Film
Ad Astra
At last, fans can witness Brad Pitt in space. Ad Astra is this season’s big-budget sci-fi, but it’s far from breezy multiplex bait. Director James Gray is a maverick, a singular film-maker yet to make any creative compromises. This one has Tommy Lee Jones as Pitt’s rogue astronaut dad, Donald Sutherland warning of “the endless void” (bring it on), plus Liv Tyler, possibly atoning for Armageddon. With cinematography by Interstellar’s Hoyte van Hoytema and music by Max Richter, it’ll be a classy joint. AG
Out 18 September
The Goldfinch
Baby Driver’s Ansel Elgort leads this all-star adaptation of Donna Tartt’s devastating, Pulitzer-winning book. Elgort is Theodore, the boy whose life goes haywire when he nicks a painting from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art after his mum is killed in a terrorist attack. It’s directed by Brooklyn’s John Crowley, and the cast includes Nicole Kidman, a guarantee of quality these days, plus kid of the hour Finn Wolfhard. AG
Out 27 September
Judy
Expect an onslaught of colourful uppers and downers (mostly downers) in this Judy Garland biopic. Here we find the legendary performer down on her financial luck and reluctantly living in London to play a series of sold-out concerts. She comes to us in the form of Renée Zellweger, looking and sounding uncannily like her, while we also get Jessie Buckley who, after Beast and Wild Rose, is reason to watch anything. AG
Out 4 October
The Joker
Despite its lead character’s lauded status, this is blessedly unrelated to the DC cinematic universe, a tonal U-turn from the gaudy glitz we’ve been subjected to from that stable. Conceived and directed by Todd Phillips, this Joaquin Phoenix-starring, Scorsese-tinged drama, written by Phillips and Scott Silver (8 Mile, The Fighter), explores how someone might end up a psychotic murderous clown. Unshackled by superhero tropes, it looks delightfully troubling. AG
Out 4 October
The Day Shall Come
Nearly a decade after Four Lions exploded the cliches of movie terrorism, super-satirists Chris Morris and Succession’s Jesse Armstrong reunite for this black comedy about Homeland Security. A fresh-from-drama-school Marchánt Davis stars as the unarmed leader of a small Miami commune who poses no real threat to the US government. That is, until an FBI officer (Anna Kendrick) spots an opportunity to impress her boss. EEJ
Out 11 October
Sorry We Missed You
Director Ken Loach’s follow-up to the Palme d’Or-winning I, Daniel Blake is another gut-punch drama about struggling families and, this time, all of us internet shoppers are implicated. When Ricky (Kris Hitchen) becomes a delivery driver, he discovers the lie in the gig economy’s promise of self-determination. At age 83, Loach is more relevant than ever; a fact that bodes well for world cinema and terribly for modern Britain. EEJ
Out 1 November
Frozen 2
In 2013, Frozen’s tale of a strong sibling bond melted hearts to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time. Now the royal sisters are back – plus Olaf the sunbathing snowman, of course – and embarking on a new quest. When Elsa hears a strange sound calling to her from the north, she ventures beyond the borders of the magical queendom of Arendelle to discover the origins of her icy powers. EEJ
Out 22 November
A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood
The second nicest guy in America (Tom Hanks) plays the first nicest guy in America (Mr Rogers) in this film about the much-beloved children’s TV presenter. In 1998 a journalist (named Lloyd Vogel in the film) was sent to interview then-70-year-old Fred Rogers for an Esquire magazine profile, and the encounter transformed his outlook on life. The Americans’ Matthew Rhys co-stars as Vogel. EEJ
Out 6 December
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
God only knows how JJ Abrams is going to pull this off. Returning to the series he resurrected with The Force Awakens, here he has to complete Carrie Fisher’s arc with cutting-room floor footage from Episode VII, wrap up a nine-film saga, and please an impossible-to-please fanbase. The involvement of the original trilogy’s characters – The Emperor (dead, but whatever), Lando Calrissian and, probably, Ghost Luke – provides the nostalgia, while Adam Driver provides the sexually frustrated oddness. AG
Out 19 December
Cats
If the trailer alone had us squirming with nauseated glee, what will the release of the film do? This screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-running stage musical brings together the varied talents of Judi Dench, Idris Elba, Taylor Swift and James Corden, playing CGI-feline-human hybrids on one fateful night for their tribe. Clearly Cats has the potential to be an exquisitely uncomfortable watch, but might it be so bad, it’s puuuurfect? EEJ
Out 20 December
Music
Charli XCX – Charli
Famed for her 6am house-party bangers (Boys, After the Afterparty, I Love It), the songs to emerge so far from Charli XCX’s collab-heavy third album proper swap uppers for downers. The Lizzo-assisted Blame it on Your Love dishes the flak for a failed romance; Cross You Out, with Sky Ferreira, noisily dismisses a toxic relationship; while Gone sees Charli and Christine and the Queens muse on anxiety over crackling, metallic electropop. It’s still a party, just one with a bit more depth. MC
