Tag Archives: Newspapers

The Rapture review – this apocalyptic drama couldn’t be here at a better time

It’s set in a UK racked by an unbearable heatwave and the rise of extremism – this adaptation of the 2010 novel feels horrifyingly apt

When The Rapture by Liz Jensen was first published, in 2010, it was set in a near-future when temperatures in the UK are rising to unbearable heights, culty-Christian groups with apocalyptic bents are springing up all over the place and there is a growing sense that the world is going mad.

‘My mother was 4ft 11in and scared the hell out of people’ – Sean Astin on child stardom, The Lord of the Rings and surviving 45 years in Hollywood

His mother was an Oscar-winning actor who had been exploited from a young age; Astin appeared in The Goonies at just 13. Now, he has followed in his mother’s footsteps again as a union leader. He talks Stranger Things, AI and why playing Samwise Gamgee cost him his house

Sean Astin is showing me around his new office.

‘I thought it didn’t stand a cat’s chance in hell’: Andrew Ridgeley on Wham’s surreal trip to China

Four decades after he and George Michael became the first western pop act to tour the country, Ridgeley recalls silent gigs, awkward embassy receptions – and the ‘bloody ludicrous’ hiring of Lindsay Anderson as director

There has always been something surreal about Wham!’s 1985 trip to China. George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley looked like alien visitors on the streets of Beijing, their bouffant hair and flamboyant outfits setting them apart from the Mao jackets and drab uniforms of the Chinese people they encountered.