From Charli XCX and Van Gogh to Gladiator 2: the best culture to go out and see this autumn

If you only catch one, catch:
Gladiator II 15 NovemberHas Paul Mescal got what Russell Crowe had? Director Ridley Scott thinks so, picking the young Irish heart-throb to topline a new swords-and-sandals adventure set in ancient Rome and based on the legacy of the characters from Scott’s 2000 Oscar-winner. Mescal plays Lucius, grandson of Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris’s character in Gladiator), who finds himself forced into the arena.
Speak No Evil12 September
The Danish original of Speak No Evil was a shocking lo-fi horror with an almost unspeakably cruel mystery involving a mute child at its core. This new version looks to have been given the glossy Blumhouse treatment with a likable cast (James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Aisling Franciosi, Scoot McNairy) playing the two sets of parents who vibe with each other on a family holiday and decide to maintain the friendship, to the huge later regret of one couple.
In Camera13 September
Biting yet playful, this brilliant debut about a would-be actor’s awful auditions announces director Naqqash Khalid as the kind of talent sorely missing from UK film. Back in the day, British cinema had the likes of Nic Roeg producing formally inventive film-making, while the so-called “angry young men” drew attention to injustice. But why not do both? In Camera manages just that, with sly brilliance.
Wolfs20 September
Brad Pitt and George Clooney are some of the last real blue-chip movie stars out there, and ever since Ocean’s Eleven it’s been a treat to watch them team up and turn on the old-school charm. In this action comedy, they reunitinge after 16 years to play rival fixers assigned to the same job.
The Substance20 September
A fading celebrity partaking of an out-there new black-market anti-ageing drug? We simply don’t believe it. Demi Moore is Elisabeth Sparkle, the star of an aerobics show fired on her 50th birthday because of her age, in this body horror from French writer-director Coralie Fargeat, which premiered to acclaim at the Cannes film festival.
Joker: Folie à Deux4 October
Two years after the events of Joker, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is back – and this time he’s got Lady Gaga on board as the music therapist at Arkham Asylum who falls hard for the patient who killed off a talkshow host live on air. So far, so comic-book sequel. But hang on to your hats: this one is a musical. And no, that’s not a joke.
The Apprentice18 October
Drawing on Donald Trump’s career as a real-estate businessman in New York in the 1970s and 1980s, Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes from the Marvel films) does his best impression of the Donald, with Jeremy Strong (Kendall from Succession) as Roy Cohn, the ferocious lawyer who, among many other unsavoury achievements, was a mentor to Trump. A real horror-villain origin story.
Timestalker18 OctoberYou’ve seen her on screen in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and Sightseers, and you might have caught her low-budget directorial debut Prevenge, about a pregnant serial killer. Now Alice Lowe is building on the promise of that film in this British comedy about an obsessive love reincarnated across the ages. The new romantic era is a particular highlight.Anora1 NovemberA new movie from Sean Baker (Tangerine, The Florida Project) is always cause for celebration. So we’d recommend getting excited about this Pretty Woman riff even if it hadn’t also won the Cannes film festival’s Palme d’Or, earlier this year. Mikey Madison plays the sex worker who impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch, who is none too thrilled to hear about his new daughter-in-law.Wicked22 November
It’s always the way: you wait all year for a musical and then two come along at once (see: Joker: Folie à Deux). This long-hyped stage-to-screen adaptation of the Broadway smash-hit Wizard of Oz riff stars Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum. No points for guessing who Goldblum plays. CB
If you only catch one, catch:
The Tragedy of Richard IIILyric theatre, Belfast, 12 October to 10 NovemberLast year, actor and theatre-maker Michael Patrick was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. He posted about it with the suggestion of performing Richard III. Now that has become a reality, with this bold adaptation by Patrick and his creative partner Oisín Kearney (the duo behind My Left Nut). A rail against ableism, this production of Shakespeare’s historic tragedy is bound to be brilliant and brutal.
