plot

Tom Stoppard, dead?

Surely, someone has made a hash of the plot. Yes, he was 88, but the Czech-born, British playwright, the true 20th century heir to Oscar Wilde, would never have arranged things so banally.

“A severe blow to Logic” is how a character describes the death of a philosophy professor in Stoppard’s 1972 play “Jumpers.” But then, as this polymath wag continues, “The truth to us philosophers, Mr. Crouch, is always an interim judgment … Unlike mystery novels, life does not guarantee a denouement; and if it came, how would one know whether to believe it?”

Few people were more agnostically alive than Stoppard, who loved the finer things in life and handsomely earned them with his inexhaustible wit. A man of consummate urbanity who lived like a country squire, he was a sportsman (cricket was his game) and a connoisseur of ideas, which he treated with a cricketer’s agility and vigor.

Stoppard announced himself with “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” an absurdist lark that views “Hamlet” from the keyhole perspective of two courtiers jockeying for position in the new regime. The influence of Samuel Beckett was unmistakable in the combination of music hall zaniness and existential ruthlessness that characterized the succession of early plays that merged the Theatre of the Absurd with a souped-up version of Shavian farce.

Simple wasn’t Stoppard‘s style. The Fellini-esque profusion of “Jumpers” includes warring philosophy professors, a retired chanteuse and a chorus of acrobats, set within the frame of murder mystery that owes a debt to the gimlet-eyed social satire of Joe Orton. “Travesties,” Stoppard’s 1974 play, is built on the coincidence that James Joyce, Dadaist Tristan Tzara, and Vladimir Lenin all happened to be in Zurich during World War I — a cultural happenstance that paved the way for a dizzying alternative history, in which art faces off against politics. (Art, no surprise, wins.)

Wordplay, aphorisms and bon mots were Stoppard’s signature. Not since “The Importance of Being Earnest,” a play that Stoppard revered the way a mathematician would regard the world’s most elegant proof, has the English stage experienced such high-flying chat. Yet he acquired a reputation as a dandy, a clever humorist and an intellectual showman, distinctly apolitical and seemingly a man of no convictions.

The latter charge he no doubt would have taken as a compliment. He prided himself on having a mind unstained by certainties. But he was aware of the criticism of his work as intellectually brilliant but emotionally brittle. Virtuosity, in language and dramatic structure, was his great strength. But also perhaps his weakness — a weakness for which many lesser writers would no doubt sell their souls.

“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern” and “Travesties were indeed master manipulations of plot and language. They were also breaths of fresh air that won Tony Awards for best play and established Stoppard as a transatlantic force. It would have been perfectly natural for him to continue in this vein, but his writing took a more personal turn in “The Real Thing,” a play about a playwright learning both to write about love and to take in and appreciate its complex reality.

New York Times theater critic Frank Rich called “The Real Thing” “not only Mr. Stoppard’s most moving play, but also the most bracing play that anyone has written about love and marriage in years.” The 1984 Broadway premiere, starring Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close under the direction of Mike Nichols, won Tony Awards for its leads, Nichols’ direction, Christine Baranski’s featured performance and best play. It was Stoppard’s third such honor, and it would not be his last.

But the criticism didn’t end there. (Is it any surprise that in “The Real Inspector Hound,” his 1968 one-act, Stoppard imagined a scenario in which a critic is killed by the play he’s reviewing?) Stoppard’s cleverness, while the source of his fame and prestige, was intimidating to some and off-putting to others. Not everyone goes to the theater to be wowed by verbal pyrotechnics or daredevil plot high jinks. The blinding brilliance of his plays left theatergoers still squinting to see whether his work had much of a heart.

Stoppard ranged freely over a variety of dramatic modes. (It was this ability that made him such a valuable screenwriter and script doctor, earning him not only wealth but also a shared Oscar for the screenplay “Shakespeare in Love.”) But he had no interest in writing character studies. Domestic drama, with its psychological epiphanies and sentimental resolutions, repelled him. But neither was he drawn to the issue-laden work of his more politically minded postwar British playwriting peers, that new breed of dramatist unleashed by John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger.”

A born entertainer who had no ideology to sell or bourgeois morality to promote, he gravitated to theater as the most exhilarating form of debate. What he called “the felicitous expression of ideas” mattered more to him than academic point-scoring. Language was a theatrical resource that could do more than win arguments.

The comedy of ideas had become self-serious over time. Stoppard was determined to restore its fun without diminishing its substance.

