Gillian Slovo has an intimate knowledge of the struggle to forge an existence in an oppressive society. The South African novelist is daughter of political activists, who were major figures in the anti-apartheid battle. This background has informed many of her books, including the courtroom drama Red Dust (2000), which was made into a film. In her Orange-Prize shortlisted Ice Road (2004), Slovo charted a gutsy story of survival in Stalinist Russia. In her latest novel, Black Orchids, she explores one woman's search for belonging under the colonial rule of 1940s Ceylon. The young Englishwoman marries a Sinhalese man, yet contrary to popular narratives, she finds herself an outsider in the high society where her husband is at home in Ceylon. However, this dynamic is soon reversed as colonial rule collapses and the couple settle in 1950s Britain, shaped by racial prejudices. The journey towards acceptance of their situation as their family grows up reveals the swiftly changing attitudes of 1960s and '70s Britain, which paved the way for a more liberal society. From this angle, Slovo discusses Black Orchids with the leading sociologist Susie Orbach, whose forthcoming novel is Bodies.

NB: also of note at the LR Bookshop is Carl Djerassi's talk on 18/11.

The Royal Ballet presents a bite-sized programme this October, offering two revivals and a world premiere to whet the appetite. Glen Tetley's Voluntaries is the emotive opening to the triple bill, lyrical and flowing but with impressive technical detail. Flemming Flindt's The Lesson strikes a much more chilling note; a blank-eyed piano player remains unmoved as a teacher tortures a novice dance student. The programme ends with the world premiere of Wayne McGregor's Infra with set design by Julian Opie (whose work is currently on view at Lisson Gallery) and music by Max Richter. McGregor is the only contemporary artist ever to be given the reins as Resident Choreographer of the Royal Ballet. Other than creating work for his company Random Dance he has choreographed for films, curated festivals, made site specific installations and collaborated with neuroscientists... Using "algorithms as a choreographic stimulus" McGregor has created what looks to be a dynamic, memorable work that is sure to attract a diverse audience alongside the stalwart ballet bods.

NB: this triple bill is performed on 13/11, 14/11, 19/11, 20/11 and 26/11. Also of note at the ROH is Firsts 2008 which run from 14/11 till 22/11.

SMITH, the new site-specific play from InSite Performance, written and directed by Jacqui Honess-Martin, is taking over the grand Enlightenment Gallery at The British Museum, with its gloomy recesses and cabinets of historical oddities. Drifting through the shadows, the action incorporates performances from a young talented cast, telling three overlapping stories of love and loyalty; one contemporary, one Victorian and one from the beginning of human civilisation. The plots move from contemporary London, with its bored security personnel and post-millennial frustrations, to 1870s London and George Smith. Smith was a rags-to-riches conquering hero of British archaeology, who proved that the Noah's Ark story was a Hebrew rewrite of a much older myth and thus destroyed the belief in the Old Testament as literal truth. We end up with Gilgamesh, the giant-slaying Mesopotamian king of c.2300BC. This is the first time the BM has invited professional theatre into its hallowed halls although the dramatic architecture has always screamed for it. Producer Anna Schmitz managed to talk them round, as SMITH synergises with the new Babylon exhibition also opening this week. Places are limited so book quickly -- it should be enlightening.

NB: SMITH will be performed on 13/11, 14/11, 20/11, 21/11, 27/11 and 28/11.

Ahh... it's the ICA's Comica season again. This time that great London repository for the comic book, the V&A, are also getting involved. As usual England's greatest comic fan, Paul Gravett (of Escape Magazine) has brought together a stellar crew of draughtsfolk. If Art Spiegelman, creator of Maus and editor of the legendary RAW, is too political (24/11), then maybe Alan Moore (of Watchman fame) and Melinda Gebbie discussing the erotic, "nay pornographic" (their words) Lost Girls (14/11) will be more your cuppa. For those in need of more adrenalin there's Dave McKean (16/11) or Ian Rankin (17/11). This year Ted Benoit and Emmanuel Guibert (19/11) and Alex Maleev (18/11) fly the flag for Europe. Irrespective of how many Superman, Spiderman, Batman or Hellboy films get re-imagined, the comic book has truly come of age, its own rich culture speaks of incest, murder or addition and mundane matters like cooking, masturbation and bug extermination. This week is not just about geeks and kids; Gravett's programming offers as much for the grown-up as it does for the intellectual (see the special symposium on14/11). And, of course, what comic day would be complete without an event dedicated to the king, Jack Kirby (23/11).

