Today's Headlines:

The growth of the National Front in France

David Hockney in Tate Britain retrospective

Disabled cast put on a Manchester show

Transcript:

Hayange is not a place given to metaphors, but memories. The relics of its shattered steel furnaces stand sentry to a new political age. Communists and socialists used to run this place together, but unemployment here has soared by 75% in the past decade and in its wake has come the Front National. Hayange now has an FN mayor – himself once a union man from the far left. The party presents itself as defending France’s forgotten ones against crime, immigration and economic change.

It’s a vibrant world of colour. Sun-soaked Californian pools through to grey Yorkshire skies. Those glasses, the mop of blond hair… David Hockney is instantly recognisable – a brightly coloured star of British art for more than 50 years. And this is his life in paint. It’s certainly comprehensive – in fact, one of the first things that strikes you is just how big this exhibition is. There it is: 13 rooms; 200 works of art; 57 years. It’s a life spent looking, thinking, puzzling about that most basically artistic problem: how to capture what we see…

These actors have taken on an almighty task. Not only is this play a difficult one to get right, there’s the added complexity that comes with making a production accessible. This play – The House of Bernarda Alba, by Lorca – features an all-female and pretty much all-deaf-and-disabled cast. When it comes to physical access, Manchester’s Royal Exchange is sorted. Lifts and ramps are already part of the theatre. But to help deaf audience members, screens are being put up and changes to the script will help blind people understand the action.

Words and phrases and definitions:

relics
objects from an earlier era which have survived

comprehensive
complete

sorted
prepared; organised

Exercise:

Use one of the words or phrases from Lingohack to complete each of these sentences. Note that you may have to change the form of a word or phrase to complete the sentence correctly.

relics / comprehensive / sorted

1. Food, music and decorations… it's all __________ for Samantha's birthday party. Now all I have to do is get her a nice present.

2. BBC Learning English offers you a __________ guide to grammar.

3. Some 50,000 __________ have been discovered in Mexico in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, Mexican archaeologists say.

Answers:

1. Food, music and decorations… it's all sorted for Samantha's birthday party. Now all I have to do is get her a nice present.

2. BBC Learning English offers you a comprehensive guide to grammar.

3. Some 50,000 relics have been discovered in Mexico in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, Mexican archaeologists say.