Feel the Force: the Autumn 100

Crimson Peak The strange career of Guillermo del Toro — sublime with Pan’s Labyrinth; idiotic with Pacific Rim — continues in a haunted house with Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain.
Oct 16

The Lobster The darkest of satires, set in a barely futuristic Ireland. An exemplary Colin Farrell and a poignant Rachel Weisz star in a black-comic take on the social pressures to couple up.
Oct 16

Pan Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) tackles another novel, Peter Pan, albeit with more whizz-bang. Hugh Jackman and Cara Delevingne head a motley crew.
Oct 16

The Program Your very own newspaper is the star of this Lance Armstrong biopic, in which the sports writer David Walsh (Chris O’Dowd) calls out the drugs-cheat cyclist.
Oct 16

Spectre James Bond is back — and bigger than ever. Skyfall made $1bn; this time, Daniel Craig’s spy globe-trots expensively, facing Christoph Waltz’s baddie along the way.
Oct 26

Brooklyn Colm Toibin’s award-winning novel gets a Nick Hornby screenplay and a cast including Saoirse Ronan and Domhnall Gleeson for its tale of choices. New York? Ireland? Him? The other man?
Nov 6

Kill Your Friends Like a greatest hits of the best screen debaucheries, the film of John Niven’s raucous rock novel stars Nicholas Hoult doing The Wolf of Wall Street meets Trainspotting.
Nov 6

The Dressmaker Big November for Kate Winslet. First, a curious film about a glam designer returning to her dusty, gossipy Australian outback town — fancy frocks in the filth. Then, Steve Jobs...
Nov 6

Steve Jobs A biopic much dissected in the Sony hacking scandal finally hits cinemas. Danny Boyle directs Michael Fassbender as the Apple co-founder; Aaron Sorkin provides (many) words.
Nov 13

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2 Jennifer Lawrence, as Katniss Everdeen, finally flees the franchise that made her — now there’s a big revolution against the political nasties.
Nov 20

Bridge of Spies Steven Spielberg returns, with Tom Hanks as his lead and a Coen brothers script, for a surefire hit about the CIA during the Cold War.
Nov 27

Oscars sewn up: Cate Blanchett in Carol (Wilson Webb)

Carol Hugely praised at Cannes, Todd Haynes’s 1950s lesbian drama stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, who seem to have next year’s Oscars sewn up.
Nov 27

The Good Dinosaur Ignoring the assumption that there were bad dinosaurs, rather than animals doing what they needed to survive, Pixar continues an excellent year with a cutesy prehistoric yarn.
Nov 27

Victor Frankenstein A twist on the old tale, as James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe bring the legend of the monster to the millennials. Looks like Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, with horror.
Dec 4

Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens Every other film this year is just support for JJ Abrams’s space saga. Can the excellent cast — Gwendoline Christie, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega and Lupita Nyong’o — deliver?
Dec 18

Theatre

Absent Dreamthinkspeak’s latest walk-through show sets us on the trail of a mysterious woman in a mazelike basement.
Shoreditch Town Hall, London EC1, until Oct 25

Jane Eyre A feminist fable, a rags-to-riches fairy tale, a stern warning about getting involved with married men — and one of the greatest stories in our language. This version from the National and Bristol Old Vic promises to be a treat.
Lyttelton, National Theatre, London SE1, Sept 8-Jan 10

Hangmen Martin McDonagh returns with this world premiere. It follows “the second best hangman in England” — on the day they abolish hanging.
Royal Court, London SW1, Sept 10-Oct 10

Hecuba More Greeks — the Irish playwright Marina Carr reimagines Euripides’s drama about cruelty begetting cruelty in the aftermath of the defeat of Troy.
Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon, Sept 17-Oct 17

Tipping the Velvet Who could resist a stage adaptation of Sarah Waters’s joyous lesbian romp set in the era of the Victorian music hall? The script is by Laura “Posh” Wade.
Lyric Hammersmith, London W6, Sept 18-Oct 24

Tragedy awaits: Kate Fleetwood has a stab at Medea (Chris McAndrew)

Medea Now Kate Fleetwood has a stab at Euripides’s antiheroine, in a new version by Rachel Cusk.
Almeida, London N1, Sept 25-Nov 14

Measure for Measure Romola Garai stars in Shakespeare’s study of power, corruption and sexual hypocrisy. Joe Hill-Gibbins’s production promises to treat this “problem play” as a dark joke.
Young Vic, London SE1, Oct 1-Nov 14

The Crucible Arthur Miller’s masterpiece about McCarthyist witch-hunts and hysteria in 1950s America never dates. Tom Morris’s revival marks the 100th anniversary of the playwright’s birth.
Bristol Old Vic, Oct 8-Nov 7

