Five of the best … films
Little Women (U)
(Greta Gerwig, 2019, US) 135 mins
Even though Greta Gerwig was passed over for a directing nomination from the Golden Globes, there is time for the Oscars to rectify the mistake. This adaptation of a fondly remembered classic novel really is a step up from the impressive-enough Lady Bird; it manages to be both faithful to the spirit of the book as well as injecting it with a contemporary empowerment message.
Jojo Rabbit (12A)
(Taika Waititi, 2019, Czech/NZ/US) 108 mins
There is a feeling that the likable director of Thor: Ragnarok may have overreached himself with this Nazi-era comedy; the intention is laudable, but not everyone is convinced. Waititi himself plays an imaginary Hitler in the mind of a German kid growing up in the 1930s, who discovers a Jewish girl hiding in his house.
Long Day’s Journey into Night (12A)
(Bi Gan, 2018, Ch/Fr) 138 mins
This has arrived in the UK bearing the kudos of being a big romantic hit for New Year’s Eve in its home country – but suffered something of a backlash when audiences realised they weren’t dealing with the likes of Notting Hill. Nevertheless, director Bi Gan has more than a smidge of Leos Carax about his work: this is a beautiful-looking if cryptic neo-noir, boasting a bravura 59-minute shot in 3D.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (12A)
(JJ Abrams, 2019, US) 142 mins
JJ Abrams is back in the saddle for the final chunk of the current Star Wars trilogy – appropriately enough as he was the man who re-engineered and rehabilitated the series with The Force Awakens back in 2015. He is leading a final
all-star tribute act that includes Carrie Fisher, from footage shot for The Last Jedi as well as Force Awakens; this is the final instalment of the “Skywalker Saga”, with the field free for another direction in the future.
La Dolce Vita (12A)
(Federico Fellini, 1960, It/Fr) 174 mins
Re-released as part of a touring programme marking the 100th anniversary of the master director’s birth, La Dolce Vita remains a jaw-dropping achievement, and one of the great films of the European new wave. An ironically titled fable of “the good life”, starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg, it’s still amazing to look at.
AP
Five of the best … rock, pop & jazz
Fontaines DC
Dublin post-punkers Fontaines DC bonded over a love of poetry, releasing two collections while at university. Since self-releasing singles in 2017 – via an early ambition to be the “punk Beatles” – they have gone on to tour with kindred spirits Shame and Idles, made their US TV chatshow debut and crashed into the UK Top 10 with ambitious, Mercury-nominated debut album Dogrel.
O2 Academy Newcastle, Friday 10 January
Holly Macve
Steeped in the traditions of country music, and with a hint of the vintage stylings of Lana Del Rey, Brighton-based Macve was actually born in Galway in western Ireland. At 18, while working in a cafe, she met Bella Union boss Simon Raymonde, who fell in love with her voice; her critically acclaimed 2017 debut album, Golden Eagle, was released on his prestigious label.
The Lexington, N1, Wednesday 8 January
Black Midi
Equal parts potential and pretension, Brit School alumni Black Midi are what you might politely refer to as divisive. Eschewing pop for prog, choruses for free-form improvisation, their debut album, Schlagenheim, was inspired by 20th-century classical music, while a performance at the Mercury music prize involved some painful gymnastics. Not dull.
RNCM Theatre, Manchester, Friday 10 January; touring to 20 February
Field Music
Previously the work of brothers Peter and David Brewis, Field Music explore being a proper studio band on new album Making a New World. Typically eccentric, it takes the form of a 19-track song cycle about the historical echoes of the first world war, featuring songs about the armistice and the Inter-Allied Women’s Conference. It was an idea that blossomed out of a project for London’s Imperial War Museum.
Liverpool, Thursday 9; Manchester, Friday 10 January; touring to 29 February
MC
Tony Kofi/Monkathon III
Tony Kofi’s Monkathon started life as a marathon 2003 gig when the spirited blues-boppish UK saxophonist’s group played all 70 of Thelonious Monk’s known compositions over six hours on the spin. This performance is an edited version of Kofi’s impassioned Monk tribute, with pianist Jonathan Gee a key presence in an exhilarating quartet.
The Verdict, Brighton, Friday 10 January
JF
Two of the best … classical concerts
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain
The Spanish conductor Jaime Martín takes charge of the latest lineup of young talent for the National Youth Orchestra’s winter concerts. He has opted for a programme of music about protest and revolution, ending with Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony, which depicts the events of the failed Russian revolution of 1905. Before that, there is Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, originally commissioned to mark the 2,600th anniversary of the Japanese empire but which was, in fact, a scarcely disguised protest again militarism and war – and was rejected by the Japanese government. The orchestra begin the concert as a choir, singing Hanns Eisler’s part-song Auf Den Strassen Zu Singen.
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, Saturday 4; Barbican Hall, EC2, Sunday 5; Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, Monday 6 January
Ibert & Schreker
An intriguingly themed studio concert from the BBC Philharmonic: Holly Mathieson conducts rarely heard scores by Franz Schreker and Jacques Ibert, both of them based upon works by Oscar Wilde. The Birthday of the Infanta, Schreker’s 1908 music for a pantomime, is based upon the same Wilde short story that his Viennese contemporary Alexander von Zemlinsky later used for his one-act opera Der Zwerg (The Dwarf). Ibert’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol is even less familiar. Composed in 1922 as a symphonic poem based on Wilde’s famous prison text, it was later converted into a ballet, although Mathieson is conducting the original version, which was Ibert’s first symphonic work.
