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The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From Van Gogh to Superman: Keep cool with our guide to the summer's best arts and entertainment
A Midsummer Night's DreamBridge theatre, London, to 20 August Nicholas Hytner's theatrical blockbuster returns to the Bridge theatre, which has developed a real knack for folding the audience into the action. This promenade version of Shakespeare's romantic comedy was a smash hit six years ago and is light on its feet and effortlessly charming. The new cast includes Susannah Fielding as Titania and Emmanuel Akwafo as the hapless Bottom. Miriam Gillinson How to Win Against HistoryBristol Old Vic, 19 June to 12 July Bristol Old Vic and Francesca Moody Productions revive this flamboyant musical based on the bonkers life of the 5th Marquess of Anglesey, who blew the family fortune on diamond dresses, lilac-dyed poodles and endless extravagances. When he died at 29, his outraged Edwardian family scrubbed him from the records. This is his story – with fabulous frocks. MG PBH free fringe weekenderColab Tower, London, 27 to 29 June The road to the Edinburgh fringe is paved with affordable previews, and across this weekend you can choose to pay what you want to support the free fringe and its artists. The eclectic lineup of more than 50 shows includes Edinburgh comedy award winner Rob Copland, cult favourite Mark Silcox and exciting returnees Jain Edwards, Sam Nicoresti, Mary O'Connell, Shelf and more. Rachael Healy Manchester international festivalVarious venues, Manchester, 3 to 20 July This year's MIF includes Jonathan Watkins's ballet adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man and a powerful new play, Liberation, from Ntombizodwa Nyoni. But there are heaps of free events – including a stampede of lifesize animal puppets roaming the streets (The Herds) and a new art exhibition curated by the children of Greater Manchester (Inheritance). MG Newcastle fringe festivalVarious venues, Newcastle upon Tyne, 22 July to 2 August Running Tuesdays to Saturdays, this arts festival takes place across some of the city's coolest venues and mixes household names with up-and-comers. North-east comics such as Lauren Pattison, Raul Kohli, Si Beckwith and Seymour Mace can be found alongside Susie McCabe, Lorna Rose Treen and Ola Labib. Pattison's Show, Slice & Spritz – a comedy and variety night out with added pizza – sounds particularly fun. RH Billingham international folklore festival of world danceVarious venues, Billingham, 9 to 17 August The majority of events are free or pay what you want at this Teesside festival – the subject of a 70s BBC documentary called What's a Festival Like You Doing in a Place Like This? – and now celebrating its 60th anniversary. More than 250 performers from all over the world will showcase national dances from countries including Bolivia, China, Costa Rica, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Montenegro, Philippines and Ukraine. Lyndsey Winship Scottish Ballet: Mary, Queen of ScotsFestival Theatre, Edinburgh, 15 to 17 August; touring to 4 October The big dance premiere of this year's Edinburgh international festival, Glasgow's Scottish Ballet has form when it comes to stirring, inventively told narrative ballet (Coppélia, The Crucible, A Streetcar Named Desire). The company's choreographer, Sophie Laplane, approaches the life of Mary, Queen of Scots through the prism of her relationship with Elizabeth I. Designs by Soutra Gilmour promise 'punk meets haute couture'. LW The Enormous CrocodileRegent's Park Open Air theatre, 15 August to 7 September You can't beat a family theatre trip to Regent's Park theatre. This production of Roald Dahl's snappy story transfers from Leeds Playhouse and is directed by Emily Lim, whose work always feels especially considerate of its audience. There's music from Sudanese American artist Ahmed Abdullahi Gallab, a book from Suhayla El-Bushra (Arabian Nights) and puppets from the brilliant Toby Olié. MG Bleak Week: Cinema of DespairPrince Charles Cinema, London, 15 to 21 June Sometimes it's fun to really bathe in misery with the saddest, most soul-wrenching films ever made, such as Watership Down, Come and See, and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. If that kind of silver screen nihilism sounds like your jam, get your long face down to the Prince Charles Cinema, recently designated an asset of community value by Westminster council. ElioIn cinemas 20 June Pixar returns with a real throwback to the halcyon days of Toy Story and Finding Nemo. The action follows 11-year-old Elio who mistakenly becomes the ambassador of planet Earth after a misunderstanding with some aliens. 