The Vampire Lestat has seduced fans around the world with his eye-popping antics. But this obsession with hot vamps goes way beyond forbidden love, bare chests and a taste for LSD-laced blood

If you want TV audiences to forgive a fictional man for absolutely anything, just sharpen his fangs and stick him in velvet. Case in point? The horny musical drama The Vampire Lestat, which became a cult hit in the US earlier this year. The show has now arrived in the UK and Sam Reid’s searing performance as Lestat has fans on their knees.

The first two seasons, which went by the title Interview With the Vampire, were about the “interview” in which Louis (Jacob Anderson) tells a journalist about his toxic relationship with Lestat. Now, the focus has shifted to Lestat – hence the new title and new narrator – as the golden-locked prince of darkness swaps centuries of secrecy for glam-rock stardom.

How do you keep audiences gripped while cycling 27km per show? From the Australian recreating a Tour de France win to a ‘toxically positive’ spin queen, we meet the acts bringing Olympian fitness to Edinburgh

Blood and sweat drip to the floor. Tears are on their way. In a small room in Edinburgh, Megan Tomei is cleat-clipped into a stationary bike, yelling above the music as she leads a high-intensity spin class gone wrong. “We take the thing you’re running from,” Tomei shouts, pink lights bouncing off her gleaming shoulders, “and turn it into fuel!” This is SpinQueen™, one of a handful of shows at this year’s fringe demanding epic endurance from their performers through the use of jazzed-up gym equipment. Employing various bikes and a treadmill to authentically illustrate the struggle for success, the pain of failure, and the escape from reality, a profoundly fit group of actors are pushing themselves to their physical limits.

Across the city, Connor Delves’s calves are worth watching. The workout from his cycling-obsessed play, Cadel: Lungs on Legs, is so powerful that people have come up to him after, wanting to touch them. “To make sure they’re real,” says Delves, who cycles a whopping 27km per show. Does he mind this attention? He shrugs. “If they’re OK with getting their hands sweaty, go for it.”

Telling the country to enjoy the heat while it burns, you have to wonder if Tice has lost all sense of reality

These are the doggiest of dog days. Times when hours turn into days and almost nothing happens in between. Days of precious R&R, when only a few politicians venture out, and then only to fend off accusations they are doing next to nothing and prove they are still alive. Much like the rest of us. The silliest days of the silly season. Days that are made for men like Richard Tice.

There are some politicians who have the gift of sounding as if they know what they are talking about. There are those who you suspect are bullshitting but still give the benefit of the doubt. Then there are the ones you only have to look at to know they are completely clueless in every way. Never within the same postcode as plausibility. A walking miracle because somehow they have managed to persuade their party association and constituency voters that what they really need is someone who is visibly dim and incompetent. August gives us space to celebrate these men and women. None more so than Dicky. The apex male of stupidity. The idiot’s idiot.

An over-investment in people-pleasing can be emotionally costly. Here’s how I’m training myself to be OK with letting people down

A few months ago, my 10-year-old daughter and I went to our neighborhood cafe. At the counter, the owner greeted us with her typical effusion of warmth and welcome. Instead of greeting her in kind, my daughter looked on with a stony expression and ungiving eyes.

My face flushed. I was embarrassed and incensed by what I perceived as blatant rudeness. You could at least smile, I thought.

Right for people of African descent to return to continent is key pillar of global push for reparatory justice from colonisers

Supporting the right for people of African descent to return to the continent has become a key pillar of the growing global push for reparatory justice from Britain and other colonisers.

When Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, visited Jamaica this month he addressed the issue of repatriation for Jamaicans and others whose ancestors were kidnapped from Africa and sold into transatlantic chattel slavery.

There are many tech irritants that are a scourge of modern life, yet we have lacked the vocabulary to describe them ... until now

The “dickover” is the scourge of the modern age. Coined in May by John Gruber, a tech writer, it is defined as “a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user”. Essentially, it is the thing (or more often, things) you have to click away in order to read the thing you wanted to read. It is the “accept cookies” box, the “allow notifications?” box, the “sign in with Google” box, the pop-up video box, etc.

We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that dickovers are the only terrible thing about technology in 2026. Until now, though, we have lacked the vocabulary to describe them, so here are some suggestions.

Report’s author said findings highlighted ‘near-total failure’ to hold corporations accountable over the disaster that killed 72 people

The company behind Grenfell Tower’s flammable cladding gave more compensation to its shareholders than to victims of the disaster, an investigation has found.

Arconic, which made and sold the cladding panels found to be the “primary cause” of the rapid spread of the Grenfell fire, paid $74m (£54.7m)) to its shareholders for economic loss they incurred after the blaze.

Prime minister responds to Russian anger over Kyiv’s use of British-made drones in ‘deep strike’ campaign

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Andy Burnham says the UK will continue to “support Ukraine 100%” after Russia threatened consequences after strikes by British-made drones.

The Russian embassy to the UK said on Monday that Britain had been deliberately escalating the Ukraine conflict and the deeper its involvement, “the higher the price it will pay”.

MPs’ register of interests shows hospitality and trips worth more than £12,000 and contributions from longstanding Labour donors

Donors to Andy Burnham gave almost £350,000 over the months before he became Labour leader and prime minister, with major contributors including his former adviser Sacha Lord as well as billionaires David Sainsbury and Gary Lubner.

The new MPs’ register of interests also shows Burnham declaring hospitality and trips worth more than £12,000 – many of them relating to Greater Manchester in his former role as mayor but also including £1,500 of Glastonbury tickets in 2025, where he was speaking, and £500 of tickets to Ladies Day at Aintree this year.

‘First meaningful rain for a long time’ is forecast but water firms continue to ask customers to restrict use

Floods and drought could hit the UK at the same time this week, with heavy rain forecast to fall on hard, parched soil.

While some parts of the UK will have the “first meaningful rain for a long time” in the coming days, it will not reverse widespread drought conditions that have put pressure on wildlife, farmers, firefighters and water resources.