, said Julia Eskins in Vogue. “I came home from each one feeling a little more capable than when I arrived.”

A trip like this has a “purpose”; said Alex Ledsom in Forbes; the traveller is looking for more than “just a break”. The goal is to fill time with “experiences that teach, reconnect and transform”. Those going on skillcations usually opt to learn something that’s unavailable to them at home, with tactile crafts like “Peruvian weaving or Japanese pottery-making” becoming increasingly popular activities. People are more interested in learning about “heritage, expertise, traditions and customs” than ever before.

That has led to one of the “fastest-growing segments” in the tourism industry, said Lindsay Cohn in W Magazine. Hotels everywhere are “ramping up” their activity programs to offer the chance to develop “new experiential abilities”, and it’s not limited to crafts.

Diving is a popular option for travellers who wish to “explore azure reefs and haunting shipwrecks”. For instance, you can get your Padi certification during a stay at the Six Senses Laamu in the Maldives. As for those interested in a “culinary journey”, Grand Hotel Fasano beside Italy’s Lake Garda takes guests on a tour of a nearby village to get involved in “preparing traditional regional recipes, paired with Garda-style spritz aperitifs, homemade lemon verbena liqueur, and local wine”.

Go into a British bookshop and you may notice “a glaring stock gap”, said Lydia Spencer-Elliott in The Independent. “Star novelist” Sally Rooney, whose bestsellers include “Normal People” and “Conversations With Friends”, has announced that her books will no longer be sold in the UK due to her support for Palestine Action.

The Irish novelist had pledged to donate royalties from her books to the direct-action protest group, despite the fact that the UK has, controversially, proscribed it as a terrorist organisation. Rooney said last week that her publisher, Faber & Faber, had therefore decided it could no longer sell her work in the UK because doing so could “constitute a serious criminal offence”. For fans and bookshop owners, the news “hit like a gut punch”.

‘Affront to decency’

Rooney has shown courage in choosing “the thorniest path possible for this cause”, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. Authors can “write essays and sign letters” in support of Palestinian people, musicians can shout about it on stage, but that doesn’t “entail actively breaking the terrorism laws”. It’s Rooney’s support for this specific group that’s “effectively both barred” and “banned” her work from the UK and cost her "innumerable” sales and opportunities.

For her “more excitable” home-grown fans, it’s a case of “perfidious Albion strikes again”, said Eilis O'Hanlon in the Irish Independent. Fellow Irish novelist Colm Tóibín said Britain had gone “insane”, and the whole issue is “an absolute affront to decency” and freedom of speech. But I think that framing is “ridiculous”. Even if “the fiendish Brits” wanted to prosecute one of its “most illustrious” publishers for paying one of its authors what she is owed, Rooney is an Irish citizen living in Ireland, and thus not subject to UK terror laws. Her personal freedom of speech and right to protest are not at any risk. And Faber can keep publishing and promoting her in other countries, including her native Ireland.

‘Attention-seeking self-aggrandisement’

Despite “the uproar”, this isn’t “massively risky” for either Rooney or Faber, said Camilla Long in The Times. How many of her “whopping 6 million” worldwide book sales will she forgo? Her books “remain in libraries” and in any bookshops where they were already stocked. This isn’t a “book ban”; it’s a millionaire’s “self-imposed withdrawing of one’s further sales”.

This is “attention-seeking self-aggrandisement”, said Lionel Shriver in The Telegraph. Thanks to lucrative TV adaptations of her novels, Rooney can “easily live without further British royalties” and continue to “shout her devotion to Palestinians from the rooftops” (or fund their cause via multiple legal outfits). Faber, on the other hand, was caught “between a rock and a hard place”.

I’m “no fan” of Palestine Action; some of its members have “committed a campaign of criminal damage”, said Sam Leith in The Spectator. But Rooney and Faber have pushed the “simultaneous intolerance and vagueness of the UK government’s position” on the group onto “the front tables at Waterstones”. Supporters of Palestine Action are “being bundled into paddy-wagons for wearing T-shirts”. Will a UK citizen now face arrest for saying “I support Sally Rooney” or “carrying a ‘Normal People’ tote bag”? The problem isn’t Rooney’s speech, free or otherwise; it’s Britain’s “inconsistent attempt to police the border between legitimate protest and criminal thuggery”. What a “fine mess” we’re in.

