Five of the best … films
Knives Out (12A)
(Rian Johnson, 2019, US) 130 mins
How do you follow up Star Wars? Why, with an elaborate homage to Agatha Christie, of course – retooled for an American setting, and stuffed with a stack of big names, from Daniel Craig to Toni Collette. Craig plays Poirot-esque private detective Benoit Blanc, called in to investigate the death of crime novelist Harlan Thrombey. Is the culprit a close family member – or someone else?
The Nightingale (18)
(Jennifer Kent, 2018, Australia/US/Can) 136 mins
The backdrop to this harrowing, violent film is the early 19th century, as British invaders seek to suppress the indigenous people of what is now known as Tasmania. Aisling Franciosi plays Clare Carroll, a former convict who joins up with an indigenous tracker to embark on a bloody revenge mission.
Frozen II (U)
(Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, 2019, US) 103 mins
The Frozen behemoth rolls on, recording spectacular box office results. This time the film-makers have taken aim at colonialism – yes, really – as Anna and Elsa are moved to try to right ancient wrongs made to the local forest dwellers. It’s all wrapped up in the trademark inspirational anthemism, of course, with Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell giving it any amount of welly.
Atlantics (12A)
(Mati Diop, 2019, Fra/Sen/Bel) 106 mins
French-Senegalese director Mati Diop has made an impressive debut here: reworking and expanding her 2009 short about perilous sea crossings into a haunting film centring on Ada (Mame Bineta Sane), a woman left behind as Souleiman (Ibrahima Traoré), the man she loves, joins a nighttime attempt to reach Europe from west Africa.
Eyes Wide Shut (18)
(Stanley Kubrick, 1999, UK/US) 155 mins
Stanley Kubrick’s final film gets a 20th-anniversary re-release, and it is fair to say opinions are still divided. Inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story, and starring a then-married Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, this study of social and sexual paranoia is both an intriguing satire on elite-society privilege and a male-gaze flash-fest that would get short shrift today. For all that, it has the surreal, creepy logic of a dream.
AP
Five of the best … rock & pop
Bakar
Camden Town’s Bakar takes the swagger of rock’n’roll and adds his own inventive slant. His 2018 debut album, Badkid, flits between the hazy likes of 4am and the juiced-up energy of Badlands, the video to which sees Bakar escaping the police. This year has bought a batch of singles, including the horn-laced, introspective Hell N Back. All over the shop, basically, but in a good way.
Electric Brixton, SW2, Thursday 5; touring to 7 December
A Not So Silent Night
Rufus and Martha Wainwright are bringing their Christmas family reunion to London for the first time in 10 years. Guests include Guy Garvey, Chrissie Hynde and that known Santa hat enthusiast Neil Tennant. In Dublin, meanwhile, Lisa O’Neill and Conor O’Brien of Villagers are among the revellers.
National Concert Hall, Dublin, Monday 2 & Tuesday 5; Royal Festival Hall, SE1, Friday 6 December
Muna
The LA-based alt-pop trio return to the UK in support of their excellent second album, Saves the World. While their debut, About U, focused on broader concerns, the follow-up turns the lens inwards, couching raw emotions in widescreen 80s synthpop on tracks such as Who and Stayaway, plus some gloriously overwrought 90s Alanis-isms.
Brighton, Monday 2; London, Tuesday 3; Birmingham, Wednesday 4; Manchester, Thursday 5; touring to 9 December
Amyl and the Sniffers
These Australian punk rockers work quickly. Their debut EP, Giddy Up, was written, recorded and released in the space of 12 hours, while their name is inspired by a similarly cheap thrill: poppers. “So, you sniff it, it lasts for 30 seconds and then you have a headache – and that’s what we’re like!” frontwoman Amy Taylor told the BBC. Hold on tight!
Cardiff, Saturday 30 November; Manchester, Sunday 1; Glasgow, Monday 2; Birmingham, Tuesday 3; London, Thursday 5 & Friday 5; touring to 7 December
MC
The Comet Is Coming
The engaging shtick of this Mercury-nominated trio is a dystopian world with music in ruins: the saviours being musical cosmonauts Shabaka Hutchings (sax), Dan Leavers (keys) and Max Hallett (drums). The Afrofuturism of Sun Ra and 70s prog collide in this stagey but imaginative scenario.
Cambridge, Saturday 30 November; Leeds, Tuesday 3; Manchester, Wednesday 4; London, Thursday 5; Brighton, Friday 6; touring to 7 December
JF
Three of the best … classical concerts
Iris
Performances of operas that have been forgotten or neglected have become a regular feature of Scottish Opera’s programme since Stuart Stratford took over as the company’s music director in 2015. The first of this season’s rarities is Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, a 1898 verismo shocker set in Japan about a girl who loses her innocence, which anticipated the exoticism of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly by six years. Stratford himself conducts this concert staging, which is directed by Roxana Haines; Helena Dix, Ric Furman and Roland Wood head the cast.
City Halls, Glasgow, Sunday 1 December
The Sixteen at Christmas
Christmas music gets going in earnest this week, and Harry Christophers and his superb choir lead the way with their annual nationwide tour. The centrepiece of their programme this time is the 12 settings of Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, with Frances Kelly as the solo harpist. There are also medieval, traditional and more modern carols, including music by Holst, Warlock, Walton, Matthew Martin, James Burton and Cecilia McDowall.
