The Nerve 2026 Culture Preview

Think Oscar-winner Parasite meets Ealing Comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets: the latest from Park Chan-wook, No Other Choice (23 January) is a delectably dark comedy-thriller about status anxiety in South Korea. Lee Byung-hun stars as a family man and corporate stiff who responds to his redundancy with a meticulously planned campaign of homicidal violence. And who’s to say, in his position, you wouldn’t do the same? Then, from February, the Gothic Girlies make their entrance. Last year we had Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu and Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein. This year brings gender parity to the bosom-heaving, with two highly anticipated gothic romances from female directors; Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights (13 February) and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! (6 March).

Yes, there’s a new Marvel film out in July (Spider-Man: Brand New Day), but this year cinemagoers needn’t turn their brains off as soon as the air-conditioning goes on thanks to two superior summer blockbusters. As well as a new Stephen Spielberg film about UFOs, Disclosure Day, out in June, we can look forward to Christopher Nolan’s take on Ancient Greek epic The Odyssey (17 July), starring Matt Damon, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya. Meanwhile, Charli XCX has five (at least) films out this year and the upcoming The Devil Wears Prada 2 is highly anticipated by fashion types. But for those truly in the know, it’s Adele’s acting debut in late 2026, in a role written for her by Gucci-designer-turned-filmmaker Tom Ford, that’s the real cultural crossover event. The 21st-century Tottenham diva is rumoured to be playing an 18th-century Italian opera singer, which doesn’t sound like too much of a stretch. 

Last but not least, The Social Reckoning (9 October) is an unofficial companion piece to 2010’s The Social Network, this time both written and directed by the master of fast-paced repartee, Aaron Sorkin. While that earlier David Fincher film told the story of Facebook’s founding, this one focuses on events surrounding the 2021 Facebook leak, starring Jeremy Strong as Zuckerberg and Anora star Mikey Madison as whistleblower Frances Haugen. 

The UK’s National Year of Reading starts strongly with a new novel by George Saunders, once again set in the territory between life and death of his Lincoln in the Bardo. Vigil tells the story of KJ Boone, CEO of an oil company, and his efforts to frustrate a representative of the afterlife as she tries to usher him off this mortal coil. Also worth looking out for in January are Bryan Washington’s Palaver, an exploration of mother and son estrangement and re-encounter set in Japan, and Julian Barnes’s Departure(s), a blending of memoir and fiction that the renowned author assures us is his last ever book.

Spring brings the return of Asako Yuzuki, author of the food-in-fiction phenomenon Butter. The clash between corporate life and domesticity is once again on the agenda in Hooked, translated by Polly Barton. It’s the tale of the unlikely friendship between an executive intent on making Japan love an overlooked fish and a housewife-blogger. And Douglas Stuart, author of the Booker prize-winning Shuggie Bain, is also back, with John of John; set on the Isle of Harris, it continues his fascination with the tension between urban and rural environments and tangled family dynamics. 

Looking further ahead to summer, cinemagoers eagerly awaiting Hamnet will be delighted that Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel, Land, appears in June. Set on Ireland’s Atlantic coast in the 1860s, it’s a tale of family, map-making, empire and – intriguingly – buried treasure. Like John of John, it’s also powered by the relationship between a father and son.

And in August, Jon Ronson will release his first book for 11 years. The Castle was inspired when Ronson’s son and his friends accepted an invitation to a party in rural New England, having only “met” their host online. When they arrived, they discovered a brand-new castle, complete with turrets and a moat – but no party. Unsurprisingly, they beat a hasty retreat – but that doesn’t stop Ronson père from returning to find out more.

Pairing a classic play with a marquee name or two is theatre’s safest bet. For me, the spring’s most enticing combination is Lesley Manville, Aidan Turner and Monica Barbaro in a revival of Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses (National theatre, March). But Star Trek’s Chris Pine also makes his London stage debut in an updated Ivanov (Bridge theatre, July) and Paul Mescal reunites with A Streetcar Named Desire director Rebecca Frecknall for Death of a Salesman (the National, date to be confirmed). On the Shakespearean front, the always innovative Robert Icke directs Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink in Romeo & Juliet (Harold Pinter theatre, March) and Kenneth Branagh returns to the RSC in May after 30 years – old enough now for Prospero in Richard Eyre’s The Tempest. 

