He was in one of the biggest groups in the world – all without playing a note. As the last surviving Monkee turns 80, he remembers 60s fame – and what happened when the band broke free

In 1965, Micky Dolenz was an architecture student and jobbing actor in Los Angeles, doing the rounds of auditions for TV pilots. As a 10-year-old he had played the lead in a TV series called Circus Boy, but the former child star began to notice something odd about the jobs his agent was now sending him to: every one was for a series “about kids in a band”. He says: “One was called The Happeners, about a little folk trio like Peter, Paul and Mary. One was about a surfing band like the Beach Boys. Another was about a big family folk ensemble. Something was in the air, obviously, because of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons, Motown. Young people, who had disposable income, were being targeted.”

None of those shows got made but a fourth audition proved more fruitful: it called for “folk’n’roll musician/singers … four insane boys” who looked as if they might hang around a hip Sunset Strip coffee shop called Ben Frank’s. Dolenz got a leading role, happily acquiescing to learn to play drums. “It was kind of the same as when I was in Circus Boy and they told me I had to learn to ride an elephant – ‘Great! When do I start?’”

‘I had no idea I’d get so wet. I was in water for a month. It was kind of wild. For the storm scenes, they were dumping it down on us from towers. There were big-ass waves flying everywhere’

I’d always wanted to be killed in a movie by something big that was chasing me. I missed out on my death scene in Jurassic Park because a hurricane destroyed the set in Hawaii, so I never got to go down and get eaten by a velociraptor. When Renny Harlin told me he was making a horror movie with killer sharks, and that I was going to be the first person to die, I said: “Great!” It was a good idea – once he’d killed me, it meant any character’s life was up for grabs.

The comic on idolising Russell Howard, spending summer away from the Edinburgh fringe and lying to cabbies

Why did you get into comedy?
I started standup as a teenager despite being painfully shy. I loved the feeling of making people laugh, but the thought of it being a job had never crossed my mind. A career started to snowball without me even realising and I’ve been delighted and astounded by that ever since. I’ve grown up in this job, and 18-year-old me would never have believed it possible.

Who did you admire when you were starting out?
Rob Rouse. To this day, if I see I’m on a lineup with him I’m buzzing. I’ve also been in awe of Ross Noble’s ludicrous genius since before I even started comedy.

After 67 years and many wild incidents etched on Britain’s collective memory, the world’s longest-running children’s TV show will stop going out live. Will it ever go viral again?

Life has changed beyond all recognition over the last 67 years. The way we live, the way we communicate, the things we eat; if you were to grab someone from 1958 and bring them forward in time to 2025, the sheer scale of change would blow their minds. Except, perhaps, for one thing. Everything else might be unrecognisable, but Blue Peter has always been broadcast live. Until now.

It has been reported that the last live episode of Blue Peter has aired, ending a tradition that has endured for nearly seven decades. It isn’t the end of Blue Peter, which will continue, albeit in a prerecorded format, but it is the end of an era. The show may be an institution, but even the longest-running children’s programme in the world isn’t immune to change.

Loch Ness Monster hunters have included the Chuckle Brothers – and even David Lean. As the Scottish icon is honoured in a new stamp and a stirring musical, we separate the classy from the crackpot

It is the UK’s largest body of fresh water, its volume totalling more than all the lakes of England and Wales combined. It is also the UK’s greatest source of daft stories. For the best part of a century, Loch Ness has used its monster-adjacent status not only to finance a healthy tourist economy, but also to generate a small industry in Nessie-related fiction, from the inspired to the crackpot. The Simpsons sent Mr Burns to do battle with the creature in an episode called Monty Can’t Buy Me Love. From the pen of poet Ted Hughes came Nessie the Mannerless Monster, who was tired of being told she does not exist. And indie folkster Matilda Mann has a song called The Loch Ness Monster, containing this advice: “Stay right down there.” Not wanting to be left out, the Royal Mail has just honoured Nessie with a fine, if rather unscary, stamp.

