1 January
FilmSummer of Soul Disney+; Celia Amazon Prime Video; Attack the Block Netflix; A New Leaf VariousTo help nurse a hangover or just will in a brighter 2022, what better time for a quadruple bill of streamable classics? Some are under-seen, others pure pick-me-ups. Kickstart the morning with 2021’s best film, Summer of Soul; in the afternoon, try the goosebumpy political coming-of-age Celia; as a teatime treat, just because, Attack the Block; and lastly A New Leaf, the comedy of unlikely love from the genius Elaine May. And then? Well, then you go back to bed, of course. Danny Leigh
2 January
Brain foodThe PuddingRev the kids back up for their return to school with some musical STEM work courtesy of the Pudding, a digital publication whose visual essays track some of the most intriguing parts of music history. Through graphs, animations and some serious number-crunching, you can discover the rapper with the most wide-reaching vocabulary, dance along to a cute 8-bit history of boy bands, or have your Spotify tastes judged by a sophisticated AI. Data is fun! Jenessa Williams
3 January
Art & BookThe Beano: The Art of Breaking the Rules Somerset House, London, to 6 March; The Ultimate Art Museum by Ferren GipsonEnd the school holidays with a lesson in insurrection, courtesy of the mavericks of Beanotown. Artist and exhibition curator Andy Holden’s everything-goes history of the kids’ comic takes in its anarchic influence on British culture and the real-life minxes and menaces now making contemporary art. Ferren Gipson’s outstanding encyclopaedic children’s art book (Phaidon, £25.99), meanwhile, manages to make a global sweep of art history – from Indian miniatures to Claes Oldenburg – playful and informative, with something for all ages. Skye Sherwin
4 January
Podcast Dead Eyes Connor Ratliff landed a tiny part in the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers. Then director Tom Hanks saw his audition tape, decided he had “dead eyes”, and replaced him. Ratliff’s funny, digressive and melancholy podcast about the experience is now in its third series. Guests have included Aimee Mann, Seth Rogen, Elijah Wood and Lost creator Damon Lindelof. No word yet on whether Hanks himself – the Godot figure here – will eventually show. Ryan Gilbey
5 January
TheatreOne-Woman Show Soho Theatre, London, to 15 JanuaryThe hands-down funniest live comedy show of 2021 is back to brighten the dark days of January. Liz Kingsman’s parody of Fleabag, and the “messy woman” solo shows that followed in its wake, sends itself up and stacks the jokes high while taking a sharp stiletto to liberated-woman cliches. Join the queue now for tickets, which are hotter than Andrew Scott’s priest. Brian Logan
6 January
GameChicory: A Colorful Tale PC, PS4/5January is a quiet month for new games so it offers the perfect opportunity to discover gems you may have missed. Released last summer, Chicory: A Colorful Tale is a gentle, relaxing puzzler in which you must use a magic paintbrush to bring colour to a devastated monochrome world. It sounds childlike, but through its exploration of creativity and legacy, it becomes a wonderful allegory on depression and recovery – and will provide some therapeutic joy through the dark months of winter. Keith Stuart
7 January
FilmThe 400 Blows In cinemasFrançois Truffaut’s 1959 debut is a luminous early masterpiece of the French New Wave. Back out today in a 4K restoration, it follows sensitive truant, tearaway and Truffaut surrogate Antoine Doinel. He is played, in one of cinema’s great child performances, by the 14-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud, who would later reprise the role for Truffaut on four further occasions over the next two decades. RG
8 January
ArtThe Sunken Garden MargateA literally overlooked gem, this award-winning garden is dug almost below sight-lines into Thanet’s headland, a breezy winter walk from Margate’s famed sands. First landscaped in the 1930s, it was recently brought back to life by the local community with permanent contemporary artworks added to its hardy planting scheme last autumn. These intentionally low-key additions exploring its history and ecology include sound works and a sculptural composting bin. It’s a good option for a bracing weekend walk. SS
9 January
MusicThe Marriage of Figaro Royal Opera House, London, to 27 JanuaryThere are few more uplifting ways to launch the operatic year than with Mozart’s comic masterpiece. The Royal Opera is reviving David McVicar’s lovingly detailed period production, with Riccardo Fassi as Figaro and Giulia Semenzato as Susanna this time, and Covent Garden’s music director Antonio Pappano in the pit. Andrew Clements
10 January
MusicClairoTouring to 23 January; tour starts Bristol Described by the Observer as “a cinematic delight”, 23-year-old Claire Cottrill’s understated second album Sling was a quiet highlight of 2021, elegantly ruminating in a similar vein to that of Elliott Smith or Sufjan Stevens. Enjoy its acoustic intimacy for yourself as she embarks on this UK and Ireland tour. JW
11 January
