Posts

Peter Gill: a theatrical visionary with an unsparing honesty

Gill’s dramas of divided class loyalties such as The York Realist had a clear-eyed precision matched by his rigorous work as a director Peter Gill, playwright who turned ordinary lives into extraordinary drama, dies aged 86 Peter Gill, who has died aged 86, was one of the unsung heroes of British theatre. As both director and playwright his work was characterised by its uncompromising honesty and unflinching integrity. Much admired by his fellow artists, he at last achieved a degree of public fame in his annus mirabilis of 2002 when his terrific play The York Realist won a number of awards and the Sheffield Crucible staged a month-long retrospective of his work as well as a brand-new play, Original Sin . Few remember that Gill, born into a Welsh, working class Catholic family, began life as an actor: look closely and you can spot him in the film of Zulu. But it was at London’s Royal Court, where he began work as an associate director in 1964, that he learned his craft and acquired th...

Charlton up for sale again as US owners look to cash in after three years

Owners led by Gabriel Brener paid £15m in 2023 Buyer would be the club’s fifth owner in six years Charlton’s US owners have put the club up for sale just three years after taking over at the Valley. The Championship’s ownership group is understood to have engaged Oakwell Sports Advisory to find what would be the club’s fifth owners in the past six years. In a sales deck sent to potential investors, which has been seen by the Guardian, Oakwell describes Charlton as “the last remaining football club upside opportunity in London”. Oakwell also claims that Charlton would provide new owners with an opportunity for five to 10 times equity growth through promotion to the Premier League, commercial expansion and investment in women’s football. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/MNFVxdC

UCI president backs night-time drug testing after Tour de France controversy

David Lappartient says selective night testing is justified ‘We always have suspicion in cycling, due to our past’ The UCI president, David Lappartient, has said there will “always be suspicion in cycling” and insisted this year’s men’s Tour de France was clean. Lappartient, speaking at the start of stage two of the Tour de France Femmes in Aigle, also said he supported night-time testing during races in “exceptional cases”. Tadej Pogacar, the five-time champion, and his rival Jonas Vingegaard were subjected to night-time tests, at 5am and 2am respectively , by the International Testing Agency (ITA) midway through this year’s race. “We will not support something they do every night on the riders. The normal hours [of testing] are not in the night,” said the head of cycling’s governing body. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/DjUC5LS

Notes from a nursing home: ‘Our books told of who we were. The story of us. Then the movers came and asked what should go’

Pencil marks in the margins of books gathered over a lifetime was proof of a life lived. So when it came time for Andrew McKean to move into aged care, leaving his books behind made the self thinner My wife, Patricia, and I came to our nursing home with little more than clothes, a few photographs and some books we could still carry. The shelves we left behind still stand in the emptied rooms of the house we called home for 30 years. Those shelves once groaned under the weight of books we had gathered, page by page, year by year. Our books told of who we were, or who we thought we might become. There were the novels Patricia read in the long evenings after the children slept, their spines cracked from her hands. There were the histories I brought home from the library sales, dusty volumes of wars and voyages that filled the quiet hours when rain beat on the roof. Poetry too, slim books with thin paper, marked where a line struck true. We kept them not only for the stories printed insi...

Yealimi Noh leads Women’s Open by three shots after Ryu Hae-ran stumbles

Ryu’s bid for third consecutive major win in doubt England’s Lottie Woad and Charley Hull in contention Ryu Hae-ran has 18 holes to recover from events in the third round of the Women’s Open. Her stumble at Royal Lytham and St Annes would have counted as one of the most remarkable in recent major championship memory had it taken place a day later. Saturday proved it is never, ever over on terrain such as this. Adam Scott can verify that, such was his horrible capitulation here as Ernie Els claimed the Open of 2012. There must be something about Lytham. Ryu is looking to set an extraordinary record of three major wins in as many starts. Early in the third round, she looked firmly on course for that. The South Korean marched to a four-shot lead after four. Her advantage was the same on the 7th tee. By the time she walked from the 18th green, Ryu was three adrift of Yealimi Noh. Quite the turnaround. How damaging? That remains to be seen. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://i...

Field and French flourish for Wigan to boost title charge with victory at Leigh

Super League: Leigh 8-20 Wigan Wigan move up to second within two points of Leeds Wigan once again showed why they should be considered favourites to be crowned Super League champions after emerging from a captivating local derby with Leigh to keep pace with Leeds at the summit. The National Rugby League is understood to be ready to submit its bid to invest and ultimately take control of Super League in the coming days. If it was watching here, it would have seen a game and a competition with plenty to offer. Just seven miles separate these two clubs, and they produced a spectacle any potential investor would have been engrossed by. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/1q4Ew39

Kamala Harris says she has ‘not made a decision’ on potential 2028 presidential run – live

Harris says she is ‘fully, sincerely focused on midterms’ as she speaks to conference in Nashville, Tennessee Sign up for the US Breaking News email When asked by a reporter at Camp David about negotiations with Iran, Trump said the US would be “hitting them very hard”. “We just want to win,” he said. “We’re doing very well, trying to be nice, as nice as you can be in a situation like that, but, you know, they’re being decimated. They have no Navy. They have no air force, they have no anti-aircraft. They don’t have any capability. They have some, but very little.” Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/QYDhJyO