What a strange country this is, where the King can pardon a long-dead killer, Ruth Ellis, while a living, breathing woman, Lucy Letby, convicted in a dubious case that has been shot to pieces by an army of experts, sits for month after month in jail while the rusty wheels of justice fail to turn.

There was never any actual evidence against Ms Letby, just a series of weird and increasingly unlikely theories about how she might have committed the crimes she was jailed for. This contrived melodrama, exposed to the light of day, and to hard fact, is rapidly losing its power over the public mind. Even the Crown Prosecution Service has turned down an attempt to charge her with more offences.

Why is Lucy Letby still waiting for the courts to shift? This question grows more urgent every day. A few days ago my colleague Kathryn Knight reported in The Mail on Sunday the amazing story of how Ms Letby – supposedly an evil mass murderer – had in fact been the health professional who twice intervened to save Jessica, the baby daughter of two very grateful parents.

Now a harrowing BBC Radio 4 report has argued that several other parents were appalled by the treatment they received at the same hospital – the Countess of Chester.

Their problems had nothing to do with Lucy Letby, who they never met. Let us not forget that the globally renowned neonatal doctor Shoo Lee, shown evidence of the way that hospital was run, has said that if it was in his home country, Canada, it would have been shut down

And that back in 2015, a paediatrician at the hospital warned its chief executive that the neonatal unit where Lucy Letby worked was chaotic, overstretched and unsafe for patients and staff two years before Ms Letby was suspended.

Dr Alison Timmis emailed the chief executive Tony Chambers, in December 2015, reporting that staff were in tears because they had to look after more babies than the unit could safely accommodate.

She wrote: ‘Over the past few weeks I have seen several medical and nursing colleagues in tears… they get upset as they know that the care they are providing falls below their high standards.’ Staff were ‘chronically overworked’ and she felt no one was listening. 

She continued: ‘This is not an exceptionally busy week… This is now our normal working pattern and it is not safe. Things are stretched thinner and thinner and are at breaking point. When things snap, the casualties will either be children’s lives or the mental and physical health of our staff.’

This would come as no surprise to many families who have had any experience of NHS maternity care in the last few years. The reports pile up. But the prosecution of Ms Letby sailed past this difficulty.

The Countess of Chester’s problems prosecutors argued, could be better explained by the presence of a determined serial killer of indescribable evil, secretly and ingeniously spreading death through the ward.

Now, direct evidence has emerged that the hospital was suffering from major problems during the period of Ms Letby’s supposed killings. BBC Radio 4’s File On Four, on Tuesday night, produced deeply harrowing accounts of things going badly wrong. I listened in mingled horror and astonishment – knowing as I do from members of my own family that maternity care in the NHS is in crisis – as I heard that that such things could happen in our supposedly advanced country.

I do hope that the new Health Secretary, Yvette Cooper, will take time to listen, too. The programme (which can easily be listened to online) interviewed several mothers who had suffered there. Their accounts are appalling.

They speak of offhand care, absent nurses and doctors, complacency about symptoms. One mother was even told to clear up blood that had dripped on to the floor after her cannula accidentally came out.

Another, Freya Somerton, recalled being told that, as soon as she went into labour, ‘a consultant would be keeping a very close eye on her because of some health concerns and because her baby didn’t move much in pregnancy.’ But it didn’t happen.

Lucy Letby had been the health professional who twice intervened to save Jessica Bolton

A paediatrician had warned the hospital was chaotic, overstretched and unsafe for patients and staff two years before Ms Letby was suspended

‘We didn’t see a consultant, even though we were high risk.’ Then, during the labour, she says staff were reduced to using her face wipes to clean the ‘bright red blood everywhere’. ‘And I’m in quite a lot of pain at this point, really, as well. The baby’s head still hasn’t moved. We’re finally seen by, well, a registrar.’ I will not describe here the terrifying circumstances in which Freya says she finally met an actual consultant.

An inquest decided that her baby, Oscar, died of natural causes. She says he died of neglect.

Another mother interviewed, Cat Hughes, went through a gruelling experience, too. She had her second child at another hospital and says the care there was vastly better. She believes the outcome could have been much worse for her and her daughter than it actually was. And that has had a lasting impact on her.

It is clear that the quality of maternity care at this hospital was not properly considered in the Lucy Letby trial. The Prosecution’s lead medical expert witness, Dr Dewi Evans, told presenter Stephanie Hegarty that he did not see the full maternity notes for any of the babies whose deaths were included in the Letby trial.

