Art
Luc Tuymans: Monkey Business
To 22 May, David Zwirner, W1
Tuymans is a history painter for the age of image saturation: a fruit still-life was his response to the trauma of 9/11. Created during the first lockdown, toy monkeys feature in these new works.
Rachel Whiteread: Internal Objects
To 6 June, Gagosian Grosvenor Hill, W1
The memorialist of negative space, most famously with her cast of a condemned house interior, here eschews the casting process, instead turning found objects into echoes of their former lives.
Ray Lee: Points of Departure
1-23 May, Shoreham Port, Brighton
Created for Brighton festival, composer and theatre-maker Lee’s massive moving mechanical sculptures transform an industrial port into a science-fiction spectacle with dancing light and otherworldly music.
Night Fever: Designing Club Culture
1 May-9 January, V&A Dundee
A buzzy exploration of the design culture around a sweep of renowned nightclubs, this takes in repurposed warehouses, disco and Madchester threads.
Rachel Maclean: Mimi
From 8 May, Jupiter Artland, nr Edinburgh
Nestled like the witch’s cottage at the end of a wooded path, an upside-down toyshop is the site for the video artist’s first permanent outdoor work, tackling capitalism’s hollow promises.
Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty
17 May-22 August, Barbican Art Gallery, EC2
Four decades of the Art Brut champion’s innovation, from paintings mixing pigment with coal dust to his collection of works by so-called outsider artists.
Canaletto: Painting Venice
17 May-5 September, Holburne Museum, Bath
The peerless chronicler of Venice’s waterways created these 23 luminous views for The Duke of Bedford. This exhibition marks the first time they’ve left the family collection in 70 years.
The EY Exhibition: The Making of Rodin
18 May-31 October, Tate Modern, SE1
From The Kiss to The Thinker, it was the everyday that the father of modern sculpture set his sights on. His clay and plaster studies are the focus of this blockbuster show.
Matthew Barney: Redoubt
19 May-25 July, Hayward Gallery, SE1
The maestro of gorgeous, grotesque spectacle premieres his latest film. Shot in Idaho’s mountains, it features a modern Diana tracking an endangered grey wolf.
Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy
19 May-29 August, Whitechapel Gallery, E1
This survey makes the case for Agar as an underappreciated modernist trailblazer. Her collages full of exotic beasts and abstracted patterns are certainly beguiling.
Ellen Gallagher: Ecstatic Draught of Fishes
21 May-31 July, Hauser & Wirth, W1
Gallagher revisits themes from her 2001 work, Watery Ecstatic, about an Afro-Futurist world populated by descendants of women cast overboard from slave ships.
Walter Price: Pearl Lines
21 May-29 August, Camden Art Centre, NW3
The African-American artist’s youth in the south of the US and experiences serving in the navy feed his lush paintings’ study of identity in semi-abstract scenes.
Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life
21 May-27 February, The Hepworth Wakefield
Promising to be the most comprehensive show of the British modernist’s sculpture since her death, this tracks her work’s evolution from pierced abstractions to the strung sculptures.
Samson Kambalu: New Liberia
22 May-5 September, Modern Art Oxford
Kambalu envisions a utopia of racial justice in videos and sculptures drawing on his childhood under Malawian dictatorship, from playground games to ancestral costumes.
David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020
23 May-26 September, Royal Academy of Arts, W1
Hockney, the edgy young gun of 1960s sex and sun, is now a cosy national treasure. His latest works, created on his iPad, look set to affirm his new status as eulogiser of blissful rural landscapes.
Glasgow International 2021
11-27 June, various venues, Glasgow
Postponed edition of the city-wide arts festival. Themed around attention, its questions of image overload and cultural memory have gained new urgency.
Gustave Moreau: The Fables
16 June-17 October, Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury
On public display for the first time in more than a century, these illustrations of Le Fontaine’s Fables will give British audience’s a chance to appreciate Moreau’s opulent and very weird vision.
