Latest news with #Yard
Buzz Feed
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Pedro Pascal Praised For Flying Economy To Cannes
Pedro Pascal went viral more than once at Cannes this year — most recently for describing himself as a 'lazy 50-year-old bougie bitch.' Iconic! Now, Pedro has garnered attention once more after it was revealed that the star had flown economy to the French film festival, where his upcoming western Eddington premiered. USA Today published a video of Pedro boarding an economy flight from London to France, which was purportedly recorded by filmmaker and influencer Lucas Pelizaro. And while acknowledging that yes, the bar is 'on the floor,' numerous fans have praised the star for choosing economy for a short-haul flight* as they pointed out that many celebrities splurge on private jets for ridiculously short trips. As we all know, many celebs have faced increasing backlash in recent years for their private jet usage. Perhaps most notably, Kylie Jenner was branded a 'full time climate criminal' in 2022 after it was revealed that she'd used her jet to take flights as short as 17 minutes. Meanwhile, stars like Travis Scott, Taylor Swift, and Kim Kardashian were exposed for their excessive private jet usage too, according to research conducted by sustainability-driven digital marketing agency Yard. With this in mind, several fans branded Pedro a 'climate conscious king' as they commended his decision to fly commercial to Cannes. 'This man is in the news every day for doing good things,' one person said. 'Protect him at all costs,' someone else wrote. 'Clearly he just wants to be a regular guy treated like regular folks,' one more user said, while others named-dropped Taylor Swift and Travis Scott as they suggested other celebrities should 'take notes' from Pedro. You can check out more of our Cannes-related coverage right here.
Irish Independent
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
UK Conservative leader Badenoch demands prosecution of rap group Kneecap over ‘dead Tory' claim
Footage from a concert allegedly showed a group member saying 'the only good Tory is a dead Tory'UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has now demanded the prosecution of rap trioScotland Yard is looking into the incident, along with another concert from November 2024 in which a member of the band appeared to shout 'up Hamas, up Hezbollah'Badenoch previously blocked a government grant to the bilingual Belfast group while she was business secretary
Time Out
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
‘It was high chaos': the death and rebirth of London's coolest theatre
Of all the new theatres to open in London this century, none feel so vital as the Yard. Built in just a few weeks in 2011, from reclaimed materials – including some dubiously acquired scaffold planks and unwanted lino scavenged from the Olympic development – the Hackney Wick venue was billed as a pop-up when it opened with an eccentric programme of theatre that bore little resemblance to anything being staged elsewhere in the city. Early shows include a jokey micro-budget adaptation of John Bunyan's epic Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress (A Progress), a show about the mathematical phenomenon of emergence (Game of Life), and a 40-minute opera about a samurai rampaging through an old people's home (Manga Sister). Emerging in a then-desolate corner of east London alongside various other cultural start-ups and club nights, founder artistic director Jay Miller set up the theatre on a shoestring because it seemed cheaper than the alternatives. 'I graduated during the last recession,' he says. 'There were hardly any opportunities, I couldn't afford to live in London and I naively thought it would be easier to start a theatre than to get a job in one. The Yard was my last-chance saloon'. Since then, the Yard has not only survived but thrived, gaining Arts Council funding and playing a pivotal part in the launch of the careers of the likes of Michaela Coel, Ncuti Gatwa and director Alexander Zeldin. Late at night, it also serves as a pretty great night club: the auditorium becomes a dancefloor for an eclectic series of late-night parties. It's a model of what a modern grassroots theatre can be, and now it's about to embark upon its next chapter – following its current production, a Miller-directed take on Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, it will close its doors, be torn down and built anew in a more durable and high tech building. After all, it was never intended to last this long, and it isn't really fit for purpose for what the theatre has become – there isn't even a backstage area. The last show in the theatre as we know it is on May 10. On the eve of the old Yard's destruction, Miller reflects on the theatre's past, present and future. What was your vision for the Yard when you launched it? 'The truth is that in the first year there was no business plan, there was no sense of what precisely it was that I wanted to do with it. It was more just following an instinct and impulse and a bunch of energy. Fundamentally I was really frustrated [about lack of opportunities in London theatre at the time] and really bored, and so that energy – rather than intellectual rigor – defined it.' Well it worked! 'Yeah! But I didn't realise how difficult it would be.' Can you give a flavour of what the early days were like? 