What's On: Pet Shop Boys, John Cleese and Eric Idle, Superhuman Summit and more

With several classic dance hits, Pet Shop Boys are the most successful duo in British music history, and they're still making great new music as evidenced on new release Super.

Seven things you should consider doing this weekend include seeing the Pet Shop Boys, John Cleese and Eric Idle, Superhuman Summit and much more:

Pet Shop Boys

Oct. 24, 8 p.m.

|

Queen Elizabeth Theatre

Tickets and info:

$46.50-$99.50

livenation.com

The iconic British duo has enjoyed an astounding run of top-charting singles, starting with West End Girls in the mid-1980s and including its current club-ready anthem The Pop Kids. Vibrant and refreshing, with hints of pure emotion, the funky confection is the first single from the new album Super — an all-out dance-pop album that fuses ’90s house with ’70s disco for a sound so very, very Pet Shop Boys.

John Cleese & Eric Idle: Together Again At Last … For The Very First Time

Oct. 20-22, 8 p.m.

|

Queen Elizabeth Theatre

Tickets and info:

 $69.50-$99.50,

ticketmaster.ca

Cleese says this show is rather like Ikea in that they have to screw lots of bits together. Television and film clips are interspersed with sketches, solo standup segments, improv and audience Q&As. It’s a lot of recycled material, but by most accounts, it’s as fresh and subversive — and bonkers — now as when conceived decades ago. Cue: the fish-slapping dance. If this surreal madness doesn’t delight, well, your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.

Denis Matsuev

Oct. 20, 8 p.m.

|

Chan Centre

Tickets and info:

$55-$105,

chancentre.com

The world has given us about five pianists whose concerts you shouldn’t miss, and Russian virtuoso Denis Matsuev is one of them. Tipped to continue the legacy of his country’s keyboard lion Vladimir Horowitz, Matsuev thrills audiences with his “epic technique . . . superhuman speed, power and agility” (

The Boston Globe

). The 41-year-old pianist has selected works to show off his signature pyrotechnics and exquisite nuance — by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Schumann, and Prokofiev — for this rare Vancouver appearance.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=PjeKA_ttPMU&version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Bakersfield Mist

Oct. 20 to Nov. 20

 |

Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage

Tickets and info

: From $29,

artsclub.com

American playwright Stephen Sachs’s play is as much about class warfare as it is about art. Inspired by the true story of a truck driver, who believed she found a Jackson Pollock painting, Nicola Cavendish plays foul-mouthed Maude, who invites a snooty art scholar (Jonathan Monro) to her mobile home to prove the provenance of her drippy masterpiece. It’s a battle of opposites that sings with monologues about the transformational power of art and gets quick laughs with trailer park humour.

 Superhuman Summit features and human enhancement experts. Moon Ribas talks about her app-connected elbow implant, which allows her to feel every earth quake.

Superhuman Summit

Oct. 22

,

 

8 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

|

BMO Theatre Centre

Tickets and info:

$219/$249, 

superhvman.com

In 1997, Jeanne Calment died in France at age 122, setting a record for human longevity. But last week, Nature published a study that shows that, while people have been living longer lately, no one will live as long as Calment again; in fact, “humans will never get older than 115.” It’s precisely the kind the study longevity experts appearing at the first ever Superhuman Summit are expected to debunk. Passholders can also hear from some of the brightest minds in human enhancement. For example, Moon Ribas, from Spain, speaks about her app-connected elbow implant, which allows her to feel every earth quake. A choreographer as well as a cyborg activist, Moon uses this new sense to dance with the planet.

 Vancouver artist Ben Skinner uses words to paint pictures.

Alex Caldwell and Ben Skinner

Opening reception Oct. 20, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.; runs to Nov. 19

|

Winsor Gallery

Free; more info:

winsorgallery.com

Calgary’s Alex Caldwell and Vancouver’s Ben Skinner share a fondness for brightly hued minimalism, but one prefers words, the other shapes. Skinner loves word play, and has created text works bearing such messages as “You were nice while I lasted,” or “Let’s pretend tomorrow night never happened.” The shape of Caldwell’s pop art sculpture some how tells him the colour it should be — which he then layers on slick and thick, so it seems to be not just coated in colour but made of it.

 Spark Animation

Oct. 20-23

|

Vancity Theatre

Tickets and info:

$12

sparkfx.ca

Spark programmers viewed more than 700 submissions from all corners of the globe to present the best animation that exists. Tonight’s program celebrates prize-winning international films, from hand-drawn to stop-motion, narrative shorts to music videos. Saturday serves up Late Night Snacks, an edgy collection of animated shorts. Other highlights include feature-length presentations, including Tekkonkinkreet, a “mind blowing” (Salon) Japanese anime by Michael Arias, about two street urchins, who do battle with an array of mobsters and aliens.

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