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What, no sequinned crooners? How cruises became the home for world class theatre

Forget cheesy acts, these days cruise ships boast the cutting edge tech to stage hip West End productions and Olivier award-winning musicals – and young people are loving it

The phrase “cruise ship entertainment” conjures vivid images, even to those who have never set foot on an oceangoing vessel. Starry backcloths, sequined frocks, tunes and croons from yesteryear, the lite-ent values of the 1970s preserved in aspic. Perhaps those stereotypes held water way back when the singer Jane McDonald ruled the reality TV waves. But – lazy thinking ahoy! – do they still?

Look at the shows currently a-sail on the high seas, from the Olivier award-winning 9/11 musical Come from Away, to hip theatre-maker Emma Rice’s acclaimed Brief Encounter. And look at the onboard production values, which “way surpass what you see in London theatres”, says Susannah Daley of Peel Entertainment, which provides shows for the Ambassador cruise line. “These ships are now being built with theatre in mind, to a really high spec, to hold between 600 and 1,000 people. What can be produced in them is pretty phenomenal.” Producer David Pugh, a veteran of the West End who has collaborated with Cunard cruises, says: “These are probably the most technical theatres, in terms of lighting and sound, that you’ve ever seen outside of the best theatres in the world.”

2026-08-04 04:00:12

With Russia at the door and the US backing away, Europe has to build its own ‘way of war’

Even in a Europe-focused Nato 3.0, Washington would still want to call the shots. We need an insurance policy

How can Europe defend itself against Russia without the US, or with much less of it? This question sums up the existential challenge now facing the continent.

Russia’s imperial ambitions start with Ukraine, but they don’t end there. Moscow’s hybrid attacks, its political interference in support of Russia-friendly parties and its military sabre-rattling – including a warship’s live-fire exercise 45 miles off the UK coast – all point in the same direction. A kinetic war to defend ourselves against Russia in the coming months or years cannot be ruled out. This is why European defence budgets are rising across Europe, especially in countries closer to the frontline.

Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist

2026-08-04 04:00:12

‘The war leaked into every lesson’: learning Ukrainian in a country under siege

Soon after my first visit to Ukraine four years ago, I began language lessons. It taught me more than I ever expected

Almost as soon as I returned from my first reporting trip to Ukraine, in October 2022, I decided to start Ukrainian lessons. Not as an act of solidarity, exactly, but as a marker that I was committed to returning. I wanted to know some Ukrainian in order to feel less helpless, to edge towards a better understanding of what I was reporting, and to be more courteous to those whom I encountered. And I hoped, in time, to be able to pull myself through a piece of poetry in the original.

I began meeting Olha, my teacher, by weekly video call later that autumn. She was in Ivano-Frankivsk, her home town in the far west of Ukraine, I was in London. With endless patience and humour, she led me by the hand through the unfamiliar letters of her language, those elegant, sensuous shapes of the Cyrillic alphabet.

2026-08-04 04:00:12

The ultimate guide to travel etiquette: how to handle 36 tricky situations, from manspreaders to smelly armpits

It’s easy to lose your cool when you’re crammed into a train, bus or plane with a bunch of strangers and one of them is playing music without headphones or fighting you for the armrest. Here are the rules everyone should be following

Public transport can be a hot, noisy, cramped and stressful environment – and that’s before you add in people with pungent food, questionable hygiene and giant backpacks. Most of us know the general rules – though we don’t all follow them – about letting people off first, not putting bags on seats, where to stand on escalators and offering your seat to others. But what about the vaguer conventions? How can you avoid chatty passengers? Or manspreaders? Is it sometimes OK to put your feet on the seats? (Spoiler: it’s not.) Here, three etiquette experts show us the way to public transport propriety.

2026-08-04 04:00:11

Can you tell if someone is filming you with Meta glasses? – video

Meta glasses - they're everywhere, and people have a lot of opinions. Mostly about their ability to take photos and videos.

Rafqa Touma speaks to Guardian Australia's technology reporter, Josh Taylor, lifestyle editor, Alyx Gorman, and the Human Technology Institute's responsible technology policy specialist, Lauren Perry.

2026-08-04 03:23:08

Rijnmond - Nieuws

Het laatste nieuws van vandaag over Rotterdam, Feyenoord, het verkeer en het weer in de regio Rijnmond

Het weer van vandaag: tropisch en benauwd

Vandaag is er veel zon. In de loop van de middag verschijnt vanuit het zuiden meer bewolking. In de tweede helft van de middag bestaat er mogelijk kans op een lokale onweersbui, waarbij zware windstoten kunnen optreden. Het wordt tropisch heet en benauwd, met een middagtemperatuur van 32 graden. Op het strand wordt het minder heet. Mocht het al tot een bui komen dan zou het gelijk even lekker kunnen afkoelen. De wind waait matig en komt uit het zuidwesten.