Going out: Cinema
Inside Out 2
Out now
The first Inside Out gave us five personified emotions living inside the mind of 11-year-old Riley. Now a teen, Riley and her brain must contend with the arrival of new emotions, including Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser).
Arcadian
Out now
While you wait for the next instalment of the A Quiet Place franchise to drop, here’s a creature feature cut from similar cloth. Nicolas Cage stars as the father of two young boys trying to survive on a isolated farm, following a catastrophe that has taken out much of the Earth’s population.
Hounds
Out now
A father-and-son team find work doing minor jobs for the local mobsters in Morocco, until one such job spirals lamentably out of control over the course of a single night in Casablanca. The debut drama of director Kamal Lazraq.
Treasure
Out now
Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham star in this tragicomic drama about an irascible Polish holocaust survivor visiting the land of his childhood with his American daughter. Based on the novel Too Many Men by Lily Brett. Catherine Bray
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Going out: Gigs
Isle of Wight festival
Newport, Isle of Wight, 20 to 23 June
The Prodigy, Pet Shop Boysand Green Day are the headliners hopping on a boat to the Isle of Wight. Elsewhere, the typically eclectic lineup includes Beverley Knight, queen of Eurovision Loreen and fellow Swede Zara Larsson. Michael Cragg
Cocteau Trilogy
Barbican Hall, London, 17 June
The Labèque sisters, Katia and Marielle, play two-piano arrangements of music from three Philip Glass operas based upon films by writer and director Jean Cocteau: La Belle et la Bête, Orphée and Les Enfants Terribles. In an “olfactory experience”, specially created fragrances by Maison Francis Kurkdjian will be filtered into the hall during the performance. Andrew Clements
Karol G
The O2, London, 18 & 19 June
Colombian Grammy winner Karol G has steadily risen through reggaeton’s ranks, culminating in last year’s US No 1 album Mañana Será Bonito, which featured a collaboration with Shakira. These shows will draw from her bulging discography of bangers. MC
Glasgow jazz festival
Various venues, 19 to 23 June
For more than three decades, Glasgow jazz festival has been bringing together global and local jazz legends. This year’s openers include a tradition-splicing gig joining Vietnamese saxophonist Quyěn Thiěn Đåc’s group Đàn Đó and Scots trio Sue McKenzie, Tom Bancroft & Ali Levack (19 June), and piano firebrand Fergus McCreadie’s much-acclaimed band (21 June). John Fordham
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Going out: Art
Flora Yukhnovich and François Boucher
Wallace Collection, London, to 3 November
The 18th-century French rococo style is one of the most provocative art movements of all time. Defying moral or religious purpose, it celebrates desire in luscious dabs of weightless paint. Contemporary artist Yukhnovich responds to the works of one of its masters, Boucher, in a battle of painted frolics.
Keith Haring
The Modern Institute, Glasgow, to 5 September
Relive the early days of street art or, to be exact, subway art with this exhibition of Haring’s witty, poppy, but somehow ethereal graffiti drawings. The bespectacled subversive started out making compelling sketches on New York’s subway. His reductive yet life-affirming style still has an irresistible beat.
Leilah Babirye
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, nr Wakefield, to 8 September
Babirye has created a gang of characterful wooden sculptures that are sourced mostly from the natural resources of Yorkshire Sculpture Park itself. She drew her figures on to deceased trees before sawing into them to reveal flamboyant forms. The strongly expressive results evoke Picasso and the traditional African sculpture he admired.
Charles Lutyens
Bethlem Museum of the Mind, Beckenham, to 31 August
This British artist born in 1933 created monumental public works, including a harrowing, expressionist wooden sculpture of Christ on the cross that’s currently on view in Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral. He also practised art therapy in mental health institutions. This show reveals his intimate, compassionate portraits of the patients he encountered. Jonathan Jones
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Going out: Stage
Lachlan Werner
9 June to 11 July; tour starts Brighton
The last person to make talking without moving your mouth cool was Nina Conti in the mid-00s; now a zeitgeisty young ventriloquist is vying for her crown. Werner’s spooky, cleverly meta act pairs him with a lairy puppet witch whose attempt to ritually sacrifice her meek, virginal associate results in a hair-raising demonic possession. Rachel Aroesti
The Bounds
Royal Court, London, to 13 July
The ground is frozen and at the edge of the pitch men lurk in heavy cloaks. Stewart Pringle’s new play takes us back to a football match in 1553, where lives are on the line. This folk horror-comedy is part of the Royal Court’s new series of debuts, marking artistic director David Byrne’s electric first season. Kate Wyver
The Taming of the ‘Shrew’
Hope Mill theatre, Manchester, 19 to 30 June
Watch out as a drunken guest falls into the Hope Mill’s gang of Unseemly Women. This all-female and non-binary team are Manchester-based, providing platforms for female-focused work. This year they’re presenting Shakespeare’s Shrew in a world of burlesque, clowns and cabaret. KW
Bacchae: Prelude to a Purge
Sadler’s Wells, London, 18 & 19 June
Part of the always out-there London international festival of Theatre (Lift), the UK premiere of Bacchae by Cape Verde-born, Lisbon-based choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas. Somewhat inspired by Euripides, it’s a wild ride of decadence and carnival spirit, dancers and trumpeters, Brazilian funk and Ravel’s Boléro. Lyndsey Winship
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Staying in: Streaming
House of the Dragon
Sky Atlantic & Now, 17 June, 9pm
After a first season that brought dour plotting, horrifically disturbing childbirth scenes and multiple incest storylines (how else would they keep those platinum blond tresses in the family?), the divisive Game of Thrones prequel returns for a second outing, with war erupting between two rival Targaryen factions.