A Raisin in the Sun Leeds Playhouse, 13 to 28 September; touring to 16 NovemberThe first play by a Black woman on Broadway, Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 family drama tells the story of the Youngers as they grapple with hope and grief in a segregated society. Catch this new touring production, directed by strikingly talented Tinuke Craig (Jitney, The Colour Purple), in Leeds, Oxford, London or Nottingham.
Princess Essex Shakespeare’s Globe, London, 13 September to 26 October
Anne Odeke’s music-filled show now takes on a much bigger stage. Princess Essex introduces us to a reimagined version of Princess Dinubolu of Senegal, a little-known real-life princess who made headlines in 1908 for entering a British beauty pageant. Odeke writes and performs.
Juno and the PaycockGielgud theatre, London, 21 September to 23 November
You never want to miss Mark Rylance on stage. This autumn, the Jerusalem actor takes on Seán O’Casey’s Irish epic of sharp wit and heavy drinking, where a poverty-stricken family are suddenly faced with the prospect of great wealth. Directed by head of the Old Vic, Matthew Warchus, the tragicomedy also stars J Cameron Smith of Succession fame.
Bullring Techno Makeout JamzBirmingham Hippodrome, 2 to 5 October; touring to 23 November
Nathan Queeley-Dennis’s love letter to Birmingham won the Bruntwood prize for playwriting two years ago, made waves at last year’s Edinburgh fringe, and now goes on tour to cities including Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds. It’s an exploration of Black masculinity, the intimacies of barbershops, and the undeniable supremacy of Beyoncé.
Fierce festival Various venues, Birmingham, 15 to 20 October
Up for something slightly strange? Fierce festival is a rare gem, offering a wild, bustling platform of striking performance art. This year’s 15-show international lineup includes Steven Cohen’s confrontation with grief, with Put Your Heart Under Your Feet … and Walk!, and Manual, Adam Kinner and Christopher Willes’ soft, sensory encounter taking place in a public library.
Enough of HimTraverse theatre, Edinburgh, 22 to 26 October; touring to 23 November
Power and freedom are tackled head on in May Sumbwanyambe’s domestic drama. Returning to tour across Scotland and England, this gripping, deliberately uncomfortable production from National Theatre Scotland is based on the true story of Joseph Knight, the extraordinary man whose activism led to slavery being banned under Scots law.
Kenrex The Playhouse, Sheffield, 26 October to 16 November
Actor Jack Holden and musician John Elliott stole hearts with Cruise, an electrifying show about an older man’s memory of the Aids crisis. Now, the pair tell a very different story of the 80s, with a western-meets-true-crime tale of a small town bully shot dead in broad daylight. Kenrex is written by Holden and frequent creative partner Ed Stambollouian, and soundtracked by foot-stomping Americana. KW
Northern Ballet: Romeo & JulietRoyal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 19 to 28 September; touring to 26 OctoberLeeds-based Northern Ballet takes its successful revival of Christopher Gable and Massimo Moricone’s Romeo & Juliet to the Bard’s home town of Stratford, before going on tour. This full-blooded telling of the tragic lovers’ tale has liltingly romantic pas de deux and strikingly dramatic ensembles.
Dance UmbrellaVarious venues, London, 9 to 31 October
Under current director Freddie Opoku-Addaie, the annual Dance Umbrella festival has become a place to find performers you won’t see anywhere else. The names are often unfamiliar but you are guaranteed a snapshot of global contemporary dance. Artists this year come from South Africa, Portugal, the US, Sweden, Eritrea, Czech Republic and the UK.
