Cat Burns finds 'How to Be Human' but maybe not her own sound

A charming and distinctive voice stifled by generic production

Twenty-five-year-old South Londoner and current Celebrity Traitors contestant Cat Burns is a charming performer. Her songs have a rare ability to present the most fundamental of youthful relationship ups and downs as fresh and real. They also make more modern expressions of hope and solidarity around sexuality and neurodivergence escape the twee, flowery framing of live-laugh-love Mum’s-on-Facebook-again posting.

Demi Lovato's ninth album, 'It's Not That Deep', goes for a frolic on the dancefloor

★★★ DEMI LOVATO'S 'IT'S NOT THAT DEEP' A frolic on the dance floor 

US pop icon's latest is full of unpretentious pop-club bangers

Demi Lovato is impressive on many fronts. She’s a Noughties Disney tween star who’s become an outspoken activist in an America where it’s increasingly dangerous to be one. She’s lived a rollercoaster ride of a life, rampantly exploring sexuality, drink and drugs amid chaos, abuse and serious mental health calamities, and she’s overcome the worst of it.

Lady Gaga, The Mayhem Ball, O2 review - epic, eye-boggling and full of spirit

★★★ LADY GAGA, THE MAYHEM BALL, O2 Epic, eye-boggling and full of spirit

One of the year's most anticipated tours lives up to the hype

The backscreens pop alive. A wall of photographer’s flashguns. On cyberpunk crutches, Lady Gaga stumbles jerkily towards us. She sings her 2009 global smash “Paparazzi”, her arms clad in armour, on her head a metallic skullcap. Her corseted dress has a train that extends, diaphanous, floating back behind her the entire length of the long catwalk into the audience. It disappears into the darkness of an arch.

Honey Don’t! review - film noir in the bright sun

★★★ HONEY DON'T! A Coen brother with a blood-simple gumshoe caper

A Coen brother with a blood-simple gumshoe caper

The Coen brothers’ output has been so broad-ranging, and the duo so self-deprecating, that critics have long had difficulty getting their arms around them. Telling stories of distemper in the American heartland, with the occasional drive-by hit on Old Hollywood, they defined indie cinema for a generation and then perhaps single-handedly released it from its ghetto and merged it into the mainstream. 

Oslo Stories Trilogy: Sex review - sexual identity slips, hurts and heals

★★★★ OSLO STORIES TRILOGY: SEX Sexual identity slips, hurts and heals

A quietly visionary series concludes with two chimney sweeps' awkward sexual liberation

Two chimney sweeps sit by a window. The boss (Thorbjørn Harr) recounts a dream meeting with David Bowie, who disconcertingly looks at him like he’s a woman. Funny thing, his friend (Jar Gunnar Røise) replies. Yesterday, a male client asked him to have sex, and he did. It felt good. He hasn’t told anyone else, apart from his wife.

Oslo Stories Trilogy: Love review - freed love

★★★★ OSLO STORIES TRILOGY: LOVE A heady ode to urban connection

Gay cruising offers straight female lessons in a heady ode to urban connection

Love was the Norwegian climax of Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo trilogy, the most lovestruck vision of his city and boldest prophesy of how to live there, beyond borders and bonds of sexual identity and shame. Released here between Dreams’ meta-memories of swooning first love and Sex’s look at desire undefined by gender, it also settles in Oslo’s heart.

Tom at the Farm, Edinburgh Fringe 2025 review - desire and disgust

★★★★★ TOM AT THE FARM, EDINBURGH FRINGE Desire and disgust

A visually stunning stage re-adaptation of a recent gay classic plunges the audience into blood and earth

As shockingly beautiful as it is horrifyingly brutal, actor Armando Babaioff’s deeply Brazilian adaptation of thriller Tom at the Farm leaves a rancid taste in the mouth and harrowing images seared on the retina. It’s a show to shock and provoke, but also to deeply disorientate, blurring the boundaries between pain and pleasure, desire and repulsion in a way that stays with you, whether you want it to or not.