On my radar: Jasleen Kaur’s cultural highlights

The Turner prize-winner on the art of the Gaza Biennale, the joys of a queer community choir, and a poet who speaks to today’s injusticesThe artist Jasleen Kaur was born in Glasgow in 1986. She studied at Glasgow School of Art and later at the Royal College, and had her first solo show, Be Like Teflon, in London in 2021. She works mainly with installations, using everyday objects to explore identity, cultural memory and political belonging. Earlier this month, Kaur won the Turner prize for her 2023 exhibition Alter Altar at the Tramway in Glasgow, which memorably featured a replica of her dad’s red Ford Escort covered in an outsized doily. A group show of this year’s shortlisted artists’ work is at Tate Britain until 16 February

‘If we don’t look after this treasure, we’re going to lose it’: the fight to restore one of the UK’s most historic streets

Home to choir singers for 650 years, Grade-1 listed Vicars’ Close by Wells Cathedral is in need of funding to keep its medieval houses liveable – and its unique history aliveChoir singers have lived in two handsome terraces of silvery-pink-stoned medieval houses beside Wells Cathedral for more than 650 years. But the gated close – which is thought to be the most complete and continuously occupied medieval street in Europe – is now in desperate need of restoration.“It’s a privilege to live here – it’s a unique place,” says Matthew Minter, 52, who has lived in the close for almost seven years and sings in the cathedral. “But [the house] is cold. The windows leak £10 notes every time you put the heating on… and the roof leaks actual water

Alexei Navalny remembered by Yevgenia Albats

4 June 1976 – 16 February 2024The investigative journalist recalls her friend, the fearless Russian activist and opposition leader who laughed in the face of a murderous regimeAlexei Navalny had everything that Putin didn’t have. Navalny was tall, Putin short; Navalny handsome, Putin not so much. Navalny had a fabulous wife; Putin was unsuccessful with his personal life. Navalny could talk to people from all walks of life and inspire them; Putin had to force or pay them to attend his rallies. Navalny was loved by everyone, particularly young Russians; Putin’s chief constituency was women, 64-plus, in small towns and villages

Kieran Culkin on pranks, parenting and why his famous family doesn’t need therapy: ‘Us siblings, we’re already cooked’

He’s been on screen since he was seven – but only prepares for a scene 10 minutes before. Yet somehow the mischievous Succession star is now tipped for an Oscar. How did the chaotic, charismatic actor do it?Kieran Culkin tries the upright chair first, the one opposite me, high-backed and leather. But no, that’s no good. He can see his reflection in the wall mirror, he’ll be catching himself all interview, thinking how tired he looks with his hooded eyes and beard, how jet lagged

From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Pope Francis: the books to look forward to in 2025

New work from Zadie Smith, a memoir from Bill Gates, plus the third instalment in Rebecca Yarros’s romantasy series - here’s the biggest fiction and nonfiction for the year aheadNonfictionThe Bright Side: Why Optimists Have the Power to Change the World by Sumit Paul-Choudhury (Canongate)The science journalist, who lost his wife to ovarian cancer, investigates the potent emotional forces that drive us on in the face of great hardship. Why do we have this capacity for optimism, and what distinguishes it from wishful thinking?Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Ageing as a Woman by Brooke Shields (Piatkus)The former child actor looks back at her decades-long career under a frequently harsh spotlight and reflects that, despite her industry’s obsession with youth, age brings autonomy and freedom.Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life by Agnes Callard (Allen Lane)Professor of philosophy and a public intellectual for the internet age, Callard shows how Socrates can inform the way we live our lives – from romance to politics – nearly two and a half thousand years after his death.Hope: The Autobiography by Pope Francis (Viking)Pope Francis planned to release this memoir only after his death, but apparently “the needs of our times … have moved him to make this precious legacy available now”. It will be the first ever papal autobiography

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 to The Traitors: a complete guide to the week’s entertainment in the UK

Sonic the Hedgehog 3Out now Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey) becomes a paid-up member of the school of thought that says if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, teaming up with former adversaries Sonic, Tails and Knuckles against new kid on the block Shadow the Hedgehog, voiced by Keanu Reeves.Better ManOut now One of the buzziest and most outlandish propositions for a film this year, this is that Robbie Williams film you’ve heard about where the erstwhile Take That star is depicted by an ape, or, to be more precise, a chimpanzee. The Greatest Showman’s Michael Gracey directs.The OrderOut now Jude Law stars as Terry Husk, a real-life FBI agent who went undercover with a white-supremacist group led by the neo-Nazi Bob Mathews, in this timely drama from the talented director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown, Nitram).La CocinaOut now Based on the 1957 stage play The Kitchen by Arnold Wesker and written and directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios, this new version reimagines the kitchen in question as belonging to a Times Square tourist trap restaurant where white waitresses take orders for a staff of mostly undocumented migrants