Latest news with #RichardBurton
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Behind the Scenes: The Dramatic Lives of Philip Burton; Yankeeland; Soft Tissue Damage
Behind the Scenes: The Dramatic Lives of Philip Burton by Angela V. John (Parthian, £20) A talented writer, teacher and producer, Philip Burton (1904-95) recognised the potential of his young protégé, born Richard Jenkins, helping propel him into Richard Burton (he took Philip's surname) and box-office stardom. He brought the young actor from the south Wales town of Port Talbot to the London stage and on to the glamour of Hollywood. This study draws on previously unseen sources, bringing Philip Burton for the first time into the spotlight. In the 1950s, he moved to the US, working as a theatre director and delivering Shakespearean lecture-recitals, before settling in Florida, where he spent his final years writing books. The biography is published 100 years after the actor's birth and coincides with the release of the biopic, Mr Burton, starring Toby Jones. – Paul Clements Yankeeland by Lacy Fewer (Köehlerbooks, £23.95) In 19th-century Wexford, Brigid Kelly and her cousin Molly dream of a new life in America. They call it 'Yankeeland'– a place featured in the fashion magazines they smuggle past Brigid's pious stepmother and in the stories of their aristocratic neighbour. Soon, Brigid and her husband emigrate; Molly is left behind. Drawn to the unfamiliar, Brigid lands in Lily Dale, New York, where she's captivated by the radical ideas of Spiritualism and women's suffrage. Yankeeland is historical fiction based on Fewer's family, beginning when Brigid's grandniece (Fewer's surrogate) uncovers her letters. As a result, Yankeeland's characters feel idealised, and they often shapeshift to meet the demands of the plot. In the end, the novel's careful handling of its real subject – shame – is well-rendered and timeless. – Kristen Malone Poli READ MORE Soft Tissue Damage by Anna Whitwham (Rough Trade Books, £14.99) 'You're concussed', the author is told, in the final line of the opening chapter of this powerful memoir. She has just emerged from the boxing ring. 'Mum's cancer…' are the two words that proceed. It is through boxing and the actualisation of pain, that the journalist and author of award-winning novel, Boxer Handsome, learns to process grief and recover her long-held instinct to hurt herself. 'I needed to be hurt to know how not to be hurt' she writes. The author presents an almost addictive discipline in her writing that is clean and taut; Whitham knows how to stun, without knocking her reader out. The result is a unique and enthralling memoir of vulnerability, resilience and learning to protect oneself. – Brigid O'Dea
Times
26-05-2025
- Times
La Mamounia hotel review: Marrakesh's grande dame with Moroccan styling and beautiful gardens
There may be hotels in Marrakesh that are more opulent, but none can match this grande dame for its elegance, grace and one of the most beautiful hotel gardens in the world. The rose-hued walls feel knitted into the very fabric of the city. The vast, low-lit lobby leads to room upon room of soft, earthy colours, jewelled zellige tiling and intricate latticework, each filled with brushed velvet ottomans and studded-leather lounge chairs. It's all so effortlessly old school you half expect Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor to swing out of the Churchill Bar. Bars and restaurants blaze with Moroccan artistry at its most exquisite, courtyards glitter with hand-lain mosaics and the quietly charming staff ensure everyone — from young families to American millionaires — feels equally welcome. A masterclass in luxury without excess, Mamounia is a glorious oasis, right in the centre of this most chaotically charming of cities. This article contains affiliate links, which may earn us revenue Score 8/10All of Mamounia's elegant bedrooms are pretty spiffy but, if budget allows, it's worth splashing out on a Deluxe room or above for their private balconies (specify one that overlooks the gardens or Koutoubia, rather than the street). All rooms have a crisp, clean feel with arched headboards, mosaic tiling