A LUCKY viewer of a brand new ITV game show has walked away with an eye-watering £1million.
Sienna McSwiggan, 20, secured the top prize last night on Win Win with People’s Postcode Lottery on Saturday night.
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Sienna McSwiggan, 20, broke down in tears after winning the huge jackpot
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After trading in a trip to the Maldives, she took home £1millionCredit: ITV
The hotel manager from The Black Country took home the £1million cash prize, as well as two cars, two luxuryholidays, a trip to Australia to see The Ashes and Take That tickets.
After answering the winning question correctly, Sienna questioned if it was real and said the money would be life-changing for herself and family.
She said: “I don’t even know what to say. I am in shock.
“I’ve literally got a penny in my account.
“I’m over the moon. It feel like a dream and someone’s gonna wake me up any minute.”
Hosted by Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, the quiz show sees contestants battling it out in the studio.
At home viewers can also get involved and play for prizes.
However, the show’s format also allows these viewers to become contestants in the studio.
Once they have bagged a prize, players have to face the ultimate decision.
They must choose between keeping their original prize or risk it all and trade it in to join Millionaire’s row.
Watch as one young woman shares how her family won the lottery
Sienna took the gamble and traded a trip to the Maldives for a chance to win big.
The risk saw her take home one of the UK’s biggest telly prizes.
Last month, The Sun reported that another contestant took home a huge £20,000 jackpot.
After answering the final question correctly, Shayanne took home the winning prize.
Previously discussing the format, Mel Giedroyc said: “This quiz is so extra!
“Imagine winning something like a car just by playing along with a gameshow you’re watching on a Saturday night in your pyjamas?
“I can’t wait!”
Sue Perkins added: “If I wasn’t hosting this, I’d be playing it at home; sat in my leopard print onesie, cuddling the dog whilst trying to figure out The Nation’s favourite chocolate bar. Bring it on!”
Speaking to The Mirror ahead of yesterday’s finale, Sue added: “Saturday’s show really is going to be a night like no other.
“The thrilling thing, of course, is that all of this is going to be won by one person, and that person might even be a viewer turned contestant, who simply signed up, joined in from their sofa and got the surprise of their life.”
Hardest Quiz Show Questions
Would you know the answers to some of quizzing TV’s hardest questions
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire – Earlier this year, fans were left outraged after what they described as the “worst” question in the show’s history. Host Jeremy Clarkson asked: “From the 2000 awards ceremony onwards, the Best Actress Oscar has never been won by a woman whose surname begins with which one of these letters?” The multiple choice answers were between G, K, M and W. In the end, and with the £32,000 safe, player Glen had to make a guess and went for G. It turned out to be correct as Nicole Kidman, Frances McDormand and Kate Winslet are among the stars who have won the Best Actress gong since 2000.
The 1% Club – Viewers of Lee Mack’s popular ITV show were left dumbfounded by a question that also left the players perplexed. The query went as follows: “Edna’s birthday is on the 6th of April and Jen’s birthday falls on the 15th of October, therefore Amir’s birthday must be the ‘X’ of January.” It turns out the conundrum links the numbers with its position in the sentence, so 6th is the sixth word and 15th is the fifteenth word. Therefore, Amir’s birthday is January 24th, corresponding to the 24th word in the sentence.
The Chase – The ITV daytime favourite left fans scratching their heads when it threw up one of the most bizarre questions to ever grace the programme. One of the questions asked the player: “Someone with a nightshade intolerance should avoid eating what?” The options were – sweetcorn, potatoes, carrots – with Steve selecting sweetcorn but the correct answer was potatoes.
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Last night, a contestant took home a £1million cash prizeCredit: Shutterstock Editorial
EAGLE-EYED Strictly fans have been left baffled after spotting a live show shake up.
Tonight’s show was the Musicals Week special with Wicked star Cynthia Erivo acting as a guest mentor.
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Eagle-eyed Strictly fans have been left baffled after spotting a live show shake up
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Karen Carney was supposed to perform fourth during Musicals WeekCredit: PA
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The running order was shared online ahead of the show
Before the show started, pro dancer Julian Caillon shared a blurry picture of the running order.
But as the show got underway, Strictly viewers noticed that Karen Carney was moved from the fourth slot in the line up.
The former footballer was dancing a Cha Cha Cha to She’s a Lady from Miss Congeniality with her pro partner Carlos Gu.
She was supposed to perform after YouTube star George Clarke, but he was followed by Drag Race star La Voix instead.
The eagle-eyed viewers immediately took to X to question the change, with one writing: “I wonder why they changed order with Karen and Carlos and they weren’t in Clauditorium.
“Maybe some wardrobe problem.”
Another added: “why did we skip karen and carlos in the running order.”
In the end, Karen and Carlos performed seventh and scored 25 points.
There is one very strict rule for would-be homebuyers applying to take part in the long-running Channel 4 show, producer Siobhan O’Gorman has revealed
The show’s producers vet would-be homebuyers very carefully(Image: Channel 4)
Siobhan O’Gorman, the TV producer who leads the A Place In The Sun team, has lifted the lid on how the hit Channel 4 show picks would-be house buyers to appear on the series.
She points out that some things have changed a lot since A Place In The Sun first aired 25 years ago: “The first-ever episode 25 years ago featured a couple looking for a holiday home in the French Pyrenees with a budget of £40,000,’ she told the Daily Mail. “That wasn’t a bad budget then, but today you wouldn’t get much for that.”
But other aspects are still very much the same, Siobhan adds: “We need to be sure every applicant is in a position to put in a genuine offer,” she says. “We have great relationships with estate agents all over Europe and beyond, so it’s important to maintain that.”
While something like two-thirds of applicants are hoping for a new home in Spain, many others get in touch with dreams of finding properties in Cyprus, Portugal and Greece.
“But we’re also seeing increased interest in countries such as Croatia, Turkey and Dubai,” Siobhan says.
Wherever they want to end up, applicants start by filling in a 12-page application form. Then Siobhan and the team go through every one, to identify house-hunters who are looking for properties in the areas that align with countries that the show is planning to visit in the coming season.
The next stage is an on-camera interview to assess whether the applicants will make for good TV, and whether their aspirations are realistic.
Competition is intense, Siobhan says: “‘It’s fair to say we have at least ten applications for every show and it’s 20 for some of the more popular resorts.”
Siobhan adds: “We like to reflect a variety of budgets and areas in each country, though, so we wouldn’t do six shows with the same budget and the same wish list in Mijas Costa in Spain, but we may do two shows there with differing budgets.”
All of this behind-the-scenes work helps A Place In The Sun look smooth and well-organised on screen. However, presenter Laura Hamilton, who has been with the show since 2012, describes one incident that she playfully christened “Mudgate” where anything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
As the team were trying to help a would-be expat find a retirement home in Abruzzo, Italy, a massive downpour caused mayhem.
The team were in multiple vehicles for social distancing reasons, and one by one, each one of them become mired down in slippery mud.
“We were there for three hours and had to have tractors pull us out,” Laura recalled. “I’m known for wearing high heels on the show because I’m quite short. I remember having these ridiculously high heels on and they got caked in mud.
“House hunter Sue was “mortified,” Laura recalled, blaming herself for choosing a remote rural location that didn’t even have proper tarmac roads. house. Laura tried to reassure Sue, telling her “It’s not your fault – and I always say you’ve got to love a house come rain or shine,” to which the embarrassed homebuyer replied: “Well, I definitely don’t love this one!”
A brand new series of Have I Got News For You aired on TV recently but the first episode didn’t quite go to plan, forcing the show’s episode to be axed from BBC iPlayer
Victoria also went on social media to correct the error herself(Image: CREDIT LINE:BBC/Hat Trick)
Have I Got News For You’s recent false claim has since been blamed on “digital natives”. The first episode in the new series of the iconic show included a segment where presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell incorrectly claimed that a contract to roll out the Government’s new ID cards has been handed to Multiverse.
Multiverse is a company run by the son of former prime minister Tony Blair, Euan. Jimmy Mulville, who is the founder of the show’s producer Hat Trick Productions, spoke about the mistake.
Speaking on Insiders: The TV Podcast: “What was interesting was this, and this is why I want to talk about it, is that because we now have generations of younger producers who are coming into the business, and they are digital natives, they’re called.
“They’re marinated in social media, and I said, ‘where did we get this story?’, and apparently, the story was put on by a freelance journalist, I won’t mention her name, a freelance journalist who put on her Twitter feed this story about Euan Blair and ID cards.
“And the producer said, ‘well, it had nearly three million views that day’, so it must be true, and no one questioned it. I went, ‘ok, and did we verify anywhere else?’, and then faces became very red around the table, and god bless them, they’re a fantastic team, and they felt terrible about this, really, really awful.
“Which is the right response, and so we’ve now got a new rule, we don’t take stories off social media.” He said that “normally” his team would make sure they had a second source before writing the script for the show but this time that didn’t happen.