To these slithery ranks we will shortly be able to add Nessie, a family musical written and composed by Glasgow’s Shonagh Murray and about to premiere in Edinburgh and Pitlochry. Murray was reluctant to tackle such a familiar Scottish icon, until a challenge from her father drew her in. “I had just finished doing a couple of shows about the women behind Robert Burns,” she says. “I was joking with my dad that I needed to find something a wee bit less Scottish. He was like: ‘Oh, there’s loads of Scottish stories that have been told – but not to their full potential. You should do a Nessie musical.’ On a dare, I wrote an opening number. The more I was writing, the more I liked it. There was something charming and special about it.”

The cast of the new BBC show explain how they have given hard-hitting content a fun, relatable and colourful spin to actively encourage teenagers to make good life choices

In a modern academy secondary school in a deprived part of Leeds, adults wrangle a group of children into their places and a hush descends, before a director calls “Action!”

It’s a Tuesday in May – but it is not a school day. The kids have come in during the holidays to be extras in a new BBC comedy drama, Crongton, set on a fictional housing estate.

He caused a scandal with his erotic tale of lakeside cruising. Now the French film-maker is back – with a funny yet tragic story of lofty ideals, base passions and a lusty priest

There’s a wonderfully frank clifftop scene in Misericordia, Alain Guiraudie’s new rural thriller, in which a priest seems to give absolution to a murderer. Not through some great act of clemency, though, but because of what he wants in return. “He’s a lot like me,” says the director, laughing. “He’s navigating between his greater ideals and his desires as a man. I think a lot of us do that.”

Morally flexible clergymen, vacillating killers, characters whose desires lead them into terra incognita – this is Guiraudie’s morally unstable terrain. Misericordia is the mirror image of his much-praised 2013 psychological drama Stranger By the Lake. Where that film made a murderer a dimly grasped object of desire, here the point of view is the killer’s. Jérémie stirs up dormant passions when he returns to his childhood village for the funeral of his former baker boss. In Guiraudie’s hands, it’s never certain whether a story will turn out tragic or comic. In Misericordia, it’s both: the film starts off in Talented Mr Ripley territory, before spiralling into bed-hopping, gendarme-dodging farce.

The musician was commissioned to create an album inspired by the north-east’s mining history – and then discovered his ancestors died in a local disaster

When Futureheads singer Barry Hyde was commissioned by Sunderland city council to create an album inspired by the north-east’s mining heritage, he was astonished to discover an unexpected personal connection to the project.

“A historian friend of mine – Keith Gregson – told me that at least two and perhaps more of my ancestors had died in the Trimdon Grange mining disaster,” the singer says, referring to the 1882 explosion in County Durham that killed 69 men and boys. “My great-grandmother’s sons, Thomas and Joseph, were 13 and 14 respectively. There was also another Joseph Hyde, 23, and William J Hyde, 26, who we think might be related.”

Disney’s controversial live-action remake was proportionally more successful in ‘red’ states that vote Republican than those voting Democrat

Dogged by politically inspired controversy for months, Disney’s new version of Snow White recorded a disappointing $43m (£33.3m) on its first weekend at the North American box office, the lowest figures to date for one of the studio’s recent wave of live-action remakes of its classic animated films. However, despite the stream of criticism over its so-called “woke” credentials, figures reveal that it is proportionally more successful in “red” states that vote Republican than those voting Democrat.

Overall, Snow White’s figures are well down on what Disney may have hoped for; the previously worst performing remake was the Tim Burton-directed Dumbo, which took $45m on its opening weekend in 2019, and finished with a worldwide box-office take of $353m. In contrast, remade films such as Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King all took over $1bn worldwide.

The director was discussing the row over Adrien Brody’s AI-enhanced Hungarian accent, saying ‘we mess with actors’ voices all the time’

David Cronenberg has suggested the AI controversy over Adrien Brody’s Hungarian accent in The Brutalist was an issue manufactured by the campaign of a rival Oscar film.

