Good, even-handed riposte to absurd Tory proposals to slash arts funding from Lyn Gardner - "Many feel excluded by the price of a cup of tea from entering the buildings, either as audiences or potential artists." thestage.co.uk/opinion/why-d…

‘The amazing life of Michael Gambon — by those who knew him best.’ Serialisation of my authorised biography in @thetimes featuring the memories of his sister, the cast of The Life of Galileo, and Daniel Radcliffe. bit.ly/4yDupYk

those who cannot create will destroy

**You need to watch Zelenskyy's interview with Steven Bartlett.** Sitting in front of the camera is an utterly exhausted, at times visibly broken man who has spent almost five years personally managing a war, making critical decisions day and night. From the very first minutes, you can see just how drained he is. When asked the routine question, "How are you?" he replies that he barely sleeps because he spends his nights in military group chats, moving the last remaining air defense systems from one region to another. Two stories are particularly heartbreaking. The first is about a missile that struck a children's playground within seconds, while parents watched from their apartment windows as their children were torn apart. The second is about presenting posthumous military awards to the families of fallen soldiers: "You present an award to a father, feel his strong hand, and then he quietly asks, 'Can we hug?' At that moment, I simply cease to exist inside. These people are gone. They will never be the same again." When the host tries to take him back into his past, showing old photographs from Kryvyi Rih, his student comedy performances, his voice acting as Paddington Bear, and scenes from *Servant of the People*, Zelenskyy looks at them with detachment, almost as though he is watching someone else's life. He also recalls February 2022 without any attempt to portray himself as a hero. He says that for the first 20 days, he simply ran from office to office on adrenaline, calling everyone he could and trying to organize deliveries of water and food to Kyiv. Fear and the full realization of what had happened only caught up with him three weeks later, when Bucha was liberated and mass graves containing hundreds of murdered civilians were discovered. Using Bucha as an example, he explains why advice from outsiders to simply negotiate a quick deal causes him such deep frustration: "Imagine that in the United States or Britain, a mass grave is discovered containing 500 tortured people with their hands tied. How could you simply forgive everything after that?" The rest of the conversation revolves around the deadlock in which Ukrainians, and indeed everyone involved, now find themselves. Zelenskyy explains the causes of the war in simple terms: Moscow is trying to forcibly rebuild the Soviet empire because Ukraine's integration into Europe would finally bury that project. But when the conversation turns to the present, there is unmistakable bitterness in his words. Almost one-fifth of Ukraine's territory is occupied. The east is under relentless bombardment. Cities are left without electricity. People are dying every single day. Meanwhile, every discussion about a ceasefire runs into the same demand: Kyiv must withdraw even farther from its fortified positions, without any guarantees that Russia will not launch another offensive a year later. Toward the end, the conversation turns to Trump and Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities. Trump publicly reprimands Zelenskyy over attacks on Russian refineries because he fears rising diesel prices for American farmers ahead of the elections. And this is where you can see just how deeply that approach affects Zelenskyy. His country is burning. Moscow has rejected his proposal for a mutual halt to attacks on energy infrastructure. Patriot missiles paid for by Europe are being redirected by the Americans to the Middle East. And somehow, Zelenskyy is the one being blamed for fuel prices in the United States. The entire interview leaves you with a profoundly bleak feeling. Here is a man trapped between the daily deaths of people in his own country and the pragmatic bargaining of allies who have their own elections, their own interests, and their own political calculations. And yet, he can no longer step away from this responsibility. **Watch it.**

The building in Reading which my refugee grandparents ran as a hotel after the war, beginning all over again, with nothing. It’s still there, the lights are still on. I hold onto that.

This was launched last night at @Dauntbooks in Marylebone. Couldn't move for dames and sirs who came to celebrate the great man. Michael Gambon: The Authorised Biography is published by @centurybooksuk on 29 October. I'm contractually mandated to encourage purchases...

In Kharkiv today, russia struck an ordinary commuter train. Killing kids, striking markets, Killing dogs, burning trains - everything is possible if you are a great "humanitarian"

Bucha. It was a genocide, recognized by everyone. They buried hundreds of people. They tortured people. We found the grave. There were, I believe, around 500 people. When we liberated those towns near Kyiv, there emerged this, you know, this kind of hatred for the Russians, right at that moment. Not even at the moment when they started the full-scale war. Back then nobody understood what it really was yet. People understood what this war was and what Putin did personally when we found those mass graves of tortured adults, children. I mean they didn't just kill them, they tortured and killed them. When we liberated Bucha, I said, bring every journalist here. Don't touch anything, just bring the journalists. The whole world simply has to see this. Imagine finding a mass grave in the U.S. or in Britain, God forbid, with 500 tortured people, adults, kids, dogs, animals shot dead. I mean, they held hunting sprees there from military vehicles. People were running, they were shooting, just hunting, playing games. They literally just played with people, like slavery. So how, after this, can you listen to Putin? And how, after this, can you forgive? From The Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett. (2/3)

