TALKS
Grayson Perry
(Turner Contemporary, Margate)
Grayson Perry’s work consists of risqué ceramics and tapestries as social critique - it might be said, though, that his greatest creative achievement is his own persona. This talk, which accompanies his survey show Provincial Punk, promises to turn the spotlight on his artistic development. From his early days, sporting a “Shetland woolly jumper view of the world” and rubbing shoulders with movers and shakers such as Cerith Wyn Evans and Michael Clark, to his current position as a unique cultural commentator, it promises a picaresque tale. Skye Sherwin
TELEVISION
Humans
(Sunday, 9pm, Channel 4)
Trailed ingeniously with a campaign that appeared to be genuinely advertising a new line of robotic servants, this domestic sci-fi drama begins with harried father Joe buying one such “synth” on a whim to help with the housework. Soon, though, it’s clear that Anita, as the family christen her, is far more than just a computer. Eerily atmospheric, the action also prompts some philosophising on the so-called “hard problem”: just what constitutes consciousness and is it ours alone? Rachel Aroesti
Read our behind the scenes feature on Humans
More TV coverage
FILM
Edinburgh international film festival
(17-28 Jun, various venues, Edinburgh)
It’s always been a champion of domestic cinema, but somehow this year’s Edinburgh international film festival feels more Scottish than ever. The opening and closing films are both homegrown (and world premieres): Robert Carlyle’s The Legend Of Barney Thomson, in which he plays an accidental Glasgow serial killer, and Scott “Shell” Graham’s Hebridean drama Iona. Highlights are too numerous to list, though Beach Boys biopic Love & Mercy, Pixar’s Inside Out and Asif Kapadia’s Amy doc are sure to be hot tickets. Steve Rose
The rest of this week’s film events
THEATRE
Educating Rita
(Chichester Festival Theatre: Minerva)
Michael Buffong’s version of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons used an all-black cast, and offered a new perspective on a much-staged play. He’s aiming to do the same for Willy Russell’s two-hander about a university English lecturer (played here by Lenny Henry) who finds himself confounded by one of his students, Rita, a working-class woman who is determined to win herself an education. Thirty-five years young this year, Russell’s enduring comedy continues to fly the flag with warmth and comic precision for everyone’s right to an education. Lyn Gardner
The rest of this week’s theatre
EXHIBITIONS
Donald Urquhart
(Maureen Paley, London, E2)
Donald Urquhart’s pen-and-ink drawings have been conjuring yesteryear’s divas in a haze of doomed glamour and devilish wit since they first graced the walls of his 1990s club night, The Beautiful Bend. His most recent works mull on disco’s seminal year, 1978, mixing personal memories with broader social commentary. For Urquhart’s characters, beauty is a shield against the world but it has a dark underside, as with his peacock’s tail of long-lashed eyes: gorgeous but always watching. SS
The rest of this week’s exhibitions
CLUBS
Found festival
(13 Jun, Brockwell Park, London)
Last year’s Found festival was fine enough if you were in the market for a fairly narrow remit of tech-house. This year, though, it travels south of the river to the more spacious Brockwell Park, and broadens out the music, too. Nick Curly’s stage with Davide Squillace and Matthias Tanzmann will keep the heads happy, while the techno offering is bolstered by underground faves Zenker Brothers, Genius Of Time and Barnt alongside headliners Guy Gerber and Ellen Allien. Meanwhile, Ron Trent, Andrés and Tevo Howard will be hoping rain doesn’t add a British summertime pathos to their warm disco and house. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
The rest of this week’s clubs
COMEDY
Will Franken
(Kendal, Hebden Bridge, Castlebar)
Being compared to the late Robin Williams might not seem like the hippest of accolades, but if you can shift from your mind the umpteen saccharine movies and remember the maverick style of Williams’s club stand-up, you’ll see a connection with the work of Will Franken. Like Williams, Franken has a mind that apparently operates at a phenomenal speed, but underneath the wacky characters there is a more overtly polemical undercurrent, with takedowns of corporate speak and the evils of a materialistic culture. James Kettle
The rest of this week’s comedy
RADIO
Annie Mac
(Mon to Fri, Radio 1; live at Sonar festival)
Having taken the reigns of Zane Lowe’s Radio 1 show in February, Annie Mac is now well and truly bedded in as the nation’s new music tastemaker. Mac might be more cautious with her compliments than her predecessor (not difficult), but just because she’s more particular, doesn’t mean she’s any less excitable, recently outlining her show’s remit as “anything that makes us feel alive”. She hasn’t left her dance music roots behind either: after a week behind the Radio 1 decks, she’s lined up to play this week’s Sonar festival in Barcelona. RA
Read our interview with Annie Mac in tomorrow’s Guide.
LIVE MUSIC
Ariel Pink
(Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow, Bristol, London)
In the mid 2000s, the 80s-referencing degraded blur at the heart of Ariel Pink’s sound became formalised into a genre known as “chillwave”. But his enjoyable current album Pom Pom speaks highly not only of the persuasiveness of his aesthetic, but also the strength of his songwriting. Rather than a covering of bases, the record achieves its own extremely strange vision. Live, Pink is very much the same: caught up in his own world, into which other people wander at their own risk. John Robinson
The rest of this week’s live music
FILM
Jurassic World
Desperate measures are needed when public interest in a formerly huge attraction starts to wane. And that’s also the plot of the movie. It all goes pterodactyl-shaped for the prehistoric resort in the franchise’s first outing in 14 years, when scientists start meddling with GM dinosaurs. The film itself fares far better: scary summer spectacle is a given, but it’s funnier, warmer and less cheesy than current franchise-reboot expectations – and proof again, after Guardians Of The Galaxy, that Chris Pratt is a rapidly evolving species. SR
The rest of this week’s films
Read our interview with Chris Pratt
