The Big Issue

The Big Issue is one of Britain’s leading news and cultural magazines. Every week’s edition is packed full of original takes on the biggest issues of the day as well as interviews with the most significant figures in politics and entertainment. The Big Issue was founded 1991 to give people experiencing homelessness the opportunity to earn their own income. We continue to support hundreds of vendors across the UK and all proceeds from sales go to help anyone wanting to lift themselves out of poverty.

Climate of destruction

THE DISPATCH • News, views & miscellany

The government’s apprenticeship reforms aim to train the next generation. Do they go far enough?

The Big Issue

EDITOR’S LETTER

YOUR LETTERS

While Starmer focuses on defence spending, another urgent global threat needs his attention

Apps can make us better citizens – but there’s also a cost

CYNTHIA ERIVO ‘I DON’T THINK I REALISED HOW MUCH ANGER I HAD IN ME’ • Cynthia Erivo has soared to unprecedented heights. Wicked was one of the biggest and most talked about films of recent years, with Erivo’s central role as Elphaba – the conflicted green-skinned witch of the west – winning wild acclaim and an Oscar nomination (the third of her career to date). The second part, due this November, promises to confirm Erivo as one of our brightest stars for good. Elphaba is the ultimate outsider – defiant, determined, passionate. Erivo shares these qualities. At 16, her life was upended when her father disowned her and her sister, telling them he wanted nothing to do with them as they stood at an underground station. That moment came with consequences that Erivo didn’t recognise at the time. As she explains in a Letter To My Younger Self, she felt lost and angry, but all the more determined to succeed.

‘There’s stigma and shame when a mother loses her children’

A short history of social realism and raw talent

Sound advice: why ear health matters – and how easy it is to check yours • Big Issue and Specsavers’ partnership includes audiology services, ensuring vendors can access essential hearing care – but what happens in a hearing check, and why is it something we should all consider? After a lifetime of abusing his ears, Marc Burrows finds out

WHY FOOTBALL CHANTS ARE THE NEW FOLK MUSIC

WE ARE STRONG

Books

No middle ground

Film

‘THEY ARE DOING GOD’S WORK, WE ARE THE COURT JESTERS’

SAM DELANEY IS AT HOME

Music

World

Puzzles

MY PITCH • Tesco, Bath Weston Express Every day 9am-3pm