Going out: Cinema

Song Sung Blue
Out now
In 2008, an inspirational documentary about Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning & Thunder warmed hearts with its unconventional love story about Mike and Claire Sardina. Now it’s been adapted into this drama, with all Neil Diamond songs present and correct, and Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman in the lead roles.

Peter Hujar’s Day
Out now
Ben Whishaw stars as the photographer and artist-activist of New York’s gay liberation movement, who photographed figures such as Susan Sontag, Fran Lebowitz and John Waters. Set over the course of one day in 1974, this is an adaptation of the book by Linda Rosenkrantz, played here by Rebecca Hall.

Menus-Plaisirs: Les Troisgros
Out now
Frederick Wiseman, the godfather of durational documentary, is back with a four-hour epic, observing a Michelin-starred family restaurant in rural France. If your appetite for this kind of thing is insatiable, the year is starting on a high note: the new film plays alongside the BFI’s retrospective of Wiseman films, touring nationwide to 31 January.

No Time For Goodbye
Out now
Prolific short film director Don Ng writes and directs his first feature, a romance that takes place after the paths of two immigrants, fleeing their home nations, cross in the UK. Starring Yiu-Sing Lam, Tsz Wing Kitty Yu and Teddy Robin Kwan, it won the jury prize at the Global Nonviolent film festival. Catherine Bray

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Going out: Gigs

Biffy Clyro
9 to 21 January; tour starts Belfast
The Matt Cardle-enabling Scots rockers returned last year with their 10th album and fourth chart-topper in a row, Futique. Songs such as the pummelling Hunting Season and the tear-stained True Believer should go down a treat alongside setlist staples such as Many of Horror and Mountains on this lengthy arena jaunt. Michael Cragg

Hilary Woods
Cafe Oto, London, 8 January
Released last Halloween, experimental Irish artist Hilary Woods’s Night CRIÚ album may have been a return to more song-based structure, but the results were no less unsettling and atmospheric. With creaking feedback, ghostly vocals and a kids’ choir, it should perfectly suit east London’s sparse Cafe Oto. MC

National Youth Orchestra
Barbican Hall, London, 4 January; Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, 5 January; Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, 6 January
Alexandre Bloch conducts the latest intake of this unfailingly extraordinary collection of teenage talents. As has become the norm in recent years, their programme mixes the new with established classics: here Debussy’s Ibéria and Ravel’s Rapsodie Espagnole frame Karim Al-Zand’s City Scenes, while Inbal Segev is the soloist in Anna Clyne’s DANCE for cello and orchestra. Andrew Clements

Scott Hamilton
Pizza Express Jazz Club, London, 3 January to 7 January; Freemasons Hall, Chichester, 9 January
US tenor sax great Scott Hamilton not only shows how jazz styles can still evolve, but how long-honed improv friendships do too. He has plenty of those, not least the trusty UK trio that will follow his every move on this seasonal visit. John Fordham

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Going out: Art

Theatre Picasso
Tate Modern, London, to 12 April
Kick your new year alive with the energy and freedom of the greatest modern artist. Picasso’s Three Dancers howl and cavort at the heart of this show, ecstatic yet haunted by death – art’s equivalent of an F Scott Fitzgerald novel. It also includes The Acrobat, Weeping Woman and other bangers.

The Artefacts of Prediction
Manchester Museum, to 28 June
What’s in store? Human beings long to know the future, from sombre economic analyses and weather forecasts to astrology and tarot cards. This exhibition dwells on the more supernatural and speculative side of prediction, in a survey of hocus pocus since 1900 and the bizarre and beautiful objects it inspires.

Uncharted Territories
Modern One, Edinburgh, to 25 January
Maps were once magical mystery tours of unknown places, populated by sea monsters and people with no heads. From the 1500s onwards western rationality made them factual and powerful instruments of conquest. Here artists including Mona Hatoum, David Shrigley and Grayson Perry restore the wonder to cartography in subversive ways.

Secrets of the Thames
Museum of London Docklands, to 1 March
The shores of London’s river are crowded with relics of a city with a 2,000-year history. Tiles marked with paw prints of Roman dogs from ancient Londinium, clay pipes that may have been smoked by Shakespeare and 20th-century toys all abound as this survey of mudlarkers’ finds reveals. Jonathan Jones

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Going out: Stage

High Noon
Harold Pinter theatre, London, to 6 March
Screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) adapts this gripping and Oscar-winning western. A gang of killers arrives on the train at high noon – but will Marshall Will Kane stand by his principles or his new wife? Billy Crudup and Denise Gough star. Miriam Gillinson

Jack Rooke
Soho theatre, London, 6 to 10 January
Before his brilliant, heartbreaking sitcom Big Boys, Jack Rooke performed a one-man show about his father’s death titled Good Grief. For its 10-year anniversary, the writer revisits his old material, riffs on his new “telly wanker” status and reflects on his decision to artistically mine his loss. Rachel Aroesti

