Pyramid stage
Perhaps joking, or perhaps not, Matty Healy pronounces himself ‘the greatest songwriter of my generation’ – and that’s only a slightly ridiculous statement

The 1975’s first Glastonbury headlining slot arrives preceded by some intriguing rumours about what’s going to happen. Some fairly eye-popping figures are being bandied about regarding the cost of their set’s staging – which allegedly vastly outweighs the fee the band are being paid – while one dubious online source insists Healy has shaved his head for the occasion. He hasn’t (he appears onstage tonsorially intact), but clearly large sums of money have been spent somewhere along the way.

What ensues isn’t quite as complex as their last tour, which featured lead singer Matty Healy eating raw steak, doing push ups, climbing through a television and Prince Andrew’s face appearing on a bank of television screens accompanied by the strains of Mahler’s 5th Symphony. Nevertheless, there are huge video screens everywhere: not just behind the band, but above them and at either side of the stage, and indeed below the actual video screens that Glastonbury traditionally provides. The treadmill that ran across the front of the stage during their 2018 tour – there for Healy to glide around on, something he does with admirable insouciance – makes a reappearance, while, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, the rear half of a car makes an appearance stage right at one point. Healy sings from within it.

From vegan katsu curry to smoked barbecue brisket, the festival has an incredible array of street food. Here are the stalls worth queueing for

The food choices at Glastonbury can feel overwhelming – a smorgasbord of street food from around the world, which can trigger terrible choice paralysis when you’re operating with a hangover, on zero sleep, or both. Fear not. Here are some guaranteed Glastonbury food wins, whether you’re looking to stave off the mother of all hangovers or simply on the hunt for something green.

Suit filed in Los Angeles court accuses mogul, son and two other men of ‘brutal gang-rape’ in 2017

As closing arguments got under way in the federal sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs this week, the music mogul and his son Justin Combs were hit with a new lawsuit, accusing them of a “brutal gang-rape” in 2017.

In the suit filed in a Los Angeles court on Monday, a woman alleges that Justin Combs used his father’s celebrity status to “lure [the] plaintiff, a young female, from Louisiana to Los Angeles where she was literally held prisoner for a weekend and repeatedly raped” by the pair and two other masked men, according to the complaint.

Pyramid stage
The Canadian singer’s pared-down set showcases an undiminished vocal talent and life-affirming energy

Alanis Morissette has landed the coveted pre-headliner “sundowner slot” on the Pyramid stage on Friday, and without any significant clashes, setting her up for a healthy crowd. Just in case you’re not familiar with who she is, her set opens with a helpful explanatory video emphasising her cultural impact with testimonials from Kelly Clarkson, Halsey and (actual Glastonbury headliner) Olivia Rodrigo, as well as clips from interviews giving a brief overview on her views (anti-war; “naturearchy” over patriarchy).

This brazen American narration letting you know that you’re about to see a seven-time Grammy award-winner and a Very Influential Artist strikes a slightly odd note (or maybe just an un-English one). The spirit of Glastonbury, after all, is one where even the biggest star in the world must profess earnest and heartfelt gratitude for having been permitted to so much as cross the threshold of this holy ground; Morissette’s video intro, emphasising her importance – under-acknowledged as it may be – risks setting expectations unattainably high.

However, when Morissette takes the stage, she is very quick to show that she deserves them. After a little trill on her harmonica, she introduces One Hand in My Pocket, one of her best-known songs. It’s a smart move, not only inviting the audience to join in with its built-in choreography (one hand making a peace sign, one hand holding a cigarette – good luck hailing that taxi cab!) but also signalling that she’s setting out to play a crowd-pleasing set, and not planning to hold back on the hits.

For anyone who has cared to see beyond her reputation as the Canadian singer of Ironic and/or an angry man-hating feminist – as she was persistently dismissed, even at her career peak – Morissette has always been defined by her voice. It’s both incredibly powerful, capable of the octave-jumping acrobatics that define pop’s most lauded singers, but also – more unusually – idiosyncratic: you don’t have to be very familiar with her back catalogue to be able to do a quickly guessable impression.

Thirty years on from her album Jagged Little Pill, no one would fault Morissette if she wasn’t able to summon the raw power that made that album so enduring. It’s defined of course by You Oughta Know, a song that makes every other song subsequently described as having been “inspired by female rage” (and there have been many!) sound as if they were written by ChatGPT. But if there were any doubts about her voice among the crowd, Morissette dispels them instantly, really putting some welly into her trademark warble, even for One Hand in My Pocket – one of her lower-intensity hit songs.

“Got some pipes on her, eh,” my sister messages me from elsewhere in the field and I can only agree. The focus of this set is on Morissette as a singer, as much as a songwriter, and it’s refreshing – after a decade now of whisperpop , and even the angriest young feminists in pop seemingly struggling to actually raise their voices – to hear what a well-trained diaphragm is capable of.

Perhaps relatedly, Morissette keeps the chat between songs to a minimum, thanking the crowd with an ear-to-ear smile then launching into Right Through You. On the screen behind her, a series of stats scroll through highlighting the multi-faceted grim reality for women today, still – from higher rates of depression and anxiety than men, to a tiny share of the world’s total wealth, to dismal stats of partner violence. It makes explicit the sexism and disrespect that has dogged Morissette through her career and brings it into the anniversary set, concluding the song with the question: “Why are we afraid of the divine feminine?”