FilmGlasgow Film TheatreThe sun isn’t coming out any time soon, but let a cinema be your Sad lamp. A model for movie houses everywhere is the Glasgow Film Theatre, helping Scotland though the murk of January with typical brio. Seasons this month include films about neurodiversity and new German directors, alongside 35mm screenings of Paul Thomas Anderson’s blast of cine-vitamin D, Licorice Pizza. DL
12 January
TelevisionLandscape Artist of the YearSky Arts; episodes available on Sky Go and NowThis has always been one of the more rewarding TV competitions in terms of January self-improvement, in that you can pick up many more practical tips about how to capture a view than you can learn about, say, making a cake from watching the Bake Off tent. Stephen Mangan and Joan Bakewell again guide the contestants around coastlines, countryside and city centres, often filmed in glorious summer sunshine which is another point in the show’s favour at this time of year. Nicholas Wroe
13 January
ComedyJohn Bishop: Right Here, Right Now Regent theatre, Ipswich; touring to 8 AprilHe spent autumn 2021 touring the galaxy with a confused Time Lord and a humanoid dog. Now Doctor Who’s newest companion (pictured, above) gets back to what he does even better: convivial conversational standup in a rich scouse burr. January finds him work-in-progressing towards a European tour, with tales of surviving lockdown, moving to Surrey and life as a white, straight, middle-aged man at a time when those identities are losing their lustre. BL
14 January
MusicCelebrate the birthdays of some brilliant albumsIf the existential crisis of a new year has not hit quite hard enough, there is nothing like a big album anniversary to remind you of the cruel passing of time. In January 2022 alone, Klaxons’ nu-rave odyssey Myths of the Near Future turns 15 (I know!), while Daft Punk’s debut Homework celebrates it’s quarter-centenary. Dust off your iPod Nano or source a charity shop CD for true sonic nostalgia; those halcyon glowstick days have never felt so far away. JW
15 January
Brain foodIslamic Sound Map of ChinaAn invaluable repository for the Uyghur and Hui aural traditions the Communist state is seeking to permanently silence. British, Uyghur and Chinese ethnomusicologists have collated video and sound from festivals at the Taklamakan desert shrines, zikr chanting rituals in women’s homes, epic tales set to shawm and kettle drum melodies, the daily adhan – or calls to prayer – that have long since stopped ringing out from Ürümqi mosques. Dale Berning Sawa
16 January
ArtLife Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-NowTate Britain, London, to 3 AprilThis huge, urgent, high-energy exhibition telling stories of crosspollination between Britain and the Caribbean packs in seven decades of history. Caribbean and British-born artists respond to histories rarely taught in British schools, taking in the legacy of slavery and imperial power, the Windrush generation, riots, police brutality and the recent “hostile environment”. SS
17 January
TelevisionHip-Hop Evolution NetflixHaving officially outpaced pop as the most commercially popular genre in the world, hip-hop has come a hell of a long way from its early beginnings. Track the adventure with Netflix’s Hip-Hop Evolution, a smart, concise documentary series that covers the key players of each era and community coast. Season three episode The Dirty South is a particular highlight, recognising the often-unsung contributions that women have made to rap. JW
18 January
TelevisionImagine BBC iPlayerAlan Yentob’s long-running culture documentary series often manages to do the impossible: making sense of artists’ unique impulses to create. With a new episode on choreographer Wayne McGregor arriving this month, a selection of the show’s archive is already available to stream. Among the highlights are a visit to Chris Ofili’s studio in Trinidad and Tobago in 2017, Lemn Sissay exploring his adoptive childhood in 2020, and a pandemic special on the uncertain future of theatre. Ammar Kalia
19 January
TheatreThe PappyShow: What Do You See?Shoreditch Town Hall, London, to 23 JanuaryThis energetic theatre ensemble has made a new performance about unconscious bias, focusing on how we see ourselves and others. As part of London international mime festival, the company has brought a collection of cross-genre creatives on board to help it create a multidisciplinary show that seeks to celebrate all the different parts of ourselves. Kate Wyver
20 January
ComedyKatherine Ryan: MissusCharter Hall, Colchester; touring to 28 MayYou’re three weeks into the new year. Your resolution – and your resolutions – are fading. Who better to stiffen the resolve than swaggering Canadian comic Katherine Ryan, acknowledging no frailty whatsoever as she delivers a new set of will-to-power standup about new love, with her childhood sweetheart no less, after years of single motherhood. You can do it! She can, too! Enjoy! BL
21 January
ArtTestament Goldsmiths CCA, London, to 3 AprilFrom Edward Colston’s statue being dumped in the river to demands to topple the hated colonialist Cecil Rhodes from his spot at Oriel College, Oxford, who we memorialise and how, is a red-hot issue. What then will 50 artists –from established luminaries such as Jeremy Deller and Phyllida Barlow to younger guns – make of an invitation to commemorate our conflicted moment? Tackling BLM, environmental breakdown, Covid and Brexit, the responses across painting, film, performance and sculpture will veer from campaigning to deeply personal. SS
