Table of contents for 04/20/2026 in The Big Issue

→ I had a strong sense of déjà vu when I drove up to the National Coal Mining Museum to meet and photograph striking workers. Two huge statues of miners framed the entrance, and to the side a large sign proclaimed, “CROSSING A PICKET LINE MEANS YOU ARE EXTENDING THE STRIKE”. A group of pickets greeted me with a smile and a wave as I hooted the horn and drove past to the car park. It felt like a time capsule of an industrial dispute from the 1980s and is probably the last coal miners’ strike that will ever take place in England. The museum, which has a large display about the Miners’ Strike of 1984, has been in dispute since August with around 40 ex-miners who work as mine…

The answer, my friend, is probably blowing in the wind. But it still seems appropriate to consider the question: what is the current state of the rock’n’roll biopic? In the 2000s it seemed like taking on the role of an already beloved music star was a smart shortcut to awards recognition. Jamie Foxx bagged a Best Actor Oscar for his charismatic portrayal of soul man Ray Charles in 2004’s Ray, while Reese Witherspoon won Best Actress for playing June Carter Cash in 2005’s Walk The Line. (Her co-star Joaquin Phoenix was also nominated, though his gravelly performance as Johnny Cash was trumped by Philip Seymour Hoffman’s squeakier turn in Capote). These and other musician biopics often feel like they are assembled from a greatest-hits grab-bag of cliches: childhood trauma, sudden…

For decades the domain of serious-looking dudes in ripped jeans and T-shirts, math rock was long overdue a good glow-up. Where neighbouring genres embraced campy outfits and mysterious headgear – from The Residents’ massive eyeball heads to Slipknot’s latex horror masks and Daft Punk’s light-up robot helmets – math rock, rooted in angular guitar riffs in nerdy time signatures, has proven stubbornly immune to any form of sartorial flamboyancy. But that’s all changed thanks to Canadian self-styled “mantra-rock dada Pythagorean-cubist orchestra” Angine de Poitrine, a couple of “time-travelling space-voyagers” from the French-speaking city of Saguenay, Québéc, who look and indeed sound like some sort of terrifying fromage dream. Two unspeaking individuals in polka dot costumes and giant papier-mâché heads, decorated in mysterious triangular symbols, playing fast’n’loud asymmetrical instrumental jams as…

l’m a street trader. I travelled the country with helium balloons Originally I sold the magazine from the mid-1990s but then I stopped for 12 years, settled down with a missus. I started back up again about eight years ago. I’ve now been in Canterbury for about six years and been on this pitch for about four years since we opened up after the first lockdown. I do enjoy it. I’ve been a street trader all my life so I’m not a Big Issue seller in my head, I’m a street trader still. It keeps me out of the house and among people. I used to travel the country with helium balloons. I used to sell all kinds of stuff on the markets around London on Portobello Road, Petticoat Lane,…

Cover star I’m on the cover of Big Issue this week. This magazine is so important to me, they have been my friends for a while and every magazine purchased goes towards helping the homeless across the UK. If you see a Big Issue vendor on the streets across the tour or out and about, go say hello, spread love and purchase a magazine from them. All my love. Yungblud, Facebook ↓ Always buy Big Issue! It’s a living for people who have to buy it in order to sell it! Come rain or shine they are out there trying to make a living. Kate Auld ↓ York has an amazing Big Issue seller. He dances all day to entertain, attract and probably keep warm in winter. A happy character.…

→ I’m kneeling at the edge of a pavement in Forest Hill in south-east London, bent over at the waist with my face close to the surface and squinting through a magnifying lens. “Are you OK?” a passer-by asks. I explain that I’m looking at a plant which has found a roothold between the paving stones. It’s one of the pearlworts – a group of tiny cushion-forming plants with inconspicuous green flowers – and I’m checking which one this is. “That’s so interesting,” she says. “I’ve never really noticed plants growing there before.” Walk down a city street and, with the distractions of people, interesting buildings, noisy traffic and brightly lit shop windows, it’s easy to overlook what’s growing beneath your feet. But take the time on the way to…

