Arts Ahead: What's On In London 21 – 27 February

By Zoe Craig Last edited 145 months ago
Arts Ahead: What's On In London 21 – 27 February

What's new on London's cultural calendar this week:

THEATRE: Cheek By Jowl's Tis Pity She's a Whore at the Barbican from tonight (see video below). The Trial, Steven Berkoff’s adaptation of Kafka’s unsettling masterpiece at the Greenwich Theatre also opens tonight.

Epic family drama In Basildon opens at the Royal Court Theatre's Jerwood Theatre Downstairs from tomorrow. You can see Patrick Stewart play an ageing Shakespeare in Bingo at the Young Vic from Thursday. The West End welcomes a US import from Friday: Zach Braff's comedy, All New People opens at the Duke of York's Theatre. Finally, Saturday is the opening night of the star-studded comedy of bad manners, Hay Fever (Lindsay Duncan, Jeremy Northam, Kevin McNally and Olivia Colman) at the Noël Coward Theatre.

OPERA: London’s two opera offerings couldn’t be more different this week. On the one hand, you’ve got The Death of Klinghoffer, John Adams’s controversial docu-opera about the killing of a Jewish-American tourist during the hijacking of a Mediterranean cruise liner by Palestinian militants. It’s at the London Coliseum from Saturday. And from Monday, you can see Dvorák's Rusalka at the Royal Opera House: the story’s a Czech myth about a water nymph, with echoes of the Little Mermaid.

COMEDY: Josh Widdicombe is at the Soho Theatre for four nights from tomorrow. Then from Friday, you can see The Oh Fuck Moment at the same venue: poet Hannah Jane Walker and Fringe First winner Chris Thorpe explore the feeling you get when you realise you’ve made a horrible mistake.

DANCE: You can see Alexander Whitley and aerialist Ilona in Exposure: Dance at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Studio from Thursday.

CLASSICAL: Tired of London's big classical venues? A group called the London Festival Orchestra is based at lovely recording and rehearsal venue, the Warehouse, in the back streets of Waterloo. The orchestra performs a concert there tomorrow night where they are joined by leading clarinettist, Emma Johnson. Music includes pieces by Bach, Finzi and Haydn. Classical fans should also look out for Reverb from Friday this week: an exciting festival of classical, alt, folk, jazz and electronica at the mighty Roundhouse.

JAZZ: Jazz in the Round is a new jazz promotion at the The Cockpit in Marylebone. The night, on the last Monday of every month, is curated and presented by Jez Nelson, who presents BBC Radio 3's Jazz on 3, the home of cutting edge jazz on the Beeb. Monday's gig includes Sons of Kemet, a new quartet featuring two drum kits and some of London's hottest jazz talent: clarinettist and sax player Shabaka Hutchings, drummer Seb Rochford, tuba player Oren Marshall and drummer Tom Skinner.

ART: From tomorrow, Jeremy Deller’s new show, Joy in People opens at the Hayward Gallery. It features installations, photographs, videos, posters, banners, sound pieces and more from this political and socially engaged artist. Also opening tomorrow is Eric Rimmington’s exhibition, Going Underground at the Millinery Works in Angel, featuring 40 paintings of the London Underground completed between 2006 and 2011.

On Thursday, the next sculpture is being unveiled on the Fourth Plinth: Elmgreen & Dragset’s Powerless Structures Fig 101, or “the boy on the rockinghorse”, as he’ll probably become known. A free show opens at Rich Mix on Friday called The Curry Chefs of Brick Lane: an exhibition of photographic portraits by Jeremy Freedman.

Anything we’ve missed that you’re really looking forward to seeing this week? Let us know in the comments below.

We have listings for ongoing shows at London’s top museums on our Museums and Galleries page

Last Updated 21 February 2012