While Wicked: For Good hogged the headlines, this enchanting Taiwanese drama slipped into cinemas earlier this month and now hits Netflix. Full of family secrets and lies that would give Mike Leigh a run for his money, it's the feisty, colourful directorial debut of Shih-Ching Tsou, a regular collaborator of Anora director Sean Baker (who here co-writes with Tsou and also produces and edits). Like Baker's 2015 breakout hit Tangerine, it's shot entirely on iPhone and tells the story of a poor, stressed single mum (Janel Tsai) who returns to Taipei with her two daughters to start a noodle stall. The youngest, scene-stealing five-year-old I-Jing (Nina Ye), forbidden by her superstitious granddad from using her left hand ("the devil's hand") sets about discovering its mischievous potential. 

Imogen Carter, Nerve co-founder

First there was Beginning in 2017, a captivating, light-footed drama tracing the early stages of a romance, then five years later the heartbreaking Middle, where love hit a bump in the road. Now comes End and it's no spoiler to say that death looms large in the final part of David Eldridge's tender relationship trilogy. Set just before the Brexit referendum we watch Julie and Alfie, a couple excavating their past as they honestly explore reasons to stay alive. Saskia Reeves and Clive Owen soar in this two-hander.

Jane Ferguson, co-founder

This is possibly the coolest art show in London right now – a joint exhibition of works old and new by the two “bad girls of British art”, Maggi Hambling and Sarah Lucas. Close friends for 25 years and now 80 and 63 respectively, they might well laugh uproariously at being called girls, yet there is a marvellous freshness and mischievous vitality to the pieces on display at both galleries, which are across the road from each other. Standouts in this funny, saucy and often moving exploration of the differences and affinities between the two artists include Lucas’s renowned bunnies draped over wooden chairs, Hambling’s epic weather-inspired abstract paintings and a new portrait on torn brown paper of Hambling by Lucas, composed entirely of cigarettes. 

Lisa O’Kelly, writer

It's a special kind of party that warrants an entire tome. This bumper scrapbook charting the highs and lows of Bugged Out, one of the UK's longest-running electronic club nights, is not just a love letter to clubbing – it's a snapshot of UK rave culture across the last three decades, from electroclash to cosmic disco, as told by the likes of the Chemical Brothers, Erol Alkan, Tiga, Miss Kittin and more. Pleasingly, even nu-rave gets a look-in.

Kate Hutchinson, Nerve music critic

This stylish, punchy West End Othello has a feminist tilt. For once, the main attraction isn’t Othello (David Harewood, revisiting the role after 28 years) or Iago (Toby Jones, more mischievous than evil) but the women they destroy. Caitlin FitzGerald’s Desdemona and Vinette Robinson’s Emilia are so spirited and indignant that it feels especially outrageous when their lights are snuffed out. PJ Harvey’s score amps up the dread.

Dorian Lynskey, Nerve theatre critic

From the director of Paint Drying, a 10-hour long unbroken shot of white paint drying on a brick wall to protest about film censorship in the UK, is this equally ingenious documentary about a documentary. Charlie Shackleton takes you on a journey into his failed attempt to make a film about a highway patrol officer investigating the infamous 1960s Zodiac Killer. Screamingly funny and very engrossing, the film is both a parody of and a love-letter to the true crime genre. 

Ana Abraham, Nerve intern

British-Nigerian, Brooklyn-based artist Tunji Adeniyi-Jones was originally offered a solo exhibition at Home but instead chose to invite nine contemporary Black artists to exhibit with him. The artists explore themes of heritage, home, history and origin, predominantly through the medium of painting. The result, Adeniyi-Jones’s first institutional curatorial project, is a vivid show that really fills Home’s unusual exhibition space (positioned as it is behind a soft play area) and brightens these dark winter days. With standout pieces from Adeniyi-Jones, Joy Labinjo and Alvaro Barrington, if you love looking at paintings, you’ll love this.

Susan Ferguson, Nerve event planner/writer

This utterly lovely photography exhibition captures the rapidly changing East End of London in the 70s. With the area drawing in newcomers from South Asia and the Caribbean – encouraged to come and help with Britain’s postwar labour shortages – the resulting transformations attracted a wave of young photographers keen to document and celebrate their new neighbours. Their work is now presented in this rarely seen collection with highlights including Ron McCormick’s intimate portraits of his Bengali neighbours in Whitechapel and a young Dennis Morris’s striking images of life in Hackney’s Black Caribbean community.

Lynsey Irvine, co-founder

DANCE
Acosta Danza: Carmen

(Touring April-May 2026)

The company, based in Havana and founded by dance legend Carlos Acosta (now also director of Birmingham Royal Ballet), tours the UK next year with its version of Bizet’s Carmen. You can also currently catch Acosta’s Nutcracker in Havana, featuring Cuban music, which is on tour until 11 February.

THEATRE
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

(10 February-28 March: Swan theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon; 25 April-18 July: @sohoplace, London W1)

Chiwetel Ejiofor’s 2019 film The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, set in Malawi and based on a true story, is adapted into a new musical that will premiere at the RSC’s Swan theatre in February before transferring to @SohoPlace, London. Lynette Linton, former artistic director of the Bush Theatre, directs.

THEATRE
Quartet in Autumn

(Arcola theatre, London E8, 7 May-13 June)

Last year’s Booker winner Samantha Harvey (Orbital) adapts Barbara Pym’s 1977 novel Quartet in Autumn for the stage, directed by Dominic Dromgoole.