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Your arts and culture recommendations for the weekend, by the residents of Benefits Street

STARS of the infamous Channel 4 documentary have had their say about the budget, but they also have plenty of cultural suggestions for the weekend. Here are their picks:

White Dee: My Neighbor Totoro stage play

You’d think we’d be dead against foreigners coming over here and taking our cushy theatre jobs, but you couldn’t be more wrong. The production team have achieved something truly magical with this adaptation of the Studio Ghibli classic; the puppetry in particular really needs to be seen to be believed. I pity the staff at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, who are probably sick of seeing my family there all the time!

Doris Peynado: Stranger Things season five

Don’t let snooty Guardian critics put you off binge-watching the latest volume. There’s more to this show than milking Eighties nostalgia for all it’s worth, and the epic running time for each episode really gives the gripping plot and compelling characters room to breathe. It’s well worth streaming for free from some dodgy torrenting site like I did.

Imjad Afsar: Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon

A somewhat derivative outing from the mind behind such masterpieces as Gravity’s Rainbow and V. Still, even though Pynchon achieved superior results with similar trappings in Inherent Vice, this is his first book since 2013’s Bleeding Edge, so I’ll take what I can get. There are worse ways to kill a jobless afternoon than by flicking through this tome with a packet of Hobnobs to hand.

Black Dee: The Turner exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery

A timely exhibition that of course celebrates 250 years since Turner was born. I’m gutted to have missed the short course that explores how his landscape painting changed over time, but attending the mezzotint printing workshop and tonight’s after-hours performances will more than make up for it. I’ve even washed and pressed my finest tracksuit for the occasion.

‘Fungi’: Frankenstein

No, not Mary Shelley’s 1818 Gothic classic, although that still holds up. I mean the new movie adaptation directed by Guillermo del Toro. While he may take liberties with the original plot, I find that this simply adds an extra layer of pathos to the story of the Creature. At least I think that’s what Mark Kermode said in his review. It looks great and it’s better for you than doing crack, so it gets a thumbs-up from me.

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Stranger Things, recapped by someone who hasn't seen it

THE final season of Stranger Things is here, and long-time viewers may need some help catching up. Who better to help than Nathan Muir, who hasn’t seen it?

Okay, so it’s about this town in small-town America called Hawkings where kids are playing Dungeons and Dragons. So as you’d expect they’re sad twats.

Anyway, because it’s the 1980s and D&D was like magic spells back then, one of them goes missing like in Poltergeist. It’s because they’ve summoned a Hexagorgon, called that because D&D figures have this hexagonal base.

It’s come from the Upside Down, which they nicked from Hellraiser. Good movies those. Anyway there’s some more Spielberg bits, flashlights and kids on bikes, but with the synthesiser soundtrack from John Carpenter.

Then Eleven turns up, who’s that girl Millie Bobby Brown who’s married and adopted kids now, that’s how long this shit’s taken. She’s a psychic girl who’s escaped from a government facility, so basically Stephen King’s Carrie and Firestarter combined.

The kids save the day, as you’d expect. with help from a cop who’s basically Indiana Jones played by that sleazy f**ker Lily Allen’s album was about. He adopts Eleven after a bit, presumably without a CRB check.

Turns out there’s a slasher-type character, essentially Freddy Krueger, appearing in everyone’s dreams and shit. This is when episodes start being ridiculously long, again like Stephen King books.

There’s the bit where the girl’s floating in the air fighting in another dimension or whatever, and her mates get her back by putting a Walkman on her with Running Up That Hill on. See? Anything 80s.

So yeah, this is the last season. What’ll happen? My guess is some kind of cursed Rubik’s Cube, maybe magical protective deely-boppers, Duran Duran on the soundtrack, Harbour sacrifices himself like the noble dude he isn’t and Hawkings blows up.

That’s what would happen in an 80s Stephen King anyway. The good ones, when he was still on coke.

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