'He has never been interested in bedtime stories before. Thank you for using his language'

'There's something very connecting about seeing people performing who are struggling'

Trailblazing comic, Oscar-nominated writer and acting sensation Elaine May is back on Broadway. Nathan Lane, Cybill Shepherd and others reveal what makes her tick The very idea ought to be mind-boggling. Elaine May, now 86, is currently starring as a woman in the grip of Alzheimer’s in

Cadogan Hall, London

The director of the V&A on the institution’s expansion into east London, the antisemitism row in the Labour party, and the changing role of museums Touring the Victoria & Albert Museum with Tristram Hunt, the former Labour MP who has been its director since 2017, is a bit like visiting Hamleys toy store with a small child: so many rooms through which to dash, and so many wondrous objects in each of them. I’ve asked him to show me the one thing he would like most to pinch or borrow for a while – something that stirs his heart, as opposed to something he’s merely practised at talking about – but I see now that this was perhaps a silly idea. His frown says it all. How could he ever choose? In the splendid Cast Courts, where he takes me first, he talks at speed of the Victorian passion for copying stuff, gazing all the while at the lower half of the museum’s monumental plaster reproduction of Trajan’s column in Rome – and for a moment I wonder at his ambition (also, at the size of his house). This, however, is merely a detour, one he seemingly cannot resist. Next, we visit a famous millefleurs tapestry of 1500 from Flanders, in which a hallucinatory unicorn prances, dazzling even now in its field of red, green and blue – “The president of Ghana loved this,” he says, confidingly – and then the medieval galleries, where he shows me a ravishing reliquary casket from 1200, shaped like a church with a gabled roof and made of brilliantly hued Limoges enamelwork.

'Bye darlin Bluey,' says co-star Dawn French

The artistic director of the English National Ballet on dance in the #MeToo age, embracing people’s flaws and the thing she misses most on tour Born in Quebec and raised in Spain, London-based Tamara Rojo, 44, is the artistic director of English National Ballet, as well as lead principal dancer. She was previously a principal with the Royal Ballet. She was made a CBE in the 2016 New Year honours list.

How does the professional critic stand out amid the clamour of digital comment? Here the Observer’s Susannah Clapp (theatre) and Simran Hans (film) debate the role of the mainstream reviewer In 2008, the

This grandiose remake of Dario Argento’s dreamy 1977 masterpiece conjures up all the right witchy ingredients but lacks the original’s joyful abandon Dario Argento’s dazzling 1977 chiller

Victoria Miro, London; Frith Street Gallery, London

Lalo Schifrin, the jazz genius behind some of Hollywood's greatest music, finally gets an Oscar honour. Martin Chilton tells the strange tale of his most famous composition

As the new drama airs on Channel 4, the actor speaks to Alexandra Pollard about the murder case that inflamed the nation

Away from the clichés, we're at the stage in the competition where we can expect some sensational dancing

Away from the clichés, we're at the stage in the competition where we can expect some sensational dancing

Away from the clichés, we're at the stage in the competition where we can expect some sensational dancing

Away from the clichés, we're at the stage in the competition where we can expect some sensational dancing

Isabella Rozendaal realised there was something missing from Amsterdam’s population archive. She tells of her life – and new book – as the city’s first official pet portraitist

Away from the clichés, we're at the stage in the competition where we can expect some sensational dancing

Away from the clichés, we're at the stage in the competition where we can expect some sensational dancing

Away from the clichés, we're at the stage in the competition where we can expect some sensational dancing

Group are reportedly set to perform at the show in Atlanta next February

Away from the clichés, we're at the stage in the competition where we can expect some sensational dancing

Marie Bäumer is uncanny in this black-and-white homage to the Austrian-born movie starThe first thing you notice is the resemblance.

The director of the Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman talks about his new film, Disobedience, the story of a lesbian affair in a London orthodox Jewish communityThe Argentinian-Chilean film director Sebastián Lelio lives in Berlin but, when Skyped, turns out to be in Santiago. He is wearing a white T-shirt – it is almost summer in Chile – and it seems far-fetched that this should be the man whose film

Liverpool Cathedral; Assembly Rooms, Bath

Away from the clichés, we're at the stage in the competition where we can expect some sensational dancing

Can director Saverio Costanzo and a cast of non-professional actors do justice to Ferrante’s radical vision of postwar Naples? “Lila is overdoing it as usual,” Elena Greco begins her story, both in Elena Ferrante’s much-loved novel

Stars of film, TV and music took part in the annual charity fundraiser

The classics you may already know, and the hidden gems that deserve more attention

The broadcaster on forgetting people’s names, being thin-skinned and missing Jeremy Beadle Born in Singapore,

Miller returns to his role as Credence Barebone in the film, while Depp reprises his role as the evil wizard Grindewald

As 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' reaches Netflix next month, Darren Richman ranks the directing duo's films

'A little nod to the good old days, back when black visionaries could invent rock-and-roll, but only a white man could become the king'

How can a government exile its citizens without a trial? Why can people born in Britain be forced to leave? Kamila Shamsie explores how citizenship became a privilege, not a right A couple of years ago, while working on my novel

When I got to 38, things changed. I was pleased I had made it, and thought, ‘Everything after this is a bonus’ A woman I was very attached to died young, at 38. She had been married to a man she loved, had three small children and many talents that were beginning to bear fruit. I was younger than she was when she died; now, I’m much older. For a long time I considered her 38 years a sort of goal. If that had been her allotted span, surely that limit could also be mine. So I thought of my life as if it would not last longer than 38 years. I know that may seem ridiculous but, in some corner of myself, it really was like that. And, all in all, I’m glad: in many ways I had a different sense of time from my contemporaries. I ran; they lingered. I felt old and burdened by responsibilities; they seemed young and irresponsible.