Art UK, Art of the Nation review - public art in a private space

★★★★ ART OF THE NATION Catch publicly owned art while you can at London Art Fair

Digital catalogue of the nation's art distilled by five artists' choices

Art fairs are vaguely promiscuous. So much art, so many galleries, so very many curators. They’re a glut for the eye yet curiously anodyne — the ranks of white cubicles could belong to a jobs fair, except there’s a Miró round the corner. And it’s impossible not to price-perv, that sly flick of the eye down to the label just happens.

Blu-ray: Jabberwocky

★★★★ JABBERWOCKY Terry Gilliam's rough-edged romp, freshly restored

Terry Gilliam's rough-edged romp through blood and excrement, freshly restored

Jabberwocky is all the more enjoyable once you get past what it isn’t; Terry Gilliam’s 1977 directorial debut is a medieval romp starring Michael Palin and a short-lived Terry Jones, but audiences shouldn’t expect a Monty Python film.

The Bear, Mid Wales Opera review - small stage, big ambitions

THE BEAR, MID WALES OPERA Walton's comic opera goes down like a shot of salted caramel Stoli in a sparky touring production

Walton's comic opera goes down like a shot of salted caramel Stoli in a sparky touring production

Go west, opera-lover: Mid Wales Opera is back in business. In fact, it’s been back since spring this year, when it toured venues in Wales and England with a warmly reviewed Handel Semele and a striking (and impressively cast) Magic Flute inspired by 1970s British sci-fi. That was the first production under the company’s new artistic leadership of Jonathan Lyness and Richard Studer – a conductor/director team with considerable form and substantial ambitions.

CD: Goldie Lookin' Chain - Fear of a Welsh Planet

CD: GOLDIE LOOKIN' CHAIN - FEAR OF A  WELSH PLANET Can the rappers from Newport still make us laugh?

Can the rappers from Newport still make us laugh?

Although primarily known for "Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do", Goldie Lookin' Chain have actually been around longer than you'd imagine. The Welsh comedy collective was formed at the turn of the millennium, and Fear of a Welsh Planet is, staggeringly, their 20th LP. Back in the day, the boys would wear shell suits and rap about council estates. But that was years ago. Surely, by now, they've moved on?

Not a bit of it. On the new album, the lads still sound like a Welsh version of Insane Clown Posse with added blue humour. The rudest track is "Sex People" which discusses "shooting each other in the ass with a sex gun". The rest aren't far behind: The narrator of "Bonk Eye" declares "your missus thinks I'm staring at her tits all night", while "I Got A Van" contains the immortal lines, "We don't need to go to a hotel/We've got my van if you don't mind the smell".

Still, no-one expects Oscar Wilde from GLC. Surely, the main thing is simply whether it makes you laugh. Unfortunately, there's precious little here to raise a decent smile. Even those few lines that do possess a certain goofy charm are ruined by GLC's awful DIY approach to music-making. Much of the album sounds like it was played on a Casio keyboard with tinny beats that wear you down like Chinese water torture.

You wonder why the boys don't try something new. Especially given the goodwill the band tends to generate. Their former singer, Maggot, was once a cultural icon (of sorts). And let us not forget that GLC were the inspiration behind the hilarious YouTube hit "Newport State of Mind". But GLC have long since stopped being funny. On their website, the band joke about not wanting to be seen as Oldie Looking Chain. It's not their age that's the problem. It's doing untold versions of the same bad joke.

@russcoffey 

Overleaf: Goldie Lookin' Chain's video for "I Got a Van"

We're Still Here, National Theatre Wales review - powerful protest and heartfelt theatre-making

★★★★ WE'RE STILL HERE, NATIONAL THEATRE WALES Port Talbot steelworkers take a stand against the ravages of global capitalism

Port Talbot steelworkers take a stand against the ravages of global capitalism

Port Talbot (population 38,000) is a town on the south Wales coast famous for two things: steel and actors. The birthplace of Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Sheen made a rare foray into the national consciousness at the beginning of last year when Tata Steel threatened to close the plant that employs 10% of the town. It had been making a loss of £1m a day, largely due to flooding of the global market by China.

'We're Still Here': Rachel Trezise on her NTW play about Port Talbot steelworkers

WE'RE STILL HERE Rachel Trezise on her NTW play about Port Talbot steelworkers

The novelist and playwright introduces her new verbatim play about the last industrial outpost in Wales

I’ve always written alone. As a novelist, that’s what you do. Sit around in your pyjamas composing sentences that come almost entirely from your own imagination. It’s difficult sometimes to conjure the self-discipline required to complete a draft in a satisfactory period of time, but it is always safe. The first draft is supposed to be dross. Nobody’s going to see it. My first play was written that way, too.

Green Man Festival review - rustic Welsh epic is wet but joyful

Until the rain inevitably arrives on Sunday, a rip-roaring success story

After the gruelling five-hour coach journey to Powys, Wales, we strolled over a bridge into Glanusk Park, through two security guards, and into Green Man with only so much as a sing-song “Bore da”. Satisfied, we picked a spot and set up camp in the intense heat. Young Welsh scholars waved their A-level results in the air and cracked open that first bottle of cider, quaint middle-class families eagerly discussing the multitude of vegan opportunities.

CD: Public Service Broadcasting - Every Valley

PSB’s third veers too close towards infotainment for comfort

Every Valley is Public Service Broadcasting’s second studio album since 2013’s Inform - Educate - Entertain, and like its predecessors, it’s a nostalgic trip to the not-too-recent past with an electronica-heavy backing and a bag full of samples culled from the spoken word library of the British Film Institute.

Y Tŵr, MTW, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

Fine new chamber opera in Welsh proves singing not dead in the land of song

Until yesterday my only experience of the Welsh language in the opera house was a few isolated passages in Iain Bell’s In Parenthesis last year and the surtitles WNO routinely put up alongside the English in the Millennium Centre.

Decline and Fall review - 'a riotously successful adaptation'

★★★★★ DECLINE AND FALL, BBC ONE Evelyn Waugh brilliantly brought to TV life with Jack Whitehall and Eva Longoria

Evelyn Waugh brilliantly brought to BBC One with Jack Whitehall and Eva Longoria

Like many first novels, Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall has a strong whiff of autobiography. It is a revenge comedy in which Waugh – like Kingsley Amis after him in Lucky Jim – transmutes his miserable experiences of teaching in Wales into savage farce.

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