Burn in hell-level moral vacuity - “You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you and I thank you again.” telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2…

let them be remembered: the Trump dead

Hard not to wonder what became of this France. Charles Trenet - Douce France (Audio officiel) piped.video/m4swH3z1-Vo?is=T3_Q…

Fascinating. 20 years on- Seminar: Religion, Blasphemy and the Theatre - "Censorship is back in the theatre" theatrevoice.com/audio/semin…

let them be remembered: the Trump dead

In this powerful monologue, Joe Scarborough proves that Trump and his cronies acting as cheerleaders for putin are no different from the Nazi sympathisers of the 1930s. It’s a chilling, crystal-clear wake-up call about what happens when leaders trade American democracy for a dictator's favour. Joe Scarborough: “… just peeling what putin has had a collection of useful idiots across America do now for the past five years. I really I really don't say this often in American politics. but when you're defending vladimir putin, an ex KGB agent who is committing war crimes by the day, I'm not sure how you sleep at night. And this phenomenon though, has historical parallels. It was 89 years ago this month in October 1937, that the former king of England walked up the steps of Adolf Hitler's mountain retreat in Bavaria. The Duke of Windsor had given up the throne less than a year earlier, but he toured German factories, inspected the SS and was photographed greeting the Führer. Time Magazine reported that Hitler gave the Duke a Nazi salute as they parted and Edward returned that Nazi salute. Later he told friends that Britain shouldn't fight Hitler, the war should not start. Winston Churchill had to actually send him to the Bahamas to keep him away from his new friend in Berlin. But the Duke wasn't alone, just like Donald Trump isn't alone. Here at home, Charles Lindbergh, an American hero who accepted the medal of freedom from Hermann Goering in 1938, went on to lead America First. And in a 1941 speech in Des Moines, he blamed Jews and the British for pushing America toward war. Even FDR's US Ambassador to Britain, Joseph Kennedy, predicted democracy is finished in England. His appeasement and his lack of moral alarm cost Kennedy his job. In Britain, aristocrats like the Astors and Lord Halifax thought Hitler was a man they could do business with. Does that sound familiar? Sounded so respectable, trade, stability, money, peace in our time. History remembers them now as morally vacuous opportunists who looked at a tyrant who was devouring his neighbours, the only thing they saw, a business partner. The parallels with Trump are too on point. Now on Friday, Donald Trump got on the phone with vladimir putin who always plays him when they get on the phone and what happened? He lifted sanctions on the Russian diesel deal, he did it three weeks after Republicans had forced him to sign a Russia sanctions bill in honour of Lindsey Graham. The White House says his gift to putin will lower prices at the pump, but it won't. The first shipment is only about 2.2 million barrels and America burns through more than that every day. It's not going to lower gas prices in America. But it will help putin kill innocence in Ukraine, a country Trump has always hated. Trump's four billion dollar gift to the man he kowtows to every day will buy missiles, drones, and glide bombs that will keep terrorising and killing Ukrainians who are fighting for their country's freedom and their children's lives and yes, our freedom. A bipartisan group of senators including Susan Collins wrote in a statement Sunday that the United States should not provide putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians. But Trump's aping of putin’s talking points, they just keep getting worse. With this weak president attacking Ukrainian freedom fighters and perversely calling for new leadership in Kyiv. We do need new leadership, Mr. President, but not in Ukraine. Donald, I've known you a long time and I know you don't read history, so let me tell you how this story ends. The Duke of Windsor ended up a footnote, a cautionary tale in a fancy suit forever assigned to the dustbin of British history. And your time to finally do the right thing in Ukraine, Mr. President, it's running out. Stop bowing down to putin. And start doing your job. 1/2

Check out Sir Ian's 3d-printed sneakers. Judi Dench and Ian McKellen in Conversation with Jim Carter .. piped.video/mZ31YCHM0J8?si=vgLl…

C’est le magasin de mon papa. 30 ans de travail acharné, sacrifices, et journées interminables. Il a consacré sa vie à cette boutique, c’était toute sa fierté. Aujourd’hui, en quelques heures, on lui a arraché ce qu’il a mis 30 ans à construire. J’ai le cœur brisé pour lui.

We'll Always Have Paris

Late to the party, but Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is, as reported, sensationally good - with career-best work from Anderson and Crudup; plus, Tilda Swinton is so extraordinary in Man to Man it's almost criminal she's been away from the stage so long telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what…

None of this is surprising. War on the edge of Europe; civil unrest in Europe: a grand projet of post-WW2 and post Cold War naïveté that will take guts and likely decades to undo