NB: Comica 2008 runs at the ICA, the V&A and the Institut Francais from 14/11 till 30/11. Be sure to check out the V&A's comic collection which will be open to the public.

A complex visionary of popular music, Scott Walker has been responsible for some of the most rich, beautiful and poignant songs of the past 40 years, as well as some of the most difficult and haunting. As part of the Walker Brothers in the '60s major hit followed hit, but he soon left to follow a darker direction -- a solo journey that sped past celebrity and stardom closer towards a crafted and sculptural musical territory. Climate Of Hunter (1984) anticipated his move towards abstraction in sound, usurping the song tradition in an alienating, theatrical and dense series of sonic interventions. Tilt (1995) and The Drift (2006) showed an ever more elaborate modernist artist at work, dissonant, arcane, timeless, and somber with symbolist lyrics scanning across the soundscapes. Undeniably difficult and arguably closer to plays than songs in their structure, it's fitting that these most recent releases will be presented as a theatrical production, with a diverse cast of singers, musicians and dancers to spirit them into life. With Walker absent from the stage, Damon Albarn, Dot Allison, Jarvis Cocker, and Gavin Friday among others will offer alternative readings of these threads of musical narrative. The waste land awaits.

NB: on 15/11 (4pm) catch a screening of Scott Walker: 30 Century Man.

The sixth season of Firsts showcases emerging and newly established artists from the world of dance, film and music... and a yo-yoist. Highlights from Programme 1 (14/11 and 15/11) include an ROH2 commission for the A2 company. Their previous works have demonstrated sharp humour, exceptional attention to detail and effortlessly intriguing movement, so the world premiere of their new work should rank high on the to-see list. Alongside a slick production from Place Prize semi-finalist Temitope Ajose-Cutting is the bare, pared-down contemporary solo by Matthias Sperling, set to an original score by KF's very own Scanner. Sampling three existing works, Sperling's lean, angular body twists and winds through spliced sections of choreography in a mesmerising exploration of movement. In Programme 3 (21/11 and 22/11) the Modified Toy Orchestra does what it says on the tin. It's a collection of reconstructed children's electronic toys, conducted by musicians. If you had nightmares as a child involving toys coming to life, this will either banish your demons or leave you screaming... With tickets at a mere £5, jugglers and musicians whetting your appetite in the foyer before performances and each programme offering a range of work, there will hopefully be an incongruous mix of diverse new work in a refined Royal setting.

NB: Firsts 2008 runs from 14/11 till 22/11. Also of note at the ROH is The Royal Ballet triple bill which includes a world premiere by Wayne McGregor (runs for five nights from 13/11 till 26/11).

Oddball Gallic duo Noze were known to the more cultured among us long before they were thrust into limelight after Hot Chip started name-dropping them. Brought together by a mutual love of the straw hat and getting naked in public, Nicolas Sfintescu and Ezechiel Pailhes have been making music since 2004 and first came to attention with the off kilter house meets rude lyrics that was 2005's "Kitchen". Perhaps as a reaction to featuring on a Hot Chip's DJ Kicks album, Noze reappeared this year with an LP on Get Physical, which veered from the dancefloor to a more complete sound that touched on '30s jazz but somehow worked. Intriguingly they take centre stage at the second edition of Trouble Vision down at Corsica Studios with their riotous live reputation intact despite this new direction. Fresh blood is plentiful too, with Greco-Roman's Drums Of Death providing some voodoo zombie mutant discoid live action and the young and the hyped DJing in the shape of Joe And Will Ask?, Detboi and Hannah Holland. Oh and there is free Sambuca too, which is a good way to toast the new leader of the free world.

