Going out: Cinema
Past Lives
Out now
Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo and John Magaro, this delicate and sensitive drama explores the romantic tensions that arise in a New York marriage when one partner’s childhood friend visits from South Korea, seemingly with more on his mind than just a vacation. A fine directorial debut from Celine Song.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
Out now
It’s reunion time for the Portokalos family, with writer-director Nia Vardalos once more starring as Toula, who back in 2002 married hunky Ian (John Corbett) despite complications arising from her extensive ensemble of characterful relatives. This time, the family are descending on the small village where Toula’s late dad grew up.
The Nun 2
Out now
What do Baroness von Troken in The Princess Diaries, the scary face in Mulholland Drive and the demon nun from The Nun have in common? They’re all played by actor Bonnie Aarons, and she’s back in the habit here to terrorise in another gothic chiller, set in a boarding school in France.
School of Rock – 20th Anniversary rerelease
Out now
It is hard to believe it is 20 years since Jack Black pretended to be a teacher at posh prep school in order to help some children win a Battle of the Bands contest. See this amiable comedy again and marvel at the lax DBS checks of a supposedly elite educational establishment. Catherine Bray
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Going out: Gigs
Shania Twain
Thursday 14 to 29 September; tour starts Glasgow
Get your Stetson and leopard print Lycra out of storage because Canada’s country-pop queen is coming to the UK. Ostensibly it’s in support of February’s UK No 1 album, Queen of Me, but expect a litany of hits from 1997’s gazillion-selling Come on Over. Michael Cragg
Matthew Halsall
Newcastle upon Tyne, Wednesday 13; Leeds, Thursday 14; Nottingham, Friday 15; touring to 30 September
Trumpeter-composer Halsall creates a personal soundscape from eastern-leaning influences and the meditative 60s jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. At these gigs, he’ll lead his fine octet through new album An Ever Changing View. John Fordham
Davido
O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester, Wednesday 13 September
David Adedeji Adeleke has helped turn Afrobeats into a global concern. His most recent album, the Skepta-assisted Timeless, made the UK Top 10, so expect to hear that heavily represented at these shows. MC
Ainadamar
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, Saturday, 9, 17 & 26 September; touring to 22 November
Welsh National Opera’s new season opens with Osvaldo Golijov’s flamenco-haunted depiction of the life and death of the poet Federico García Lorca. In this revival by Deborah Colker first seen at Scottish Opera, Hannah Hipp takes the role of Lorca, with Jaquelina Livieri as Xirgu; Matthew Kofi Waldren conducts. Andrew Clements
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Going out: Stage
A View From the Bridge
Octagon Theatre Bolton, to 30 September
This co-production is directed by Headlong’s new artistic director Holly Race Roughan, who will explore the human price of a country’s immigration policies through Arthur Miller’s devastating play. Starring the equally brilliant Jonathan Slinger and Nancy Crane. Miriam Gillinson
Sorry We Didn’t Die at Sea
Park theatre, London, to 30 September
The first English translation of Italian playwright Emanuele Aldrovandi’s satirical and absurdist take on Europe’s migration crisis. Set in the near future, a group of travellers are forced to flee to the very countries they’d once closed their borders to. MG
Brian Butterfield
11 September to 4 October; tour starts Exeter
Peter Serafinowicz’s 00s sketch show was sadly short lived, but one cult character has managed to live on regardless: catastrophically blundering business guru Butterfield. Now he’s set to appear in the flesh for the very first time, as the reliably creative Serafinowicz takes him on the road. Rachel Aroesti
Dancing City
Various venues, London, Saturday 9 & Sunday 10 September
A weekend dedicated to outdoor dance as part of the Greenwich and Docklands international festival. Acts include a dance on a trampoline, and one on a treadmill, acro-dance from France, kathak, catwalks, the brilliant Candoco,and a piece created by Royal Ballet dancers Kristen McNally and Alexander Campbell. All shows are free and unticketed. Lyndsey Winship
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Going out: Art
China’s Hidden Century
British Museum, London, to 8 October
A spectacular, absorbing journey through the last century of Imperial China, from the refined world of the court to the tough lives of ordinary people. The violence of China’s 19th-century history is startling. Religious risings and opium wars rocked an ancient society, paving the way for revolutions to come.
The Stuff of Life/The Life of Stuff
Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, 10 September to 14 January
An immersive gathering of assemblage, bricolage, and other art forms that use found stuff. Art has been incorporating and recycling everyday materials ever since Picasso and Braque put bits of chair covering and newspaper into their cubist still lifes more than a century ago. Today it has new climatic urgency.
