British ballet is making a habit of mysterious departures. A month after rising star Sergei Polunin shocked the Royal Ballet by exiting stage left, for reasons that remain best known to himself, it emerged that the artistic director of the English National Ballet (ENB) is also set to leave, without giving any indication why.

Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes are renovating a gothic mansion when Pearce's young daughter spots the scuttling goblins which live in the basement.

Bailee Madison's Sally, a gloomy, medicated and inquisitive eight-year-old, has been sent to live with her architect father, Alex (Guy Pearce), and his new partner, Kim (Katie Holmes), at spooky Blackwood Manor.

After eight years, Hugh Laurie calls time on the most popular television doctor in the world. Nick Clark reports.

After eight years of diagnosing some of the world's rarest diseases, Hugh Laurie is to hang up his stethoscope. The current season of House will be his last, the producers have revealed.

The former police chief of a major Chinese city has disappeared from sight amid rumours he is seeking US asylum following a quarrel with one of China's most powerful local politicians.

Someone call Louise Mensch. Top Totty has been banned from Parliament. "Disturbing" (Equality for Shadows Minister Kate Green) and "Outrageous" (full-time tweeter Sally Bercow) were among the measured reactions to the sale of a bawdily named guest beer in the Strangers Bar at Westminster. It was the "picture of a nearly naked woman on the tap" that so moved Ms Green to raise the matter in the Mother (outrageous!) of all parliaments. "I would very much regret it if any offensive pictures were on display in any part of the House," remarked Leader of the House Sir George Young. The beer – hoppy, with an initial burst of bitterness – is no longer on sale.

Stunning underdog win in South Carolina puts Romney's supremacy in doubt

Katy Perry has won the most People's Choice Awards at the 38th annual fan-favourite extravaganza, but viewers would not have known it from watching the ceremony.

Christmas TV review

A quarter of a century after he thrilled Britain and Ireland by winning the world title, the Clones Cyclone opens up on the peace process and why he had to carry a gun. Alan Hubbard meets Barry McGuigan

Out of the hell's kitchen of the credit crunch, one cri de coeur haunts me still. A correspondent asked me why his bank had gone out and lent his money rather than keeping it safe and sitting on it.

Easily angered chef Marco Pierre White is a compelling televisual presence, so anyone who saw him fire John McCririck from Hell's Kitchen (for criticising his food) will be disappointed to learn that he's just turned down the chance to make a prime-time cooking programme for the BBC – as well as an equally lucrative project for a Canadian broadcaster.