His astonishing erudition encouraged him to tread where few playwrights before him had dared to go. But he was too much of a sensualist to cloister himself in the archives of the British Museum.

When I interviewed Stoppard at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater during rehearsals for his play “The Hard Problem,” he told me that he didn’t think he ever spent more than half an hour on research. He did concede, however, “I’ve spent many, many days of my life reading for pleasure in order to inform myself about something.

How else could he have pulled off “The Coast of Utopia,” a three-play creation centered on 19th century Russian intellectuals, romantics and revolutionaries against decades of geopolitical tumult? This marathon epic earned Stoppard his fourth Tony Award for best play.

“Arcadia,” perhaps his crowning achievement, may not be as sprawling but it’s just as intellectually ambitious. It’s also perhaps his most lyrically affecting.

A literary and biographical mystery play set in an English country estate in two different time zones (one in the age of Lord Byron, the other in the era of contemporary academic sleuths), “Arcadia” owes a debt to A.S. Byatt’s “Possession.” (In her mammoth biography “Tom Stoppard: A Life,” Hermione Lee reports that “Byatt has said that Stoppard told her he ‘pinched’ the plot from her.”) But the way Stoppard incorporates mathematical concepts as rarefied as fractal geometry to explore concepts of order and chaos as the characters hypothesize on the patterns of time is Stoppardian through and through.

Stoppard’s late works are his most personal. “Rock ’N’ Roll,” which he dedicated to Vaclav Havel, explores the rebellious, Dionysian force of popular music, an eternal source of inspiration for him, in a play set partly in Prague during the Communist era. “Leopoldstadt,” which won Stoppard his fifth and last Tony for best play, is the work in which the playwright grapples, from an artistic remove, with the history he was late to discover about what happened to his Jewish family during and after the rise of Hitler.

“The Invention of Love” is one of those Stoppard plays that leaves a critic feeling both rapturous and unsatisfied, a paradoxical state but then what can anyone expect from a play that makes the poet, classicist and closet homosexual A.E. Housman a theatrical protagonist?

No play by Stoppard can be fully appreciated in a single theatrical outing. The dramaturgy is too complex, the intelligence too quick-footed and the language too dazzling for instant assessment. My fear is that the plays are too expansive for the diminished scale of dramatic production today. But Stoppard has left theatrical riches that will entice audiences for generations through their intellectual exuberance, preternatural eloquence and omnivorous delight.

Nov. 26 (UPI) — Federal authorities on Wednesday announced the arrest of a Virginia high school principal and his brother on charges of plotting to attack immigration agents.

John and Mark Bennett were arrested Nov. 19 — John Bennett in Virginia Beach, where he worked as an assistant principal at Kempsville High School, and Mark Bennett at Norfolk International Airport, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

According to authorities, an investigation was launched into the brothers on Nov. 17 after an off-duty Norfolk police officer heard the pair allegedly discussing plans to kill police officers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

“Mark Bennett was also overheard saying he was planning to meet with like-minded individuals in Las Vegas, Nev., to purchase firearms with explosive rounds to carry out the attacks,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

Mark Bennett was arrested as he was to board a flight to Charlotte, N.C., from where authorities allege he planned to travel to Las Vegas.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin accused the brothers of discussing plans to secure a high-caliber rifle capable of piercing bullet-resistant vests.

“It’s chilling that a human being, much less a child educator, would plot to ambush and kill ICE law enforcement officers,” McLaughlin said.

The arrests come amid an increase in U.S. immigration enforcement operations in many Democratic-led cities as the Trump administration carries out a broader immigration crackdown, which has been met with protests, criticism and legal challenges.

According to Department of Homeland Security statistics, there have been 238 reported assaults on ICE agents so far this year, an increase of 19 from the same period last year.

The Trump administration has criticized Democrats for rhetoric it says is fueling the violence.

“Our law enforcement officers have had Molotov cocktails and rocks thrown at them, been shot at, had cars used as weapons against them and been physically assaulted,” McLaughlin said in a statement on Monday.

“Sanctuary politicians need to tone the rhetoric down before a law enforcement officer is killed.”

Coronation Street viewers were left feeling ‘uncomfortable’ following Friday night’s episode after an already-controversial plot on the ITV soap took a worrying turn

Coronation Street viewers were left feeling ‘uncomfortable’ following Friday night’s episode. The world’s longest-running TV soap just welcomed back fan favourite Eva Price (Catherine Tydlesley) last month, and she came with her new family in tow, but it wasn’t long before the drama kicked off.