“Remember when butter was considered bad?” said Morwenna Ferrier in The Guardian. Now, though, there’s been a revival of the golden spread. In our “little treat” economy, splashing out on a slab of high-end butter feels “more manageable” than buying a “decent bottle of wine”.

After consumption reached a “historic low” in the 1990s following a spate of anti-saturated fat health campaigns, perceptions seem to have “shifted” and butter has enjoyed a “cultural rehabilitation”. This may in part be because it’s become “tangled up with the anti-ultra-processed-food movement” – unlike margarine, butter is seen as a “pre-industrial, farm-adjacent product”.

The spread is “reprising its role as a kitchen stalwart” with sales of Waitrose’s Essential butter up 16% year-on-year, said Emma Henderson in The Independent.

These days it’s “rare to find a block of butter” for under £2. As prices continue to climb, it’s worth knowing which brands are “worth their salt”. Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference West Country Farmhouse butter is something “I just kept going back to”. Made in Somerset using a slower churning process, it’s “very bright yellow” and has a “great level of salty flavour” thanks to the addition of Maldon sea salt.

“I will never tire of” President Slightly Salted butter, said Sophie Morris in The i Paper. Perfect for slathering on your morning toast, this French butter made in Normandy always seems “chic next to its frumpier, yellower, British cousins”. As well as the “elegance” of its paler hue, “I love the fact it tastes as if the cows have dined on wildflower meadows”.

And if you’re keen to show off, grab a block of Kerrygold salted butter. Made from the milk of grass-fed cows in Ireland and wrapped in gold foil, it’s a “rich and creamy treat” that’s ideal for cutting into thick slices and using to top your “hot crumpets, teacakes and hot cross buns”.

Tracing a 135-mile horseshoe-shaped route through rural mid-Wales, Glyndwr’s Way passes through the splendid hill country that was at the heart of Owain Glyndwr’s 15-year rebellion against the English from 1400.

I am fascinated by this “great Welsh hero”, said Kevin Rushby in The Guardian, so I decided to hike the trail’s southern half, from the “pretty” border town of Knighton to Machynlleth, where the building in which Glyndwr held his Welsh parliament still stands.

I can’t say that I ended the journey feeling any wiser about the man himself – but it was a wonderful walk: “quiet, very quiet”, with highlights including the “lovely, slightly eccentric” town of Llanidloes, and the 564-metre-high peak of Foel Fadian, which affords some “great panoramas” of Snowdonia.

Marvellous mobiles in Philadelphia

Best known for his huge mobile sculptures – bright, abstract forms hanging from suspended metal frames – Alexander Calder was born in Philadelphia in 1898, and last year, a new museum dedicated to his work opened in the city, said Michael Joseph Gross in Travel + Leisure.

Designed by the architects Herzog and de Meuron, the galleries at Calder Gardens are “uplifting”, light-filled spaces in which the work is presented without labels or “curatorial statements” (Calder believed that we should interpret his art “on our own terms”). Outside, there’s a “meadowlike”, 1.8-acre sculpture garden laid out by Piet Oudolf (the Dutch landscape designer behind the High Line in Manhattan), to which admission is free.

It’s a worthy addition to a city known for its great art institutions, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Barnes Foundation, which has a huge collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings.

A handsome port in northern Spain

The port city of Avilés, in Asturias, was once known for its “steelworks and pollution” – but with few factories left now, said Isambard Wilkinson in The Times, its air is much cleaner, and it is well worth a visit.

Avilés’ old town is one of the “loveliest” in northern Spain, with its Renaissance palaces, “leafy” parks and medieval churches, including two dedicated to Thomas Becket (“Santo Tomás de Cantorbery”). And in 2011, the city was given a major boost by the opening of the gleaming-white Oscar Niemeyer Centre, a “futuristic” arts venue designed by the Brazilian architect.

