From The Friend to Taskmaster: your complete entertainment guide for the week ahead | Culture
Going out:Cinema
The Friend Out now Starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray, this adaptation of the acclaimed novel sees a New York-based writer (Watts) processing the suicide of a close friend who has bequeathed her his 150lb great dane, which proceeds to create multiple issues in her life as well as creating a poignant link to the past.
Wind, Tide & Oar Out now Shot on real film over a three-year timespan, and taking in oceans, rivers and the coastline around France, the UK and the Netherlands, Huw Wahl’s documentary is a homage to the art of sailing – and other engineless techniques such as rowing. As the title puts it, it’s all about wind, tide and oar.
April Out now Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Venice festival prize winner begins with a delivery-room tragedy at a hospital in Georgia, where Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili) works as an obstetrician. She also moonlights by helping women with illegal abortions, but with a negligence investigation hanging over her, her two worlds threaten to collide. Until Dawn Out now What if you woke up just after being horrifically slaughtered and had to carry right on, knowing it could happen again? That’s the time-loop premise of this survival horror. Based on the video game, this standalone adaptation will be hoping for a bit of the goldrush success that Minecraft managed recently. Catherine Bray
Going out: Gigs
Tinariwen swap the barren landscape of the Sahara for south London (insert your own joke here). Photograph: Marie Planeille
Polygon Live Crystal Palace Park, London, 2 to 4 May This three-day event, billed as the UK’s largest outdoor 360-degree spatial audio event, features a stellar lineup of music experimentalists, from Tuareg collective Tinariwen to dance musician Jon Hopkins, all housed in a hemispherical dome. MC
Die Walküre Royal Opera House, London, 1 to 17 May The Royal Opera’s production of Wagner’s Ring cycle, directed by Barrie Kosky and conducted by Antonio Pappano, continues with the second work. Christopher Maltman once again takes the role of Wotan, with Marina Prudenskaya as Fricka. Andrew Clements
Chase & Status 29 April to 8 May; tour starts Glasgow Enduring dance act Saul Milton (Chase) and Will Kennard (Status) have been in a rich vein of commercial form over the last few years, scoring two Top 5 albums and a No 1 single with Stormzy. Expect that drum’n’bass monster, Backbone, to blow the roof off these arenas. MC
Neil Cowley Trio Glasshouse, Gateshead, 26 April; RNCM theatre, Manchester, 27 April; Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton, 1 May; touring to 6 May Former funk pianist Neil Cowley formed a hard-rocking jazz trio in 2006, made six albums, then quit to explore contemporary classical and electronica. This tour is the lineup’s long-awaited comeback, with their signature mix of delicacy, ambiance and earthshaking grooves. John Fordham
Going out: Art
Awa – The Rough Seas at Naruto by Utagawa Hiroshige. Photograph: Collection of Alan Medaugh
Hiroshige The British Museum, London, 1 May to 7 September Revered by Van Gogh and other artists in 19th-century France, Hiroshige grips us as a precociously modern painter of life’s passing pleasures. Cherry blossoms and kimonos, sunlit seas and crowded river scenes fill his work. The colours of his prints are so intense they inject you with joy.
The World of King James VI and I Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, 26 April to 14 September James VI of Scotland also became James I of England in 1603 – but his increasing fame today is for more intimate reasons. James had gay love affairs, most famously with his favourite, the Duke of Buckingham. This exhibition is a delve into the life and court of a queer monarch.
Do Ho Suh Tate Modern, London, 1 May to 19 October Installations recreate the feeling of home, by a Korea-born artist based in London. Suh’s architectural sculptures range from replicas of traditional Korean houses to more abstract and suggestive transparent structures you can walk through. This is art that questions what it is now to be “at home”.
Graham Crowley Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, to 13 July This painter has found a new twist on an old obsession: how to shape space in light and shade. Crowley maps out interior and exterior places using strong black shadows over which he smears a single bright colour, often yellow. An unholy marriage of Turner and Warhol. Jonathan Jones
Going out: Stage
Heart of darkness … Sarah Silverman. Photograph: PMC/Alamy
Sarah Silverman The London Palladium, 28 April In the 00s, Silverman’s shtick was heavily deadpan and ironically offensive. Nowadays, she is less faux-ignorant and far more heartfelt, but still gravitates towards darkness. Her new show, Postmortem, revolves round the deaths of her stepmother and father. Rachel Aroesti
Hamlet Hail to the Thief Aviva Studios, Manchester, 27 April to 18 May Radiohead and Shakespeare? The two collide for the RSC’s experimental new musical. Thom Yorke has deconstructed the band’s album Hail to the Thief for a gig-theatre rendition of the tragedy. Kate Wyver
Little Deaths Theatre503, London, 29 April to 3 May Charlie and Debs will be best friends for ever. Won’t they? Amy Powell Yeates’s drama explores the limits of friendship as the years pass. It’s always worth taking a punt on a show at Theatre503. You never know when you might find the next big star. KW
Songs of the Bulbul Curve theatre, Leicester, 29 & 30 April; touring to 19 July A national tour for Aakash Odedra’s hit show, which was a joyful surprise at last year’s Edinburgh festival. Odedra is a fine classical Indian dancer, and this solo brings together Rani Khanam’s choreography with a score from Rushil Ranjan that really makes the piece soar. Lyndsey Winship
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Staying in: Streaming
Star packed … Marco Calvani, Colman Domingo, Tina Fey and Will Forte in The Four Seasons. Photograph: Jon Pack
The Four Seasons Netflix, 1 May Post-White Lotus, get your Americans-on-bad-holidays fix with this adaptation of Alan Alda’s 1981 comedy about three couples who vacation together. With Tina Fey at the helm – plus a cast that includes Will Forte, Steve Carell and Colman Domingo – a good time for the viewer is guaranteed.