The post which is referred to in the podcast is still on X which has been viewed almost three million times in total.
Mulville added: “It’s not defamatory in any way, in fact, the lawyers didn’t pick up on it, our lawyers and the BBC lawyers, didn’t pick up on it.
“It’s a low level mistake, but nevertheless, it is indicative, and it was good to spot it, because what you wouldn’t want to do is to make some kind of egregious claim about somebody and it is defamatory.”
The BBC apologised for the mistake after it was broadcast and the episode was removed from iPlayer last weekend. It was then edited and re-uploaded with the incorrect information removed.
Meanwhile, presenter Victoria also went on social media to correct the error herself as well.
CORONATION Street fans have been left with their mouths open after discovering TWO of the soap’s legends once were a couple.
What is even more surprising, is that these pair of actors were on the soap almost a decade apart.
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Coronation Street star Alison King once dated another very famous co-starCredit: Getty – Contributor
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The actress is known for playing Carla on the soapCredit: ITV
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Actress Alison once dated fellow Corrie star Phil Middlemess who played Des Barnes – seen here with onscreen wife Natalie played by Denise WelchCredit: PA
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Alison and Phil dated for five years in the late 90sCredit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
Reddit sleuths have unearthed an old article from October 8, 1995 that confirmed they were once a couple who were “madly in love”.
The story was from when actor Phil was at the height of his Corrie fame.
Alison, however, who was just 22 at the time, was not famous and was referred to as a “surf shop girl” in the story.
In the article Phil claimed that he had “bedded 100 women” but was now “in love” with Alison.
Posting the story on the discussion forum, fans went wild at this revelation.
One wrote: “No way!!”
Another added: “How random,”
This Corrie fan said: “I still can’t get my head around this!”
A fourth added: “Small world!”
Phil Middlemiss stars as Des in Coronation Street
According to reports the pair dated for five years, Phil telling the Scottish Daily Record: “I’ve never been happier. She is a wonderful girl. I love her to death.”
They reportedly met at a Tenerife bar in March 1995, before splitting in 2000.
Phil confessed: “I was in love with Allie. She’s the only person I’ve ever really loved.
“But she was working in London and I was in Manchester.
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Phil’s character is known for being a ladies manCredit: Granada Television
“In another life, if I had been a bus driver and she had worked at the local baker’s shop, we would have got married and had kids by now.”
Corrie fans will well remember lothario Des Barnes who graced the cobbles throughout the 90s.
Actor Phil was a regular fixture of the ITV soap from 1990 to 1998 when he quit the show.
Phil’s character Des was known for being a charming ladies man.
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Phil’s character Des was killed off Corrie when he left the soapCredit: PA:Press Association
On the soap he was married to Natalie Barnes, the Rovers landlady played by Loose Women star Denise Welch.
However, during his time on Coronation Street, Des went onto to also have an off-again romance with Raquel, who was played by the legendary Sarah Lancashire.
Raquel later moved onto her famous screen partner, Curly Watts, but it was Des that played havoc with the pair in a bid to get revenge on Raquel leaving him.
Des even sabotaged their engagement party as an act of jealousy and rage.
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Phil appeared on Good Morning Britain to discuss his ups and downsCredit: Rex
Since quitting the cobbles in the late 90s, when his character was killed off, Phil has enjoyed a varied career mixed with a series of personal setbacks.
In 2012, the actor faced bankruptcy after a film he had put his life-saving into in 2008 failed to take off as a result of the financial crisis.
It forced Phil to take money from family and friends as he told the Manchester Evening News: “It was partly-funded by myself but I didn’t have the money to fund the rest of the film.
“Filming came to a grinding halt. It was nearly three-quarters of the way along the line. It has been a difficult time. Three-and-a-half years is a long time to fund myself without any income.
” I have had to get money from family and friends.”
Meanwhile, his former girlfriend Alison joined the soap in 2006, almost a decade after Phil left, and six years after their split.
The actress’ character Carla is best known for being the boss of the knicker factory, Underworld.
Over the last two decades she has been involved in numerous high-profile storylines, from steamy affairs to battles with alcoholism.
This is turn has seen her win numerous awards, including Best Actress at the British Soap Awards in 2012.
Coronation Street Spoilers: News & Cast Updates
The beloved British soap has been captivating audiences for decades.
The show follows the lives of the residents as they navigate love, loss, family drama, and community struggles.
Turning Point USA director Erika Kirk, widow of organization co-founder Charlie Kirk, and other Turning Point USA officials on Thursday announced they plan to host an alternative Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 8. Photo by Eduardo Barraza/UPI | License Photo
Oct. 9 (UPI) — The Charlie Kirk-co-founded Turning Point USA is planning to host an alternative musical performance called “The All-American Halftime Show” for Super Bowl LX.
Officials for the conservative non-profit announced the planned alternative halftime show on social media but did not say which musical acts and others would perform.
“It’s true, Turning Point USA is thrilled to announce The All-American Halftime Show,” it said in a post on X on Thursday, as reported by Fox News.
The post says the event will celebrate faith, family and freedom.
Turning Point USA has created a website to present the halftime show and asked online visitors to choose which musical genres they would like to see perform.
Survey results so far show support for country, rock, hip hop and “anything in English,” The Hill reported.
The event would air while rapper Benito Antonio Martiniz Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, performs during the Super Bowl’s halftime show headliner.
The musical artist from Puerto Rico has won three Grammy Awards since his career took off in 2016.
He also is slated to be named Billboard’s Latin Artist of the 21st Century during the 2025 Billboard Latin Music Awards on Oct.23.
Bad Bunny is undertaking a world tour but has refused to perform in the United States, other than during the Super Bowl.
He has cited concerns that Immigration and Customs Enforcement might target his U.S. shows and detain audience members, according to Axios.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt recently dismissed such concerns and said there are no plans in place to raid Bad Bunny concerts.
Despite Leavitt’s denial, DHS adviser Corey Lewandowski recently suggested ICE agents would attend Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance.
Lewandowski made the claim while appearing on “The Benny Show” podcast on Oct. 1.
“There is nowhere that you can provide a safe haven to the people in this country illegally,” he told podcast host Benny Johnson.
The Super Bowl is scheduled for Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
VICKY Pattison’s next Strictly performance is hanging in the balance, as she revealed she has been battling a “mystery bug”, hours before the next live show.
Former Geordie Shore star Vicky, 37, has revealed she has been battling an illness this week whilst trying to rehearse for tomorrow night’s show.
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Vicky Pattison revealed she is battling a ‘mystery bug’Credit: Instagram
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The star shared the news on Instagram todayCredit: Instagram
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Vicky has been wowing on the Strictly dance floorCredit: Instagram
Vicky, who is partnered on this series with pro Kai Widdrington, took to Instagram to reveal her plight.
The star shared two pics of herself – one looking glam, the other looking a bit exhausted.
Vicky wrote next to the snaps: “Can we just take a moment for my glam team, stylist and the strictly angels who helped turn me from this feral little rat who looks like they live under a bridge and demands riddles to cross into THIS???!!
“Lads it’s been a WEEK… strictly rehearsals, mystery bug, VT’s, Erc away, my clothing collection launch… and I just don’t want anyone thinking I look too glam to give a damn all the time..
“I just thought it was important to show you all both sides of the coin… she LOVES to be a glam girly don’t get me wrong but there’s a hell of a lot of the time I look more like an exhausted little troll.”
The reality star wowed on the dancefloor last weekend, but was shown looking very anxious before she performed.
Vicky told us: “Everybody knows I’m super nervous about this entire process, I’m just a gobby girl from the north east doing her best.
“The dancing, the being out my comfort zone, learning something new, being judged by the public is also terrifying.
“But the one element that made me feel really excited and I had no reservations about at all was definitely being Strictlyfied.
Vicky Pattison breaks down in tears as she reveals secret battle ahead of Strictly Come Dancing debut
“I’m sorry but the tan, the hair, the glam! I’ve been preparing for this for like 25 years.
“Like, I didn’t even have to change my fake tan routine at all — this girl was ready.”
Vicky also admitted that people constantly underestimate her and in the 14 years since she shot to fame on MTV series Geordie Shore, has always been a bit of an underdog.
It was something the popular star also faced when she was a contestant on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity a decade ago.
She said: “Winning the jungle was the best moment of my life, maybe tied with the day that I got married to Ercan.
“Everybody just wanted us out initially. Obviously I was in there and in me bubble and I’m actually really grateful for that, you know.
“But I learned afterwards everyone was like: ‘Get her out. We don’t want her in here. Reality TV scum blah, blah, blah.’
He continued: “What you have now is [rival teams’] players training [together] before they go back to pre-season together – Phil Foden and Marcus Rashford for instance.
“It’s a different generation. The big thing is the media coverage of it is much better. The players get on better with the media. From the outside that gives a better feeling.”
