Having already proved itself best in London, the British Museum has now ensconsed itself as the most popular cultural attraction in the UK. Elbowing out competition local (Tate Modern) and far-off (Blackpool Pleasure Beach), the 249-year old institution tempted 6.04 million people through its doors over the past 12 months, many to see the warriors of Qin Shihuang's Terracotta Army, who were to be found at ease in the Reading Room. Coming up next......

"I like to remember things my own way... not necessarily the way they happened". With this key line the orchestra swells to a small crescendo, and following a subtle beginning this audacious English National Opera production suddenly feels, well, operatic. Olga Neuwirth's startlingly faithful music-theatre treatment of David Lynch's 1997 neo-noir has been resurrected in the Young Vic for a short run. Fans of the film are doubtless aware of its complex Mobius-strip narrative,......

It’s getting warmer! Ok, not really. Lazy evenings lolling about in one of the city’s grand parks are still a ways off, so keep heading inside to galleries and theatres for your (heated) culture fix. This week’s cerebral theme? Attention-grabbing names. You’ll see. Onwards! The film You, the Living opens this week. The film has received rave reviews and filmmaker Roy Andersson is being touted as the next Bergman. You know, nothing special. First......

Feminists. They don’t shave their armpits and they bathe in toad spit and the pubic hairs of young boys. Right? Well, you could try asking that question at the European Feminist Summit, but we would advise against it. Part of the London Festival of Europe, the summit, titled The Future of European Feminism will discuss feminism in the 21st century, in the context of Europe, politics, art and media. With feminist blog The F......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 10th March 1906: The Baker Street & Waterloo Railway opens, running between Baker Street and Elephant & Castle stations. It would soon become known as the Bakerloo Line. Tuesday – 11th March 1692: The Royal Chelsea Hospital is founded by Charles II. Designed by Christopher Wren, the hospital would also become the model for Greenwich’s Royal Navel Hospital. Wednesday – 12th March 1988: The Bank of England......

The National Gallery have announced their rediscovery of a portrait of Elizabeth Carter in a private collection. The painting, done by John Fayram circa 1735-1741, shows Carter as the Roman Goddess Minerva (or the Greek Goddess Athena, if you prefer), goddess of wisdom and war. The portrait will be part of of an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery called Brilliant Women: 18th Century Bluestockings, which is running from 13 March to 15 June.......

There's masses going on for us culture vultures to choose from this week. First Thursdays As it's the start of March, it's First Thursdays this week. More than 80 galleries and museums will be open til 9pm across East London. We recommend John Squire's (yes, him from the Stone Roses) Re-engineered Garments; alternatively, pretend you're an alien at the Barbican. The Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art opens this Thursday. East is East East London's......

It's officially Spring and by Pisces it's lovely out there in the sunshine. Crocuses have been spotted in Highbury Fields so our biggest recommendation for expenditure light trips this week is get to the parks and into the gardens and witness the miracles of the changing seasons. If you're in need of more artificial stimulation, however, and are squirrelling all your spare cash into your ISA before the end of the tax year then......

Ah, the transformative powers of education. Last week, we saw the kiddies philosophizing. This week, we learn of prison inmates dramatizing. And this isn’t just any kind of dramatizing, nor is this just any prison: This is Shakespeare as performed by the inmates of the California State Correctional System, in collaboration with the London Shakespeare Workout Prison Project. Forgive us our naiveté if upon spotting this photo we weren’t immediately reminded of a scene......

Following the Oscars this weekend there are free film screenings all over town this week. Edify thyself and make new friends running across 5 different genres of movie for no expenditure whatsoever. Monday: The Duke Mitchell Film Club is holding heist night at the Cross Kings Bar on York Way with a long lost Italian heist movie "Seven Golden Men". The film starts at 8pm but there's also a "trailer trash" collection of vintage......

Swanning About Not one, but two Swan Lakes swim into town this week. Take your pick from The Russian State Ballet of Siberia's version at the New Wimbledon Theatre, or the Moscow City Ballet at The Hackney Empire. Expect world-class dance interpretations this classic love story to Tchaikovsky's sublime score at both. Topsy-turvy Theatreland Liverpool comes to Hampstead (in 3 Sisters on Hope Street), Hollywood hits Stratford (Marylin and Ella), and an Asian Tempest......

If you could get the Sarcasts (Digg), the Grunts (YouTube) and the Silent (Londonist’s forgotten readers’ forum) into a room together, what would you hear? The Science Museum might have the answer. New installation ‘The Listening Post’ slaps up random content from hundreds of chat rooms simultaneously, bringing you an orgy of words. “It is an awe-inspiring ‘portrait of chat’,” says the press release. Alan Partridge is having wet dreams. The installation debuted in......

There's something of a Valentine's theme to the Arts of choice taking place in the capital this week. But Londonist knows for every young Juliet embracing the idea of timeless romantic love, there's a Bridget hugging her near-empty vodka bottle, crooning to Chaka Khan. So, in the name of balance, here's a varied, half 'rom', half 'com' round-up for you all. Shows for Swingin' Lovers: Photographer Gregg Stone, has been taking snaps of kissing......

A couple of years ago Chris Roberts - who will be leading our 4th Londonist Walk on Friday evening - (and who is no relation to the Grantham Roberts clan) co-wrote True Blue: A musical about Margaret Thatcher in a bid to come to terms with his own, and his nation’s, past and more importantly setting Geoffrey Howe and others to music. Who better then, to send along as guest reviewer to a spanking......

