The film to see...
All eyes on the Croisette to show us next year’s Oscar contenders from Cannes but right now, pass the popcorn please. The Devil Wears Prada 2 moves its fashion month focus to Milan. With its stellar cast, clothes and wit, Meryl, Stanley and all of the Emilies definitely merit a cinema outing (dress code, cerulean).
You can also catch homegrown talent Leo Woodall (One Day, Mad About the Boy) take the lead with support from a rare performance from Dustin Hoffman in Tuner. This unusual thriller, directed and co-written by Daniel Roher, lands in UK cinemas this month via strong reviews at Telluride and Toronto film festivals. Roher won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film for his must-watch 2022 documentary Navalny, about the late Russian activist. Here the tension is ramped up for a fictional piano tuner who learns to crack safes.
The exhibition to visit...
Photo London returns for its eleventh edition from 14 to 17 May 2026, with a VIP Preview on 13 May and a new home in Olympia. Annual catnip for collectors and window-shopping fans alike, the must-see is the Stephen Meisel presentation. This year’s Master of Photography, the fair will showcase a rare and apt chance to see Meisel’s London portraits which were made in the 90s for British Vogue. His punk spirit muses included Stella Tennant and Bella Freud.
Also this month, from 13 May, London duo Rob and Nick Carter show Transforming, bringing movement to art-history masterpieces. Working at the cutting edge of human-guided AI, these startling works are in museums around the world, but this is a chance to see them in West London
The theatre to book…
It’s almost twenty years since their legendary Chekhov production of The Seagull, which won Kristin Scott Thomas an Olivier, transferred to Broadway from the Royal Court and helped to catapult a teenage Carey Mulligan to stardom. Now Scott Thomas reunites with director Ian Rickson for their interpretation of The Cherry Orchard. In a new version by Conor MacPherson, it will run from 3 October to 9 January. Serious fans will want to book the hottest autumn ticket now, and you can still get them for £20
Meanwhile, “a summer reggae party driven by Jimmy Cliff’s music’ in the words of director Matthew Xia is back. The Harder They Come returns to Stratford East 16 May to 4 July led by Natey Jones who won rave reviews for his portrayal of Ivan in the show’s first short run. This is a great high-octane way to end the day if you’re close by at V & A East, seeing the brilliant inaugural show The Music is Black.
The collaboration to look out for…
Rurbanite bliss, as country life comes back to Mayfair thanks to The Newt in Somerset. From 18 to 31 May, A Farm in Mayfair pops up at Claridge's, the ultimate place to stay if you’re heading to Chelsea Flower Show (19-23) and a whimsical reminder that Shepherd Market was once the setting for a real rowdy Mayfair. Soak up all of this green inspiration via the bar (anyone for a Newt Cyder?) and a wander through the temporarily bucolic lobby. Many other Newt Estate ingredients will also be on the menu, along with the chicest tote of the month for all of your shopping.
The event to attend…
If you aren’t lucky enough to be bobbing around the Grand Canal for Venice Art Biennale, closer to home, Charleston Festival (13-25 May) has one of the most seductive festival settings. Get lost with a glass of wine or two as you soak up the work of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell and their Bloomsbury time capsule gardens. From our own life and times, this year’s programme includes Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, painter Rose Wylie, Sir David Hare, Hugh Bonneville, Margaret Drabble and many more. Brighton’s City Books festival pop-up is also worth a trip in itself.
The album to buy…
New work from Paul McCartney is always an event. This is his first LP for six years and so far, there is one beautifully elegiac single, Days We Left Behind'. The full album The Boys of Dungeon Lane is coming on 29 May and promises a detailed look back at his childhood, his family and his first days with his future bandmates. As he’s said, ‘I do often wonder if I’m just writing about the past but then I think how can you write about anything else?’ Plus, if you’re humming 'The Van' from Jack Antonoff, you’ll also be getting Bleachers' new album – Everyone For Ten Minutes – on 22 May.
The TV to watch
Made with the help and blessing of the late national treasure Dame Jilly Cooper, hit show Rivals takes us back to the 80s again with season two, helmed by rising star British directors including Dee Koppang O’Leary. The first six episodes of twelve land on May 15. Steady on…
The book to read
Paul Auster fans won’t be able to miss Siri Hustvedt’s tribute, Ghost Stories. (Hodder & Stoughton) The book includes letters from the New York trilogy novelist to his baby grandson, and a raw account of the last months of their four-decade-long literary love story.
Also this month, Oscar Wilde expert Matthew Sturgis studies three personalities with larger-than-life siblings in Relative Failures (Bloomsbury) Let him introduce Willie Wilde, Mabel Beardsley and Howard, brother of novelist Julian Sturgis (both his great great uncles). It’s a brilliantly off-kilter concept for a group biography, and a passport to the 1890s in the hands of a vivid raconteur.