Yaw culture fix

From stage to screen and everything in between, here’s this month’s best events and entertainment

ART

AZZEDINE ALAÏA: THE COUTURIER, THE DESIGN MUSEUM, LONDON “This is an Alaïa!” shouts an aghast Cher Horowitz when she’s held at gunpoint in cult flick Clueless and asked to lie down in the designer dress. And if there’s one thing the queen of plaid knows about, it’s clothes. Tunisian fashion designer Alaïa, whose 35-year career is celebrated at the Design Museum’s retrospective this month, dressed everyone from the ’80s supers to Rihanna and Michelle Obama. This exhibition, co-curated by the designer himself before his death last year, gives an incredible insight into the man who Naomi Campbell called ‘Papa’. From 10th May until 7th October (designmuseum.org)

THEATRE

MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON, THE BRIDGE THEATRE, LONDON As we know from Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (and, erm, life), mother/ daughter relationships are complex at the best of times. My Name Is Lucy Barton, adapted from Elizabeth Strout’s novel, examines this dynamic over the course of five short days. Lucy – played by Laura Linney – wakes in hospital to find her estranged mother sitting by her bedside. The pair haven’t seen each other for years and soon Lucy finds herself cast back to her childhood years in rural Illinois. From 2nd June until 23rd June (bridgetheatre.co.uk)

FILM

ON CHESIL BEACH Girl of the moment Saoirse Ronan follows up her Oscar-nominated performance in Lady Bird with something completely different: a turn as Florence, wife to Edward (played by Dunkirk’s Billy Howle), in the cinematic adaptation of Ian Mcewan’s touching 2007 novel about the unravelling marriage of two newlyweds whose union falls apart on their Chesil Beach honeymoon. This is a beautiful portrait of the life-altering consequences not of anger-fuelled action, but of doing nothing. In cinemas nationwide from 18th May

TV

KING LEAR Forget everything you thought you knew about Shakespeare on screen – a new adaptation of the playwright’s tragic work turns the genre on its head. Set in the fictional present and starring a stellar cast of Brit talent including Anthony Hopkins as King Lear, and Emma Thompson, Emily Watson, and Florence Pugh as his three daughters Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, this new production is a gripping and original depiction of the titular character’s slow descent into madness. King Lear airs on BBC Two in late May