There were plenty of comics, cosplay and cast members from Game of Thrones and X-Men on the first day of Oz Comic Con

• More coverage of Melbourne's Oz Comic Con 2014

Thousands of fans descended on Melbournes Royal Exhibition Centre on 5 July for the third annual Oz Comic Con. A strong lineup of television stars from the sci-fi and fantasy genre, including Game of Thrones and Doctor Who, was on offer, as well as from cult favourites like Community. Scores of pop-culture fanatics, some dressed in cosplay, were seen lining up for photos and autographs with the stars.

At midday Kristian Nairn, famous for his one-word role Hodor on Game of Thrones, took to the main stage with his co-star Daniel Portman, better known as the squire, Podrick Payne. For many fans, it was their first time hearing Nairn say more than just Hodor, and along with Portman, the actor and DJ proved to be an affable and funny panellist. Both stars delighted audiences with their insiders take and seemed to genuinely love being part of the show.

My new favorite people! Look at those little faces! @OzComicCon #Melbourne  pic.twitter.com/WNfbBecZH4

A 20-year-old girl made this completely badass #transformers costume in two weeks, several hours a day #OzComicCon pic.twitter.com/ZQFpEzXC2U

Continue reading...

Caitlin Moran shares more life lessons in her debut novel

How young Mexican buskers hit the big time

Crucible Studio, Sheffield
Too much technical intervention lets Richard Wilson down not to mention Samuel Beckett

"I envy you," said a colleague, hearing I was going to see veteran actor/director Richard Wilson in Krapp's Last Tape. Well, having been, I cannot say I have seen. Samuel Beckett's 1958 text has the ageing Krapp sit at a table on which stands a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He selects spools from his archive and plays back memories recorded each birthday. Occasionally he eats a banana or disappears into darkness, from which issues sounds of chinking glass and pouring liquid. The drama of the piece lies in the interplay between the voices on the tapes and the character reacting (or not) to his youthful selves. Krapp's world becomes our own: its pettiness, its humour, its lost visions and, through all that, something tremulous, untouchable, yet inescapable the mystery of being. Great actors build this, little by little, with the audience, leading us to a state that simultaneously acknowledges and challenges isolation through the act of sharing.

Director Polly Findlay and designer Alex Lowde transform Krapp into a specimen to be examined. They encase him in a rectangular box. Its upper two thirds are glass windows. Spectators are seated all around. The box rotates continuously, clicking as it goes, setting a mechanical rhythm. Sometimes we see Krapp's face; sometimes his back; sometimes just an intervening bit of box. The taped voice and the living voice are both relayed through speakers; different from one another in quality but equal in artificiality (Dan Jones's sound design). Direct relation between performer and spectators is not possible; it is modulated by intervening technology. We become voyeurs of a surveillance spectacle.

Continue reading...

O2 Arena, London
Monty Python's reunion delivers few surprises but their comedic genius remains

"Our motto has been 'Always leave them wanting less','' Eric Idle joked in last week's press conference to launch Monty Python's series of reunion gigs at the O2, and frequently during this bells-and-whistles extravaganza you feel they have succeeded admirably. This is very much Idle's show; it was he who devised it in collaboration with Spamalot composer John Du Prez, and the shiny troupe of dancers choreographed by Arlene Phillips feels closer to the glitz of Broadway than to the original Flying Circus. Some of the more modest two-hander sketches, with their drab postwar costumes of trenchcoats and tweed, relying on word play, pauses and facial expressions, can seem dwarfed in comparison, yet it's here that the gold is to be found.

"Who'd have thought 40 years ago we'd be sitting here doing Monty Python?" Eric Idle asks, opening a reprise of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch that operates with an extra layer of irony now that the performers are the ageing millionaires they once pretended to be. If Python was a cult when it first appeared, it has since achieved the status of established religion for many fans; this first show sold out in 40 seconds, and plenty here are dressed up as favourite characters, calling out the lines of each sketch like a litany. If groundbreaking comedy relies on wrong-footing the audience with unexpected twists and unlikely juxtapositions precisely as these sketches did when they were fresh then this must be the opposite. But there's a different kind of enjoyment in the singalong delight of familiarity, and the Pythons serve that up with gusto.

Continue reading...

The frontman's cultural highlights include soul and blues singer Rag'N'Bone Man, Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream and his favourite Californian burger chain

Dan Smith is lead vocalist, songwriter and producer of four-piece rock outfit Bastille. Their debut studio album, Bad Blood, went straight to the top of the UK albums chart before going on to become the biggest-selling digital album of 2013. In February 2014, Bastille won best breakthrough act at the Brit awards, with nominations for British group, British single of the year and British album of the year. Excluding remixes and covers, Smith writes and arranges all of Bastille's music; as of February, the band have sold more than 3m records in the UK. Bastille play T in the Park on 13 July and Somerset House on 15 July.

Continue reading...

Concert promoter Peter Aiken says a decision will be made on Monday or Tuesday on whether any of the planned Garth Brooks' concerts in Dublin will go ahead.

The white summer dress and other items related to the iconic 1970s Tennis Girl poster sell for £15,500 at auction.

Kanye West's appearance at the Wireless Festival was a spectacle, says James Hall - but not in a good way

Ozzy Osbourne proved he can still howl and roar with the best of them, says Tom Chivers

Darcey Bussell, who has appeared in front of an audience of thousands as a professional ballerina, says appearing as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing

Every year for more than a decade Richard Linklater gathered the same cast - including Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette - to shoot scenes for his film Boyhood. He talks to David Gritten about a coming-of-age movie like no other.

Louis Kahn understood buildings like few others, says Ellis Woodman

Dance act The Prodigy headline the first night of this year’s Sonisphere rock festival in Hertfordshire.

Does human dominion over the Earth have to end badly, asks Caspar Henderson

Michael Deacon reviews Imagine: And Now for Something Rather Similar (BBC One) and The Honourable Woman (BBC Two)

Jenny Lewis' photographs capture the intensity and elation of the first few hours of motherhood

A young woman's dreams turn to dust when her husband returns from war. A new story by Graham Swift

Jenny Lewis' portraits of mothers and their newborn babies

The Tour de France starts today in Yorkshire, before heading down to London. We sum up the tour's previous British highlights