Tate Modern hosts the first major retrospective of Richard Hamilton, one of Britain's most influential 20th Century artists; the Natural History Museum looks back at Britain long before the Romans, Saxons and Vikings arrived; and Harry Hill's I Can't Sing! X Factor Musical opens at the London Palladium in February 2014.
Following on from summer's Phoenix Fringe, The Phoenix Cavendish Square now presents the Winter Weekender. Spread across three days, its offers sixteen comedy shows that provide the perfect celebratory goodbye to the January blues. As well as big name acts such as Alan Davies and Al Murray, there will also be a range of new, inventive and alternative comedy options.
Showcasing the best of Royal Museums Greenwich's collection of First and Second World War art, this display at The Queen's House includes visually arresting and moving portraits, battle scenes, and depictions of everyday life during conflict. Charged with the task of revealing a truth that went beyond the simple recording of events, official war art served the purposes of commemoration, instruction, documentation and propaganda as well as raising morale at home and at the front. War Artists at Sea features paintings and works on paper and consists of a rolling programme of displays throughout 2014. Artists on display include: Leslie Cole, Eric Ravilious, Richard Eurich, Norman Wilkinson, Stephen Bone, William Dring, John Worsley, and Charles Wheeler.
On the back of her fourth studio album, Red, Taylor Swift brings The Red Tour to London's O2 arena this February. Following the mammoth North American leg of the tour and a few dates in Australia and New Zealand, this will be the final stop for the seven-time Grammy Award-winner. The blockbuster show sees the star perform across multi-level stages, with elaborate costumes, dancers, aerialists and numerous changing sets. Plus, with the incorporation of her electric and acoustic guitar, banjo, and piano playing skills, audiences can expect a few new takes on her big hits. Support comes from British band The Vamps, who are also supporting The Wanted on their 2014 UK arena tour.
St John's Smith Square celebrates Franz Schubert, composer of some of the greatest songs and chamber music ever written, with a Schubertiade Weekend featuring James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook whose recording of Die Schone Mullerin was Editor's Choice in Gramophone magazine. The tenor and pianist are joined over the course of the weekend by Tom Norris and Ellie Fagg on violin, Francis Kefford on viola, Alexandra Scott on double bass, and by the cellists Kate Gould and Louisa Tuck. Talks supplement the live concerts as journalist and Times music critic, Richard Morrison, introduces us to Schubert's Vienna, and is 'In Conversation' with James Gilchrist on Sunday.
Kasper Holten, who transitioned from the Royal Danish Opera to become Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House two years ago, offers a new interpretation of Mozart's Don Giovanni in which the protagonist is cast as an artist who seduces an endless stream of women. His catalogue of sexual conquests, made through his ability to create wonderful illusions, is a vain attempt to escape his own mortality and comes at a high price. With set designs by Es Devlin (whose credits range from the 2012 Olympic Ceremony, to the award-winning Chimerica; from I Can't Sing! to American Psycho) and costume designs by Anja Vang Kragh (Stella McCartney, John Galliano, Christian Dior) this exciting, visual production is backed by an impressive creative team. Speaking to Radio 4's Front Row, Es Devlin explained, "For Don Giovanni, we're using an extraordinary animator called Luke Halls, who I've worked with on Lady Gaga and Take That, and he is creating something for The Royal Opera that, I think, hasn't been seen before."
Oh What A Lovely War, Joan Littlewood's satirical musical about World War I which premiered at Theatre Royal Stratford East on 19th March 1963, coincides with the 100th Anniversary of World War I. Although written 50 years ago, the musical is packed with familiar songs from the first world war era and includes 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary', 'Pack up Your Troubles' and 'Keep the Home Fires Burning' - the production, under Terry Johnson's direction, remains relevant today.
In this two part season the BFI celebrates the prolific and highly influential filmmaker Derek Jarman. Marking the 20th anniversary of his death, the series will be the largest retrospective of his films in the UK and forms part of a major year-long celebration entitled Jarman 2014. Part one of the season, Jarman and the Occult will explore his link to magic, alchemy and the English romantic tradition. While part two, New Queer Cinema focuses on how he used new ways to represent gay culture and the Aids crisis. A number of special guests and introductions will also feature throughout the season.
Chinese New Year in London is one of the most spectacular in the West with over 300,000 people taking part in the celebrations across the capital last year. This year, the Year of the Horse, Chinese New Year falls on 31st January and the London celebrations take place on the Sunday following, 2nd February 2014, with a number of activities taking place in Chinatown, Leicester Square, Shaftesbury Avenue and Trafalgar Square. Festivities begin at 10am with a parade which begins at Duncannon Street, moving along Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue. An official opening ceremony then takes place in Trafalgar Square with speeches from special guests. Once opened, the real celebrations kick off with Dragon dancing, music and performances on the Trafalgar Square stage. Join the throng in a stall-covered Chinatown for fun and firecrackers on and around Gerrard Street, Lisle Street and Shaftesbury Avenue where there are impromptu parties, food stalls and lion dancing.
Hollywood legend Joan Collins brings her one-woman show to the Leicester Square Theatre. Following the publication of her third memoir, 'Passion for Life', in 2013, Collins takes to the stage with more stories and secrets from her glamorous life. There'll be tales of encounters with stars such as Bette Davis, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Paul Newman and Richard Burton, as well as confessions about her high-profile marriages and relationships. Displaying her famous sense of humour, Collins will also be showing snippets and outakes from her career on screen, including her legendary 'Dynasty' bitch-fights as Alexis Carrington. There'll also be the chance for the audience to ask Joan whatever they like in an intimate question-and-answer session that rounds off the evening.
London's most peculiar church service takes place on the first Sunday of February each year as hoards of clowns congregate at Dalston's Holy Trinity Church. Now in its 68th year, the annual Clowns' Church Service remembers the great Georgian gagster Joey Grimaldi, the inventor of the modern clown, who died in 1837. Around 60 clowns, harlequins, jesters and pierrots of all shapes and sizes assemble in a colourful mass of big feet, rubber noses, curly wigs, whoopee cushions and painted faces to pay their respects to Grimaldi and to light a candle for contemporary clowns who have died over the last 12 months. Beat the February frowns and arrive early to grab a seat (the popular event is best avoided by those suffering from claustrophobia or coulrophobia). The service is followed by a clown show for children in the church hall.
Everything But The Girl singer Tracey Thorn gives a frank talk based on her memoir Bedsit Disco Queen, an "intensely readable account of 30 years of being in love with music" (The Telegraph). Join Tracey, the voice of 1995 hit single 'Missing' as she looks back on the defiant, energetic atmosphere of late 1970s, when she co-founded the Marine Girls while at university, where she met Ben Watt and formed Everything But The Girl.
Brighton's Seann Walsh has become a familiar presence on TV and radio comedy panel shows, with his shaggy mane of hair and manic physical style. His observational routines have already garnered him numerous awards; if previous performances are any guide, Walsh's new show, The Lie-In King, promises to be far more energetic than the title suggests. Suitable for ages 16
The Royal Academy of Music ensemble performs its annual celebration of Schubert's Lieder on Monday 3rd February 2014, the composer's birthday. Focusing on Lieder inspired by the sun, the moon and the stars, it performs love songs and nature songs composed between 1815 and 1828. The recital at the David Josefowitz Recital Hall will be given in nineteenth-century costume.
A beautiful and moving play about nine year old Eva, a Jewish child rescued from Nazi Germany, showing the effects on her actual and adoptive parents as she changes her name and begins to deny her roots. Last year marked the 75th anniversary of the evacuation of almost 10,000 Jewish Children from Nazi Europe to Britain prior to the outbreak of World War II, known as Kindertransport. This timely story of love, loss and hope stars popular TV and stage actresses Paula Wilcox and Janet Dibley.
Daniel Stephens, the DJ AKA dan le Sac, and David Peter Meads, the rapper and vocalist AKA Scoobius Pip, overlay electronic beats with sung, spoken or rapped lyrics. The hip-hop duo cites a vast array of influences from Gil Scott-Heron, to Joy Division, to Devandra Banhart, and released their third album in October last year.After selling out their 4th February gig at KoKo three months in advance, they've added another show at the venue on 3rd February.
An exciting piece of collaborative physical theatre that blends contemporary dance, song and narrative storytelling. Theatre Director Jo McInnes, playwright Brad Birch, choreographer Charlie Morrissey and actor/songwriter Lee Ross have pooled their skills to devise Running on Empty, a universal story of Man and Woman travelling through time, confronting epic themes such as loss, loneliness and survival.
As well as documenting The Beatles, 'Beatlemania' and producing images of the band's first American tour in 1964, photographer Harry Benson was called upon to photograph every American president from Dwight D Eisenhower to Barack Obama. In this exhibition at Mallet in Mayfair, 50 years of his work can be seen including iconic images of Al Pacino, Dolly Parton, Amy Winehouse, Kate Moss and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. For buyers, it's a rare chance to own photographs by the Scottish photographer whose pictures have appeared in Life, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker.
