Stage adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story with a 'shimmering' score 

The "latest fringe musical to vault nimbly into the West End" is this stirring, folk-infused adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story about a man who lives his life in reverse, said Nick Curtis in London's The Standard. The story has already been turned into a film, starring Brad Pitt. But this stage version – first shown in a more limited form at the Southwark Playhouse in 2019 – is the one to treasure.

Jethro Compton and Darren Clark have relocated the action from Jazz Age Baltimore to 20th-century Cornwall, said Alun Hood on What's on Stage, and their "shimmering, soaring" score encompasses "folk ballads of aching longing, fishermen's shanties, rollicking drinking songs, and rousing chorales that thrill the blood". Intelligent and piercingly witty, this is a "magical" show, with an "electrifying emotional charge that seldom lapses into sentimentality". It's one of the best new British musicals in decades.

A story about someone who is born a hunched old man and gets steadily younger isn't necessarily illuminating, since it is no one else's experience, said Tim Robey in The Telegraph. But "an acting/singing/strumming ensemble" watching this process on stage, "tears welling because they're ordinary mortals", makes sense of the conceit. The plot's oddities are easier to overlook on stage, and though Benjamin inevitably looks about 40 years old throughout, John Dagleish is "sincerely affecting" in the role, not the "human special effect that Pitt was"; Clare Foster, meanwhile, is fabulous as Elowen, the bar girl with whom Benjamin falls in love – and who must contend with seeing him grow younger as she gets older.

I am afraid I found the evening pretty hard going, said Dominic Maxwell in The Sunday Times. "There's not a bad song here, but nor is there a really great one." And for all the "imagination and verve" of the staging, the effect is of being "ambushed by a Christian folk group". Perhaps "the winsomeness is occasionally overdone", said Emma John in The Guardian. But it's such a "vivacious" production, it really does touch the heart.

by Ali Smith    

Ali Smith's masterful Seasonal Quartet – four novels about Brexit Britain – was "as close to livestreamed literature as the technology would allow", said Alex Preston in The Observer. Now, Smith has taken "the logical next step" with a novel set in a dystopian near-future Britain. It's a society where certain people are classed as "unverifiables", and have red lines painted around their homes – as a prelude to these being bulldozed. This is what happens to the family of Bri, the novel's non-binary, word-loving narrator, who finds themselves on the run with their sister "from a force that is both faceless, terrifying and banal in its relentless bureaucracy".

As usual, Smith's language is "rich and dazzling", said John Self in The Times. Few writers are better at reminding us that "novels are constructed, brick by brick, from individual words". So it's a shame that the story is so one-dimensional: Smith's villains are "cookie-cutter authoritarians"; Bri, by contrast, is a virtuous "innocent". "Gliff" is a novel that "Smith admirers" will welcome, while leaving "agnostics unpersuaded".

The giant of American music who produced 'Thriller'

The wonder of Quincy Jones, U2's frontman Bono once said, is "that one man could have fit so much music" into a single lifetime. Over an eight-decade career, Jones established a shining reputation as a performer and composer, arranger and producer, collaborating with artists across genres from jazz and bebop to soul, pop and rap. He played with Dizzy Gillespie, arranged music for Count Basie and Frank Sinatra, wrote scores for films including "In the Heat of the Night", "The Italian Job" and "The Color Purple", and collaborated with artists from Ray Charles and Dinah Washington to Snoop Dogg. He produced 1985's "We Are the World", the eighth-bestselling single of all time, which raised tens of millions for famine relief, and Michael Jackson's "Thriller", the bestselling album of all time, and among the most influential. His self-made fortune was estimated at $500 million, but Jones insisted that he'd never done anything with an eye on the money. "Not even 'Thriller'," he said in 2018. "God walks out of the room when you start thinking about money."

Born in Chicago in 1933 to parents who had taken part in the Great Migration, Jones grew up in extreme poverty during the Depression. His mother, who was musical and sang in church, suffered from schizophrenia and was institutionalised when he was seven. After that, he and his brothers became "street rats", he said, running with local gangs; but he had loved listening to his mother play the piano, and had a Damascene moment, aged 11, when he broke into a recreation centre and came upon one. As he played it, he "began to find peace", he recalled. "I knew this was it for me. For ever."

At high school, he learnt to play the drums, the tuba, the French horn and the piano, but focused on the trumpet. He won a place at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but left to go on tour with a band. In the early 1950s, he played trumpet to accompany Elvis Presley during his first TV appearances. He toured with Dizzy Gillespie, and did arrangements for Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughan, among others. He studied composition in Paris, performed with various European jazz orchestras and formed his own big band. But it lost money, and in 1961 he took a job as musical director at Mercury Records. He signed various jazz artists, said The New York Times, but pop was becoming the dominant genre, and in 1963 he produced Lesley Gore's US chart-topper "It's My Party".

More hits followed, but by then Jones had started to shift gears. Sidney Lumet had drafted him in to compose the score for "The Pawnbroker" (1964), and on the back of its success he relocated to LA and broke into Hollywood – a rare feat for a Black man in that era. He scored more than 30 films. It was while working on the 1978 film "The Wiz" that he got to know Michael Jackson, said Rolling Stone. Jackson's label was concerned that Jones's sound was "too jazzy"; but the singer insisted that they collaborate, and the result was "one of the most fruitful musical partnerships in history". For the three albums they made together – "Off the Wall", "Thriller" and "Bad" – Jones paired Jackson with "crack musicians and songwriters" and "the most modern musical technology". The result was a series of "stunningly sophisticated, rhythmically explosive hits", such as "Beat It" and "Billie Jean", that made Jackson a superstar.

Jones was married three times and had seven children, whom he was said to adore. His home was a mansion in Bel Air, where he entertained presidents, actors and Nobel laureates, and presided over an entertainment empire, which produced the hit sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and the hip-hop magazine Vibe. Latterly, he had focused on his charitable foundation for disadvantaged young people, the Listen Up Foundation. He won his 28th Grammy in 2023, for Harry Styles's "Harry's House"; earlier this year he was awarded an honorary Oscar. "The experiences I've had!" he said in 2018. "You almost can't believe it."