Out 13 September
Kanye West – Jesus Is King
Announced on Twitter by his official PR, AKA wife Kim Kardashian, Kanye West’s ninth album looks set to double down on his recent move into the evangelical as showcased by his gospel-infused Sunday Service gigs/fashion shows. Recent Pusha T collab, Coming Home, also suggests a return to the sample-heavy, retro soul-feel of The College Dropout era but, this being Kanye, all bets are off. MC
Out 27 September
Tegan and Sara – Hey, I’m Just Like You
It was when Tegan and Sara were researching their forthcoming memoir, High School, that the Canadian twins stumbled across two dusty old cassette tapes featuring songs they had written between the ages of 15 and 17. With some minor tweaks, they have re-animated the punk-hued songs with an all-female cast of collaborators to create not just a time capsule but a clean slate for the future. MC
Out 27 September
Danny Brown – U Know What I’m Sayin?
Detroit rapper Danny Brown doesn’t care about expectations. His last album, 2016’s dense, sonically splenetic Atrocity Exhibition, referenced everyone from Joy Division to the Stooges, while this follow-up is executive-produced by the equally genre-agnostic Q-Tip. Expect the WTF quota to be increased by the presence of rapper-producer and kindred spirit JPEGMAFIA. MC
Out 4 October
King Princess – Cheap Queen
At a recent gig by her label boss Mark Ronson, 20-year-old Brooklynite Mikaela Straus, AKA King Princess, got up on stage, vaped and then left without singing a note. Rules are for squares, basically, and it’s this sense of louche cool that has earned Straus a fevered following. It helps, too, that her songs are full of character, lurching from loping R&B (last year’s excellent queer anthem Pussy Is God) to the off-kilter strut
of her debut album’s title track. MC
Out 25 October
Tours
Aphex Twin
Since making his return to the live arena in 2017 after a five-year UK absence, the fz pseudotimestretch+e+3 hitmaker has barely stopped chasing that festival coin around the world, even confusing sun-burned pop fans at this year’s Coachella. He returns to his homeland for two shows in cavernous warehouses, ie the perfect locations for some head-scrambling beats and perhaps the chance to rub shoulders with day-one fans Madonna and Kylie Minogue. MC
Printworks, SE16, 14 September; Mayfield Depot, Manchester, 20 September
Cher
Fourteen years after her farewell tour, actual legend and all-caps Twitter enthusiast Cher returns to the UK for the knowingly titled Here We Go Again tour. Ostensibly in support of recalibration of the very concept of camp, 2018’s Abba covers album Dancing Queen, it also promises the hits (Believe as an encore? You betcha), a ludicrous array of costume changes and – fingers crossed – some between-song banter. MC
The O2, SE10, 20 & 21 October; touring to 3 November
Lizzo
Two parts pop star and one part motivational speaker, 2019 has belonged to Lizzo, whose single Juice was as ubiquitous as her shiny silver sidekick Sasha Flute. Third album Cuz I Love You also made her a proper star in the United States – helped by the single Truth Hurts appearing in Netflix romcom Someone Great – while a euphoric Glastonbury appearance cemented her as a live must-see. MC
O2 Academy Brixton, SW9, 6 & 7 November; touring to 11 November
Björk
Billed as Björk’s “most elaborate stage concert yet”, which is saying something given that she utilised actual lightning to make a bassline on the Biophilia tour, Cornucopia sees the Icelandic experimentalist collaborating with Argentinian film-maker Lucrecia Martel to create an immersive, theatrical fusion of flora, fauna and feminism. That it will all take place in some of the UK’s biggest arenas, and mainly feature songs from 2017’s lush “Tinder album” Utopia, is exactly the kind of single-minded risk-taking fans have come to expect. MC
The O2, SE10, 19 November; touring to 28 November
Skepta
Fresh from sampling Sophie Ellis-Bextor on his latest album, Ignorance Is Bliss, Skepta steps up to pop star-sized venues for the supporting tour. His recent Manchester international festival collaboration Dystopia987 created a sort of theatre-rave hybrid billed as “a waking dream”, representing what he called a “singular vision of the future: deep, dark, radical and riveting”. MC
Mayfield Depot, Manchester, 23 November; touring to 29 November
Exhibitions
William Blake
No other British artist has inspired the modern imagination as profoundly as Blake. His portrait of Newton mapping the cosmos with giant dividers is one of the world’s favourite images of science. His insistence on the value of visions and dreams influenced everyone from Aldous Huxley to Jim Morrison and Patti Smith. Blake’s art is fiery, imagistic and heretical – a delight for the inner eye. JJ
Tate Britain, SW1, Wednesday 11 September to 2 February
The Turner prize
