This animated comedy about a hotel full of ghosts comes from a Rick and Morty writer. But banish all thoughts about cartoon sitcom greatness – it is relentlessly, endlessly OK

Animated comedy for adults should be a limitless playground for the world’s brightest comic imaginations and sometimes it is, but it is also a genre that has been bloated by bland, empty calories – inessential shows that viewers leave running in the background while they potter or doomscroll. To the teetering pile of landfill entertainment can be added Haunted Hotel, Netflix’s new comedy about, unsurprisingly, a haunted hotel.

As you ponder whether or not to put it on your watchlist, push the giants of cartoon sitcom out of your mind: showrunner Matt Roller has episodes of Rick and Morty on his CV, but Haunted Hotel doesn’t have the fizzing imaginative leaps of that series, nor does it deliver the finely honed, classic comedy of The Simpsons, the lewd snark of Family Guy or the black profundity of BoJack Horseman. Instead, it is, at best, quite funny. It has lines that conform to the familiar shape of jokes. Some of the synapses you associate with laughter will experience mild stimulus. If you don’t like this gag, another will be along in a minute, and although you probably also won’t like that one, you won’t strongly dislike it either. This show is relentlessly, endlessly OK.

Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon and David Letterman criticize ABC’s parent company, Disney, and FCC chief, Brendan Carr

Late-night show hosts Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon and former host David Letterman have all rallied behind Jimmy Kimmel following ABC’s decision to indefinitely suspend his popular late-night show after his comments about the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk.

In his opening monologue on Thursday night, Stephen Colbert mocked executives at Disney, ABC’s parent company, for caving to threats from Brendan Carr, the FCC chairman, when they pulled Kimmel off the air.

Bridge theatre, London
Ibsen’s mysticism and mermaids are thrown out as director Simon Stone amps up the 1888 play’s psychological intensity with his eco-focused update

Writer-director Simon Stone is known for his rock’n’roll takes on the classics. This is a characteristically high-octane version of Ibsen’s play: loud, modern and led by screen stars Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln. Yet his script, again created in the rehearsal process, retains all of Ibsen’s layers and adds some of its own in the updating.

All mystical talk of the sea and mermaids is excised. The production brings a sharply lit realism to the privileged yet complex family at its heart that seems to be slowly drowning: Ellida (Vikander), as the young, second wife of neurologist Edward (Lincoln), is caught between life with her husband and a long lost, formative ex-lover, Finn (Brendan Cowell), who makes a reappearance. Ellida’s stepdaughters, Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike) and Asa (Gracie Oddie-James), are trying to stay afloat amid grief for their biological mother, who killed herself.

As Air Force One journeyed from the US to the UK this week, it came within eight lateral miles of a Spirit Airlines flight heading up the East Coast from Fort Lauderdale to Boston. An alert air traffic controller in the New York control center reached out to the Spirit flight, telling it to execute an immediate right turn to avoid any possibility of colliding with Air Force One.

But the Spirit pilots did not respond immediately, leading the testy air traffic controller to scold them repeatedly. (You can listen to the audio archive on LiveATC.net; it begins at around the 23:15 mark.)

"Pay attention!" said the controller after his first instruction was not acknowledged. "Spirit 1300, turn 20 degrees right."

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The cast radiate charm, the storytelling is hugely imaginative and the narrative is irresistibly heartwarming. It’s not the funniest comedy, but it has so much more going for it than just laughs

Mawaan Rizwan began his career as a YouTuber; he later attended the prestigious Paris clown school, École Philippe Gaulier. In Juice, the 33-year-old’s BBC sitcom, he effortlessly unites these disparate comedy training grounds. As the fun-loving commitment-phobe Jamma, Rizwan channels the archetypal man-child vlogger. Puppyish and relatable, he wears his insecurities on his sleeve, and his attempts to conform to the expectations of adulthood are inevitably thwarted. But he is also a figure of more outre fun. With a severe bowl-cut and a penchant for retina-searing fashion, Jamma is overtly ridiculous: a master of slapstick and a magnet for chaos.

In series one, Jamma spent most of his time clowning about: hardly working at a quirky marketing company (with mini trampolines instead of desk chairs) and messing around his sensible therapist boyfriend Guy (Russell Tovey). Now – having been fired from the job and broken up with Guy – he’s crashing with his friend Winnie and working as a clown in a care home. Jamma seems fine with his new gig and more interested in sleeping around than patching things up with lovelorn Guy. But after their paths cross again, he becomes determined to win him back.