→ Established in 2020, Neuk Collective is a neurodivergent-led initiative supporting and platforming artists across Scotland. Bringing together work from among its network of over 250 neurodivergent creatives, Together | Apart is a new exhibition exploring experiences of separation and connection, and the ways that they can exist simultaneously. Artists were invited to reflect on what it means to be both distinct and interwoven – separated by geography but connected through shared experience, identity and community. The exhibition showcases a wide range of media, including textiles, painting, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, video and sound. Among them is the artwork pictured, titled He Visits In My Dreams, by Isabella Luciani, a Welsh artist based in Edinburgh who uses painting to reframe experience, both collective and personal, into images that live between truth…

Charlotte Regan is in an edit in Central London when she calls Big Issue. The writer-director is one of the brightest new voices in British filmmaking, and though she denies it, anticipation around her debut BBC One series Mint has been building since it was first announced. So how is everything going? “Well, my dog is drastically overweight. And when I wasn’t looking he ate 20 treats out of the side of my backpack. But other than that fat little shit, it’s going good!” she grins. “Nah, he’s the love of my life. I’ve told my partner that many times.” Regan’s reputation as a startling new talent stems from her feature-length debut Scrapper, starring recent Big Issue cover star Harris Dickinson, which won acclaim for its uplifting and artistic depiction…

BIG Question Will I be eaten by a wolf? Short answer, no, so don’t worry. Wolves once padded through forests all across Britain – but they were hunted to extinction around 500-600 years ago. In countries like Germany and parts of Eastern Europe, these fairytale villains have made a comeback. Their return has helped restore the natural environment, but it has also got people talking about livestock safety and how people and predators can live together. → Are there plans to reintroduce them to the UK? Not yet. Studies show they’d be a great help controlling the deer population in Scotland, but obstacles remain – including opposition from farmers and the fact they, according to Rewilding Britain, have “suffered a long history of demonisation and myth-making”. → What is rewilding?…

→ I’ve just bought a house and, unironically, the thing I’ve been most excited about since moving in back in January is mowing the lawn. At 35, this is the first time I’ve had my own lawn and leafy garden space. It’s half my life – from before I went to university – since I’ve lived in a home with a garden. Since then, there’s been years of renting: living in a former hotel with a derelict swimming pool in the basement, or in a Glasgow tenement block, or enduring lockdown with no garden and calling the council to complain about neighbours burning rubbish in their own. The last stop before homeownership offered a ‘yarden’ at least: a strip of concrete that wasn’t quite a garden but was nonetheless a…

Nicola Coughlan and Lydia West have starred in some of the biggest TV shows of the last decade. Bridgerton and Derry Girls have helped Irish star Coughlan on her way to becoming arguably one of the most talked-about actors of her generation. She has had a busy few years, with roles in Doctor Who, Barbie and recently The Magic Faraway Tree. West starred in Russell T Davies’ widely acclaimed It’s a Sin and Years and Years. Together, they bring their talents to Channel 4’s Big Mood, a comedy-drama back for its second season. Best friends Maggie (Coughlan) and Eddie (West) share a deep love for each other, but their friendship is turbulent. Maggie has bipolar disorder and that impacts their lives in funny and dark ways. Big Issue chats with…

As an inherently nosy person, probation was the perfect job for me. I love working with people, and the chance to untangle problems and sometimes even change lives was irresistible. What I didn’t expect was the privilege of being the only person an offender would trust with their deepest anxieties: why they did what they did, what drove them and how they might begin to change. Most people who offend don’t wake up wanting to be criminals. They are stuck in patterns they barely understand. Part of my job was to help them make sense of that, to hold them accountable and guide them towards something better. Probation is one of the most misunderstood public services, quietly stripped back while remaining central to the justice system. From court reports to…

ALAN’S TRIVIA CORNER What does NASA stand for? (Answer below) Crossword Cryptic clues Across Record broken by the winning athlete (4)  Hire a latex creation and make merry (10)  Leader of Rome, one fiddling around (4)  Arranged to peruse only short editorial (10)  Heard cook grating (6)  Outspoken guide (6)  Spy troubled by revolutionary spirit (6)  Work in feature by a composer (6)  He keeps books in which worker follows the story (10)  Does it emit light even when underground in the garden? (4)  Revealing that one is making the garment larger (7,3)  Farm building said to be an eyesore (4) Down Tolerate egghead in place of drink (4)  Being unable to fly, he goes into the Royal Artillery (4)  Turned a U-bend in the river (6)  Had a huge meal out east? Quite the opposite (6)  Offer support to…