and sepia-tinged photos of Marrakesh that give a real sense of place — even before you open the curtains to see the Atlas Mountains looming in the distance. Marble bathrooms tend towards the compact in lower room categories, and only larger rooms have a bath, while suites come with spacious balconies and opulent lounges. Score 9/10The perennial complaint about Moroccan food — tagine, tagine and more tagine — has no relevance here. Four restaurants dish up almost every cuisine you might fancy, from Jean-Georges Vongerichten's trademark Asian-fusion at L'Asiatique — perhaps dim sum, followed by a Vietnamese curry or musky, miso cod — to pizzas and pasta at L'Italien. Le Marocain, housed in its own riad with three floors overlooking leafy gardens, serves up classic dishes — crispy briouates, salads with the city's signature flavours of orange, almond and preserved lemons — and an elegant breakfast and lunch buffet is laid out in Le Pavillon de la Piscine. It could take all day to to do justice to the spectacular breakfast — fresh patisserie, handmade breads, jams, eggs a dozen different ways — but leave room for afternoon tea, taken beneath shady palms at the Pierre Hermé salon. It's an indulgence not to be missed. • Discover our full guide to Marrakesh• Best hotels in Marrakesh Score 9/10If you can raise yourself from a shady hammock (or a lounger by the glittering pool) there's tennis, boules and table tennis, with yoga and Pilates classes and personal training sessions at the gym. Kids of all ages will love the Salle de Jeux — a retro games room with pinball machines, pool tables and board games, while gifts can be picked up at the clutch of small boutiques, selling jewellery, clothes and gifts by local designers and famous names. The spa — where pools shimmer beneath scallop-edged archways and exquisite tilework gleams in flickering candlelight — is one of the city's best. There's a private hammam and, with two of the ten treatment rooms set up for couples, it's a wonderfully romantic retreat. Score 9/10Many of Marrakesh's luxury hotels are a taxi journey away from the medina. La Mamounia's location, just in front of the city's Koutoubia mosque, is a major plus. The storytellers, snake-charmers and smoke-tinged food stalls of the extraordinary Djemaa el-Fna are just a few minutes' stroll away, with the labyrinthine medina unfolding beyond it. For something a little less hectic, the calmer streets of the Ville Nouvelle are a ten-minute taxi ride away. Price room-only doubles from £380Restaurant mains from £23Family-friendly YAccessible N • Best riads in Marrakesh• Best restaurants in Marrakesh
Time Out
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
A hit stage adaptation of John Le Carré's classic ‘The Spy Who Came In from the Cold' is heading to London's West End
John Le Carré's 1963 book The Spy Who Came In from the Cold is quite probably the greatest spy novel of all time and certainly one of the greatest works of English literature to come out of the Cold War. A critically acclaimed but film adaptation starring Richard Burton came out in 1965, and a new TV miniseries has allegedly been in the works for years, but it's never really had a truly iconic adaptation a la Le Carré's borderline ubiquitous Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Maybe its first adaptation as a play could be the one. Written by veteran playwright David Eldridge and directed by heavyweight former Headlong boss Jeremy Herrin, this inaugural stage version of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold scored great notices at the prestigious Chichester Festival Theatre last year and now it's heading our way. It stars Irish actor Rory Keenan as hardbitten Cold War spy Alec Leamas – on the cusp of returning from the field after the elimination of his East German network of agents, he's pushed by spymaster George Smilie into just one more job. But as he stages a defection to the other side, matter become hugely complicated when he falls for idealistic librarian Liz Gold. Agnes O'Casey and John Ramm return as Liz and Smilie. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is at @sohoplace, Nov 17-Feb 21 2026.
