Category: 5. Entertainment

RIYADH: The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced on Sunday the “provocative practices” by Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, saying such practices fuel conflict in the region.

“Saudi Arabia condemns in the strongest terms the repeated provocative practices by Israeli occupation government officials against Al-Aqsa Mosque and emphasizes that these practices fuel the conflict in the region,” the foreign ministry said.

Ben-Gvir visited the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem on Sunday and said he prayed there, challenging rules covering one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East. Under a delicate decades-old “status quo” arrangement with Muslim authorities, the Al-Aqsa compound is administered by a Jordanian religious foundation and Jews can visit but may not pray there. 

#بيان | تعرب وزارة الخارجية عن إدانة المملكة العربية السعودية بأشد العبارات الممارسات الاستفزازية المتكررة من قبل مسؤولي حكومة الاحتلال الإسرائيلي بحق المسجد الأقصى المبارك، مؤكدة أن تلك الممارسات تؤجج الصراع في المنطقة. pic.twitter.com/tQbMIlNbKM

— وزارة الخارجية (@KSAMOFA) August 3, 2025

“The Kingdom emphasizes its continued demand to the international community to stop the practices of Israeli occupation officials that violate international laws and norms and undermine peace efforts in the region,” the statement added.

Saudi Arabia had consistently voiced its condemnation of what it described as the continued blatant Israeli attacks on the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Jordan also strongly condemned Ben-Gvir’s storming of Al-Aqsa, and a foreign ministry statement has described the act as “a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law, an unacceptable provocation and a condemned escalation.”

“Israel holds no sovereignty over Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif,” the statement said.

Ministry spokesperson ambassador Sufian Qudah reiterated Jordan’s “absolute rejection and firm condemnation of the continued, provocative incursions by the extremist minister, as well as the facilitation of repeated settler entries into Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli police.”

دانت وزارة الخارجية وشؤون المغتربين بأشدّ العبارات، اقتحام وزير الأمن القومي الإسرائيلي المتطرف إيتمار بن غفير، المسجد الأقصى المبارك/ الحرم القدسي الشريف، تحت حماية شرطة الاحتلال الإسرائيلي، باعتباره خرقًا فاضحًا للقانون الدولي والقانون الدولي الإنساني، واستفزازًا غير مقبول… pic.twitter.com/FkgpmyYWoa

— وزارة الخارجية وشؤون المغتربين الأردنية (@ForeignMinistry) August 3, 2025

Such actions constitute a clear breach of the historical and legal status quo of the mosque and represent an attempt to divide it temporally and spatially, and a desecration of its sanctity, Qudah said.

Qudah warned of consequences of the provocations and violations against Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, which, he said, aimed at “further dangerous escalation and unilateral measures in the occupied West Bank.”

Getty Images

‘Very sorry’

The annual new year concert of Handel’s three-hour Messiah is, for some, an endurance test that requires a sustaining picnic-hamper, so it was bold of the director of the Edinburgh international festival, Nicola Benedetti, to open this year’s programme with the full eight-hour version of John Tavener’s choral epic The Veil of the Temple, performed just once in its entirety since it was written a little over two decades ago.

The hero of those hours was Swedish conductor Sofi Jeannin, best known in the UK for her work with the BBC Singers, and here marshalling the combined forces of the Monteverdi Choir, National Youth Choir of Scotland, and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, which has a packed diary for its 60th anniversary year.

Jeannin put in a remarkable shift, staying on top of every detail of the spare instrumental score as well as building the remarkable edifice that the combined choirs eventually become. The Usher Hall organ, Indian harmonium, Tibetan temple horn and percussionists from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra were fellow travellers on that journey, the latter joined by horn, brass and timpani colleagues for the work’s climactic eighth cycle.

Those sections recycle the same textual material so that a work that initially seemed fragmentary made compelling, if relentless, sense by the time the audience reached the first 10-minute snack-and-comfort break after a couple of hours.

Each cycle began with a promenading soprano soloist and duduk astern reed instrument obbligato, the most appealing choral music set The Lord’s Prayer, adding a line or two of text to each succeeding incarnation and most melodically expressed in English, although alternately sung in the work’s other languages, including Greek, Aramaic and Sanskrit.

Many of the recitatives, by contrast, were delivered on one note, and it was a testament to the expressive talents of soloists including bass-baritone Florian Störtz, delivering the Gospel words of Christ, and tenor Hugo Hymas, that they made those sections, often 15 minutes long, so powerful.