"They fuck you up your mum and dad" -- well, duh. But why, goddammit? How? Can we change things? Is it something we should even bother caring about? Can we blame films, books, psychotherapy, history or politics? Should we blame human nature? Journalist and author Rebecca Abrams, for whom studying family life is something of an MO, leads a day course on the subject at The School Of Life. What's that you say? Haven't heard of this educational and cultural enterprise? Well, faculty members include Alain de Botton, Geoff Dyer and Tom Hodgkinson (so it's intellectually legit) and it holds events aiming to nurture enlightened adults' understanding of the fundamental cogs that make life operate -- family, love, play and politics. Take a course, have a meal, go on holiday, listen to a "secular sermon", have "stigma-free psychotherapy" or just shop for your mind -- here's the place to hone your skills for having a more fulfilled life.

NB: this weekend course runs on both 15/11 and 16/11 and includes dinner on the Saturday night. Or, you can sign up for the course that meets once a week for six weeks.

Sarah Lucas' exhibition features several casts of penises, so no surprises there right? Well, perhaps there are, because Penetralia is a pastoral and somewhat romantic show. Plaster phallus and flints are displayed as interchangeable weapons of power from a forgotten civilisation, perhaps uncovered by Time Team. Who were these people, we might wonder alongside Tony Robinson, who set so much store in long pointed shapes? Did they believe that they had special powers? Well, yes, as it turns out, they did -- and Lucas has been charting and dissecting these powers in their different forms for about two decades. Anthropomorphic pieces of bark assist the plaster shapes, and provide plinths for them to stand on. Plaster fingers, too, prize apart bark bodies (and perhaps souls) like ancient pagan fairies.

Around the back of the building on Balfour Mews, a lone energy drink can pathetically bobs about at the end of a moving conveyor belt, in an exhibition from Gabriel Kuri. Totemic symbols of a culture of luxury (crystals, marble and free mini toiletries from hotels) are here emptied of their energy into empty vessels. A huge sheet printed with an image of a glowing diamond has been finger-poked through a hole in the wall. The stub on the other side resembles a firework, ready to light -- but has anyone got a match?

NB: the Sarah Lucas show runs till 15/11 and the Gabriel Kuri one till 22/11. Be sure to catch Florian Hecker's show at Sadie Coles' third space on Heddon Street (runs till 22/11).

Since its inception, theatre has largely been about storytelling, a subjective creation, where a dream becomes reality through your participation in the action, script and narrative flow, acted out on a stage. Over the last 24 years Sheffield's Forced Entertainment have been offering up works that riff on contemporary urban life, playing with the possibilities of improvisation, experimentation, illusion and performance, whilst dissolving boundaries between audience and stage in imaginative ways. Spectacular playfully denies its very definition, presenting a bare stage with just two characters, no props, no music, and with lighting that seems to search independently for action that takes place elsewhere. A portly man in a skeleton suit becomes our host, as surprised as we are by the sparse set, and proceeds to picture what we should be experiencing. Equally present is a woman dying a Tropic Thunder melodramatic death, theatrical, OTT and utterly ridiculous, hovering on the edge of tragedy and comedy, crawling across the stage in agonized cries. They barely interact for the 80-minute duration, as if having to share the platform by chance, offering us a work that matches absurdity with humour and artifice with reality, in a provocative and intelligent exploration of possibilities. Here, dying on stage takes on a whole new meaning.

NB: runs till 15/11.

Since staging that line-up at the Wireless Festival back in 2007, you can't blame once label du jour Modular for having high ambitions. But although some of its better acts have faded from view and the newest are sailing dangerously close to formulaic throwback pop, you can't fault them for trying to assemble another monster cast list. Doubtless they'd be unable to charge a matter-esque door fee without it, but it's nice to see the likes of Aussies Van She and French touch maestro Fred Falke back in the country. Although headliners The Presets seem to lack a little of their early poise and tautness, there should be enough here to keep you entertained -- Lifelike is a relatively rare sight in the UK (and worth it for the co-written track "Discopolis" alone), and there's light and shade in the shape of Riton's new krautrock adherence (Eine Kleine Nacht Musik) as well as rapidly rising remixers and low-tempo addicts Aeroplane.

