From Spider-Man: Brand New Day to Ariana Grande: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

Your friendly neighbourhood superhero spins a new web of adventures, and the singer returns from Oz with her hopeful eighth album

Going out: Cinema

Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Out now
The – sequel to No Way Home maintains the focus on what’s now Spidey’s day job: protecting the city. New characters include crime boss Tombstone, played by Marvin Jones III who, like his character, is an African American with albinism.

Ish
Out now
Artist and director Imran Perretta’s own childhood experiences with the police inform his beautiful black-and-white debut feature film about two 12-year-olds in Luton, which won a prize at Venice’s critics week. The two leads are played by non-professional actors Farhan Hasnat and Yahya Kitana, real-life friends themselves.

Wham! 10 Days in China
Out now
In 1985, Wham! were the first western band permitted to play communist China. Lindsay Anderson, who made If….,was invited to shoot the experience but fell out with the group, who released their version of the film shortly after. Now comes a new feature-length take with archive footage and interviews.

No Strings Attached: Puppets on Film
BFI Southbank & Imax, London, to 31 August
Puppets! Need we say more? This puppets-on-film season from the BFI features a variety of marionettes, dummies, dolls and figurines, in films including The Empire Strikes Back, The Dark Crystal and The Muppets Take Manhattan.
Catherine Bray

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Going out: Gigs

Summer Walker
The O2, London, 1 & 2 August
Atlanta’s R&B star brings her trilogy of breakup albums – 2019’s Over It, 2021’s Still Over It and last year’s Finally Over It – to London’s O2 arena. Fingers crossed she is definitely over it, but if she’s not then there will be plenty of emotional catharsis to work through across these two shows. Michael Cragg

Brecon jazz festival
Various venues, mid Wales, 6 to 9 August
Saxophonist Courtney Pine, a liberating cultural force in UK jazz for 40 years, headlines Brecon’s celebrated jazz weekender (6 August), alongside trumpeter Tomos Williams’s jazz/ambient take on Welsh folk music, and rootsy singer-pianist Liane Carroll (both 7 August). Jazz from many fresh perspectives follows through the weekend. John Fordham

Boardmasters
Newquay, 5 to 9 August
Promising music, wellness and surfing on the Cornish coast, Boardmasters offers a unique take on the traditional festival. In terms of the musical lineup, it’s a mix of the usual – Kasabian, Fatboy Slim, Example – and newer acts including Rose Gray, Jacob Alon and Joy Crookes. MC

Mahler’s First By Heart
Royal Albert Hall, London, 1 & 2 August
Aurora Orchestra’s BBC Proms appearances pair a dramatised exploration of a major symphonic work with a performance played entirely from memory. This year, Mahler’s Symphony No 1 gets the Aurora treatment as Nicholas Collon conducts. Flora Willson

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Going out: Art

Chardchakaj Waikawee
Graces Mews, London, to 19 September
Analogue, hand-printed photographs of people living on the margins of Bangkok’s society by this Thai artist. The result is a portrait of youth shot through with poverty, struggle and endurance.

Gwen John
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 1 August to 4 January
Beautiful, quiet, austere, minimal portraiture by arguably Wales’s most important painter. This retrospective is full of works inspired equally by her religious beliefs and love of early French modernism.

Reflections: Sangat and the Self
The Whitworth, Manchester, to 29 August 2027
Artists Jasmir Creed and Roo Dhissou pair up for this participatory exhibition rooted in Sikh philosophy, which also features work from the Whitworth’s collection. This is a show all about community, healing, care and spiritual practice.

Kawaii Art & Culture
Wolverhampton Arts Centre, to 9 August
Japanese kawaii culture is a global phenomenon, and now it’s coming to Wolverhampton, in a show curated by artist Tamla Pearce all about how kawaii art, fashion, toys, animation, food and design travelled the world. Eddy Frankel

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Going out: Stage

The Silence of the Lambs
Curve theatre, Leicester, 1 to 15 August
TV writer and playwright Gina Gionfriddo adapts Thomas Harris’s chilling thriller for the stage. The play will pull the audience into the warped relationship between FBI trainee Clarice Starling and infamous murderer Hannibal Lecter, played by John Partridge of EastEnders fame. Miriam Gillinson

Cats
Regent’s Park Open Air theatre, to 19 September
With Jesus Christ Superstar and Starlight Express staged in London, Andrew Lloyd Webber is having another moment. Now comes choreographer and director Drew McOnie’s production of Cats at the outdoor theatre where musicals seem to glow with a special kind of magic. MG

