Going out: Cinema
Twisters
Out now
A sequel to the fondly remembered 1996 action film Twister, this new film also focuses on people who chase storms for kicks, and why not? Actually, the “why not” becomes clear pretty quickly, but you can’t make an action omelette without at least a few characters boldly going where they probably shouldn’t have gone.
Thelma
Out now
Films starring characters over the age of 90 are few and far between, but step forward Thelma Post (June Squibb), the 93-year-old protagonist of writer-director Josh Margolin’s indie comic caper, in which one woman sets out to retrieve $10,000 she’s been scammed into handing over to fraudsters.
Blur: To the End
Out now
Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree formed one of the more successful acts to emerge from the UK’s 1990s Cool Britannia music scene, and have endured in a way that only a very small number of their contemporaries have managed. A new documentary explores why.
Janet Planet
Out now
This 1990s-set mother-daughter drama wowed critics at festivals with its subtle take on a parent and child’s relationship in rural western Massachusetts, and announces debut director Annie Baker as a new voice to watch. Starring Julianne Nicholson and Zoe Ziegler. Catherine Bray
* * *
Going out: Gigs
Madeleine Peyroux
Barbican Hall, London, 21 July
A great interpreter of poetic lyrics, whether her own or those of Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan, singer-songwriter Peyroux displays a rare mix of haunting vulnerability and quiet power. This gig highlights her latest album, Let’s Walk. John Fordham
Latitude
Henham Park, Suffolk, 25 to 28 July
Famed for its multicoloured sheep, beautiful lakes and woods-based singsongs, Latitude festival regularly offers a stellar musical lineup. This year the headliners include Duran Duran, London Grammar and Kasabian. Michael Cragg
Bicep
SWG3, Glasgow, 25 July
Belfast’s Matt McBriar and Andy Ferguson, AKA Bicep, started the year by launching Chroma – a label, event series and hybrid live-DJ audiovisual show. The latter visual spectacular arrives in Glasgow. Expect a sensory overload unlike anything else. MC
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Royal Albert Hall, London, 22 July
In their first Prom of the summer, the Welsh orchestra and conductor Ryan Bancroft reunite Schoenberg’s early tone poem Pelleas und Melisande with Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid), Alexander von Zemlinsky’s orchestral fantasy based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale. Andrew Clements
***
Going out: Art
Liaqat Rasul
Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham, to 2 November
There’s more to the Welsh city Wrexham than a Hollywood-tinged soccer team. Locally born Liaqat Rasul started out working on the market here when he was still at school, before becoming a fashion designer and artist. He looks back in this homecoming exhibition at the city’s innovative cultural space.
Paris 1924
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, to 3 November
The last time the Olympics were in Paris, the French capital was the centre of modern art. That year, André Breton published the Surrealist Manifesto and Left Bank cafes were full of wild new ideas and artists. This exhibition includes Robert Delaunay’s kaleidoscopic celebrations of light and modernity.
Phantom Hymn
Modern Art, London, to 14 September
Eerie and troubling images of the human figure haunt this group exhibition by four American and European artists. Michelle Uckotter’s paintings depict women alone in mysterious and sinister settings. Joseph Yaeger specialises in implicitly violent hyperrealist canvases. Michael Ho and Michael E Smith add to the subtle sense of danger.
Lina Iris Viktor
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, to 19 January
If you’ve never visited this small yet mind-expanding museum then make it a summer treat, for no one leaves without being inspired. Viktor’s exhibition of glistening new works responds to the collection amassed by Soane that spans and summarises world myth. Her global treasures mirror his compendium of sculpture suspended over a crypt. Jonathan Jones
***
Going out: Stage
Jessie Cave
Dance City, Newcastle upon Tyne, 25 July
Cave’s work epitomises the unboundaried, prolific, staunchly DIY art of the oversharing era. Her new show, An Ecstatic Display, sees her mine her private life in bracingly frank style yet again; topics include monogamy, anxiety and her addiction to giving birth. Rachel Aroesti
Hotbed festival
Cambridge Junction, 20 & 21 July
This small but mighty festival of new writing offers a number of shows about to head on tour, exploring topics from homelessness to the politics of toys. One not to miss is Albatross, Martha Loader’s striking new play about motherhood in the age of climate catastrophe. Kate Wyver
The Daughters of Róisín
Lyric theatre, Belfast, 23 to 26 July
A fallen woman. An archaic attitude. A rallying cry. Inspired by her great-grandmother, Aoibh Johnson’s one-woman play explores state-sanctioned abuse against Irish women who get pregnant out of wedlock. KW
Northern Rascals
Square Chapel Arts Centre, Halifax, 25 to 28 July
An exciting young dance-theatre company based in Yorkshire, Northern Rascals’ new show, Reviving Her, uses the real voices of young women to reflect on the journeys women today make through their lives. Lyndsey Winship
Staying in: Streaming
Time Bandits
Apple TV+, 24 July
What We Do in the Shadows’ Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement reunite (alongside The Inbetweeners writer Iain Morris) for this reboot of the 1981 Terry Gilliam fantasy film. Telling the story of a boy who embarks on a multi-dimensional adventure with a gaggle of thieves, this TV version boasts Lisa Kudrow as the gang’s leader.
