Latest news with #Hercules
Telegraph
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Disney legend Alan Menken: The dwarves are the whole point of Snow White
'Are we going to talk about Disney and woke?' Alan Menken makes a horrified face and draws a finger across his neck in a throat-cutting mime. 'I'm going to pull the plug on this interview if there is any mention of Disney and politics!' He's joking. Having composed some of the most memorable scores in the history of animation, including nine for Disney – from The Little Mermaid to Beauty and the Beast – Menken is not about to let a culture-war kerfuffle throw him off balance. 'It's fine,' he says. 'Ask me anything.' We are meeting a few months ahead of the West End opening of Hercules, a new stage-musical version of Disney's 1997 animated riff on Greek mythology, set to Menken's original gospel-driven score (with lyrics by David Zippel). 'It's a very sophisticated score stylistically,' he says. 'It has a lightness to it and a rhythmic propulsion.' A native New Yorker, Menken doesn't do false modesty – and why should he? After all, he's one of only 27 people ever to have achieved the EGOT, winning Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. His last Academy Award came in 1996, for Pocahontas, though he's been nominated multiple times since. 'The Oscars have dried up because I've won eight of them now.' Yet it's another Disney production, the live-action remake of Snow White – not a film that Menken had anything to do with – which is dominating the headlines when we meet and that will, in the weeks that follow its woeful box-office performance, come to be seen as a nadir in the studio's muddled, frequently controversial project to update its much-loved back catalogue. At the time, Rachel Zegler, Snow White's leading lady, was drawing criticism from some quarters for comments she had made about Palestine, while the decision to have computer-generated dwarfs in an otherwise human cast had gone down badly with just about everyone. 'How you deal with all this stuff, it's as tricky as hell,' says Menken, who is in two minds about the whole idea of updating the classics, although he is sympathetic towards Zegler. 'She's just a kid. Yes, she said 'Free Palestine'. It's the kind of thing any of us might have said. We all want people to be free. Although, of course, there are also the nuances of history. 'But when it comes to the dwarfs…' He pauses, takes a breath. 'I'm sorry, but the dwarfs are what Snow White is all about!' There's been a bit of 'that stuff' with Hercules, he admits. The story, in which Hercules, a demigod raised among mortals, learns to embrace his destiny, has been updated for the stage show and, says Menken, now allows for its hero – depicted in the cartoon as a buff, blue-eyed redhead and played on stage by the dark-haired, Surrey-born actor Luke Brady – to be portrayed as 'a racial outsider'. Menken applauds the 'richness' this brings to the character, but laments the toning down of the cartoon's randy satyr, Philoctetes, who, he says with a hint of regret, will not be seen on stage 'running around lusting over nymphs'. 'At the time, you play with certain clichés because it's fun,' he says. 'But each new adaptation has to be sensitive to the passing of time and the way people will look at certain issues.' Menken is a hyperactive speaker; he talks in stops and starts, and is as physically expressive as any one of the animated characters to whom he has given such glorious musical voice over the years. He and his writing partner Howard Ashman are widely credited with reviving Disney's fortunes during the late 1980s after a prolonged period of creative and commercial decline for the studio in the decades that had followed the death of Walt Disney in 1966. The duo, who had already had a theatrical hit in 1982 with Little Shop of Horrors, struck gold three times in quick succession with The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Aladdin (1992), the lyrics for the last completed by Tim Rice following Ashman's death from Aids in 1991. Menken, who proudly calls himself 'the keeper of the flame', would go on to score Newsies, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Enchanted and Tangled. For him, the essence of Disney can be traced back to those classics of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s that have enriched the childhoods of multiple generations, and to the spirit of which his own scores nod. 'Fantasia, Dumbo, the later Winnie the Pooh: they all had a depth and a beauty, a proper form, a moral,' he says. 