The band cited a ‘moral and ethical burden’ placed on artists by revenue from their work ultimately funding lethal technologies

Massive Attack have become the latest act – and first major-label one – to pull their catalogue from Spotify in protest at founder Daniel Ek investing €600m (£520m) in the military AI company Helsing.

In June, Ek’s venture capital firm Prima Materia led the defence tech firm’s latest funding round. Helsing’s software uses AI technology to analyse sensor and weapons system data from battlefields to inform real-time military decisions. It also makes its own military drone, the HX-2. Ek is also chairman of Helsing.

Unconnected to this initiative and in light of the (reported) significant investments by its CEO in a company producing military munition drones and AI technology integrated into fighter aircraft, Massive Attack have made a separate request to our label that our music be removed from the Spotify streaming service in all territories.

In our view, the historic precedent of effective artist action during apartheid South Africa and the apartheid, war crimes and genocide now being committed by the state of Israel renders the No Music for Genocide campaign imperative.

In 1991 the scourge of apartheid violence fell from South Africa, aided from a distance by public boycotts, protests, and the withdrawal of work by artists, musicians and actors. Complicity with that state was considered unacceptable. In 2025 the same now applies to the genocidal state of Israel. As of today, there’s a musician’s equivalent of the recently announced @filmworkers4palestine campaign (signed by 4,500 filmmakers, actors, industry workers & institutions) – it can be found @nomusicforgenocide & supports the wider asks of the growing @bds.movement . We’d appeal to all musicians to transfer their sadness, anger and artistic contributions into a coherent, reasonable & vital action to end the unspeakable hell being visited upon the Palestinians hour after hour.

Michael McCarthy on the support his organisation receives from Arts Council Wales – and used to receive from Arts Council England

Your article ( ‘We have permission to be brave’: the women taking charge of crisis-hit Welsh National Opera, 11 September ) mentions Arts Council funding cuts “sealing a steep decline in a wider Welsh operatic ecosystem (also including the sadly reduced Mid Wales Opera and Music Theatre Wales)”. While it is true that the wider opera sector in Wales has suffered a steep decline in recent years, it is important to clarify the key funding decisions that have brought this about and to draw a distinction between the support of Arts Council Wales and Arts Council England.

Music Theatre Wales has received close to standstill funding from Arts Council Wales since 2011. We all know that in real terms this represents a significant reduction in funding, but nevertheless it does demonstrate Arts Council Wales’s ongoing commitment to the work Music Theatre Wales is doing to reimagine how opera is made, who is making it and how it is perceived. However, our ability to develop and share this work more widely has been severely impacted by the decision of Arts Council England to discontinue funding Music Theatre Wales in 2019, and by the changes and challenges faced by many presenting venues and partners in England.

Palestinian musicians were joined by stars including Neneh Cherry and Louis Theroux for a massive four-hour fundraising concert in London. Their artistry revealed the strength and breadth of a culture under siege

It’s a muggy midweek afternoon when a trail of people draped in black and white keffiyeh scarves, Palestine flags and Free Palestine slogan T-shirts begin to trickle into Wembley Arena. In the foyer of the venue, 56-year-old Kiran has just arrived from her home in Milton Keynes.

“I’d never protested in my life before October 2023,” she says. “It’s been so horrific to see what’s happening in Gaza, I felt I had to do something since if you don’t make a stand now, when would you ever? Things might feel futile but this is a way to show the world we care and that we stand together more than we are torn apart.”

Neneh Cherry performs with Greentea Peng

She was discovered by Pharrell Williams, signed by Kanye West and worked with Beyoncé – all by her early 20s. Now the star of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film is creating a buzz in Hollywood

Teyana Taylor is – as she often says to interviewers – the entertainment equivalent of “a Glade plug-in” air freshener: put her in “any socket” and she will make “every room smell good”. And, at 34, she has the CV to prove it. After kicking off her career at 15 as a choreographer for Beyoncé (she later showcased her own moves to millions in the headline-grabbing video for Kanye West’s 2016 single Fade), the New York native began making her own critically acclaimed, cutting-edge R&B. She has also acted in a slew of movies and TV shows – including an award-winning turn as a mother who kidnaps her son from the care system in 2023’s A Thousand and One – and worked as a creative director for brands and a host of other musicians.

But Taylor also likens herself to another household item. “I am a sponge,” she says. “I’m never above being a student.” This was especially true on the set of her latest project, Paul Thomas Anderson’s vigilante group caper One Battle After Another. Observing castmates including Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro – plus the director himself (to many, the greatest of his generation) – turned her into “SpongeBob SquarePants. I get to have my notebook and take all these notes and soak everything in.”