Ticket Bank: London theatres take part in entertainment giveaway

The cast of Anything Goes take a bow at the Barbican in July 2022

(Image credit: David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)

Thousands of tickets for concerts and plays in London will be given away next year to people who are normally unable to afford cultural outings. Some of the capital’s leading institutions, including the National Theatre and the Barbican, have signed up to the new Ticket Bank scheme, which will work with food banks and other charities to ensure that free or pay-what-you-can tickets are allocated to those most in need. The tickets will be those that are left unsold.

Teen cancer free after gene therapy

A 13-year-old girl with T-cell leukaemia has been declared cancer free, after being given pioneering gene therapy. Alyssa, from Leicester, had undergone chemotherapy and had a bone marrow transplant, but neither had worked. With no further treatments available, her prospects looked bleak. But she was then invited to take part in a world-first clinical trial, which involved her being given an infusion of donated T-cells that had been “base edited” to hunt down the cancerous cells without attacking each other. Within a month, she had gone into remission. The team at Great Ormond Street now plan to recruit ten more patients for further trials.

‘Eco dog’ trained to pick up bottles

A border collie from Nuneaton has been dubbed the “eco dog” by locals, because of his enthusiasm for collecting plastic waste. Scruff, who is 13, had always enjoyed picking up bottles on his walks, but he’d quickly drop them again – until his owners realised his potential, and trained him to bring the bottles to them, to be recycled. They estimate that Scruff has cleared the area of 1,000 bottles this year alone. He should be “working for the council”, said owner David Grant, given he can root out as many as 15 bottles per walk.