Had he done so, he would have had a fuller picture of their grave health before Letby supposedly tampered with their treatment. As it was, having decided her guilt, the Prosecution made no use of the notes, and so they were not disclosed to the Defence.

Ms Hegarty remarks that the parents featured in her investigation ‘were not part of that trial and never encountered Letby’. But that is not the point. The point is that in such a place, no serial killer would be needed to explain an alarming number of baby deaths.

The BBC put the mothers’ complaints to the Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust. In response, Sue Pemberton, the Deputy Chief Executive, says she apologises unreservedly to the families who’ve had a poor experience in their care. She says: ‘We note that the cases being discussed relate to maternity care between 2015 and 2020 and that if families feel their concerns have not been addressed, I would urge them to contact the Trust.’ She added that the Trust has made significant improvements and it is now nationally accredited for its ‘family-integrated care approach’.

And let us hope that this and many other hospitals have improved as a result of growing public concern with maternity services. It is astonishing that so many billions of pounds can be spent on an NHS that has so much trouble performing this most essential task. But it is even more astonishing that Lucy Letby, after all these months of revelations, still has not had the appeal she so plainly ought to have.

The 22-year-old is on the look-out for more unique spaces to make coffee in with hopes of opening his own café

Meet the man from Northern Ireland who is making coffee in unique places – including on the London Underground.

Samuel Netherton from Lisburn studies actuarial science at Queen’s University Belfast, and was on his placement year in London when he fell in love with coffee and began learning how to improve his own coffee making.

Loving the connections to be made over a brew, the 22-year-old began to think of ways to spread this around and put a smile on people’s faces. He began to learn more about social media video making from friends, and decided to pair the passion for creating content with making a good cup of coffee.

Documenting his journey on TikTok @samsroamingcafe, Sam shared a video of him making free coffees on the Northern Line in London. So far, the video has been viewed almost 500,000 times.

Looking ahead, he’s hoping to find more random spaces to set up a coffee shop, with the hopes of owning his own café in the future.

Speaking to Belfast Live, he said: “I’ve always enjoyed going out for coffee with people, and the depth of conversations you can have when you go out for a coffee. Then when I went away to London, like a lot of people I helped myself through the 9 to 5 by drinking a lot of coffee.

“I decided to get myself a coffee machine to try and improve my coffee making, which was a slow process. A lot of friends I made in London do social media stuff, and I’ve always been interested in the filming, photography, and media side of things, as I do wedding photos and videos. So I decided I would pair the two ideas and passions into one.”

Sam said the idea to set up a coffee shop on the tube came from thinking about where the craziest place would be to set up a café in London. When he initially pitched the concept to friends, not many thought it could be done.

Facing a steely reaction of initial dirty looks from commuters on the busy tube, Sam soon found people lining up for a coffee when they were going from A to B.

“After a bit of research and investing in a generator which hurt the bank a bit, I set myself up in the tube and it was great. The response online has been amazing,” he said.

“When we first set up on the tube there were a lot of dirty looks, when people initially see someone doing this they probably think I’m doing something strange. For me in that moment, it’s like you can decide whether you go into your shell, or you can respond by matching and rising to it, which is what I did.

“Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and doing things you wouldn’t normally do is so great and freeing. It gives you so much confidence in all the areas of your life. After the slight awkwardness of setting up the coffee shop on the tube, we had our first customer which took a wee while.

“Once I made him the coffee, it seemed like everyone in the carriage wanted one, and it very quickly got busy. But the response was great and people were loving it, it helped put smiles on people’s faces, which was part of the reason I wanted to do it.”

The next stop for Sam’s coffee shop is the Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland, where he is travelling with school friends with the boot of his car converted into a café.

He said a big part of the series he’s starting is documenting the conversations to be had over coffee and the experience towards setting up his own place, as well as highlighting the beautiful spots he travels to.

“I’m very excited about what there is to come, and all the different places I’m going to make coffee,” Sam added.

“I’m excited about documenting having great conversations with people over coffee, and documenting the journey of hopefully setting up my own coffee shop one day. Starting on day one, I think a lot of people like to see the process of things.”

He continued: “We’ve converted the boot of my car into a coffee shop and are going on the Wild Atlantic Way. We’re going to stop off at different points along the way, on the side of the road or the beach, to hopefully be able to capture how beautiful Ireland is while making coffee and chatting to people.”