Cronenberg was speaking at the London Soundtrack festival alongside composer Howard Shore, and in remarks reported by the Hollywood Reporter, said that film-makers “mess with actors’ voices all the time”. Cronenberg said: “There was a discussion about Adrien Brody … [and] apparently they used artificial intelligence to improve his accent. I think it was a campaign against The Brutalist by some other Oscar nominees. It’s very much a Harvey Weinstein kind of thing, though he wasn’t around.”

The art deco former theatre escaped demolition, but has been closed since its recent £50m renovation

In many ways, it was the kind of marketing that money simply could not buy. Bradford Live, a new 3,900-capacity, city-centre entertainment venue, was splashed over the pages of local newspapers, made the subject of Facebook groups and even afforded national headlines. Unfortunately, it was for the wrong reasons.

The exceptionally well-restored West Yorkshire concert hall was brimming with possibilities, but was unable to open in November as planned because there was no operator in place to run it.

Trump was responding to Clooney’s call to defend press freedoms while promoting his new stage version of Good Night, and Good Luck

Donald Trump has taken aim at the actor and prominent Democrat activist George Clooney, dismissing his interview on US TV news programme 60 Minutes as a “total puff piece”.

The Oscar-winning star was the subject of Sunday’s show to promote his Broadway debut, in a stage version of the film Good Night, and Good Luck, in which he plays veteran journalist Edward R Murrow, who took part in a historic TV showdown with Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Actor, 76, is accused of groping two women on set during the filming of The Green Shutters in 2021

Gérard Depardieu arrived at a Paris court on Monday for his trial over alleged sexual assaults on a film set, a case that places one of France’s best-known film stars at the heart of the country’s broader reckoning over sexual violence.

Depardieu, 76, has faced allegations of rape or sexual assault from more than a dozen women, all of which he has denied, but this is the first time he has appeared in court to answer accusations.

Children’s magazine TV show, which first aired in 1958, will now be pre-recorded due to changing viewer habits

Blue Peter has recorded its final live episode as the show moves to a pre-recorded format, the BBC said.

Airing weekly on Fridays, the longest-running children’s show in the world began on 16 October 1958 with its intrepid presenters and characterful pets.

Host of Top of the Pops and My Top Twelve among other shows was one of last people to interview John Lennon

Andy Peebles, the former Radio 1 DJ and presenter who was one of the last people to interview John Lennon, has died aged 76, his family has confirmed.

Peebles began his radio career in Manchester in 1973 and joined Radio 1 in 1978, where he was a familiar voice for 14 years.

Writer joins more than 100,000 parents who pledge to withhold smartphones until children are at least 14

The writer of Adolescence has backed the Smartphone Free Childhood group, which has received the support of more than 100,000 parents pledging to withhold smartphones from their children until they are at least 14.

Jack Thorne, the co-writer of the Netflix drama about “incel” culture, said he supported the campaign’s “parent pact” – an online promise to wait until the end of year 9 before considering giving a child a smartphone.

Coldplay, Harry Styles and Stormzy also join Suffolk songwriter in campaigning for music funding in schools

Elton John, Coldplay, Harry Styles, Stormzy and Central Cee are among the artists backing a call from Ed Sheeran for Keir Starmer to commit £250m of funding for music education.

As part of his newly launched Ed Sheeran Foundation, the Suffolk songwriter is campaigning for music funding in schools, training for music teachers, funding for grassroots venues and spaces, apprenticeships in music and a more diverse music curriculum.

Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardif
The pianist captured the vast dynamic contrasts of Schubert’s sonatas; and her fine playing of William Byrd was a refreshing foil

Two Schubert sonatas were the main works framing Mishka Rushdie Momen’s programme in the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama’s Steinway series. Given that both were in the minor mode – the A minor, D784 and the C minor, D958 – together they constituted quite a serious, heavyweight affair for a Sunday morning recital.

