Vividly bringing to life the everyday struggles of trans people, this Almodóvar-endorsed bestseller, set in 1980s Madrid, is affecting and evocativeAlana S Portero’s debut novel La mala costumbre, or Bad Habit, starts at an intensity of 11 and barely lets up. The first time the protagonist falls in love, aged five, is with her neighbour’s bloodied corpse...

Former miners and police officers recall Orgreave, one of the nastiest events in postwar British history, in Daniel Gordon’s forthright documentaryBritish schoolchildren are taught that the last full-scale military engagement on their soil was the battle of Culloden in 1746. But this should change: on 18 June 1984 the battle of Orgreave, the subject...

David Allen’s documentary about a couple trying to run a profitable eco-business is an inspirational puff piece Half puff job, half genuinely inspirational record of a rare eco-success story, David Allen’s documentary revolves around aristocratic farmer Charlie Burrell and his wife, Isabella Tree. The pair own 1,400 hectares (3,500 acres) of land...

The music publicist was given up for adoption and always had a sense of not belonging but, in his job, he found his kindred spiritsI always knew I was adopted. I had a sister, Mary, and a brother, Tony, and we all looked quite different, so I suppose our adoptive parents, Harrington and Elizabeth had to tell us the truth. They took us all in as babies...

An ex-con and his son spin around Casablanca trying to dispose of a huge corpse in Kamal Lazraq’s good-looking, if uneven, Cannes winnerA winner at last year’s Cannes, this by turns grim and quirky crime drama, from Kamal Lazraq, is set in Casablanca and lit like a Caravaggio painting. A macho, feckless and sporadically pious Moroccan ex-con (Abdellatif...

Leeds Playhouse Opera North brings shimmering music to this gorgeous and crisply choreographed co-production, which preserves Shaw’s critique of the British class systemSome have called it “the perfect musical”. An exaggeration? Not if success is the measure. My Fair Lady ran for a record-breaking 2,717 performances following its Broadway opening in...