Daily Mirror
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Michael Sheen and the Daily Mirror give working class authors 'A Writing Chance'
Writers from Michael Sheen's 'A Writing Chance' project mentored by Mirror journalists see their work in print As an ordinary kid growing up in South Wales, I dreamed of being an actor. That might have seemed unusual, but back then I had Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins to look up to – people who'd grown up like me and gone on to be successful. There were more books, films, play and TV shows created by working class people too, from 'A Taste of Honey' to 'Boys from the Black Stuff'. All that gave me confidence to have a go myself. But in the last few decades, things changed. It's become much tougher for people from ordinary backgrounds to get their stories heard. Today, half of published authors have middle-class backgrounds – but just 10 per cent are working-class. We know that kids from all walks of life enjoy reading at school, and working-class people are some of the best story tellers out there, so somewhere, somehow, something's going wrong. That's why I worked with the Daily Mirror to launch 'A Writing Chance', a project to find and support new working-class writers from across the UK. We've already found fantastic storytellers – one, Tom Newlands, wrote one of the big hits of 2024, 'Only Here, Only Now'. Here you can read some of the work produced by our latest writers, who have been mentored by brilliant Mirror journalists. It's renewed my belief that as Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry said, "the really successful work" happening at the moment "tends to be working-class writers telling working-class stories." In the future we're going to be publishing more stories like this in The Bee, a new magazine which will be a home for working class writers. I hope you'll read it – and, if you have a tale to tell, maybe write for us as well? Justice and fairness demand that people from the less well-off sections of society have the chance to tell their stories, and to get them heard. But it's also about common sense. When we surveyed working-class people who like to read, 63 per cent said that representation was important, and that they'd like to see more people like themselves on the pages. There's an untapped market out there. Perhaps, most important of all, the most urgent, revelatory and entertaining stories – the ones we most want to hear – so often come from those who are excluded, or who struggle to be heard. I've always believed that telling stories is an important way to make change in the world – and levelling the playing field for writers has to be a change for the better. I believe that as we encourage working people to write, they will inspire others to be creative, just as working-class actors and writers inspired me. Sue Townsend was working-class, disabled, and unapologetically loyal to my community in Leicester. She tackled serious issues with wit and heart – and she gave hope to people like me. She showed me our lives — council estates, illness, hardship — were worth writing about. We often hear what's "wrong" with council estates. But what about what's right? Activism, humour, and community resilience were led by women like Sue and my nana Winnie, who didn't want credit. They just wanted change. Sue wasn't just a writer — she was a movement. Her voice gave working-class people visibility without patronising or exaggerating. She found the extraordinary in ordinary life and shared it with honesty. Sue moved to Eyres Monsell, a Leicester council estate, in the late 60s. By the early 70s, Sue was a struggling single mum of three young children. When her son asked, "Why can't we go to the zoo like other kids?" the seed of Adrian Mole was planted. During the 70s, Sue met my nana, Winnie Aldwinckle. Winnie lived on the next estate, known as The Saff, where Sue worked – and was a powerhouse, co-founding the Parents' Association in 1973. Her grassroots activism mirrored Sue's — both women used media to create change. Winnie regularly contributed to the Leicester Mercury, often collaborating with journalist Adam Wakelin. She even had her column, Winnie's World — a podcast before podcasts. She talked, Wakelin wrote. All voluntary, all for the community. When the Goldhill Adventure Playground faced closure, Sue and Winnie camped out to protest — and they won. Upon Winnie's passing in 2013, Sue co-wrote her obituary with Wakelin for the Leicester Mercury — Sue's last known publication before her own death in 2014. She wrote, "If anything went wrong on the estate, we called on Winnie. You had a good chance of winning if she was on your side." Sue won, too — not by selling out or moving away, but by staying loyal to Leicester and writing truthfully about the people who lived there. By Sunita Thind 'You smell of curry', 'Sunita, you got a tache, gorilla', 'Oi, Coconut f*ck off home,' were some of the taunts I grew up with. For people like me who have an invisible disability and are from a minority background, this is just a way of life. But raising a problem in Asian society makes you the problem. 