Events
Notting Hill carnival
It’s the August bank holiday and that can only mean one thing: the annual street party where sound systems rumble with Caribbean beats, dancers parade in front of the floats and coppers willingly pose for selfies. Bending its ear to younger crews again this year, garage don Shy FX will bring his Party On The Moon stage to Sir Lloyd’s Soundsystem on Monday, while dance music site Boiler Room team up with Radio 1 DJ Benji B on Disya Jeneration Sound System on Sunday and are also streaming nine rigs across carnival for anyone who’d prefer to stay at home. But with a free cultural bash this brilliant, why would you?
Notting Hill, London, Sun to Mon
Insomnia gaming festival
Summer: what better time to stay inside and squint at a screen! Until Monday, Birmingham NEC hosts the UK’s largest gaming event, which offers up new titles, eSports, cosplay and special guests.
Theatre
The Cheviot, The Stag And The Black, Black Oil
The Dundee Rep’s acclaimed revival of John McGrath’s groundbreaking play charts the devastating economic changes in Scottish history over the past three centuries, using an eclectic mix of Highland ceilidh, poetry and drama. It’s playing Dundee until 10 September before heading out on a UK tour.
Dundee Rep, Dundee to 10 September; touring to 26 September
Music
Festival No 6
Now a reliably excellent late-summer fixture, the annual shindig at the gloriously peculiar Welsh village of Portmeirion looks particularly enticing this year. Highlights include Super Furry Animals, the return of Canadian indie collective Broken Social Scene, a new cabaret stage, a male voice choir, endless stimulating spoken-word offerings and yoga classes and street food, too.
End Of The Road
The idiosyncratic harp and piano stylings of Joanna Newsom will be among the highlights of this four-day Wiltshire festival, starting on Thursday. But will she take what is presumably a rare opportunity to hook up with south London skinhead punks Hard Skin (also attending) and reprise their bizarre if entertaining 2013 collaboration The Man Who Ran The Town? Let’s hope so. Elsewhere, look out for edge-walking balladry from Cat Power, freeform psychedelia from Animal Collective and the reliably entertaining Fela Kuti-meets-Black Sabbath rabble-rousing of Goat.
Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset, Thurs to Sun
Books
In Fine Style: The Dancehall Art Of Wilfred Limonious
The cartoonist defined Jamaican dancehall’s brash, fun-poking aesthetic during the 80s, designing more than 150 record sleeves and logos. His influence lives on: look no further than Major Lazer, whose titular major is inspired by Limonious’s illustration from 1986 compilation Dance Hall Time. His work is celebrated here in a gorgeous 272-page tome, out now on One Love Books.
Film
Black
This taut Brussels-set thriller has received favourable comparisons to seminal banlieue drama La Haine for its stark and stylish tale of life in European immigrant communities. There’s a dash of Romeo and Juliet in there for good measure, too, as a Moroccan petty criminal falls in love with a Congolese woman, sparking a feud between rival gangs in the process. It’s in cinemas now.
Podcast
Token Podcast
If your regular podcast rotation is getting a bit stale these days, have a listen to Token, a series recently launched by the Guardian UK alongside its US and Australia counterparts. Leah Green and Fred McConnell present smart, savvy takes on minority issues, culture and identity – from sexism at Rio to Hollywood racism – that aim to create open meaningful and engaging debate about topics often deemed taboo.
Television
The Night Of
Recent Guide cover star Riz Ahmed features in this superior procedural drama about a student arrested and charged with a very nasty crime. John Turturro is the downtrodden defence attorney tasked with keeping him out of the clink. The first episode is stomach-twistingly tense and airs on Sky Atlantic this Thursday.
Exhibition
Sanford Biggers
NYC-based artist Biggers is nothing if not eclectic: he’s created everything from video works to repurposed antique quilts (see above). What unifies his work is a desire to draw on centuries of US racial politics, sometimes literally, as with a carving based on images from a slave ship manual. Catch his works at Massimo De Carlo, London, from Fri.
