Piaf review – Audrey Brisson rises above the melee as the French singer
Clare Brennan
The Observer archive
April 20, 2025
Stage
Pam Gems’s play with music loses focus with its small cast playing multiple characters – and musical instruments – but its star brings it all together
The week in theatre: Speed; Shanghai Dolls – review
Susannah Clapp
The Observer archive
April 20, 2025
Stage
Mohamed-Zain Dada makes a darkly comic drama out of a speed awareness course, while clever design elevates Amy Ng’s play about Madame Mao
Peaceful picnic marks ‘420 Day’ in Melbourne – ahead of an election where minor parties could play a defining role
Petra Stock
theguardian.com
April 20, 2025
Australia news
After the Legalise Cannabis party’s strong 2022 election performance, Fiona Patten says she has ‘unfinished business’
Katy Perry got into space but I can’t get to Norwich
Stewart Lee
The Observer
April 20, 2025
Opinion
The pop star is back on Earth, the tech bros are wrecking everything, and my tour isn’t visiting that fine city of the east. Surely doomsday is nigh
‘Kush destroys them’: the Guinean rehab clinic tackling a drug epidemic
Eromo Egbejule in Conakry
The Guardian
April 20, 2025
World news
Experts say a crisis is under way in Guinea, fuelled by a growing market run by cross-border trafficking syndicates
British Steel must now join the modern economy, not be a prisoner of the old
Will Hutton
The Observer
April 20, 2025
Opinion
Lack of investment and vision has dogged UK industry, while China has literally forged ahead
Stephen Mangan: ‘With three people in a bed, who goes in the middle?’
Michael Hogan
The Observer
April 20, 2025
Stage
The Split actor and children’s author on throuples, using his sons as a focus group, and running the London marathon
The week in TV: Just Act Normal; The Last of Us; The Stolen Girl; Government Cheese – review
Barbara Ellen
The Observer archive
April 20, 2025
Television & radio
Three home-alone siblings make for an unexpected coming-of-age gem; buckle up for season two of the mushroom apocalypse; a daft, glossy thriller is pure mini-break noir. Plus, a surreal comedy drama with shades of Wes Anderson
Our son’s eagerness to do chores is less about the pocket money than how he’ll spend it
Séamas O’Reilly
The Observer
April 20, 2025
Life and style
Namely funding his participation in his school’s Break The Rules Day
In brief: The Homemade God; Mythica; There Are Rivers in the Sky – review
Hannah Beckerman
The Observer
April 20, 2025
Books
Long-buried truths leave siblings reeling when their father dies; a fascinating reclamation of Homer’s forgotten women; and still waters run deep in a centuries-spanning novel