From Van Gogh to Superman: Keep cool with our information to the summer season’s highest arts and leisure

Stage

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Bridge theatre, London, to 20 August
Nicholas Hytner’s theatrical blockbuster returns to the Bridge theatre, which has advanced an actual knack for folding the target audience into the motion. This prom model of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy used to be a break hit six years in the past and is mild on its toes and without problems fascinating. The new forged contains Susannah Fielding as Titania and Emmanuel Akwafo because the hapless Bottom. Miriam Gillinson

How to Win Against History
Bristol Old Vic, 19 June to 12 July
Bristol Old Vic and Francesca Moody Productions revive this flamboyant musical in response to the bonkers lifetime of the fifth Marquess of Anglesey, who blew the circle of relatives fortune on diamond attire, lilac-dyed poodles and never-ending extravagances. When he died at 29, his outraged Edwardian circle of relatives scrubbed him from the information. This is his tale – with fabulous frocks. MG

PBH unfastened fringe weekender
Colab Tower, London, 27 to 29 June
The highway to the Edinburgh fringe is paved with inexpensive previews, and throughout this weekend you’ll select to pay what you need to enhance the unfastened fringe and its artists. The eclectic lineup of greater than 50 displays contains Edinburgh comedy award winner Rob Copland, cult favorite Mark Silcox and thrilling returnees Jain Edwards, Sam Nicoresti, Mary O’Connell, Shelf and extra. Rachael Healy

Manchester world pageant
Various venues, Manchester, 3 to 20 July
This yr’s MIF contains Jonathan Watkins’s ballet adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man and a strong new play, Liberation, from Ntombizodwa Nyoni. But there are lots of unfastened occasions – together with a stampede of lifesize animal puppets roaming the streets (The Herds) and a brand new artwork exhibition curated by means of the youngsters of Greater Manchester (Inheritance). MG

Newcastle fringe pageant
Various venues, Newcastle upon Tyne, 22 July to 2 August
Running Tuesdays to Saturdays, this arts pageant takes position throughout one of the most town’s coolest venues and mixes family names with up-and-comers. North-east comics reminiscent of Lauren Pattison, Raul Kohli, Si Beckwith and Seymour Mace may also be discovered along Susie McCabe, Lorna Rose Treen and Ola Labib. Pattison’s Show, Slice & Spritz – a comedy and diversity evening out with added pizza – sounds specifically a laugh. RH

Billingham world folklore pageant of global dance
Various venues, Billingham, 9 to 17 August
The majority of occasions are unfastened or pay what you need at this Teesside pageant – the topic of a 70s BBC documentary known as What’s a Festival Like You Doing in a Place Like This? – and now celebrating its 60th anniversary. More than 250 performers from everywhere the sector will show off nationwide dances from international locations together with Bolivia, China, Costa Rica, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Montenegro, Philippines and Ukraine. Lyndsey Winship

Scottish Ballet: Mary, Queen of Scots
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 15 to 17 August; traveling to 4 October
The large dance premiere of this yr’s Edinburgh world pageant, Glasgow’s Scottish Ballet has shape in terms of stirring, inventively informed narrative ballet (Coppélia, The Crucible, A Streetcar Named Desire). The corporate’s choreographer, Sophie Laplane, approaches the lifetime of Mary, Queen of Scots in the course of the prism of her courting with Elizabeth I. Designs by means of Soutra Gilmour promise “punk meets haute couture”. LW

The Enormous Crocodile
Regent’s Park Open Air theatre, 15 August to 7 September
You can’t beat a circle of relatives theatre go back and forth to Regent’s Park theatre. This manufacturing of Roald Dahl’s snappy tale transfers from Leeds Playhouse and is directed by means of Emily Lim, whose paintings at all times feels particularly thoughtful of its target audience. There’s track from Sudanese American artist Ahmed Abdullahi Gallab, a ebook from Suhayla El-Bushra (Arabian Nights) and puppets from the intense Toby Olié. MG

Film

Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair
Prince Charles Cinema, London, 15 to 21 June
Sometimes it’s a laugh to actually shower in distress with the saddest, maximum soul-wrenching movies ever made, reminiscent of Watership Down, Come and See, and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. If that roughly silver display nihilism feels like your jam, get your lengthy face all the way down to the Prince Charles Cinema, lately designated an asset of group price by means of Westminster council.