In the past twelve months, electronic trio London Grammar has gone from being relatively unknowns to one of the most talked about new bands around. After posting its song Hey Now on YouTube and SoundCloud, the band grabbed the attention of music industry. Now, with its distinctive soulful and electro sound, it's released a successful debut album - charting at number two in both the UK and Australia - and been named the iTunes Album of the Year. Part of its first headline tour, the trio will be performing one night at Troxy in February.
By the age of 10, Scottee was stealing from his family, by 14 he'd been arrested and excluded from school, and at 18 he lost his first job. So it comes as a surprise that he would want to discover what the people of his past think of him. Well, for his first solo show, The Worst of Scottee, he is doing just that. Coming to the Roundhouse in February, the comedy drama sees him face up to old flames, past misgivings and his complicated web of lies.
Described as "a neglected little treasure" by Dominic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph, R. C. Sherriff's supernatural drama, The White Carnation, is a ghostly tale of one man's chance to do things differently. This rediscovery marks the first production since its premiere, starring Sir Ralph Richardson, in 1953. The play transfers to Jermyn Street Theatre following a critically acclaimed and sold out run at the Finborough Theatre, opening on 4th February for a limited three week run. Most of the original cast will be transferring with the production including acclaimed newcomer Daisy Boulton and Benjamin Whitrow (Mr. Bennett in BBC's Pride and Prejudice).
Welsh artist Richard Deacon (b. 1949) has built an international reputation based on his public sculptures, but this Tate Britain exhibition will explore his work on all scales, including veritable room-fillers such as the serpentine 'After' (1998). Deacon, who won the Turner Prize in 1987, calls himself a 'fabricator' rather than a sculptor, using all manner of materials to create his dynamic shapes. Often, steel and wood are twisted into open forms that make the viewer consider the volumes they create. There's also foam, rubber, leather, marble, cloth, chrome%u2026 or, in the case of 'Siege' (1983-4), stacking chairs. There will also be a number of drawings on show, including an early series entitled 'It's Orpheus When They're Singing' (1978-79) from which his 3D work would later develop.
In promotion of its latest album, Bankrupt, French alternative rock band Phoenix comes to London's O2 Academy Brixton for two nights this February. This will come as good news to fans after the band had to cancel its appearance at 2013's iTunes Festival due to frontman Thomas Mars falling ill.
Following on from the Royal Academy's focus on his landscape paintings last year, the Dulwich Picture Gallery exhibition reveals 'David Hockney, the printmaker'. Despite, Hockney being known predominantly as a painter, the prints on display reveal his willingness to experiment with different styles and mediums. As well as a lithograph self-portrait that Hockney produced approximately 60 years ago, when he was 17-years old, the exhibition includes Hockney's 'homemade prints', which he created in the early 1990s using an office-grade photocopier, as well as examples of his 'computer drawings' such as Rain on the Studio Window from 2009. These works are precursors to Hockney's iPad paintings, and together they show his experimental nature and how his keenness to adopt new technologies has continued even in his seventies.
Bristol Old Vic's Artistic Director Tom Morris and Cape Town's Handspring Puppet Company reunite for the first time since War Horse to bring Shakespeare's magical A Midsummer Night's Dream to the Barbican. Mixing live actors and puppets - Puck is made from workman's tools and Titania is eight feet tall - this is a "gleefully vulgar" interpretation, according to the Financial Times: "funny, filthy and consistently watchable, not least for its bare-faced cheek(s)." Featuring semi-nudity, a troupe of malevolent fairies, and a giant Oberon the audiences is required to suspend disbelief as the 'dream' and drug-assisted confusion unfolds. Not suitable for under 12s.
Featuring over 90 works by some of the leading names in contemporary art, this exhibition of post-1945 prints and drawings explores how six key artists redefined art in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s and negotiated with the past, on both sides of the Berlin Wall. Half of the works on display are by Georg Baselitz (b 1938), and 34 of the works in the exhibition, including 17 by Baselitz, have been generously donated to the British Museum by Count Christian Duerckheim. The exhibition is free and takes place in Room 90 of the British Museum.
This spring/summer the National Portrait Gallery hosts a major exhibition of images personally selected by the British photographer David Bailey himself. Bailey's Stardust will feature over 250 portraits, spanning a 50-year career including an unseen image of an inhabitant of the Naga Hills and a recent portrait of Kate Moss. Curated thematically in rooms devoted to travel, pop iconography, celebrity and more, the exhibition will be the biggest ever retrospective of the legendary photographer's work.
Fans of Michael Frayn's famous farce Noises Off may want to head out to the Rose Theatre Kingston for this revival of his 1970s comedy Donkeys' Years. A group of middle-aged men have come together for their university reunion dinner, suited and booted and ever-so-upstanding. Until they start drinking, that is, when the years roll back and they regress to their student selves, with all the rivalries and embarrassing behaviour that entails. The fact that a beautiful woman from their collective past is secretly waiting for one of them in their old rooms can only complicate matters. Expect quick-witted dialogue and some fast-paced farce.
A celebration of four classic soundtracks of the films of Michael Caine: Alfie (composed by Sonny Rollins); The Ipcress File (John Barry); The Italian Job (Quincy Jones); and Get Carter (Roy Budd). Performing at the Barbican will be an eclectic ensemble of musicians including Seb Rochford of Polar Bear on drums/tabla, Mark 'Bedders' Bedford (Madness) on bass, members of the Jenny Adejayan String Quartet and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, plus guest vocalists. Now that really is a great idea.
John Newman found success back in 2012 when he featured on Rudimental's singles Feel the Love and Not Giving In. In 2013, he went on to release his own debut single, Love Me Again, which went to number one in the UK Singles Chart, followed by his chart-topping debut album Tribute. Now the rising star is set to embark on a major UK tour, stopping by the Shepherd's Bush Empire for two nights.
Celebrating its 20th year in London, there will be over 300 specialist travel companies exhibiting at the show and offering a vast array of holiday and travelling experiences across the world. Celebrity speakers - who this year include Simon Reeve, Julia Bradbury and Michaela Strachan - will share their travel memories, and there will be free talks from adventurers and explorers and travel photography seminars led by professional photographer Steve Davey. The World Entertainment Stage will showcase performers from around the world, and the four Taste the World zones will offer thousands of free food and drink samples so you can get a 'flavour' for different national and regional cuisines. There will also be a brand new 'extreme zone' where brave visitors can challenge their taste buds with some wild and wondrous delicacies.
Set in 1972 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, this play follows Sizwe Banzi and his desperate search for work. His passbook allows him three days to find something, any longer and he will be deported. It's now the fourth day. Stumbling across a dead body in possession of a passbook, Sizwe must make a difficult decision - can he give up his name and family in order to survive? Matthew Xia's revival of Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona's play exposes the struggle for freedom and identity during apartheid and provides the perfect reminder of Nelson Mandela's great battle.
A celebratory showpiece presenting three works by important choreographers of The Royal Ballet, this Royal Opera House mixed bill combines works by Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan and Wayne McGregor. Rhapsody, Ashton's tribute to virtuoso dance set to music by Rachmaninoff, was created in 1980 and presented at the Covent Garden venue in honour of The Queen Mother's 80th birthday. It is presented alongside The Art of Fugue, a new work by Wayne McGregor, and Kenneth MacMillan's Gloria, a moving elegy for young lives cut short or blighted by war.
In its 40th anniversary season, Tanztheater Wuppertal, the dance company founder by influential choreographer Pina Bausch, returns to Sadler's Wells to perform 1980, a rarely performed piece created by Pina following the death of her professional and romantic partner Ralf Borzik. 1980 pays tribute to the man who played a key role in the visual style of Tanztheater. "Miss Bausch's use of space is psychologically brilliant and it is also visually stunning", said the New York Times, reviewing the piece on its New York premiere in 1984, a dance about death but which "focuses the better part of its energy on life".
David Trent's 'difficult second show' This Is All I Have comes complete with computer, projector and accessories. Are we in for a PowerPoint presentation or an hour of laughs? Well, both. A former primary school teacher, Brent does an authoritative line in clever comedy that sets the world to rights. Here he targets that comedy perennial - advertising campaigns. Suitable for ages 16
On the 300th anniversary of the coronation of George I, the exhibition 'By George! Handel's Music for Royal Occasions' explores the music George Frederic Handel composed for royal occasions. No composer has been more closely associated with the British than Handel, whose anthem Zadok the Priest has been performed at every coronation since that of George II in 1727, and Water Music was performed in 2012 on the River Thames for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The exhibition features treasures from the Foundling Museum's Gerald Coke Handel Collection as well as loans from the British Library, National Portrait Gallery and British Museum and never before seen items from the archives of Westminster Abbey.
