Every week, an Observer critic recommends the best things to see, do and watch this weekend. This week: dance critic Sarah Crompton on a great Danish painter and a new take on The Great Gatsby.
5 minutes
Sylvie Guillem and Jonathan Cope in the final pas de deux from Manon, YouTube
YouTube is a superb repository of historic dance performances – a wormhole down which it is a pleasure to fall, as you move swiftly from the latest by the irrepressible Tiler Peck to grainy footage of Anna Pavlova. Among the very best is an excerpt from the Royal Ballet’s production of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon (2005), where Sylvie Guillem’s doomed heroine is dying in the arms of her lover Des Grieux (Jonathan Cope) in the swamps of Louisiana. The artistry of Guillem’s performance, the courage of the leaps and lifts, are a glimpse of her greatness.
Available to watch here.Â
30 minutes
The Linbury prize for stage design, National theatre, London SE1
This year’s Linbury prize exhibition offers a chance to appreciate the work of the stage designers of the future, as they take their first steps towards success. This year’s 12 winners all receive a bursary of £6,000 and – more importantly – a chance to be mentored by an established designer as they develop their skills and their new ideas. The prize, which has been running since 1987, has been a remarkable support and springboard for some amazing talents, Es Devlin, Vicki Mortimer and Jon Bausor among them.
Free; no tickets required. More information at nationaltheatre.org.uk
An hour
Anna Ancher: Painting Light, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London SE21; until 8 March 2026
The first major UK exhibition devoted to one of the most important artists in Danish history is a revelation. Anna Ancher (1859-1935), who lived in the artists’ colony at her birthplace in Skagen, a tiny fishing community on a sliver of land at the northernmost tip of Denmark, was as innovative in her day as the impressionists in France, by whom she was much influenced. Her use of light in a series of glowing domestic scenes that look like Vermeer is glorious, but it’s also fascinating to explore paintings that are so strongly rooted in a particular community and period. By the time you emerge you feel you know Ancher and those who surrounded her.
Read Laura Cumming on Anna Ancher. Tickets available at dulwichpicturegallery.org.ukÂ
An afternoon
Spotlight – Gatsby in Harlem, BBC Sounds
The playwright Roy Williams’s imaginative adaptation of The Great Gatsby took home three awards at the inaugural Speakies last month for audio storytelling, winning best audio drama, best audio drama adaptation and best performance for Ncuti Gatwa as the mysterious Gatsby. That’s probably recommendation enough, but the switch of F Scott Fitzgerald’s narrative to Harlem in 1925 is rich in every way, shedding fascinating light on the creative surge of the period known as the Harlem renaissance, which overlaps with Fitzgerald’s jazz age. The score, with original music by Emily Tran, deserves a prize in itself.
Available to listen on BBC Sounds.Â
An evening
All My Sons, Wyndham’s theatre, London WC2; until 7 March
It’s easy to forget what a riveting director Ivo van Hove can be. He has his misses – Opening Night, All About Eve – along with his hits. But put him together with the playwright Arthur Miller and the result is generally extraordinary. Like his groundbreaking A View From the Bridge 11 years ago, All My Sons shifts Miller’s tragedy from its usual domestic setting, making its conflicts and betrayals powerfully universal. An extraordinary cast, led by Bryan Cranston, Paapa Essiedu and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, mine every ounce of feeling and meaning from the primal emotions released. It really is unmissable.
Read Susannah Clapp on All My Sons. Tickets available at www.wyndhamstheatre.co.uk