The Hairy Ape The director Richard Jones has his way with Eugene O’Neill’s sweaty 1922 expressionist drama. Bertie Carvel takes on the title role, playing the embodiment of the alienated industrial class.
Old Vic, London SE1, Oct 17-Nov 21

The Winter’s Tale Starring Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench and Tom Bateman, the Bard’s magical, melancholy comedy should be a delight.
Garrick, London WC2, Oct 17-Jan 16

As You Like It Polly Findlay has a pair of rising stars in her new production of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy: Rosalie Craig (The Light Princess) is Rosalind, Patsy Ferran (Treasure Island) Celia.
Olivier, National Theatre, London SE1, Oct 26-Mar 5

Waste Harley Granville Barker wrote plays a bit like George Bernard Shaw’s, only better. This is about a hung parliament, an idealistic politician and the political class keeping its sex scandals secret. Timely.
Lyttelton, National Theatre, London SE1, Nov 3-Jan 16

Ben Hur It’s nice to see the Tricycle doing a gloriously silly production by Patrick Barlow, featuring “an authentic sea battle (with real water) and a decadent and unexpurgated Roman orgy (suitable for all ages)”.
Tricycle, London NW6, Nov 19-Jan 9

Funny Girl The golden girl Sheridan Smith’s return to the boards, in the musical made famous by La Streisand, is completely sold out. Lucky ticket-holders can see this before the inevitable transfer.
Menier Chocolate Factory, London SE1, Nov 20-Mar 5

wonder.land A lavishly staged musical that updates Lewis Carroll’s classic, with music by Damon Albarn and lyrics by Moira Buffini: Alice as urban warrior.
Olivier, National Theatre, London SE1, Nov 23-Feb 28

Classical

Rattle rolls back: Simon brings the Vienna Philharmonic to Symphony Hall in Birmingham (Hiroyuki Ito)

Simon Rattle The maestro conducts the Vienna Philharmonic, with Magdalena Kozena, Toby Spence and Roderick Williams, in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, to open the season at Symphony Hall, Birmingham. They also play the Proms.
Sept 8, 11

Wigmore Hall A starry opening concert has the countertenor Iestyn Davies in a programme of Handel, Veracini and Porpora with the English Concert, directed by Harry Bicket.
London W1, Sept 12

Orphée et Eurydice Juan Diego Florez stars in the high-tenor French version of Gluck’s most famous opera, in a new Covent Garden production by John Fulljames, with choreography by Hofesh Shechter (see interview, page 23). John Eliot Gardiner conducts.
ROH, London WC2, Sept 14–Oct 3

LSO/Bernard Haitink Two concerts with the revered Dutch conductor, each with Murray Perahia playing a concerto: Mozart’s No 24 and Beethoven’s No 4.
Barbican, London EC2, Sept 15, 20

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Mark Wigglesworth inaugurates his reign at English National Opera with Shostakovich’s scabrous black comedy in a production by the controversial Russian Dmitri Tcherniakov, starring the American soprano Patricia Racette.
Coliseum, London WC2, Sept 26–Oct 20

Verdi’s Requiem Mark Elder’s Hallé forces are joined by top soloists: Maria Agresta, Alice Coote, Giorgio Berrugi and Gianluca Buratto.
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, Oct 3

Jonas Kaufmann Opera’s hottest tenor gives us a programme of “sublime arias” (as the blurb puts it) —presumably from his new Puccini album — with the London Philharmonic.
Royal Festival Hall, London SE1, Oct 17

Richard Strauss Riccardo Chailly brings his fabled Gewandhausorchester from Leipzig for three concerts of the German composer’s great tone poems, leavened with concertos by Mozart. The soloists are Maria Joao Pires, Christian Tetzlaff and Martin Fröst.
Barbican, London EC2, Oct 20, 22, 23

The Force of Destiny Verdi’s tricky, sprawling masterpiece gets what should be a striking, contentious new look from the iconoclastic Catalan Calixto Bieito for English National Opera. Tamara Wilson, Gwyn Hughes Jones and Anthony Michaels-Moore star; Mark Wigglesworth conducts.
Coliseum, London WC2, Nov 9–Dec 4

Stockhausen and Boulez The London Sinfonietta gives a rare performance of Stockhausen’s cult piece Hymnen, preceded by Boulez’s Dérive I and Anthèmes II.
Royal Festival Hall, London SE1, Dec 5

Art

Big in Japan: Ushio Shinohara’s Doll Festival (1966), from The World Goes Pop (Ushio Shinohara)

