Going out: Cinema

Freakier Friday
Out now
More than 20 years ago, Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan starred in what was already the third big-screen incarnation of the novel by Mary Rodgers. The premise of a mother swapping bodies with her daughter clearly has staying power, with Curtis and Lohan back to reprise their roles in this sequel.

Weapons
Out now
In 2022, Zach regger burst on to the scene with the witty and surprising horror movie Barbarian. This is his hotly anticipated follow-up, starring Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich and Benedict Wong, in which all but one child from the same class mysteriously disappear overnight.

The Kingdom
Out now
Introducing newcomers Ghjuvanna Benedetti and Saveriu Santucci, director Julien Colonna’s debut – which premiered at the Cannes film festival – sees a 15-year-old girl and her crime-boss dad go on the run in Corsica.

In Character: The Films of Peter Sellers
BFI Southbank, London, to 31 August
UK radio star turned internationally famous comedian whom Robin Williams crowned “the most influential actor in films”, Sellers would have been 100 this year. To mark his centenary, there’s a season at the BFI including such classics as The Ladykillers, Two Way Stretch and Heavens Above. Catherine Bray

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Going out: Gigs

The Smashing Pumpkins
Gunnersbury Park, London, 10 August
With three of the band’s four original members back onboard, the Smashing Pumpkins return to the UK following last year’s tour with Weezer. This time they’re bringing their brand of epic alt-rock to west London for an all-day festival including Skunk Anansie and White Lies. Michael Cragg

Redman
12 to 15 August; tour starts Glasgow
After last year dropping the guest-heavy Muddy Waters Too, the sequel to his 1996 classic, New Jersey rap great Redman arrives in the UK for a rare tour. As well as doing a handful of his own shows, he’ll also join Busta Rhymes for South Facing festival in south London. MC

Eva Ollikainen, Johannes Moser and the BBC Symphony Orchestra
Royal Albert Hall, London, 13 August
The notion of teetering on the edge, of balancing on the verge of many opposites, lies behind her new cello concerto, says Anna Thorvaldsdottir. First performed in Los Angeles in May, Before We Fall is brought to the Proms by the cellist for whom it was composed, Johannes Moser; Eva Ollikainen conducts the BBC SO. Andrew Clements

We Out Here festival
Wimborne St Giles, Dorset, 14 to 17 August
Surreal wizardry still sparkles for 89-year-old Brazilian multi-instrumentalist and global-jazz one-off Hermeto Pascoal, an influence on legends including Miles Davis – though 2025 may include his last European visits. On Thursday, Pascoal’s band joins a raft of contemporary innovators for DJ-producer Gilles Peterson’s four-day Dorset-based festival. John Fordham

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Going out: Art

John Bellany
City Art Centre, Edinburgh, to 28 September
Inspired by the disturbing visions of Otto Dix and admired by Damien Hirst, this hard-living expressionist regularly scrutinised his own image and experiences, including taking to his easel just after a liver transplant.

Tai Shani
Somerset House, London, to 14 September
Surrealistic sculptor Shani has created a statue of a blue sleeping figure for the fountain courtyard of Somerset House. While children play in the fountains this sculpture sleeps, but what dreams may come? There’s a sound element in the style of a radio chatshow with Brian Eno and more.

Future of Food
Science Museum, London, to 4 January
A loaf of bread that’s 3,500 years old is one of the exhibits in this survey of the past and present of food, as well as its future. The history of how humanity has sustained itself since early times leads up to the challenges of our nourishment and survival now.

Nicolas Party
Holburne Museum, Bath, to 19 October
The Swiss-born Party, who started out as a street artist, shows a comic wall-filling mural inspired by a 17th-century painting in the Holburne collection: Benjamin Gerritsz Cuyp’s A Brawl Between Peasants is a carnivalesque mock battle in the tradition of Bruegel. Party riffs on it and supersizes the mayhem. Jonathan Jones

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Going out: Stage

Urooj Ashfaq
Monkey Barrel Comedy, Edinburgh, to 24 August
Expectations are always sky high when a best newcomer winner returns to the fringe, but this Indian standup is done with people pleasing. Her new show, How to Be a Baddie, is a tongue-in-cheek rejection of the sweet, everygirl persona that has underpinned her comedy to date. Rachel Aroesti

Little Angel Theatre Children’s Puppet festival
Little Angel Theatre, London, to 31 August
This popular puppet festival includes marionette puppetry, singalong stories, comedy, puppet playcations, craft workshops – and even a few shows for adults. Miriam Gillinson

Shedinburgh fringe festival
Edinburgh College of Art, to 24 August
A brand new venue for the Edinburgh fringe from Francesca Moody Productions, with a mixture of big names and indie cult favourites. Confirmed acts include poet-playwright Kieran Hurley, the Showstoppers and Edinburgh stalwart Mark Watson. MG