For all the quality of the step-out soloists from the Monteverdi Choir and the Festival Chorus, it was the vocal ensemble, using the three choirs in different combinations, that provided the work’s highlights, and where the National Youth Choir of Scotland especially shone, particularly in the sustained high soprano singing.

The first of this festival’s concerts with beanbag seating in the stalls, the staging by Thomas Guthrie – frontman of the 2024 programme’s The Alehouse Sessions in the same space – used the entire building brilliantly for Tavener’s ritual epic.

Upon being asked if Wednesday is a feminist show in an interview with Gareth McLean for Radio Times magazine, Ortega agreed that it is.

“Yes, definitely. I think the whole show should be empowering to anybody, really, but I’m really proud of how strong our female characters are,” she explained.

She went on to note how the show’s portrayal of its female characters goes beyond just the Addams family members.

“Even outside the Addams family, in [Wednesday’s fellow high school students] Enid and Bianca, they’re very complex and layered people,” Ortega said. “And I think that there’s a woman for everyone.”

On working with her Wednesday co-stars Catherine Zeta-Jones (Morticia Addams) and Dame Joanna Lumley (Grandmama), Ortega heaped praise on the pair.

“Some of the most glamorous, generous people I’ve ever met and had the pleasure to work with,” she began, before adding: “Also talented. Unbelievably talented.

“I was so glad to have more scenes with Catherine this season. Yeah, obviously, Morticia is just such a delicious character, and Catherine has got the yummiest voice and persona, so it was really nice to be able to see her flesh that character out a bit more.”

Wednesday’s season 2 is currently set to be split in half, with the first half releasing on 6th August while the second half drops next month on 3rd September.

The show has proven to be one of Netflix’s most successful recent series, with season 1 snagging the title of the platform’s most-watched British-Language title of all time.

Unsurprisingly, that level of success means that before season 2 even hits our screens, the show has already been picked up for a third season, with co-creator and co-showrunner Alfred Gough explaining that they want to continue “expanding the world of Nevermore and Wednesday”.

The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here.

Wednesday season 2 is streaming from Wednesday 6th August on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.

As they raced to complete the blockbuster movie “It Ends With Us,” one editor told another that he was shaking his head over Blake Lively’s final-cut approval for her character’s sex scenes.

“SMH,” editor Robb Sullivan told co-editor Oona Flaherty, according to a text chain unsealed Friday as part of Lively’s federal sexual-harassment lawsuit against costar and director Justin Baldoni.

In the chain, Sullivan is remarking on Lively having final approval for not only her own sex scenes in the movie, but those of the young actor playing her character’s teenage self in flashbacks.

The brief text chain, dated four months before the film’s 2024 release, hints at the tension surrounding Lively’s demand for control over the most sensitive scenes. It begins with Sullivan and Flaherty celebrating winning a PG-13 rating.

“Woot!” Flaherty texts, to which Sullivan responds, “Woo hoo,” and “I’ll drink to that! Of course, I was planning on drinking anyways…. :)”

Sullivan is not a party to the lawsuit; he did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Lively’s 163-page lawsuit accuses Baldoni of sexual harassment, retaliation, and attempting to damage her reputation and her lifestyle businesses by orchestrating a surreptitious social media attack campaign.

Baldoni has denied the allegations, including in a now-dismissed $400 million countersuit that alleged she engaged in a “hostile takeover” of the production.

Lively’s lawsuit is being aggressively litigated against by Baldoni and his co-defendant production company Wayfarer Studios. In mid-July, the judge ordered Lively to turn over three years of her business income records to Baldoni. Lively’s lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial on March 9 in federal court in Manhattan.

The text chain released Friday had originally been turned over to Lively’s legal team by Baldoni in response to one of her subpoenas, according to legal filings.

Dated April 18, 2024, it now remains redacted to hide the contact information of the participants. They include a “J B,” who does not comment on the exchange, and does not appear to include Lively, who is referred to as “Blake.”

“Honestly, it’s all about control,” a participant identified as “Henny Grace” writes at one point in the chain.

The text chain was originally uploaded to the lawsuit’s case file by Lively’s team as a sealed exhibit addressed to US District Judge Lewis Liman, the Manhattan judge handling the case. It was part of Lively’s efforts to serve Sullivan with a subpoena.

Lively’s process server had been unable to serve Sullivan in person after five visits to his California address in mid-July, according to a July 28 decision signed by Liman.

“The process server attempted to serve Sullivan both during the day and after work hours but did not receive an answer, despite lights and television being on in the residence,” Liman wrote in allowing the process server to tack a copy of Lively’s subpoena to Sullivan’s door.

