Fremont review - lovely wry portrait of an Afghan refugee looking for love

★★★★ FREMONT Stunning debut from Anaita Wali Zada gives Babak Jalali's film an inner glow

Stunning debut from refugee Anaita Wali Zada gives Babak Jalali's film an inner glow

A cameo by Jeremy Allen White wouldn’t usually excite interest, but the star of Disney+’s The Bear is big box-office now, so his presence in Fremont, however brief, will probably guarantee it an audience. There the curious will also find a gem from the Iranian-born director Babak Jalali and a serenely powerful debut performance by Anaita Wali Zada, who gives this simple-seeming project an inner glow.

Lie With Me review - a bittersweet enchantment

★★★★ LIE WITH ME A middle-aged novelist recalls his clandestine first affair

A middle-aged novelist recalls his clandestine first affair

The English title of Olivier Peyon’s new movie is a rather hackneyed pun that not only doesn’t work in the original language but also manages to convey exactly the wrong meaning. Arrête avec tes Mensonges is a faintly Almodóvarian love story about the importance (and sometimes difficulty) of facing up to the truth about yourself. However, instead of Stop With Your Lies, we get Lie With Me.

theartsdesk at the Buxton International Festival - bel canto in the High Peak

★★★★ BUXTON INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL Bel canto in the High Peak

Re-thought story in Bellini comedy is the festival highspot

Bellini’s La Sonnambula is the highspot of a four-show lyric theatre bill at the Buxton International Festival this year, and demonstrates again how beautifully suited the small Matcham opera house in the High Peak is to mid-19th century bel canto repertoire.

A Playlist for the Revolution, Bush Theatre review - idealism meets reality head-on

★★★ A PLAYLIST FOR THE REVOLUTION, BUSH THEATRE Idealism meets reality head-on

Two students clash over changing the world with a playlist

The revolution in the title of AJ Yi’s new play at the Bush is the one activists hoped to set in motion in Hong Kong in 2019, when China’s stewardship was increasingly restricting their civil liberties. The music on the playlist serves as an evocative backing track for the former colony’s 21st century makeover by China, a Western-influenced alternative. 

Carrie Mae Weems: Reflections for Now, Barbican review - going from strength to strength on an epic journey

Photographs and videos that take inequality in America to task

Carrie Mae Weems is the first live black artist to have a solo show at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, yet she is hardly known here at all. So the Barbican’s retrospective is timely, especially since, at 70, Weems is making her best work yet.

Capturing the Moment, Tate Modern review - the glorious power of painting

★★★★ CAPTURING THE MOMENT, TATE MODERN The glorious power of painting

From Picasso onwards, artists have responded to photography by making great paintings

Billed as “a journey through painting and photography”, Capturing the Moment reveals many ways in which artists have responded to photography – either by taking up the camera themselves, as did Candida Höffer, Andreas Gursky, Louise Lawler and Thomas Struth, or by making some superb paintings.

Requiem, Opera North review - partnership and diversity

★★★ REQUIEM, OPERA NORTH Choral-orchestral performance meets contemporary dance

Choral-orchestral performance meets contemporary dance in cross-cultural fusion

Innovation is always a risky business. Opera North’s vision and ambition for this production is to create, in effect, a new genre: a combination of staged choral-orchestral performance with contemporary dance.

Partnership and diversity are the buzz words – good ones, too – and the concept brings together the opera company’s soloists, chorus and orchestra with dancers from both Leeds-based Phoenix Dance Theatre and South Africa’s Jazzart Dance Theatre, plus some help from Capetown Opera.

Lapwood, Hallé, Niemeyer, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - light and fiery Poulenc concerto

★★★★ LAPWOOD, HALLE, NIEMEYER, BRIDGEWATER HALL, MANCHESTER Light and fiery Poulenc concerto

A varied evening with a star organist – and a world premiere

“Let the organ thunder!” is the sentiment a lot of us will associate with an orchestral concert featuring the king of instruments. The Hallé’s programme with Anna Lapwood as soloist (repeating, from her BBC Proms debut with them in 2021, the Saint-Saëns “Organ” Symphony) seemed designed to evoke that thought.

But the organ in the Bridgewater Hall isn’t exactly made for thundering. Big Bertha it is not. What it is really good at is a light, clear and sometimes fiery sound – ideal for Poulenc’s 1939 Organ Concerto, which was the undoubted highlight of the evening.

Grenfell by Steve McQueen, Serpentine Gallery review - a stirring memorial for the tower block inferno

★★★★★ GRENFELL BY STEVE MCQUEEN, SERPENTINE GALLERY A stirring memorial for the tower block inferno

Anger and compassion combine to make for an unforgettable experience

The fire which engulfed Grenfell Tower in London’s North Kensington on 14 June, 2017, with a death toll of 72, is still under investigation. The dead were largely recent immigrants to the UK. The tragedy, it’s clear now, was caused by an unholy mixture of neglect, racism, greed and corruption. There’s been much shameful denial and buck-passing, and the issues around the building’s shockingly inadequate cladding haven’t led to much action elsewhere.