The Guardian
A job that changed me: Being a theatre usher cracked open my heart to beauty 31 August 2026 at 18:00

A job that changed me: Being a theatre usher cracked open my heart to beauty

31 August 2026 at 18:00

The performances often gave me goose bumps, but I also got to observe the highs and lows of audience behaviour

Read more in this series here

I was 24, had just moved into a share house I couldn’t afford, and my job as a nanny was proving less than ideal. I’d graduated from my music degree a few years prior and was floating along, feeling a little lost.

A friend had told me to apply to become a front-of-house staff member at Australia’s busiest performing arts centre, Arts Centre Melbourne. It was a rare opportunity, as people rarely quit. To be surrounded by art again sounded like a dream.

The Guardian
The Bridge review – a funny, furious odyssey through occupation 30 August 2026 at 12:38

The Bridge review – a funny, furious odyssey through occupation

The Guardian

By: Mark Fisher

30 August 2026 at 12:38

Assembly George Square studios, Edinburgh
Writer and actor Alaa Shehada turns a simple bus trip from the West Bank into a vivid tale of bureaucracy, humiliation and resistance

It is the simplicity of the task that gives this story heft. Recalling his formative years in the West Bank, actor and writer Alaa Shehada is asked by his mother to go on a bus journey that would take a couple of hours in any other part of the world.

His mission is to deliver a plastic jerry can filled with the family’s home-pressed olive oil to his aunt in Jordan. His obstacle is the 180m crossing point known variously as the Dignity Bridge, the Allenby Bridge and the King Hussein Bridge, depending on your political standpoint.

The Guardian
Women in UK arts feel they do not have equal opportunities for roles, says report 30 August 2026 at 12:00

Women in UK arts feel they do not have equal opportunities for roles, says report

The Guardian

By: Rachel Hall

30 August 2026 at 12:00

Exclusive: Research says sector is fixated with young talent, with most women experiencing unconscious bias or sexism

Women working in the arts believe they do not have equal opportunities for roles, especially as they get older, according to a report saying that the industry is fixated with “young and emerging” talent.

Nearly all (95%) women working in the arts thought gender inequality persisted, while three-quarters (75%) reported experiencing unconscious bias or sexism, according to a survey of 76 arts professionals. More than two-thirds (69%) felt that age negatively affected their career success – a figure that rose to 100% among those working in artistic rather than managerial roles.

The Guardian
‘That’s what saved me’: Darren Raymond and Mark Rylance on the prison drama workshop that brought them together 30 August 2026 at 12:00

‘That’s what saved me’: Darren Raymond and Mark Rylance on the prison drama workshop that brought them together

The Guardian

By: JN Benjamin

30 August 2026 at 12:00

A masterclass led by the actor helped set Raymond on a new path. Now the head of a theatre company, he has coaxed his friend back to the stage for a show to encourage young people to fall in love with performing

Darren Raymond doesn’t remember having any significant interest in acting when he was growing up. And when he met Mark Rylance for the first time, on Christmas Eve 2004, he had never heard of the multi-award winning actor. These days, things are very different: Raymond is the artistic director of Intermission Youth, the London-based arts charity and theatre, and is directing his friend Rylance in the lead role of Tartuffe (Remixed), Raymond’s adaptation of the Molière play, which opens at London’s Marylebone theatre this week.

It’s fair to say neither could have anticipated they’d still be in touch this long after their initial meeting. “Unlikely companions” is a tired cliche by this point, but that doesn’t make it any less true to say that on the surface, the two had very little in common. Raymond was a young twentysomething raised on an inner-city housing estate and serving a prison sentence at HMP Brixton. Meanwhile Rylance was twice his age, a successful professional actor, and artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe. Nevertheless that meeting, at a Shakespeare workshop in the prison, turned into a professional connection, which soon evolved into a solid friendship.

