From The Drama to Malcolm in the Middle: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

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R-Patz and Zandaya star in a romcom with bite, and the lovably dysfunctional family is back in a revival of the turn-of-the-millennium comedy hitThe DramaOut now It is hard to imagine a more zeitgeist-flavoured proposition than Zendaya and Robert Pattinson starring in a dark romantic comedy from A24 – and frankly we are here for it.The pair play a couple whose relationship is tested by the revelation of brand new information during their engagement.Directed by Kristoffer Borgli (Dream Scenario).Kim Novak’s VertigoOut now The notional star of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterly ode to obsession is James Stewart, but it is the image of Kim Novak in her iconic dual role that endures.Documentarian Alexandre O Philippe sits down with the actor as she discusses her career in general and her iconic work on Vertigo in particular.

The Super Mario Galaxy MovieOut now Make way, multiplexes, for the big Easter holiday family animation: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black and Keegan-Michael Key are back, in voice form, in a Super Mario adventure set in outer space, with new elements including the introduction of Bowser Jr, voiced by Uncut Gems director Benny Safdie.FuzeOut now The work of Scottish director David Mackenzie (Hell Or High Water) is hard to pigeonhole, but he certainly seems to have been on a run of thrillers in recent times: this is his latest, and it sees Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James and Gugu Mbatha-Raw caught up in chaos following the discovery of an unexploded second world war bomb in London.Catherine BrayJessie JTuesday to 14 April; tour starts Birmingham After a turbulent few years, Jessie J returned to the UK charts last year with her slick sixth album Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time.Expect her to showcase those newer songs on this tour, alongside early hits Domino and anti-capitalist anthem Price Tag.Michael CraggJamie Woon6 to 9 April; tour starts Glasgow After becoming a critical darling in the early 2010s, British singer-songwriter Woon disappeared after 2015’s second album, Making Time.

More than a decade later, he’s back on the road in support of last October’s 3, 10, Why, When, which showcases his lithe, featherlight vocals and sonic experimentation.MCThe National Youth OrchestraBridgewater Hall, Manchester, 9 April, ; Royal Festival Hall, London, 11 April From choreography to kazoos, performances by the UK’s top orchestra for 13- to 19-year-olds often feature a surprise or two – and always fizz with energy.Their latest tour sees pPrincipal conductor Alpesh Chauhan lead the charge through emotionally epic works by Wagner, Prokoviev and Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi.Flora WillsonThe Wonder of StevieConcorde Club, Eastleigh, 10 April; touring to 11 NovemberThe ageless music of soul-funk giant Stevie Wonder is lovingly celebrated by eloquent vocalist Noel McCalla and exciting Jools Holland saxophonist Derek Nash, fronting a powerful and popular sextet that made its album debut with the repertoire in 2021.Stevie’s five-decade career will feature, with classics including Superstition and My Cherie Amour.

John FordhamCecily BrownSerpentine Gallery, London, to 6 September The Serpentine has gone mad for paintings.A gallery often associated with cutting-edge installations has opened starry shows by Doig, Hockney and now Cecily Brown.This British painter who has worked for years in New York has created brushy, expressionistic, green-dappled new works in direct response to Kensington Gardens.Henry Moore: The Shelter DrawingsHenry Moore Studio and Gardens, Perry Green, nr Bishop’s Stortford, to 25 October Huddled bodies in sepulchral shelters, humanity surviving in the depths of a bombed city: the drawings Moore made of Londoners taking refuge from Nazi air raids in underground stations are his greatest works.Echoes of Etruscan art add to the timeless intensity as he sees monumental dignity in platform sleepers.

CatwalkV&A Dundee, to 17 January 2027 Who knew the catwalk had a history? But of course it does, and this exhibition tells the tale of high fashion’s most famous ritual since its beginnings in the late 1800s,Among the designers whose glamorous or shocking catwalk shows are revisited are Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Mary Quant,Halima Cassell Tate St Ives, to 4 October This British artist who was born in Kashmir creates geometric, swirling, enticing abstract art that’s very much in the tradition of St Ives and its modern artists,In this museum close to the home and studio of Barbara Hepworth, she proves Hepworth’s spirit is alive in the art of today,Jonathan JonesA Doll’s HouseAlmeida theatre, London, to 23 May Romola Garai, who is always especially mesmerising on stage, stars in Anya Reiss’s contemporary version of Ibsen’s domestic tragedy.

