Five of the best ... films

The Wife (15)

(Björn Runge, 2017, UK, Swe, US) 100 mins

A brilliantly observed and intensely excruciating drama of creative frustration, amplifying its literary origins. Glenn Close is superbly impassive as Joan, spouse and helper to a Nobel prize-winning author, played by Jonathan Pryce. As the narrative rolls on, the extent to which Joan has sacrificed herself becomes ever more clear.

Skate Kitchen (15)

(Crystal Moselle, 2018, US) 106 mins

An all-girl skateboard gang is the subject of this hybrid doc-fiction piece, the first drama feature from the maker of The Wolfpack, another study of a self-contained familial group. Not a lot actually happens, bar skate-park bonding and fending off unwelcome male attentions, but its observational acuity makes it highly watchable.

Faces Places (12A)

(Agnès Varda & JR, 2017, Fra) 94 mins

Incredibly beguiling travelogue from the 90-year-old veteran of the French New Wave, here teaming up with hat-and-shades-wearing artist-photographer JR. Together they pootle around rural France, pasting giant portraits of the locals they come across on barns, cottages and cafes. An apparently unassuming film, but one with serious points to make under the geniality.

The Little Stranger (12A)

(Lenny Abrahamson, 2018, UK/Ire/Fra) 111 mins

Well-acted and intelligently directed adaptation of Sarah Waters’s creepy haunted-house novel, which draws on the uncertain, backward-looking atmosphere of postwar Britain. Domhnall Gleeson is the village boy-turned-doctor, in love with both Ruth Wilson’s impecunious local gentlewoman and the stately home she lives in. Chilling rather than horrific.

Two for Joy (15)

(Tom Beard, 2017, UK) 90 mins

Bleak, social realist drama about a socially marginalised family, shot with a raw look by music industry photographer Tom Beard. Samantha Morton is a mother struggling with mental health issues; she and her children head for the seaside where they encounter another troubled family, which includes Billie Piper as an alcoholic woman and her out-of-control daughter (Bella Ramsay).

AP

Five of the best ... rock & pop

Soft Cell

Thirty-four long years since their first round of farewell shows, 80s greats Soft Cell – AKA Marc Almond and David Ball – are packing away their synths and neon light boxes for the final time. Keen to prove that it’s not just about warm nostalgia, they recently released two new songs, Northern Lights and Guilty (Cos I Say You Are). Comfortingly, they sound just like Soft Cell.
The O2, SE10, Sunday 30 September

Col3trane

Of all the new artists referencing the hazy, skeletal R&B feel of Frank Ocean, singer-rapper Col3trane, AKA 19-year-old Cole Basta, is perhaps the most promising. So far, his two best songs are named after women: last year’s downcast Penelope and recent single Britney, from his excellent new mixtape Boot.
Leeds, Tuesday 2; Manchester, Wednesday 3; Bristol, Thursday 4; touring to 8 October

Rae Morris

Blackpool’s finest Rae Morris should in theory be sulking for the rest of the year given the relatively muted response to February’s excellent second album of elegant synthpop, Someone Out There. Instead, she is heading out yet again to spread the good word. Keep an ear out for the effervescent Do It, 2018’s best song about giving yourself a kick up the backside.
The Rescue Rooms, Nottingham, Saturday 20 September; O2 Ritz Manchester, Friday 5 October

Poppy

Created alongside director Titanic Sinclair, synthpop cyborg and YouTube sensation Poppy (23-year-old Boston native Moriah Rose Pereira) is a weird mix of Gen Z automaton and vacant toddler, while her best friends are a basil plant and a mannequin called Charlotte. Sure. There is music, too: second album Am I a Girl?, featuring the Diplo-assisted single Time Is Up, is out at the end of the month.
The Scala, N1, Friday 5 October

MC

Babelfish

The Babelfish quartet’s 2015 album Chasing Rainbows covered music by Caetano Veloso, Aaron Copland, Steve Lacy and more, but subtle singer Brigitte Beraha, pianist Barry Green, bassist Chris Laurence and drummer Paul Clarvis impart a special spin to everything they touch. This tour road-tests material for their upcoming third album.
Liverpool, Tuesday 2; Kirkcaldy, Wednesday 3; Aberdeen, Thursday 4; Wakefield, Friday 5; touring to 13 October

JF

Three of the best ... classical concerts

The Planets

Exactly 100 years ago today, an ambitious orchestral suite by Gustav Holst received its premiere in a private concert conducted by the young Adrian Boult. Two years later, The Planets was finally heard in public and its stature in British music firmly established. The BBC Symphony Orchestra is marking its centenary with a performance at the Barbican Hall in London conducted by Ben Gernon and introduced by Professor Brian Cox, while starting at the Royal Observatory, the Ligeti Quartet tour a programme of eight new interplanetary pieces (to Tue).
Various venues, Saturday 29 September to 2 October

Rigoletto

Under newly installed artistic director Walter Sutcliffe, Northern Ireland Opera is continuing to expand its performances and ambitions. Its latest show is Sutcliffe’s production of Verdi’s tragedy, which he first directed in Santiago, Chile last year. It comes to Belfast with Sebastian Catana in the title role, Nadine Koutcher as Gilda and Davide Giusti as the Duke, and with Gareth Hancock conducting the Ulster Orchestra.
Grand Opera House, Belfast, Sunday 30 September, Tuesday 2 & Thursday 4; to 6 October