22 January
FilmBlack Film ArchiveTaking an intuitive and evolving approach to curation, writer Maya Cade’s Black Film Archive presents a catalogue of Black films made from 1915 to 1979, organised by decade and accompanied by contextual writing explaining their plot and significance. Streamable movies range from box-office successes such as Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, starring Sidney Poitier, to hidden gems like Welfare, a three-hour documentary on the US welfare system. AK
23 January
MusicMahler’s Third SymphonyBridgewater Hall, ManchesterThe longest symphony in the repertoire, Mahler’s Third is also his most celebratory and positive, a hymn to nature, love and renewal, conceived on an epic scale. Performances are always a special event; this one comes from the Hallé Orchestra and its music director, Mark Elder, with Alice Coote as the mezzo-soprano soloist and the Hallé adult and children’s choirs. AC
24 January
GameWeird West PC, PS4, XBox OneIf you cannot decide what sort of games you want to be playing in 2022, Weird West might be a good place to start. An overhead shooter set in a supernatural wild west, it has elements of role-playing games and stealth adventures, and its world is extremely reactive to player actions, so you carve out your own story. The developers previously worked on the classic titles Dishonored and Prey, so this promises to be a vibrant, exciting world to explore and interact with while you’re cosy at home. KS
25 January
ArtGainsborough’s The Blue BoyThe National Gallery, London, to 15 MayExactly 100 years after being sold to the US, Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy is back in the UK. Its loan to the National Gallery allows British viewers to reassess a maybe overfamiliar image that has gone on to play a role in modern gay politics and history as well as exerting a remarkable pull on popular culture more generally, from Cole Porter songs through to Batman and Tarantino movies. NW
26 January
Brain foodKwantu Language ExchangeMade a new year’s resolution to learn a new language? Africa accounts for 30% of the world’s languages but only Swahili features on Duolingo. During lockdown, the Texas-based multilinguist and Kwantu founder Khanyisa Mnyaka set about fixing that. Her first offering is a six-week beginner’s course in conversational isiXhosa.Trying your tongue at the South African language’s sonorous clicks will explode your sense of phonetic possibility. DBS
27 January
ArtRachel FeinsteinGagosian Davies Street, London, to 5 MarchAny post-Christmas examination of the feelings provoked by a period of excess would be aided by exposure to Feinstein’s paintings, sculptures and installations. Her meticulously detailed work often pits examples of opulence from art history – spiritual and secular in this new show – against 21st-century objects of taste and desire in an unsettling excavation of luxury and materialism. NW
28 January
Theatre & MusicGhost Walk; Ghost QuartetFor Londoners who fancy some fresh air, try Poltergeist’s geo-located audio show Ghost Walk, for ages seven and over. You download the app, wrap up warm and listen as stars including Juliet Stevenson and Paterson Joseph take you through the streets on a ghoulish guided tour. For those outside the capital, put your feet up and listen to Ghost Quartet, an unearthly and beautiful sung-through show of interwoven stories. Recorded in 2015, the gentle, folk-infused performance is now available on YouTube. KW
29 January
Book & TelevisionWays of Seeingturns 50John Berger’s book and TV series of the same name first emerged 50 years ago and opened up areas of academic cultural study to a mainstream audience, not least in addressing issues such as the sexist history of the nude and the links between art and advertising. It remains hugely influential, right up to Emily Ratajkowski’s recent modeling memoir My Body opening with a quote from it. The full series is available to watch online. NW
30 January
PodcastTalking SimulatorAll platformsIf one of your new year’s resolutions is to understand a little more about how games are made, this podcast by the Gadget Show presenter and sometime Guardian contributor Jordan Erica Webber is a fine place to start. It is a series of short, interesting interviews with game designers, covering elements such as romance, esports, puzzles and even activism in games. If video is more your thing, the excellent People Make Games series on YouTube covers similar ground. KS
31 January
ArtIda Applebroog, Right Up to Now, 1969–2021Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Bruton, to 2 MayFeminist polymath Ida Applebroog was inspired by Beckett and shaped by the women’s movement, but the absurdist comic strip-style drawings that made her name are uniquely her own. Highlights here include her early skit on Galileo, reimagined as a headless chancer suppressing his daughter’s genius. The nonagenarian’s new composite abstract-figurative works continue her darkly funny, oblique explorations of power dynamics. SS
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