Gerrard, speaking as a guest on the Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast, said several former Manchester United and Liverpool players get on better now as pundits than they ever did as England team-mates.
“I didn’t feel part of a team. I didn’t feel connected with my team-mates, with England,” he said.
In response, Rooney said: “It [was] difficult to have that relationship with Liverpool and Man Utd players. It’s easier now.
“I speak to Steven all the time 1760074340. You can have better relationships now because you can have a beer together and relax more.
“I was fine with everyone, I got on with everyone. I was aware Becks [David Beckham] and Gary Neville and Scholesy [Paul Scholes], you could see they weren’t going to be close to the Liverpool players.
“But one thing for sure is everyone worked hard for each other. I don’t think that was an issue. We just didn’t manage to get over the line. I didn’t see that at all.”
Rooney, like Gerrard, played in six major tournaments for England but only reached quarter-finals.
But he said the players always “100%” “believed we could win for sure”.
In “The Last Frontier,” which premieres Friday on Apple TV+, a plane carrying federal prisoners goes down in the Alaskan wilderness outside a town where Frank Remnick (Jason Clarke) is the U.S. Marshal. Eighteen passengers survive, among them a sort of super-soldier we will come to know as Havlock (Dominic Cooper). Sad intelligence agent Sidney Scofield (Haley Bennett) is sent to the scene by her dodgy superior (American treasure Alfre Woodard).
I won’t go into it in depth, especially given the enormous number of reveals and reversals that make up the plot; pretty much everything not written here constitutes a spoiler. The production is excellent, with well-executed set pieces — the plane crash, a tug-of-war between a helicopter and a giant bus, a fight on a train, a fight on a dam. (I do have issues with the songs on the soundtrack, which tend to kill rather than enhance the mood.) The large cast, which includes Simone Kessell as Frank’s wife, Sarah — they have just about put a family trauma behind them when opportunities for new trauma arise — and Dallas Goldtooth, William Knifeman on “Reservation Dogs,” as Frank’s right hand, Hutch, is very good.
It’s as violent as you’d expect from a show that sets 18 desperate criminals loose upon the landscape, which you may consider an attraction or deal killer. (I don’t know you.) At 10 episodes, with a lot of plot to keep in order, it can be confusing — even the characters will say, “It’s complicated” or “It’s not that simple,” when asked to explain something — and some of the emotional arcs seem strange, especially when characters turn out to be not who they seem. Things get pretty nutty by the end, but all in all it’s an interesting ride.
But that’s not what I came here to discuss. I’d like to talk about snow.
There’s a lot of snow in “The Last Frontier.” The far-north climate brings weather into the picture, literally. Snow can be beautiful, or an obstacle. It can be a blanket, as in Eliot’s “Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow,” or a straitjacket, as in 2023’s “A Murder at the End of the World,” a Christie-esque murder mystery that trapped the suspects in an Icelandic luxury hotel. It’s part of the aesthetic and part of the action, which it can slow, or stop. It can be deadly, disorienting, as when a blizzard erases the landscape (see the first season of “Fargo”). And it requires the right clothes — mufflers, fur collars, wool caps, big boots, gloves — which communicate coziness even as they underscore the cold.
The snowy landscape in shows like “The Last Frontier” is part of the aesthetic and action.
(Apple)
Even when it doesn’t affect the plot directly, it’s the canvas the story is painted on, its whiteness of an intensity not otherwise seen on the screen, except in starship hallways. (It turns a moody blue after dark, magnifying the sense of mystery.) Growing up in Southern California — I didn’t see real snow until I was maybe 10? — I was trained by the movies and TV, where all Christmases are white if the budget allows, to understand its meaning.
It was enough that “The Last Frontier” was set in Alaska (filmed in Quebec and Alberta) to pique my interest, as it had been for “Alaska Daily,” a sadly short-lived 2022 ABC series with Hilary Swank and Secwépemc actor Grace Dove as reporters looking into overlooked cases of murdered and missing Indigenous women. This may go back to my affection for “Northern Exposure” (set in Alaska, filmed in Washington state), with its storybook town and colorful characters, most of whom came from somewhere else, with Rob Morrow’s New York doctor the fish out of water; “Men in Trees” (filmed in British Columbia, set in Alaska) sent Anne Heche’s New York relationship coach down a similar trail. “Lilyhammer,” another favorite and the first “exclusive” Netflix series, found Steven Van Zandt as an American mobster in witness protection in a Norwegian small town; there was a ton of snow in that show.
It serves the fantastic and supernatural as well. The polar episodes of “His Dark Materials” and “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” the icebound sailing ships of “The Terror” live large in my mind; and there’s no denying the spooky, claustrophobic power of “Night Country,” the fourth season of “True Detective,” which begins on the night of the last sunset for six months, its fictional town an oasis of light in a desert of black. In another key, “North of North,” another remote small town comedy, set in Canada’s northernmost territory among the Indigenous Inuit people is one of my best-loved shows of 2025.
But the allure of the north is nothing new. Jack London’s Yukon-set “White Fang” and “The Call of the Wild” — which became an Animal Planet series for a season in 2000 — entranced readers back around the turn of the 19th century and are still being read today.
Of course, any setting can be exotic if it’s unfamiliar. (And invisible if it’s not, or annoying — if snow is a thing you have to shovel off your walk, its charm evaporates.) Every environment suggests or shapes the stories that are set there; even were the plots identical, a mystery set in Amarillo, for example, would play differently than one set in Duluth or Lafayette.
Thirty paintings by the late artist — and PBS staple — Bob Ross are heading for auction beginning Nov. 11. American Public Television, which syndicates programming to public stations across the country, is staging the auction in Los Angeles through Bonhams. APT has pledged to donate 100% of the profits to beleaguered public television stations nationwide.
“Bonhams holds the world record for Bob Ross, and with his market continuing to climb, proceeds benefiting American Public Television, and many of the paintings created live on air — a major draw for collectors — we expect spirited bidding and results that could surpass previous records,” said Robin Starr, general manager, Bonhams Skinner, in a statement.
The auction house established its record in August when it sold two of Ross’ mountain-and-lake scenes from the early 1990s for $114,800 and $95,750, respectively. Bonhams said it could not yet provide an estimate on the worth of the 30 works coming up for auction.
The first three paintings will go on the block at Bonhams in Los Angeles as part of its California & Western Art auction. The remaining 27 will be sold throughout 2026 at Bonhams salesrooms in New York, Boston and L.A.
The news comes as public broadcasting faces unprecedented challenges to its survival. In July, Congress voted to cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which was founded in 1968 and helps fund PBS, NPR, as well as 1,500 local radio and television stations. The cuts were encouraged by President Trump, who derided the organization for spreading “woke” propaganda.
The private, nonprofit corporation soon after announced that it would close. The majority of its staff was dismissed at the end of last month, and a bare-bones transition team remains through January to wrap up unfinished work.
Without CPB, educational programming like “The Joy of Painting” with Bob Ross will have an uphill battle finding the support it needs.
Known for his cloudlike halo of curly brown hair, soothing voice and infectious love of the art form as shown on his signature show, the artist became a mainstay in American households across 400-plus episodes and more than a decade on the air.
With its wholesome content and relaxed pace, his was the kind of show that defined PBS. Hopefully, his work can help keep the lights on at the stations that helped gain him a cultlike following.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, and I’m the proud owner of a Bob Ross Chia Pet head. Here’s your arts and culture news for the week.
On our radar
Kai A. Ealy stars in “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at A Noise Within
(Daniel Reichert)
Joe Turner’s Come And Gone Gregg T. Daniel continues his reinvestigation of August Wilson’s American Century Cycle with a production of what is arguably the finest work in the playwright’s 10-play series. Set in a Pittsburgh boardinghouse in 1911 during the Great Migration, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” focuses on the spiritual crossroads of Black Americans who are being reminded at every turn that their freedom comes with a prohibitive cost. The sixth Wilson production at A Noise Within in this seasons-long retrospective should be a standout: It’s one of the great American plays of the 20th century. — Charles McNulty Previews, 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Oct. 17; opening night, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18; through Nov. 9. A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. anoisewithin.org
Tavares Strachan, “Six Thousand Years,” and “The Encyclopedia of Invisibility,” 2018, mixed media
Tavares Strachan: The Day Tomorrow Began Bahamian-born New York artist, whose immersive solo exhibition “Magnificent Darkness” filled the Hollywood branch of Marian Goodman Gallery last year, makes multidisciplinary art that seeks to amplify notable events and people — especially related to exploration, from deep-sea diving to outer space — that are often sidelined in standard cultural histories. Strachan, a 2022 MacArthur Foundation fellow, once shipped a 4.5-ton block of ice from the Arctic to the Bahamas via FedEx. We’ll see what might arrive at Wilshire Boulevard. — Christopher Knight 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday; closed Wednesday; through March 29, 2026. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, BCAM Level 2, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org
Alexander Shelley conducts the Pacific Symphony Friday-Sunday in Costa Mesa.