Eva now runs the Rovers with her partner Ben Driscoll and his mother Maggie, and they live there with Ben’s sons Will and Ollie, as well as Eva’s little girl Susie. But it was soon revealed that that 15-year-old Will has been having an affair with his athletics coach Megan, whom he had been seeing when he initially refused to move from Hull. The family are yet to discover this, but are well aware of Will’s fondness for his teacher and things took a turn for the worse after he exhibited some worrying behaviour.

In the latest instalment of the ITV soap, Megan and Will arrived back from a trip that they had claimed was for a sports competition and she tried to end things with him but he was having none of it and stormed off out of the car. Later on, Ben caught her on the street and insisted on giving her some petrol money before inviting her in for dinner. Megan reluctantly went and officially rescinded her duties as Will’s coach in front of the family.

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Over their meal, Will pretended that a girlfriend from Hull had dumped him that morning, to which his grandmother said: “The surest way for a lad to get over a girl is to get over the next one, she must have been doolally to split up with you!” Will insisted that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, and Megan, unable to take it anymore, made her excuses and left.

Will became insistent that he would never get another coach like Megan, and needed to be in Hull for his athletics. While Ben was coming round to the idea of Will moving back to Hull alone, Eva and Maggie were dead against the idea. Ben tried to put his foot down, but Eva and his mother went behind his back and made other arrangements. Pretty soon, Megan joined the family in the back room of the pub again, where Maggie explained: “You might’ve been happy to abandon Will, but we weren’t. I called Megan, we had a few drinks, and we found a solution.”

Megan said: “Your gran’s paying me to come over here two days a week for some one-on-one training sessions!” Maggie then insisted that money was no object and she was just pleased to see Will happy again. But viewers were outraged at the twist, as this means that Megan will be sticking around to continue her illicit relationship with the teenager.

Flocking to social media, one wrote: “#Corrie how old is that trainer, he’s only 15, find it an uncomfortable storyline,” whilst another said: “Ben to Megan: “Will trusts you.” Oh, Ben, you have no idea [sad emoji].”

A third raged: “Ben wants to thanks Megan for everything she has done. He wouldn’t want to be thanking her for everything she has done if he knew that she is doing his son [vomit emoji]” and a fourth added: “It’s really worrying how Eva & Ben trust Megan. Just like how in real life parents trust adults around their kids, not knowing that they could be predators!”

Actress Beth Nixon, who is making her television debut with the role, recently teased that her alter-ego is set to get a job at the local secondary school, and will strike up some sort of relationship with fellow teacher Daniel Osbourne (Rob Mallard), who is the son of Ken Barlow, all in attempt to cover her tracks and make her young lover jealous.

She said: “She’s a maths teacher and PE coach, she coaches Will and does athletics on the side. She meets Daniel when she’s in Weatherfield training Will, and then he gets her the job at Weatherfield High. So she eventually moves to be closer to Will and becomes a PE teacher.

“I think she’s calculated with it because, one, it’s a good cover story. But two, she’s also able to make Will jealous and further manipulate him, further deepening his obsession. But I think that over time, she does develop some kind of feelings for Daniel and she does get emotionally involved with him, and it’s not just a cover like she’s telling Will.”

“But obviously, she’s just getting herself into more and more of a mess because if she does eventually develop feelings for Daniel, she can’t then leave Will because it’s all going to come out, and she needs to silence him, keep him quiet.

“So she’s kind of spinning all these plates and having to juggle all these different things, which adds to her stress. She’s like a duck, calm, cool, collected on the surface, but underneath she is going crazy.”

Coronation Street is on ITV and STV at 8pm Monday, Wednesday, Friday and ITVX and STV Player at 7am

United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer has sought to distance himself from an unofficial briefing to the media by unnamed “allies” that he intends to fight off a leadership contest which, they say, could come just 18 months into his premiership.

On Tuesday evening, unnamed sources were cited in The Guardian newspaper saying Health Secretary Wes Streeting has gathered significant backing to supplant Starmer.

But on Wednesday morning, Streeting denied this, telling journalists that he was “not challenging the prime minister”.

“I’m not doing any of the things some silly briefer said overnight,” he stated.

