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Drama filmsReviewThe ever-watchable Stephen Graham isn’t enough to save this gloomy and insubstantial British drama This gloomily lit drama (shot in Newcastle, seemingly on the darkest day of the year, with only a sputtering 20w bulb for illumination) revolves around Benjamin (Stephen Graham), who was once a proud son of an Orthodox Jewish community but now finds himself on the edges of its society. Benjamin has been semi cast out for pursuing his passion for boxing – now indulged for money in grubby illegal bare-knuckle fights – and for marrying a non-Jew (Rebecca Callard).

Spain This article is more than 9 years oldResearchers discover new genus of giant tortoiseThis article is more than 9 years oldTitanochelon was 2 metres long and roamed the ‘streets of Madrid’ between 20m and 2m years ago, study findsThese days it is dominated by shops and throngs of people. But millions of years ago, Madrid’s Gran Via belonged to herds of 2-metre-long tortoises. That’s the conclusion of a study published by Spanish and Greek researchers in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

THIS SCEPTRED ISLESelf-service checkouts - what IS the "unfamiliar item in bagging area"? I have never known it be anything other than a bag - what do they MEAN? Anne Bromley, London, UK When I was about 12 one of our grocers built several self-checkout lines. I've always been rather observant, and when I leaned on the tray and the machine began to spew its monotonous rage, I began poking and prodding it just to have a little juvenile fun.

TheatreReviewAlmeida theatre, London Rupert Goold’s production of the alt-rock musical has a talented young cast and some striking moments but the songs are often banal It is audacious of Rupert Goold to stage a flamboyantly morose alt-rock musical about teenage repression and rebellion for a Christmas show. Based on Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play – banned or censored across the ages – it does not have many fuzzy edges and its staging now feels more refreshing for it.

Top 10sFictionHe doesn’t appear very often in fiction, but in these books – by authors ranging from Fyodor Dostoevsky to John Updike – his impact is almighty God seldom features in fiction. Having been dispensed with by Enlightenment philosophes around the time the first novels were emerging, he must have seemed irrelevant. The novel was new and God was old. Even clergy, who were facing an existential crisis of great literary potential, seemed infra dig to most novelists.

The fight for democracyUS news‘An instrument of chaos’: Trump leads polls as Iowa Republicans weigh future of US democracyThe false belief the 2020 election was stolen is part of some Trump voter’s ideology, while others are turned off by his legal woes Iowa caucuses 2024 – live updates Iowa caucuses 2024: live Republican results in full As Iowa Republicans gather on Monday to choose their presidential candidate, a host of big questions surround the potential return of Donald Trump and the future of democracy in the US.

MoviesObituaryKaty JuradoShe led the Mexican wave of actors into HollywoodKaty Jurado, who has died at the age of 78, was one of the Latina actors who hit Hollywood long before the contemporary generation, for whom, along with the likes of Dolores del Rio, she helped pave the way. Unlike Del Rio or Maria Felix, she was not a classic beauty, but her enormous eyes and body language quietly signalled powerful sexuality and a strength of character, the latter particularly significant in her US films.

The ObserverCultureMisogynist, homophobe... heroHis lyrics are loathsome, but the critics love him and his new album is topping the American charts. Now rapper Eminem is facing jail - but he's more popular than ever. It isn't because he's white, is it?Two weeks ago, US rapper Eminem's second album, The Marshall Mathers LP, soared to the top of the US charts. When the first week's sales figures were released, few could dispute the Detroit rapper's arrival as a major-league player.

BooksReviewMcKay Coppins and his subject do not hold back in a biography with much to say about the collapse of Republican values McKay Coppins joined BuzzFeed in 2012, as its Mitt Romney reporter. The former Massachusetts governor won the Republican presidential nomination but lost the election to Barack Obama. Coppins wrote a postmortem, A Mormon Reporter on the Romney Bus. Its subtitle: How America Got Used to His Religion, and Mine.