Nutcracker in HavanaNorwich Theatre Royal, 1 to 3 November; touring to 28 JanuaryCuban ballet star Carlos Acosta’s latest idea: a rewrite of ballet classic The Nutcracker set in Havana. So there’ll be sunshine instead of snow and a Cuban take on the famous Tchaikovsky score. It’s danced by members of Acosta Danza, Carlos’s Havana-based company, a brilliant troupe of spirited movers with tight technique who bring warmth and personality to everything they do. Lyndsey Winship
Nish Kumar6 September to 28 November; tour starts London
This year, Kumar is embracing his reputation as a progressive leftwing killjoy: new show Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe pledges to bring the mood down with material on the climate crisis, wage inequality and Rishi Sunak. In reality, this political firebrand is far from po-faced: the Londoner’s rousing delivery is always shot through with deadpan self-deprecation and impish silliness.
Pierre Novellie3 October to 24 November; tour starts Oxford
In purely technical terms, Novellie is master of traditional standup, able to ramp up the absurdity of his everyday observations until they erupt into side-splitting flights of fancy. Yet his unique personal story – a childhood move from Johannesburg to the Isle of Man; a recent autism diagnosis – allows the 33-year-old to trade on the modern comedy of identity with old-school panache.
Felicity Ward5 October to 30 January; tour starts Brighton
Soon, Ward will be a big name: she is about to star as the Brent-style boss in the Australian remake of The Office. But before that hits screens she is embarking on her first UK tour in six years. Previous shows have riffed on anxiety and irritable bowel syndrome; now she’s tackling motherhood with tales of pregnancy, birth and postnatal depression.
Rob Beckett19 November to 20 February; tour starts Chatham
Like Lee Mack, Beckett keeps his lightning wit in check with an anti-intellectual everyman persona – but don’t be fooled, the 38-year-old is a very clever comedian. As co-host of the smash-hit podcast Parenting Hell, he has become an expert in ad-libbing material about family life, but now he’s back with properly crafted laughs in Giraffe, his first new tour since 2019. RA
If you only catch one, catch:
Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers National Gallery, London, 14 September to 19 January The National Gallery isn’t messing around when it comes to this season’s crowning blockbuster. Focusing on Van Gogh’s time in Arles and Saint-Rémy means that you’ll see the big hitters: starry nights, sunflowers, the yellow house and of course, the chair. Poets and lovers are the show’s guiding lights, figures Van Gogh imagined wandering local gardens. It’s enough to make you swoon. SS
Glenn Ligon: All Over the PlaceFitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 20 September to 2 March
The top American artist is bringing his reflections on culture and identity to the Fitz’s neoclassical galleries. A major showing of his key text paintings and neons explores outsider perspectives with sharp-witted outtakes from poetry and literature. Meanwhile, his interventions throughout its collections of global art draw out buried power structures and overlooked histories.
Ffoto Cymru: Wales international festival of photographyVarious venues, 1 to 31 October
The debut instalment of this photography biennial puts the female gaze first. Its thematic heart is a survey of one of the original co-founders of Cardiff’s Ffotogallery, Marian Delyth’s 50-year study of local culture, including grassroots activism like the Greenham Common peace marches. Its outlook though is global, including the work of Foto Féminas, a platform for Latin American and Caribbean photographers.
Mike Kelley: Ghost and SpiritTate Modern, London, 3 October to 9 March
The late Los Angeleno Mike Kelley had a rare nose for buried impulses – yearning, shame, horror – ingrained in the things people throw away or overlook: old stuffed toys like the one pictured on Sonic Youth’s album Dirty, his own spotty-faced youth, comic books. Expect installations of spectacular scuzz and plenty of dark razor wit from this landmark survey of this one-off talent’s long career.
Barbara Walker: Being Here Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, 4 October to 26 January
Barbara Walker’s stirringly direct portraits of Black people, be they her fellow Brummies or history’s overlooked, are often realised on a grand scale and with an intense level of detail. Yet these figures float against huge areas of untouched white paper: a reminder of the societal blind spots or invisibility that threaten to engulf their stories. This first big survey includes her Turner prize-nominated series focused on the Windrush generation.
