The week’s best TV, film, books and music

From Greta Gerwig’s Little Women to pop pioneer Perfume Genius and an inspiring new book about human kindness, the BBC Culture team chooses the best culture for you to enjoy at home.

Classic TV – Parks and Recreation

This brilliant sitcom has back in the news in recent weeks, after its cast reunited for a one-off half-hour charity special raising $2.8m for feeding the US – an event which was a reminder of the immense warmth its portrait of mid-American life and wonderful ensemble generated, and which makes it such a perfect show to rewatch in these dark times. Chronicling the everyday life and work of the employees of Parks and Recreation Department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, the show combines slapstick silliness with a generous heart, as its charming misfits all grow and develop from their initial stereotypes. (LW)

New TV – Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Kimmy vs the Reverend

Netflix’s brightly-hued, gag-a-millisecond sitcom about a Pollyanna-ish doomsday cult survivor trying to reacclimatise to normal life seemed to come to a fitting end last year with its heroine getting a deserved break as an internationally-successful children’s author. But now it has returned for this one-off ‘interactive’ special, which sees Netflix once again trying out a choose-your-own-adventure style narrative, following its earlier experiment with Black Mirror special Bandersnatch. The premise here is that Kimmy has to hunt down her old nemesis and captor the Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (Jon Hamm), after she discovers he has a second bunker of imprisoned women. The question is: will you make the right choices to make sure the bad guy is vanquished, and our heroine gets to the altar on time? (HM)

Classic film – Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Howard Hawks’ Technicolor treat is a fizzy musical comedy set onboard a transatlantic cruise liner. Marilyn Monroe reaches peak-seductiveness as Lorelei, a gold-digging showgirl who is engaged to a millionaire, but who hopes to trade up while she is on voyage. Jane Russell is the sardonic pal who is more interested in a team of hunky Olympic athletes, as well as a detective who has been hired to keep an eye on Lorelei. The screwball story falls to pieces after the liner docks in France, but even then, one of cinema’s most iconic production numbers is still in store: Monroe in her pink dress, singing Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend. (NB)

New film – Little Women

Greta Gerwig’s crafty Louisa May Alcott adaptation boasts an incredible cast, including Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlen as the four March sisters, Timothée Chalamet as their eligible neighbour, Laura Dern as their saintly mother, and Meryl Streep as their cynical aunt. As the sisters strive to find happiness during and after the American Civil War, Gerwig emphasises that these Little Women are trapped in a man’s world. But they have so much love for each other, and so many beautifully tailored outfits, that life never seems too harsh. BBC Culture’s five-star review said that this “smart, delightful film seems on its way to becoming a classic”. But if none of that appeals, Bad Boys For Life has just been released, too. Available from SkyStore, Amazon, Rakuten TV (NB)

Book – Humankind: A Hopeful History

Described by TED Talks as ‘one of Europe’s most prominent young thinkers’, Dutch historian Rutger Bregman is an optimist. His 2017 book, Utopia for Realists, was a blueprint for a fairer world – and his latest work offers a rose-tinted vision of human nature. Out on 19 May, Humankind: A Hopeful History takes a multidisciplinary approach to how we view ourselves, aiming to prove that we’re not fundamentally selfish or lazy. Drawing on history, archaeology, anthropology and psychology, its central thesis is that at root humans are “friendly, peaceful and healthy” – a message sure to find an eager audience in 2020. (FM)

Pop music – Perfume Genius

Over the last decade, Mike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius, has been one of modern music’s most alluring chameleons: after establishing himself as the most gut-wrenchingly wraith-like of singer-songwriters on his first two albums, the 38-year-old American has gradually transformed both his look and his sound to become a dazzling, defiantly queer (in both senses of the word) pop performer. Out today, his latest LP, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, is his most eclectic yet, veering from jaunty new-wave ditties to anthemic rock, Roy Orbison-esque balladry, and Radiohead-esque transcendence. Dare we say, it could also be his finest. (HM)

Art – Somerset House

Juliana Huxtable is among the artists who are featured in a series of live broadcasts by London’s Somerset House. Titled I Should be Doing Something Else Right Now, the commissions explore “the intersection of music, art and technology” and look at ideas around work and play. Huxtable, an American multi-disciplinary artist, has been undertaking a ‘digital residency’ at Somerset House Studios during May, supported by Goethe-Institut London, and in her work she focuses on the themes of desire and technology. Elsewhere on the website are talks, workshops and highlights of recent exhibitions, including the Get Up, Stand Up podcast series. (LB)

Theatre – Complicité’s The Encounter

British theatre company Complicité has regularly stunned audiences with its experimental use of movement, sound and technology in hits that include A Disappearing Number, The Elephant Vanishes and The Master and Margarita. In 2016 they brought The Encounter – their most innovative production yet – to the Barbican in London. Inspired by a Petru Popescu novel, Amazon Beaming, it follows the true story of Loren McIntyre, a National Geographic photographer lost in a remote part of Brazil in 1969. Complicité co-founder Simon McBurney directed and starred in the one-man show, which used binaural technology to communicate a thrilling, discombobulating and uniquely intimate experience to the audience, which wore special headphones throughout. From 7pm on Friday 15 May until 10pm on Friday 22 May, audiences at home will be able to join in too – it’s unmissable. (RL)

Documentaries – The Nobel Peace Prize series

If you’re looking for truly inspirational material in these trying times, then it is worth checking out National Geographic’s new selection of five short films about the legacy of various Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, all shot by British filmmaker Orlando Von Einsiedel and coming to its YouTube channel next Wednesday. The stories they tell range from an all-female team of deminers in Iraq to a South African orchestra helping to redress the country’s historic ruptures; all are bound to induce awe. (HM)

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