Things to do in London this week

Summer arts festivals: London is awash with them this weekend – not literally awash, fingers crossed, unless the Met Office are very wrong indeed (the forecast is dry and sunny for Saturday, and cloudy, but dry, for Sunday) - and a host of other sunny events besides.

A feast of Summer festivals in London

So, where to start? South-east Londoners would be mad not to take advantage of a week of free, world-class outdoor theatre, dance and spectacle that is the Greenwich and Docklands Festival (20-28 June) 

Up north on Hampstead Heath,  Grow London (20-22 June) takes over with its inaugural ‘contemporary garden fair’ offering a cooler counterpoint to the more traditional pleasures of Chelsea. 

The  Camden Crawl (20-21 June) is a mini music festival in the home of live, alternative music. ABC play Koko on Friday, bands to look out for include Au Revoir Simone (Saturday, Electric Ballroom), Yuck (Friday, Koko) and Of Montreal (Saturday, Electric Ballroom).

Getting underway today in Regent’s Park is Taste of London (18-22 June). Since its launch in 2004 this restaurant festival has gone from strength to strength; this year, 40 of the UK’s best restaurants, plus the funkiest street food wagons, will be putting their wares on public taste test.

The City unbuttons itself a little to host the  City of London Festival (22 June – 17 July), with a quite remarkably varied programme of events. Many take place at lunchtime, or in the evening, and are free – well worth investigating for those determined to escape their desks in favour of sustenance for the soul. But there are family-friendly activities too – check the website for the music, comedy, performance art, talks and debates on offer.

Right in the heart of London, another free extravaganza  is taking place in Trafalgar Square.   West End Live  is organised by the Society of London Theatres and showcases of the best of the West End – expect crowds, but also the chance to sample some world-class live performance.

London Summer Solstice 2014

The solstice is always a bittersweet moment, given that summer’s longest day is also the moment the year starts to turn towards winter again. All the more reason to mark it in some way. For going out suggestions, check our essential summer solstice feature.

Somerset House is marking the occasion rather differently, with a Midsummer Water Day featuring family workshops, installations, a ‘swimmers’ manifesto’ and even activities organised by King’s College Geography department. All very educational, but our personal highlight is a new poem from Alice Oswald, author of the wonderful Dart, specially commissioned for the occasion. The first 100 people who take a sip of water from  her Dartmoor pool in the Roman Bath will get a copy. 

Blockbuster art, contemporary sculpture, and last chance to see

Two art heavyweights unveil new shows this week. The National Gallery’s Making Colour (18 June – 7 September) tells the extraordinary stories behind pigment .

Meanwhile Tate Britain finally has a success on its hands after a string of flops that had critics calling for director Penelope Curtis’s head. She must be breathing a sigh of relief that Waldemar Janusczak has set his seal of approval on British Folk Art (10 June-31 August).

Figurative sculpture of the most disturbing variety imaginable is on display at the Hayward Gallery. The Human Factor features eerily life-like full-frontal female nudes and works made of decomposing animal intestine. 

Lottery-funded Artangel commissions works by contemporary artists, often producing pieces of great beauty. This weekend is your last chance to experience Saskia Olde Wolbers’s Yes, These Eyes Are the Windows, an installation which brings to life Vincent Van Gogh’s unexpected sojourn in Brixton in the very house in which he lived.

At the movies this week

If you have a teenage daughter, or just enjoy a good cry, you’ll want to see The Fault in Our Stars, based on the best-selling YA book and featuring love-struck, terminally ill teens. Critics and audiences alike have given a thumbs up to this feel-good weepie. Also treating love, but at the art house end of the spectrum, is Of Horses and Men, an Icelandic drama in which horse and man meet as equals and romance stirs between humans. Already anointed as cult by the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, this is a must-see.

What to book ahead in London

Now for some planning ahead. We have a soft spot for Kelis , whose new single, Friday Fish Fry, is the perfect kitchen get your freak on dance track. She plays Somerset House on 14 July and tickets are still available. Nor is it too late to snag tickets for the Kings of Leon (22-23 June, Hyde Park).

Tickets are also now on sale for the Globe and Wanamaker Playhouse’s autumn season . Highlights include ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, John Ford’s incestuous tragedy, and, for a little light relief from all that Jacobean bloodletting, Francis Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle.

Summer soundtrack

If you have no intention of doing anything this weekend apart from making the most of the weather with a little light entertaining, invest in the soundtrack of the summer. Lana Del Ray’s new album is dreamy, hypnotic and decidedly filthy – everything you’d expect, in fact, from music’s answer to the Cadbury’s Caramel Bunny .

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