Here’s a quick rundown of everything I’ve seen/read that’s worth talking about so far this year.

GIGS

Fortuitous timing meant that I saw Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo one week after each other, providing an excellent opportunity to compare the two superstars of our age.

Swift, who I saw first, certainly offers value for money, especially at Parisian prices. Her three hour show cycles through all the hits (and makes you realise just how many she’s got). And a very flashy lighting setup, coupled with computer-controlled flashing wristbands on every audience member and a stage floor that doubles up as a screen of its own, certainly delivers a sensory overload.

But despite the glamour, the whole thing felt oddly unemotional and detached. Some of that comes from Swift’s over-reliance on screens, with little-to-no physical staging throughout the entire show, and a surprisingly small group of dancers who struggle to fill such a massive stage. Those staging decisions make the show feel intangible and distant. Another problem is that the show is, surprisingly, quite unpolished: many of the on-screen visuals use poor quality CGI, and the costume-change breaks are much too long and poorly executed, occurring after a song has finished instead of (as is more often the case) during an outro. Both choices ruin the immersion Swift’s clearly aiming for, taking audiences out of the show and ruining its pacing.

But much of the problem comes from Swift herself, who is so over-polished and tightly scripted that she never feels truly present. There’s very little audience interaction, and even while performing there’s little real emotion — it often feels like she’s just going through the motions. There was only one point where I felt like I saw the real Swift, right at the start of the show. Clearly feeding off the crowd’s adoration, she said “I want to see what happens if I do … this”, before pointing her finger at a section of the crowd, which predictably burst into screams. Beaming, she swept her finger across the arena, the ear-splitting scream moving perfectly in sync. It was the closest thing I’ve ever seen to someone being truly drunk on power, and cemented this idea of Swift-as-otherly-god-figure, as opposed to Swift-as-relatable-human: certainly a spectacle to witness, but not something that makes for a thrilling show.

Contrast, then, with Olivia Rodrigo, a performer overflowing with humanity from the minute she appeared. Throughout a tight, under two hour set, Rodrigo performed each song as if she really, really felt it, bopping around stage and having the time of her life. Watching her felt like watching a real, complicated, funny human being; a perfect fit for her raw and funny songs. And she was a natural performer, too, with a stunning voice and impeccable audience banter. And despite having a considerably smaller budget than Swift, it was much better spent: one sequence, with Rodrigo sitting on a moon that floats out over the crowd, surrounding by glowing stars, provided more memorable imagery than anything in Swift’s three-hour behemoth. A truly five star show.

But despite that, it still wasn’t the best show I’ve seen this year! That honour goes, unexpectedly, to Ustad Noor Bakhsh, for a thrilling performance at the Southbank Centre back in March. The 79 year old benju player from rural Balochistan is a virtuoso in and of himself, playing all sorts of gorgeous compositions; but the true magic came from a largely South Asian crowd with an uncontainable energy. My heart goes out to the poor security guard who unsuccessfully kept trying to stop people from coming to the stage and dancing; but I’m very glad he failed. Bakhsh is playing Glastonbury next month; he’s easily the performer I’m most excited to see.

THEATRE

So far, this has mostly been a year of disappointments. I had high hopes for Machinal, Hadestown, Enemy of the People, Player Kings, and Boys from the Blackstuff; all underwhelmed (especially the latter). Thankfully there was only one truly dire production: Simon Godwin’s abysmal Macbeth, which misleadingly used “site-specific” marketing to disguise a bog standard, dull production, pointlessly staged in a warehouse with awful acoustics and terrible seating. Everyone involved with that should be ashamed of themselves.

That said, a couple of highlights. Port of Entry in Chicago has the best immersive set design I’ve ever seen, bar none, and was an unforgettable and moving production (despite some at-times-ropey storytelling). Yael Farber’s King Lear was wonderful (making up for an underwhelming Branagh production last year), with an incredible cast (Danny Sapani and Clarke Peters in particular) really bringing the text to life. The Portrait of Dorian Gray was a wonderful showcase of how to effectively use cameras and video on stage, and Sarah Snook was superb throughout. And The Hills of California, though lacking the profundity of other Butterworths, was still a thrilling evening.

Other things I saw: The Comeuppance; Nachtland; Double Feature; Collaborator; The Gods The Gods The Gods; The Last Show Before We Die.

