Dear members — today we meet the author of a new biography of the early suffragist Lydia Becker and visit the home of the artist Liam Curtin.

We’ve also got a great list of things to do over the weekend, including the Royal Exchange’s new retelling of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, which we saw last night. We don’t do full theatre reviews (yet), but here’s our one-sentence take: Nora: A Doll’s House is a must-watch: gripping, dark, funny and very moving, with superb performances from its leading women Kirsty Rider, Yusra Warsama and Jodie McNee.