Romeo & Juliet
St Stephen’s Theatre, Edinburgh, 13 to 21 August
A revival of Frederick Ashton’s Romeo and Juliet from 1955. Much less well-known than Kenneth MacMillan’s version, it’s being mounted by veteran Danish dancer and artistic director Peter Schaufuss, whose parents danced in the original production. Lyndsey Winship

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Staying in: Streaming

Alien: Earth
Disney+, 13 August
Having turned Fargo from a cult film into an acclaimed five-season TV series, showrunner Noah Hawley will be hoping to repeat the trick with this prequel to the 1979 blockbuster Alien. Sydney Chandler leads the cast as Wendy, a human-robot hybrid who fronts a team of “synthetics” as they battle against horrifying unknown life forms.

Amsterdam Narcos
Now/Sky Documentaries, 13 August, 9pm
This anthology-style documentary series is proving a winning franchise for Sky: after programmes on Dublin, Ibiza and Liverpool comes this series about the strange history of drug-dealing in the Netherlands’ capital. Episode one looks at how the country’s decriminalisation of marjuana in the 1970s led to an influx of organised crime.

In Flight
Channel 4, 12 August, 9pm
More drug-smuggling, this time of the fictional, airborne variety as Katherine Kelly stars as a flight attendant who is blackmailed into couriering class As after her son is jailed in Bulgaria for murder. Co-creaters Mike Walden and Slow Horses director Adam Randall helm what is guaranteed to be a turbulent trip.

Confessions of a Steroids Gang
iPlayer/BBC Three, 12 August, 9pm
Yet more drug-smuggling, this time of the legally ambiguous variety. This three-part documentary examines the case of a father and son from a small town in north Wales, whose shed-based steroids shop expanded into a full-blown criminal enterprise involving Chinese imports and dodgy distribution networks. RA

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Staying in: Games

Drag x Drive
Switch 2; out 14 August
One of the more innovative titles in the Switch 2’s launch year, this wheelchair basketball sim allows you to control your vehicle by sliding two joycons along a flat surface, mimicking a wheel pushing action. The three-v-three multiplayer matches are fast-paced, recalling the excellent car football game Rocket League, and those controls bring a whole new feel to team-based e-sports.

Madden NFL 26
PC, PS5, Switch 2, Xbox; out 14 August
The annual gridiron sim returns with an array of updates including improved
match physics for truly bone-shaking collisions, an in-depth coaching
mode and a new real-time weather system that can hit you with a sudden
rainstorm, completely changing the playing surface. If you’ve any interest
in America’s beautiful game, now is the time to dip a cleat in. Keith Stuart

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Staying in: Albums

Amaarae – Black Star
Out now
On her third album, the Ghanaian-American genre experimentalist travelled to Brazil, adding baile funk to a sonic soup that already includes pop, R&B, Afrobeats and new wave. This follow-up to 2023’s Fountain Baby includes the shapeshifting singles S.M.O and Girlie-Pop!.

Ethel Cain – Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You
Out now
After January’s terrifying drone opus Perverts comes this proper follow-up to Florida cult superstar Hayden Anhedönia’s breakthrough, Preacher’s Daughter. Lyrically it acts as prequel to that debut, exploring smalltown jealousy on the shoegazey Fuck Me Eyes and unfathomable loss on the skewed Americana of Nettles.

The Black Keys – No Rain, No Flowers
Out now
Looking to mix things up on album 13, rock duo have turned to outside sources, bringing in Rick Nowels (Madonna, Lana Del Rey) and Scott Storch (Beyoncé, Dr Dre). The result is a richly melodic expansion on their bluesy garage rock sound.

Craig David – Commitment
Out now
The enduring Southampton favourite returns with his ninth album, the follow-up to 2022’s 22. Featuring the likes of Tiwa Savage, 2015 X Factor winner Louisa Johnson and, on the gloriously schmaltzy ballad In it With You, JoJo, it also continues to explore David’s love of Ibiza dance-pop, on SOS. MC

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Staying in: Brain food

Mrs Robinson
Sky Documentaries, 13 August
Former UN high commissioner Mary Robinson is the focus of this incisive film charting her rise from practising law to becoming Ireland’s first female president and then prosecuting human rights abuses on the international stage.

Essential Salt
Podcast
The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies presents a richly reported series of audio documentaries from its home state of Maine. Among the stories are explorations into land disputes and tensions between rural and urban inhabitants.

Open Space
YouTube
Playing like a more comprehensive, academically rooted version of the Architectural Digest channel, Open Space presents in-depth visual tours of architectural wonders in the US, including works of 1940s modernism, Japanese-inspired bungalows and Frank Lloyd Wright masterpieces. Ammar Kalia