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Artist defends Churchill video at National Portrait Gallery after being accused of ‘barefaced lie’

Helen Cammock says her comments blaming wartime leader for Bengal famine were intended to create ‘dialogue’

A Turner prize-winning artist accused of telling a “barefaced lie” about Winston Churchill in a video piece installed at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) has defended her work, saying it was intended to create a “dialogue” about figures in the gallery’s collection.

Helen Cammock’s 40-minute moving image piece called Persistence has been at the centre of a row about the role Churchill played in the Bengal famine of 1943.

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

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Sly stage version of The Traitors to lure audiences with five different endings

Play at Gillian Lynne theatre in London will cycle through versions with weekend crowds able to pick one

In keeping with its well-earned reputation for cloak and dagger, the stage adaptation of the hit gameshow Traitors will present audiences with different renditions of the story depending on which night they attend.

The Traitors: Acts of Betrayal will take the form of a five-play cycle, with weekend crowds able to determine which version of the BBC show dramatisation they see.

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© Photograph: Ian West/PA

© Photograph: Ian West/PA

© Photograph: Ian West/PA

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From Bloomsbury to Whitehall: new play reimagines life of John Maynard Keynes

The Standard of Living by James Graham traces economist’s influence on British politics and culture

After exploring the rise of Rupert Murdoch and the emergence of Gareth Southgate’s England team, James Graham has turned his attention to one of the most important political figures of the 20th century: John Maynard Keynes.

His new play, The Standard of Living, directed by Nicholas Hytner and opening at the Haymarket in September, focuses on Keynes’s life from 1917 until his death in 1946 – a period in which he became the founding father of macroeconomics and reshaped government thinking on finance and the role of the arts.

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© Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive

© Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive

© Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive

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Photographer Don McCullin to focus on Vietnam for his final book

Exclusive: The work will feature some of the photographer’s most powerful images from his 70-year career

After more than seven decades of covering conflicts around the world, Don McCullin will return to Vietnam and his best-known images for his final book.

The photographer, who got his start aged 23 when his image of a gang in Finsbury Park was published in the Observer, has decided to revisit the war and his 12-day stint with US marines during the battle of Hue in 1968.

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© Photograph: Don McCullin

© Photograph: Don McCullin

© Photograph: Don McCullin

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