Rustin review - a doubly liberated American life

★★★ RUSTIN Biopic of the 1963 March on Washington's neglected gay mastermind

Obamas-produced biopic of the 1963 March on Washington's neglected gay mastermind

This is a tribute to a forgotten hero, gay black Quaker Bayard Rustin (Colman Domingo), driving force behind the 1963 March on Washington, the vast peaceful protest that sanctified Martin Luther King as his oratory seemed to lift black America towards a Promised Land.

Fellow Travellers, Paramount+ review - four-decade saga of power, politics and gay love

Plush TV treatment of Thomas Mallon's bestselling novel

Derived from the similarly-titled novel by Thomas Mallon and directed by Ron Nyswaner, Fellow Travellers tracks the course of its protagonists through several decades of 20th Century American history. It’s also an account of changing attitudes to homosexuality, and how gay culture emerged from the shadows and went mainstream.

Clyde's, Donmar Warehouse review - high-octane comedy with a soft-centre

Lynn Nottage and Lynette Linton reunite to deliver a rollicking evening

Lynn Nottage’s second London opening this year, the Donmar premiere of Clyde’s, is a comedy about a sandwich, the perfect sandwich. With just a little more punch to the plotting it would be another masterwork from this award-winning American playwright whose book for the musical MJ arrives on the West End next spring.

Cat Person review - the dynamics of dating and bad sex

Susanna Fogel's adaptation of the viral New Yorker short story goes over the top

Margot (Emilia Jones; Coda) has made a terrible mistake. She’s landed up in bed with Robert (Nicholas Braun; cousin Greg in Succession) and realises the sex is going to be excruciatingly bad.

How to tell him that she’s changed her mind? Can she leave before it’s too late? Or is it easier to get it over with, otherwise he might turn nasty? 

Maybe, as a last resort, she can make herself get turned on by his gratitude. “Look how much he wants us,” she tells her better self, who watches, cringing, from a corner of the room.

Killers of the Flower Moon review - the Osage tragedy

★★ KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Martin Scorsese's chilling crime thriller 

Scorsese's chilling crime thriller about the slaughter of oil-rich Native Americans

At the centre of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, closely adapted from the 2017 non-fiction book by the investigative journalist David Grann, is the true story of how the white former doughboy Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprii) was inveigled into slowly poisoning his Native American wife Mollie (Lily Gladstone) for her share of oil wealth in 1920s Oklahoma.

Frasier, Paramount+ review - he's back! But should he be?

★★★ FRASIER, PARAMOUNT+ Can Kelsey Grammer and a new cast make lightning strike again?

Can Kelsey Grammer and a new cast make lightning strike again?

F. Scott Fitzgerald said there were no second acts in American lives, but here’s Frasier Crane coming back for his third. Frasier first appeared on TV in the third series of Cheers in 1984. After Cheers bit the dust in 1993, Frasier was transported from Boston to Seattle and reborn in his own show, which ran until 2004 and stands as one of the most revered comedies in TV history (alongside, it must be said, Cheers).

First Person: Pulitzer Prize winning composer David Lang on the original Jewish love story

PULITZER PRIZE WINNING COMPOSER DAVID LANG on the original Jewish love story

Music, poetry and movement combine in 'Song of Songs', now running at the Barbican

I wouldn’t say that I am super religious, but I am definitely religion-curious. It is a big part of my family background, and, to be honest, a big part of the history of my chosen field, Western classical music. For the past 1000 years, the church has been the most powerful commissioner of Western music, and its most active employer of musicians.

Because of this, much of our foundational repertoire is explicitly on the subject of how music helps a listener get in the mood for a religious experience. And that is interesting to me.

Blu-ray: Targets

★★★★ BLU-RAY: TARGETS Serial killer meets his nemesis in Peter Bogdanovich’s first feature

Serial killer meets his nemesis - a horror movie star - in Peter Bogdanovich’s first feature

Targets (1968), Peter Bogdanovich’s first feature is generally regarded as a great film. And yet, it came out of a mixture of false starts and opportunism. Could it be that its unique quality, the elements which make it stand out in the history of cinema, owed as much as anything else to the randomness that accompanied the movie’s creation?

Album: Sufjan Stevens - Javelin

Exquisite songs of love and pain

Sufjan Stevens, so we’ve heard, has just been struck down with a rare and immobilising disease – the Guillain-Barré syndrome. With characteristic courage and faith, he has thrown himself into physical rehabilitation. That he should be so reduced and challenged with suffering resonates perhaps with the extraordinary vulnerability that distinguishes his work – a unique avalanche of remarkable albums, generous and brave collaborations.