Going out: Cinema
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Out now
One of the year’s most anticipated movies sees director George Miller return to the post-apocalyptic world he and Byron Kennedy first created in 1979 with Mad Max. Both spin-off and prequel to 2015’s Fury Road, this new adventure unveils the origins of Imperator Furiosa, with Anya Taylor-Joy in the title role.
The Garfield Movie
Out now
How did Garfield first come to adopt Jon, his human? Who was Garfield’s dad, and might he have sounded a bit like Samuel L Jackson? The Garfield Movie has the answers, along with an array of eating habits that would quickly kill a real-life cat. Featuring the vocal talents of Chris Pratt, Nicholas Hoult and Snoop Dogg.
Slow
Out now
Lithuania’s entry for best international feature film at the Oscars, Slow tells the story of an unconventional romance between dancer Elena (Greta Grineviciute) and sign language interpreter Dovydas (Kestutis Cicenas), who identifies as asexual. From award-winning director Marija Kavtaradze.
Trainspotting
Out now
Coming down the tracks, newly restored in 4K, is one of the most impactful British films of all time. It’s almost 30 years since John Hodge wrangled Irvine Welsh’s non-linear novel into the script that Danny Boyle filmed with such verve, but it still feels edgier than much of today’s allegedly cutting-edge work. Catherine Bray
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Going out: Gigs
Courtney Pine
Howard Assembly Room, Leeds, 25 May
Saxophonist, composer and bandleader Courtney Pine was the standard-bearer for a new homegrown jazz made by young African-Caribbean Britons nearly 40 years ago, and he’s still expanding those traditions today. A highlight of Leeds jazz festival’s closing weekend, Pine’s multinational band bridges merengue, ska, mento, calypso and post-bop. John Fordham
Nicki Minaj
25 to 30 May; tour starts Manchester
Last December’s Pink Friday 2 album was patchy but did the job, returning the rapper and online beef generator to the US top spot. She returns to the UK for the first time in nearly a decade with a show that rattles through her lengthy discography. Michael Cragg
Tool
30 May to 3 June; tour starts Birmingham
It took the US noise merchants 13 years to release 2019’s Fear Inoculum, and news of a hasty follow-up first emerged in 2022. Two years later, there’s still nothing, but they’re off on tour, filling arenas with swathes of their noodling, art-metal experiments. MC
Platée
Wormsley Estate, Stokenchurch, 29 May to 30 June
Garsington Opera’s season gets under way with the company’s first venture into the French baroque. Rameau’s Platée is a comedy, based on the myth of the water nymph who is convinced that Jupiter, the king of the gods, has fallen in love with her. Tenor Samuel Bowden takes the title role in Louisa Muller’s production. Andrew Clements
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Going out: Art
Ed Clark
Turner Contemporary, Margate, to 1 September
African American artist Clark, who died in 2019, has his first museum show in Europe. Clark was an abstract painter whose canvases are at once free and composed, finely balanced between the majestic splashiness of abstract expressionism and a more ironic 1960s mood. A journey to New York’s golden age.
Beatriz Milhazes
Tate St Ives, 25 May to 29 September
One of today’s most acclaimed abstract painters has a show in the home of British abstract art. Brazil’s Milhazes is a joyously postmodern artist, mixing cosmic patterns, decorative carnival colours and quotations from art history including the Spanish baroque. How will she compare with the windswept modernists in this venue?
Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection
V&A South Kensington, London, to 5 January
A David LaChapelle portrait of Elton with (literal) egg on his face is one of the striking pictures in this journey through modern photography, from Herman Leonard’s monochrome portrait of jazz hero Chet Baker to a ripe choice of Robert Mapplethorpe’s masterpieces.
Birds: Brilliant and Bizarre
Natural History Museum, London, to 5 January
Dinosaurs never died. They simply evolved into birds, argues this ornithological blockbuster. Its analysis of how closely pigeons are related to Tyrannosaurus rex may help to explain why they are such persistent urban scavengers. Art, animatronics and taxidermy open up the avian world in this summer spectacular for all ages. Jonathan Jones
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Going out: Stage
Gandini Juggling: Smashed
Sadler’s Wells: Peacock theatre, London, 31 May to 1 June
You might think you don’t like juggling, but the Gandinis are something else. Sean Gandini and his troupe bring a theatrical, choreographic sensibility to the art of throwing things in the air and catching them in the air. Smashed, one of their hit shows, inspired by iconic choreographer Pina Bausch, is full of humour and nostalgia. Lyndsey Winship
Swim, Aunty, Swim!