Looking to future plans for random spaces to serve from, Sam said one plan in his mind would be to take to the skies and create a coffee shop on a plane.

“I’ve thought about setting up on a plane but I don’t know how that would go down logistically,” he said. “But people said the tube wasn’t possible when we went on to do it, so maybe we’ll see what we can do.

“There are plans to turn my university house garage into a coffee shop, so gut it out and properly set that up to try and replicate that coffee shop feel and environment. There’s still some work on that, but that’s potentially the next venue.”

You can follow Sam’s journey on TikTok by clicking here.

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.

Marcus Rashford is due to report for pre‑season training at Carrington around August 10 after a spell away from the club, having lost his Manchester United shirt number to Matheus Cunha

Marcus Rashford is edging closer to a return to Manchester United, with his future still to be resolved. The forward, who featured for England at the World Cup, is expected to report for pre‑season next month around August 10 after spending last season on loan at Barcelona.

Barcelona held a £26million option to make his move permanent but chose not to activate it, instead signing Anthony Gordon from Newcastle United in a £69m (€80m) deal including add‑ons.

Rashford enjoyed a successful spell in Spain, winning La Liga and the Spanish Super Cup before linking up with England for the World Cup. Despite making only two starts, including a semi‑final cameo against Argentina, he is now taking a break before returning to Carrington for pre‑season.

United historically grant players who have competed at international tournaments at least three weeks off. The Manchester Evening News understands the club have held positive talks with Rashford’s camp and are comfortable with him reporting back for pre‑season.

Michael Carrick is open to reintegrating Rashford back into the squad, having played alongside him, coached him and briefly managed him. But the question hanging over Rashford’s return is which shirt he will be wearing.

Prior to leaving United for loan spells at Aston Villa and then Barcelona, Rashford wore the number 10 shirt. However, that number was handed to Matheus Cunha last summer when he completed his £62.5m move from Wolverhampton Wanderers.

At Villa, he wore the number nine shirt, and in La Liga he switched to 14 – both numbers currently unassigned at United. New summer arrival Andrey Santos has taken 17, while Youri Tielemans has been handed 18.

Throughout his career, the England international has predominantly worn the number 10 shirt, while he used the number nine at under‑18, under‑19 and under‑21 level.

Rasmus Hojlund was the last wearer of the number nine after switching from no.11 in 2024, but the Denmark international completed his move to Napoli earlier in the summer, so it is up for grabs once again.

Other squad numbers available are 14, 17 and 21 which are yet to be re‑assigned after Christian Eriksen, Alejandro Garnacho and Antony left the club.

Number 20 is also vacant because Diogo Dalot switched to number two when it became available following Victor Lindelof’s exit.

FOLLOW OUR MAN UNITED FB PAGE! Latest news and analysis via the MEN’s Manchester United Facebook page

Numbers 27, 28, 29 and 34 remain unoccupied as well. They were last worn by Wout Weghorst, Facundo Pellistri, Aaron Wan‑Bissaka and Donny van de Beek respectively.

It remains to be seen which number Rashford will choose from the available options, though opting for the number nine would only make sense if he stays at the club beyond the summer.

With the window open until September 3, plenty can still change but Carrick has already hinted the door is open for Rashford’s return, having addressed his future at the end of last season.

“I just think there are decisions to be made in time, really, on certain things, and obviously Marcus is in that situation,” said Carrick. “But at this point in time, nothing’s been decided. And it will be, because it has to be at a certain point, but at this stage, there’s nothing to say.”

When asked whether it was a case of never closing the door on players, Carrick responded: “Yeah, I’m not going on the Marcus individual one, because I think, like I’ve already touched on, I think to comment either way at this stage is just not the right thing to do, because there’s uncertainties, for sure.

“But for me, as I said, individual players who I’m able to work with in this part of the squad then I enjoy doing that, and trying to get the best out of them.”

Thousands of Man United fans upgraded their matchday last season. This is how they did it.

This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more

Various Prices

Seat Unique

Buy official packages at Seat Unique

Official premium experiences at Old Trafford are available now for the 26/27 Premier League season. Make it easier than ever to turn a regular fixture into something genuinely unforgettable.

?

Select your team for football news tailored to you

Back in early 2017, Greater Manchester was preparing to hold the inaugural elections for its first directly elected mayor. At the time, we were part of an EU funded research project exploring youth participation in politics. We attended mayoral youth hustings organised by members of local youth councils. Candidates for the position – including Andy Burnham – answered questions put to them by the young people of Manchester.