1984
Headlong's acclaimed version of George Orwell's novel on surveillance and censorship.
George Orwell's seminal novel, 1984, is adapted by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan for Headlong Theatre company who have created "a superbly handled multimedia speculation on the nature of truth" according to the Guardian theatre critic Lyn Gardner who gave it 5 out of 5. Though "not an easy watch" (Guardian), Headlong's version of George Orwell's novel on surveillance and censorship uses a book club from the distant future discussing Winston Smith's diary to makes the story more relevant today than ever. This new adaptation opened in September last year at the Nottingham Playhouse and toured the UK, arriving at the Almeida Theatre in February 2014.
The glitzy BBC television show is once again brought to life on stages around the country. Directed by judge Craig Revel Horwood for the fourth year, the Strictly Come Dancing Live Tour follows much the same format as the BBC series, featuring performances from 2013's most popular celebrity and professional pairings, impressive routines by the professionals and the occasional verbal sideswipe from judges Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli and Craig Revel Horwood. Plus, having donned her sequins to compete in the 2012 series, soap star Lisa Riley will be hosting 2014's live tour.
See the snowdrops at the historic botanical gardens and enjoy a walk through nature at the charming Chelsea Physic Garden, usually closed during winter but open especially for the Snowdrop Days. There will be much to learn and enjoy with expert tours, talks and workshops including Germaine Greer talking about her latest book, 'White Beech: The Rainforest Years', an illustrated talk on Valentine's Day by Prof. Peter Houghton, and a talk on using snowdrops in the garden by award-winning horticultural journalist Naomi Slade.
Saying 2013 was a big year for Tom Odell would be an understatement, considering he became the first male to win the Brit Awards Critics' Choice, embarked on his first UK tour, supported Elton John at the iTunes Festival and claimed the UK number spot with his new album. Playing the piano since he was just 13, Odell's music varies from the soulful sound of Grow Old With Me and the ballad-like, anti-love-song Another Love to the edgier sound of Hold Me. Part of his third full UK tour, he will be stopping by the O2 Academy Brixton for one night in early 2014. Don't expect to see Mark Beaumont there though; after giving Odell's album 0 out of 10 in his NME review and branding him 'a poor, misguided wannabe who's fallen into the hands of the music industry equivalent of Hungarian sex traffickers', it's safe to say he's not a fan.
Alain de Botton, author of 'How Proust Can Change Your Life' and 'The Consolations of Philosophy' and the founder and chairman of The School of Life, delivers a secular Sunday Sermon on the news. Not only will he be presenting his manual for how to better understand the news but he will also share his vision of how the news might one day be. He'll also be signing copies of his new book 'The News: A User's Manual'. Expect persuasive polemics, pop-song hymns and artist-made buns and biscuits.
As their marriage reaches its lowest ebb, in the midst of an old argument, Cara's husband is killed in a car accident. A Finborough Theatre commission, The Domino Heart is the debut play of Canadian playwright Matthew Edison. When it premiered at Toronto's acclaimed Tarragon Theatre the Toronto Star called it: "A clever and elaborately woven piece of writing."
Andrew Gourlay conducts Benjamin Britten's Serenade For Tenor, Horn And Strings and Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen presented in a newly-commissioned arrangement by Iain Farrington. With mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, tenor Robert Murray and horn player Nicolas Fleury.
Take the kids to the Southbank Centre during the February half-term and treat them to Imagine Children's Festival, the annual children's literature festival that pulls words off the page. With two weeks worth of activities, there's a huge amount of literary events to choose from including readings, storytelling, beatboxing and poetry. This year highlights include appearances from children's laureate Malorie Blackman, Jacqueline Wilson, Charlie and Lola author and illustrator, Lauren Child, who chats to her childhood friend Cressida Cowell, the author and illustrator of the How To Train Your Dragon books. CBeebies' Cerrie Burnell reads extracts from her book 'Snowflakes' with live illustration from Lauren Ellen Anderson, and there are plenty of interactive events in which young ones can take part - including a new multi-sensory show by Oily Cart for babies aged six months to two years. There are also events aimed at older children aged 10 and over including an interactive drawing workshop and a creative-writing workshop with author Emma Carroll for 8-12 year-olds. It's also worth dropping in for one of the free activities in the foyer spaces including Dalston's Land of Kids festival which makes a special pop-up at the festival bringing a host of interactive and immersive events with it.
Mustachioed comedian Mike Wozniak brings his subversive and surreal wit to the Soho Theatre Upstairs to share his frustrations about living with his mother in law. Wait a minute, mother-in-law jokes? Isn't that a bit dated? Not in the hands of this skilled comedian who takes the outmoded form and reinvents it via his affable stage persona. Take the Hit was nominated for the 2013 Edinburgh Comedy Award.
Covering race, class, gender and sexual orientation, A Taste of Honey was a great defining and taboo-breaking play of the 1950s. Written by Shelagh Delaney when she was just eighteen, it tells the story of seventeen-year-old Jo, who, after her mother runs off with a young lover, becomes impregnated by a black sailor. Once the sailor returns to sea, Jo finds lodgings which Geoff, a homosexual who takes the role of surrogate father. The 'kitchen sink' play was made into an award-winning film in 1961 and provided inspiration for "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" by The Smiths. This February it is revived once more for an eight-week run at the National Theatre.
Wild theatrical circus performance from Cirque Berserk at the New Wimbledon Theatre. Expect all the classics - jugglers, acrobats, dancers, musicians, trapeze artists and high wires - alongside highlights including Guinness World Record holder Hercules the strongman and award-winning clown Tweedy. This will also be the first time that the notoriously dangerous motorcycle stunt the Globe of Death has ever been performed on stage in the UK.
Fiona Crumley, former head gardener at Chiswick House, talks about the Historic Camellia Collection, one of the finest in the country and the oldest in the West, at a Monday evening talk at the Garden Museum. Dating back to the early years of the 19th century, many of the original plants cultivated by the 6th Duke of Devonshire survive and can be seen at their best at the annual Camellia Festival which takes place in March.
Hercule Poirot was recently killed off on the small screen in David Suchet's final turn as the little Belgian detective, going on to become the only fictional character to be immortalised in a full-page obituary in the New York Times. It seems fitting then that this play - Agatha Christie's first screenplay - should have been Poirot's first outing in 1930. In it, life at an English country estate is turned upside down when eccentric inventor Sir Claud Amory is murdered. Of course it is up to the beloved Poirot - played by Robert Powell - to sniff out the killer in this murky brew. Black Coffee is performed by the Official Agatha Christie Theatre Company.
Uncle Jack Charles is an actor, activist and an Aboriginal elder as well as a former criminal and junkie. In Jack Charles v The Crown he tells his extraordinary true story in words and song through a powerful one-man show. Part of Australia's Stolen Generation, he has endured separation, pain and abuse. This is his tale, a story about addiction, progress and optimism. Presented by the Ilbijerri Theatre Company, the oldest Indigenous theatre company in Australia.
The UCL Classical Drama Society and the Department of Greek & Latin present a modern translation of Aristophanes' Clouds. The production maintains the traditions of Ancient Greek theatre - masks, music and the chorus - but adds a modern twist. In Aristophanes' comedy, an overwrought father, Strepsiades, attempts to solve the family's debts caused by his son, Pheidippides. Consulting the famous philosopher 'Thinkery', he is taught all the essential of life. But, will he be able to use his studies to solve his problems?
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, led by singer and frontman Alex Ebert, take to the stage at the O2 Academy Brixton for their biggest show to date, followed by a performance at Shepherd's Bush Empire the following night. The band is made up ten, sometimes 12, musicians - eight of whom are still around from the first album, Up From Below - each brings their own experience, some are classically trained while others are self-taught. Instruments including piano and percussion, accordion and horns play a joyous set filled with rousing choruses.
As the coffee shop chains continue to populate uptown Chicago, Arthur Przbyszewski still runs the small donut shop set up by his immigrant father, despite its constant vandalism and his neglect. When he takes on the excitable Franco, Arthur has to confront the real of the 'American dream'. Superior Donuts, Tracy Letts' drama about facing the past and enduring friendship, gets its UK premiere at the Southwark Playhouse, under the direction of Ned Bennett, resident trainee director at the Royal Court.
Part of his biggest headline tour to date, Frank Turner performs with his backing band, The Sleeping Souls, for one night at London's O2 arena. Former frontman of post-hardcore band Million Dead, the singer-songwriter from Meonstoke made the move from punk to acoustic folk after going solo in 2005. With such a dramatic genre shift and the transition into arena shows - plus a performance at the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony - Turner has often been titled a sellout by punk purists. Additionally, a 2012 post on the Guardian music blog that highlighted his political views also proved detrimental to his reputation. Nevertheless, with a determination to keep his musical integrity, Turner has produced five successful studio albums and gained himself a vast new fan base. Let's just hope that at these arena shows he can continue "to make a giant cavern of 12,000 people feel like and intimate gig" (The Telegraph).
