Five of the best ... films
A Fantastic Woman (15)
(Sebastián Lelio, 2017, Chi/Ger/Spa/US) 104 mins
An empathic study of transphobia and a restrained modern-day melodrama, with a magnificent heroine in the form of Daniela Vega. A Santiago trans woman, her grief following the death of her male partner is compounded by her treatment at the hands of his family and the authorities, who barely consider her a legitimate human being.
Game Night (15)
(John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein, 2018, US) 100 mins
The presence of Jason Bateman tells you plenty about this comedy, but it is more cleverly constructed than the average, with some entertaining players (Rachel McAdams, Sharon Horgan, Jesse Plemons among them). A quiz night takes a spicier turn when a kidnap-manhunt element is introduced.
I, Tonya (15)
(Craig Gillespie, 2017, US) 119 mins
Notorious skater Tonya Harding is rehabilitated in this playful (rather than truthful) biopic, which remains on her side even as it mocks her disadvantages. Those would include her monstrous mother (played by Allison Janney) and abusive husband (Sebastian Stan), whose plan to harm her arch rival was destined to backfire. Margot Robbie glams down to give a career-best performance.
Black Panther (12A)
(Ryan Coogler, 2018, US) 134 mins
The superhero movie of the moment cuts deeper than your standard comic-book fare, with a story that resonates beyond its fictional setting of Wakanda, a high-tech African nation whose self-imposed isolation creates problems for newly crowned warrior-king Chadwick Boseman. It’s a satisfying blockbuster all round, packed with colourful detail, epic spectacle and redeeming humour.
Lady Bird (15)
(Greta Gerwig, 2017, US) 94 mins
Gerwig’s lovable coming-of-ager breaks little new ground formally but barely puts a foot wrong, either. Saoirse Ronan carries the show as the spiky, self-motivated hero of the title, for whom small-town Sacramento life is a series of challenges and frustrations: school, boys, friends, money, and in particular, her combative relationship with her mother (Laurie Metcalf).
SR
Five of the best ... rock & pop gigs
Stefflon Don
Call off the search: UK rap finally has its very own Nicki Minaj. Fusing hip-hop, dancehall and R&B, the gloriously OTT Stephanie Allen, AKA Stefflon Don, has so far featured on two massive hits – her own Hurtin’ Me and Jax Jones’s Instruction - and recently collaborated with Skepta on unwarranted dick-pic anthem, Ding-A-Ling.
Bristol Tuesday 6; Brighton Wednesday 7; London Thursday 8; Birmingham Friday 9; touring to 10 March
C2C festival
The annual country hoedown returns across three venues, headlined by Kacey Musgraves (above), Faith Hill & Tim McGraw and Little Big Town. If you’re looking for less mainstream fare, somewhere among the London leg’s 12 stages you’ll find two ex-girlband members in the shape of the Saturdays’ Una Healy and Liz McClarnon, AKA one third of Atomic Kitten.
London, Dublin & Glasgow, Friday 9 to 11 March
Superorganism
There’s a slight whiff of primary-coloured cult about BBC Sound of 2018 longlisters Superorganism, whose eight members live together in a large terrace house-turned-studio in east London. Musically, they’re suitably all over the place: just-released self-titled debut apes their influences – Devo, Beck and the Avalanches – adding a dash of extra pop nous.
Birmingham, Monday 5; Manchester, Wednesday 7; London, Thursday 8; Brighton, Friday 9; touring to 12 March
Yasiin Bey & Robert Glasper
This one-off London show features hip-hop great Bey AKA Mos Def (who recently teased a new collaboration with Kanye West), performing with genre-defying pianist Robert Glasper and drummer Chris “Daddy” Dave. Expect the unexpected, obviously, but also hopefully some songs from Mos Def’s 1999 classic Black on Both Sides in among all the jazzy experimentation.
Troxy, E1, Thursday 8 March
MC
Joe Locke and Gwilym Simcock
A duet for jazz piano and vibraphone might seem a sparse menu, but not with California-born vibes virtuoso Locke on one side of the conversation, and UK piano whirlwind Simcock on the other. The pair balance graceful sophistication, blazing improv and tight grooves, and the musical games they play are gleefully irresistible.
Watermill Jazz, Dorking, Tuesday 6; 606 Club, SW10, Wednesday 7 March
JF
Four of the best ... classical concerts
Conquest of the Useless
The first complete performance of David Fennessy’s work forms the centrepiece of New Music Dublin 2018. Inspired by the making of Werner Herzog’s Amazonian epic Fitzcarraldo, Conquest of the Useless is played by the RTE Symphony Orchestra, with Jennifer Johnston as the mezzo soloist, and the composer on electric guitar.
National Concert Hall, Dublin, Sunday 4 March
Gerald Barry Premiere
Thomas Adès’s returns to the CBSO almost always include something new and intriguing. The novelty in his latest concert, alongside works by Britten, Stravinsky and his own Polaris, is the world premiere of Gerald Barry’s Organ Concerto, co-commissioned by the orchestra; the soloist is Thomas Trotter.
Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Wednesday 7 March
From the House of the Dead
The Royal Opera ticks one more off its list of unperformed Janáček with its first staging of his final stage work, based upon Dostoyevsky’s novel. The production also sees the ROH debut of director Krzysztof Warlikowski. Mark Wigglesworth conducts a cast headed by Willard White and Johan Reuter.
