Going out: Cinema
Elemental
Out now
Does Pixar’s latest have the magic of Pixar movies at their best? In a word: no. But when you’re competing with the likes of Toy Story, Wall-E and 2022’s Turning Red (inexplicably shuffled straight to streaming and well worth tracking down) perhaps there’s no shame in being a serviceable and intermittently sweet entertainment instead.
Name Me Lawand
Out now
For his latest documentary, writer-director Edward Lovelace spent four years learning British Sign Language and filming Lawand, a young Kurdish boy, deaf since birth. After a year in a refugee camp, Lawand and his family make their home in Derby, but just as Lawand is finding his feet, the family are threatened with deportation.
The Damned Don’t Cry
Out now
A misfit mother and son hustle to get by in Fyzal Boulifa’s follow-up to his acclaimed debut Lynn + Lucy. When Fatima-Zahra and her 16-year-old son Selim move to Tangier, it initially seems like their new home will be everything they hope, but life only gets more complicated.
Smoking Causes Coughing
Out now
Anyone familiar with the offbeat comedy of Quentin Dupieux (Mandibles, Rubber), will know that although this is a film about superheroes, it’s not your usual Marvel/DC fare. These five caped crusaders, AKA the Tobacco Force, are on an R&R retreat to cope with a battle against a giant turtle when the Emperor of Evil decides to destroy Earth. Catherine Bray
Going out: Gigs
Photograph: Marcus Ingram/Getty Images
Jill Scott
11 and 12 July, Eventim Apollo, London
Delayed by the pandemic, the newly rechristened Who Is Jill Scott? 23rd anniversary tour, which honours the Philadelphian’s landmark debut album, arrives in London after a string of US dates. Expect to get lost in the languid atmosphere of this tactile, neo-soul benchmark, chronicling love and sex. Michael Cragg
Belle and Sebastian
Olympia, Liverpool, 8 July; Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 9 July; Beach Ballroom, Aberdeen, 10 July; O2 Sheffield, 12 July; O2 Oxford, 13 July; O2 Birmingham, 14 July; touring to 22 July
Having evolved from trepidatious indie-folkies to something approaching swaggering festival favourites over their 20 years-plus career, the Scots intellects continue to flex their live muscles on this rescheduled tour, now in support of January’s excellent surprise 12th album, Late Developers. MC
Branford Marsalis
Barbican London, 12 July
A highlight of the London jazz festival summer series is the eloquent saxophonist-composer Branford Marsalis’s visit with his long-running and uncannily empathic quartet. Marsalis has worked with symphony orchestras and rock stars from Sting to the Grateful Dead, but this group always feels like his true home. John Fordham
Tudors at the Tower
Church of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London, Sat & Wed
Spitalfields festival brings a pair of concerts to the Tower of London. The first, with soprano Anna Dennis, centres on Libby Larsen’s Try Me, Good King, a cycle based on extracts from the letters of Henry VIII’s first five wives; in the second, the Odyssean Ensemble sings the three masses by William Byrd. Andrew Clements
Going out: Art
Sir Joshua Reynolds
Kenwood House, London, 13 July to 19 November
This 18th-century painter created the Royal Academy and portrayed scores of Enlightenment people including Omai, the Pacific visitor to Britain whose portrait was recently bought for the nation. But William Blake denounced him as an establishment hack. Here’s a chance to compare him with other portraitists such as Rembrandt and Gainsborough.
Herzog & de Meuron
Royal Academy, London, from 14 July to 15 October
The Swiss architects who have created some of today’s most outstanding and imaginative buildings, from Tate Modern to the new National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, show models and designs that illuminate their creative process. They combine radical experimentation with function and practicality to a degree that’s probably unique now.
Tim Shaw
Imperial War Museum North, Manchester, permanent
Shaw’s Man on Fire is a flaming semi-abstract figure streaking through space, cast in flowing metal. Inspired by a photograph of a soldier trying to escape a burning tank, this monumental sculpture goes on permanent display at IWM North, accompanied by a show of war art from the museum’s collection.
