It's been 75 years since Winston Churchill announced the war in Europe was over

Work up a sweat while protecting your locks

For the latest episode of At Home With...JP Saxe opens up about his song with girlfriend Julia Michaels and challenges Amira Hashish to sing her verse of If The World Was Ending

In my opinion, there is nothing that will ever beat a homemade taco filled with anything lightly battered.

From Ayurvedic cooking to traybake heroes, these are the cookbooks we've turned to over the last seven weeks

"All of my work has been cancelled [because of the crisis] and I was just missing shooting people and thought it would be a nice way for the community to come together and have a memory of this time.

Strictly’s newest judge learned to stick up for herself in apartheid-era South Africa. She talks racism, the ‘rift’ with her sister Oti – and learning to dance amid knife fights

Motsi Mabuse is remembering the rough dance halls of apartheid-era South Africa and the shocking sights she would see as she took her first tentative steps across their floors. “When we had competitions,” she says, “we didn’t have security and people would be drunk and starting fights. We were just kids and we’d watch people with knives running through while we were in the middle of a routine. Compared to that, Strictly isn’t so difficult.”

Mabuse, the newest judge on Strictly Come Dancing, first fell for the glitterball world at the age of nine after watching couples waltz, swing and cha-cha-cha while on holiday in Durban. “What I love about my parents is that they didn’t say: ‘Oh, you can’t do that.’ They found a way. But we had a lot of backlash, being the only black kids. People would laugh at us and call us names. We were bullied, but we just kept on coming back – and then we beat them.”

The massive popularity of horror films like Joker and It have been a real downer for happy, family clowns. Mark Wilding hears how the entertainers are fighting back

In the corner of Matthew Indge’s kitchen is a photograph of the entertainer Kerby Drill. For many years, Drill was both a clown and a comic voice of authority. He toured the nation’s schools and appeared on television shows, often promoting road safety, until he passed away last year, aged 97. Indge describes him as his “clown hero”, but he recognises that Drill represents a very different era of clowning. “The truth is,” Indge says, “these days, I don’t know if kids are going to listen to a clown saying be careful on the road.”

Indge has been clowning for 32 years, since he was eight years old. In a way that wasn’t necessary for Drill, Indge must now take steps to prove to his audiences that he doesn’t represent a dark and sinister threat. When we meet, he’s preparing for a performance as Zaz the Clown at a five-year-old’s birthday party, and “just to save me any problems,” he says, “I’ll make up in front of the kids” – an attempt to provide reassurance that there’s a benign performer behind the mask.

What does our crystal ball say the new year will bring for celebs? Sex tapes, terrible singing and off-the-cuff sofa jokes that ignite the far right. Sounds great!

There are two ways to spend New Year’s Eve, as best as I can tell: you either dirty the floor of a house party and spend the smallest of the small hours running desperately out of drinkable alcohol until you realise it’s 7am and the sun is up and you just watched yourself pour Pepsi Max into half a cup of Bailey’s until they both curdled into a sort of vomitty pâté; or you watched Jools at home with a blanket over your legs, in bed with your teeth brushed by 10 past 12. You get absolutely zero points for guessing which one of the two I saw the new year in with. My body is still shaking.

Fair to say, too, that celebrities have yet to emerge blinkingly into the new decade. In the Christmas lull, the famous go into one of two modes of hibernation: either posting a succession of matching-pyjama family selfies in million-pound mansions that are identically decorated with plush beige carpets and tasteful but anonymous tonal greys; or going on holiday somewhere unthinkably lush and posting: “How’s the weather back home!” while sizzling in a hammock over aquamarine Maldivian waters. What I am saying is that there is no news, all right, and we can’t spend 1,200 words having a go at Cats again, so we simply have to preview the year 2020 and have a stab at guessing what the world of fame has for us. Is it a cop-out? Or is it actually quite a decent effort for someone who still has “brandy” in his system and who many doctors would advise shouldn’t be sitting upright at this still-early stage in his hangover? Well exactly. Let’s get on with it.

H from Steps brought tears to the judges’ eyes with his performance. Now, more than ever, we must cherish these moments of LGBTQ visibility

One of the most peculiar aspects of realising that you are LGBTQ is the loneliness. Your immediate family is unlikely to belong to the minority you may feel you have been arbitrarily parachuted into. You may be fortunate that they have supportive attitudes; many are not. The odds are that you have heard derogatory terms about LGBTQ people thrown around the playground not once or twice but like confetti. On TV and film screens, on advertising billboards, in magazines and in books, society’s expectations about settling down with someone of a different gender will bellow at you. You may struggle to come out to yourself, let alone anyone else, and fear judgment and rejection.

