"Our worst gig since Sidcup crematorium," is how Andy Serkis's Ian Dury attempts to warm up a particularly patchy crowd.

My parents were ... immigrants. My mum's from Jamaica, my dad's from Trinidad; they both moved here when very young. My mum's now a writer and my dad's a fashion designer.

Ian Dury, who died 10 years ago, is here awarded the rock-biopic treatment, though whether it burnishes his legend or bruises it must be in doubt.

As a new film reminds us, he was a polio survivor from the suburbs and not much of a musician.

'A Hard Day's Night', 'Control', 'This Is Spinal Tap' and beyond...

Richard Lambert, the director-general of the CBI, tells Sean O'Grady what business wants from the politicians

Since Kevin Costner rescued her acting career, Olivia Williams has adopted a unique approach to her craft. And with a Polanski film in the can, a leading role in Joss 'Buffy' Whedon's new TV series and a winning turn in 'An Education', it seems to be paying dividends

Tales of the City

'Heroin addicts, ex-cons, married men...' Amy Rigby has always based her darkly funny tales of love-gone-wrong on her own life. So how did the 'greatest modern songwriter you've never heard of' find herself living in the middle of nowhere with a former punk-rocker called Wreckless Eric?

A row broke out today over disgraced Chris Langham's involvement in a West End musical, as the producer insisted there was nothing "secretive" about it.

Rather than giving in to dolefulness — the default mode of poetry past and present — Kathryn Simmonds opts for ebullience and optimism. Borrowing from Ian Dury, she lists "Reasons to Be Cheerful" in a piece entitled "Against Melancholy". Her poems are engaging, witty ideas skilfully executed in a range of forms and she has a good eye, seeing varnished floorboards split water into glassy baubles, or noticing that taxi drivers' right arms are browner than their left.

'Arrogance is no good in the music industry'

The south London band tell Chris Mugan why their home area is so important to them