From You, Me & Tuscany to Euphoria: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead
Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page star in a slinky new romcom, while the dissolute teens of the US drama are back in their 20sYou, Me & TuscanyOut now Where would the romcom be if everyone told the truth? When impulsive cook Anna (Halle Bailey) tells a porky pie about being engaged in order to justify her presence in an abandoned Tuscan villa, a train of events leading to true love is – naturally – set in motion.Regé-Jean Page and Nia Vardalos co-star.The StrangerOut now In 1930s Algiers, a young man, Meursault, commits murder.The premise will be familiar to Albert Camus ride-or-dies, for this is indeed an adaptation of the literary giant’s debut, from François Ozon.Rising French actor Benjamin Voisin plays the unassuming antihero, with Pierre Lottin as the dodgy neighbour whose private life spells trouble.
California Schemin’Out now James McAvoy’s directorial debut, this comedy is based on the true story of a pair of Scottish rappers who found their careers stymied by narrow-minded record execs who kept comparing them to the Proclaimers.Naturally, they decided to pretend to be a California duo, Silibil N’ Brains, and, amazingly, it worked.Sort of.Father Mother Sister BrotherOut now Jim Jarmusch assembles an all-star cast including Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Charlotte Rampling and Cate Blanchett for a trio of intergenerational family dramas set in three different countries, and which won the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival.Catherine BrayPeaches15 to 20 April; tour starts Dublin After returning to the fray in February with slimy seventh album No Lube So Rude, the Canadian electro-punk maverick heads to various UK cities to wreak havoc.
Expect clattering noise grenades and sweary sex bangers,Michael CraggMiguelManchester, 13 April; Birmingham, 14 April; London, 16 April Best known for his lush, often horny R&B slow jams, LA’s Miguel returned last year with Caos, a densely textured, genre-agnostic deep dive into our turbulent times,It will be intriguing to see how songs such as RIP work alongside loved-up anthems such as Adorn and viral hit Sure Thing,MCNeil Cowley Trio11 to 23 April; tour starts Bradford-on-Avon Since the mid-00s, versatile former funk pianist Neil Cowley has successfully performed punchily rockish jazz with an empathic trio, alongside solo work in contemporary classical music and electronica,The trio reconvene to tour Built on Bach, their new album exploring JS Bach’s timelessly dizzying ideas with canny input from global music, funk and jazz.
John FordhamBrodsky Quartet & William Barton14 April, London; 15 April, Leeds; 16 April, Nottingham; 17 April, Bristol The venerable British string quartet were founded more than 50 years ago but remain as adventurous as ever.Here they join forces with Australian didgeridoo virtuoso William Barton for a programme that ranges across centuries and continents, featuring works by Purcell, Janáček and Stravinsky alongside music by contemporary Australian composers.Flora WillsonDonald LockeCamden Art Centre, London, to 30 AugustBack in the 1950s, Guyanese-British artist Locke took all the formality of minimalism and infused it with the weight of colonial history.His approach to ceramics, painting and sculpture – combining the language of modernism with the symbols of Guyana and southern American Black culture – paved the way for a generation of artists to drag the stuffy old art world into the post-colonial future.This show has been travelling around the UK since starting at Spike Island in Bristol last year, and this is the last stop on its tour, so catch it while you can.
Paula RegoVictoria Miro, London, 16 April to 23 MayRego challenged everything – power structures, family dynamics, political inequality, societal cruelty – and she did it all with a big, imposing, subversive approach to figurative painting.But this ambitiously museum-quality exhibition looks at how drawing was central to the Portuguese artist’s practice, focusing on preparatory sketches, studies and archival material.Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in StyleKing’s Gallery, London, to 18 OctoberThe King’s Gallery has been rifling through the attic and has found a whole load of boxes filled with Queen Elizabeth II’s old tat, and now they’re putting it all on display.This show promises an in-depth look at the sartorial inclinations of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, from her childhood, straight through the princess years style choices to her final decades in charge.From her christening robe to her coronation dress, they’ve got it all.
We are not amused, but we are very chic,ExtractionJupiter Artland, Edinburgh, to 26 JulyTalk about timing,Artland’s big spring exhibition is taking viewers on a filthy trip through the world of energy just as the attacks on Iran send the price of gas and oil through the stratosphere,The artists – including Marguerite Humeau with her biomorphic sci-fi sculptures, and John Gerrard with his ominous approach to digital video art – are tackling the way energy has shaped society, all in a landscape that’s haunted by traces of the shale gas industry, the petroleum economy and the renewables market,Eddy FrankelJames Acaster 14 April to 27 August; tour starts Prescot When it comes to UK standup, nobody rivals Acaster’s combination of mainstream appeal, brainy subversion and eccentric edge.