Asked if those responsible for the briefing should be sacked, Streeting said, “Yes. But he’s [Starmer] got to find them first, and I wouldn’t expect him to waste loads of time on this.”

“There are people around the prime minister who do not follow his model and style of leadership,” he said.

In response to the ensuing media storm, Starmer, whose premiership since last year has been marred by poor polling, told reporters in north Wales on Thursday that briefings against ministers are “completely unacceptable”.

“I have been talking to my team today. I have been assured that no briefing against ministers was done from Number 10, but I have made it clear that I find it absolutely unacceptable,” he said.

The current internal party strife has shone a light on the prime minister’s standing as leader of the Labour Party.

In its most recent poll on Tuesday, pollster YouGov said of 4,989 people polled, only 27 percent thought he should continue as Labour Party leader.

Here’s what we know about the rumours of a leadership plot:

What are the rumours about a leadership challenge?

On Tuesday evening, unnamed senior Starmer aides told The Guardian newspaper that any attempt to remove the prime minister would be “reckless” and “dangerous”. According to the aides, deposing Starmer so early in his term as prime minister would undermine financial markets and reverberate on the stock market, the party and its international relationships.

“The party would not recover for a generation,” one of the unnamed sources told The Guardian.

Number 10 sources also told The Guardian they are concerned about rumours that Streeting could be planning a “coup” and is just one of several Labour ministers who are “on manoeuvres” to take the leadership if the opportunity arises. However, none of them were likely to move against the prime minister right now.

They said the most likely moment for a leadership challenge would be after the autumn budget – the government’s tax-and-spending review, due in parliament on November 26 – if higher taxes are announced, or after May elections next year if the Labour party performs poorly.

“Keir will not stand aside at this point, for Wes or anybody else,” one source told The Guardian.

On Friday, the UK’s Financial Times cited an unnamed minister who claimed that support for the health secretary was growing following the news of the unsanctioned “briefing”.

Streeting was not the only name mentioned as a potential leadership contender. Both Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Energy Secretary and a former leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband were named as possible contenders, the sources said.

Who briefed the press?

The British press is speculating that the unofficial briefing may have been organised by Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, as a tactic designed to put off any ministers thinking about challenging him.

McSweeney, who has been widely credited with helping Starmer to win the July 2024 election, is now facing calls to resign from unnamed members of parliament, according to reports.

However, Starmer appeared not to support such a move on Thursday when he reiterated that he “of course” has complete confidence in his chief of staff.

What do opposition parties say?

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch was quick to respond, accusing Starmer of losing control of his party during Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Question Time.

Badenoch called Starmer a “weak prime minister at war with his own cabinet”.

“Two weeks before the budget, isn’t it the case that this prime minister has lost control of government, he’s lost control of his party and lost the trust of the British people,” she said.

Earlier in the debate, Badenoch referred to an interview Streeting gave to the BBC in which he accused Downing Street of having a “toxic culture”, and asked Starmer if his minister was correct.

“Any attack on any member of my cabinet is completely unacceptable,” Starmer said in response.

Meanwhile, the far-right Reform UK party’s head of policy, Zia Yusuf, wrote on X on Thursday that the “terrifying thing about the coup against Starmer is that Labour members will choose his replacement”.

“Their favourite Labour minister is Ed Miliband. Some of the most unhinged people in the country will choose the next Prime Minister,” he added.

Reform’s popularity has risen hugely in the UK since last year’s election.

How does the autumn budget fit into this, and how is Labour polling?

The briefing came just two weeks before Starmer and his chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, announce the autumn budget on November 26.

The budget, which outlines the government’s tax-and-spending plans for the next year, has been the subject of intense speculation in recent weeks, as it was widely expected to break one of Labour’s main election pledges: not to increase income taxes.

However, the Financial Times reported on Friday morning that Reeves is now ruling out any rise in income tax amid concerns that it could seriously anger voters and backbench legislators.

Why else is Starmer losing popularity in the UK?

Since winning the election in 2024, the prime minister has received backlash from across the political spectrum, including from Labour voters, over several issues.

According to a YouGov poll in September, if an election were to be called now, the far-right Reform UK would win, leaving the Labour Party as the second-largest party and the former governing party, the Conservatives, in third place.

Here are some of the main areas of domestic policy which are causing the popularity of Starmer’s Labour Party to wane.

Migration

The opposition Reform UK party has risen in popularity largely on the back of its calls for stricter migrant control. The key issue is the rapid rise in the numbers of people arriving in small boats across the English Channel from France, particularly in the past year.

