Dolly, Dreamgirls and Daniel Radcliffe: the biggest Broadway shows of 2026

The year 2025 found Broadway at an inflection point – New York theater finally fully rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, as the 2024-2025 season became the highest-grossing of all time, with $1.89bn in tickets sold thanks in part to a new generation of stars and fans. But with a record box office came record ticket prices, as Hollywood stars from Denzel Washington to George Clooney commanded sums pushing four figures for orchestra seating. This year feels relatively less Hollywood-y, though no less starry, with a healthy mix of revivals, new material and buzzy transfers on the calendar. Here are 12 of the most anticipated Broadway shows in 2026

Jon Stewart on Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela: ‘This is all exhausting’

Late-night hosts tore into the Trump administration’s surprise military attack on Caracas, capture of president Nicolás Maduro and vague plans to “run” Venezuela.Jon Stewart wasted no time in his first Daily Show appearance of 2026, immediately digging into Donald Trump’s shock decision to remove Maduro from power in the early hours of 2 January, which more than a dozen countries condemned as a “crime of aggression” to the UN.“Now, obviously, this is actually a very fraught moment for the world,” he said on Monday evening. “It is highly unusual for any government, any sovereign nation, to violate the airspace and territory of another sovereign nation and hit the grab and go on their president.“Look, no one knows how this operation is gonna work out,” he added

‘I wanted that Raiders of the Lost Ark excitement – you could die any minute’: how we made hit video game Prince of Persia

Programming was very open back in the 1980s. You had to teach yourself, either from magazines, or by swapping tips. When you wrote a video game, you submitted it on a floppy disk to a publisher, like a book manuscript. In my freshman year at Yale university, I sent Deathbounce, an Asteroids-esque game for the Apple II computer, to Broderbund, my favourite games company. They rejected it, but took my next effort, Karateka, a side-scrolling beat-’em-up

The Guide #224: Bondage Bronte, to more comeback tours – what will be 2026’s big cultural hitters ?

Welcome to 2026! I hope you are enjoying the final dribblings of the festive break, before reality bites on Monday. As is now tradition (well, we did it once before), this first newsletter of the new year looks at some of the big questions we hope will be answered in the next 12 months, across film, TV, music and games. Hopefully it will double up as a decent primer for the year ahead too, though for a more exhaustive rundown check the Guardian’s 2026 previews for film, music, TV, gaming, stage and art. Right, let’s get on with it:A storyline likely to rumble on through the year is the proposed purchase of Warner Bros by Netflix, which will require government approval (certainly not a given), not to mention all manner of contractual fine-tuning, before that big red N gets stamped on Warners’ famous water tower. Just enough time then for Hollywood’s greatest wrangler of spectacle, and newly installed head of the Director’s Guild, Christopher Nolan to demonstrate the value to Netflix of putting mass-market movies on the biggest screens possible

My cultural awakening: I May Destroy You helped me confront being spiked

When I May Destroy You aired in the summer of 2020, I hadn’t yet been spiked. Michaela Coel’s comedy-drama, based on her own experience of sexual assault, follows Arabella (Coel) as she realises she was drugged and raped on a night out. With one in four women in Britain having experienced sexual violence, the 12-part series was a difficult watch for many. If not relatable, then confronting and familiar; something that had happened to others, but close enough to know that it could happen to you. Three months later, it did happen to me

The Traitors to Dry Cleaning: the week in rave reviews

Claudia Winkleman returns with the regular version of the hit gameshow, while the left-field indie quartet spread their wings. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviewsBBC iPlayer; next episode SaturdaySummed up in a sentence Series four of the “civilian” Traitors introduces an audacious new wrinkle to keep its players – and its viewers – on their toes.What our reviewer said “Having grown the series’ following with The Celebrity Traitors, the BBC could easily have rolled out another civilian season using past templates and felt sure of a record-breaking audience. Instead, they’ve upped the ante and made the format even twistier.” Elle HuntRead the full reviewFurther reading New Traitors contestants include detective, crime writer and psychologistBBC iPlayerSummed up in a sentence David Attenborough brings his lifelong sense of wonder to the city’s wildlife, from foxes to peregrine falcons, in this exquisite special