Lisa Halliday’s striking debut novel consists of three parts. The first follows the blooming relationship between Alice and Ezra (respectively an Assistant Editor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer) in New York; the middle section comprises a series of reflections narrated by Amar, an American-Iraqi while he is held in detention at Heathrow en route to see his brother in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In Between didn’t get nearly enough attention on its cinema release in the UK last autumn, hampered perhaps by its nothingy title and a synopsis that can make it sound like it will be a worthy evening out when in fact it’s anything but. One of the liveliest debut features of 2017, it follows three twenty-something Palestinian women who share a flat in Tel Aviv. It’s sharp, funny and eye-opening.

Director Maysaloun Hamoud draws on her experience as an Arab film-maker living in Israel to create a wholly fresh take on sexual and cultural politics. Imagine Girls and Sex in the City but without the white American privilege and you'd be getting close, although In Between most reminded me of another director who made their debut film focusing on a feisty female central character, Spike Lee with She’s Gotta Have It, back in 1984. 

She has lifted the covers on young Palestinians’ love lives, gay friends and high times

Although In Between is an ensemble piece, Laila, played by the stunningly beautiful and super-smart Mouna Hawa is the strongest figure. She’s a lawyer with a mane of curls who sees nothing wrong in showing her cleavage at work. Laila is a secular Muslim who knows exactly what she can expect from her Jewish colleagues in the legal business. And in her downtime she also takes no prisoners; she’s got an appetite for drugs, dancing and female solidarity but is still looking for a man to be her soul mate. Her friend Salma (Sana Jammalieh) finds life a little tougher; she’s a DJ who works shifts in a restaurant as a sous chef where the Israeli boss doesn’t want the kitchen crew speaking Arabic. Meanwhile back home her Christian parents endlessly line up potential husbands because Salma hasn’t dared tell them she’s gay.

As there’s a lot of wild partying in their apartment, it’s not the obvious place for new flatmate Nour (Shaden Kanboura) to find a quiet room to finish her computer studies degree. Nour is a hijab-wearing Muslim with a disapproving fiancé who sees Tel Aviv as a city of sin. He wants Noura to marry him and return to their ultra-conservative hometown of Umm al-Fahm on the West Bank. Their relationship provides the film's most shocking scenes. There’s plenty of vivid drama along the way, all beautifully shot by Itay Gross and made wholly credible by semi-improvised dialogue scenes as not all the actors were professionals.

In Israel the film has been a huge and controversial hit. Maysaloun Hamoud has lifted the covers on young Palestinians’ love lives, gay friends and high times (pictured above: Mahmud Shalaby skinning up with Mouna Hawa). The film was banned in Umm al-Fahm while others criticised the director for receiving some funding from the Israeli government. Hamoud has received death threats because she is challenging fundamentalist religions, casual racism from Israelis towards Arabs and the endemic cultural repression that traps women (and to a certain extent men) in restrictive roles. In Between would make a fascinating double-bill with Menashe – both sympathetic portraits of normally inaccessible communities, ultra-orthodox Jews in Menashe; bohemian, radicalised Palestinians in In Between.

Intended as the first in a trilogy, I can’t wait to see more of the central characters. The DVD release comes with a scrappy short feature compiled from on-set footage and interviews with Hamoud and her Israeli producer, Shlomi Elkabetz. It looks as if they all had fun making the film – there’s a lot of hugging and high spirits – which makes In Between’s cool coherence even more impressive. 

• Read more film reviews on theartsdesk

@saskiabaron 

Overleaf: watch the trailer for In Between

In the most unlikely of places, there is one of the world’s most prolific directors. He has produced over 110 films, he’s mobbed wherever he goes, and he inspired people through the darkest of civil wars; yet outside of Afghanistan, no-one knows the name of Salim Shaheen, the self-proclaimed "Prince of Nothingwood".

It is not just the season of holidays and holy days in the monotheistic religions; the art galleries and museums are busy reminding us of worlds beyond, with Imagining the Divine at the Ashmolean in Oxford, and Living with Gods at the British Museum (replete as is now de rigueur with illuminating radio programmes from Neil Macgregor, whose book will follow in March). God and gods are more than ever with us, even in the West’s secular age.

When, in 2006, Yusuf announced his return to music, speculation was rife as to how he might now sound. At first, the music felt gentle and touchy-feely. Then came 2014's Tell 'Em I'm Gone – a strutting, blues record full of attitude. More exciting than either of these new musical directions, though, were those odd moments where Yusuf offered a glimpse of his old, wistful self. It gave hope that one day he might record another full-on Cat Stevens album. And here it is.

