McCutcheon: Penned one ageless satire

Whimsy is hard to pull off. In the wrong hands it becomes fey and cloying. When it's done well it can create a loyal, lasting audience, as Terry Pratchett will tell you.

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Taylor Swift performing with Ed Sheeran at the Capital FM Summertime Ball 2013

Never ever getting together? Ed Sheeran joins Taylor Swift for surprise duet at Wembley

Taylor Swift, it seems, has something of a soft spot for British men.

Helen Hunt with John Hawkes in The Sessions

DVD & Blu-ray review: The Sessions (15)

Ben Lewin (95mins)

Hippie days: India Salvor Menuez (centre) in ‘Something in the Air’

Is online dating the solution to lonely hearts?

No matter what our age, background or relationship status, we’re all connected by one common theme – our quest to find love.

Daniel Kitson

Comedy review: Daniel Kitson: After The Beginning, Before The End Theatre Royal Brighton Festival

Daniel Kitson’s new show is a reflection on reality, memory and our sense of self. Hardly wall-to-wall giggles, you might think, but this publicity-shy, TV-shunning, Perrier Award-winning comic’s talent lies in burrowing into the human psyche and dispensing profound nuggets through tales in which, more often than not, he is the hapless protagonist. After The Beginning, Before The End is like a TED talk with added LOLs.

Album: Ketil Bjornstad, La Notte (ECM)

A tribute by the Norwegian pianist to filmmaker and "formative influence" Michelangelo Antonioni, recorded live at a 2010 jazz festival with an impressive ensemble.

Storm in a teacup: The Flying Dutchman

Classical review: The Flying Dutchman - Love among the sewing machines and sarnies

A perpetual voyager is saved by selflessness and a terrific chorus

Protesters at Aintree

The Calvin Report: Race of Death lives to fight another day

Organisers breathe a sigh as Health and Safety wins the 4.15 at Aintree

Paolo Di Canio gestures towards fans during his time at Lazio

James Lawton: Paolo Di Canio's appointment at Sunderland makes us ask what football clubs really mean to us

Is a club supposed to reflect some of the deepest values of the community?

Jonathan Slinger (Hamlet)

Hamlet, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon

David Farr's new take on Hamlet takes place in what looks like the fencing gym of a run-down public school.

Paperback review: In One Person, By John Irving

We are formed by what we desire,” declares Bill Abbott, the bisexual narrator of John Irving’s thirteenth novel.

Anna Prohaska, Enchanted Forest (Deutsche Grammophon)

Album review: Anna Prohaska, Enchanted Forest (Deutsche Grammophon)

Sensitively accompanied by Jonathan Cohen's ensemble Arcangelo, soprano Anna Prohaska here offers a selection of baroque arias based on the supernatural – a mythopoeic world of nymphs, fairies, gods and sorcerors.

Nicholas Hoult in Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies: Not all zombies love eating human flesh

With zombie fiction trending so heavily, you could be forgiven for thinking that this fascination with the undead, much like the vampire before it, may be in danger of being done to, well, death. For where else is there to go? The answer, perhaps, lies no longer in aiming for the head, but getting inside it. Or at least that's what Jonathan Levine's new zom-rom-com, Warm Bodies, suggests. A film that is leading the pack in telling us that zombies are people too.

Album review: Josh Groban, All That Echoes (Reprise)

The Groban Phenomenon seems unstoppable – All That Echoes crashed into the American charts at No 1, and will likely follow suit here too – though for all his personable self-deprecation, the blend of operatic pop on which his reputation is built seems strangely thin and insipid.

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Special report: How my father's face turned up in Robert Capa's lost suitcase

Special report: How my father's face turned up in Robert Capa's lost suitcase

The great war photographer was not one person but two. Their pictures of Spain's civil war, lost for decades, tell a heroic tale
The unmade speech: An alternative draft of history

The unmade speech: An alternative draft of history

Someone, somewhere has to write speeches for world leaders to deliver in the event of disaster. They offer a chilling hint at what could have been
Funny business: Meet the women running comedy

Funny business: Meet the women running comedy

Think comedy’s a man's world? You must be stuck in the 1980s, says Holly Williams
Wilko Johnson: 'You have to live for the minute you're in'

Wilko Johnson: 'You have to live for the minute you're in'

The Dr Feelgood guitarist talks frankly about his terminal illness
Lure of the jingle: Entrepreneurs are giving vintage ice-cream vans a new lease of life

Lure of the jingle

Entrepreneurs are giving vintage ice-cream vans a new lease of life
Who stole the people's own culture?

DJ Taylor: Who stole the people's own culture?

True popular art drives up from the streets, but the commercial world wastes no time in cashing in
Guest List: The IoS Literary Editor suggests some books for your summer holiday

Guest List: IoS Literary Editor suggests some books for your summer holiday

Before you stuff your luggage with this year's Man Booker longlist titles, the case for some varied poolside reading alternatives
What if Edward Snowden had stayed to fight his corner?

Rupert Cornwell: What if Edward Snowden had stayed to fight his corner?

The CIA whistleblower struck a blow for us all, but his 1970s predecessor showed how to win
'A man walks into a bar': Comedian Seann Walsh on the dangers of mixing alcohol and stand-up

Comedian Seann Walsh on alcohol and stand-up

Comedy and booze go together, says Walsh. The trouble is stopping at just the one. So when do the hangovers stop being funny?
From Edinburgh to Hollywood (via the Home Counties): 10 comedic talents blowing up big

Edinburgh to Hollywood: 10 comedic talents blowing up big

Hugh Montgomery profiles the faces to watch, from the sitcom star to the surrealist
'Hello. I have cancer': When comedian Tig Notaro discovered she had a tumour she decided the show must go on

Comedian Tig Notaro: 'Hello. I have cancer'

When Notaro discovered she had a tumour she decided the show must go on
They think it's all ova: Bill Granger's Asia-influenced egg recipes

Bill Granger's Asia-influenced egg recipes

Our chef made his name cooking eggs, but he’s never stopped looking for new ways to serve them
The world wakes up to golf's female big hitters

The world wakes up to golf's female big hitters

With its own Tiger Woods - South Korea's Inbee Park - the women's game has a growing audience
10 athletes ready to take the world by storm in Moscow next week

10 athletes ready to take the world by storm in Moscow next week

Here are the potential stars of the World Championships which begin on Saturday
The Last Word: Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale's art of manipulation

The Last Word: Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale's art of manipulation

Briefings are off the record leading to transfer speculation which is merely a means to an end