The World Goes Pop Pop art is as American as apple pie — right? Right, and wrong. Tate seeks to set the record straight by showing how the movement spread across the world: Japan, Venezuela and, um, Austria...
Tate Modern, London SE1, Sept 17-Jan 24

Ai Weiwei China’s most famous artist, and arguably its most famous dissident, takes over the RA’s main spaces for a huge retrospective.
Royal Academy, London W1, Sept 19-Dec 13

Julia Margaret Cameron Long characterised as Virginia Woolf’s dotty great-aunt, Cameron is celebrated as a pioneering photographer in two Kensington exhibitions. Her romantic visions of ethereal children and famous artists are quintessential Victoriana.
Science Museum, London SW7, Sept 24-Mar 28; V&A, London SW7, Nov 28-Feb 21

Mat Collishaw The largest-ever UK show for the YBA, whose reputation has steadily grown over the decades.
New Art Gallery, Walsall, Sept 25-Jan 10

Goya: The Portraits The season’s must-see is a focus on the Spanish master. More than 70 pictures of friends, lovers, patrons and courtiers provide a likeness of Spain during the Napoleonic Wars and the Bourbons’ nadir.
National Gallery, London WC2, Oct 7-Jan 10

Newport Street Gallery Damien Hirst “does a Saatchi”, opening a cavernous, elegantly designed exhibition space in Lambeth to showcase his own mega-collection. First up is a retrospective devoted to the late British abstract painter John Hoyland.
London SE11, Oct 8

Frank Auerbach Now 84, Auerbach has by no means retired, but he is at the stage where his lengthy career can be celebrated. One of the great British painters of the past century — and this one, too.
Tate Britain, London SW1, Oct 9-Mar 13

Bill Viola The American’s large-scale, spiritually minded videos and installations find a home this winter in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s Chapel and Underground Gallery. A new work, The Trial, will evoke “five stages of awakening through a series of violent transformations”.
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield, Oct 10-Apr 10

MC Escher One of two exciting transfers down from Edinburgh (the other is a show of delicate 18th-century portraits by Jean-Etienne Liotard), this is a valuable reappraisal of Escher’s bizarre and unique art.
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London SE21, Oct 14-Jan 17

Alexander Calder The master of the mobile (1898-1976) is celebrated this autumn. His colourful moving sculptures look set to fill a thousand Instagram feeds.
Tate Modern, London SE1, Nov 11-Apr 3

Dance

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo Unique and inimitable, the Trocks — New York’s glam troupe of all-male ballerinas — combine dazzling skill on pointe with witty send-ups of ballet, classical and modern. Clever, colourful and riotously funny.
Sadler’s Wells, London EC1, Sept 15-26; touring until Nov 11

Rambert The company premieres The 3 Dancers, by Didy Veldman, inspired by the story behind Picasso’s cubist picture of that name, to a score by Elena Kats-Chernin; and Transfigured Night, set to Schoenberg’s music, by Kim Brandstrup.
Theatre Royal, Plymouth, Sept 23-25 (The 3 Dancers); Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Oct 28-31 (Transfigured Night); touring until Nov 28

Chéri Alessandra Ferri, fresh from her triumph in the Royal Ballet’s Woolf Works, returns in a version of Colette’s scandalous tale of a retired courtesan in love with a younger man (ABT’s Herman Cornejo), choreographed by Martha Clarke.
Linbury Studio Theatre, ROH, London WC2, Sept 29-Oct 4

Carmen Carlos Acosta, in his retirement season with the Royal Ballet, premieres his own one-act production of Carmen, to Bizet’s music. It’s a modern, abstract interpretation in which he will alternate the roles of Don Jose and Escamillo at different performances. Pieces by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Liam Scarlett share the programme.
ROH, London WC2, Oct 26-Nov 12

Ashton programme A new Royal Ballet revival of Frederick Ashton’s The Two Pigeons, a fable about love and lost innocence set in bohemian Paris, with colourful gypsies and luscious music by André Messager. Monotones I and II, two trios to Erik Satie’s music, complete the bill.
ROH, London WC2, Nov 18-Dec 5

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty (Simon Annand)

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty Having toured the world since its 2012 premiere, this spectacular reinvention of the Tchaikovsky classic returns — vividly theatrical, with a gothic flavour, in sumptuous designs by Lez Brotherston.
Sadler’s Wells, London EC1, Dec 1-Jan 24

Cinderella A full-length production by Christopher Hampson, to Prokofiev’s score, is given its European premiere by Scottish Ballet, in a staging created for the Royal New Zealand Ballet.
Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Dec 5-31

