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    ‘Pernille’ Is a Brilliant Norwegian Dramedy

    The series, about an endearingly ordinary woman who works in child welfare, is a lot like Pamela Adlon’s spirited FX dramedy “Better Things.”The Norwegian dramedy “Pernille” (in Norwegian, with subtitles, or dubbed), on Netflix, is about as lovely as shows get, endearing but mercifully resistant to treacle.Henriette Steenstrup created and stars in the show as Pernille, a single mom to two of the most ungrateful — realistic — teens on TV. She is reeling from her sister’s death six months earlier, and she still leaves her sister voice mails, sometimes chatty and sometimes wrenching.Pernille’s older daughter, Hanna (Vivild Falk Berg), is histrionic and capricious and suddenly dragging her feet about a long-planned gap year in Argentina. The younger, Sigrid (Ebba Jacobsen Oberg), is a ball of rage, surly beyond measure but still young enough to be read to at night and get tucked in sometimes. Pernille’s nephew, Leo (Jon Ranes), is also living with them while his father recovers from the accident that killed his mother. The show kicks off with Pernille’s widower dad (Nils Ole Oftebro) announcing that he is gay and ready to live his truth.The show is, in all the good ways, a lot like Pamela Adlon’s FX dramedy “Better Things,” which was also about a single mom, her aging parent and her indulged, difficult daughters. The heroines share a life-animating sense of duty, as well as a prickly, spirited humor and brilliance. They both have drip exes whose intermittent fathering is a grave disappointment, and they both have robust social support and sexually encouraging friends.The biggest difference between the shows is that Adlon’s character, Sam, is situated as uniquely, dazzlingly bohemian, a fount of outsider art, sumptuous recipes, dark eyeliner and arty pals. Pernille is more squarely ordinary. She sings in a community choir and spends a lot of time texting, and she gets star-struck just meeting a guy who works on Nick Cave’s tour. This isn’t to say Pernille isn’t special. She is, of course, once you know her, which is exactly what the show accomplishes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Late Night Is Concerned About (the Truth Behind) Biden’s Health

    “They used to say it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up, but it’s starting to feel like politics is all cover-up,” Jon Stewart said.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Our Sympathies, but …The news that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer naturally spurred late-night discussion on Monday.On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart mocked those professing sympathy for Biden while at the same time using his condition to score political points. “They used to say it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up, but it’s starting to feel like politics is all cover-up,” Stewart said.“Don’t news people have to tell you what they know when they find it out? Isn’t that the difference between news and a secret?” — JON STEWART“That’s what’s so hilarious about politicians: The cover-up doesn’t work when everyone knows you’re lying.” — JON STEWART“The tell is when you’re so over-the-top about what you don’t want to tell the truth about.” — JON STEWART“It’s clear Biden wasn’t running the country. Hell, he couldn’t have run a dishwasher, and they knew that.” — GREG GUTFELDThe Punchiest Punchlines (Games We Play Edition)“‘The American.’ Do you know what that is? It’s the idea of [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem to have a new reality show where immigrants compete against each other to win American citizenship. She said, ‘It’s not like “The Hunger Games,” even though it sounds exactly like ‘The Hunger Games.’” — BILL MAHER“Anyone who thought about it for six seconds would say, ‘Oh, wait, no — this is “The Hunger Games.”’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I know that sounds dystopian, but, to be fair, that’s how citizenship has always worked. In fact, my great-grandfather actually won the first season of ‘So You Think You Can Dig the Erie Canal.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The Knicks eliminated the Boston Celtics to advance to the next round, and after the game, things got crazy. Rowdy Knicks fans went down to Penn Station and caused $3 million worth of improvements.” — JIMMY FALLON“SAG-AFTRA filed an unfair-labor charge against Fortnite, after the game revealed an A.I. Darth Vader that can talk back to players. Great idea, Fortnite, let gamers make Darth Vader say stuff. Because if there’s one thing I know about gamers, they are super polite and respectful.” — TAYLOR TOMLINSONThe Bits Worth WatchingJohn Oliver dissected the ways in which President Trump shapes coverage of his presidency, including using lawsuits and the F.C.C. as leverage, on Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightAmid conspiracy theories circling about his photo of seashells appearing to be a threat against the president, the former F.B.I director James Comey will surely set the record straight on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”Also, Check This OutWith Sarah Sherman, left, Ariana Grande, Marcello Hernández, Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim, “Saturday Night Live” generated an unlikely viral hit in October with a sketch about a seducer named Domingo. Will Heath/NBCNow that the 50th season of “Saturday Night Live” is at an end, here are its most memorable moments, from political satire to straight-up silliness. Domingo! More

