The Week’s guide to what’s worth seeing and reading
Last Chance
Seurat to Riley at Compton Verney, Warwickshire (www.comptonverney.org.uk). A “dazzling” exhibition of eye-bending Op art, presented in an enjoyably incongruous pastoral setting (Times). Ends 1 October.
Showing Now
Apologia at Trafalgar Studios, London SW1 (0844-871 7632). Stockard Channing is “magnificent” in this production of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s searing family drama (Independent). Ends 18 November.
Book Now
People, Places & Things A massive hit last year, Duncan Macmillan’s play about one woman’s struggle with addiction is being revived with Lisa Dwyer Hogg in the lead role. It will open at HOME in Manchester on 22 September, before touring Oxford, Bath, Bristol, Exeter, and on (www.nationaltheatre.org.uk).
The 2017 Oxford Lieder Festival is a twoweek-long exploration of Gustav Mahler and fin-de-siècle Vienna. Some of the world’s leading singers and musicians will perform, including Ian Bostridge and Angelika Kirchschlager. 13-28 October (www.oxfordlieder.co.uk).
Just out in paperback
The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess (and Life) by Stephen Moss (Wisden £8.99). Written for a general audience, but no less pleasurable for relative experts, Moss’s account of his attempt to achieve some kind of chess mastery is also an “erudite survey” of the literature chess has spawned (Guardian).