Last Swim review – rising star Deba Hekmat is magnetic in exam results day drama
In Sasha Nathwani's Berlin film festival prize-winning Last Swim, Hekmat gets the starring role of Ziba, a high-achieving A-level student whose carefully planned day of celebration with her friends is clouded by an ominous diagnosis and a question mark over the future. Sunny, soulful, if a little montage-heavy at times, this is a more conventional film. Hekmat's magnetic star quality, though, is unmistakable: she's a free and fascinating presence.
In UK and Irish cinemas
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Spectator
15 minutes ago
- Spectator
The Daughter of Time was worth the wait
That it has taken its sweet time getting here cannot be denied, but, at last, it has happened. More than 70 years after the novel by Josephine Tey became an overnight sensation in 1951, a stage adaptation of The Daughter of Time has arrived in the West End. Voted the greatest crime novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association back in 1990, The Daughter of Time is Tey's most unusual but brilliant detective story. It's her most unusual because its sees her Inspector Alan Grant – the central character in five of her detective stories – solving a crime from his hospital bed while recovering from a broken leg. And it's arguably her most brilliant because the crime he solves is one of British history's coldest and most high-profile cases – who murdered the Princes in the Tower in 1483. Yet while it's a brilliant book, because most of the action happens either inside Grant's head or in his hospital room, it has probably been judged undramatisable – until now. Playing at the Charing Cross Theatre just off Villiers Street, American playwright M. Kilburg Reedy's stage adaption takes Tey's classic and serves it up with a leavening Shakespearian twist. And what a historical tour de force it is. If you don't know your 15th-century history or House of York genealogy, you certainly will do after an evening here (the programme helpfully includes a family tree). We begin with Grant, who believes he can discern an individual's character through their face, so when his friend – glamorous actress Marta Hallard (played to the nines by Rachel Pickup) – brings him a selection of historical pictures to peruse, he becomes obsessed by the portrait of Richard III. This man doesn't resemble the devious hunchback of history who schemed his way to the throne and then had his nephews murdered in the Tower of London. If anything he looks cautious, thinks Grant (played with great bravura by Rob Pomfret) – sober, decent, more suited to the bench than the dock. So, since he's a detective and has nothing better to do, Grant embarks on a police-style investigation – complete with a board, map and pinned-up photographs of key individuals all connected with string – where with assistance from his sergeant (the excellent Sanya Adegbola) and a young lovelorn American named Brent Carradine (played by Harrison Sharpe, who nearly walks off with the show) he examines the contemporary and near-contemporary evidence for what really happened to the sons of Edward IV – namely Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York. What Grant discovers doesn't match up with what the traditional history and Tudor propagandists would have us believe. Chief among those propagandists was, of course, William Shakespeare. His history play Richard III was written in the early 1590s and was required to align with the sentiments of Elizabeth I, granddaughter of the man who defeated Richard III at Bosworth Field in 1485 – Henry Tudor. Rarely in the history of drama (probably not until Alan Rickman gave us Hans Gruber in Die Hard, anyway) has such a delicious, vile but downright charismatic villain ever been conceived as the Bard's 'poisonous bunch-backed toad'. The problem is that the play Shakespeare wrote was mostly rubbish, based on a fishy narrative written by Thomas More in the 1510s. What Tey's book did so expertly was to take Thomas More's version and tear it to pieces, largely by drawing on records and evidence that was much closer to the events described than More ever was. In Reedy's stage play, the same meticulous dissection takes place; so what we get is a journey through historical evidence that exposes the inconsistencies and omissions of the sources and the evidence upon which Shakespeare concocted his version of Richard III. And it's a historical romp – one delivered with all the impassion vim of Simon Schama after his second round of Weetabix. Of course, since it's a dramatisation there are deviations from the original. First, Reedy has taken the implied romance between Grant and Marta Hallard from the book and turned it into a full-blown subplot, one which turns – irony of ironies – on an act of deception that could have graced the pages of a Shakespeare comedy. This however fits remarkably neatly with another change introduced by Reedy, which is to use a Shakespearian actor, Simon Templeton (played brilliantly by Noah Huntley), to give voice to the Tudor 'case' against Richard III. And it works. While Tey's original dialogue is flawless – and Reedy used as much of it as she could, she says – there is so much more to the play, and many more laughs than one would have expected too (thanks not least to the nurses played by Hafsa Abbasi and Janna Fox). For fans of the book, the most significant change to the story comes in the selection of the killer of the young princes. Drawing on original sources, the playwright has come to a different conclusion – but it's one which I think holds just as much water as Tey's prime suspect. It certainly works in the context of the play, even if there are many people around now who believe (based on sound evidence by the way) that both princes actually survived the reign of Richard III and didn't die at all in 1483. What would Tey have made of the playwright's handiwork? I'm not sure she would have approved of the romantic subplot, since she never chose to marry Grant off herself and she could have done in his last outing (The Singing Sands of 1952), published posthumously. But – and it's an important but – the rest of it, I think, is spot on. At the heart of her book is the very probable innocence of Richard III and the concomitant calumny done against him ever since, something this lively play brings indisputably to life. 'Truth is the daughter of time, not authority,' is the Francis Bacon quote that inspired the title. Time will tell if this is the play that finally gets Richard III off the historical naughty step. The Daughter of Time is at the Charing Cross Theatre until 13 September.