NB: also of note on the same night -- albeit a very different style of music -- is Ricardo Villalobos at Fabric.

For a unique 10-day project, the New York artist collective Faile have taken over a school in South London, to present their inspiration from the detritus of city walls mixed with a personal influence from the almost nonexistent Native American Indian culture. Faile is known for utilizing the decay of advertising and flyposting to provide a platform to present their individual take on the world of found imagery. For this demonstration, recognisable pop culture images are still visible in museum-style large-scale canvas works representing a rich collage of the urban experience, yet the repeated use of diffused spray paint suggests a organic return to old-school street art techniques. In this spirit, they've also diversified into other areas including sculpture and hand-carved functional prayer wheels, which allow the viewer to participate alongside Faile in their own personal journey of consciousness. The exhibition is frequently populated with dim transparent characters paralleling the idea of lost identity. As the frenzied antics of Dada in the cultural glooming of sleeplessness before the dawn of World Wars would shattered the thin veneer of civilization, Lost In Glimmering Shadows is the anarchy that is born of the current anxiety in the midst of the cry out for a glimpse of human spirit.

NB: runs till 16/11.

Esteemed writer and director Raul Ruiz will be at the Renoir this week to talk about his latest novel In Pursuit Of Treasure Island, a riff on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel and the source of Ruiz's fantastical 1985 adaptation. A famously literary filmmaker (the Chilean's directing credits include Time Regained, an adaptation of Marcel Proust's Remembrance Of Thing Past starring Catherine Deneuve, as well as A TV Dante), Ruiz uses texts as starting points for weird and wonderful narratives that often spiral away from their source material; Treasure Island (which will be screened before a Q&A with Ruiz) was a surreal and labyrinthine film that transposed Stevenson's story of pirates and buried treasure to the modern world. Ruiz's In Pursuit Of Treasure Island presents a continuation of the film and shows that the children's classic hasn't loosened its grip on Ruiz's imagination. He has said of his often challenging films that "they have their own logic." For those wanting to know more about this enigmatic director's thoughts about filmmaking, this event is a must.

NB: also of note is the special Q&A screening with Tilda Swinton (23/11) and A Streetcar Named Desire screening at the BFI Southbank (14/11 till 27/11).

Sundays in mid November, err, not much to say about them, really. Halloween's over, the spark of Guy Fawkes Night has fizzled out, and embracing the Christmas spirit this early would be sadomasochistic. Just the time for some dark arts, we say -- and what better than an afternoon of magic this coming Sabbath? A free magic master class, performances and talks by Paul Kieve -- the power behind the celluloid boy wizard Harry Potter -- and a cabaret show by award-winning magicians John Archer and John van der Put plus standnotamazed are surely just the thing for a dank and dreary Sunday. Van der Put's magic-cum-stand-up show as Piff The Magic Dragon will put your face in a quandary -- you won't know whether to gasp in awe the slick tricks that defy comprehension, or roar with laugh at the bone dry humour delivered deadpan whilst wearing the kind of dragon costume best saved for the under fives. A three-way combo of activities might really get your pulse racing, but dropping in for one of the three sections could be a heady shot that'll really perk up the tail end of the weekend.

Due to Marlon Brando's bravura performance, on its release in 1951 director and Hollywood snitch Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire, changed the face of cinema forever. As the brutish, belligerent Stanley Kowalski, Brando, turned the once mannered world of acting upside down and opened the door for a new generation of mumbling, messy and extremely volatile Method actors, who let rip, held nothing back and perspired a lot. Previously, most US actors showed a certain restraint no matter how livid the role but this one performance changed everything. Today it is hard to imagine the fuss the movie caused. Critics raged and called it vulgar, immoral, foul and disgusting -- which caused the studio to neuter the work and leave much of the film's cojones on the cutting room floor. But in 1993 the "lost" footage was found and re-inserted, allowing the film an altogether new slant. The film's "new" dialogue suggests that Kowalski's ephemeral sister-in-law -- the shrinking southern belle Blanche Dubois (Vivien Leigh) -- was in fact a nymphomaniac preying on teenage boys who formerly taunted her homosexual husband to suicide while Kowalski's wife Stella (Kim Hunter) gets a giddy masochistic thrill from hubbie's bullish violent ways. Wot larks, eh Pip? Wot larks!