Charlotte Perriand: The Modern Life
From 19 June, The Design Museum, W8
Defying modernism’s boy’s club, Perriand created some of the 20th century’s most iconic designs, envisioning furniture and interiors using tubular steel and primary-hued textiles for ordinary homes.
Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2021
25 June-26 September, The Photographers’ Gallery, W1
Contending for art photography’s top prize are series on Indian guerrilla conflict (Poulomi Basu), Mexican suburban life (Alejandro Cartagena), hyper-urban China (Cao Fei) and Algerian history (Zineb Sedira).
Paula Rego
7 July-24 October, Tate Britain, SW1
Rego never shies away from the personal or political. This survey, which includes the darkly fantastical Dog Women, will have plenty of bite.
The British Art Show 9
10 July-10 October, Aberdeen Art Gallery
Starting in Aberdeen, and touring through 2022, this delayed five-yearly show takes the temperature of UK art, from new visionaries to established greats.
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
15 July-17 October, Tate Modern, SE1
The Swiss modernist poured her talent into many channels. This survey illuminates her radical fusions of art, craft and design.
Bellotto: The Königstein Views Reunited
22 July-31 October, National Gallery, W1
Together again, the Canaletto pupil’s five huge paintings capture a Saxon fortress near Dresden with a striking solidity that freed him from his master’s shadow.
Folkestone Triennial: The Plot
22 July-2 November, Folkestone
The town’s dancefloors and amusement arcades rank among the inspirations in the art fest’s fifth instalment, themed around urban myths and realities.
Artist Rooms: Louise Bourgeois in Focus
24 July-16 January, Tate Liverpool
A taster of the grande dame of psychosexual experience’s signature obsessions, including the spider mother and the protective, imprisoning cage.
Frank Walter: Music of the Spheres
29 July-25 September, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh
This standout exhibition within this year’s Edinburgh art festival explores the circular paintings of the Caribbean artist, whose talents were discovered after his death.
Grinling Gibbons: Centuries in the Making
3-27 August, Bonhams, W1; September-February, Compton Verney, Warwickshire
Celebrating the tercentenary of the master carver, this exhibition will transfix new generations with his seemingly magical transformation of wood and stone.
Helen Frankenthaler: Radical Beauty
15 September-17 April, Dulwich Picture Gallery, SE21
Frankenthaler’s stains of thinned paint on raw canvas rank among abstract expressionism’s most gorgeous work. This show makes the case for her lesser-known woodblock prints.
Summer Exhibition 2021
22 September-2 January, Royal Academy of Arts, W1
An Indian summer for the OG open submission art show. While the 250-year-old exhibition retains its traditional salon-style hang, the work by rookies and big names now spans all mediums.
The Turner Prize 2021
29 September-12 January, Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry
With previous winners sharing prize money amid cries for unity over competition, the UK’s best-known art prize is gearing up for a makeover, starting with a fresh setting in this year’s City of Culture. SS
Music
Fat White Family
18 May, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea
Airing material from their Moonbathing in February album-in-progress film, Fat White Family play a duo of sit-down shows by the sea, marking what might possibly be the most sedate gigs of their career thus far.
Goat Girl
22 May, The Dome, NW5
Making up for lost time with two shows in one day, south London’s Goat Girl finally get to be all braggy about the excellent On All Fours, their cowpunk-tinged triumph of a second album, which came out in January.
Katy J Pearson
3 June, Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield; then touring
Fuzzy dream-pop through an Americana lens, Pearson takes last year’s impressive debut Return on the road for socially distanced gigs before picking up again in August.
Puppy
7-9 June, Signature Brewery, E17
Situated on what nobody is calling the Walthamstow Riviera, this spacious reservoir-adjacent brewery will attempt to contain the heavy sound of the melodic metallers. Seated headbanging will be tolerated.
Duchess
23 June, Jazz Cafe, NW1
Sink into some summery sounds from Plumstead pop newcomer Duchess, whose light-touch soul and R&B bristle with a carefree energy. A truly impressive young vocalist.