Freddie Meredith
Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, 5 to 30 August
Forget all the podcasters and panel show-famous standups: niche character comedy is the real point of the Edinburgh fringe. This year, few will do it better than Meredith (Such Brave Girls, Make That Movie), whose debut hour Need a Light? revolves round his smoking-area-philosopher alter ego. Rachel Aroesti

Carlos Acosta: Myths and Modern Masters
Royal Opera House, London, 5 to 9 August
The ever charismatic Carlos Acosta just can’t give up dancing – and why should he, he was made for it? The now 53-year-old has had more farewell tours than the Rolling Stones – in fact, he’s dancing to the Stones in one of the pieces in this gala show, Christopher Bruce’s Rooster – yet he can still impress. Lyndsey Winship

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Staying in: Streaming

Ted Lasso
Apple TV, 5 August
When season three of the feelgood footy comedy concluded in 2023, many presumed it was goodbye for ever. Not so: this week Jason Sudeikis’s inordinately wholesome coach swaps Kansas for dreary old Blighty once more, this time to work his peppy magic on a floundering women’s team.

Alley Cats
Netflix, 7 August
Ricky Gervais reunites his After Life castmates (Tom Basden, Diane Morgan, Kerry Godliman, Tony Way, David Earl) for another Netflix ensemble comedy – except this time the crass jokes and heart-tugging truisms are delivered via the antics of a group of cartoon cats.

The Shards
Disney+, 6 August
This adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s autofictional high-school horror about 1980s LA teens with a suspected murderer in their midst has nepo baby leads (Homer Gere, Kaia Gerber) and the notoriously inconsistent Ryan Murphy as co-creator, meaning it will either be a delectably camp period piece or a slice of ersatz, dead-eyed melodrama.

Possession
Sky Atlantic & Now, 6 August, 9pm
A British lawyer arrives in Jamaica to investigate an inheritance claim, only to realise she’s seen the property at the centre of the feud before – in her nightmares, unfortunately. Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Jonny Lee Miller co-star in Karla Crome’s new thriller. RA

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Staying in: Games

Big Walk
PC, Switch 2, PS5, out 4 August
The creators of Untitled Goose Game are back with another playground ripe for slapstick . This one’s inspired by the Australian outback and, there are puzzles, challenges and surprising discoveries; but mostly you’re just walking and talking with anywhere from one to 11 friends.

Beast of Reincarnation
PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, out 4 August
When the real world feels tough, sometimes you just want to fight some monsters. Beast of Reincarnation is set in a post-apocalyptic Japan corrupted by a mythical beast, and humanity’s hopes all rest on a young woman called Emma and her skill with a blade. At least she has a dog to keep her company! Jordan Erica Webber

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Staying in: Albums

Ariana Grande – Petal
Out now
Having finally escaped Oz, superstar Grande returns to Earth with her eighth album. Executive produced alongside Max Martin acolyte Ilya (Sam Smith, Tate McRae), Petal represents something beautiful growing through dark times, as outlined on gently combative lead single Hate That I Made You Love Me.

Shaboozey – The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales
Out now
The crossover country star, who scored a huge hit with A Bar Song (Tipsy) and worked on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, returns with this intriguing concept album. Following a murder, the titular Cherie Lee vows to avenge her father’s death, as narrated by songs such as single Born to Die.

The Durutti Column – Renascent
Out now
After last year’s reissue of their 1980 debut album led to renewed interest, not least from famous fans Harry Styles, Blood Orange, Frank Ocean and Yung Lean, the Manchester post-punk curios are back with their 28th (!) album. Lead single Liars is typically vaporous: all tactile beats and wiry guitar figures.

Lucia & the Best Boys – Picking Petals
Out now
Lucia Fairfull and her band of merry men return with their second album of decadent art-rock. Recorded at Mogwai’s Castle of Doom studio, Picking Petals features guest spots from Chvrches’ Lauren Mayberry on the excellent Lonely Girl, while the Last Dinner Party’s Abigail Morris adds more camp drama to Big Romance. MC

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Staying in: Brain food

Lives Less Ordinary: Love Stories
Podcast, out 3 August
A much-needed dose of hope comes courtesy of this new BBC series that recounts real-life romances. A particularly moving episode features a Lebanese journalist and a Syrian cameraman who met while covering the siege of Aleppo.

The Art World Couldn’t Understand William Blake
YouTube
Best known for his poetry, Blake was equally a radical artist who designed his own printmaking and etching techniques to hand craft his illustrated pamphlets. This Nerdwriter video examines the political implications of those creations.

The Real Truth
PBS America, 7 August
This six-part scientific series continues weekly and analyses the wellbeing myths that shape what we buy and how we behave. The opener looks at the marketing tactics used to disguise sugar in food labelling. Ammar Kalia