Albert Hall, ManchesterWith quiff, microphone twirls and in-ear monitors resembling hearing aids, 55-year-old Astley makes an an eerily good MorrisseyThe idea of the 80s Stock, Aitken and Waterman hitmaker “performing the songs of the Smiths” with Stoc…
Watch out! Contemporary artists take on the Beano – in pictures
“It’s strange,” says Andy Holden, curator of new Somerset House exhibition, Beano: The Art of Breaking the Rules, “that a formula from 1938 still resonates today. That it survived the birth of children’s TV, computer games and a changing world.” The co…
Sunday Comics: Fun Game
Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon.Read more…
‘Freedom’: exhibition celebrates Barcelona’s 1970s counterculture
Underground recalls brief but intense flowering of movement in city following death of FrancoWhen Spain’s repressive dictatorship finally came to a close with the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, the counterculture that had been bubbling away for yea…
Squid Game’s success reopens debate over who should pay for rising internet traffic
Demand for capacity grows on back of hit Netflix shows, online games and moreThe breakout success of the Korean drama Squid Game has prompted a local broadband provider to launch legal action to force the maker, Netflix, to help pay for the huge surge …
Capsule of 1765 air reveals ancient histories hidden under Antarctic ice
Polar Zero exhibition in Glasgow features sculpture encasing air extracted from start of Industrial RevolutionAn ampoule of Antarctic air from the year 1765 forms the centrepiece of a new exhibition that reveals the hidden histories contained in polar …
The Royal Ballet: Romeo and Juliet review – intoxicating, instinctive and full of new detail
Royal Opera House, LondonFrancesca Hayward and William Bracewell reprise their roles with new partners as they give a fresh feel to one of the Royal Ballet’s most performed worksIn Michael Nunn and William Trevitt’s 2019 film, Romeo and Juliet: Beyond …
I Want the Door to Open by Lala Lala review – ambition and reinvention
(Hardly Art)Lillie West’s third album steers away from lo-fi indie to impressive, light-touch dream popThe voice of London-born, Chicago-based songwriter Lillie West, urgent with the need to be not just heard but understood, is clearer and more articul…
Poussin and the Dance review – the greatest frozen ballet in all art
National Gallery, LondonBacchus and his cavorting retinue of centaurs, satyrs and naked nymphs are in constant motion and yet spellbindingly still in the precision-engineered art of Nicolas PoussinThe scene: a chain of dancers in a glade, Roman tunics …
‘This had to happen now’: Lucy Kirkwood on Maryland, her 30-minute ‘howl’ of a play
Galvanised by the killings of Sabina Nessa and Sarah Everard, the playwright tells how she penned the eviscerating drama in just two daysIt usually takes Lucy Kirkwood two years to write a play, crafting and honing meticulously before sending it out to…