The enigmatic queer poet admired by EM Forster and Jackie Onassis takes centre stage in this unconventional biography

The second floor of 10 Rue Lepsius, tucked away in the old Greek quarter of Alexandria above a brothel, was, for three decades, the literary focal point of the city. Entering the apartment, out of the Mediterranean sun, visitors would need a minute to adjust to the dimness, gradually perceiving faded curtains and heavy furniture, every surface covered with antiques and whimsical objects. There was no electricity, only candlelight. The host, proffering morsels of bread and cheese from the shadows, was an older man with “enigmatic eyes” beneath round spectacles – the poet Constantine Cavafy.

What kind of person might be discerned amid the gloom? This is what Peter Jeffreys and Gregory Jusdanis set out to discover in their deeply researched and engaging biography, the first for 50 years. They brilliantly recreate his world – two chapters about Alexandria are especially good – and investigate his place within it. Cavafy, whose admirers and champions included WH Auden, EM Forster, David Hockney and Jackie Onassis, has remained enigmatic since his death at 70 in 1933. Surprisingly, for a poet who never sold a book in his lifetime – and instead circulated broadsheets, pamphlets and sewn notebooks, building his reputation poem by poem – he now has “a global audience he could never have imagined”, thanks to poems such as The City, Waiting for the Barbarians and Ithaca, which Onassis asked to be read at her funeral.

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Cult cinema also considers ‘third or fourth space’ as it negotiates over future of its Leicester Square site

The Prince Charles cinema is planning to expand to a second site in the capital despite being locked in a battle over the future of its original location in central London.

The independent cinema, which is known for showing a wide-ranging selection of cult films from across the history of cinema, has put in a bid to take over and reopen what was the Stratford Picturehouse in east London.

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Catarina Ruivo’s sprawling documentary trails her late relation back to the former colony, following the letters she wrote home in the 1940s and 50s

At nearly three hours, Catarina Ruivo’s sprawling documentary seeks to halt the march of death. When her grandmother Júlia died, she left behind a treasure trove of letters, written between 1946 and 1957 when she was living in Mozambique, then under Portuguese colonial rule. Read out by actor Rita Durão, this correspondence captures the hopes and dreams of a young woman, newly married and adapting to a foreign land. The voiceover is paired with Ruivo’s footage of present-day, independent Mozambique, images that breathe a second life into these messages from the past.

The juxtaposition between Júlia’s writings and the Mozambican cityscapes recalls Chantal Akerman’s seminal News from Home (1978) , in which Akerman combined her narration of her mother’s letters with languid shots of New York City to reveal the intricacies of the mother-daughter relationship and the rhythm of urban living. My Grandmother Trelotótó doesn’t quite achieve such cinematic alchemy. Júlia’s letters, while seemingly benevolent, betray a colonial gaze that erases the hardships endured by the local population (a fact acknowledged by Ruivo in an artist’s statement). The way Mozambique is framed – quotidian scenes full of anonymous faces – appears merely illustrative; it does little to complicate or push against Júlia’s problematised point of view.

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The broadcaster kicks off her retro-fest of a podcast by looking at a certain pair of guitar-loving Mancunian brothers. Plus, Jon Hamm, Bob Odenkirk and John Waters team up for fantasy fiction

Miranda Sawyer gets into full-on nostalgia mode in this series dedicated to the days of Cool Britannia, Girl Power, Trainspotting and much more. If you’ve not had your fill of Oasis yet, her first episode is a loving deep dive into fandom and how one Mancunian outfit went where no 90s band had gone before. Says former Q editor Ted Kessler, it all came down to the Gallaghers’ undeniable strain of “electricity … chaos and anarchy”. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly

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Panorama considers evidence that convicted the nurse of multiple murders. Plus: the season finale of Julian Fellowes’ The Gilded Age. Here’s what to watch this evening

8pm, BBC One

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As Alien: Earth hits the small screen with promises of creatures even scarier than the slathering xenomorphs, SFX experts tell us how they made Stranger Things, The Last of Us and more so horrifying

When special effects artist Aaron Sims first read the script for Stranger Things, he was struck by how vague the description was for the show’s centrepiece monster. “It basically said, ‘The Demogorgon is a tall, lanky creature that eats children,’” recalls Sims. “I’m thinking, ‘OK, that’s scary – but what does that actually look like?’” What happened when he posed this question to the series creators Matt and Ross Duffer? “They said, ‘We have no idea – come up with something.’”

For Sims, who has worked on films such as The Incredible Hulk, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and X-Men, this was a relief. “When there’s already a fanbase, there is a lot of scrutiny and expectation. The fans either love it or hate it – and there’s nothing you can do. Working on The Incredible Hulk, for example, took years. So when it’s a new creature, a lot of people get excited.”

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Screenwriter known for reviving Doctor Who and writing Queer As Folk says LGBT community needs to fight back

Russell T Davies has said gay rights are “rapidly and urgently getting worse” thanks to the rise of Reform UK and the influence of the Trump presidency on British politics.

The award-winning screenwriter, who is best known for reviving Doctor Who and writing Queer As Folk, said the LGBT community should be “revolting in terror and anger and action” in response to growing support for Reform, which has pledged to “ban transgender ideology” in schools.

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She became world famous with Basic Instinct and Casino. Then she had a near fatal brain bleed. The actor and artist discusses strength, survival, being upskirted on set, her violent run-ins with Harvey Weinstein and the performances she’s most proud of

A couple of days before our interview, in late July, Sharon Stone announced on Instagram that her mother had died . When we meet over video link, I express my sympathies. Stone is known for her straight talking, but now she outdoes herself. “Mom, Dot, actually died a few months ago, but I was only ready to tell the public about it now because I always get my mad feelings first when people die.” What kind of mad, I ask – grief, confusion, loss? She smiles. “A little bit of anger and a little bit of ‘I didn’t fucking need you anyway’, you know!”

Now she’s laughing. “My mom wasn’t of a sunny disposition. She was hilarious, but she said terrible things to me. Dot swore like a Portuguese dock worker.” Which takes us to her mother’s final days. “She said: ‘I’m going to kick you in the cunt,’ to me probably 40 times in the last five days. But that was her delirium. And when the last thing your mother says to you before she dies is: ‘You talk too much, you make me want to commit suicide,’ and the whole rooms laughs, you think: that’s a hard one to go out on, Mom! But that’s how she was. This lack of ability to find tenderness and peace within herself.”

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Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Victoria Melody’s passion for other people’s passions is in full bloom in a show that finds delight and inspiration in English civil war reenactments

Victoria Melody jokes that she joined a historical reenactment society as a response to getting divorced. It seems a plausible explanation. Why else would someone do something so eccentric? Dressing up in period costume and driving to the fields to relive ancient battles is one of those pastimes, like train spotting, metal detecting and attending fan conventions, we like to imagine as an oddball pursuit.

But there is more going on here than a straight celebration of everyday British quirkiness. True, Melody has form in this area : she became a beauty queen to see what it was like for her pet to be entered in a dog show and spent a year living with pigeon fanciers. That is as well as the time she trained as a funeral director when she thought her dad was dying.

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