Screenwriter Russell T Davies returns to Channel 4 for the first time since 2021’s It’s A Sin. If you thought that was an angry polemic about the mistreatment of gay men during the AIDS crisis, wait until you cop a load of Davies in full effect on the rise of hate in 2026. This blistering thriller pulls no punches in its depiction of two Manchester neighbours, played by Alan Cumming and David Morrissey, falling out over a misunderstanding which escalates against a backdrop of rising fear among the queer community. From the visceral shock of the opening image, this five-parter distills rage and fear into a horribly potent story where Davies takes the growing national anger to its natural conclusion. A true horror story.

Julia Raeside, writer

Oscar Wilde’s comedy gets a vibrant, contemporary glow up in this fresh and exuberant new production featuring an all-Black cast which is currently at the Lyric Hammersmith before travelling to Bristol Old Vic. Billed as a “play of modern life” when it premiered at the Haymarket Theatre, London in 1895, it seems equally modern now with its plot centred on political corruption, hypocrisy and the illicit selling of government secrets. Respected cabinet minister Sir Robert Chiltern (Chiké Okonkwo) is an “ideal husband” to Lady Chiltern (Tamara Lawrance) but his fortune and success rest on a shady deal he struck in the past with a corrupt financier. The ambitious Mrs Cheveley threatens to expose him if he doesn’t invest in a fraudulent money-making scheme of her own. As well as references to Obama and Beyoncé, director Nicholai La Barrie uses music and dance to bring the production up to date, with a soundtrack featuring Ezra Collective and Ms Dynamite and some joyous choreography. Rajha Shakiry’s costumes are a triumph, blending a dandy aesthetic with Caribbean prints and headwraps. Jamael Westman as Lord Goring and Tiwa Lade as Mabel Chiltern are standouts among a top notch cast who look as though they are having a serious amount of fun.

Lisa O’Kelly, Nerve writer

You may think lidos are simply open air swimming pools with a fancier name but, as Tom Fort argues in his journey around Britain’s lost and surviving lidos, they are much more than that. Lidos were places with often ludicrous aspirations beyond the functional role of providing somewhere for people to swim - Blackpool’s was to be “the finest advertisement for the natatorial art ever received in this country”. Ambitiously constructed in a country so at the mercy of the weather, lidos were emblems of civic pride, centres of community and massive tourist attractions. Until they weren’t. Fort’s well-researched account maps the connections between changing attitudes towards lidos and social progress. A self-described “lido convert”, he intersperses the history with memories from swimmers and evocative descriptions from his personal tour of Britain’s lidos past and present to help you understand their enduring allure.

Laura Davis, writer

It's all too easy nowadays to miss softer terrestrial TV shows in the onslaught of shock-factor streaming, but - believe me - the latest season of Race Across The World is the best season yet. (The finale was last Thursday so don’t google it or you’ll get spoilers!). We met five gorgeous teams-of-two, travelling from Sicily to Mongolia on the same budget as the cost of a one-way plane ticket, including my favourites Jo and Kush, two sparky Liverpudlian teenagers who start their journey chaotically, but open up and learn as they travel. 

Watching the series with my 12-year-old son, it was a delight to see two young men who've not had the easiest lives fitting in with disparate cultures and communities with care and respect. The fact the ratings for the show have been sky-high also surely speaks to something the TV-watching public crave in these divisive political times – the sight of a wider world in which friendships and kindness are king.

Jude Rogers, writer

Actor Rosie Cavaliero bookends writer-director Alexander Zeldin’s new play with two defining questions: “Who’d want to get old?” and “How should I live?” She plays a harassed mother who is dealing with widowhood while placing her own ailing mother (Linda Bassett) into care. At first, Care feels like a humorous naturalistic drama about the care home’s residents and staff but that’s not at all where it’s going. This compassionate study of people doing their best in wretched circumstances deftly combines the tragic with the mundane and a touch of Beckett. The older actors — especially Bassett, Hayley Carmichael and Richard Durden — give painfully vulnerable performances as people stranded on life’s final shore and unravelling towards death. Zeldin’s eerie deployment of sound and lighting mirrors their fragmenting consciousnesses and he represents the moment of passing with a technique so powerful I don’t want to spoil it. As we filed out, a couple behind me stood tearfully embracing, unable to move. A shattering experience.

Dorian Lynskey, Nerve theatre critic

Summer has arrived and that means we need a big soundtrack: something that screams "sweaty"; something for throwing shapes with your phone switched off. Well, suerte nuestra! Chilean-German electronic maverick Matias Aguayo is here with a return to form – his sixth album is inspired by a series of sober outdoor free parties in his adopted home of Mexico City where the focus is on uninhibited movement. Similarly, Anenoa hops and skips freely and subversively across musical styles, from inventive, pan-Latin rhythmic pop to dystopian, turbo-charged cumbia to the kind of gritty, subversive rave you'd hear in an Optimo DJ set. Even whimsical folk textures get a look-in, with guests including Mexican R&B star Girl Ultra and Ugandan-born singer-songwriter Daudi Matsiko. Go on, dance like no one's watching.

Kate Hutchinson, Nerve music critic

THEATRE
All the Rage
(Theatre Deli, London EC3A, 11-13 June, suitable for ages 16+)

A theatrical response to the release of the Epstein Files created by more than 75 female and non-binary playwrights and artists, this new work promises to confront “institutional silence, cultural complicity and the enduring history of misogyny” and will be staged in a repurposed office building. It was conceived by writer and director Rebecca Lenkiewicz (whose many credits include Her Naked Skin, the first original play by a female writer to be shown on the National Theatre’s main stage, and the screenplay for She Said) after the files were first released.

ART
Close to Home: Tish Murtha & Kuba Ryniewicz
(Baltic, Gateshead, 4 July - 4 April 2027)

This landmark exhibition brings together four major series by documentary photographer Tish Murtha who powerfully chronicled working class life in the north east of England in the 1970s and 80s, with a newly commissioned body of work by Newcastle–based artist Kuba Ryniewicz.

THEATRE
Amadeus
(New Theatre Cardiff 9 - 27 March 2027 and Noël Coward Theatre, London 17 April - 7 August 2027)

The first West End production for Michael Sheen’s Welsh National Theatre (in co-production with Second Half Productions), Amadeus will star Sheen as court composer Antonio Salieri and Callum Scott Howells as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Peter Shaffer’s seminal play. It opens in Cardiff in March 2027 before a 16 week transfer.