The Penguin Lessons review – Steve Coogan seabird comedy drama tries to sell feelgood mood

Coogan does his best, but there’s a tonal mismatch here: the animal-teaches-lonely-human narrative jars with a depiction of lives in totalitarian Argentina

Ted Kotcheff, director of First Blood, Weekend at Bernie’s and Wake in Fright, dies aged 94

Prolific Canadian director also made one of the country’s first internationally successful films, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, starring Richard Dreyfuss

The Return review – Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes bring fierce class to elemental Odyssey adaptation

Uberto Pasolini’s raw and urgent drama, from a draft by Edward Bond, sees a traumatised Odysseus face the shameful aftermath of war

Beegu review – Alexis Deacon’s mellow yellow alien adventure hits the stage

Rejected by adults, the far-from-home heroine is embraced by cheering children in Debbie Hannan’s comical show

Of Mice and Men review – a tepid revival of Steinbeck’s dust bowl classic

Sarah Brigham’s new production is beautifully designed but struggles to capture the drama’s claustrophobic tension

Carey Harrison obituary

Other lives: Son of the actor Rex Harrison who became a successful playwright and author

Red or Dead review – Peter Mullan never walks alone as Liverpool FC hero Bill Shankly

A cast of more than 50 delivers an inspiring adaptation of David Peace’s epic novel about a manager who prized socialism

From Blackpool to Play School: Johnny Ball on his days as a ‘bag of nerves’ comic

An emergency at Butlin’s gave the children’s TV presenter an early break. He recalls his shaky start as a standup and what he learned from Bob Monkhouse and Les Dawson

Michael Ratcliffe obituary

Literary editor and chief book reviewer of the Times who later joined the Observer as its theatre critic

The play that changed my life: Eimear McBride on nine hours of Dostoevsky, seen three times

The Maly Drama Theatre of St Petersburg’s wildly imaginative epic The Devils was so extraordinary it demanded another viewing – or two

From The Simpsons to Werner Herzog: the coolest, craziest, scariest Nessies ever

Loch Ness Monster hunters have included the Chuckle Brothers – and even David Lean. As the Scottish icon is honoured in a new stamp and a stirring musical, we separate the classy from the crackpot

‘Like seeing an old friend’: Oyinkan Braithwaite on My Sister, the Serial Killer becoming a ballet

The darkly comic tale of siblings stretched to breaking point has been adapted by Cassa Pancho for Ballet Black. The novel’s author re-encounters her characters on stage

Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors review – batty antics with a Rocky Horror bloodsucker

As a gym-bunny vampire channelling Frank-N-Furter, James Daly leads a superb cast in a gender and genre-inverting romp that lacks bite

Athol Fugard was a dreamer, listener and master storyteller – on stage and at home

The South African writer, who has died aged 92, was grateful for his extraordinary life and wrote out of love rather than anger

On my radar: Bobby Baker’s cultural highlights

The artist on a moving biography of George Orwell’s wife, a theatre company that should be available on the NHS, and the joy of a good crime drama