Five of the best ... films
Foxtrot (15)
(Samuel Maoz, 2017, Isr/Swi/Ger/Fr) 113 mins
A darkly absurdist take on the emotional consequences of Israel’s permanent war footing from the director whose last film – the single-location tank drama Lebanon – won Venice’s Golden Lion. Maoz locates the self-inflicted pain embedded in the Israeli experience with an intense three-part drama focusing on a conscript who may or may not have gone missing in action.
Ring (15)
(Hideo Nakata, 1998, Japan) 91 mins
The founding text of modern J-horror is re-released for its 20th birthday. Despite – or even because of – its low-tech style, Ring has retained its unerring creepiness, despite spawning several sequels and US remakes. As the story of a cursed VHS tape, it is both incredibly simple and staggeringly brilliant; a must if you’ve never seen it.
Sauvage (18)
(Camille Vidal-Naquet, 2018, Fr) 99 mins
A sweatily filmed but thoroughly plausible study of a gay male prostitute, starring Félix Maritaud (who made his name as an Act-Up activist in the recent BPM). A cocktail of pounding music, emotional intensity and graphically raw sex means that this is not a film for the fainthearted, but director Camille Vidal-Naquet’s relentless focus on brutal realities pays dividends.
Fighting With My Family (12A)
(Stephen Merchant, 2019, UK/US) 108 mins
Ricky Gervais’s lanky mate Stephen Merchant makes his solo directorial debut with – of all things – a wrestling movie produced by and featuring Dwayne Johnson. It is the story of real-life WWE fighter Paige, who grew up in a family of wrestlers in Norwich and fought her way into the big show in the US. Florence Pugh (of Lady Macbeth) takes the lead role in what can only be termed a change of pace.
If Beale Street Could Talk (15)
(Barry Jenkins, 2018, US) 119 mins
This finely crafted James Baldwin adaptation is hanging on as the other Oscar films recede into the distance: Barry Jenkins’s follow-up to Moonlight confirms his status as one of the US’s pre-eminent auteurs. Only Regina King carried off an Oscar, but this is a classic in the making, with stellar contributions across the board.
AP
Five of the best ... rock & pop
Oneohtrix Point Never
Electronic producer Daniel Lopatin – AKA Oneohtrix Point Never – brings his hugely ambitious Myriad show back to London. Fusing live music with customised visuals from regular collaborator Nate Boyce, the sensory feast aims to recontextualise his recently released concept album, Age Of. Support comes from the only mildly less highfalutin Kelsey Lu.
Roundhouse, NW1, Friday 9 March
Kamasi Washington
Fresh from his surprise Brits nomination alongside Shawn Mendes for best international male (won by Drake), jazz saxophonist Washington returns to the UK for more dates in support of last year’s rapturously received, two-hour-long Heaven and Earth opus. Maybe bring a flask of tea and a snack.
Olympia Theatre, Dublin, Sunday 4; O2 Academy Brixton, SW9, Tuesday 6 March
C2C: Country to Country festival
Featuring a revolving lineup across three cities, the increasingly influential Country to Country festival returns. This year’s selection of emotionally honest lyricists and big-hearted denim fanatics includes Mr Nicole Kidman, AKA Keith Urban, and crossover artist Cam, who has toured with the likes of Sam Smith and Harry Styles.
London, Dublin, Glasgow, Friday 9 to 10 March
Jack & Jack
Twentysomething Nebraskan duo Jacks Johnson and Gilinsky found a very specific type of fame on the semi-missed social media platform Vine. Since then they have turned their attention to music, scoring a UK Top 3 hit with Rise, a squelchy, irresistibly catchy collaboration with Jonas Blue. Expect ear-piercing screams and lots and lots of phones in the air.