In September, Starmer struck a “one-in-one-out” migrant exchange deal with France in an effort to deter people from attempting the Channel crossing. Under the deal, France will accept the return of asylum seekers who crossed to the UK but cannot prove a family connection to the UK.

For each migrant France takes back, the UK will grant asylum to one person who has arrived from France through official channels and who can prove they have family connections in the UK.

But only a handful of migrants have been deported under the scheme so far. Furthermore, on Monday, the Home Office reported that a second migrant had re-entered the UK after being deported to France.

Rise of the far-right

Starmer has faced criticism for his lukewarm response to the rising number of far-right protests across the country.

In September, at least 11,000 people joined a “Unite the Kingdom” march, displaying the St George flag in London.

While Starmer denounced violence against police officers during the protests and argued that the US was “built on diversity”, the antifascist group, Hope Not Hate, and several MPs have urged the government to take stronger action against the rise of far-right groups.

Critics also say Starmer has not done enough to appeal to people who support Reform, or to address their concerns about migration.

Accidental prison releases

In a major blunder, HMP Wandsworth prison in London wrongly released two offenders in early November, including an Algerian sex offender.

Both men were eventually returned to prison but, in the case of the Algerian offender, only after the man handed himself in. Conservative Party shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said the mistake revealed “the incompetence of this government”.

Economy

Starmer has been grappling with a low-growth economy since the start of his term in government.

According to new figures from the Office for National Statistics on Thursday, between July and September, the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP) increased by just 0.1 percent in comparison with growth of 0.3 percent between April and July.

Meanwhile, inflation remained stuck at 3.8 percent in September 2025 – unchanged from July and August. This is the highest it has been since the start of 2024.

Beloved animated franchise Toy Story is returning to our screens after six years, with the iconic characters competing against technology for the affection of their kids

Toy Story fans are heading to infinity and beyond once again as the animated franchise returns for its fifth film – with the first teaser trailer being released. While many fans are queuing up to buy cinema tickets already, some have spotted a huge plot hole in the clip.

The 50-second trailer sees a package arrive at the house of little girl Bonnie, who now owns Buzz Lightyear, Jessie and the other toys, with her mum saying: “Bonnie, there’s a package for you.” As Never Tears Us Apart by INEX plays in the background, we watch as Slinky Dog, Rex, Forky, Mr Potato Head, Mrs Potato Head, Jessie and the rest of the toys tremble in fear as Bonnie unpacks a frog-like tablet.

“In summer 2026, the age of toys is over?” text reads throughout the teaser trailer. We then see Woody and Buzz hug one another in fear as the tablet says, “Hi there, I’m Lilypad. Let’s play.”

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Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are set to return as the voices of Woody and Buzz, while The Morning Show’s Greta Lee joins as Lilypad. Anna Faris, Ernie Hudson and Conan O’Brien will be taking on new roles in the cast, which features Joan Cusack, Blake Clark and Tony Hale.

However, after the events of Toy Story 4, some fans have been quick to point out that Woody actually left the rest of the toys at the end of the last film to join Bo Peep as a ‘lost toy’. One wrote on X: “See but like how did Woody get back there after staying with Bo peep such a plot hole.”

Another tweeted: “So Woody came back with the gang after he decided to be an ownerless toy with Bo at the end of the last movie? Toy Story 3 should’ve been the end of the series, 4 & 5 are not needed at all.”

“They’re gonna pretend 4 didn’t exist because Woody is there with the others,” a third wrote, while a fourth replied: “Honestly, at this point, if you’re gonna keep making endless Toy Story movies, don’t do any more bittersweet emotional endings anymore.

“Pixar baited us into believing the franchise would be finished TWICE, so don’t even think about making a bittersweet ending for 5.”

Despite the puzzling character return, many can’t wait for the fifth instalment. “Oh this is perfecttttttttttty,” one fan wrote on X, while another said: “Oooohhhhh we are about to have a TIIIIIIIIMEEEE!!!”

The new film is set to be released in June 2026 in theatres, with star Tim Allen teasing its tech villain last month.”It’s such a great story, I can only tell a little bit of it – it’s a Jessie story,” he said.

He continued: “Tom and I have to reunite and there’s just the funniest thing because there’s a whole bunch of Buzzes involved – and there’s a reason why.

“There’s 100 of me in a separate story and I get to play and have fun. So, the story is good.”

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