The Turner prize hits a town strongly associated with its namesake. If the ghost of JMW Turner wanders in from the wild winter shore, it may be confused by art’s many forms in the 21st century, from the political sound art of self-described “private ear” Lawrence Abu Hamdan to Tai Shani’s multimedia project inspired by medieval feminism. Meanwhile, Oscar Murillo uses painting to reveal the dark side of globalisation and Helen Cammock tells a women’s history of the Troubles with film and photography. What do you make of that, Mr Turner? JJ
Turner Contemporary, Margate, 28 September to 12 January
Kara Walker
This is an exciting departure from recent commissions in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. We have had a string of interactive projects that avoided the traditional gratifications of art. Now here is a proper artist who uses vivid imagery to tell powerful stories about race in America. Walker’s tableaux revive the archaic Victorian craft of the cut-paper silhouette to portray black American history. JJ
Tate Modern, SE1, 2 October to 5 April
Gauguin Portraits
There is a full-faced frankness to Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin’s portraits that seems to capture the wholeness of a person. The sensitivity with which he depicted his friend Van Gogh gives the lie to the biographical stereotype of a hard-hearted bohemian who bullied poor Vincent. But his most extraordinary portraits were done in Tahiti. Here he portrayed Pacific people with a compassion and respect a million miles from colonial ways of seeing. To look into Gauguin’s Pacific faces is to sense the sorrow of a culture on the verge of destruction. JJ
National Gallery, WC2, 7 Oct to 26 January
Bridget Riley
This is a scintillating retrospective of one of Britain’s greatest-ever artists. Riley’s paintings reach into your mind and alter your perceptions. Her abstract curves create optical illusions of expanding and vibrating forms that rise up from the flat picture. She hit on her revolutionary method by studying Seurat, and her early landscapes after the 19th-century pointillist are deliriously beautiful. JJ
Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, SE1, 23 October to 26 January
Lucian Freud: The Self-Portraits
This savagely truthful painter once said wryly of a naked image of himself as an old man that, given how he painted others, portraying himself honestly was the least he could do. In time, Freud’s depictions of himself may be seen as his greatest works. You always sense the mirror he is looking into, be it in his lounge or a shaving mirror, in which he sees strange reflective effects so his children look tiny beside him or he resembles a wild animal at bay. He watches himself age with merciless precision. JJ
Royal Academy of Arts, W1, 27 October to 26 January
Steve McQueen Year 3
This ambitious public artwork has the straightforward humanism that has enabled McQueen to make Oscar-winning cinema as well as compelling visual art. Here he turns his camera not on a hunger striker or a man who stands still while a house falls around him, but a generation who embody a city’s future. He has photographed every Year 3 primary school class in London, formally posed as in a traditional school photograph. JJ
Tate Britain, SW1, 12 November to 3 May
Judy Chicago
Amazingly enough, this is the first retrospective in Britain for the artist whose installation The Dinner Party made feminist art famous four decades ago. The Dinner Party, a dinner table with places laid for notable women in history and mythology, is just one of her ambitious anthropological works. This show includes The Birth Project, begun in 1980, which celebrates childbirth, and The End, which contemplates death. Chicago is a modern visionary in the mould of Blake. JJ
BALTIC, Gateshead, 16 November to 19 April
Troy: Myth and Reality
There really was a Troy. The remains of this ancient city show that it was burned in a devastating war. But the legend of the Trojan war is just as “real” as any facts. From early Greek vase paintings of black ships laden with warriors to sculptures of heroes taken from Aegina to Munich in the 19th century, ancient Greek art was obsessed with Homer’s mythic version of this war in The Iliad. Artists since, from Rubens to Turner, have brooded on its tragedy. See the real and imagined horrors of the war that started all wars. JJ
British Museum, WC1, 21 November to 8 March
Theaster Gates
After the American civil war, an island called Malaga off the Maine coast was settled by an interracial community whose embrace of diversity flouted the prejudices of the time. Malaga’s people were evicted in the early 20th century and all trace of their plural society eradicated by 1911. Chicago’s Theaster Gates resurrects this lost history in a series of installations entitled Amalgam, a word that in America’s past implied the dangerous “amalgamation” of races. JJ
Tate Liverpool, 13 December to 3 May
Theatre
Faith, Hope and Charity
Alexander Zeldin’s plays are total one-offs. In fact, they don’t really feel like plays. Instead, they’re deeply unsettling experiences that immerse the audience in the lives of people living on the fringes of society. Zeldin’s latest follows on from Beyond Caring and Love and takes place in a rundown community hall. It won’t be an easy watch but it will get under your skin. MG
National Theatre: Dorfman, SE1, Monday 9 September to 12 October
Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp.