Modern Art Oxford Reopening 5 October
After a £2m makeover, Oxford’s flagship contemporary art space is reopening with an emphasis on bringing people together. Emma Hart has created a rave-themed cafe in an Ibiza-sunset palette, while the ground floor has been reimagined by David Kohn Architects including a new entrance, learning spaces and shop. Christening the revamped galleries, the celebrated Cuban artist Belkis Ayón’s prints explore the all-male world of a secret religious society, the Abakuá.
The World of Tim BurtonThe Design Museum, London, 25 October to 21 April
Tim Burton’s oddball cutesy goth vision has made him one of cinema’s greatest stylists, and surely its most recognisable. This mega-survey of storyboards, sketches, paintings, sculptures and set designs will trace the evolution, from his misfit childhood to early days as a Disney animator and big-screen champion of eccentric outsiders with graveyard complexions and puppy-dog eyes.
Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael The Royal Academy of Arts, London, 9 November to 16 February
Van Gogh is not the only art superhero in town this autumn. This art-historical trio’s encounters in Florence in 1504 are the hook for this show, exploring the older Michelangelo and Leonardo’s creative rivalry as they vied for patrons’ attention, and what young gun Raphael learned from them. It unites iconic works including the only Michelangelo marble in the UK, Raphael’s Bridgewater Madonna painting, and Leonardo’s Burlington House Cartoon.
The Traumatic SurrealHenry Moore Institute, Leeds, 22 November to 16 March
The women in this furred and fanged show have little truck with the early surrealists’ erotic obsessions with female bodies. Rather, artists including original surrealist Meret Oppenheim and contemporary lights such as Pipilotti Rist, use its devices to probe the traumas wrought by European fascism and patriarchy. Everything from sex toys and fairytales to Nazi symbols haunt the exhibition’s psychosexual landscape.
Silk RoadsBritish Museum, London, 26 September to 23 February
This stellar autumn show is packed with prized ancient luxuries, such as the exquisite Anglo-Saxon Franks Casket with scenes from multiple religious traditions carved in whalebone, paintings of leopards and elephants from the Palace of Varkhsha in Uzbekistan, and of course, camels. Its 21st-century take on the notion of the silk road explores a vastly expanded network of global trade routes spanning culture from sites as far-flung as the Arctic, Japan and Africa. Skye Sherwin
If you only catch one, catch:
Janet Jackson 27 September to 13 October; tour starts BirminghamJanet Jackson last toured the UK in 2011, with subsequent tours and residencies focused mainly in the US. That all changes this autumn as the career-spanning Together Again jaunt arrives in arenas up and down the country. Cramming in a curfew-tickling 40 songs, most of them top-tier smashes, it’s a relentless journey through modern pop and R&B.
PARTYNEXTDOOR2 October to 6 November; tour starts GlasgowTrust Canadian R&B practitioner PARTYNEXTDOOR to turn DMX’s 1999 diss track Party Up (Up In Here) into the backbone of a sex jam. The track in question, Lose My Mind, is the highlight of PartyNextDoor 4, a suite of songs focused on bedroom Olympics. This autumn let Brathwaite bring the heat.
Wunderhorse3 to 20 October; tour starts NottinghamFormed in lockdown as a solo project for sometime actor Jacob Slater, Wunderhorse have morphed into one of the UK’s most promising guitar bands. They fully hit their stride on last month’s Midas which features July, the angriest song named after a summer month ever committed to tape.
Nia Archives30 October to 8 November; tour starts GlasgowTo cap off a pretty spectacular 2024 – Top 20 debut album, Silence Is Loud was nominated for the Mercury prize – drum’n’bass specialist Nia Archives heads out on tour. While she knows how to throw a party, Silence Is Loud also dabbles in darker moments as on the thunderous Forbidden Feelingz.
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds2 to 15 November; tour starts LeedsAhead of its release last month, Nick Cave referred to his band’s 18th album, Wild God, as not “fucking around … When it hits, it hits”. With a raft of classic albums under their belts, it will be intriguing to see how new songs, such as the gently devastating Long Dark Night, stack up, but brace yourselves for emotional devastation.