Meanwhile, Good Chance theatre presents Sarah Agha’s one-woman show A Grain of Sand, touring the UK from January through to March. Its blend of Palestinian folklore with eyewitness testimony from children in Gaza is no less timely than when it debuted in London in 2024.

Michael Sheen’s fledgling Welsh National Theatre is also hitting the road. Sheen is taking Thornton Wilder’s Our Town around Wales from January through March before settling in Cardiff for Gary Owen’s new historical epic Owain & Henry (Donald Gordon theatre, November). In Scotland, Pitlochry Festival theatre turns 75 with Alan Cumming’s first season as artistic director, including the hit musical Once (May), Simon Russell Beale in Martin Sherman’s I’ll Be Seeing You (September) and Cumming himself as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (November).

Back in London, the Royal Court celebrates its 70th birthday with a new lease of life under artistic director David Byrne and two heavyweight callbacks to its illustrious history. Tilda Swinton returns to the role she originated in 1987 in Manfred Karge’s Man to Man (September) while Gary Oldman brings his lauded York production of Krapp’s Last Tape (May) to the theatre where Beckett’s play debuted in 1958. Those two are, predictably, sold out, so if you can’t get returns, you could try one of the premieres. Ryan Calais Cameron’s The Afronauts is about Zambia’s 1960s space programme and Rajiv Joseph’s Archduke follows the plotters who killed Franz Ferdinand. Every revival was new and unfamiliar once.

There’s no shortage of albums giving state-of-the-nation addresses in 2026. First out of the gate, Dry Cleaning’s third album, Secret Love (9 January), channels “the Reaganite paranoia of early 80s US punk” and, though typically surreal, has one eye on the current “horrorland”. Blues heavyweight Lucinda Williams isn’t pulling any punches with her message for America, World’s Gone Wrong, on 23 January. And Sleaford Mods have got a thing or two to say about Maga as well: their lucky 13th album, The Demise of Planet X (16 January), features Sue Tompkins from cult Glasgow band Life Without Buildings and actor Gwendoline Christie. For an upbeat tonic, the spoken word artist Joshua Idehen – who went viral with his track Mum Does The Washing – sets his canny poems to UK garage beats on hopeful new album I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got to Try, out on 6 March. 

On the topic of finding hope in troubled times, the world’s favourite fictional band Gorillaz are back with their ninth album, The Mountain (or पर्वत in Hindi), on 27 February. Though based around Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s time in India and reportedly dealing with themes of death and the afterlife, singles like The Happy Dictator (“so look out to the west now/see where the devil lies”) and The God of Lying feel firmly in the present. An eye-poppingly long list of guests includes posthumous appearances from actor Dennis Hopper, the Fall’s Mark E Smith and soul great Bobby Womack, as well as a stellar cast of (very much still alive) Indian classical stars including Anoushka Shankar. A mammoth tour follows in March.

In another anticipated tour, the West End Girl herself, Lily Allen, is off on the road this year following her acclaimed 2025 revenge album. She kicks off March with shows at stately concert halls up and down the country and three nights at London’s Palladium, all of them already sold out. But there’ll be another chance to see her when she returns in June and steps it up with a stadium pop show and a headline set at London’s pop weekender Mighty Hoopla.

Speaking of festivals, it’s a fallow year for the UK’s biggest over in Pilton. Time to check out some worthy (sorry) Glastonbury alternatives? June’s Wild Woods Festival (19-21 June) in Cambridgeshire is a cute, forest-y affair with a superb lineup of DJs that you’d usually find at Glasto’s Stonebridge Bar – Auntie Flo, Channel One, Paula Tape and Optimo among them. Over in the south of France, Gilles Peterson’s week-long Worldwide Festival (28 June-5 July) celebrates 10 years of putting on global jazz’s answer to Club Med. Or check out Portugal’s Waking Life (17-22 June), a community-minded boutique festival that foregrounds Glasto’s old spirit of “high weirdness” and eco-consciousness. Back in the UK, A Love Supreme in East Sussex (3-5 July) welcomes Ezra Collective’s new stage Temple of Joy, where the UK jazz stars have curated performances from Kokoroko, Moses Boyd and gospel group Annie & The Caldwells.

