Marina Abramović, Royal Academy review - young performers stand in for the absent artist

This pioneer of performance art is the first woman to show in the main galleries

One of the most cherished memories of my 40 plus years as an art critic is of easing my way between Marina Abramović and her partner Ulay. They were standing either side of a doorway at Documenta in Kassel, Germany, leaving just enough room for people to squeeze through, trying not to touch their naked bodies.

Joy Ride review - pioneering horniness

★★★ JOY RIDE Vigorous set-pieces and genuine warmth power a filthily comic female road-trip

Vigorous set-pieces and genuine warmth power a filthily comic female road-trip

This Seth Rogen-produced, Family Guy writers-co-scripted gross-out comedy with four Chinese-American women fully lives up and down to its description. With Crazy Rich Asians co-writer Adele Lim as debuting director, it’s also another demographically pioneering work.

Ai Weiwei: Making Sense, Design Museum review - a deep sense of loss permeates this show

★★★★ AI WEIWEI: MAKING SENSE, DESIGN MUSEUM Anger and sadness camouflaged by beauty

Installations in which anger and sadness camouflaged by beauty

Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei has created an extremely beautiful installation at the Design Museum in which the disparate elements play their part in creating a powerful overall message. On one level the exhibition is about design, but it also invites you to consider far more serious issues than are normally addressed in this temple to consumerism.

Turandot, Royal Opera review - spectacle and sound wow in this significant revival

★★★★ TURANDOT, ROYAL OPERA Spectacle and sound wow in this significant revival

Pappano marshals the glitter and a fine cast delivers the goods

Nearly 40 years old, Andrei Serban’s Royal Opera Turandot feels like a gilded relic (I felt like a relic myself on learning that my writer neighbour wasn’t born when I saw Gwyneth Jones as the ice princess in 1984). Yet so too, outwardly, did Puccini’s only really grand opera when it premiered in the 1920s, exoticism being mostly confined to operettas and musicals. What keeps it modern is the score, which made it vital to hear what Antonio Pappano had to say with it.

Blu-ray: Flowers of Shanghai

★★★★ FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI Taiwanese director Hsiao-hsien at his most dazzling

Hsiao-hsien's period piece is the director at his most dazzling

Rounding out a decade of personal success – beginning with his Cannes Jury Prize-winning The Puppetmaster (1993), followed by a best director award for Good Men, Good Women (1995) – the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien travelled to the Japanese harbour city of Hirado as part of his research for Flowers of Shanghai (1998).

Chinese Arts Now Festival review - comedy of the diaspora

Clips and chat from comics of Chinese heritage

Chinese Arts Now was founded in 2005 and aims to produce and present work that explores Chinese themes, stories and art forms in the UK. Its annual festival includes a comedy night (presented in conjunction with Soho Theatre), and this year three comics of Chinese heritage – Evelyn Mok, Ken Cheng and Phil Wang – performed.

76 Days review - disturbing record of the initial outbreak of Covid-19

★★★ 76 DAYS Disturbing record of the initial outbreak of Covid-19

Raw frontline documentary portrays the toll on Wuhan's health workers and victims

It is probable that no other document gets closer to the direct experience of frontline workers and victims of Covid-19 than the documentary 76 Days. It is also true that the film is not very enjoyable. Nor, sadly, does it feel especially unique. Worn by news fatigue, most viewers might feel that they are watching an extended news feature, rather than a feature film.

Blu-ray: Goodbye, Dragon Inn

★★★★ GOODBYE, DRAGON INN BY TSAI MING-LIANG A poetic tribute to cinema-going itself

A poetic tribute to cinema-going itself from Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang

In his exclusive half-hour-plus interview for distributor Second Run, the affable Tsai Ming-Liang makes a striking admission: “I make very uncommercial films.” Viewers of the extra will most likely have just finished Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Bú sàn) (2003), Ming-liang’s feature-length exploration of precisely everything that comes of those pesky “uncommercial films”.

Album: Emmy the Great - April / 月音

★★★★ EMMY THE GREAT - APRIL / 月音 Singer-songwriter comes back with a luscious album loosely conceived around her Hong Kong origins

Singer-songwriter comes back with a luscious album loosely conceived around her Hong Kong origins

Emma-Lee Moss has a lovely voice. It conveys an ache, a longing, but is sweet too, and well-mannered. Combine this with an aptitude for literate, thought-provoking lyrics and hooky songs, and Emmy the Great is quite the package. It’s a mystery, then, why she has not been critically and commercially elevated to the status of peers such as Laura Marling and KT Tunstall. Her fourth album is a delight, rich in imagery and ideas. It confirms her as an artist always well worth following.

Mulan review - Niki Caro's live action take on the '98 classic underwhelms

★★★ MULAN Niki Caro's live action take on the '98 classic underwhelms

Disney's latest live-action classic works out some kinks but loses the magic

Whilst New Mutants slips surreptitiously into cinemas, Disney’s live-action spin on Mulan arrives with more fanfare on their streaming platform, even if it does come with a price-tag of nearly £20.