Elio
In cinemas 20 June
Pixar returns with an actual throwback to the halcyon days of Toy Story and Finding Nemo. The motion follows 11-year-old Elio who mistakenly turns into the ambassador of planet Earth after a false impression with some extraterrestrial beings.

28 Years Later
In cinemas 20 June
They’re zombies, however they’re rapid. It’s wonderful how radical that gave the impression again in 2002, with purists kicking off about how they have been “supposed to shuffle”, and defenders declaring that technically the 28 Days Later zombies weren’t actually zombies. The overwhelming majority of cinemagoers have been glad simply to enjoy a lean, imply horror system that gave a stupendous starring position to a tender Cillian Murphy. This follow-up reunites director Danny Boyle, author Alex Garland and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle.

The Rural Remix
Various venues, Shropshire, 11 to 13 July
Featuring Pride and Prejudice (2005), Pride and Prejudice With Zombies (2016) and 28 Years Later (2025), this three-day party guarantees extra than simply movie: you’ll additionally attend The Big Cheese Off, which, in tribute to French cheesemaking hit Holy Cow, will see Shropshire cheeses face off towards the French cheeses from the movie. Venues come with Ludlow Assembly Rooms, Old Market Hall in Shrewsbury, Wem Town Hall and Wellington Orbit.

Superman
In cinemas 11 July
For those that are bored stiff with being promised their superhero motion pictures will likely be edgy and darkish comes this cheerier-looking, straight-down-the line reboot of the Big Blue Boy Scout. James Gunn’s new model appears to transport the DC staple clear of the gloomy revisionist tones of the Zack Snyder generation and again to the colourful number one colors and John Williams ranking of the 1978 Christopher Reeve vintage.

Edinburgh world movie pageant
Various venues, 14 to 20 August
The 78th version of Scotland’s greatest movie pageant is about to unveil a choice of world and UK premieres, together with the brand new Ben Wheatley movie Bulk and the Sundance favorite Sorry, Baby. A variety of screenings are pay what you’ll, giving everybody the risk to get entry to the sector’s highest cinema. Catherine Bray

Music

SMTOWN Live 2025
Allianz Stadium Twickenham, London, 28 June
Featuring sufficient visible stimulation and sugary hits to stay flagging folks and pepped-up youngsters glad, this party of 30 years of Ok-pop hothouse SM Entertainment includes a lineup of its boy and girlbands. Aespa, Riize and NCT Wayv are some of the large names, however stay a watch out for British boyband dearALICE, who shaped final yr on BBC One’s Made in Korea: The Ok-Pop Experience. Michael Cragg

Yeule
Academy 2, Manchester, 1 July; O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, 2 July
Singaporean singer-songwriter-producer Yeule creates unruly hybrids of future-facing digital pop and raging 90s alt-rock, typically bridged by means of a surprising throat-shredding roar. With a newly launched 3rd album, Evangelic Girl Is a Gun – that includes collaborations with AG Cook and Mura Masa – below their studded belt, get ready for emotional bloodletting in an excellent cacophony of noise. MC

Love Supreme jazz pageant
Glynde Place, nr Lewes, 4 to 6 July
Stalwart of the summer season jazz pageant roster, the tenting weekender Love Supreme boasts a 2025 version this is generally expansive. Jazz-adjacent stars reminiscent of soul singer Maxwell, hip-hop crew the Roots and British multi-instrumental prodigy Jacob Collier best the invoice, whilst the jazz aficionados will likely be happy because of units from US saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin, British pianist Neil Cowley and London-based newcomer Poppy Daniels. Ammar Kalia

Kendrick Lamar and SZA
8 to 23 July; excursion begins Glasgow
As Lamar’s ongoing pork with Drake is battled out within the courts, the Compton rapper distracts himself with this co-headlining stadium excursion along R&B celebrity SZA. Its sold-out US leg noticed the pair carry out a mammoth 52 songs, together with joint hits Luther and All the Stars, plus Drake favorite Not Like Us. Playboi Carti and Kaytranada had been visitors thus far, so be expecting extra starry names. MC