The Laughing Apple consists of three new songs and eight re-interpretations of forgotten tracks from the Sixties and Seventies. Although the source material comes from various periods, the album's mood is distinctly Tea for the Tillerman-era. Partly, of course, it's Yusuf's iconic voice – the passage of time has simply served to make his vocals more avuncular. But mainly the LP evokes the glory years because of the presence of some top-notch songs. 

"See What Love Did to Me" is the best of the new tracks. The song is built around a brisk guitar riff and features upbeat lyrics set to a warm, catchy melody. The other standout tracks hail from Stevens' back catalogue. "Grandsons" is an update of a piece called "Got a Thing About Seeing My Grandson Grow Old". Time has moved on and now the narrator is old and ill, making for one of the singer's most fragile, empathetic vocal performances. "You Can Do (Whatever!)" is a complete contrast: the original was dropped from the Harold and Maude soundtrack in favour of "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out". If you know the latter, you'll recognise the same uplifting optimism here.

Other notable moments include a handful of songs rescued from their original big band arrangements on New Masters, and the previously unreleased "Mighty Peace", one of the Cat's first songs. Of course, the album's quality is not entirely even. Nor does it need to be. The record succeeds where it has to. It will satisfy music historians who will appreciate how well Yusuf and his old team have recreated their classic sound. Everyone else can simply marvel at the singer's continuing, uncanny ability to translate life's journey into three minutes of infectious melody.

• More album reviews on theartsdesk

@russcoffey 

Overleaf: Yusuf's video for "See What Love Did to Me"

It’s a burning question of western civilisation: what persuades young people brought up among us to walk out on their lives and join the cult of murderous fanatics who call themselves Islamic State? If any dramatist could attempt a coherent answer it’s Peter Kosminsky, who for more than three decades has been telling minutely researched stories – in documentary, drama and a fusion of both – about the big moments of modern British social and political history.

The Big Sick is an enchanting film from the Judd Apatow comedy production line. Don’t be put off by the terrible title. There are two forms of sickness on display in the story of Kumail Nanjiani, a Pakistani American who plays himself in his own autobiographical romantic comedy.

Earlier this year Adeel Akhtar won the BAFTA for best actor. In Murdered By My Father, he gave a heartbreaking performance as the widowed father of a daughter who goes against his desire to arrange an advantageous marriage for her. In a nuanced domestic tragedy, he revealed fresh depths of agony, fear and rage that will have surprised those who mainly knew him as Faisal, the dimwitted terrorist in Four Lions. It was a triumph for Akhtar in his first real leading role, but also for BBC Three, and for the great wealth of British Asian actors.

Since his wonderful turn in Four Lions, Akhtar has become a familiar face in many films and dramas, usually in a supporting role: a copper in River, a lawyer in Apple Tree Yard, an operative in The Night Manager. His performance in Channel 4’s Utopia earned him a BAFTA nomination for best supporting actor. For his next turn he is supporting again, but this time in America.

The Big Sick was written by and stars Kumail Nanjiani as an aspiring stand-up comedian in Chicago who falls in love with a white American girl played by Zoe Kazan. Meanwhile his unwitting parents are desperate to marry him off to a nice Muslim girl. Queues of them come round to the family home, where Akhtar plays Kumail's obedient older brother Naveed, whose arranged marriage is a successful advertisement for the traditional Pakistani way of doing things.

It’s a delightful romantic comedy, directed by Michael Showalter, produced by Judd Apatow and also featuring a terrific turn from a beady-eyed Holly Hunter. In September Akhtar plays another sidekick in Victoria & Abdul, a sort of belated sequel to Mrs Brown starring Judi Dench as an elderly Queen Victoria and Ali Fazal as her Indian servant. Adeel Akhtar (pictured below with Anupam Kher and Kumail Nanjiani in The Big Sick) talks to theartsdesk. JASPER REES: Both are stories about Muslim parents wishing to exert control over their children’s lives, so is The Big Sick an antidote to Murdered By My Father?

ADEEL AKHTAR: Oh wow. Maybe you could see it as an antidote in so far as it’s a comedy and it allows you to laugh in the face of controlling parents as opposed to what Murdered By My Father did which was very dramatic and ultimately quite sad.

This is Kumail Nanjiani’s personal story. How much do you personally recognise in a comedy about the weight of parental influence?

