Critics’ choices for the week ahead
Cinema by Robbie Collin and Tim Robey Hidden Figures
The undervalued contributions of three African-American women to the space race get their due in this Oscars Best Picture nominee, with an irresistible Taraji P Henson as the maths whizz who figured out flight trajectories for John Glenn’s launch in 1962.
PG cert, 127 min John Wick: Chapter 2
Keanu Reeves returns as the loner assassin with an increasingly bounteous price on his head. Working on double the budget he had last time, Chad Stahelski does some wizardly work with the action sequences.
15 cert, 122 min The Founder
Between 1955 and 1984, a milkshake mixer salesman turned McDonald’s from a California burger stand into the Godzilla of fast-food brands. This bright, absorbing biopic shows how he did it. Michael Keaton stars as the suitably reptilian Ray Kroc.
12A cert, 115 min 20th Century Women
Taking five characters in Santa Barbara, California, in 1979, writerdirector Mike Mills illuminates five American lives that both chime and clash with their moment. It’s a nuanced, glorious film about generational shifts, the brink of Reagan, punk, and feminism.
15 cert, 119 min Moonlight
The exquisite second film from Barry Jenkins is a three-part story about a boy growing up gay in Miami. The cast are a mix of newcomers and familiar faces – Naomie Harris, Mahershala Ali, singer Janelle Monaé – and the tale they tell holds you, then floors you like a judo throw. Unmissable.
15 cert, 111 min Fences
Denzel Washington and Viola Davis star in this superb adaptation of August Wilson’s 1983 play about a struggling family in Fifties Pittsburgh.
12A cert, 140 min The Lego Batman
This intensely funny, all-ages superhero romp, spun off from 2014’s
The Lego Movie, crams in enough entertainment for four films of its size. Jokes whistle past almost faster than you can laugh at them, while the often beautiful, brick-built animation is a feat of creative ingenuity.
U cert, 107 min
Exhibitions
by Mark Hudson and Alastair Sooke America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s
Downbeat melancholy and dynamic experimentation collide in the art of America after the catastrophic Wall Street Crash. The period is explored through masterpieces by, among others, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper and Jackson Pollock.
Royal Academy, London W1 (020 7300 8090), Sat-Jun 4 Electricity: The Spark of Life
From the structure of the atom to the electric chair, scientists and artists look at the life-giving and deathdealing mysteries of a force we cannot live without.
Wellcome Collection, London NW1 (020 7611 2222), Thurs-Jun 25 Transferences: Sidney Nolan in Britain
Widely regarded as Australia’s greatest artist, Nolan spent much of the Fifties and Sixties in Britain, but focused on quintessentially Australian subjects such as the outlaw Ned Kelly. This show brings together some of his iconic images, as well as highlighting his set designs for theatre and ballet.
Pallant House, Chichester (01243 774 557), until Jun 4 Stage by Dominic Cavendish and Mark Monahan Twelfth Night
All eyes will naturally be on television darling Tamsin Greig as she steps into her latest Shakespearean role, this time as a feminised Malvolio in Simon Godwin’s modern staging of Shakespeare’s cross-dressing comedy. But watch out also for Doon Mackichan as the clown Feste – and Tim McMullan and Daniel Rigby as Belch and Aguecheek.
National Theatre, London SE1 (020 7452 3000), until May 13 Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
Delightful new musical about a 16-year-old Sheffield lad who is determined, despite comments from teachers and bullying intimidation by fellow pupils, to become a drag queen.
Sheffield Crucible (0114 249 6000), until Feb 25 The Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams’s breakthrough “memory play” of 1944 is seldom done so well as it is in John Tiffany’s revival. Cherry Jones is faultless as New Orleans matriarch Amanda Wingfield, by turns nagging and over-intrusive in her dealings with her son and daughter.
Duke of York’s, London WC2 (0844 871 7623), until Apr 29 Pink Mist
A superb verse drama by the Welsh poet and novelist Owen Sheers, which digs into the experience of three lads from Bristol who join the Army and find themselves both made and then undone by the conflict in Afghanistan.
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh (0131 228 1404), Thurs-Feb 25 Ricky Gervais: Humanity
David Brent gigs aside, this is the first stand-up tour for Ricky Gervais since the start of the decade. The title is customarily grand (previous tours have been called Science and Politics) but expect less of a lecture and more of a comic meander – oh, and his “most offensive stand-up routine ever”.
Colston Hall, Bristol (0844 887 1500), Tues-Thurs, and touring Classical & Opera by Ivan Hewett and Rupert Christiansen BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov, one-time chief conductor of the BBC SSO, returns to conduct a programme of two copper-bottomed favourites, Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, plus a wild card from hugely gifted composer Edmund Finnis.
City Halls Glasgow (0141 353 8000) Thur; Usher Hall, Edinburgh (0131 228 1155), Feb 26 Semele
One of Handel’s wittiest, sauciest operas, with a delicious score including the celebrated aria “Where’er you walk”, is presented in a collaboration between the Royal Welsh School of Music and Drama, Mid Wales Opera and the Academy of Ancient Music.
Ffwrnes, Llanelli (0845 2263510), Thurs, and touring