28 Years LaterIn cinemas 20 June They're zombies, but they're fast. It's amazing how radical that seemed back in 2002, with purists kicking off about how they were 'supposed to shuffle', and defenders pointing out that technically the 28 Days Later zombies weren't really zombies. The vast majority of cinemagoers were happy just to revel in a lean, mean horror machine that gave a wonderful starring role to a young Cillian Murphy. This follow-up reunites director Danny Boyle, writer Alex Garland and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle. The Rural RemixVarious venues, Shropshire, 11 to 13 July Featuring Pride and Prejudice (2005), Pride and Prejudice With Zombies (2016) and 28 Years Later (2025), this three-day celebration promises more than just film: you can also attend The Big Cheese Off, which, in tribute to French cheesemaking hit Holy Cow, will see Shropshire cheeses face off against the French cheeses from the film. Venues include Ludlow Assembly Rooms, Old Market Hall in Shrewsbury, Wem Town Hall and Wellington Orbit. SupermanIn cinemas 11 July For those who are fed up with being promised their superhero movies will be edgy and dark comes this cheerier-looking, straight-down-the line reboot of the Big Blue Boy Scout. James Gunn's new version looks to move the DC staple away from the gloomy revisionist tones of the Zack Snyder era and back to the vibrant primary colours and John Williams score of the 1978 Christopher Reeve classic. Edinburgh international film festivalVarious venues, 14 to 20 August The 78th edition of Scotland's biggest film festival is set to unveil a selection of international and UK premieres, including the new Ben Wheatley film Bulk and the Sundance favourite Sorry, Baby. A number of screenings are pay what you can, giving everyone the chance to access the world's best cinema. Catherine Bray SMTOWN Live 2025Allianz Stadium Twickenham, London, 28 June Featuring enough visual stimulation and sugary hits to keep flagging parents and pepped-up kids happy, this celebration of 30 years of K-pop hothouse SM Entertainment features a lineup of its boy and girlbands. Aespa, Riize and NCT Wayv are among the big names, but keep an eye out for British boyband dearALICE, who formed last year on BBC One's Made in Korea: The K-Pop Experience. Michael Cragg Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion YeuleAcademy 2, Manchester, 1 July; O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, 2 July Singaporean singer-songwriter-producer Yeule creates unruly hybrids of future-facing electronic pop and raging 90s alt-rock, usually bridged by a sudden throat-shredding roar. With a newly released third album, Evangelic Girl Is a Gun – featuring collaborations with AG Cook and Mura Masa – under their studded belt, prepare for emotional bloodletting in a glorious cacophony of noise. MC Love Supreme jazz festivalGlynde Place, nr Lewes, 4 to 6 July Stalwart of the summer jazz festival roster, the camping weekender Love Supreme boasts a 2025 edition that is typically expansive. Jazz-adjacent stars such as soul singer Maxwell, hip-hop group the Roots and British multi-instrumental prodigy Jacob Collier top the bill, while the jazz aficionados will be satisfied thanks to sets from US saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin, British pianist Neil Cowley and London-based newcomer Poppy Daniels. Ammar Kalia Kendrick Lamar and SZA8 to 23 July; tour starts Glasgow As Lamar's ongoing beef with Drake is battled out in the courts, the Compton rapper distracts himself with this co-headlining stadium tour alongside R&B superstar SZA. Its sold-out US leg saw the pair perform a mammoth 52 songs, including joint hits Luther and All the Stars, plus Drake favourite Not Like Us. Playboi Carti and Kaytranada have been guests so far, so expect more starry names. MC Bristol Harbour festivalVarious venues, 18 to 20 July Bristol's annual free festival attracts more than 250,000 people across its three days, showcasing local and international talent. As well as the main Harbour View stage – which will be headlined by Bristol-based sea shanty aficionados the Longest Johns – there's also a stage celebrating emerging acts, plus a more experimental space for spoken word and jazz. If all that's not enough, there's also a trapeze! MC Waterperry opera festivalNr Oxford, 8 to 17 August Country house opera with a difference. The open-air performances – concerts as well as operas – take place in the grounds of Waterperry House and gardens in a relaxed, informal atmosphere, with no hint of any dress code. This year's staged operas are Mozart's Don Giovanni and Handel's Semele, the first directed by John Wilkie and conducted by Charlotte Politi, the second staged by Rebecca Meltzer with Bertie Baigent in the pit. Andrew Clements Mohammad SyfkhanThe White Hotel, Salford, 28 August Syrian refugee and master player of the long-necked lute, the bouzouki, Mohammad Syfkhan has been charming audiences across the UK over the past year while supporting Irish folk group Lankum. He now brings his headline tour to Salford's White Hotel, playing tracks from his latest album. Expect twanging