Whether or not you’ve watched Ghosts, the impossibly charming BBC sitcom about a couple inheriting a haunted mansion, you’ll find so much to love in this ebullient, quick-witted big-screen spinoff, perfect for a rainy half-term. Ealing meets Spielberg as teen friends invade the recently boarded-up Button House and one of them (Scott Ellis Watson) is possessed by the ghost of Simon Farnaby’s deceased Tory MP, Julian Fawcett. Meanwhile, eco-protesters arrive at the house, giving the remaining ghosts a plot to tackle. The writers/stars scale up the laughs and ambition of the TV show and it’s all tied up in an impressively cinematic package by the TV series director Simon Hynd. Sunna Wehrmeijer’s incredible score adds to the giddy feeling you’re seeing E.T. again for the first time. Ten stars. 

Julia Raeside, writer

There is plenty of artistic inspiration to be found in the mundanity of the everyday. That is according to British painters Chantal Joffe and Ishbel Myerscough, who have curated an exhibition for Sheffield Museums entitled Good Morning: A Day in Art, where a jumble of breakfast cereals, a creased bedspread, a squidge of striped toothpaste and other daily happenings make compelling artistic subjects. The two artists – and friends – have united several of their own pieces with 80 artists from Sheffield’s collection to observe a day from dawn to the dead of night. David Hockney studies a makeup routine; Pablo Picasso captures tangled lovers and Richard Hamilton collages a living-room scene. Joffe and Myerscough record their own loved ones – and even each other – in two painterly styles that are strikingly different but equally raw in their depictions of the minutiae of daily life. There is much to mull over here – it is worth a repeat visit (day after day, if you like). 

Hannah Clugston, writer

Shakespeare's greatest tragedy cut up into a frenetic two hours of action, speech and song, Hamlet Hail to the Thief premiered at Manchester's Aviva Studios last May as an audacious, ambitious, chaotic stage adventure and it now arrives at London’s Barbican. Director Christine Jones worked with Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke to mix up major strands from the play with fragments from one of his group's most portentous albums – a mix that provided Easter-egg delights for their fans, and intriguing dimensions of texture and doom for everyone else. This new run brings back the same Hamlet – the fabulous Samuel Blenkin, wriggly-limbed and wild-eyed as he descends into hell – and reprises roles for Paul Hilton (Claudius) and Claudia Harrison (Gertrude).

Jude Rogers, writer

An entrancing concert series that makes spatial sound a three-dimensional, 360 degree reality. In a dimly lit church, the audience is blindfolded as 30 musicians weave around them, moving through the space as though they were floating. Using acoustic instruments and unamplified voices, they craft sonic sculptures that work alongside the melodies to create a unique, deeply immersive experience: part sensory deprivation tank, part somatic grounding exercise. It will stimulate parts of your brain you had probably forgotten existed. The setlist is a closely guarded secret, though an affinity for folk-rock is encouraged. 

Kathryn Bromwich, writer

You’ll be hearing a lot about this remarkable show and its Australian creator Hannah Reilly. One of the hottest tickets at this year’s Edinburgh festival, it has the same producer, Francesca Moody, as Fleabag and Baby Reindeer and a similarly topical bite, with elements of I Hate Suzie and post-#MeToo confusion. Reilly plays Danni, an aspiring sex-positive podcaster (catchphrase: “Hey, slut!”) who is promised the world if she can turn herself into “Sex Girl” and her whole life into material – a Faustian pact that sets off a predictably hellish downward spiral. Reilly is simply riveting as an ebullient young woman losing her soul to the attention economy. Her mic-hopping voice work, combined with director Paige Rattray’s brilliant use of music and lighting, evokes such a rich diversity of characters and locations that I almost forgot I was watching a one-woman show. The revelations involving Danni’s English boyfriend (“Imagine a young Hugh Grant in a Free Palestine shirt who loves ketamine”) and mysterious stalker make for a gut-punch ending to a star-making night.

Dorian Lynskey, Nerve theatre critic

Women must reckon with men’s crimes – as victims, investigators and maybe, also, complicit third parties – in this serious, subtle new film from festival favourite Austrian film-maker Marie Kreutzer. Léa Seydoux (No Time To Die, Dune: Part Two) is magnificent as Lucy, a successful pianist who moves to the countryside to support her less successful documentary-maker husband, before shocking allegations against him turn her world upside down. Behind the scenes, a real-world scandal surrounding the male star of Kreutzer’s previous film, Corsage (2022), and Kreutzer’s handling of those allegations, add further dimensions of self-reflection to this already complex and compelling tale. 

Ellen E Jones, Nerve film critic

Electronic music maverick Matthew Herbert has always made music with a serious political stance. The Mechanics of Destruction (2001) took aim at commercial brands by deploying the sound of things like crushed Coke cans, while his 2019 project The Matthew Herbert Brexit Big Band was started in response to the referendum vote that wreaked havoc. After releasing some rather lovely dancefloor confections with Momoko Gill last year, he returns with a non-profit album, his most outraged and sinister yet, titled theukhasmorefoodbanksthanbranchesofmcdonalds.com (there are now more than 2,800 in the UK). Like Herbert’s albums Plat Du Jour in 2005 and 2011’s One Pig, which focused on the corporate food industry, he samples items like pasta, cereal, nappies and loo roll to create a charged and multi-layered mechanistic tapestry of industrial beats and off-kilter chuggers. My favourite track, “tampons and pads (should be free)’” sounds like a twitchy, bass-bin-ready dystopia. You can listen to the album via the website as long as you promise to make a donation to your local food bank, write to your MP, or “try and think of ways to smash the system”. 

Kate Hutchinson, Nerve music critic

ART
Profiad Kyffin Experience
(National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, from 18 November, free but booking required)

Following in the footsteps of Van Gogh, Cézanne and Lowry, the prominent Welsh landscape painter Kyffin Williams (1918–2006) is getting the immersive treatment, with an interactive experience combining art, sound and digital media opening at the National Library of Wales next month. Tickets will be available to book on Monday 2 November on a first-come, first-served basis. As places are limited, the National Library is encouraging people to sign up to its newsletter for full details.

THEATRE
Punch
(Nottingham Playhouse, 25 January-6 February 2027, then touring UK and Ireland until April)

More dates have been announced for a major tour next year of James Graham’s thought-provoking and award-winning play, based on a real-life case and the arguments over restorative justice. Not to be missed.

OPERA
Einstein on the Beach
(Aviva Studios, Manchester, 29 May-12 June 2027)

A new interpretation (co-produced by ENO, Factory International, New York’s Park Avenue Armory and Improbable Theatre) of US composer Philip Glass’s epic first work from 1976. Rarely performed in its entirety (it runs 4-5 hours), Einstein will be directed by Phelim McDermott. Expect a collision of art forms: “music and theatre, live art and light, sculpture and movement.”