Going out: Cinema
Origin
Out now
Ava DuVernay (13th, When They See Us) has a consistent track record of making films that engage subtly with questions of racial identity in the US. This latest is no different: a biopic of the author Isabel Wilkerson (played here by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), during the period that she was writing her nonfiction book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
Out now
Hailed as a masterpiece by none other than John Waters, this anarchic, darkly comic provocation from Radu Jude sees a harried production assistant, Angela (Ilinca Manolache), commissioned by a multinational to produce a “safety at work video”.
Copa 71
Out now
Documentary-makers Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine team up to tell the untold story of the 1971 unofficial Women’s World Cup, using previously unseen archive to reconstruct a tournament between England, Argentina, Mexico, France, Denmark and Italy, witnessed at the time by record crowds of more than 100,000 people at the Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium, but since then oddly neglected and dismissed since.
BFI Flare festival
13 to 24 March
The BFI’s annual film festival celebrating all things LGBTQ+ kicks off with the UK premiere of Amrou Al-Kadhi’s Layla, fresh from a warm reception stateside at Sundance. Starring Bilal Hasna as an Arab drag queen who falls for a guy who works in finance, it’s a story of stilettos and star-crossed lovers. Catherine Bray
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Going out: Gigs
Terence Blanchard ft the E-Collective, Turtle Island Quartet
Ronnie Scott’s, London, 14 & 15 March
New Orleans trumpeter Blanchard shares his old friend Wynton Marsalis’s virtues of tonal expressiveness and flawless technique, but he’s also a distinctive and adventurous composer – of jazz, operas, Spike Lee movie scores and more. His exciting E-Collective band is augmented here by the Turtle Island string quartet. John Fordham
Amaarae
HERE at Outernet, London, 12 & 13 March
Postponed from last September, Ghanaian-American Amaarae finally gets the chance to showcase 2023’s critically lauded album Fountain Baby. Full of undulating songs that fuse pop, Afrobeats, post-punk and futuristic R&B, keep an ear out for sweat-soaked astrology anthem, Co-Star.
Pixies
9 to 18 March; starts Dublin
For the first time, Boston’s alt-rock greats perform their final two 4AD albums, 1990’s Bossanova and 1991’s Trompe le Monde. Chances are there will also be songs from their late-80s purple patch as well as from their four post-2004 reunion LPs. Michael Cragg
Time and Tides
St Andrews, 13 March; Edinburgh, 14 March; Glasgow, 15 March
Violinist Pekka Kuusisto holds a visiting artist’s chair with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and his latest residency includes two UK premieres. He’s the soloist in Time and Tides, the concerto composed for him by Anna Clyne, while he will be joined by soprano Ruby Hughes for Helen Grime’s It Will Be Spring Soon. Andrew Clements
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Going out: Stage
Glasgow comedy festival
Various venues, Glasgow, 13 to 31 March
Scotland’s second biggest comedy extravaganza kicks off this week with shows from established standups (Stewart Lee, Ed Gamble, Josie Long) and promising new faces (Vittorio Angelone, Paddy Young) – plus homecomings for Glaswegian stars Elaine C Smith and Susie McCabe. Rachel Aroesti
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy
Garrick theatre, London, to 4 May
Dancing between hope and brutality, Ryan Calais Cameron’s drama has had three sold-out runs and is once again back in the West End. Book ahead to catch this raw, poetic production.
Self-Raising
Mercury theatre, Colchester, 9 March; touring to 23 March
After years of leading the stories of deaf and disabled artists of acclaimed company Gaeae, Jenny Sealey takes to the stage herself. Softly revealing layers of her own life, Self-Raising explores family relationships, deep-rooted ableism and the ties that keep us together. Secrets are stirred throughout. Kate Wyver
Mark Bruce Company: Frankenstein
Memorial Theatre, Frome, Fri & 16 Mar; touring to 28 March
Gothic-tinged, music-driven storytelling is choreographer Mark Bruce’s signature, and his latest is a classic: Frankenstein. The brilliant Jonathan Goddard plays the monster, with Cordelia Braithwaite, best known as a dancer with Matthew Bourne, as his bride. An eclectic score features music by Chopin, Penderecki and Arvo Pärt. Lyndsey Winship
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Going out: Art
The Edinburgh Seven Tapestry
V&A, London: Medieval Gallery, to 27 May
Scottish artist Christine Borland has designed this tapestry, made by Dovecot Studios, that remembers the first seven women to matriculate at a British university. The Edinburgh Seven went to Edinburgh University and campaigned to become medical doctors, leading to a parliamentary act in 1876 allowing women into the medical profession.
