Five of the best … films

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (12A)

(JJ Abrams, 2019, US) 142 mins

The Star Wars sequel trilogy is wrapped up in an as-you-were manner: JJ Abrams is back after a Lucasfilm confidence wobble saw Jurassic World’s Colin Trevorrow come and go. This, then, really is it – or so we are led to believe. We pick up a year after Luke’s death at the end of The Last Jedi as the Resistance confronts the First Order once again, and the Sith-Jedi conflict erupts, too. Out on Thursday.

Jumanji: The Next Level (12A)

(Jake Kasdan, 2019, US) 123 mins

When the 2017 Jumanji remake became a hit, its future as a franchise was sealed. The studio is playing it extremely safe for this follow-up: all the main faces, led by eyebrow-waggler Dwayne Johnson, are on board, as well as director Jake Kasdan, with Danny DeVito and Danny Glover as two crotchety pensioners who get sucked into the game.

The Kingmaker (15)

(Lauren Greenfield, 2019, US/Den) 101 mins

A new film from Lauren Greenfield (The Queen of Versailles, Generation Wealth) is always something of an event, and here she is training her camera on Imelda Marcos, former first lady of the Philippines, and amasser of luxury items on a bewildering scale. Greenfield’s technique is passive-aggressive: she lets Marcos speak for herself and then, instead of confrontation, gives the survivors of the Marcos regime’s rapacity a voice in turn.

Knives Out (12A)

(Rian Johnson, 2019, US) 130 mins

Writer-director Rian Johnson takes a sly dig at the Trumpian super-rich with this elaborately conceived murder-mystery: an Agatha Christie-eqsue confection that joins the queue of genuflectors paying homage to the queen of crime. Daniel Craig plays Poirot-style detective Benoit Blanc, on the case to track down a novelist’s killer. The customary rollcall of suspects includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon and Chris Evans.

Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles (12A)

(Max Lewkowicz, 2018, US) 97 mins

Possibly propelled back into the spotlight by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s viral wedding video, the celebrated musical Fiddler on the Roof gets its very own doc. Watch and listen to key contributors on how Sholom Aleichem’s shtetl tales became a major Broadway hit and popular film.

AP

Five of the best … rock & pop

The Japanese House

Amber Bain, who makes pillow-soft alt-pop as the Japanese House, doesn’t hang about. Recent single Chewing Cotton Wool is her second new song since March’s debut album, Good at Falling, and is taken from her forthcoming sixth EP. As with the album, it was co-produced by Bain, alongside super-producer BJ Burton (Bon Iver, Banks).
SWG3: TV Studio, Glasgow, Monday 16; Electric Brixton, SW2, Tuesday 17; O2 Ritz Manchester, Wednesday 18 December

Steve Mason

While the Beta Band made a habit of cloaking emotion in outré obfuscation, their erstwhile frontman has steadily been peeling back the layers. That came to a head on this year’s About the Light, a Stephen Street-produced, Britpop-referencing album about becoming a new dad. Some weirdness remains.
Hebden Bridge, Sunday 15; Bristol, Monday 16; London, Wednesday 18; Manchester, Thursday 19; Brighton, Friday 20 December

Ari Lennox

Released in May, Ari Lennox’s debut album, the sleek neo-soul and R&B of Shea Butter Baby, has become one of the year’s slowburn success stories, a fact that made her recent Grammy snub even weirder. Lennox is not one to ignore such oversights, either. After losing out on a Soul Train award, she announced she was retiring before deleting and reinstating her Twitter.
Electric Ballroom, NW1, Tuesday 17 & Wednesday 18; Electric Brixton, SW2, Friday 20 December

Sinéad Harnett

When she’s not co-writing Christmas songs for Little Mix (recent ballad, One I’ve Been Missing), or collaborating with the likes of Wiley, Disclosure and Rudimental, London’s Sinéad Harnett makes soulful, luxuriant R&B that channels both her childhood hero Lauryn Hill and the pop-leaning, post-club likes of Jessie Ware. A soothing balm in the pre-Christmas craziness.
O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, W12, Tuesday 17 December

MC

Darius Brubeck Quartet

Million-selling jazz hits barely exist, but pianist Dave Brubeck’s quartet had one with the groove-bending Take Five in 1959, from their iconic album Time Out. For its 60th anniversary, Brubeck’s pianist son Darius and a vibrant quartet replay the whole tracklist, and launch their own Live in Poland album as the second set.
The Jazz Cafe, NW1, Saturday 14 December

JF

Three of the best … classical concerts

Time Time Time

The UK premiere of Jennifer Walshe’s opera promises to be the most intriguing event at this year’s London contemporary music festival. With a text by Walshe and Timothy Morton, Time Time Time is an exploration of the different versions of that slippery concept that governs all human life, and of our ways of measuring its passing. During the opera, the audience will be monitored by heat-sensitive cameras and, according to the LCMF website: “The duration of the performance will be between 70 and 90 minutes, dependent on the level of entropy present in the room.”
Ambika P3, NW1, Saturday 14 December

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

One of Britain’s most original living composers is based in Berlin and so it’s thanks, at least in part, to BCMG that Rebecca Saunders’s music has begun to get performances here. The latest product of that relationship is the UK premiere of Scar for three groups of instruments, which – like a number of Saunders’s other pieces – is inspired by a Samuel Beckett text. Michael Wendeberg also conducts works by Richard Causton, Shiori Usui and Vito Žuraj.
CBSO Centre, Birmingham, Sunday 15 December

