The Sunday Times

The average annual cost of sending a child to boarding school is approaching £50,000 due to sharp increases in next year’s fees.

Test your knowledge of Liam and Noel Gallagher, Morrissey, Ozzy Osbourne and many more

Like Narnia, with its never-ending winter, Ottawa is experiencing its own frozen stasis. Just as residents thought that boomerang Covid-19 restrictions might end, a new threat loomed — this time not a virus, but an equally insidious invasion.

From Babylon Berlin to Call My Agent! — our expert panel picks the best international television series

Are you an addict, a cheat or a plodder? We investigate the tribes hooked on the viral online word game

Never have I been so pleased to see a boy racer. It’s July 2019 and I’m standing next to a busy B road in Banbury, Oxfordshire, with an unusual delegation of adults. I say “adults” because it’s school pick-up time, 3pm, and we aren’t with any children. I have invited the local councillor to see how this main road near a school, with no pedestrian crossing, forces parents and children to run across and hope for the best, twice a day...

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The heroes of theatre talk about stepping in at a moment’s notice to save the show

The single take has won a place in film mythology — but is it worth the risk, Jake Helm asks Boiling Point’s director

Here are the highlights of what we’ve discovered from our interviews and reviews in this year of revelations

They made Jaws scarier and added songs to La La Land. Kevin Goetz tells Jake Helm how focus groups have changed the course of film history

The BBC star, 37, has played perky Trixie Franklin in all ten series of Call the Midwife

More Britons than ever are paying up to £7,500 for ghostwriters to pen their memoirs. What’s behind the boom, asks Jake Helm

After three decades Smithers has found a boyfriend. Jake Helm looks at the role of The Simpsons in the culture wars — and wonders what might happen next

The meteoric rise of Olivia Rodrigo, Dave’s electrifying second album and Laura Mvula does disco — Dan Cairns, Jonathan Dean and Jake Helm present their sounds to savour

Dan Cairns and Jake Helm select ten worth watching

With my hands clasped around her throat, Kate Waters is turning alarmingly red in the face. She flails her arms, seemingly struggling for breath, and I release her from my grip. “That was great,” she says, her cheeks returning to a normal colour. “Just try not to smile.” I’m in the stalls of the Almeida Theatre in north London getting my first lesson in stage combat from Waters, a fight director better known as Kombat Kate. A legend in the industry, she has taught everyone from Adrian Lester in

Ash Atalla is not used to talking politics. The producer of The Office, The IT Crowd and People Just Do Nothing has won a Primetime Emmy, a Golden Globe, six Baftas, four RTS awards and three British Comedy awards. He’s been driven to win “so that there’s something else associated with me other than being in a wheelchair”, he says carefully. Having caught polio as a baby in Cairo, Atalla has been in a wheelchair all his life. His doctor parents moved to Britain “because the main career for kids

Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart is one of those rare plays that transcends the theatre as entertainment to become as urgent as the night’s news. The play’s effect on gay men was simultaneously shattering and galvanising. I recall sitting in the stalls at the Albery Theatre in 1986 in an audience in which gay men were massively in the majority, sharing the collective dread when the actor playing Felix gingerly took off his sock to reveal to his lover, Ned Weeks, the first telltale sign of the di

Kenneth Branagh’s childhood ended on a hot August day in 1969. He was eight, in his home town of Belfast. He remembers simple things that afternoon — sunshine, playing in the terraced street, laughter. Then a weird sound. Branagh thought it must be a swarm of bees. He’d never heard anything like it. Next came running, shouting — a frenzied pack of men. There were flames. He ran inside and cowered, terrified, under a table. He remembers asking: “Is it still happening?” This was how the outbreak

The actor looks back on his life and how he turned down The Father — and missed out on an Oscar and an Olivier

Kristen Stewart says she has only made five good films out of 45. How does that compare with Hollywood greats like Leonardo DiCaprio, Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep, asks Tom Shone

Do you know your Sherlock from your Jane Tennison? Put your crime-solving knowledge to the test with our fiendish quiz

The red carpet for the opening night of the London Film Festival won’t just be rolling out in the capital. About 35 cinemas across the UK — from Sheffield to Inverness, Belfast to Manchester — will also be showing the gala screening of The Harder They Fall, starring Idris Elba. The festival isn’t stopping there as it tries to spread the love of cinema. Ten partner cinemas will take their pick from 16 of the biggest openings this autumn. They are: Broadway Cinema in Nottingham, Chapter in Cardif

Don McCullin is one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. In a career that has spanned more than 60 years he has documented the unemployed, the impoverished and the victims of war, primarily working for The Sunday Times Magazine. In a recent conversation with readers of The Sunday Times and The Times, McCullin picked the finest photographs out of his extensive collection — many of which have taken a mental and, at times, physical toll on the photographer. “I don’t get any freedom f

When and where are you most likely to be found reading? In bed at night, usually in the early hours when I can’t sleep. Or by my swimming pool at my villa in France, which is where I most enjoy it. Which books are on your bedside table? I find real life much more interesting than a novel so you’ll find a biography of Mike Nichols, a biography of the Duchess of Windsor and Rupert Everett’s latest autobiography. Which author’s books do you always devour? Charles Dickens and Peter James, who s

On the eve of his first show, the presenter tries out the famous black leather chair

For most of the past five centuries, Antwerp in Belgium has been the global capital of the diamond trade, but the combined effects of the coronavirus and a historic diplomatic agreement last year have turned Dubai into a serious rival.

As Prince’s Welcome 2 America is finally released, we take a look at some of the best records released posthumously

Covid-driven exodus of EU workers who now prefer Germany (contributed reporting)