Five of the best ... films
120 Beats Per Minute (15)
(Robin Campillo, 2017, Fra) 143 mins
Raise a fist and shed a tear with this remarkable story of a radical Aids-awareness group in 1990s Paris. Shock tactics and lively debates are captured in documentary style, but it’s the relationships that gradually come to dominate, particularly a new gay couple for whom the ticking clock of untreatable HIV adds to the passion and poignancy.
Thoroughbreds (15)
(Cory Finley, 2017, US) 92 mins
Detached, deadpan and downright disturbing, this study of teen partners-in-crime follows in the tradition Heathers and Heavenly Creatures, with sharp dialogue and slick camerawork. Study partners Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke bond over privilege and bored disillusionment, co-opting hapless Anton Yelchin into their scheme to murder Taylor-Joy’s stepdad.
Ghost Stories (15)
(Jeremy Dyson, Andy Nyman, 2017, UK) 96 mins
Almost a modern-day Dead of Night, this horror weaves its tales of terror into a grand design. Co-writer and director Nyman plays a paranormal-debunker revisiting three cases that challenge his disbelief in the supernatural: those of Paul Whitehouse, Alex Lawther and Martin Freeman. These episodes are loaded with shock and dread, but common elements hint at a larger pattern connected to Nyman.
Isle of Dogs (PG)
(Wes Anderson, 2018, US/Ger) 101 mins
Anderson’s eye for detail and ear for deadpan go into overdrive in a lovable animated tale. It’s set on a rubbish-dump island off the coast of retro-future Japan, where a band of rogueish mutts help a kid reunite with his pet and overthrow the dog-hating mayor. The story is hardly the point: it’s all about the hand-crafted visuals, eccentric characters and perfectly timed comedy.
Love, Simon (12A)
(Greg Berlanti, 2018, US) 110 mins
It’s almost a selling point that this romcom (pictured) is so normal, since its subject is closeted gay teenhood. Simon (Nick Robinson) is forced to contemplate coming out when an online post from an anonymous classmate declares that he, too, is gay. The stakes are raised when their secret chats become more intimate. Someone’s going to have to put their heart on the line.
SR
Five of the best ... rock & pop gigs
Harry Styles
While he spent the last One Direction tour gamely trying to muster some enthusiasm, the immaculately suited Styles seems to have found his comfort zone in 70s-style soft-rock (Two Ghosts) and blustery ballads (Sign of the Times). Expect posturing, some new songs and the requisite Fleetwood Mac cover.
Genting Arena, Birmingham Saturday 7; Manchester Arena Monday 9; The O2, SE10 Wednesday 11 & Thursday 12; touring to 16 April
Lil Uzi Vert
Over the space of four years, Philadelphia rapper Lil Uzi Vert has moved from SoundCloud darling to A-list eccentric, scoring a US Top 10 with XO Tour Llif3, a Grammy nomination for best new artist and a supporting role on Migos’s global hit Bad and Boujee. With five albums to pick from, expect ordered chaos.
Manchester, Sunday 8; Birmingham, Monday 9; London, Tuesday 10 April
Girl Ray
Lo-fi indie trio Girl Ray, AKA Poppy Hankin, Iris McConnell and Sophie Moss, live in their own world. Well, they live in north London, but musically – as showcased on recent debut album – theirs is a timeless conflation of C86-era indie, 70s Todd Rundgren and good old-fashioned sweet and sour heartache.
Bristol, Tuesday 10; Nottingham, Wednesday 11; Hebden Bridge, Thursday 12; Glasgow, Friday 13; touring to 19 April
Wiki
With his leftfield hip-hop collective Ratking on hiatus, Wiki, AKA Patrick Morales arrives in the UK in support of last year’s No Mountains in Manhattan debut (there have been mixtapes, obviously). A multi-layered celebration of New York City, it features prominent rappers from the five boroughs including Ghostface Killah, Your Old Droog and Lakutis.
Manchester, Wednesday 11; Liverpool, Friday 13; touring to 18 April
MC
Sheila Jordan
Sheila Jordan, the quietly startling 89-year-old singer, was on radio in her native Pennsylvania by 14, won bebop genius Charlie Parker’s praises, and has been a celebrated jazz vocalist for six decades. She visits London and the Gateshead jazz festival with pianist Pete Churchill’s trio and a string quartet.
The Sage Gateshead, Sunday 7; PizzaExpress Jazz Club Soho, W1, Wednesday 11 & Thursday 12 April
JF
Four of the best ... classical concerts
Chineke! Orchestra
Chineke!’s debut in 2015 was one of the last events in the QEH before it was closed for refurbishment, and now they give the opening concert in the renovated space. Anthony Parnther conducts a programme that opens with Britten’s The Building of the House Overture; it also includes Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and the premiere of Daniel Kidane’s Dream Song.
Queen Elizabeth Hall, SE1 Monday 9 April
Jack Quartet
This new programme from the US’s leading new-music string quartet is typically wide-ranging, with works from the new world – Amy Williams’s Richter Textures and Marcos Balter’s Chambers – alongside two from British composers: Julian Anderson’s Third Quartet (a world premiere) and Brian Ferneyhough’s Dum Transisset.
Wigmore Hall, W1, Wednesday 11 April
The Gender Agenda
The London Sinfonietta present an evening devoted to the provocative music-theatre of Philip Venables. Hosted by “anti-drag queen” David Hoyle, The Gender Agenda is described as a parody gameshow, highlighting issues of gender equality. It is followed by Venables’s Illusions, which combines live music with video in a wickedly funny, often scabrous tirade.
