‘I stripped away this caricature that I created’: Pamela Anderson on makeup, activism and gardening

The star of Baywatch and The Last Showgirl answers questions from Observer readers and famous fans including Stella McCartney, Liam Neeson, Ruby Wax and Naomi KleinPamela Anderson, makeup-free and beautiful in a floral Westwood suit, is making a fuss of my dog. My dog likes her. I’m not a particular believer in the idea that animals are great character judges but, in this case, me and the dog are aligned. I like Anderson too. She combines openness with a kind of vulnerability, and you warm to her immediately

On my radar: Shon Faye’s cultural highlights

The author on an obscene drill track, a writing retreat off the coast of Naples and her love of Almodóvar filmsBorn in Bristol in 1988, Shon Faye studied English literature at Oxford University and trained as a lawyer before turning to writing. She worked as editor-at-large at Dazed, and has contributed to publications including the Guardian, Vice, Novara and Vogue, where she writes the Dear Shon advice column. She hosts the Call Me Mother podcast, for which she interviews LGBTQ+ trailblazers. Faye’s bestselling first book, The Transgender Issue, was published in 2021; her second book, Love in Exile, about the politics of romantic love and relationships, is out now on Allen Lane. She lives in London

Nine working-class creatives on class in the arts – and how they made it

British artists have said the UK’s unique cultural output is under threat unless more is done to improve access to their industries, after analysis showed that almost a third of major arts leaders were privately educated. The Guardian spoke to visual artists, directors, classical musicians and playwrights about their views on class and the arts, and how they got managed to get established.“We have to get around the instinctive reaction to working-class accents a lot of people have, which is that this is somebody who’s either funny or dangerous. We as writers and producers and directors can help by not slipping into that – so that if we want a quick shorthand for ‘this person is dangerous’, we give them a broad working-class accent. Or ‘this person is going to say funny, stupid things’, we give them a working-class accent again

The Guide #179: How National Theatre Live brought the magic of the stage to the cinema

Last month I went to the National Theatre to catch The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde’s campy, farcical comedy. But unlike other theatre visits, this time I was surrounded by a number of large cameras.This was not due to some crisis in audience etiquette, but because I was watching the live-capture of the onstage performance. As I was enjoying Ncuti Gatwa’s Algernon pretending to play piano in a dazzling hot-pink dress, production teams in a number of trucks outside were frantically working to ensure the performance would be optimised for cinema screens across the world.This is, of course, the great operation of National Theatre Live

Working-class creatives don’t stand a chance in UK today, leading artists warn

Artists, directors and actors have raised the alarm about what they describe as a rigged system preventing working-class talent thriving in their industries after analysis showed almost a third of major arts leaders were educated privately.The creator of Peaky Blinders, Steven Knight, the director Shane Meadows and the Turner prize winner Jesse Darling were among those who spoke to the Guardian about what was described as a crisis facing the sector.They spoke after a Guardian survey of the 50 organisations that receive the most Arts Council England funding revealed a disproportionate number of leadership roles were occupied by people who were educated privately and those who went to the universities of Oxford or Cambridge.Almost a third (30%) of artistic directors and other creative leaders were educated privately compared with a national average of 7%. More than a third (36%) of the organisations’ chief executives or other executive directors went to private schools

Who is ‘working class’ and why does it matter in the arts?

In recent years, a string of academic reports have shown in stark terms just how elitist the arts have become over the last four decades. The proportion of working-class actors, musicians and writers has shrunk by half since the 1970s, according to one piece of research, while another study found fewer than one in 10 arts workers in the UK had working-class roots.Sutton Trust research released last year found the creative industries were dominated by people from the most affluent backgrounds, which it defined as those from “upper middle-class backgrounds”, while a Netflix report claimed working-class parents did not see film and TV as a viable career for their children.Guardian analysis has found that almost a third (30%) of artistic directors and other creative leaders were privately educated, compared with a national average of just 7%. More than a third (36%) of the organisations’ chief executives or other executive directors went to private schools