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The goofy star of Mary Poppins becomes a centenarian on Saturday. And what a precocious performer he has proved, sustaining scrappy mischief through seven decades of mainstream entertainment
All Hollywood stars grow old and die except perhaps one - Dick Van Dyke - who turns 100 today. The real world Peter Pan who used to trip over the ottoman on The Dick Van Dyke Show is still standing. The man who impersonated a wind-up toy in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang hasn’t wound down just yet. He has outlived mentors, co-stars, romantic partners and several studios. He’s even outlived the jokes about his performance in Mary Poppins. These days his mangled cockney accent is regarded with more fondness than contempt. It’s seen as one of the great charms of the 1964 classic, along with the carousel chase or the cartoon dancing penguins.
Charm is the magic ingredient of every popular entertainer and few have possessed it in such abundance as Van Dyke, the impoverished son of a travelling cookie salesman who dropped out of high school and educated himself at the movies. “His job in this life is to make a happier world,” his Broadway co-star Chita Rivera once said - and this may explain his stubborn refusal to quit, not while times are tough and he feels that audiences still need cheering up.
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© Photograph: Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock
As Paramount, with close ties to the Trump administration, entered the bidding, experts predict any merger will ‘raise red flags’ among regulators
Over the first 10 months of his second presidency, Donald Trump has not hidden his desire to control the US media industry – from encouraging TV networks to fire journalists, comedians and critics he dislikes to pushing regulators to revoke broadcast licences. Now he seems determined to set the terms for one of the biggest media deals in history.
It’s a deal that could have repercussions not just in the US, but across the world, with not just the future of Hollywood at stake but also the landscape of news.
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© Composite: Alex Mellon for the Guardian : AP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/
© Composite: Alex Mellon for the Guardian : AP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/
© Composite: Alex Mellon for the Guardian : AP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/
The watershed summit in 2015 was far from perfect, but its impact so far has been significant and measurable
Ten years on from the historic Paris climate summit, which ended with the world’s first and only global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it is easy to dwell on its failures. But the successes go less remarked.
Renewable energy smashed records last year, growing by 15% and accounting for more than 90% of all new power generation capacity. Investment in clean energy topped $2tn, outstripping that into fossil fuels by two to one.
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© Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters
© Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters
© Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters
Rita, 35, a travel agent, meets Tom, 40, a social media manager
What were you hoping for?
To have a refreshing new experience. I was curious to see who the Guardian would match me with.
© Photograph: Graeme Robertson, Alicia Canter/The Guardian
© Photograph: Graeme Robertson, Alicia Canter/The Guardian
© Photograph: Graeme Robertson, Alicia Canter/The Guardian
Hobnobs, ricotta, chocolate and amaretto – what’s not to like?
I believe in divine communion, especially when it comes to food; an alliance of ingredients that come together as though they were meant to feed spirit and body. It might be too lofty to say that this semifreddo is divine, but the combination of Hobnobs, ricotta, chocolate and amaretto really does it for me. That said, there are many alliances that can be formed in the Christmas store-cupboard, so use this as a base for any biscuits, dried fruit and chocolate to which you feel most spiritually aligned.
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© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Susannah Cohen.
© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Susannah Cohen.
© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Susannah Cohen.
Three months after Hatton’s death, his bereft former trainer Billy Graham, friend Jane Couch and his brother Matthew are all trying to find a hopeful future amid the grief
“Of course I remember,” Billy Graham says quietly as he pushes back his straw trilby to show me his wounded expression. “I can remember everything.”
Graham, who trained Ricky Hatton for all but the last three of his 48 fights, used to sit with his fighter on the grimy steps outside their first boxing gym in Salford in the late 1990s. It was a more innocent time and, rather than being called The Preacher and The Hitman, they were just Billy and Ricky then.
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© Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters
© Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters
© Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters
From pie-and-mash to the swank of a Michelin star, everyone has their own idea of what’s ‘best’. What’s yours?
Jonathan Nunn is the author of London Feeds Itself
Almost 24 years ago, a small British food magazine called Restaurant assembled an all-star panel – made up of Gordon Ramsay, John Torode, Aldo Zilli and 65 other food guys – to adjudicate on the world’s most stupid question: what is the best restaurant on the planet? It didn’t matter that no judge had been to all the restaurants on the shortlist, or that two of the judges happened to be Jeremy Clarkson and Roger Moore – what the editors of Restaurant understood is that people love a list, and if you order a group of restaurants from 50-1 and throw a party, people might take it seriously.
“This could run and run,” the editors wrote in their intro, half hoping. They were right. Within two decades, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants had gone from what critic Jay Rayner described as a “terribly successful marketing exercise” to an insurgent alternative to the ossified Michelin Guide, solidifying the reputations of El Bulli, the Fat Duck and then Noma as the “world’s best restaurant”.
Jonathan Nunn is a food and city writer based in London who co-edits the magazine Vittles. He is the author of London Feeds Itself
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© Composite: Getty / Guardian Design
© Composite: Getty / Guardian Design
© Composite: Getty / Guardian Design
Rehearsals for a live broadcast at short notice reduce us to silence then swearing. This does not bode well
On Wednesday afternoon I receive a text that seems to suggest the band I’m in has been invited to play live on national radio. Twenty minutes later, the guitarist rings me.
“Did you get my text?” he says.
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© Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The Guardian
© Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The Guardian
© Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The Guardian
As 27 European countries urge changes to laws forged after second world war, human rights chief says politicians are playing into hands of populists
The battle had been brewing for months. But this week it came to a head in a flurry of meetings, calls and one heady statement. Twenty-seven European countries urged a rethink of the human rights laws forged after the second world war, describing them as an impediment when it came to addressing migration.
