Today’s highlights
Art
Dafi Kühne is not the usual type
Poster genius Dafi Kühne’s hands-on approach and playful designs create a singular vision
When paint went mad
Celebrating Roger Fry, the curator whose early exhibitions of post-impressionist art shocked the critics
Art Deco’s lion of luxury
Interior designer Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann is celebrated in the first of three exhibitions marking the movement’s centenary
This role will win Tamsin Greig a best actress Olivier award
Lindsay Posner’s revival of The Deep Blue Sea understands the power of silence
The museum that delivers
An old post office in Trondheim reinvents itself as an international art destination with a playfully bold redesign and a seriously deep collection
Utagawa Hiroshige, master of fire and water
The elemental works of the Japanese ukiyo-e artist are celebrated in a new book and exhibition at the British Museum
Books
Why ABBA still eludes us
Serious books are being written about the pop icons. But do we risk letting light in on the magic?
The rise of bombs: how physics lost its innocence
How did an inquiry into the laws of nature produce a form of technology capable of annihilating civilisation?
Alasdair MacIntyre’s moral bombshell
The philosopher’s 1981 book After Virtue suggested that modern morality is fragmented and rootless – an argument that still stands today
Helen Lewis: ‘Is Musk a genius? Look at his tweets’
Lewis’s new book, The Genius Myth, skewers rebel innovators who come to believe they can do no wrong. Remind you of anyone?
Where is God when children are starving?
Atheists have a simple answer: it is evidence that God doesn’t exist, while believers say the gift of human free will brings with it the possibility of doing evil
The plot to fool America
It’s possible to feel the deepest sympathy for Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis and still be appalled by the cover-up of his cognitive decline
Music
Why ABBA still eludes us
Serious books are being written about the pop icons. But do we risk letting light in on the magic?
The Eurovision troll contest
Estonian Tommy Cash’s Espresso Macchiato mocks Italians. Is he a prankster, or a racist?
Eurovision’s performers without borders
A Finnish comedy trio are among the bookies’ favourites to win the song contest… for Sweden
Eddie Barclay, the man who invented showbiz
A force of nature, Barclay was a boulevardier who made music and love with equal enthusiasm
Plato and the piano
It’s never too late to start learning a musical instrument, and even if you aren’t very good, the benefits are much deeper than you might imagine
Camilo Sesto, the singer who ushered Spain into a new age
A new museum in Alicante celebrates the Jesus of Madrid
Film
Tom Cruise, the Nietzschean Superman
The Mission: Impossible films show a man who bends the chaos of the world to his will and saves humanity. But what would Friedrich make of it all?
Mountainhead is a whip-smart dystopian comedy
Jesse Armstrong’s return as writer and director of this feature-length drama has been giddily anticipated. And it does not disappoint
No, Greta Garbo didn’t want to be alone
She had nowhere to hide but, as both documentary and book are at pains to point out, just because she wanted to be alone it did not necessarily mean she shunned personal contact
Richard Linklater and the new wave of new wave
The American indie stalwart’s latest film tells the story of the making of another: Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle
The film Putin didn’t want you to see
Vladimir Putin banned Aleksandr Sokurov’s Fairytale – and the director has retired in protest. But the power of what might be his final movie, assembled with found footage, cannot be dimmed
Gaza at the movies
In Cannes, the story of a photographer killed by an Israeli air strike and a lo-fi thriller offer different visions of tragedy and retribution in the Middle East
Theatre
Mountainhead is a whip-smart dystopian comedy
Jesse Armstrong’s return as writer and director of this feature-length drama has been giddily anticipated. And it does not disappoint
Imelda Staunton and Jenny Seagrove, the great pretenders
Two of our British theatre’s finest are outstanding in Mrs Warren’s Profession and The Anastasia File
Corny country musical Shucked is no Book of Mormon
The Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre’s US hit is a sub-prime Oklahoma
Why you must see The Fifth Step
Jack Lowden and Martin Freeman are whip-smart in this theatrical display of profundity, humour and compassion
Why did they bother with this mis-shaped monument to Sondheim?
The posthumously completed Here We Go has no songs, no story and no reason to be on stage
Riefenstahl is forensic film-making at its very best
Andres Veiel’s magnificent documentary lets Riefenstahl, in her interviews, recordings and archived files, speak for herself
Great Lives
Jack Johnson, the boxer who thrived as the world exploded around him
His life took him from the blood-stained cellars of Texas to a place in the sporting pantheon
Geneviève de Galard, the reluctant Angel of Dien Bien Phu
The modest aristocrat was perhaps aware that she wasn’t the only woman who went the extra mile in the jungles of Indochina
Robert Capa, the photographer who couldn’t resist the lure of the battlefield
The Japanese invasion of China, the D-day landings, the founding of Israel – no war was too small for Capa, no battlefield too bloody
Raoul Lufbery, the Frenchman who became America’s greatest aviator
Mocked for speaking English with a Clouseau-esque accent, Lufbery’s time in American fatigues saw him become a wartime legend
Eddie Barclay, the man who invented showbiz
A force of nature, Barclay was a boulevardier who made music and love with equal enthusiasm
Jerzy Kosiński, the writer whose last act was to plagiarise himself
However his works might have been assembled and whatever dissembling he did when talking about his life, Jerzy Kosiński was a master storyteller