It’s made me feel it’s OK to be an artist with a social purpose, though my wife hates the beard

I have spent the first three months of the past six years trying to become the 19th-century designer and activist William Morris . I grow my hair and beard to look like him, while immersing myself in his work.

On 24 March – his birthday – I dress as Morris and finish the quarter with some kind of absurd performance to highlight pressing social issues that he was concerned about, and that I want more people to focus on today.

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(Polydor)
The three LA sisters dwell on the bitter end of a relationship in tracks that range from replayable valley-girl rap to plodding country-pop

Haim’s 2013 breakthrough single The Wire was a swaggering, high-spirited breakup anthem. The slick, twanging pop-rock was correctly identified at the time by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow as echoing the oeuvre of Shania Twain (though this wasn’t the sick burn he thought it was), over which the LA trio copped to commitment phobia, communication issues and having their heads turned, before skipping into the California sunset with their hearts intact. Well, to commandeer the title of Haim’s debut album: those days are very much gone.

I Quit, the sisters’ fourth album, still has plenty of breakup songs, but these are no cheerful odes to dumping dudes in your 20s. Instead, the record fixates on the bitter end of a deeply flawed long-term relationship; at least some of these songs are informed by the love lost between lead vocalist Danielle Haim and Ariel Rechtshaid, the garlanded producer who worked on all three of the band’s previous albums (I Quit is instead helmed by Danielle, Rostam Batmanglij and Buddy Ross). The mood is not desolate – the narrator instigated the split – but it is searching and pained. The ex is portrayed as careless and manipulative, and punches are not pulled (“I swear you wouldn’t care if I was covered in blood lying dead on the street”). There are many references to setting oneself free, reflected in the – perhaps too on-the-nose – sample of George Michael’s Freedom! ‘90, which is woven through the opening track, Gone.

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The actor claims she was made to work 15-hour days without proper support and suffered a severe knee injury as a result of a scene where she was thrown into a wall

Kate Beckinsale is suing the producers of Canary Black, the 2024 action thriller in which she starred, over claims she suffered “severe and debilitating injuries” as a result of “unsafe conditions”.

In news first reported by Puck , Beckinsale’s legal complaint was filed anonymously in June 2024, but has now been refiled under her full name Kathrin Beckinsale.

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From coming-out fables and dancefloor make-outs to unsimulated sex and a madcap maternal quest, here is a feast of movies about LBGTQ+ lives

One detractor called it “a Shawshank Redemption for progressive millennials”. But the force of Céline Sciamma’s lesbian love story about an artist and her unwitting sitter on a remote island in 18th-century Brittany is undeniable. As is the integrity of its central dynamic, stripped of power imbalances, hierarchies – and men.

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We would like to hear about the best new game you have played this year so far and why

The Guardian’s writers have compiled their favourite new games of the year so far – and we’d like to hear about yours, too.

Have you come across a new release that you can’t stop playing? Or one you’d recommend? Tell us your nomination and why you like it below.

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When a star dies, shows are left in a terrible quandary – carry on, use ham-fisted CGI or axe the thing entirely. As Payne appears in Building the Band, we delve into the unnerving world of posthumous television

At first glance, Netflix’s new series Building the Band comes off as a weird amalgam of every singing competition show you loved a decade and a half ago. There’s the core DNA of X Factor. The singers perform out of sight of everyone else, so it cribs from The Voice . Clearly, there’s heavy borrowing from Making the Band. Plus, this is Netflix, so everything looks a bit like Squid Game.

But this odd mishmash of a format isn’t what will keep you away from Building the Band. No, what will keep you away from Building the Band is the posthumous appearance of Liam Payne .

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From Northern Irish handkerchief-makers to Scilly Isles fisherman who know when to let stocks replenish, a new book showcases radical solutions to our environmental problems

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From the return of Mario Kart to smash-hit architectural puzzles, an emotional football game and monster-hunting, we look back at the best offerings from the past six months
• See more of the best culture of 2025 so far

This unexpected smash-hit puzzle game has you exploring a mysterious mansion with rooms that are different every time. Faced with a closed door, you get to choose what lies beyond it from a small selection of blueprints, drafting as you go. Crammed with devilish logic problems, memory tests and other conundrums, it’s got thousands of players drawing their own maps on graph paper, just like the ZX Spectrum days. Read the full review . Keith Stuart

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From the high energy and high rises of Manchester to the wild beauties of the moors and mountains, the north of England has enriched and inspired Gavin Higgins. His newest work explores the idea – and the sounds – of being northern

As a child, the idea of “the north” captured my imagination. Images of lonely moors, mist-drenched mountains and driving rain provided backdrops for some of my favourite books, poems and films. But for me, the raucous energy of Manchester had an almost religious pull. It was the birthplace of bands I loved – Oasis, Happy Mondays, Joy Division, A Guy Called Gerald – and home to that palace of techno and acid house music, the Haçienda, which I dreamed of visiting.

I grew up at the rural borderland between England and Wales, but moved to Manchester when I was 16. It was my first time experiencing a real city with its cacophony of police sirens, shop alarms and drunken revelry, a far cry from the woodlands I’d grown up with. It was also the first time I realised I spoke with an accent. Against nasal Mancunian colloquialisms, my broad west country twang made me feel that I was from a different planet. But one of Manchester’s great charms is how its people throw their arms open to strangers. The city quickly became my home and I became a proud northerner.

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