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Emerald Fennell’s take on Emily Brontë is an emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire that misuses Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi but makes the most of Martin Clunes
Emerald Fennell cranks up the campery as she reinvents Emily Brontë’s tale of Cathy and Heathcliff on the windswept Yorkshire moor as a 20-page fashion shoot of relentless silliness, with bodices ripped to shreds and a saucy slap of BDSM. Margot Robbie’s Cathy at one stage secretly heads off to the moor for a hilarious bit of self-pleasuring – although, sadly, there are no audaciously intercut scenes of thirst-trap Heathcliff, played by Jacob Elordi, simultaneously doing the same thing in the stable, while muttering gruffly in that Yerrrrrkshire accent of his.
This then is Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, or rather “Wuthering Heights”; the title archly appears in inverted commas, although the postmodern irony seems pointless. Cathy is a primped belle quivering in the presence of Heathcliff, who himself is a moody, long-haired, bearded outsider, as if Scarlett O’Hara were going to melt into the arms of Charles Manson. However, he does get substantially Darcyfied up later on, rocking a shorter and more winsome hairstyle, his gossamer-thin shirt never dry.
Continue reading...Mon, 09 Feb 2026 20:00:02 GMT
Keir Starmer’s future as prime minister suffered another major blow when the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, called for him to go. With the cabinet rallying around him, the PM seems to be safe for now, but for how much longer? Pippa and Kiran look at what might happen next
Please send your questions and messages for Pippa Crerar, Kiran Stacey and John Harris to politicsweeklyuk@theguardian.com
Mon, 09 Feb 2026 21:38:02 GMT
This year’s set of $8m TV spots gave us new looks at alien conspiracy thriller Disclosure Day, slasher sequel Scream 7 and an unlikely new David Fincher film
With Super Bowl spots now up to a reported $8-10m, the market has grown a little less welcoming to Hollywood, an industry still not quite up to pre-pandemic numbers (the global box office for 2025 was down almost $10bn on 2019).
So while last night saw us assaulted with ads for beer and, depressingly, AI, there was a continued decrease in the number of major film ads, a harder spend to justify in this weakened climate. But the biggest of guns still came out, from Spielberg to Ghostface to the Minions …
Continue reading...Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:49:55 GMT
The same cabinet ministers who failed to speak up for the PM in the morning were soon offering their undying support
Not another one. On Sunday it was Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, who took one for the team by resigning over the Peter Mandelson appointment. On Monday, No 10’s head of communications, Tim Allan, did likewise without offering much by way of an explanation.
Presumably it was another effort to delay the inevitable. “We need a futile gesture, chaps.” No matter that most normal people won’t have heard of either of them. Let alone be able to identify them in a police lineup.
Continue reading...Mon, 09 Feb 2026 18:30:38 GMT
You could do the weekly shop on your own, or you could turn it into the ultimate compatibility test by inviting a date along. And there’s always that flatpack furniture to assemble ...
Name: Choremancing.
Age: About four months.
Continue reading...Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:18:08 GMT
Budgets have been slashed, morale is through the floor and the company has been forced to find a second base in Manchester. But the new musical director is up for a challenge. We meet the man with the hardest job in music
André de Ridder is either brave or stupid. He has accepted the role as the music director of English National Opera – its chief conductor and keeper of its musical flame. He will take up the role formally in 2027. The post has been empty for several anguished years, sparked by Arts Council England’s 2022 announcement that the company would lose all its funding unless it moved out of London. Amid a fightback that, to cut a long story short, resulted in the company retaining a foothold in the London Coliseum, but partially moving to Manchester, De Ridder’s predecessor, Martyn Brabbins, abruptly quit in 2023, saying that the company was heading into “managed decline”. Brabbins’s predecessor, Mark Wigglesworth, had also resigned suddenly in 2016, saying ENO was evolving into “something I do not recognise”. It was beginning to sound like an opera plot. Bluebeard’s Castle, maybe. A murdered conductor behind every door in the mansion.
And yet: De Ridder’s enthusiasm is irrepressible. For some, it would be daunting to come into a company whose world-class orchestra and chorus have had their full-time contracts slashed to seven months of the year; from which the chief executive has just resigned; where morale (insiders tell me) is rock bottom. But the Berlin-raised 54-year-old sees only the opportunities. From his perspective, the shake-ups are in the past.
Continue reading...Mon, 09 Feb 2026 16:22:26 GMT
PM survives day of high tension after Scots Labour leader Anas Sarwar urges him to step down amid Peter Mandelson row
How the Downing Street machine ensured Starmer survived to fight another day
Exclusive: Top civil servant could become third key No 10 departure in days
Keir Starmer has seen off an immediate challenge to his position from Labour’s leader in Scotland, telling his MPs he was “not prepared to walk away” from power and plunge the country into chaos.
But the prime minister emerged badly damaged from a tumultuous 24 hours that brought his premiership to the brink, leaving his party united for now but fearful of what the coming days and weeks will bring.
Continue reading...Mon, 09 Feb 2026 21:07:43 GMT
Cap-busting tax hike will be embarrassing for the party, which has made low council tax a priority
Reform-led Worcestershire county council is likely to issue England’s largest council tax rise this April after it was given special permission by the government to increase it by up to 9%.
Worcestershire is one of a handful of authorities whose requests to be allowed to increase local rates above the standard 5% cap from April have been accepted by ministers.
Continue reading...Mon, 09 Feb 2026 19:49:00 GMT
Mountbatten-Windsor suspected of forwarding reports to child sex offender when he was government trade envoy
King Charles has expressed his “profound concern” over allegations about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and will “stand ready to support” the police if approached over the claims, Buckingham Palace has said.
Thames Valley police confirmed on Monday they were assessing claims that Mountbatten-Windsor shared confidential reports from his role as a government trade envoy with the child sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2010.
Continue reading...Mon, 09 Feb 2026 18:41:23 GMT
Seamus Culleton has lived in US for two decades, married a citizen and runs a plastering business but faces deportation
An Irish man has spent five months in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and faces deportation despite having a valid work permit and no criminal record.
Seamus Culleton was a “model immigrant” who had become the victim of a capricious and inept system, said his lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye.
Continue reading...Mon, 09 Feb 2026 17:04:37 GMT
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