‘A lot of comedians don’t have a sense of humour’: Jack Dee on his loser Lead Balloon creation Rick Spleen

‘Rick’s basically a what-if version of me. Had I not found success, that’s how I would have been – deluding myself into thinking success will come, or believing it’s not my fault that it hasn’t’I was doing a lot of standup, working with other comedy writers. I was interested in the relationship between writer and performer. I wondered: “What if the writer is funnier than the performer?” I approached Pete Sinclair, who I’d written with for a long time, and said: “What do you reckon?” BBC4 commissioned a pilot.We developed the world of Rick Spleen and his relationship with his writer and the public

Jack White: ‘I’m not going to put a painful thing out there for some idiot on the internet to stomp all over’

As a new book of his lyrics, poems and selected musings is published, the White Stripes’ singer, songwriter and general guitar hero reflects on poetry, politics and why writing a song is like reupholstering a chairOn the jacket of Jack White: Collected Lyrics & Selected Writing Volume 1, the  poet and critic Hanif Abdurraqib writes: “I wish I read more people who talked about Jack White as a writer of lyrics.” He makes a good point. White is celebrated as a singer, guitarist, producer and generator of indelible riffs but not so much as a wordsmith. His new book, edited by official archivist Ben Blackwell, sets the record straight. Following 2023’s The White Stripes Complete Lyrics 1997-2007, it covers every song White has written outside that band, along with several poems, Instagram ruminations and scans from his notebooks

‘Kitty karma’? Jessie Buckley tries to claw back approval after enraging cat-lovers

If Jessie Buckley fails to win the Oscar for best actress next week it will be a sign that cat lovers have got their claws out.The Irish actor is the runaway favourite for her performance in Hamnet, but in recent days has stumbled into a controversy over a stated antipathy to cats.She has said she once gave her husband an ultimatum to banish his two cats because they would defecate on pillows, telling a podcast: “I was like, ‘it’s me or the cats.’”Cat-lovers have responded with indignation and condemnation, sparking a wave of headlines and warnings that “kitty karma” could deny Buckley, 36, her first Academy award.She attempted to repair the damage on Jimmy Fallon’s chatshow on Thursday, saying it was a “misconception” that she loathed cats

The Guide #233: From Wonder Man to Girl Taken, here’s one thing to watch on every streamer

Streaming services: there’s a lot of them (with yet another, HBO Max, on the way later this month) and everyone seems to be signed up to different ones, making recommendations a challenge. Step forward the Guide’s fourth edition of A Show for Every Streamer (previous versions can be seen here, here and here), which does exactly as it describes. As is tradition, we’ve tried to avoid series that everyone has been nattering about (unlucky, Heated Rivalry), and instead spotlight less heralded, more surprising picks, starting with …Apple TV | Drops of God … a Japanese-American-French drama about warring wine experts, of course. A curious one, though it does fit in with Apple’s penchant for high-end subject matter. After a first series that saw the daughter of a deceased French wine expert face off against his Japanese mentee for ownership of his multimillion-dollar wine collection, season two – which arrived in January – sees the two team up to investigate the mysterious origins of a bottle of red from dad’s collection

My cultural awakening: a Rihanna song showed me how to live as a gay man in Iran

My sexuality had to be hidden from my friends, my parents, not to mention the authorities. Then I found freedom at house parties and one song that sums up me finally being able to be myselfI was raised in Tehran, under the Ayatollah’s sharia law and daily watch of Basij – the “morality police”. My parents fell in love with the Islamic Revolution when I was a baby and welcomed life under its strict religious rules. The Ayatollah’s face stared down from the walls at home, a daily reminder of what was expected and what was forbidden. This included being gay, but by my teenage years I knew I was different from my peers, and began hiding my sexuality from my parents and the world outside

From The Bride! to Harry Styles: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

Maggie Gyllenhaal gives us a new take on The Bride of Frankenstein, and the stadium-conquering pop prince is back with a new albumThe Bride!Out now Maggie Gyllenhaal directs this Chicago-set gothic romance starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale. Per James Whale’s 1935 classic Bride of Frankenstein, on which it is loosely based, a lonely monster wants a mate and taps up a scientist, Dr Euphronious (Annette Bening), to create her.Peaky Blinders: The Immortal ManOut now As The Rachel was to women who watched Friends in the 90s, so the Peaky Blinders mop chop was to male fans. Will the return of the Birmingham gang drama in feature film form prompt another wave of ill-advised dos? Only time will tell. Just remember, Cillian Murphy looking amazing with that haircut doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for absolutely everyone