MediaCityUK, Salford, Wednesday 8 January
AC
Five of the best … exhibitions
Cars: Accelerating the Modern World
The modern world’s most glamorised engines of liberation and destruction get their blockbuster. Writers from F Scott Fitzgerald to JG Ballard have seen the car as modernity’s most powerful symbol. Artists such as Richard Hamilton and Andy Warhol have explored its imagery. Today, we strive to reconcile that myth with the need for greener transport.
Victoria & Albert Museum, SW7, to 19 April
Paula Rego
The sinewy art of this painter dramatises states of feeling through the hefty presence of the human physique. Rego’s bodies are thick-limbed and stockily strong; her characters are dark-eyed and secretive. The pictures are sinister fairytales full of barely suppressed Freudian passions. Open the door of the bloody chamber.
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, to 19 April
Stubbs: All Done from Nature
It is well worth catching this intelligent survey of an artist who not only painted horses but flayed and de-fleshed them to know the science behind his art. The centrepiece is a superb showing of Stubbs’s drawings of the horses he dissected to research his book The Anatomy of the Horse. These are shown next to the preserved skeleton of an 18th-century racehorse as well as his famous portrait of Whistlejacket.
MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, to 26 January
Bridget Riley
This delirious retrospective of one of Britain’s greatest modern artists is a fairground of surprise. As a young painter, Riley learned figurative skills but she found liberation in light when she studied the pointillism of Seurat. She took his optical experiments further in abstract paintings that manipulate perception, with lines that flow in waves and flat canvases that warp and wobble in space. Art that embodies the psychedelic 1960s.
Hayward Gallery, SE1, to 26 January
Gauguin Portraits
As a portraitist Gauguin is a rum cove – did he love anyone except himself? After a brilliant survey of his self-portraits as a Christ-like visionary, not to mention the actual Christ, there are strange works in which he seems as interested in flowers and fruit as the people with them. It gets more exciting and moving when he sails for Tahiti; whatever his faults, Gauguin’s empathy for the plight of Pacific people cannot be denied.
The National Gallery, WC2, to 26 January
JJ
Five of the best … theatre shows
Magic Goes Wrong
Mischief Theatre is everywhere, and with good reason. Here’s a chance to switch off the brain, dial back the cynicism and have a giggle. All of the company’s shows involve a theatrical production going hideously, hilariously wrong; this time a charity magic show spirals out of control. Creative input from American magic maestros Penn & Teller will ensure the tricks are up to scratch.
Vaudeville Theatre, WC2, to 31 May
LIMF
London international mime festival is a season of vibrant visual theatre, including live art, circus and clowning. It is always hugely stimulating, full of acts to make the mind boggle. Highlights include mime artist Trygve Wakenshaw’s Only Bones v1.4 (Tue to 25 Jan) and Nick Lehane’s puppet piece Chimpanzee (21 to 25 Jan).
Various venues, London, Wednesday 8 January to 2 February
Once: The Musical
Everything that was great about John Carney’s 2007 film – the gentle romance and the sweeping score by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová – has been honoured in Enda Walsh’s superb stage adaptation. The show starts out fairly low-key but morphs into a foot-tapping and heart-tugging night at the theatre. The touring production is directed by Peter Rowe but based on John Tiffany’s original concept and stars Daniel Healy and Emma Lucia.
Fairfield Halls: Ashcroft Playhouse, Croydon, to 11 January; touring to 25 July
Dear Evan Hansen
Grief tourism; the insidious sway of social media; the desire to be liked over the desire to be good. Dear Evan Hansen doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? But this is a provocative and strikingly modern musical, with Sam Tutty as a student embroiled in a web of lies, gossip and online spin. There’s also a catchy score from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the songwriters behind La La Land and The Greatest Showman.
Noël Coward Theatre, WC2, to 30 May
Cuttin’ It
Charlene James’s unflinching play is a powerful piece about FGM told with such heart. It focuses on two teenagers, Muna and Iqra, both of Somalian origin and now living in Britain. The girls are friends but have very different ideas about FGM, a brutal ordeal both have undergone. This is a scorching play that will open your eyes to this awful ritual, still practised today. Stars Asha Hassan and Hermon Berhane.
Royal Exchange Theatre: The Studio, Manchester, Thursday 9 January to 1 February
MG
Three of the best … dance shows
Ockham’s Razor: This Time
It is hard not to fall in love with aerial circus company Ockham’s Razor. Amid the skilful swinging, balancing and navigating the contraptions they build, the work is always warm, poetic and deeply human. This Time, part of London international mime festival, explores family relationships through the passage of time with a multigenerational cast.
Shoreditch Town Hall, EC1, Wednesday 8 to 19 January
Thick & Tight: Romancing the Apocalypse
Daniel Hay-Gordon and Eleanor Perry resurrect characters from the past in an indefinable performance that combines lip-syncing, queer culture and comedy with the rigour of two trained contemporary dancers.
Sadler’s Wells: Lilian Baylis Studio, EC1, Thursday 9 to 11 January
Northern Ballet 50th Anniversary Gala
It is half a century since Laverne Meyer launched a company of 11 dancers in a church hall in Manchester’s Moss Side. This one-off gala celebrates the journey so far with extracts from 50 years of repertoire, danced by the company and special guests.
Leeds Grand Theatre, Saturday 4 January
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