A pianist of graceful poise and sensitivity, Momen has a highly fluent technique that allowed everything to carry well in this acoustic. And, despite seeming a slight slip of a thing, to use an old-fashioned phrase, in these sonatas she showed that she could unleash considerable power in Schubert’s outbursts of high-volume dramatic tension, sometimes shocking in their immediacy. At the other extreme, her pianissimo was often pianississimo, so that lyrical lines, rather than quietly singing out, sounded understated and as a result curiously underwhelming. It was in the mercurial finale of the A minor sonata and the lilting, dance-like F major theme with its chromatic edge, poignant and piquant at every appearance, that Momen captured most expressively the happy/sad ambivalence of this composer’s musical makeup.

Rereleased documentary study of the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre is an epic story of success and failure

After 20 years, Ondi Timoner has rereleased her riveting and colossal documentary study of two psych rock bands, the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and their epic dual story of success and failure. There is about 40 minutes of extra material and a present-day coda that reveals, among other things, that each band has a member who now sells real estate. That ending, brutally and suddenly visiting grey-haired middle age on these gorgeous rock’n’roll exquisites, reminded me of the Fellini-esque dream opening to Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories in which two trains, one carrying life’s winners and the other with hapless losers, wind up at the same dusty rubbish heap.

Dig! XX, which took years to shoot, is alternately narrated by the Warhols’ frontman, Courtney Taylor-Taylor, and the BJM’s relentlessly goofy tambourine player, Joel Gion, and it shows the complex “frenmity” of the two bands. Almost from the outset, it seemed as if the Dandy Warhols were destined for commercial success tainted by feelings of selling out, and their pals the Brian Jonestown Massacre were heading for failure redeemed by a magnificent and self-destructive kind of integrity.

Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire
Hélène Binet’s haunted photographs of spectacular country residences built by Jewish people across Europe are filled with the melancholic grandeur of fallen empires

All things considered, we Jews haven’t done too bad. Not that you need reminding. Every corner of the internet, from Reddit to X, is desperate to point out that Jewish people are apparently in control of the banks, Hollywood, the government and, ahem, art criticism. That’s the price you pay for being a successful immigrant.

And that success is nothing new. Swiss-French photographer Hélène Binet’s latest body of work documents a sweeping array of opulent, lavish country houses owned or built by Jews across Europe. Bankers, textile merchants, stockbrokers, politicians, the story of post-medieval Jewry is a tale filled with an awful lot of high achievers, and they built themselves some seriously swanky houses. A selection of Binet’s images has been hung in the most appropriate of settings; Waddesdon Manor, the wildly over the top 19th-century weekend party house of Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild.

As expected, this six-part series is full of mystery, family drama and rich people hiding secrets. But it’s also surprisingly nuanced, thanks to its A-game performances

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The tone of this gracefully crafted adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel is tender and mysterious, imbued with a soft literary quality. It’s mostly based on the fictitious Scribbly Gum island, a picturesque location situated close to Sydney, where property presumably costs more than the gross GDP of several countries and almost all its tiny population belong to the same family. Like every family they conceal secrets, but given this is a mystery-thriller – executive produced by Nicole Kidman, no less – those secrets are particularly big and juicy.

Across the show’s six-part arc, various skeletons are pried from the closet by a protagonist whose task is to interrupt the status quo and act as an agent of change. This is Sophie (Teresa Palmer), a likable journalist in her late 30s who inherits a property not from the bank of mum and dad, but from a rather less common depository: the bank of an ex-boyfriend’s relative who barely knew her. The reason the now-deceased Connie (Angela Punch McGregor) bequeathed it to her is one of several key mysteries, slowly and tastefully revealed.

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Ikon, Birmingham
The artist turns the state’s suspicious gaze on Britain’s Muslim community right back in the opposite direction in an overwhelming, galvanising show

Artist Mahtab Hussain was in his 20s in July 2005, when four terrorists detonated homemade bombs in separate, coordinated suicide attacks during rush hour in London. As a young British-born Muslim with Pakistani heritage, Hussain found himself among those on the frontline of a renewed wave of Islamophobia and racial profiling in the UK. The experiences of growing up in the post 9/11, 7/7 era as a young Muslim man instilled in him a hysterical pressure “to change myself”, he says.