Daily Mirror
43 minutes ago
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Tourist on holiday in Spanish resort finds empty sunbeds for unexpected reason
A Married at First Sight UK star went on holiday in Palma, Majorca and shared that there were plenty of empty sunbeds at the resort he stayed at for a surprising reason Many Brits like to go away on European beach holidays at this time of year seeking sun and hot weather that we don't get a lot of in the UK in summer. It's not unusual for it to rain and be a bit cold in Britain during this season and there might even be strong winds and storms, like Storm Floris that hit the UK on Monday, August 4. This dreary weather is what prompts Brits to get on a plane and take a flight to holiday destinations in Europe, including Spain, Greece and Italy. Plenty of tourists dream of laying on a sunbed around a pool with the sun beaming down on them and there have been multiple reports of 'sunbed wars' in resorts. However, when Kieran Chapman, known for starring on Married at First Sight in 2024, stayed at a resort in Palma, Majorca he didn't have to wait for a free sunbed at all. He shared a clip on TikTok showing that they were all empty due to the unexpected heavy rain. Despite this, the TV star still lounged on a sunbed and seemed to enjoy the very wet weather as he laid down in a relaxed position with his eyes closed. Palma is the capital city of Majorca, Spain and the largest of the Balearic Islands. It is popular for its beaches, nightlife and climate as it is often sunny and warm in the summer months with little rain so it appears that Kieran got unlucky with the weather. The TikTok video shows that the celebrity, from Newcastle, didn't mind getting soaked by the pouring rainfall. No other guests at the resort can be seen in the clip so Kieran, who is a mechanic, got to enjoy some peace and quiet without letting the British style weather ruin his time. The post has no audio apart from the viral Jet2holidays voiceover meme that has been added to many funny travel videos on TikTok. Kieran's clip has garnered 362,800 views, 16,200 likes and more than 200 comments, at the time of writing. Viewers found humour in the video as one said: 'The rays still get to you through the clouds.' Another added: 'When you're used to English weather.' While a third chimed in: 'That's probably more relaxing than lying in the hot sun.' Someone else commented: 'No towels on the sun beds, get innnn.' A fifth had a similar thought as they remarked: 'At least there's no queues for the chairs.' Others left comments, such as 'this made me laugh', 'making the most of it' and 'I'm actually howling.' The Newcastle mechanic isn't the first holidaymaker to experience this as others have been met with rain in hotspots that are usually sunny and shared similar clips on social media.
Daily Mirror
43 minutes ago
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American in the UK baffled by Jaffa Cakes but everyone tells her the same thing
Though both countries speak the same language, there are many differences between life in the US and here in the UK - and one American woman couldn't wrap her head around Jaffa Cakes An American who moved to the UK to 'protect her peace' has been left baffled after spotting Jaffa Cakes in the supermarket. Despite speaking the same language as our friends across the pond, there's still a world of cultural differences between the US and the UK. Many Americans often take to social media to share their surprise over unexpected or unusual products they've spotted, the social rules and etiquette they've encountered, their battles with weather, and much more after relocating to England. One woman found herself perplexed after she saw Jaffa Cakes being sold in the biscuit aisle. The trusty Jaffa Cake, by best-selling biscuit manufacturer McVitie's, is a British icon. The sweet and tangy treat is concocted with a sponge base with a chunky layer of orange flavoured jam, which is then topped with a generous dark chocolate layer. The first Jaffa Cake was created almost 100 years ago and now they're a firm favourite in many supermarkets and stores across the nation, with in-house versions aplenty. Regardless of whether it's the original McVitie's Jaffa Cake or an own-brand version, they're typically found in the biscuit aisle despite being legally considered a cake after a 1991 VAT ruling. This is where American woman Elizabeth Walker's confusion stemmed from. In a popular TikTok video, the content creator penned: 'Protected my peace so hard I moved to another country and now drink hot tea in 40 degree weather (sometimes I'll put the milk in first) but am really confused as to why Jaffa Cakes are called cakes and not biscuits." The video was inundated with reactions, amassing more than 7.3 million views, 449,000 likes, 10,900 saves and over 2,000 comments from people keen to share their thoughts. One person said: 'When stale, biscuits go soft and cakes go hard. It was a legal case that Jaffa won with that argument to keep the name cake." Someone else said: 'For tax reasons mostly! And they are cakey on the bottom.' A third person commented: 'Anyone that tells you Jaffa Cakes are biscuits want to see you fail they're literally made with sponge cake." Someone else explained: 'McVitie's went to court, where it was decided by the judge that Jaffa Cakes were a cake, not a biscuit. That meant 0% VAT (cakes), rather than 20% (biscuits).' Another person simply added: 'Because they're cakes." After the strong reactions, Elizabeth created a follow up video in which she lip-synched to the lyrics 'it's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me' from Taylor Swift 's hit 2022 song, Anti-Hero. Over the top of the footage, she added the text: 'I was genuinely confused about Jaffa Cakes. Everyone in the comments: hold my beer." In the caption, Elizabeth quipped: 'Just a confused girl standing in front of TikTok asking it to not scream at her about milk in tea and tax codes.' In the comments section, one TikTok user replied: 'Ha! You did start it." Elizabeth replied: 'I didn't know what I was starting," with a crying laughing emoji.
