Eric Cantona and Ella Toone help meld football and art for Manchester festival

“Everybody needs his own ritual or way of preparing,” says the former Dutch footballer Edgar Davids. “Those minutes that you’re in the tunnel is where we’re going to start.”Davids is talking about a piece he has worked on alongside the artist Paul Pfeiffer in which the pair recreate the tension of the tunnel before a big game.The work will serve as the passageway into the “set piece” of this year’s Manchester international festival – Football City, Art United – where the beautiful game is moving off the pitch and into the artist’s studio.“It’s now more important than ever to bring things together,” says Hans Ulrich Obrist, who has co-curated the exhibition alongside Josh Willdigg and the former Manchester United midfielder Juan Mata

At a festival, are you Elinor or Marianne? | Brief letters

Your articles presented two entertaining but very different approaches to kitting yourself out for a music festival (‘A godsend at 5am’, 12 June; Field the love, 13 June). One was all boots and head torches, the other pretty dresses and earrings. How appropriate, in this Jane Austen anniversary year, to see the contrasting demands of Sense and Sensibility so clearly set out.Mary RooksLeicester Adrian Chiles’ piece (Who could deny a hot, tired delivery driver the fruit from their cherry tree?, 12 June) reminded me of a tree we had at the front edge of our garden by the pavement. When its luscious red fruits were ripe, we’d often see someone pluck a handful, only to spit them out a moment later

‘A giant parenting group’: how online comedians are making a living by laughing about the chaos of kids

Many Instagram-frequenting parents of small children will have seen George Lewis’s sketch about two toddlers discussing their feelings of abandonment and relief wrapped in a game of peekaboo.“It was a normal day, I was just playing with Dad. And then he put his hands in front of his face and he was just gone,” the British comedian and father says in the widely shared video. “He was behaving so erratically.”Life through a two-year-old’s lens – especially in relation to their sleep-deprived parents – is fertile ground for a growing group of online parent comedians whose content is clocking up millions of views

Speaking out on Gaza: Australian creatives and arts organisations struggle to reconcile competing pressures

As cultural institutions respond to political statements on the war, many artists say they face a choice between career opportunities and standing up for their beliefsGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailWhen Michelle de Kretser accepted the 2025 Stella prize on 23 May, the celebrated author shared a warning.“All the time I was writing these words, a voice in my head whispered, ‘You will be punished. You will be smeared with labels as potent and ugly as they’re false,’” De Kretser told the Sydney writers’ festival crowd. “‘Career own goal,’ warned the voice.”Earlier in her prerecorded speech, De Kretser had denounced what she called a “program of suppression” against creatives, scholars and journalists for “expressing anti-genocide views” in relation to Israel and Gaza

Adam Hills: ‘I knew I should have gone to the King’s birthday but I really wanted to go to rugby training’

Is it true that you turned down an invite to King Charles’s 70th birthday so you could go to rugby training?Yes, that’s 100% true. To be honest, I knew I should have gone to the birthday but I really wanted to go to rugby training. This is ridiculous, but I’d been to Buckingham Palace a couple of times before and I’m at a stage in my life where I thought: “Actually, I’d much rather go to rugby training.” I had started playing disability rugby league and I became quite addicted to it. Training was my favourite part, just hanging out with a bunch of mates playing footy

Andrew Lloyd Webber is ‘hot again’ –with help from new kids on musicals block

When Andrew Lloyd Webber walked on stage to collect the Tony award for best musical revival for Sunset Boulevard, it was the first time in 30 years he had been recognised by the American Theatre Wing.The Jamie Lloyd-directed revival was the star of the show at American theatre’s big night last Sunday with its three wins signifying a return to prominence for the veteran composer.But this wasn’t just about one hit show starring a former Pussycat Doll.Look around theatreland on either side of the Atlantic and Lord Lloyd-Webber’s fingerprints are everywhere: a successful revival of Starlight Express (in the unlikely environs of Wembley); a forthcoming outing for Jesus Christ Superstar; Jamie Lloyd is directing Evita (starring Rachel Zegler) in London, there is a new musical called The Illusionist in the works, and cryptic messages announcing the return of Phantom of the Opera have sprung up around New York.Arguably, we have reached peak Lloyd Webber five decades after his work was first performed on stage