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    John Mulaney’s Weird Talk Show on Netflix Suddenly Found Its Way

    “Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney” understands what’s wrong with the genre. Still, it took time to hit on the ambitious free-for-all it is now.Last week, John Mulaney hosted his weekly talk show blindfolded, because, well, why not?Covering his eyes enabled him to make a joke about what he has in common with the pope: “We’re both from Chicago and we both willfully blind ourselves to the absurdities of our job.”Yet the stunt had less to do with opportunities for punchlines than with short-circuiting the rhythms of the talk show. Putting a host in such a predicament scrambles the script. Mulaney occasionally wandered away from the camera, leaving us, his viewers, abandoned and slightly worried for him. What’s remarkable is that if you were to rank the most bizarre aspects of that hour of “Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney” (every Wednesday on Netflix), blindfolding the host might not make the Top 10.Consider the competition: Mulaney’s sidekick, Richard Kind, told a story about taking a nap on a toilet during a date. An actor playing Yakub, a bulbous-headed ancient scientist who the Nation of Islam believes invented white people, came onstage to sing a show tune. That was followed by an actress who did an impression of Jean Smart — that is, if she weren’t smart. (The character’s name was, naturally, Jean Dumb.) Steve Guttenberg appeared and underneath his name onscreen, it read: “Defund the Police Academy.” Then there was the subplot of a daredevil robot named Saymo who broke up with his girlfriend in front of a crowd on a studio lot, then tried to roll off a ramp and fly over a car. He failed and crashed to bits.With a lab-experiment aesthetic, “Everybody’s Live” is the most ambitious, most anything-goes television talk show in many years. Whether it works is more of an evolving question.The season began with a firm idea of what was wrong with other talk shows: actors promoting projects, overly planned chat, generic topicality, formulaic structure. Critics like me have long complained about these elements, and Mulaney, bless him, just did away with them. But figuring out the show you want to do is harder than knowing the one you don’t.“Everybody’s Live” is less original than it appears (even the blindfold had been done before). Trying to escape topicality, Pete Holmes’s short-lived talk show organized monologues around not the news but broad subjects like marriage or family. Mulaney did something similar, centering every episode on quirkier themes like “Can major surgery be fun?”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Bus Stop’ Review: Travelers Find Shelter From a Storm

    Intimacy is at the heart of this rare revival of William Inge’s 1955 play, about stranded passengers learning from one another and about themselves.When a blizzard strands stagecoach passengers in a lodge in Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight,” violence and mayhem erupt. Death looms.Eight people are also marooned by a snowstorm in William Inge’s 1955 play “Bus Stop,” but what looms for them is life: Some take stock, others try to figure out what awaits.Best known for its movie adaptation starring Marilyn Monroe, “Bus Stop” isn’t seen much in New York these days, so Classic Stage Company, the National Asian American Theater Company and Transport Group should be thanked for this revival.The director Jack Cummings III staged Inge’s “Come Back, Little Sheba” and “Picnic” in repertory for the Transport Group in 2017, and is familiar with the delicate bard of the Midwest, whose deceptively plain work captures the lives of working people. The most consequential decision here is to forgo amplification, creating a sense of intimacy at the Kansas diner where four bus passengers and their driver (David Shih) wait out the weather. The diner’s owner Grace (Cindy Cheung) and a waitress, the high school student Elma (Delphi Borich), are used to parades of customers, but maybe not for such extended stays. Conversations stop and start as the visitors chat among themselves and with the locals, who include the sheriff, Will (David Lee Huynh). Elma, for example, is fascinated by Dr. Gerald Lyman (Rajesh Bose), a former professor whose flowery verbiage evokes a broader, more literate world than hers — and a more perverse one, too, as he has a taste for underage women.But the most striking of the newcomers is Cherie (Midori Francis), a nightclub singer who has been whisked away by Bo (Michael Hsu Rosen), a smitten young cowboy who plans to take her to his Montana ranch, whether she likes it or not.The story line is rattling to a contemporary audience. But the beauty, humanity and complexity of Inge’s writing is that he makes us understand what drives Bo and, even more important, who Cherie is, and why she stays with Bo.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The 6 Mitford Sisters, Their Jewelry and a New TV Series