NB: A Streetcar Named Desire screens at the BFI Southbank from 14/11 till 27/11. Also of note this week is the release of The Baader-Meinhof Complex (14/11) and the special Q&A screenings with Raul Ruiz (16/11) and Tilda Swinton (23/11).

Turner Prize nominee Mark Leckey is a highly evolved species of club kid who actually managed to make interesting artworks out of his fascination for the nightlife. His video works often incorporated in installations are reminiscent of social science experiments the likes of which one would expect to find at Sir John Soane's Museum, yet the artefacts from far away lands and distant times have been replaced by elements of popular culture. The ultimate in post-modern fabrication, Leckey's oeuvre is often a reference to the reference of a surface: Made In 'Eaven, presented as part of the Tate Triennial 2006, used Jeff Koons' Rabbit sculpture as a reflective surface via which to film a distorted vision of Leckey's own flat. The artist is not merely an observer of popular culture; he also contributes to it as an artist and as a member of the band Jack Too Jack, who specialize in a unique brand of downbeat experimental electronica. Leckey, who many an art critic speculate will win the Turner Prize, will discuss his influences and his work.

NB: the Turner Prize 2008 show runs at Tate Britain till 18/01/09.

Should we be surprised that sales of Marxist classics are on the rise? After all, the destructive effects of the contradictions within Capitalism have once again emerged from the perpetual war against those it impoverishes and begun to affect those, in the "developed world", who had supposed themselves to be its beneficiaries. The recent neo-liberal obsession with monetary value rather than employment has proved to be little more than an ideology for the most egregious transfer of wealth from public to private ownership, together with concomitant tax regimes that have seen the concentration of that wealth in an ever widening gap between rich and poor. This talk -- in the 160th anniversary year of the publication of Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto -- offers a double opportunity. Firstly, of course, to discuss the relevance today of the work's political vision -- where it seems that it is the terror of Capitalism itself, rather than Communism, which is the "spectre" that haunts not only Europe but the world. And secondly, to do so with the author of the introduction to this new edition, David Harvey, whose own work as a geographer critically analyses the ways in which Capitalism, just as with the distribution of every other social resource, produces inequalities in our access to space.

NB: David Harvey will be in conversation with Frank Furedi.

Not to be confused with the now prophetic West Wing's communications director -- nor is the actor that plays the aforementioned White House staffer to be confused with the famous art historian -- Toby Ziegler's second show is his strongest one yet. Rather than television, newspaper, or even pop culture, it is really the computer and the digital that is the horizon of our culture today; that is, the edge of our understanding is mediated via digital life. Hence, Ziegler's work seems to both engage with and subvert the digitalized world that we now inhabit, in a comparable manner to Jeff Wall and Gerhard Richter. He seems to be taking the digital and moving it into the hand-made; making art out of ether so to speak. The images generated here have been culled from 19th century cultural objects (porcelain dogs) and Victorian porn, and morphed into more schematic abstractions via planes and a dot or lozenge shape, that Ziegeler then pieces together into an abstraction. Geometry and pattern-making form the core structures of his language, and where his earlier pieces were more representational, here he seems to be delving deeper into this language of pattern and geometry.

NB: runs till 23/11.

Film theorist Peter Wollen's seminal 1969 essay on the use of semiotics in film was a landmark in film theory, formalising how our minds deconstruct visual signposts. His examination of how we interpret symbolism in cinema has done much to change the general understanding of cinematic language, and has had a particularly huge effect on filmmakers. Partly as illustrations of his theory, in the '70s and '80s Wollen made a number of experimental short films, together with a single feature film. Very rarely screened, Friendship's Death is an experimental political/sci-fi/war film, set in Amman during the 1970 Jordan/Palestine crisis. The film stars Tilda Swinton as the eponymous Friendship, an extraterrestrial sent to earth on a peace mission who becomes lost in the desert and is rescued by a British war correspondent (Bill Paterson). In part presenting the alien's point of view, the film examines perception and how we interpret events and situations. A typically brilliant enigmatic performance from Swinton, who will both introduce the film and stay for a post-screening Q&A, and a rare chance for both Wollen and Swinton followers to see a unique cinematic collaboration.