Royal Opera House, WC2, Wednesday to 24 March
A Celebration of Louise Farrenc
Laurence Equilbey brings her orchestra Insula to London on International Women’s Day to present a portrait of 19th-century French composer Farrenc, whose music was much admired by Berlioz and Schumann. Equilbey conducts Farrenc’s Third Symphony, prefaced by Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Alexandra Conunova, Natalie Clein and Alice Sara Ott as the soloists.
Barbican Hall, EC2, Thursday 8 March
AC
Five of the best ... exhibitions
Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy
The greatest artist of the 20th century had two golden epochs: before the first world war when he and Braque invented Cubism, and the 1930s when he explored sex, violence and mythology in the bedroom, the bullring and Guernica. This exhibition delves into the diary that is his art to explore a single brilliant year of his surrealist period.
Tate Modern, SE1 Thursday 8 March to 9 September
Ian Cheng; Sondra Perry
Two US artists at the cutting edge of tech hold mirrors to our time. Perry finds new ways to see black lives and history in videos and performances. Cheng constructs gaming scenarios that mimic the natural world. Do their experiments reveal the future of art?
Serpentine Gallery, W2, Tuesday 6 March to 28 May; Serpentine Sackler Gallery, Tuesday 6 March to 20 May
Lorna Simpson
This Brooklyn artist says that her collection of vintage Jet and Ebony magazines “informed my sense of thinking about being black in America” and that the publications “are a reminder of my childhood and a lens through which to see the past 50 years of history.” Pages from the magazines feature in her latest exhibition exploring gender, race and identity. Strange forms erupt from fashion images to question the ways we define one another.
Hauser & Wirth, W1, to 28 April
In the Land
In, and not on, the land: the art here delves deep into the British landscape to find sculptural echoes of natural form and ripe, loamy painted textures. It explores how British modern artists returned to nature in the mid-20th century and how abstraction was enriched by the feel of place. The Cornish sky blows salt air into Peter Lanyon’s paintings. John Piper, Roger Hilton and more share their Romanticism.
The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester to 28 October
Jasmina Cibic
In a trilogy of films shown in a specially created installation, Cibic explores how modernist design can create a national consciousness. One film focuses on how Mies van der Rohe’s pristine architecture provided designs for a new Germany in the 20s. Another shows how Arne Jacobsen helped create the image of modern Denmark. We also see Vjenčeslav Richter’s sleek Yugoslav Pavilion for the 1958 Brussels Expo.
BALTIC, Gateshead to 28 May
JJ
Five of the best ... theatre shows
How (Not) to Live in Suburbia
Not just a broadside against Twickenham and book groups where nobody wants to actually read the book, but more an investigation into the loneliness that descends when the gods conspire against you. Annie Siddons’s show is a real pleasure: a brilliantly funny, blisteringly truthful and often quite surreal scream of pain.
Theatre Royal: Ustinov Studio, Bath Friday 9 to 10 March; touring to 15 May
How to Act
Theatre director Anthony is giving a masterclass, explaining the technique he discovered while travelling in Nigeria. But Anthony’s view of himself and the world are about to be blasted apart by a participant called Promise. Post-Oxfam controversy, Graham Eatough’s two hander about power and exploitation should have added welly.
Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Tuesday 6 to 10; touring to 23 March
Girls & Boys
Dennis Kelly’s devastating play, boasting an astonishing Carey Mulligan, is sold out, but Monday seats are available on the day. It has the hurtling dread of a Greek tragedy as a woman tells the story of meeting a man, merging their lives and having children. Kelly constructs his play with care and compassion, and Lyndsey Turner directs with forensic precision, moving from the wickedly funny to the unbearably desolate.
Jerwood Theatres at the Royal Court, SW1, to 17 March
Hamlet
The Empire may be a big barn of a place but Paapa Essiedu – the RSC’s first black Hamlet – will have no difficulty filling it, such is his charisma. Simon Godwin’s production transposes the action from Denmark to contemporary west Africa, and this engaging revival puts Essiedu up there with the most memorable Hamlets of recent years.
Derngate Theatre, Northampton, Saturday 3; Hackney Empire, E8, Tuesday 6 to 31 March
Manwatching
How often do we hear female sexual desire being talked about on stage? Almost never, but this solo show – performed by a different man each night, sight unseen – offers a no-holds-barred examination of one woman’s sexual fantasies. The play is written by a female Royal Court writer who wishes to remain anonymous. It’s not just its Elizabeth Bennet fantasy that’s fascinating, but also the way it probes why teenage boys boast about masturbation, but girls feel shame.
Royal Festival Hall: Level 5 Function Room, SE1, Friday 9 & 10 March
LG
Three of the best ... dance shows
Ballet British Columbia
Female choreographers dominate this triple bill from the excellently contemporary Canadian company, with works by Emily Molnar, the Tel Aviv duo Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, and Crystal Pite, whose setting of two Brahms sonatas for cello and piano explores themes of acceptance and loss.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1 Tuesday 6 & Wednesday 7; Brighton Dome Friday 9; touring to 24 March
Northern Ballet: Jane Eyre
Cathy Marston’s adaptation of Brontë gets a fully deserved tour. Marston shows a novelist’s eye for detail in the layering of her heroine’s character – ironic, angry, clever and passionate – and brings a freshly minted choreography to the telling of her story.
Grand Theatre, Leeds, Wednesday 7 to 14 March; touring to 9 June
Akademi: The Troth
Gary Clarke marks the centenary of the first world war with this new dance-theatre piece exploring the stories of the Indian soldiers who travelled hundreds of miles to fight in the trenches of an unknown land. Music is by Shri Sriram and the cast includes Vidya Patel.
The MAC, Belfast, Monday 5; touring to 16 March
JM
