Fifty years ago, the doors of the Teatre Lliure were opened by those "crazy snipers who confuse theatre with a personal adventure," as defined by Fabià Puigserver, the soul of the project. The Palau Robert is hosting a unique commemorative exhibition until January 17th. Instead of a canonical retrospective made of objects, photographs, and costumes, they have invited the spectator to "look at the stage from a different place," says director Julio Manrique, defending the house motto, A free theatre. It is an invitation to enter the bowels of the stage through five theatrical installations created by five regular set designers of the Lliure who are from different generations.

He wants to explain economics in jeans and the photo on his phone doesn't lie: informal, on a trip to Morocco ten years ago. He never wears a tie and doesn't have LinkedIn either. He studied economics because he listened to Fabià Estapé on TV3 and now he uses economics to explain day-to-day decisions. He is an associate professor at UPF and UVic-UCC, founder of the Kapital platform (which has 23,000 subscribers on Substack and 30,000 listeners on Spotify) and author of Fuck you money (Península).

Catalan is residual in the sports and leisure activities of young people in Barcelona. Only 11% of conversations between young people are exclusively in Catalan and 76% are exclusively in Spanish (the remaining 13% are bilingual uses), according to a pilot study conducted by the Institute for Catalan Studies (IEC) on the use of Catalan in 14 municipal sports and leisure entities in the capital. In contrast, the percentages flip when it comes to conversation between instructors: 32% of instructors converse exclusively in Spanish among themselves, but the majority, 68%, speak in Catalan.

"Hilària is a festival that can only be held in Catalonia and with Catalans in mind," states its director, Oriol de Balanzó. It has been ten years since Cruïlla began a comedy cycle infiltrated into its musical programming, and it has been two years since the comedians have been walking on their own, under the umbrella of Hilària. This year, nine shows will be offered with more than thirty guest artists who –due to the closing of El Molino– are distributed across various spaces in the city. Observing the lineup, there is no doubt that it is designed by and for Catalans: they have set up a duel of comedians titled Barcelona vs. Regions, they will hold a roast of El Foraster, and they will offer a late night show hosted by Joel Díaz with a single guest, who will be Lluís Gavaldà. Thus, we finally have a self-centered comedy scene. But what does that mean? What makes us Catalans laugh?

If Clara Segura, Marta Marco, and Cristina Genebat read fragments at a book launch, you've got half the work done: they can already add a pile to the stall and get the card reader out, because we'll be heading to the checkout. The three musketeers of Catalan theater have drawn their swords in the little garden of La Central to present —all for one and one for all— the new novel by one of their own: Cristina Genebat debuts with Sorra (La Magrana), which won the Lo Somni prize at the Night of Catalan Letters.

One of the headlines left this Thursday by the Roger Español case trial has to do with the interpreters who were in the courtroom, unable to translate the lawyers' questions from Catalan to Spanish. The lawyers for the private and popular accusations, exercised by Irídia, Òmnium and the ANC, ended up self-translating or questioning the police directly in Spanish after up to two interpreters could not do their job, a fact that the entities have denounced for "violation of linguistic rights". But how could this situation have occurred?

I located him by calling the landline at the rectory of Santa Margarida de Montbui. We discover together what photo he has on his mobile phone, because he didn't remember: it is the celebration of his 50 years as a priest. "I know a little about religion and language, but I don't know anything about modernity". After a life dedicated to three pillars, "the poor, the language and a vision of the Gospel", this September he will leave the parish of Sant Maure, near Igualada, and will serve only as rector of the old town, with 650 inhabitants. We meet, "if there is nofuneral", before going to officiate a mass at a home

The journalist Albert Om (Taradell, 1966) immerses himself once again in the memories of a time, of a country, in his memoir Què dirà la gent (Univers). If in El dia que vaig marxar he explained his parents' end, now he goes to the beginning of the story: to his repressed republican grandparents; to his parents' marriage, which renounced politics but achieved well-being, and to a childhood shaping its national spirit with Llach, Serrat, and La Trinca. The result is a politico-emotional portrait of an entire generation, and an approach to Catalan identity made with the very genuine language he imbibed, of course, in Taradell.

Barcelona City Council has never inspected or sanctioned any business for failing to comply with regulations regarding the Catalan language. Although the Consumer Code dates back to 2010 and the linguistic policy law dates back to 1998, in all these years the council has never sanctioned any company for not labeling shops in Catalan, not serving in Catalan, or not offering the menu in Catalan to customers, despite the fact that non-compliance is evident on the streets and in the city's businesses. Why? Although city councils have inspection and sanctioning powers, until now, Barcelona's inspectors had not taken language into account in their actions. The law recognizes the customer's right to be served in Catalan, and also to receive communications (signage, invoices, menus, instructions, advertising) at least in Catalan.

Manel Dueso, actor, director, playwright, and poet with an extensive and prestigious theatrical curriculum, has died this Tuesday at the age of 73 as a result of cancer. He performed and directed more than a hundred plays by authors such as Shakespeare, Chekhov –his great predilection–, Molière, and Beckett, among many others, and wrote more than twenty plays, a production that validates him as a first-rate stage animal. As an actor, he was a well-known face thanks to such popular series as La Riera, Nit i dia, Cuéntame, Isabel, El cor de la ciutat, Secrets de família and Laberint d'ombres, and in cinema he worked under the direction of directors such as Jaume Balagueró (Mientras duermes) and Manuel Huerga (Salvador).

