Masquerading as health and fitness publications, these journals contained photographs of finely muscled, nearly naked men that were beautifully lit and classically posed. Now a gorgeous new book is celebrating these ‘museum-worthy’ images

In the late 1950s, when photography critic Vince Aletti was in his mid-teens, he stumbled upon a clutch of magazines at a local newsstand that seemed to speak directly to him. From their covers to the pages inside, the pocket-sized magazines were packed with strikingly composed images of nearly naked, finely muscled men, many of whom appeared to have a secret rapport with each other. “I remember getting really turned on by that,” Aletti recalls, sitting in his apartment in New York’s East Village. “I also remember being really worried that my mother might find those magazines in my room.”

Physique magazines, as such publications were generically known, operated on a coded system, designed to function as smoke signals for gay men during an era of heightened repression and censorship that lasted from the 1930s until the early 70s. The magazines, which were pumped out in cities across the US, made sure to pass as health and fitness publications, but the style and content of their photos were clearly created for the tastes and desires of gay men. In the decades since, physique images have often been written off as campy relics of a sad past, but Aletti wants audiences to consider them anew.

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Aubrey Williams produced huge, colourful abstract paintings and was influenced by music and climate issues

An artist whose work was part of the first wave of abstract art to hit the UK and presaged the climate breakdown protests as well as debates over the legacies of British colonialism is undergoing an “overdue” reappraisal, according to experts and critics.

Aubrey Williams, the Guyanese artist who moved to Britain in the 1950s, was a respected figure in his lifetime and the subject of several exhibitions in the UK. But after his death from cancer in 1990, the artist’s influence and the legacy of his abstract painting has slowly faded from view in Britain.

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Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Bruton
The married sculptors made very different art – hers curvy and colourful, his rickety and angular – but it all hums with life when brought together

It is a bright and sunny day in Somerset, and out on the neatly mown lawn at Hauser & Wirth, Niki de Saint Phalle’s voluptuous Nanas (“girls”) are positively sparkling . There are three of them (a nod to Botticelli’s three graces): one silver, one black, one white, all made from polyester jazzed up with colourful mosaic and shimmering mirrors. She has captured them mid-twirl, arms tossed in the air like they just don’t care, legs kicked out at jaunty angles. They are joyful and radiant, monumental and robust, dancers and warriors.

Saint Phalle, a French American artist, began creating her abstract sculptures of women in the mid-60s, a decade after she first met the Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely in Paris. He was married and so was she but five years later, both divorced, they got together; by the time they were married in 1971 both were seeing other people. It was a complicated, sometimes competitive relationship – romantically and artistically – that saw them collaborate and support each other creatively until Tinguely’s death in 1991. Saint Phalle looked after his legacy until her own death in 2002. Now, on the centenary of his birth, a new exhibition is presenting their work side by side – at least once we get off the grass and into the gallery.

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Clichy-Batignolles, in the city’s north-west, is emblematic of the ‘15-minute’ city approach to urban planning

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This foodie tour is a love fest between everyone he meets – and everything he eats. It would be perfect television … if only the script weren’t so laughably repetitious

In my next life I am definitely coming back as Stanley Tucci. Or Francesco da Mosto (that Venetian count with the exuberant hair who was all over the schedules a few years ago, do you remember?), or Steve Coogan or Rob Brydon or any celebrity, really, who is sent off to foreign parts on jollies disguised as work.

I am never going to be a world traveller. But if I were, I would, like most of the above, stop at Italy. Why, honestly, would you go further? Why would you not stay in the place that breaks your heart with its beauty everywhere you look? That is suffused with the confidence and style that screams “We owned the Renaissance! We proved ourselves once and for all. No need to sweat the small stuff now! Sit down, chill, and eat penne al’arrabiata until it’s time to prostrate yourself in awe before some ancient frescoes. And btw, the spirit of Michelangelo wants you to eat your body weight in gelato before bed. That’s why he released David from his marble. So you know you can never compete.”

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‘Machines were revolutionising recording. We were told to lay down a 20-second backing track, a guide vocal – then go and play table tennis’

Lol Creme and I left 10cc at the height of the success because we felt things were starting to become repetitive. We came from an art school background and we were thinking visually. Even at that stage, there were two film-makers waiting to come out.

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Richmond theatre, London
Ted Lasso star’s return as his camp and bumptious northern know-it-all alter ego also makes room for more of the real Mohammed

The last time I saw Nick Mohammed live, I witnessed one of the all-time theatrical calamities, as the opening night of his West End Christmas Carol(ish) was abandoned after unrelenting technical difficulties. Talk about bouncing back: this new show is the opposite of that epic fail, a deliriously enjoyable hour of comedy meets magic meets more of the real Mohammed than we’ve ever before seen on stage. That’s a surprise, given he’s in character as his alter ego, the camp and bumptious northern know-it-all Mr Swallow. But the persona is more porous than before, transforming into Mohammed before our eyes – as if this were a coming out party for a comedian who has remained incognito until now.

For long-term watchers of the Ted Lasso man, that could hardly be more fascinating – the more so because Mohammed tells us it’s strategic, that he’s been compelled to get personal for careerist reasons. There’s a racial dimension to that, too, which he endlessly teases in Show Pony, replaying an encounter with a TV producer demanding Mohammed’s sitcom pitch be more ethnic, and offering up a fantastically twisty sketch about his supposedly white right foot.

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Dinosaurs are roaring back to life! With the help of palaeontologists around the globe … and a huge pile of pizza boxes. We dig deep into the return of the prehistoric epic

I’ve been under work pressure many times before, but nothing has prepared me for this. In Alberta, Canada on a palaeontology dig being filmed for the return of the BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs , I have been allowed to unearth a dinosaur bone.

It has not seen the light of day for about 73m years, and now, armed with just a hammer, awl and brush, I am chipping away at the rock around it to bring it to human eyes for the first time. One tap too hard in the wrong place and the fossilised bone could break.

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Cinema’s sprightliest senior citizen is not one to give in to obstacles easily and looks set to outpace time’s wingèd chariot for a good while yet

Much of the discourse around Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning revolves around that penultimate word. This, we’re told, is it. This is the last time that Tom Cruise will leap out of various modes of high-speed transport in pursuit of some nebulously defined MacGuffin. The last time he’ll grit his teeth and run across a major global landmark. The last time he’ll give Simon Pegg work. This is it.

Except, not to spoil anything, but it probably isn’t. After years of avoiding the press and letting his work do the talking, Tom Cruise is actively promoting Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. He’s doing junkets. He’s giving red-carpet interviews. He’s giving talks at the BFI. For those of us who enjoy Tom Cruise, this is a rare gift. But over the course of these appearances, a message has started to form. That message is: Tom Cruise is never, ever going to stop.

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