Julianknxx
Barbican Centre: The Curve, London, 14 September to 11 February
This poet, film-maker and artist from Sierra Leone presents a work about African migrations and the fluid nature of identity. Choirs from all over Europe join in singing a single chorus: “We are what’s left of us”, in a lyrical multimedia installation that questions representations of Africa and the Black experience.
Decades
National Gallery of Scotland: Modern Two, Edinburgh, to 7 January
This attempt to tell the story of modern art in chronological order juxtaposes artistic trends in Scotland and Britain with revolutionary movements across Europe. How do 20th-century British modernists such as Wilhelmina Barns-Graham compare with their continental contemporaries Mondrian and Max Ernst? The survey stretches from 1900 to 1980s postmodernism. Jonathan Jones
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Staying in: Streaming
The Morning Show
Apple TV+, Wednesday 13 September
Still looking to fill that Succession-shaped hole? This high-octane, starry (Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon) drama about trouble at the top of a TV network may be just the ticket. Especially as season three features Jon Hamm’s tech billionaire, who has plans to rescue the firm from bankruptcy - an offer with strings very much attached.
Wilderness
Prime Video, Friday 15 September
Jenna Coleman has made her stock in trade tense, bingeable and often highly disturbing dramas about people who suddenly find themselves doing terrible things. Following The Cry and The Serpent, we now have Wilderness, in which she plays Liv, a woman who wreaks bloody revenge on a cheating boyfriend.
Coco Chanel: Unbuttoned
BBC Two & iPlayer, Friday 15 September
With her uncanny ability to shape the trends of the day, does Coco Chanel qualify as the first ever influencer? That’s the angle explored in this documentary – part of the storied Arena strand – tracing her incredible journey from penniless, peasant beginnings to a fashion giant who revolutionised womenswear between the wars.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Netflix, Friday 15 September
Most sitcoms mellow with age, but not this incessantly crude, provocative and giddily funny buddy comedy, which returns to prod and satirise modern cultural mores for the 16th time. This season’s scrapes involve crypto, politically correct arcades and the gang attempt ing to pitch a new booze brand to guest stars Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston. RA
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Staying in: Games
The Isle Tide Hotel
Out Tuesday 12 September, all platforms
Part of the burgeoning interactive film genre, this live-action mystery has you trying to rescue a daughter you’ve never met from a masked cult.
Monster Hunter Now
Out Thursday 14 September, smartphones
Capcom’s dragon-slaying series gets the Pokémon Go treatment for phones: roam your neighbourhood to find creatures to take on, then fight ’em in 75 seconds. Keza MacDonald
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Staying in: Albums
James Blake – Playing Robots Into Heaven
Out now
Singer-producer James Blake launched this sixth album with a curveball. Rather than featuring his haunted vocal and glitching electronics, single Big Hammer is a trap-adjacent party-starter complete with chopped up dancehall samples. Follow-up Loading, however, is more typical Blake; all plaintive melodies and textural shifts.
Tirzah – trip9love…???
Out now
As with 2018’s Devotion and 2021’s Colourgrade, the curiously titled trip9love…??? finds the Essex lo-fi pop practitioner collaborating with Oscar-nominated producer Mica Levi. Here, the pair create 11 off-kilter, R&B-adjacent tracks all crafted around one single drum beat, but augmented by piano loops, flashes of distortion and pretty, earworm melodies.
The Chemical Brothers – For That Beautiful Feeling
Out now
Nearly 30 years since their debut album, Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands return with this 10th dance opus, featuring vocal assistance from Beck (on excellent new single Skipping Like a Stone) and French experimentalist Halo Maud.
Olivia Rodrigo – Guts
Out now
The 20-year-old former Disney employee turned pop superstar returns with her follow-up to 2021’s Grammy-winning debut, Sour. Like its predecessor, Guts transforms toxic relationships into both stately balladry (lead single Vampire) and careening, emotionally blood-letting pop-punk (the excellent Bad Idea Right?). There’s also a career-spanning retrospective book Paused in Cosmic Reflectiondue next month. MC
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Staying in: Brain food
Wrestlers
Wednesday 13 September, Netflix
Some call it a sham but Al Snow sees wrestling as a storytelling artform. This dramatic series follows Snow’s efforts to keep his Kentucky wrestling gym afloat and train the next generation of WWE stars.
Your Mama’s Kitchen
Podcast
The Obamas’ production company Higher Ground presents its latest audio series, featuring journalist Michele Norris conducting heartwarming and insightful interviews with guests including Kerry Washington and Matthew Broderick on the nostalgia of their childhood kitchens.
Squid: Lessons, A Story by Paul Ewen
YouTube
Experimental rock group Squid have commissioned a charming short story to accompany their latest album, O Monolith. Read by comic Tim Key, it’s a tale of a peculiar geography teacher finding a new lease on life. Ammar Kalia
