From Lord of the Flies to Deftones: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead | Culture

Going out: Cinema

100 Nights of Hero
Out now
Maika Monroe plays a woman shut up in a castle with her husband’s handsome and seductive best friend (Nicholas Galitzine) who has made a wager that he can tempt her to stray from her marriage. Sharp-witted maid Hero (Emma Corrin) clocks what’s going on and does her best to foil the dirtbag’s schemes, in this fairytale fantasy from Julia Jackman. Charli xcx also stars.

My Father’s Shadow
Out now
Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù (Slow Horses) stars in a semi-autobiographical debut from Akinola Davies Jr in which an estranged father travels through the city of Lagos in Nigeria with his two young sons during a day of violent unrest following the 1993 election crisis.

Hamlet
Out now
Something is rotten in the state of England: Riz Ahmed plays Shakespeare’s famous Dane as a scion of a wealthy British South Asian family in Aneil Karia’s modern take on probably the most famous play of all time. Also starring Morfydd Clark, Joe Alwyn and Sheeba Chaddha.

The Chronology Of Water
Out now
Kristen Stewart makes her directorial debut with an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s cult hit memoir. Imogen Poots plays Yuknavitch, who begins her academic career on a swimming scholarship and is later selected to work with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest author Ken Kesey on a collaborative novel. Catherine Bray

Going out: Gigs

Deftones
12 to 20 February; tour starts Birmingham
Ahead of a busy festival summer, including London’s Outbreak in August, the US alt-metallers pop over for an arena tour. With last year’s pummelling Private Music continuing their streak of distinctly above average albums, these shows should act as the perfect warm-up. Michael Cragg

Mika
AO Arena, Manchester, 11 February; OVO Arena, London, 12 February
Now perhaps best known as a judge on railway station-based music competition The Piano, Mika returns to showcase his own florid pop with a arena tour in support of new album, Hyperlove. Songs such as the unabashed banger Modern Times should nestle nicely alongside hits Grace Kelly and Love Today. MC

Scottish Opera: Fujikura’s The Great Wave
Theatre Royal Glasgow, 12 & 14 February; touring to 21 February
Born in Japan, composer Dai Fujikura moved to the UK as a teen. His delicately beautiful music is rooted in both cultures. In a Scottish-Japanese collaboration, Fujikura’s fourth opera explores the life of artist Katsushika Hokusai. Its world premiere is conducted by Stuart Stratford and directed by Satoshi Miyagi. Flora Willson

Gwilym Simcock & Emma Rawicz
Watermill Jazz, Dorking, 10 February
The duo of multi-genre piano virtuoso Gwilym Simcock and UK saxophonist Emma Rawicz – the latter an inspired juggler of classic jazz-sax methods and the cutting edge from her student days – is a jewel of European new music. They play pieces from their album Big Visit and much more on this gig. John Fordham

Going out: Art

Gwen John
National Museum Cardiff, 7 February to 28 June
This defiant artist braved isolation and poverty to find freedom. As a result she is one of the few early 20th-century British artists who stands as a modern great. From her adventures as Rodin’s model and lover, to her discovery of religion and spirituality, she went her own way.

Lucian Freud
National Portrait Gallery, London, 12 February to 4 May
The harsh, beautiful truth of Lucian Freud’s art relies on no tricks, no theory – just relentless looking. This exhibition follows his unsentimental observations of people through sketches and drawings on to the canvas. How much of his painting was done eye-to-eye with his subjects and how much planned beforehand?

Seurat and the Sea
Courtauld Gallery, London, 13 February to 17 May
Dotty delirium rules the waves in the great pointillist’s eerie views of the seaside. Seurat saw something sad, sublime and scintillating in unpopulated harbours, purple rocks and most uneasily of all, northern France’s Channel of Gravelines which he made an icon of alienation and emptiness. Monet through the mincer.

Quentin Blake
The Sherborne, Sherborne, to 12 April
There’s more than one way to draw the essence of people. Where Freud was remorseless, the veteran illustrator Quentin Blake is famously whimsical – but the 100 portraits he shows here, all drawn in 2025, prove what an acute and memorable artist he is. He also shows witty fantasies of flight. Jonathan Jones

Going out: Stage

Vittorio Angelone
Nottingham, 11 February; Manchester, 12 February; Liverpool, 13 February; touring to 18 April
The title of the Northern Irish comedian’s show gives you an idea of clever provocation you’re in for: irreverently referencing the hit TV series about the Troubles, You Can’t Say Nothing Any More grapples with the omertà around the conflict. Rachel Aroesti

Birmingham Royal Ballet: Don Quixote
Birmingham Hippodrome, 12 to 21 February, touring to 25 April
As a 16-year-old, Carlos Acosta won the Prix de Lausanne dancing a solo from the ballet Don Quixote. Decades later he made his own sunny version of that same ballet, filled with Spanish heat and light, and now performed by the company he directs. Lyndsey Winship

Shadowlands
Aldwych theatre, London, to 9 May
A true story of faith and love, doubt and desire – and a life-changing romance between author CS Lewis and poet Joy Davidman. A hit when it debuted in 1989, its revival stars Hugh Bonneville and Maggie Siff. Miriam Gillinson

Lark Rise to Candleford
Watermill theatre, Newbury, to 14 March
Watermill theatre’s ensemble of actor-musicians work their magic on the much-loved novel about a young girl who moves from the isolation of the Cotswolds to the bustling market town of Candleford. MG