World news | The Guardian
Women in UK arts feel they do not have equal opportunities for roles, says report 30 August 2026 at 12:00

Women in UK arts feel they do not have equal opportunities for roles, says report

World news | The Guardian

By: Rachel Hall

30 August 2026 at 12:00

Exclusive: Research says sector is fixated with young talent, with most women experiencing unconscious bias or sexism

Women working in the arts believe they do not have equal opportunities for roles, especially as they get older, according to a report saying that the industry is fixated with “young and emerging” talent.

Nearly all (95%) women working in the arts thought gender inequality persisted, while three-quarters (75%) reported experiencing unconscious bias or sexism, according to a survey of 76 arts professionals. More than two-thirds (69%) felt that age negatively affected their career success – a figure that rose to 100% among those working in artistic rather than managerial roles.

The Guardian
When Prophecy Fails review – gripping dive into a doomsday cult 30 August 2026 at 07:00

When Prophecy Fails review – gripping dive into a doomsday cult

The Guardian

By: Lyndsey Winship

30 August 2026 at 07:00

Studio theatre, Edinburgh
Groupwork’s physical theatre show captures the real story of a midwest mystic from the 50s and the followers she drew, in all their eerie ordinariness

In the early 1950s in the American midwest, a woman known by the alias of Marian Keech awoke in the night with the urge to write. But the words that came out weren’t her own: it was the voice of her late father, she was sure. Other voices from the beyond began to use Marian as a conduit, ultimately Jesus Christ himself, which is how Keech came to be at the centre of a doomsday cult of seemingly ordinary citizens convinced the world was about to end, but that they would be rescued by aliens from the planet Clarion.

It is such a good story, one that was captured in a landmark social psychology study at the time as well as the book When Prophecy Fails, that you could argue Scottish theatre company Groupwork don’t have a lot to do. But their treatment of the tale is deceptively simple in a very well-crafted show that does no more and no less than it needs to.

The Guardian
Roll up, tumble down! The show that imagines the US as a collapsing circus – in pictures 29 August 2026 at 07:00

Roll up, tumble down! The show that imagines the US as a collapsing circus – in pictures

The Guardian

By: Murdo MacLeod

29 August 2026 at 07:00

At the newly reopened King’s theatre in Edinburgh, as part of the international festival, Geoff Sobelle’s Clown Show is a dizzying whirl through US history

Clown Show review – the American dream explodes over one anarchic night

The Guardian
Digested week: Is there anything sadder than the end of summer? | Emma Brockes 28 August 2026 at 13:11

Digested week: Is there anything sadder than the end of summer? | Emma Brockes

The Guardian

By: Emma Brockes

28 August 2026 at 13:11

Plus, views from the Cotswolds of Harry and Meghan’s return, and the embarrassing anachronism that is Ali G

Is there anything sadder than the end of summer? As schools go back next week and parents rely on the boosting effect of a return to routine, we look around for other ways to soften the blow. A few things this year that might make it easier: the need for rain ensures that the advent of autumn is slightly less depressing than usual; people with attic conversions in which you could bake a muffin over the summer will be able to use them again; and if you happen to be a woman of 50 or thereabouts, the fresher weather is ... a relief.

The Guardian
Fairytales pending: the fringe musicals hoping to live happily ever after 28 August 2026 at 10:00

Fairytales pending: the fringe musicals hoping to live happily ever after

The Guardian

By: Chris Wiegand

28 August 2026 at 10:00

Edinburgh has given festival audiences a look at two long awaited musicals – Bliss and Disenchanted! – with both aiming to now scale up their spectacle

The Edinburgh fringe is mostly where new work is forged but that’s not the full picture. Amid all the hot-off-the-press shows are a number of familiar titles that have been around for years yet are only making their professional UK debut now. That’s the case with two fairytale musical productions hoping for a longer life whose festival run is a chance to engineer that happily ever after.

Bliss, co-created by Tyler Beattie and Emma Lively, won a new play award in the US in 2019 and had its world premiere in Seattle the year after. A handful of its songs were released in 2022. Now developed into what is billed as “the biggest new musical of the Edinburgh fringe”, it has a cast of 17 which exceeds regular fringe proportions – as does the running time (80 minutes rather than the standard hour).