Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The synopsis Few shows lend themselves to set-jetting quite like The White Lotus, writer-director Mike White\u2019s brutal satirical drama, with its ennui-laden one percenters heading to a titular luxury hotel, from which someone inevitably will not leave. For the third season, exploring spirituality and darker undercurrents in Thailand, Jennifer Coolidge\u2019s Tanya won\u2019t return from the dead, but there will be a new all-star ensemble cast of characters who sit somewhere on a spectrum between sympathetic and monstrous \u2014 including the likes of \u201990s indie queen Parker Posey, Fallout\u2019s Walton Goggins and Lalisa Manobal of K-pop mega-group Blackpink.\u00a0\u00a0On location While the show\u2019s pandemic-impacted first season in 2021 was shot exclusively at the Four Seasons Maui at Wailea, Hawaii, the Sicily-based second season was a little more expansive, with principal shooting at the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace in Taormina, a converted 14th-century convent, and excursions to spots such as Palermo\u2019s lush neoclassical Villa Tasca. The ambitious third season covers much more ground, with scenes in Bangkok, Phuket and Koh Samui \u2014 the last of these home to the principal location, the Bill Bensley-designed Four Seasons Koh Samui (fourseasons.com; from \u00a31,037 per night), with its infinity-pool villas hugging the steep hillside of a lush former coconut plantation on the island\u2019s northwestern corner.Other Samui scenes were shot at the Anantara Bophut (anantara.com; from \u00a3149 per night), on the beach about 11km to the east, and the nearby Fisherman\u2019s Village, with its open-air beachfront restaurants and backpacker-boho night market (CoCo Tam\u2019s beach bar and restaurant was a favourite with the cast, who mostly stayed at the Four Seasons during filming). Phuket plays a big part, too, with beach scenes at the island\u2019s Anantara Mai Khao Villas (anantara.com; from \u00a3200 per night), with its Thai-vernacular villas and glass-walled pavilion in a lotus-filled lagoon. Characters also take a boat ride past the evocative limestone stacks at Phang Nga Bay, between Phuket and Krabi, home to the villain\u2019s island in 1974 Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun. And in the capital, there are scenes at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok (mandarinoriental.com; from \u00a3440 per night), the iconic riverside grande dame that was a favourite of Joseph Conrad and No\u00ebl Coward, and still frequently tops \u201cbest in Asia\u201d lists (it was 12th on the World\u2019s 50 Best Hotels list last year). Other filming locations include the 69-metre golden Buddha at the Paknam Bhasi Charoen Temple, the backpacker-infamous Khao San Road and the vast Chatuchak Market, with more than 15,000 stalls, where the cult coconut ice cream at Coco JJ is more palatable than the exotic pet section.\u00a0 \u00a0Behind the scenes According to location manager Sam Hutchins, White (\u201ca workaholic and a genius\u201d) considered as many as 10 Asian countries for this season. But while India\u2019s vast palace hotels didn\u2019t quite work on screen, Maldivian resorts were too one-dimensional and Japan proved logistically complicated, Thailand ticked all the boxes \u2014 with world-class crews and equipment in place, generous tax rebates and a tantalising cultural cocktail of native spirituality and imported licentiousness.Hutchins, White and a small team did a five-week recce in autumn 2023. \u201cIt was a trip where the line between work and pleasure became very blurred,\u201d says Hutchins. \u201cWe\u2019d get these elaborate welcomes like they have in the show, and there were so many 13-course meals that I almost had gout at the end.\u201d Many of their experiences influenced filming: like the Muay Thai boxing bout they attended in Phuket, or a visit to Bill Bensley\u2019s eccentric Bangkok home, Baan Botanica, with its 1,500 species of plants and roaming Jack Russells. Bensley didn\u2019t just point the team to his hotels, but to two private villas that he\u2019d worked on in Phuket, where White ended up staying for an immersive writing stint, and eventually filming scenes. Hutchins says there was no prior deal to use a Four Seasons hotel as the principal location for the third time, though there is now an official partnership, with Four Seasons resorts around the world running themed events. \u201cThere was a grandeur to the common spaces that just felt right for what we needed,\u201d says Hutchins, who nevertheless admits he stays at the more affordable nearby Anantara when he visits with his family.\u00a0Recreating the vibe The White Lotus may satirise Eat Pray Love tendencies, but Koh Samui boasts an impressive series of highly regarded holistic wellness resorts, with personalised programmes at the likes of Absolute Sanctuary (absolutesanctuary.com; from \u00a3140 per night) in the north and Kamalaya (kamalaya.com; from \u00a3210 per night, minimum three-night stay) in the south, and a more intense focus on yoga and breathwork at Samahita (samahitaretreat.com; from \u00a3143 per night, minimum three-night stay), a former yoga teaching school. And lest the Sanskrit chanting, euphoric hugs and colonic hydrotherapy get too much, it\u2019s only 20-30 minutes on the ferry from Samui to Koh Phangan, where full-moon parties, terrifying mushroom shakes and all the makings of an existential White Lotus hangover await.\u2018The White Lotus\u2019 season 3 is on Sky Atlantic and Now in the UK and HBO and Max in the USFind out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The synopsis Few shows lend themselves to set-jetting quite like The White Lotus, writer-director Mike White\u2019s brutal satirical drama, with its ennui-laden one percenters heading to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":210877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-210876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210878,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210876\/revisions\/210878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}