While most hospitality venues are struggling, there has been an enormous rise in ‘competitive socialising’. But why? And could I find the answer while dressed in a prison jumpsuit and drinking a daiquiri?

British hospitality is in crisis. In the first quarter of 2026, three hospitality sites closed every day, while one in five remaining businesses fear collapse over the next year owing to rises in tax and employment costs. For those venues struggling to make ends meet in London in particular, there is the added worry of increasingly stringent licensing rules and influential lobby groups making once-thriving areas such as Soho a ghost town after 11pm.

And yet one hospitality niche seems to be bucking the trend: themed bars. Blending booze with, say, axe-throwing, darts, immersive theatre or adult-sized ball pits, these experiential venues have seen a boom in recent years. A report from Savills estate agents found a 58% increase in “competitive socialising” venue openings in 2025 compared with 2018, while another survey found one in three adults had visited one of these venues in the UK in 2024-25. Photo-friendly interiors have made many of them a hit on social media, too.

His church thinks electric guitars are the devil’s work. But Father Tabakis is on a mission to change that – with Paradise Metal, a religious dubstep album that outdid Daft Punk and Aphex Twin

‘The guitar was made by God,” says Father Dionysios Tabakis, sitting in the living room of his flat in Nafplio, a city on Greece’s Peloponnesian coast, surrounded by a huge assortment of musical instruments and religious icons. Dressed in long black robes and sporting a fine grey wispy beard, Tabakis sounds as if he could be speaking from the pulpit when he adds: “The devil cannot create something. God has created all.”

His favourite is an adapted Harley Benton R-457. Bought for only €135, it’s a striking electric guitar, yielding chords that are more wobbly and atonal than those of an ordinary guitar, but also warmer. Tabakis likens the sound to the “waves” of the human voice.

Head coach urges parents to ‘write an excuse for school’ so kids can see his team’s World Cup last-16 game against Mexico

Harry Kane came to England’s rescue as they avoided a seismic World Cup upset against the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to set up a last-16 tie against co-hosts Mexico next week.

The Bayern Munich striker scored twice in the last 15 minutes to save manager Thomas Tuchel’s blushes after Brian Cipenga had given the African side a shock early lead. It was the first time that England have won a game at the World Cup after conceding the first goal since beating West Germany in the 1966 final at Wembley.

Aviva Studios, Manchester
The artist’s latest show is a staggering takedown of colonial history, warfare and the migrant crisis, featuring buttons by the tonne and richly perfumed tea

History has repeated itself all over Ai Weiwei’s vast exhibition of monumental sculpture in Manchester. The flags of long-lost nations hang from the ceiling, bronzes looted by dead empires have been recast and reclaimed, dilapidated ancient ruins have been rebuilt. Everywhere you look here, you will find death, exploitation, greed and suffering from across human history, brought back to life and put morbidly on display. The first thing you see is a black glass chandelier made of skeletons – The Human Comedy – and a wall covered in images of the most powerful bombs ever invented. Like a head on a stake, this is art as warning.

This massive, ambitious exhibition is the Chinese artist at his most monumental, and as a result at his most effective. His subject matter works best at enormous scale, blown up, expanded, shoved in your face. Lining the back wall of this warehouse is a giant inflatable dinghy, 100 metres long, filled with figures in lifejackets. Think you can ignore the migrant crisis? Not here you can’t, because Ai has taken everyday, normalised tragedy and made it into a monument. He spent years interviewing hundreds of refugees, meeting people desperate for safety and a new life and produced a huge amount of work about it. This is the culmination of that project. Is it a good-looking work of art? Not really, but it makes a point, and makes it loudly.

Whether it’s in the queue for Wimbledon or in a Boston bar on match day, romance is suddenly in the air – especially if you’re Scottish

Name: The sporty sex boom.

Age: New for summer 2026.

The pop and football giants’ combined star wattage will be united in matrimony this weekend – probably – in an event shrouded in secrecy. But here’s what we’ve gleaned

After an agonising 10 months’ wait, the wedding of the century is apparently here: if the reports are true, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce will be tying the knot this weekend, uniting the houses of sports and entertainment in holy matrimony. When the couple announced their engagement on Instagram in August, as part of a carefully coordinated album rollout/podcast promotion tie-in, it shattered platform records, drawing 14m likes in its first hour. (It’s now up to 37.4m.)

Yet it’s remarkable, given the couple’s profile and the investigative horsepower apparently dedicated to cracking this wedding wide open, just how little we know for sure in this, the (purported) week of the event. We’ve sifted through all the speculation, sources “close to the couple” and scarcely concealed grumbling from spurned guests to answer the burning questions.

Analysis reveals extent of impact on NHS of placating Donald Trump over price of British medicine exports

The NHS will have to divert £45bn from essential services to pay for new medicines under the terms of the UK-US trade deal agreed last December, leading to more than 200,000 avoidable deaths of patients, analysis has found.

Ministers have defended the deal as a way of helping British drug exports to the US avoid tariffs, and giving patients in England access to potentially life-extending drugs that would otherwise be denied.

Thomas Tuchel’s mission to put a second World Cup star on the England shirt did not look as though it would reach the second knockout round. On a fraught and chaotic occasion in Atlanta, his team flirted aggressively with disaster. For 75 minutes, England mixed loose defending with an inability to take their chances. Which were plentiful. The Democratic Republic of the Congo goalkeeper, Lionel Mpasi, had the game of his life. Who needs Lionel Messi?

It was easy for England’s long-suffering fans to feel their minds being taken to dark places. Iceland 2016, anyone? They had only ever lost once to an African team – to Senegal in a friendly in June last year. The DRC, who have brought the romance to this tournament, a team to unite a war-torn nation, led through Brian Cipenga’s seventh-minute goal. They were primed to do something utterly extraordinary.

Exclusive: Poll shows policies such as rent control and higher wealth taxes could fend off Reform UK in key seats

Andy Burnham is being urged to adopt an “economic populist” approach to combating the cost of living crisis if he becomes prime minister, as a detailed opinion poll shows radical policies could help Labour to retain its majority at the next election.

Senior figures advising the Makerfield MP have been circulating a seat-by-seat poll showing Labour’s majority could be demolished at the next general election with the party on course to win fewer than 100 seats.

Multiple explosions heard in Kyiv with a hotel and several residential buildings on fire

Russia launched a large-scale attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with missiles and drones overnight into Thursday, killing at least eight people and injuring 34 others.

The intense strikes hit residential ⁠buildings and ⁠triggered ​a fire in a hotel on a central boulevard.