Five of the best ... films
American Animals (15)
(Bart Leyton, 2018, UK/US) 117 mins
Layton’s follow-up to the jaw-dropping 2012 doc The Imposter is another hypnotically layered true-crime tale, this time dealing with a plan by four US college boys to rob their campus library of some seriously rare books. What starts as a slick, funny romp takes a sudden plunge into purgatory – but this rollercoaster ride won’t stop to let you get off.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post (15)
(Desiree Akhavan, 2018, US) 91 mins
Though set in the 90s, Desiree Akhavan’s coming-of-age tale feels relevant to today’s world, with teenager Cameron (Chloë Grace Moretz) shipped off to gay conversion school after clumsily seducing a fellow student at prom. It’s a familiar tale of oppression given a modern spin via Moretz’s engaging, defiant turn.
Puzzle (15)
(Marc Turtletaub, 2018, US) 103 mins
Kelly Macdonald is the likable lead in this low-key but similarly likable Sundance crowdpleaser, playing a quietly frustrated New York mum who finds an unexpected release in the world of competitive jigsaw-puzzling. Like the film it remakes – 2010 Argentine festival hit The Puzzle – it’s a story that values people more highly than prizes.
The Seagull (12A)
(Michael Mayer, 2018, US) 99 mins
Broadway director Michael Mayer assembles a pretty heavyweight cast – top-lining Annette Bening, Saoirse Ronan and Elisabeth Moss – for this adaptation of the Anton Chekhov classic. Bening stars as Irina, the famous and impossibly vain actor who arrives at the home of her brother (Brian Dennehy) with her new lover. Those drawn in by the cast alone might be in for a lukewarm misery bath, but for anyone familiar with the playwright it’s a pretty enjoyable stab.
Under the Wire (15)
(Christopher Martin, 2018, UK) 95 mins
Based on the acclaimed memoir of the same name by photo-journalist Paul Conroy, this timely and, at times, hard to watch documentary covers the events of February
2012, when Conroy and Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin illegally entered Syria to cover the then-ongoing Arab uprising. A story of tragedy on both a personal and national level.
DW
Five of the best ... rock & pop
OnBlackheath 2018
Dig out that Fortnum & Mason picnic blanket, and pack your Superdry mac “just in case”, it’s time for south London’s fanciest festival. Promising a weekend “for discerning food and music lovers”, the lineup includes a UK festival exclusive from, er, the Divine Comedy, the never knowingly low-key Paloma Faith and actual legends De La Soul.
Blackheath Common, SE3, Saturday 8 & Sunday 9 September
Vera Blue
In the pantheon of good pop star names, “Vera” has to be near the bottom, and yet it’s the moniker Australian singer Celia Pavey chose after finishing third on The Voice Australia in 2013. Three years later, her Fingertips EP hinted at subtle greatness, while that suggestion was confirmed by last year’s Perennial. Think fellow Aussie Troye Sivan’s elegant electropop but sadder.
The Courtyard Theatre, N1, Tuesday 11 September
Clairo
Twenty-year-old Claire Cottrill is a very modern musician. From uploading YouTube covers and going viral via a lo-fi video (Pretty Girl) to an early controversy (her dad is a former Coca-Cola marketing executive, leading some to challenge her “authenticity”), the whole thing screams 2018. In amongst the chatter, there’s a handful of impressionistic, oddly hypnotic pop songs that hint at exciting things to come.
Heaven, WC2, Wednesday 12; Gorilla, Manchester, Friday 14; Dublin, 16 September
Logic
Since 2013’s Welcome to Forever mixtape propelled him to a Def Jam record deal, rapper Logic, AKA the incredibly named Sir Robert Bryson Hall II (pictured below), has steadily become one of America’s most successful rappers (last year’s Everybody album topped the US charts). Here he’s not quite at that level yet, but this one-off London show should help.
Alexandra Palace, N22, Monday 10 September
MC
Roller Trio
Former Mercury nominees Roller Trio headline the Lancaster jazz festival’s Friday showcase; preceding them are Birmingham genre-crunchers Juggenaught and Tyneside improv-to-metal band Taupe. Despite a 2017 shakeup that brought in powerfully independent guitarist Chris Sharkey, the Rollers’ signature fusion of fierce improv and catchy hooks retains its engaging heat.
Lancaster Brewery, Friday 14 September
JF
Three of the best ... classical concerts
Lammermuir festival
With Mark Simpson in residence as both clarinettist and composer this year, and visits from the BBC Scottish Symphony and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, the Marian and Dunedin Consorts, and the Hebrides and Red Note Ensembles, as well as Scottish Opera, the Lammermuir festival continues to show the flair and enterprise that its more glamorous counterpart in Edinburgh now so conspicuously lacks.
Various venues, East Lothian, Friday 14 to 23 September
Ax/Kavakos/Ma Trio
Last year, pianist Emanuel Ax joined forces with violinist Leonidas Kavakos and cellist Yo-Yo Ma to record Brahms’s three piano trios. The results were in the long tradition of celebrity trio lineups: slightly over-the-top, larger-than-life accounts that tended to spotlight the individual brilliance of the players more than their qualities as an ensemble. Whether the same is true of their live performances will be revealed in this concert, which includes all three trios.
Barbican Hall, EC2, Sunday 9 September
The Leeds international piano competition
If Britain’s leading piano competition has lost some of its international lustre over the last decade or more, then this year’s reboot, with pianist Paul Lewis and former BBC producer Adam Gatehouse installed as co-artistic directors, promises something different. This week, the 2018 contest reaches its climax, with the 10 semi-finalists all giving solo recitals (Sun to Tue), before the five finalists play concertos over two evenings (Fri & 15 Sep) with Edward Gardner and the Hallé.