The second City of London Sinfonia CLoSer concert - a series of short recitals presented in the relaxed setting of The Village Underground - offers an alternative Valentine's Day experience with a programme that blends baroque and contemporary love songs. Pieces by Machaut, Dowland, Purcell, and Handel are performed along with new songs and arrangements from singer-songwriter Mara Carlyle who appears with soloist soprano Elin Manahan Thomas.
The British Library's spring exhibition, Beautiful Science, will examine the intriguing subject of date visualisation through history. The exhibition will explore how scientists have represented information visually, linking classic examples of interesting and inspiring historical scientific diagrams with cutting-edge graphics by today's scientists. Visitors will be taken on a journey of scientific discovery from Darwin to the latest techniques employed by NASA and gain a strong appreciation of science as a visual pursuit and an understanding of the ways that visualisation has enabled improved understanding across a number of fields. Star objects include John Snow's cholera map of London, Charles Darwin's tree of life from On The Origin Of The Species and a hypnotic visualisation of ocean surface currents produced by the NASA.
The first major retrospective of one of Britain's most influential 20th Century artists, following his death in 2011. Richard Hamilton's work in the 1950s, using collage and imagery from the mass media and advertising, is widely considered the foundation of pop art, exemplified by the memorably titled 'Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?' (1956), a domestic scene featuring a bodybuilder holding a lollipop and a woman with a lampshade on her head. As well as these design-focussed commentaries on modern (read mid-century) living, Hamilton's work addressed celebrity culture - his famous 'Swingeing London' (1969) shows Mick Jagger being arrested - and tough political subjects, perhaps most controversially in his diptych painting 'The Citizen' (1983) in which a Republican prisoner takes on a Christ-like appearance. In conjunction with this Tate Modern retrospective, the ICA will be showing some of Hamilton's exhibition designs.
Look back at Britain long before the Romans, Saxons and Vikings arrived at the Natural History Museum's major exhibition, Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story. Rarely seen specimens on display include a skull from the earliest known Neanderthal in Britain, and the oldest wooden spear in the world. These and other remarkable objects from our past are brought to life using the latest scientific techniques and life-size models. Incredible finds from sites around Britain will reveal what life was really like one million years ago. In the words of Professor Chris Stringer, palaeontologist at the Museum and world-leading human origins expert: "From the earliest human fossils in Britain to one of the oldest wooden tools in the world, you will be surprised by the history hidden beneath your feet."
The Barbican's Curve Gallery turns itself into an immersive sound-and-light experience courtesy of London-based art and design practice United Visual Artists (UVA). The changing pattern of light and sound, and a series of hanging pendulum forms, are designed to unsettle our sense of time, movement, mass and space as we move through and around the space, our presence in the space causing further disruption. UVA's work regularly draws on the complex patterns in nature and is known for pushing the boundaries between architecture, sculpture, installation and performance.
English National Opera presents a new production of Verdi's masterpiece from Olivier Award-winning director Christopher Alden with Hawaiian baritone Quinn Kelsey in the title role of Rigoletto, the hunchbacked court jester who leads a double life. Verdi's cruel tale of Rigoletto, the court jester, attempting to protect his daughter Gilda, the only pure thing in his life, from the advances of his master, the handsome, wealthy Duke of Mantua, is set in a Victorian gentlemen's club. The concept turns the whole show into an operatic examination of sexual morality. English tenor Barry Banks, a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music with a speciality in the bel canto repertoire stars as the Duke of Mantua. Graeme Jenkins, who is renowned for the breadth of his opera repertoire, conducts.
After its sold out show at O2 Brixton Academy back in October, Rudimental returns to the renowned venue for three consecutive nights in February. Since rising to fame in 2012, the electronic music quartet has seen two of its singles - Feel the Love and Waiting All Night - top the UK charts while its debut album, Home, which features the likes of Emeli Sande, John Newman and Ella Eyre, also reached the top spot. These live performances come as part of a nine-date tour, which sees the band perform its carnival-esque live show around the UK.
Written for the reconsecration of the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral in 1962, Tippett's King Priam is a magnificent evocation of the last days of Troy inspired by Homer's Iliad. An ambitious production from the English Touring Opera, staged in the smaller Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House, the story is told from the perspective of the aging king and is a meditation on fatherhood and on the futility of war.
The Americana Music Association UK presents three nights of Americana music - which encompasses key aspects from other musical styles such as folk, blues, country, bluegrass and rock - at Kings Place , featuring top artists from North America alongside a number of UK based bands. The line-up includes Nashville-born country music artist Laura Cantrall, supported by Kentuckian Sturgill Simpson; seven-piece band Police Dog Hogan, who fuse country, pop and folk to create high energy music; and BAFTA Award-winning, singer-songwriter Emily Barker, known for the theme to BBC's Wallander and The Shadow Line.
If it's on two wheels, it's in. Cycling in all its guises is the covered at The London Bike Show, from road cycling to mountain biking, BMXing to commuter biking, it's here at the UK's biggest cycling show. New elements in 2014 include a showcase of Chris Hoy's HOY Bikes, and, in a perfect pairing, the new Tri Plus Show is running alongside the Bike Show this year. See all the latest kit from leading cycling brands like Giant, Shimano, Scott, Cannondale and Boardman Elite and take advantage of the opportunities to try before you buy. But the London Bike Show is more than just a giant shopping opportunity, it's also a chance to see bike stunt shows and get expert advice. And a ticket to the show also gives you access to the three other shows on at the ExCel Centre at the same time: the Triathlon Plus Show, The Telegraph Outdoor Adventure & Travel Show and the London International Dive Show (Saturday and Sunday only) - trying squeezing all that into one day.
In its 13th year, The Telegraph Outdoors Show returns in February 2014 with two of the world's longest indoor zip wires and enough outdoor pursuits to fill the huge ExCel Centre exhibition space. Hundreds of exhibitors display all the latest outdoor gear and gadgetry while famous explorers, athletes and experts give talks on their chosen field. On top of that there are loads of interactive workshops, a mobile playground for tiny tarzans, and stages dedicated to outdoor pursuits such as climbing, biking and walking, adventure travel, eco tourism, the wilderness, outdoor heroes and a whole section dedicated to helping those wishing to pursue a more bucolic career. Outdoor specialists including Jack Wolfskin, The North Face, Berghaus, Montane, Scarpa, Craghoppers and Osprey have their top quality wet weather gear on display and for sale. The Telegraph Outdoor Adventure & Travel Show is on at the ExCeL Centre at the same time as The London Bike Show, the Triathlon Plus Show and the London International Dive Show (Saturday and Sunday) and one ticket gets you into all four shows.
Located at the ExCeL, the show will be close to Greenwich and, multi-purpose music venue, the O2 Arena. To find the best hotel deals close to the event, have a look at our London Hotels page.
Fashion & Gardens is the first exhibition to explore the relationship between fashion and garden design, from the age of Queen Elizabeth I to the catwalks of London Fashion Week 2014. The exhibition, curated by writer, historian and Garden Museum trustee Nicola Shulman, will identify and celebrate the many links and correspondences between gardening and fashion design. The connection has existed for centuries, but this exhibition is the first attempt to make it articulate.
Following a phenomenally successful run at the Lyric Hammersmith and a West End transfer, Ghost Stories comes to the Arts Theatre on 13th February. Not suitable for those of a nervous disposition, Ghost Stories takes the audience on a psychological thriller via a series of short stories strung together by academic presenter, Professor Philip Goodman (played by Andy Nyman, co-creator of Derren Brown's stage and TV shows). Written and directed by Nyman and the League of Gentlemen's Jeremy Dyson, Ghost Stories is a selection of creepy tales and some truly scary stuff - it certainly gives you plenty of paranormal things to think about. The element of the unknown is a big part of the fear factor so we won't give too much away. All we will say is that this is a play which teasingly questions the existence of ghosts, and gives enough evidence to leave you pondering - and slightly spooked. You may notice your step quicken on the walk home after dark. Check out our scarily good deals.
Gilbert and Sullivan's naval lark aboard the HMS Pinafore is a tale of class pomposity and star-crossed love, not to mention catchy tunes. Ralph, a lowly sailor, is in love with the Captain's daughter Josephine, and she with he. But the Admiral plans to marry Josephine, while the Captain has his eye on a pretty dockside trader. With marriage across the social divide simply not done, will this sorry crew ever be happy?
The 18th-century Chocolate Kitchen as used by Thomas Tosier, the chocolate-maker to George I and George III, will reopen to the public at Hampton Court Palace for the first time in 300 years. This is the only surviving royal chocolate kitchen in the country and features the original stove as well as much of the furniture and equipment. The kitchen will also host regular live Georgian chocolate-making sessions.