Peacock
BBC Three & iPlayer, 18 June, 9pm
People Just Do Nothing radiated gentle idiocy – a quality that also suffuses the second series of this follow-up from its co-creators Steve Stamp and Allan Mustafa. The latter brings his trademark combination of sweet naivety and furious indignance to protagonist Andy, a body-positive personal trainer obsessed with bringing down rival Jay.
Outrageous Homes
Channel 4, 20 June, 10pm
One of those viral Rightmove listings where someone has a carpeted ceiling and 10 taxidermied foxes in their bedroom, but make it a TV show … Hosted by ever flamboyant Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, this new series spotlights homes that have been decorated “without fear”, fromincluding an entirely mosaicked house to a Nottingham.
Storyville: Flee
BBC Four & iPlayer, 18 June, 10pm
This moving documentary – executive produced by Riz Ahmed and Oscar nominated in 2022 – combines animation and real footage to recreate the past life of the pseudonymous Amin, who was separated from his family and smuggled to Denmark in the 1980s in an effort to escape his homeland of Afghanistan. RA
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Staying in: Games
Still Wakes the Deep
PC, PS5, Xbox; out 18 June
On an oil rig in the North Sea, the crew strike something that isn’t oil, and are slowly overtaken by something deeply horrible. The exceptional period and local detail in this horror game must be seen to be believed.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
All platforms; out 21 June
Elden Ring is the best (if also the hardest) fantasy game of the decade and this expansion is so big it might as well be a sequel. A great opportunity to return to the Lands Between, or finally get around to playing the base game. Keza MacDonald
Staying in: Albums
Florrie – The Lost Ones
Out now
Fourteen years after releasing her debut single, the singer, songwriter and some-time Girls Aloud drummer finally unleashes her first album. Created with producer Brian Higgins, it’s full of featherlight electropop symphonies such as excellent recent single Kissing in the Cold.
John Grant – The Art of the Lie
Out now
Across six albums, Michigan’s John Grant has evolved from indie-folk troubadour to grinding electropop experimentalist. On The Art of the Lie, produced by regular Grace Jones collaborator Ivor Guest, he toys with playful funk on It’s a Bitch and oddly pitched R&B on All That School for Nothing.
Moby – Always Centered at Night
Out now
On his 22nd album, the formerly ubiquitous Jam for the Ladies hitmaker teams up with a coterie of guest vocalists including Serpentwithfeet (the lilting On Air), Lady Blackbird (the soulful, midtempo Dark Days) and, on the jungle-esque Where Is Your Pride?, the late Benjamin Zephaniah.
Normani – Dopamine
Out now
It’s been a long road to solo stardom for former Fifth Harmony member Normani. The spectacular Motivation announced her arrival in 2019, but was followed by near silence. Five years on, the speaker-rattling single Candy Paint hints at what’s to come. MC
Staying in: Brain food
Black Barbie
Neftlix, 19 June
Taking a different perspective on Mattel’s doll-shaped legacy, this incisive Shonda Rhimes-produced film tells the story of the three Black women who masterminded the production of the first Black Barbie in 1980 and its lasting impact.
The Other Blue Pill
Podcast
Charting the battle to make HIV-prevention drug PrEP freely available on the NHS, this fascinating six-part series speaks to campaigners, medics and those affected about the life-changing drug and its current counterparts in the queer community.
The London Minute
Substack
A mix of local news and recommendations, Michael MacLeod’s daily London Minute is an invaluable resource for residents and visitors alike. Explore everything from useful transport updates to campaign news and community noticeboards. Ammar Kalia
