Five of the best ... films
If Beale Street Could Talk (15)
(Barry Jenkins, 2018, US) 119 mins
As the glut of awards-season releases slows down, Moonlight director Jenkins’s adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel still holds the stage, as the last major Oscar bait pic to wash up in the UK. Stephan James and KiKi Layne deliver career-changing performances as Fonny and Tish, lovers separated after he is jailed; Jenkins confirms his reputation as one of the US’s leading auteur directors.
Capernaum (15)
(Nadine Labaki, 2018, Leb/Fr/US) 126 mins
An idiosyncratic premise – a child sues his parents for failing to look after him properly – is given rousing life by Lebanese director Labaki. It might sound like something that could only happen in California, but Labaki turns it into a portrait of a chaotic, hardscrabble Beirut, as well as a wider insight into difficult family relationships.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (15)
(Marielle Heller, 2018, US) 106 mins
Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant make a great double act in this bitter black comedy, inspired by the real-life activities of failed author-turned-literary forger Lee Israel. McCarthy’s Israel can’t get a book off the ground after her Estée Lauder biography flops. Realising there’s money in celebrity letters, she starts to fake and sell them, using her drinking buddy Jack Hock (Grant) as a conduit. Funny, in the bleakest possible way.
On the Basis of Sex (12A)
(Mimi Leder, 2018, US) 120 mins
This biopic of Ruth Bader Ginsburg – the US supreme court’s liberal conscience – has had its thunder rather stolen by the successful documentary RBG. Felicity Jones does an intelligent job with the role of the then law professor who embarks on a case that defines the struggle against sex discrimination in the early 70s; Armie Hammer is her faithful husband Martin.
The Lego Movie 2 (U)
(Mike Mitchell, 2019, Den/Nor/Aus/US) 107 mins
This sequel to the awe-inspiring first Lego Movie hasn’t been quite the hit everyone thought – industry sages are blaming over-spinoffing, with Lego Batman and Lego Ninjago already out – but Lego 2 is still definitely worth your time: a dizzying rush of gags, pop culture fetishism run riot and brilliant animation.
AP
Five of the best ... rock & pop
Tommy Cash
Known for his imagery as much as his music (a recent Instagram post saw him photoshopped to resemble a used condom), Estonian rapper Tomas Tammemets, AKA Tommy Cash, is not for the faint-hearted. Recent album ¥€$ featured collaborations with professional noise merchants Boys Noize and AG Cook, alongside a guest appearance from MC Bin Laden.
Electric Ballroom, NW1, Friday 1 March
Lauren Aquilina
Two years ago, shortly after the release of her debut album Isn’t It Strange?, pop singer-songwriter Lauren Aquilina was applying to be a flight attendant. She’d had enough of music, basically. Then Kylie wanted to record one of her songs, she started writing for other people, and now she’s back. Last year’s single Psycho was a good start to version 2.0.
The Deaf Institute, Manchester, Monday 25; The Garage, N5, Tuesday 26 February
Troye Sivan
Australian singer-actor-retired YouTuber Troye Sivan is proof that, when it comes to modern chart success, collaboration is key. Last year’s 1999, a duet with Charli XCX, became his highest-charting single while his new single with Lauv, I’m So Tired, recently became his second entry in the UK Top 40. Expect both to feature at these shows, alongside songs from last year’s excellent Bloom album.
Glasgow, Saturday 23; Manchester, Sunday 24; Birmingham, Tuesday 26; London, Thursday 28 February
Late Junction festival
Radio 3’s Late Junction gets its own festival, with a suitably eclectic lineup over two days. Day one features innovative electronica from Gazelle Twin, alongside genre destroyers Hen Ogledd; day two plays host to cult band This Is Not This Heat and the CURL collective featuring Mica Levi.
EartH: Theatre, N16, Thursday 28 February & Friday 1 March
MC
John Turville Quintet
Elegantly erudite UK pianist-composer John Turville’s muse has bloomed slowly since his emergence in the early 2000s, but with a new quintet featuring sax original Julian Arguelles, Turville’s diverse enthusiasms – bebop, samba, tango, chanson, contemporary-classical music and more – come into bright focus.
London, Monday 25; St Albans, Tuesday 26; Birmingham, Wednesday 27; Cambridge, Thursday 28 February; Colchester, Friday 1 March; touring to 9 March
JF
Three of the best ... classical concerts
New Music Dublin
Last year, plans for Dublin’s leading contemporary music festival were wrecked by the “beast from the east”. Weather permitting, this year’s four-day programme promises an eclectic mix: works by Louis Andriessen feature and Irish composers are well represented. The RTE National Symphony Orchestra’s opening concert (Thu) includes the world premieres of major scores from Jennifer Walshe (pictured) and David Fennessy; later on, the Crash Ensemble play Fausto Romitelli (1 March), and Musikfabrik bring a programme of Frank Zappa (2 March).
National Concert Hall, Dublin, Thursday 28 February to 3 March
The Merry Widow
Operetta seems to be a bit of an acquired taste for British opera-goers, and it is by no means a regular part of the repertory here. But Franz Lehár’s Merry Widow seems to be one of the few exceptions to that, and English National Opera’s new production is the sixth from a British company in the last 10 years or so. It is directed by Max Webster, making his ENO debut, and the cast includes Sarah Tynan as Hannah.
London Coliseum, WC2, Friday 1 March to 13 April
Clara Schumann 200th anniversary festival
The bicentenary of the birth of Clara Schumann doesn’t actually fall until September, but this weekend’s celebration promises to be a fulsome tribute to one of the most intriguing figures in 19th-century music. The concerts include not only a survey of her songs, together with her piano works and chamber music, but also explorations of her relationships with other leading composers of her time, not just her husband Robert, but Brahms and Mendelssohn, too.
