The Institute of Contemporary Arts has followed its bigger cultural brethren and abandoned the entrance fee. Previous visitors to the reclusive gallery on the Mall had been forced to hand over £3 to access exhibitions and the cafe - not a huge sum, but enough to dissuade the penny-pinching types. From today, though, access is free before 11pm. Artistic director Ekow Eshun got in his entry for Pseud's Corner early, describing the decision as......

A beautiful mid-summer week in London lies ahead, and if you follow Londonist's instructions to the letter, you'll get some free champagne, flowers, live music, and, yeah, even some funfair rides out of it. You and your rolypoly pocketbook can thank us later. Monday: Two films for the price o' one: now that's a deal London On The Cheap can get right behind, popcorn in tow. Rising director Aaron Katz is showing his two......

We're in the thick of it now: full-on tourist season is here, and while you may be fighting your way through thicker lunchtime throngs than ever, elbowing open London guidebooks and tube maps out of your way at every corner, we've got a round-up of decidedly non-touristy and inexpensive fun to be had this week. Monday: Free in-store gigs, hath sweeter words ever been written? The HMV on Oxford Street tonight is featuring a......

When an event is portrayed as a night of "unbridled hedonism," it behooves us to sit up and take note. Tomorrow's Nightclub event will bear witness to the ICA being overrun by a DJ roundup so impressive, it's enough to make any electro enthusiast salivating and starry-eyed. Billed as an all-night disco/rave, the ICA will be pumping the music from 9 pm to 4 am. Primo UK dance scene shaper DJ Steve Bicknell will......

What do an ex-Python, Martha Stewart, and a woman in the running for first female poet laureate all have in common? Come on now, use your deductive reasoning skills. They all somehow feature in this week’s Book Grocer, of course! Monday: Novelist David Benioff has a few recognisable names on his CV – he’s both collaborated with Spike Lee and written the screenplay for The Kite Runner. Tonight Benioff is at Foyles to discuss......

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......

Happy Bloomsday, friends. If on this, the 104th anniversary of Leopold Bloom’s epic wanderings around Dublin, our column is even less coherent than usual, don’t blame us and our second-rate attempts to mimic the master. On the other hand, maybe you should. Do we contradict ourselves? Very well then, we contradict ourselves. Come, mess. Bloomsday: Alright, so perhaps you have no idea what we’re babbling on about because (GASP!) you’ve cracked the cover of......

As Thursday lurches towards an end, naturally thoughts turn to starting the weekend early. Rather than another tired trip to the pub, we can't think of a better way to do so than with minimal techno at the ICA. Ghostly International's Matthew Dear performs there tonight with his full band, Matthew Dear's Big Hands. Though we cannot personally attest to the size of Dear's hands, we do know that they are as equally nimble......

Pardon. The book grocer got some sun this weekend. We find that there’s an inverse relationship between our hours of sun exposure and our ability to talk books. Do you think the connection between weather and literary prowess could explain Britain’s many achievements in this field? Just wondering... Monday: The Bedford Park Festival kicked off a few days ago, and we’re liking its literary offerings. Tonight brings us Wilde at Heart, a two-act play......

Whilst celebrated anniversaries generally include the first, tenth, twenty-fifth and so on, we'll afford a dodecadecimal exception to Raster-Noton. The German label has never been much for conformity, so why should they start now? Occupying a space between experimental electronic music and the dancefloor, the label's artists succeed at being simultaneously both but neither. We've never had the good fortune of hearing any club DJ drop one of their tracks into a set and......

As part of his ongoing first solo UK exhibition at the ICA, this Saturday sees French artist Loris Gréaud present an interpretation of his Cellar Door libretto with CocoRosie's Sierra Casady and pianist/violinist/cellist Gael Rakotondrabe. Whilst for the ICA this is another instalment in Stage of the Art, their cross-Channel cultural exchange series with Palais de Tokyo, for Gréaud this performance will be another step in his larger Cellar Door experiment. Having recently exhibited......

Sure, you’re hungover, quite possibly bloated, and probably rather haggard, but the fun of the Bank Holiday weekend doesn’t have to stop there! We’ve got a great line-up of activities all week long to fuel you through your blissfully short four-day workweek. Monday: Forecast says rain on Bank Holiday Monday, so why not sleep in (as though that bears suggestion), laze around all day, and save your energy for the evening? Head to the......

And the livin’ is easy: the weather’s been divine, and summer is here at last. There is the compulsion to spend every possible moment outdoors (Pimms preferably in hand), as it’s London after all and you never know when the good meteorological fortune will end. To that end, welcome to an al-fresco themed London On The Cheap week – get out there and take proper advantage of the next week of forecasted warmth and......

The decor of hotels can be something of a mixed bag: It can be very elegant, it can be very tacky, and it generally has a store-bought look to it. But the generically named Guest Hotels group has found a way to dispense with all of these generalizations. Starting this summer, the five hotels will become galleries for contemporary artwork for guests to enjoy. Having recruited staff from the ICA and Design Museum to......

T.S. Eliot wrote that “April is the cruelest month,” but we're officially endorsing Birthday Boy Bard’s more optimistic quote instead: “April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.” Feel young and sprightly in the warmer weather as you sample the Shakespeare-themed week ahead in honor of his “official” 444th birthday (his actual date of birth remains a mystery). Monday: And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn? One of London’s best......

Now that you’ve spent a long, slothful weekend hiding from the snow on your mum’s couch, bloated with chocolate whilst watching endless episodes of the Simpsons and the Hollyoaks (No? Just us?) your brain could probably use a little stimulation. Luckily, London’s art scene is ready for you in this “out like a lamb…” week. If you want to stretch your brain a bit, but don’t want to stray too far from the sitting......

It's officially Spring and by Pisces it's lovely out there in the sunshine. Crocuses have been spotted in Highbury Fields so our biggest recommendation for expenditure light trips this week is get to the parks and into the gardens and witness the miracles of the changing seasons. If you're in need of more artificial stimulation, however, and are squirrelling all your spare cash into your ISA before the end of the tax year then......

True to the form of mime, there are no words to describe Astronomy For Insects. Russian company BlackSkyWhite's jaw-dropping performance at the ICA last night proves that mime can be far, far worse than a skinny man in a stripy top trapped in a glass box: mime can in fact be bloody terrifying. Astronomy For Insects was absolutely and relentlessly hide-behind-the-sofa scary. There were moments only witnessed through fingers clasped over the eyes. There......

Tell your friends that you’re attending a talk on Sylvia Plath – In London. As winter approaches. – and they’re apt to shoot you a funny look and start silently monitoring your behaviour for signs of mental distress. Such is Plath’s difficult legacy. Although her status as a major American poet seems at this point assured, it is the tragic circumstances of her death and the tabloid-worthy details of her failed marriage to former......