We saw how young people used tactics similar to those used by the suffragettes in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall during the 1905 general election campaign. They repeatedly lobbied every mayoral candidate for the creation of a Youth Assembly.

The northern English city of Manchester has played a critical role in the development of Andy Burnham’s political and social outlook. This series considers what some have dubbed Manchesterism and what it might mean for the future of the UK.

Samuel Remi Akinwale, now the CEO of Young Manchester – a non-profit connecting youth services in the city – was then studying for his GCSEs. He challenged Burnham, explaining how many of his peers felt left behind and disconnected from politics.

Burnham gave a powerful reply with a message that still resonates through his speeches today. Westminster must change and things cannot go on as they are, he said. He emphasised that listening to young people must be at the forefront of reimagining democracy.

When Burnham was elected as Mayor, he committed to the creation of the Greater Manchester Youth Combined Authority (GMYCA). The establishment of the GMYCA was supported by an already existing local community and voluntary sector organisation, Youth Focus North West which has a strong track record of supporting youth voice, participation and advocacy work.

This unique approach to devolution aimed to put youth at the heart of city-region policy.

Developing policy

Many of the current youth initiatives in Manchester have emerged from an established dialogue between GMYCA and Burnham. These include the creation of Our Pass, the city-region’s free bus travel scheme for 16 to 18-year-olds, and the strong advocacy for a green agenda through the contribution of young people at Greater Manchester’s annual Green Summits.

They also include the ongoing development of the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate, an educational pathway focusing on technical education.

The young people who act as representatives from a variety of community and voluntary organisations to form GMYCA are from diverse identities and backgrounds. However, although GMYCA is now an established route that young people can use to influence youth initiatives and feel politically engaged, not all may feel seen and heard.

Manchester has become the fastest growing economy in the UK, yet the city has the third highest proportion of children living in poverty across the country.
Campaigners have highlighted the disparities that affect young people from ethnic minority backgrounds in the city in particular.

Our study showed that narrow understandings of what counts as political engagement, through formalised structures such as GMYCA, can limit levels of participation.

À lire aussi :
Manchester Baccalaureate: how the proposed vocational GCSE route would work – and the pitfalls it must avoid

However, Manchester is also home to various community arts organisations such as The Agency. Projects like these enable young people to initiate creative projects to reinvent how their communities are represented and understood, which can build other paths for political engagement. For example, in its play Census, theatre company Malandra Jacks – made up of former members of The Agency – reinvents harmful portrayals of working-class communities to show the importance of youth and community spaces.

In such attempts, young people momentarily experience a kind of hope that their lives might be understood and represented differently. If “hope in every heart” – as promised by Burnham recently – is to become a reality, then we must demand new ways of thinking and responding to the challenge of racialised and class-based stereotypes.

This starts by engaging with young people’s everyday struggles, and creating opportunities for them to work with youth and community workers who can support their efforts to be at the forefront of reimagining democracy.

The saying goes that ‘inside every fat person there’s a thin one trying to get out’. But inside one of my thin friends there’s a fat child – herself, between the ages of eight and 18.

That was the decade when her weight ballooned, when furtive chocolate binges meant her thighs rubbed together and when changing for PE became a torture for her.

This being the era of The Goonies, she became known as Chunk, the character who famously did the ‘truffle shuffle’: lifting up his shirt to wobble his belly. And yes, she was teased many times to do the same.

One day in biology class my friend – then 12 – was learning about body mass index (BMI). Along with her classmates she was required to measure her height and weight before chalking up these figures on the blackboard. She still burns with the humiliation of it.

The sense of self she developed then – ashamed, alienated, embarrassed – has never left her, even though she is now slim.

She might be a successful 50-something with no need for Spanx but inside she’s still Chunk. The weight was shed but not the feelings attached.

Being overweight as a child can make it hugely difficult to be healthy in adulthood – with 80 per cent of obese adolescents becoming obese adults. And it is now alarmingly common. By the time they reach the last year of primary school, 22 per cent of children are obese, with a further 13 per cent overweight.

This is both a national crisis and a disaster for the children – which is why we should hear out the scientists who are advocating weight loss medication for those as young as six.

