Saracens Saracens set the template for what a top-notch rugby club should beThe Guardian - Paul ReesWhen Saracens played their first European Cup final, against Toulon in 2014, it was a meeting of two clubs who had approached the venue in Cardiff from opposite directions. The French club, owned by the
English Premier League Pleasure of promotion is potent despite likelihood of pain to followThe Guardian - Paul WilsonIt was a privilege to be at Elland Road for the play-off second leg between Leeds and Derby, not only because it was one of the most grippingly exciting Championship games of the season but because it
Charles Leclerc Charles Leclerc: I lost my father quite early. It changes you forever’The Guardian - Giles RichardsThe Ferrari driver talks about the sometimes traumatic personal history behind his development into one of the fastest-rising young stars in Formula One Charles Leclerc’s tousled hair and boyish looks
John McEnroe John McEnroe in his prime and at his most irascible makes fascinating viewingThe Guardian - Tim LewisA new documentary, John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, has been called, in US Vogue, “the best tennis film ever made”. This in itself is not necessarily the greatest praise you could heap on a work
Netball Sara Bayman: ‘England’s gold will be seen as the pivotal moment for netball’The Guardian - Suzanne WrackWhen Sara Bayman sat down in the studio with Caroline Barker to commentate on the Commonwealth Games netball final for the BBC in April last year, they relaxed and joked that they could do what they liked
Bill Shorten Labor begins election defeat postmortem with internal blame game Australia News - The GuardianThe knives are out internally after Labor’s weekend election defeat, with widespread criticism of the performance of the party’s national secretary, Noah Carroll, including allegations he ignored negative
Music (UK) Home listening: new releases from Melvyn Tan and Linus RothThe Guardian• Pianist Melvyn Tan raised a few eyebrows three years ago when, on disc, he turned his attention away from the classical to the Romantic period and began exploring Liszt. He continues that exploration
Music (UK) The week in classical: Phaedra; Dido; Hespèrion XXI – reviewThe GuardianIn theory we might try to ignore the circumstances surrounding a work’s creation. Sometimes, as in the case of Hans Werner Henze’s Phaedra, such high-mindedness is impossible. Between writing the opera’s
Film (UK) Birds of Passage review – powerful Colombian drug trade sagaThe GuardianWith the dreamy, haunting masterpiece Embrace of the Serpent, Colombian director Ciro Guerra secured his country’s first Oscar nomination for best foreign language film. It was an astonishing movie, inverting
Environment Extinction Rebellion urges ad industry to use its power for goodThe GuardianEnvironmental activists Extinction Rebellion have turned their fire on the advertising industry in a public letter, encouraging it to use its expertise in manipulating public opinion for good or risk public
Environment Farhana Yamin: ‘It took 20 minutes to unglue me from Shell’s office. It was a bit painful’The GuardianFarhana Yamin is an environmental lawyer who, over the past three decades, has worked on a number of international treaties, including the Paris climate agreement. She has represented small island nations
Puppies Pick of the Litter review – the pull of puppiesThe GuardianOMG, puppies! And not just any puppies. The labrador pups that this documentary shadows for two years are an elite band. Not just adorable, of course, although the film-makers rarely miss an opportunity
Music (UK) Slowthai: Nothing Great About Britain review – rage and beguiling honestyThe GuardianAmerican rap’s grand nihilism never sounds as seductive in an English accent, partly because we don’t have the existential threat of their gun culture. British police might sus you, but mostly they won’t
Music (UK) The National: I Am Easy to Find review – strangely lacklustreThe GuardianTwenty years into their career, the National have had a radical rethink for their eighth album. Film-maker Mike Mills has come on board to challenge the way they record, as well as cooking up a complementary
Music (UK) Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan: Epistrophy review – revelatory double actThe GuardianEvery seasoned jazz listener knows Thelonious Monk’s Epistrophy, a jazz classic that’s been around for ever. Here, Bill Frisell (guitar) and Thomas Morgan (double bass) begin with what sounds like isolated
