ITV's decision to drop The South Bank Show earlier this year was greeted with dismay by arts lovers who worried that British TV was in danger of becoming a culture-free zone. The good news is that the strand is to be revived on a satellite channel next year. The even better news is that fans can relive some of its greatest moments with a show at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Many of us might be tempted to throw a party for our 50th birthday, but not Robert Cohen. The celebrated British cellist had a better idea - he asked the composer, Sally Beamish, to write him a new work.

It is a concerto, entitled The Song Gatherer, that draws inspiration directly from Cohen's Polish and South African Jewish family background. The substantial half-hour piece was a co-commission between the Minnesota Orchestra and the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, where Cohen will give its UK premiere on December 2.

Some musicians are content to tour the globe repeatedly performing the same handful of concertos. And then there is Nikolaj Znaider.

The 35-year-old, Danish-born violinist has everything a top international soloist could desire - phenomenal technique, fine-honed musicality, good looks, charisma and a Guarneri del Gesù violin that once belonged to the great Fritz Kreisler..

Jenny Lewis has had a few incarnations. Starting off as a child actress, she appeared in dozens of teen movies. She moved onto music and earned the title "princess" of indie-rock as frontwoman of the critically acclaimed band Rilo Kiley, before becoming a solo musician. Now, she has teamed up with her boyfriend, the singer-songwriter Johnathan Rice, to release a record under the does-what-it-says-on-tin name of Jenny and Johnny. Not that she had planned any of it.

So much dust was kicked up by Mike Leigh's recent decision to cancel a cultural visit to Jerusalem and the West Bank that it almost obscured the fact that the outspoken veteran of stage and cinema has a new film out this week - and arguably one of his best, at that.

For Evgeny Kissin, the piano is no longer the only means of communication. Renowned worldwide since performing both Chopin concertos as a 12 year old, Kissin has always avoided politics and controversy. Unlike musicians such as Daniel Barenboim, Kissin has stuck to his artistry.

But he has decided that "as a Jew" he must now change that. "After all this time of anti-Israel hysteria, I felt that I had to raise my voice." He dipped his toe in the water earlier this year with an open letter to the BBC about its coverage.

'I have an attraction to monsters," declares Martin Sherman. The 71-year-old playwright says this partly by way of playful confession.

Can he reveal which monsters?

"I can't," he responds with a wry smile, as if naming names would disclose too much about himself.

It is early afternoon in a hot and steamy Beverly Hills. Sid Caesar's sprawling hilltop house perches on top of a lush canyon that overlooks the bustle of the city. Up here the air is clear and tranquil, punctuated with the sweet-smelling fragrance of jasmine and gardenia. It has been the Caesars' home for more than 40 years.

Rahm Emanuel has launched his campaign to become mayor of Chicago.

The Jewish politician announced on Friday that he was stepping down from his position as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.

Mr Emanuel, a former Illinois congressman, also served as a political aide to President Bill Clinton.

In a video statement, Mr Emanuel spoke of his father, who fought for the Irgun in the run-up to Israel’s independence.

He said: “My father came to Chicago as an immigrant from Israel. I was born here – and my wife Amy and I raised our three children here.”

It was on an aeroplane that Adam Feinstein first heard that his son Johnny, the youngest of his three children, was autistic. In the way that it is often easier to open up to someone you have never met and will probably never see again, Feinstein found himself telling the man next to him about something that was giving him great cause for concern.