‘The dream is to be a standup, but everyone who knows me says: Please don’t’ – Riz Ahmed on chaos, comedy, and defying categorisation

His multi-hyphenate career has made him one of Britain’s most versatile recognisable stars – but hasn’t stopped him facing some seriously awkward moments… Riz Ahmed was multitasking. It was February in London, and the actor was doing an interview with a men’s magazine en route to collect his kid from school. So far, so starry. “Here’s the reality,” says Ahmed today, palms slamming down hard on the table. “I’m late for the school run. I’m stuck in traffic. I’m meant to be at my laptop, but I’m having to do it on my phone, in my car. I’m double parked on a double yellow line, doing the interview, looking over my shoulder. The traffic warden’s coming, it’s rush hour. He tries to move me along. I try to get out of there while I’m talking on the phone to this guy.” Distracted, Ahmed hit another car. The driver jumped out of his vehicle, incensed. “He’s like, ‘What the fuck are you doing?!’” says Ahmed, who had been attempting to continue the interview. “I’m now going off video, like, ‘Oh,...

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On review – bijou stop-motion animation will win you over

What should be an irritating story about a tiny talking shell with shoes trying to find his family is somehow funny and beguiling

Here is a genuine oddity: a weird little hothouse flower of a film that looks as if it might crumple at the slightest breath of wind – but is actually very resilient. It’s a quirky stop-motion animation, developed from a series of online short films, whose comedy frequency takes a little time to tune into. You have to wait a bit to hear its batsqueak, and before this happens there is a real and understandable danger that you will simply find it insufferably annoying. The film appears to exist in the Venn diagram-overlap between twee and hipster, which isn’t for everyone – but let it grow on you, and there is a real sweetness and gentleness in its absurdity, a savant innocence and charm.

The idea is that the film’s director, Dean Fleischer Camp, is staying in an Airbnb after the collapse of his marriage; this house itself has become available for rental because the couple who own it have split up. Fleischer Camp becomes aware that there is someone else in the house: a tiny mollusc called Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate) with a single, blinking human eye and dinky little human shoes. Marcel is a calm, childlike figure who talks with absolute candour in his tiny voice to Dean about his own problems and Dean’s.

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