Noel Clarke’s lawyers threatened accuser with prosecution, court told

Noel Clarke’s lawyers sent a letter to a woman accusing him of sexual misconduct, threatening her with prosecution in an attempt at “witness intimidation”, the high court has heard.The 49-year-old actor, who is suing Guardian News and Media (GNM) for libel over seven articles and a podcast published between April 2021 and March 2022, was on Tuesday, confronted with more allegations made against him by women.On his second day of being cross-examined in the witness box, Clarke was asked about a letter sent to Imogen*, an actor who is due to give evidence that she was “harassed and preyed on” by the writer-director of the Kidulthood trilogy at a dinner.Gavin Millar KC, acting for the Guardian, said the letter sent by solicitors firm the Khan Partnership on behalf of Clarke, on 5 November 2024, four days after a hearing in the case had taken place, stated that Imogen had been circulating allegations about the former Doctor Who star and that they were “grounds for legal action and criminal investigation”.He continued: “You were trying to deter her from giving evidence on our [the Guardian’s] side weren’t you? … The truth is that this letter is a straightforward attempt at witness intimidation

Australia to host ‘Space-out competition’ – where people compete to do nothing

Are you good at doing nothing? If you are in Melbourne later this year, you’ll be able to put your skills to the test in a “Space-out competition” – in which participants compete to see who can zone out the most over 90 minutes.The Space-out competition was started by the South Korean artist Woopsyang after she experienced burnout while working a stressful advertising job. Posed as a challenge to hustle culture, the competition has been held in busy parts of Seoul, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and will be held in Melbourne’s bustling QV mall this June, as part of Rising festival, the city’s annual winter arts festival.Participants are disqualified if they laugh, check their phones or fall asleep, and are encouraged to come in their work clothes or uniform. Two winners are chosen at each competition: the contestant with the most stable heart rate and the crowd favourite, with an overall winner selected from the two

Stephen Colbert on Trump: ‘A sack of incompetence and malice’

Late-night hosts discussed how Donald Trump is tanking the US economy while also detailing the absurd attempts to de-woke the military.On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert started by talking about the daylight savings leap over the weekend, saying he has “never been more grateful to be one hour closer to the end”.This week has seen the stock market plummet with the Dow Jones index falling 890 points. Despite attempts, there is “no good way to spin the story” and the news has been “bumming out everybody on Wall Street” with those who work there reportedly exhausted.“Do you know how hard it is to exhaust Wall Street?” Colbert asked before joking that they wake up to a “hot cup of cocaine and then just to take the edge off, more cocaine”

The Beguiled: 1971 Clint Eastwood film is a sweaty, southern hothouse

On paper, Don Siegel’s 1971 southern gothic melodrama The Beguiled appears the perfect candidate for a remake: a critical and commercial failure in its own time, its infamous reputation helped it linger in the margins of popular consciousness. Sofia Coppola would have thought as much when she directed her own take on Thomas P Cullinan’s source novel in 2017. While Coppola’s version is full of distinct beauty, Siegel’s original stands alone in its unyielding thorniness.That may have seemed like a career misstep for star Clint Eastwood upon its initial release but it now stands clearly as one of the most potent subversions of the masculine archetype he helped popularise.Eastwood plays John McBurney, an unscrupulous corporal fighting for the Union during the waning days of the American civil war

Womadelaide 2025: Róisín Murphy, Khruangbin and others lead a blissful, sweltering weekend

Botanic Park, AdelaideDespite the heat, this year’s festival was full of magical moments and big sounds, with musicians making fascinating genre connectionsAs the sun set on day three of Womadelaide, under the bat colony at Tainmuntilla (Botanic Park), the audience were in a trance. The Brooklyn-based Colombian musician Ela Minus mixed her voice with synthesisers, prompting a roar from the crowd; strobe lighting pulsed over the moving mass of bodies. The surrounding pine trees somehow seemed to make the reverb echo even stronger, lifting us up through the canopy to the open stars above.Minus’s music is complex and expansive, pop music meets house. We were all hypnotised, dancing as one, slick with a day’s worth of sunblock and sweat

Art with Cantona and puppet animals lined up for Manchester international festival

A giant herd of puppet animals raising awareness of the climate crisis and artwork inspired by footballers including Eric Cantona are part of the 10th edition of the Manchester international festival (MIF), whose organisers want visitors to have “a moment to reflect”.The former Manchester United footballer Juan Mata, the art curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and the writer, filmmaker and curator Josh Willdigg have put together the event’s “set piece”, a celebration of the beautiful game where artists and footballers collaborated on purpose-made artworks.The England Lionesses midfielder Ella Toone, the former Netherlands and Juventus enforcer Edgar Davids, and the Manchester United great Cantona are among the footballers taking part in Football City, Art United, which will take place in Aviva Studios and include sculpture, sound installations and animation.It was inspired after a conversation between MIF’s artistic director, John McGrath, the poet Lemn Sissay, Obrist and Mata, who saw MIF’s Poets Slash Artist show, where visual artists and poets collaborated, and asked if something similar could be done with footballers. Mata also featured in 2023’s edition of the festival, working with Obrist and Tino Sehgal