A new study led by the University of Western Ontario in Canada analysed weight-loss trials involving 756 overweight children between the ages of six and 17. Children using older GLP-1 drugs for obesity (rather than diabetes) lost 11lb (5kg) on average, while those taking semaglutide – which we know better as Ozempic and Wegovy – shed on average an astonishing 2st 12lb (18kg). One of the academics, Dr Manpreet Kaur Oberoi, said the medicines were ‘significantly efficient in lowering the BMI, weight, heart rate and systolic blood pressure and in improving quality of life, while maintaining a manageable safety profile’.

Surely – if the benefits outweigh the risks – this must be considered for children suffering from the mental and physical problems that come with obesity.

I know many readers will reel in horror: ‘What kind of society have we become when we’re considering jabbing young children to lose weight?’ But reality is telling us extreme measures are needed.

In England alone about 1.2million children are ‘significantly obese’. They will struggle to lose weight as they get older, since excess weight during formative years establishes permanent fat cells and hardwires neural pathways. If that ‘puppy fat’ does hang around, they’re facing a lifetime of health problems: heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, joint issues – not to mention crushingly low self-esteem, problems with relationships and potentially an inability to work.

I know, I know: it’s the parents’ fault. We see children who are overweight and immediately assume the parents weaned them on Greggs sausage rolls.

I can’t help judging myself – but I also feel a lot of sympathy for fellow parents in 2026, because it’s harder than ever to avoid calorific temptation. Those in their 60s and above talk in misty-eyed fashion of childhoods spent playing outside for hours, stealing an apple from Farmer Giles’ tree by way of a treat – meaning they were all thin as whippets.

While it is a parent’s job to tell children ‘no’, mother-of-four Clare Foges admits she struggles with this. Those who treat their kids with sugar to make them happy shouldn’t be sneered at

But that was then. Now, most parents wouldn’t dare let their children out of their sight for fear of muggers or paedophiles. Now a lot of playing fields are gone and the youth clubs closed. Now there is 24-hour kids TV, not the two hours a day we had in my childhood. And now each supermarket trip offers an unimaginable smorgasbord of treats, from KitKat cereal to Krispy Kremes: crack cocaine for young palates.

Yes, it’s our job as parents to say ‘no’ – but as a mother who sometimes struggles to say it myself, I feel for those who can only treat their children with sugary things.

It’s all very well for middle-class mums to sneer at the sugar-pushing feckless parents but if you’ve got money for trips to Legoland or the seaside or new toys, you’ve got other ways of making your child happy. What if all you’ve got is a few quid for an ice cream?

Besides, what does it matter if it’s the parents’ fault? Some might say it’s abusive to let your child get fat but we’re not going to start banging people up for that, are we?

Some will say we should educate parents more but we’ve done that to death, through numerous public health campaigns such as The Eatwell Guide, Change4Life and Better Health.

Against the temptations of ultra-processed food – which is cheap and easy and everywhere – the education strategy just doesn’t work. So what do we do for our 1.2million obese children, aside from throwing our hands up in the air? I vote for a strategy that has already proven to work: weight-loss injections.

Of course the idea of medicating young children is uncomfortable. And of course it shouldn’t be for children who are just a little plump.

But for those like my friend – who still bears the scars – it could be the intervention that doesn’t just change their life but saves it.

Mel C is the bride, Geri, not you! 

Spot the bride. With both Geri and Mel C in long white dresses at the latter’s wedding, it’s not easy. 

I know Geri wears the same colour every day because she says that way ‘everything matches’, but surely she knows you don’t wear white out of respect to the bride? 

Mel C reunited with her former bandmates – Mel B, Geri Halliwell-Horner and Emma Bunton – at her wedding last week. But did Ginger Spice’s white ensemble upstage the bride?

Advertisement

While her floor-length number was pretty, wearing it was plain rude.

My tedious three-hour Odyssey 

I went to see The Odyssey this week, fawned over by critics as the most amazing film since the invention of celluloid. While it was good in parts, nearly three hours is just too long for any film. 

Frankly, by the end I didn’t care if Odysseus made it home or not.

The Odyssey, featuring Matt Damon and Zendaya, was good in parts but, ultimately, did not live up to the hype, Clare Foges says

Advertisement

One in five people lie about their height on dating apps – particularly men, since they think many women will only want tall partners. But there’s a basic flaw in this ruse, when into the bar walks not a six-footer but Ronnie Corbett. Having been attracted to men of varying heights in my dating days, I would tell shorter men not to fib. Simply market yourself online as ‘fun-size’.