Anthology of Fantastic Zoology

Mason Bates hit the headlines last year when his opera based on the life of Apple founder Steve Jobs received its premiere at Santa Fé. But Bates had already made his mark with a series of expertly crafted orchestral works, one of which receives its UK premiere in Cristian Măcelaru’s concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Each of the 11 movements is inspired by a creature from Jorge Luis Borges’s fantasy compendium of the same name.
Barbican Hall, EC2, Friday 5 October

AC

Five of the best ... exhibitions

Oceania

Picasso collected the art of the Pacific. Gauguin lived and died surrounded by it. This exhibition reveals why they revered one of the world’s greatest artistic traditions. Endlessly imaginative, powerfully expressive, superbly well-preserved, some of the objects here go back to the 18th century. A true tiger shark of a blockbuster.
Royal Academy of Arts, W1, Saturday 29 September to 10 December

Tania Bruguera

The Tate’s Turbine Hall has inspired some of the defining works of the century, from the towers by Louise Bourgeois that it opened with, to Olafur Eliasson’s startling recreation of the sun indoors. It could do with another masterpiece: will political artist Bruguera break the recent run of oddities with something worthy of its unique space?
Tate Modern, SE1, Tuesday 2 October to 24 February

Frieze London & Frieze Masters

While Frieze London promises down-and-dirty photographer Nan Goldin and a look at pioneers of feminist art including Nancy Spero, the more upmarket Masters tent showcases the likes of Barbara Hepworth and Howard Hodgkin. There is also a section curated by famed curator Sir Norman Rosenthal, and you can probably also pick up one of those Salvator Mundis by Leonardo da Vinci.
Regent’s Park, NW1, Thursday 4 to 7 October

The Everyday and Extraordinary

The transformation of ordinary things into art is a mysterious process that started in 1913. Famously, Marcel Duchamp stuck a bike wheel on a stool that year, but other artists too were “appropriating” real-life objects including Picasso, Tatlin and Jacob Epstein, who turned a pneumatic drill into art. This exhibition trawls the Arts Council collection to find more objets trouvés.
Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, to 6 January

Mantegna and Bellini

The most brilliant brothers-in-law in the history of art go head to head. Giovanni Bellini was the greatest painter in Venice before Titian. When his sister Nicolosia married Andrea Mantegna, two very different visions were connected. Bellini is a painter of pale flesh and salmon clouds, Mantegna a sinewy creator of detailed histories and cunning perspectives.
The National Gallery, WC2, Monday 1 October to 27 January

JJ

Five of the best ... theatre shows

In Praise of Love

Terence Rattigan’s penultimate play, from 1973, gets a rare airing under director Jonathan Church. The relationship between an acerbic theatre critic (played by Robert Lindsay) and his Jewish Estonian-refugee wife (Tara Fitzgerald) comes under strain when she becomes ill and secrets emerge about their underground activities during the war.
Theatre Royal: Ustinov Studio, Bath, Wednesday 3 October to 3 November

Twelfth Night

Actor, playwright and director Kwame Kwei-Armah makes his debut as artistic director of the Young Vic with this inclusive version of the Shakespeare comedy, with jazz and R&B (music and lyrics by Shaina Taub), first seen at New York’s Public Theater in 2016. Exploring love in all its varied forms, it was co-conceived with Taub, and Oskar Eustis co-directs.
Young Vic, SE1, Tuesday 2 October to 17 November

An Adventure

Vinya Patel has based this touching story of an arranged Indian marriage on the experience of his own grandparents. It starts in India in 1954 and follows a young couple’s journey through the decades, via Kenya, to present-day Britain. A study of colonialism, migration and upheaval as well as family and ageing, at over three hours the piece is a touch leisurely, but Madani Younis’s production has a dreamlike quality.
The Bush Theatre, W12, to 20 October

I’m a Phoenix, Bitch

You can’t accuse performance artist Bryony Kimmings of not committing to her work. Previously, she has been more than candid in shows about her sex life and drinking, and probed male depression with her partner. Since then, the pair have had a son, and post-natal depression and her child’s ill health fuel Kimmings’s first solo piece in a decade. Fittingly, as she rises like a phoenix, the show premieres in the BAC’s newly rebuilt Grand Hall.
Battersea Arts Centre, SW11, Wednesday 3 to 20 October

They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!

The political farce Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay, by the leftwing Italian playwright Dario Fo (author of Accidental Death of an Anarchist), is the basis for this modern update by Deborah McAndrew. Brexit Britain is the setting for the story of a woman in financial peril who takes advantage of a supermarket riot to fill her cupboards but then has to conceal the booty from her law-abiding husband and the police.
Theatre Royal, York, Friday 5 to 13 October; touring to 2 December

MC

Three of the best ... dance shows

Carlos Acosta

It has been a rollercoaster three decades for the Cuban dance superstar in his journey from Havana’s backstreets to the world’s top ballet companies to a new life in contemporary dance. This anniversary celebration sees Acosta perform alongside his own company in works including Christopher Bruce’s Rooster, set to the Rolling Stones.
Royal Albert Hall, SW7, Tuesday 2 to Friday 5 October

Shobana Jeyasingh: Contagion

This year marks the centenary not only of the end of the first world war but the start of the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed more people worldwide. Working with virologists and medical historians, Jeyasingh’s work sees dancers’ bodies cleverly mimic a virus.
Jerwood DanceHouse, Ipswich, Friday 5 October; touring to 3 November

Wen Hui: Red

Under Mao, eight “revolutionary operas” were cited as model productions for communists. In Red, Beijing-based choreographer Wen Hui re-evaluates 1964 ballet The Red Detachment of Women via film, dance and interviews with original cast members.
Southbank Centre: Purcell Room, SE1, Thursday 4 & Friday 5 October

LW