St John’s Smith Square, SW1, Saturday 23 & Sunday 24 February
AC
Five of the best ... exhibitions
Marina Abramović
The emotionally intense art of Marina Abramović has found new audiences and meanings in the age of social media: she is a great communicator of our time. In this new experiment in intimacy, she materialises in digitally constructed Mixed Reality. The artist is not present … or is she? Spooky stuff that mixes the virtual and the viscerally personal.
Serpentine Gallery, W2, to Sunday 24 February
Boilly: Scenes of Parisian Life
The long life of Louis-Léopold Boilly spans the French Revolution, Napoleon’s rise and fall and the return of the monarchy. He was an eyewitness to the birth of the modern world as Paris became the most glamorous capital of the 19th century. His paintings, from erotica to street scenes, take the pulse of France in the Romantic age.
The National Gallery, WC2, Thursday 28 February to 19 May
Masters of Japanese Prints: Life in the City
Puppeteers, actors and courtesans are among the cast of this panorama of life in Edo (now Tokyo) around 200 years ago. Edo was a huge city at the end of the 18th century. Its crowds provided endless material for artists of modern life including Kitagawa Utamaro I and Utagawa Hiroshige I. Their colour woodblock prints view city scenes from near and far.
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, to 12 May
John Ruskin
The drawings and watercolours of this great Victorian thinker on art reveal the passion for nature that pervaded everything he wrote. Ruskin’s books, including Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice, urge reverence for the natural world. That ecology of art is one reason his vision is urgent today. Another is that he wanted a more equal society. Touchingly, this show is based around his attempt to create a people’s museum in Sheffield.
Two Temple Place, WC2, to 22 April
Rembrandt
The drawings of Rembrandt are miracles of sensitivity and insight. His supple, free, evocative lines and washes capture not just the outer look but the inner beings of people. From a child learning to walk to a woman sleeping, he sees the fragile wonder of the human condition. He even gives humanity to trees and buildings. Free from the demands of clients, able to please himself, this is Rembrandt at his most expressive.
British Museum, WC1, to 4 August
JJ
Five of the best ... theatre shows
The Son
First there was The Father. Then came The Mother. And now The Son, the final part of the French playwright Florian Zeller’s head-spinning dramatic trilogy. The play is about a teenage boy who struggles to adapt to his parents’ divorce. Laurie Kynaston plays him, with Amanda Abbington and John Light as his mum and dad; it’s directed by Michael Longhurst, who rarely disappoints.
Kiln Theatre, NW6, to 6 April
Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train
Stephen Adly Guirgis’s plays are not for the faint-hearted. The words vivid and vituperative (see: The Motherfucker With the Hat) spring to mind. This typically dark comedy is set in the lockdown wing of a New York prison, where faith and futility jostle for position. It is staged by former JMK young director award winner Kate Hewitt.
Young Vic, SE1, to 30 March
The Remains of the Day
Everyone remembers the classic 90s film, brimming with wistful glances between Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Now, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel is being adapted for the stage by Barney Norris, with help from Ishiguro himself. Norris is brilliant at channelling older characters, so should bring Ishiguro’s regretful butler, here played by Stephen Boxer, and lovesick housekeeper bursting into life.
Royal & Derngate: The Royal, Northampton, Saturday 23 February to 16 March
Alys, Always
Nicholas Hytner is directing his first play written by a woman; great that it’s finally happening, shocking that it took this long. Hytner helms Lucinda Coxon’s adaptation of Harriet Lane’s popular novel: a psychological thriller about a woman who stumbles across a car crash and finds herself thrust into a privileged world she cannot bear to leave. It stars Joanna Froggatt, of Downton Abbey fame, and Robert Glenister.
Bridge Theatre, SE1, Monday 25 February to 30 March
Mother Courage and Her Children
Last chance to catch this collaboration between the Royal Exchange Theatre and those ever playful theatre-makers Headlong, known for People, Places & Things. Apparently, Anna Jordan wrote her adaptation of Brecht’s masterpiece with lead actor Julie Hesmondhalgh specifically in mind. The show is set in a dystopian 2080, with the Reds and Blues at war, and Mother Courage in the middle of the action.
Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, to 2 March
MG
Three of the best ... dance shows
Tesseract
Inspired by science fiction and time travel, Tesseract offers new perspectives on the human body using dance, 3D film and live video feed to create some beautiful and compelling effects. Its creators are all former collaborators of Merce Cunningham: dancers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener and the film-maker Charles Atlas.
Barbican Theatre, EC2, Thursday 28 February to 2 March
Vincent Dance Theatre
Charlotte Vincent’s Shut Down, a rigorous but witty exploration of masculinity, starts a national tour, while a film of her Virgin Territory, which examines our hypersexualised digital world, premieres in Eastbourne.
Shut Down: Farnham, Tuesday 26; Bournemouth, Thursday 28 February; touring to 4 April; Virgin Territory: Eastbourne, Wednesday 27 February to 10 March
Rachael Young: Nightclubbing
Afrofuturism, the mighty Grace Jones and the story of three black women refused entry to a nightclub are Young’s inspirations in this defiant show about the demonisation and celebration of black women’s bodies. Part of a double bill with spoken word-drag-dance artist Es Morgan.
The Place, WC1, Thursday 28 February
LW
Main composite image: Annapurna; Bristol Culture; Warner Bros
