Shock of the Nude with Mary Beard, BBC Two review - when does art become erotica?

★★★ SHOCK OF THE NUDE WITH MARY BEARD, BBC TWO When does art become erotica?

Strangely bland survey of the naked body in Western art

Are you a fan of oysters or Marmite? Mary Beard is not to everybody’s taste, but love her or loathe her she is not only a distinguished academic but a ubiquitous writer and presenter of classical histories, connected travels, and ruminations on societal problems. She is enthusiastic, staggeringly energetic, erudite, profoundly knowledgable, the antithesis of fashionable in both opinion and appearance.

Faustus: That Damned Woman, Lyric Hammersmith review - gender swap yields muddled results

Chris Bush's retelling has feminist urgency, but lacks dramatic coherence

Changing the gender of the title character “highlights the way in which women still operate in a world designed by and for men,” argues Chris Bush, whose reimagining of Marlowe’s play premieres at the Lyric ahead of a UK tour.

Ewa Banaszkiewicz and Mateusz Dymek: 'Is our film porny?'

EWA BANASZKIEWICZ AND MATEUSZ DYMEK: 'IS OUR FILM PORNY?' Directors of My Friend the Polish Girl respond to claims they've set the female cause back two decades

Directors of My Friend the Polish Girl respond to claims they've set the female cause back two decades

Spoiler alert: About sixty-four minutes into our debut feature film, one of the main female characters undresses for the camera. Alicja is being filmed by the other protagonist, a young American documentarian named Katie. As the sexually charged long take progresses, it becomes apparent that what started out as an erotic provocation (catering to Katie’s palpable attraction to her) gradually descends into Alicja’s traumatic memory of sexual abuse.

Così fan tutte, Royal Opera review - fine singing and elegant deceits

★★★ COSÌ FAN TUTTE, ROYAL OPERA Fine singing and elegant deceits

Metatheatrical devices turn the screw on Mozart’s not-so-funny comedy of manners

Give hope to all, says Despina: play-act. Così fan tutte has always been a piece about four young and silly people being appalling to one another without much need for encouragement from a cynical old manipulator and a confused maid who, in the main, is the one character capable of arousing real sympathy.

This Time with Alan Partridge, BBC One review - a man out of time?

★★★ THIS TIME WITH ALAN PARTRIDGE, BBC ONE A man out of time?

Shameless return of Steve Coogan's cringetastic broadcaster

“I’ve remained a vital presence on the fringes of TV Land,” argues Alan Partridge in an interview with Radio Times, the man whose latest claim to… well, not fame, but at least he has been presenting Mid Morning Matters on North Norfolk Digital.

Adam Riches Is The Guy Who..., Drink, Shop & Do review - super-suave Lothario on the prowl

Immersive show examines male-female engagement in the #MeToo era

The first line of this show is “I'm the guy who you meet right after you come out of a long-term relationship.” On the night I see The Guy Who..., Adam Riches has three tries with it before he meets his target, a woman who has been dumped by a long-standing boyfriend.

CD: Kanye - Ye

★★★★ KANYE WEST: YE Suicidal ideation, greed, marital strife and paternal sexual obsessions as entertainment

Suicidal ideation, greed, marital strife and paternal sexual obsessions as entertainment: just another day chez West

Would it come as a terrible surprise to learn that this record is highly problematic? Well, duh. Kanye West is the sad clown narrating the global tragicomedy, a troll on an epochal scale, a bundle of contradictory drives all attempting to express themselves to reductio ad absurdum levels. Every time he seems to trip himself up and the world acts as if he's humiliated, it just spurs him on to go “uhuh, you think that's bad?

Lulu, English National Opera

LULU, ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA Rapport between stage and pit keeps tabs on Kentridge's genius

Perfect rapport between stage and pit keeps tabs on William Kentridge's genius

After a day of sheer pain, would it be endless night or cathartic relief at ENO? Both, must be the answer, and much more, all at once. Iconoclastic Frank Wedekind's "earth-spirit" Lulu, exploited as a street-child but now able to turn the tables for a while on male bourgeois weakness, lives through one horrible situation after another before dying at the hands of Jack the Ripper, but Alban Berg's never merely atonal score gives such transcendent warmth to the spell she casts just by being.