Music 360°

It has become quite the fashion for contemporary writers to have a go at reinventing past classics. We’ve seen it done with imperishable literary heroes like Bond, Jeeves, Poirot and Winnie-the-Pooh. This is a relatively new phenomenon. But not in the case of Sherlock Holmes, where the practice is almost as old as the man himself. Sherlock Holmes was the conception of Arthur Conan Doyle, a Scottish doctor down on his luck who had turned his hand to fiction to make up for a worrying lack of success in attracting patients to his surgery. Conan Doyle could never have guessed that the first Sherlock Holmes story he wrote, A Study in Scarlet, published in the 1887 issue of Beeton’s Christmas Annual, would in a few years propel him and the characters he created to literary fame. The personalities and characteristics of Holmes and Watson became as familiar to late Victorians as their own friends and families. The readership was worldwide and spread across all ages and classes.

The children’s laureates for Ireland and Wales are donating royalties from their works to Sally Rooney in a show of solidarity after she was forced to stop selling books in the UK because of her support for Palestine Action. Chris Haughton, Ireland’s children’s literature laureate, said he also wanted to demonstrate the “absurdity” of the bestselling author being unable to receive royalties from her own UK sales because of her public support for the direct action group. Haughton, whose books have sold millions worldwide, said: “I really want to express my full support for Sally Rooney. As someone who is in the UK a lot of the time, I can’t do what she has done, but I can support her instead of supporting Palestine Action. Chris Haughton. Photograph: Kirstine Bowen“As authors, we need to be focused on freedom of expression, this is everything we’re about, and this is just showing solidarity with an author who has bravely spoken out. “The entire situation is just a farce.

The soprano Martina Arroyo, who has died aged 90, was one of the generation of black American opera singers – others were Marian Anderson, Leontyne Price, Shirley Verrett and Grace Bumbry – who in their early careers faced institutionalised racial prejudice before achieving international recognition. Having proved herself to be one of the finest exponents of the leading Verdi roles, Arroyo was finally able to establish herself in the US, as well as worldwide, and went on to become, after her retirement from the stage, a distinguished teacher and ambassador for the art form. Although her vocal talent had been noticed at an early age, she was advised, in view of the paucity of opportunities for black singers, to develop a back-up career – she was engaged for a year as a high-school classroom teacher and for two further years as a social worker – before achieving a measure of recognition from two events in 1958, when she was 22.

Sitting in the restaurant of a Denver hotel, in the middle of a US tour with his band Bleachers, Jack Antonoff shrugs. “There’s this intense need to figure me out,” he frowns, “and I don’t really know where it comes from, because I keep explaining all of it.”He has a point. For the last 12 years, Bleachers have released a succession of albums packed with Antonoff’s strikingly personal and frank songs. Being strikingly personal and frank was the whole point. Antonoff had previously been guitarist in Fun, a pop-rock band who went supernova with their 2011 single We Are Young. Despite co-writing a song that sold 10m copies in the US alone, Antonoff says he “hated” the experience “because I wasn’t the leader, they weren’t my words, and I needed to write a song that if I fucking died tomorrow would be my life story”. He says he insisted his then-record label release said song I Wanna Get Better as Bleachers’ debut single “to let people know what they were in for”. It depicted Antonoff literally screaming in anguish, “losing my mind” with grief in the wake of his younger sister’s death, aged 13, from a brain tumour.

My mother would sing and dance and cook and clean in the kitchen, as many 80s moms did, to divas like Madonna and Paula Abdul. Material Girl made me think: “This is who I want to be.”The first single I bought I bought three records at the same time – Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette, a Sheryl Crow single and Waterfalls by TLC – from Sam the Record Man in Sarnia, Ontario, with money I’d saved up from doing chores around the house. My uncle was always trying to influence me with Canadian music, and he wasn’t wrong for doing so. The song I do at karaoke

His work in the Venice Biennale and at Paula Cooper Gallery turns history’s absences into artworks.

