Two years ago, national treasure James Blake left his label, citing "betrayal and literal sabotage", moved back to England after living in Los Angeles for over a decade and went off-grid. He's been pioneering new, independent models of album-funding and distribution that are frankly too complicated to detail here but feel very much like the future. And brilliantly, he's having the last laugh: Blake's seventh studio album, Trying Times, has debuted at #3 on the UK albums chart, the highest-charting release of his career. Its theme of "love in a time of chaos" has resonated (his partner, the actor, activist and podcaster Jameela Jamil, helped to produce the album). So has its style: a freeing, ebullient mix of inventive soul, grime samples, minimal, shadowy instrumentals that call to mind Blake's early post-dubstep work and even some lo-fi, slackerish guitars. Vindication sounds so sweet.

Kate Hutchinson, Nerve music critic

Covering three decades of Opie’s portraiture and documentary photography, from images of lesbian couples in their homes to reportage of civil rights protests, the UK’s first major museum show devoted to the American photographer Catherine Opie is gloriously colourful and moving, particularly in its depiction of queer communities in the US. Entitled ‘To Be Seen’, the exhibition makes a powerful statement about identity and who gets to be shown in our public museums and galleries. 

In the first room, the 1991 series Being and Having captures Opie and over a dozen of her lesbian friends dressed up as their masculine alter-egos. In another, her sumptuous portraits of cultural figures shot against black velvet backdrops and hung on regal red walls, are reminiscent of grand, historical paintings, and yet the works feel intimate and only the sitters first names are given. (I loved her portrait of the swimmer Diana Nyad shot naked from behind, in her 60s, the tan lines of her swimming costume etching her total dedication to her vocation on her skin.) But it’s Opie’s self-portraiture that’s stayed with me most, from a childhood B&W self-portrait aged nine where, sporting a bowl cut and glasses, she proudly flexes her muscles like a strongwoman, to the stunning Self-Portrait/Nursing (2004) in which she breastfeeds her son Oliver. Captured in the style of a classical painting, but with mother and child both unclothed, Opie’s tattoos and body markings proudly on show, it captures a tender moment of love and dreams fulfilled. 

Imogen Carter, Nerve co-founder

In a gift shop in a small historic castle in the English countryside the staff are brainstorming what to do for their first Living History Event. They’d like to up their visitor numbers from the current  “don’t you worry, nobody ever comes in”. 

What about interactive jousting? Or a talk on the system of land ownership in the 1200s? Sarah Power’s 90 minute play looks at history on both a macro and a micro level - how do we reckon with the past (no details for fear of spoilers)?  It is both deadpan funny and heartbreakingly sad and I loved it. Directed by Ed Madden the four-strong cast - Sean Delaney, Debra Gillett, Ali Hadji-Heshmati, Lydia Larson - are superb.

Jane Ferguson, Nerve co-founder

When it was announced that Martin Clunes would be portraying disgraced newsreader Huw Edwards in a drama about his career-ending arrest for possession of child pornography, jaws scraped the floor.

What could they possibly depict when so little was in the public domain? And why was Clunes donning the grey quiff to play a convicted sex offender? But with this intense and brilliantly-judged film, which takes us from Edwards’ announcement of the Queen’s death through to his exposure as an abuser of a young teenage boy with such skill and intelligence, all doubts are gone.

The crucial factor here is the full cooperation of Edwards’ young victim, now in his 20s and wanting to move on from the abuse he suffered. Mark Burt’s sensitive script is shocking in its detail without being prurient and above all, clearly lays out the anatomy of abuse. Essential viewing.

Julia Raeside, writer

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai is an image almost as ubiquitous as Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. But what do we know about it?

The Whitworth’s new exhibition - focusing on both Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) - dives into its history, taking you through the techniques of Ukiyo-e, an artform that translates to 'pictures of the floating world’, made from colourful woodblock prints. It also tells the story of the Edo period (1615 -1868) when the tiny garrison town of Edo was transformed into the ever changing, ever modernising city we now know as Tokyo - and from there we’re into the creation of modern Japan. And what a world to enter. Every Japanese home could suddenly afford to have art on their wall.

There is so much to see and learn in this vast display of incredible prints: the overwhelming power of nature, people dwarfed by waves and mountains. The direct line drawn to manga films and to graphic novels both in Japan and Europe is extraordinary. Some fascinating talks and workshops have been programmed to accompany the show. Early booking advised. 

Susan Ferguson, Nerve events

Awkward encounters are the bread and butter of stand-up comedy, hitting home because they’re something we’ve all experienced. But in sign language consultant and deaf comedian Gavin Lilley’s exuberant performance, the jokes land slightly differently depending on whether you’re deaf or hearing - and not just because of the second’s delay while the interpreter translates BSL into speech.

The act is billed as bridging deaf and hearing worlds. Lilley, who helped create a new sign language for Amazon Prime fantasy drama Wheel of Time and has worked with John Bishop, focuses on the things we all have in common - mainly our shared capacity for self-humiliation. Anecdotes include his mum misreading a neighbour’s lips and sending a condolence card when husband was only away on holiday, and Lilley as a boy munching his way loudly through a bag of crisps during an illicit boarding school bedtime feast while not grasping what gave him away.

For the deaf audience members, who were in the majority at Liverpool’s Unity Theatre where I saw the show, some of the laughter came from the feeling of all being in it together, but for hearing people like myself it brought home the frustrations and inequality of living in a world not built for you.

Laura Davis, writer

THEATRE
The Psychic
(York Theatre Royal, 29 April – 23 May 2026)

World premiere of new play by the pair behind Ghost Stories, Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman. Stars Frances Barber.

THEATRE
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
(@sohoplace, London W1, 21 September-19 December 2026)

Tickets have just gone on sale for this starry production of Edward Albee’s classic play with a cast including Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup. Marianne Elliott directs.

ART
Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art
(5-21 June 2026)

An ambitious programme has been announced for this Scottish biennial including both local and international artists including Glasgow based Rae-Yen Song transforming the Tramway arts space into a subaquatic world and a film work from Luke Fowler exploring the ongoing history of electronic music in Scotland.