Swan Song review - the fabulous Udo Kier as a small-town hairdresser on his last legs

★★★ SWAN SONG The fabulous Udo Kier as a small-town hairdresser on his last legs

Todd Stephens's charming, nostalgic feature isn't quite the vehicle its lead deserves

The piercing-eyed German actor Udo Kier is best known for his supporting roles in many high-profile films, including those of Lars von Trier, Gus Van Sant and Fassbinder. In Swan Song, he carries off his first starring role magnificently as wry ex-drag queen and Ohio hairdresser Pat Pitsenbarger, though the film itself is rather meandering and has mawkish, saccharine moments.

Album: Hercules & Love Affair - In Amber

★★★★★ HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR - IN AMBER NYC dance maven goes fully goth

NYC dance maven goes fully goth with stunning results

A gothic aesthetic is very common in the left field of electronic/club music these days – but it tends to go with fairly extreme sounds: either industrial pummelling, or glitched-out “deconstructed club” as in artists like Ziúr.

Kim Hye-jin: Concerning My Daughter review - room for complication

★★★★ KIM HYE-JIN: CONCERNING MY DAUGHTER Korean novel has room for complication

A mother’s enveloping love is tested against her desire for conformity

In this best-selling Korean novella, recently translated into English by Jamie Chang, Kim Hye-jin offers us the perspective of a Korean mother. It’s narrated entirely from the perspective of a woman of around 60 who has a daughter in her thirties and focuses on her inability to understand what her daughter, Green, wants from life and why she’s decided to live openly as a lesbian with her partner Lane: 

Transgressive Records showcase, The Great Escape, Brighton review - five acts offer intriguing pop alternatives

★★★ TRANSGRESSIVE RECORDS SHOWCASE, THE GREAT ESCAPE, BRIGHTON Let's Eat Grandma, The Waeve, Mykki Blanco and more set the south coast a-buzz

Let's Eat Grandma, The Waeve, Mykki Blanco and more set the south coast a-buzz

Onstage at The Old Market in Hove, New York’s Mykki Blanco has been waving around a knot of garlic bulbs as if it were a wand or occult aspergillum. At some point during Blanco’s punchy rendition of 2016 single “Loner”, or possibly the dizzier “Summer Fling”, they transfer it to the flies of their trousers, let it hang there, all mischief. They explain that this is the result of the band becoming obsessed with “a mad coven of witches in Italy”.

Album: Kendrick Lamar - Mr Morale & the Big Steppers

★★★★★ KENDRICK LAMAR The philosopher-king of hip hop culture ventures ever inwards

The philosopher-king of hip hop culture ventures ever inwards: but will he become too dour?

Kendrick Lamar is so breathlessly revered it’s sometimes hard to pull apart what’s going on in his records. It’s sometimes felt like he might become the rap game Radiohead: exploratory, aware, hugely technically accomplished, endlessly thematically “important” – but not actually that interesting to listen to.

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy, Royal Court review - Black joy, pain, and beauty

★★★★★ FOR BLACK BOYS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE..., ROYAL COURT With boisterous lyricism, Ryan Calais Cameron explores what it means to be a Black man

With boisterous lyricism, Ryan Calais Cameron explores what it means to be a Black man

The title is so long that the Royal Court’s neon red lettering only renders the first three words, followed by a telling ellipsis. But lyrical new play For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy lives up to its weighty name.

Great Freedom review - love behind bars in Germany

★★★★ GREAT FREEDOM Franz Rogowski excels as a man incarcerated for his sexual orientation

Franz Rogowski excels as a man incarcerated for his sexual orientation

A story of forbidden love, Great Freedom takes place almost entirely in a prison. The film's background is encapsulated in the word “175er/ hundertfünfundsiebziger”, still to be found in German dictionaries and collective memories as a pejorative word for a gay man.

But I'm A Cheerleader: The Musical, Turbine Theatre review - two cheers for feelgood show

Another musical based on a movie hits London, with a moral guaranteed to please audiences

Wave your pom poms for a show with its heart in the right place

We open on “Seventeen is Swell”, the antithesis of Janis Ian’s 70s angsty anthem, “At Seventeen”. Megan is living it large as the cheerleader’s leader with her football captain boyfriend, two loving if strict parents and a golden future of all-American domestic bliss ahead. In short, she has all her pom poms in a row.

Steve, Seven Dials Playhouse review - everything’s charming, except the script

Award-winning hymn to Stephen Sondheim leans too heavily on in-jokes

Steven (David Ames) is having a birthday party. He’s invited his closest friends – two of whom have recently started dating their personal trainer, Steve – and his partner, of course: Stephen (Joe Aaron Reid). Their eight-year-old son, Stevie, is being babysat by his grandma. Even the handsome Argentine waiter (Nico Conde) is called Esteban.

Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story, Jermyn Street Theatre review - True Crime musical gets West End showcase

★★★ THRILL ME: THE LEOPOLD & LOEB STORY Child killers seduce us with charisma and song

Child killers seduce us with charisma and song

There's a lot of True Crime stuff about, so it's hardly a surprise to see Stephen Dolginoff's 2003 off-Broadway musical back on the London stage, a West End venue for the Hope Theatre's award-winning 2019 production. Whether one needs to see a pair of charismatic child killers given a platform to explain their crimes while the victim, Bobby Franks, is merely a name, his face as absent as it was after the acid was poured all over it – well, you can make your own judgement about that.