Going solo. NMACC, are you seeing this? Daniel Radcliffe just pulled in $1.65 million last week for Every Brilliant Thing, his 85-minute one-man Broadway show. No musical ensemble, no set, no supporting cast, nothing. Our Potter plays a depressed man, looking back on his life and what made it worth living. There’s audience participation too. Can we apparate it here, please?
Reading Runway IRL. Brunch contributor Sneha Krishnan queued up for 30-minutes (in a drizzle) at NYC’s The Devil Wears Prada 2 pop-up, to get a limited-edition copy of Runway. It’s high-quality and so clever. Features written by Nigel and Andy; editorials on cerulean style and spring’s pivotal accessories; the perfect serif font. And the cover ties into the plot of the film. This is 100% Miranda Priestly approved.
Ready for combat. Make way for the Street Fighter movie. Noah Centineo is out there, throwing shoryukens. Jason Momoa is a hulking green beast. 50 Cent is in the ring too. And look, there’s Vidyut Jammwal as yoga master Dhalsim. If anyone’s built for this, it’s him. The man spent years practising kalaripayattu, pouring hot wax into his eyes and meditating shirtless in the Himalayas. He’s got this.
Spotting a hero. Remember that guy from The OC? Not Adam Brody, who played Seth, but Ben McKenzie, aka broody bad boy Ryan. He ended up voicing Batman in an animated 2011 film and played James Gordon on Gotham. He’s levelled up to IRL vigilante, taking on the crypto industry in the documentary Everyone Is Lying To You For Money. He’s earned an economics degree too. Now, that’s the hero we need.
Going toe-to-toe. Another summer, another designer who is rage-baiting the poors. Chanel’s new shoe has no sole, no toe. Only a heel. You’re basically barefoot. At this point, we’re not mad. We’re laughing. Because of the memes that are milking every last classical joke out of it.
Using our eyes. So annoying when concert-goers block your view because they’re holding up their phone to record, right? No one really watches those shaky, blurry clips anyway. Finally, organisers are realising this. Phone-free events are up by 567% globally, says a report by Eventbrite. Good. You had to be there. That’s the whole point.
Changing the POV. After five decades of writing about lonely guys, Haruki Murakami is finally giving us a female lead. The Tale of Kaho is about a 26-year-old author who goes into a surreal spiral after a stranger tells her she is the ugliest person he has ever seen. Murakami, 77, has received plenty of flak for treating his women characters as one-dimensional objects. No idea if he’s learnt anything.
Running spell-check. Our sympathies to that one man in Cumbria, who should have read the invite clearly last week. He’s a naturist (he lives in the nude), and thought he was going to a gathering of like-minded people. Turns out it was for naturalists. He was the only naked one there. Your recurring dream? It’s this guy’s reality.
From HT Brunch, May 09, 2026
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