A World of Private Mystery
Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden, from 8 July to 29 October
The neo-Romantic movement in 1940s Britain rediscovered the poetry of landscape and the beguilement of ruins at a time of national peril. John Piper’s paintings of churches after they were destroyed by German bombing caught the dark mood. He stars here alongside Graham Sutherland, John Minton, John Craxton and more. Jonathan Jones
Going out: Stage
Dr Semmelweis
Harold Pinter Theatre, London, to 7 October
A maverick Hungarian doctor is convinced that basic sanitation in hospitals could save thousands of patients’ lives – but will anyone listen? A typically mesmerising Mark Rylance stars as the misunderstood medic. Miriam Gillinson
Paul Sinha
Graylingwell Chapel, Chichester, 10 July; The Cove, Brighouse, 12 July
To fans of The Chase he’s known as The Sinnerman, but this master standup is more than a daytime quiz star. Experience his brutally honest, gag-dense and, unsurprisingly clever 30-year-honed style at these previews of his new show Pauly Bengali, ahead of an Edinburgh fringe stint and tour. Rachel Aroesti
Alice in Wonderland
Liverpool Playhouse, to 22 July, then transferring to Theatre Royal Plymouth, 1 to 5 Aug
After trying to fix her dad’s old stereo, Alice is pulled into a strange new world where she comes face to face with the Queen of Charts. With music and lyric from Hey Duggee writer Vikki Stone. MG
Messums festival
Messums Wiltshire, Tisbury, 14 to 23 July
This rural art gallery plays hosts to an annual dance fest. Alongside workshops, performers include the award-winning Alleyne Dance and Spoken Movement, and choreographers Chandenie Gobardhan and John-William Watson, plus a programme of dance films. There’s a free bus service from London. Lyndsey Winship
Staying in: Streaming
Survival of the Thickest
13 July, Netflix
Brits may need some titular clarification – we’re talking thick as in curvy, not stupid – but in every other sense US comedian Michelle Buteau’s new dramedy is the epitome of easily digestible feelgood TV. Buteau plays Mavis Beaumont, a broken-hearted, professionally frustrated fashion stylist whose new start soon surpasses her old life.
The Afterparty
12 July, Apple TV+
Tiffany Haddish’s Detective Danner returns to irreverently investigate another untimely death – this time at a wedding – in the second season of the comedian-crammed murder mystery series. Each episode dramatises one of the suspects’ personal accounts of the action, with Jack Whitehall and Ken Jeong among the star turns.
The Summer I Turned Pretty
14 July, Amazon Prime Video
More warmth and fuzziness courtesy of this returning drama, adapted from Jenny Han’s bestselling YA novel trilogy. Last year we witnessed Isabel “Belly” Conklin (Lola Tung) fall in love on her annual family holiday; this season she returns to Cousins Beach for more soft-focus coming-of-age triumphs and travails.
The Secrets of Hillsong
12 July, Disney+
Based on a Vanity Fair exposé of the Australian megachurch, this four-part doc speaks to “celebrity pastor” Carl Lentz – erstwhile mentor of Justin Bieber – who was ousted due to his adultery. That’s the tabloidy hook, but the series also drills into Hillsong’s sinister underbelly, finding the church has long been plagued by terrible crimes. RA
Staying in: Games
Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals
Out 12 July, PC, IOS, PS4 & 5, Switch
The original Oxenfree was a fascinating supernatural adventure with a complex conversation system in which dialogue choices truly dictated the narrative. The sequel picks up five years later, and follows a thirtysomething researcher trapped on a mysterious island.
Manic Mechanics
Out 12 July, Switch
From Scottish developer 4J Studios, best known for its Minecraft console conversions, comes a fun cooperative garage sim, where players must work together to fit new parts to vehicles. Like Overcooked, but with paint jobs and car parts replacing vegetables and washing up. Keith Stuart
Staying in: Albums
Anohni and the Johnsons – My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross
Out now
On her first album since 2016’s Hopelessness, and first under the “and the Johnsons” moniker since 2010, Anohni celebrates LGBTQ+ trailblazers, rails against political persecution and, on the hollowed-out hymn Sliver of Ice, honours mentor Lou Reed. A powerful, full-blooded return from a distinctly unique voice.
Dominic Fike – Sunburn
Out now
Recently seen playing Elliot in OTT teenage soap opera, Euphoria, Florida’s alt-pop, Gen Z superstar Dominic Fike returns to music with a typically ramshackle second album. Featuring production from Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles) and Kenny Beats (Vince Staples), highlights include the crumpled slacker rock of single Ant Pile.
PJ Harvey – I Inside the Old Year Dying
Out now
Inspired by her 2022 epic poem, Orlam, and featuring improvised sections created alongside her co-producers Flood and John Parish, PJ Harvey’s first album in seven years – led by the strangely soothing single, A Child’s Question, August – is an intense, multi-layered rumination on searching for connection.
Little Dragon – Slugs of Love
Out now
Swedish quartet Little Dragon return with more deliciously off-kilter electronic pop built around frontwoman Yukimi Nagano’s mesmerising voice. On Tumbling Dice that defining instrument is laced through intricate drum patterns, while on the brilliantly titled Kenneth it’s buffeted by liquid funk. Guests include Damon Albarn and rapper JID. MC
Staying in: Brain food
Muhammad Ali
3 July, PBS America
Ken Burns’ incisive, four-part documentary on the life and remarkable career of Muhammad Ali gets a welcome airing. Applying his typical attention to detail, Burns charts Ali’s rise to fame with precision and dramatic archive footage.
Abridged
Podcast
A podcast about bridges might not sound too riveting but this artfully constructed series profiles people with fascinating connections to the structures, from a New York City gymnast to a woman who is married to a bridge.
Told in Stone
YouTube
Ancient historian Garrett Ryan’s video channel produces engaging weekly essays on the lives and fascinations of the Romans and Greeks. Learn how Roman music might have sounded and explore the existence of Greek Buddhists, among other insights. Ammar Kalia