Bristol Harbour pageant
Various venues, 18 to 20 July
Bristol’s annual unfastened pageant draws greater than 250,000 other people throughout its 3 days, showcasing native and world skill. As smartly as the primary Harbour View level – which will likely be headlined by means of Bristol-based sea shanty aficionados the Longest Johns – there’s additionally a level celebrating rising acts, plus a extra experimental area for spoken phrase and jazz. If all that’s now not sufficient, there’s additionally a trapeze! MC

Waterperry opera pageant
Nr Oxford, 8 to 17 August
Country space opera with a distinction. The open-air performances – live shows in addition to operas – happen within the grounds of Waterperry House and gardens in a comfortable, casual setting, without a trace of any get dressed code. This yr’s staged operas are Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Handel’s Semele, the primary directed by means of John Wilkie and carried out by means of Charlotte Politi, the second one staged by means of Rebecca Meltzer with Bertie Baigent within the pit. Andrew Clements

Mohammad Syfkhan
The White Hotel, Salford, 28 August
Syrian refugee and grasp participant of the long-necked lute, the bouzouki, Mohammad Syfkhan has been fascinating audiences throughout the United Kingdom over the last yr whilst supporting Irish folks crew Lankum. He now brings his headline excursion to Salford’s White Hotel, taking part in tracks from his newest album. Expect twanging bouzouki melodies, hovering vocals and multi-layered electrified rhythms. AK

Vienna Philharmonic
Royal Albert Hall, London, 8 and 9 September
In a Proms season that’s significantly brief on nice orchestras, the Vienna Philharmonic sticks out. Its two live shows are carried out by means of Franz Welser-Möst, who has been an excessively uncommon customer to London lately, and each his programmes function ultimate symphonies. In the primary, Bruckner’s unfinished Ninth is preceded by means of the suite from Berg’s opera Lulu, whilst the second one has Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique, with Mozart’s Symphony No 38, the Prague. AC

Art

Jenny Saville
National Portrait Gallery, London, 20 June to 7 September
This retrospective of one in every of Britain’s maximum acclaimed and a success recent painters is assured to be filled with blood and guts. Saville paints within the uncooked figurative custom of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon – however from a feminine point of view. When different younger artists within the 1990s have been placing readymades in galleries, she used to be brushing her technique to status.

Jeremy Deller’s The Triumph of Art
Mostyn, Llandudno, 21 June; The Box, Plymouth, 5 July; Trafalgar Square, London, 26 July
People are the stuff of Deller’s Turner prize-winning artwork. His creations reminiscent of Acid Brass and The Battle of Orgreave convey in combination group teams, voluntary associations and historical past in carnivals of collective reminiscence. To mark the National Gallery’s (lengthy) bicentenary yr he’s created this side road tournament that’s assured to contain and entertain every age with processions, track and a laugh.

William Kentridge
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, nr Wakefield, 28 June to 19 April 2026
Modern historical past, politics and artwork are taken aside, reassembled and held as much as ironic scrutiny on this sensible South African artist’s witty however profoundly critical paintings. Drawing is on the center of his actions and from that he creates animation, installations and – on this exhibition – sculpture. Kentridge displays his sculptural oeuvre each indoors and out within the inexperienced Yorkshire panorama.

Kiefer/Van Gogh
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 June to 26 October
The German artist Anselm Kiefer is 80 this yr: he used to be born in 1945, within the ruins of the Third Reich. Reckoning with historical past has been his existence’s paintings. His large artwork and installations live on darkness. But right here he finds his love for Van Gogh, which began when he gained a faculties festival to talk over with the Dutch visionary’s landscapes.

Folkestone Triennial
Various venues, 19 July to 19 October
Folkestone is stuffed with unexpected settings for public artwork, from defunct fuel cylinder websites and genteel rock gardens to the JG Ballard-like trendy ruins of the previous ferry terminal. Artists together with Monster Chetwynd, Cooking Sections, Dorothy Cross, Katie Paterson and Laure Prouvost take over such websites this summer season, exploring the geological bedrock and prehistory of town and its setting.

Edinburgh artwork pageant
Various venues, 7 to 24 August
Art is at all times considerable in Edinburgh’s pageant season, in many sorts and venues each orthodox and surprising. Highlights come with a retrospective of land artist Andy Goldsworthy, whose paintings is typically observed in woods and fields quite than museums, and iconoclastic punk visionary Linder, who additionally plays. Walking across the Old and New Towns to search out artwork is a joyous deal with. Jonathan Jones