Pick of the Week: by Ellie Porter

As parts of the entertainment industry begin to emerge from the restrictions, you can rely on The Arts Desk to steer you through the cultural highlights on offer.

This Sunday on BBC One, we’ll be covering Alex Wheatle, the fourth of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe films, and as cinemas reopen we’ll take a look at Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut Falling, and powerful British drama County Lines.

Theatres are starting to return to live performances, and our highlights include Simon Russell Beale in the Bridge Theatre’s A Christmas Carol, Travis Alabanza’s solo show Overflow at the Bush Theatre, and the world premiere of Nine Lessons and Carols: Stories for a Long Winter at the Almeida, starring Olivier Award-winner Katie Brayben.

Podcasts have been a godsend for many over the past year, and we’ve got a roundup of the latest comedy highlights, including the third series of spoof agony aunt show Dear Joan & Jericha.

In dance, we review the English National Ballet's new digital season, made up of five original dance films for which distinctive choreographers such as Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Russell Maliphant team up with talented filmmakers.

And in books, we’ll review Lyndsey Stonebridge’s Writing and Righting: Literature in the Age of Human Rights, a look at how the history of human rights is indebted to novelists, playwrights, poets and essayists.

Ellie