Music
Pure Comedy
Father John Misty’s new album might be called Pure Comedy, but anyone familiar with the arch singer-songwriter will know there’s unlikely to be anything remotely straightforward about it. By turns ridiculous, cruel, neurotic and self-indulgent, FJM is the most complex character making music today.
Pure Comedy is out now on Bella Union
St John Passion
As is Good Friday tradition, performances of Bach’s most famous passion abound this week. Most notable is the Britten Sinfonia’s, with Mark Padmore as the Evangelist and Simon Russell Beale on reading duties.
St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich, 13 April; Barbican, EC1, 14 April; King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, 15 April
Syd
After connecting online with fledgling rapper Tyler the Creator as a teenager, Syd became a DJ for his outrageous hip-hop collective Odd Future. But she wouldn’t be a supporting-cast member for long. In 2011, she co-founded R&B outfit the Internet, and this year released her own cracking debut, Fin. This week, Syd performs with her Internet bandmates, who will take turns to back each other’s solo work.
Scala, N1, 9-11 April
Exhibitions
Gillian Ayres
With exhibitions running in London and Cardiff (the latter a retrospective that is the largest ever display of her work), 87-year-old Gillian Ayres is having a bit of a moment. The pair of shows will track a lengthy career that has seen the painter inject the British art scene with loose vibrancy and abstract expressionist influence, all mediated through her own idiosyncratic style.
Alan Cristea Gallery, NW1, to 22 April; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, to 3 September
Comedy
Russell Brand
Before he became a pseudo-revolutionary, Russell Brand was a Hollywood star. Before that, he was the funniest person in UK comedy. Now, he’s back with a standup tour, radio show and two podcasts: will he reclaim his former glory in the modest environs where his talent originally shone? Let’s just hope he lands a presenting job on a reality show spin-off sooner rather than later.
Touring to 6 November 2018; live on Radio X 11am-1pm on Sundays. The Trews Weekly and Under the Skin are available via any podcast app
Podcasts
Unbreak My Chart
When Ed Sheeran released his third album ÷ last month, it led to all 16 of its tracks registering in the singles Top 20. Dubbed the Sheeran Singularity by journalists Laura Snapes and Fraser McAlpine, it provided a fascinating backdrop for the pair’s inaugural Unbreak My Chart podcast, a weekly deep dive into the Top 10. While the charts have become both confused and sidelined in recent years, they’re still an invaluable insight into the machinations of the music industry, something this pod proves in gratifyingly informed style.
Unbreak My Chart is available via any podcast app
Books
Art Sex Music
If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to create transgressive avant-garde art happenings in early 70s Hull, Cosey Fanni Tutti has some answers. Her storied life with the Coum collective and post-punk pioneers Throbbing Gristle has resulted in Art Sex Music, a memoir of real breadth and depth. The book explores the outre nature of her art and its interactions with an often-shocked wider world.
Art Sex Music is published by Faber & Faber
Film
I Am Not Your Negro
A celebration of the life and work of writer James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro is a documentary that muses on his piercing and elegant observations about civil rights, as well as his insights into how race relations underpin society in fundamental ways. As Baldwin himself efficiently put it: “The story of the negro in America is the story of America. It is not a pretty story.”
In cinemas now
Filmic 2017
This year, the Bristol festival that celebrates the relationship between music and film has a female focus. At Colston Hall, Mica Levi performs her heady soundtrack to Under the Skin with the London Sinfonietta, while the Watershed screens films scored by female composers throughout April.
At Colston Hall, Bristol, and St George’s Bristol to 25 April
Theatre
Men & Girls Dance
That the very setup of Fevered Sleep’s production – adult males dance with pre-pubescent girls – feels uncomfortable is proof of how valuable an exercise it is, aiming to salvage certain kinds of adult-child relationship from a narrative of exploitation and darkness.
The Place, WC1, 13-22 April
