Five of the best ... films
1 The Death of Stalin (15)
(Armando Iannucci, 2017, Fra/UK) 107 mins
Soviet skulduggery in the style of The Thick of It. Iannucci’s comedy of shambles translates easily to 1950s USSR, where the power vacuum created by the dictator’s death prompts paranoia and political plotting, conducted behind a cloak of feigned respectfulness. It might lack the bite of Iannucci’s modern satire, but the cast is a joy, including Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor and Jason Isaacs.
2 Brawl in Cell Block 99 (18)
(S Craig Zahler, 2017, US) 127 mins
Vince Vaughn as you’ve never seen him before (shaven-headed, tattooed, mean but disciplined), leading what could best be described as “pulp” – in terms of both its trashy, violent story, and the state of Vaughn’s adversaries when he’s finished with them. A steady descent into crime told with invention and efficiency.
3 The Party (15)
(Sally Potter, 2017, UK) 71 mins
This sharp chamber piece feels both retro and up to date, with its black-and-white photography and theatrical treatment of a gathering-gone-wrong, starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Timothy Spall, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer and Cillian Murphy.
4 I Am Not a Witch (12A)
(Rungano Nyoni, 2017, UK/Fra) 93 mins
As distinctive a film as you’d expect from a Zambian-Welsh film-maker, Nyoni’s debut infuses social satire with lyrical, comical surrealism and supernatural beliefs. The supposed witch in its title is a Zambian village girl, who interns in a tourist-friendly “witches’ camp”, and is then co-opted by a local leader for his own ends.
5 Dina (15)
(Antonio Santini, Dan Sickles, 2017, US) 102 mins
This doc almost plays like a fictional drama it’s so unobtrusive yet deeply personal. Dina is a garrulous late-40s woman with Asperger’s, who’s about to marry her autistic boyfriend. His unresolved issues over intimacy are a big hurdle, but as the story develops, we also appreciate what Dina has had to overcome, and how brave her love is.
SR
Five of the best ... pop and rock gigs
1 Metallica
Last year’s Hardwired... to Self-Destruct album catapulted angry manband Metallica back towards the top of the heritage rock pile, almost erasing lingering memories of their spectacularly awful 2011 Lou Reed collaborative effort, Lulu. Devil horns at the ready.
London, 22 & 24 October; Glasgow, 26 October; touring to 30 October
2 Banks
With two albums of elegantly wasted alt-R&B to her name, there are signs that California’s Banks, AKA Jillian Rose Banks, AKA the female Weeknd, is lightening up. New single Underdog feels almost euphoric in comparison, while the aesthetic moodboard has shifted from all-black everything to a vampy rouge.
Birmingham, 22 October; Manchester, 24 October; London, 25 October
3 Sinéad Harnett
After being discovered by Wiley in 2011, then doing the rounds as a vocalist-for-hire for the likes of Disclosure and Rudimental, Sinéad Harnett: The Artist finally stepped forward on this summer’s excellent mixtape, Chapter One, which featured slow-burn collaborations with Wretch 32 and producer Kaytranada.
4 Joey Bada$$
Eschewing his previous album’s muddled delivery in favour of some much-needed clarity, April’s All-Amerikkkan Bada$$ found the 22-year-old New York rapper touching on police brutality, oppression and the former presenter of The Apprentice US over nostalgia-hued hip-hop that harks back to better times.
5 Noga Erez
Like MIA, Israel’s Noga Erez channels her anger at the world around her into clattering agit-pop. This year’s Off the Radar album signalled the arrival of an exciting new pop artist unafraid to speak her mind.
MC
Five of the best … classical concerts
1 Total Immersion: Julian Anderson
The first of this year’s Total Immersion days in the environs of the Barbican features three concerts that focus on Julian Anderson’s chamber, choral and orchestral music in turn.
Milton Court, St Giles Cripplegate Church & Barbican Hall, EC2, 21 October
2 Hamlet
Brett Dean’s Glyndebourne commission is revived as part of the autumn tour, with Duncan Ward conducting. Neil Armfield’s prosaic staging has a totally new cast: David Butt Philip takes the title role while Jennifer France gets the best role of all: Ophelia.
Glyndebourne, Lewes, 21, 24 & 27 October, touring to 1 December
3 Schumann Requiem
The popularity of Schumann’s choral works trails well behind that of his piano, orchestral and chamber music, and even by those standards his Requiem, Op 148, is a real rarity. It forms the second half of Richard Egarr’s programme with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and its chorus, prefaced by Brahms’s A Major Serenade.
The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 26 October; City Halls, Glasgow, 27 October
4 Rodelinda
Outstanding Handel productions have been a strength of English National Opera and one of the sparkiest was Richard Jones’s 2014 staging of Rodelinda. It’s revived for the first time by Donna Stirrup, with Christian Curnyn returning in the pit.
Coliseum, WC2, 26 October to 15 November
5 Brecon baroque festival
I Fagiolini’s Monteverdi anniversary celebration, The Other Vespers, kicks off this Italian-themed festival. Other concerts include Brecon Baroque festival orchestra.
