Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler have announced they are working on a new outing for the monster in the deep dark wood, due out in September 2026

He’s got knobbly knees, turned-out toes, a poisonous wart at the end of his nose … and he’s back, for the first time in more than 20 years: Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler have announced they are working on a new Gruffalo book.

Due out in September 2026, the as-yet-untitled picture book will return to the world of the bestselling stories The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child, which were published in 1999 and 2004 respectively. The books are among the most popular children’s titles in the world, with The Gruffalo having sold 3.2m copies to date, and The Gruffalo’s Child 2.1m copies.

The curator of the BFI’s Black Debutantes season on piracy, truncated careers and the frustrations of dealing with big studios

Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week I spoke to Rógan Graham, a curator of the British Film Institute’s latest season, Black Debutantes: A Collection of Early Works by Black Women Directors. The programme runs throughout May at the BFI Southbank in London, and is a celebration of the feature-length work of Black female film-makers, both the familiar and the seldom screened.

We would like to hear what you think is the best book to read aloud with young children and why

New research has shown a steep decline in the number of parents reading aloud to young children , with 41% of 0- to four-year-olds now being read to frequently, down from 64% in 2012.

The survey, conducted by book data company Nielsen and publisher HarperCollins, also found that less than half of parents find it fun to read aloud to their children.

Mosab Abushama’s work is an attempt to spotlight what the destruction has meant for ordinary people

When Mosab Abushama returned to his house in eastern Omdurman a year into the war in Sudan it was unrecognisable. Like the other buildings in his neighbourhood, the three-storey property he had shared with his extended family was pitted with bullet holes. Some of the walls had been blown through and the charred shells of burnt-out vehicles were scattered along the street. There was debris everywhere, and no water or electricity.

“When we came back, everything had been stolen. There was nothing left – no furniture, no belongings, not even our clothes,” he says.

With record low ratings and Ncuti Gatwa rumoured to be departing, the Time Lord faces an uncertain future. Could this be it for good?

The Doctor has fought enemies like the Daleks and Cybermen all through time and space, but the Time Lord may now be facing their greatest threat: viewer apathy in a time of television industry upheaval, as rumours of cancellation and the departure of its leading actor swirl.

With this year’s series of Doctor Who approaching its midpoint and seeing record low ratings, there is still no sign from the BBC or streaming partner Disney+ if the show has a future beyond May.

Perth theatre
Two working-class lads become modern-day highwaymen in this adaptation of the Scottish film but the plentiful songs slow down the story

One of the stories British cinema loves to tell is of working-class characters defeating the privations of Thatcherism using wit and creativity. In Brassed Off (1996), escape came in the form of communal music; in The Full Monty (1997), it was male striptease; and in Billy Elliot (2000), the romance of ballet.

Setting the template for all these was Restless Natives (1985), a cult Scottish favourite in which two Edinburgh dreamers turn highway robbers and, in the gentlest possible way, take to holding up coachloads of American tourists while disguised as a wolfman and clown.

At Perth theatre until 10 May. Then touring until 28 June

The drama has been commended for influencing policy and helping fast-track justice for victims of Horizon IT scandal

ITV has won the Bafta television special award for commissioning the acclaimed series Mr Bates vs the Post Office, with the channel being commended for spotlighting one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.

The drama, which has amassed 15 million viewers, influenced policy change and reopened the case to seek justice for the post office operators involved.

Pop singer’s tour has been mocked online and she was criticised for taking commercial spaceflight, but she tells fans ‘please know I am OK’

Following criticism of her latest tour, new music and her trip to the edge of space on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin craft, Katy Perry has written an emotional message explaining how the public opprobrium has affected her.

Perry wrote the message under an Instagram post by a fan group, who booked a billboard in Times Square to congratulate her on the opening week of her Lifetimes tour.

While the novel remains a high-status cultural form, video game writing is still seen as a throwaway art – despite some of the biggest names in fiction being involved

I’ve been working in games for a little more than 15 years, and the main thing I’d say about it at this point is that it’s a pretty annoying job to explain at parties. People often say something like, “Oh, I don’t really play games,” which is surely an odd thing to tell a game designer moments after you’ve been introduced; I don’t really eat croissants, but that’s not the first thing I bring up if I meet a patissier.

So one of the joys of publishing my first novel last year was the option to sidestep all of that, and say: “Oh, I’m a writer.” I wrote a novel; I’m working on another one; job done, the conversation can move on. Nobody says, “Oh, I don’t really read books,” even though that’s at least as likely to be true.