If you visit the centre, try to eat at Yume; the city also has another fine restaurant, Casa Tataguyo, which serves traditional Asturian cuisine. From nearby San Esteban de Pravia there are boat trips on the “majestic” Nalón estuary; it also has an excellent hotel, the Gran Hotel Brillante.

For hikers, the mountains of Sweden’s far north provide an “overwhelming” sense of freedom, thanks to the country’s right to roam and an almost complete absence of paths. It’s a feeling I wanted my children to experience, said Adam Weymouth in the Financial Times – and so last August, we took them camping in the region.

We travelled by train across Europe to Stockholm, and spent a weekend there before taking the sleeper to Björkliden – a journey of roughly 17 hours. This tiny place lies 155 miles north of the Arctic Circle, beside Torneträsk, a 43-mile-long lake. From the station, you can climb into the hills, and soon feel entirely removed from civilisation; if you kept walking south, you wouldn’t hit a road for 60 miles.

We could pitch our tent where we liked thanks to the right to roam, so we chose a high bluff where there was a decent breeze to keep the bugs away. From there, we struck out on daily rambles across “bare” hills, where summits are as high as or higher than Scotland’s, though they are neither jagged nor particularly craggy.

During long days outdoors, we saw reindeer and golden plovers, and the children climbed rocks, picked blueberries and slithered down the snowdrifts that persist all summer. There were rivers of the “most glacial blue”, and lakes where we swam for “frantic seconds” in water that was “magnificently cold”. At night, the “buttery evening light” bled from sunset into sunrise at around 3am. Despite all the sunshine, the average daytime high in Björkliden in August is 11C or 12C, while at night, the temperature falls to 4C to 5C, making this a distinctly “coolcation”.

The weather was changeable, and after a week, with “damp” children and no food left, we moved into a small log cabin at the Abisko Mountain Lodge, near the village of Abisko (population 150). The meals there were excellent, and the lodge proved to be a good base for further walks, including to the Kårsa Glacier, a place of “alien” beauty that made the kids “giddy” with excitement. But as the glacier has shrunk by 80% since the 1940s, it also left me with a troubling sense of “loss”.

Every family needs a one-pot wonder they can have on repeat with no complaints, said Bob Dickinson. This Greek-inspired chicken and rice dish is ours. What makes it something you’ll look forward to eating are the simple additions that take no time at all: fragrant herbs, salty Kalamata olives and creamy feta. The herbs can be dried or fresh, and to make the recipe even quicker the next time you make it, you could mix up an extra batch of the seasoning.

Ingredients (serves 6)

• 1.5kg chicken thigh fillets (or 12 chicken thighs)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 courgettes, halved lengthways and finely sliced
• 250ml dry white wine
• finely grated zest and juice of 2 lemons
• 300g basmati rice, rinsed
• 500ml chicken or vegetable stock (broth) or water
• 100g Kalamata olives
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 1 tbsp basil
• 1 tbsp dill
• 1 tbsp mint
• 2 tsp rosemary
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1⁄4 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground black pepper

Method

• Preheat the oven to 200C. To make the Greek seasoning, combine the ingredients in a small bowl. Add the chicken thighs to a large mixing bowl, sprinkle over the seasoning and mix to make sure the thighs are well coated.
• Heat a large flameproof, ovenproof casserole dish (Dutch oven) over medium heat. Add 1 tbsp of the olive oil, then fry the chicken for 2-3 minutes on each side or until browned. Do this in batches, making sure that the chicken is only one layer deep and that all of the thighs come into contact with the bottom of the pan, so as not to sweat the meat. Transfer the chicken to a plate and set aside.
• Reheat the pan and add the remaining olive oil, garlic and courgettes. Cook for 5 minutes or until the courgettes are soft. Add the chicken back into the pan, along with the wine and lemon zest and juice. Sprinkle the rice over the top of the chicken, pour over the stock or water, stir, and cover.
• Transfer to the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until all the liquid has been absorbed by the rice. To finish, sprinkle with the Kalamata olives and crumble the feta on top.
• Tip: You can use finely chopped fresh herbs or dried herbs for the Greek seasoning. If you’re planning on doubling and storing the recipe for future use, dried would be best.