When scandal threatens to wreck Nora and Torvald’s marriage, will they find a way to restore peace – and prosperity – at home? Miriam GillinsonJake Roche Soho theatre, London, 7 to 11 April The son of Shane Richie and Coleen Nolan, Roche charts how his own dreams of stardom came true – thanks to a No 1 single with his boyband Rixton – then spectacularly fell apart in a comedy musical that digs into nepo baby-dom, failure and the surreality of celebrity life.Rachel AroestiElixir festivalSadler’s Wells, London, 7 to 27 April The annual festival celebrating older dancers opens with Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal – there’ll also be a long parade of dancers performing Bausch’s Nelken Line through east London’s Olympic Park.Another highlight: the brilliant 67-year-old Louise Lecavalier, once dance’s most athletic performer, who also toured with David Bowie.Lyndsey WinshipKiss of the Spider WomanCurve theatre, Leicester, to 25 April Paul Foster directs a rare revival of Kander and Ebb’s (Cabaret, Chicago) darkly charged Tony-winning musical.Set in a brutal Argentine prison, two cellmates form a fraught bond – as they fantasise about films and the dangerously seductive Spider Woman (Anna-Jane Casey).

MGMalcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair Disney+, 10 April Post-Scrubs revival, another kooky 2000s comedy makes a comeback.Reuniting most of the original cast (including Bryan Cranston), this reboot opens with the eponymous Malcolm happily estranged from his ludicrously dysfunctional family – until they suddenly decide to force him back into the fold.Twenty Twenty SixiPlayer & BBC Two, 8 April, 10pm Ian Fletcher lives! Following stints at the Olympics and the BBC, Hugh Bonneville’s managerial maven pops up again in Miami to take on the role of “director of integrity” at an unnamed international football tournament in John Morton’s ongoing satire of bureaucracy and corporate culture.The Miniature WifeNow & Sky Atlantic, 9 April, 9pm A man invents a device that drastically reduces the size of objects and accidentally turns it on his family.That’s the plot of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids – and also the premise of this new comedy-drama, starring Matthew Macfadyen as the aforementioned scientist and Elizabeth Banks as his newly tiny spouse.

The TestamentsDisney+, 8 April Ann Dowd returns as Aunt Lydia – now the head of a girls’ school in Gilead – in this adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 2019 novel, set 15 years after The Handmaid’s Tale.Her pupils include Agnes (One Battle After Another’s Chase Infiniti), who bonds with new Canadian student Lucy as insubordination brews.RAThe House of HikmahPC, out 8 April This gorgeous narrative adventure, set during the Islamic Golden Age, is in the style of the PlayStation classic Journey and shares its composer, Austin Wintory).Lead character Maya processes the grief of losing her father by exploring a puzzle-filled realm.People of NotePS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, PC; out 7 April Struggling solo artist Cadence travels across urreal musical landscape recruiting members for a new band while battling harmony-hating foes.

An intriguing blend of rhythm action and role-playing adventure.Keith StuartDermot Kennedy – The Weight of the WoodsOut now Irish singer-songwriter Dermot Kennedy returns with his first album in four years.The follow-up to 2019’s Without Fear and 2022’s Sonder, both UK No 1s, it features the arena-ready sad singalong Funeral, and the slowburn Refuge, co-written with Mikky Ekko (Rihanna, Teddy Swims).Thundercat – DistractedOut now Genre-hopping LA musician Stephen Bruner continues to dive headfirst into music’s ballpit on this guest-heavy fifth album.ThunderWave is a blissed-out futuristic R&B duet with Willow, while the funk-laden I Did This to Myself, which features Flying Lotus, shimmies on to the dancefloor.

Arlo Parks – Ambiguous DesireOut now Inspired by nights out at various queer clubs in New York, and the British sounds of acts such as the Streets, the Brit-winning Parks switches things up on this third album,Mixing skittering beats, airy atmospherics and emotional catharsis, Ambiguous Desire feels primed for late-night reflection,Earl Sweatshirt, MIKE, Surf Gang – Pompeii // UtilityOut now After collaborating on one another’s projects for years, rappers Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE, plus rap collective Surf Gang, come together for this 33-track double album,Songs like Minty and Earth mix impressionistic verses and shifting sonic textures that gradually appear from the haze,MCClose ReadingsPodcast This fascinating series (above) from the London Review of Books sees experts unpicking the tropes and texts that exemplify different genres, from Shakespeare’s narrative poetry to Dostoevsky and Flaubert’s realism, through fantasy fiction and beyond.

Learn Ancient GreekYouTube Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies has made this comprehensive 114-part course for learning Ancient Greek available for free on its YouTube channel.Academics Leonard Muellner and Belisi Gillespie cover accents, grammar and extensive vocabulary.Storyville: André Is an IdiotTuesday, 10pm, BBC Four & iPlayerDeeply moving and strangely hilarious, this film follows André Ricciardi’s mission to die on his own terms following a terminal bowel cancer diagnosis.Partly a PSA to encourage colonoscopies it also muses on end-of-life care.Ammar Kalia
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What has conflict in Iran revealed about UK’s geopolitical standing and military readiness?

