Latest news with #Pepa
Daily Mirror
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Home Bargains offers massive 82% discount on £40 Disney toy set
The toy set is currently listed on Home Bargains website as part of its StarBuys rang Home Bargains is offering Disney fans and bargain hunters a 'magical' deal with its latest StarBuys – a Disney Encanto 5 Doll Family Set worth £40, now available for £6.99. The discount retailer frequently refreshes its StarBuy selection, featuring slashed prices on homeware, toiletries, toys, beauty products, and more, often at a fraction of the recommended retail price (RRP). In a huge 82% price cut, fans of Disney and parents alike can snap up this toy set for a fraction of the usual cost. Originally priced at £40, the set has been reduced to just £6.99, allowing customers to pocket a saving of £33, reports Plymouth Live. Home Bargains says: "Walt Disney Animation Studios' 60th feature, Encanto, tells the tale of an extraordinary family, the Madrigals. The magic of the Encanto has blessed every child in the family with a unique gift. "Explore the magical world of Disney's Encanto and play out your favourite scenes with the Pepa, Felix, Antonio, Dolores, and Camilo Gift Set! Each doll comes wearing its signature outfit, just like in the movie! Pepa and Dolores wear their beautiful dresses, complete with their signature jewellery, hair accessories, and espadrille sandals!" "Felix, Camilo, and Antonio are dressed in their story's authentic outfits, and come with removable shoes!" The description continues: "Take this fantastic family of five with you, and go on your own amazing adventures!" Disney's hit film Encanto, which debuted in November 2021 and landed on Disney+ the following December, spins the enchanting tale of the Madrigal family living in a charmed house (Casita) nestled in the Colombian mountains. Mirabel, the sole Madrigal without a magical talent, embarks on a quest to rescue her family's dwindling magic and their beloved home. The toy set is suitable for children aged three and up, but not for those under three due to potential choking hazards. There is no need for batteries, and Home Bargains advises: "Adult supervision is recommended during play to ensure safety, especially with small accessories." For keeping the toys spick and span, the retailer suggests: "Wipe dolls and accessories with a damp cloth. Do not submerge in water. Avoid using harsh chemicals or abrasive cleaners." When it comes to putting the toy away, Home Bargains instructs: "Store in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight and heat sources to prevent damage." Bargain hunters rejoice as Home Bargains slashes prices on other Encanto merchandise too. Snap up an Augustin figurine for just 99p, a steal down from the usual £3.99 RRP. Felix fans can also grab his figure for the same bargain price. Elsewhere at Home Bargains, shoppers have been impressed by a large basket on sale for £19.99, a medium version for £14.99 and a small one for £9.99. TikTok user @weir_home says she "literally gasped" when she spotted the new "stunning" wicker basket planters.
Toronto Sun
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Sun
Salt-N-Pepa sue record label to reclaim rights to recordings, including 'Push It'
Published May 19, 2025 • 3 minute read Sandra Denton (Pepa), from left, DJ Spinderella, and Cheryl James (Salt) attend a ceremony honouring Salt-N-Pepa with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Friday, Nov. 4, 2022, in Los Angeles. Photo by Richard Shotwell / Invision Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Salt-N-Pepa are telling their record label not to push it as they fight for the rights to their music. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account The groundbreaking duo behind hip-hop classics including 1993's 'Shoop' and 1987's 'Push It' say in a lawsuit that Universal Music Group is violating copyright law by refusing to agree to turn over the rights to their master recordings. Cheryl 'Salt' James and Sandra 'Pepa' Denton filed the lawsuit in federal court in New York on Monday asserting that the copyright act of 1976, which says that after several decades artists can terminate previous agreements and reclaim ownership of their recordings, clearly now applies to them. The fight, which has led to UMG pulling Salt-N-Pepa's music from streaming services, comes as many artists with beloved legacies are making lucrative sales of their catalogs, while others get stuck in classic record-label battles over old contracts. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'UMG has indicated that it will hold Plaintiffs' rights hostage even if it means tanking the value of Plaintiffs' music catalogue and depriving their fans of access to their work,' the suit says. UMG representatives did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The lawsuit suggests that situations like Salt-N-Pepa's are the very reason the provision of the copyright act exists. It allows artists who made deals 'at the beginning of their careers' when they were relatively powerless to use the cultural standing and musical legacy they later established. The suit says James and Denton filed to terminate their agreement under the law in 2022, 'eager to retake full ownership of their art and legacy,' but that, 'Inexplicably, UMG has refused to honor' their rights. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. James and Denton say that by law, they should now be able to own early recordings including those from their 1986 debut album, 'Hot, Cool & Vicious,' and 1987's 'Push It,' a B-side whose remix caught on and became their breakthrough hit. They say other recordings should legally be theirs later this year and in 2026, including the 1993 album 'Very Necessary,' which includes 'Shoop' and 'Whatta Man.' The duo is seeking both actual damages for money lost and punitive damages in amounts to be determined for UMG's actions. The suit says actual damages could 'well exceed $1 million.' They also want a permanent injunction confirming their rights to the recordings. They said by pulling the songs from streaming and other commercial platforms, the label has 'maliciously punished' Salt-N-Pepa 'for daring to assert their rights.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The label's lawyers said in letters included as exhibits in the lawsuit that they have encouraged mediation and want to reach a 'mutually acceptable resolution.' But the UMG lawyers said in the letters that James and Denton were not even personally parties in the 1986 agreement that covered their initial albums, and there is no evidence that they granted the label copyright that they can now reclaim. UMG maintains that the recordings were 'works made for hire,' which would not allow for the reclaiming of rights. Salt-N-Pepa's lawsuit says the women's agreements with the label make it very clear that they were not. The Queens, New York, duo of James and Denton became Salt-N-Pepa in 1985. They were later joined by DJ Spinderella, who was not part of the early agreements under dispute and is not involved in the lawsuit. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Salt-N-Pepa boldly changed the look of rap and hip-hop,' the lawsuit says. 'They were not afraid to talk about sex and to share their thoughts about men. Their sound recordings 'Let's Talk About Sex' and 'None of Your Business,' for example, were huge hits. They talked candidly about women's sexuality and empowerment when such topics were frowned upon, heavily criticized, and called taboo.' In 1995 they became the first female rap group to win a Grammy, and in 2021, they received a Grammy lifetime achievement award. Later this year they'll become members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame when they receive the organization's Musical Influence Award.
