Ricky Gervais begins by bringing us up to date with the latest “outrage” he has caused; two Netflix specials, SuperNature and Armageddon, upset some people, he tells us, thus giving them even more attention than they might otherwise have had. So now with Mortality he's probably going to upset some more, thus making the Netflix special that will follow its lengthy tour (ending in November next year) even more successful. “Stupid cunts.”

'Tis the season for all manner of bugs, colds and illnesses. One had befallen Katy J Pearson, who struck an apologetic note after the night’s first number to say she had been unwell all day and was going to do her best to get through the gig. That added an unexpected element to proceedings, namely by creating the potential for the whole show to come to a sudden halt at any point.

“I am not better than my fathers.” Cracked, pained, occasionally rasping, rising to a fearsome roar then subsiding to a throaty whisper, Sir Bryn Terfel’s still-formidable bass-baritone made the great vault of Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford shrink to a shoebox.

White Denim’s literally titled 12th album opens with the fidgety “Light on.” Drawing a line between electronica and Tropicália, it exudes sunniness. “Econolining” and “Flash Bare Ass,” up next, are equally peppy, as bright and similarly accord with the idea of pop as a mix-and-match grab bag – albeit from an off-centre perspective.

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Blood Incantation Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media)

Kahchun Wong’s final concert of 2024 in the Hallé Manchester season was something of a surprise. At first sight, the sparkle in the programme seemed likely to come from James MacMillan’s Veni, Veni, Emmanuel – his percussion concerto, with the star name of Colin Currie as soloist – and from Malcolm Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances (especially the third of them) to precede it.

How many Rigolettos have regular operagoers among you sat through where there wasn’t some major defect, in either the production or the three major roles? Here, there is none. INO’s jester and Duke are well cast, its Gilda supernaturally perfect in music and acting, while Julien Chavaz’s production, despite a few passing irritations, adds up to a coherent and disciplined whole. INO Artistic Director Fergus Sheil keeps Verdi's vivid music theatre on the move.

Last month a portrait of Alan Turing by AI robot AI-Da sold at Sotheby’s for $1.08 million – proof that, in some people’s eyes, artificial intelligence can produce paintings worth as much as those made by human hands.

The return to shops of a consecutive sequence of five of John Cale's Seventies albums through different labels is undoubtedly coincidental. All have been previously reissued multiple times and none are scarce in any form. Anyone wanting any of these albums presumably already has a copy. Nonetheless, it’s good that these makeovers sustain the profile of Cale’s idiosyncratic take on art-rock.

“You either got faith or you got unbelief, and there ain’t no neutral ground,” as Bob Dylan sang, but Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) isn’t finding it quite that simple.