bouzouki melodies, soaring vocals and multi-layered electrified rhythms. AK Vienna PhilharmonicRoyal Albert Hall, London, 8 and 9 September In a Proms season that's notably short on great orchestras, the Vienna Philharmonic stands out. Its two concerts are conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, who has been a very rare visitor to London in recent years, and both his programmes feature final symphonies. In the first, Bruckner's unfinished Ninth is preceded by the suite from Berg's opera Lulu, while the second has Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique, with Mozart's Symphony No 38, the Prague. AC Jenny SavilleNational Portrait Gallery, London, 20 June to 7 September This retrospective of one of Britain's most acclaimed and successful contemporary painters is guaranteed to be full of blood and guts. Saville paints in the raw figurative tradition of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon – but from a female perspective. When other young artists in the 1990s were putting readymades in galleries, she was brushing her way to fame. Jeremy Deller's The Triumph of ArtMostyn, Llandudno, 21 June; The Box, Plymouth, 5 July; Trafalgar Square, London, 26 July People are the stuff of Deller's Turner prize-winning art. His creations such as Acid Brass and The Battle of Orgreave bring together community groups, voluntary associations and history in carnivals of collective memory. To mark the National Gallery's (long) bicentenary year he's created this street event that's guaranteed to involve and entertain all ages with processions, music and fun. William KentridgeYorkshire Sculpture Park, nr Wakefield, 28 June to 19 April 2026 Modern history, politics and art are taken apart, reassembled and held up to ironic scrutiny in this brilliant South African artist's witty but profoundly serious work. Drawing is at the heart of his activities and from that he creates animation, installations and – in this exhibition – sculpture. Kentridge shows his sculptural oeuvre both indoors and out in the green Yorkshire landscape. Kiefer/Van GoghRoyal Academy of Arts, London, 28 June to 26 October The German artist Anselm Kiefer is 80 this year: he was born in 1945, in the ruins of the Third Reich. Reckoning with history has been his life's work. His giant paintings and installations dwell on darkness. But here he reveals his love for Van Gogh, which started when he won a schools competition to visit the Dutch visionary's landscapes. Folkestone TriennialVarious venues, 19 July to 19 October Folkestone is full of surprising settings for public art, from defunct gas cylinder sites and genteel rock gardens to the JG Ballard-like modern ruins of the former ferry terminal. Artists including Monster Chetwynd, Cooking Sections, Dorothy Cross, Katie Paterson and Laure Prouvost take over such sites this summer, exploring the geological bedrock and prehistory of the town and its surroundings. Edinburgh art festivalVarious venues, 7 to 24 August Art is always plentiful in Edinburgh's festival season, in many varieties and venues both orthodox and unexpected. Highlights include a retrospective of land artist Andy Goldsworthy, whose work is usually seen in woods and fields rather than museums, and iconoclastic punk visionary Linder, who also performs. Walking around the Old and New Towns to find art is a joyous treat. Jonathan Jones
Times
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Giant review — John Lithgow's Roald Dahl conquers the West End
★★★★★Are we likely to see a more enthralling play in the West End this year? I very much doubt it. In fact, we'll be lucky to encounter a more thought-provoking piece in the next decade. Mark Rosenblatt's debut drama, first seen at the Royal Court last autumn, really is that good. Nicholas Hytner's immaculately paced production arrives at the Harold Pinter Theatre trailing a clutch of Olivier awards, and with the American actor John Lithgow reprising his incandescent portrayal of children's author Roald Dahl as an unforgettable mixture of wit, charm, bully and unfiltered antisemite. With the war in Gaza still making news, Rosenblatt's study could hardly be more timely. If the TV drama Adolescence did a solid job of catching the zeitgeist,
The Independent
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Bridgerton and Wicked star Jonathan Bailey tackles the Bard in trailer for Richard II
Jonathan Bailey shows off a sinister side in new trailer for Richard II. Nicholas Hytner 's revival of Shakespeare 's Richard II continues its limited run at the Bridge Theatre until May 10, 2025. The play follows an unhinged king set on wrecking the country he leads. Bailey's past credits include Bridgerton, Fellow Travellers, Cassio in Nicholas Hytner's National Theatre production of Othello and Edgar to Ian McKellen 's King Lear. He has also won an Olivier Award for his role of Jamie in Company and is Fiyero in the upcoming Wicked movie.
