• Bethell’s third international century in loss by India

• ‘My game’s evolved a lot over past six or seven months’

Jacob Bethell described England’s T20 World Cup semi-final defeat by India as “a tough pill to swallow” after his first century in the format failed to prevent his team’s elimination in Thursday’s record-obliterating Mumbai run-fest .

The 22-year-old had never scored a senior hundred in any format and for any side when he first broke into the England team towards the end of 2024. But less than six months after banking his debut ton against South Africa in an ODI he became just the fourth Englishman to reach triple figures in all three international formats – just a week after Harry Brook’s spectacular innings against Pakistan made him the third.

• Bethell’s third international century in loss by India

• ‘My game’s evolved a lot over past six or seven months’

Jacob Bethell described England’s T20 World Cup semi-final defeat by India as “a tough pill to swallow” after his first century in the format failed to prevent his team’s elimination in Thursday’s record-obliterating Mumbai run-fest .

The 22-year-old had never scored a senior hundred in any format and for any side when he first broke into the England team towards the end of 2024. But less than six months after banking his debut ton against South Africa in an ODI he became just the fourth Englishman to reach triple figures in all three international formats – just a week after Harry Brook’s spectacular innings against Pakistan made him the third.

• Bethell’s third international century in loss by India

• ‘My game’s evolved a lot over past six or seven months’

Jacob Bethell described England’s T20 World Cup semi-final defeat by India as “a tough pill to swallow” after his first century in the format failed to prevent his team’s elimination in Thursday’s record-obliterating Mumbai run-fest .

The 22-year-old had never scored a senior hundred in any format and for any side when he first broke into the England team towards the end of 2024. But less than six months after banking his debut ton against South Africa in an ODI he became just the fourth Englishman to reach triple figures in all three international formats – just a week after Harry Brook’s spectacular innings against Pakistan made him the third.

The early intel from George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels paints the Targaryens as tyrants – so making them the heroes is going to require some hefty literary PR

There must be a few Game of Thrones fans out there who have rather mixed feelings about the news that Warner Bros is to bring George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire “universe” to the big screen . On the one hand, the prospect of a properly enormous fantasy epic featuring dragons the size of commuter trains is undeniably appealing; on the other, have they really thought this thing through?

Reports suggest that the feature film will take as its source material Aegon Targaryen’s conquest, which brought the purple-eyed, dragon-riding clan to continental Westeros (and united six of its seven kingdoms) about 300 years before the events of HBO’s Game of Thrones itself. There’s also a TV series happening, which will presumably cover much of the same ground in greater detail. At first glance, this ought to make even the most reluctant fantasy acolyte want to punch the air. After all, Aegon’s conquest is the sort of story cinema was invented for: dragons blotting out the sky, castles melting like cheese toasties under a blowtorch; an entire continent being thrillingly upended by a bunch of platinum-haired dragonlords.

The early intel from George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels paints the Targaryens as tyrants – so making them the heroes is going to require some hefty literary PR

There must be a few Game of Thrones fans out there who have rather mixed feelings about the news that Warner Bros is to bring George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire “universe” to the big screen . On the one hand, the prospect of a properly enormous fantasy epic featuring dragons the size of commuter trains is undeniably appealing; on the other, have they really thought this thing through?

Reports suggest that the feature film will take as its source material Aegon Targaryen’s conquest, which brought the purple-eyed, dragon-riding clan to continental Westeros (and united six of its seven kingdoms) about 300 years before the events of HBO’s Game of Thrones itself. There’s also a TV series happening, which will presumably cover much of the same ground in greater detail. At first glance, this ought to make even the most reluctant fantasy acolyte want to punch the air. After all, Aegon’s conquest is the sort of story cinema was invented for: dragons blotting out the sky, castles melting like cheese toasties under a blowtorch; an entire continent being thrillingly upended by a bunch of platinum-haired dragonlords.