(Curtis Perry)
Alexander Shelley conducts the Pacific Symphony At 45, the British conductor has a seemingly full and far-fledged plate: music director of the National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa; principal associate conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London; and artistic and music director of Artis-Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in Florida. Next year, the plate becomes fuller and further-fledged when he becomes music director of the Pacific Symphony. This fall, however, Shelley makes his debut as music director designate by showcasing works bursting with color — Mongomery’s “Starburst”; Arturo Márquez’s “Concert for Guitar Mystical and Profane” with Pablo Sáinz-Villegas as soloist; and Rimsky Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.” Shelley returns in November with Ravel’s glorious ballet score “Daphnis and Chloe,” the perfect enchanting complement to San Diego Symphony’s “L’Enfant,” for wrapping up the Ravel year, the 150th anniversary of the French composer’s birth having been in March. — Mark Swed 8 p.m. Thursday-Oct. 18. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. pacificsymphony.org
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
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The American Contemporary Ballet dances to Shubert’s score for “Death & the Maiden.”
(Victor Demarchelier)
Death and the Maiden American Contemporary Ballet, under the direction of Lincoln Jones, dances to a live performance of Schubert’s score, complete with opera singers; plus “Burlesque: Variation IX.” 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; Thursday performances Oct. 23 and 30; through Nov. 1. ACB, Bank of America Plaza, 330 S. Hope St. #150, downtown L.A. acbdances.com
Nightsong Times video intern Quincy Bowie Jr. recently visited artist Derek Fordjour’s sensorial experience at Mid-City’s David Kordansky Gallery. “In a time where many feel silenced, and afraid to speak up, Fordjour creates a space of darkness where truth can be revealed, heard and felt,” wrote Bowie. “‘Nightsong’ creates a unique space where the Black voice and its many songs are centered.” The free exhibit closes tonight. 6-10 p.m. David Kordansky Gallery, 5130 W. Edgewood Place. davidkordanskygallery.com
Mexican singer Lucía performs Friday at the Nimoy.
(Shervin Lainez)
Lucía The enchanting Mexican singer mixes traditional American jazz and Latin folk in her eponymous debut album, released earlier this year. 8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Mascogos Jose Luis Valenzuela directs the world premiere of playwright Miranda González’s drama revealing the untold stories of Mexico’s Underground Railroad. Final preview, 8 p.m. Friday; opening night, 8 p.m. Saturday; 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 4 p.m. Sunday, through Nov. 9. Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., downtown L.A. latinotheaterco.org
People in the Dark: An Immersive Ghost Story A Lost Legends Ghost Tour goes frighteningly awry, placing the audience face-to-face with Hollywood’s haunted past in this enveloping theatrical experience from Drowned Out Productions. 7-11:40 p.m., with start times every 20 mins. Friday; 6-10:40 p.m., with start times every 20 mins. Saturday and Sunday (also Thursday, Oct. 16), through Oct. 31. 1035 S. Olive St., downtown L.A. tickettailor.com
Grand Kyiv Ballet performs “Swan Lake” Friday at the Ebell Wilshire.
Grand Kyiv Ballet This touring company of Ukrainian dancers is temporarily based out of the International Ballet Academy in Bellevue, Wash., while Russia continues its war with Ukraine. The troupe brings Tchaikovsky’s timeless ballet “Swan Lake” to Mid-City in a graceful performance sure to soothe even the most restless soul. (Jessica Gelt) 7 p.m. Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 4401 W 8th St, Los Angeles. ebellofla.org
SATURDAY Corey Helford Gallery A trio of strikingly distinct shows with a global sweep opens Friday. In the main gallery, “The Weight of Us,” a duo exhibition featuring solo works from Nigerian artists Arinze Stanley and Oscar Ukonu explores interconnectedness, and the complex interplay of individual and collective narratives. “Where Petals Dance,” features the work of Japanese artist aica in Gallery 2. The major exhibition featuring Latvian-born contemporary surrealist painter Jana Brike, “When I Was a River,” debuts in Gallery 3. Noon-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Nov. 15. Corey Helford Gallery, 571 S. Anderson St. #1, Los Angeles. https://coreyhelfordgallery.com/
Vicky Chow CAP UCLA and Piano Spheres present new music pianist Vicky Chow performing the West Coast premiere of Tristan Perich’s “Surface Image.” 8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Gracias Gustavo Community Block Party Hosted by Aundrae Russell of KJLH, this outdoor celebration features performances by DJ Aye Jaye, live art by Hannah Edmonds and Israel “Seaweed” Batiz, Mariachi Tierra Mia, poet Aletha Metcalf-Evans, Versa-Style Street Dance Company, YOLA at Inglewood Jazz Ensemble, Sherie, muralist ShowzArt — “The Art Jedi,” D Smoke and the Inglewood High School Marching Band, plus activities, food trucks and more. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center, 101 S. La Brea Ave., Inglewood. laphil.com
Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles An open house kicks off four new exhibitions: Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, “The Awake Volcanoes”; Samar Al Summary, “Excavating the Sky”; Liz Hernández, “Donde piso, crecen cosas (Where I step, things grow)”; and AoA x IAO, “I Smell LA.”
4-8 p.m. Friday. Noon-6 p.m. Wednesday; Noon-7 p.m. Thursday; Noon-6 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; closed Mondays, Tuesdays and public holidays. Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1717 E. 7th St., Arts District, downtown L.A. theicala.org
Sleep Token performs at the Reading Music Festival, England, in 2023.
(Scott Garfitt / Invision / Associated Press)
Sleep Token Sleep Token is by some measures the biggest heavy-rock band in the world right now. Its 2025 LP, “Even in Arcadia,” demolished streaming records for a metal act, reaching well beyond the genre’s cantankerous core fan base, which has mixed feelings about Sleep Token’s pop chart success, to say the least. (No one is more skeptical about the band’s new fame than its cryptically anonymous front person Vessel: “Right foot in the roses, left foot on a landmine,” he sings in “Caramel,” “They can sing the words while I cry into the bass line.”) The band’s high-drama live shows are where Sleep Token really shines, though, as in this return to L.A. for a set that finally provides the scale its runic masks, robes and necrotic body paint have always called for. (August Brown) 8 p.m. Crypto.com Arena, 1111 S. Figueroa St., downtown L.A. cryptoarena.com
SUNDAY Paul Jacobs The Grammy-winning organist performs Bach’s “The Art of Fugue.” 7:30 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer and the Von Trapp family in a scene from the 1965 film “The Sound of Music.”
(20th Century Fox)
The Sound of Music A 70mm screening of the 1965 Robert Wise-directed movie musical starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer that won five Oscars, including best picture. 3 p.m. Sunday. Academy Museum, David Geffen Theater, 6067 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. academymuseum.org
TUESDAY L.A. Phil Gala: Gustavo’s Fiesta Gustavo Dudamel conducts the orchestra in a few of his favorite things: De Falla’s “Three-Cornered Hat,” selections from Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony (featuring musicians from YOLA, Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), Beethoven’s Seventh, “Fairy Garden” from Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite and Revueltas’ “Night of Enchantment.” 7 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
THURSDAY Draw Them In, Paint Them Out Trenton Doyle Hancock confronts the work of painter Philip Guston in this dual exhibition that examines the role the artist plays in the pursuit of social justice. Noon-5 p.m. Tuesday–Friday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday–Sunday. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. skirball.org
Yunchan Lim For his Disney Hall debut, the youngest-ever winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition performs Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” alongside “…Round and velvety-smooth blend…,” a new piece, written especially for the pianist, by Korean composer Hanurij Lee. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
San Cha, photographed in 2020, performs Thursday-Saturday at REDCAT.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
San Cha The L.A.-based composer, musician and performance artist presents “Inebria Me,” a new experimental opera that reimagines the melodrama of telenovelas through a queer, genre-bending lens as adapted from her 2019 album, “La Luz de la Esperanza.” In Spanish with English supertitles. Postshow Q&A with San Cha on Oct 17. 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct.18. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Bisserat Tseggai, Claudia Logan, Victoire Charles and Jordan Rice, clockwise from top left, of “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding Currently staging its L.A. premiere at Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum, “Jaja’s” is an uproarious workplace comedy that packs a serious political punch. I had the pleasure of interviewing four of the lead actors during a roundtable at a downtown rehearsal room a few days before the run started. The women talked about their love of the show and of the playwright, Jocelyn Bioh. They also discussed the country’s fraught political climate and how it’s laying waste to the idea of the American Dream — the one that has attracted immigrants seeking a better life for their families for hundreds of years. Their thoughts have a direct throughline to the show, which takes place on a single hot day at a West African salon in Harlem.
Times theater critic Charles McNulty caught the opening Sunday night and wrote a glowing review of the touring production, which he noted was “bursting with gossip, petty fights, audacious fashion, dazzling hair styles, full-body dancing and uncensored truth about the vulnerable lives of immigrant workers.”