NB: you can also catch Tilda Swinton for another Q&A screening on 20/11 at the Curzon Mayfair. This event is an advance screening of Erick Zonca's homage to John Cassavetes' film Gloria called Julia. Swinton will be in conversation with Jonathan Romney post the screening. Also of note is the special Q&A screening with Raoul Ruiz (16/11) and A Streetcar Named Desire screening at the BFI Southbank (14/11 till 27/11).

The last time Art Spiegelman spoke in London, he very entertainingly recounted how his favourite pen company had closed down, and that he'd bought the remaining stock -- three pens. Don't freak out, he thinks they should last him the rest of his life. You probably all know Spiegelman for Maus, a Pulitzer-winning recollection of his father who was interned at Auschwitz, and his relationship with his family. But for comic fans everywhere he is also known for the fact that he edited and published RAW -- with his wife, New Yorker comic editor Francoise Mouly -- a wonderful anthology of serious comics which brought many European voices to the English language world. You may also be aware of their subtle but poignant New Yorker cover for 9/11 issue. Not only has Spiegelman been a great cartoonist, but he is also one of the medium's most entertaining advocates; think early Woody Allen but with a more political edge. In town this time to promote his return to the memoir, this pioneer of the first-person narrative in comics will be speaking to another pioneer of a personal voice in the comic, our own Posy Simmonds.

NB: you can also catch Art Speigelman on 23/11 when he chats with his fellow counter-culture comic artists, Spain Rodriguez and Gilbert Shelton. Both of these events are part of Comica 2008 which runs from 14/11 till 30/11.

Described as an avant-metal supergroup, Fantomas is the brainchild of Mike Patton (wearer of many hats, but perhaps most famously known as the singer from Faith No More) and also comprising Buzz Osborne of Melvins, Dave Lombardo from Slayer and long-time Patton associate Trevor Dunn. Over on these shores primarily to play at ATP (curated by Patton and the Melvins), this is a second chance to witness the band performing their 2001 long player The Director's Cut in its entirety. As the title hints, the album features interpretations of film theme songs -- visual art and motion pictures are often inspirations for the band -- but they draw on a swathe of influences far wider than their metal credentials might suggest. Patton in particular eschews traditional singing in favour of more experimental vocal techniques, standing behind a desk of effects and acting as conductor for the band. One of the most breathtaking things about Fantomas is their incredible musical tightness when working with some of the most challenging dynamics and, impressively, their ability to nail live what can sound like studio editing on their albums. It's a rare chance to catch this truly unique outfit.

Los Angeles-based American artist Sterling Ruby is widely recognized for his distinctive methods of making, fusing unlikely components in two and three dimensions, and applying his unique visual flavour to a spectrum of media both static and time based. Heavily steeped in critical theory, Ruby's work draws from a variety of sources from minimalism (in particular a sort of neo-minimalist's call to arms against the institutions implemented by Donald Judd -- a long held tenet of Ruby's that has often been misinterpreted as materialism) to Roger Caloise's observations of insects. His current show at Sprueth Magers is the third instalment of the Ripper series, and deploys painting, sculpture and a sort of hybrid assemblage in an investigation of colour (the show is entitled Spectrum Ripper) alongside his signature deconstructive positioning of the organic against the geometric. This exhibition also coincides with the opening of his recent collaboration with Raf Simons in Tokyo, where Ruby designed the complete interior of a shop to showcase Simons' fashion line.

NB: Sterling Ruby's work is currently on view in London at Sprueth Magers till 15/11/08 and in Bergamo, Italy at GAMeC till 01/02/09.

To read the interview click here.

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