Polka theatre, London
Incorporating BSL and creative captions, this musical adaptation features a gloriously long-tailed puppet

With a cluster of country music songs and a delicate aesthetic, this is a particularly welcoming and gentle piece of theatre for children aged three to seven. Featuring integrated BSL and a number of deaf actors in the cast, it’s a co-production between Polka, Hiccup theatre and Derby theatre who are collectively leading the way in creating inclusive family shows. My four-year old son, Benji, was charmed throughout, although it could do with a few more surprises – something to keep the children on their toes rather than snuggled in their seats.

Writer and director Sarah Brigham hasn’t stretched the original folk story too much. It’s still about a young chick who grows convinced the sky is falling in after an acorn drops on her head. She gets all her farm friends in a bit of a panic. There’s a lot of anxious racing around, some cheerful songs led by actor and sound designer Ivan Stott and, eventually, a spot of bother with a very crafty and charming fox.

At Polka theatre, London , until 11 May

Kat Abughazaleh has been critical of what she describes as Democrats’ lack of vision and says the party has lost touch with many of its voters, especially young people

Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old progressive TikTok star, wants to do campaigns differently. So the very online candidate for a solid blue congressional seat in Illinois is channeling her energy into in-person events.

The entry fee for her campaign’s kickoff event was a box of tampons or pads to be donated to The Period Collective, a Chicago-based nonprofit that distributes free menstrual products to low-income communities in the area. The debut was such a success, she said, they filled her campaign manager’s SUV with donations. (“I want him to get pulled over so bad,” Abughazaleh quipped in a video for her YouTube series How to Run for Congress.) It’s part of her pledge to disrupt politics as usual and run a campaign centered on mutual aid and community organizing instead of a candidate-centered “vanity project” that relies on expensive TV ads and “grifty” fundraising texts.

Under-16s will be barred from using the app’s Live feature unless they have parental permission

Meta is expanding its safety measures for teenagers on Instagram with a block on livestreaming, as the social media company extends its under-18 safeguards to the Facebook and Messenger platforms.

Under-16s will be barred from using Instagram’s Live feature unless they have parental permission. They will also require parental permission to turn off a feature that blurs images containing suspected nudity in their direct messages.

The Hands Off event proved Americans with a slew of different priorities can still form a broad left-liberal coalition

What is the point of street protest? This is the question I asked myself as I rode the bus downtown to San Francisco city hall, where activists were hosting a rally and march for Hands Off, a national day of action meant to collect a broad range of resistance to the Trump regime under one banner.

During the first Trump administration, I’d gone to these a lot. I’d attended the Women’s March in Washington in January of 2017, and felt myself crushed between the bodies of the hundreds of thousands of attenders; I’d held a sign at JFK airport, chanting “Immigrants are welcome here”, a few weeks later, when Trump instituted his travel ban. In 2020, I’d marched in Black Lives Matter protests, trying to avenge the horror I had felt when I’d seen videos of police officers killing Black men, often as they begged for their lives, played over and over again on the tiny screen of my phone. I’d inherited a brutal and ugly world, I felt, and it seemed urgent to say that I rejected it, that I felt the rage and grief of its injustice, and to be among other people who felt the same way.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Dogs in court, alpacas on trains … the debate shows how much we lean on animals, and how little we regard their wellbeing

It’s not the first time that the justice system has been accused of going to the dogs – but it may be the first time it’s been meant literally.

According to recent reports , defendants and witnesses in England and Wales have taken to bringing pets to court with them for emotional support, “causing chaos”. Judiciary officials have advised judges on how to deal with the issue after anecdotal reports of dogs barking, urinating and defecating, jumping up and otherwise disrupting proceedings. Assistance animals, such as guide dogs and medical alert dogs, are highly trained and covered under equality legislation to enter courts. “Emotional support animals” (ESAs), however, are not regulated in the UK; they may not necessarily even be trained at all.

Elle Hunt is a freelance journalist

It’s the school holidays and the whole family is having a ball – except poor Cinders, stuck indoors revising

I’ve often heard parents describing exam season as like going into a war, or an incredibly harsh winter, for the entire family. Not just the person taking the GCSEs or A-levels, but the whole lot of you have to start having early nights, gird your loins, and get used to mood swings and anxiety attacks. It’s sort of true, but it also depends quite a lot on the personality of the exam-taker. Some of them want to be tested on the groyne height of a beach in Hastings and practise talking about the climate crisis in French; others want you to butt out completely and leave them to it. Both approaches seem pretty reasonable to me.

I’d forgotten one thing – the terrible guilt. Maybe it’s because the Easter holidays weren’t sunny last year, or maybe it’s because the youngest is my favourite (I am joking ), but the guilt is just hideous. It’s like having a little Cinderella in the house, except I’m not the audience – I’m the evil stepmother. Fancy going to the beach, or to a party? What about a lovely lie-in, and then some re-runs of The Office? What about a ball – you know there are some great balls on? Everyone can do exactly as they wish, except Cinders upstairs, who’s trying to memorise the whole of Great Expectations, while the rest of us – even the people who did the same text last year – sit around going: “Is that the one about the orphanage and the porridge?”

A woman plots revenge against her unfaithful husband in this so-bad-it’s-good low-budget drama recalling the likes of Fatal Attraction and The Last Seduction

Here is a low-budget erotic thriller directed by Yara Estrada Lowe, which recalls both the highs and the lows of the genre’s heyday. As with classics of the genre such as Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction and The Last Seduction, the plot is one that, if it offered psychological realism, would qualify as a freak tragedy. But since it’s an erotic thriller, it qualifies as a romp.

Husband and wife Caleb and Celine are planning to have a child but, unbeknown to Celine, Caleb has a bit on the side, Fiona. Celine has the worst day of her life when she learns that not only is she herself infertile, but her husband has knocked up his mistress. Caleb subsequently divorces her and goes off to marry his mistress and become the perfect dad. And that’s the beginning of an incredible – in both senses – series of twists and turns too ludicrous and enjoyable to spoil here.

The celebrated actor has long struggled with the murder and dismemberment at the heart of Titus Andronicus. Now, at 64, he is finally tackling a play that ‘teeters on the edge of acceptability’ – but he’s made a few changes

Simon Russell Beale finds it scary to play Shakespeare’s high-status characters, “the sort where you walk on stage and everyone bows”. It is surprising, given he is one of the nation’s foremost theatre actors, a king of his own realm, but also ironic because he has played most of Shakespeare’s alpha-men already: from Hamlet and Lear to Macbeth, Prospero and a brace of Richards.

Still, they’re difficult, he insists. “I think you need a huge amount of confidence.”

Deal to buy Holland Park home, which ex-CEO reportedly plans to rent out, is latest by an American in the capital

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The former boss of Google, Eric Schmidt, has bought a Holland Park mansion for nearly £42m, in the latest in a string of big transactions in London’s prime real estate market.

Schmidt, who was the chief executive of Google from 2001 to 2011, bought the double-fronted stuccoed mansion in west London, last May, according to the Financial Times.