    The costume designer for “Outrageous” talks about finding designs that the women would have worn.The Mitford sisters, known for their 20th-century aristocratic glamour and political scandal, were not among England’s most gem-laden women. But jewelry did play a role in their outsize public profiles.“Diana the fascist, Jessica the communist, Unity the Hitler-lover, Nancy the novelist, Deborah the duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur” is how Ben Macintyre, a writer for The Times of London, once described the six women.Now they are the subjects of “Outrageous,” a six-part series scheduled to debut June 18 on BritBox in the United States and Canada and June 19 on U and U&Drama in Britain. The series is set in the 1930s, the era in which they became famous — and infamous — and arrives on the heels of the discovery of a diary kept by Unity, who was obsessed with Hitler and, by her own account, was his lover. Excerpts were published this year by The Daily Mail.A childish prank involving Unity and Jessica was most likely one of the sisters’ earliest jewelry episodes. “A diamond ring was used to etch both the image of a hammer and sickle and swastika on a window in their childhood home,” Sarah Williams, the writer of “Outrageous,” said in a recent video interview. “They had such a young bond as kids, but they were both rebels, and that bond of rebellion was stronger than their political beliefs. They were absolute extremes.”The sisters — there also was one brother, Thomas, who was killed in World War II — were the children of David Freeman-Mitford, the second Baron Redesdale, and his wife, Sydney Bowles. While the family was not particularly wealthy, the sisters were schooled at home and then entered society.“As part of our research, we specifically collected images of jewelry pieces worn by the Mitford girls,” Claire Collins, the costume designer for “Outrageous,” said by email, “and although we couldn’t replicate certain pieces, we were able to use them as a guide.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump’s Kennedy Center Comes Into Focus With Theater and Dance Plans

    Some big shows and troupes will perform, while others will stay away. And in a shift, the center will present some Broadway shows with nonunion casts.As the Kennedy Center reinvents itself for the Donald J. Trump era, it announced on Monday that its next season would feature some big names in theater and dance, but also some conspicuous absences. And, in a break with the past, the center said it would present several touring Broadway shows with nonunion casts.Artists have been divided about whether to perform at the center since President Trump became its chairman after purging its previously bipartisan board of members appointed by Democrats.The upcoming theater season will feature “The Outsiders,” which won last year’s Tony Award for best musical, but not “Hamilton,” which canceled a planned run there, citing dismay over Mr. Trump’s takeover. And its dance season will include performances by American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet but not by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, an annual fixture at the center in recent years, which said in a statement that it would pursue another opportunity next season.Mr. Trump, who continues to play a big role in trying to reshape the center, was expected to meet Monday evening with Kennedy Center board members and executives for dinner at the White House. He attended a board meeting at the center in March, recently requested $257 million from Congress to help with capital repairs and plans to attend a gala fund-raiser performance of “Les Misérables” in June.The upcoming theater season underscores some of the changes unfolding at the center. In addition to “The Outsiders” it will include tours of “Back to the Future,” “Moulin Rouge!” and “Spamalot,” all of which feature unionized casts, as has been standard at the center in recent years.But two of the tours coming to the Kennedy Center next season will feature nonunion casts, which tend to be paid less and cost less to present: “Chicago” and “Mrs. Doubtfire.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Best of ‘S.N.L.’ Season 50: Trump, Biden and Domingo