Taken from “The From Scratch Kitchen: Recipes and inspiration for rediscovering the joys of home cooking”, by Bob Dickinson. Available from The Week Bookshop, £24.99.

“Jeffrey Archer, who has died aged 86, was irrepressible,” said Stuart Jeffries in The Guardian – “though not necessarily in a good way.” At various points, he was accused of lying about his background, embellishing his CV, committing plagiarism and fraud and – perhaps worst of all – of being “unpleasant to underlings”. And while some of the allegations were never proved, he was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice and sentenced to four years in jail.

Yet Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare – senior Tory politician, former athlete, bestselling novelist and bon viveur – simply sailed on. Editors continued to adulate him; his books kept selling in their millions; and sports stars, writers and politicians still flocked to the “shepherd’s pie and Krug” parties he hosted in his “sumptuous”, art-filled apartment overlooking the Thames. Archer, it turned out, was what the “Titanic” was supposed to be: “unsinkable”.

Murky beginnings

Growing up in Weston-super-Mare, Archer was doted on by his mother, who worked as a journalist on the local paper and sent him to Wellington School on a scholarship. As an adult, he’d imply that he had been to the grander Wellington College. Bullied for being puny, he threw himself into athletics and bodybuilding, and distinguished himself as a sprinter. He stayed at the school until 18, yet left with just three O levels.

On the basis of a false report that he had three A levels and had studied anatomy at a university in the US, he was then accepted to Oxford. But though he presented himself as an undergraduate at Brasenose, he was actually doing a one-year diploma in education at a teacher training college linked to it.

As a student in Oxford, he arranged fundraising drives for Oxfam, including via the coup of persuading The Beatles to appear at Brasenose. Yet as Michael Crick revealed in his biography, Oxfam was not only troubled by the way he exaggerated the sums he had raised; it also suspected that he was skimming off funds.

In Oxford, Archer met Mary Weeden, a chemistry student who became his wife in 1966. Settling in London, he found work as a fundraiser for the United Nations Association. Its chair, the ex-Tory MP Humphry Berkeley, became convinced that he was embezzling funds. But the UNA hushed it up, and Archer was accepted for the safe Tory seat in Louth, Lincolnshire, which he won at a by-election in 1969.

Pride and perjury

In his writing, Archer was no stylist, but he could tell a “rollicking story”, said The Times. In 1976, his debut novel, “Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less”, became a bestseller. His novels would go on to sell more than 300 million copies. He also returned to politics: Margaret Thatcher made him deputy Tory chairman in 1985, describing him as “the extrovert’s extrovert”.

Then, in 1986, the Daily Star sensationally accused Archer of having been a client of a sex worker named Monica Coghlan. He sued for libel and, in court, denied ever even meeting Coghlan (though he did admit to asking an intermediary to pay her £2,000 in cash to leave the country). She was vilified as a liar and an extortionist. In summing up, the judge famously highlighted Mary Archer’s testimony: “Remember Mary Archer in the witness box,” he told the jury. “Has she elegance? Has she fragrance?” With such a wife, how could Archer “possibly be in need of cold, unloving rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel?” Having presented what seemed to be a solid alibi, Archer won and was awarded £500,000 in damages.

Two years later, Archer was accused of insider dealing over shares he’d bought in Anglia TV just before a takeover bid. His wife sat on the firm’s board. He was cleared of that, but then fell out with a friend who had helped concoct his alibi in the libel case, and was charged with perjury.

Following his release from jail, Archer published his prison diaries, carried on with his charity work and wrote more novels. Mary, who survives him with their sons, remained by his side to the end. Explaining her loyalty, she once said: “I think I would find it a little monochrome, a little grey, to have a sort of a more conventional life with a more conventional husband.”

The best crime thrillers consider the way violence, an endemic feature of human societies, can spiral out of hand. These four superb films approach that reality from very different vantage points.

