theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer on his apocalyptic musical 'The End'

Q&A JOSHUA OPPENHEIMER On his ominous first feature and why its characters break into song

The documentary director talks about his ominous first fiction film and why its characters break into song

Joshua Oppenheimer made his name directing two disturbing documentaries, The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014), that dealt with the aftermath of the brutal anti-communist massacres in Indonesia in 1965-66. Those films addressed how people lie to themselves in order to live with guilt and trauma. Oppenheimer's first fiction film, The End, is a radical continuation of the same idea.

Henry Gee: The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Why Our Species is on the Edge of Extinction review - survival instincts

A science writer looks to the stars for a way to dodge our impending doom

Henry Gee’s previous book, A Brief History of Life on Earth, made an interestingly downbeat read for a title that won the UK’s science book prize. He emphasised that a constant feature of that history is extinction. Disappearing is simply what species do. A few endure for an exceptionally long time (hello, horseshoe crabs), but all suffer the same fate in the end. Some at least go down as ancestors of succeeding species. Many more just vanish. Evolution permits gradual development of more complex forms.

Weather Girl, Soho Theatre review - the apocalypse as surreal black comedy

A Californian weather girl copes with fires inside and outside her head

Can Francesca Moody do it again? Fleabag’s producer has brought Weather Girl to London, after a successful run at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, mirroring the path taken by Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s creation. But the new show is a much tougher assault on modern mores.

Uprising, Glyndebourne review - didactic community opera superbly performed

★★★★ UPRISING, GLYNDEBOURNE Didactic community opera superbly performed

Jonathan Dove and April De Angelis go for the obvious, but this is still a rewarding project

The score is effective, and rewarding to perform, but derivative. The libretto uses every cliché, or truism, about save-the-planet youth activism in the book; it’s didactic, not dramatic. Direction, design and lighting sometimes feel unfinished. Yet as a youth/community opera, Glyndebourne’s latest educational project hits the mark; the commitment of singers and players young and old, professional and amateur, makes the ends justify the means.

Interview: Polar photographer Sebastian Copeland talks about the dramatic changes in the Arctic

An ominous shift has come with dark patches appearing on the Greenland ice sheet

Sebastian Copeland’s images of the Arctic may look otherworldly – with their tilting cathedrals of ice, hypnotic light, and fractured seascapes that seem to stretch to infinity – but it would be a mistake to see them that way.

Interview: rising star Chloe Savage on the Arctic, outer space, and igniting children's wonder for the unknown

AN ARTIST'S DREAM Rising star Chloe Savage on the Arctic, outer space, and igniting children's wonder for the unknown

Beautiful books take you to worlds that are intricately imagined and a feast for the eye

How old were you when you first had an image of the Arctic? When you first had that image, what was it that most resonated? Was it its remoteness, the endless snow and ice, the polar bears? Did it seem like a mythical place of mirages and monsters? Or was it a place you thought you might travel to or even work one day?

ARK: United States V by Laurie Anderson, Aviva Studios, Manchester review - a vessel for the thoughts and imaginings of a lifetime

★★★★ ARK: UNITED STATES V BY LAURIE ANDERSON, AVIVA STUDIOS, MANCHESTER A vessel for the thoughts and imaginings of a lifetime

Despite anticipating disaster, this mesmerising voyage is full of hope

Picture this: framing the stage are two pearlescent clouds which, throughout the performance, gently pulsate with flickering light. Behind them on a giant screen is a spinning globe, its seas twinkling like a million stars.

Suddenly, this magical image is rent asunder. Thunder and lightning shake the heavens and torrential rain cascades down in stair rods. Spotlights flash and dance through billowing smoke while Laurie Anderson serenades the tempest on her violin and Kenny Wollesen lashes symbols and drums into a clamorous frenzy. The Apocalypse!

DEATHLY HUSH.

Jean-Baptiste Fressoz: More and More and More review - fuel for thought

A re-reading of our complex history of energy use shows the long way we have to go

If you are bothered about climate change – and who isn’t? – you’ll soon come across references to the “energy transition”. Example? Look, here’s one in this week’s New Scientist, a full-page ad from Equinor, the rebranded Norwegian state-owned oil and gas giant. Why is Equinor, now styling itself an energy company, still exploring for new oil and gas deposits?

The Last of the Sea Women review - a moving tale of feisty traditional divers

★ THE LAST OF THE SEA WOMEN A moving tale of feisty traditional divers

Eye-opening Korean doc about intrepid harvesters of the deep

“The ocean is our home… Even in my next life I will dive again,” says Geum Ok, one of a band of female divers from Jeju, a volcanic island 60 miles south of the Korean peninsular.

Bellringers, Hampstead Theatre review - mordant comedy about the end of the world

Daisy Hall's astonishing debut is both darkly funny and deadly serious

As hurricanes rip into the American Gulf states with increasing ferocity, Eastern Europe disappears underwater and even the gentle British rain becomes a deluge, the arrival of Daisy Hall’s debut play Bellringers at Hampstead Theatre’s Downstairs space couldn’t be more timely,