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Stanley Kubrick retrospective: 'A Clockwork Orange'

February
PICK OF THE MONTH
FILM
Stanley Kubrick retrospective
To mark the eightieth anniversary of the director's birth, the Barbican is showing all 12 of his features on the big screen.
Feb 21-27, Barbican

GAY
Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender History Month
This began in response to Section 28 and the lack of gay education in schools. Now in its fifth year, it celebrates the lives and achievements of the LGBT community, with various London boroughs doing their bit to celebrate diversity.
Throughout Feb (www.lgbthistorymonth.org.uk)

TV
‘Mad Men’
Rapturously received in the States, this is the American import to look out for in 2008. The brainchild of regular ‘Sopranos’ screenwriter Matthew Wiener, ‘Mad Men’ is an acerbically accurate depiction of life on 1960s Madison Avenue at an advertising firm with ‘more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich’. Boozing, smoking and every ‘ism’ under the sun? We’re lovin’ it. Feb, BBC4

BOOKS
‘Counting the Stars’ by Helen Dunmore
Set in Rome under the rule of Caesar, this tells the story of the notorious relationship between the poet Catullus and his older married mistress, Clodia.
Out Feb (Fig Tree, £16.99)
Feature continues

ART
‘Derek Jarman curated by Isaac Julien’
Punky, avant-garde and openly gay filmmaker Derek Jarman is being given a posthumous gallery retrospective, shot through the lens of British artist and fan, Isaac Julien.
Feb-Mar, Serpentine

TV
‘City of Vice’
Ian McDiarmid and Iain Glen should bring thespian class to this meticulously researched drama series about Henry and John Fielding, whose investigative work in the capital led to the foundation of London’s police force. Early word suggests a successfully pungent re-creation of eighteenth-century Covent Garden at its dankest.
Feb, Channel 4

CLASSICAL
Oliver Messiaen
The launch of the Southbank’s year-long celebration of the French composer Olivier Messiaen. A stunning line-up of artists (this month alone: Ensemble Intercontemporain, Esa-Pekka Salonen, organist Olivier Latry) surveys Messiaen’s works, inspiration ranging from stylised birdsong and the German prison camp-set ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ to a profound spirituality.
Feb, Southbank Centre

THEATRE
‘Speed-the-Plow’
Hard to imagine a better role for Kevin Spacey than as the Hollywood producer in David Mamet’s satire.
From Feb 1, Old Vic

SPORT
Rugby Union: England vs Wales
England are at home in this opening round of the Six Nations Championship and must try to live up to their status as kings of the northern hemisphere and second-best team in the world.
Feb 2, Twickenham

CLASSICAL
‘Artist as Leader’
Daniel Barenboim joins Southbank Centre’s Artistic Director Jude Kelly to launch this new strand, talking about his work with young Israelis and Palestinians in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. The next day sees him open his Beethoven sonata cycle with a programme that includes the ‘Tempest’ Sonata and ‘Les Adieux’.
Feb 2, Southbank Centre

DANCE
‘James Son of James’
Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre’s latest show. Once again, Michael Keegan-Dolan’s Dublin-based company will be stunning London audiences with its dark, outrageously daring invention.
Feb 5-9, Barbican

SPORT
Football: England vs Switzerland
With a game in Paris against France also scheduled for March 26, England have been reduced to providing match practice for the Euro 2008 finalists. Capello’s first game in charge should at least give him the chance of a winning start.
Feb 6, Wembley

AROUND TOWN
‘Outside Edge’
A survey of black British lesbian and gay history. Demonstrating the community’s contribution to campaigns for fair representation and against homophobia, the exhibition will also celebrate the vibrant black LGBT cultural, club and music scenes.
Feb 7-Apr 4, Museum in Docklands

KIDS
‘Lighten Up’
A co-production from Theatre-Rites and Unicorn Theatre, created by director Sue Buckmaster, in collaboration with lighting designer Aideen Malone, designer Cathy Wren and sound artists Sally Rodgers and Steve Jones. Five puppeteer performers play in the dark and explore what happens when they are thrust into the spotlight. For families with children aged five plus.
Feb 9-Mar 9, Unicorn Theatre

NIGHTLIFE
Lovebox
After a few nights at The End over the last couple of years, including the after-party to the brilliant Lovebox Weekend in July, Groove Armada kick off a bi-monthly West End club residency.
Feb 9, The End and AKA

Chinese New Year Festival

AROUND TOWN
Chinese New Year Festival
London’s Chinese community will welcome in the Year of the Rat in the traditional manner, with a parade, lion dances and stage performances in Chinatown and Trafalgar Square.
Feb 10, Chinatown and Trafalgar Square