Pyramid stage
After struggling with his performance in 2023, the Scottish star was bouyed by the palpable adoration of a packed-out audience that sang every word along with him

As Lewis Capaldi points out, the “secret” of his brief and ostensibly unannounced set on the Pyramid stage wasn’t terribly well-kept. “I don’t know who’s been fucking telling everyone,” he shrugs, but the word seemed to be out before Glastonbury even began. When the Guardian interviewed festival-goers queueing as the gates opened on Wednesday, several listed him as the artist they were most looking forward to seeing this year. The crowd he draws is vast: both a reminder of how successful his first two albums were – his debut was the bestselling UK album of 2019 and 2020 – and of the emotional charge that his appearance carries. He last played Glastonbury in 2023: it was supposed to be a return to live performances after he had to cancel a series of gigs amid struggles with his mental health and Tourette syndrome. Instead, his voice gave out, and Capaldi subsequently retreated from public view.

He says he’s “easing into this” but, it has to be said, he looks noticeably less anxious two years on. There are no signs of the physical tics that beset him during the promotion of his second album, Broken By Desire to Be Heavenly Sent, and his voice is as roaring as it ever was. There’s definitely less of what Capaldi used to call “the blather” – the reliably hilarious and foul-mouthed between-song chat that frequently used to last longer than the actual songs – partly because of time constraints, and partly, he says, because he’s worried that he’s going to cry. When he does try to talk he’s frequently drowned out by the sound of the crowd singing his name to the tune of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army.

Sources claim the three actors lead Amazon’s list of prospective stars to headline a new iteration of the 007 franchise

‘Smooth with a sinister edge’: readers on who the next James Bond should be

Tom Holland, Harris Dickinson and Jacob Elordi are rumoured to be at the top of Amazon’s James Bond wishlist, according to a new report.

Variety has learned from insiders that the new iteration of 007 would be under 30 and the three actors could be fighting it out for the role. No meetings have taken place and Amazon has yet to confirm anything.

Tron theatre, Glasgow
Douglas Maxwell’s monologue about a dog walker moves from lighthearted to maudlin as it evokes a world in limbo

A few blocks down the road on Argyle Street, a stall is promoting conspiracy theories about AstraZeneca. Every side is pasted with neurotic headlines misinforming passersby about vaccines. It is an odd, not to mention dangerous, throwback to the pandemic .

So, too, in its own benign way, is Douglas Maxwell’s play. It is not just that Man’s Best Friend concerns a lockdown-era bereavement, a hospital stay in isolation and a funeral on Zoom. It is also that its themes are steeped in those strange months when it felt we had been plucked out of time. Maxwell evokes the days when past and future were denied us.

At Tron theatre, Glasgow , until 12 July; then touring, 3–27 September

Pyramid stage
The Irish singer-songwriter draws a vast, devoted crowd for an endlessly engaging, energetic set

CMAT runs on to the Pyramid stage, immediately pretends to faint, then delivers the first verse of her opening song lying face down. It’s an intriguing beginning to the kind of Glastonbury set that captures an artist at what seems to be a tipping point of their career, that carries with it the distinct sense that they may be on the verge of becoming absolutely huge. The crowd she draws is vast and they respond to the handful of tracks already released from her forthcoming third album Euro-Country as if they’re her greatest hits. The celebrity-endorsed TikTok dance craze spawned by recent single Take a Sexy Picture of Me has clearly had some role to play in boosting her popularity – its arrival mid-set prompts a spontaneous crowd sing along; someone in the audience is so excited they let a smoke flare off midway through; the big screens reveal that even a security guard standing by the loos at the side of the stage is pumping his fist – but it can’t account for the rapturous reaction afforded her entire set.

What does is that CMAT is a fantastic pop star. It’s not merely that she’s smart, funny, gobbily outspoken , and looks fantastic – today she’s clad in huge earrings in the shape of the euro symboland blue plastic dress that she removes to reveal a matching blue leotard, while mocking the fat-shaming comments posted about her on social media. It’s not just that she is blessed with both a potent, octave-leaping voice and a surfeit of superb, hook-laden songs that split the difference between country mid-70s Fleetwood Mac and come equipped with sharp, witty lyrics. It’s that she’s a quite spectacularly brilliant live performer. She alternates between stage moves that very much hail from the Dance Like No One’s Watching school of abandon, and choreographed routines with her band members: at the climax of one, she rips off her male band members’ skirts in a manner reminiscent of Bucks Fizz’s famous Eurovision moment. She announces herself as possessed of “middle child syndrome, an amazing arse and the best Irish country rock’n’roll band in the world” and beckons for applause whenever she mentions her own name – when the crowd start chanting her name of their own accord, she responds by bending over and wiggling her bum at them. When she successfully encourages the audience to engage in synchronised dance moves to I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!, she looks quite startled at what a crowd this size enthusiastically dancing in unison looks like.

A solidly made and passably entertaining follow-up to the viral doll hit tries to swerve the franchise into summer blockbuster territory with mixed results

As the very first image of devil doll sequel M3gan 2.0 emerges on screen, of a desert with the words “somewhere on the Turkish-Iranian border” popping up like it’s a Bond movie, you’d be forgiven for double-checking if you’re in the right cinema.

The original, a grabby artificial intelligence (AI) riff on Child’s Play and Annabelle, was a brisk, by-the-numbers domestic horror, released on the first weekend of 2023, a slot usually given to the very worst genre films. M3gan was smarter than most , often sly and frequently funny and introducing what’s now become a rarity, an almost instant non-IP pop culture icon, whose virality exploded the film into a surprise smash (raking in over $180m from a $12m budget). Like the films it was inspired by, a franchise was inevitable although where we’re taken in M3gan 2.0 was far less of a given. For the follow-up, writer-director Gerard Johnstone has swerved from horror to action while retaining and tweaking the comedy with a release date that’s been upgraded to summer blockbuster territory. It doesn’t always work – a two-hour runtime that’s a little too long, world-saving stakes that are a little too big, funny lines that are a little too not funny – but it’s a mostly watchable second-tier event movie that, in a world of inconsequential sequels that fail to justify their existence, will do.