The Decameron
Netflix, 25 July
Boccaccio’s 14th-century story collection – whose framing device involves a group of hedonistic nobles sheltering from the Black Death near Florence – is the latest vintage material to get turned into an irreverently titillating series. Yet the cast for this one is a cut above, with Zosia Mamet, Tony Hale and Saoirse-Monica Jackson.
Hell Jumper
BBC Two & iPlayer, 24 July, 9pm
The conflict in Ukraine has been dubbed the first social media war; this documentary captures its confluence of technology and nightmarish reality. Collated from the first-person footage, voice notes and texts of volunteer “evacuators”, it centres on 28-year-old Chris Parry from Cornwall, who lost his life attempting to rescue civilians.
Linford
BBC One & iPlayer, 25 July, 8.30pm
Before 2024 Olympics coverage takes over the TV schedules, take a trip down memory lane with one of our most iconic athletes – that’s Linford Christie, for anyone under 30 – as he revisits the triumphs and the trials of his astonishing career. RA
***
Staying in: Games
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
PC, Xbox, PS4/5, out now
Protect a dancing priestess from hell-sent demons as she purifies a mountain in this strange but fascinating combination of Japanese action and tower-defence.
Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure
PC, PS4/5, Nintendo Switch, out 25 July
Whenever you move your cute little runaway character in this comic-book RPG, the whole world moves with them, like a complex sliding-block puzzle. You have to think twice (or thrice) about how to get where you want to go.
Keza MacDonald
***
Staying in: Albums
Glass Animals – I Love You So Fucking Much
Out now
Looking to shake off their one-hit wonder tag – 2020’s US chart-topper Heat Waves has hit a staggering 3bn Spotify streams – the Oxford four-piece return with this fourth studio album. Produced by frontman Dave Bayley, lead single A Tear in Space (Airlock) continues their penchant for earworm electropop.
Lava La Rue – Starface
Out now
The London-based singer-songwriter, rapper and activist unleashes their long-awaited debut, a sci-fi concept album starring the titular character. Billed as a lesbian Ziggy Stardust, Starface has been sent to Earth to study, and save, humanity, as outlined on the elegantly scuffed‑up pop of Humanity.
Childish Gambino – Bando Stone & the New World
Out now
Cultural polymath Donald Glover returns to his Childish Gambino moniker for the sixth and final time on an album that also acts as the soundtrack to his film of the same name. Bando Stone & the New World features production from Max Martin and Oscar winner Ludwig Göransson.
Stray Kids – Ate
Out now
The follow-up to the K-pop boyband’s 2023 smash 5-Star arrives in the shape of this eight-track EP. Timed to add to the buzz around last week’s headline set at the BST Hyde Park festival, Ate builds on their discography of big, gloriously OTT pop bangers such as last year’s LALALALA. MC
***
Staying in: Brain food
Silenced
Podcast
Journalist Nicola Kelly’s humane and deeply informative podcast returns for a second series, speaking to global reporters who have risked their liberties to document the truth. Featuring impassioned discussion with Gaza correspondents, Israeli photojournalists and others.
MIT OpenCourseWare
YouTube
For 20 years, MIT course materials have been shared online through the Open Course Ware program. This YouTube channel collates some of the leading institution’s finest lectures on brain science, the blockchain and more.
75 Years of Nato: New Challenges and Chances
PBS America, 22 July, 8.35pm
This sobering film takes a look at the cold war origins of international military alliance Nato and its current struggle for stability, as members pursue diverging policies and the threat of Russian aggression increases. Ammar Kalia
• This article was amended on 22 July 2024. An earlier version incorrectly described Wrexham as a town.