A new play from Caryl Churchill is always cause for celebration. Each play is so different from the last, pushing our feelings and theatre itself in all sorts of wild directions. Now we have got four Churchill plays all at once, which will include a girl made of glass, gods, murderers, serial killers and secrets. James Macdonald directs and the cast includes Deborah Findlay, Toby Jones and Tom Mothersdale. Do. Not. Miss. MG
Royal Court, SW1, 18 September to 12 October
On Bear Ridge
This co-production between National Theatre Wales and the Royal Court is written by Welsh playwright and TV scriptwriter Ed Thomas. It’s a loosely autobiographical work about memory, joy and identity, and is inspired by Thomas’s childhood growing up in the Brecon Beacons. Thomas will co-direct alongside Vicky Featherstone and the play will feature Rhys Ifans, who always brings a livewire energy to his performances. MG
Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, 20 September to 5 October; Royal Court, SW1, 24 October to 23 November
My Beautiful Laundrette
Nikolai Foster directs a stage adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s groundbreaking 1985 film. Set in London during the Thatcher years, Kureishi’s story is about a young British Pakistani, Omar, who transforms his uncle’s rundown laundrette into a thriving business – busting taboos and breaking down cultural boundaries along the way. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys have written the score and Omar Malik (East Is East) will star. MG
Curve, Leicester, 20 September to 5 October; touring to 9 November
Dublin theatre festival
Where to start with this theatrical smörgåsbord? This year’s Dublin theatre festival includes 10 world premieres and an extended programme of theatre for younger audiences, including a new take on Baba Yaga. There is a new version of The Playboy of the Western World; Marina Carr’s reimagining of Hecuba; a play from Nancy Harris; and a site-specific work from ANU Productions and the Gate Theatre about the queer experience in Dublin. MG
Various venues, 26 September to 13 October
Lungs
Artistic director Matthew Warchus is flying high at the Old Vic, where his last show, Present Laughter starring Andrew Scott, was a huge hit. Next up is Duncan Macmillan’s brilliant play Lungs, starring The Crown’s king and queen Claire Foy and Matt Smith. It is a stunning piece of writing about a young couple racing towards parenthood, excited and terrified, bristling with doubts and bursting with joy. MG
The Old Vic, SE1, 14 October to 9 November
Light Falls
This is the final show for artistic director Sarah Frankcom, who has had such a terrific run at the Royal Exchange Theatre. Her swansong will be a new play from Simon Stephens, who grew up in nearby Stockport. The show will connect five relatives in five disparate English towns and is all about love, death, community and kindness. To top it all off, there will be original music from Jarvis Cocker. MG
Royal Exchange, Manchester, 24 October to 16 November
Dear Evan Hansen
This Broadway smash transfers to London with six Tony awards to its name and a tremendous amount of hype in its wake. The score is composed by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the dream team behind The Greatest Showman and La La Land. The book, written by Steven Levenson, is about a troubled teen struggling to come to terms with the tragic death of a school friend. Should pack a punch. MG
Noël Coward Theatre, WC2, 29 October to 4 April
Dance
Richard Alston Dance Company: Final Edition
The don of British contemporary dance is closing his company next year, so it’s the last chance to catch Sir Richard’s fine dancers as they embark on the first half of their ultimate tour (there will be more dates in the spring before a last ever show at London’s Sadler’s Wells). Most notable in the shifting programme is the premiere of Alston’s final work for the company, Shine On (debuts at Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 1 to 2 Nov), set to Benjamin Britten’s first published songs, On This Island, which features five poems by WH Auden. LW
Edinburgh Festival Theatre, 27 & 28 September; touring to spring 2020
Dada Masilo: Giselle
Soweto-born choreographer Dada Masilo has form when it comes to updating ballet’s fairytales. After success with Swan Lake, Carmen and Romeo and Juliet, her Giselle is a #MeToo story for our times. Transported to a lively South African village, using a mix of ballet, contemporary and traditional Tswana dance, Masilo herself plays the heroine as a gutsy young woman who sets out for revenge after falling for a cheating creep. LW
