In Prima Facie, she plays a rising-star barrister, well versed in defending men accused of sexual violence. Then she is raped by a colleague, and her world implodes. Erivo talks about the potential impact of the film – and how she is navigating her stratospheric success

Cynthia Erivo is contemplating her favourite crisps, the ridged American brand Ruffles, as we sit talking in a quiet corner of a west London restaurant. Dressed all in black and sporting her signature elongated nails, she is known for her healthy lifestyle, but everyone, it seems, has their vices. “Ruffles are just perfect,” she says. “When you get a good batch, and the salt-to-potato ratio is perfect … it’s amazing.”

Erivo has just touched down after singing in Phoenix, Arizona, the night before, and has been running me through the health routine that helps her maintain her frantic schedule. Before her concert, there was the Dior front row at Paris fashion week, and she has just been announced as a guest host on SNL UK. Erivo doesn’t drink alcohol (today she orders some peppermint tea); she’s vegan; she doesn’t eat airline food, only her own prepacked meals. She even has an infra-red sauna “to help me heal from the inside”. Earlier this year she ran the London Marathon before jumping on stage to perform Dracula, where she played all 23 parts; she had rehearsed her lines while going on gruelling marathon training runs. All that requires discipline – and snacks – to keep the show on the road.

Fellow pupils at his primary school have challenged Cambridge academic’s story, though others support it

The story of Jason Arday’s extraordinary rise to becoming the youngest black professor in the history of the University of Cambridge is all the more remarkable for one claim: that he did not learn to speak until just shy of his 12th birthday.

This claim was mentioned in a letter announcing his resignation last week, which came amid mounting questions about his academic work and statements he had made about his past.

Simon & Schuster still plans to publish book by Cambridge academic who resigned this week amid plagiarism claims

Jason Arday, the former Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism and embellishment, claimed he was paid “1.4 million” for his forthcoming memoir detailing his extraordinary backstory.

Arday was dogged by a growing series of questions over his academic work and credentials before he resigned on Wednesday night, saying the “relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love”.

From accusations of plagiarism to queries over his charity work, we list all the allegations against the academic

The rise and fall of Prof Jason Arday has been one of the most dramatic in the history of British academia. Diagnosed as autistic as a child, he says he was non-verbal until he was 11 and only learned to read and write at the age of 18. Less than 20 years later he was appointed the youngest black professor in Cambridge University’s history.

His resignation on Wednesday followed two weeks of intense scrutiny. He has been accused of plagiarism in his academic work and questions have been raised about a long line of claims about his backstory, from endurance running, footballing exploits and charity fundraising to academic positions, qualifications and authorship.

University says it has ‘new information’ about academic career of Jason Arday, the youngest black professor in its history

Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism and embellishment, is to face investigation by the university after it said it received “new information” about his qualifications and career.

Cambridge initially defended Arday – the youngest black professor appointed in the university’s history, with a compelling life story of educational disadvantage – as “the victim of a vile campaign”. But as questions mounted over Arday’s own claims, the university’s leaders felt that Cambridge’s reputation was in danger.

Sociology professor to stand down after university announces investigation into his qualifications and career

• Playbooks, plagiarism and a pig’s head: the claims surrounding a star Cambridge professor

Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism and embellishment, has resigned after the university announced he was to face new investigations into his qualifications and career.

Arday, who had been dogged by a growing series of questions over his academic work and credentials, issued a statement on Wednesday night, saying the “relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love”.

Jason Arday was regarded as an academic superstar, but then questions about his work prompted scrutiny of his backstory and counterclaims of racism

When the superstar academic Jason Arday took to the stage at the British Sociological Association’s 75th anniversary conference earlier this year, he delivered a talk called Wanted Dead or Alive: the Playbook.

The youngest black professor in Cambridge University’s history told an audience of his peers that the playbook in question had helped bring down some of the biggest names in US academia. Conservative “activists” were trawling through the work of black academics, looking for anything to use against them: inconsistencies, citation errors, passages in their work that were similar to existing papers.

Gallery director says collection of 140 paintings will offer a more balanced view of Manchester painter’s work

A new exhibition of work by LS Lowry will “bust a few myths” about the Mancunian artist, who the show’s co-curator says is still wrongly derided for being “naive and uncultured”.

LS Lowry: the Theatre of Life features 140 paintings by the artist, who captured working-class life in the industrial north-west of England during the early and mid 20th century.

Six-part series will explore the band’s years in Hamburg, including the overlooked influence of Harold Phillips

In 1960, the Beatles arrived in the German port city of Hamburg. Inexperienced, keen and – in the case of George Harrison – underage, they were at the start of a two-year spell that would become a key part of Beatles lore, a time when the band honed their skills while entertaining rowdy sailors.

The Hamburg stint, during which the band played more than 250 gigs between 1960 and 1962, is the focus of a new BBC drama, Hamburg Days, which will tell the story of how the band were beaten into shape by performing near the notorious Reeperbahn.

Presenter, 77, says ‘for now life goes on as normal and I continue to broadcast’ as he shares diagnosis received in 2025

The longtime radio and TV broadcaster Paul Gambaccini has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

The 77-year-old presenter, who has been a regular on the BBC since the 1970s and has one of the most recognisable voices on British radio, shared a statement revealing the diagnosis he received in 2025.

After a career as a City headhunter, Harriman took up photography eight years ago and became well known for his protest images. He was soon shooting the cover of Vogue and made chair of the Southbank Centre. How did he end up engulfed in controversy over his social media?