Hammer biennial Made in L.A. 2025 has officially opened at UCLA’s Hammer Museum and I recently toured the highly anticipated seventh edition of the biennial exhibition in the company of curators Essence Harden and Paulina Pobocha. The pair told me interesting backstories about the 28 participating artists, including that the four large sculptures of doors made by Amanda Ross-Ho represent a door at the nursing home where her father lived.
Artist Alake Shilling stands in front of a 25-foot inflatable psychedelic bear driving a convertible titled “Buggy Bear Crashes Made in L.A,” at the Hammer Museum in Westwood.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
I also ate lunch with the charming and kind artist Alake Shilling, whose adorable sculptures of cuddly animals featuring melancholy faces are part of the show. I trailed Shilling as she watched a test inflation of a 25-foot sculpture titled “Buggy Bear Crashes Made in L.A.,” which will be on display on an outdoor pedestal on Wilshire Boulevard through March. I made this fun video with the help of video editor Mark Potts.
LACMA Gifts Big news keeps coming out of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which announced Wednesday that it had been gifted more than 100 works of Austrian Expressionism worth “well over” $60 million by the family of Otto Kallir, a renowned art dealer who immigrated to America in 1938 after the German Reich annexed Austria. The art will be transferred to the museum over the next several years and includes the museum’s first paintings by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Richard Gerstl. The exciting news comes two months after LACMA was gifted its first paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Édouard Manet by the Pearlman Foundation.
Best Friends Forever Finally, I got an update from the “satirical activist” artists with the Secret Handshake. They told me they had once again received a permit to reinstall their controversial Trump-Epstein statue (dubbed “Best Friends Forever”) on the National Mall. “Just like a toppled Confederate general forced back onto a public square, the Donald Trump Jeffrey Epstein statue has risen from the rubble to stand gloriously on the National Mall once again,” a rep for the Secret Handshake wrote in an email.
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“Arabesque over the Right Leg,Left Arm in Front,” by Edgar Degas
(Norton Simon Museum)
Norton Simon acquires sculpture The Pasadena museum announced the acquisition of a bronze sculpture by Edgar Degas titled “Arabesque over the Right Leg, Left Arm in Front.” The museum already holds more than 100 pieces by Degas in its collection, which is known as one of the largest public collection’s of the artist’s work in the world. “This significant acquisition, long sought after, completes a critical gap in the Museum’s renowned Degas collection,” a rep for the museum wrote in an email. The sculpture went on view in the museum’s 19th century wing late last week.
Mushroom Boat Ever heard of a boat made out of mushrooms? Neither had I until someone told me about an exhibition at Fulcrum Arts in Pasadena called, “Sam Shoemaker: Mushroom Boat.” As the title implies, the artist built a kayak out of mushroom mycelium. He then proceeded to use the unusual vessel to cross the Catalina Channel — a total of 26 nautical miles. He chronicled his journey the whole way, and the results of that work are on display alongside the boat. It includes large-scale projections, time-lapse videos, and soundscapes from his sometimes wild and turbulent journey.
Los Angeles Ballet dancers in pointe shoes stretch before beginning rehearsals in 2015.
(Los Angeles Times)
An anniversary for Los Angeles Ballet Los Angeles Ballet announced its 2025-26 season, which also happens to mark the company’s 20th anniversary, and its Music Center debut — “Giselle” at the Ahmanson Theatre in the spring. The season launches in December with LAB’s acclaimed annual presentation of “The Nutcracker” at Royce Hall and the Dolby Theatre. This season the company continues its residency at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and is set to stage a triple-bill anniversary production, “20 Years of Los Angeles Ballet,” featuring George Balanchine’s “Rubies,” Hans van Manen’s “Frank Bridge Variations,” and a third new work by Artistic Director Melissa Barak, who assumed her position in 2022.
K.A.M.P. fundraiser The Hammer Museum is back this Sunday with its annual fundraiser — Kids Art Museum Project, better known as K.A.M.P. Tickets support the Hammer’s free year-round family programming. Each year, the museum shuts down on a Sunday and presents an art-filled wonderland for children and families, with interactive art stations created and helmed by participating L.A. artists, as well as a special reading room featuring well-known actors. This year’s readers will be actor Justine Lupe and baseball star Chris Taylor. Artists include Daniel Gibson, Sharon Johnston & Mark Lee, Annie Lapin, Ryan Preciado, Rob Reynolds, Jennifer Rochlin, Mindy Shapero, Brooklin A. Soumahoro and Christopher Suarez.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
Everybody, it seems, loves Cyndi Lauper. Readers have been going absolutely bananas for Times pop music critic Mikael Wood’s engaging profile on the iconic, red-haired pop star in advance of her induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
First-year girls’ basketball coach Will Burr of Harvard-Westlake High has already concluded more than a month before the season begins that 6-foot-2 freshman Lucia Khamenia is going to be an impact player.
She’s the sister of former Harvard-Westlake All-American Nikolas Khamenia, who is now a freshman at Duke.
Burr said Khamenia can play different positions because of her size and versatility, go inside or make threes like her brother.
She’s not the only high-profiled freshman on the Wolverines’ roster. Valentino Collins is the daughter of former Harvard-Westlake and NBA player Jarron Collins. Her sister, Alessandra, is a junior for the Wolverines.
Senior Valentina Guerrero will lead a young Wolverines team.
Burr is a highly regarded coach, having guided Oak Park to three straight Southern Section titles after winning one at Viewpoint.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
Turning Point USA director Erika Kirk, widow of organization co-founder Charlie Kirk, and other Turning Point USA officials on Thursday announced they plan to host an alternative Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 8. Photo by Eduardo Barraza/UPI | License Photo
Oct. 9 (UPI) — The Charlie Kirk-co-founded Turning Point USA is planning to host an alternative musical performance called “The All-American Halftime Show” for Super Bowl LX.
Officials for the conservative non-profit announced the planned alternative halftime show on social media but did not say which musical acts and others would perform.
“It’s true, Turning Point USA is thrilled to announce The All-American Halftime Show,” it said in a post on X on Thursday, as reported by Fox News.
The post says the event will celebrate faith, family and freedom.
Turning Point USA has created a website to present the halftime show and asked online visitors to choose which musical genres they would like to see perform.
Survey results so far show support for country, rock, hip hop and “anything in English,” The Hill reported.
The event would air while rapper Benito Antonio Martiniz Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, performs during the Super Bowl’s halftime show headliner.
The musical artist from Puerto Rico has won three Grammy Awards since his career took off in 2016.
He also is slated to be named Billboard’s Latin Artist of the 21st Century during the 2025 Billboard Latin Music Awards on Oct.23.
Bad Bunny is undertaking a world tour but has refused to perform in the United States, other than during the Super Bowl.
He has cited concerns that Immigration and Customs Enforcement might target his U.S. shows and detain audience members, according to Axios.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt recently dismissed such concerns and said there are no plans in place to raid Bad Bunny concerts.
Despite Leavitt’s denial, DHS adviser Corey Lewandowski recently suggested ICE agents would attend Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance.
Lewandowski made the claim while appearing on “The Benny Show” podcast on Oct. 1.
“There is nowhere that you can provide a safe haven to the people in this country illegally,” he told podcast host Benny Johnson.
The Super Bowl is scheduled for Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
Jimmy Kimmel figured his ABC late-night show was toast during last month’s firestorm over his comments following conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s shooting.
“I said to my wife: ‘That’s it. It’s over,’” Kimmel recalled Wednesday night at the Bloomberg Screentime media conference in Hollywood in a lengthy sit-down interview three weeks after the controversy.
The 57-year-old comedian has all along felt his statements about the Kirk shooting were misconstrued. But he recognized his show was in deep trouble on Sept. 17 when his bosses benched him and two ABC affiliate station owners, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group, initially refused to air the program.
Kimmel provided fresh details about his dealings with Walt Disney Co. brass, his emotional hiatus and the late night television business in the wake of rival CBS announcing it was canceling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” next spring.
Kimmel declined to say whether he would extend his long ABC run when his contract is up in May, but he acknowledged an interest in producing other projects.
Kimmel’s future was in doubt last month after his comments and the political backlash spawned boisterous protests that shined a light on 1st Amendment freedoms, the role of the Federal Communications Commission and the challenges facing Disney as it looks for a new leader to replace Chief Executive Bob Iger next year.
The controversy began with his Sept. 15 monologue when Kimmel said Trump supporters “are desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” Right-wing influencers howled; FCC Chairman Brendan Carr called Kimmel’s actions “the sickest conduct possible.”
The sentiment he was trying to convey “was intentionally, and I think maliciously, mischaracterized,” Kimmel said.
He didn’t sense the initial fallout was “a big problem,” but rather a “distortion on the part of some of the right-wing media networks,” he said.