Martin Boyce
Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, to 9 June
In the intelligent and witty work of this Turner prize-winner, you are in a neverland poised between the utopian beauty of early 20th-century modernist art and design, and the scrappy realities of our world. Glasgow’s estates may haunt his art but Boyce is now a sculpture professor in Germany.
An Idea of a Life
Women’s Museum, London, 9 March to 21 Decmber
This exhibition curated by Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf explores the women-only community that once existed at Barking Abbey, east London. Meera Shakti Osborne, Lesley Asare and Sarina Mantle show art that meditates on convent life in the middle ages, alongside archaeological reconstructions. The show opens a new museum of women’s history.
Aesthetica Art Prize
York Art Gallery, to 21 April
What is art? The title of York’s international art prize invites a philosophical approach to that question. The range of works by 20 participants in everything from photography to installation shows what a problem it is to compare artworks and rate them in a post-Duchampian age. Wear your thinking cap. Jonathan Jones
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Staying in: Streaming
Girls5Eva
Netflix, 14 March
This Tina Fey-produced comedy about a 90s girlband who get a second chance at fame gets a second chance itself courtesy of Netflix (its original broadcaster, Peacock, canned it after two seasons). The reunited pals hit the road for a comeback tour, encountering excessive wealth and parental reckonings along the way.
Manhunt
Apple TV+, 14 March
Tobias Menzies plays Edwin Stanton, the politician who tracked down Abraham Lincoln’s killer in this new drama from Friday Night Lights writer Monica Beletsky. But expect more than a high-octane horse-and-cart chase through 1860s America – Beletsky has created a portrait of the nation that reflects the volatility of the civil war’s final days.
The Dry
ITVX, 14 March
Thanks to the hype surrounding crime drama Kin, Irish TV is having a moment – something this returning comedy-drama plays right into. Starring Roisin Gallagher (Sky’s The Lovers) as Shiv – a woman returning to the bosom of her dysfunctional family as she attempts to recover from alcoholism – series two sees the clan on an apparently even keel, but disaster is never far away.
Accused: The Hampstead Paedophile Hoax
Channel 4, 12 March, 9pm
Fans of podcaster Alexi Mostrous’s excellent work will already be familiar with this brain-melting story of a mother and her boyfriend who spread lies about a satanic cult based in a north London school – a claim that fuelled conspiracy theories across the globe. It’s now the subjct of a feature-length doc. RA
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Staying in: Games
Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story
Out 13 March; Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PC, PS4/5
Take a trip back to the 80s with this interactive documentary about one of the UK’s most eccentric and renowned independent developers.
Highwater
Out 14 March; PC, PS4/5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch
Humanity has failed to heed the catastrophic warnings of climate scientists and the whole world is now an open sea. Join a gang who hope to escape on a rumoured rocket to Mars. Keza MacDonald
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Staying in: Albums
The Jesus and Mary Chain – Glasgow Eyes
Out now
It’s comforting to find Scottish noise merchants the Jesus and Mary Chain exactly where we left them after 2017’s Damage and Joy. This eighth album, they’ve said, is exactly what people expect from them. Chemical Animal is a slowly unfurling, shoegazey epic, while Jamcod is post-punk par excellence.
Ariana Grande – Eternal Sunshine
Out now
After previously rattling out six albums in quick succession, Eternal Sunshine is Grande’s first record since 2020’s loved up Positions. She’s since got divorced and been embroiled in tabloid scandal, both of which fuel lead single Yes, and?, a house throwback that politely suggests everyone mind their business.
Kim Gordon – The Collective
Out now
The erstwhile Sonic Youth bassist returns with her second solo album and follow-up to 2019’s No Home Record. As with that album, The Collective explores the outer reaches of alt-pop, touching on trap (Shelf Warmer), industrial noise (I Don’t Miss My Mind) and, on the excellent BYE BYE, dissolving hip-hop.
Bleachers – Bleachers
Out now
When he’s not co-producing albums for the likes of the 1975, Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff also fronts his own band. On this fourth album, their first on the Dirty Hit label, Antonoff et al continue their penchant for Springsteen-esque rock anthems, not least on lead single Modern Girl. MC
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Staying in: Brain food
What the Hell Is My Job?!
Podcast
Bite-sized and often strange, this gem of a series interviews members of the public about their working lives and the fulfilment or frustrations of having a job. Hear from an immersive theatre-maker, a reiki master and more.
Big Think
YouTube
Experts and academics host this collection of high-production value video essays exploring the world’s most enduring ideas. Begin with political scientist Ian Bremmer’s analysis of the biggest threats facing people across the globe in 2024.
Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War
Netflix, 12 March
Packed with first-hand testimony from the politicians, protesters and people living through the uncertainty of the cold war, this detailed series traces the complex postwar relationship between the US and Soviet Union. Ammar Kalia
