Open Sesame: Big Bird and the street-smarts that changed the world

In this issue…Big Bird has sung with superstars, rubbed shoulders with first ladies, and helped the world learn the alphabet. Steven MacKenzie meets Carroll Spinney, the wind beneath Big Bird’s wings

As the election campaigns hit their stride, Ed Miliband tells Adam Forrest why he is ready to be the man in No 10

25 years of the Hubble Space Telescope, from the man who selects the best, mind-melting images the telescope produces

In Letter To My Younger Self, Matthew Macfadyen talks Mr Darcy, screen heroes, being callous in relationships, and why he is ‘horrified’ at looking back at his teenage self

Damian Barr looks at the villification of Hillary Clinton

Josh Groban on getting women in the mood, and ‘singing his face off’ for Stages

Jack Peat analyses what late-night cafe culture means for the British economy

Plus, our featured vendor Richard Singh, Anthony Horowitz talks Bond and Holmes as teenagers, Zoe Lyons on her love of scuba diving, this week’s classical music reviews and previews,