The Belgrade theatre, Coventry, to 1 June
Meet Fatu, Aunty Blessing and Aunty Ama, three women about to dive into a new challenge. Siana Bangura’s uplifting story of friendship and renewal moves between Lagos, Accra, London and Coventry as it celebrates the power and pull of the water. Kate Wyver
Salt
Fisher theatre, Bungay, 25 May; The Space, London, 4 to 8 June
Set on the Norfolk coast in 1770, Beau Hopkins’s dark new play features myth, magic and the cold North Sea. Filled with folk songs and demonic possession, the show follows a pious fisher infatuated with a singer believed to have supernatural gifts. It looks deliciously grimy. KW
Crossed Wires
Various venues, Sheffield, 31 May to 2 June
These days, seeing your favourite standup can easily mean going to a podcast recording as a traditional gig. This boutique festival (co-founded by My Dad Wrote a Porno’s Alice Levine) has the comedian-podcaster market covered, with Adam Buxton, Katherine Ryan, Elis James and John Robins. Rachel Aroesti
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Staying in: Streaming
Eric
Netflix, 30 May
Abi Morgan is known for writing sharp, slightly soapy British series about powerful women (The Hour, The Split), so her new drama about a puppeteer (Benedict Cumberbatch) driven to delusion by the disappearance of his young son in 80s New York is quite the left turn – but it has all the ingredients to be an offbeat hit.
The Sympathizer
Sky Atlantic & Now, 27 May, 9pm
South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) wrestles Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer-winning novel on to the small screen. Told from the point of view of a double agent during the Vietnam war, the result is unsurprisingly meaty and thematically knotty, and – thanks to four cartoonish performances by Robert Downey Jr – entertainingly out there, too.
We Are Lady Parts
Channel 4, 30 May, 9pm
Nida Manzoor’s riotous, joyful sitcom about a group of Muslim women who form a punk band shredded reductive stereotypes when it debuted in 2021. Now it returns for a star-studded second series (Malala Yousafzai and Meera Syal both cameo), as the titular outfit battle to record an album while fending off copycat acts.
The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan
BBC Two & iPlayer, 29 May, 9pm
Nobody has parlayed standup success into light-entertainment likability quite like Ranganathan: judging by his ubiquity, the 46-year-old comedian’s bone-dry, low-energy affability is TV catnip. Here’s another chance to enjoy his bone-dry, low-energy affability as he explores Africa in the final series of his unconventional travel show. RA
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Staying in: Games
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Nintendo Switch; out now
This deep cut from the Mario archives is secretly one of Nintendo’s best ever games: funny, clever, inventive and beautiful to look at, with origami-inspired looks and a surreal comic touch.
Hauntii
All platforms; out now
One of surprisingly few video games where you play as a ghost. The idea here is to solve the mysteries of the afterlife using powers of possession and telekinesis, amassing clues about your past life in the process. The ink-sketch art style helps create an ethereal vibe. Keza MacDonald
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Staying in: Albums
La Luz – News of the Universe
Out now
Famed for their noirish surf rock and eerie psychedelia, Seattle quartet La Luz are more unsettled than usual on their fifth album. Haunted by frontwoman Shana Cleveland’s cancer diagnosis, and the departure of two members, News of the Universe still manages to turn personal chaos into something universally beautiful.
Lenny Kravitz – Blue Electric Light
Out now
More famous in recent years for his oversized scarf than his music, Lenny Kravitz returns with his 12th album, and first since 2018, in the hopes of rectifying that. Tracks such as TK421 and Human swap the guitar for a sleeker, more electronic sound, with the latter lyrically focused on Kravitz’s spiritual journey.
Paul Weller – 66
Out now
As creatively restless as ever, Paul Weller’s 17th solo album – named in honour of his 66th birthday – continues his recent purple patch. With input from Noel Gallagher, Bobby Gillespie and Richard Hawley, 66 features the symphonic opus Rise Up Singing and the slowly percolating soul of Nothing.
Twenty One Pilots – Clancy
Out now
Fusing rock, rap and electropop, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun’s seventh album is the final part of a years-long trilogy, focused on a dystopian world, that started with 2018’s Trench. Whether you choose to invest in all that is another thing, but new wave-ish single Next Semester is fun. MC
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Staying in: Brain food
Grave Injustice
Podcast
The US supreme court is due to hand down a number of decisions over the summer and this engaging series from legal expert Lisa Graves analyses how these cases connect to wider fights for rights and freedoms.
David Rumsey Map Collection
Online
Featuring more than 131,000 digitised maps from the past 500 years, this vast collection isn’t just a geographical record but a historical archive of colonisation and the differing ways people have chosen to perceive the world.
Dancing for the Devil
Netflix, 29 May
Across three parts, this unsettling documentary traces the insidious impact of the cult masquerading as a TikTok management company, 7M. Featuring testimony from former members, it follows their journey from online influence to real-world subjugation. Ammar Kalia