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, 4 & 5 October; touring to 2 November
Royal Ballet: Cross Currents / Monotones II / New Tanowitz
A modestly sized show for a major company – a small cast in the Royal Opera House’s second theatre – but all eyes will be on this triple bill, which features a new work by Pam Tanowitz, who wowed with her TS Eliot-inspired Four Quartets. Part of the Merce Cunningham centenary celebrations, the bill also includes Royal Ballet dancers tackling Cunningham’s work for the first time, plus the sublime modernism of Frederick Ashton’s Monotones II. LW
Royal Opera House: Linbury Theatre, WC2, 10 to 11 October
Shobana Jeyasingh Dance: Staging Schiele
Jeyasingh is not the first choreographer to be inspired by Egon Schiele’s warped and disquieting bodies but you can be sure she will approach the subject matter with her customary questioning intelligence, as she probes the murky relationship between male artist and female model in the Austrian artist’s intense portraits. Orlando Gough composes the score and the cast of four includes the brilliant ex-Rambert dancer Dane Hurst. LW
DanceEast, Ipswich, 18 & 19 October; touring to 5 November
Comedy
Jordan Brookes
Described by the director of the Edinburgh comedy awards as “utterly unique”, this year’s winner takes his I’ve Got Nothing show on a victory lap. Jaw-droppingly brutal about his brain’s dark meanderings, it’s one for fans of dramatic existentialism – and material about seducing mums. HG
Soho Theatre, W1, Saturday 7 September; touring to February
Tez Ilyas
With The Tez O’Clock Show, Ilyas proved there is a gap in the market for topical lols from different perspectives. And, given his identity as a British-Muslim, northern, working-class comic, there are enough perspectives to go around. Live, he offers a masterclass in how to talk about race and society without veering into cheap and nasty territory. HJD
Part of Desi Central Comedy Show, Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch, 15 September; touring to 2 November
Eddie Izzard
The polyglot comic has always embraced his nonconformity, previously identifying as a transvestite before coming out as transgender. His latest show, Wunderbar, combines personal tales with an array of strangeness ranging from “humans over the last 100,000 years to talking dogs and animal superheroes”. HJD
De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, 15 September; touring to 16 November
Jayde Adams
Bristolian Adams is a formerly all-singing, all-rapping, Adele-parodying comic who’s recently done away with the bells and whistles. Her latest show, The Ballad of Kylie Jenner’s Old Face, is a case in point, tackling the feminism – and often lack thereof – demonstrated by celebs, among them the youngest scion of the Kardashian clan. HJD
Bloomsbury Theatre, WC1, 21 September; touring 23 October to 26 April
Kate Berlant
You may well have spotted Kate Berlant in places as diverse as 30 Rock-ish comedy The Other Two and Tarantino’s latest, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. While the LA-based comic steals every scene she’s in, however small, as a standup Berlant really comes into her own, with a surreal and often deadpan energy. HJD
Soho Theatre, W1, 7 to 12 October
David Baddiel
From The Mary Whitehouse Experience to Three Lions larks to an Olivier-nominated stage show, My Family: Not the Sitcom, David Baddiel has had nothing if not a varied career. His upcoming show, Trolls: Not the Dolls, sees him turn his attention to online insults and abuse. HJD
Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 20 October; touring 24 January to 3 May
Hannah Gadsby
The Tasmanian comic used to deal in self-deprecating lols, with barbs that made light of her own struggles as a gay woman. Her Netflix special, Nanette, was a turning point, however, with Gadsby deciding to terminate that type of material. Having sought a more authentic comedy, her latest show, Douglas, swerves trauma in favour of stereotype-skewing standup and a healthier kind of personal admission. HJD
New Theatre, Oxford, 24 October; touring to 23 November
London Hughes
Hughes’s two first presenting gigs were on adult channel Babestation and, er, CBBC, giving a taste of her comedy career to come: ribald yet also rather endearing. Having recently become the first black woman ever nominated for the main category at the Edinburgh comedy awards, expect big things for Hughes, whose current show, To Catch a Dick, is a celebration of female sexuality. HJD
Soho Theatre, W1, 6 to 14 December