Shepherd's Bush Empire will be one big sweat fest for two nights this February with both Less Than Jake and Reel Big Fish performing as part of their co-headline tour. With both bands known for erratic, exuberant live performances, it most certainly won't be a tame affair. Hailing from Gainesville, Florida, Less Than Jake are ska, punk and pop pioneers who have got nine studio albums to their name and their own record label, Sleep It Off Records. Reel Big Fish are best known for their 1997 hit Sell Out, which gained them mainstream recognition during the third wave of ska in the '90s. Despite since losing their mainstream acknowledgement, the Californian band have gained a cult following and have eight studio albums under their belt, with a ninth one due for release in 2014.
Alongside New York, Paris and Milan, London Fashion Week is one of the world's leading designer fashion showcases and it takes place in February and September at Somerset House. It features 200 of the industry's most creative designers and businesses, in the UK and internationally, with catwalk shows, exhibitions and award ceremonies. The Exhibition at Somerset House houses over 100 ready-to-wear and accessory designers and includes The Estethica stand which highlights the best in fair-trade and ethical design, while the NEWGEN stand (sponsored by TOPSHOP) picks out the finest up-and-coming designers. Over 5,000 visitors - fashion buyers, press and photographers - are expected and while events tend to be invite-only you can still spot top models and designers around town while it's on.
Young opera stars from the National Opera Studio perform in the Great Hall at Fulham Palace for a very special evening of music and entertainment. Featuring in this year's Opera at Fulham Palace performance will be soprano Sarah-Jane Lewis, mezzo-soprano Katie Grosset, tenor Iain Milne, baritone Ross Ramgobin, and pianist Maya Soltan. You can also opt to have the 'concert and dinner' package which includes a three course dinner at the historic palace before the concert.
Penguin Cafe - a collective of musicians - will be launching its second album The Red Book. The band was regrouped in 2009 by Arthur Jeffes, following the death of his father in 1997, a classically trained British guitarist, composer and arranger who originally founded it. The new album took the younger Jeffes two years to create and is said to explore "whole new areas of sound and vibrancy".
London Stories, an exhibition featuring the best of the entries for The 2014 Serco Prize for Illustration, opens on 14 February 2014 at the London Transport Museum and will feature 50 works of art. Entrants were asked to create an illustration that visually captures a well-known or lesser known London narrative in a single image; stories that are contemporary or historical, real or imagined. They were asked to create something that is colourful, inspiring and celebrates a vibrant, multi-layered London. Stories could be those seen in a film or play, heard in poetry or music, read in literature or an urban myth. All of the illustrations are accompanied by a short text by the artists summarising the inspiration behind their creation.
Considering buying a listed property? Maybe you want to add an extension to your house? If so, you need to be ready to navigate the minefield of regulations and unexpected costs that come with taking on a listed property. The Listed Property Show has over 150 experts in this field, from conservation officers and architects to specialist builders and suppliers. Your ticket includes access to a range of 30-minute talks on key issues.
No oblivion rides here, Drakes Family Funfair is of the child-friendly, traditional variety with teacup rides and bungee trampolines. A regular at Battersea Park, special deals include family 'happy hour' with rides for £1 per person.
Organised for over 20 years by Diver, Britain's best-selling diving magazine, the London International Dive Show is the place for scuba diving enthusiasts to get the latest information on diving holidays, training courses, and dive gear. With features like the try dive pool and 3D free-dive simulator you can even dive in and try out the latest equipment. Get tips on where to go for your neck dive holiday at the themed travel areas, and hear presentations by the world's leading divers who all have their own specialities - from wreck divers and wildlife experts to photographers and film-makers. The show takes place alongside The London Bike Show, The Telegraph Outdoor Show and the Triathlon Plus Show, all of which are at the ExCel Exhibition Centre, and one ticket gets you into all four shows.
The Horniman Museum's latest exhibitions takes visitors on an expedition to see how animals and plants survive in extreme heat, cold, dryness and constant darkness or with little oxygen. Extremes features some of the animals that live in these environments and allows the visitors to see films that make them shiver, feel the air-conditioning inside the ostrich's beak, try to keep up with the drinking speed of a camel or see how much fat they have compared with a seal. It mixes hands-on experiences including games and experiments, with films and taxidermy animal specimens.
The Dark Pastoral draws on a wealth of words and music to celebrate the variety of composers and poets' responses to the First World War. Part of the Sunday Coffee Concert series at Kings Place, the programme features well known and unpublished works, including poetry by Charlotte Mew and Edward Thomas, and songs by composers including Ivor Gurney and William Denis Browne. Performed by actor Alex Jennings, tenor Andrew Kennedy and pianist Iain Burnside.
Craggy comedian and bard of Balham Arthur Smith enjoys a residency in the Soho Theatre's cabaret space with Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen. It's 14 years since Volume One; Volume Two interweaves Smith's reflections on dementia, enthusiasm comedy and death. For the songs, Smith is joined by his 'backing group' The Smithereens: Kirsty Newton, Carrie Marx and Ali Day. The show is an hour long and suitable for 18
The very best of British cinema will be celebrated at the EE British Academy Film Awards, hosted by Stephen Fry at London's Royal Opera House in February and broadcast live to the nation by the BBC. The Film Awards are the Academy's highest possible film honours, rewarding the best work seen on British cinema screens during the preceding year. The awards have continued to evolve since their inception in 1948, with BAFTA now recognising outstanding achievement in 25 separate categories. The nominees and winners in the majority of categories are determined by the Academy's Film voting membership, juries and chapters. Last year's winners included Life of Pi, Les Miserables and Sam Mendes' Skyfall which was named Outstanding British Film and picked up a gong for Original Music. Take a look at our hotels near the Royal Opera House for accommodation within the local area.
Comic Richard Herring brings his iTunes chart topping Edinburgh Fringe Podcast to London's Leicester Square Theatre to chat with big comedy stars and showcase the best new comedians. Keep an eye on Twitter @lsqtheatre for guest announcements who have previously included Stephen Fry, Simon Pegg, Stewart Lee, Russell Brand and Tim Minchin.
Award-winning director and choreographer Liam Steel directs a new production of Benjamin Britten's first opera, Paul Bunyan, about the founding of America by a motley band of pioneers, performed in the Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House. The piece, created by Britten and W H Auden during their time in America, sees the young composer at his most playful and inventive, using folk, blues and Broadway influences to capture the spirit of the booming USA through the legend of the giant, Paul Bunyan.
Fifth Word, the producer team of hit show Bones, now presents Amateur Girl by Amanda Whittington, staged at St James Theatre in February 2014. Based on real-life stories, this poignant play explores the world of an auxiliary nurse, who is working long hours and gets drawn into the world of home-made porn films. This one-woman play starring Lucy Speed - known for Eastenders and The Bill - reveals the reality behind the fantasy business.
The award-winning Ballad of the Burning Star by Theatre Ad Infinitum presents a cabaret-style performance satirising Israel's internal conflicts and contradictions. This "flamboyant satirical drag show", best described as a "theatrical hand grenade" (Lyn Gardner, The Guardian), comes to the Battersea Arts Centre for a three-week run as part of a UK-wide tour this spring. Theatre Ad Infinitum have come up with something completely different from their critically acclaimed 'Translunar Paradise', a smash hit at the Edinburgh fringe, and have taken a risk with this cross-dressed, camped up exploration of the social and political terrain of Israel, and with it they have produced an equally exciting and compelling piece of theatre.
In this new exhibition, the National Theatre displays photos by the late Cornel Lucas, the first photographer to win a BAFTA Award for his services to the British Film Industry. Eventually becoming one of the world's most celebrated photographers, Lucas started his career in the 1940s when he focused on film stills and portraits while working for the British Film Studios. He went on to capture great film stars during the golden age of cinema such as Diana Dors, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Collins and Brigitte Bardot.
Circa, the Brisbane-based circus group behind the sold-out run of How Like an Angel in summer 2013, returns to the Barbican in 2014 with its largest-ever staging. Opus is "more like a super-acrobatic contemporary dance piece than circus", according to The Guardian critic on reviewing the piece when it appeared at the Brisbane festival in September 2013. The group of 14 circus artists perform to three of Shostakovich's String Quartets, played live on stage by the renowned Debussy String Quartet. The acrobats tumble, spin and fly around - and sometimes interact with - the musicians in a dance between chamber music and contemporary circus.
Jen and Andy are starting again. They've left the city and set up in a cottage in Northamptonshire. However, it's harder than they though to leave behind the demons of a decade and selfishnesses and weaknesses soon surface. Chris Dunkley's new play Smallholding is described as "a smouldering love story that unblinkingly dramatises the challenges of adult co-dependency". Nuffield theatre company's play comes to the Soho Theatre following its premiere at the High Tide Festival Theatre (Halesworth, Suffolk) in 2013.