The early intel from George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels paints the Targaryens as tyrants – so making them the heroes is going to require some hefty literary PR

There must be a few Game of Thrones fans out there who have rather mixed feelings about the news that Warner Bros is to bring George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire “universe” to the big screen . On the one hand, the prospect of a properly enormous fantasy epic featuring dragons the size of commuter trains is undeniably appealing; on the other, have they really thought this thing through?

Reports suggest that the feature film will take as its source material Aegon Targaryen’s conquest, which brought the purple-eyed, dragon-riding clan to continental Westeros (and united six of its seven kingdoms) about 300 years before the events of HBO’s Game of Thrones itself. There’s also a TV series happening, which will presumably cover much of the same ground in greater detail. At first glance, this ought to make even the most reluctant fantasy acolyte want to punch the air. After all, Aegon’s conquest is the sort of story cinema was invented for: dragons blotting out the sky, castles melting like cheese toasties under a blowtorch; an entire continent being thrillingly upended by a bunch of platinum-haired dragonlords.

St Martin-in-the-Fields, London
Shiva Feshareki’s Divine Feminine fails to find its focus despite soprano Emma Tring’s incandescent, fearless performance of Celtic deity Brigid

S hiva Feshareki ’s Divine Feminine is many things, but this latest work from the multi-award-winning British-Iranian composer and turntablist is not, as billed, an opera. Premiered at St Martin-in-the-Fields, transforming the nave, gallery and sanctuary of the central London church into an intricately amplified “360° soundscape”, Divine Feminine might be an installation, a piece of music-theatre, even a therapy session. What it’s not is a story urgently and solely committed to being told through song.

This isn’t stylistic gatekeeping. Terminology matters – if only because it creates a useful frame of reference and expectation. Art loses energy if it has no solid architecture to bounce off, no walls to scale or dismantle. As it was, this meditative celebration of the divine feminine – a concept never explicitly defined here, but doing sun salutations at the nexus of fecundity and sisterhood, rebirth and goddess-energy – chanted and shouted and stamped and danced, but never found its focus.

St Martin-in-the-Fields, London
Shiva Feshareki’s Divine Feminine fails to find its focus despite soprano Emma Tring’s incandescent, fearless performance of Celtic deity Brigid

S hiva Feshareki ’s Divine Feminine is many things, but this latest work from the multi-award-winning British-Iranian composer and turntablist is not, as billed, an opera. Premiered at St Martin-in-the-Fields, transforming the nave, gallery and sanctuary of the central London church into an intricately amplified “360° soundscape”, Divine Feminine might be an installation, a piece of music-theatre, even a therapy session. What it’s not is a story urgently and solely committed to being told through song.

This isn’t stylistic gatekeeping. Terminology matters – if only because it creates a useful frame of reference and expectation. Art loses energy if it has no solid architecture to bounce off, no walls to scale or dismantle. As it was, this meditative celebration of the divine feminine – a concept never explicitly defined here, but doing sun salutations at the nexus of fecundity and sisterhood, rebirth and goddess-energy – chanted and shouted and stamped and danced, but never found its focus.

St Martin-in-the-Fields, London
Shiva Feshareki’s Divine Feminine fails to find its focus despite soprano Emma Tring’s incandescent, fearless performance of Celtic deity Brigid

S hiva Feshareki ’s Divine Feminine is many things, but this latest work from the multi-award-winning British-Iranian composer and turntablist is not, as billed, an opera. Premiered at St Martin-in-the-Fields, transforming the nave, gallery and sanctuary of the central London church into an intricately amplified “360° soundscape”, Divine Feminine might be an installation, a piece of music-theatre, even a therapy session. What it’s not is a story urgently and solely committed to being told through song.

This isn’t stylistic gatekeeping. Terminology matters – if only because it creates a useful frame of reference and expectation. Art loses energy if it has no solid architecture to bounce off, no walls to scale or dismantle. As it was, this meditative celebration of the divine feminine – a concept never explicitly defined here, but doing sun salutations at the nexus of fecundity and sisterhood, rebirth and goddess-energy – chanted and shouted and stamped and danced, but never found its focus.