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Helena Bonham Carter joins Steve Coogan for The White Lotus season four

The Oscar-nominated star of The King’s Speech will check in for the new season of hit comedy drama set in France

Oscar-nominee Helena Bonham Carter has joined Steve Coogan for the fourth season of HBO’s comedy drama The White Lotus.

Bonham Carter is one of three new cast members officially announced today alongside Chris Messina and Marissa Long. Messina is known for roles in Sharp Objects, The Mindy Project and Julie & Julia, while Long is a model with only a short film to her name as an actor.

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© Photograph: Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock

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Undertone review – disappointing podcast horror is mostly skippable

Sundance film festival: there are some effective early moments in this ultra low-budget, audio-first horror but deja vu soon replaces intrigue

There’s a swirl of creepy noises in A24’s new hyped-up horror Undertone – screaming, gargling, singing, banging – but nothing is quite loud enough to drown out the swirl of films it’s cribbing from. The debut feature from writer-director Ian Tuason, about horror podcasters who receive a set of mysterious recordings, has elements of Paranormal Activity, Session 9, Hereditary, The Ring, The Blair Witch Project and The Exorcist, enough sighs of familiarity to give horror fans a scary case of deja vu. It’s not that total originality is expected at this particular moment (this weekend’s Send Help has been touted as Misery meets Castaway), but given the genre’s overcrowd, it’s hard to see what pushes Undertone above the noise.

What it does do is make for an impressively resourceful use of a low budget, the whole thing costing about $500,000. It’s all shot in one house (Tuason’s actual home) and for the most part, any sinister goings on are restricted to audio footage, heard through the headphones of our lead Eva (Nina Kiri, who reminds me of a young Alice Eve). She’s living back home with her terminally ill mother, fending calls from a thoughtless boyfriend and patiently awaiting those from her friend, and maybe one that got away, Justin (the voice of White Lotus breakout Adam DiMarco, replacing the original voice after the A24 acquisition). The pair co-host a podcast that analyses creepy tales, Eva as the skeptic and Justin as the believer, the pair’s flirtatious pitter-patter positioning them as the Mulder and Scully of the audio world.

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© Photograph: Dustin Rabin

© Photograph: Dustin Rabin

© Photograph: Dustin Rabin

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A night without Nessun Dorma: what does booing at the opera say about UK audiences?

Critics worry that heckling, such as that at a recent Royal Opera performance, is becoming more common

Opera audiences pride themselves on knowing when – and how – to make noise. Cries of “bravo”, “brava” and “bravi” have become a celebrated part of the tradition, with shouted approval seen as evidence of connoisseurship.

Booing, too, has a long history, and as a brave stand-in at the Royal Opera House found out on Tuesday night, its impact may sometimes seem a little blunter.

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© Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

© Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

© Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

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