He says his WhatsApp photo doesn't flatter him, but he just loves the street furniture that can be seen in it, the signs, the posters, the fences. Joel León is a young content creator who explains life from his neighborhood, Torre Baró, where he works as a leisure monitor. The son of a couple who met in the neighborhood, his mother of Bolivian origin and president of the neighborhood association, he has dedicated himself heart and soul to activism since he was very young. Many afternoons he visits elderly neighbors who are alone.

The icon on her mobile today is of a train journey between Geneva and Grenoble, but before that, she had had the image of very different waters: those of an Indonesian beach, where she has been doing fieldwork since 2018. Every year or two she travels there to study an Austronesian language in the process of extinction, totoli. She now captains the project from the University of Barcelona with ministerial funding.

The clown of Circ Cric, Ms. Titat (Montserrat Trias by civil name), this summer has rapidly and peacefully devoured a novel that has been one of the season's phenomena, The bookstore of dead hours (Columna), by Laura Autonell, a revelation author of 63 years. "It is located in my neighborhood, in the Raval of Barcelona, and I have recognized squares and streets that I constantly walked on as a child," she explains.

Oriol Genís read El extravío de los signos, by Mexican anthropologist Natalia Mendoza (Periférica), because it was a recommendation from the company with whom this season they performed Oedipus and Antigone at the Teatre Nacional. The book "talks about the Sonora desert, immigration, deaths, people who disappear and are not found, and this links it with Tiresias and Antigone," explains the actor. "It's a splendid book, an essay that reads very well and is very interesting," he assures.

Half of adults have trouble sleeping. Why? Psychologist and author best-sellerRafael Santandreu assures that "the number 1 factor in insomnia is the hyper-demand that one must sleep perfectly well, always." Therefore, one of the main goals of his latest book, "Sleep when you can't sleep (Wind Rose), is, first and foremost, to lower the pressure: "Sleeping well is important, yes, but not as much as they have sold us. And this exaggeration causes a paradoxical effect: the fear of not sleeping prevents us from sleeping".

"I deleted Tinder and Instagram and downloaded Substack #summer", I read in a post. Substack is a platform that, in fact, demands time. The posts that are uploaded there, and that are also sent as an email newsletter to subscribers, are sheets full of information, references, and data, especially if they are paid. And since it increasingly contains a more extensive and diverse offer, your linked readings and emails multiplyto the inbox. "I'm joining Substack because I missed blogs. It's the network for those looking for a new space, more depth, less noise, less presence of the turbo-fascist companies that have been taking over and conditioning how we interact on X, Instagram, and Facebook," says writer and comedian Maria Rovira.

This summer Circ Cric has recovered its nomadic spirit and has spent a month and a half on the road. Last weekend they finished an adventure that toured six townsin the Priorat region and the Prades mountains. Precisely for this reason, the clown Jaume Mateu (Tortell Poltrona within the tent) recommends Lo mig del món (Club Editor) by philologist and activist Roser Vernet, born in El Masroig. It is a book of memoirs that is also a literary journey – full of poetry and linguistically well-rooted in the place – through the Priorat, its villages, and its people.

"For me, entering La Central is like entering a candy store. I go there to look for sweets!", confesses the actress Muntsa Alcañiz. It was during one of these excursions that, "patapam!", she stumbled upon the first two volumes of the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann, which Comanegra has published in Catalan with translation by Ramon Monton. "They stick to my fingers", assures Alcañiz, who is a great reading enthusiast. Only the study of her theatrical roles can take her away from books, such as this summer's at Heartbreak Hotel, Factory, but once she has memorized them, she returns to her daily reading. "When a book grips me, I like to get up very early and, as soon as it gets light, I'm already on the rooftop reading. I really enjoy listening to the birds and reading", she explains.

My mother-in-law returns enthusiastic from a concert by Los Sírex that filled the Atlàntida in Vic and it's clear we need to know the secret of Antoni Miquel Cerveró, Leslie, who at 82 years old continues at the helm of one of the longest-lived rock'n'roll bands in the world: 65 years active, ahead of the Rolling Stones. "Los Sírex, Los Gatos Negros, Los Mustang, Los Salvajes, Los Cheyenes... We are the ones who opened the doors of fresh air to this country," he says. Just hearing him, it's evident that he has a lot to say and an overwhelming charisma. "I have a blast on stage, I release all the adrenaline. I've never been interested in learning to sing, it's come to me superfluously, but I've spent money to learn to communicate with the audience. At concerts I feel loved and respected; it's my diet, being close to people," he explains.

Actress Francesca Piñón was an introverted child. "Reading and cinema saved me. My childhood was spent reading and watching films," she says. As a child, she took refuge in reading, and it has accompanied her all her life. "At twelve, my grandfather made me read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky..., and I got used to that literature. It wasn't until adolescence that I discovered contemporary authors on my own. And now, with age, I've gone back," she explains. She defines herself as a "nineteenth-century" reader: her literary century is the 19th.