    The just-completed 50th season of “Saturday Night Live” was dominated by anniversary hype, but the new episodes managed to create some memorable moments, too.In a season so heavily focused on celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live,” it was easy to forget that there were also 21 regular episodes of the show this year.While not every sketch from this run will go down in history, this year “S.N.L.” did cover a contentious presidential election and reckon with the re-election of Donald Trump; create an unexpected online trend by ruining a couple’s impending marriage; and allow Timothée Chalamet to appear as both a host and a musical guest.Will we someday talk about these segments with the same reverence we reserve for the Coneheads or “Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood”? That will be the job of some future recapper to decide. (Hopefully.) For now, join us as we look back at the most memorable moments of the past season of “S.NL.”Political impressions of the seasonAfter abundant speculation about who would play the Democratic presidential and vice-presidential nominees, the results — with Maya Rudolph as former Vice President Harris and Jim Gaffigan as Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota — were mostly lackluster. The performances were too amiable and not particularly satirical (much like the real-life Harris’s own appearance on the show).James Austin Johnson has remained a dependable President Trump. But we’ll give the edge this season to the “S.N.L.” alums Dana Carvey, who finally found a funny way to play President Biden, and Mike Myers, who seemed to be having the time of his life skewering Elon Musk. Two ’90s-era “S.N.L.” stalwarts remaining relevant? No way! Way.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘We Are Gathered’ Promises to Love, Honor and Cherish

    When JaDonna Harris and Marquian Harris married in 2015, they did it alone, before a justice of the peace. As their 10th anniversary approached, they contemplated a do-over that would include friends and family. But the cost was an issue, as was agreeing on a venue. Then JaDonna Harris received an email from Arena Stage. An upcoming play was looking for real couples interested in getting married or renewing their vows. She and her wife replied immediately.“We were like, this is kismet,” JaDonna Harris recalled.That play, “We Are Gathered,” is a new work by Tarell Alvin McCraney that began Friday, overlapping with Washington’s World Pride festivities. A celebration of love, each performance will culminate with what Arena Stage is calling “Love Takes Center Stage,” an immersive experience in which one or more couples will join the actors for a real marriage ceremony or vow renewal. One of the stars, Craig Wallace, has been ordained. Over the course of the show’s 30 scheduled performances, several dozen couples will participate. After each show, Arena Stage will hold a reception with cake, champagne and dancing.“We’re going to be discovering a great deal each night,” said the director Kent Gash, right, with the playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney.Maansi Srivastava for The New York TimesThe Harrises can’t wait.“We are happy to celebrate queer love, to celebrate the love in general all over the world and everybody’s ability to find a person that they are attached to,” JaDonna Harris said. “That’s all that matters.”McCraney began to dream up “We Are Gathered” during World Pride in Sydney, Australia, in 2023. A theater there was staging a revival of his 2012 play “Choir Boy,” a drama about a young gay man at an all-Black preparatory school. McCraney admired the production, but he wished that the play, which deals with anti-gay prejudice, didn’t feel quite so relevant. He decided that by the time the next World Pride came around, two years later, he would offer actors a script that felt more playful, more joyful.In searching for a subject, McCraney, now 44 and the artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, kept returning to the idea of marriage. When he was growing up, marriage wasn’t available to gay men, but a 2015 Supreme Court decision had changed that. Now friends were asking him why he wasn’t married and he was beginning to ask that question of himself. Recent opposition to gay rights and transgender rights — including book bans and a Florida law nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay” — had made that question feel more urgent. “Those things were happening pretty regularly and beginning to remind me there isn’t a lot of time and nothing is promised,” he said. “I decided, OK, I’m going to find out what this means to me.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More