A man was called by fraudsters offering a deal on a new contract – but ended up being told he had to pay for a £1,072 phone

The call was unexpected but it brought good news: Bruce Stanwyck* was told that the monthly payments for his O2 phone contract would be reduced from £19 to £12 if he switched to a new deal.

Stanwyck, a pensioner, accepted the offer there and then. That was the start of an elaborate scam that nearly cost him his savings.

Exclusive: Health secretary says he will not let patients be ‘ripped off’ by pharmaceutical companies amid standoff

• What is the row between Wes Streeting and pharmaceutical companies about?

Wes Streeting has intensified his battle with drug companies over the price of their products, saying he will not let the industry rip off British patients or taxpayers by signing up to their demands.

The health secretary on Sunday accused pharmaceutical companies of being “shortsighted” and undermining their relationships with the government after the two sides failed to come to an agreement last week.

The comedian returns with a spin-off of his hit series about evilness – now applied to animals. Plus, Tracy Beaker actor Dani Harmer spills the tea on the magical Jacqueline Wilson

“Is this creature a misunderstood marvel or a furry little psychopath?” That’s what comedian Russell Kane is asking in this animal-themed spin-off series from his hit Evil Genius podcast. He’s starting (dangerously) small with the hamster. Helping him to decide whether they are “pet shop pin-ups or nugget-size narcissists” are fellow funny woman Laura Smyth and zoologist and hamster expert Jules Howard. Hollie Richardson
Widely available, episodes weekly

An original Alan Bennett screenplay, a classy star turn for George Clooney and a Bruce Springsteen biopic are all on their way to the big screen

• See the rest of our unmissable autumn arts preview picks here

All release dates are UK and subject to change

Comic book author and novelist Charlie Huston adapts his own cult bestseller of the same title, Darren Aronofsky directs – and this comedy certainly signals a shift in tone after his last movie, body-image tragedy The Whale. Austin Butler stars as ex-baseball-player Hank Thompson who gets mixed up in the seedy underbelly of crime in 90s New York.
• 29 August

It comes at a steep price, but the remodelled luxury train from Sicily to Rome immerses passengers in the country’s culture as well as passing through stunning scenery

‘If anyone mysteriously vanishes, I can be Poirot,” said the passenger from India, twirling his moustache. It felt as though the spirit of Agatha Christie’s most famous character – best known for solving the Murder on the Orient Express – was lingering in the breeze at Palermo’s sublime botanical garden, which had been transformed into a makeshift waiting room for the 40 or so travellers about to board an Italian replica of the fabled train.

Sipping espresso and sampling cannoli, the classic Sicilian pastry, the curiosity and suspicion for which Poirot is famous was palpable as the passengers subtly sized each other up. But the only mystery waiting to be unravelled over the next couple of days was whether their Rome-bound journey on La Dolce Vita Orient Express would live up to their dreamy expectations.

A garbled story of metaverse musicians based on a mobile game leaves its audience little to grasp hold of

Even by the standards of franchise anime that caters to the faithful and drops newcomers in blind, this is particularly incomprehensible. Based on the mobile game Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!, it features a barely characterised blur of wannabe musicians and actors who ascribe Manhattan Project importance to writing syrupy J-pop. As they interact with virtual counterparts in metaverses called “Sekai” created from users’ emotions, the film is like The Matrix if Neo had huffed a nitrous oxide canister before having every edition of Pop Idol downloaded into his cranium.

One of the virtual pop stars, a rogue version of Hatsune Miku (voiced by Saki Fuijta), keeps invading high-school kids’ mobile phones and flatscreens, begging for help. Apparently issuing from a Sekai created by the emo angst of everyone about to give up on their creative ambitions, she is hoping to connect with these lost souls. So Miku taps this creative hive mind about how better to refine the ditty she believes can unite the world – while the seething mass of negativity in her home dimension swells to apocalyptic proportions.