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Going out: Cinema
Black Rodeo season
1 February to 18 March
A season of westerns includes a wide range of revisionist films influenced by Black Power and the civil rights movement, with discussions and conversations featuring Mario Van Peebles, Clive Chijioke Nwonka and film journalist Ellen E Jones. Films include The Harder They Fall, Posse and Django Unchained.
Saturday Night
Out now
In 1975, the show later abbreviated to SNL was broadcast for the first time. This comic drama explores the roots of an American television institution presided over then and now by Lorne Michaels, played here by Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans). Also starring Rachel Sennott, Nicholas Braun, Willem Dafoe and JK Simmons.
Hard Truths
Out now
Reuniting Marianne Jean-Baptiste with Mike Leigh, this drama focuses on Pansy, a depressed middle-aged woman, whose sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) is blessed with a more mellow disposition. After a couple of period films, this sees Leigh back in the contemporary relationships mode that made his name.
Companion
Out now
Jack Quaid is a standout among the current clutch of young-ish actors making names for themselves in genres like horror and comedy. And so he should be, with Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan for parents. Here he’s in villain mode for a creepy new psychological thriller also starring Sophie Thatcher and Lukas Gage. Postponed from 10 January. Catherine Bray
Going out: Gigs
Craig David
2 to 20 February; tour starts Leeds
In the year his classic debut album Born to Do It turns 25, Craig David heads out on an arena tour to remind everyone of those undeniable garage bangers. There will also be a smattering of new songs, including SOS, which sounds ripe for a Love Island sync. Michael Cragg
Sophie Jamieson
Low Four Studio, Manchester, 7 February; touring to 20 February
Released last month via Bella Union, British singer-songwriter Sophie Jamieson’s second album, I Still Want to Share, is an occasionally sparse selection of folk-rock, ripe for intimate venues. Gorgeous album opener Camera should be enough to silence any annoying chatterboxes in the crowd. MC
Xhosa Cole’s Free Monk
Ronnie Scott’s, London, 5 February
In recent years, young Birmingham saxophonist Xhosa Cole has emerged as an authoritative devotee of the classic jazz legacy, but one with an exciting voice of his own. Cole’s personal take on the ever influential music of Thelonious Monk is propelled here by a superb quintet including trumpeter Byron Wallen. John Fordham
The Flying Dutchman
Grand Theatre, Leeds, 1 to 21 February, touring to 28 March
Opera North’s new production of The Flying Dutchman promises to present Wagner’s first masterpiece as “a thrillingly urgent story for our challenging times”. It’s conducted by music director Garry Walker, directed by Annabel Arden and designed by Joanna Parker; Robert Hayward is the haunted, rootless Dutchman, Clive Bayley plays Daland and Layla Claire is Senta. Andrew Clements
Going out: Art
Ithell Colquhoun
Tate St Ives, 1 February to 5 May
This British surrealist gets a show by the seaside, which makes sense as her wondrous 1938 painting Scylla seduces you into a dreamy version of the British shore with two pink pinnacles emerging from green depths. Her cocktail of occult beliefs and artistic experiment is heady and beguiling.
Noah Davis
Barbican Art Gallery, London, 6 February to 11 May
This Los Angeles artist painted everyday scenes of Black American life: a mother with her child, two young women slumbering on a sofa. Yet his paintings also take off into fantasy. A boy rides a unicorn or a girl apparently puts on a flying costume – images of longing and hope.
Tarot: Origins & Afterlives
The Warburg Institute, London, to 30 April
Long before tarot cards were used to tell fortunes they were played with by courtiers in Renaissance Italy. The world’s oldest, most beautiful decks date from the 1400s and feature dreamlike paintings of powerful women with swords. See how this ancestor of modern card games became a magic obsession.
Celebrating 40 Years of Scotland’s Photography Collection
Portrait, Edinburgh, to 16 March
Don McCullin’s great war photograph of a shell-shocked US marine staring vacantly ahead, his mind emptied by horror, is among the faces in this survey of Scotland’s public photography treasures. Portraits of David Tennant, Jackie Kay and other modern Scots add lighter notes, and Julia Margaret Cameron deepens it historically. Jonathan Jones
Going out: Stage
Rachel Fairburn
6 February to 29 June; tour starts Oxford
That this Manc standup co-hosts a serial-killer podcast called All Killa No Filla should offer some clue to her darkly outrageous style – a vibe she has recently started channelling into some bleakly hilarious character comedy. Side Eye sees Fairburn embody seven morally dubious women whose misdeeds are eventually revealed to be woven together. Rachel Aroesti
Death and the King’s Horseman
Crucible, Sheffield, 3 to 8 February
Rooted in Yoruba spirituality, Wole Soyinka’s 1975 philosophical play is a tale of honour. Based on a true story, it sees the king’s horseman, Elesin, tasked with carrying out a sacred ritual. Directed by Mojisola Kareem, this new production features a cast of both professional actors and members of the local community. Kate Wyver
KS6: Small Forward
Barbican: The Pit, London, 5 to 8 February
Belarus Free Theatre was formed in defiance of the country’s extreme repression. Banned by its own government, this year marks its 20th anniversary. With this new DJ-scored play, the Olivier award-nominated company unpacks the story of Belarusian basketball player turned political dissident Katsiaryna Snytsina. KW
Paradise Lost (Lies Unopened Beside Me)
Chichester Minerva theatre, 6 & 7 February
A wry, clever, very funny and completely unfaithful reinvention of Milton’s Paradise Lost, musing on the act of creation in all its forms. Originally made and performed a decade ago by Ben Duke of dance-theatre company Lost Dog, the solo now has a new life with Olivier-nominated actor Sharif Afifi telling the tale. Lyndsey Winship
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Staying in: Streaming
Amandaland
BBC One & iPlayer, 5 February, 9pm
Sitcoms about middle-class British parenthood reached their apotheosis with the instantly iconic Motherland. This new spin-off attempts to continue the good work by following two mums from the original: Lucy Punch’s uber-groomed but slightly tragic user Amanda and her cheery dogsbody Anne (Philippa Dunne).