Time Out
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
If the leading lady of a daytime telenovela was to read too many pop-psychology books while downing a double Espresso Martini, you might get something close to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. This musical comedy based on Pedro Almodóvar's 1988 cinema cult classic is given a neon-lit, red-curtained makeover at Sydney's Hayes Theatre. With precision taking a backseat to passion, director Alexander Berlage (Cry-Baby, American Psycho) delivers a stylish descent into screwball mania. The action takes place in Madrid, Spain, where Amy Hack 's (Yentl) heartbroken actress, Pepa, is having a terrible, very bad day, which we see play out from depressive start to high-flung resolution. Her lover Iván breaks up with her over answering machine, and thus, her Odyssey-styled mission to find and confront him begins. Along the journey, Pepa butts heads with Iván's scorned ex-wife Lucia (Tisha Keleman), his son and his own frustrated fiancée, as well as her wildly unravelling best friend, Candela (Grace Driscoll). With a book by Jeffrey Lane (known for his musical adaption of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and music and lyrics by David Yazbek (Dead Outlaw), the original Broadway production of Women on the Verge had a relatively short lifespan – closing soon after it received poor reviews, and even poorer ticket sales. This is where Berlage's adept hand at re-inventing cult flops takes charge – finding a space for his avant-garde style through sharp angles, frenetic choreography, and psychosexual vignettes. His style is well matched by Phoebe Pilcher 's discordantly placed, evocative and frenzied lighting design, which effectively fills the space with the heat of the Spanish sun. Alexander Berlage (Cry-Baby, American Psycho) delivers a stylish descent into screwball mania Berlage has a reputation for breathing new life into former musical flops, and likewise, this production aims to move the material beyond a generic film-to-stage adaptation and lean into a clever, subversive vision. Women on the Verge skewers the most Shakespearean of plot points – love – and of course, the root cause of everyone's problems – men. (And underneath that is Greta Gerwig's favourite nemesis: the patriarchy.) The men in the piece may seem as vapid as those in the Barbie movie, but the bite of the women is more akin to Fleabag – dishevelled as they may appear, you don't want to cross them on a bad day. Hack demonstrates the utmost commitment to her characterisation of Pepa, with subtle nuances in her emotional state giving way to strident outbursts – she is quite literally the picture of a woman on the verge. Her accent is held firm through both dialogue and song, while her flinging and flailing of bags, sunglasses and telephones is a superb lesson in choreographed chaos. Driscoll's lust-lorn model, Candela, holds elastic characterisation and physicality, taking outlandish shapes and forms that are at times absurdly hilarious. Her patter song, 'Model Behaviour', reads like both an ode and challenge to the late great Stephen Sondheim himself. Meanwhile, Keleman's overlooked and vengeful wife Lucia is a woman who now seeks to get back the years lost to an untrustworthy man. As her son, Carlos, Tomas Kantor is our most grounded male character, still led by his base instincts, yes, but at least he has a good heart through which the blood is pumped. Playing opposite as his fiance, Nina Carcione 's doe-eyed stare cuts through the space, drawing attention to her excellent knack for non-verbal comedic timing. Chiara Assetta 's choreography is tasked with the olympic-sized hurdle of navigating around the congested set, and meets the challenge. The use of streamers instead of solid walls allows hands, faces, and limbs to appear and disappear with ease, while a large bed for one red-hot set piece blocks out a great portion of the space. It's swiftly executed choreography that has our characters dancing around, over and throughout the sharp angles of Hailley Hunt 's set design, which quite aptly reflects the slowly decaying psychosexual tensions of the show's characters. The production's take on Spanish characteristics is somewhat hit and miss. Sometimes, in the same vein as Lady Gaga in House of Gucci: thickly accented, but imbued with enough commitment to the bit that it works. But at the same time, also a little like Jared Leto in House of Gucci: absurd, over-the-top, and somewhat inconsistent. Aaron Robuck 's narrator/taxi driver seems an innocuous enough plot device in the grand scheme of the piece, and the character's disjointed nature isn't helped by Lane's underdeveloped book. Popping up throughout to (quite literally) transport Pepa between main set pieces, accordion in hand, the script takes what is meant to be the show's MC and replaces it with a big question mark on his purpose. On opening night, the sound levels seemed unbalanced – a weakness in a piece driven by dense lyrics and rapid tempo. Dylan Pollard 's musical direction, whilst being able to give the score a toe-tapping beat that's liable to make your hips shake, drowned out the enunciation from our fast-talking, thick-accented characters. Nonetheless, this stylish production makes a meal out of an undercooked script, and Hack's leading performance is especially worthwhile – her Pepa is as lived-in and layered as she is hysterical. The most poignant, powerful and purposeful moments of the show come when all five women are together in unison, particularly in the final moments, which offer the most quiet and peaceful state of the evening. This is what it looks like when women on the brink take back their power – in four-part harmony.