That is why major cultural events, such as the first same-sex performance on ITV’s Dancing on Ice last night, are so important: they can be lifelines for the closeted, whether they are aged 13 or 78. Acceptance for LGBTQ people struggling with their sexuality is like water to a sponge: anything that showcases and values our existence has a profound impact. That’s why H from Steps – one half of the couple – told the judges that it was emotional, in part because “it means so much to so many people and the world is ready for this”. It’s why the actor John Barrowman broke down in tears “because of seeing two men who represent someone who is like me and to skate as well as you did”. What’s all the fuss, the usual suspects will cry, but it matters precisely because society, and particularly currently emboldened bigots, makes such a fuss about anyone who deviates from a heterosexual norm.

‘The big mobile has been seen as a satirical take on phone culture, but it was just a good way of interrupting things that irritated me – like classical concerts and poncy restaurants’

I never planned to be a comedian. Some would say I never was. I wanted to be a foreign correspondent, a diplomat, or a spy. After a degree in politics I worked for ITN doing interviews on College Green outside parliament. To spice them up, I got some mates to have a clown fight behind Paddy Ashdown, and to kick a football at David Mellor, which accidentally smacked him right in the face. ITN realised I’d set it up and I got fired.

Fairfield Halls, London
In his show Taxi Tour, the comic from last year’s Britain’s Got Talent offers only standard-issue middle-aged standup

Kojo Anim was a star of the black standup circuit for years, but “Britain’s Got Talent changed my life,” he tells his Croydon crowd. The Londoner has booked his Taxi Tour off the back of an appearance in last year’s final, and recounts how that brush with fame – and his Christian faith, and new fatherhood – picked him back up after a grim period in his life. The emotional honesty is refreshing, but plays only a cameo role in an otherwise unadventurous show. Anim certainly does have talent, but – on this evidence – it’s for performing, not for writing distinctive material.

The show opens with a justification for appearing on BGT, and an account of his experience of overnight celebrity. But it soon devolves into standard issue middle-aged standup comparing his unglamorous childhood with that of today’s pampered youth. His parents play their expected role, giving their son broad accents to mimic when not walloping him for the slightest impertinence. “Only an African parent,” reports our host ruefully, “will beat their own child when they see another child doing something.”

Netflix is cutting down traffic to ease internet capacity as more people work from home. Here’s what it means for Australians’ streaming experience

• Follow the latest Australia coronavirus blog for live news and updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

Netflix has agreed to reduce the data it uses to stream movies and TV shows across Australia as more and more people are working from home due to the coronavirus shutdown. But what will it mean for your viewing habits while you’re staying at home?

Related: Australian government asks Netflix and Stan to reduce data to avoid broadband overload

Related: As cinemas go dark, the film industry may go straight to Netflix

TV and news website audiences are sky-high but, with few ads or new shows, future looks fraught

• Find all our coronavirus coverage here
• Coronavirus – latest news and updates

From TV channels running out of shows, to newspapers facing the threat of closure, the British media industry is facing a financial shock that will permanently reshape how we consume news and entertainment.

Media analysts and insiders warn the pandemic will have a long-lasting impact on the country’s cultural life, predicting that changes in consumer behaviour expected to take more than five years may have happened in five weeks, with many people unlikely to entirely return to their pre-lockdown habits.

A comedy that never quite whinges about new motherhood, but is frank and self-deprecating about its difficulties

I know this is a column about shows you recommend watching in isolation, but I’m not sure if this one is comforting or excruciating right now. Maybe both! But if you’re self-isolating with small children, it’s almost definitely the latter.

The Letdown is the story of a new mum, Audrey (Alison Bell), struggling to cope with her changed circumstances. As the primary caregiver to her daughter Stevie, she’s largely confined to her home. She feels inadequate, out of control, confused, and frustrated as her previous life – friends, parties, a semi-stable career! – slips out of grasp.

Related: Orphan Black: gripping sci-fi series shows that in dark times, family (or a 'clone club') prevails

Related: The Bold Type: candy-coloured take on millennial women shines with hope and comfort

BBC One’s star-filled charity appeal needed imagination and technical skill to get round distancing rules

• See all our coronavirus coverage

Socially distanced presenters, a skeleton crew, no live audience and automated phonelines only – this is national telethonning, lockdown-style. Comic Relief and Children in Need have joined forces to create The Big Night In on BBC One and raise money for the charities and projects who need more support than ever as Covid-19 strains resources everywhere.

First shift is taken, as is traditional, by Lenny Henry and Davina McCall – joined, not too closely of course, by Matt Baker this time – whose recreation of normality for the viewer in what must, in the studio, be an absolutely bizarre set-up is unimpeachable proof of their professional talents.

