She’s set to depose Taylor Swift from No 1 and has the most-streamed song in the world this week – the culmination of a decade of slow-burn successCapped with one of the most brilliantly nonsensical chorus lines in pop history – “That’s that me, espresso” – Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso is the most streamed song in the world this week, deposed Taylor...

The buzzy coming-of-age film, about teens obsessed with a schlocky TV show in the 90s, makes for a haunting allegoryAs a trans teen in the 1990s, I well remember the flickering glow of the TV screen. Late nights, once everyone else in the house had gone to sleep and I could have a measure of privacy, were the main time in which I could access something...

The theatre adaptation of Studio Ghibli’s beloved animation sold out in Japan in four minutes. As it comes to the UK, we meet the international team of creatives bringing its giant dragons and tiny soot sprites to lifeThe dragon stirs to life as Toby Olié plucks it up by its tail. He spirals it through the air and, quick as ripping off a plaster, tears...

They can communicate with each other about threats, summon help from predatory killers – and some can even count – but does this mean plants are conscious?Last month, at a gathering at New York University, a group of prominent biologists and philosophers widened the perimeter of a very exclusive club. They declared that there is “a realistic possibility”...

What will you ask the brilliant actor, author, cake decorator and star of new film A Family Affair?Jane Asher has been on our screens for almost 73 years – her first role was aged five, in Mandy, and she turns 78 on 5 May. But it was aged 17 she really shot to big screen prominence, opposite Vincent Pryce in The Masque of the Red Death.Then, two years...

Soudade Kaadan’s second feature is a sweet-natured and beautifully photographed portrait of a grumpy middle-aged guy, his sceptical wife and their teenage daughterHere is the second feature from Syrian film-maker Soudade Kaadan, set in a Damascus suburb during the most brutal shelling of the civil war, among the remaining traumatised residents wondering...