Pitchfork music festival LondonVarious venues, London, 5 to 10 NovemberThe perpetually debated music website hosts another spin-off festival. As ever, the stacked lineup offers up a plethora of intriguing, genre-bending acts such as electronic pioneer Sega Bodega, DayGlo hip-hop experimentalist Tierra Whack and indie rabble rousers Shame. Mysterious Brit award-winning rapper Casisdead also curates his own night.
Charli xcx27 November to 2 December; tour starts ManchesterHaving dyed summer a lurid Brat green, infiltrating everything from fashion (key Brat must-haves included strappy tops and cigarettes) to US politics (“Kamala IS brat”), ex-pop outsider Charli xcx comes for autumn, too. If her chaotic album release parties are anything to go by, expect lots of frenetic dancing, bucket loads of sweat and wall-to-wall club classics.
Chris Stapleton16 to 24 October; tour starts ManchesterFrom Beyoncé going back to her roots via Cowboy Carter to tattooed rapper Post Malone heading to the rodeo, you can’t move for boots and Stetsons. American superstar Stapleton – who has worked with the likes of Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift – arrives in the UK at just the right time, performing songs from last year’s Higher. MC
Rigoletto Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, 21 September to 4 October; touring
to 22 FebruaryNewly appointed to lead Welsh National Opera, Adele Thomas makes her debut with the company as a director with a new production of Verdi’s perennial favourite. It’s designed by Annemarie Woods and conducted by Pietro Rizzo, with Daniel Luis de Vicente as Rigoletto.
The Snow Maiden Hackney Empire, London, 28 September & 4 October; touring to 16 NovemberRimsky-Korsakov’s operas are not seen on the stage in the UK anything like as often as they deserve to be, but English Touring Opera is taking on one of his best known and most colourful fairytale works. How his gloriously rich score will fare on ETO’s reduced scale remains to be seen, but directed by Olivia Fuchs, it’s sure to be engaging.
Nordic Music DaysVarious venues, Glasgow, 30 October to 3 NovemberFor only the third time in its 136-year history, the celebration of Nordic new music takes place beyond its boundaries. Musicians from Greenland, Iceland, the Faroes, Finland and Scandinavia, as well as Scotland, are taking part; works by Glerup, Jónsdóttir, Ratkje, Byström and Hillborg are among those featured in the orchestral concerts.
Lindberg premiere Royal Festival Hall, London, 10 NovemberMagnus Lindberg is the latest leading composer to be inspired to write a work to showcase the astonishing gifts of the viola player Lawrence Power. He’s the soloist with the Philharmonia conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen in the UK premiere of Lindberg’s Viola Concerto, which is scored for a modest, classically sized orchestra, without percussion. AC
Guy Barker Big Band: Inferno 67Ronnie Scott’s, London, 17 to 19 SeptemberFrom years as a first-call trumpeter for stars from Ornette Coleman to Frank Sinatra, with Gil Evans and Clark Tracey in between, Guy Barker gained plenty of insights into jazz evolution. As a composer-arranger leading an exciting 18-piece band, he tours jazz from the 1920s to today, with eloquent Incognito vocalist Vanessa Haynes playing a central role.
Kamasi Washington15 to 25 October; tour starts ManchesterThis fiercely expressive California saxophonist-composer is often compared to greats such as John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, but years with hip-hop artists Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus have played big roles in his life, too. Washington and his genre-busting road band feature earlier classics and material from new album Fearless Movement on this UK and Ireland tour.
EFG London jazz festivalVarious venues, London, 15 to 24 NovemberThe 32nd iteration of the EFG London jazz festival features venerable and emerging jazz and global musicians in concert halls and bars city-wide. Trumpet original Charles Tolliver celebrates the bebop pioneer Max Roach; South African jazz is honoured by its young inheritors; while guitar star Pat Metheny, harpist Brandee Younger, pianists Tord Gustavsen and Neil Cowley and dozens more join the 300-plus gig list. JF