‘The French Connection’ (1971)

A pulse-pounding narrative follows hard-nosed New York City cops Jimmy Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) as they try to bust up a heroin ring based in France. It’s a “story about ugly things and awful people, headlined by one of the era’s finest antiheroes,” said Tim Brayton at Alternate Ending. (Prime Video)

‘Fargo’ (1996)

In this mordantly funny parable, Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) hires two inept sociopaths to kidnap his wife and puts himself on a collision course with small-town cop Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand). The film “rotates its story through satire, comedy, suspense and violence, until it emerges as one of the best films I’ve ever seen,” said Roger Ebert at the time. (MGM+)

‘Memories of Murder’ (2003)

Director Bong Joon Ho’s iconic procedural follows a sometimes hilariously inept investigation into a series of small town murders. The film “challenges and subverts the serial killer procedural in its entirety,” said Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian. (Prime Video)

‘Blue Ruin’ (2013)

Macon Blair stars as Dwight Evans, a man living on the margins of society who learns that his parents’ killer is being released from prison. Dwight then sets off to seek revenge. The movie succeeds by “probing deeper than usual into the effects (and practicalities) of violence,” said Kim Newman at Empire. (Peacock)

The broadcaster and champion of the high street, who transformed the fortunes of Harvey Nichols, picks her favourites. She will be talking about her latest book, “I Shop, Therefore I Am”, at Stratford Literary Festival on 1 November.

Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1929

This book isn’t really about how to become a better poet, it’s about how to live. Rilke writes about solitude, love, patience and learning to live with uncertainty.

The Sea, The Sea

Iris Murdoch, 1978

Both entertaining and deeply unsettling. I love the way Murdoch gets inside the mind of someone who is completely convinced by his own version of reality. I once followed her around an airport because I so wanted to talk to her about this book – but was too in awe to say anything.

The Cost of Living

Deborah Levy, 2018

In this moving memoir Levy details the reality of reclaiming autonomy post-divorce. It sharply critiques the invisible burdens placed on women, while weaving in hopeful observations of everyday life.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

Heather Clark, 2020

This deeply researched book rescues Plath from the tragic cliché of her death and is focused instead on the immense vitality of how she lived. Plath is shown not as a passive victim of despair, but as a brilliant intellectual and visionary poet.

The Age of Innocence

Edith Wharton, 1920

Wharton’s portrayal of 1870s New York society shows a world that is both dazzling and suffocating. The central romance captures the conflict between desire and duty, while the bittersweet ending shows how the choices we make can shape an entire lifetime.

Cider with Rosie

Laurie Lee, 1959

I’m blessed to have a house in the Slad Valley where Lee grew up. When I see the apple trees in bloom, it brings home this chronicle of his childhood. He evokes the warmth of a chaotic, loving family and the transition of a rustic world into the modern age.

The films Monica Dolan tends to appear in “aren’t massively high profile”, said David Jenkins on Little White Lies, though she is “one of the finest and most thoughtful actors working today”. In this true-life drama, she plays Galway-based amateur historian Catherine Corless, who in 2010 chose the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, in her home town of Tuam, as the subject of an assignment for her evening class in local history.

In the course of her research, Corless discovered that, over four decades, 800 babies and infants had died at the home. Their deaths had been concealed, and their remains buried on site. Some were dumped in a disused septic tank. Dolan “tamps down the melodrama and ups the raw emotion” in a film that “carefully hits all of its expected beats”.

The scandal was the subject of a 2017 New York Times article, said Kevin Maher in The Times, which is adapted here by screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz.

Sensitively directed by Frank Berry, the film “advances clearly and respectfully” through the investigation, as Corless insists on answers from the religious order that ran the home, and the Catholic establishment, and so uncovers evidence of systemic abuse and appalling cruelty. Yet she is herself an “unexpectedly complex” figure, who is recovering from depression – and also haunted by the cruelty that she meted out to the Bon Secours children she met in her youth.

It is “a painful, devastating film”, said Cath Clarke in The Guardian. Dolan really excels here, as do the actors who play the survivors. Some appear only briefly, “but their faces stayed with me”. You’d expect a drama like this to be “a difficult watch”, but with such assured performances, it is the opposite: you can’t look away.

