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If you're looking to fill the next few days with fun, then you've come to the right place. Whack these new exhibitions, film screenings and gigs in your diary pronto. Here are 33 ways to spruce up the working week!
MONDAY
John Dee: Art, Science, Magic, Royal College of Physicians, £5. An evening of lectures exploring objects on display within the Scholar, Courtier, Magician: The Lost Library of John Dee exhibition.
Comedy In The Dark, Udderbelly, £12.50. Exactly what it says on the tin, this. Comedians including Nish Kumar, Adam Kay and Joey Page perform in total darkness.
Everything Everything, Somerset House, £29.50. Weird synthpop by the Mancunian four-piece, previously nominated for the Mercury Prize.
Pixies, O2 Academy Brixton, £31. The pioneering alt-rockers are back in London to scratch and scream their way through selections from their four classic albums.
TUESDAY
Date Lab, Coin Laundry, £15.75. Real-life research into the psychology of attraction is used to help you find your ideal date at this scientific speed dating event. In March they managed a 90 percent match rate.
Lampshade Making Workshop with Rosa and Clara Designs, Pop Brixton, £45. Pick your favourite fabric and funk it up into a fetching light covering that you can take home at the end of the day.
Fidlar, Electric Brixton, £19. A fearsome foursome from LA, Fidlar play hedonistic skate-punk – their name is an acronym for 'Fuck it, dog, life's a risk'. As you'd imagine, they put on a pretty heavy live show.
Father Groove: Summer in Brixton Roof Party Series, Prince of Wales, £5 (RSVP required). Join the Coldharbour Disco Society – a new gang in town – for eight hours of funk, soul and disco sweetness on the lush Prince of Wales roof terrace, every Tuesday this summer.
WEDNESDAY
Foyles's Cookbook Confidential, Foyles, £12. Join a new monthly food writers' event at Foyles with Persiana chef Sabrina Ghayour, who visits in May to talk about her passion for Iranian food, the inspiration behind her new book Sirocco and her experience starting a supper club.
Mechanical Drawing, Kirkaldy Testing Works, £10. The scope of drawing classes has exploded in recent years and the latest from Kirkaldy Testing Works is the chance to draw a trained engineer as he demonstrates the mechanics of various machines in the museum.
Rooftop Film Club: ‘Do the Right Thing’, The Bussey Building, £15. Spike Lee’s street-level masterpiece just gets better with age. It’s a pacy, punchy ensemble piece set in Brooklyn during one stiflingly hot 24 hours.
Courtney Barnett, Somerset House, £32.45. The Aussie singer-songwriter pairs punchy rock with brilliant witty lyrics.
London Indian Film Festival: ‘Brahman Naman’, BFI Southbank, £8.35–£11.75. The London Indian Film Festival hits the sweet spot between the upmarket end of Bollywood and the commercial side of Indian independent cinema.
THURSDAY
The Portman Village Street Party, Seymour Place and New Quebec St, free. Enjoy a day of music, discounts, food, freebies and fun at this street party in support of West London Day Centre.
Bastille Day at Les Deux Salons, Les Deux Salons. Les Deux Salons, a restaurant and bistro specialising in Parisian cuisine are offering free food and tipples in celebration of Bastille Day this year.
Fabulous Musical Moments from the Movies, JW3, £20, £16 adv. This evening of music brings forgotten musical gems to the forefront. George McGhee will focus on lesser know routines from the likes of Maurice Chevalier, Judy Garland, Lena Horne and Frank Sinatra.
Hitchcock's Home, St John's Church, £16. Returning for another year, these screenings coincide with Leytonstone Festival and celebrate the 'Master of Suspense' Alfred Hitchcock who was born in the area.
Thames Lates, Thames Rockets, £39.50. Set sail from the London Eye Millennium Pier on an early evening trip that first takes in the waters around the Houses of Parliament and the stretch down towards Tower Bridge.
Check the Gate: ‘Hardware’, Prince Charles Cinema, £8.50. The Prince Charles’s Check the Gate season gives filmmakers, critics and experts the chance to program a favourite movie on 35mm film.
Jake Yapp: One in a Million, Etcetera Theatre, £8-£10. Comedian Jake Yapp is perhaps best known for his cameos on 'Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe', where his motormouthed, sardonic 90-second summaries of shows like Take Me Out and This Morning are a regular highlight.
Mark Grotjahn
AND HERE'S SOME MORE
Mark Grotjahn: Pink Cosco, Gagosian Gallery, Tue-Thu, free. These are cool pieces: nine identically sized upended boxes, smeared in pink or yellow paint, with long bronze poles sticking out of them like fancy art snorkels.
Needles and Opium, Barbican Centre, Tue-Thu, £16-£45. Robert Lepage's druggy early hit remains visually gobsmacking.
Damncheeky's Roving Wine Bar and Snackery, 93 Kingsland Road, Wed-Thu, free. Gorge yourself on cheesy treats and wash it all down with a selection from one (or two, or three…) of the many family-owned, artisanal wineries who will be plying their wares at East London's least pretentious tasting session.
Lukas Duwenhogger: You Might Become A Park, Raven Row, Wed-Thu, free. The works of this German artist, who has lived in Istanbul since 2000, have a distinctive Ottoman sensibility, both sunlit and sinister: a superficial queer theatre of languorous fabulousness, shot through anxiety.
Just for Laughs, multiple venues, Wed-Thu, various prices. Legendary comedy festival comes to London – edgy Aussie Jim Jefferies stars.
Festival of Love, Southbank Centre, all week. The Southbank Centre's having quite the love-in this summer with the return of their Festival of Love – a summery collection of installations, activities, pop-ups and performances that celebrate humankind's most overwhelming emotion.
1984, Playhouse Theatre, all week, £15-£85. Headlong's audacious re-working of Orwell's '1984' is great, queasy theatre.
The Truth, Wyndham's Theatre, all week, check website for prices. 'The Truth' is painfully funny in Florian Zeller's drama.
Jorge Otero-Pailos: The Ethics of Dust, Westminster Hall, all week, free. The idea is simple: in the process of cleaning this Unesco world heritage site’s walls, the artist covered them in latex and peeled it off to trap centuries of pollution, dust and dirt.
Illusionary Afternoon Tea, Good Ship Benefit, all week (2-5pm), £35. A magic-themed afternoon tea onboard the Benefit boat with champagne cocktails and lots of sweet treats to be had. Following tea, guests can bag themselves complimentary make-up sessions and brow mapping too.
AND FINALLY...
Win...tickets to see Groundhog Day plus an overnight stay at a four-star hotel or a pair of Luna Cinema tickets and one night in a four-star hotel
Grab...two courses and a cocktail at a 'Forrest Gump' themed restaurant
Book…these gigs while you still can
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