Demae
24 June, Lafayette, N1
A former member of Jill Scott-approved jazzy hip-hop trio Hawk House, Demae is now flying solo. Expect beats from the J Dilla school of experimentalism as well as some fluttering, Minnie Riperton-esque vocals.
The Cause
25-26 June, Tottenham Hale, N17
Only for the hardcore – and possibly shift workers – underground electronica hub The Cause celebrates reopening with a 22-hour-long rave across eight indoor and outdoor spaces.
The Flaming Lips
21 July, Aylesbury Waterside Theatre; touring to 25 July
There’s no need for the Flaming Lips to place members of their audience in giant Covid-safe plastic orbs any more, but you can still count on the psych-dads’ summer shows to have a strong element of WTF-ery about them.
Rachel Chinouriri
29-30 July, St Pancras Old Church, NW1
With a feature on the I May Destroy You soundtrack, Chinouriri’s deliciously laidback vocals are set for big things. There will be early and late shows at St Pancras, giving you four chances to catch her before she’s truly massive.
Lionel Richie
7 August, Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
They don’t come much smoother than the legendary Lionel. Expect nothing but the hits, from Dancing on the Ceiling to All Night Long (All Night). Rigorous and relentless fun.
Michael Kiwanuka
9 August, Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
A special one-off outdoor show from the indie-soul star currently in a vicious tie with Seth Rogen for Best Cosy Cardigan Wearer (Male) of 2021.
Yungblud
9-14 August, O2 Forum Kentish Town, NW5; touring to 19 October
Wondering what a year in lockdown might have done to the emo-pop star’s enthusiasm? The fact he’s booked this hefty run of shows – including five nights at the Forum – suggests he’s more than eager.
Declan McKenna
24 August, O2 Academy Oxford; touring to 24 September
Twisting 1970s AOR into his own special brand of glammy, fired-up indie – and he’s still only 22 years old – McKenna’s second album, Zeros, was a low-key musical highlight of 2020.
Kranium
30 August, Electric Brixton, SW2
Jamaica-born dancehall icon Kranium brings his particularly steamy style to Brixton following major league collabs with Ty Dolla $ign, Tiwa Savage, Wizkid and Davido.
Green Lung
1 September, The Dome, NW5; touring to 5 September
The sacrificial Black Sabbath-indebted Green Lung rise from their woodland burial site to terrify Tufnell Park with doomy riffs and Wicker Man incantations.
Native Harrow
1 September, Louisiana, Bristol; then touring to 11 December
Leaving behind Pennsylvania for Brighton and a new home in the UK, this classy folk-rock duo flip from artsy 1960s pop to psychedelic gospel with an enviable elegance.
Richard Hawley ft John Grant
4 September, The Piece Hall, Halifax
The grandest venue in all of Yorkshire, the plush Italianate piazza of the Piece Hall will host these equally auspicious giants of songwriting. Promises to be pure class.
Margaret Glaspy
7 September, Hare & Hounds, Birmingham, touring to 16 September
Yet another artist who couldn’t support a great 2020 album with any actual gigs, Brooklyn songwriter Glaspy now brings last year’s synth-driven Devotion to fulsome life.
Skullcrusher
8 September, The Lexington, N1
Don’t let the none-more-metal name fool you, Skullcrusher is more Phoebe Bridgers than Pentagram. Her mates call her Helen Ballantine and her sweetly acoustic alt-folk will soothe your knackered soul after a summer of sensory excess.
Martha Wainwright
20 September, Union Chapel, N1
Professionalism and passion are a given in the exceptional company of folk royalty Martha Wainwright. With almost five years since her last album, new material could well be on the cards, too. LC
Jazz
Binker Golding
16 June, Ronnie Scott’s, W1
London saxophonist Binker Golding’s reputation rose alongside global-jazz singer Zara McFarlane and in the Binker & Moses sax/drums duo – this powerful quintet including pianist Sarah Tandy fuses classic jazz and contemporary soul.