DATÇA SUMMER WORKSHOP BUILDS TIMBER-and-fabric pavilionDesigned and built as part of the Datça Summer Workshop 2026, a collaborative initiative between İstanbul Bilgi University, Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, and Wentworth Institute of Technology, guided by design-build tutors including Sebastián Erazo and Stefano Pugliese, the Karaköy Timber Extension is a 55-sqm civic intervention in southwestern Turkey. Positioned along the perimeter of the village’s active celebration grounds, the timber pavilion provides shade, work surfaces, storage, and communal seating to support the collective labor and food preparation underlying village weddings, seasonal markets, and civic gatherings.all images ©Erazo PuglieseVERNACULAR ÇARDAK TYPOLOGY INFORMS REPEATED TIMBER FRAMESThe lightweight timber assembly, conceived by architectural practice Erazo Pugliese, adapts the structural logic of the çardak, a vernacular seasonal agricultural shelter native to the Datça Peninsula. Constructed without permanent concrete foundations, the timber frame sits directly on the terrain as an integrated piece of large-scale outdoor furniture.

When One Born Every Minute first aired in 2010, viewers loved its fly-on-the-wall take on life in a maternity unit, from midwives idly chatting about unusual pregnancy cravings to parents squabbling over whether to call their child Zeus. Almost two decades later, as the show is rebooted for a generation who spend their lives on social media, much has changed. Parents now share far more about their struggles with miscarriages, infertility and mental health; audiences have to be lured away from watching reels on their phones with more rigorous storytelling. “Quite a bit is different about the way that people have children,” said Will Rowson, executive producer at Dragonfly, which makes the show for Channel 4. “People are so used to sharing. They expect to share, there is a willingness to share, and that is a generational thing.”Peace, who will be featured with her twin newborns, wants viewers to understand the importance of ‘not letting things out of your control get to you’. Photograph: Dragonfly/Channel 4The first episode of the show, which airs on Sunday night, tackles topics that have come to the foreground in the years since the Bafta-winning first run ended in 2018.

The novelist Zadie Smith has said that inequality has made culture clashes feel “existential”, adding that it has become “natural to look to your left and think ‘who the fuck are you?’”In an interview with Dua Lipa as part of the Southbank Centre’s London literature festival, Smith argued that the demise of Britain’s “incredible, historic” welfare system has led to greater divisions. The pair discussed Smith’s debut novel, White Teeth, which was published in 2000 and primarily set in the last three decades of the 20th century. Asked by Lipa about how attitudes towards multiculturalism have changed since the 80s and 90s, and the current “dividing line” on immigration in UK politics, Smith pointed to increased inequality and unemployment. “When you’re living in basically decent housing, when you hurt yourself you know you can go to hospital and be treated just like the rich kid down the road – then the differences [with others] become interesting, sometimes annoying, but not existential,” said the novelist. “Now, they’re existential.

Adultery9pm, ITV1“Attraction plus obstacle equals excitement.” This is the risky life motto that bored, put-upon personal trainer Beth (Romola Garai) takes to heart after her best mate unexpectedly dies. Wife to a useless husband and mother to an ungrateful son, it doesn’t take much for handsome doctor Tom (Dominic Cooper) to catch her eye. But Tom also happens to be the married father of Beth’s son’s new girlfriend. Created and written by Bafta winner Danny Brocklehurst (Shameless, Brassic), the addictive drama follows a steamy, sex-packed affair over six episodes – and the fallout from it. While the opener remains pretty PG, we’re promised trysts in cars, toilets … and a city farm. Hollie RichardsonKevin McCloud’s Listed Britain7pm, Channel 4This exploration of Britain’s listed buildings acts as a polemic, too: why do the buildings we choose to preserve nod towards power and grandeur? Kevin McCloud visits a few (including the Palace of Westminster, Hereford Cathedral and Chatsworth House) but also wonders why many apparently humbler buildings, including pubs, aren’t protected. Phil HarrisonThis City Is Ours9pm, BBC OneHoliday from hell … This City Is Ours on BBC One.

