Today’s highlights
Art
Tracey Emin: ‘Brexit was hideous and heinous’
The acclaimed artist takes Florence in her first institutional solo show in Italy
The poster artists firing back at Musk and Trump
An exhibition of artworks telling the terrifying story of MAGA and Trump’s second coming has made it on to the streets of London in poster form
How the Dutch hold back the sea
A new exhibition at the University of East Anglia celebrates the art of keeping your head above water
Brazilian blend: The birth of modernism
The Royal Academy celebrates 10 Brazilian artists hugely influenced by Europe
A quantum art experience in Berlin
A new show in the German capital is attempting to bring to life the core principles of quantum physics
The tragedy and triumph of Tirzah Garwood
Widowed, gravely ill and with three children under seven, the artist somehow managed to reinvent her work
Books
Douglas Murray: shallow book, narrow mind
Reducing the complex history of Israel and Palestine to a battle of good vs evil is wilfully misleading. No wonder Trump has endorsed it
Contemporary fiction is getting boring
The most important advice I’ve ever given myself about reading a book: if at first you don’t succeed, give up
Donald Trump, the real-life Captain Ahab
From Titus Andronicus to Goldfinger and Dolores Umbridge, the deranged president resembles a rogue’s gallery of literary characters – and none of them are heroes
Ernst Gombrich and the art of seeing
The Austrian-born art historian’s bestselling books revolutionised our understanding of artistic perception
Europe’s best literary hotels
From where authors stayed to where they set their novels, a selection of reading rooms for travelling bookworms
A new argument for a progressive future
In an extract from their new book Abundance, two leading US thinkers set out the fundamental problem with mainstream beliefs – on both the left and right
Music
The Beatles vs Andrew Tate
One of the Beatles’ great gifts was to reconcile masculinity with emotional intelligence
Brexit botcher Frost faces the music
The Tory peer has been bemoaning the “teenage” tastes of Labour ministers like Rachel Reeves. But was his hero Margaret Thatcher really any better?
Rob Pilatus, the new Elvis who signed a deal with the devil
He was one half of Milli Vanilli. So was he a failure, a fraud – or an extraordinary success?
Healing through harmony: 20 years of the European Doctors Orchestra
The EDO celebrated the milestone with a public charity concert at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music in Gateshead
Can Eurovision still unite Europe by music?
In divisive times, the contest still holds extraordinary power, explains Chris Harms of Lord Of The Lost – even if you finish last
Everyday Philosophy: John Cage and the sound of silence
A collective called the 1000 Artists have followed in the composer’s footsteps by releasing a silent protest album
Film
Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus, and the importance of forgetting
Uberto Pasolini’s new film adaptation of the Odyssey is a psychological exploration of trauma in a world where the gods are absent
Michel Hazanavicius on hope and the Holocaust
The Oscar-winning director of The Artist returns with a fairytale rooted in horror
Totò, the unlucky actor who took it on the chin
That he remained upbeat despite his many misfortunes was amazing. That he managed to make his home country laugh for over half a century borders on the miraculous
Review: How Four Mothers connects generational divides
Directed by Darren Thornton and co-written by his brother Colin, Four Mothers is more ambitious than a gentle drama
The Assessment and the mother of all battles
Set in a future where the government decides who gets to have children, The Assessment is a personal triumph for film-maker Fleur Fortuné
Is The Studio the best show of 2025 so far?
The comic dilemmas in The Studio are a joy to watch and class of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s writing style
Theatre
The play that gets Oscar Wilde right
The Importance of Being Oscar is a personal triumph for actor Alastair Whatley
Sweat, the play Donald Trump should watch
How did Trump secure a second term? Why has he started a tariff war? The 2017 winner of the Pulitzer prize for drama offers an explanation
The Alto Knights is Robert De Niro’s victory lap
Barry Levinson’s true-crime gangster story is a pleasing encapsulation of five decades of cinematic culture
Black Bag will keep you guessing until the very end
Forty years since his first feature film, Steven Soderbergh has rarely been better
The Seagull is an evening of convention-busting Chekhov
The imaginative liberties on show here are the trademark of director Thomas Ostermeier
Review: You wait ages for a great role for a woman.. in Backstroke, two come at once
Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig are funny, tragic and unforgettable
Great European Lives
Totò, the unlucky actor who took it on the chin
That he remained upbeat despite his many misfortunes was amazing. That he managed to make his home country laugh for over half a century borders on the miraculous
Karl and Bertha Benz, the couple who drove into history
In common with so many of the great pioneers, the inventor could add to his own gifts the blessing of a truly formidable spouse
Rob Pilatus, the new Elvis who signed a deal with the devil
He was one half of Milli Vanilli. So was he a failure, a fraud – or an extraordinary success?
Jules Verne, the writer who travelled in his imagination
The Frenchman always stressed that he was a writer of science fact, not science fiction
Capucine, the French cover girl turned Hollywood star
It was while the 22-year-old Germaine Lefebvre was walking down a Parisian street that her life was forever changed
Ken Adam, the fighter pilot who defined the look of Bond
Like Stanley Kubrick, his gift was to imagine and then realise the unimaginable, the unrealisable – places you could never go