The Guide #198: Such Brave Girls shows that grown-up gross-out comedy is thriving

The best binge-watches should make you feel a little bit sick while you gorge on them, and Kat Sadler’s sitcom Such Brave Girls, which just returned for a second season on BBC Three and iPlayer, certainly fits that description. I found myself burning through episodes, the enjoyment of them tempered with the slightest top note of nausea.That isn’t a criticism of the series, which follows the chaotically bleak existence of adult sisters Josie (Sadler) and Billie (Lizzie Davidson), still living at home with their wild-eyed mother, Deb (Louise Brealey). In fact it’s the intended reaction. From its logo (the title of the show made out in strands of wet hair slithering across bathroom tiles) onwards, Such Brave Girls is built to shock, unsettle and gross out, but above all be laughed at

‘What should be taught in schools?’: the infamous ‘Scopes monkey trial’ turns 100

Her great-grandfather was a doctor called to attend to the lawyer who put the case for creationism. Her great-grandmother was related to Charles Darwin. And now she works in the courthouse where the “trial of the century” – in which a high school teacher was accused of illegally teaching evolution – began exactly a century ago on Thursday.No one has a perspective on the “Scopes monkey trial” quite like Pat Guffey, a former high school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee. As the city prepares to mark the centenary with a week-long festival including a dramatic re-enactment of the court battle, she is aware how its legacy proved both a blessing and a curse

Comedian Paul Smith: ‘People get disappointed when they meet me in real life. I’m really quiet’

The scouse standup’s cheeky takedowns of his audiences have earned him viral fame, 1.2 million Instagram followers and a string of sold-out arena shows. But is that the real him? Far from it, he saysAt the Hot Water Comedy Club in Liverpool, Paul Smith’s standup double-header feels like a pop star’s homecoming. Women are wearing his tour T-shirts as dresses and the bar is half a dozen deep with fans hoping to get roasted by the local comic famous for his audience takedowns. There are first-daters, girls’ night outs, lads’ night outs, tourists, locals, couples, mothers and their grownup sons clamouring for a spot on the front row

Clash of cultures: exhibition tells story of when Vikings ruled the north of England

Viking North at Yorkshire Museum features UK’s largest exhibition of Viking-age artefacts, including era’s ‘cheap’ jewellery and evidence of slave-owningWhen Anglo-Saxons buried their jewellery in an attempt to keep it safe from marauding Vikings, it is unlikely they envisaged their treasures would be dug up a millennium later and studied by their descendants.Nor would they have expected the items to sit alongside everyday objects owned by their Scandinavian oppressors as part of the largest exhibition of Viking-age artefacts in the UK, aiming to tell the story for the first time of the invaders’ power base in the north of England.“This is the finest collection of objects from Viking-age England that you can see on display in a museum in this country,” says Dr Adam Parker, curator of archaeology at York Museums Trust.Viking North, which opens on Friday, focuses on the settlement of the Viking Great Army, as it is known, which arrived in the north of England from Scandinavia in AD866 and spent two centuries controlling the territory.Among the exhibits are examples of the Vikings’ great wealth, some of which appeared to be raided from holy sites, such as an Anglo-Saxon silver-gilt bowl with Christian symbolism on it found buried with a Viking warrior

Notting Hill carnival to go ahead this year after £1m funding boost

Cash will pay for extra measures to address ‘critical public safety concerns’ identified in independent review of festival Notting Hill carnival will go ahead this year after almost £1m of funding was raised to provide extra safety and infrastructure measures.City Hall, Kensington and Chelsea council and Westminster city council together provided £958,000 for the event following pleas from organisers for support, after a review recommended several changes to make the event safe.The chair of Notting Hill Carnival Ltd, Ian Comfort, who had appealed to the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, for additional support, said the event’s future was secured just in time.The event always takes place over the August bank holiday weekend – which this year runs from Saturday 23 August to Monday 25 August.“Although this support comes just weeks before the event, it is a much-needed and welcome commitment,” Comfort said

Jon Stewart on Trump’s sweeping bill: ‘What is Ice going to do when they have real money?’

Late-night hosts delve into Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” and consider his UFC proposal for next Independence Day.Jon Stewart returned to The Daily Show following the Fourth of July holiday in the US, during which Congress and Trump passed the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”. The legislation will, among other things, cut $930bn from the Medicaid budget, thus putting 11 million at risk of losing their health insurance, end Biden-era green energy credits and cut funding for 3 million kids’ school lunches.“It’s a lot of painful cuts on a lot of vulnerable populations,” Stewart summarized on Monday’s Daily Show. “But, to be fair, at least America will finally make a dent on the deficit