How I See It

Beneath The Pursuit of Love’s glittering surface, horrors lurk

with bronzes and marbles, but this show foregrounds his creative process, focusing on his thrilling skill at modelling clay and terracotta. Tate Modern, London SE1 (tate.org. uk), until Nov 21

DANCE

21ST-CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS

The Royal Ballet returns with Christopher Wheeldon’s shimmering ballet Within the Golden Hour, a premiere from US choreographer Kyle Abraham, and two works from the incomparable Crystal Pite set to the music of Brahms.

Royal Opera House WC2 (roh.org. uk), until May 30

EXHIBITIONS

YAYOI KUSAMA: INFINITY MIRROR ROOMS

Beg, borrow or steal a ticket for the chance to take a spectacular selfie inside one of two mirrored rooms by the 92-year-old Japanese artist. Tate Modern, London SE1 (tate.org. uk), until June 12, 2022

alongside two works from early 20th-century African-American composer Florence Price’s “Five Folksongs in Counterpoint”, with the group’s founder Chi-chi Nwanoku on double-bass.

Brighton Dome (brightonfestival. org)

EXHIBITIONS

EILEEN AGAR: ANGEL OF ANARCHY

Some welcome redress for Britain’s forgotten surrealist, an Edwardian heiress who grew up to paint alongside and share ideas with Picasso, Dalí and Henry Moore. Whitechapel Gallery, London E1 (whitechapelgallery.org), until Aug 29

COMEDY

DANIEL SLOSS

The young Scottish Netflix star seems to revel in bad taste, but his scabrous trolling is always offset by “who, me?” charm.

Eden Court, Inverness (danielsloss. com), then touring

CLASSICAL

RAGGED MUSIC FESTIVAL

For its third outing, this superb chamber music festival set in a perfectly preserved Victorian school boasts top-rank young performers, including violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Pavel Kolesnikov. Ragged School Museum (ragged musicfestival.co.uk), until May 23

COMEDY

IVO GRAHAM

A rising star on the panel show circuit, apologetic young Old Etonian Graham grapples with becoming a father in his delightful stand-up show The Game of Life.

Waterside Second Space, Aylesbury (ivograham.com), then touring

FILM

ARMY OF THE DEAD

Seventeen years after his Dawn of the Dead remake defibrillated the zombie genre, master pop-cinema stylist Zack Snyder returns to the undead apocalypse from whence his career lurched.

Netflix (and also cinemas, TBC)

EXHIBITIONS

DAVID HOCKNEY: THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING, NORMANDY, 2020 Feel-good, easy-on-the-eye iPad “paintings”, charting the advent of spring, produced by that naturalborn optimist, David Hockney, while holed up at his home in Normandy last year.

Royal Academy of Arts, London W1 (royalacademy.org.uk), until Sept 26

DANCE

HERE COME THE BOYS

Dance away the blues as Strictly Come Dancing’s Aljaž Škorjanec, Pasha Kovalev, Graziano di Prima and Robin Windsor are joined by co-star Nadiya Bychkova in a battle to be named “King of the Dance”. Karim Zeroual, also light on his feet, is your host.

London Palladium, W1 (herecome theboysshow.com), until June 9

TOUCHING THE VOID

Regional theatre climbs out of the chasm with a little help from Joe Simpson’s mountaineering memoir. Brilliantly adapted for the stage by David Greig, it relays a near-fatal ordeal in the Andes with a surefooted sense of pace.

Bristol Old Vic (bristololdvic.org.uk; 0117 987 7877), booking to May 29

THEATRE

DRAW FROM WITHIN

Rambert’s dancers move through vivid worlds of dreams and nightmares in Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus’s high-octane 70-minute spectacular.

Theatre Royal, Plymouth (rambert. org.uk), then touring

NERO: THE MAN BEHIND

THE MYTH

A stain on history – or a muchmaligned pioneer whose achievements have been forgotten? This exhibition challenges the standard view of the emperor said to have fiddled while Rome burned in the Great Fire of AD 64. British Museum, London WC1 (britishmuseum.org), until Oct 24

FIRST COW

Oregon-based filmmaker Kelly Reichardt is on peak form with this drama of settlement, friendship and dairy poaching in the 1820s. The cast includes Toby Jones, and a scenestealing cow called Evie.

12A cert, 122 min

CRUELLA

There’s a hint of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker about Emma Stone’s punkyoutcast take on the 101 Dalmatians villainess’s early years. Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) directs.

Cert TBC

EPIC IRAN

More than 300 objects spanning five millennia of Iranian history, from the ancient civilisation that produced the earliest known writing, long before the Persian Empire, to the 1979 revolution and beyond. Victoria and Albert Museum, London SW7 (vam.ac.uk), until Sept 12

VAN MORRISON

You can’t keep an old crooner down. Despite mixed reviews for the 75-year-old Northern Irish singer’s pugnacious anti-lockdown album, he’s stayed the course and can still stir up magic live.

London Palladium, W1 (vanmorrison.com), until June 5, then touring

DANGEROUS LIAISONS Northern Ballet’s bodice-ripping adaptation of the scandalous 18thcentury French novel is moody, witty and wild, and set, marvellously, to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The Lowry, Salford M3 (northern ballet.com), until June 5; then Sadler’s Wells, London EC1 (sadlerswells.com), June 8-10

TIM GARLAND QUARTET

The legacy of the great jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea, who died earlier this year, is celebrated by terrific soprano saxophonist Tim Garland and a quartet including pianist Jason Rebello. Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club (ronniescotts.co.uk)

DER ROSENKAVALIER Richard Strauss’s most beloved opera receives a new production with Hanna Hipp as the titular “Knight of the Rose”, Miah Persson as the Countess he woos, and Derek Ballard as her cousin, Baron Ochs.