Carême Apple TV+, 30 April Ian Kelly’s biography of 19th-century cook Antonin Carême christens him the “first celebrity chef”. In this adaptation, he is also the bad-boy heartthrob of France’s exquisitely indulgent cuisine, seducing women with his renegade charm.
Man Like Mobeen BBC Three & iPlayer, 1 May The final series of Guz Khan’s comedy about a reformed drug dealer is certainly action packed. This instalment sees Mobeen released from jail only to cross swords with the Turkish mafia while trying to rescue his sister, who is trapped in the UAE with evil uncle Khan.
Taskmaster Channel 4, 1 May, 9pm Series 19 of the offbeat gameshow may have the most wildcard-heavy cast yet. In the elder statesman slot we have US comic Jason Mantzoukas, Stevie Martin takes the millennial standup role, Fatiha El-Ghorri is the promising newbie, Ghosts’ Mathew Baynton is the resident actor, and podcaster Rosie Ramsey brings mainstream appeal. RA
Staying in: Games
Bring the noise … Badlands Crew is like a post-apocalyptic Wacky Races. Photograph: Curve Games
Badlands Crew Out 28 April; PC If you’ve ever dreamed of living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, constructing your own armoured trucks and battling with marauding gangs, this is the PC strategy survival game for you. With tons of customisation options and amusing cartoon-visuals, Badlands Crew is the Wacky Races/Mad Max crossover we’ve been begging for.
Skin Deep Out 30 April; PC In this era of relentlessly dark first-person shooters, this effort from the makers of the excellent Quadrilateral Cowboy is a welcome oddity – a slapstick immersive space opera, where your job is to clear space cruisers of pirates with any weapons at your disposal, be they guns or judiciously placed banana skins. Keith Stuart
Staying in: Albums
Chairperson of the board … Self Esteem. Photograph: Scarlett Carlos Clarke
Self Esteem – A Complicated Woman Out now Four years after her breakthrough album, Prioritise Pleasure, singer, songwriter and actor Rebecca Lucy Taylor returns with more pop-focused emotional exorcisms. Focus Is Power marries a lyric about survival to a choir-backed swell, while the cheeky 69 heads to the dancefloor for a ranking of various sex positions.
Femi Kuti – Journey Through Life Out now The legendary London-born, Nigeria-raised musician refers to this 11th studio album as an encapsulation of his life so far, with a particular focus on his family. The ebbs and flows are captured in the undulating rhythms of songs such as After 24 Years.
Samia – Bloodless Out now LA-based singer Samia has a knack for dropping you into her life, zooming in on the details. That continues on her third album of delicate indie folk, specifically on closer Pants, which turns a pair of jeans into an existential exploration. Lizard, meanwhile, wrestles with a desire to sabotage over sun-kissed guitars.
Viagra Boys – Viagr Aboys Out now “I am a man that’s made of meat / You’re on the internet looking at feet.” So goes the chorus to Man Made of Meat, the ferocious lead single from the Swedish post-punkers’ not-quite-self-titled fourth album. While 2022’s Cave World skewered politics, this follow-up turns the spotlight inwards with a surrealist eye. MC
Staying in:Brain food
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Pablo Torre Finds Out Podcast Sportscaster Pablo Torre’s podcast delves into fascinating sports stories but is also a vehicle for his own curiosity, producing excellent esoteric episodes including an recent investigation into why Netflix canned a nine-hour documentary on Prince.
Hochelaga YouTube Billing itself as a video essay channel covering “obscure topics that deserve more attention”, Hochelaga’s brief and accessible videos still manage to uncover engrossing details including an account of a 3,400-year-old song, notated only in 1972.
Indispensable Relations Radio 4, Monday, 11am An illuminating three-part series examining the relationship between Israel and the US. Beginning with President Truman’s opinions on the country in 1947, host Tom Bateman’s history reveals the nuances behind the decisions made today. Ammar Kalia