Television

Sherlock After a cloying third season, the show’s creator, Steven Moffat, has tidied up his hero for a one-off seasonal special, bringing him a little closer to Conan Doyle’s original. Resistance is futile. BBC1

Acid flashback: This Is England ’90 (Dean Rogers)

This Is England ‘90 Shane Meadows’s raw and autobiographical journey through 1980s England concludes with acid house, the end of the Thatcher years and a low-key visit to the second Summer of Love. The full cast return for this finale, having launched their careers on the series almost a full decade ago. Meadows is channelling his beloved Stone Roses throughout. C4

The Returned The sexiest zombies in the history of the undead are returning to the mountains of Haute-Savoie, where things get a lot darker. Death cults and dim caverns add horror to the drama at the heart of the show. C4

TFI Friday Chris Evans hosting the TFI revival this summer reminded everyone just how good he is at the TV-presenting lark. Here are eight new episodes while we wait for his reboot of Top Gear. C4

Fresh Meat The satisfyingly raucous student sitcom comes to a satisfyingly raucous end, with the full cast in place and a movie in the offing. Vod ditches her boozy ways, JP retains his appalling trousers and Tim Key shows up as a guest star. What’s not to like? C4

Boy Meets Girl In this post-Caitlyn Jenner world, here is Britain’s first trans sitcom, starring the transgender actor Rebecca Root as half of a fledgling couple. The show has gained headlines for casting and concept, but it’s a relatively mainstream script for all that. BBC2

Dickensian Tony Jordan (Hustle, EastEnders) mixes Dickens with soap opera in a sprawling 20-episode drama that unites Scrooge, Fagin and Miss Havisham, and sets the Old Curiosity Shop, the Three Cripples Pub and Fagin’s Den on a single street. Stephen Rea, Pauline Collins, Caroline Quentin, Tuppence Middleton and Omid Djalili star. BBC1

Jekyll and Hyde A big-budget drama inspired by Stevenson’s gothic classic, written by Charlie Higson. Other gothic-revival shows this autumn: The Frankenstein Chronicles (ITV Encore), The Moonstone (BBC1), and Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham’s supernatural period drama The Living and the Dead (BBC1). Spooky. ITV

Transparent The best role for a middle-aged actor in years is back on December 4. Jeffrey Tambor puts on heels and wig again as the trans head of an ungovernable LA Jewish family, where nobody’s sexuality seems to stay the same for more than one episode. Quietly hilarious and tender by turns. Amazon Prime

River Abi Morgan’s latest is an ambitious six-part detective drama, with Stellan Skarsgard as an ageing but brilliant police officer teetering on the brink of madness and desperate to solve brutal murders. BBC1

War and Peace Boasting the strongest and strangest costume-drama cast for a while — Lily James (sure), Paul Dano (well, OK) and Adrian Edmondson (huh?) — Andrew Davies’s ambitious adaptation comes with lots of American co-production cash from Harvey Weinstein. BBC1

Morning Has Broken Julia Davis writes and stars as the floundering breakfast-show presenter Gail Sinclair, queen of daytime. She’s dealing, badly, with collapsing ratings and production-team in-fighting. Davis’s caustic character comedy leaves no breakfast-television trope unmocked. C4

The Night Manager A six-part version of the John le Carré novel, starring Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, Olivia Colman and Tom Hollander, heads up an autumn of deception: adaptations of Len Deighton’s SS-GB and Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent on BBC1; Ben Whishaw in London Spy on BBC2. BBC1

Master of None Aziz Ansari plays Dev, a 30-year-old actor in New York who has trouble deciding what he wants to eat, much less the pathway for the rest of his life. It’s written by Ansari and Parks and Recreation’s Alan Yang. Netflix

December double: Luther returns (Steve Neaves)

Luther Idris Elba’s hard-boiled London cop returns, this time with Rose Leslie from Game of Thrones in tow, for a two-part special in December. BBC1

Comedy

Nish Kumar Kumar has been building a reputation since his first solo show in 2012 and this year finds his form in a deftly constructed assault on both right-wing sulkers and left-wing whingers. There’s plenty of self-deprecation and spiky warmth.

Bill Bailey Limboland is Bailey’s first new show for three years. It mixes the big-laugh saga of a disastrous family trip to Norway to see the northern lights with a heart-rending country ballad played on a Bible (yes, really), and the saddest-ever version of Happy Birthday.

Katherine Ryan She sold out faster than any other comic at the Fringe, albeit with fewer dates, and it’s clear the potty-mouthed Canadian is having a moment. Her bitchy celeb-gossip gags are making a bid for the Joan Rivers market, while her personal material delights.