Five years later, in 2010, West Midlands police started putting up CCTV cameras across Birmingham – 218 cameras were installed, some of them hidden – most in majority Muslim areas of the city. Project Champion as the surveillance scheme was known, was dismantled a year later, after complaints from the community and an independent review – but the scars remain. Hussain’s exhibition What Did You Want to See? at Ikon is his visceral response to the ignominy of Project Champion, and the catharsis of coming together as a community in its wake.

Real-life vintage shop owners Ruth Syratt and Megan Stevenson raid the past for sellable trinkets in this charmingly funny, quintessentially British comedy

Here is a very silly and very likable British mockumentary, one that – like Ruth and Megan, the two real-life Muswell Hill vintage-shop mavens at its centre – lovingly mixes and matches multifarious styles. Director and co-writer Chris Reading adopts a little The Office deadpan, some Shaun of the Dead bathos, a heap of Terry Gilliam, and even shoplifts a shot from Wes Anderson. If the resulting low-budget assemblage still bears these nametags and has the odd stray thread showing, it also has a persistent charm of its own.

The ChaChaCha vintage emporium (which really exists) is limping along until owners Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson) stumble on a time machine in the form of a souped-up bumper car – and thus an infinite supply of merchandise from whichever epoch they desire. It transpires the gizmo was invented by Ralph (Brian Bovell), former presenter of a Tomorrow’s World-style TV show and now burnt-out stalwart of the Muswell Hill Science Club. Suspicious about their surfeit of “old but somehow new” stock, club president Martin (Guy Henry) warns them about abusing the device. Of course they ignore him – until a visual migraine of a wormhole opens up in their backroom.

Eleven short stories tackle mother-daughter relationships and the curse of social media with insight and humour

Marni Appleton’s bittersweet debut collection of short stories focuses on the experiences of millennial women – their obsessions, friendships, betrayals and crushes. Appleton is good on mother-daughter relationships. In the title story, Ana is alienated by the realisation that everyone around her is pregnant. As she obsesses about the breakdown of her friendship with Chloe, tormented by her upbeat social media posts, we realise there is more going on: Ana is projecting her pain about her bipolar mother and conflicted emotions about having children.

In Road Trip, 17-year-old Allie hangs out with older friends. Her mother’s coldness is palpable when she picks up her hungover daughter. Driving home, they have to stop so Allie can vomit. Left there by her mother, Allie recalls other incidents of maternal cruelty: “How bad do you have to be to be rejected by the person whose body was your first home?”

The K-pop superstar on the pop hit that kickstarted her music career, and why she can no longer listen to one of her band’s biggest songs

The first song I fell in love with
I’m an only child. My older cousin would come round to play at my house, and she was a big fan of Britney Spears. She put on … Baby One More Time and I was like: “What is this song? I love it.” I watched the music video and fell in love with her.

The first record I bought
I was a big fan of K-pop band BigBang before I moved from Thailand to Korea. I bought Taeyang’s first solo album Solar from Myeongdong, Korea’s famous shopping and fashion district where all the tourists go.

The Palestinian writer and campaigner on Mahler, Gaza, Edinburgh – and the peace of his West Bank garden

Raja Shehadeh is a Palestinian author and lawyer, and co-founder of the human rights organisation Al-Haq. He won the Orwell prize in 2008 for his book Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape, and his new book, Forgotten: Searching for Palestine’s Hidden Places and Lost Memorials, written with his wife, Penny Johnson, is out now.

Now 88, the minimalist composer has reissued his life’s work. He answers your questions about Bowie, the Grateful Dead, spirituality – and his complicated friendship with Philip Glass

Why does minimalist music consist of so much repetition? Correllisflute
The word “minimalist” was invented by Michael Nyman when he was more of a music critic than a composer, but the kind of music that I and people like me deal with has changes on a much smaller scale than people are used to hearing. The number of repetitions is the nature of the music. On my early pieces, such as It’s Gonna Rain or Piano Phase, everything moves so slowly. Some people will say: “To hell with it, I’m not listening to that,” but those who do experience a different kind of listening.

