From Dune: Part Two to Nye: a complete guide to this week’s entertainment
Going out: Cinema
Dune: Part Two
Out now
The first part of Denis Villeneuve’s dour and steely take on Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic was an unexpected treat after the goofy David Lynch version in 1984. Expectations are now sky-high for part two – but with the return of Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Charlotte Rampling plus newcomers such as Christopher Walken as the Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe, it’s hard to go wrong.
Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse
Out now
And relax … Breathe. let the tension wash away in an impressionist haze. Directed byFrom David Bickerstaff (Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition), this soothing film immerses us in the gardens that inspired masterpieces from artists including Monet and Matisse – clue’s in the title, really.
Lisa Frankenstein
Out now
Screenwriter Diablo Cody broke out with teen pregnancy smash hit Juno, but it’s her follow-up, horror-comedy Jennifer’s Body, that this new Cody-penned offering recalls. A lonely US high-schooler (Kathryn Newton) resurrects a Victorian zombie who represents both a potential romantic partner and helper in various revenge scenarios.
Theatre of Violence
Out now
The issue of how to handle crimes committed by children is always a thorny one, but perhaps reaches its apex in the case of child soldiers, where the acts committed are horrific but often include coercion. This documentary by Emil Langballe and Lukasz Konopa follows the trial of former child soldier Dominic Ongwen, charged with 70 crimes, including murder, torture, rape and sexual slavery, at the international criminal court. Catherine Bray
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Going out: Gigs
Lola Young
5 to 7 March; tour starts London
Londoner Lola Young has carved out a notable niche on TikTok, often performing her bolshie, brutally honest pop-soul on packed tubes or in the middle of skateparks. She’ll be singing in slightly more suitable surroundings on this short tour.
Jason Derulo
4 to 14 March; tour starts Bournemouth
Author (self-help book Sing Your Name Out Loud is out now), podcaster (romantic thriller Underwater is out now) and creator of ludicrous bangers (Spicy Margarita feat Michael Bublé is out now), Jason Derulo arrives at UK arenas in support of his recent fifth album, Nu King. Michael Cragg
Death in Venice
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, 7 & 9 March; touring to 11 May
Olivia Fuchs’s staging of Benjamin Britten’s final opera promises a new perspective on the drama. Instead of the usual classical dancer, tThe role of Tadzio, the youth whose beauty so unbalances Gustav von Aschenbach (sung by Mark Le Brocq), will be taken by a circus performer, Antony César. Leo Hussain conducts this new WNO production, with Roderick Williams in the multiple baritone roles, and Alexander Chance as the Voice of Apollo. Andrew Clements
Scottish National Jazz Orchestra/Nu-Age Sounds
Glasgow, 2 March; Edinburgh, 3 March
Scotland’s internationally acclaimed orchestra is almost 30 years old, but its sensitivity to contemporary jazz never falters. These gigs unveil new works by eight Scottish rising stars, including pianist Fergus McCreadie, saxophonists Helena Kay and Matt Carmichael, and bassist Ewan Hastie. John Fordham
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Going out: Stage
Nye
National Theatre: Olivier, London, to 11 May
This is quite the creative team. Rufus Norris directs Michael Sheen – such a soulful presence on stage – in a new play about Aneurin “Nye” Bevan’s battle to create the NHS. Written by Tim Price, whose plays are always dizzyingly theatrical and deeply imaginative adventures. Miriam Gillinson
The Crucible
Crucible theatre, Sheffield, to 30 March
Arthur Miller’s explosive play about the Salem witch trials stars Rose Shalloo as the dangerously persuasive Abigail Williams – and Simon Manyonda and Anoushka Lucas as John and Elizabeth Proctor. Director Anthony Lau promises a “Midsommar-esque” horror piece with his new production. MG
Matt Forde
Touring to 1 June
Forde made his name as an insightful and refreshingly non-partisan political comic and excellent impressionist. His latest show Inside No 10 will showcase both skills, but he’s also likely to share his upbeat take on his recent cancer diagnosis and treatment, which he has described as “the most wonderful experience of my life”. Rachel Aroesti MG
Romeo & Juliet
Leeds Grand theatre, 8 to 16 Mar; touring to 26 October
Northern Ballet revives Christopher Gable and Massimo Moricone’s 1991 production. The sets and costumes have been restored after being damaged by fire and floods, bringing Shakespeare’s star-cross’d lovers back to life. Lyndsey Winship
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Going out: Art
Flaming June
The Royal Academy of Arts, London, to 12 January
Quite how Frederic Leighton’s painting of a woman curled in an orange dress has become an “icon” of Victorian art that has toured the world is a bit of a mystery, but its return visit to the RA where it was first exhibited is entertaining enough, revealing this artist’s weirdness.