Charpentier

Taking the name from the subtitle of an opera by Rameau, Christophe Rousset formed Les Talens Lyriques in 1991 with the aim of performing the French baroque repertoire. Rameau naturally figured in their concerts from the very start, but so too did Marc-Antoine Charpentier, and it’s the latter’s works for Advent and Christmas that make up Les Talens’ latest Wigmore programme, including the Litanies de la Vierge and Noëls Sur Les Instruments.
Wigmore Hall, W1, Tuesday 17 December

AC

Five of the best … exhibitions

Vivian Suter

The flora and fauna of Guatemala come to life in an epic installation of sensually coloured nature paintings by the Argentina-born artist, who lives on a decaying coffee plantation. When Suter’s paintings were damaged in a tropical storm, she accepted it as part of the process and now exposes her canvases to rain, mould and bugs.
Tate Liverpool, to 15 March

Bloomberg New Contemporaries

Where the Turner prize is (usually) glamorously competitive and Frieze is just glamorous, this older institution of the British art scene is both generous and selective in giving a platform to many young hopefuls, including Eleonora Agnosti . This year is guaranteed to cover every genre of art and reflect our tempestuous times.
South London Gallery, SE5, to 23 February

Rembrandt’s Light

An exhibition good enough to steal from; that’s what an art thief thought, anyway, but luckily the two targeted paintings were recovered. Rembrandt is worth anyone’s honest attention. His self-portrait at the end of this show will floor you. It also includes his sumptuously imagined Christ and St Mary Magdalen at the Tomb, as well as the enveloping darkness of The Rest on the Flight Into Egypt.
Dulwich Picture Gallery, SE21, to 2 February

Forgotten Masters

This tremendous exhibition resurrects a fascinating moment in India’s art history when painters trained in the Mughal empire’s miniaturist tradition were hired by officials of the East India Company to illustrate the natural world. Their vibrant images of a cheetah and a pangolin, green forest plants and Bengal flatfish are some of the most beguiling depictions of nature you can wish to see – and their portraits of people are almost as mesmerising.
Wallace Collection, W1, to 19 April

Scotland’s Photograph Album

This show marks the recent public acquisition of Murray MacKinnon’s collection of 15,000 photographs of Scottish life. It includes such Victorian pioneers as Julia Margaret Cameron, George Washington Wilson and Robert Adamson, who experimented with a still-new technology to record faces and places in ways that are expressive as well as accurate.
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, to 16 February

JJ

Five of the best … theatre shows

Girl from the North Country

Conor McPherson has fashioned a musical out of Bob Dylan’s greatest hits, set in 1930s Minnesota. In this revival, Katie Brayben, who got an Olivier award for playing Carole King, takes over from Shirley Henderson as Elizabeth, a guesthouse owner’s wife with dementia (for which Henderson won an Olivier herself). A Broadway run follows and there’s a reason it’s so popular: it will break your heart.
Gielgud Theatre, W1, to 1 February

Christmas at the (Snow) Globe

Sandi Toksvig has taken a break from Bake Off to help cook up some Christmas cheer. This festive family show will feature singalongs and Christmas-themed arts and crafts for the kids. The Globe is also inviting families to bring a new children’s book to place under the tree, to donate to local charities.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, SE1, Thursday 19 to 23 December

Peter Pan

There are countless productions of Peter Pan this Christmas but director and co-adapter – along with Georgia Christou – Liam Steel has a knack for bringing old shows bang up to date (see last year’s Wizard of Oz). His version of Peter Pan is set on a council estate in Birmingham, where Wendy takes care of her brothers. Will she discover how to be young again in Neverland? In another twist, Hook will be played by a woman (Nia Gwynne).
Birmingham Repertory Theatre: The House, to 19 January

Guys and Dolls

Robert Hastie’s shows are always charming as heck. This vibrant director should be a great fit for Frank Loesser’s glowing musical comedy. Under the bright lights of New York City, Sky Masterson takes on his craziest bet yet: to win the hand of strait-laced missionary Sarah Brown. Kadiff Kirwan and Alex Young play Sky and Sarah, respectively, with Martin Marquez and Natalie Casey as Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide.
Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, to 18 January

Pecsmas

And now for something a little different. Pecs Drag Kings return to the Yard, following SEX SEX MEN MEN last winter. They’re an all-female/non-binary theatre and cabaret company who have really taken off in the last year or so. Their shows are charged, inquisitive, sweaty and silly. This one will be packed with reimagined classic songs, sexy dances and festive tales with a queer twist. The run will close with a late-night party.
The Yard Theatre, E9, to 20 December

MG

Three of the best … dance shows

2Faced Dance: The Box of Delights

Remember The Box of Delights, the John Masefield book turned into a spooky 80s children’s TV series? Perhaps unexpectedly, its latest incarnation is as an immersive dance-and-dinner show by the Hereford company 2Faced Dance. This is a Christmas diversion from 2Faced’s usual intensely physical choreography and it sounds like tasty fun.
The Green Dragon Hotel, Hereford, Tuesday 17 to 23 December

Romeo and Juliet: Beyond Words

A ballet film that really works, Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet is danced by the Royal Ballet and shot on location with a great sense of drama by Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, AKA the BalletBoyz. William Bracewell and Francesca Hayward play the doomed teen lovers. Excellent.
Curzon cinemas, Monday 16 December

Protein: The Little Prince

Luca Silvestrini’s charmingly imaginative stage version of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, the story of a little boy discovering the adult world. Music is by Frank Moon, who is always able to conjure a magical atmosphere.
The Place, WC1, Tuesday 17 to 24 December

LW

Main composite image: Balletboyz; Courtesy of the artist and Karma International; Sony