Taylor Swift: Screenings of Eras Tour film sell out on release day

Published

7 months ago

October 14, 2023

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Thousands of Taylor Swift fans flocked to cinemas on Friday night with glow sticks and friendship bracelets in hand to watch the pop star’s Eras Tour concert film.

The film, which runs for just under three hours, is expected to make hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide after becoming the most profitable concert film in history.

Screenings across London sold out, with hundreds of fans bustling around Leicester Square on Friday evening with glow sticks, sparkly dresses and complimentary posters showing Swift in a jewelled bodysuit.

Workers said they were relaxing cinema etiquette, with fans taking full advantage – singing, dancing and cheering as the film showed Swift speeding through almost 40 hit songs from her 17-year career.

Many had not scored coveted tickets to Swift’s live UK dates next summer and were thrilled by the opportunity to attend their own performance of the Eras Tour. Some said this would be the first screening of several they would go to.

The film has received hugely positive reviews and for good reason.

Filmed across several concerts held in Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium in August, Swift’s immense catalogue of hits and even more impressive energy and stamina result in a cinematic offering that has no dull moments.

There’s even a touching moment when Swift gifts the late Kobe Bryant’s daughter a black bowler that is synonymous with her Red album.

So all-encompassing is Swift’s popularity that she pushed the film’s release forward by one day in the US and Canada due to “unprecedented demand”.

In the UK, the film broke the record for the most tickets sold during the pre-sale opening week for a music event, according to Vue International.

US cinema chain AMC Theatres Distribution previously said the Swift film had beaten its record for the highest ticket-sales revenue during a single day in its 103-year history.

It also broke the record for the most profitable concert film in history one week before its release. Global advance ticket sales had topped $100m (£82m) as of 6 October.

Swift will bring the live Eras Tour show to the UK next year, visiting Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff and London.

The UK and Ireland leg of the tour will start in Edinburgh with three shows at Murrayfield Stadium on 7, 8 and 9 June 2024 before she heads to Liverpool’s Anfield stadium for 13, 14 and 15 June.

Cardiff’s Principality Stadium follows on 18 June before three dates at London’s Wembley Stadium on 21, 22, and 23 June.

She will then play dates in Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland and Austria before returning to Wembley in August.

Entertainment

Billie Eilish announces Hit Me Hard And Soft tour UK dates

Published

12 hours ago

April 29, 2024

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Billie Eilish announces Hit Me Hard And Soft tour UK dates

Billie Eilish has announced a new tour and will be coming to the UK next summer.

The 22-year year old‘s show is named after her latest album – Hit Me Hard And Soft – and will kick off in North America in September.

It will then head to Australia in February 2025, before travelling across Europe and arriving in the UK on 7 July when she will perform for two nights in Glasgow, at OVO Hydro.

Eilish will then play six nights at the O2 in London, and four nights at the new Co-Op Live arena in Manchester – a venue that has been beset with problems as it prepares to open to the public.

The singer will then play two gigs in Dublin, Ireland, at the 3Arena.

A vocal environmentalist, fans are being encouraged to take “sustainable transport” during the tour, which will also feature “eco-villages” and encourage plant-based food options.

The tour will partner with the plant-based food organisation Support + Feed – an initiative founded by Eilish’s mother Maggie Baird – and environmental non-profit organisation REVERB.

The concerts will also aim to reduce “greenhouse gas pollution, decreasing single-use plastic waste, supporting climate action”, the promoters Live Nation said.

Eilish’s third studio album comes out on 17 May, a month after Taylor Swift‘s much lauded album The Tortured Poets Department.

Like Swift, Eilish is encouraging fans to listen to the collection as a whole, saying on her website that the new body of work should be listened to chronologically as it “hits you hard and soft both lyrically and sonically, while bending genres and defying trends along the way”.

She’s not released any singles in advance, encouraging fans to listen “in one go”.

The album cover features Eilish on her back under dark water with a white door open above her.

Eilish’s last album was 2021’s Happier Than Ever, and her debut record When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was released in 2019.

The youngest person ever to have won two Oscars, she took home the award for best original song Oscar gong for Barbie’s What Was I Made For? in March, and won the same prize for James Bond’s No Time To Die in 2022.

Tickets for Hit Me Hard And Soft go on general sale on Friday.