Following its world premiere three years ago, Blaze returns to the Peacock Theatre, having performed in Amsterdam, Berlin, Italy, Germany and Russia, among other places. Directed by Anthony Van Laas, the expanded cast of 16 dancers pop, lock and breakdance their way through numbers by famous recording artists, including Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson and Kanye West. The crowd pleaser has wowed more than 300,000 people across the globe. Book your tickets here for the London performances before this explosive dance show continues on its worldwide tour. The Financial Times gave it a glowing review, saying: "The cast is superb! The show has voltage enough to light a small Belgian town for a year."
Using paintings in its own collection by well-known German Renaissance artists like Hans Holbein the Younger, Albrecht Durer and Lucas Cranach the Elder, the National Gallery provides insights into the changing ways art of this era of art has been perceived. All the artists were famous in their own time, valued for their expression and inventiveness. But by the 19th and early 20th centuries, attitudes towards them were mixed, and often unfavourable compared to works of the Italian Renaissance.
Bellowhead, Suzanne Vega and Clannad perform live at The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, which celebrate their 15th anniversary in 2014, at the Royal Albert Hall. The awards night brings some of the biggest names in folk music together under one roof to celebrate the UK's thriving folk music scene. A new element is added this year - the Radio 2 Folk Awards Hall of Fame - which honours Cecil Sharp, a key figure in having helped lay the foundations for the modern folk revival in the early 20th century, as the first musician to enter the hall. BBC Radio 2 presenter Simon Mayo will be broadcasting a special programme live from the Albert Hall and the interval will feature performances from the nominees for the Young Folk Award.
James Corden will present the Brit Awards for the fifth and final time this year when they return to the O2 Arena in February. The biggest music event in Britain's calendar, the awards will once again feature a host of the year's most successful artists all hoping to get their hands on a Brit Award Trophy, which this year has been designed by fashion icon Philip Treacy. Rising star Sam Smith has already been announced as this year's Critics' Choice Award, following in the footsteps of Adele, Florence and the Machine and last year's winner, Tom Odell. The star rose to fame when he featured on Disclosure's breakout hit Latch and is set to release his own debut single, Money on my Mind in February. Live performers confirmed so far include Katy Perry and, surprisingly, the Arctic Monkeys - previous years have seen the band mock and shun the show, which they deem a corporate affair.
The Gipsy Kings, the veteran ensemble from France, mark its 25th anniversary with a special performance at the Royal Albert Hall bringing its lively rumba flamenca signature sound to the South Kensington concert hall. The live performance is part of a tour promoting 'Savor Flamenco', the band's ninth studio album and first new recording in seven years.
Francesca Annis stars in the world premiere of a new play written and directed by Peter Gill for the Donmar Warehouse. The Great War has ended but much is at stake as international delegates assemble in Paris to draw up the document they hope will cement peace. The play examines the Treaty of Versailles through the lives of a middle class family in Kent whose son, Leonard, is among the British delegation, and reflects on how decisions made then defined Europe and the Middle East in ways that would shape the century and which still resonate 100 years later. The cast includes Barbara Flynn, Simon Williams, Gwilym Lee, Helen Bradbury and Tom Hughes who recently played a memorably meancing lead in the latest Miss Marple mystery. One to watch.
Stay up all night with Harry and Jo as they go to war for control of their destructive relationship, a battleground of sex, love, self-loathing and cheese-flavoured snacks. Playwright Vicky Jones' furiously funny dialogue and cutting comebacks fuel the action. The One won the 2013 Verity Bargate award for emerging new writing and is directed by Steve Marmion, Artistic Director of Soho Theatre. Suitable for ages 16
An exploration of the life and times of Austrian-Jewish composer Hans Gal in the wider context of persecution of musicians under the Nazi regime. The exhibition at The Wiener Library features original documents and images related to Gal's life. Gal fled Germany in the 1930s to avoid persecution after his music was banned, and even spent part of the Second World War interned in the UK because of his nationality.
The biggest gathering of family-history experts in the UK, the spin-off of the hugely popular TV show returns for its eighth year with genealogical experts, free workshops, major online resources, archives and museums. Visitors can bring along their own photographs, documents and heirlooms for analysis and learn how DNA is used in research. This year, there will be over 120 specialist exhibitors and keynote speakers from the Imperial War Museum, who will talk about their World War I commemoration project, which aims to create a permanent digital memorial to over eight million men and women who served in uniform or worked on the homefront.
Roundhouse Rising
The fourth year of the festival showcasing emerging artists.
The Roundhouse Rising festival returns for its fourth year in 2014, offering a programme of gigs from emerging artists alongside a series of workshops and seminars aimed at 14 to 25-year-olds. The music line-up includes Little Simz, Fatu, Fran Lobo and The Energy, while music production classes offer the chance to get expert advice on producing and remixing. Further activities include a MixTape Artwork exhibition from Funny Tummy and showcase of work-in-progress pieces by art collective Belly Kids.
The leg-warmers are back as a brand new Fame - the Musical by 'Thriller Live' director Gary Lloyd comes to London. Not seen in London since 2007, this all-singing, all-dancing musical will revive a love of the '80s all over again. A loose adaptation of the 1980 hit musical film, the stage show is based on the same story - following a group of students at New York City's High School of Performing Arts - but includes new music with only the title track borrowed from the film. This new production begins at the New Wimbledon Theatre in February and goes on to tour the country. Fame - it's gonna live forever!
The Jacobean comedy written by Francis Beaumont The Knight of the Burning Pestle is an uproarious play about a grocer and his wife. It comes to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe's new indoor theatre, on 20th February. Beaumont's experimental play, written to be performed at the Blackfriars playhouse by the Children of the Queen's Revels, was one of the first madcap comedies to hit the English stage.
A precious metalwork bag, made in Northern Iraq around 1300, will be the centrepiece of the Courtauld exhibition, Court and Craft: A Masterpiece from Northern Iraq. One of the finest pieces of Islamic inlaid metalwork in existence, it is decorated with a courtly scene showing an enthroned couple at a banquet with musicians, hunters and revellers, and completed with a rhyming couplet and intricate geometric patterns. A further highlight of the exhibition will be a life-size display evoking the court banqueting scene on the lid, featuring objects similar to those depicted on the bag itself. These include a Chinese lacquered table, a silver bowl and spoon, a glass beaker, and a leather bag. Contemporary illustrated manuscripts, ceramics and ivories depicting hunters, revellers and musicians provide further context for understanding the imagery of the bag and insight into courtly life under the Mongols in their Persianate Empire.
Oscar-winning screenwriter Simon Beaufoy adapts the 1997 hit film which took the world by storm. Following six out of work Sheffield steelworkers who took to stripping to earn money, comedy drama The Full Monty touched millions and now there's the chance to enjoy it live on stage at the Noel Coward Theatre. Directed by Daniel Evans, audiences can expect classic songs such as Hot Chocolate. There's just one question will they keep their hats on? Book tickets to see the Full Monty at the Noel Coward Theatre today.
Cloud Gate Dance Theater of Taiwan, one of Asia's leading contemporary dance companies, comes to Sadler's Wells in February 2014 presenting the UK premiere of Nine Songs, a dance which draws on a series of classical Chinese poems by Qu Yuan to create a thoroughly contemporary piece. The dance company directed by the celebrated choreographer Lin Hwai-Min also perform Rice, a piece created to celebrate Cloud Gate's 40th anniversary, inspired by the landscape and story of Chihshang in the East Rift Valley of Taiwan.
Still best recognised from his days in the CBBC Broom Cupboard, former children's TV presenter Iain Stirling has now moved on from his on-screen comedy sidekick Hacker the Dog to pursue a career in the adult world of stand up. His current show, At Home, finds him musing on the big life change of having recently bought a house with his girlfriend in a leafy London suburb and the cultural complexities of being a Scot among the English.
The Swedish born DJ and producer Avicii, real name Tim Bergling, has played to huge crowds, headlining at Electric Daisy Carnival in London and Creamfields last year. Writing about the 24-year-old's appearance at L.A.'s Hollywood Bowl on a Saturday night, Rolling Stone magazine noted, "he brings smoke machines, dizzying roller-coaster footage on giant video screens and five straight minutes of fireworks to punch up his supersize EDM beats". Appearing with Madonna, writing with Wyclef Jean, and working on a song with Chris Martin, it's Tim Bergling's time. In February, for one night only, he will be returning to the UK to play at Earls Court, keeping the crowd jumping with house and alternative dance from his debut album, True.
By the age of 18, Jake Bugg had already firmly established himself as an incredibly talented songwriter. Having rejected his friends' proposition to audition for Britain's Got Talent, stating "it doesn't seem genuine", Bugg proceeded to go it alone and his determination paid off. Now aged 19, the young star has two hit albums to his name. As part of his London 2014 tour, the Clifton-born musician will headline a one-night show at the Royal Albert Hall for the Albert Sessions, an initiative that invites performers to headline their debut show at the Hall.