'Chup kar' – keep quiet, keep it to yourself – our elders would say in Punjabi. In my community, we were not educated on such dirty matters as sex, periods, and other taboo subjects because we were a conservative community. And nor was I taught at school to be proud of my multiple cultures and heritage, or about the hidden histories of the British Empire, Partition, or India's contribution to fighting two world wars. But after facing infertility, surgical menopause, hair loss, loss of my ovaries and fertility my family were there to lift me up, including my husband and silver-tipped Samoyed dog, Ghost. At my beautiful Sikh wedding with my handsome white husband, I finally felt proud of the cultures and customs I used to reject but are part of my DNA. The men in my family came over from Malaysian and Singapore. My Grandad eventually had a corner shop, my dad worked very hard, long hours at the Brickyard. I loved singing the Christian hymns at school, but when the doors closed it was my family, community and Gurdwara that gave me a spiritual sense of myself as well delicious Indian food. We supported each other with the food we made, spices fragrant as our souls, bonding over special festivals like Diwali, Vasaki (Sikh Harvest festival), and Guru Nanak's birthday, Rakhi. If you are Caucasian, you are an expat, if you are a person of colour, you are an immigrant, migrant, refugee. We are still on the outside of the looking glass with our hands and faces pressed against it, desiring belonging. By Zainab Amer I write because of my community, not in spite of it. I'm working-class, with English and Egyptian roots. My childhood summers were spent in Egypt, surrounded by family, food, and laughs. It was also the first time I saw real poverty. It shook me and still does. I knew even then: these stories mattered. Being a working-class writer isn't easy. The biggest challenge is access - or the lack of it: to resources, networks, and a seat at the table. I have scrubbed bathrooms, stacked shelves, and balanced armfuls of plates while my feet throbbed. Politicians insist hard graft pays off. But here's the truth: we can barely make rent. Instead, we're rewarded with housing worries, not writing submissions. Still, what I gain from my community outweighs the setbacks. I've listened to a carer who devoted 10 years to her father with dementia. I've bantered alongside retail comrades - a vital ingredient in surviving a nine-hour shift. These aren't just stories of 'struggle.' They are full of compassion, grit, and humour. As a writer, I try to carry these through every story. Every article. Every pitch. And as for my Egyptian side? In a time when negative depictions of Arabs are ubiquitous, it feels more urgent than ever to write about what I know: which is warmth, charm, and endless storytelling.
Hindustan Times
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Delhiwale: ‘Noise has increased considerably'
Every spot and corner is awash with utmost silence. The library at the India International Centre is so quiet that the awareness of one's own breathing feels intrusive. Even so, the chief librarian's disapproving notice, stuck close to the Air Quality Index meter, observes that 'we have been receiving number of complaints from users of the library that level of noise has increased considerably in the premises…' This afternoon, the IIC's members-only library is half-full. Everyone is motionless, while the bookless world outside the library's glass wall is looking otherworldly. With her back to those exteriors, a white-haired woman is absorbed in a slim novel, a slight smile lighting up her face. All the other people in the library are glued to their screens. Some have claimed the computer terminals on the 'Internet kiosk.' Others have their own laptop. This is ironical, for the library is rich with books of great physical beauty, some of which are almost like objects of art. The bindings alone on a few of these volumes are grand, as venerable as any museum exhibit. Additionally, two racks are devoted to well-worn dictionaries. A much longer rack is padded with encyclopaedias of many kinds. Elsewhere, shelf after shelf is packed with precious editions. Such as the blue hardbacks of Arabian Nights (Richard Burton translation). An entire network of shelves is devoted to books by Gandhi, and books on Gandhi—with titles like 'Beloved Bapu: the Gandhi-Mirabehn Correspondence,' and 'Let's Kill Gandhi: Chronicle Of His Last Days, The Conspiracy, Murder. Investigations And Trial.' The glass cabinet containing rare old editions of Kipling and Shakespeare is sadly locked. In the room devoted to books on art, a corner shelf is topped with a huge illustrated volume on the Himalayas, 'gifted by Dr Manmohan Singh.' A hardbound on the great Rodin has full-page black-and-white photos of his sculptures. The library also has a row of wood-panelled cubicles for members needing a more intense solitude. Seated on one of the desks, an elegantly attired library member with a red rose in her long black braid turns out to be artist and scholar Navina Jafa. Graciously acceding to a request, she walks to the bookshelves, and poses for a portrait. See photo.
