Should you swap your coat for a cape, this season's statement outerwear? Yes, says Rhiannon Harries, while Carola Long gives the trend the cold shoulder

Being a child of a rock legend brings kudos, travel and famous friends – but fatherly wisdom and bedtime stories are rarely part of the deal. Rob Sharp reports

Looking like a nightclub bouncer, Plan B relives the adventures of his Chandleresque alter ego to a Motown backbeat

Music: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 'Dig, Lazurus, Dig!!!', Edith Piaf "La Vie en Rose", Billie Holiday "Lady Sings the Blues", Lavern Baker "Voodoo Voodoo", Wynonie Harris 'Greatest Hits', Rufus Wainwright 'Want Two', and Erykah Badu 'Mama's Gun'.

Memories of a mother loved and lost

Before Rufus Wainwright came on stage to perform the songs from his new album at Sadler's Wells this week, an official asked the audience to be careful about applauding. More precisely, he requested the audience not to applaud the separate numbers and to hold back until the very end "as the exit is part of the performance".

The singer Rufus Wainwright wore a tartan suit designed by Jonathan Anderson to the after party for the London premiere of his debut opera, Prima Donna, saying that it was his own tribute to the late Malcolm McLaren.

At the start of the second half of this extraordinary concert, Rufus Wainwright laughingly confessed that he had been "shitting bricks" over his performance in the first half. No wonder. Before the interval he had treated us to a stunning rendition of his new album, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, presented as a kind of Beckettian monodrama. An official had requested that we did not applaud the separate numbers, that we should hold back until the very end "as the exit is part of the performance". So was the entrance, and then some.

Camp confection fails to convince

Rufus Wainwright is the past master of “operatic pop”. He writes wonderful and original songs – witty, ironic, insidiously memorable.

Back with an album, a tour and an opera, the Canadian singer reveals how a series of births and deaths forced him to grow up

The pleasure of Rufus lies in the balance he strikes between complex texture and warm gush.

Philip Pullman's new novel is the latest creation to court controversy over its depiction of Jesus. Paul Taylor looks at how the artists, from Martin Scorsese to Rufus Wainwright via Monty Python, deal with the subject