'When the Aids crisis hit, or when 9/11 happened, I couldn't watch the news, I couldn't watch my favourite action adventure movies, it was just too fraught a time. But I would watch Disney. For me, those films were the only safe space in the world. I grew up on those films, but, by the 1980s, it had all gone. So Howard and I came along and rebooted it.' Now, the company to which he has dedicated his career once again finds itself at a turning point, caught between trying to appease the more progressive yet censorious Left and the diehard traditionalist Right. Although Menken is in favour of a live-action remake of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (initially announced in 2019), he accepts that, given the story's more 'problematic' aspects, it is unlikely to go ahead. 'People will go, 'Let's leave out the fact that Frollo [Quasimodo's clergyman nemesis] is obsessed with the gipsy Esmeralda.' They'll say, 'We can't have Quasimodo as a hunchback.' Well, f--- that. I'd love to make a Hunchback movie [that follows] what Victor Hugo wrote. But it can't be done.' However, he says, swerving onto a more diplomatic course, 'I don't think Disney is having an identity crisis. Obviously, Disney has been very open for gay people and diversity and woke. And then woke became a dirty word. Sometimes, when you press against limits, things push back. But I know Bob,' he says, referring to the Disney CEO, Bob Iger. 'I think he's pretty savvy about the business model.' Menken grew up in a Jewish household in New York City during the dawn of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s and, throughout his early years, set his heart on becoming a pop star. 'I didn't want to go to school, ever,' he says. 'I was very ADHD. My parents were appalled.' When he told them he wanted to be a songwriter, in the mould of his hero Bob Dylan, they insisted that he practise the piano every single day. 'They imprinted on me the need to dig in and work. They would say, 'You want to be a shoe salesman instead?' I find it very depressing to buy shoes now.' After graduating from college in 1972, he attended the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop – a well-respected incubator for future Broadway talent – partly to placate his parents, who were musical-theatre fanatics. That same year, he met and fell in love with Janis Roswick, a ballet dancer; half a century later, they remain married and have two daughters. Suddenly, the itinerant lifestyle of a touring pop star no longer looked quite so appealing, so Menken dedicated himself instead to composition. It's often said of his Disney music that it lacks an identifying style of his own, unlike, say, the higher-brow Stephen Sondheim, whose musical imprimatur is instantly recognisable. 'You can only pull on the stuff that's in your gut,' Menken says. 'And when it comes to audiences, the great thing about Disney is that it's a leveller.' All the same, he is keen to point out that his scores do have musical and emotional specificity, be it the 'apocalyptic' Phil Spector girl-group sound behind Little Shop of Horrors or the ragtime influence on Newsies. 'I'm not trying to be egotistical, but that was very much my and Howard's approach: we established throughout our scores a specificity of place,' he says. By comparison, 'a lot of the new Disney scores are generic…'. He stops, as if reconsidering what he is about to say. 'I think they have moved into a different place, where a Lin-Manuel score is very much Lin-Manuel,' he continues, referring to Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, who wrote the Oscar-nominated score for Disney's 2021 film Encanto. 'That's not what Howard and I did, but, hey, things evolve.' At 75, Menken still has multiple projects on the go – including both a live-action remake and a stage adaptation of Tangled, the 2010 Disney animation loosely based on the story of Rapunzel – and can't imagine himself retiring any time soon. 'Well, I can if I think what I'm producing isn't good enough,' he says, 'but I haven't reached that point yet.'
Time Out
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Everything you need to know about West End Live 2025 in Trafalgar Square this weekend: dates, timings and full lineup
Well, it's the right weather for it. The West End's annual free outdoor musical theatre festival West End Live returns right on time for the sunniest weekend of the year. Whether you've been planning your whole weekend around it for months now or you've only just heard of it and think it sounds like a fun idea, here we've everything you need to know. What happens at West End Live? It's basically an outdoor musical theatre concert. Performers from most musicals currently running in the West End – and a few coming to town soon – perform a song or two live, generally in costume, sometimes with full choreography bells and whistles. Where is West End Live? It's in good old Trafalgar Square, in its usual events area. When is West End Live 2025? This weekend: it runs Saturday June 21 11am to 5pm and Sunday June 22 noon to 5pm. Do I need a ticket? Nope, West End Live is free. HOWEVER it is enormously popular, particularly the first couple of hours on the Saturday when most of the really big hitters squeeze in their performance before their 