While I wish Holly Willoughby every success with her new YouTube show, I doubt many will tune in. We British will overlook many sins, but jumping a queue, as the former This Morning TV presenter did for the Queen’s lying in state? Unforgiveable.

Mums have a right to peace, too 

In France they are turning all sorts of spaces into child-free zones: hotels, restaurants, even train carriages. Their Human Rights Commission has just published a report sounding the alarm about this ‘worrying phenomenon’. I don’t know. As a mother of four noisy children I get the need for adults-only spaces. Yes, children should be seen as well as heard – but what about our human right to have a coffee in peace, too?

One of the pilots was rushed to hospital for a 12-hour operation after he suffered food poisoning – along with his colleagues – while flying to Heathrow

Advertisement

Three British Airways pilots have simultaneously suffered food poisoning mid-flight.

The pilots were on board a British Airways flight to Heathrow when they fell ill after a stopover in India.

The first pilot was “incapacitated” at 30,000 ft in the air and was required to be put on oxygen. The two other pilots continued to operate the aircraft but their symptoms worsened.

British Airways said passenger safety was “not compromised”.

One of the pilots required serious medical care upon landing.

The Sun reported that the pilot underwent a 12-hour operation after being taken to hospital once he was rescued him from the pit.

The pilots had shared breakfast in a hotel lounge in Hyderabad, but drank bottled water from an external company.

The pilots all filed Air Safety Reports and were asked to provide samples so doctors could try to pinpoint the source.

British Airways are now reviewing their hotel options.

Cleveland Police said officers used a drone to spot two males with a suspected stolen bike in a field area off Hoskins Way yesterday.

The search took place around 12.20pm on Tuesday (July 21), and police then watched a suspected drug deal take place.

As plain-clothed officers moved in to intercept the pair, one of them tried to start the motorbike but failed.

Both suspects then made a run for it.

Their escape attempt hit a literal stumbling block when they tried to climb a garden fence, which collapsed underneath them.

On social media, the force posted the drone footage alongside comical references to the film ‘Hot Fuzz’ and its famous fence‑jumping scenes.

The force joked about the suspects’ less‑than‑graceful effort at a garden‑fence getaway.

Officers from Middlesbrough’s Community Action Team and the Task Force, which specifically targets ‘criminal use of bikes’, caught up with one of the suspects in the back garden of a nearby property.

A 14-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of offences including possession with intent to supply class A and class B drugs, and theft of a motor vehicle.

Suspected cocaine, cannabis and cash were recovered from the scene, along with a motorbike that had been reported stolen in the Durham area.

A subsequent search of a property also uncovered further quantities of cannabis.

Cleveland Police said enquiries into the incident remain ongoing.

Warning: this review contains spoilers for The Odyssey.

Christopher Nolan’s US$250m (£187m), three-hour epic starring Matt Damon as the Greek king fighting his way home from Troy took more than $264m on its opening weekend – comfortably tripling the opening take of his Oscar-winning Oppenheimer in 2023.

It has earned Nolan the best reviews of his career. But crucially, it is the most ambitious attempt in a generation to put Homer’s 3,000-year-old poem back at the centre of popular culture. The heroism Nolan’s film depicts is far darker and far less triumphant than audiences might expect. It is also a film built for the biggest screen.

Nolan shot the film entirely on IMAX’s 70mm cameras, a first for any feature, carrying cast and crew across Morocco, Greece, Sicily, Iceland and the northeast of Scotland.

The result swings between extreme long shots of sea, stone and sky and extreme close-ups of faces, between monumental sets and claustrophobic caves and courtyards. It is unmistakably, a film in conversation with Nolan’s previous work. But also with a century of screen epics, from the blood and grandeur of Gladiator (2000) and Troy (2004), back to the forgotten silent versions of the Trojan story that German and Italian studios made more than a century ago.

Nolan borrows from other genres too: horror creeps into the Cyclops’ cave, supernatural elements into Circe’s hall, comic book action-adventures into Agamemnon’s armour, and literature and the visual arts supply their own echoes, from Dante’s and Virgil’s rival accounts of Ulysses (the Latin name for Odysseus) to Goya’s cannibal god Saturn, glimpsed in the Cyclops’ feast.

With Damon as his central character, Nolan has embraced the actor’s established image as a rugged, dutiful soldier to build a very different kind of Odysseus, defined less by guile and cunning than by determination and guilt.