Lively’s attempts to serve subpoenas have been the subject of heated litigation in the last month. On July 26, Liman wrote that Lively has withdrawn her subpoenas to Google and X seeking the account information of five content creators who had been critical of her role in the lawsuit. The five content creators had all filed motions to quash Lively’s subpoenas.

“Art always gets a sort of double sense,” said Sholette. “One hand, yes, it’s a business, but it’s almost that’s the necessary side of propping up and maintaining and collecting and preserving culture, which somehow transcends capitalism, somehow transcending mere business.”

He said Art Basel’s tie-up with Qatar underscored just how much the supposed timeless quality of art had become entangled in modern finance and big business: “We actually really do see its connection to big business corporations, to the ultra wealthy, to oligarchs, Russian and otherwise. And so I think that contradiction has just kind of become very, very extreme and very, very apparent, and yet it goes on.”

Sholette said that the Basel organizers had to account for how hosting the fair would boost Qatar’s soft power. “It shouldn’t be done willy-nilly, to become part of, in this case, the Qatar political sphere, because that’s what’s going to basically assist Qatar and other countries in that region in their PR promotion.”

The Gulf State was already front and center at this year’s Swiss edition of Art Basel, with a dedicated pavilion in the exclusive collector’s lounge, and with official sponsor branding of its national carrier, Qatar Airways, all around the fair. During the event, Al Mayassa, the emir’s sister, gave a talk at the Beyeler Foundation, a contemporary art museum at the outskirts of Basel. 

In an interview with POLITICO, Art Basel CEO Noah Horowitz answered questions about Qatar’s human rights record, and the role that Art Basel might play in helping the country exert its influence internationally. “That’s not a concern of ours,” said Horowitz. “They’ve stepped forward in a very direct and meaningful way for some time now in the role of culture. I mean their cultural commitments are well noted and deep and quite visionary.”

Culture as currency

Art is big business. A report commissioned by UBS together with Art Basel found that in 2024, sales amounted to $57.5 billion. According to the Art Basel organizers, some 88,000 people attended the Swiss edition of the fair this year, including actor and filmmaker James Franco and footballer Michael Ballack. Artworks sell for hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars. This year’s big ticket item was a work by British painter David Hockney, “Mid November Tunnel,” which sold for between $13-17 million, and which depicts a quiet, leaf-strewn country lane. 

Classic tale of role reversal

Freaky Friday is based on a novel by Mary Rodgers and follows the tumultuous relationship between widowed psychiatrist Dr. Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her 15-year-old daughter, Anna (Lindsay Lohan). While mourning the loss of her father, Anna, a defiant teenager, feels that her workaholic and apparently strict mother does not understand her. Meanwhile, Tess is getting ready to tie the knot with her fiancé Ryan (Mark Harmon) and is continually irritated by Anna’s conduct and lack of self-control. A pair of cursed fortune cookies causes them to mysteriously switch bodies one night at a Chinese restaurant, putting an end to their endless fighting.

As the plot unfolds, we witness Tess and Anna put themselves in each other’s shoes. Tess must attend high school as Anna, dealing with her bandmates, academic pressures, and bullies. While her mother is busy with work, therapy, interviews, and a wedding rehearsal dinner, Anna is trying to seem grown-up and handle all of her responsibilities.

Finding empathy through chaos

As a result of these tumultuous events, our protagonists begin to sympathise with one another. While Tess starts to understand the challenges of adolescence, particularly when dealing with loss, Anna recognises the mental and emotional burdens her mother bears. Their journey towards empathy drives the film’s emotional arc, and the body swap serves as a narrative device to foster progress.

The film did well at the box office and among critics. The performance by Jamie Lee Curtis was nominated for a Golden Globe, and Lohan’s turn as both an angsty teen and a mother trapped in a teenager’s body was widely appreciated. Harold Gould played Tess’ father, and Chad Michael Murray played Jake, Anna’s crush.

Teen comedy that stood test of time

As one of the most memorable teen comedies of the early 2000s, Freaky Friday has garnered a devoted fan following throughout the years. Teenagers and their parents could relate to the touching and amusing depiction of generational miscommunication.

Reunited in their legendary roles, Curtis and Lohan return to Freakier Friday over two decades later. The sequel, directed by Nisha Ganatra, will cover a fresh phase of the mother-daughter relationship, with Tess being older and Anna having grown up.