Oxfordshire: Church Cottage, Turville

Characterful 17th-century Grade II cottage that featured in “The Vicar of Dibley” . 2 beds, family bath, kitchen/breakfast room, recep, garden, parking. £375,000; Robinson Sherston.

Norfolk: The Cottage, Fleggburgh

This quaint, storybook thatched cottage enjoys a peaceful setting between Broads National Park and the east Norfolk coastline. 2 beds, shower room, kitchen/dining room, recep, utility, garden, outbuilding, parking. £375,000; Sowerbys .

Buckinghamshire: Hambleden, Henleyon-Thames

An idyllic cottage in the heart of the village, close to the 12th-century church of St Mary the Virgin. Surrounded by rolling Chilterns countryside, the village of Hambleden is celebrated for its quintessential charm and is perfectly positioned between the riverside towns of Marlow and Henley-on-Thames. 3 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, recep, study, utility, garden, garage. £825,000; Moveli.

Devon: Rose Cottage, Babbacombe

Picturesque Grade II thatched cottage dating back to the 1840s. The property occupies a delightful location, perched above Babbacombe Beach, with wonderful sea views which can be enjoyed from a number of terraces. Main suite, 4 further beds (1 en suite), family bath, kitchen, 3 receps, garden, outbuildings, parking. £850,000; Knight Frank.

Devon: Strawberry Cottage, Tiverton

A beautifully renovated thatched cottage set in over an acre of mature gardens. 3 beds, family bath, kitchen/dining room, recep, snug, study, garden, garage with room above. £575,000; Stags.

Oxfordshire: Thorne Cottage, Hornton

An attractive honey-coloured Hornton-stone cottage dating back to the 17th century. The property is full of character, with plenty of original features such as mullioned windows. 2 beds, family bath, kitchen, 2 receps, detached 1-bed self-contained annexe, garden, garage. £525,000; Butler Sherborn.

Yorkshire: The Hollies, Harome

This charming thatched cottage sits in a secluded half-acre in one of the region’s most desirable villages. 2 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 2 receps, 2 self-contained 1-bed cottages, garden, parking. OIEO £875,000; GSC Grays.

The Party, on ITV1, is “a tale of class division, toxic privilege and cold betrayal”, said Anita Singh in The Telegraph. Based on Elizabeth Day’s 2017 novel, this “juicy psychological thriller” is about the friendship between Benjamin Fitzmaurice (Tom Cullen), a rising star of the Conservative Party, and working-class outsider Martin Gilmour (Luke Evans).

And it unfolds across three timelines: school and university days, where a tragedy binds the two together; Ben’s birthday bash in the present day, and the aftermath, in which Martin is in a police interview room, bloodied and shaken. “Something terrible happened at the party,” he says, and, over five episodes, we find out exactly what.

The notion of a working-class boy thrust into a world of “glittering hedonism” isn’t exactly fresh, said Ben Dowell in The Times. Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Line of Beauty” covered this ground, as did “Saltburn” more recently. But this drama “sings its own plangent song”, and the series features some “beautiful” performances, too. The young Martin’s awkward Christmas viewing of “Coronation Street” with his mum is “particularly heartbreaking”.

It’s a shame that the main themes – class, sexuality and repression – are not more forensically explored, said Phil Harrison in The Independent. We never really discover why these two men behave the way they do. A fine supporting cast, meanwhile, feels underused. Still, the series is very entertaining. “It’s not a party you’d want to attend, but it’s one you’ll happily, voyeuristically observe with a shudder.”

“As a teacher of young girls, her behaviour today would see her cancelled, de-platformed and almost certainly up in court,” said Magnus Linklater in The Times. At a private girls’ school in 1930s Edinburgh, Jean Brodie indoctrinates her pupils with her fascist politics, goes in for sexual grooming, and is having an affair with a fellow teacher.

She is “every headteacher’s nightmare”, and yet she is also brilliant. She fosters an elite set of girls who, she says, are the “crème de la crème”, and she encourages them to have the highest of ambitions.

