The BBC’s classic strand Play for Today finds a new home on Channel 5. Plus: it’s the reliably bizarre Taskmaster final. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Channel 5
“Of all the retirement villages, she walks into mine.” In the first of this drama anthology inspired by the classic BBC strand, Anita Dobson plays quick-witted septuagenarian Cynthia, who realises charismatic old flame Frank (Nigel Havers) is her new nextdoor neighbour. Old wounds are reopened as Cynthia reckons with ageing – will she come to accept her second act? Tracy-Ann Oberman and Nina Wadia also star. Hollie Richardson

Seven out of 10 people surveyed by Live Nation would pick a concert over sex. Given our dating and ticketing hellscapes it is interesting to consider which is the more reliable pleasure

Let’s say you find yourself with an evening free. You’re feeling refreshed, open to experience, and eager to shake things up a bit from your usual post-work routine of slump-and-scroll. The world is your oyster! Would you rather a) go to a gig or b) have sex? The answer, as is so often the case with these “would you rather” questions, is obviously: “It depends.” Thinking adults may reasonably inquire: what is the gig? Who is the sex with? Is it likely to be good?

Few would opt for a Limp Bizkit/Slipknot/Korn triple bill if one enchanted evening with Jonathan Bailey was the alternative. But adjust either end of the equation, and it becomes less clearcut. For the 40,000 people asked this question by gig promoter Live Nation , however, no such clarification was offered – and the response came out unambiguously and overwhelmingly in favour of gigs.

When dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was imprisoned, her husband went on hunger strike – to force Britain to act. Narges Rashidi and Joseph Fiennes reveal how they brought their nightmare to the small screen

When Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Iran in 2016, it wasn’t immediately obvious what had happened – but within 100 days, we had the contours of the story. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, held a press conference. He had amassed 780,000 signatures on a petition for her release, and delivered a letter urging the same thing to former PM David Cameron . This, it transpired much later, was after murky meetings with the Foreign Office in which civil servants insisted that the best thing, both for Nazanin’s release and the safety of her parents and brother in Iran, was to lay low and let diplomacy take its course.

“It was state hostage-taking,” says Joseph Fiennes, who plays Richard Ratcliffe in the BBC’s four-part drama Prisoner 951 . “It clearly goes on, and innocent people and families are completely disrupted and tarred for life. And now I’ve told this story, I look at anyone that might be accused of something, and I don’t quite believe it.”

Radiohead, Dua Lipa and Coldplay among dozens of artists calling for cap on resale prices to stop exploitation of fans

Radiohead, Dua Lipa and Coldplay are among dozens of world-renowned artists who have urged Keir Starmer to honour his pledge to tackle “extortionate and pernicious” websites used by ticket touts to exploit music fans .

A group of British artists, who have collectively sold more than half a billion albums, took aim at “secondary ticketing” platforms such as Viagogo and StubHub.

Actor, 48, who revealed colorectal cancer diagnosis last year, to also auction memorabilia from Varsity Blues

Actor James Van Der Beek will once again be selling collector’s items from some of his beloved films and TV shows, including Dawson’s Creek, to help pay for his treatment for colorectal cancer.

“I’ve been storing these treasures for years, waiting for the right time to do something with them, and with all of the recent unexpected twists and turns life has presented recently, it’s clear that the time is now,” Van Der Beek told People .

The collection, which includes an outfit he wore in the Dawson’s Creek pilot , and a hat featured in the 1999 film Varsity Blues , will be auctioned at Propstore’s annual Winter Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction, which runs from 5 December to 7 December.

Alien Earth will return to FX (and Disney+ and Hulu) for a second season, thanks to a new deal between Disney and series creator Noah Hawley.

The new season has no air date yet, but we do know one thing about it: It will be shot in London. The first season was shot in Thailand, and most of the story took place in Southeast Asia, so the change in shooting location suggests a new setting for much of the next season. Production on season two will reportedly begin next year.

For those who watched season one to its conclusion, season two probably seemed like a sure thing; the finale resolved many of the core conflicts of that first batch of episodes, but also was clearly intended to be the launching point for a new storyline in season two.

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The Super Mario Bros. Movie dominated the box office in 2023, racking up $1.36 billion and snagging several Oscar nominations for good measure. So naturally there’s a sequel, and Nintendo just dropped the official trailer for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie , due out next spring.

(Spoilers for the 2023 film below.)

The first attempt at a Super Mario movie adaptation in 1993 was notoriously a dismal failure , although it still has its ’90s-nostalgic fans. But 2023’s Super Mario Bros. Movie won over gaming fans who were skeptical about another adaption—including Ars Senior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland. “This film version captures all the fun and vibrancy of the Mario games, with enough references to familiar characters, items, and locations to make even a die-hard Mario fan’s head spin,” he wrote in his 2023 review , adding that, despite a few flaws, the film was “everything that a 10-year-old version of me could ever have dreamed a Mario movie could be.”

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Disasters, riots, gangsters and construction … early 20th-century Chicago is seen here through the lens of the pioneering Japanese-American photojournalist, poet and artist Jun Fujita. His life and work is covered in Behind the Camera by Graham Harrison Lee, published by Hat & Beard Press , with an accompanying exhibition planned in Los Angeles next year

The Guardian has only ever published 18 zero-star reviews. Now’s the chance to share yours …

A zero-star review is very rare. The Guardian has only published 18, which we listed following Lucy Mangan’s zero-star review of Kim Kardashian’s new Disney+ divorce drama All’s Fair.

There’s lots of great culture out there, but sometimes you can be left bitterly disappointed, so we’d like to hear about your worst ever cultural experiences. What’s the most unforgivable TV show, film, play or gig that you have ever seen and would award zero stars to? Now’s your chance to spill.