Telegraph
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The actors of today need to go to Shakespeare school
It has been a big week for Shakespeare: three major productions have opened across London and Stratford-upon-Avon. Last night, there was Nicholas Hytner directing Bridgerton star Jonathan Bailey in Richard II at the Bridge Theatre, and Rupert Goold's Hamlet with Luke Thallon, frequently tipped as a major theatre star of the future, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Tonight at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, the Jamie Lloyd Company concludes its West End residency with a characteristically star-studded production of Much Ado About Nothing, featuring Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell as Benedick and Beatrice. So far, I've only seen Richard II, and I loved the energy, pace and clarity of Hytner's production, not to mention Bob Crowley's clever set design, which allows Richard's deathbed and the Duke and Duchess of York's country kitchen table to rise up from the bowels of the stage. Yet something, it seemed to me, was slightly rotten in the state of British theatre. The verse speaking that's particularly crucial to this play – one of only a handful by Shakespeare to be written exclusively in verse – often fell short. Lines were misunderstood; phrasing was put in the wrong place. The iambic pentameter – the poetic line containing five stressed and five unstressed syllables, used in the Renaissance (and later) to elucidate meaning and signal importance – was sometimes mangled. Performing in verse is crucial to any take on Shakespeare, but my sad realisation is that the skill is dying. I sympathise with the great director (and co-founder of the RSC) Peter Hall, who once described himself as an 'iambic fundamentalist'. Apocryphally, he wouldn't look up from the text when he was directing a Shakespeare play, so rapt was he in the language. His advice on scansion in his 2003 book Shakespeare's Advice to the Players is superbly instructive: it essentially tells us to follow the metre, to trust Shakespeare's guiding hand. Hall shows us how the Bard knows the importance of juxtaposing regular and irregular rhythms, of adopting elisions where necessary, and using an irregular pattern as an insight into, say, psychological trauma. For example, Hall cites the strange rhythms and over-abundant syllables of some of Leontes's speeches in The Winter's Tale as a sign of the king's polluted passion for Hermione. Iambic pentameter, properly understood, sounds both poetically formal and undeniably human. It underlines the importance of what is being said. A great actor can manipulate it, make it sound natural and unlock something new. Simon Russell Beale – like Hall and RSC co-founder John Barton, a Cambridge English graduate – is one of the greatest living Shakespeareans: someone who can upend our received wisdom about a play by reimagining its meaning simply through changing the rhythms or emphasis of a speech . (He has described acting as 'three-dimensional literary criticism'.) Thus his Iago at the National Theatre in 1997 brought a new layer of meaning as the verse was often spat out at speed. What at first seemed like a sign of unassuming competence became more and more horrifying, as his increasingly destructive jealous tendencies towards Othello were underscored by the briskness of his delivery. Judi Dench, like Beale, understands that the line is far more important than the word. I remember being mesmerised by her performance as the Countess of Roussillon in All's Well That Ends Well, a play for which I don't much care. It was her poetic technique, honed over half a century, that brought humanity and wit to a deeply odd play about consent and power. Dench can move an audience to tears: think of her appearance on The Graham Norton Show in 2023, when she recited Sonnet 29 by heart. While it's true that her voice always has a special warmth, in both cases it was her ability to whip a line into submission that whipped the audience into a frenzy. What has gone wrong? Shakespeare is being performed less than he once was, and actors are less likely to have developed their craft through spending many years on stage. A very good actor such as Jonathan Bailey, who didn't go to drama school, has had scant opportunity to perform Shakespeare. As schools and drama colleges themselves continue to downplay the Bard's importance, you can imagine this will soon become the norm. The lack of vocal training is also very much in evidence: look at how often microphones are now used in the nation's theatres. The young actor's inability to project their voice is indelibly linked to an inability to deliver verse. I wonder, though, whether the biggest factor in all of this might be inverted snobbery; the idea that versifying is posh, and that you should therefore try to speak Shakespeare as prose in order to demystify it, and make it feel 'contemporary'. The Globe has moved away from the original practices of speaking – and, in productions I've seen, features actors speaking slowly and clearly. The overall effect often feels crashingly literal. I've heard, anecdotally, that today's directors are reluctant to take actors through Shakespeare line by line, perhaps fearful of seeming dictatorial or, I imagine in some cases, fearful of practising what could be perceived as an elitist approach to the classics. I wonder if Hytner, whip-smart and capable of an academically rigorous approach, was hesitant about telling his younger actors how to perform. Some years ago, Gregory Doran, then the artistic director of the RSC, set up a Shakespeare 'gym' at Stratford to get his actors textually in shape. I would suggest that all budding young thespians now need some sort of 'Shakespeare school' to hone their craft – and they should attend it early in their training. Without this, British audiences are in danger of losing the meaning, and the sheer magic, of the greatest writer who ever lived.