Maluma Maluma: 11:11 review – party tunes meet hunky smoulderingThe GuardianUS pop has been travelling south to appropriate Latin heat since time immemorial. But since 2017’s Puerto Rican smash Despacito and particularly Justin Bieber’s remix, there’s no longer a meaningful divide
Play buttonDavid Bowie David Bowie’s Orwell: how Nineteen Eighty-Four shaped Diamond DogsThe Guardian - Dorian LynskeyYou always felt you were in 1984. That’s the kind of gloom and immovable society that a lot of us felt we grew up in On a bright, cold day in April 1973, David Bowie and his percussionist, Geoff MacCormack,
George Orwell ‘He typed in bed in his dressing gown’: how Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-FourThe Guardian - Dorian LynskeyThere was a rage in his expression... the approach of death made him furious George Orwell once said that Nineteen Eighty-Four “wouldn’t have been so gloomy if I had not been so ill”. But the truth is
The Theatre Rambert: McGregor/ Motin/ Shechter review – back to the futureThe GuardianIt’s a good idea from Rambert’s new leadership team of Helen Shute (chief executive) and Benoit Swan Pouffer (artistic director) to build a triple bill from early works by Wayne McGregor and Hofesh Shechter
Opinion (UK) The middle ground no longer exists over Brexit. It’s all or nothing nowThe Guardian - Andrew RawnsleyEveryone involved in the Tory-Labour talks knew that any kind of compromise would leave vast numbers of voters hugely unhappy. The collapse of the Tory-Labour Brexit talks surprised Westminster as much
Art Seaside: Photographed review – a rush of revelationThe GuardianThe photograph is small, and grey as seaside mist. It shows a large family in Victorian clothes on a beach. The men are in black, the women wasp-waisted in their corsets, parasols artfully arranged before
Play buttonThe Theatre Be My Baby review – poignant, powerful and still pertinentThe Guardian - Clare BrennanThe action of Amanda Whittington’s bittersweet 1998 play is set in a Church of England institution where young, unmarried mothers-to-be spend the duration of their pregnancy. On birth, the baby is immediately
George Orwell Nothing but the truth: the legacy of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-FourThe GuardianDecember 1948. A man sits at a typewriter, in bed, on a remote island, fighting to complete the book that means more to him than any other. He is terribly ill. The book will be finished and, a year or
Play buttonFilm (UK) Beats review – raving against the dying of the lightThe Guardian - Wendy IdeShot in the kind of scrappy black and white that looks like a photocopied club flyer, Beats is both a coming-of-age and a film about endings. The backdrop is the nub end of the illegal rave scene, about
Play buttonFilm (UK) Tucked review – a fabulous tale of love, death and sequinsThe Guardian - Wendy IdeAn odd-couple friendship between an ageing drag queen with terminal cancer and a gender-fluid rising star on the cabaret circuit, Tucked has a lot in common with its older protagonist. Like the film, Jackie
The Theatre The week in theatre: Death of a Salesman; Henry IV Part 1; Henry IV Part 2; Henry V – reviewThe Guardian - Susannah Clapp“Classic” is shackled to Death of a Salesman like a keep-off-the-grass sign. As a theatre critic I have got used to taking it on the nod that Arthur Miller’s 1949 drama has a singular importance: that
Politics Do’s and D’Hondt’s: all you need to know about the European electionThe GuardianWhat are the European elections? The European elections are the second-largest democratic contest in the world, second only to the Indian elections. Voters in 28 countries will elect 751 members of the
Lifestyle (UK) Why a bad mistake at work can be good newsThe Guardian - Donna FergusonDon’t be in denial about your mistakes. The faster you fess up, the faster you'll recover Jonathan Aitken It’s a moment in his 14-year career as a headteacher that Simon Kidwell will never forget. “The
Personal Finance (UK) My dream job was stolen away after a credit-rating agency labelled me bankruptThe Guardian - Anna TimsYou are only as good as your last contract. I've since applied for two roles and didn't even make it to interview It was a dream job. Debbie Scott beat other candidates to win a six-month rolling contract
Jodie Comer When Jodie Comer met Stephen Graham: the secret behind Killing Eve star’s big breakThe Guardian - Sarah HughesWhen Jodie Comer gave an emotional acceptance speech at last weekend’s Bafta awards, the star of Killing Eve singled out one man, a fellow Liverpudlian actor, for kickstarting her career. “I want to take