Kimmel had planned to clarify his remarks Sept. 17, but Disney executives feared the comedian was dug in and would only inflame the tense situation. That night, about an hour before showtime, Disney hit pause and released a statement saying the show had been pre-empted “indefinitely.”
He was off the air for four days.
“I can sometimes be aggressive. I can sometimes be unpleasant,” he said.
A protester calls for the return of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after Walt Disney Co. yanked the ABC comedian in September over comments he made about the shooting of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
He recognized the show’s precarious position when Sinclair and Nexstar bailed. He recalled an episode from early in his career when he made a joke about boisterous Detroit basketball fans, saying “They’re gonna burn the city of Detroit down if the Pistons win,” so he hoped the Lakers would prevail.
The comment riled up the Motor City, prompting the local ABC affiliate to briefly shelve Kimmel’s show.
An ABC executive at the time told Kimmel the loss of the Detroit market could be catastrophic. That pales in comparison to the threatened loss of Nexstar and Sinclair, which own dozens of stations, including in such large markets as Seattle, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.
“The idea that I would not have …. 40 affiliates [stations] … I was like, ‘Well, that’s it,’” Kimmel said.
But he said he “was not going to go along” with demands made by station broadcasters.
Sinclair, a right-leaning broadcaster, said in a statement it would not air Kimmel until he issued “a direct apology to the Kirk family” and “make a meaningful personal donation to the Kirk Family and Turning Point USA,” the right-wing group Kirk founded.
Both Sinclair and Nexstar resumed airing the show Sept. 26. ABC offered no concessions.
Kimmel complimented Disney’s co-chair of entertainment Dana Walden’s handling of the crisis, saying she was instrumental in helping him sort through his emotions.
“I ruined Dana’s weekend. It was just nonstop phone calls all weekend,” Kimmel said, saying he doubted the situation would have turned out so well “if I hadn’t talked to Dana as much as I did, because it helped me think everything through, and it helped me just kind of understand where everyone was coming from.”
When asked who might become the next CEO of Disney, Kimmel said it would be “foolish” to answer that question.
“But I happen to love Dana Walden very much, and I think she’s done a great job,” Kimmel said.
Throughout the controversy, Walden and Iger were skewered by critics who asserted the company was caving to President Trump, who has made it clear that he’s no Kimmel fan. The Disney leaders were accused of “corporate capitulation.”
“What has happened over the last three weeks … was very unfair to my bosses at Disney,” Kimmel said. “It [was] insane, and I hope that we drew a really bold red line as Americans about what we will and will not accept.”
Kimmel returned Sept. 23 with an emotional monologue that championed the 1st Amendment.
Ratings soared.
The controversy — and CBS’ upcoming cancellation of Colbert — has focused new attention on the cultural clout of late night hosts, despite the industry’s falling ratings.
Millions of viewers now watch monologues and other late night gags the following day on YouTube, which means networks that produce the shows have lost valuable revenue because Google controls much of that advertising.
Networks acknowledge the late night block is challenged, but Kimmel said such shows still matter.
He scoffed at reports that cite unnamed sources suggesting Colbert’s show was on track to lose $40 million this year.
“If [CBS] lost $40 million, they would have canceled it already,” Kimmel said. “I know what the budgets for these shows are,” alluding to the ABC, CBS and NBC shows.
“If we’re losing so much money, none of us would be on,” he said. “That’s kind of all you need to know.”
“Grounded,” the newly opened exhibition of relatively recent acquisitions of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, starts out setting a very high bar. It’s a compelling launch, even if the spotty show that unfolds in the next several rooms falls apart.
Grounded, it isn’t.
“Land Deeds,” a 1970 work by Iranian American artist Siah Armajani (1939-2020), is the opener, and it’s terrific. The piece is composed of 50 documents recording real estate purchases that the artist made in all 50 U.S. states, spending less than $100 on each. Sometimes, I’d guess, much less: Armajani only bought a single square-inch of land in each place, so the properties were cheap. Maybe that would cost a hundred bucks in Beverly Hills or Honolulu, but a square-inch of Abilene, Kan., or Whitefish, Mont., would be lucky to get a buck.
In true Conceptual art form, the notarized documents confirming the transactions are lined up on the wall in alphabetical order, from Alabama and Alaska to Wisconsin and Wyoming, in two rows of 25. Visually dry, they nonetheless quickly pull you in. These are warranty deeds, a legal document used to guarantee that a property being sold is unencumbered and the transfer of ownership from seller to buyer is legit. In good Dada and Pop art-style, the work’s title turns out to be a pun: A deed is not just a real estate certificate but an endeavor that one has undertaken.
Siah Armajani’s 1970 “Land Deeds” records his purchase of one square-inch of all 50 U.S. states.
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
Other artistic resonances unfold. Land art was then at the cutting edge of avant-garde activity.
By 1970, sculptors Christo and Jeanne-Claude had just wrapped a million square-feet of coastal Australia in tarpaulin lashed with rope. Robert Smithson had bulldozed dirt and rocks to build a spiral jetty coiling out into Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Michael Heizer had dug a huge trench across Mormon Mesa near Overton, Nev., making a sculptural object out of empty space. Armajani’s unusual earthwork joined in: Embracing a legal, bureaucratic form, he pointed to land as a decidedly social structure.
The document display is droll but serious. It may be a layered example of up-to-the-minute Conceptual art, deeply absorbing and surprisingly suggestive, but the deeds are also lithographs, a perfectly traditional medium. They’re signed by administrative officials — one Julian Allison, warranty trustee, and notary public Brenda J. Hord — rather than being autographed by the artist. An art experience is a social transaction.
Armajani, an immigrant working as an artist in New York but not yet a U.S. citizen, was profoundly committed to democratic principles. (His citizenship would come in the wake of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, which installed a disastrous theocracy from which the Middle East still suffers.) With “Land Deeds,” he put his finger on a critical real estate context: From the get-go, full participation in American democracy had been limited to white male landowners. The explanation was that they had a vested interest in the community.
The deeper reasons, however, were profoundly anti-democratic — the noxious intransigence of patriarchy and white supremacy in Western culture, which drastically narrowed the eligible land-owning class. Women and people of color, except in limited instances, need not apply. (And suffice to say that warranty deeds for land transfers from Indigenous people were in rather short supply.) Gallingly, this autocratic check on egalitarian participation was also spiked with an element of informed equanimity: An educated populace is essential to democracy’s successful functioning, but in the 1770s, that mostly meant white male landed gentry, since they were likely to have had formal schooling.
At LACMA, Armajani’s marvelously revealing “Land Deeds” sets the stage for “Grounded.” The show was organized by LACMA curators Rita Gonzalez and Dhyandra Lawson, and deputy director Nancy Thomas. Entry wall text — there is no catalog — says it “explores how human experience is embedded in the land, presenting the work of artists who endow it with meaning.”
But, collectively, the 39 assembled contemporary paintings, sculptures, photographs, textiles and videos by 35 artists based in the Americas and areas of the Pacific underperform. Sometimes that’s because the individual work is bland, while elsewhere its pertinence to the shambling theme is stretched to the breaking point.
Familiar photographs of figures in the landscape by Ana Mendieta, left, and Laura Aguilar, center, offer background for the theme explored in “Grounded.”
(Museum Associates / LACMA)
The land theme is so loose and shaggy that, without the contemporary time frame, the show could start with prehistoric cave paintings, toss in a Chinese Song Dynasty scroll whose pictures follow a journey down the Yangzi River, add a Central African Kongo spirit sculpture filled with grave dirt and, for good measure, suitably hang a Jackson Pollock drip painting solely because it was made by spreading raw canvas flat on the ground.
Superficial bedlam, in other words.
Some work does stand out. Across from the Armajani is Patrick Martinez’s “Fallen Empire,” which takes a sly commercial real estate approach. The poignant mixed-media painting doubles as a large shop façade of crumbling, graffitied ceramic tiles with signage attached on a tarp. The name “Azteca” evokes a long-gone historical realm, here attached to a shop now falling into ruin. Martinez scatters ceramic roses across the painting, a mordant honorific to past glory and current hopes.
In the next room, Connie Samaras’ serendipitous landscape photograph unshackles whatever might be meant by being grounded. Shot from her L.A. home in the hills, what at first appears to be a strange cloud in the night sky over the twinkling city below turns out to be the vapor trail of a Minuteman missile deployed one night in 1998. A tangle of light above a black silhouette of a palm tree emits a sulfurous glow, its nauseous beauty balanced on the tip of potential annihilation.
Also among the more engaging works are two well-known photographic excursions into the landscape. Laura Aguilar’s “Grounded #111,” from a large series that likely gave the show its name, poses her corpulent nude body before a majestic boulder in the Joshua Tree desert, as if a secular saint enclosed within a sacred mandorla.
