Apollo; Menier Chocolate Factory, London
Ivanno Jeremiah rivets as Sidney Poitier in Ryan Calais Cameron’s electrifying McCarthy-era three-hander. Plus, a strenuously madcap vampire spoof

The phrase “person of consequence” might have been coined for Sidney Poitier. The pioneering black American actor was not only possessed of huge talent, but of immense dignity and deep convictions, active in the civil rights movement and, later, in efforts to hand more power to artists in Hollywood. He was remembered on his death in 2022 , aged 94, as a person of unassailable decency and integrity.

That decency and integrity is vigorously assailed in Ryan Calais Cameron ’s electric three-hander Retrograde , set in real time in a stuffy NBC lawyer’s office on a sticky LA afternoon in 1955 – the height of the McCarthy era.

Deleting stories of Iwo Jima and other diverse US military heroism backfired. For subtle discussion of diversity, equity and inclusion, talk to Lorraine Kelly

In the second world war, Navajo code talkers transmitted sensitive US military information in their own undocumented language. Which was nice of them, as their immediate ancestors had been dispossessed and destroyed by white settlers, and then had all their water poisoned with uranium . “Were it not for the Navajos,” concluded major Howard Connor, at the time, “the marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.” And that famous photo of the American soldiers raising a flag would just have shown some Japanese boy scouts letting off a party popper.

But last month Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said: “I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength’.” Predictably, some Navajo code talkers had to have bodyguards to protect them from white American servicemen who thought they were Japanese. Plus ça change, as they say over there in that Europe.

Three characters stuck in the past are given access to the future in the former Observer/Faber prize winner’s mordant and misanthropic sci-fi graphic novel

People who enjoy science fiction love to imagine the future: time travel, spaceships, something wobbly with a green face. But what if those fans really had access to it – the future, I mean – courtesy of something very similar to the internet? This is the possibility Paul B Rainey floats in There’s No Time Like the Present , in which a crowd of misfits from Milton Keynes (once the future itself) are able, if not to visit Mars, then at least to watch episodes of Doctor Who that have not yet been screened.

Mordant and misanthropic in almost equal measure, Rainey’s book has three central characters, each one somewhat stuck, unable fully to escape their childhood. Barry, an obnoxious lazybones, still lives at home with his parents; he makes his living selling bootleg recordings of TV shows he has lifted from the “ultranet”, which provides entry to the future. Cliff, Barry’s friend, and a yoghurt-addicted woman called Kelly live together in her new house, but they’re not a couple; while he secretly pines for her, he’s only her tenant. In the evenings, they watch, with varying degrees of guilt, future episodes of their favourite series ( Doctor Who in his case, Emmerdale in hers): tapes pressed on them by the grisly Barry.

There’s No Time Like the Present by Paul B Rainey is published by Drawn & Quarterly (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply

Sadler’s Wells; Linbury theatre, Royal Opera House, London
Lyon Opera Ballet perform alongside digital forms to the music of Gavin Bryars in a Merce Cunningham double bill. Plus, a new twist on Giselle

The American choreographer Merce Cunningham loved birds. He painted pictures of them every morning. In Tacita Dean’s evocative film of him at work, made in 2008, the year before his death, birds fly in and out of the frame outside the windows of the Craneway Pavilion in California where he’s rehearsing, their jerky pecks, stalks and poses reflecting the dancers’ movements within.

It’s impossible to watch Beach Birds , created in 1991, without thinking of that film. In this revealing revival, the dancers of Lyon Opera Ballet balance against a pink dawn, slightly swaying as their arms open and curve in clean, slow strokes. The light, randomly programmed, shifts through bright changes to dusk-like orange as the work progresses and the dancers move, never quite in unison, each in their own world, creating sculptural shapes. John Cage’s score eddies around them, full of the rush of a rainstick, of sea sounds.

The venerable magazine is thriving and its long-time editor David Remnick tells us why a dedication to literate, conversation-provoking and veracious reportage has never been more vital

Last month the New Yorker celebrated its 100th anniversary. It’s an impressive achievement because the magazine is the bumblebee of publishing: it flies in the face of prevailing wisdom. Just as the bee’s wingspan was once thought to be too small to keep it airborne, so does our smartphone-blitzed attention span appear too short for what the magazine offers.