Andrew McCormack
24 June, Seven, Leeds
UK pianist-composer Andrew McCormack’s compositions join familiarity and edgy contemporaneity – and if he covers a classic by Thelonious Monk, it always sounds fresh. This McCormack trio gig is in Jazz Leeds’s new Reset series.
Kokoroko
2-4 July, Love Supreme festival, Glynde
A punchy horn section including trumpeter Sheila Maurice-Grey and saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi inject the jazz element into the rough-hewn Afrobeat sound of inimitable live band Kokoroko, on popular weekender Love Supreme’s return.
Ambrose Akinmusire
13 September, Jazz Cafe, NW1
Like Kamasi Washington and Thundercat, trumpeter Akinmusire contributed to Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly – but this quartet gig will show why his musicality also gets him compared with Miles Davis.
Curtis Stigers
16 July 2022, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
American singer-saxophonist Curtis Stigers was a pop star for his soundtrack hit on 1992 movie The Bodyguard, but classic lost-love songs and hip swing have since made him a jazz festival favourite. JF
Classical
Kát’a Kabanová
20 May-19 June, Glyndebourne Opera House, Lewes
Glyndebourne’s ambitious summer season opens with the latest in its series of Janáček operas, a new staging of Kát’a Kabanová, directed by Damiano Michieletto and conducted by Robin Ticciati, with Kateřina Knĕžíková in the title role.
Rautio Trio
30 May, Kings Place, N1
The London Chamber Music Society can admit audiences for the final concerts in its current season. It ends with the Rautio Trio’s programme, pairing a first performance of Brian Elias’s Piano Trio with Schubert’s great E Flat Trio.
Die Walküre
1–14 June, Longborough, Moreton-in-Marsh
Longborough’s festival programme will largely be presented in a big top but Die Walküre, the second instalment of its latest Ring cycle, stays in its opera house – a concert staging, conducted by Anthony Negus and directed by Amy Lane.
Opening Night of the Proms
30 July, Royal Albert Hall, SW7
A shortened Proms season begins at the end of July and runs until 11 September. No details have been released so far, but rumours are that the opening concert will be conducted by the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s principal guest, Dalia Stasevska.
La Traviata
4-10 August, Nevill Holt, Leicestershire
Nevill Holt has moved its season to August to minimise the risk of cancellation, and is staging its productions in a purpose-built outdoor auditorium. La Traviata is directed by Jamie Manton, with Susana Gaspar and Luis Gomes heading the cast. AC
Comedy
Mark Watson’s Carpool Comedy Club
30 April, The Hop Farm, Tonbridge; touring to 11 June
Having delivered gags from the vaccine queue, the innovative comic stages another series of drive-in gigs, aided by Nish Kumar, Nina Conti and Dara Ó Briain, plus cuisine from big-name chefs.
100 Club comedy festival
31 May-5 June, 100 Club, W1
Phil Wang, Flo & Joan and Ahir Shah are among those passing the comedy baton over six nights. Completists can purchase a ticket for the entire thing for just over £90.
Bristol Comedy Garden
2-6 June; The Downs, Bristol
What the now fully open-air festival lacks in weather-proofing, it more than makes up for in stellar names. Simon Amstell, Bridget Christie, Lolly Adefope, Sara Pascoe and Tom Allen are among those gracing the bill.
Lou Sanders
19 June, The Forum, Northallerton; touring to 10 September
Say Hello to Your New Step-Mummy is both the title of Sanders’ latest show and a handy evocation of her absurd antiheroine persona. Fans of spiritual healing and self-congratulatory musings can catch her rescheduled dates this summer.
Rob Beckett
16 August, Churchill Theatre, Bromley; touring to 27 March
As one half of pandemic podcast smash Lockdown Parenting Hell, Beckett has proven his blokey affability belies a supersonic gag reflex. He’ll require little warming up before his live return then.
