News

It takes many people to fill Richard Osman’s shoes, and not just because he wears a size 14. Back in April 2021, the TV presenter, producer and novelist announced that he was leaving his co-presenter role on Pointless to focus on his hugely successful Thursday Murder Club book series and other projects. Due to the ‘stars we see in the night sky are actually hundreds of years in the past’ nature of TV broadcast, by that point, Osman was already four months out of the job. His final episode of the regular Pointless (he’ll still appear on the celebrity editions) was filmed in December 2021 and aired in July 2022, with this touching message to Alexander Armstrong.

When Pointless returned for Series 28 in September 2022, it came with a rotating clutch of new guest-hosts sitting behind Osman’s fact-checking desk. First up was Sally Lindsay, and following her were Stephen Mangan, Lauren Laverne,...

They aren’t sprinting through a narrow street, laughing and tumbling over one another as they’re trailed by what appear to be hundreds of rabid teenyboppers. Nor are they charming Ed Sullivan and the American press corps, or comically falling down together in the snow while locked arm in arm, or walking to the armored car that will take them out of Candlestick Park after their last public performance – we’re way past all of that now. And they aren’t bickering in a studio or playing the single...

Prolific television and film director whose output included the internationally successful 1983 drama Kennedy

Jim Goddard, who has died aged 77, was among the most prolific and distinguished television drama directors of his generation. Bleak and violent atmosphere and vivid characterisation were the hallmarks of his more than 200 distinctive works over the course of four decades. His Kennedy (1983) was shown simultaneously on Us network television, in the UK and Germany, and achieved the highest recorded viewing figures to that date for a televised drama.

Goddard's work included the 13-part drama Fox (1980), Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983) and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1982), the early Channel 4 version of the RSC production. The power and visual immediacy of his directorial style owed as much to arthouse film as it did to his abilities as a painter. Indeed, he never forsook painting, which he studied at the Slade in London, or his love of set design,...

A Fake Moon rises over Bristol at the Ibt festival, Philip Pullman's I Was a Rat! scurries into Birmingham, and James McAvoy tackles the Scottish play in London

North

The big opening this week is Roger McGough's new version of Molière's The Misanthrope at Liverpool Playhouse, which should be fun. Theatre meets music gigs in 154 Collective's Dancing With the Orange Dog, which is at Stockton Arts Centre on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Hairspray is out on tour again and is at the Lowry in Salford. In Manchester, meanwhile, Queer Contact celebrates the best in Lgbt art and culture this weekend. The moving first-world-war drama, The Accrington Pals, continues at the Exchange. David Copperfield begins at the Oldham Coliseum tonight. This looks intriguing: at Haphazard at Z-arts on Saturday is Word of Warning's day of live art for all ages. The Edinburgh hit, Unmythable – all the Greek myths in 70 minutes...

From a full programme of film and stage adaptations to a new James Bond novel, unpublished works by Rs Thomas and Wg Sebald and a new prize for women writers, 2013 is set to be a real page-turner

January

10th The Oscar nominations are announced unusually early this year. Keep an eye out for a bumper crop of literary adaptations, including David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, the David Nicholls-scripted Great Expectations, as well as Les Miserables, Anna Karenina and The Hobbit.

18th A new stage adaptation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw at the Almeida theatre in London. In the year of the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth, his musical version will also feature around the country in both concert and stage performances.

24th The finalists for the fifth Man Booker International prize will be announced at the Jaipur festival.

The Observer's critics pick the season's highlights, from the Misanthrope to Johnny Marr, Lulu to Lichtenstein, H7steria to Hitchcock. What are you most looking forward to? Add your comments below and download a pdf of the calendar here

December | January | FebruaryDecember

1 Film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (3D)

Well, not so very unexpected. Every move has been tracked by fanboys, from the casting of Martin Freeman as Bilbo and Benedict Cumberbatch as the dragon Smaug to the return of the king, Peter Jackson, to take over directing from Guillermo del Toro. But Middle-earth (or, as it's sometimes known, New Zealand) is back for the next three Christmases.

3 Pop Scott Walker

The avant-garde Walker Brother returns with his first album since 2006's The Drift. Not for the faint-hearted, Bish Bosch finds the former romantic hero deep in dystopian territory, at once sonorous and rigorous.

3 Classical H7steria

World premiere of...

Shrek, Futurama, and Marge and Homer would not have come into being without the Beatles' subversive masterpiece, says Simpsons writer Josh Weinstein

Going to see Yellow Submarine is my first memory ever. And it's a doozy. A world-shaking, world-shaping event. It was the early 1970s and I was taken to see the movie on a big screen. It blew my young, impressionable six-year-old mind and I'm pretty sure it's what sent me on a career path in animation. I'm just glad my parents took me to see that and not A Clockwork Orange.

There have been some excellent books about the making of the film (I highly recommend Inside the Yellow Submarine by Dr Robert Hieronimus), so rather than blab on about the back story, I would rather talk about what happened after the yellow sub surfaced in 1968 and shot its torpedoes through traditional animation. Because in my opinion, Yellow Submarine...

This November, a series of events are planned to celebrate its 100 year history

The Liverpool Playhouse Theatre, home to one of the oldest repertory companies, will celebrate its centenary later this year with a special gala performance of The Ladykillers.

A new book on the Williamson Square landmark and a series of events will also mark the 100th anniversary on November 11.

The gala evening will include a pre-show champagne reception and a chance to join the cast – which includes Peter Capaldi, James Fleet and Ben Miller – after the show to toast the theatre as a special birthday cake is cut.

The Ladykillers adapted for stage by Graham Linehan is on from November 3-19, but is sold out already.

Meanwhile, the cast of Roger McGough's adaptation of Moliere's play, Tartuffe, have been entertaining audiences at the Playhouse. Tartuffe runs until Saturday.

The Playhouse is also launching a book to...

Ray Davies has unveiled the lineup of this year's Meltdown festival. As previously announced, the ex-Kinks man is curating this year's event, which takes place at several venues at London's Southbank Centre from June 10 to June 19. Davies himself will open the event with his band at the Royal Festival Hall and close proceedings with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Crouch End Festival Chorus at the same venue on the final day. Tickets go on sale to Southbank Centre Members on March 29 at 10am and are available on general release from March 31 at 10am. The full lineup is as follows:

June 10 - Ray Davies & Band, Royal Festival HallJune 10 - The Crazy World of Arthur Brown & The Legendary Pink Dots, Queen Elizabeth HallJune 10 - Roger McGough & special guests, Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth HallJune 11- The Fugs, Queen Elizabeth HallJune (more)...