The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
Let’s get this show on the road!
From musicals to movies, drive-in comedy to open-air art: our critics pick 100 highlights of a brave new era in entertainment
in-person performances of scenes from classic British plays.
London (revelsinhand.com)
CLASSICAL
Fidelio Unbound
Twenty-seven concerts from top-rank young classical performers including Pavel Kolesnikov, Alina Ibragimova and Steven Isserlis in an intimate restaurant setting. The dinnerplus-concert is not cheap at £100, but remember: these musicians haven’t earned in months.
Fidelio Orchestra Café, London EC1 ( fideliorchestra.art), until Aug 13
COMEDY
Mark Watson’s Carpool
Comedy Club
Watson’s roadshow has a brilliantly curated line-up, mixing well known names (Dara O’Briain, Sara Pascoe, Josie Long) with future stars (Jess Fostekew, Sara Barron). Luton Hoo Estate (driveanddine theatre.com), until tomorrow then touring until Aug 2
FILM
@ The Drive-In
Hits old and new to be enjoyed from the comfort of your vehicle. Titles include Back to the Future, A Star is Born and, naturally, Cars. Circus Field, London SE3 (atthedrive.in), until tomorrow then touring until Oct 4
JAZZ ART
Anish Kapoor
The grounds and historic interiors of Houghton Hall offer a dramatic setting for an exhibition of 24 sculptures by Kapoor, including major works in mirror and stone such as Sky Mirror (2018). Houghton Hall, Norfolk (houghtonhall.com), until Nov 1
Sunday Jazz Lunch
The Belgravia restaurant with “the widest selection of Cuban cigars in the world” has a new boast: first UK jazz venue to present live music since lockdown. Sundays offer a socially distanced jazz trio, while Frank Sinatra tribute act Stephen Triffitt sings Tuesday-Saturday. Boisdale, London SW1 15 (boisdale.co.uk), daily
COMEDY
Drive In Comedy Night This drive-in has a varied first-night bill: acerbic Glaswegian Fern Brady, YouTuber Seán McLoughlin, Jamali Maddix and
Tom Houghton, a man so posh he lives in the Tower of London. Troubadour Meridian Water, London N18 (thedrivein.london), then Aug 3 and Aug 10
ART
Radical Figures
Anyone with even half an interest in contemporary painting should make a beeline for this intoxicating show, featuring memorable work by 10 figurative painters, including Michael Armitage, Cecily Brown, Daniel Richter and Dana Schutz. Whitechapel Gallery, London E1 (whitechapelgallery.org), to Aug 30
TV
The Plot Against America Perhaps only a writer as gifted and confident as David Simon could take on Philip Roth’s chillingly plausible counter-factual history imagining the US in the grip of fascism. Winona Ryder, Zoe Kazan and John Turturro star.
Sky Atlantic
ART
Tullio Crali
The first UK exhibition of paintings and drawings by the Italian futurist painter and pilot Tullio Crali (1910-2000) is as revelatory as it is vertigo-inducing.
He used his first-hand experience in the cockpit to capture the sublime drama of flight.
Estorick Collection, London N1 (estorickcollection.com), until Aug 30
ART
Picasso and Paper
Don’t miss this welcome second chance to catch one of the exhibitions of the year so far. This colossal show of more than 300 of Picasso’s works, exploring his imaginative uses of paper, contains a host of surprises and moments of delightful frivolity and mischief. Royal Academy, London W1 (royalacademy.org.uk), until Aug 2
the standard is likely to be high. Car Park Party, Northampton (carparkparty.com), then touring until Aug 15
CLASSICAL
The Proms Live
The First Night and last two weeks of the 2020 Proms will take place live on stage for a limited audience, with six weeks of broadcasts from the archive in between. Performers include Simon Rattle, Mitsuko Uchida and Anoushka Shankar. Royal Albert Hall, London SW7 (royalalberthall.com), then Aug 28-Sept 11
POP
The Pretenders: Hate for Sale Chrissie Hynde is on imperious form on the 11th album by her gunslinging new wave rock and roll gang. James Walbourne’s thrilling guitar perfectly offsets Hynde’s languorous, sensual vocals.
BMG
TV
Cursed
Frank Miller, the comic-book maven who reinvented Batman and Daredevil, reimagines Arthurian myth from the point of view of Nimue (Katherine Langford), the girl who became the Lady in the Lake.