“Freakier Friday” sees a major reunion, with several original cast members reprising their roles. Joining the lead cast are Mark Harmon as Tess’ husband Ryan, Chad Michael Murray as Anna’s former boyfriend Jake, Rosalind Chao as Pei-Pei, Ryan Malgarini as Anna’s younger brother Harry, Christina Vidal Mitchell as Anna’s bandmate Maddie, Haley Hudson as her friend Peg, Stephen Tobolowsky as Principal Bates, and Lucille Soong as the fortune cookie shop owner.

The reunion of the original leads has excited fans who grew up with the film, although Disney has kept plot elements mostly under wraps.

Where to watch before sequel arrives

Now would be a wonderful time to see Freaky Friday again on JioHotstar (OTTplay Premium), since the sequel will be released in India on August 8, 2025.

UK viewers over the age of 55 watched almost twice as much YouTube last year as they did in 2023, with 42% of them watching on a TV, according to a survey by the communications regulator Ofcom.

Here, six people over 50 describe why they prefer YouTube and how it compares with the broadcast TV they grew up with.

‘YouTube is very personal and you feel involved’

YouTube is full of hidden gems and many videos are made by ordinary people. There’s so much more on offer in one place than other streaming services or broadcast channels. Also, some streaming channels can be difficult to navigate to find what you want. At the moment, I’m really enjoying reaction videos. One of my favourites is Regeneration Nation TV where an American duo react to music, comedians and TV shows like Fawlty Towers. They’re fun to watch and you feel involved. I also think it’s helpful for those who feel lonely – it’s almost like the people in these videos are with you. I used to work as a volunteer for the Samaritans so I can understand loneliness. I feel YouTube fills a need that other services don’t. It’s very personal and is a place where you can find anything, and often find what you’re looking for.
Lloyd , 62, disabled and unemployed, Kent

‘Terrestrial TV just feels old-fashioned’

YouTube offers so much content that aligns with my interests and hobbies including music, photography, science and movie reviews. Not to mention it’s all on demand and much of it is available in bite-size form (15 to 20 minutes). For dramas and films, I use streaming services. Now in my late 50s, I also really value YouTube’s treasure trove of live music performances – there’s always something new or nostalgic to discover. There is just nothing on traditional TV that comes anywhere close to the choice and niche subjects that I can find on YouTube, like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop tutorials. While I occasionally miss watching live events (women’s football, or Ozzy Osbourne’s funeral), I don’t feel I’m missing out.
Steve, 50s, customer services manager, Gloucestershire

‘I like how short content is on YouTube’

I like how short content is on YouTube, making it easy to watch something while you’re eating in the kitchen. I prefer it to other streaming services for the wide choice of things to watch. My favourite shows are when people are making something out of nothing, whether it’s the Great Pottery Throwdown or Rust Valley where they do up old cars. I had a TV licence because I didn’t want to have a problem with the authorities thinking I watch the television, even though I didn’t. I rescinded it recently, though, as I don’t think the BBC makes very good programmes any more. I’m not interested in their output and it feels very samey and boring. I’m also on a state pension and it was difficult to justify the fee.
Andrea, 67, retired care worker, Bedfordshire

‘You can watch anything from deep space to quantum theory’

Watching broadcast TV is madness – having to see something at a specific time makes no sense. I stopped about 20 years ago when Tivo came out, and over time not watching TV got easier once broadband improved and there were more streaming services. YouTube is so much better than others as you can watch anything from deep space to quantum theory. I like watching really detailed scientific videos that are overwhelmingly technical. One channel is PBS Eons, which is about the history of life on Earth. I find that TV is too long-winded and the episode recaps make me feel like I have a memory of a goldfish – it drives me up the wall. Out of politeness, I still have a TV licence. I’ve heard stories of people not being able to prove they’re not watching TV and being taken to court. It’s more for my peace of mind.
Stu Smith, 54, IT consultant, Ipswich

‘I just got fed up with terrestrial TV’

I watch YouTube because I can never find anything entertaining on terrestrial television. I really like to watch travel shows where I can sit at home and feel I can do things like climb in the Himalayas, trek in New Zealand or go to amazing restaurants in different countries. Even though I occasionally watched sport, I gave up my TV licence two years ago. I couldn’t abide so-called celebrities or look-at-me types who interrupted the programme so you get to look at their faces all the time. I don’t mean to be presenter-bashing, but when you get old you need to be a bit more calm in your life, and presenters tend to jump out the TV at you. I just got fed up with it.
Gillian, 73, retired secretary, Stratford-upon-Avon

‘Whether you’re learning or relaxing, YouTube is much more precise than TV’