While lesser politicians find themselves embroiled in the mundane tracasseries of campaign funding, our Mayor takes a more creative tact. Twenty artists, including Banksy, Antony Gormley and Marc Quinn, are selling their work to raise money for Livingstone’s re-election. The ‘Bid For Ken’ auction takes place at 7pm on 6 March at the Aquarium Gallery in Farringdon. Boris Johnson is courting the creatives too. He of the humorous initials is focussing on ’singers, rappers......

So, err, yeah. Yessss. Eddie Izzard! That's who I've come to talk to you about today, mmm. He's presenting some of his Work In Progress at the Arts Theatre on Great Newport Street each night at 11:15 between today (Friday 1st February) and Sunday. Is he really? Is he really... When Londonist looked there were still some tickets available from a well known site for Sunday night and you may also be able to......

The Book Club is dead! Long live The School for Gifted Children! Robin Ince's Book Club, for the unacquainted, was a delightfully ramshackle evening of intellectual mirth and experimentation, which was given a grand farewell in December at the British Museum. Tonight The School for Gifted Children kickstarts the glorious sounding N20 Comedy Festival for show, stories, songs and outright lies in the dinky Studio 68 at Battersea Arts Centre. Robin Ince is in......

'Tis the end of panto-season. No more Ross Kemp in Wimbledon, no more Suzanne Shaw at the Barbican - even Ian McKellan has vacated the Old Vic. Soon the time will come when we pine for hairy men in frocks and Technicolor landscapes. However, to ease us gently out of the season, London FrontRunners is putting on two charity performances of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at the Drill Hall this Sunday 13th January.......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan… This week, Bee Movie, Enchanted, We Own The Night, Youth Without Youth, Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium and It’s A Wonderful Life. And if you’re too busy to even read a review of reviews then just go and see the masterpiece that is It’s A Wonderful Life. Simple as that. Since the last episode of the Greatest Sitcom Ever™ nine years ago, Jerry Seinfeld......

Once long ago, Mama Londonist wasn't happy with little Londonist and wanted to give us an earful. However, Londonist had got married to this other blog with a trendy hat, a silly double-barrelled name and a penchant for perverting the course of justice. Soon, Londonist was being photographed with its nose full of white powder and its hair all over the place, not in it's usual 'beehive' style as was fashionable in those days.......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan… This week Kidman plays with her monkey in The Golden Compass, The Rock gets confused in Southland Tales, a famous person gets shot in The Killing of John Lennon and Donal MacIntyre cuddles up to some naughty people in A Very British Gangster. Ever since The Golden Compass was announced, devotees of Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy have been nervously waiting to......

From the outside, you wouldn't guess anything was going on behind the peeling, Georgian facade at all but inside, what was once called "the handsomest room in town" was graced by equally handsome Hugh Grant and the luscious Helen Mirren as part of a fundraiser to raise awareness of the ever worsening plight of Wilton's Music Hall. Earlier this year, Wiltons hit the headlines when it was listed in the World Monuments Fund top......

The Turner Prize may have been spirited away to Liverpool but Mark Wallinger's recreation of Brian Haw's protest camp outside the Houses of Parliament pre-SOPCA nailed the Turner Prize for him last night. Although he chose to exhibit himself dressed as a bear, wandering around a gallery in Germany for the prize exhibition it was clear that the judges awarded the annually controversial £25,000 gong to Wallinger on the merits of his "bold political......

Girls from Greece with a thirst for knowledge looking to study sculpture will soon have a new home. Central St Martin's College of Art and Design is taking up residency in King's Cross to the delight of residents. Not everyone, however, is so enthused as the space for the new campus is currently home to three night clubs. The Cross, the Key, and Canvas are all due to host their final nights on New......

The cold weather - and holiday festivities - descended upon Gothamist. The Rockefeller Christmas tree was lit, Broadway stagehand finally ended their strike, and NASCAR decided to run their victory lap through Times Square. There were disturbing photographs revealing the working conditions in which many city manholes are produced and ninjas were also a hot topic, either robbing homes or entering into alibis. But the city was really rocked by how Rudy Giuliani's visits......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan… This week Brad Pitt’s latest (with a title so long it shouldn’t be allowed) The Assassination of Jesse James etc, the alternate realities of The Nines, Vince Vaughn slumming it in Fred Claus, the video game adaptation Hitman, Kenneth Branagh directs The Magic Flute and a re-release for the classic All About Eve. If you get annoyed with trailers that give the plot......

If you’re a fan of musicals then you probably think the bigger the better. In which case you must pop down to the BFI Imax, where their After-Dark All-Nighter event will be screening four modern musicals on the trot on Saturday 8th December. First off the bat is 1980’s high school classic Fame at 11.15pm where the students of the New York High School for Performing Arts discover sex and show tunes. For those......

Kerching! Tour de France raked in £120m and we want it back again but even better! Winehouse wisely bails on gigs while Blake's in the slammer Awards aplenty for London's star studded Theatreland The usual seasonal non-shocker: train fares set to rise Image courtesy of tezzer57 via the Londonist flickr group.......

Here’s what we learned this weekend, whilst you were drawing up your Christmas card lists (or crossing people off them): It’s been a bad weekend for London’s performers, with even the ROH being dissed, and one band getting the worst review this Londonista has ever seen. But it has been a great couple of days for pussy cats, with three of them being rescued from a derelict flat, and another being turned into a......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan… This week Michael Caine and Jude Law give it some Pinter in Sleuth, Wes Anderson delivers his latest quirky offering in The Darjeeling Limited, Christian Bale eats maggots in Rescue Dawn and Blade Runner gets polished up in a new release. Sleuth should be a masterpiece, a quartet of talent coming together to intimidate us all into how it’s done. We’ve got national......