“I’m afraid this cycle has not been successful.” Emma and I cannot catch each other’s eye. We sit mute in our grief in the silence of the IVF doctor’s office. This is a kind of grief that is often not understood even to be grief at all. A grief about the loss of a potential child. An anticipatory grief – a grief for something that hasn’t yet appeared – a mourning for a possibility, of a longed-for future life to welcome, love and nurture. And there are no set grief rituals for this – for a child never present – no space in our society to mark, to grieve an actual physical death. It is a silent, achingly lonely, atomised grief. We had undergone many attempts in the years after the birth of our daughter Gaia. But that did not make this any easier. Each cycle, each time we sat in that office, we had to ignore our grief and concentrate wholeheartedly and positively on our next attempt. We didn’t access any help over this time. We didn’t seek out counselling as a couple. I had no knowledge of how to process my grief – compounded month on month.

Do we have free will – or are the words I am about to write, the four stars twinkling atop this review, pre-ordained? That’s the stuff Derren Brown conjures with in his new show Only Human, which takes its inspiration from Nostradamus’s ability to foresee the future. Nostradamus used divination techniques – and so Brown engineers a stunt in which his audience, en masse, dowse a waterway in the building next door. Nostradamus had a near-death experience – and so, in one remarkable sequence, Brown orchestrates something similar for a hypnotised member of his crowd. This of course is territory Brown has always made his own: strip away the free will rhetoric and Nostradamus folderol, and artful dodger Derren stands revealed, doing the same mentalism and mesmerism tricks as ever. By the interval (and acknowledging that we’ve been spoiled by his jaw-dropping back catalogue), this current collection of stunts doesn’t feel all that high-powered. Predicting an audience member’s yes/no answers to a series of questions is amazing, yes, but low stakes.

ALEXEY DANILIN CONCEIVES ‘hope’ CERAMIC TABLE LAMP for MAYTONIDesigned by Alexey Danilin for German lighting brand Maytoni, Hope is a table lamp composed almost entirely of natural ceramic. Conceived for mass production within technical and budgetary parameters, the design replaces conventional fabric or metal shades with a split ceramic envelope, allowing approximately 90% of the fixture’s mass to remain recyclable at the end of its lifecycle. Hope table lamp was designed by Alexey Danilin for German lighting manufacturer Maytoni | image ©Sebastian KruthofferLED MODULES PROJECT REFLECTED LIGHT THROUGH SLIT OF SPLIT VOLUMESFor the lamp’s sculptural silhouette, designer Alexey Danilin draws inspiration from classical Roman statuary and traditional pottery forms, pairing curved, arching geometries with contemporary product design. Internally, integrated LED boards are oriented to direct illumination outward through the central gap separating the two ceramic halves, utilizing surface reflection to soften light output. A central vertical stem fastens the two ceramic elements, capped by a small metal sphere at the top.

Tens of thousands gathered at Place d’Italie in Paris for a march led in part by culture-sector coalitions demanding a better life for artists. Artists, art students, and cultural workers joined hundreds of thousands of protesters marching across France on October 24, 2026. (photo Nicolas Tucat / AFP via Getty Images)

I didn’t know before reading your new memoir that you were almost Tony Soprano. Is there a role that you really wanted that you didn’t end up getting? It’s not Tony Soprano. There is not a role that I didn’t get that I ever gave more than four hours of grievance to. When I don’t get something, I move on. Because there’s no point. I’m very pragmatic that way. It’s for your own mental health. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. The thing you have to understand is if you don’t get something, it’s not personal. It can be as simple as the director has already got three brunettes or three male actors and they don’t need a fourth. It’s never personally about you. It’s about the picture they have in their head … Or sometimes a role is already out to another actor and they’re just waiting for them to say yes. That is one thing I wish they wouldn’t do, because that’s a waste of my time. If you’ve got an offer out to Ben Affleck or whoever, don’t put me on the revolving wheel of possibility. Because if I find out, I’m not doing it. Not that they care! [laughs]If you were casting your dream project with three actors you’ve already worked with, plus one new face, who would be on your team?

flash forest plants for life after wildfiresAcross the blackened forests of northern Quebec, drones fly above the remains of burned trees, launching small, seed-filled capsules into the earth. Each carries the beginnings of a new tree, packed with ingredients intended to help it grow in damaged soil. The system is developed by Canadian company Flash Forest, which is using aerial technology to replant landscapes devastated by wildfire, including remote areas that are difficult to reach on foot. The work follows Quebec’s devastating 2023 wildfire season, when around 4.5 million hectares of forest burned across the province. Flash Forest has since expanded its planting operations across Canada. According to its latest impact report, the company planted 686,147 trees across five sites in 2025, covering 429 hectares of burned forest. The technology allows large areas to be seeded quickly while keeping heavy planting equipment off the forest floor.

