NFL confirmed person was part of the 400-member cast and ‘will be banned for life from all NFL stadiums and events’

A performer in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show was detained on the field and could face charges after unfurling a combination Sudanese-Palestinian flag with “Sudan” and “Gaza” written on it.

The NFL confirmed the person was part of the 400-member field cast. The New Orleans police department said in a statement that “law enforcement is working to determine applicable charges in this incident”.

Continue reading...

Charismatic lead aside, a sketchy script and surfeit of stereotypes blight this tale of a secret gay love affair among New York’s Latino community

The opening scenes of this film, written and directed by Dennis Shinners, have the sensorial feel of a city symphony ; the sights and sounds of New York’s Brooklyn are all here. From the gentle chugging of a cargo barge along the East River to the clanking jingle of an ice-cream truck, the rhythm of life in this diverse neighbourhood bursts with vibrancy.

From this panoramic view of the city, Barrio Boy closes in on a hair salon, where Quique (Dennis Garcia) works as a barber. The place is charming: airy, full of light, yet also witnesses the paradoxes that exist in the local Latino community. Quique shares a strong camaraderie with his male peers, but as a closeted gay man is forced to put on a macho front, especially to his homophobic, drug-dealing cousin (Keet Davis). A love affair with Kevin (James Physick), a handsome stranger from Ireland, threatens to send Quique’s life into chaos.

Continue reading...

From seeing things to hearing voices, there’s a finer line between hallucination and reality than you might suppose

When did you last hallucinate? “The visionary tendency is much more common among sane people than is generally suspected,” wrote the 19th-century psychologist Sir Francis Galton. Setting aside the vivid, often emotive, cinema of our dreams, we are all more vulnerable to “seeing things” than we might at first suppose.

Around four fifths of people who have recently been bereaved report an encounter with their loved one: most commonly a lively sense of their presence, but some hear, see or speak with them. Up to 60% of people who lose sight in later life see things that aren’t there, sometimes extravagant images such as the “two young men … wearing magnificent cloaks … their hats … trimmed with silver” who appeared in the first reported case of Charles Bonnet syndrome, as this phenomenon is known, before “dissolving” away. A 20-year-old woman blindfolded for 12 hours saw “cities, skies, kaleidoscopes, lions and sunsets so bright she could ‘barely look at them’”. After losing a limb, most people carry a “constant or inconstant phantom of the missing member”, as Weir Mitchell, the American neurologist who coined the term phantom limb after studying 90 cases from the American civil war, put it. Pilots on long flights, travellers through snowstorms and deserts, prisoners and hostages held in darkness; their restless brains are all prone to see the things of which they’re being deprived.

Continue reading...

Language, history and arts are what make us a nation – and they’re at risk when funding is slashed to levels among the lowest in Europe

What is a nation? There are several, varying definitions, but ultimately it comes down to the same answer: a large group of people bound together through shared culture, history and language. For us in Cymru, the idea of a Welsh nation is something about which we are pretty sensitive and protective. Our most provocative historian, Gwyn Alf Williams , said that Wales has “from birth … lived with the threat of extinction” and that the survival of Welsh nationhood is “one of the minor miracles of history”.

To those of you who mainly know Wales through the occasional holiday, the Six Nations and Gareth Bale, this might sound an odd thing to say. After all, whenever you see Wales or Welsh people represented anywhere they are loudly and unequivocally, well, Welsh.

Continue reading...

Co-op Live, Manchester
There’s still no-one else like the 71-year-old star: she gives rambling speeches and accidentally hits someone with a recorder, but her voice punches through the chaos

Within 10 minutes of appearing on stage, Cyndi Lauper has sung about masturbation, played a tuneless recorder solo, accidentally hit a crew member with said instrument, and given a rambling speech about wrestlers, the Goonies and how, after more than 40 years in music, this will be her last tour. “I figured if I was going out,” she says while sporting a mint-green wig, “I’d go out with a bang.”

That’s certainly one way to describe the approach to the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour , Lauper’s first (and now final) arena shows since 1987. The tour began last year in North America, although that time on the road hasn’t reined in the chaos: the show is all over the place. Along with the incident involving the recorder, Lauper is plagued by technical difficulties, poor sound that buries her voice beneath an admittedly slick band, an uneven setlist, dodgy costumes, and her own garrulous monologues.

Continue reading...

Unicorn theatre, London
Winsome Pinnock adapts the story of a teenager whose heart transplant causes controversy but the comedy drowns out the issues

Some set designs instantly make sense. Paul Wills’s clever arrangement of television screens and speakers, all linked up by glowing capillary-like tubes, encapsulates Malorie Blackman’s 1997 novel about a boy whose pig-heart transplant leads to a media frenzy. Andrew Exeter’s lighting switches from blood red to cool blue for scenes when 13-year-old Cameron repeatedly puts himself – and, eventually, his new heart – to the test when diving at his local pool.

Blackman’s novel is itself a deep dive: this “what would you do?” book for young readers considers ethics, animal rights, othering and empathy. Keeping the pre-social media setting, Winsome Pinnock’s new adaptation draws upon the heightened poetic style of Blackman’s opening chapter. Pinnock retains the narrator’s spirited interest in wordplay, boosts the wisdom of Cameron’s Nan and makes water more of a unifying theme throughout the story. Her version also takes a thrilling new turn towards the end.

Continue reading...

O2 Academy, Glasgow
With Chris Davids recovered from a brain condition, the electronic act’s first tour in years is full of committed, emotionally resonant performances

Celebrating the chart success of new album Hallucinating Love, Chris Davids and Liam Ivory posted a question on social media last week: “Who ever thought melancholy elevator music would make it in the Top 10?”

This tongue-in-cheek description gets at certain truths about the Maribou State sound. It can glide past without making much impact, but leaves behind a feeling of pleasant sadness, a vapour trail of blue.

Continue reading...

Low-budget British film’s attempt to blend psychological drama and extreme horror ultimately falls between two stools

Cara (Elle O’Hara) is a troubled young woman living in a flatshare and engaged in online sex work, for which she earns a meagre living with her webcam via a sleazy site called RedRoomFans. She had previously been institutionalised in a hospital where she was abused, and now experiences episodes of “maladaptive daydreaming” which her therapist is concerned indicate a drift into psychosis. (Spoiler: her therapist is not wrong.) These interludes are rendered through a colourful blue-green filter effect which, like the rest of the film, is not particularly subtle but underlines its point effectively enough.

Cara’s sex work is not viewed through any kind of filter, flattering or otherwise. We see a selection of her customers, of which Jacob Roberts’ character Paul Ashton is the least charming. These guys aren’t an imaginative bunch, on the whole, and while nothing overtly explicit is shown, Cara’s distaste for her work is palpable. But it’s nothing next to her absolute aversion to being sent back to hospital, and we sense from the moment we first hear about Cara’s mysterious plan to protect herself from this fate that said plan will turn out to be a grand guignol affair.

Continue reading...

Former police officer had revealed last year he had been diagnosed with an unspecified terminal illness

The TV writer Nigel McCrery – creator of the series Silent Witness – has died aged 71, his agent has confirmed.

The former police officer, who also devised the cold case show New Tricks, revealed last year that he had been diagnosed with an unspecified terminal illness.

Continue reading...