Queen Elizabeth Hall, SE1, Thursday 12 April
The Marriage of Figaro
Irish National Opera made its debut last month with a revival of Adès’s Powder Her Face, but Patrick Mason’s production of The Marriage of Figaro will be its first bespoke show. Jonathan Lemalu is Figaro with Tara Erraught as Susanna.
National Opera House, Wexford, Friday 13; Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, 17 to 21 April
AC
Five of the best ... exhibitions
Monet & Architecture
The radiance and life of Monet’s art is almost beyond compare, so a chance to see 75 of his paintings is not to be sniffed at. They won’t be the most familiar, either, as this exhibition surveys the little-noticed theme of his fascination with buildings. The paintings of Rouen Cathedral and the Venice skyline are among his most profound.
The National Gallery, WC2 Monday 9 April to 29 July
Bumped Bodies
Sarah Lucas and Rebecca Warren are among the artists offering uneasy views of our relationships with our bodies in this exhibition taken from the ISelf collection. Warren’s sculptures of independent striding female legs (pictured) typify its surreal perspectives on the human form. Others featured include Tony Cragg and Enrico David.
Whitechapel Gallery, E1, Tuesday 10 April to 12 August
Linder: The House of Fame
This haunting odyssey through multiverses of history and imagination is a mind-boggling delight. Linder started her career making collages for the Buzzcocks in the heyday of punk and still practises it with poetic vision. She has created a show that is a vast collage of her enthusiasms; my favourites include demonic drawings by the architect Inigo Jones and lingerie masks by Linder herself.
Nottingham Contemporary, to 24 June
America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper
Charles Demuth’s visionary painting I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold is an American icon. It combines the complex energy of cubism with a bold eye for the modern world that anticipates pop art. This and other classics make for an eye-opening journey through the art of the jazz age. If you thought Jackson Pollock was the first modern American artist who mattered, think again.
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, to 22 July
Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography
The genius of Julia Margaret Cameron (work pictured) stands out in this exhibition about the first photographic avant garde. Cameron, Lewis Carroll, Lady Clementina Hawarden and Oscar Rejlander were friends who shared ideas and even models. All were vivid image-makers but the depth and reality of Cameron’s portraits set her apart.
National Portrait Gallery, WC2, to 20 May
JJ
Five of the best ... theatre shows
The Last Ship
It may not have been a hit on Broadway but Sting’s musical about the demise of shipbuilding has come home to the north-east in triumph and now sets off on a nationwide tour. Director Lorne Campbell provides a new book and creates a rousing evening full of heart and song.
Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne Saturday 7; Liverpool Playhouse Monday 9 to 14 April; touring to 7 July
Palmyra
In this superb two-hander from Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas, the stage ends up covered in smashed crockery, which can be read in many ways. The obvious one is as a metaphor for the destruction of the ancient Syrian city, but it is also a playful, powerful examination of how relationships can break down and turn destructive.
Battersea Arts Centre, SW11, Tuesday 10 to 14 April; touring to 9 June
Secret Life of Humans
This devised show is inspired by Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and the life and death of Dr Jacob Bronowski, who popularised science with the 1973 TV series The Ascent of Man. It’s a bold and daring show that melds fact and fiction to fine effect, and is stuffed with big questions about what it is that makes us human as well as our ability to solve the challenges we face as a species.
The New Diorama Theatre, NW1, Tuesday 10 April to 5 May
Frogman
Curious Directive is a pioneering company and its latest show makes innovative use of virtual reality technology in the service of storytelling. Casting the audience as the jury in a court case, the show takes us back in time to 1995 on the Great Barrier Reef where teenager Ashleigh has gone missing. A recreation of childhood and the way memory is deceptive, this is a bold piece of theatre. Not all of it works, but it is always interesting in the way it folds VR into the experience.
Shoreditch Town Hall, EC1, to 14; touring to 28 April
The Birthday Party
It is your last chance to catch up with Ian Rickson’s fine revival of Harold Pinter’s play, delivered both with menaces and comedy. Zoë Wanamaker is a joy as Meg, the wittering boarding-house landlady whose attempts at throwing a birthday party go badly wrong when two thugs disrupt the celebrations in search of the guest of honour, a show-stealing Toby Jones.
The Harold Pinter Theatre, SW1, to 14 April
LG
Three of the best ... dance shows
Ballet Central
The always excellent graduate company embraces a typically ambitious range of contemporary and classical work for its annual UK tour, combining extracts from, among others, Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty, Wayne McGregor’s Far and Christopher Gable’s Cinderella, plus Black Swan, a new work by Jenna Lee. Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds Monday 9 April; touring to 14 July
English National Ballet: Voices of America
Kudos to Tamara Rojo for persuading William Forsythe to choreograph his first new ballet for a British company in 20 years. This celebration of the US ballet tradition also features Aszure Barton’s Fantastic Beings (pictured) and Jerome Robbins’s Cage.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Thursday 12 to 21 April
Cowpuncher
The QEH celebrates its reopening with Holly Blakey’s swaggering, subversive take on the world of cowboy movies. Created in collaboration with composer Mica Levi, Cowpuncher uses the archetype of the outlaw to celebrate outsiders and transgressives everywhere.
Queen Elizabeth Hall, SE1, Friday 13 April
JM
