TV
Happy Valley
(BBC1, Tuesday, 9pm)
Sarah Lancashire returns in Sally Wainwright’s gripping but somewhat hardcore crime thriller set in West Yorkshire’s Calder valley. The appalling Tommy Lee Royce is safely behind bars but who is his mysterious lady visitor and what does she want? Meanwhile, a case of sheep-rustling quickly gives way to something far more sinister, which plunges our heroine back into another grim investigation. Wainwright’s writing is brilliant but Lancashire’s jaw once again must remain set against the coming horrors. Julia Raeside
FILM
Unfaithfully Yours: The Comedies Of Preston Sturges
(BFI Southbank, London, to 16 March)
Few directors wrote their own material in the 1940s, but Preston Sturges was an exception in every way. He sold his script for The Great McGinty for $10 in exchange for the chance to direct it, and he clearly knew what he wanted, which is about the same things audiences today want: polished repartee, energetic screwball comedy, cheese-free romance and sharp social satire. This season showcases his work, from his masterpiece, Sullivan’s Travels – as fine a film about film-making as has ever been made – to those that tested the boundaries of the era audaciously. In The Miracle Of Morgan’s Creek, a woman can’t remember who she’s married (and she’s pregnant). In The Palm Beach Story, a woman marries someone richer in order to bankroll her first husband; and in McGinty itself, a homeless cheat finds himself in political office. Steve Rose
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MUSIC
Floating Points
(London, Manchester)
Like Kieran Hebden, Sam Shepherd is a UK DJ-producer whose music roams a sort of record collection of the mind: from funk to jazz, to electronica, hip-hop and post-rock. In 2010, the former neuroscientist was making records such as Post Suite, which took inspiration from 60s jazz and the epic intimations of soundtrack music. His 2015 debut album Elaenia found him working with a great many different inspirations, but possibly in a more subtle way, finding the connective tissue between Detroit techno, electric Miles Davis and kosmische music of early 70s Germany. It’s head music for the feet: live strings and brass add spice. John Robinson
All this week’s best live music
COMEDY
Romesh Ranganathan: Irrational
(Tring, Margate, Leicester, Lincoln, London)
There are loads of comics who do material about the struggle of coping with family life and the pressures of being a dad. And there are also loads of comics who mine their ethnicity for laughs. Romesh Ranganathan does both of these things (among others), but you never get the feeling he’s serving up something you’ve seen before. That’s partly because the gloriously deadpan glumness of his delivery makes him seem so much fresher and more vital than other ostensibly similar acts; it’s also partly the sheer quality of the gags he comes out with. Whereas some comics use charisma to cover moments of weaker material, you get the feeling that Ranganathan is bringing a scientific rigour (appropriately enough, given that he’s a former maths teacher) to each of his jokes, ensuring that every one is carefully designed to yield as many laughs as possible. James Kettle
All this week’s best live comedy
ON DEMAND
Lucifer
(Amazon Prime)
Turns out the devil is actually all right. Slick going on slimy, but handsome, charming and, on the basis of this new Amazon original, essentially benign. Miranda star Tom Ellis lands the plum role of Lucifer Morningstar in this pleasingly daft romp based on a character in Neil Gaiman’s comic book The Sandman. Lucifer is an immortal demon, bored of life as the Lord Of Hell and trying his luck in the glossily corrupt City Of Angels. His infernal past won’t let him go but, for now, he’s enjoying his self-created role as part-time crimefighter and full-time ladykiller. Phil Harrison
EXHIBITIONS
KAWS
(Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, Saturday to 12 June)
The Brooklyn-based artist KAWS spent his formative years tagging the downtown walls and freight trains of Manhattan. Later he conceived the skull with crossbones and crossed-out eyes that helps to identify his work. Here, in his first UK museum exhibition, he has developed his cast of characters into immaculately constructed sculptures, some reaching up to 10 metres in height, scattered across the hillside and towering above willingly intimidated visitors. Fashioned from bronze, fibreglass, aluminium and wood, his bulbous animal-human hybrids might be uncannily reminiscent of jovial cartoon personalities, but they tend to stand alone in poses of slightly disorientating pathos. Robert Clark
All this week’s best exhibitions
TALKS
Pretentiousness: Why It Matters
(Spike Island, Bristol, Thursday)
It’s a word that’s often used pejoratively, but pretentiousness should be worn as a badge of honour. In fact, there’s a strong argument for claiming that it’s just another word for creativity. After all, isn’t imagining that you might be equipped to create art, music or film that may mean something to someone else the ultimate in pretentiousness? The late, lamented David Bowie is worth considering here. Retrospectively, of course, he’s treasured, but as he unveiled each of his brilliantly outlandish character constructs, it’s easy to imagine more earthbound observers sneering at his wild imaginings. Co-editor of Frieze Dan Fox has written a book on this subject; it amounts to a spirited defence of pretentiousness and he’ll be discussing it here. He argues that pretentiousness is a crucial stimulus to innovation in the realm of art, and that without it our creative industries would flounder. Arguably, from the Beatles, through Brit-art, to the demanding TV epics of this century, the public has been surprisingly receptive to recondite ideas. So maybe it’s time to stop giving pretentiousness a bad press. PH
THEATRE
Doctor Faustus
(Royal Shakespeare Theatre: Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon, Saturday to 4 August)
Maria Aberg is a fearless director who has done some of the best RSC productions of recent years, including a thrilling and distinctive King John and a very enjoyable As You Like It. Now, she turns her attention to Marlowe’s great play of vanity, greed and damnation, a drama that rivals anything in Shakespeare. The play offers two equally meaty but contrasting roles, and this production allows each lead actor the chance to have a bash at both. Two fine and distinctive actors, Sandy Grierson and Oliver Ryan, will alternate the roles of the scholar Faustus, who is tempted by the prospect of discovering all the most precious secrets of the universe, and the demon Mephistophilis, who offers him what seems to be a good bargain. But there is a high price to be paid for knowledge in a play that is rich in both poetry and tension. Lyn Gardner
FILM
Trumbo
Putting memories of Walter White behind him, Bryan Cranston gets his teeth into the eloquent, dapper, chain-smoking screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who defied his Hollywood blacklisting by ghost-writing a string of 1950s hits, usually from his bathtub. There’s little curiosity about Trumbo’s communism here; it’s more of a self-congratulatory tribute to Tinseltown nobility, celebrity impersonations and all. But Cranston deserves his Oscar nod. SR
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CLUBS
Superstition X Giegling
(Village Underground, London, Saturday)
Initially a club night in Weimar that lasted for just four parties, Giegling has had quite the afterlife. Seven years on, it is now one of the most cherished techno labels in Europe, putting out productions that are unashamedly deep and emotional, even whimsical (the dust from its house parties was scattered on the cover of one release). So don’t expect haunted-foundry doom, but rather delicate pulses, acres of space between the elements, and architects making eyes at each other on the dancefloor. While cornerstones such as Prince Of Denmark and Edward are missing, two of the core crew appear here: DJ Dustin, who lets giddy melodies surge around elegant microhouse; and Konstantin, who as well as DJing plays a live set with his duo Kettenkarussell (expect Villalobos-style minimalism in pastels). Also bringing a live set is headliner Vril, whose work is positively lairy in comparison, with big, uptempo snares and the kind of ravey stabs that accompanied scaremongering early-90s ecstasy documentaries. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
All this week’s best club nights