The world breathed a sigh of relief as the US and Iran agreed at the 11th hour to a two-week ceasefire after a diplomatic intervention from Iran. Hours after Donald Trump had threatened widespread bombing of Iran’s power plants and bridges, warning that “a whole civilisation will die tonight”, both countries agreed to a temporary ceasefire and Iran agreed to a temporary reopening of the strait of Hormuz.For the British government, whatever happens next, the conflict has revealed some important – and sometimes painful – lessons about the UK’s geopolitical standing and military readiness.In his first year as UK prime minister, Keir Starmer worked hard to cultivate a positive relationship with the US president, gaining a reputation as a supposed Trump whisperer. Just over a year ago, Starmer sat side by side with Trump in the Oval Office, gushingly handing over an “unprecedented” second state visit invitation from the king

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Antonia Romeo given powerful mandate to deliver No 10’s priorities

Antonia Romeo, Keir Starmer’s most senior civil servant, has been given a powerful new mandate to deliver his priorities, while Darren Jones, the No 10 chief secretary, has shifted to a role more focused on wider Whitehall reforms.Romeo, who was promoted last month, took over the job of cabinet secretary and head of the civil service after an unsuccessful year in charge by her predecessor, Chris Wormald, who was not considered effective enough by No 10.In contrast, Romeo’s published objectives are full of requirements that she “visibly leads the civil service with clarity, energy and passion” and “champions a culture of curiosity, innovation and pride, recognising high performance and excellence in delivery and innovation”.She has also been handed the task of rewriting the civil service code and “reforming the civil service so that it is recognised for excellence in delivery, innovation and improved productivity”.The shift in Jones’s job was first reported by the Financial Times, which noted that he was spending less time in Downing Street and more time in the Cabinet Office since Romeo took over

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Starmer urged to limit US access to UK bases after ‘dangerous’ Trump threats

Keir Starmer is facing increasing pressure to limit US access to British airbases after Donald Trump threatened “a whole civilisation” would die if Iran ignored his demands, comments that Downing Street has not directly criticised.No 10 has allowed US forces to use UK bases only for defensive missions against Iran, such as targeting missile sites, ruling out involvement in attacks on civilian infrastructure such as power stations, which the US president has threatened.The Liberal Democrats and Greens, as well as some Labour MPs, responded to Trump’s demands that Iran accept his conditions by a Tuesday night deadline by calling for the UK government to take further action.Even Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader and Trump’s closest supporter among the main UK parties, condemned the president’s comments as going “way too far”.Downing Street declined to comment

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UK politics: Farage says Trump’s Iranian ‘civilisation will die’ threats went ‘way too far’– as it happened

Even Nigel Farage now believes that Donald Trump has gone too far. In the past the Reform UK leader has been one of the president’s biggest supporters in the UK. More recently he has started to stress that he does not agree with the president on everything. But at his press conference this morning he was still broadly supportive, arguing that the UK could not defend itself militarily without the US and saying that, if he were PM, he would allow Trump to use British bases to attack Iranian infrastructure – provided Trump could assure him he had a plan for the end game. (See 2

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Can Starmer maintain ‘defensive strikes’ stance as Trump escalates threats on Iran?

In Downing Street, Keir Starmer has been at pains to emphasise that he will only authorise the use of UK bases by the US for “defensive” strikes on Iranian military targets. In the White House, Donald Trump has threatened to bomb civilian infrastructure – and said on Monday that he was “not at all” worried about committing war crimes.So far in the war, Starmer’s position has allowed him to present the UK as a responsible actor concerned for regional security – but not a direct participant in the conflict on the US side.But while that has incurred Trump’s displeasure, it has also drawn questions about whether it is legally plausible to neatly divide defensive and offensive operations – and if US attacks do begin against targets such as bridges and power plants, scrutiny of the British position will intensify even if those attacks are not launched from UK bases.When it set out its stance on “defensive” strikes, the government took the unusual step of releasing a summary of its legal position: that it was acting “in the collective self-defence of regional allies who have requested support”

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Reform cold calling public in bid to find ‘paper’ candidates for local elections

Reform UK has been cold calling people asking them to become “paper” candidates for the party at the local elections, as parties dash to sign up enough names before Thursday’s deadline.Nigel Farage’s party has been ringing members of the public asking them to stand despite apparently knowing very little about them except that they have signed up for Reform’s email updates.Those who have been asked to stand include members of other parties and even a Guardian journalist, who was asked in a call last week: “Will you come in to become a paper candidate today and help us to win the election?” The caller added: “Just have your name on the ballot and maybe you will actually win the election.”Prospective paper candidates are told they would not need to do anything apart from provide their name and address. They are then asked if they are bankrupt and if they have any criminal convictions, before being offered a candidate application pack