Am I Being Unreasonable?
BBC One & iPlayer, 5 February, 9.30pm
A meditation on friendship, motherhood, deceit and delusion, Daisy May Cooper’s follow-up to This Country was about as unconventional, hilarious and shocking as anyone could have hoped for. Now we reunite with Cooper’s Nic, who is persona non grata in the village and caravan-mates with odd new bestie Jen after the breakdown of her marriage.
Apple Cider Vinegar
Netflix, 6 February
The saga of wellness influencer Belle Gibson, who misled her followers into believing she had multiple cancers, is one of the most disturbing scams of the Instagram age. This new drama traces Gibson’s early empire-building in the social media wild west before her web of lies begins to unravel. Dopesick’s Kaitlyn Dever stars.
Mussolini: Son of The Century
NOW & Sky Atlantic, 4 February, 9pm
The rise of Italian fascism becomes a wildly entertaining ride in Atonement director Joe Wright’s fourth-wall-breaking, electronica-soundtracked (courtesy of one half of The Chemical Brothers), audaciously experimental and unsettlingly timely adaptation of Antonio Scurati’s garlanded “documentary novel” about the early years of Mussolini’s dictatorship. RA
Staying in: Games
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
Out 4 February; PC, PS5, Xbox
If you think most medieval fantasy games are a bit weak, then this punishingly realistic game about a squire trying to make it in 15th-century Bavaria ought to get the blood pumping.
Citizen Sleeper 2
Out now; PC, Xbox, PS5, Nintendo Switch
Sequel to one of the most intelligent role-playing games of 2022, this dice-driven sci-fi effort has you on the run with a crew of misfits, tinkering with your spaceship and your own android body to escape the corporation that created you. Keza MacDonald
Staying in: Albums
Manic Street Preachers – Critical Thinking
Out 7 February
The Welsh rockers return with this 15th album, produced once again by Dave Eringa. Bassist Nicky Wire takes lead vocals on Hiding in Plain Sight, inspired by 70s rock’n’roll, while James Dean Bradfield fronts bouncy single, Decline & Fall.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy – The Purple Bird
Out now
Will Oldham, revered American singer-songwriter and lover of various musical monikers, returns as Bonnie “Prince” Billy for another album of crumpled country and folk majesty. Recorded with a collection of Nashville’s finest musicians, it is anchored by the lovely London May.
Decius – Decius Vol II (Splendour & Obedience)
Out now
Decius, AKA Fat White Family frontman Lias Saoudi, brothers Liam and Luke May and Quinn Whalley of Paranoid London, return with their second volume of pulsating acid house curios. Queen of 14th Street is a strutting electro thumper, while the creeping Birth of a Smirk will make you want to dance and seek daylight.
Eddie Chacon – Lay Low
Out now
After scoring huge success as one half of 90s duo Charles & Eddie, California’s Eddie Chacon quit music to become a photographer. Five years after his critically acclaimed debut solo album, Pleasure, Joy and Happiness, Chacon continues that creative roll with this third album, which wraps his hushed voice in gorgeous alt-R&B soundscapes. MC
Staying in: Brain food
Outlawed
Podcast
Obstetricians Beverly Gray and Jonas Swartz tackle the divisive topic of American abortion rights in this important series. Speaking to medical experts and frontline caregivers, Gray and Swartz myth-bust everything from Texas law to abortion procedures.
Do You Really Need to Take 10,000 Steps a Day?
YouTube
For those of us fixated on reaching 10,000 steps each day, this Ted Talk from science writer Shannon Odell is an eye-opener. She investigates why that often-quoted number might be arbitrary or even misleading.
At Your Own Peril
Radio 4, 3 February, 1.45pm
Disaster expert Lucy Easthope fronts this entertaining series examining the ways that humans have managed risk throughout history. From Roman predictions to the discovery of probability, Easthope asks whether we now only have the illusion of control. Ammar Kalia