Of an accomplished female cast – Anne Hathaway (Penelope), Zendaya (Athena), Lupita Nyong’o (Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra), Samantha Morton (Circe), Charlize Theron (Calypso) – only Hathaway’s Penelope is given the material to show real depth.

Robert Pattinson’s scheming suitor Antinous and John Leguizamo’s devoted swineherd Eumaeus are the strongest supporting performances. Tom Holland plays Odysseus’ son Telemachus – an actor coming of age playing a character coming of age. The jury is out on whether the maturity comes through.

Cutting the gods, doubling down on Troy

The film keeps Homer’s three-part shape – a son’s search for his father, Odysseus’s own account of his travels, the killing of his wife’s suitors – while reworking nearly everything inside it.

The gods are largely gone: there is no council on Olympus, Athena is reduced to a couple of coaching cameos, whereas Zeus and Poseidon become the elemental forces of thunder and sea storms.

Odysseus’ own father Laertes never reappears, the suitors’ souls never descend to the underworld, and Penelope’s test of the marriage bed vanishes along with much of the poem’s dialogue, including the Cyclops’ famous “Nobody” trick, replaced here by a wordless dash for the cave mouth.

The single biggest cut is the Phaeacians’ island, roughly a third of the poem, where Odysseus is welcomed, tells his story and is sent home in comfort. Nolan replaces it with a lotus-drugged, amnesiac Odysseus slowly recovering his own story for one listener, the goddess Calypso, and returning home a castaway.

The single biggest addition is Troy itself: the horse, the lie, the sack of the city, restaged again and again from different angles until a legendary victory starts to look like a crime scene.

A homecoming that resists closure

None of this feels indulgent; every spectacle is tied directly to the story Nolan is telling, and that story is a bleak one. Its subject is the price of action – what is owed to family, fellow citizens, strangers, animals, the natural world – and the unreliability of memory once survivors start shaping their ordeal into a story that flatters them.

The film’s own framing device makes the same point: Nolan casts the rapper Travis Scott as the bard who opens the action, explicitly linking Homer’s sung, oral tradition to hip-hop’s, a reminder that this poem took shape by being performed aloud.

It unfolds at the edge of a dark age, amid the terror of raiders “from the sea” and the film’s sharpest move is to let us notice, slowly, that its own heroes are those raiders.

Fittingly, the film refuses a happy ending. Odysseus reaches Ithaca, but then leaves again. But not as an adventurer this time (as is sometimes presented in modern versions of the myth) or to appease Poseidon (as foretold in Homer), but as a self-imposed exile doing penance for his unburied companions and the harm he caused in getting home.

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator relaunched the epic for cinemagoers a quarter of a century ago with an uncompromising hero saving a broken world. Now Nolan’s Odyssey does the same for a new generation with the opposite figure: a traumatised hero whose own violence helped break it. That makes it a braver film than its trailers suggest.

The more interesting question now is what comes next. Whether future screen epics keep chasing Gladiator’s model, where the hero pays with his own life and stays morally whole, or Nolan’s, where the hero survives and has to live with the cost he has made others pay.

Free parking will be available from 3pm in four council-owned car parks

The launch of free parking in a Cambridgeshire city centre will begin next month after the council approved funding for the project. Peterborough City Council’s cabinet met on Tuesday (July 21) and members agreed to accept funding to deliver free parking at four council-owned car parks in the city.

The funding is from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA). The first day of free parking in four council-owned car parks will be Monday, August 3.

These four locations will be:

• Bishops Road;
• Car Haven;
• Riverside;
• Pleasure Fair Meadow.

Parking at the above locations will be free after 3pm from Monday to Friday.

The scheme was pledged by Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Paul Bristow in his manifesto. The Mayor committed £1.5 million in his budget to bring free parking to both Peterborough and Huntingdonshire.

“I said I would bring free parking and it’s happening this summer,” Mayor Bristow previously said. “I made this pledge because I believe our city centre needs a lift.”

The aim of the free parking scheme, which will be run on a time-limited trial, is to bring in more footfall to support local businesses, and increase the health and vibrancy of the evening economy. The proposal, which was unanimously approved by the cabinet, will be trialled until March 31, 2028.

Councillor Christian Hogg asked the meeting about what would happen in two years when the CPCA funding for the scheme ends. In reply Councillor Mohammed Jamil said that “so long as we keep getting this funding, this will stay in place”.

If there is no further funding when the scheme ends, the charges would be reinstalled.