A ‘family’ of criminals attempt to steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in pulpy and forgettable thriller

In the last half-decade Stanley Tucci has been a source of near-inexhaustible on- screen delight, whether making friends with nonnas in his delightful cooking shows or smartly judged supporting turns in Conclave and The Devil Wears Prada 2. He is an actor well placed for a star vehicle of his own, and this one, Masterplan, sounds good on paper: an art heist fronted by the actor at his most debonair, flanked by a grandson of a French New Wave legend (Victor Belmondo, related to Breathless star Jean-Paul) and a buzzy breakout of The White Lotus (Simona Tabasco, winning in season two of Mike White’s comedy).

There’s a good bit of pulpy fun to have here, with double, triple and quadruple crossing, silly spy gadgetry which has been updated to include retina scan cloning and something called “VR intrusion”. As British criminal mastermind Roger, Tucci is game to send up aristo archetypes, even if his character often veers into parody. “I’m English,” his character says at one point. “‘Not bad’ is what I say when I orgasm.”

The comedy smash is back – and now the standups aren’t allowed to laugh or shriek! Lou Sanders, Tom Allen, Phil Wang and more reveal what made them crack – and what happened when they went too far

What could be more disorientating for a comedian than not being able to laugh – for nine hours! – nor elicit laughter from anyone else in the room? I’ll tell you. Try all of the above on a sunny summer weekend while pretending it’s Halloween. Then force the comics to return to the scene of what one of their number, Phil Wang, calls “a cross between a gameshow and a psychological experiment”, and relive the whole ordeal for a man from the Guardian. Is it any wonder Wang, Lou Sanders, Tom Allen and others come across as a little punch-drunk 24 hours after emerging from televised captivity on the smash comedy hit Last One Laughing?

It’s the day after filming, at Elstree Studios, the show’s Halloween special which sees a unique tweak to its winning formula: contestants must not only refrain from laughter but from screaming. “Which I thought might be a non-event,” says Wang, “but it’s actually harder. I didn’t know I was a screamer. Turns out I am.” The participating comics – including paranormal obsessive Daisy May Cooper and that maestro of comedy-horror, Reece Shearsmith – seek not only to amuse each other but spook them too. Which makes sense, says host Jimmy Carr. “Laughs and screams come from the same place. There’s surprise in a joke, and there’s surprise in a jump scare. Comedy and horror mess around in the same area. It’s the same bit of your brain.”

With support for far right politics well established across Europe, how might upcoming elections shape its future? Europe correspondents Jon Henley and Ashifa Kassam answered Reddit users’ questions about their reporting from the continent

Support for far-right parties has been growing across Europe, with radical right, populist parties in coalition governments in Croatia, Czechia, Italy and Finland, and leading in the polls in Austria, Belgium, France and Germany.

The Guardian reported this year that nearly a quarter of voters in Europe voted for far-right parties in their most recent national elections, a fivefold increase since 1995.

The old certainties have gone. We will have to spend whatever it takes to protect ourselves in this new and dangerous world

Donald Trump must find it oddly frustrating. He keeps showing the world exactly who he is, and yet the world keeps refusing to believe it. As clearly as he can, he is announcing that he is not the leader of the free world, that he is not even a reliable member of the democratic west, that he is in fact an ally of its enemies – but the west, including Britain, either doesn’t fully get the message or can’t quite bring itself to draw the obvious conclusion.

Trump had another go this week, finding multiple ways to declare that in the war between Russia and Ukraine, he is no mediator or peace broker but a partner of Vladimir Putin. In fairness to him, the US president had loudly issued that declaration within weeks of his return to the White House when, in February 2025, he delivered an on-camera dressing down of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, seeking to humiliate the Ukrainian leader by telling him “you don’t have the cards”, even as JD Vance demanded their visitor show gratitude. That should have made Trump’s position sufficiently plain, but in the past few days he has all but put it up in lights.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

US midterms: Trump, war and America’s future
On Thursday, 5 November join Jonathan Freedland, Devika Bhat, Professor Adam Smith in London and David Smith and leading US commentator Tara Setmayer live from the US to discuss the results and their implications for the future of Trump, the US and global politics.
Book tickets here or at guardian.live

There’s plenty that stands out at Regent’s Park this year, from antidepressant pens and an ibuprofen-dolling robotic arm to Miriam Cahn’s 26 years’ worth of self-portraiture and a 150m-year-old dinosaur skull – still with embedded tooth

• Frieze review – you’ll see more avant garde wonders in the Bake Off tent

The raised platform in the middle of British artist Ella Fleck’s installation vibrates under your feet to the sound of a male voice. He’s whispering sweet nothings, intoning sexual fantasies. It’s all based on third-party agencies that manage OnlyFans accounts, interacting with users, creating fictional relationships that horny guys spend thousands on. It’s a greasy, gross, uncomfortable exploration of sex work on an industrial scale.

Not every great novel makes a great movie, and sometimes the opposite is true. But regardless of the source text, or how beloved characters are treated, there is more than one way to write a successful adaptation

It is always fun to join in a craze, like a Victorian going mad for penny farthings. Which is probably why, against my better judgment, I went to see Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster The Odyssey this summer, buying my ticket into the popular conversation along with everyone else. This year’s other divisive adaptation, Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, had the world and his wife arguing about it before they had even watched the film. No doubt the makers of the recent Sense and Sensibility movie were also hoping for lots of people to go and see it to discover whether they hated it.

After all, very few of us leave the cinema saying: “That’s exactly how I pictured it in my head.” Or even less likely: “That was better than the book.” We’re more likely to shake our fists at how they ruined the ending, dumbed it down, unforgivably cast somebody with the wrong hair, or betrayed a beloved character, as with last year’s Thursday Murder Club debacle.

Exclusive: Devon and Cornwall police formally apologise to nine women and settle claim without admitting liability

A police force alleged to have promoted and protected male officers despite knowing they were accused of domestic abuse has formally apologised and paid compensation to nine women, the Guardian has learned.

The women allege they were subjected to a range of abuse including rape, assault, threats, harassment and coercive control while in relationships with male officers from Devon and Cornwall police.

Ukrainian president says US limiting access was a ‘dangerous and unpleasant surprise’, amid reports the order came from inside White House

• Europe live – latest updates

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the Ukrainian military’s access to the Starlink satellite internet service has not yet been fully restored, as media reports suggested the order to throttle the service had come from within the White House.

Zelenskyy met European leaders on Friday in Brussels, where he asked the EU for another €70bn (£60bn) next year to fund Ukraine’s defence against Russia.

Chancellor says government will study responses to public consultation, with airports being ‘big part of jobs and growth’

John Healey has said there is a pro-growth case for going ahead with a third runway at Heathrow despite the prime minister declining to back it.

Healey’s predecessor as chancellor, Rachel Reeves, put approval of the long-planned runway at the heart of her “growth speech” last year, saying it would “make Britain the world’s best-connected place to do business”.

Zacharia hosted widely panned first briefing on Tuesday and faced scrutiny after admitting she didn’t pass bar exam

Donald Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, was fired on Friday, just five days after she assumed the role, according to a White House official.

The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the personnel decision that had not yet been formally announced. Zacharia, a little-known conservative political commentator prior to her selection as the president’s chief spokesperson, came under immediate scrutiny after a widely panned inaugural briefing on Tuesday. The 14-minute exchange was soon followed by a barrage of questions over her legal credentials after she admitted she did not pass the bar exam.