University of Leeds and Leeds Town Hall, to 15 September
AC
Five of the best ... exhibitions
Conrad Shawcross
There is a crystalline beauty to the forms this artist creates. Shawcross’s abstract sculptures extrapolate with mathematical inevitability like the structures that underlie nature. He has found a fertile place halfway between pure imagination and scientific illustration that gives his art a rare poise and spiritual calm. The best British sculptor of his generation.
Victoria Miro Mayfair, W1, Thursday 13 September to 27 October
Surreal Science
The fantastical-seeming, yet accurate, glass models of sea creatures made by 19th-century sculptors Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka (pictured) are the starting point of this riff on science and the imagination. Artist Salvatore Arancio works with a collection of scientific wonders to create installations in which reason and madness entwine.
Whitechapel Gallery, E1, to 6 January
Judy Millar
Slimy, tangled, sprawling epics of paint that flow and seep through space are the stock in trade of this New Zealand artist. It is tempting to call her rollercoaster style “splashy”, except that what come at you resembling wild streaks and smears of colour are actually drawn and designed exactly. This is eye-catching and entertaining stuff, with all the baroque fun of a Pollock abstraction repainted as a trompe l’oeil joke by Roy Lichtenstein.
Fold Gallery, W1, Thursday 13 September to 20 October
Harold Ancart
Icebergs first entered art nearly 300 years ago when William Hodges, a painter who sailed with Captain Cook, became the first landscapist to depict these mountains of floating ice. Belgium-born Ancart, who lives in New York, was inspired by last winter’s freezing temperatures to paint imaginary icebergs. They float silently in black, empty seas, inviting chilly thoughts. A pure artistic reverie on ice and stillness.
David Zwirner, W1, to 22 September
Kiki Smith
The world of Kiki Smith is a fairytale forest haunted by wolves and illuminated by comets. Her drawings and sculptures use fabulous images to explore the complexities of gender and sexuality. Her magic realist art has a lot in common with Angela Carter or the Brothers Grimm. All that’s missing is danger. Smith draws with a predictable cuteness that lacks the menace of Paula Rego. Never mind; sweet dreams.
Timothy Taylor, W1, Thursday 13 September to 27 October
JJ
Five of the best ... theatre shows
Queen Margaret
Margaret of Anjou was an extraordinary woman. She was queen of England from 1445-61 and 1470-71 (often standing in for her increasingly mentally ill husband, Henry VI), sparked the 30-year Wars of the Roses, led an army and fought to secure the crown for her son, Edward. Jeanie O’Hare’s play depicts this complex character, played by Jade Anouka.
Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Friday 14 September to 6 October
Losing Venice
This might strike a familiar note. A hit in 1985 by transgender performer and playwright Jo Clifford, this Spanish golden age-set satire finds a once-great country on the verge of war and with delusional ideas of its place in the world, having made poor choices driven by notions of masculinity. Paul Miller directs the revival.
Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond upon Thames, to 20 October
Touching the Void
It is 30 years since Joe Simpson wrote the gripping account of his and climbing partner Simon Yates’s ill-fated trek on the Siula Grande mountain in Peru. In 2003, it was turned into a docudrama and now it reaches the stage courtesy of David Greig, artistic director of Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre, who has written the adaptation, and Bristol Old Vic chief Tom Morris, who directs. Putting this cliff-edge drama on stage will test their many talents.
Bristol Old Vic, Saturday 8 September to 6 October; touring to 16 February 2019
Hogarth’s Progress
A double bill of plays about the artist William Hogarth – one old, one new – by Nick Dear, whose stage and screen writing encompasses a range from the classics and Frankenstein at the National Theatre to Poirot on TV. Bryan Dick plays the younger, rising Hogarth in The Art of Success from 1986, which follows a tumultuous, bawdy night in the 1730s, while Keith Allen takes on the same role in The Taste of the Town, set 30 years later.
Rose Theatre, Kingston upon Thames, Thursday 13 September to 21 October
Still Alice
Julianne Moore won a slew of awards, including an Oscar, for the 2014 film of Still Alice, based on the novel by Lisa Genova. A devastating tale of a Harvard professor’s early descent into dementia, and the effect on her and her family and friends, it has been adapted for the stage by Christine Mary Dunford. Sharon Small stars as Alice.
Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, Wednesday 12 to 15 September; touring to 24 November
MC
Three of the best ... dance shows
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
The ever entrancing Trocks return to the UK with their witty and divinely classy pastiches of the repertory. These male dancers can out-diva any ballerina or prince on the stage, yet the jokes come with a loving understanding of the form: the company’s hilarious versions of The Little Humpback Horse, Les Sylphides or Raymonda are masterclasses in ballet style.
Peacock Theatre, WC2, Tuesday 11 to 22 September; touring to 3 November
Natalia Osipova
The Russian ballerina stars in her own selection of classical and contemporary ballets. Highlights promise to be two newly commissioned works from Iván Pérez and Alexei Ratmansky, with Osipova’s guest partner for the event being American Ballet Theatre principal David Hallberg.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Wednesday 12 to 16 September
Jasmin Vardimon Company: Medusa
Vardimon explores the demonised figure of ancient Greek myth, examining the symbolism and politics of Medusa’s story in a new work that promises to be both powerfully staged and powerfully performed.
Gulbenkian, Canterbury, Thursday 13 to 15 September; touring to 24 October
JM