Various venues, Brecon, 26 to 30 October
AC
Five of the best … exhibitions
1 Cézanne Portraits
The tension in Paul Cézanne’s paintings between intellect and emotion gives them an electrifying sensuality and unmatched profundity. Cézanne could look at an apple and see the universe. When he looks at the human face the results are even more astonishing. From the pathos of his early, almost naive portraits to the crystalline brilliance of his maturity, the works in this exhibition give an intimate encounter with the greatest genius of the portrait since Rembrandt.
National Portrait Gallery, WC2, 26 October to 11 February
2 Tracey Emin and JMW Turner
Since Emin’s sensational 1998 installation My Bed went on loan to the Tate, she has shown it juxtaposed with male masters of British art: Francis Bacon, William Blake and now, in the Kent seaside town they are both linked with, Turner. Surprising affinities spark between the misty paint of Turner’s seascapes and the crumpled yellowing of Emin’s duvet and pillows. Is this notorious readymade a kind of painting? Or is it that a bed is a private ocean of dreams and adventure?
Turner Contemporary, Margate, to 14 January
3 Raqs Media Collective
These Delhi-based, digitally slick artists present a feast of images and ideas – including a film about evolution, black biscuits and a video featuring a man and woman in nothing but diving helmets. It’s a hilarious entertainment that evokes the fragmentation and complexity of post-colonial history. Outside the gallery, they’ve erected colossal parodies of imperial statues like helpless ghosts.
The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, to 25 February
4 Jake & Dinos Chapman
Goya and terrorism provide reliably outrageous fodder for the Chapman brothers in an exhibition that proves they have no intention of growing up. The vests also parody Jeff Koons, whose early works include heavy metal casts of lifejackets. Meanwhile, the Chapmans have added a new series of doodles to Goya’s prints. In other words, the real target of their art is art itself.
Blain/Southern, W1, to 11 November
5 Torbjørn Rødland
The critic Susan Sontag claimed photography has a natural affinity for the surreal – cameras often producing surrealism by accident – so in the hands of an imaginative artist it can reveal a heightened strangeness. Norway-born, LA-based Rødland’s surreal images are like that of a 1930s fashion photographer who was influenced by Dalí. Crazy, fun, but not too deep.
Serpentine Sackler Gallery, W2, to 19 November
JJ
Five of the best … theatre shows
1 Our Carnal Hearts
For one night only (it will certainly be back) but very much worth your time, Rachel Mars turns the audience into the congregation at church for this dissection of one of the nastiest of the seven deadly sins: envy. Punctuated by choral interludes composed by Louise Mothersole, this is a wryly witty and painfully honest piece about the way we often secretly resent our friends’ successes and good fortune rather than wholeheartedly celebrating them.
Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton, 21 October
2 Every Brilliant Thing
Last chance for Duncan Macmillan’s utterly engaging play at the Orange Tree, a theatre that punches far above its weight despite a lack of core funding. Set around the premise of a young boy who tries to come up with as many good reasons as possible why his suicidal mother should keep on living, this is a heartbreaking, engaging and surprisingly funny show about staying alive.
Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, to 28 October
3 Reasons to Be Cheerful
Back at the theatre where it first began, Graeae’s punk rock musical featuring the songs of Ian Dury and the Blockheads is a raucously enjoyable night out, in which Spasticus Autisticus becomes a defiant anthem of protest. Set in 1979 after the Tory election victory, this coming-of-age story may have a wafer-thin plot but it has a heart that pulsates with defiance and love.
Theatre Royal Stratford East, E15, 24 October to 4 November
4 The Class Project
Social mobility is on the decrease in modern Britain but what happens when you are propelled out of the class into which you were born? As a result of her education that happened to Rebecca Atkinson-Lord, and now she doesn’t speak like the rest of her family. At the same time, she’s also aware she doesn’t belong in the middle classes either. An enormously engaging one-woman show about the different ways you can lose your true voice.
The Albany, SE8, 25 October; Theatre in the Mill, Bradford, 27 & 28 October
5 Frogman
This year’s Edinburgh fringe was stuffed with shows using tech in innovative ways. None were more daring than this piece from Curious Directive, which melds a small-town rites-of-passage story with a psychological thriller. The audience – cast as a jury in a murder trial – see the backstory via VR headsets to create a distinctive experience that, while not flawless, points to exciting ways forward for theatre.
Norwich Arts Centre, 25 to 28 October
LG
Three of the best ... dance shows
1 National Dance Company Wales: P.A.R.A.D.E.
Diaghilev’s seminal cubist ballet gets a new staging, with the action divided across multiple platforms of the Millennium Theatre.
2 Let Me Change Your Name
One of the headlining events of this year’s Dance Umbrella is this piece by Korea’s leading female choreographer, Eun-Me Ahn, renowned for her surreal wit and formal sophistication.
The Place, WC1, 24 & 25 October
3 To a Simple Rock’n’Roll ... Song
Michael Clark brings back an extended version of this fine triple bill devoted to three of his musical inspirations (Satie, Bowie and Patti Smith), showing his choreography at its elegiac, rebellious best.
Barbican Hall, EC2, to 28 October
JM