Many of the rare spring plants at the RHS London Plant and Design Show, cultivated by specialist growers from across Britain, cannot be bought in shops or garden centres. Specialist bulb growers sell a wide range of spring flowering plants at the show including cyclamen and hellebores, narcissus and snowdrops. The show also offers inspirational garden design with expert talks and work by up-and-coming young designers using recycled and reclaimed materials. If you're visiting the show from out of town, take a look at our hotel deals near the Royal Horticultural Halls for all your accommodation needs.
Planning a wedding can turn what should be The Happiest Day Of Your Life into a full blown nightmare - known as 'bridezilla' in extreme cases. If you want to avoid this unappealing moniker, The National Wedding Show can help you find things you never knew you needed for your big day. There are the invitations to sort out, table settings, photographs, menus and cake to think of, not to mention the all-important dress. It's all been thought of here. You can check out over 300 exhibitors, see make-over demonstrations, interviews with top designers and catwalk shows four times daily. Get expert advice on everything from venues and vicars to cake and cards all under one roof. Everything you need, in fact, to achieve the highest levels of perfection for Your Special Day. There's even a bar so your husband-to-be can take some time out when he gets all tired and emotional.
Craft Beer Rising is a festival dedicated to the increasing interest and innovation in beer industry in the UK. The unique event brings together over 40 top breweries, some of London's finest street food and music to dance to headed by Norman Jay MBE. Breweries confirmed so far include: Bath Ales, St Austell and London's very own Meantime, whose brewery at Blackwall Lane in Greenwich is regularly open for tours. There's a variety of other attractions throughout the festival at The Old Truman Brewery. Ben McFarland and Tom Sandham bring a new version of their 'Thinking Drinker' show, previously seen at the Edinburgh Fringe and Soho Theatre. And Heriott-Watt University, a renowned centre for brewing and distilling, will teach you all you need to know about creating craft at their Beer Lab.
A musical comedy about the eccentric Phyllis Pearsall, the woman behind the excellent A-Z street guide which still helps guide London's visitors through the city's streets today. Singer/composer Gwyneth Herbert (The Sea Cabinet) and playwright/author Diane Samuels (Kindertransport) have joined forces to follow the trail left by Phyllis' footsteps. We discover a formidable lady who, after getting lost on a way to a party, spent five years walking the streets of London creating the A-Z.
Canadian dancer Matthew Golding, currently a principal dancer with Dutch National Ballet, is to join The Royal Ballet as a principal in February 2014. His first performance will be on 27th March, dancing alongside Natalia Osipova in this much-loved Tchaikovsky ballet. The Sleeping Beauty holds a special place in The Royal Ballet's history. A new production of The Sleeping Beauty marked its move to the Royal Opera House in 1946 and the original staging was revived in 2006 for its 75th anniversary. It returns in 2014 with new sections by Royal Ballet greats, past and present, including contributions from Frederick Ashton, Anthony Dowell and Christopher Wheeldon adding to the classical beauty of Marius Petipa's original choreography. The result is a dazzling ballet that, like the fairytale it brings to life, lasts through the ages.
This season's RBS Six Nations kicks off on Saturday 1st February, with reigning champions Wales entertaining Italy at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and the clash between England and Ireland on Saturday 22nd February is the first match of the competition to be played in London. The London game is one of only two Six Nations clashes being played at Twickenham. It's followed by a showdown between defending champions Wales and England on Sunday 9th March 2014.
Running since 1952, Jewish Book Week is a unique annual festival that explores Jewish thought, life, history and literature. The nine-day festival, labelled by The Independent as "the capital's richest annual banquet of writers and ideas", invites an impressive degree of international talent year on year to Kings Place in order to engage with Jewish ideas and discuss a vast range of topics. This year takes the theme 'Life is and Open Book' and invites an array of speakers to share stories, reveal secrets and break conventions. Literature professor Josh Cohen explores how social networking and reality TV sees everything we do become public property, Andrew Sachs discusses his move from Berlin to England aged eight and how he survived British schools, and Ruby Wax launches her book Sane New World, a manual for mental health that explores how the mind works.
In a city in the future, suffering from a drought of terrible proportions, a business tycoon has made his vast wealth through monopolising all the public toilets. That's the premise for Urinetown, a satirical musical which comes to London, playing at the St James Theatre, a decade after its Tony Award-winning Broadway success. Directed by Olivier Award winner Jamie Lloyd, Urinetown is about greed, corruption and revolution but it is also "incredibly funny," Lloyd told The Guardian. "This is a show that I've wanted to do for many, many years, " he added, "I saw it on Broadway in 2002 and I was struck by its unbelievable wit." Toilet humour at its best.
A cricket match between celebrities in February does admittedly sound rather foolish - but it's all in the name of charity and good fun. Played at the resplendent Bank of England Sports Ground in Roehampton, this annual clash usually sees TV darling Chris Tarrant and Sky Sports presenter Max Rushden captain the Luvvies XI and Broadcasting XI with guaranteed play - whatever the weather. It's free admission for spectators with auctions, a raffle, book stall and children's lucky dip raising money for the Twickenham-based David Adams Leukaemia Appeal Fund in aid of The Royal Marsden Hospital. A licensed bar serves hot and cold food and drinks - probably hot, given the time of year. Howzat for a winter Sunday's entertainment?
Theatre Royal Bath's dramatisation of Penelope Lively's 1987 Booker Prize-winning novel, Moon Tiger comes to the Rose Theatre Kingston. Claudia Hampton is an eminent historian. She is also dying. Looking back over her life she confronts her emotions regarding a lost love, her intense (and incestuous) relationship with her brother, her failures as a mother and the life she was denied by World War II. This haunting piece stars Jane Asher.
London-based singer-songwriter Sam Smith fist made waves in the music industry when he featured on Disclosure's track Latch in late 2012 and Naughty Boy's La La La in May 2013. Since then he's transitioned to a solo career and will embark on a 2014 UK tour, stopping by Shepherd's Bush Empire in February and the Roundhouse in May. Having made the cut for the BBC's Sound of 2014 list, which includes HAIM, Adele, Ellie Goulding and Jessie J among its previous winners, and been named the Critics' Choice Award for the Brits 2014, Smith is certainly one to watch. For his debut single Money on My Mind, Smith took inspiration from Major Lazer's Pon De Floor to create an undoubtedly catchy chorus. The track is due for release in February 2014, coinciding with his UK tour.
This new show from theatre makers Hannah Jane Walker and Chris Thorpe requests that audiences do the ultimate cardinal sin in theatre: leave their phones on. Staged at the Battersea Arts Centre, I Wish I Was Lonely explores the nation's obsession with mobile phones. Through stories, poems and conversations, it questions whether our ability to be contacted all the time is in fact destroying our communication skills and killing who we are.
This wild Danish mash-up gives you one of classical music's best loved composers as you've never seen, or heard, him before. Famous Mozart riffs provide the foundation but mixed in with everything from pop anthems to Caribbean beats and frenetic fiddle playing. Decadent courtesans strut the Barbican stage in voluminous dresses, elaborate wigs and huge orange beaks, while half-naked men are slowly drenched under a steady stream of water. Rococo goes rock'n'roll.
Cambridge Footlights alumnus Amir Shah brings his 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival show Anatomy to the Soho Theatre's intimate Upstairs performance space. Shah describes the show as 'an hour of lucid, precise, exacting comedy about the body, the mind, society, language, knitwear, and - well y'know the sort of thing'.
Performance poet, actor and writer Tim Key comes to the Soho Theatre with tales of love, Hollywood and Indian poetry. He's also promised to bring along some personal baggage to get off his chest. Radio 4 listeners will know Key from collaborations with Mark Watson, Tom Basden and Alex Horne.
Comedian Mark Thomas is a tireless political campaigner who has carved out a niche challenging social injustice, often using humour to expose just how much of an ass the law can be. Thomas' current crusade is to attempt to commit 100 acts of minor dissent throughout the course of a year, from a mass game of What's the Time, Mr Wolf? in a London park that started charging for people to play sport on its grass, to storming the Apple store with an Irish ceilidh band to protest about the firm's tax arrangements. Find out how his mischief making quest is coming along in Mark Thomas: 100 Acts of Minor Dissent at the Leicester Square Theatre.
Following a 25-show residency at St. Ann's Warehouse in New York, British monologist Daniel Kitson brings his new solo show, Analog.Ue to London for a three-week run at the National Theatre. Keeping many details of the show close to his chest, Kitson has confirmed that it takes inspiration from old-fashioned technology, including tangled cables, cassette players, audio tape, vinyl and VCR machines. It's a new show about a pre-recorded story.
