Groundbreaking British Museum show set to challenge samurai myths

A groundbreaking samurai exhibition that promises to challenge “everything we think we know about Japan’s warrior elite” spanning a millennium of myth and reality is to open at the British Museum next year.Titled Samurai, the blockbuster exhibition will reveal a world beyond armour-clad warriors and epic duels, as popularised by the noble, katana-wielding heroes of Akira Kurosawa’s classic action films and PlayStation’s hit video games.Much of the samurai myth – including even the word “samurai” – was invented long after their heyday, a modern phenomenon linked to mass media and pop culture.The exhibition, which opens in February, will also show that, far from being a male warrior cult, samurai women were educated, governed and even fought.Rosina Buckland, the exhibition’s lead curator, told the Guardian: “This is the first exhibition to tackle the myths

Paul Kelly: ‘Imagine by John Lennon is probably one of the worst songs ever written. I can’t stand it’

Your new album is called Seventy. You are 70 years old. And I hear you like the number 70.It’s a biblical number. It’s a very pleasing number to me

The Guide #216: Celebrity Traitors was a watercooler-moment smash-hit – but how long will audiences stay faithful?

That’s it then. The curiously pristine SUVs are back in the garage, the cloaks are off to the dry cleaners and your favourite hits of the 80s and 90s are safe, for a few months at least, from those absurdly melodramatic cover treatments. Yes, The Celebrity Traitors is over, having served up a finale that had just the right amount of intrigue, double-crossing and slack-jawed looks to camera from the terminally outwitted. We won’t ruin things here for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet, but for a full spoiler-filled debrief you can read Lucy Mangan’s review of last night’s drama here.It was a fitting capstone to a remarkably successful first Celebrity Traitors outing

Die My Love to Rosalía’s Lux: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

Lynne Ramsay’s latest is a portrait of a relationship in decline, while the Spanish nu-flamenco star enlists a plethora of talent for her latest albumDie My LoveOut now Lynne Ramsay’s remarkable portrait of a couple spiralling emotionally in the wake of the birth of their child sees Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson go hell for leather in a pair of no-holds barred performances that chart the journey from passion to … well, it would be too simple to call it hatred. J-Law in particular seems likely to bag herself an Oscar nom for this one.Predator: BadlandsOut now This standalone film set in the Predator universe sees Elle Fanning’s Weyland-Yutani android character team up with Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi’s young, outcast Predator warrior, in a bid to survive a thoroughly hostile environment. Horror sci-fi directed by Dan Trachtenberg.The ChoralOut now For a certain audience, the prospect of a Nicholas Hytner-directed, Alan Bennett-scripted comedy-drama (their last collaboration was 2015’s The Lady in the Van, starring Maggie Smith), starring Ralph Fiennes, with Simon Russell Beale playing the composer Elgar and Roger Allam in the mix too, will be cinematic catnip, some slightly mixed reviews notwithstanding

Seth Meyers: ‘Trump has no idea what regular people are going through and he doesn’t care’

Late-night hosts discussed Donald Trump’s out-of-touch comments on grocery prices, the longest-ever government shutdown and a dramatic White House press conference on Ozempic.Seth Meyers continued to analyze the results of Tuesday’s elections on Thursday evening, examining what fueled major victories for Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey. “If you do look inside the numbers, you’ll see that it wasn’t just anti-Trump backlash that fueled Democrats’ wins,” the Late Night host said. “Voters are also furious about the economy,” especially record-high grocery prices.“So the same thing that we were told was an issue in the last election was still an issue in this election because nothing has been fixed,” Meyers continued

Seth Meyers on Mamdani’s win: ‘The kind of energy Democrats have been desperately seeking for years’

Late-night hosts reacted to Democrats’ slate of wins across the country and Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in the New York City mayoral race.On Late Night, Seth Meyers celebrated Mamdani’s historic victory in the New York mayoral race, becoming the first south Asian and Muslim mayor of the biggest city in the US, as well as New York’s first mayoral candidate since 1969 to receive more than a million votes.“This is the kind of energy Democrats have been desperately seeking for years,” said an enthusiastic Meyers. “I haven’t seen a crowd of New Yorkers this excited since the time the real Timotheé Chalamet stopped at a Timotheé Chalamet lookalike contest in Manhattan.“And if you thought Trump was bummed about the results before Mamdani’s speech, he probably felt even worse” when he heard Mamdani say: “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up!”“OK, first of all, you do not need to tell him to turn the volume up,” Meyers joked