'It was high chaos. I slept in what is now the female toilets for a few months because the door shutter wouldn't close and because I really couldn't afford rent. We got some money for a little garden from a lovely charity and unbeknownst to us people started growing weed in it. Every Friday a man would phone up asking, really politely, if he could turn up naked. We thought about it for a while and in the end I was like: no, that's probably going to make other people feel uncomfortable.' Was it always the plan to have clubbing as part of the Yard's programming? 'I moved to London in 2010 and it felt like the height of [legendary avant-garde club night] Shunt. I only went once, but I thought it was absolutely brilliant, and I was really inspired by the idea that you could give people a different context by which to engage with experimental performance. If that involved booze, then cool, if that involved a dance, then cool. And being in Hackney Wick and wanting to attract a younger generation of artists and audiences, I knew that would be a fundamental part of the offering. We started doing parties pretty much immediately.' Do you feel you've 'made it' now? The Yard's future seems reasonably assured. 'I mean, the truth is that I never feel like that. I'll have at least one or two nights a week where I don't sleep because I'm worried about what's around the corner, it never feels secure. It's not a world in which it's possible to feel secure: we make ephemeral art and so the ephemerality of it translates to the business and the way in which the budgets are constructed.' What will the new Yard be like? 'My hope is it will be the same spirit, but the offer to audiences and artists will be better. We've been operating in a tin can: when it's cold outside, it's cold inside. When it's hot outside, it's hot inside. There's no backstage area. We're not adjusting the style, the taste, the spirit of what we do and who we are, but we are hopefully ensuring that we'll be able to deliver that in a more exciting way, in a more comfortable way and in a way that ensures that the shows and the experience of those shows is better.' We've been operating in a tin can Hackney Wick has changed enormously in the last 14 years: how do you feel about it? Do you see yourselves as gentrifiers? 'When we opened we were a group of artists making theatre in a cheap part of London. We moved in, and others moved in too. But it is impossible to escape the contemporary relationship between art and residential development. People want to live near artists. Was that our intention? Absolutely not. We just wanted to make excellent new theatre. Do I regret making excellent new theatre? No. Can I influence the cost of flats around us? No. We've worked hard to get to know our neighbours. We''ve worked with local young people for ten years on a weekly basis. We started a partnership with our local primary school – I rehearsed Glass Menagerie at Gainsborough School. What hasn't changed is that Hackney Wick remains a place people go to have a good time.'
The Guardian
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Robert Icke's modern-day Oedipus triumphs at Critics' Circle theatre awards
A modern-day version of Oedipus, which turned Sophocles' tragic leader into a politician awaiting election results, has won three prizes at the Critics' Circle theatre awards. Robert Icke won best director for the production (which he adapted), with Mark Strong named best actor and Lesley Manville best actress. All three are up for Olivier awards next month. Receiving ecstatic reviews, Oedipus became a hot ticket at Wyndham's theatre after previous runs using actors from Internationaal Theater Amsterdam at the Edinburgh festival and in the Netherlands. The other victorious actors at the awards, voted for by professional theatre critics who are members of the Critics' Circle, were Francesca Amewudah-Rivers with her West End debut and Danny Sapani for his King Lear. Amewudah-Rivers was named best newcomer for her performance as Juliet, opposite Tom Holland, in Jamie Lloyd's version of Romeo & Juliet at the Duke of York's theatre. Sapani was recognised with the award for best Shakespearean performance; his Lear was directed by Yaël Farber at the Almeida. Mark Rosenblatt received two awards for his debut play, Giant, an exploration of author Roald Dahl's antisemitism. Rosenblatt was named most promising playwright and also received the Michael Billington award for best new play, named in honour of the Guardian's former chief theatre critic. Giant ran last year at the Royal Court and will transfer to the West End next month, with John Lithgow resuming his role as Dahl. Frankie Bradshaw was named best designer in recognition of two National Theatre shows: Ballet Shoes and Dear Octopus. The prize for best musical went to the Regent's Park Open Air theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof which is transferring to the Barbican and has been nominated for a record-tying 13 Olivier awards. In 2023 the Critics' Circle announced that it would incorporate the Empty Space Peter Brook award for innovative venue as one of its categories. This year's winner is the Yard theatre in east London, which artistic director Jay Miller launched in a warehouse in 2011. The Yard is staging its final production, The Glass Menagerie, in its current home before the theatre is demolished. Having raised more than £6m in capital funding, it will move into a new 220-seat venue, designed by Takero Shimazaki Architects, expected to open in 2026.