Daniel Sloss Dark finds Sloss in razor-sharp form, deconstructing a complaining letter from a religious audience member and discussing the tragedy of his sister’s death. A veteran at 24, the boy is all grown up now.

Joe Lycett Touring his almost perfectly titled Edinburgh show, That’s the Way, A-Ha A-Ha, this effortlessly confident young
Brummie is a light-entertainment superstar in the making. He has always had the charm; this show has the gags to match.

Look who’s talking: Nina Conti uses the audience as her dolls (Matt Crockett)

Nina Conti In Your Face sees Conti expanding a routine from earlier shows where audience members with masks become her ventriloquist’s dolls. It’s a remarkable blend of improv, voice-throwing skills and a filthy mind.

Trevor Noah The sharp-witted South African stand-up starts his new job presenting The Daily Show in September. Before he is swallowed whole, he’s doing two nights at the Eventim Apollo, London W6, at the start of October.

Tommy Tiernan He’s now 46, and is raging against his ageing while quietly accepting its benefits — including, surprisingly, impotence. The Irish comic is as intense, lyrical and controversial as ever.

Pop

Adele A mere four years and seven months since the release of the 30m-selling 21, Adele is rumoured to be putting the finishing touches to her third album. This will delight her fans and strike terror into the hearts of her rivals.

Florence + the Machine Dave Grohl’s broken leg gifted Florence Welch her first headline slot at Glastonbury. She seized it with relish, proving that she is one of modern pop’s most compelling performers. Tour begins Sept 9

Duran Duran Still going, against all the odds, the surviving line-up will release their 14th studio album on September 11. Paper Gods harks back to the glory years: ruthlessly catchy choruses, sinuous harmonies, pop-bright melodies edged with darkness.

Melodramatic statement: Lana Del Rey (Shirlaine Forrest)

Lana Del Rey In the summer of 2014, Del Rey told a journalist “I wish I was dead already” — a characteristically melodramatic statement from a singer who likes to play with notions of authenticity and identity. Her new album, Honeymoon (September 18), promises more of the mysterious same.

Disclosure Nobody seemed more surprised than the Surrey siblings when their debut album, Settle, topped the UK charts, won a Grammy nomination and made them the darlings of alternative dance music. The brilliant follow-up, Caracal (September 25), will cement their status as the kings of anti-EDM.

Chvrches The Glasgow trio fronted by Lauren Mayberry follow their Mercury-nominated debut, The Bones of What You Believe, with Every Open Eye (September 25). It moves their glacial synth-pop up a gear: think giant choruses and arena tours.

Grimes The Canadian electro-R&B experimentalist canned an entire album’s worth of material last year, claiming that it was “too depressing”. Presumably she’s happier about the album she subsequently recorded, which is set for release in October.

Pressure drop: John Grant releases his third album in October (Erika Goldring)

John Grant As if two solo albums of nerve-shredding honesty and beauty weren’t enough, here comes a third. Grey Tickles, Black Pressure (October 2) finds the Iceland-based singer warding off depression and self-doubt to craft a masterpiece — full of rage, humour, pathos and longing.

Joanna Newsom It’s been five years since Have One on Me, so fans of the Californian singer and harpist are understandably impatient for Divers (October 23). Its Shelley-quoting, time-travelling lead single, Sapokanikan, suggests the wait will have been worth it.

Jack Garratt He has the melodic immediacy of Ed Sheeran, with a grime makeover, and can soothe and menace live audiences into submission. His debut album is due out in early 2016; before that, the multi-instrumentalist electro-troubadour heads out on tour, beginning in Sheffield on October 31.

Ellie Goulding Both her previous albums have required reboots — an Elton John cover and a royal-wedding performance in the case of Lights; the single Burn for Halcyon — to connect commercially. Goulding will surely not take any chances with her third album, due out in November.

Frank Ocean In April, he teased us with a July release date for the follow-up to Channel Orange, his genre-changing debut. July saw no album, just a rumour that the Californian avant-R&B auteur was threatening to leak it. Clearly, Ocean is taking it — and us — to the wire.

Rihanna Barring one blip, RiRi has delivered an album a year like clockwork. So where, oh where, is R8 (her new album’s working title)? Her label insists that it’s coming this autumn. We’ll see.

Courtney Barnett The Melbourne singer’s debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, won rave reviews in March for its witty narrative lyrics and lilting slacker-rock melodies. Live, she is just as compelling. Tour begins Nov 25

Kanye West In February, it was called So Help Me God. Now it’s titled Swish, and is due in November. But you can’t hurry Kanye, or second-guess him. As the audacious brilliance of his music has long shown, he works to his own rules.