The SLMan Culture List: April

Monkey Man is Dev Patel’s explosive directorial debut. With a little help from Jordan Peele, he’s created a John Wick-esque action thriller about one man’s quest for vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother and continue to systemically victimise the poor and powerless. The film stars Patel (Lion, Slumdog Millionaire) as Kid, an anonymous young man who makes a meagre living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, he unleashes an explosive campaign of retribution against the men who took everything from him. 

Visit Picturehouses.com

Scoop is a dramatised account of the tenacious journalism that landed an earthshattering IRL interview – Prince Andrew's infamous BBC Newsnight appearance. From the tension of producer Sam McAlister’s high-stakes negotiations with Buckingham Palace, all the way to Emily Maitlis’s forensic showdown with the prince, Scoop takes us inside the story, with the women who would stop at nothing to get it. Gillian Anderson stars as Maitlis, with Rufus Sewell as the beleaguered royal.

Visit Netflix.com

This new Phaidon hardback chronicles the history of skateboard design from 1950 to the present day. From its starting point as a simple wooden plank to the high-tech models of today, the skateboard has undergone a dramatic evolution. Skateboard explores the golden eras of skateboarding through over 100 boards that proved to be turning points. Each one is photographed to scale, allowing the reader to gauge its individual flair and comparative size, and is accompanied by text from author, designer and former skater Jonathan Olivares. Elsewhere, iconic skaters such as Ray ‘Bones’ Rodriquez, Tony Hawk, Natas Kaupas and Mike Vallely are brought to life in archival action shots.

Visit Amazon.co.uk

From the author of Mayflies comes this unputdownable, state-of-the-nation novel about one man’s epic fall from grace. It’s May 2021, London. Campbell Flynn – an art historian and celebrity intellectual – is entering middle age. Fuelled by an appetite for admiration, controversy and novelty, he doesn’t take people half as seriously as they take themselves. Then there’s Milo Mangasha, his provocative student. Milo inhabits a more precarious world, and has experiences and ideas that excite his teacher. Over the course of an incendiary year, a web of crimes, secrets and scandals is revealed, and Flynn may not be able to protect himself from the shattering exposure of all his privilege really involves.

Visit Amazon.co.uk

The bestselling author of Call Me By Your Name returns with a new novel about a group of college friends marooned at a luxurious hotel on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. While their boat is being repaired, they can’t help but observe the daily routine of a fellow hotel guest – a mysterious, white-bearded stranger who sits on the veranda each night and smokes one cigarette, sometimes two. When the group decides to invite the elegant traveller to lunch with them, they cannot begin to imagine the miraculous abilities, strange wisdom and life-changing story he is about to impart to one of the friends in particular…

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Simon Crompton’s Casual Style Guide is a series of street-style shots featuring some of the most stylish people in the menswear industry. But unlike most style books, it focuses on practical analysis of every image, picking up why the outfit works in terms of texture, colour or cut. The result is an attractive summary of the most important style advice Crompton has dispensed on PermanentStyle.com over the past decade. The first drop of the self-published book sold out instantly, but now’s your chance to pre-order for round two, for delivery in June.

Visit Shop.PermanentStyle.com

Percival Everett’s novel Erasure was recently turned into the Oscar-winning film American Fiction. His new novel, James, is an enthralling and funny reimagining of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans, and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi river. With rumours of war brewing, Jim must face the burden he carries: the family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live. And together, the unlikely pair must face the most dangerous odyssey of them all.

Visit Amazon.co.uk

The Tate Modern will host the first exhibition in over 50 years dedicated to Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). This network of artists including Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter came together in the early 20th century to transform modern art through radical experimentation with form, colour, sound and performance. Running from 25th April, Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter & The Blue Rider will feature pieces from the world’s largest collection of expressionist masterpieces at the Lenbachhaus in Munich, alongside rare loans from public and private collections, including works never previously seen in the UK.

Visit Tate.org.uk