DANCE
‘Café Müller’ and ‘The Rite of Spring’
Pina Bausch returns with a pair of gold-plated works from the 1970s. The sleepwalking wraith who conjures up the mysterious world of ‘Café Müller’ is the only role in her rep that Bausch still performs. Feb 12-22, Sadler’s Wells

ART
‘Modern Painters: The Camden Town Group’
Often confused with the later Bloomsbury Group, the Camden Town Group was also muddled with the Fitzroy Street Group and the London Group. Putting cliques and allegiances aside, these artists – led by Walter Sickert – introduced Britain to the high colour and energy of Parisian post-impressionism, translating rather than merely aping Van Gogh and Gauguin for their London audience.
Feb 13-May 4, Tate Britain

KIDS
Imagine: Children’s Literature Festival
On the guestlist of writers, poets and performers are Michael Rosen, James Campbell, Francesca Beard, Philip Ardagh, Jeremy Strong and performance and poetry specialists Apples and Snakes.
Feb 14-22, Southbank Centre

FILM
‘Be Kind, Rewind’
Jack Black and Mos Def are in charge of the titular VHS rental shop when the former’s head becomes magnetised while sabotaging an electricity substation. He accidentally erases all of the tapes (stay with us) and – in order to keep the business afloat – the pair decide the best thing to do would be to remake all of the movies. It sounds like a cheesy ’80s comedy, we know, but this clever, profound and, in the end, moving film is perhaps the first to properly address the current trend for lo-fi filmmaking and YouTube distribution. And it’s really, really funny. Released Feb 15

KIDS/THEATRE
‘Baby Girl’/‘DNA’/‘The Miracle’
The National Theatre’s previous Connections plays for teenagers have turned out to be a wonderful source of new talent. Will these new ones by Roy Williams, Dennis Kelly and Lin Coghlan prove fruitful?
From Feb 16, National Theatre

NIGHTLIFE
Buzzin’ Fly
Another weekend, another new bi-monthly residency? Oh yes! Ben Watt used to bring the Lazy Dog parties to The End for ram-jammed quarterly sessions, now he can’t resist the lure of The End’s soundsystem for a regular deep and bleep house and ‘warm techno’ party experience.
Feb 16, The End

NIGHTLIFE
Wall of Sound presents Love & Good Times and Kill ’Em All
You’ll forgive them their mouthful of a name because WoS and KEA parties consistently present a brilliant, vibrant experience that’s still best described as rock ’n’ rave. We don’t know the line-up yet, but we know there’ll be great bands, dirty electro DJs, haircuts on the bias, post nu-rave fluorescence and a buzz about the night, which is why it’s always one of the busiest events at Fabric.
Feb 22, Fabric

NIGHTLIFE
FWD
One of the pioneering dubstep nights moves into one of London’s best clubs for the first of four parties in 2008. The underground sound of Croydon has long since expanded beyond south London: now many more Londoners can get up close and personal with Skream, Benga and its fast-rising teenage producers.
Feb 22, The End.

AROUND TOWN
The London Bridge Experience
Housed in the vaults beneath the bridge, The London Bridge Experience is a new attraction offering a whistle-stop tour of the crossing’s history from a tour guide in Victorian dress. It also invites visitors to explore the London Tombs deep beneath the bridge, where historic artefacts and human remains have been discovered.
Opens Feb 22, London Bridge

SPORT
Horse racing: Great Leighs Racecourse opening
Don’t put money on it, but Britain’s first new racecourse since 1920 looks set to open after almost five years of delays. The course, near Chelmsford, has been designed specifically for all-weather racing.
Feb 24, Great Leighs

'Jersey Boys'

THEATRE
‘Jersey Boys’
That’s New Jersey, USA, not cardigans. The hit Broadway musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Plenty of good songs, then.
From Feb 28, Prince Edward Theatre

FILM
‘Margot at the Wedding’
Nicole Kidman delivers one of her most finely textured and passionate performances to date as a hateful, silver-tongued philanderer in Noah Baumbach’s ‘Margot at the Wedding’, the New York director’s excellent follow-up to his much-loved 2005 divorce drama ‘The Squid and the Whale’. Released Feb 29

FILM
‘Battle for Haditha’
Nick Broomfield follows ‘Ghosts’ with another drama inspired by a recent calamity, this time the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians by US marines in the town of Haditha in November 2005, following the death of one of their own by a roadside bomb. Broomfield’s effective reconstruction is intelligent and compassionate and – uncomfortably – as thrilling as it is devastating.
Released Feb 29

MUSIC
Hot Chip
The curiously melancholy Prince-loving electro-folk dance troops return with a brand new album, ‘Made In The Dark’. Being cool, we’ve heard it already and it’s brilliant.
Feb 29, Brixton Academy

SOCIAL CLUB
Paul L Martin
Expect twisted and strange sideshow encounters from the king of cabaret.
Late Feb, Arts Theatre

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