If you were on the internet in 2015, you likely followed the twisty tale of the Wu-Tang Clan‘s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. The Staten Island hip-hop titans conceived of the album as a conceptual artwork, a protest against the cheapening of music in the age of widespread piracy. Rather than release the music to the general public, the work was sold at auction for a reported $2 million to a then-anonymous American buyer, seemingly proving that music could sell at the level of Picasso and Warhol. It proved a Pyrrhic victory when the buyer was revealed to be the hated “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli. The episode was a bitter lesson for the group, resulting in resentment and division. Even Clan member Method Man said, “Fuck that album. … When music can’t be music and y’all turning it into something else, fuck that. Give it to the people, if they want to hear the shit, let them have it. Give it away free.” (He somewhat softened his stance recently, on finally hearing the album.)

In September 1991, I had just been thrown into the meat-grinder of a Midlands boarding school. In this bear pit, there were predators and there was prey. You were either the swaggering rugby alpha, whipping a wet towel at pale bodies in the eight-boy dormitory; or the homesick ghost, keeping your guard up, endlessly braced for your toilet cubicle to be kicked open or your washbag chucked off the fire escape. My mind had always been loud, racing with opinions, stories, jokes. But by the time I adequately considered a thought, the conversation had raced on without me. Suddenly, under 24/7 social scrutiny in a world where bullhorn confidence is king, I felt dismissed. Up to that point, music hadn’t helped. Every rock star I had ever seen – Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger – was a showboating peacock, all hips, handclaps and absurd glasses, seeming to whisper in my ear: “This isn’t for you, bookworm.” But that September, I stumbled across the Stone Roses’ self-titled 1989 debut album. I must have seen John Squire’s genius before I heard it, on his paint-splashed, lemon-drizzled sleeve art.

The latest on the student protests in France, the art world’s AI problem, one-on-one with Rosana Paulino, and Beer With a Painter featuring Melissa Brown. The subway car rattles, shakes, and screeches as it tunnels us from Brooklyn to Manhattan underneath the East River. I hold on tight to a pole, while my eyes are fixed on an ad for the Broadway musical Les Misérables. My social media feed shows me only looting and vandalism in France, painting a violent picture of the largely peaceful student protests. Panicking, the art world’s blue-chip class shuts down Art Basel Paris early and flees the city. The Louvre also closes to protect its treasures. Loot a little and they throw you in jail; loot a lot and they let you open a museum. I get to a benefit dinner for an art residency held in a former bank. A peppy auctioneer asks the who’s who to open their hearts and wallets. Paddles go up and down, and a donation ticker on a big screen climbs to astronomical numbers while I admire the building’s huge stained-glass skylight.

Vertical dramas – that is, short-form content made specifically for phones – are big business in 2026. They are particularly popular in countries such as China and India, and the global market is expected to be worth $26bn by 2030. It makes sense: much has been made of the double-screening epidemic, and of people scrolling so much that Netflix has to remind them what is going on on their TV screens every few seconds. Why not just cut out the middleman and ditch the telly bit altogether? Enter Channel 4, which has released its first vertical drama on social media in the UK. It’s described as “a bold, character-led series” that explores “the friendship, ambition and lives of a diverse group of intelligent young women”. The Guest List is made in partnership with the skincare brand Sol de Janeiro, and episodes are around 90 seconds to two minutes in length. The microdramas that have gripped Asia are camp and cliffhanger-heavy – one producer described them as “soap operas on cocaine”. The Guest List is less cocaine, more Coke Zero: sweet, syrupy, probably not bad for you but not especially good either. Anodyne.

