As the show based on their cult TV hit goes on the road, the duo discuss haunted theatres, feeling like arthritic swans and what it was like being mobbed in Shanghai

How do you make a shopping centre in Woking spooky? I bow before Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s many career achievements: Perrier award-winners, makers of successive hit TV series, not to mention megastars (as I shall soon discover) in China. But can they convince us that there are old ghosts haunting the 90s-built New Victoria theatre, located in a shopping mall? Such is the challenge faced by the Inside No 9 duo as they take their hit show-of-the-series on tour. “We made it very much about the ghosts of Wyndham’s theatre,” says Shearsmith of the show’s West End run. “Now we have to change it so that every place we’re in, that’s where there’s a legend of bloody Belle, and that’s where she haunts.”

Over the tour, that may mean the 100-year-old Liverpool Empire or Edinburgh Playhouse: no problem. Or it might be the rather fresher Marlowe in Canterbury or Milton Keynes theatre, which opened in another shopping precinct in 1999. “That doesn’t lend itself to a legend,” admits Shearsmith, chatting over lunch at a London rehearsal room. “So we are amending the phraseology to make it sound older than it is. We’ll say ‘a quarter of a century’ rather than ‘25 years ago’. One sounds recent and the other sounds old.”

The whole pantomime is meaningless. The leader makes his or her speech, the commentariat falls upon it, and to anyone half normal reality simply continues, undisturbed

Conference season has arrived for the big political parties, and every year for the past 20 years, I have attended some, though not all, of it. I always have a lot of complaints, which I used to think were all different but in fact boiled down to the same thing: this pantomime doesn’t mean anything. The leader makes his or her speech, the commentariat falls upon it, more often than not declaring it to have saved them from whatever surge of unpopularity they were engulfed in the week before, and to anyone half normal, reality simply continues, undisturbed. No, Boris Johnson promising to “level up” in 2021 did not address the cost of living crisis. Keir Starmer having a tool-maker dad with his “eye on the object” (same year) did not make him more relatable or charismatic.

There were some years that I thought maybe I was being naive, and the wiser heads were correct – might Tony Blair’s admission of fault, in the vaguest imaginable terms (“I now look my age. You feel yours,” at the Labour conference in 2003), be the decisive turning point when we all learned to stop worrying and love the Iraq war? Nope, it was not.

iPhone upgrade joined by watchOS 26, iPadOS 26 and macOS 26 Tahoe, adding a new look and features to devices

Apple will release some of the biggest software updates for its iPhone, iPad and smartwatch on Monday, radically changing the way icons, the lock screen and the system looks, as well as adding features for compatible devices.

Announced at the company’s developer conference in June, iOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26 and macOS 26 Tahoe introduce Apple’s new Liquid Glass design, giving everything a softer, more rounded and semi-transparent look that has proved divisive.

Tate Modern, London
From filthy kissing to bullfights, fascists and drag acts, the artist who shattered visual conventions is thrillingly, forcefully alive in this illuminating show

The Acrobat sums up the effect Pablo Picasso had on art in his 91 years on earth. In this 1930 painting, lent by the Musée Picasso in Paris, a body with no defined gender contorts into an insoluble puzzle, a leg sprouting above its anus, the head, eyes closed, bulging where genitals might be, the other leg standing on the ground balanced by an arm whose hand functions as a foot while the other arm, fist clenched, bends like a tail. In just this way, Picasso turned art inside out and upside down, twisted it unrecognisably, yet made it all the more compelling, human and passionate.

Born into a Europe of realistic sculptures and perspective pictures, he blew up those conventions, put them back together, then smashed them again, and a few times more. It’s hard not to be awed by his achievements, his turmoil of creative energy, the scale of his artistic breakthroughs, although Tate Modern tries its best. Theatre Picasso starts with coughing noises and references to gender and artistic borrowing. But those concerns go nowhere, vanishing in what becomes – almost despite itself – a riotous celebration of his genius.

Starmer announced multibillion-pound link-up to build ‘mini-nukes’ likely to be signed during Trump visit

• UK and US line up string of deals to build modular nuclear reactors in Britain

Britain is on the brink of a “golden age of nuclear”, according to Keir Starmer, who has announced a multibillion-pound US-UK partnership to build a fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs), sometimes called “mini-nukes”.

The agreement, likely to be signed during Donald Trump’s state visit this week, involves speeding up safety checks to bring new reactors online faster.

Adolescence may seem to have dominated. But the night truly belonged to Seth Rogen and the most awarded comedy of all time …

From the moment the nominations were announced in July, it was clear that these were to be A Very Apple Emmys. Aside from Adolescence, which had the limited series category all sewn up, it felt like every single nomination was either for Severance or The Studio.

Of these, The Studio’s ascendancy seemed most locked in. Here, after the controversy over The Bear’s deliberate lack of laughs, was a comedy comedy; something designed from the ground up to be funny. Plus, it was about the entertainment industry, which always appeals to the myopic interests of the Emmy voters. True, all of this equally applied to Hacks, but The Studio’s lead character wasn’t routinely described as a comedy genius, so there was far less dissonance when his jokes failed to land.

Director of strategy Paul Ovenden quits to avoid becoming ‘distraction’ after details of derogatory emails emerge

Nigel Farage has announced that Danny Kruger has defected to Reform UK from the Tories. Kruger, MP for East Wiltshire, is a leading social conservative, and co-chaired the New Conservatives group in the last parliament with Miriam Cates.

Farage said that Kruger would be in charge of preparing the part for government.

Couple took newborn to live in a tent in wintry conditions in Brighton after going on the run to evade social services

Two parents who caused the death of their newborn baby after taking her to live in a tent in wintry conditions to evade social services have each been sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Constance Marten and Mark Gordon went off the grid in late 2022; their four older children had previously been taken into care due to concerns for their safety if left with the couple.

Comments follow remarks by Keir Starmer who is under pressure to be more proactive in defence of diversity

• UK politics live – latest updates

Downing Street has fiercely condemned Elon Musk for using “dangerous and inflammatory” language, after he told a crowd of protesters in London that “violence is coming” and “you either fight back or you die”.

Musk, the owner of the social media platform X, appeared via video link at the rally that left 26 police officers injured on Saturday. He spoke to the activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, while thousands watched and listened.

Kash Patel says DNA found on towel wrapped around rifle believed to have been used to kill Kirk matches that of Tyler Robinson

Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, has said that DNA evidence found by investigators links the man accused of killing rightwing political activist Charlie Kirk to the fatal attack despite his alleged refusal to cooperate with authorities after his arrest.

Speaking on the conservative-friendly Fox News network on Monday morning, Patel said that DNA found on a towel wrapped around the rifle believed to have been used to kill Kirk matches that of the suspect in custody, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson.