Danielle Deadwyler and Samuel L Jackson shine in Malcolm Washington’s debut feature, based on Wilson’s haunting family drama set in 1930s Pittsburgh

The third Denzel Washington-produced movie adaptation of an August Wilson play (after 2016’s Fences and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in 2020), The Piano Lesson shares strengths and weaknesses with its predecessors. The vivid, verbose dialogue of Wilson’s 1987 play may be an acquired taste, but it’s writing that consistently lays the foundations for rich and full-blooded performances.

In The Piano Lesson , which is set in 1930s Pittsburgh and addresses a family’s history and legacy through the contested fate of an heirloom piano, the standout performance comes from an extraordinary Danielle Deadwyler. She plays Berniece, a widowed young mother who stands firm against her brother, Boy Willie (a showy but hollow turn from John David Washington), and his plan to sell the piano. Samuel L Jackson is also excellent as Doaker, the peacemaker between the warring siblings, in an uncharacteristically low-key performance.

In cinemas now; on Netflix from 22 November

Newly unearthed studies by young private Henry Page have been published to mark Rememberance Sunday

“Wish I was at home for Christmas,” runs the chorus of Stop the Cavalry, the seasonal anti-war pop song, in a lyric that voices the dreams of serving soldiers down the ages. The same poignant sentiment is illustrated in the rediscovered drawings of the first world war trench artist and cartoonist Henry Page. But Page, who was a young private in the London Regiment, also wishes he could be at home for spring, summer, and autumn too, “in the arms of the girl I love”.

His landscape sketches and studies of fellow soldiers have been unearthed by researchers working at Southwark Archives in south London and offer an astonishing fresh insight into the life of troops who survived in close quarters and travelled together through countries very unlike their homeland. Many of Page’s drawings also express his love for his “girl” back home, Edith Pedley – a young woman he was later to marry and live with happily for 56 years until his death.

Three decades after he first adapted Tchaikovsky’s classic, the choreographer’s reimagining of Swan Lake with an all-male corps is back for an anniversary tour. At rehearsals with the new cast, he and his original team tell the story of a show that stunned audiences

The choreographer Matthew Bourne rehearses his company in a studio in east London, a building instantly recognisable as the home of the BBC’s MasterChef . To reach it from the nearest station, you cross a thundering dual carriageway via a dank tunnel, and then follow the road past a branch of Tesco until you reach a bridge that takes you over a creek (the studio was once a water mill). When I first see it, this bridge strikes me as perfectly ordinary; in the water below, an Evian bottle bobs, disconsolately. But in the future, I will always think of this spot as a threshold, a portal to enchantment. On one side, heavy traffic and stray supermarket trolleys. On the other, the uncommonly strange spell cast by 30 young men in old T-shirts and baggy shorts leaping ever skywards.

Inside, I watch this group dance for an hour, barely able to look away long enough to write in my notebook. The sight of them would, I think, be remarkable in any circumstances. Their boyish, mismatched kit only makes their movements seem the more tenderly expressive, and by doing so, wreaks havoc on the heart (mine feels like a steak that has been violently tenderised). But there are other things going on here, too. These men are the stars of the latest revival of Bourne’s Swan Lake, a show that not only changed the face of British dance – the swans, always danced by women in Tchaikovsky’s ballet, are famously performed by men in his version – but which has been in the world since before most of them were born (the new production, which runs into next year, marks its 30th birthday).

People with vouchers for Glynn Purnell’s Michelin-starred restaurant, Purnell’s, told they cannot be refunded

A Michelin-starred restaurant run by the Saturday Kitchen chef Glynn Purnell has left customers with gift vouchers hundreds of pounds out of pocket after announcing its sudden closure.

Purnell said he could “only apologise for this difficult situation” after customers were told their vouchers, many worth hundred of pounds, could not be refunded or redeemed.

It’s time to celebrate whatever you fancy with a lovely slice of cake

An urgent need for cake. An old-fashioned one, studded with dried fruit, or perhaps a slice of something more frivolous, with a citrus filling and iced top and sides. A birthday-style cake looking for a birthday.

Rarely does an afternoon go by without a piece of something sweet on a plate eaten with a cup of tea. This week, a wedge of simple fruit cake. Not as extravagant as the recipe for Christmas cake, this one is more cake than fruit, but has the same deep butterscotch notes from dark muscovado sugar and a comforting whiff of nostalgia. It is the sort of cake no one bakes any more, and it is good to see it again.

Ambassadors; Finborough; Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London
Jethro Compton’s folky Cornish musical sweeps into the West End with fiddles and fudge; writer Ché Walker plays a fiery ex-con on a mission; and new ghost stories offer more charm than alarm

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is very curious indeed. It began as a startling short story by F Scott Fitzgerald: a baby is born as an old man who becomes younger the longer he lives; when he is over 70 he seems to be an infant. Director Jethro Compton , whose exhausting list of credits include not only composing the book and lyrics but creating the design, elaborated the plot and transplanted it from antebellum Baltimore to 20th-century Cornwall. Darren Clark added some lyrics and composed music inspired by Bellowhead, Laura Marling, Kate Rusby and sea shanties.

This folk musical, brought to swarming life by actor-musicians, opened at the small, enterprising Southwark Playhouse Elephant five years ago; now it has landed in the West End – and taken over the Ambassadors. The theatre bar has become the Pickled Crab, and sells seasalt fudge; the walls outside the auditorium are papered with headlines about the Penlee lifeboat disaster and other old Cornish news. More gumboots than glitz. Plenty of welly.

• British rider delivers victory in Singapore Criterium
• ‘I couldn’t have wished for a better send-off than here’

Mark Cavendish claimed victory in his final race as a professional cyclist. The 39-year-old produced a trademark sprint finish to cross the line first in the Tour de France Prudential Singapore Criterium.

Cavendish’s fellow competitors gave him a guard of honour before the race and the Manxman was understandably emotional at the end.

US warplanes staged multiple strikes on Houthi weapons facilities, US says; at least 13 children reportedly among dead after Israeli attack on home in Jabalia refugee camp

• See all our Israel-Gaza war coverage

At least 43,603 Palestinian people have been killed and 102,929 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

Of those, 51 Palestinians were killed and 164 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry said.

Norwich Theatre Royal
With its tropical backdrop and Latin-infused reworking of Tchaikovsky’s score, Acosta Danza’s touring show, if not always coherent, flies by

As a dancer, Carlos Acosta had a generosity in the way he welcomed audiences into his world, exuding warmth and engagement. In creating Nutcracker in Havana , a reimagining of a Christmas classic in a Cuban mode, he reveals exactly the same spirit. This new production is as sunny and relaxing as a day on a beach. With added snow.

Premiering in the Norwich theatre that has co-produced this tour by Acosta Danza and guests, the show immediately whisks you (courtesy of designer Nina Dunn’s videos) on an aerial tour of the capital and out through lush vegetation to a farm where an extended family are happily partying. The Drosselmeyer figure is Uncle Elias, returned from Miami, and played with a sparkling waistcoat and relaxed charisma by the wonderful Alexander Varona. He has a vintage Chevrolet that drives itself, and his magic tricks provide the partygoers with bright clothes, a bigger tree and a grand staircase.

Carlos Acosta’s Nutcracker in Havana tours the UK until 28 January 2025