Spectacular stage performances, awesome new albums, a host of fantastic films and stunning art shows – they are all featured in our critics’ picks of the best of theatre, music, film and art.
Our experts have explored all the options for culture vultures to get their teeth into, and decided on the plays, albums and movies that are well worth dedicating your weekend to.
Read on to find out what to see and do…
THEATRE
SHOW OF THE WEEK
Opening
The category winners and shortlisted entries in the Open competition of the 2024 Sony World Photography Awards have been unveiled – and the images featured are as extraordinary as ever.
The prestigious contest runs several competitions every year, with more than 395,000 photographs from more than 220 countries and territories entered into this year’s overall awards.
Standout images from the Open contest include a scene from New Mexico that could be an alien planet, a moonrise burning across the horizon
These extraordinary aerial images, taken over a period of decades, show how modern society has transformed the planet, with industry leaving strangely beautiful marks that give some areas the appearance of an alien world. Others show natural landscapes that look like abstract paintings from above.
The transfixing pictures have been taken by world-renowned Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, who has spent 45 years taking photos from a god-like perspective achieved by the use of helicopters, small jets, hydraulic poles, and
Visitors could be forgiven for thinking it’s a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
For the abandoned citadel of Guermassa in Tunisia sits in an otherworldly landscape redolent of the environs of Star Wars’ Tatooine.
This is not a coincidence: nearby Tataouine city – the capital of the Tataouine Governate – provided the architectural inspiration for Luke Skywalker’s home planet, if not the shooting location (that’s Matmata, in the north east).
Guermassa itself is the name of
The first thing you notice on arrival at the grand, porticoed entrance of the Four Seasons Resort in Thailand’s Koh Samui are the monkeys.
They are everywhere – stone monkey statues proffering welcome garlands, cheeky terracotta monkeys giving you the thumbs up from plant pots, laconic stone apes draped over walls, monkey water-features spouting streams into private villa pools.
So don’t be surprised to find that monkeys are a recurring theme in the third series of hit TV show The
‘Where the skies are so blue,’ the late Ronnie Van Zant sang in the country music classic Sweet Home Alabama, in a southern drawl full of conviction. Looking out from my seafront balcony, he certainly seems to have got that right.
As the beaming sun settles high in the sky above sugar-white sands and crystalline waters, it quickly becomes clear that the catchy tune is spot on about this much-maligned state – so often talked down because of its rural
A FULL MOON is the phase of the moon in which its whole disc is illuminated.
During the 29.5-day lunar cycle, we observe a new moon (with 0 per cent illumination), a waxing moon (when the amount of illumination on the moon is increasing), a full moon (100 per cent illumination) and then a waning moon (when its visible surface area is getting smaller).
Because our modern calendar isn’t quite in line with the Moon’s phases, sometimes we get more
These photographers are taking their art form to lofty new heights.
Their work has been awarded in the Drone Photo Awards 2023, an annual international competition dedicated to aerial photography.
The contest received thousands of submissions from countries around the world, with gongs handed out in nine categories including Wildlife, Urban and Sport.
The top prize goes to a shot of a mass of protesters partially concealed by three enormous billboards in Israel, captured by Israeli photographer Or Adar.
Fed up with the beaten track? Then step into the wild, courtesy of a stunning new book.
Beautifully illustrated with breathtaking colourful photographs, The Wild – The World’s Most Spectacular Untamed Places, written by Claudia Martin and published by Amber Books, catapults you into ‘the planet’s least cultivated places, from jungles to tundras… stretches of wilderness unaltered by humankind’.
Arranged by continent, the book takes you from the wandering albatrosses of South Georgia to the ‘dizzying passes and
Halle Bailey perfectly captured Princess Ariel’s magic on Monday night when she arrived at The Little Mermaid Premiere in Los Angeles wearing a spectacular fishtail dress.
The 23-year-old star was joined by her supportive big sister Chloe, 24, who looked gorgeous in a sultry yellow gown that hugged her curves and flashed her cleavage with a sexy crystal cutout.
The two siblings reigned supreme on the red carpet as the history-making live-action remake prepares to make a gigantic splash at