Do Ho Suh
National Galleries of Scotland: Modern (Modern One), Edinburgh, to 1 September
Sensitive drawings fill a floor of Edinburgh’s modern art museum in this retrospective of a Korea-born, London-based artist who moves freely from sketching on paper to weaving long entangled lines in thread. A self-portrait with a small house growing out of his head captures his wit and poetry.
Zimingzhong
Science Museum, London, to 2 June
Twenty-three precious clocks from Beijing’s Forbidden City take you into the sumptuous fantastical palaces of the 18th-century emperors who collected these elaborate objects. Each is decorated in what looks like a typically “Chinese” constellation of pagodas or golden birds – but most were made in Britain in the Chinoiserie style.
Pio Abad
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, to 8 September
Works of art from all over the world that have ended up in western museums are juxtaposed with everyday objects in Abad’s political drawings. A Benin portrait of a soldier stands next to a desk lamp, another sculpture from Benin beside a potted plant. Abad questions how these artworks are owned. Jonathan Jones
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Staying in: Streaming
Extraordinary
Disney+, 6 March
Superhero fatigue simply cannot be countered with more superhero stories, but the second series of Emma Moran’s comedy – set in a superhero-saturated world where our hero Jen is unusually power-less – at least provides a clever, irreverent twist on the genre.
Mary & George
Sky Atlantic & Now, 5 March, 9pm
Hollywood’s finest turning to TV is nothing new, but few manage to bring a Hollywood-level premise with them. This new fact-based period drama, however, has a plot on a par with its star: Julianne Moore takes on the role of Mary Villiers, a pushy 17th-century mother who coaches her son to become James I’s lover.
The Gentlemen
Netflix, 7 March
Twenty-four years after his Lock, Stock TV series, Guy Ritchie finally returns to the small screen with another spin-off, this time of his 2019 film The Gentlemen. Don’t expect a return of original lead Matthew McConaughey, though; this version stars Theo James as a man whose inheritance turns out to be part of a weed empire.
The Rise and Fall of Boris Johnson
Channel 4, 6 March, 9pm
There is precious little satisfaction to be found in politics these days, but Johnson’s spectacular decline made the universe feel that tiny bit less chaotic. This series charts his maddening rise, jaw-dropping tenure as PM and eventual ousting, alongside the wider cultural changes his disarming clownery and shameless opportunism wrought. Rachel Aroesti
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Staying in: Games
As Dusk Falls
PS4/5, out 7 March
This eye-catching multi-perspective thriller about a family held hostage in a roadside motel by three redneck brothers is coming to PlayStation.
WWE 2K24
PC, PS4/5, Xbox, out 8 March
More than 200 big men and women in Lycra from all eras of professional wrestling come together for this latest in 2K’s increasingly realistic-looking sim. Keza MacDonald
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Staying in: Albums
Liam Gallagher & John Squire – Liam Gallagher John Squire
Out now
A very specific music fan’s wet dream comes to fruition on this collaboration. The near six-minute long lead single Just Another Rainbow is as you’d expect – Gallagher’s potent drawl over layers of wobbly guitar histrionics – but Mars to Liverpool sees the pair channel their undeniable talents into catchy indie pop.
Yard Act – Where’s My Utopia?
Out now
Co-produced by Gorillaz collaborator Remi Kabaka Jr, the second album from the Mercury prize-nominated band finds them ditching post-punk in favour of a “party album” inspired by disco. There’s a lot of that on the jerky rhythms of Dream Job, while We Make Hits is propelled forward by a funk-tinged bassline.
ScHoolboy Q – Blue Lips
Out now
Five years after his last album, CrasH Talk, Grammy-nominated LA rapper Quincy Hanley returns with his sixth offering. While 2022’s one-off single Soccer Dad favoured humour-laced braggadocio, Blue Lips’ lead single, Yeern 101, is a much darker affair, with Hanley riding a knotty, menacing beat.
Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven
Out now
On their fourth album, Philadelphia’s Mannequin Pussy pivot between spit-flecked punk and sunny indie. Released last August, the title track is a lava-hot attack on Christian hypocrisy, while lilting recent single, Nothing Like, makes good on the band’s ethos that making “something beautiful feels like a radical act”. MC
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Staying in: Brain food
Hollywood Gold
Podcast
Rather than your typical film analysis podcast, this series from Daniela Taplin Lundberg delves into how movies are made, via interviews with producers on the typically fraught process behind favourites such as Poor Things and Napoleon Dynamite.
Black History in Two Minutes Or So
YouTube
Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr hosts this bite-size video series exploring the often untold aspects of US Black history Highlights include the story of the first Black congresswoman and the legacy of the Black press.
Three Million
BBC iPlayer
Kavita Puri, who previously presented the excellent Three Pounds In My Pocket series on British Asian immigration, now hosts this emotive five-part series on the devastating 1943 Bengal famine, told by those who experienced it first-hand. Ammar Kalia