2.30pm matinee. There is no truly great way of guaranteeing a slot here other than getting in early, though obviously Trafalgar Square is an open space and you should be able to hear the songs if you're in the general vicinity. If you want a more chilled out experience come down Sunday or later Saturday afternoon. Will anyone famous be performing? We tend not to know as the shows don't say in advance what songs they'll be doing and therefore who will be performing. However, it has been confirmed that Rachel Zegler will be representing Evita, though we don't know what song(s) she'll be doing (if it's too busy to get in then remember you can see her do 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina' live on Argyll Street just a few hours later). Is there any shade? No! And on Saturday the temperatures are due to go as high as 32 degrees (Sunday should be a comparatively mild 26 degrees). Wear sun cream. Hydrate. Don't be a hero. Musical theatre needs you healthy. Complete West End Live 2025 lineup and set times Saturday June 21 11am – Disney's Hercules 11.05am – Moulin Rouge! The Musical 11.15am – Operation Mincemeat 11.25am – Wicked 11.35am – Hadestown 11.45am – The Devil Wears Prada Noon – Just For One Day 12.10pm – Evita 12.15pm – Cabaret 12.20pm – MJ The Musical 12.30pm – Matilda The Musical 12.35pm – Tina – The Tina Turner Musical 12.45pm – Hamilton 12.50pm – The Phantom of the Opera 1.05pm – Les Misérables 1.20pm – Back to the Future The Musical 1.30pm – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 1.40pm – The Book of Mormon 1.45pm – Clueless 1.50pm – The Great Gatsby 2pm – Mamma Mia! 2.10pm – Brigadoon 2.20pm – Starlight Express 2.30pm – Six 2.40pm – The Producers 2.50pm – Sabrage 3pm – Magic Mike Live 3.05pm – Burlesque The Musical 3.20pm – Sing Street 3.30pm – Westway Presents: Marisha Wallace 3.40pm – Coven 3.50pm – Roles We'll Never Play 4.10pm – National Youth Music Theatre 4.20pm – Divina De Campo 4.25pm – Oscar at the Crown 4.45pm – Finale and Farewell Sunday June 22 Noon – Disney's The Lion King 12.05pm – The Producers 12.15pm – The Great Gatsby 12.25pm – Fiddler on the Roof 12.30pm – My Neighbour Totoro 12.35pm – Pop Off Michelangelo! 12.50pm – Oliver! 1pm – Titanique 1.05pm – Calamity Jane 1.10pm – The Choir of Man 1.20pm – Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby 1.25pm – Lovestuck 1.35pm – Six 1.45pm – The Diana Mixtape 1.50pm – Janie Dee's Beautiful World Cabaret 2pm – Bat Out of Hell 2.15pm – The Addams Family 2.20pm – Magic Mike Live 2.30pm – Sabrage 2.35pm – Burlesque The Musical 2.45pm – The Frogs 2.55pm – Ride the Cyclone 3pm – Showstopper! The Improvised Musical 3.15pm – 101 Dalmatians 3.20pm – This is My Family 3.30pm – G4 3.45pm – Westway Presents: 20 Years of West End Live Concert 4.55pm – Finale and Farewell West End Live is in Trafalgar Square, Sat Jun 21 and Sun Jun 22.
New Indian Express
2 days ago
- Lifestyle
- New Indian Express
Parathas, Pool Tables and Power Cuts
Moving to Delhi for college, I had my fears in order— unfamiliar subjects, unfamiliar people, and unfamiliar metro exits. But what I didn't factor in was how one year in a PG - could give me a crash course in the many layers of adult life. Unfamiliar city, pestering agents and, alluring pictures on the online websites vis-a-vis the dingy realities on site-visits were quite an experience in our search for a PG. I ultimately landed a top-floor room which seemed a sweet deal-spacious, breezy, with a balcony overlooking a silent, unused park and, an unobstructed view of the Indian flag fluttering at the Shakti Nagar crossroads. The first few months were deceivingly smooth. The bathroom was clean, the bed comfy, and we had an air conditioner of some brand I'd never heard of –Hercules. We'd start our days with an 8 a.m. breakfast - piping hot parathas or the omnipresent bread-omelette, made on the fourth floor, transported to the ground floor via lift - a mystery of logistics I gave up trying to understand. Sometimes chhole-kulche and pav bhaji joined the menu - the former much-hyped by Delhiites, the latter something I mentally crossed out after my first taste. Lunch was hit-or-miss since college usually extended beyond lunch hours, but it always was one of these - rajma-chawal, kadhi-chawal, chhole-chawal, or dal-chawal. Evenings were reserved for snacks - self-serve pani puri (with a potato filling that deeply offended my chickpea-loving Allahabadi heart), aloo tikki, or the occasional Chinese platter. Dinner was basic - dal, roti, and some revolving door of vegetables. Sundays brought excitement - chicken curry for meat lovers, butter paneer for vegetarians, and desserts like gulab jamun or gajar ka halwa. The day would end with rounds of pool or UNO. At that point, it truly felt like a home away from home.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
You May Want To Reconsider Buying These Harbor Freight Icon Tools