Telegraph
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Labour's tack to the Right leaves Reform looking moderate
After taxing us to Begorra and letting thugs out of jail, Labour has tacked to the Right with a list of policies that makes Reform look wet. Defence up, aid cut, foreigners deported and the return of flogging – every Thursday night at Angela's (note to Tory offenders, it's extra if you want her to wear the boots). At justice questions, Labour MPs listed citizens they feel should be in jail, climaxing in Shabana Mahmood reassuring the House that 'there is always a prison place available to everyone'. It's a tempting offer. Beats Premier Inn. Ms Mahmood would dearly love to arrest the Sentencing Council, which has insisted courts review the biographies of minorities before handing down sentences, prompting Labour's Jonathan Hinder to label the quango 'arrogant' and in violation of 'equality before the law'. Stealing Reform's clothes, he added: 'This Parliament is sovereign and we've given too much power away to these unelected bodies in recent years.' The Yard's hotline Nigel Farage was on the phone to Scotland Yard within minutes, reporting a theft. The Yard has set up a hotline: 'Press one if an MP disagrees with you, press two if they question your leadership…' But here's the thing: Labour's war on woke is really an investigation into itself. Rob Jenrick climbed a stepladder to make this very point. Since taking Ozempic he's gotten smaller and smaller, like the incredible shrinking man, and will soon be jousting in the Chamber on the back of a mouse, armed with a pencil. Mahmood's department, he claimed, had 'supported the new two tier guidance' until its implications were pointed out. Now the minister is 'too lazy' to fix the problem. Mahmood accused Rob of 'pretending to be the leader of the opposition', which is irrelevant but complimentary. Everything Kemi was elected to be – aggressive, precise – Rob actually is, while Kemi limits herself to giving academic speeches about Roland Barthes and the semiology of opposition. To correct the impression that she has zero views, the Tories put out a tweet complaining that '48% of London's social housing is occupied by people who are foreign' – which makes one want to vote Tory even less. The more they rant about the mess we're in, the more we're reminded that they squatted in government for 14 years and left it uninhabitable. What are British values? As the main parties converge into endorsing populist policies we suspect they'll never implement, voices of discontent came from the new kids menacing the bloc. The Greens urged Mahmood to respect the independence of the Sentencing Committee; Ayoub Khan noted that the issue isn't ethnic minorities getting preferential treatment from judges but, in fact, receiving stiffer sentences than whites. This injustice demands attention. But when the Sentencing Council states that we should consider the 'relevance' of a guilty man's ' culture or faith ' to his crime, one has to ask what they mean? Does the Council think said cultures inherently contradict British values? Or does it have a patronising view of individual free will? Elsewhere, Nigel was getting a cup of tea and a kind word from a policewoman. 'Can you arrest Labour for nicking my policies?' he asked. No, sweetheart: 'But if they repeat any of this Right-wing filth on Twitter, we can have them locked up by lunchtime.'
