The Time Out London hot list

Field Day

Victoria Park hosts a day of top-notch live music

East London's biggest festival returns for its seventh year this Saturday. Field Day has become known for its triumphantly eclectic choice of underground as well as established talent, such as the hip double bill-toppers this year: Baltimore-based post-psych innovators Animal Collective and beguiling pop singer Natasha Khan, aka Bat For Lashes. Others gracing the bill include Solange, Everything Everything, Four Tet, Savages, Palma Violets, Django Django and many more. Hot stuff. When the festival finishes, the party doesn't have to. Head to the official Field Day after party at Netil House.

RHS Chelsea Flower Show

• Critics choice

With the sun out (at last) and the sap rising, Londoners’ thoughts are turning to matters green and fertile. But for those hoping to go to Chelsea Flower Show, thoughts are not enough; swift action is required. Tickets always sell out in advance and this year the show is celebrating its 100th anniversary so demand is even higher than usual. The big draw for many is the large, astonishingly established-looking gardens created for the show and dismantled after the five days. Some relish the myriad opportunities for horticultural retail therapy. But for us the real lure is the virtuoso artistry in evidence in the vast floral marquees. Getting those extravagant displays to bloom in unison at exactly the right time takes a unique combination of slog and creativity and results can be glorious.

London Literature Festival

Events, talks, readings and even a superhero run make this festival a must-do this month

This annual festival brings together world class poets, authors and speakers representing the spectrum of creative disciplines for more than a week of talks and events. This year, celebrated biographer Claire Tomalin presents five lectures on literary icons such as Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen, and best-selling authors including Barbara Kingsolver, Lionel Shriver and William Dalrymple read from and discuss their work. Such literary heavyweights are joined by luminaries from other areas of arts and culture, including actor Rupert Everett, designer Tom Dixon and musicians Jarvis Cocker and Ute Lemper – the latter singing Pablo Neruda's love poems. See our guide to the London Literature Festival here.

IncrEdibles at Kew

Forget the stunning views, food is on the agenda at Kew

This year Kew’s summer festival highlights the extraordinary diversity of edible plants at the Royal Botanic Gardens. The centrepiece – ‘Tutti Frutti’ – is the work of architectural foodsmiths Bompas & Parr. The pair have come up with another of their trademark bonkers concepts: a giant ‘fruit salad’ boating lake complete with a floating pineapple island. The Global Garden, on the Great Lawn opposite Kew Palace, features more than 90 edible plants from around the globe – including grape vines and pomegranate and olive trees – along with stories about their origins and cultural heritage. Coffee connoisseurs should head for the Princess of Wales Conservatory, where there’s a chance to see a coffee plantation and learn about the 100 species of coffee now known to science.

Lichtenstein: A Retrospective – last chance

• Rated as: 3/5

Here's your last chance to see Roy Lichtenstein's dotty retrospective

No one really invented pop art, as all the ingredients were there already: brightly coloured advertisements, consumer goods, pulp fiction. But when Roy Lichtenstein started to copy images of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse from a kid’s book on to canvas, he not only chanced upon a style that would define much of the art of 1960s America, but he became inextricably linked with his own non-invention. Lichtenstein's Ben-Day dotted comic strips and bold, geometric-heavy reinterpretations of classic masterpieces may not seen as "real art" by some, but boy, they make for some serious eye candy. Tate Modern's retrospective closes this Sunday, get down there quickly.

Hampton Court Palace Big Picnic

• Free

Grab your basket and blanket, Hampton Court makes for the perfect picnic spot

Pack your picnic hamper for a day of live entertainment, games and family craft activities on the Palace's East Front Gardens this bank holiday. The Big Picnic includes hands-on activities inspired by the gruesome stories brought to life in Lucy Worsley's TV series 'Fit to Rule: How Royal Illness Changed History'. This perfect family fun for the long weeknd, let's hope the sun decides to shine.

Feel My Bicep Presents Metro Area and Optimo

Dance 'til you drop at this night of solid-gold house music

Serious house scenes going on at the shiny new(ish) Oval Space this Saturday, as acclaimed Brooklyn house and disco duo Metro Area (AKA Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani) step into the Oval to relay a treasure chest of boogied-up classic grooves and crisp beats. House music's hippest bloggers, Bicep, will be joining the party to set their own Chicago-dipped dancefloor schedule, as will eclectic Glasgow clubnight duo Optimo, completing a pristine line-up. Make the most of the long weekend and check out more great parties taking place this weekend.

Walk London: Spring into Summer

• Free

Enjoy a ramble through some of the capital's most picturesque spots

Enjoy one of thirty free guided walks which cover London’s seven top walking routes this weekend, organised by Transport for London. All the walks are designed to be raffic-free and feature some of the capital's best attractions, parks, woodland, rivers, canals and open spaces. The routes range from the 15-mile Jubilee Walkway to the whopping 152-mile Loop walk, but there's a range of shorter walks making up just parts of the longer routes (many of them less than five miles) meaning that there's something for all ages and interests.

Muse + Dizzee Rascal + Bastille

The globe-conquering rockers head to the Emirates Stadium with a top support in tow

It's hard to imagine that fans of Muse back in the days of 'Showbiz' and 'Origin of Symmetry' are into their current output – which, with latest (sixth) album 'The 2nd Law', seems to have added a layer of dubstep to their already multi-faceted, epic orchestral rock. But they've clearly got a strong following, because they continue to headline arenas and stadiums across the globe. London grime don Dizzee Rascal and spikey-haired alt rock-poppers Bastille provide the support.

Public Enemy at the Young Vic

• Rated as: 4/5

Catch four-star theatre at the Young Vic until June

Despite a retina-searingly bright set that looks like a cross between a ski chalet and everything that was wrong with the ’60s (er, in a good way – credit to designer Miriam Buether), Richard Jones’s revival of Henrik Ibsen’s ‘Public Enemy’ is a surprisingly understated affair that starts slow and gathers intractable momentum. Based on squabbling siblings, this is bleak stuff thrillingly presented.