Five of the best ... films
Whitney (15)
(Kevin Macdonald, 2018, UK/US) 117 mins
The second doc this year about the star, which, unlike Can I Be Me, has the support of Houston’s family. That doesn’t make it any less sensational, however, with a suggestion that she was abused as a child by her cousin Dee Dee Warwick. Houston’s relationship with friend/lover Robyn Crawford is key to understanding her troubled later years.
Mary Shelley (12A)
(Haifaa al-Mansour, 2017, UK/Lux/US) 121 mins
An impressively mounted biopic of the teenage Frankenstein author, retooled for the #MeToo era with its emphasis on emotional rights and assertion of authorship. Elle Fanning is a little constrained as the lead, but Haifaa al-Mansour, the Saudi director of Wadjda, goes full throttle to bring out an intense melancholy in the character.
The Deer Hunter (18)
(Michael Cimino, 1978, US) 178 mins
A restored print of the study of US involvement in Vietnam – as epic in its way as Apocalypse Now, which it preceded. Robert De Niro was at the top of his game, while Meryl Streep, John Cazale and Christopher Walken turned in stellar supporting roles. Based on the effects of this distant conflict on small-town, melting-pot America, its unreflecting portrayal of the Vietnamese as sadistic torturers is a major blind spot.
Leave No Trace (PG)
(Debra Granik, 2018, US) 109 mins
Debra Granik made her name – and a star of Jennifer Lawrence – with the tough crime story Winter’s Bone; here she returns with another powerful, tender study of American outsiderdom. A military veteran (Ben Foster) and his teenage daughter (Thomasin McKenzie) are found living off the grid in a huge Oregon national park; their subsequent struggles are rendered with a matter-of-fact sensitivity.
Sicario 2: Soldado (15)
(Stefano Sollima, 2018, Ita/US) 122 mins
Suburra director Stefano Sollima follows in Denis Villeneuve’s footsteps for this sequel to the narco-terror hit, and does a fine job. Black ops guys Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin are sent to stop the cartels smuggling Isis into the US. About as politically relevant as it’s possible for a Hollywood thriller to be.
AP
Five of the best ... rock & pop gigs
Lovebox
Booted out of its usual home of east London’s Victoria Park, the summer festival lineup’s hedonistic younger sibling heads west and takes with it a typically eclectic lineup that covers the new (Flohio, Mura Masa), the old (Big Boi, NERD) and the really quite exciting (SZA, Childish Gambino). Expect copious amounts of glitter and a hip-hop karaoke stage.
Gunnersbury Park, W3, Friday 13 to 14 July
Justin Timberlake
While the stench of a misguided authenticity grab still hangs heavy over recent rootin’ tootin’ album Man of the Woods, you can’t deny Timberlake knows his way around a big pop show. We’ve checked and Mirrors, Cry Me a River and SexyBack all make an appearance on the setlist, so co-ordinate loo breaks accordingly.
The SSE Hydro, Glasgow, Saturday 7; The O2, SE10, Monday 9 & Wednesday 11 July
Latitude festival
This year’s annual excuse to Instagram a picture of some pink sheep features a mixed bag of a lineup: on the plus side, one of the headliners is Solange. On the down side, the other two are the Killers and Alt-J. Elsewhere, Laura Marling’s new side project Lump rub shoulders with Wolf Alice, Nao and a live episode of QI.
Henham Park, nr Blythburgh, Thursday 12 to 15 July
Paul Simon
Having first threatened to retire in the 90s, the man who gave us Vampire Weekend has claimed he’s definitely laying his guitar to rest after this jaunt, entitled The Homeward Bound tour. Culminating with a show in London’s Hyde Park on 15 July, these arena shows mark your final chance to bellow You Can Call Me Al at the man himself.
Manchester, Tuesday 10; Glasgow, Wednesday 11; Dublin, Friday 13 July
MC
Curtis Stigers & The Ronnie Scott’s Big Band
American singer Curtis Stigers (pictured) redefines the crooner’s craft – he’s rugged, ironic and emotionally honest, almost as jazz-savvy as the great Kurt Elling in his inventiveness and hip timing. On this UK tour, Stigers and the Ronnie Scott’s Big Band pay classy tribute to Frank Sinatra.
Robin Park Sports Centre, Wigan, Thursday 12; Town Hall, Birmingham, Friday 13; touring to 15 July
JF
Four of the best ... classical concerts
Alzira
There are better-known works coming later (Idomeneo, The Daughter of the Regiment) but it’s the most rarely heard of Verdi’s early operas that kicks off the Buxton festival. Alzira has had few stage revivals since its 1845 premiere; this one is directed by Elijah Moshinsky, conducted by Stephen Barlow and stars Kate Ladner. Buxton Opera House, Saturday 7, Tuesday 10 & Friday 13; to 20 July
Hansel & Gretel
Among the scattering of new works in the Cheltenham festival, Simon Armitage’s retelling of the Grimms’ fairytale promises to be one of the most fascinating. His words are interwoven with music by Matthew Kaner, played by the Goldfield Ensemble, while shadowplay and puppets by Clive Hicks-Jenkins provide the visual framework.
Parabola Arts Centre, Cheltenham, Saturday 7 July
Ensemble Variances
The Paris new-music group founded by composer Thierry Pécou make a rare London appearance. The UK premiere of Pécou’s own Méditation Sur La Fin De L’Espèce, with its processed whale calls, concludes a programme of Mâche, Debussy, Szymanowski and Takemitsu.