Heaven, WC2, Thursday 8; O2 Institute Birmingham, Friday 9; touring to 11 March
MC
Laura Jurd
The antennae of Laura Jurd, the beguilingly inventive British trumpeter-composer, have been constantly on the prowl for fresh adventures since her prize-winning arrival in 2012. She leads a specially formed 14-piece on this tour, joining her Dinosaur group, a Norwegian tuba-electronics duo, guitarist Rob Luft, the innovative Ligeti String Quartet and more.
Gateshead, Sunday 4; Manchester, Wednesday 7; Bristol, Thursday 8; Cardiff, Friday 9 March
JF
Four of the best ... classical concerts
George Benjamin
At the centre of George Benjamin’s Wigmore residency are two concerts with Ensemble Modern. In the first, he conducts his jewel-like chamber opera Into the Little Hill as well as works by Christian Mason, Cathy Milliken and Luigi Dallapiccola. In the second, there is Boulez, Messiaen, Galina Ustvolskaya and Ligeti before his own Palimpsests.
Wigmore Hall, W1, Tuesday 6; Roundhouse, NW1, Wednesday 7 March
Oslo Philharmonic
Best known here for his work with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Vasily Petrenko brings his other orchestra to the UK. Pianist Nikolai Lugansky joins them for a changing programme of concertos by Rachmaninov and Grieg, symphonies by Sibelius and Rachmaninov, as well as Delius, Tchaikovsky and more Grieg.
Cardiff, Wednesday 7; Nottingham, Thursday 8; Birmingham, Friday 9; touring to 10 March
Elizabeth I
Rossini’s Tudor drama is a real rarity but James Conway’s production opens English Touring Opera’s spring season. Mary Plazas takes the role of the English queen, with Luciano Boltelho as Leicester and John-Colyn Gyeantey as Norfolk; John Andrews conducts.
Hackney Empire, E8, Saturday 3 March; touring to 23 May
Total Immersion: Ligeti
As one of the giants of 20th-century music, György Ligeti hardly needs the attention provided by a BBC Immersion day. But the concerts from the BBC Singers and Sakari Oramo with the BBC Symphony Orchestra feature several Ligeti masterpieces, including the rarely performed San Francisco Polyphony.
Various venues, EC2, Saturday 3 March
AC
Five of the best ... exhibitions
The Renaissance Nude
Nakedness is as provocative today as it was 500 years ago. When Donatello in 15th-century Florence created the first nude that Europe had seen in a millennium, he injected this provocation into the heart of the Renaissance. Michelangelo, Titian and Bronzino took the depiction of nudity to new heights. History, well sexed-up.
Royal Academy of Arts, W1, Sunday 4 March to 2 June
Dorothea Tanning
In Dorothea Tanning’s marvellous 1970 installation Chambre 202, Hôtel du Pavot, monstrous, mysterious forms blossom from the walls of a dowdy Paris hotel. On show here, it is one of the last great works of the surrealist movement and also a monument to the seedy obsessions that haunted it. Tanning lived at surrealism’s heart. A dream date.
Tate Modern, SE1, to 9 June
David Salle
Remember when postmodernism was new? Back in the 80s, David Salle was the postmodern US painter par excellence. Mixing a flat style with quotations from culture high and low, his canvases are complex, disjunctive, teasing epics. Like the novels of Thomas Pynchon they suggest narratives of modern history that collapse in information overload. The only problem is that Robert Rauschenberg did it all before, and better.
Skarstedt Gallery, SW1, Tuesday 6 March to 26 April
Ancient Egypt Rediscovered
Scotland’s National Museum acquired its first antiquities from ancient Egypt in 1819. Two centuries on it has just opened a state-of-the-art Egyptian gallery. It includes an incredible find made by Flinders Petrie in 1908: a totally undisturbed burial that had escaped the grave robbers. The treasures of the Qurna burial glisten in an array of new displays that also include Exploring East Asia and Art of Ceramics.
