MARK TURNER wallows in the virtuosity of Swansea Jazz Festival openers, Simon Spillett and Pete Long

NINE years in the making, Whole Hog’s official version of Makoto Shinkai’s 2013 anime film is a love story based on the original Japanese “koi,” meaning love as a longing for someone in solitude rather than the later, Westernised idea of romance. The engaging story explores seven individuals living in the crush of a metropolis struggling to connect to those that are close to them.
The “everyperson” inference in the work’s title does not fully summarise this pair’s idiosyncratic honing of a presentation that could be described as live sculpture or off-beat installation.
They feature low-tech knits and nylons. They deploy lavish live camera-work and deft illusion. They obsessively make a world of surprise and wonder that proffers universal access.

MATTHEW HAWKINS unpicks three new shows that deal with historical spectacle, feminism and fascism, and the extinction of species

MATTHEW HAWKINS recommends three memorable performances from Scottish dance artists Barrowland Ballet, In the Fields Project, and Wendy Houston

MATTHEW HAWKINS is mesmerised by a performance that dissolves the line between audience and performer

MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s dissection of William Blake