So much good TV is promised in 2026, the temptation to keep the curtains shut will be strong. Of the returning shows, I’m particularly looking forward to the high-octane resurgence of Hijack (Apple TV), because Idris Elba is the one person you’d want to see in the seat behind you during a hostage situation. Last time it was a plane, this time a Berlin subway train. Later in the year, Channel 4 brings back Mitchell & Webb Are Not Helping, which is singlehandedly keeping the sketch show alive, and of course Disney+’s Rivals romps back for series two with its perfect distraction of sex and synthetic fibres. 

Despite the announcement of Netflix’s starry take on The Seven Dials Mystery, the only Agatha Christie adaptation I’m excited about is BBC One’s Endless Night, penned by the mighty Sarah Phelps, back to upset the tea table and show Christie’s truly disturbing underbelly. In other classic remake news, the BBC takes on Lord of the Flies (Jack Thorne adapts), William Golding’s tale of self-government and savagery, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in The Other Bennet Sister, this time focusing on the unassuming Mary Bennet. Early clips of the latter look quite delightful.

Russell T Davies brings Tip Toe to Channel 4, a drama starring Alan Cumming and David Morrissey as neighbours who become embroiled in a feud. No one does humanity and heart like him, and it’s an excellent reminder that his peerless talents stretch far beyond the Whoniverse.

Lisa McGee unveils her first writing project since Derry Girls in How to Get to Heaven from Belfast for Netflix. It’s a comic mystery about three friends reuniting after the death of a childhood pal. McGee says in the press release: “A good friend keeps your secrets, but a great friend helps you bury them.” 

And your true-crime itch will be scratched by ITV’s The Lady, in which Mia McKenna-Bruce stars as Jane Andrews, who was convicted of murdering her boyfriend in 2001, having previously worked as the dresser to the former Duchess of York.

I’m always looking for a reason to go to Bristol’s Spike Island, one of England’s best regional galleries, with its vast spaces, network of studios, vibrant associates programme and excellent cafe. At the end of January – when everyone needs a pick-me-up, let’s face it – Spike will host a major solo exhibition by the brilliant Malaysian artist Phillip Lai, whose spare and subtle sculptures transform the most usual objects into the most unusual – surprising, elegant, strange, self-aware. A month later, back in London, the 91-year-old painter Rose Wylie finally gets her due with an exhibition at the Royal Academy, her largest to date. I can’t wait to see the institution’s staid architecture filled with her raucous, colourful paintings (some previously unseen),  whose surfaces seem simple but reward close looking and never fail to inspire with life and good humour. 

Another master of colour, the painter Frank Bowling, has a retrospective at the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, opening at the end of March. Entitled Seeking the Sublime, it no doubt will – and will inspire you to see the same in his vast canvases, with their ethereal colour palettes, fields of diffuse hues and streaming lines. The show will also include his earlier figurative work, highlighting the range of one of Britain’s best and most accomplished living painters. 

From spring and into summer, two of my favourite London spaces will show two of my favourite artists. At the beginning of April, Senga Nengudi’s beguiling, bodily sculptures come to the Whitechapel Gallery, along with documentation of her pioneering work as a performance artist in New York and Los Angeles. In mid-July, Tate Modern has a retrospective of the too-short but still prolific career of the enigmatic, sui generis Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta. Mendieta has had many shows since her untimely death at 36 in 1985, but Tate’s curators have been working hard to imagine what her work says to us about the world today. Both Tates also have an impressive further slate of shows, including Frida Kahlo and Tracey Emin at Modern, and Hurvin Anderson at Britain.