Five of the best … films
Frozen II (U)
(Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck, 2019, US) 103 mins
It’s back! Disney has reassembled the exact same gang – directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee (who also co-writes), voice stars Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell and Josh Gad, songsters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez – with solid results. Lightning hasn’t quite struck twice – there is nothing quite up to Let It Go standard – but this is powerful kids’ entertainment, with a heavy dose of magic.
Marriage Story (15)
(Noah Baumbach, 2019, US) 136 mins
This is widely assumed to be a portrait of writer-director Baumbach’s own disintegrating marriage with former wife Jennifer Jason Leigh. If so, it is pretty generous to the other side, with Scarlett Johansson given ample scope to make complaints about her theatre director husband, played by Adam Driver. But it is Driver’s perspective that subtly dominates.
I Lost My Body (12A)
(Jérémy Clapin, 2019, Fra) 81 mins
Another you will have to rush to catch in cinemas before it debuts on Netflix on Friday – but a very different proposition from Marriage Story or The Irishman. This is a beautiful-looking animation with a creepily macabre idea at its base: an amputated hand reanimates in the lab and scuttles off, Thing-style, to try to find its owner. An elliptical, downbeat tale, occasionally opaque but compulsively watchable.
The Irishman (15)
(Martin Scorsese, 2019, US) 208 mins
Scorsese’s gangster epic is based on Charles Brandt’s true-crime book that effectively claimed to solve one of the US’s most notorious murders, that of union boss Jimmy Hoffa in 1975. Al Pacino, in his first Scorsese movie, plays Hoffa as a charming, if unpredictable, powerhouse; Robert De Niro plays mafia killer Franck Sheeran with a mournful determination. This is a wintry, downbeat portrayal of the gang life as power ebbs away.
Tommy (15)
(Ken Russell, 1974, UK) 106 mins
The Who’s rock opera, starring Roger Daltrey as the “deaf, dumb and blind kid who sure plays a mean pinball”, is conceived as a series of theatrical tableaux, from Oliver Reed’s holiday camp owner to Tina Turner’s frugging Acid Queen. Director Russell keeps the visuals lurid; this is really a story of how the second world war harmed young minds. Amazing to watch now.
AP
Five of the best … rock & pop
Great Western festival
This brand new, community-orientated multi-venue festival, taking place in Glasgow’s West End, aims to shed light on the underused and underappreciated spaces in the area. The impressive lineup ranges from eclectic US troubadour Cass McCombs to gonzo dance noisemakers !!! (Chk Chk Chk), and the London-based punk trio Big Joanie.
Various venues, Glasgow, Saturday 23 November
Lil Tecca
New York’s Tyler-Justin Sharpe’s first forays into rap involved sending diss tracks to his friends via Xbox at the age of nine. Seven years later, he scored a US Top 5 hit with Ransom, his happy-sad sing-song flow centring him in a sound that has dominated hip-hop lately. This summer’s debut mixtape, We Love You Tecca, shows more signs of potential.
Electric Ballroom, NW1, Monday 25; The Academy, Dublin, Tuesday 26 November
Skepta
The latest leg of Skepta’s tour in support of this year’s Ignorance Is Bliss album starts in Manchester with him curating an amazing lineup of UK talent including Octavian, M Huncho and Flohio. The other dates won’t be like that – apologies – but Skepta has enough energy to fill a room by himself, so you shouldn’t worry too much.
Manchester, Saturday 23; Birmingham, Tuesday 26; Glasgow, Thursday 28; Olympia, W14, Friday 29 November
Ruel
Seventeen-year-old Australian Ruel got his break after his dad sent a demo of his cover of James Bay’s Let It Go to producer M-Phazes (Madonna, Demi Lovato). Since then, the pair have created two EPs, with this year’s Free Time showcasing the teenager’s love of hazy, Frank Ocean-esque R&B as opposed to his debut’s more obvious Bieber-isms.
Manchester, Saturday 23; London, Monday 25; Birmingham, Tuesday 26; Glasgow, Wednesday 27; touring to 30 November
MC
Bauhaus 100th: A Musical Celebration
Few musicians better qualify to front a 100th-anniversary celebration of Berlin’s aesthetically revolutionary Bauhaus movement than the city’s virtuosic, erudite and very spontaneous pianist-composer Michael Wollny. Wollny (pictured) is joined on this jazz-fest special by saxist Emile Parisien, Polar Bear’s Leafcutter John, Brooklyn minimalists Dawn of Midi and more.
Barbican Hall, EC2, Sunday 24 November
JF
Three of the best … classical concerts
Homage to Bridget Riley
The centrepiece of the final weekend of this year’s Huddersfield contemporary music festival is the first performance of a major work from one of Europe’s leading composers. Georg Friedrich Haas’s Homage to Bridget Riley has been commissioned by the London Sinfonietta in conjunction with the Riley exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. Haas calls it “a gradual interference of landscapes”, and it’s preceded by the UK premiere of Katherine Balch’s New Geometry, which takes its name from a scene in Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia.
St Paul’s Hall, Huddersfield, Saturday; Queen Elizabeth Hall, SW1, 5 December
Augusta Read Thomas
The latest in the Philharmonia’s early-evening series of free concerts, Music of Today, features works by the US composer Augusta Read Thomas. As well as a performance of her 2015 Emily Dickinson settings, Of Being Is a Bird, in which Claire Booth is the soprano soloist, the concert, conducted by Pascal Rophé, includes the European premiere of Selene: Moon Chariot Rituals, for quartets of strings and percussion.
