Performance
The Philanthropist
Christopher Hampton’s 1971 campus play is usually staffed by middle-aged actors, but director Simon Callow’s production has a crack team of new comedy talent. The Inbetweeners’ Simon Bird is the titular benevolent university prof, Fresh Meat’s Charlotte Ritchie is his fiancee, Tom Rosenthal (who plays Bird’s brother and partner-in-pranks in Friday Night Dinner) his best mate, and booming voice of a generation, Matt Berry, a larger-than-life novelist. Meanwhile, model Lily Cole will be proving her comic acting chops as man-eating acquaintance Araminta.
At Trafalgar Studios, London, 3 April to 22 July
Scattered
If it sounds a bit drippy that this touring dance show “explores our relationship with water”, Motionhouse combine acrobatics, aerial wizardry and lifelike projections of waterfalls, waves and glaciers, with which the dancers interact by jumping into the screen.
G Live, Guildford, 4 April; The Peacock, London, 26 April
Comedy
Athletico Mince
Time spent with Bob Mortimer is never time wasted. And his tangentially football-themed Athletico Mince podcast with Andy Dawson (the man behind social media sensation Get in the Sea) is an oddball treat. Now the pair are taking the podcast to the stage. Expect rambling hilarity.
Newcastle Northern Stage, 3 April; Manchester Dancehouse, 4 April, Leeds City Varieties, 5 April
Music
Stefflon Don
Forget Stormzy. Move over J-Hus. Laters Lady Leshurr. The most exciting rapper to sashay on these shores is Stefflon Don (pronounced Steff London, pictured below) who parlays UK grime, Dutch bubbling and Jamaican patois into a global hybrid sound that’s attitudinal and unique. She plays a one-off show.
Sub Club 30th Birthday
At a time when UK’s varied nightlife can feel under threat, that Glasgow’s well-loved venue Sub Club has reached three decades – during which it has given a platform to DJs such as Optimo and Slam – deserves championing. Its founders and techno stalwarts Harri & Domenic kick off celebrations, and a programme of parties continues into the summer.
Harri & Domenic play Sub Club, Glasgow, 1 April
Film
Free Fire
British writer-directors Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump are never predictable. Their latest film is a vaguely Tarantino-ish action-comedy shoot ’em up containing 70s outfits, barbed dialogue and a seemingly endless gunfight. You’d never call it subtle but the sheer pyrotechnic elan and impressive cast (Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson and Sam Riley) make it a memorable experience.
Free Fire is in cinemas now
Flatpack film festival
Birmingham’s achingly hip film festival returns with another vast, avant-garde programme spanning live soundtracks, animation, documentary, virtual reality and, they say, “weird films for kids”. Highlights this year include a retrospective of David Lynch, including a live scoring of Eraserhead, a rare showing of Matthew Barney’s five-film epic The Cremaster Cycle and a delightfully titled “Gongoozling Day”, dedicated to leftfield shorts, from Jean Painlevé to Alys Fowler’s canal walks.
Various venues, Birmingham, 4 to 9 Apr
Events
Inside Vogue
For the final weekend of the Oxford literary festival, departing British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman talks to Sali Hughes about just how Devil Wears Prada the fashion mag is.
Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, 1 April
Exhibitions
Queer British Art 1861-1967
Marking the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in England, this new show, opening next week, celebrates LGBTQ art from artists including John Singer Sargent, Dora Carrington, Simeon Solomon and David Hockney.
Tate Britain, London, 5 April to 1 October
Howard Hodgkin
This exhibition of loud, brash and colourful portraits from the 84-year-old British painter at National Portrait Gallery has a bittersweet edge, considering he died just two weeks before the show opened. It includes his sombre final piece, Portrait of the Artist Listening to Music.
