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Your support makes all the difference.Film Ryan Gilbey
I CAN'T think of a better rainy-day film than The Wedding Singer. Cast as the jilted groom who makes his living singing trashy covers at other people's wedding receptions, Adam Sandler exhibits an endearing, bedraggled star presence.
Odeon Mezzanine, London WC2 (0181-315 4215)
The new film from the team of James Ivory, Ismail Merchant and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (left), is about dislocation and adjustment: everyone in the film is looking to belong. Billy is a French boy who is adopted by the writer Bill Willis (played by Kris Kristofferson, but based on James Jones) and his wife, Marcella (Barbara Hershey), while they are living in Paris in the 1960s, but he always remains something of an outsider. I can't pretend that the picture adds up to much, but its leisurely narrative rhythms and sensitive performances are entrancing.
On release
Theatre Dominic Cavendish
JOHN PADDEN is on creepy-campy form as The Talented Mr Ripley in Phyllis Nagy's excellent stage version of Patricia Highsmith's novel, which has the morally dubious hero assuming the identity of the playboy painter he has been sent to find on the Italian riviera. Giles Croft's production doesn't serve the play as well as it should, but there is still much to admire.
Palace Theatre, Watford (01923 225671) 7.45pm
The joint winner of this year's Peggy Ramsay Award, Kaite O'Reilly's Yard, set in a Birmingham slaughterhouse run by an unhappy Irish family, isn't quite as steeped in metaphor as it thinks it is, but a strong cast handles the slabs of meat and the oozing black humour with aplomb.
Bush Theatre, London W12 (0181-743 3388) 8pm
Art Richard Ingleby
A LONG-AWAITED reassessment of the quintessential cosmopolitan, John Singer Sargent, best known for his swaggering portraits of fashionable Edwardians. That, however, was only part of the story and, on the evidence here (right), Sargent was one of the major figures of his day.
The Tate Gallery, Millbank, London SW1 (0171-887 8000) 15 Oct to 17 Jan
There's a welcome re-appearance of the Stephen Lacey Gallery after a couple of years without a fixed address. Their opening exhibition confirms a commitment to showing contemporary sculpture with the big, heavy stone carvings of "Mr Seedpod", Peter Randall Page.
Stephen Lacey Gallery, 1 Crawford Passage, Ray St, London EC1 (0171-837 5507)
Pop Tim Perry
THE FIRST UK headlining tour by Bernard Butler (right) would probably be worth a recommendation if he were playing without any support, but since he has assembled a show with two great bands, it's become a matter of great value for money. Opening the night are London-based Mojave 3, whose country- ish indie pop has come of age on their current Out of Tune album. Next up are Arnold who earlier in the year delivered the excellent Hillside album, a brilliant piece of melancholic rock that should feature in the end-of-year polls.
Pyramid Centre, Portsmouth (01705 358 608) 7.30pm
Another triple billing comes in the form of the Glitterhouse label's "alternative country revue". The respected German indie presents a strong bill headlined by Arizona's female-led Hazeldine touring their latest and best album of desert country vibes. Cult US songwriter Neal Casal and Lancashire's country rocking Good Sons complete the line-up.
Hop & Grape, Manchester (0161-832 1111)
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