The Irish traditional musician Dónal Lunny has died at the age of 79 from cancer. Lunny rose to prominence in the trio Rakes of Kildare alongside his brother Frank and Christy Moore. He went on to play in bands such as Planxty, Moving Hearts, the Bothy Band and Coolfin among others and toured the world. A post on his Facebook page confirmed that Lunny died in St James’s hospital in Dublin on Friday morning. “We are heartbroken to confirm that our beloved Dónal passed away peacefully this morning in Dublin following a short stay in St James’s hospital,” the post said. “Thank you for helping us to remember and celebrate his immense contribution to music, to culture and to so many people’s lives all over the world.”Catherine Connolly said Lunny was ‘central to so many of the most influential moments of the last 60 years of Irish music’. Photograph: Niall Carson/PAThe Irish president, Catherine Connolly, expressed her “deepest condolences to the family, friends and many musical collaborators of Dónal Lunny”.

The literary power couple is a historically seductive concept. Two writers sharing a life, their private and creative worlds entwined, each becoming witness to and critic of the other’s work. Think Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. Or, less auspiciously, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Now, into this illustrious company steps a new pair: the novelist Marlon James and the biographer Nicholas Boggs, whose books have each been shortlisted for one of Britain’s most prestigious literary awards – James for the Booker prize and Boggs for the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction. Between them, they have produced two formidable books, each the culmination of years of work, and each concerned with the lives of Black queer men whose stories have often been overlooked. “I’m not sure what to do with it,” James says, when I ask how they feel about the inevitable impending “literary power couple” label. “I have all these romantic notions that we were like Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne or something – I don’t know. What do you think?” He turns to Boggs, who laughs. “It’s all very new,” he says.

through a restrained palette of granite, plaster and steel, the project explores how simplicity, materiality and spatial continuity can transform a compact home into an open, cohesive and characterful living space. Oroco edited by christina vergopoulou October 24, 2026 3 min prefer designboom on googleOROCO STUDIO RECONFIGURES 40-SQM APARTMENT IN MADRIDRS19 is the renovation of a 40-sqm apartment in Madrid’s Palacio neighborhood, designed by OROCO Studio. Conceived as a first home, the project explores how a limited surface can accommodate everyday life while creating a sense of openness and spatial generosity. The intervention rethinks the existing layout to establish a more fluid relationship between spaces, prioritising continuity, functionality and the perception of depth. Rather than relying on an abundance of partitions or decorative gestures, the design seeks to achieve more with less, allowing the architecture and its material qualities to define the character of the interior.all images ©OROCO StudioGRANITE, PLASTER, AND STEEL ANCHOR RESTRAINED MATERIAL PALETTEA restrained palette of granite, plaster, and steel forms the foundation of the project by Oroco Studio.

I’m suspicious of travelogues, which often feature celebrities in contrived situations, serving up a sentimental postcard of a place that is tantamount to a lie. I also hate how famous people are inexorably drawn to golf: a boring game historically predicated on a rancid mix of social exclusivity and extensive land ownership. So it was perverse of me to watch a show in which author Tom Coyne drives around Ireland playing various courses with his friend, actor Bill Murray. It’s the perfect intersection of none of my interests. I was, however, hooked by a strange promise in A Course Called Ireland’s introductory sequence. “This is not a show about golf,” it says. “It’s not even a show about Bill Murray.” This was immediately followed by a scene in which an Irish woman standing by the roadside misidentified the actor as Bill Cosby. OK, I thought. What are they teeing up here? There’s a hole in at least one of those promises. A Course Called Ireland (Sunday 25 October, 9.30pm, BBC Two) is intended to be a jocular road trip, in which the two friends meet colourful characters and reflect on their own Irish heritage, between spectacular rounds on the rugged links.

A fitting tribute to the late star’s breakout album 20 years after its release, this special concert was held at the Roundhouse in north London earlier this week. It’s led by a team close to Winehouse’s music, including the album’s producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, and features the Amy Winehouse Band playing all the hits including Valerie and Rehab. Special guests include Corinne Bailey Rae, Flo, Jessie Reyez and Jorja Smith. Hollie RichardsonStrictly Come Dancing6.30pm, BBC One We’ve already had a few themed weeks in this year’s competition, but now it’s back to basics. Lacey and Vito will be doing the tango to a Blondie banger; Cach and Maddie will take on a cha cha to Måneskin; and it’s time to jive with Lawrence and Jowita. HRSecrets of the Viking Ship With Bettany Hughes8pm, Channel 4