ART/EXHIBITIONS

I travelled to Paris in January to see the Rothko retrospective, and I am so glad I did. It was an absolutely stunning exhibition; full of emotion and pain that hit you on a really visceral level. I spent several hours just absorbing it all. It wasn’t perfect — some of the lighting was surprisingly shoddy and Fondation Louis Vuitton is a logistical mess — but it’s definitely an exhibition I’ll never forget.

While in Paris, I also saw Parfums d’Orient at the Institut du Monde Arabe, which was a real gem. Clever use of scent boxes and interactivity made an otherwise hard to exhibit topic come to life, and the curation (which took you through different spaces where scent is used, like the home, the mosque, and the baths) was quite lovely.

And although I’m biased, my dear friend Surya Bowyer’s exhibition Paper Cuts (still on at the Peltz Gallery) was really wonderful — a thoughtfully chosen selection of images of Indians filtered through the colonial-gaze, paired with some gorgeous new commissions and really insightful wall text. Infuriating and beautiful, all at once.

Some duds, of course; most notably UVA Synchronicity which was the clearest example of “shallow Instagram bait” I’ve seen in some time. And Entangled Pasts at the RA had all the potential of a good show, but was let down by a number of stupid curatorial decisions.

GAMES

I finally got round to playing Disco Elysium, which is not quite as good as everyone makes out, but is still really special. Norco, too, was an interesting play. And I liked Botany Manor more than I expected to. Inscryption starts off really strong, but deteriorates annoyingly quickly. Doki Doki Literature Club! is batshit, but it’s free and certainly worth playing. And I’m hopelessly addicted to Hades, despite being quite bad at it.

My standout, though, is not a video game but a cooperative tabletop escape-style game called Threads of Fate. It’s an absolutely genius puzzle game, combining real-life props and diaries with Wikipedia trawling, and all held together by a surprisingly affecting story. It’s so satisfactorily designed, with really thoughtful and tricky puzzles that never make you feel cheated, and gorgeous physical materials. So good, in fact, that as soon as I finished it I went out and bought all of the company’s other games (which you can, and should, do here).

MOVIES

Film is easily the medium where I’ve had the most luck this year; perhaps that’s because it’s also what I’ve most-consumed. Basically all the Oscars entrants were superb. I’m still thinking about Zone of Interest, and Poor Things, The Holdovers and The Iron Claw were all great too.

Of other new releases, Dune: Part Two was stunning (the changes from the book might all be improvements!), particularly in dual-laser IMAX (70mm left something to be desired). Challengers was an absolute riot; that final scene is one of the best things ever committed to film. Perfect Days, Past Lives, How to Have Sex, and Monster were all great too. And I really liked Civil War, which is much more politically interesting than people give it credit for.

I saw a bunch of excellent older releases for the first time, too: Psycho, Cleo from 5 to 7, Paris, Texas, Carrie, The Wicker Man, and Days of Heaven all wildly live up to the hyper, particularly the latter. Hereditary and Four Lions still delighted on rewatch, too. (The Phantom Menace, less so.)

The only “bad” thing I’ve seen was Fungi: Web of Life (a shallow, dull documentary). Plenty of good-not-great flicks, though, including Mad Max 2, La Chimera, Hoard, Galliano: High and Low, Love Lies Bleeding, Evil Does Not Exist, Room 666, The Funhouse, The Searchers, American Fiction, Hoop Dreams, Side by Side, Jodorowsky’s Dune, and The Boy and the Heron.

BOOKS

I’ve not finished nearly as much as I’d have liked; instead I’m midway through a bunch of middling books. 

The two standouts came from authors I’ve previously read and loved: RF Kuang’s Yellowface and David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green. The former is brilliantly funny, very gripping, and almost Nabokovian in its use of a detestable narrator. The latter perfectly captures a very specific time of life, and is full of drop-dead gorgeous lines that permanently change the way you think.

I also enjoyed the Three Body Problem and its sequels; the writing (in translation) is pretty dire but the story and ideas are interesting. Circe was good, too. And I liked, but didn’t love, Cinema Speculation, Rendezvous with Rama, I’m A Fan, The Secret History of Twin Peaks, and Rebecca.