Jack and the Beanstalk
Liverpool Everyman theatre, to 17 January
The Everyman’s rock’n’roll pantos are always a blast. This year’s is written by Chloe Moss – with a group of actor-musicians bringing Jack’s giant adventure to life. MG

The Snow Queen
Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 3 to 17 January
Scottish Ballet’s winter offering is an icy tale that comes with the warmth of a circusey setting. It’s a family ballet choreographed by artistic director Christopher Hampson, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story – the same one that inspired Frozen. Designs are by the brilliant Lez Brotherston, music by Rimsky-Korsakov. Lyndsey Winship

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Staying in: Streaming

Can You Keep a Secret?
iPlayer & BBC One, 7 January, 9.30pm
Dawn French rarely puts a comedic foot wrong, so this high-concept new sitcom (above) about a controlling grandmother who pretends her husband (Spaced’s Mark Heap) is dead in order to get a life insurance payout should be a dream vehicle for her talents – and a post-Christmas treat.

Waiting for the Out
iPlayer & BBC One, 3 January, 9.30pm
A stint teaching in a men’s prison leads philosopher Dan (The Responder’s Josh Finan) into crisis when his lessons dredge up memories of his traumatic upbringing and criminal family in this new drama from Dennis Kelly (Pulling, Utopia), one of our most underrated screenwriters.

Bowie: The Final Act
Channel 4, 3 January, 10pm
When Bowie died in 2016, he was universally lauded as one of the 20th century’s most important artists. Yet only a couple of decades earlier, he’d been in the doldrums: critically mauled and creatively muddled. This documentary traces the stunning, strategic comeback that culminated in his last masterpiece, Blackstar.

His & Hers
Netflix, 8 January
Oscar-tipped Tessa Thompson stars opposite The Bear’s Jon Bernthal in this adaptation of British author Alice Feeney’s twisty 2020 novel about a newsreader and her detective ex-husband who become embroiled in a murder case – and increasingly suspicious of each other. RA

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Staying in: Games

Echoes of the End
PS5, XBox, PC; out now
Since new releases are still as rare as red-nosed reindeer and January is at its most miserable, why not transport yourself to a couple of vivid – and decidely warmer – fantasy worlds that may have otherwise passed you by in 2025. This beautiful, narrative-driven hack’n’slash adventure sees you play as Ryn, a “vestige” imbued with all the magic powers she needs to save her lands and kidnapped brother and homeland from an evil invading empire (aren’t they all?).

Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon
PS5, XBox, PC; out now
A janky yet plucky high-fantasy RPG which takes Arthurian legend to dark, bloody, monster-festooned extremes. “Influenced” by Bethesda greats Skyrim and Oblivion to such an extent it’s amazing no one was sued. Luke Holland

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Staying in: Albums

Olivia Rodrigo – Live from Glastonbury (A BBC Recording)
Out now
As Glastonbury takes a fallow year, relive one of last year’s headliners via this 20-track live album. As well as featuring two songs with the Cure’s Robert Smith, the prosaically titled Live from Glastonbury (A BBC Recording) also includes versions of Rodrigo’s own chart-mauling hits.

Daniel Lopatin – Marty Supreme (Original Soundtrack)
Out now
The prolific US musician returns with this sprawling soundtrack to Josh Safdie’s ping pong drama Marty Supreme. Lopatin previously worked with Safide, and his brother Benny, on 2019’s claustrophobic Uncut Gems.

Ulver – Neverland
Out now
Having recently dabbled in the more traditional, Norwegian genre-hopping trio Ulver indulge their more experimental side on this largely instrumental 15th album. Billed as “late-90s IDM [meets] the meandering structures of post-rock”, single Weeping Stone moves at a beautifully glacial pace.

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – Thoughts on the Future
Out now
While last year’s kinetic Gush album ventured into dance music, LA synthesist, producer and visual artist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s new EP slows the pace right down. Featuring three lengthy instrumentals, opening track I Miss the Way You Swim – inspired by loss – warmly wraps itself around the listener. MC

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Staying in: Brain food

Send in the Spotlight
Podcast
BBC Woman’s Hour presenter Nuala McGovern delivers necessary insights into the world of special educational needs and disabilities in this new series. Episodes feature parents navigating the Send system as well as analysis of planned reforms.

Disney’s Living Characters: A Broken Promise
YouTube
Running at more than four hours, this exhaustive and deeply researched video essay is a fascinating examination of the Disney empire’s approach to creativity and profitability, which has coalesced in the decades-long mission to create robots.

Discovery: What Is Quantum?
BBC World Service, 5 January, 8.32pm
Quantum theory is notoriously confusing. Marnie Chesterton celebrates a century since its formulation in this engaging documentary, asking leading physicists to explain how quantum theory affects our everyday reality. Ammar Kalia