I’ve played in a few bands and do a lot of recording at home and in 2018 I started watching help videos for recording with Logic Pro X on YouTube. Then I found a lot of guitar tutors as I was studying for my grade 5 classical, then moved on to using the platform for science and history documentaries. Suddenly I could access a lot of information. I also like watching it on the TV as it’s more comfortable than sitting at a desk or using a laptop. I find the ability to scroll through a multitude of topics to find something that fits my mood much better than the offerings on TV. YouTube seems to offer the ability to immerse and satisfy, whether learning or relaxing, in a much more precise way than TV or other streaming services.
Gerry McCart, 60, works in financial services, Edinburgh

The popular perception of Colonel Tom Parker is that he chiseled Elvis Presley out of a lot of money, forced his participation in some really bad 1960s movies and ensured Presley’s late-career servitude to Las Vegas with a gambling addiction to match the King’s own drug habit. But this is not the story Peter Guralnick looks to tell in his mammoth new book, “The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership that Rocked the World.”

The book is long on the “Colonel,” a moniker Parker claimed as his first name after the governor of Louisiana gave him the honorary title in 1948, and short on the King, who, after all, has been the subject of countless previous volumes. Some of the best were actually written by Guralnick, including “Last Train to Memphis” and “Careless Whispers.” Few writers know more about early rock ‘n’ roll and roots music, or have such passion for the subject. If you haven’t read Guralnick, you should make a point to.

Does that mean you should read “The Colonel and the King?” Only if you deeply seek a comprehensive study of Elvis’ longtime manager, who, it must be said, led a fascinating life defined by self-mythology and willful deception. Guralnick knew Parker from 1988 until his death in 1997, and you get the feeling the author saw his subject also as a friend. The book isn’t hagiography, because Guralnick does so much research and reporting for every book that he’s incapable of writing a one-sided account of any subject. That said, “The Colonel and the King” often reads like a Parker apologia, or at least a concentrated effort to set some records straight.

For instance, there’s Parker’s oft-reported reluctance to let Elvis tour internationally near the end of his career, for the reason that Parker wasn’t a U.S. citizen and therefore didn’t have a passport. “The subject of much uninformed speculation,” Guralnick writes, suggesting other reasons. “How could Elvis go to Japan, with its strict drug laws, how could he pass through all the customs stations he would have to clear in Europe if it were not to be a single small-country tour, without his prescribed medications? And who was going to carry those medications for him?”

Author Peter Guralnick is a passionate expert on early rock ‘n’ roll and roots music.

(Mike Leahy)

Parker’s background as a carnival worker is often used to deride him. How could a mere carny know about the music business, or qualify him to steward the king of rock ‘n’ roll? But the liveliest and most revealing parts of “The Colonel and the King” actually come before the Colonel meets the King, as Guralnick paints a picture of a tireless hustler desperate to reinvent himself.

Parker long claimed that he was born Thomas Andrew Parker in West Virginia. In fact, he was born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in Breda, Holland. As a boy, he went by “Dries.” His father was a liveryman and retired soldier. When young Dries fell in with a family circus and taught his father’s horses to do tricks, his dad roared that the kid “was no son of his, that he would never amount to anything, and, after beating him to within an inch of his life, announced that he would be banned from having anything to do with the stables.” As a teen, Parker smuggled himself to the U.S., got sent back, then made the trek again, this time successfully.

He developed a habit of being unofficially adopted by surrogate families and then disappearing without a trace, a pattern that continued when he joined the U.S. Army, went AWOL and eventually received an honorable discharge in 1933, with a certificate of disability that cited reasons of “Psychic Psychogenic Depression” (Parker claimed he was discharged for having a bad leg). He eventually ended up in Florida, where he became a jack-of-all-trades carny and developed a sharp instinct for advance publicity and promotion.

Elvis wasn’t Parker’s first music client; he developed his chops first with early pop superstar Gene Austin, then country star Hank Snow. But when Parker first witnessed Elvis and Elvis mania at the Louisiana Hayride in 1955, he was determined to manage him. Then it was on to selling him, cunningly and ferociously, to RCA, 20th Century Fox and whoever else would help build the mighty Elvis industry.

“The Colonel and the King” is a hunk of a book, weighing in at 624 pages. That includes about 250 pages of annotated letters to and from the Colonel, which might have been better used, in truncated form, spread throughout the narrative proper. You also get the sense that perhaps the author was rather quick to take Parker for his word, considering Parker himself once joked that he was writing an autobiography called “The Benevolent Con Man.”

One can admire Guralnick’s thoroughness and sense of mission while also wishing for tighter results. I found the arc of Parker’s story quite intriguing, even as I got a little tired of it.

Vognar is a freelance culture writer.