Everything about the 10,000-word pieces, learned criticism and meticulous accuracy on which the weekly has built its reputation seems anachronistically at odds with the age of TikTok and X, influencers and instant opinion.

Uzo Aduba turns Poirot-esque super sleuth in a juicy White House murder mystery; it’s stony faces all round for Bob Mortimer, Daisy May Cooper and co; and where next after a breathless Severance season finale?

The Residence (Netflix)
Last One Laughing (Amazon Prime)
Severance (Apple TV+)

A terrible thing has happened in the White House. This isn’t real life, thank God. This is a delicious, funny fantasy.

The broadcaster on a new documentary about how music helped her recover from a catastrophic haemorrhage, having a tricky name, and why ‘Arsène knows’ would be her dream tattoo

Clemency Burton-Hill, 43, was born in Hammersmith, London, and brought up by her mother, casting director Gillian Hawser, alongside her two older half-brothers. She has performed internationally as a violinist, acted, written five books, worked as an arts journalist, and been a regular BBC classical music presenter and broadcaster since 2008. In January 2020, she suffered a brain haemorrhage caused by an abnormal connection between arteries and veins in the brain. A new BBC Arena film, My Brain: After the Rupture , about the experience and her recovery and aphasia, will be shown this Friday. She lives in Washington DC with her husband, James Roscoe, and sons Tomos and Joe.

My Brain: After the Rupture is an astonishingly honest film about your brain injury. How would you describe it?
The reason it exists isn’t because I suddenly thought I’d like to have a documentary about my absolute fucking nightmare. Sorry! I do swear these days. At no point have I been one of those people who feels as if I hold any interest. But as a journalist and a broadcaster who had lost all my ability to speak and to write, I did realise that I had this unbelievable privilege to tell this story.

In what sense?
Unlike most brain injury survivors, I had a platform, or knew how to get the wheels turning, in terms of telling people how something like this could happen. I also had this very strong sense of wanting to do something useful for the community of people who have had brain injuries, especially as we still don’t know what is going to happen to me ultimately, or anyone else.

This documentary gets incredibly raw and personal at times. Was it important to you to show the toughest moments?
It felt really important that none of this was sugar-coated. Yes, what happened to me was extraordinarily rare and random and weird and wild, and here’s where all the platitudes and cliches come out, but we just don’t know how long we’ve got. We don’t know what is going to happen in five years or five minutes.

But there is hope in your film, too, especially when you start playing your violin again.
Yes, we didn’t make a film to make people depressed. I didn’t want people to think, oh God, I’m going to have a brain injury [too], so I’m going to go away and just watch kittens on the internet instead!

Coldplay, Harry Styles and Stormzy also join the Suffolk songwriter in campaigning for music funding in schools

Elton John, Coldplay, Harry Styles, Stormzy and Central Cee are among the artists backing a call from Ed Sheeran for Keir Starmer to commit £250m of funding for music education.

As part of his newly launched Ed Sheeran Foundation, the Suffolk songwriter is campaigning for music funding in schools, training for music teachers, funding for grassroots venues and spaces, apprenticeships in music and a more diverse music curriculum.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two), Edinburgh
Words and ideas are as one – and at war – in Finlay’s witty, elegant work, from sculptures to screenprints, which are ideally displayed in this intimate centenary show

S tar/Steer is a masterpiece from 1968 by the Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006). What you see can be simply described. The word “star” appears a dozen times, screenprinted in silver on deep grey. They graduate down the page in a swaying column. Right at the bottom is a 13th word, “steer”, as if tethering – or guided by – all these descending stars.

Each star is like an instance of itself, glimmering out of a fog, and the winding pattern irresistibly evokes starlight on rippling water. You look up to the stars, and down to the invisible boat summoned by that noun-verb “steer”. Which star to follow, how to navigate at sea, what the night skies can hold: the work is a visualisation, a poem and a prayer.