Not only was David Bowie influenced by your work during his Berlin era, but also your Clapping Music is sampled on the hypnotic James Murphy remix of Bowie’s Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix). What do you recall of your conversations with Bowie in 1978? McScootikins
We played Music for 18 Musicians at the Bottom Line in New York, the first time we’d played it in a rock club. Afterwards, David Bowie came up and introduced himself and a photograph was taken, but really it was one of the very short post-concert conversations. It was the exchange of mutual admiration that really mattered. I was so delighted to see him there and he told me he’d heard us play the piece before, in Berlin. It was a nice coming together. The James Murphy remix is an odd combination that seems to work. Sometimes, you hear what people do with your music and think: “What have they done to me?” But that sounded really interesting. I wanted to hear it again.

Ahead of her 40th birthday next week, we look back over the 25-year big-screen career of the Oscar-nominated actor, from Atonement to Love Actually, Pride & Prejudice to Star Wars

Knightley’s first big role was in this teen thriller, about four private school kids partying in a bomb shelter, where it all goes predictably haywire. It’s a horror, and not just for the sheer dominance of low-rise bootcut jeans. Even in its more hysterical moments, Knightley brings nuance to the posh-girl stereotype.

‘She seemed so strong, so forceful, to be going through the streets dressed like this. The hyper-feminised character she projected was like a riposte to the male violence’

I loved growing up in Belfast because it was wild. You’re not supposed to say that, but even though I was working class and we were in the thick of it, I didn’t experience any violence directly. I experienced the warmth of working-class communities on both sides, Catholic and Protestant, and the power of community in the fight for things like justice, fairness and equality. I learned about those principles mostly through women.

Belfast was a very patriarchal place, but women always seemed to be the ones making the most sense. If you look at UN statistics for when women are at negotiating tables, the chances of reaching peace agreements are much higher. Then, if they stay at the table, the peace agreement lasts longer. In different parts of the world that I’ve been commissioned to shoot, like Sudan or Beirut, I’ve met many different women but they all have the same ability to cut through the shit, yet they’re not given any power.

‘The gig ended with onstage brawls. It was the most incredible thing I’d ever filmed but the bouncer took the tapes. It took me years to get them back’

I wanted to make a documentary about 10 bands on the verge of getting signed by record companies, to see what would happen to them. When I first heard the Brian Jonestown Massacre, I thought they were some lost band from the 1960s. But a friend told me they were alive and well – and that every label wanted to sign them. I filmed them soundchecking for an industry showcase gig at the Viper Room in Los Angeles, then they came over to my house, which is the backyard scene in Dig!

Catey Sexton’s documentary remembers how Covid-19 changed us all. Plus: Crongton is a bold new comedy. Here’s what to watch this evening

8.30pm, BBC One
“It feels like we’re in a rush to forget and move on,” says film-maker Catey Sexton, in her feature documentary marking five years since the Covid-19 outbreak. But, as family members and friends of the more than 230,000 people who died tell her, life will never be the same again. Sexton’s own mother lost her life to the virus, and she wants to hear about the experiences of other people behind the numbers in a moving, lovely but heart-rending testimony. Hollie Richardson

Barry Jenkins’ stunning prequel to the 90s cartoon classic, and Stranger Things’s Sadie Sink stars in a punky musical about a guitar player who may be able to save the world

The idea of photorealistic lions speaking English is a bit weird, but Disney’s remake juggernaut rolls on with a prequel to the reboot of the animated musical. Lin-Manuel Miranda takes over from Elton John in the song department, while Barry Jenkins, creator of Oscar-winning arthouse gem Moonlight, is an intriguing choice to direct this child-friendly origin story for Simba’s dad and evil uncle Scar – AKA Taka (Kelvin J Harrison). Young orphan Mufasa (voiced by Aaron Pierre) is adopted by Taka’s pride but when a gang of white lions attack, the brothers flee. They encounter a lioness Sarabi (Tiffany Boone) and her possibly familiar mandrill and hornbill pals, with danger and betrayal on the cards. Simon Wardell
Wednesday 26 March, Disney+