Six adjacent photographs in Ana Mendieta’s “Volcano Series no. 2” record a performance type of Land art in which a female form seems to erupt from within the Earth, spewing a volatile shower of flaming embers and smoke. Forget placid if repressive fantasies of Adam’s rib. The volcanic explosion provides a theatrically dramatic precedent for Aguilar’s contemplative composition.
Other impressive works include Mexico City-based Abraham Cruzvillegas’ exceptional sculpture, “Autoconcancion V” — the title’s made-up word translates to “auto with song” — which upends conventional L.A. car culture. An old automobile’s beat-up rear bench seat becomes the launching pad for a wooden box holding a small fan palm, held aloft on buoyant metal rods and exuding a witty mix of aplomb and high spirits.
A 70-foot video projection by Lisa Reihana reimagines a famous scenic French wallpaper.
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana, who is of Māori British ancestry, transformed a famous early 19th century French scenic wallpaper designed by Jean-Gabriel Charvet into an equally extravagant, 70-foot-wide projection of video animation. The showily exoticized wallpaper, sold throughout Europe and in North America by celebrated manufacturer Joseph Dufour, was the culmination of Western public fascination with British Royal Navy Capt. James Cook’s three voyages to the Pacific. In a big, darkened room, Reihana redecorates.
Amid dreamy island landscapes, “in Pursuit of Venus [infected]” beautifully mixes interactive scenes of playful harmony and brute conflict between red-uniformed colonizers and colonized Polynesians. She maintains a nuanced sense of humanity’s transgressions and innocence, without demonizing or idealizing either side. Emblematic is a wickedly funny episode where a British plein-air painter at his easel bats away pesky tropical insects, invisible to a viewer’s naked eye, as he attempts to render a still life of a dead fish.
What either the Reihana video or the Cruzvillegas sculpture has to do with how human experience is embedded in the land — “grounded” — I cannot say, except in the most superficial ways. The land is certainly not a major focus of either one. The Cruzvillegas sculpture celebrates varieties of youthful play, while the Reihana animation ruminates on dimensions of cultural collision. The exhibition’s purported theme unhappily narrows perspectives on the assembled works of art, rather than opening wide their myriad readings.
Lisa Reihana, “in Pursuit of Venus [infected],” 2015, projected video animation.
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
Essentially, “Grounded” is an old-fashioned “Recent Acquisitions” show, with most works entering LACMA’s collection in the last half-dozen years or so. (The big exception is Mendieta’s “Volcano” series, easily the show’s most famous work, purchased a quarter-century ago; it’s apparently included here as a benchmark.) Six pieces are shared with the UCLA Hammer Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the new MAC3 (Mohn Art Collective) program, and the Aguilar is shared with the Vincent Price Art Museum at East L.A. College.
The exhibition is on view in LACMA’s Broad Contemporary Art Museum for eight months, until late June 2026. The unusually lengthy run will put recent art on par with LACMA’s historical departments, when the new Geffen Galleries building opens in April. Those rooms are also expected to thematize the museum’s diverse permanent collection of art’s global history.
But “Grounded” would have been better left without its imposed topic, which inadvertently casts much work as ugly stepsisters unsuccessfully trying to jam their feet into Cinderella’s glass slipper. Skepticism over the coming Geffen theme idea mounts.
In “Boots,” a new miniseries set in 1990, Miles Heizer plays Cameron Cope, a scrawny, bullied gay teenager who is out only to his best (and only) friend, Ray (Liam Oh). Ray, who is joining the Marines to make his disciplinarian but not unkind father proud, convinces Cam to join alongside him. (The recruiters sell a buddy system, which is a bit of a come-on.) Cam told his messy but not unkind mother, Barbara (Vera Farmiga), where he was going, but she wasn’t listening.
Though the series, which premieres Thursday on Netflix and is based on Greg Cope White’s 2016 memoir, “The Pink Marine,” is novel as regards the sexuality of its main character, it’s also essentially conventional — not a pejorative — and largely predictable. It’s a classic Boot Camp Film, like “An Officer and a Gentleman,” or Abbott and Costello’s “Buck Privates,” in which imperfect human material is molded through exercise, ego death and yelling into a better person, and it replays many tropes of the genre. And like most every military drama, it gathers diverse types into a not necessarily close-knit group.
Cam’s confusion is represented by externalizing his inner voice into a double, “the angel on my shoulder and, honestly, sometimes the devil,” with whom he argues, like a difficult imaginary friend. (It’s the voice of his hidden gayness.) Where basic training stories like this usually involve a cocky or spoiled character learning a lesson about humbleness and teamwork, Cam is coming from a place of insecurity and fear. At first he wants to leave — he had expected nothing worse than “mud and some bug bites and wearing the same underwear two days in a row” — and plots to wash out; but he blows the chance when he helps a struggling comrade pass a test. He’s a good guy. (Heizer is very fine in the part.)
Cameron (Miles Heizer), left, is convinced by his best friend (and only friend), Ray (Liam Oh), to join the Marines with him.
(Alfonso “Pompo” Bresciani / Netflix)
Press materials describe “Boots,” created by Andy Parker, as a comedic drama, although, after the opening scenes, there’s not much comedy in it — even a food fight is more stressful than funny. Using “Also Sprach Zarathustra” as the soundtrack to a long-in-coming bowel movement — I just report the news — was already dated and exhausted in 1990, and is bizarrely out of joint with the rest of the production. “Boots” isn’t anywhere near as disturbing as, say, “Full Metal Jacket” — which Ray told Cam to watch to prepare, though he opted for a “Golden Girls” marathon instead. But it makes no bones about the fact that these kids are being trained to kill. “Kill, kill, blood makes the grass grow,” they chant, and “God, country, Corps, kill.” And sometimes just, “Kill, kill, kill.” And things do turn violent, sometimes for purposes of training and sometimes because someone just goes off his head.
Still, that Cam survives, and, after a period of adjustment, thrives (that’s not a spoiler, Cope White lived to write the book) makes this, strictly speaking, a comedy. (And, by implication, an endorsement of the program.) “We’re killing our old selves so we can be our best selves,” he’ll say to Ray. The Marines may make a man of him, but it won’t be a straight man.
Rhythmically, “Boots” follows scenes in which someone will break a little or big rule — I suppose in the Marines, all rules are big, even the little ones — with some sort of punishment, for an individual or the platoon. Laid across this ostinato are various storylines involving recruits working out the issues that have brought them to this Parris Island of Misfit Boys. Cody (Brandon Tyler Moore) was taught by his father to look down on his twin brother, John (Blake Burt), who is in the same outfit, because he’s fat. Slovacek (Kieron Moore), a bully, has been given a choice between prison and the military. Mason (Logan Gould) can barely read. Santos (Rico Paris) is slowed down by a bum knee. Ochoa (Johnathan Nieves) is a little too much in love with his wife. And Hicks (Angus O’Brien) is a chaos-relishing loon, having the time of his life. Obviously, not everyone who joins the Marines is compensating for something; Nash (Dominic Goodman), a more or less balanced character who seems to be sending Cameron signals, is there to pad his resume in case he runs for president one day; but he’ll have his moment of shame.
Sgt. Sullivan (Max Parker), left, is one of the drill instructors who takes an interest in Cameron (Miles Heizer).
(Alfonso “Pompo” Bresciani / Netflix)
Though they all raise their voices and get in people’s faces, the drill instructors do come in various flavors. Staff Sgt. McKinnon (Cedrick Cooper), the senior instructor, is imposing but obviously sane and sometimes kind; Sgt. Howitt (Nicholas Logan) is an unsettling sort who will prove to have some depth, while Sgt. Knox (Zach Roerig) is a twitchy racist, soon to be replaced by Sgt. Sullivan (Max Parker), tall, steely and tightly wound. He doesn’t yell as loud as the others, but even his posture is intimidating. He focuses immediately on Cameron; make of that what you will. He’s the series second lead, basically.
There are some respites from the training, the running and marching, the room full of tear gas, the dead man’s float test, the hand-to-hand combat, the flower planting. (That part was nice, actually.) The yelling.
Ray winds up in sick bay, where he flirts with a female Marine. We get a few perfunctory glimpses of what the brass is like when they’re out of uniform and quiet; it comes as a relief. McKinnon’s wife is having a baby; he makes Cookie Monster noises on the phone for his son. Capt. Fajardo (Ana Ayora), “the first woman to lead a male company on Parris Island,” is heard talking to her mother, presumably about her daughter’s wedding: “I would rather not spend the time or the money because she can’t live without love.” Of her position, she observes that it “only took 215 years and a congressional mandate.” McKinnon, who is Black, offers a brief history of Black people in the Marine Corps as lived by his forebears.
The social themes become more prominent in the second half, and we learn or are reminded just how toxic the military was to gay people, and how backward was its attitude. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” wasn’t in effect until 1994, and it wasn’t until 2011 that openly gay soldiers could serve. Now, as civil rights are being beaten back to … backwardness by small-minded politicians, there’s a timely element to this perfectly decent, good-hearted, unsurprisingly sentimental miniseries.