Harbor Freight's reputation for selling subpar tools mostly comes from the inappropriate choices of professional tool-users. In the distant past, HF's offerings weren't really suitable for constant, heavy use. But in recent years, credible pro-quality tools are among the many brands of tools Harbor Freight owns — especially the Icon brand, which is often referred to as a challenger to Snap-On's high-priced hand tool supremacy. Icon is a premium hand tool brand, parallel to Harbor Freight's popular Hercules power tool line. But the brand is not perfect, and there are a few tools you might want to steer clear of, from relatively low-stakes items like screwdrivers and work lights to heavyweight tools like swivel impact sockets. And while you can certainly buy inferior products like much of the Pittsburgh line (and weird novelties like its ¼-inch hex drive "meme" ratchet set or the gold-plated items we'll discuss below), the company is also capable of brilliance. Consider the 10-piece 10-millimeter metric essential socket set, which gives you the common 10-millimeter socket size in every form factor you can think of. Genius. But the professional's bread and butter is performance at ordinary tasks with ordinary tools, and that's where Icon typically shines. The brand makes highly regarded torque wrenches, various ratchet styles, various wrench styles, and even knives. The kicker is that DIYers use pro tools, too, and Harbor Freight knows it. The Icon hex-bit ratchet isn't made for pros, after all, but for homeowners looking to stop assembling IKEA furniture with Allen wrenches. Now let's dig a little deeper. Read more: The 11 Best Affordable Harbor Freight Tools For Your Home (And 2 To Avoid Buying) Icon ratchets are well-known for their quality, even among mechanics who seem reluctant to admit it. But the one exception seems to be the Icon ¼-inch Drive Professional Low-Profile Ratchet, which has a couple of issues. One is that the force it takes to flip the directional switch is unusually high. And while that might not be an issue for you, the failure load — the amount of torque at which the ratchet fails — is fairly low for this ratchet. The Icon ratchet has a solid drive rather than a quick-release drive with a button to release your socket, and these are usually stronger. But in Project Farm's testing, the ¼-inch Icon fails with both the main gear stripping and the pawl breaking, suggesting the ratchet's internals aren't as strong as its drive. But the real problem with this ratchet — and the reason it has a sketchy reputation among online mechanics — is the amount of back drag it exhibits. If you've ever used a ratchet, you probably know what back drag is, even if you don't know the term. It's the amount of force it takes when reversing the ratchet for the pawl to release so that the handle moves freely without affecting the socket. High levels of back drag can make a ratchet tiring to use, but worse, it can frustratingly cause you to accidentally undo some of the progress you just made by turning the socket backward. And the Icon ¼-inch drive ratchet has an unseemly level of back drag. Other Icon ratchets also have back drag problems, but not in combination with the stiff directional switch and ease of failure. Harbor Freight offers the same ratchet and a ⅜-inch version in gold-plated special editions. The luxe versions are simply offered as pro-quality ratchets. Besides the Trump Towers vibe, the other big difference between the fold and chrome versions of these ratchets is the price: The ¼-inch drive chrome ratchet goes for $29.99, and while you shouldn't buy it, you certainly shouldn't consider the same ratchet in gold at $44.99. The ⅜-inch ratchets run $54.99 with gold and $39.99 without ... a strange upgrade, since gold plating is easily worn away even on casually worn jewelry. It's difficult to grok why anyone frugal enough to shop at Harbor Freight would bite on what is essentially a $50 gag gift. Reviewers seem to really love the gold versions, scoring both .2 stars higher than the chrome versions. Some reviewers don't seem to be aware that they're reviewing the gold-plated version, while others seem to think of it strictly as a gift, either as a novelty or a commemorative gift celebrating a retirement or similar. That would seem to be the most sensible reason for buying the special edition ratchets — to put them on a mantel and enjoy the memories of a long, knuckle-busting career. Harbor Freight wasn't the first to dream up this kind of thing. For its 75th anniversary, Craftsman issued a gold-plated ratchet in a wood display box, and it doubtless made a great gift as well. But what such a gift is not is a tool, and since that's what we're talking about here, we'll steer you in another direction for your ratchets. While we're talking about ratchets, let's share a skeptical word or two about Harbor Freight's impact-rated swivel socket sets, available in ½-inch drive and ⅜-inch drive