Royal Festival Hall, SE1, Thursday 28 November
Quatuor Bozzini
Canada’s superb new-music string quartet have become regular visitors to the Huddersfield festival, and this year they appear on the final day, alongside Ensemble Dedalus and the vocalist Peyee Chen, in the world premiere of Jürg Frey’s Grounds of Memory. In Southampton two days later, they have a concert to themselves, with works by Naomi Pinnock, John Woolrich and Michael Finnissy prefacing Shostakovich’s final quartet, No 15 in E Flat Minor.
St Paul’s Hall, Huddersfield, Sunday 24; Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton, Tuesday 26 November
AC
Five of the best … exhibitions
Young Bomberg and the Old Masters
Before the first world war, there was a small revolution in British art. David Bomberg, the most brilliant of the young futurists, portrayed Jewish East End life in waves of abstract energy that make a Whitechapel public bath look like a lightning storm. This exhibition shows how his radical vision was shaped by Renaissance paintings in the National Gallery.
The National Gallery, WC2, Wednesday 27 November to 1 March
Charlotte Salomon
Everyone should see this hypnotic body of work, more than 200 gouaches made by a young German Jewish artist before she was murdered in Auschwitz at the age of 26. Salomon’s series Life? or Theatre? is a visual narrative of her childhood and coming of age in Berlin against the backdrop of Hitler’s rise and the growth of antisemitism.
Jewish Museum London, NW1, to 1 March
Anselm Kiefer
The best artist alive takes a look at the cutting edge of science. Kiefer is a painter and so much more. His canvases have the heft of sculpture, even architecture, and he surrounds them with vitrines and assemblages in sprawling installations as pungent as history itself. Here he meditates on string theory, an attempt to unify quantum mechanics with Einstein – and a vision of the universe that stresses its aesthetic beauty.
White Cube Bermondsey, SE1, to 26 January
And Breathe …
Art can save your life. It can heal the exhaustion and misery of modern existence and take you to other places, other realities. And you don’t have to cross continents; you can get that release just walking around a gallery in a lunch hour. From drifting through the soft light of a Monet painting to communing with a portrait of someone who haunts you, the experience of art is balm for the soul – as this exhibition on art and “mindfulness” emphasises.
Manchester Art Gallery, to 19 January
Nan Goldin
The photographs of Nan Goldin are visceral wonders of contemporary art. She is a Romantic in the tradition of Baudelaire and Lou Reed whose intensely coloured images record the heroism and squalor of downtown urban subcultures. Her art is a mainline to reality. Portraits that stay in your mind, pain that haunts your soul, make her the 21st century’s answer to Caravaggio.
Marian Goodman Gallery, W1, to 11 January
JJ
Five of the best … theatre shows
West Side Story
Is it ever not the right time to see Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s West Side Story? The big twist in director Nikolai Foster’s new production is that original choreographer Jerome Robbins’s finger-clicking moves will not feature. Instead, there will be new steps from Ellen Kane who has worked as a dance supervisor on Cats and Matilda. Intriguing.
Curve Theatre, Leicester, Saturday 23 November to 11 January
The Arrival
If you have seen Barber Shop Chronicles or Dance Nation then you will have appreciated the directing skills of Bijan Sheibani. Now Sheibani is directing his own work for the first time. It is a family drama about two brothers, separated by adoption but still very much connected by biology. Scott Karim and Irfan Shamji star.
The Bush Theatre: Holloway Theatre, W12, to 18 January
Cinderella
This is a Cinderella panto, but not necessarily a show for all the family. Luke Barnes has transformed the age-old fairytale into a feisty, drink-fuelled karaoke session. Not Too Tame’s production will take place in a fully immersive theatre-cum-pub. There will still be the rags-to-riches story but, around this, will be rowdy music, rousing singalongs and live bingo. Oh, and a fruit machine and a fully functioning onstage bar, manned by the cast.
The Vaults, SE1, to 12 January
The Boy Friend
Sandy Wilson’s 1953 musical is oh so light yet oh so fun. It is an all-singing and all-dancing love letter to 1920s musical comedies, set at a finishing school in Nice – a place where girls dream of dashing boyfriends and burst into song at the drop of a feather. The production will be directed by Menier regular Matthew White, who also helmed Sweet Charity and Little Shop of Horrors. Janie Dee stars.
The Menier Chocolate Factory, SE1, to 7 March
CinderELLA: The Musical
Yes it’s another Cinderella, but this one sounds pleasingly offbeat. It is a musical comedy adaptation that includes two versions of Cinderella: the young and disillusioned Cinders and the ageing Ella, who dreams of that now-distant night at the ball. Will they find a way back to their true selves and a fairytale ending? Michael Fentiman – who always goes bold and big – directs a cast that includes Valda Aviks and newcomer Lydia White.
Nuffield Theatre: City, Southampton, Sat to 5 January
MG
Three of the best … dance shows
The Nutcracker
Get your fix of snowflakes, sparkle and – the real gem here – Tchaikovsky’s fantastic score, in various productions delivered by English National Ballet in Liverpool (Wed to Fri; then London, 11 Dec to 5 Jan), and Birmingham Royal Ballet in Brum (to 14 Dec); the Russian National Ballet, Vienna Festival Ballet and Russian State Ballet are also touring it.
Various venues, nationwide
Heavy Handed, We Crush the Moment
This late-night sensory performance from Jamila Johnson-Small (AKA Last Yearz Interesting Negro) was created in response to the Barbican’s exhibition on cabaret and clubs. There will be guest artists each night and the promise of “dance, darkness and bass frequencies”.
Barbican Centre: The Pit, Thursday 28 November to 1 December
Darbar festival
This four-day festival curated by Akram Khan celebrates Indian classical dance styles and artists, spanning everything from kathak to odissi to bharata natyam, and includes a talk with one of Akram’s own teachers. A fascinating window on centuries-old dance traditions.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Saturday 23 to Tuesday 26 November
LW
