Five of the best ... films
A Star Is Born (15)
(Bradley Cooper, 2018, US) 135 mins
One of Hollywood’s favourite stories – the hopeful young ingenue on the up eclipsing her raddled, on-the-slide mentor – gets yet another makeover, this time with boozing country rocker Bradley Cooper discovering and promoting the newbie played by Lady Gaga. She turns in a great acting performance, easily Cooper’s equal.
22 July (15)
(Paul Greengrass, 2018, Nor/Ice/US) 133 mins
Paul Greengrass, the master of the re-enactment of real-life atrocities (United 93, Bloody Sunday), takes as his subject the Utøya massacre perpetrated by far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. Greengrass’s film looks at the aftermath: the investigation, the trial and the slow path to recovery for the survivors. Out Wed.
Venom (15)
(Ruben Fleischer, 2018, US) 112 mins
And so begins the Sony Marvel Universe, the cinematic legacy of a complex rights deal that saw Spider-Man sold separately from the rest of the Marvel comic-book characters. Venom – played by Tom Hardy – is reporter Eddie Brock, who hybridises with an alien symbiote while investigating creepy magnate Riz Ahmed. The FX are laid on thick, but Venom himself promises an antiheroic identity set to proliferate in future films.
Halloween (18)
(John Carpenter, 1978, US) 91 min
As the remake/reboot lumbers our way, a brief rerelease of the still nerve-jangling original, reputedly the most profitable independent film ever made. From its opening point-of-view shots (with the killer twist) to its dread-inducing don’t-go-down-to-the-basement terrors, Halloween does the business and more. It was the debut of Jamie Lee Curtis, and its influence is profound. (In selected cinemas, Wednesday 10 October)
The Wife (15)
(Björn Runge, 2017, UK, Swe, US) 100 mins
Glenn Close is surely in with an Oscar shout for her outstanding performance here as the spouse and helper to a Nobel prize-winning author, played by Jonathan Pryce. A brilliantly observed and intensely excruciating drama of creative frustration, it’s the kind of grown-up drama we need a lot more of.
AP
Five of the best ... rock & pop
Burna Boy
Co-signs from the likes of Drake and Lily Allen may have helped with his mainstream appeal, but Nigeria’s Burna Boy has been doing pretty well on his own, thank you. After this year’s Outside album of infectious Afrofusion, this brief tour will coincide with his recent single, the Fela Kuti-inspired Gbona.
O2 Academy Brixton, SW9, Sunday 6; The Fleece, Bristol, Tuesday 9; O2 Academy, Birmingham, Wednesday 10 October
Becky Hill
One of the few artists to have survived The Voice (she made the semi-finals in 2012), Hill featured on a UK No 1 two years later. Her momentum may have stalled slightly since, but an album is due out soon, and recent single Sunrise in the East is yet another showcase of one of pop’s most individual voices.
Glasgow, Monday 8; Manchester, Tuesday 9; Leeds, Thursday 11; Birmingham, Friday 12; touring to 15 October
BTS
The world’s biggest boyband (two US No 1 albums this year, fact fans), arrive in the UK as part of their global Love Yourself arena tour. Expect retina-burning lasers; intricate, 14-legged choreography; a handful of turbo-charged bangers sung in multiple languages; and – let’s be honest – a risk of tinnitus from all the screaming.
The O2, SE10, Tuesday 9 & Wednesday 10 October
MNEK
BTS collaborator MNEK has had an interesting month or so. First, he finally released his debut album of expressive R&B and pop, Language, to rave reviews, only to then see it chart outside the Top 100. A fairly honest Twitter thread followed, sparking discussions on everything from race and sexuality to major-label marketing budgets. He will be keen to pull the focus back to the music on this, his biggest headline tour so far.
Gorilla, Manchester, Tuesday 9; O2 Institute2, Birmingham, Wednesday 10; The Scala, N1, Thursday 11 October
MC
Donny McCaslin
Donny McCaslin’s saxophone fusion of Coltrane-esque raw power and lamenting soulfulness has fuelled leading jazz groups from Maria Schneider’s to Steps Ahead, but this gig features the electronic art-rock he discovered playing with David Bowie on Blackstar. Incidentally, Blackstar drums phenomenon Mark Guiliana is at Ronnie Scott’s on Thursday and Friday.
The Scala, N1, Sunday 7 October
JF
Three of the best ... classical concerts
Everything That Happened and Would Happen
Since he first startled audiences across Europe with Black on White, the staged concert for Ensemble Modern in 1996, Heiner Goebbels has continued to blur the boundaries between opera, theatre and art installation. His latest, Everything That Happened and Would Happen, commissioned by the Manchester festival as part of 14-18 NOW, is a three-hour exploration of Europe since the outbreak of the first world war, described as “part performance, part construction site”.
Mayfield, Manchester, Wednesday 10 to 21 October
Passion
Pascal Dusapin is one of the leading French composers, but his music is rarely heard in the UK. He has written eight operas, but Music Theatre Wales and National Dance Company Wales’s co-production of Passion, a modern reworking of the Orpheus myth with two protagonists, will be the first to be seen here. Sung in English and presented as a dance-opera, directed by Michael McCarthy and choreographed by Caroline Finn, it features Jennifer France and Johnny Herford as the couple.
The Anvil, Basingstoke, Thursday 11 October; touring to 10 November
Porgy and Bess
It is more than 30 years since one of Britain’s leading opera companies put on a new production of George and Ira Gershwin’s opera. That staging, directed at Glyndebourne by Trevor Nunn, went on to achieve iconic status. Whether this ENO version, with Eric Greene as Porgy and Nicole Cabell as Bess, directed by James Robinson and conducted by John Wilson, becomes a similar landmark remains to be seen.