Netflix
POP
Ellie Goulding: Brightest Blue On her fourth album, the girl with the built-in vibrato draws on her sensitive singer-songwriter side, and plays multiple instruments. Polydor
FILM
Clemency
Alfre Woodard gives an Oscarworthy performance as a prison warden in Chinonye Chukwu’s blistering death row drama.
In cinemas
ART COMEDY
Pop-up Picnic
The UK’s first fully open-air post-Covid comedy festival, promises music and live stand-up from Ahir Shah, Jayde Adams and Simon Brodkin, among others.
Hill View Farm, Oxfordshire (popup-picnic.com), until July 26
CLASSICAL
Glyndebourne Summer Concerts Picnic while the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment perform a delightful open-air programme of Beethoven, Mozart and Dove. Glyndebourne, Sussex (glyndebourne. com), in rep until Aug 9
ART
We Will Walk
An eclectic show of quilts, paintings, sculpture, photography and music by African Americans who lived through the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Turner Contemporary, Margate (turnercontemporary.org), until
Sept 6
Alan Davie and David Hockney: Early Works
Vibrant semi-abstract paintings by a titan of post-war British art: Alan
Davie. He influenced the young Hockney’s style, and their works in several media are combined for this smart, companionable show. Towner Eastbourne (towner eastbourne.org.uk), until Sept 20
BOOKS POP FILM POP
Cream Classical Ibiza
At this drive-in disco, Cream Classical perform dance hits with a full orchestra and DJ. Central Docks, Liverpool Waters (livenation.co.uk); touring to Aug 22
Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told? by Jenny Diski One of the most electrifying memoirists of her generation, Diski chronicled both the cancer that would kill her, and her awkward adoption by Doris Lessing, in essays for the London Review of Books. Four years after her death, here’s a superb volume of autobiographical fragments, written for that magazine, from 1992 until her diagnosis in 2014. Bloomsbury
Nick Cave: Idiot Prayer
The great Australian singersongwriter performs solo at the piano in a one-off ticketed stream, filmed in the empty, but elegant West Hall of Alexandra Palace in London. nickcave.com
POP
Courtney Marie Andrews: Old Flowers One of the most acclaimed Americana singer-songwriters of recent years, Andrews returns with a beautiful album of elegantly nuanced, bittersweet gems. Like Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris wrestling with the daily dramas of blue-collar life in Trump’s America.
Loose Music
How to Build a Girl Booksmart’s Beanie Feldstein puts on her best Wolverhampton accent for this West Midlands-set coming-ofage drama, adapted from the semiautobiographical novel by music journalist-turned-columnist Caitlin Moran.
15 cert, 104 min, Amazon Prime
FILM
The Traitor
Italy’s Marco Bellocchio returns with this strapping Mafia biopic about the mobster-turnedinformer Tommaso Buscetta, whose testimony helped convict nearly 400 members of the Cosa Nostra in the late-1980s.
In cinemas
ART ART
Aubrey Beardsley Drop-dead gorgeous designs and drawings by the dandyish, consumptive purveyor of fin-de-siècle filth, who defined the look of the decadent 1890s, before his early death, aged 25. Tate Britain, London SW1 (tate.org. uk), until Sept 20
Naum Gabo
All the Tates reopen today. Tate Modern’s Warhol show is slick, but for greater insight, head to St Ives for the first British retrospective in over 30 years for the Russian-born Gabo (1890-1977), who spent several years in Cornwall, making sleek, futuristic sculptures with refinement and poise.
Tate St Ives (tate.org.uk), until
Sept 27
POP
The Streets
Mike Skinner’s band paved the way for the ascendancy of UK hip hop with an audacious blend of garage beats and kitchen sink drama. Skinner’s always had a cinematic bent, so these drive-in shows should be well suited to his rowdy yet moving performances.
Leeds East Airport (livenation.co.uk), and touring until Aug 12
FILM ART
Bill Brandt/ Henry Moore One photographer, one sculptor, both central figures in 20th-century art. This sombre show reveals similarities in how the pair portrayed deprivation in Britain and the ravages of war. The Hepworth Wakefield (hepworthwakefield.org), to Nov 1
THEATRE
Twingo
As the Government has allowed for bingo sessions, Tweedy the clown’s live show is a nominal gaming session (for charity) with a lot of clowning around. The Barn is also planning a six-hander Midsummer Night’s Dream with outdoor dining.
Barn Theatre, Cirencester (barntheatre.org.uk); dates TBC
THEATRE
Six
The first West End musical to perform after lockdown – Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s global runaway hit about Henry VIII’s wives, combining rebellious urban sounds with a blade-sharp
The Luna Cinema Crowd-pleasers in picturesque