Comedy duo Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis, who were forged in the flames of The Mary Whitehouse Experience, come to Richmond Theatre for a night of top notch satirical stand-up and sketches. Hugh Dennis is familiar to most from his TV roles in BBC 2's 'Mock the Week' and as the Dad in BBC1's award winning sit-com 'Outnumbered'. He also writes and hosts Radio 4's 'The Now Show' which Steve Punt has co-hosted since it started in 1998. Clearly, a pair with excellent comedy pedigrees.
A forgotten classic by "one of the supreme dramatists of the 20th century" (Michael Billington, The Guardian), Terence Rattigan's Variation on a Theme is revived at the Finborough Theatre for the first time in over fifty years. Intended to "blow up the establishment", the play is centred on the tempestuous love affair between the beautiful socialite Rose and Ron, a young bisexual ballet dancer keen to rise up the social ladder.
Cassa Pancho's award-winning Ballet Black company return to the Royal Opera House to perform three short works by Robert Binet, Ludovic Ondiviela and Javier de Frutos, plus Christopher Marney's story ballet set during the London Blitz. Performing a new programme in the intimate Linbury Studio Theatre, this exhilarating show showcases the energy and technique of a group described by The New York Times as "a ballet company to watch".
In the world of magic on television, few people have achieved as much success as Paul Daniels. His magic shows have had audiences entranced and captivated for years and this spring he brings his First Farewell Tour - co-starring the lovely Debbie McGee, of course - to the Jermyn Street Theatre. In this brand new show he will perform a selection of his favourite magic and tricks never performed in public before.
Tasmin Little, widely regarded as one of the world's leading violinists and international soloists, is accompanied by Guildhall professor Martin Roscoe for this special concert at the Guildhall School's new Milton Court Concert Hall. Tamsin studied under Pauline Scott at the Yehudi Menuhin School before enrolling at the Guildhall School of Music. For this concert she plays Mozart's Sonata No 21 in E minor, Faure's Sonata No 1 in A major, Ravel's Sonate posthume, and Sonata in A major, one of the best known compositions by Cesar Franck. The third of four concerts by prestigious alumni, Toby Spence & Friends play the fourth and final concert of the school's first ever Alumni Recital Series on 2nd May 2014.
This exhibition at the Cartoon Museum will feature cartoons, caricatures, puppets, teapots and other weird and wonderful ephemera from the phenomenon which was Spitting Image, the hugely popular 1980s television satire programme that utilised huge rubber puppets of the era's leading politicians and personalities. The exhibition celebrates the 30th anniversary of the programme and also includes pictures and pottery created by Fluck & Law, the geniuses who created Spitting Image.
The Handel House Museum looks at the life of actress and singer Susannah Cibber, who was born 300 years ago. Cibber's career appeared to be doomed after a divorce scandal, but recovered after Handel chose her to sing in the first performance of his Messiah in 1742. She went on to become one of the leading figures of the era, and her story is told in an absorbing exhibition.
A triple bill of contemporary South Asian dance presented at the Southbank Centre's Purcell Room by dance organisation Akademi includes First Light by Bharatanatyam dancer Seeta Patel and two new contemporary Choreogata commissions - 'Detox' created by Urja Desai-Thakore and 'Forgot your Password' by Divya Katsuri.
Kicked out of the military after a year in Vietnam, 'Ruby' rocks up in Greenwich Village in a rage and high heels and meets the street kid who will change his world. A Hard Rain, Jon Bradfield and Martin Hooper's edgy new drama, is set on the eve of New York's 1969 Stonewall riots, the birthplace of the gay rights movement in the United States.
Comedian and writer Harry Hill and composer Steve Brown present their irreverent comedy musical 'I Can't Sing!' at the London Palladium this February. The arrival of autumn and winter means one thing to thousands of people up and down the country: time to dust off televisions and embrace Saturday nights at home with the company of the UK's biggest TV show, The X Factor. However, with countless untalented auditionees and constant speculation about the judges, the show's gossip usually takes the spotlight. Acknowledging this factor, this new musical takes a tongue-in-cheek look at life behind the scenes of the television behemoth. Audiences can expect a talking dog, a singing hunchback and, of course, a number of Simon Cowell related gags. Former Eastenders star Nigel Harman takes the role of the music mogul while Cynthia Erivo plays the hopeful contestant. Double Olivier award-winner Sean Foley ('The Play What I Wrote' and 'The Ladykillers') directs, Kate Prince ('Some Like It Hip Hop') choreographs and Es Devlin (London Olympic Closing Ceremony and Take That Stadium Tours) designs. Be sure not to miss out, book tickets for I Can't Sing! The X Factor Musical today.
Imelda Staunton, who won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in Sweeney Todd at the Chichester Festival, reunites with the musical's producer Jonathan Kent for Good People, her first performance at Hampstead Theatre in 20 years. Staunton plays single mother Margie (originally played by 'Fargo' actress Frances McDormand when it premiered on Broadway) who will do anything it takes to pay the bills after losing yet another job - so when an old boyfriend who has made good returns she is quick to track him down. Ultimately, David Lindsay-Abaire's play asks, 'can you ever really leave the place you are born?'
Puccini's romantic tragedy about the young seamstress Mimi who falls in love with charismatic poet Rodolfo is performed in-the-round at the Royal Albert Hall. It's a full-scale production, bringing 1940s Paris to London with large crowd scenes recreating the bustling streets and cafe society. Sung in Italian with English surtitles by a cast of internationally acclaimed performers, accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Rather than presenting a military history of the war, the National Portrait Gallery aims to focus on the way the Great War was represented through portraits of those involved. The Great War in Portraits takes an international perspective. As well as iconic portraits of Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and Winston Churchill, the exhibition reflects the war experience of those from all social classes who served from throughout the Commonwealth and contrasts these portraits with rare important loans of major art works by Lovis Corinth and Max Beckmann and Kirchner's painting 'Selbstbildnis als Soldat' (Self-portrait as a Soldier). These German expressionist masterpieces are strikingly exhibited together, for the first time, with Harold Gillies' rarely shown photographs of facially injured soldiers from the Royal College of Surgeons.
Richard Jones, whose recent English National Opera successes include Julietta and The Tales of Hoffmann, directs Rodelinda, a story of love, power and mistaken identity widely considered to be one of Handel's operatic masterpieces. The stellar cast includes acclaimed soprano Rebecca Evans in the title role, countertenor Iestyn Davies, tenor John Mark Ainsley and mezzo-soprano Susan Bickley. Conducted by Baroque specialist Christian Curnyn won the Opera Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2013 for his recording of Handel's Alceste.
A New York Magazine Top 10 Play of 2012, We Are Proud to Present... is an award-winning drama by playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury in which the political and the personal collide. 'We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884 - 1915', to give it its full title, has its European premiere at the Bush Theatre in a new production directed by Gbolahan Obisesan. A group of actors tell the little-known story of the first genocide of the 20th century and a horrific past crashes into the present.
Charming and filthy in equal doses, Sarah Millican's star is rising and, despite a second series on TV and another live DVD breaking records for a female comic, the soft-speaking Geordie still remains faithful to her stand-up roots. In her latest live show, Millican is giving up the party scene, easing off the drinking and trying to settle down (she has a cat). Her audience learns what to take on a dirty weekend, the easiest way to blend in at posh restaurants and how to teach a pensioner to swear. And just when you thought she was going all soft - you'll be sledgehammered with some outrageous dirt.
Last year Alan Davies made a long-awaited return to stand up after a decade's absence and, following the sell out success of his 'Life is Pain' show, he presents new material in his follow up show, Little Victories. The TV star and QI regular can do serious acting - see Jonathan Creek and Whites - but he has been doing stand up for 25 years and these new shows mark a welcome return to live performances. Straightforward, autobiographical and brimming with "blokey-fogeyish bewilderment" and "droll close-to-home riffs about parenting" (The Telegraph) the affable Davies touches on a raft of contrasting topics including the language employed by fellow Essex men, the imminent end of the world, and social media - and, no doubt, the risks involved in casual retweeting.
Last year's inaugural event attracted 25,000 visitors and Wallpaper magazine commented on its "impressive scope". Over 140 modern and contemporary galleries from 38 countries will showcase artworks in a wide range of media from established and emerging artists. The latter will be showcased in two special areas 'London First' and 'Emerge' making it easier for visitors to discover new artists and their work.
Beyonce brings her new alter ego, Yonce, to the O2 Arena this February for another run of The Mrs Carter Show following a sell-out success in April last year. The Texan R&B and pop singer surprised fans in late 2013 with the sudden release of her download-only album, which introduced her new alter ego with a very saucy accompanying video. Her octave-gliding voice and original musical sense, coupled with an energetic, booty-shaking dance routine is what makes her stage shows stand out. And, now armed with these new tracks and persona, fans could well expect some exciting new additions to the show.