We've had a taste of village life on South Bank recently and enjoyed the Alternative Village Fete's knitting, vegetables, simple but mesmerising games and the home-made cakes that were part of the National Theatre's Watch This Space offering. And this weekend, we can expect more... On Saturday and Sunday, you can head to the Lambeth Country Show in Brockwell Park and pretend you're way out in the sticks with the farm animals, funfair, story-telling,......

Whilst everyone seems keen to spend £80 to attend some festival or other at the moment, don't be fooled: there's just as much free-to-cheap fun to be had around the city as ever this week. Here too the theme seems to be big, crowded, and mostly outdoors, but at least if the rain sets in you can bail out none the poorer. Monday: Feeling creative, sociable, and ever so indie? Craft Night is back......

The London Festival of Architecture is throwing up some wonderfully wildcard events but two talks at the London Transport Museum get down to more immediately relevant issues, looking at sustainable urban development. Tomorrow, Malcolm Smith, Design Director at Arup's Integrated Urbanism Unit reveals his pioneering work on Chinese eco-city Dongtan near Shanghai, which will run entirely on renewable energy and aims to be car free, zero emmission and totally recycling by 2050. Then on......

Among the roster of events in the London Festival of Architecture having no real connection to architecture at all, but for which we're happy anyway, take note of this one. RADA is set to stage a free performance this Saturday adapted from Gargantua and Pantagruel, the lowbrow opus of Renaissance avant-gardist and enemy of public mores François Rabelais. Being a very physical tale about an enormous giant, this performance would never have satisfyingly fit......

It starts tomorrow, folks. The London Festival of Architecture runs for a whole month and comprises some 600 events and installations. Previously, we selected a few ticketed events so you could book early. Today, we present a few highlights that run for several days and don't require any planning on your part. Just turn up. We'd encourage you to take a closer look at the full listings too, as we can only highlight a very......

Yikes, summer's here, and London's gone festival mad. We can hardly keep up… We're sorry we've only just got round to telling you about this year's Lift Festival, which started last week in Stratford, then moves to the Southbank Centre next Thursday, and on to Shoreditch from 16-24 August. Previously the London International Festival of Theatre, Lift has been bringing innovative world theatre to London for 25 years, usually in the last place you......

It’s still three weeks away, but you’d better book now for some of the more popular-sounding happenings at this year’s London Festival of Architecture. From 20 June to 20 July over 600 events will celebrate the capital’s buildings. Here’s our pick of one-off events. We’ll do a round-up of exhibitions and other longer-lived diversions nearer the time. Check out the full programme here. 28 June Bank of England Open Day Highly recommended tour for those......