Videos show German police officers beating pro-Palestine protesters in Berlin after authorities banned a planned demonstration. Around 500 people gathered near Berlin’s City Hall chanting slogans and waving flags, before several were attacked and detained.
Newcomers Reiss Boyce and Leisha Lightbody tied the knot in Tuesday night’s episode
22:39, 07 Oct 2025Updated 22:59, 07 Oct 2025
A groom from Married at First Sight has revealed the heart-wrenching reason why he believes the show’s matchmaking “has to work”.
Tuesday’s episode (7 October) introduced us to newbies Reiss Boyce and Leisha Lightbody, who said their vows. The pair joined the programme on Monday, along with four other latecomers.
The couple were matched by experts Paul C Brunson, Charlene Douglas and Mel Schilling, and are now set to experience married life over the next few weeks.
Before his nuptials, 33-year-old decorator Reiss confessed that people often perceive him as a “pretty boy”. However, the lad from Essex was quick to point out that there’s much more to him than meets the eye.
Discussing his dream relationship, Reiss stressed the importance of family to him. He then revealed that he found out his dad wasn’t his biological father when he was just seven years old, reports OK!
Reiss stated: “When I get married, I don’t want to be having kids and breaking up. No way!”
He went on to say: “I want to do my best to keep it that [his family] all bonded and sealed together forever. When I was seven years old I found out that my dad wasn’t actually my real dad.”
Reflecting on this tough revelation, he added: “Looking back, at the time, I was only a young nipper. I didn’t really know what was going on. It was just a bit of a whirlwind, it was a lot to take in.
“That’s why I’ve got to do it properly. I’ve got one shot here, it’s got to work.”
Despite this, the new groom appears to share a close bond with his grandparents and is searching for a love story similar to theirs.
Sadly, Reiss’ MAFS experience has got off to a bumpy beginning.
Whilst he’s physically drawn to his new bride, the groom considers her “quite loud” and “a little bit over the top”.
The pair even clashed following the ceremony when Leisha challenged her new spouse for only pecking her on the cheek in front of their wedding guests.
They subsequently shared a kiss that Leisha appeared to relish but Reiss criticised because “there was no passion”.
Married at First Sight UK continues on E4 tomorrow night at 8pm
Wordle, the addictive digital puzzle game offered daily by the New York Times, could soon be coming to television.
NBC has ordered a pilot based on Wordle, according to people familiar with the project who were not authorized to comment publicly.
“Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie, an obsessive player of the game herself, serves as the emcee in the TV version.
The test program will be used to determine whether the project, which is not yet officially titled, gets ordered for a series. A representative for NBC declined comment.
NBC’s Savannah Guthrie is seen at Rockefeller Center in New York in 2021.
(Jesse Dittmar / For The Times)
The Wordle project is being produced by “Tonight” host Jimmy Fallon’s company Electric Hot Dog, which already has two prime-time game shows on the air at the network, “That’s My Jam” and “On Brand.” Fallon is also a producer on NBC’s version of the classic game show “Password,” which has been ordered for a third season.
As many millions of the game’s fans know, the daily Wordle asks players to guess a five-letter word in six chances through a process of eliminating letters. An individual player’s performance in the game can be posted online without revealing the answer, as the colored tiles are shown without the letters.
Wordle was created by Brooklyn, N.Y.-based software engineer Josh Wardle in 2021. After it became an immediate hit online, the New York Times purchased it for a price reported to be in the low-seven-figure range.
Offered as part of a subscription to a bundle of puzzles on the New York Times web site and app, Wordle has been a major driver of digital revenue for the company. The game was played 5.3 billion times in 2024.
The Times is a production partner on the TV version with Electric Hot Dog.
Jimmy Fallon, left, Keke Palmer and Jon Hamm in “Password” on NBC.
(Jordin Althaus / NBC)
The idea of a TV version had been explored by the Times for awhile, and the company’s timing is fortunate. Game shows have become a staple on broadcast networks such as NBC in recent years as viewers have increasingly made streaming platforms their first stop for scripted comedies and dramas.
Game shows are cheaper to produce than scripted shows. They also appeal to traditional TV viewers with an appetite for programming they can turn on and enjoy without requiring any binge-watching to catch up on plot points.
The “Reading Rainbow” is officially back, with internet-famous librarian Mychal Threets at the helm.
Following the reboot’s premiere last Saturday, the new host responded to the audience’s wishes for a Latino lead in a recent social media post. He wrote, “You’re not going to believe this… I am [Latino]! My dad is Black, my mom is Mexican and white. I’m a mixed kid, homeschool kid, library kid, PBS kid, and @readingrainbow kid!”
Threets, who got his start as a Bay Area librarian, tells The Times that because he was home-schooled, he was able to learn about his heritage mostly through books. He says he was raised to be proud of his heritage and looks up to both his grandfather and mother as examples of what it means to be Latino. Much of his childhood was also marked by the sounds of Selena Quintanilla, whom he recently got memorialized in a tattoo.
“My heritage and being Latino will hopefully be reflected in my appearance on the show,” said Threets in a statement. “I hope people will see me and see a happy, jovial person who has the same heritage as them.”
Threets started to gain online popularity in 2020. He started posting short-form videos of himself reading and sharing stories from working in a library. Many of those videos garnered more than a million views and earned him several hundred thousand followers.
The original “Reading Rainbow,” hosted by LeVar Burton, first launched on PBS in 1983. For over two decades, Burton taught literacy skills and helped instill a love for reading in children across the country. The show ended in 2006, having earned a handful of Emmy and Peabody Awards. It ran for a total of 155 episodes and is recognized as one of the longest-running children’s programs ever.
At the time, the show was funded in part by the Department of Education. The reboot comes at a time when public media, including television, has been subject to sizable budget cuts. The revitalization will instead appear on the kids’ YouTube channel, Kidzuko, which is owned by Sony Pictures Television, as well as the Reading Rainbow’s website.
The reboot, which premiered over the weekend, has mostly stayed true to its roots with a new rerecorded theme song and a trivia segment. Celebrity guests will include “Dancing With the Stars” performers Rylee Arnold and Ezra Sosa, “The Bear’s” actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach, John Legend, Chrissy Teigen and Gabrielle Union. New episodes air every Saturday, until Oct. 24.
“Reading Rainbow seeks to make reading fun for everyone, all races, all backgrounds, all levels of reading! The reactions have been out of this world,” said Threets. “I am overwhelmed in the best of ways.”
Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker star in ITV’s FraudsCredit: Splash
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Suranne plays Bert and Jodie portrays Sam in the heist seriesCredit: PA
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The show premiered on October 5, 2025Credit: PA
ITV’s Frauds is about two former partners-in-crime who reunite for one last audacious heist after one of them is released from prison on compassionate grounds.
The synopsis for the series reads: “Bert and Sam embark on the most audacious of art thefts, gathering a talented team of outcasts to help them plan this audacious crime.
“Whilst the team must overcome numerous challenges before they can pull off the heist, it’s the power struggle between Bert and Sam that threatens to derail their plans and destroy them both.
“Set against the epic rolling hills of southern Spain and the dark criminal underbelly that casts a shadow over the glistening coast, Frauds is a complex and addictive story of friendship, deception and survival.”
It blends dark comedy with the cinematic heist genre, set against the scenic backdrop of southern Spain — but is it a true story?
When is Frauds on?
Frauds premiered at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX on Sunday, October 5, 2025.
The series includes six episodes airing on consecutive Sunday and Monday nights over three weeks.
All episodes are also available on ITVX for streaming.
Is Frauds based on a true story?
Frauds is a work of fiction created by Suranne Jones and co-writer Anne-Marie O’Connor.
The plot revolves around Bert, who has been in a Spanish prison for ten years and is released due to a terminal cancer diagnosis.
One Night- Official Trailer, Paramount+ UK & Ireland
Upon release, she reconnects with her former partner Sam to plan a multi-million-pound art heist.
While the series captures the feel of real criminal undertakings, it is not an adaptation of a true crime or real-life story.
What is the Frauds cast?
Frauds tells the story of Bert and Sam, whose toxic friendship will be pushed to the ultimate test.
Bert tries to lure her pal out of criminal retirement to pull off a multi-million-pound art heist.
Suranne Jones stars as Bert — the career criminal recently released from prison.
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The cast for ITV’s FraudsCredit: PA
Jodie Whittaker features as Sam, her estranged former partner in crime.
Lost Boys and Fairies actress Elizabeth Berrington plays a master illusionist, while I May Destroy You’s Karan Gill portrays the world’s greatest forger.
Talisa Garcia features as drag star Miss Take, and Christian Cooke takes on the role of moneylender Deegs.
Frauds’ cast is an ensemble of British and Spanish actors, reflecting the series’ international setting — the show was shot in Spain.
Frauds was created and executive produced by Suranne Jones and Anne-Marie O’Connor.
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