Amnesty International has called it “a moral retreat”. Europe’s most senior human rights official said the approach risked creating a “hierarchy of people” where some are seen as more deserving of protection than others.
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© Photograph: Santi Palacios/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Santi Palacios/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Santi Palacios/AFP/Getty Images
Women’s football is booming – but the bigger it’s got, the messier it’s become for players. Through it all, the hot tip for Sports Personality of the Year has kept a cool head
At the end of last year, Chloe Kelly was seriously considering stepping away from football. She was deeply unhappy at Manchester City, her team since 2020, where it seemed as if they wouldn’t let her play, nor let her leave. She wasn’t getting enough time on the pitch, so wasn’t sure that she would be selected for England, who were preparing to defend the title she had helped win in 2022 in the Euros tournament. She was 26, about to turn 27. She had been a professional footballer since she was 18, but her mother was starting to get concerned. She desperately wanted her daughter to be happy again. “I remember my mum coming up to see me and she was meant to go home, but she didn’t go home, because she was so worried,” recalls Kelly.
Less than a year later, and things are very different. At the time of writing, Kelly is favourite to win Sports Personality of the Year after a history-making comeback. At the end of January, she was loaned to Arsenal and in May she lifted the Champions League trophy with the team, very much the underdogs in the final against Barcelona, whom they defeated 1-0. At the end of July, she scored that penalty for England, securing them a second Euros title, against arch-rivals Spain. She was fifth in the Ballon D’or Féminin, and named in the Fifpro World 11 squad for the first time – a peer-voted list of the best footballers in the world. Against the odds, then, 2025 has turned out to be a great year. “For sure,” Kelly smiles. “To bounce back, that’s what makes it the best year of my career.”
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© Photograph: David Titlow/The Guardian
© Photograph: David Titlow/The Guardian
© Photograph: David Titlow/The Guardian
Nigel Farage’s party is gunning for power – so what is it like in the places where they’ve already got it? We embedded with Lancashire county council to find out what happens when rhetoric meets reality
22 May 2025: a new dawn for Lancashire. Outside Preston’s grand old county hall, 53 brand new Reform UK councillors in turquoise ties – and one petite woman with an enormous turquoise hair bow – are hot-footing it past a gaggle of protesters for their first full council meeting. Most keep their heads down and get into the building as quickly as possible. But Joel Tetlow, a first-time politician who has made a few unfortunate headlines before even taking his seat, is intrigued. He stands in the doorway, vaping, as a demonstrator bellows: “Reform is a far right party and Nigel Farage is a racist and a fascist!”
Tetlow – late 40s with a full head of vertiginous hair, wearing a powder-blue three-piece suit – insists he isn’t bothered. “They don’t know us as people,” he shrugs. “It’s a word that’s slung around now so much, to be a racist. You know, what is it to be a racist? All we want to do is stand for our country, look after the people within it. So we’re not racist. None of us are racist.” (Farage, too, has denied accusations of racism, and Reform dispute that they are a far right party.)
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© Photograph: Duncan Elliott/The Guardian
© Photograph: Duncan Elliott/The Guardian
© Photograph: Duncan Elliott/The Guardian
© Illustration: Becky Barnicoat/The Guardian
© Illustration: Becky Barnicoat/The Guardian
© Illustration: Becky Barnicoat/The Guardian
Leader praises his soldiers for turning ‘danger zone into a safe one’ during ceremony in Pyongyang welcoming them back from Ukraine war
North Korea sent troops to clear mines in Russia’s Kursk region earlier this year, leader Kim Jong-un said in a speech carried on Saturday by state media, a rare acknowledgement by Pyongyang of the deadly tasks assigned to its deployed soldiers.
According to South Korean and western intelligence agencies, North Korea has sent thousands of troops to support Russia’s nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine.
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© Photograph: KCNA VIA KNS/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: KCNA VIA KNS/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: KCNA VIA KNS/AFP/Getty Images
The writer’s former partner and her co-star Ruby Ashbourne Serkis describe the bittersweet nature of remounting his 90s play so soon after his death
• ‘We were swimming in the mind pool of Tom Stoppard!’ – actors salute the great playwright
I won’t, I promise, refer to Felicity Kendal as Tom Stoppard’s muse. “No,” she says firmly. “Not this week.” Speaking to Stoppard’s former partner and longtime leading lady is delicate in the immediate aftermath of the writer’s death. But she is previewing a revival of his Indian Ink, so he shimmers through the conversation. The way Kendal refers to Stoppard in the present tense tells its own poignant story.
Settling into a squishy brown sofa at Hampstead theatre, Kendal describes revisiting the 1995 work, developed from a 1991 radio play. “It’s a play that I always thought I’d like to go back to.” Previously starring as Flora Crewe, a provocative British poet visiting 1930s India, she now plays Eleanor Swan, Flora’s sister. We meet Eleanor in the 1980s, fending off an intrusive biographer but uncovering her sister’s rapt and nuanced relationships in India.
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© Photograph: Johan Persson
© Photograph: Johan Persson
© Photograph: Johan Persson
The former X Factor judge is back, auditioning boyband wannabes for his latest talent show – but gen Z doesn’t seem to care very much, or even know who he is
Have we gone back in time to 2010? If only! No, Simon Cowell is just back in the headlines, reasserting his svengali status for his new Netflix show. Reviews suggest that Cowell’s attempted comeback, 15 years since his celebrity peak, highlights less his particular star power than how totally the world has moved on. But is there anything to learn from SyCo now, and will his new boyband work? Let’s see!
1. Cowell is chasing a new direction
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© Composite: Guardian Design; Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
© Composite: Guardian Design; Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
© Composite: Guardian Design; Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
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