Garsington Opera, Wormley Estate, Buckinghamshire (garsington opera.org), until July 3

JR: CHRONICLES

This retrospective follows the French artist’s dizzying rise from graffiting the Paris ghetto to the vast-scale images he has papered on Nairobi slums and the West Bank wall, plus his monumental optical illusion for the Louvre Pyramid. Saatchi Gallery, London SW3 (saatchigallery.com), until Oct 3

A QUIET PLACE: PART II

Emily Blunt returns as the mother battling scary, blind monsters by not making a sound, in a sequel to the 2018 horror hit.

15 cert, 97 min

BALANCHINE AND ROBBINS American choreographers George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are celebrated by the Royal Ballet in a programme including Balanchine’s effervescent 1960 ballet, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, and Robbins’s 1969 ballet, Dances at a Gathering. Royal Opera House WC2 (roh.org. uk), until June 13

DREAM HORSE

The story of Dream Alliance, the racing stallion raised in a Welsh mining village, was a classic British underdog yarn. Now it is a classic British underdog film, with Toni Collette and Damian Lewis.

PG cert, 142 min

DANCE

EXHIBITIONS

FILM

FILM

EXHIBITIONS

POP

DANCE

JAZZ

OPERA

EXHIBITIONS

FILM

DANCE

FILM

OPERA

DIDO’S GHOST

The new opera by Belize-born composer Errollyn Wallen grows out of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, imagining what becomes of the characters in later life – and beyond the grave. Barbican, London EC1 (barbican. org.uk), then Buxton Opera House, July 11-17

THEATRE

THE MUSIC OF

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER

Lloyd Webber is omnipresent this summer – in London, with new musical Cinderella (from June 25), the return of Joseph (from June 26) and Phantom (from July 27), and in Leicester with this live theatrical mega-mix of his greatest tunes. Curve Leicester (curveonline.co.uk; 0116 242 3595), booking to June 19

OPERA

FIDELIO

Beethoven’s stirring tale of female heroism is given a concert performance by Opera North, with an excellent cast including Rachel Nicholls and Toby Spence.

Leeds Town Hall (operanorth.co.uk), until June 19, then touring

THEATRE

ROMEO & JULIET

London’s best-loved outdoor theatre returns with Shakespeare’s tragedy, directed by the innovative Kimberley Sykes.

Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London NW1 (0333 400 3562), season booking to Sept 5

FILM

LUCA

Pixar plunges into uncharted waters with this animated comingof-age fable, about two merboys passing a formative summer on the idyllic Ligurian coast.

Cert TBC

Wheatley’s sublimely unsettling folk horror parable casts two scientists adrift in an old English forest. Cert TBC

EXHIBITIONS

CHARLOTTE PERRIAND

From the steel chairs she made with Le Corbusier, to her open-plan designs for offices and ski resorts, this retrospective highlights Perriand’s legacy in the male-dominated world of modernist design.

The Design Museum, London W8 (designmuseum.org), until Sept 5

OPERA

IVAN THE TERRIBLE

A real rarity: Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera softens the image of the vengeful despot with a tender family drama. David Pountney directs. Grange Park Opera, West Horsley Place, Surrey (grangeparkopera. co.uk), until July 14

OPERA

A MIDSUMMER

NIGHT’S DREAM

Paul Curran directs a cast of young rising stars in a production that celebrates the 61st anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s Shakespearean classic (it was originally planned for the 60th anniversary in 2020). Grange Festival, Northington, Hampshire (thegrangefestival.co. uk), until July 2

POP

RAG’N’BONE MAN

Bearded, tattooed, neo-soul star Rory Graham returns to his natural live habitat with gigs big and small. Kenwood House, London NW3 (ragnboneman.com), and touring

THEATRE

CINDERELLA

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new musical, scripted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Emerald Fennell, claims to reinvent the Cinderella story. Carrie Hope Fletcher stars. Gillian Lynne Theatre, London

WC2 (lwtheatres.co.uk), booking to Feb 2022

FILM

SUPERNOVA

Harry Macqueen’s tender Alzheimer’s drama, stars Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci as a middle-aged couple on one last, reflective road trip. Cinemas

COMEDY ROMESH RANGANATHAN The TV star’s latest stand-up tour, The Cynic’s Mixtape, finds him on winningly grouchy form. Grand Theatre, Leeds (ticketmaster.co.uk), then touring

DANCE

BREAKIN’ CONVENTION 2021 There are usually people dancing in the crowded aisles of Sadler’s Wells for this all-weekend hip-hop festival. For its 18th year, Jonzi D presents two new programmes. Sadler’s Wells EC1 (sadlerswells. com), until July 4

THEATRE

SOUTH PACIFIC

The 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, set in the Second World War, broaches themes of racial prejudice and acceptance – via such musical gems as Some Enchanted Evening and I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right Outa My Hair. Chichester Festival theatre (01243 781312), booking to Sept 4

POP

JAMES BLUNT

The always amiable English singersongwriter reopens a full capacity Royal Albert Hall with crowd-pleasing songcraft. It will be emotional. Royal Albert Hall, London SW7 ( jamesblunt.com), then touring

THEATRE

THE COMEBACK

A-lister actors are being roped in for cameo appearances in this very funny and inspired play (by Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen, better known as comedy duo The Pin) about two sets of double-acts – one young and failing, the other ageing and fading – both played by the duo).

Noël Coward Theatre, London WC2 (0844 482 5138), booking to July 25