John Fletcher obituary

My father, John Fletcher, who has died aged 87, was an academic and literary critic best known for his work on Samuel Beckett. He helped demystify the Irish playwright to generations of scholars with A Student’s Guide to the Plays of Samuel Beckett, which he co-wrote with his wife and literary collaborator, my mother, Beryl.John discovered Beckett as an undergraduate, after his brother gave him a copy of his novel Molloy. John found it heavy going at first but persevered and ultimately decided to study Beckett for his master’s thesis at Toulouse University.His studies moved him closer to Beckett’s orbit in Paris and an opportunity to meet the playwright came in 1960, when the wife of a theatre director who had staged Waiting for Godot for the first time in France offered to introduce him

The Guide #192: How reality TV and streaming has shaped 21st-century TV

To try to get our heads round the fact that we’re somehow a quarter of the way into the 21st century, the Guide is running a miniseries of newsletters looking at how pop culture has changed over the past 25 years. We tackled music last month and we’ll be looking at the state of film next month, before sharing our favourite culture of the century so far, and asking for yours too, in July.Today, we’re taking the temperature of TV. Like the music industry, television has seen its entire business model upended by the streaming revolution this century. That has meant what was once a universal activity – an entire nation sat around the glow of the old cathode ray tube – has been replaced by people watching a galaxy of different shows, or watching the same show but at completely different times

Jimmy Kimmel on Trump’s tax bill: ‘If this is the beautiful bill, I’d hate to see the ugly one’

Late-night hosts tore into the House’s all-nighter session to pass Donald Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill” of Republican talking points.Thursday marked “another wildly destructive day in Washington DC”, said Jimmy Kimmel that evening. “They pulled another all-nighter in the House last night, where they passed Trump’s big, beautiful bill. And man oh man, if this is the beautiful bill, I’d hate to see the ugly one.“I’m not sure which part of the bill is the most beautiful – the part where we take food from hungry kids?” he continued

Sónar festival hit with artist boycott over alleged links to Israel

Sónar, one of Europe’s leading electronic music festivals, is under threat after dozens of musicians and DJs announced a boycott over the event’s parent company KKR’s alleged links to Israel.More than 70 artists signed an open letter to the festival, which is due to take place in Barcelona from 12-14 June, stating that “we oppose any affiliation between the cultural sector and entities complicit in war crimes”.The boycott from artists such as Kode9, Lolo & Sosaku, Juliana Huxtable and Sunny Graves comes amid claims that KKR is linked to housing developments in the illegally occupied West Bank, in addition to other business interests in Israel. This claim is based on the fact that KKR is a major investor in the German media company Axel Springer, which runs ads for developments in the occupied territories on Israel’s Yad2 classified ad site, owned by Springer.In June 2024, KKR, a US investment company with an estimated $710bn (£526bn) in assets, paid €1

Jimmy Kimmel on Republicans’ mega-bill: ‘Takes from the poor and gives to the rich, brazenly’

Late-night hosts dug into Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” mega-bill and the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, not knowing the meaning of habeas corpus.Republicans are “hard at work in Washington right now”, said Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday evening, “working late, struggling to pass Trump’s big, beautiful budget bill”.“He’s even having a hard time getting the Republicans onboard with this one,” Kimmel noted, as according to the congressional budget office, the bill would add trillions of dollars to the national debt. “But Trump has a plan for that too,” said Kimmel. “He’s going to fire all the people who keep track of the national debt

Stephen Colbert on Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’: ‘Like the husky guy at a male strip club’

Late-night hosts talked congressional Republicans squabbling over Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” mega-bill and Trump’s two-hour phone call with Vladimir Putin.On Tuesday, Stephen Colbert took a break from Donald Trump to focus on “all the terrible stuff they’re doing in Congress”. This week, congressional Republicans are fighting over “his heartless tax cut boondoggle”, which Trump has been calling his “big, beautiful bill”.“It really sounds less like legislation and more like the husky guy at a male strip club – ‘OK, ladies, coming up on the main stage is Big, Beautiful Bill,’” the Late Show host joked.The bill’s tax cuts for the wealthy would add roughly $3