London Film Festival

Every October the capital rolls out the red carpet for some of the hottest films, stars and directors. In its 68th year, the London Film Festival offers a jam-packed schedule of premieres and debut features with films starring Saoirse Ronan, Ralph Fiennes, Amy Adams, Daniel Craig, Bill Nighy, Pharrell Williams, Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield on the menu. So with more than 160 films to choose from, what are the must-sees? Here is our guide to the best of the festival in London — and elsewhere. Visit bfi.org.uk for locations and timings. Tickets are on sale TODAY

What films to look out for at London Film Festival:

• Blitz - Dir. Steve McQueen

• Anora - Dir. Sean Baker (Palm D’Or winner at Cannes)

• Conclave - Dir. Ed Berger

• We Live In Time - Dir. John Crowley

• Dahomey - Dir. Mati Diop (Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlinale)

• I’m Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui) - Dir. Walter Salle

• The Piano Lesson - Dir. Malcolm Washington

• Queer - Dir. Luca Guadiolini

• A Real Pain - Dir. Jesse Eisenberg

• Families Like Ours - Dir. Thomas Vinterberg (TV Series)

Theatre To Book for the Autumn

1). The Importance of Being Earnest (National Theatre)- hot director Max Webster (who did a brilliant production of Macbeth at the Donmar and who’s The Real Thing I am going to see tonight at the Old Vic) directs starring the new Doctor Who ( Ncuti Gatwa) and Hugh Skinner - should be enormous fun.

2. The Little Foxes (Young Vic) - Anne-Marie Duff stars and directed by the brilliant Lyndsey Turner; I don’t know the play at all though it is a ‘classic’ - but it is kickstarting the new season there under Nadia Fall who has just taken over as Artistic Director so I expect big things.

3. Guys And Dolls (Bridge Theatre) - Nick Hytner’s production is seriously good - and I don’t really like musicals! If you are feeling up for a dance, get the promenade tickets.

4.  The Fear of 13 (Donmar Theatre) - Adrien Brody  makes his London stage debut in an intriguing sounding prospect- a play about Nick Yarris, whose wrongful conviction for murder led him to spend more than two decades on death row.

5. The Tempest (Royal Theatre Drury Lane) - Jamie Lloyd the hottest director at the moment directs Sigourney Weaver the American superstar. Tickets will probably cost an arm and a leg but I will be trying to get them after Lloyd’s recent Romeo and Juliet with Tom Holland.

6. Juno and the Paycock (Gielgud Theatre) - It is always a treat to see Mark Rylance but this production of Seán O’Casey’s 1922 drama also features Succession actor J Smith-Cameron opposite him, and is directed by Matthew Warchus.

7. Oedipus (Wyndham Theatre) - Lesley Manville and Mark Strong in a Robert Icke production will be very exciting and a bit gory - his revelatory Oresteia at The Almeida 9 years ago was one of the best things I have ever seen in the theatre.

Reflections

The Real Thing, Old Vic

James McArdle is superb as Henry, a self-important, snobbish, mansplainy playwright with a weakness for deeply uncool pop music, whose erudite wit and knowing pretension somehow make him a delight to watch (he’s clearly based on Stoppard himself). He’s in love with Annie (Bel Powley), a younger actress, who is married to another actor, Max (Oliver Johnstone), who is a bit of an idiot, while Henry’s actress wife Charlotte (Susan Wokoma), is sharp as hell. Everyone exhibits that complex, contradictory, needy, self-conscious carelessness so often found in the artist. But we love these people, these prime, preening examples of the Primrose Hill set, slightly awful though they undoubtedly are, because they’re very funny, very clever, and they feel things so very, very deeply. Overall it’s a joy. Max Webster’s playful direction and Peter McKintosh’s striking set bring the 40 year-old piece gently up to date, nodding to Henry’s own (sometimes not very good) plays with the increasing involvement of the stage hands. Layers of truth and deceit, play and performance unfurl. It’s really fun.