It has been a hectic few weeks for Misan Harriman. When we meet, he has just returned from New York, where he hosted screenings of a new documentary about his work as an activist and photographer of protests, Shoot the People. While there, the 48-year-old got to soak in the glorious chaos of the New York Knicks’ victory parade.

“I’ve never seen New York like that: all colours, all shapes, and sizes,” says Harriman, who had not been to the city since he was a child. For him, the parade – in which 2 million people took to the streets to celebrate the basketball team’s first NBA championship win in 53 years – complements his incredibly popular protest photography.

Reports say up to 80,000 people waiting by mid-afternoon for chance to see historic artwork at British Museum

People keen to see the Bayeux tapestry faced online queues of up to nine hours when tickets went on sale for the first time on Wednesday morning.

The British Museum, which is hosting the wool-on-linen artwork from September, saw huge traffic to its ticketing website as a scramble for access began.

The late production genius’s chaotic reputation has always preceded him. But could two new books, a posthumous album and a flurry of classic reissues change all that – and put the focus back on his music?

David Katz’s introduction to the world of Lee “Scratch” Perry was bewildering. The Jamaican producer had been living in London for several years, and Katz, a music journalist who had fallen in love with reggae as a teenager in San Francisco, had moved to the UK capital in 1987 and wanted to interview the notoriously evasive artist.

Katz tracked him down to a recording studio in Rotherhithe, just over the river in south London. Perry welcomed him before insisting he present him with “13 stones from your country” with no further explanation. When Katz informed him he could hardly just pop back to the west coast, Perry told him to “go down to the River Thames and get me 13 stones!”.

Helen Cammock says her comments blaming wartime leader for Bengal famine were intended to create ‘dialogue’

A Turner prize-winning artist accused of telling a “barefaced lie” about Winston Churchill in a video piece installed at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) has defended her work, saying it was intended to create a “dialogue” about figures in the gallery’s collection.

Helen Cammock’s 40-minute moving image piece called Persistence has been at the centre of a row about the role Churchill played in the Bengal famine of 1943.

James Bond actor, who is only the second non-royal woman to be celebrated in this way, called the honour ‘truly overwhelming’

Dame Judi Dench is to have a West End theatre renamed after her, becoming only the second non-royal woman to be honoured in such a way.

The Shaftesbury theatre will be known as the Judi Dench theatre from February 2027 in celebration of the actor’s “unparalleled contribution to British theatre and the performing arts”.

Exclusive: The work will feature some of the photographer’s most powerful images from his 70-year career

After more than seven decades of covering conflicts around the world, Don McCullin will return to Vietnam and his best-known images for his final book.

The photographer, who got his start aged 23 when his image of a gang in Finsbury Park was published in the Observer, has decided to revisit the war and his 12-day stint with US marines during the battle of Hue in 1968.

Artist said Man in a Black Scarf was not his but evidence has emerged to show he painted it when a student in Suffolk

An early portrait by Lucian Freud, which the artist denied was his for years, is to be exhibited for the first time after experts proved it was painted by him.

Man in a Black Scarf was created in 1939 by the British artist when he was still a student at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Hadleigh, Suffolk. The sitter is thought to be John Jameson, a friend of Freud’s and scion of the whiskey family.

Fab Four are still making waves 60 years on – and upcoming Sam Mendes films are expected to turn the hype up to 11

If anyone needed a reminder of the enduring cultural clout of the Beatles, the past few weeks have provided a glut. Firstly, there’s the small matter of The Boys of Dungeon Lane, Paul McCartney’s 20th solo album, billed as “an adventurous and limber take on guitar music” by the Guardian.

When England announced their World Cup squad, the soundtrack was Come Together, played alongside a film of fashionable young people in New York and a clip of a young, puckish John Lennon. The same week Stephen Colbert was played off from his final episode of the Late Show by a Paul McCartney rendition of Hello Goodbye.

Musician says ‘we’ve lost that direction for our energy’ as his musical The Last Ship returns to West End

The fact many men no longer use their hands and physicality on a daily basis may be driving some of the toxic traits in modern masculinity, according to Sting.

The singer, who on Wednesday announced that his musical about the last days of a shipyard was coming to the West End this autumn, told the Guardian that one of the byproducts of deindustrialisation was the loss of physical productivity for men.

The Last Ship will be at Theatre Royal Drury Lane from 22 Sep to 3 Oct. Tickets go on sale from midday on 28 May.

A personal exploration of the sounds that defined a community, from Soul II Soul to Dizzee Rascal

The year 1989 was a landmark in Black British music: Soul II Soul were on their way to conquering America and Sade had already become a global sensation, while A Guy Called Gerald and Nightmares on Wax had the entire Hacienda dancing to their tunes. It’s a fitting moment for Jesse Bernard (who was born in that year) to start his excellent memoir-cum-cultural history, Escaping Babylon. Structured like a mixtape, it skips between skits and short interludes of fiction and poetry, via the loose narrative of Bernard’s own life as he matures from naughty schoolboy (he was expelled for sticking rotten fish in the school’s radiators) to musical explorer, DJ and journalist.

Bernard’s musical education started in his parents’ car, with Mica Paris, Soul II Soul and Carol Wheeler a constant accompaniment. It continued with Craig David performing 7 Days on Top of the Pops in 2000, one of the first times Bernard saw a “distinctly British R&B” singer. Personal memories like this are described alongside interactions with the artists he’s met over the course of his journalistic career to build an argument about the origins and direction of Black British music. Former Saxon sound system emcee Tippa Irie’s observation that reggae is a tree and that all UK sounds are branches that spring from it informs his approach. Through Bernard we meet and engage with many of that tree’s descendants – from UK funky to grime, jungle and drill.