Maggie Smith won an Oscar for her performance as this extraordinary character in the 1969 film version of Muriel Spark’s book. And in Vicky Featherstone’s stunning new stage production, Gayle Rankin makes her “more extraordinary still”, said Mark Fisher in The Guardian. Sharp-tongued, bohemian and sexually forthright, this Brodie is as impossible to ignore as an “exotic moth”. Pupils and staff love or loathe her, and “you never doubt why”. But only one teenager, Sandy, sees through her, and brings her down as if she were a Coriolanus or a Lear, “too damaged by her private losses to see her own flaws”.

To call this National Theatre of Scotland production “spectacular is to understate the case”, said Joyce McMillan in The Scotsman. The stage is dominated by giant, pink-carpeted steps that “echo the architecture of the great fascist arenas of 1930s Europe”. On a 30ft screen behind them, images of great works of art and fascist rallies “haunt the moments between scenes”. Such visual grandeur could have overwhelmed the action but the formidable cast prove a match for it, and, while David Harrower’s adaptation is long, it never loses pace. It builds to a “devastating” end.

Rankin is magnificent, said Mark Brown in The Telegraph, and she is supported brilliantly by everyone from Maureen Beattie as the headteacher to the “superb” five-strong ensemble who play the Brodie girls. This is terrific narrative theatre, “atmospheric, visceral and cerebral”.
Lyceum, Edinburgh, to 18 October, then touring Scotland to 7 November

Look up when you enter the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall and “you won’t be able to stop looking up – because it’s raining musical instruments”, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian.

If Tarek Atoui had “just left it at that, it would still be an impressive, intriguing installation”, but the Lebanese artist takes things a step further. His “sculptural creations” are set alongside an “ever-changing” soundscape including an “earth-shaking bass note” that “throbs from a hanging trumpet”. Together, “it’s entrancing”: the installation is an “interconnected musical machine”.

After last year’s “debacle” that saw Máret Ánne Sara hang 72 reindeer hides in the Turbine Hall, the Tate has pulled things back with Atoui’s “beguiling, poetic installation”, said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. Various musical instruments appear to “float in mid-air” and from a distance “softly illuminated drum skins resemble glowing planets or moons”.

Below this “cosmic ensemble” visitors can “linger on rough-hewn, bed-like stones with a pleasingly sculptural quality”. A collection of large bowls are peppered throughout the space, “as if to catch the notes and vibrations falling like rainwater from the instruments above”.

Behind an “imposing plinth” technicians control the “swelling, ‘sonic landscape’” using mixing desks “bristling with multicoloured wires”. In this way, Atoui’s installation is “both high and low-tech”, bringing together modern technology and “something much older and more analogue, soulful and warm”.

I thought it was a flop, said Laura Freeman in The Times. Atoui has produced a work that is “visually fiddly and portentously orchestrated”. Instruments are hung alongside “various unappealing vents” and the music is mostly “muted: a generalised, Goop-y wellness-retreat backing track”. Overall it’s a “thin, mannered, cluttered commission and a waste of a magnificent space”.

Atoui’s installation is “certainly no spectacle” and lacks an “immediate wow factor”, said Jo Lawson-Tancred on artnet. His assortment of hanging instruments and wires “looks a bit like a cross between a boiler room and a mid-tier design store”. But the artist has managed to “fill the venue and redefine it”, conjuring a sculpture out of sound and asking visitors to “gather, mingle and improvise” their own sounds in response. His installation may prove “surprisingly memorable”.

This is an artist who has “grabbed the opportunity to work in this vast space with both hands”, said Jones in The Guardian. His work is “rich, ingenious, funny, sad, mystical” – it’s an installation to “lose yourself in for hours”.

Tate Modern, London, from 13 October until 11 April 2027

Forget the seven-year itch, said The Telegraph. Heterosexual couples are staying together longer, with divorces happening “a record 13 years after marriage”, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

It might not be “a case of happily ever after” but people are increasingly “turning to couples therapy and forgiving infidelity” in what is a “bleak financial landscape”.