I suppose I could relate quite a bit in that for a little while I was expected to have a form of an arranged marriage as well and it would have been a partner that my mum and dad would have chosen for me. It’s this weird hybrid now. A long time ago it used to just be you having to marry the person that your parents chose for you and now it’s along the lines along the lines of what you see in The Big Sick and now it’s a little bit further than that: it’s like a weird dating website. Also, if you were to take away the cultural specificity you’d just see parents that are quite universal. You’ve got your overbearing mother, your dad who is not technically minded at all and you have them both wanting the best for their son.

You also encountered some opposition to doing what you wanted to do as a young man. Does the film feel germane in that sense?

When I was younger my dad encouraged me to do law and he kind of said that was what I had to do, so I did that. But I wasn’t very happy doing it and I then went to drama school and became an actor. So I find that very relatable with Kumail’s personal journey. Luckily by the time I met my wife my parents had already put to bed the idea that I was going to be a nice Muslim boy who was going to have an arranged marriage. I’d already drunk the beer and eaten the bacon butty and listened to all the wrong music.Do you believe it's important for Islam to be able to laugh at itself?

The first form of defiance is to laugh at something that is seen as a form of authority. You’ve just got to make sure that the jokes funny enough that everyone’s laughing. Four Lions had a real pinpoint accuracy. You couldn’t really fault it. Chris Morris researched it for years and years and years to essentially make a really really silly slapstick comedy.

You studied law before answering the call of acting. Do you sense that you have a different relationship to the profession from someone who went straight from school to drama school?

Maybe. There’s no real way of knowing. But then I fell into drama school. It wasn’t really my audition, it was my girlfriend at the time’s audition. They just rang up and asked me if I wanted to take a place there and I said yes because the alternative was coming back and doing an LPC [Legal Practice Course]. It just feels I’ve fallen into this profession and every job I’ve done has a little bit of that quality to it. I’m really amazed that they’re willing to hire me and by the time I get to the end of the job I’m just happy I’ve made it that far. I was watching this Bill Nighy talking about how acting is just very simple. People in drama school have to work out how to spread a very simple idea over three years. I think it’s about approaching it with simplicity.

How did that impact on your performance in Murdered By My Father? How did you get under that character’s skin?

You just create this emotional distance. If you felt all the feelings that he felt then you’d go a bit crazy. Weirdly I went through each emotional beat that he had to go through but treating it quite clinically. Ten years ago I maybe would have tried to feel every single emotion. The drama school I went to was very method-oriented. I just marked it out for myself, almost choreographed it so.

It’s not widely known that as a 21-year-old in 2002 you were arrested in New York when you got off a plane, suspected of being a dangerous terrorist. Did that event cast a long shadow?

It was straight after 11 September and there was a lot of paranoia in the air about people of certain ethnicities travelling in public spaces. And at the moment there seems to be a similar sort of feeling in the air. The only thing that’s really changed is my perspective on it. I was so scared at the time that I on some level forgot who I was and wasn’t able to communicate that to people. Now with a bit of age and just feeling a bit more secure in myself and having a family, I am able to just have a better understanding of who I am and how I see the world. I think what it did for me weirdly is just make clearer what my perspective on the world is and how I want to live my life and basically it’s not to see differences in people. I just refuse to engage in that dialogue. There are lots of unifying forces in the world, and I pay more credence to that.There is never-ending discussion about diversity in casting. Your own career is full of characters for whom ethnicity is a part of the story – all of the above, plus Capital - and others where it’s not: Mr Smee in Pan, River, Utopia (pictured above), The Night Manager etc. Do these distinctions play any part in your decision to take on a role?

Sometimes. I suppose it would just depend on the project. I just picture myself doing so many more roles now than when I would have done when I first started acting. There’s still a lot of work we have to do making sure that on a film set you want to see the five percent of British Asians represented behind the camera and in the cast. But we’ve come such a long way from where we were.

Who do you play in Victoria & Abdul?

I play Mohammed, who is Abdul’s mate who tags along with him on the boat. He is cantankerous, very overweight – they put me in a fat suit – bearded and sweary. He is always down on everything. It was a lot of fun. You’ve got Michael Gambon, Olivia Williams, Judi Dench. A good reminder that acting is just getting on with it.

Is there a chance you might do more theatre?

I’d really love to do some very soon. The last big thing I did was A Christmas Carol with Jim Broadbent, playing Bob Cratchit. But I’m off to America now so I’m not sure when I’m going to be able to do it. I'm shooting a show called Ghosted. It's a comedy about finding aliens.

Can you describe your face?

My resting face looks like it’s constantly upset. I can’t really control it unfortunately. If I could then maybe I’d get more comedy.

• The Big Sick is released on 28 July. Victoria & Abdul is released on 15 September

Overleaf: watch the trailer to The Big Sick