Sindhu Vee
11 September, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield; touring to 18 February
Having swapped City banking for standup, Vee combines everywoman observations with trading floor-style self-assurance. Soon she’ll be exchanging the stage for the big screen in the new Matilda movie.
Mo Gilligan
15 September, Hexagon, Reading; touring to 18 December
The Londoner made his name spoofing geezers and grime MCs; now he’s a Channel 4 chatshow host and Masked Singer judge. He takes his Drake-endorsed catchphrases on the road. RA
Theatre
Ghosts
26 April-9 May, Glasgow
Adura Onashile is a star on the rise. She wrote Expensive Shit, set in a Scottish toilet and Fela Kuti’s nightclub in Lagos, and was due to portray Medea at last year’s Edinburgh international festival. Her latest is an audio drama about empire, to be heard on a walk through Glasgow.
Rider Spoke
1-23 May, Brighton
Saddle up for Blast Theory’s cycle ride around the city, an interactive performance inviting you to share secrets with other participants. Part of Brighton festival curated by Lemn Sissay.
The Greatest Play in the History of the World …
7 May, Hull Truck; touring to 3 July
Ian Kershaw’s monologue – written for and performed by his wife, Julie Hesmondhalgh – is a romantic fantasy whose characters are represented by umpteen pairs of shoes.
And Then Come the Nightjars
25 May-3 June, The Minack Theatre, Cornwall
This open-air cliffside stage has the promise of dolphins as its backdrop. The plays are pretty good, too: its summer season features Bea Roberts’s portrait of change in rural communities.
Four Quartets
25 May-5 June, Theatre Royal, Bath; touring to 10 July
Ralph Fiennes directs and stars in a new solo adaptation of TS Eliot’s poems about time, faith and mortality. There’s a first-rate creative team including set designer Hildegard Bechtler.
Re: emerge
From May, Harold Pinter Theatre, SW1
Sonia Friedman Productions’ season of new plays includes Yasmin Joseph’s J’Ouvert, set during Notting Hill carnival, and Anna X, inspired by fake heiress Anna Sorokin.
Under Milk Wood
16 June-24 July, National Theatre, SE1
A new version of Dylan Thomas’s “play for voices” about a Welsh seaside village is staged in a reconfigured in-the-round Olivier theatre. Michael Sheen stars.
Hamlet
21 June-4 September, Theatre Royal Windsor
Fifty years after first playing the role, Ian McKellen is Hamlet again in an age-, gender- and colour-blind staging. Steven Berkoff and Jenny Seagrove are among the company.
Piaf
2-17 July, Nottingham Playhouse
The sensational Jenna Russell stars as Parisian singer Édith Piaf in a cabaret-style staging of Pam Gems’s bittersweet drama. No, you won’t regret rien.
Requiem
15-18 September, Pitlochry Festival Theatre
The theatre’s summer season, performed in an outdoor amphitheatre, concludes with Jo Clifford and Lesley Orr’s production marking the lives lost during the pandemic. CW
Dance
Rambert / Rambert2
27 May, Theatre Royal Plymouth; touring to 27 Oct
Parallel tours from Rambert’s main and junior companies. The main crew dance a stage version of digital show Draw from Within; the young’ uns’ double bill includes Sharon Eyal’s intense Killer Pig.
Birmingham Royal Ballet: Curated by Carlos
10-12 June, Birmingham Repertory Theatre
A triple bill curated by Carlos Acosta with two premieres: Daniela Cardim’s Imminent, about looming change; and Miguel Altunaga’s City of a Thousand Trades, hailing Brum’s industrial heritage.
Romeo + Juliet
8 September, Birmingham Hippodrome
Rosie Kay transports R&J to contemporary Birmingham, exploring gang allegiances and love across racial divides on a series of hot summer nights. LW
Cinema
Sound of Metal
17 May
Riz Ahmed puts in a powerful (Oscar-nominated) turn as a drummer who loses his hearing – and with it, his identity. Can he find a new one within a deaf community?
