Temperatures drop, shopping stress rises, and London rolls into festive season good and proper this week. Here's our guide to the saner side of London's arts scene; it's not all about carols and pantos, you know. That Hamlet starts at the Novello today, without the skull, but most definitely with Doctor Who. Tickets are pretty hard to come by. If you get your hands on one, let us know how. Londonist is wondering about......

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......

Ahh, art or money? It's something we ponder daily here at Londonist. (Can't we have both?) The big question is also being asked over at the Old Vic by none other than Kevin Spacey and his mate Jeff Goldblum in Mamet's Speed-the-Plow. We're also pondering how to get our hands on tickets for this sure-to-sell-out show. Previews run til Saturday; the show's booking until April. Also Opening Photography fans should pop along to the......

Be there first Circus-style theatre comes to London in Afrika! Afrika! opening this week after heavy advertising which has been around for months. Performers from 17 different African nations make up the show; contortionists, acrobatics, jugglers, high-wire acts, musicians, singers, the list goes on. If you're thinking of joining the reported 1.5 million who've seen the show since it launched in Germany in 2005, bear in mind: ticket prices are up with the high......

Dance can often seem an intimidating or impenetrable art form for the non-pointy toed punter so here are our top 4 recommendations for shows to see in the rest of 2007. All will blow your mind in different ways. Go pop your dance cherry on the coolest shows around. Zero Degrees 16-20 October, Sadlers Wells Another chance to catch this unique artistic collaboration between dancers and choreographers Akram Khan and Sidi Labi Cherkaoui, composer......