Lately, the Kettering-born comedian’s left-field badinage has even become a hit on the US talkshow circuit,See what surprises he has up his sleeve on his brand new tour,Rachel AroestiScottish Ballet: StarstruckTheatre Royal, Glasgow, 16 to 18 April; touring to 9 May There’s romance, Greek gods and backstage drama in this jazz ballet by Broadway and MGM legend Gene Kelly, set to music by Gershwin, Ravel and Chopin – and it’s as delightful as that sounds,Friday night’s performance is followed by a post-show talk with Kelly’s widow, Patricia Ward Kelly,Lyndsey WinshipOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s NestThe Old Vic, London, to 23 MayClint Dyer directs a bold new staging of Ken Kesey’s novel, set inside a psychiatric facility – where Nurse Ratched (Olivia Williams) rules supreme, until new patient Randle P McMurphy blows it all apart.
With a cracking cast including Aaron Pierre and Giles Terera.Miriam GillinsonTweedy’s Massive Circus: The Big Number 2Old Farm, Moreton-on-Marsh, to 19 April; touring to 31 May The standout star of Gifford’s Circus, Tweedy the clown is branching out on his own this year.Blending absurdism and a deceptive athleticism, childlike glee with a grownup twinkle in his eye, Tweedy is a one-off – and a genuine delight for all the family.MGEuphoriaSky Atlantic/Now, 13 April, 9pm Using the four-year gap between seasons to time-jump – a break that also saw many cast members (Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi) become household names – Sam Levinson’s salacious high-school drama (above) reunites with its now twentysomething protagonists to flirt provocatively with themes including drug debt, sugar babies and social media sex work.Margot’s Got Money TroublesApple TV, 15 April Prolific showrunner David E Kelley turns Rufi Thorpe’s novel about a young mother making ends meet by creating out-there OnlyFans content into a zingy dramedy.
Elle Fanning plays the titular Margo, Michelle Pfeiffer is her ex-Hooters waitress mum and Nick Offerman her former pro-wrestler dad.BeefNetflix, 16 April Season one of Lee Sung Jin’s dark comedy anthology chronicled the road rage-induced feud between a rich, unhappy woman and a poor, unhappy man.Its second outing sustains the haves v have-nots theme by following two warring couples who work at an exclusive country club, starring Carey Mulligan and Oscar Isaac.Grayson Perry Has Seen the FutureChannel 4, 15 April, 9pm Invariably entertaining and often profoundly illuminating, Perry’s programmes about taste, identity and masculinity have turned the artist into one of our best documentarians.Now he’s crossing the pond to gain insight into the threats and benefits of AI – findings he will later transform into a custom artwork.
RADosa Divas: One Last MealSwitch/Switch 2, PS5, Xbox, PC; out 14 April In this RPG, your sister runs an evil fast-food conglomerate that wants to replace your kingdom’s food culture with slop,So you and your shambling cute robot set out to stop her, cooking up an Indian-inspired storm along the way,ReplacedXbox, PC; out 14 April This extremely Blade Runner-inspired action game about a rogue AI trapped in a human body looks extremely cool: its eye-catching, detailed art sits between 2D and 3D, and appropriately the game mixes modern play with 1980s cyberpunk inspirations,Keza MacDonaldHolly Humberstone – Cruel WorldOut now Nearly three years after her alt-pop debut, Paint My Bedroom Black, written in constant transit while on tour, the Brit-winning singer-songwriter returns with this more settled follow-up, filled with big, Chappell Roan-worthy singalong choruses,Highlights include the title track and To Love Somebody.
Wu Lyf – A Wave That Will Never BreakOut now Fifteen years after releasing their debut album, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain, the Manchester post-rock outsiders are back with this seven-track follow-up,Produced by Spaceman 3’s Sonic Boom, who also worked with MGMT and Beach House, its led by the surprisingly euphoric-sounding Love Your Fate,My New Band Believe – My New Band BelieveOut now Former Black Midi bassist and occasional frontman Cameron Picton’s new band explore the weirder reaches of indie-rock on this short sharp shock of a debut,Lead single Love Story takes its purposely banal lyrics about cooking dinner and launches them skywards in the song’s final third,Squarepusher – KammerkonzertOut now Tom Jenkinson’s latest album under his Squarepusher moniker is a typically invigorating affair, riffing on ambient soundscapes, orchestral moods and chunky electronic riffs.
Songs such as the bass-heavy K2 Central and K7 Museum, with its unsettling harpsichord jitters, feel perfectly out of this world.MCMF Doom: Long Island to Leeds Podcast In this podcast, BBC DJ Afrodeutsche goes in search of the reason why lauded US rapper MF Doom came to spend the final years of his life in Leeds.Conversations with locals and famous fans reveal his impact.Access O’Keeffeaccess-ok.okeeffemuseum.