Ricky Gervais’s After Life struggles second time round, as 21st-century London’s answer to Peaky Blinders gets off to a violent start. And how long can live shows survive via video-call?

After Life (Netflix)
Gangs of London (Sky Atlantic)
Emergence (Fox)
Twin (BBC Four) | iPlayer
The Graham Norton Show (BBC One) | iPlayer
The Mash Report (BBC Two) | iPlayer
Have I Got News for You (BBC One) | iPlayer

Ricky Gervais is, take your pick, ever reinventive (a la Madonna, Lady Gaga, the royals) or ever mutating (the worst kind of spirally viruses, the royals). A year ago, in Tony Johnson, subject of his latest drama, After Life, he combined aspects of past characters: The Office’s gloriously unself-aware Brent; the more savvy Andy Millman in Extras; the saccharine platitudes that sat so ill in Derek alongside gags about mental health or other disabilities. After Life was a surprising runaway hit on Netflix, for an arguably slight comedy about a very singular, small-town man’s depression after the loss of his wife, and how an angry man learned to be kind again.

Broadcaster considers plans to restart production on many TV series halted by pandemic

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

The BBC could put actors and directors in quarantine and remove the studio audience from Strictly Come Dancing under plans to help restart television production after the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the industry.

The proposals, which could affect everything from EastEnders to light entertainment and high-end dramas, are being considered as broadcasters face up to the prospect of enormous gaps in their schedules after much of British television production was stopped dead in mid-March.

Related: No Señor Agüero, but BBC Bitesize kicks it out of the park

Related: How TV news hosts get camera-ready in lockdown

As new actors revive the Talking Heads TV monologues, the poignant tales they tell will resonate more than ever with viewers in lockdown

The decision, announced last week by BBC Drama, to revive and recast Alan Bennett’s landmark Talking Heads series was driven as much by necessity as sentiment. Monologue, delivered to camera, is just about the only form of acting possible at the moment. But, still, there will be a special poignancy in hearing how the mini-dramas sound a generation later in their new voices – Imelda Staunton instead of Patricia Routledge, Kristen Scott Thomas in place of Eileen Atkins, Tamsin Greig for Penelope Wilton, Jodie Comer instead of Julie Walters.

Bennett wrote the first of the monologues in 1987, giving voice, in his 50s, to lives that in several cases were facing their last act. He himself turns 86 next week, about the same age as Thora Hird was when he cast her so memorably in Waiting for the Telegram in the last of the second series of monologues in 1998.

Related: Jodie Comer to star in new BBC production of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads

Earlier this week, Tencent announced a big new update for PUBG Mobile (Free) on iOS and Android. The version 0.18.0 …

Continue reading "‘PUBG Mobile’ 0.18.0 Is Rolling Out Now on iOS and Android with Mad Miramar, a New Results UI, and a Whole Lot More"

Sticking to social isolation just became easier. Keeping the kids occupied and their creativity flowing during coronavirus lockdown has just …

Continue reading "‘Draw a Stickman: Epic 3’ is Here to Provide Your Lockdown Edutainment"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for May 7th, 2020. Like most Thursdays, today is mostly about …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: ‘Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath’ Coming May 26th, ‘Slayin 2’ and Today’s Other New Releases, the Latest Sales, and More"

I love everything from developer Gionathan Pesaresi aka Neutronized, but I have an especially soft spot for the Super Cat …

Continue reading "Fantastic Platformer ‘Super Cat Tales 2’ Updated with Third and Final Story Chapter"

Last year, Square Enix brought two SaGa games to the west on PC, console, and mobile platforms. Romancing SaGa Re;universe …

Continue reading "‘Romancing SaGa Re;Universe’ Pre-Orders Are Now Live on the App Store Revealing the Release Date for iOS and Android"

Last week, Apple brought another game to the service in the form of Neversong () from Serenity Forge. Today, we …

Continue reading "Turn Based RPG ‘The Otherside’ from The Label Is This Week’s Apple Arcade Addition"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for May 8th, 2020. Today was basically a nightmare scenario for …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: ‘Fury Unleashed’, ‘Stone’, and Today’s Other New Releases, the Latest Sales Featuring ‘Saints Row IV’ and More"

Chess-based, card-based, roguelike dungeon crawler. And you might as well throw puzzler on top of it too. That’s quite a …

Continue reading "‘Pawnbarian’ is a Chess-Based, Card-Based, Roguelike Dungeon Crawler Coming to Mobile and Desktop"

The idea behind the TouchArcade Game of the Week is that every Friday afternoon we post the one game that …

Continue reading "TouchArcade Game of the Week: ‘Juicy Realm’"