Miss Juneteenth review - a ray of Texan sunshine

★★★★ MISS JUNETEENTH Directorial debut offers a ray of Texan sunshine

Debuting director Channing Godfrey Peoples brings some heart to pageantry

Beauty queen pageants have long been ripe for parody, from their plastic glamour to the Machiavellian competitiveness. Miss Juneteenth opts for a much more nuanced approach, using the pageant as a focal point for a mother and daughter navigating their difficult present and possible future. It’s a universal story of familial love, told and performed with deftness and real personality.

Album: Alicia Keys - Alicia

★★★★ ALICIA KEYS - ALICIA A confident return from the megastar polymath, but does it hint at something more?

A confident return from the megastar polymath, but does it hint at something more?

Alicia Keys is a puzzling mixture. On the one hand she’s the hyper-achieving, multi-platinum, 752-Grammy-winning America’s sweetheart, all dimply smiles, positive-thinking ultra sincerity and the kind of showbiz over-emoting and singing-technique-as-competitive-sport so beloved of talent show contestants. On the other, she’s an undeniably interesting artist on multiple levels.

Rocks review - impressively well-crafted neo-realist drama

★★★★★ ROCKS Impressively well-crafted neo-realist drama

Sarah Gavron and Theresa Ikoko’s collaboration pays off in this lovingly observed tale

Rocks is a beautifully made slice of neo-realist filmmaking which deserves to get a wide audience but may well slip off the radar in the current climate. It really should be experienced in a cinema as the camerawork by Hélène Louvart is stunning and the sound design is excellent.

Kaleidoscope Collective, Wigmore Hall online – playing with panache, as if to a live audience

★★★★★ KALEIDOSCOPE COLLECTIVE, WIGMORE HALL An hour of sheer pleasure

A blazing masterpiece and a personality-filled rarity provide an hour of sheer pleasure

If it all comes across as vividly as this on screen, imagine what it would have been like to witness in person. Which quite a few of us very nearly did, until we had to be disinvited owing to changed government guidelines.

Lovecraft Country, Sky Atlantic review - Misha Green, Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams take us on horror-driven road trip

★★★★★ LOVECRAFT COUNTRY, SKY ATLANTIC A horror-driven road trip

A timely, pulpy delight full of supernatural and all too real terrors

The timing couldn’t be more perfect for a series like Lovecraft Country (Sky Atlantic) in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Project Power - so-so attempt to reinvent the superhero genre

★★★ PROJECT POWER So-so attempt to reinvent the superhero genre

Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt star alongside Dominique Fishback in fun thriller set in New Orleans

What if there was a pill you could pop that gave you superpowers? The only catch is that, while it might make you invisible or bullet-proof, it might also boil your brain or make you explode with just one hit.

Everything: The Real Thing Story, BBC Four review - brilliant but long overdue

★★★★★ EVERYTHING: THE REAL THING STORY, BBC FOUR The breakthrough Liverpudlian band's story told lovingly and not before time

The breakthrough Liverpudlian band's story told lovingly and not before time

This documentary is bittersweet viewing on quite a number of levels. First, it’s got all the glory and tragedy of the most compelling music stories: a Liverpool band struggling from humble beginnings, trying to find an identity, fraternity and fallings-out, coping with huge success and its aftermath – not to mention sex, drugs, mental illness and death.

My White Best Friend (And Other Letters Left Unsaid), Royal Court review – raw but generous

★★★★ MY WHITE BEST FRIEND (AND OTHER LETTERS LEFT UNSAID), ROYAL COURT Raw but generous

A festival of responses to the Black Lives Matter campaign is personal, political and powerful

The strength of the response to the re-emergence of the Black Lives Matter campaign has provoked some theatres to create provocative new work. Often, the keynote is personal feeling. One recent example is the Bush Theatre’s Protest: Black Lives Matter, which mixes extremely personal emotions with formal choices that make it very difficult to review the work as if it was just straight theatre.