Nomadland
17 May
Chloé Zhao’s awards-magnet is a soulful survey of life’s outsiders, but also a great American landscape movie, full of wide-open highways and golden-hour vistas. Best seen on the big screen.
Cruella
28 May
What turned Cruella De Vil from a wide-eyed young fashionista into a puppy-skinning monster? Consider this prequel the Joker of Disney’s 101 Dalmatians universe, with Emma Stone as our future villain-to-be, vamping off against Emma Thompson.
A Quiet Place Part II
4 June
More pin-drop suspense as Emily Blunt and family tiptoe down the post-apocalyptic road, running into Cillian Murphy and away from noise-sensitive monsters.
Nobody
9 June
Bob “don’t call me Saul” Odenkirk tries on a John Wick badass role and finds it a good fit in this crowd-pleasing beat-’em-up. As with Wick, he’s a peaceful guy who’s pushed too far …
In the Heights
18 June
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s pre-Hamilton hymn to New York Latino life bursts on to the big screen. Singing, dancing and being near other people never looked so enticing.
Another Round
25 June
An experiment in controlled alcoholism has hilariously messy consequences for four Danish teachers in Thomas Vinterberg’s midlife-crisis tragi-comedy, led by Mads Mikkelsen.
Black Widow
9 July
Scarlett Johansson’s long-serving Avenger gets her solo superhero spot at last, though her estranged Russian family threaten to upstage her (Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz).
Fast & Furious 9
9 July
What popcorn was made for: Vin Diesel and the Furious “family” bond through more muscle-car thrills and improbable stunts. Beefing up the cast are John Cena and Charlize Theron.
Secret Cinema Presents Dirty Dancing
From 14 July
Get Baby out of the corner for a homage to the dance/romance fave, set in a 60s summer camp somewhere near London. Expect cocktails, interactive scenes and lots of (clean) dancing.
Space Jam: A New Legacy
16 July
NBA star LeBron James leads an update of the “crazy but it worked” family-friendly oddity, teaming up with the Looney Tunes gang for a tournament played according to cartoon rules.
The Green Knight
30 July
A dose of Arthurian mysticism based on the 14th-century poem, directed by David Lowery. Dev Patel plays Arthur’s nephew, Sir Gawain, who must face his (green) demons.
Jungle Cruise
30 July
Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt and a boatload of CGI bring the theme-park ride to life for an adventure film hoping to be this decade’s Pirates of the Caribbean (or perhaps The African Queen).
The Suicide Squad
6 August
Guardians of the Galaxy’s James Gunn corrals another bunch of mavericks into wisecracking japes, including Margot Robbie, Idris Elba and Peter Capaldi.
People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan
18 August
MC Grindah, DJ Beats, Chabuddy G and the rest of the Kurupt FM massive head east in a spin-off of the beloved BBC mockumentary. It could be this summer’s Inbetweeners Movie.
Candyman
27 August
A new chapter to the urban legend from Jordan Peele and Nia DaCosta, returning to the horror icon’s now-gentrified Chicago stomping ground, where a new generation revive him at their peril.
Jackass 4
3 September
Johnny Knoxville and his masochistic pranksters return for more “don’t try this at home, or anywhere else” stunt comedy. Blow away the blues by watching people maim themselves!
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
3 September
The Marvel universe heads into east Asian realms, spearheaded by the martial artist superhero (played by Chinese-Canadian actor Simu Liu). Also in the mix are Awkwafina and Michelle Yeoh.
Dune
17 September
Denis Villeneuve’s take on the sci-fi epic has a lot of hype to live up to. Expect big landscapes and a big cast, including Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac and Zendaya.
No Time to Die
30 September
We’ve been expecting him for so long we’d almost given up, but at last Bond returns. Expect spy thrills, new blood (Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch) and (supposedly) the end of the Daniel Craig era. SR