Seth Rogen’s great new cringe comedy has A-listers lining up for a cameo, and the magician meets wild daredevils and edge-walkers from around the world

Does the head of a Hollywood studio need to care about films? This cringe comedy stars Seth Rogen as Matt Remick, a movie obsessive whose rise to the helm of the fictional Continental Studios suggests it might be the worst quality to possess. Matt wants to make great films – but his boss Griffin Mill (a superbly villainous Bryan Cranston) sees things differently. Before he knows it, Matt is greenlighting a Kool-Aid movie, doing the dirty on his mentor Patty (Catherine O’Hara) and breaking Martin Scorsese’s heart. The sheer quality of the Hollywood cameos (Steve Buscemi, Charlize Theron and more) suggests something about the satirical message at the show’s core rings uncomfortably true.
Apple TV+, from Wednesday 26 March

The pumping of sewage into rivers and seas has become a scandal in Britain. Photographer Dylan Martinez has spent years travelling around the country to capture the story of its broken sewage system.

In England, water companies discharged sewage for 3.6m hours in 2023, polluting streams, rivers and coastlines, littering them with sanitary products and condoms, damaging ecosystems and habitats, and scaring away tourists.

Photojournalist Alessandro Gandolfi has been documenting the Phlegraean Fields in southern Italy, where a record 6,740 earthquakes were recorded in 2024, and the seismic swarm has continued in 2025. The volcanic field has been active for more than 80,000 years. It is dotted with craters, lakes and fumaroles as well as roads, factories and the homes of more than 600,000 people

In the square in Monterusciello, a few kilometres from Pozzuoli, 12-year-old Angelo Di Roberto climbed into the civil defence bus with his grandfather. “None of my schoolmates wanted to come, but I wanted to” he said. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

He was right. It was important. The authorities were simulating a large-scale evacuation, the kind they would have to carry out in the event of a volcanic eruption in the seismically active Campi Flegrei or Phlegraean Fields near the southern Italian city of Naples.

During an exercise to simulate an evacuation in the event of a volcanic eruption in the Phlegraean Fields, Angelo Di Roberto, 70, his nephew of the same name, 12, and Alessandro Celardo, 29, all from Monterusciello, arrive at Naples central station, from where in theory they should depart for Milan.

From nuclear power plants to Aids protests, the photographer has spent half a century capturing her activist community

The V&A has announced the winners of the 2025 V&A Parasol Foundation prize for women in photography, the third iteration of the museum’s open call prize, which identifies, supports and champions the talent of global female photographers.

The four winners will each receive a bursary of £2,000 and will exhibit their work in a group show at the Copeland Gallery, London, as part of the Peckham 24 festival, from 16-25 May 2025.

High-fashion tracksuits, lonely washing lines and northern soul dancing … a new exhibition shows how working-class photographers view modern Britain

Flying lobsters, cuttlefish ink and stargazy pie … Jon Tonks got on his kayak to spend 18 months photographing the incredible fishing communities around England’s south-west coast

Feasting polar bears, flying octopuses and gadgets galore – these stunning images won in their category at this year’s awards

‘We walked three kilometres into this Australian lake, to where the water was still only a metre deep. Then we set up the gas pipe – and waited until the air was really still’

During my student years I did very traditional black-and-white landscape photography. I spent time in the Himalayas, Patagonia and Tasmania and came back with pictures of grandeur – what is sometimes described as “the sublime”. But while studying art history, I suddenly realised all this had been done before. I was caught up in an aesthetic that had been current 150 years earlier.

I put my work away in a drawer but I held back about 10 images that I loved, spread them out, and asked myself: “What is the commonality between these?” And it was that they all had a sense of space and were heading towards the abstract. Then I wondered if there was anywhere I could work with space, and use it as my subject.

Pia-Paulina Guilmoth’s community in rural Maine is not always welcoming to trans women. She deals with the hostility by capturing the local area’s beauty