Angry Coronation Street fans who were left fuming when Curly Watts was head-butted by Les Battersby have had their complaints rejected by a television watchdog.

"Wayne was what he was paid to be - a legend - and that's good enough for me," says John, an ex-copper whose drab existence on an imploding housing estate in the west of Scotland is spiced up by watching TV westerns, dressing up like his cowboy heroes for line-dancing sessions - and partaking in a spot of vigilantism.

Deaf to reason

Thirty years ago, homosexuality could put you in jail.

Voices from Theresienstadt New End Theatre, Hampstead

In the Harlem ghetto of 1950s New York, the true source of misery is the dollar, not the Devil. The Amen Corner is an excoriating attack on the analgesic of religion, pounding home the message that "all we done to be cursed is be poor". It's not your sins that kill your babies and your loved ones, nor lack of piety that stops you from putting bread on the table - it's poverty. But religion looms large over the lives of Sister Margaret's congregation, and in Paulette Randall's production, the shabby mission hall squats over the sketchily outlined living quarters, filling with an ebb and flow of worshippers whose eruptions into rapturous song lend a background soundtrack to the action.

Success went to Mathieu Kassovitz's head with his directorial debut, `La Haine'. Now, his ego firmly in check, he talks to Ryan Gilbey about honesty, the Resistance and media hypocrisy

On a low income, saving money is a struggle, which is not made easier by the types of products available. Nic Cicutti examines the Consumer Council's call for changes

Help mentally ill out of ghetto

THE NATURE OF BLOOD by Caryl Phillips, Faber pounds 15.99

A Major new exhibition about modern London has rejected the bobbies- and-beefeaters image beloved by tourist boards and foreign visitors, and portrays the city instead through the eyes of squatters, demonstrators and tower-block dwellers.

Sir: Did it not occur to you that the apparent decline in attendance at Catholic Mass is because of, rather than in spite of, the conversion of the likes of Gummer, Widdecombe, Moore and Johnson?

Anti-Gay is a bracing collection of essays from various non-heterosexual pens asking what the term "Gay" means, and, furthermore, whether Gay is always automatically Good, as ideological c(h)ant insists.

THE CONTROVERSY OF ZION by Geoffrey Wheatcroft Sinclair-Stevenson pounds 17.99