org The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum has recently made available hi-res digital scans of the modernist painter’s artworks, as well as contemporary responses and fascinating archive materials including her photographs and letters to her husband, Alfred Stieglitz.Illuminated: Journey Through a Cow12 April, Radio 4, 7.15pm Part documentary and part audio experiment, this engrossing piece uses field recordings and interviews with farmers, artists and scientists to trace the journey of a cow’s digestive system – from grass through four stomachs to dung.Ammar Kalia
From soups and greens to roots, how to survive the ‘hungry gap’
Spring may have firmly sprung – I write this with a view of vivid yellow forsythia blossom in next door’s garden, and the melodious warble of full-throated birdsong – but though the greenery may be flourishing in our gardens, it’s a different story at the farmers’ market. Despite a few spindly spears of asparagus and miniature jersey royals making an appearance on our Easter tables last weekend, the new season of British produce doesn’t kick off in earnest for another few weeks yet. That means we’re now heading into the so-called “hungry gap”, an annual quirk of our relatively northern latitude, when temperatures are too high for much winter veg such as kale and brassicas, but too low for the more delicate likes of peas and broad beans to ripen – let alone high-summer treats such as berries, squash and stone fruit.Happily, many hardy winter crops store well, and are versatile enough to shake off their heavy winter coat of cream and butter in favour of a lighter treatment. The late Skye Gyngell gifted us a carrot, celery, farro and borlotti bean soup, Nigel Slater has an early spring laksa with purple sprouting broccoli (and some spinach, which I suspect you could use frozen), and Nicholas Balfe offers a ceviche with celeriac and a baked beetroot dish (pictured top) – both of which look just the thing to wake up your taste buds
Rachel Roddy’s recipe for hazelnut and chocolate cake | A kitchen in Rome
Having been kept waiting for three hours, Dick Dewy leaves Miss Fancy Day snipping and sewing her blue dress. The plan is that he will return for her a quarter of an hour later, however, Dick convinces himself that he has been scandalously trifled with by Fancy and decides that, to punish her, he will not return. Instead, he leaps over the gate, pushes up the lane for two miles, takes a winding path called Snail-Creep, and crawls through the opening to the hazel grove in Grey’s Wood.Getting a class of 15-year-olds to relay/read the opening of chapter four of Under the Greenwood Tree, which is memorably entitled “Going Nutting”, is an extremely effective way to engage them with the majesty of Thomas Hardy. And the title is nothing compared to the line (as Dick vanished among the bushes): “Never man nutted as Dick nutted that afternoon
How to make cauliflower cheese using the whole plant – recipe | Waste not
This recipe, adapted from one in my cookbook, is a very elaborate way to serve humble cauliflower cheese. The whole plant, including the leaves and core, is seasoned with nutmeg and roasted, and it’s then dressed with a satisfying layer of rich cheese sauce and grilled until charred and bubbling. Choose a cauliflower with plenty of leaves, because they go deliciously crisp when roasted.This is perhaps the most decadent cauliflower cheese I’ve ever made. Inspired by an orange-coloured cauliflower I found sitting proudly in a box at my local Brockley Market in south London, I decided to make a vibrant and very orange cauliflower cheese using red leicester cheese and turmeric
A marmalade-dropper for Paddington Bear? | Letters
As a Portuguese-British citizen, I feel it is my duty to add to your explainer article (Keir Starmalade, anyone? Will marmalade really have to be rebranded in UK?, 4 April) and explain where the word marmalade originated from. Marmalade comes from the fruit marmelo (quince). And marmalade was and is quince jam in Portugal. This jam began to be exported to England at the end of the 15th century. Only in the 17th century did the English start to apply the word marmalade to orange jam
How to save limp herbs | Kitchen aide
What can I do with herbs that are past their best?Joe, by email Happily, Joe and his on-the-turn herbs aren’t short of options. “The obvious choice for hard herbs is to chuck them in a sandwich bag and freeze them for future stock-making,” says Alice Norman, founder of regenerative bakery Pinch in Suffolk. Alternatively, Sami Tamimi, author of Boustany, would be inclined to dry his excess herbs. In summer, he’d simply pop them on a tray and put them outside in the sun, but right now he “dries them in a 60-70C oven, then packs in containers, ready for the next time you’re short of fresh herbs”.Norman’s current MO is to blitz languishing herbs (“rosemary and/or thyme work best”) with a 3:4 ratio of fine salt
‘Before I can stop her, my daughter is licking crumbs from the table’: my search for the perfect kids’ menu
Chips, fish fingers, pizza … restaurant food for children is depressingly predictable. Are there more adventurous options? I took my four-year-old daughter on a month-long mission to find outWe’re heading out for dinner. Before I tell my four-year-old where we’re going, she has already announced that she’s going to have fish, chips and lots of ketchup. It sounds delicious; a classic. But there’s the irksome feeling that the intrepid impulses of childhood should be met with food that expands palates rather than feeding into the well-trodden path to a beige meal
From You, Me & Tuscany to Euphoria: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead
‘I got everything I dreamed of – when I had no ability to handle it’: Lena Dunham on toxic fame, broken friendships and her ‘lost decade’
Kimmel on Trump: ‘He talks about war like he’s bragging about women with Billy Bush’
Jimmy Kimmel on US ceasefire negotiators: ‘We’d be better off with Alvin and the Chipmunks’
Jimmy Kimmel on Trump’s Iran threats: ‘The most dangerous episode of the Celebrity Apprentice yet’
Eminem’s 8 Mile helped me survive abuse – and opened my eyes to a world outside of orthodox Judaism