National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh
William Monk
This British abstract painter, born in 1977, seems as if he belongs in the psychedelic 60s. Lurid yet ethereal shapes and colours materialise like plangent guitar chords in his poster-like oil paintings. There is a beautiful hallucinatory quality to these suggestive, not-quite-decodable, visions. Picture a blend of the concept album designers Hipgnosis and the soaked-in paintings of Morris Louis.
Pace Gallery, W1, Wednesday 7 March to 10 April
JJ
Five of the best ... theatre shows
Betrayal
Director Jamie Lloyd’s Pinter season comes to a close with a bonus production: a star-studded revival of Betrayal. The play charts a middle-class love affair in reverse chronological order. That might sound tricksy but this is actually one of Pinter’s most moving works. Tom Hiddleston stars alongside fellow Marvel actor Charlie Cox (Daredevil) and Fresh Meat’s Zawe Ashton.
The Harold Pinter Theatre, SW1, Tuesday 6 March to 1 June
Admissions
Admissions is penned by Joshua Harmon, who also wrote Bad Jews, and Daniel Aukin’s production lands in London after a strong showing in New York. Starring Alex Kingston and Sarah Hadland, this stinging satire is about a school head of admissions whose progressive views are severely tested when her son struggles to get into an Ivy League institution.
Trafalgar Studios 1, SW1, to 25 May
Richard III
Tom Mothersdale stars as the hunchbacked tyrant we love to hate. Previous credits for Mothersdale include Sarah Kane and Annie Baker productions: this is an actor who excels at exploring the darker side of life. The production will be directed by Headlong associate John Haidar, whose shows are always lively. Opening at Bristol, Shakespeare’s twisted drama will tour to London, Cambridge, Manchester, Oxford and Northampton.
Bristol Old Vic, to 13 April; touring to 25 May
The Taming of the Shrew
Playwright Jo Clifford has always loathed the dodgy sexual politics of The Taming of the Shrew. In fact, she only agreed to adapt Shakespeare’s “comedy” on the basis that she could shake things up. Her Taming is decidedly topsy turvy. Women hold all the power and it is the men who must submit and conform. Scarlett Brookes plays the bullying Petruchio, while Matt Gavan will play Katherina.
Sherman Cymru: Studio, to 16 March
Angry Alan
Roger is angry. He hates his job, his ex-wife taunts him and his girlfriend has discovered feminism. It is only when Roger stumbles across the men’s rights movement online that he finally finds his “people”. It’s not that Roger hates women, mind; he just likes men more. Penelope Skinner directs her own Fringe First-winning play, a darkly comic monologue about masculinity in crisis, starring Donald Sage Mackay, who also co-created the show.
Soho Theatre: Upstairs, W1, Tuesday 6 to 30 March
MG
Three of the best ... dance shows
BalletBoyz: Them/Us
The current incarnation of the BalletBoyz began as a company of young, raw talent but has matured into an outfit that attracts top-flight male dancers, the excellent Liam Riddick being their latest recruit. This double bill has one piece by acclaimed choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and one devised by the dancers themselves.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Tuesday 6 to 9 March; touring to 28 April
Joan Clevillé Dance
Choreographer Joan Clevillé makes playful, well-crafted dance that is witty and surreal. He is now touring two contrasting works: the optimistic joy of odd-couple duet Plan B for Utopia is in Scarborough and Ormskirk; the altogether darker The North visits Perth.
Perth, Saturday 3; Ormskirk, Tuesday 6; Scarborough, Thursday 8 March; touring to 30 May
Michael Clark Company: To a Simple, Rock’n’Roll … Song
You can’t go wrong with these ingredients, really: the music of Erik Satie, Patti Smith and David Bowie; the beautiful geometries and disruptive spirit of choreographer Michael Clark; and a company of impressive and idiosyncratic dancers.
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, Wednesday 7 March
LW
Main composite image: William Monk/Pace Gallery; Charlie Gray; Durimel Full; Allstar/Annapurna Pictures; Nicole Guarino