London Coliseum, WC2, Thursday 11 October to 17 November
AC
Five of the best ... exhibitions
Pin-Ups: Toulouse-Lautrec and the Art of Celebrity
The frolics and fears of fin-de-siècle Paris come to life in a show that mixes Toulouse-Lautrec’s glamorous poster designs with his more intimate pastels. Far from being simply a joyous promoter of Montmartre’s cabarets and their dancers, this subtle and honest artist saw the pain beneath the greasepaint.
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, Saturday 6 October to 20 January
Ribera: Art of Violence
The tortures and punishments that haunted the Spanish master Jusepe de Ribera are shown here to come directly from the world in which he lived. Ribera worked in 17th-century Naples among Inquisition tribunals and savage public punishments. This cruel atmosphere is preserved in his mighty masterpieces.
Dulwich Picture Gallery, SE21, to 27 January
Julie Mehretu
If there is an heir to Cy Twombly in the art of today, it is Mehretu. She shares the expansiveness, intelligence, historical scope and – most of all – the complex layers of marks and meaning that marked out Twombly as one of the great modern painters. Her networks of scrawls, scratches and ghostly images create richly allusive maps of the world and its troubles, proving that painting is still a uniquely grand art.
White Cube at Mason’s Yard, SW1, to 3 November
Anni Albers
This German-Jewish artist only took up weaving because the Bauhaus, the famous school of art and design where she studied in the 1920s, would not let women into the more heavy-duty disciplines. Yet Albers turned weaving into abstract art. Her mathematical, almost pixellated, patterns exploit the grid-like matrix of the loom to create hypnotic visions of ethereal order. In 1933, she went to the US and won the fame that was her due.
Tate Modern, SE1, Thursday 11 October to 27 January
A New Figurative Art 1920-1945
The shocking rehabilitation of Mussolini’s Italy in the art world is so entrenched it now seems to not need explanation. But, for the record, this show of “one of the most outstanding private collections of Italian art from the inter-war years” is, in fact, art from the fascist era. On the other hand, neo-realism became the style of a new Italy after 1944 and Renato Guttuso, one of the stars here, was a communist.
Estorick Collection, N1, to 23 December
JJ
Five of the best ... theatre shows
Death of a Salesman
Don Warrington, who has done everything from Rising Damp to Death in Paradise on TV – and recently King Lear to some acclaim at this venue – plays the iconic role of Willy Loman in the 1949 Arthur Miller classic about one family and the failure of the American dream (a re-emerging theme these days). Sarah Frankcom directs.
Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Thursday 11 October to 17 November
Don Carlos
The Northcott Theatre is celebrating its 50th-anniversary season, and its centrepiece is Friedrich Schiller’s historical tragedy. Tom Burke (best known as JK Rowling’s detective Cormoran Strike) plays the Marquis of Posa, who intercedes with the cold Philip II of Spain for his son and heir, Don Carlos – who finds himself attracted to his stepmother.
Northcott Theatre, Exeter, Thursday 11 to 20 October; touring to 17 November
Tartuffe
It is not the first time that Molière’s comedy of religious hypocrisy has been given an Asian twist; a 1990 National Theatre production relocated it to Mogul India. But here, writers Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto (The Kumars at No 42, Citizen Khan) have set it amid a well-off British-Pakistani family in Birmingham. The production is sharp, with references to #MeToo, Brexit and hip-hop.
Royal Shakespeare Theatre: Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, to 23 February
A Very Very Very Dark Matter
After another foray into the world of film – most recently the double Oscar-winning Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Martin McDonagh brings a new play to the stage. The darkness of the title comes from the fairytales (always a bit Grimm) of Hans Christian Andersen, as McDonagh – who can extract hilarity from the bleakest of scenarios – finds there’s something dodgy about the inspiration for the Danish writer’s stories.
The Bridge Theatre, SE1, Friday 12 October to 6 January
Stories
Nina Raine had a resounding success with her last play at the National, Consent, concerning lawyers, their private lives and a rape case. Exploring the difference between the law and justice, it subsequently transferred to the West End. Her latest, Stories, which she also directs, is equally female-centric, being the tale of a 39-year-old single woman – played by Claudie Blakley – and her attempts to start a family.
National Theatre: Dorfman, SE1, Wednesday 10 October to 28 November
MC
Three of the best ... dance shows
Via Kanana
Originating in the townships of apartheid-era South Africa, pantsula is a dance form that has reflected the changing lives, hopes and culture of its performers over the decades. In Via Kanana, choreographer Gregory Maqoma works with township dance group Via Katlehong to bring some of that fast-stepping style from the street to the stage.
Shoreditch Town Hall, EC1, Wednesday 10 & Thursday 11 October
Reckonings
Sadler’s Wells theatre celebrates 20 years of its current incarnation (though there has actually been a theatre on the Islington site since 1683) by showcasing the next generation of UK-based choreographers tipped to make waves: Julie Cunningham, Botis Seva and Alesandra Seutin.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Thursday 11 to 13 October
Colin Dunne: Concert
The ex-Riverdancer takes Irish dance into territories new, deconstructing tradition in wryly funny, intimate and experimental pieces. In Concert, Dunne takes on the supposedly “undanceable” 1972 album The Liffey Banks by fiddle player Tommy Potts.
Tramway, Glasgow, Friday 12 to 13 October
LW