Billie Eilish’s UK tour dates:

Mon 7 July, 2025 – Glasgow, UK – OVO Hydro

Tue 8 July, 2025 – Glasgow, UK – OVO Hydro

Thu 10 July, 2025 – London, UK – The O2

Fri 11 July, 2025 -London, UK – The O2

Sun 13 July, 2025 – London, UK – The O2

Mon 14 July, 2025 – London, UK – The O2

Wed 16 July, 2025 – London, UK – The O2

Thu 17 July, 2025 – London, UK – The O2

Sat 19 July, 2025 – Manchester, UK – Co-op Live

Sun 20 July, 2025 – Manchester, UK – Co-op Live

Tue 22 July, 2025 – Manchester, UK – Co-op Live

Wed 23 July, 2025 – Manchester, UK – Co-op Live

Entertainment

Googlebox star George Gilbey’s mum reveals his last words to her before he fell to his death

Published

16 hours ago

April 29, 2024

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Googlebox star George Gilbey's mum reveals his last words to her before he fell to his death

The mother of Gogglebox star George Gilbey has revealed his last words to her were “I love you”.

Gilbey died after falling through a plastic skylight while fixing a warehouse roof in Essex in March.

The 40-year-old appeared alongside his mum, Linda McGarry, and stepdad on the hit Channel 4 show.

The family first appeared on the second series of Gogglebox in 2013 but were dropped the following year when Gilbey signed up for the 14th series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2014, reaching the final.

Mrs McGarry said she spoke to him on the phone hours before his death.

She told The Sun: “He phoned me at 9.30 in the morning and said he was working – and asked me for his ‘breakfast money’.

“I put £30 in his account so he could get food, and he seemed fine.

“He had a drink the night before, and liked a bottle of white wine or two, but was happy that he was working. He ended the phone call by saying, ‘I love you’ like he usually did. I treasure those words.”

She added: “It was an honour for him to have been my son. We had a blast for 40 years.”

Mrs McGarry said her son had struggled with the death of his dad, stepfather and her own Parkinson’s diagnosis.

At the time of his death, he was working to save money to move closer to his seven-year-old daughter, Amelie, in southwest London.

“He wanted to be with Amelie, who he adored,” she told The Sun.

“They were on the third day of a job that was going to last a month, and he was going to get money together from that.

“When they were together, George and Amelie were always laughing. She is going to miss him terribly, like we all will.”

Gilbey suffered traumatic injuries to his head and torso and died at the scene in Shoeburyness.

An inquest was opened last week but suspended after a request from police pending a criminal investigation.

A man in his 40s from the Witham area of Essex was previously arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter

He was later released under investigation.

Entertainment

Bestselling author CJ Sansom dies days before Disney adaption of his Shardlake series airs

Published

19 hours ago

April 29, 2024

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Bestselling author CJ Sansom dies days before Disney adaption of his Shardlake series airs

Author CJ Sansom, who created the character of Matthew Shardlake, has died at the age of 71, his publisher has announced.

Sansom first introduced readers to Shardlake – a lawyer who solves crimes while navigating the religious reforms and political intrigue of Tudor England – in the 2003 book Dissolution.

The Scottish writer released six further novels featuring Shardlake, as well as two standalone historical novels, Winter In Madrid and Dominion.

His works have just been adapted into the series Shardlake, which features The Innocents star Arthur Hughes as the main character and Game Of Thrones actor Sean Bean as Thomas Cromwell.

The first season of the Tudor murder mystery series is set to be released by Disney+ on Wednesday.

Announcing his death on Monday, publishers Pan Macmillan wrote in a statement: “It is with immense sadness that Pan Macmillan announces the death of CJ Sansom.”

“‘It is an extraordinarily strange coincidence that Chris has died only a handful of days before a new generation of fans will meet Matthew Shardlake, Barak and Guy and co for the first time through,” his agent, Antony Topping, said.

“This is also a moment for which Chris’s established fans have been waiting a long time.

“Chris was so proud of all the work and determination that went into bringing the novels to our television screens, which I hope will bring an entirely new audience to the books and which will maybe also inspire some old fans to return to their favourite CJ Sansom novels.”

Sansom’s long-time editor and publisher, Maria Rejt, added that he was working on a new Shardlake book but his “worsening health made progress painfully slow”.

She described the author as an “intensely private person” who took immense pleasure in the public’s enthusiastic response to his novels.

“I shall miss him hugely, not only as a wonderfully talented writer who gave joy to millions, but as a dear friend of enormous compassion and integrity,” Ms Rejt said.

Shardlake featured as the protagonist in a total of seven of Sansom’s novels. Dissolution was dramatised once before by BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

With more than three million copies of his novels in print, Sansom was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger Award in 2022 for his outstanding contribution to the genre.

Born in Edinburgh in 1952, Sansom attended Birmingham University where he studied an undergraduate degree and PhD in history.

He worked as a solicitor before becoming a full-time writer where he was able to combine his passion for history and law securing him as one of Britain’s bestselling historical novelists.

Sansom was also a signatory to an 2014 open letter advocating that Scotland should remain in the UK.

The author also donated £161,000 to the Better Together campaign, according to published accounts.