Wigmore Hall, W1, Wednesday 11 July
First Night of the Proms
The centenary of the end of the first world war echoes through this summer’s BBC Proms. The opening night features the BBC Symphony Orchestra, under Sakari Oramo, with the first performance of Anna Meredith’s Five Telegrams, based on messages sent by young soldiers in 1918, and uses digital images projected on to the Albert Hall itself.
Royal Albert Hall, SW7, Friday 13 July
AC
Five of the best ... exhibitions
Prints of Darkness: Goya and Hogarth in a Time of European Turmoil
The nightmare vision of Goya looks shockingly modern. His images of war and madness have a contemporary unease. What’s less well known is that he was influenced by the earlier satires of William Hogarth. Both artists depicted asylums and both show the dark side of an age of reason.
The Whitworth, Manchester, Saturday 7 July to August 2019
Rembrandt: Britain’s Discovery of the Master
The humanity and depth of Rembrandt have been recognised in Britain since his own century, when he was collected by Charles I. This investigation of our relationship with an all-time great shows how his paintings came to Britain and how they have inspired artists such as Frank Auerbach and Glenn Brown.
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, Saturday 7 July to 14 October
Memory Palace
Art has always been a way to prolong memory, from decorated ancestral skulls in ancient Jericho to suffragette statues. In contemporary art the process of memory matters as much as what is recalled. Anselm Kiefer’s great ashen history paintings and Tracey Emin’s probings of her personal past (pictured) are among the backward-looking artworks in this group show, which also includes Theaster Gates and Doris Salcedo.
White Cube Bermondsey, SE1, & Mason’s Yard, SW1, Wednesday 11 July to 15 September
Collier Schorr
Art or fashion? Schorr’s photographs inhabit a world of their own somewhere between the glamour industry and conceptual art. They are not so much celebrations of beautiful people as studies of desire and fantasy. Photography by its nature records the outside appearances of people. Schorr somehow inverts that. She photographs the inner life. Definitely art, then.
Modern Art, Helmet Row, EC1, to 1 September
Matisse Prints
We think of Matisse as an artist of colour, glorying in sensual hues, from his early fauve outbursts of sunburnt expressionism to his late cutouts. Yet one of the best ways to see his brilliance is in black and white. His graphic art is a sublime act of mental freedom. This exhibition of rare prints by the quintessential modern master is a chance to sample the simplicity of genius.
Bernard Jacobson Gallery, SW1, to 15 September
JJ
Five of the best ... theatre shows
King Lear
From Chichester Festival Theatre comes what is set to be Ian McKellen’s final major Shakespearean role. Having previously played Edgar and Kent, as well as Lear (for the RSC in 2007), McKellen once again tackles the challenging title role in Jonathan Munby’s intimate production, in which Sinéad Cusack co-stars as Kent.
The Duke of York’s, WC2, Wednesday 11 July to 3 November
End of the Pier
Les Dennis stars in Danny Robins’s new play as a former comedian and household name, now reduced to a lonely life and the occasional panto. That is, until a new national favourite standup (The Inbetweeners’ Blake Harrison) comes knocking on his door asking for help to save his career, so dragging him back unwillingly into the limelight.
Park Theatre, N4, Wednesday 11 July to 11 August
The Band
Despite being put together by Gary Barlow through the BBC talent contest Let It Shine, which sought five limber, clean-cut young things to play the members of a boyband, this isn’t the story of Take That (the show Boy Band was closer to that). This jukebox musical, written by Tim Firth, uses their many hits in a tale of five girl fans in their youth and reminiscing 25 years later. Echoes of Mamma Mia! perhaps? Not a bad template to follow.
King’s Theatre, Glasgow, Saturday 7; The Edinburgh Playhouse, Tuesday 10 to 14 July; touring to 16 March
Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre
It is described as Europe’s first ever pop-up Shakespearean theatre, being a temporary structure not unlike Shakespeare’s Globe in London, set in a Shakespearean village populated by jesters and minstrels with an Elizabethan garden. The venue will host four productions over 10 weeks and the repertoire comprises four popular plays – Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet and Richard III – the latter two of which are directed by Lindsay Posner.
York, to 2 September
Machinal
It was 25 years ago that the National Theatre staged Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 expressionist drama with a vast piece of set machinery that threatened to crush its star, Fiona Shaw. Natalie Abrahami uses rather subtler methods to evoke the slow suffocation of American secretary Helen (Emily Berrington) by a male-dominated society, the drudgery of work and a soulless marriage.
Almeida Theatre, N1, to 21 July
MC
Three of the best ... dance shows
L-E-V: Love Chapter 2
Sadler’s Wells associate artist Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar continue to explore the dark, obsessional hinterland of passion in their latest work. A follow-up to OCD Love, Eyal and Behar’s driven, fractured choreography for their Israeli dance company is a meditation on loneliness, yearning and missed connections.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Friday 13 & 14 July
Kevin and Karen Dance
One of the most cherished couples from the Strictly Come Dancing stable, Karen and Kevin Clifton compile a playlist of their favourite music (Roxanne, Respect, Jailhouse Rock etc) to fuel a brazenly dazzling programme of Latin dance.
Bath, Saturday 7; Cardiff, Sunday 8; Leicester, Friday 13; touring to 29 July
Monumental
Canadian choreographer Dana Gingras revives her aptly titled spectacle Monumental – a blast of high-powered dance performed to music by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and featuring state-of-the-art video projections and text from conceptual artist Jenny Holzer.
Barbican Hall, EC2, Friday 13 & 14 July
JM
- Composite: Manuel Harlan; Richard Haughton; Mathew Parri Thomas; Allstar/Columbia Pictures