versions. Impact-rated swivel sockets and universal joint adapters have a tough job. They're designed to transfer as much impact driver torque as possible through a wide range of angles, and typically through rather thin cross sections of steel that make up the universal joint ... and also constitute a possible point of failure. While the Icon swivel sockets are generally well-regarded by purchasers, testers have a few problems with these specific demands. YouTube's rigorous Torque Test Channel included an Icon swivel socket set in its evaluation of 14 brands, and it was the only one that actually broke during usability testing. At impact wrench speeds, jagged metal shrapnel is no joke. Torque Test also found the sockets had below-average torque transfer ... the second lowest in its testing. Other reviewers found that the sockets wear unusually quickly and several noted that the Icon socket sets tend to skip sizes or have a narrow range of sizes included in its sets, unlike the inexpensive GearWrench sets that are more complete. The Icon sockets are chrome molybdenum steel ... weaker than chrome vanadium, but not uncommon. The Icons also have thinner walls than a comparable Tekton set. But while that can indicate weakness, it's also considered an asset for sockets since some counterbores are not much larger than the bolt heads themselves. On the whole, all of this might add up to a negative for frequent or pro users of Icon's universal-joint sockets. At first glance, the Icon Slim Bar Work Light with its knurled aluminum base looks like it might be a more durable alternative to cheap plastic work lights ... and, at $39.99, the Icon isn't exactly cheap. But this work light suffers from all manner of ways that such a tool can have sub-par specs. According to Motor City Metal, it has more plastic and less flexibility than its swiveling Braun sibling at HF. The rechargeable battery in the Icon is not user-replaceable, which might turn out to not matter. That's because the work light might not last nearly as long as its battery. And possibly not as long as the battery's runtime, which is advertised as 3 hours at 800 lumens and comes reasonably close to that. The real problem with the Icon's longevity is its build quality, which YouTube's Torque Test Channel found to be comical. The Icon failed the channel's drop test on its first drop, something the tester had never seen before, which earned the work light an unprecedented 0 of 10 stars. Nothing is more fundamental to most mechanical work than the common screwdriver. But the common screwdriver is so, well, common that they seem to have become something of a commodity, with cheap, reasonably good screwdrivers available everywhere at very low costs. And this is exactly where the Icon Professional Mechanics Screwdriver Set bites itself on the shank. The infinitely fun YouTube car channel Donut did a comprehensive (and occasionally dangerous) series of tests on screwdriver sets, including sets from HF brands' Pittsburgh ($8 per set), Doyle ($25), and Icon ($50), alongside comparable sets from Husky ($22), Klein Tools ($50), and Snap-On ($200). The tests proved both that screwdrivers aren't (yet) commodities and that you don't necessarily get what you pay for. HF's Doyle screwdrivers outperformed the field overall and did better than Icon's offering in coating quality, driving screws, and torque testing. Doyle matched Icon in a prying test. And, speaking of screwdriver misuse, hammering the butt of a screwdriver isn't a good idea. But you do it anyway, so Donut does it too. And Icon beat the Doyle here, matching Snap-On and being bested by Klein Tools. In all, the Icon set performed admirably ... but the Doyle set from HF did better than any set overall, at half the price of the Icons and ⅛ the price of the Snap-Ons. So you might reasonably choose an Icon set, but the cheaper Doyle set would be a wiser choice. Enjoyed this article? Get expert home tips, DIY guides, and design inspiration by signing up to the House Digest newsletter! Read the original article on House Digest.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Hercules Reports First Half 2025 Earnings
Revenue: UK£54.6m (up 12% from 1H 2024). Net income: UK£1.10m (up 450% from 1H 2024). Profit margin: 2.0% (up from 0.4% in 1H 2024). The increase in margin was driven by higher revenue. This technology could replace computers: discover the 20 stocks are working to make quantum computing a reality. All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to grow 4.4% p.a. on average during the next 2 years, compared to a 4.7% growth forecast for the Construction industry in the United Kingdom. Performance of the British Construction industry. The company's shares are down 1.3% from a week ago. Don't forget that there may still be risks. For instance, we've identified 3 warning signs for Hercules that you should be aware of. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