Staying power

The 13-year figure, from 2025, is the “longest average period marriages have lasted before divorce or dissolution” since records began back in 1963 and is up from a “record low” of 8.9 years in 1985, said The Times. Record highs were also recorded in same-sex civil partnerships, with male couples lasting 13.7 years on average, while female couples went their separate ways after 13.6 years.

The broad trend of marriages lasting longer is “not solely a British phenomenon”, said The Guardian. While divorce statistics are collected differently in different countries, data from the Pew Research Center in the US shows the median length of marriages ending in divorce rose from 10 years in 2008 to 12 years in 2023. In Germany, the average length of marriage was 14.6 years in 2025, and in the Netherlands it was 14.7.

ONS figures from 2023 show the average age of first-time marriage for opposite-sex couples has reached peak levels in the UK – at 34.8 years for men and 33 years for women. This could help explain why marriages are lasting longer, Jo Edwards, head of family law at Forsters, told The Times. People are making the commitment later in life and in doing so “perhaps invest more in it emotionally”.

‘Nuclear option’

Divorce is now “more accessible than it ever has been”, Lisa Pepper, a divorce lawyer at Osbornes Law, told The Guardian, yet “couples are staying together”. One of the “less romantic reasons” for this is that rising mortgages, rent and childcare costs mean they can’t afford to separate. Instead they are trying things like couples therapy or mediation before going for the “nuclear option” of divorce.

The result, said Rebecca Aston-Jones, a senior associate at Clarke-Willmott, is that some separated couples are stuck in “unhappy or hostile living environments” as they “continue to live under the same roof” so they can share their financial assets and split household bills.

The only age demographic for whom divorce rates are on the rise is the “silver splitters” – those in their fifties and sixties and older. Many of these couples have waited until their “children have flown the nest”, Edwards told The Times, before they start divorce proceedings. Younger Gen X and millennial couples are “less likely to rush into marriage and many are choosing not to marry at all”, said Laura Mortimer, a partner at BP Collins.

Another “fundamental change” that might help to explain the figures is the rise in cohabitation, Brienna Perelli-Harris, a professor of demography at Southampton University, told The Guardian. Marriage may be becoming a more “selective institution”, with over 90% of couples living together before tying the knot. Those who move in together and figure out the relationship doesn’t work can go their separate ways. “Those who stay together and eventually marry are, my research shows, the couples who are happiest.”

“My most cherished, most powerful food memories involve two ingredients: rice and pork,” said chef Donald Link in his book “Real Cajun: Rustic Home Cooking from Donald Link’s Louisiana.” It is a common refrain for people who were raised in the prairies and bayous of southern Louisiana.

The rice is there in the region’s popular eggplant dressing, dirty rice with chicken livers and in crawfish pies. Pork appears as cracklins, those deep-fried nubbins of seasoned pork belly and in all manner of Deep South charcuterie. Rice and pork even tango together in the region’s legendary sausage called boudin. Donald Link, born in southwest Louisiana, is the owner of a handful of restaurants in New Orleans, and “Real Cajun” takes you on a personal tour of all these tastes of his homeland, plus legions more.

Two foundational ingredients

No two boudins are alike, but the “truth is, they are all good,” said Link in his book. If you have had the privilege of eating multiple boudins from different shops, you know Link spills facts. His stars both pork shoulder and liver, plus two types of fresh chiles, a glut of spices and, of course, white rice.

Lima beans appear in a stew alongside smoked sausage; a suave pork roast is served over, yes, rice. Even chicken thighs are stuffed with sausage. Pork is ubiquitous, and rice nearly as much so, appearing in a gratin with zucchini, a soup with chicken and a fritter known as calas.

And beyond

Freshness and fiber are everywhere across “Real Cajun” too. Tender lettuces are slicked with a scallion-buttermilk dressing. Tomatoes bring a lush tang to stewed okra.

A sweet finish is obligatory. So there are recipes for satsuma-buttermilk pie, chocolate-pecan tart, blueberry cobbler and a staple of Link’s youth: lemon meringue pie. Man cannot live on rice and pork alone.