Anvil, Basingstoke, Wednesday 4; The Sage, Gateshead, Friday 6; touring to 22 December
Peter Grimes
Ever since he first sang the title role in English National Opera’s superb 2009 production of Britten’s best-known opera, Stuart Skelton has been the definite Peter Grimes of our time. Now he brings it back to London for a concert staging that reunites him with the conductor of that ENO show, Edward Gardner, together with Gardner’s current orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic, and a cast including Erin Wall and Roderick Williams.
Royal Festival Hall, SE1, Saturday 30 November
AC
Five of the best … exhibitions
Eco-Visionaries
Art has contemplated nature ever since cave painters portrayed mammoths but, as human actions endanger the planet, contemplation is not enough. The artists in this timely show, who include Olafur Eliasson, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and Tue Greenfort, engage with the climate crisis and other existential threats to life on Earth.
Royal Academy of Arts, W1, to 23 February
Meltdown
How can the climate emergency be made visible? This exhibition combines art with scientific data to let us actually see changes to our planet that might otherwise be abstract concepts. Old postcards of glaciers reveal their shrinkage over time, while photos and installations of ice caves and glacial landscapes take us to the cutting edge of crisis.
Horniman Museum & Gardens, SE23, to 12 January
Paula Rego
Repression and desire give Paula Rego’s paintings a throbbing tension. Their surfaces are like tightly stretched drum skins. Women and men confront one another in ambiguous embraces of love and domination. Her toughly textured renderings of the body are meaty, muscled and grotesquely alive. Everything takes place in an uneasy, uncertain time and place. Punchy, engrossing and authoritative.
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art: Modern Two, to 19 April
John Sell Cotman
This gifted contemporary of Constable and Turner looked at landscape with a clear and – apparently – calm eye. Cotman’s watercolours, engravings and paintings mirror the poetry of Wordsworth: pastoral, low-key, and yet charged with profound introspective beauty. It is easy to take for granted the quiet intensity and enduring soulfulness of such art that refuses all bombast.
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, to 19 January
Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries
Who knew that science could be so squishy and disgusting? Wax models in various states of anatomical undress, an iron coffin to deter grave robbers, and a display dedicated to the history of urine samples are among the many arresting exhibits in this epic new gallery. It combines entertaining spectacle, including a Marc Quinn statue, with enough scientific and historical depth to reward repeat visits.
Science Museum, SW7, permanent
JJ
Five of the best … theatre shows
Fairview
Jackie Sibblies Drury’s play has been lavished with praise in the United States, culminating in a Pulitzer prize this year. Now we finally get to see what all the fuss is about. It is a seemingly simple show about an African-American family preparing for Grandma’s birthday party – only all is not as it seems. Can we trust what we see? Directed by the supremely talented Nadia Latif.
Young Vic, SE1, to 18 January
Cyrano De Bergerac
Actor James McAvoy reunites with director Jamie Lloyd after their 2013 collaboration on Macbeth. McAvoy is playing another soldier this time, but one with a poet’s heart and a very large nose. Much comedy, courting and duelling ensues. Edmond Rostand’s vintage play has been “freely” adapted by Martin Crimp so expect a few surprises.
Playhouse Theatre, WC2, to 29 February
A Christmas Carol
Jack Thorne’s adaptation of Dickens’s classic Christmas tale has become a bit of a festive tradition: this is the third year running it has been staged at the Old Vic. Scrooge has been played here before by Rhys Ifans and Stephen Tompkinson; now, in a lovely piece of casting, Paterson Joseph will be trailing after those portentous ghosts. Joseph should add a few comic flourishes to Matthew Warchus’s sumptuously theatrical and warm-hearted production.
Old Vic, SE1, to 18 January
Peter Pan
The same creative team behind last year’s stage version of Oliver Twist – including writer Deborah McAndrew and director Mark Babych – reunite for a go at JM Barrie’s celebrated tale. There will also be original music from composer John Biddle, whose score worked wonders for the Dickens. Expect plenty of singing, dancing and a fair bit of flying as Peter Pan and his Lost Boys take on the dastardly Captain Hook.
Hull Truck Theatre, to 4 January
A Christmas Carol
Another theatre, another Christmas Carol; that Charles Dickens knew what he was doing. This is the second year running for Tom Morris’s vibrant adaptation, which proved such a hit last year. There is a haunting score from Gwyneth Herbert, plenty of audience interaction, a lifesize puppet Ghost of Christmas Past and some splendidly spooky ghosts. A lively and edgy production, directed by Lee Lyford, should set you up nicely for the festive season.
Bristol Old Vic, to 12 January
MG
Three of the best … dance shows
Svetlana Zakharova: Modanse
Ballet and fashion have always been firm friends. In the 1920s and 30s, Coco Chanel designed costumes for the Ballets Russes; now commanding Russian prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova pays tribute to her in new ballet Gabrielle Chanel, choreographed by Yuri Possokhov, in a double bill with Mauro Bigonzetti’s Like a Breath, set to Handel.
London Coliseum, WC2, Tuesday 3 to Thursday 5 December
Fubunation: The Ruins Series
A young company with a lot of promise, Fubunation is two north London boys tackling representations of black male physicality and myths of masculinity. Ruins is a four-part experience, with an exhibition, film installation and performance, followed by an afterparty.
Roundhouse, NW1, Saturday 30 November
Natalie Reckert: Selfie With Eggs
You have probably not given much thought to handstands since childhood, but you will once you have seen German acrobat Natalie Reckert. She draws out the drama in the art and endurance of balancing upside down, with humour, an electro soundtrack and a dozen eggs.
Déda, Derby, Saturday 30 November
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