Tuesday 22 April (7:30 - 11pm)

@ Mean Fiddler, 157 Charing Cross Rd., WC2 (020.7434.9592) Tube: Tottenham Court Rd.

In case you are wondering... their name is taken from a Public Image Limited song and not a tribute to our beloved broadcasting house. While New York's Radio 4 incorporate PIL's loopy Punk Funk mash ups, unlike kindred spirits The Rapture and Liars, they keep a sliver of influence from the East Coast emo from whence they came. Think a Krautock-less Interpol on happy pills. Their diverse molotov cocktail of influences (they cite Mission of Burma and Primal Scream, critics say everything from David Holmes to The Clash and the Gang of Four to UNKLE) is best sampled on their new single "Dance To The Underground", a step forward from last year's well received Gotham album (produced by Sebadoh alumnus Tim O'Heir). Catch them in the midst of a vast European trek and see if all the hyperbole is just mere hype.

Tuesday 22 April (8:40pm )

@ National Film Theatre, South Bank, SE1 (020.7928.3232) Tube: Embankment/Waterloo

This week in film, UK-based artist Dryden Goodwin can be seen at the NFT showing work from the last five years of his career. Playing expectancy off desire to create a temporal look at the human condition, Goodwin's work goes to great lengths to find drama in the everyday. Using images of disarming intimacy and urban isolation, Goodwin's unlikely mix of sentiment, voyeurism and wry humour together pose serious questions about the nature of our relationship to reality and its preservation. Exploiting a film noir sensibility to generate anticipation, Goodwin's films draw attention to our somewhat voyeuristic, and even slightly sadistic, tendencies. He plays with the relationship between public and private, perhaps declaring a new and urbane "garden" in his film installation Closer -- one of the works in this retrospective at the NFT. Using images of humanity and public space, this artist's work has received critical acclaim worldwide.

NB: Part of a monthly series curated by the Video and Film Umbrella, this is a unique opportunity to see the artist introduce a selection of his recent work.

Wednesday 23 April (6 - 8pm)

@ Sadie Coles HQ, 35 Heddon St., W1 (020.7434.2227) Tube: Piccadilly Circus

Hey, heard the one about the painter who crossed the street? He was afraid of red, yellow and blue. There's not only something intensely hetero about Richard Prince, (that is almost biker chick, bad jokes and Marlborough Man) but also something truly '80s. Like big hair, Miami Vice, shoulder pads... Richard Prince was an '80s star, part of that Appropriationist crowd with Sherry Levine and, not only were his photos sexy in that they both startled in their social commentary, but they were also slick in their philosophical appropriateness. In them days being a star meant MEGAstardom, not quite Schwarzenegger-size but more Don Johnson-level! And you remember what's happened to Don? Well, in recent years Prince has taken up painting, jokes aside, actually jokes underneath. Truth is, Prince has not really re-invented himself, rather he has added another dimension, he's gotten grunge -- that '90s Seattle kinda downandirty -- a la Cy Twombly. Well now with a series of appropriated nurse images which he's overpainted with an ink-jet... if this were a Beavis and Butthead review then it would be "nurses... huh... huh... he said nurses..."

NB: The private view runs from 6 -8pm. Show ends Sat 31/05.

Wednesday 23 April (9pm - 2am)

@ Plastic People, 147-149 Curtain Road, EC2 (020.7739.6471) Tube: Old Street

Fernando Corono (the source of creativity behind the Murcof name) sidles synthetically into Plastic People this week on his tour of some blip-pop hot-beds of Europe, promoting his forthcoming Ulysses EP (due out in June). He is likely to purvey some deeply minimalist electronica following up the critically-acclaimed Martes of '02; an album that has been described as "electrifying" the electronic music genre (which we find always helps, by definition). However, such a description may be slightly misleading, as this evidently skilled composer produces tracks that are more likely to idle at an ambient pace with the timbre of a robotic cicada in a wire cage. The methodical evolution of melodies and simplistic primary textures throughout his work certainly achieves a slow and haunting musical presence, whilst organic rhythms exist implicitly as Leaf-litter on the underlying acoustic forest floor (definitely reminiscent of a South or Central American context). This is a musical creation born from the beauty of synthesized subtlety.

NB: Support is provided by Icarus, and DJ sets from Weatherall and Tony Morley.

Thursday 24 April (6 - 8pm)

@ White Cube, 48 Hoxton Square, N1 (020.7930.5373) Tube: Old St.

Darren Almond had his own reasons for going to extremes. For his new exhibition at White Cube, the artist is projecting two films shot in opposing polar regions. His recent journeys to Antarctica and the Arctic Circle inform a new body of work rich in candor and contradiction. Almond delivers the sublime deadpan, changing the way we think about the ends of the earth. See it for the films; that is if you're able to ignore the sculpture -- a monolithic black clock bisecting the main gallery. Its pneumatic tick is chilling.

NB: The private view runs from 6 - 8pm. Show ends Sat 31/05.

Giveaway: We have three catalogues from Almond's show to give away. They'll go to three randomly picked subscribers who can tell us the name of Almond's film that is currenlty on show at the AGO, in Ontario, Canada. (Hint: suspended railway.)

Friday 25 April

@ Various cinemas across London

Visiting the Big Apple can make you feel like a film extra. Indeed the iconic status of its skyline was one of the reasons that the live coverage of September 11th was so chilling. With 24 frames per second in its blood, the city was obviously also going to grieve through its films. 25th Hour (directed by Spike Lee) is one of the first to do so. Wonderfully written by David Benioff and based on his novel of the same name; it focuses on the last day of freedom for Monty (Ed Norton), an affable drug dealer about to start a seven year stretch in the slammer. He parties, assesses who betrayed him and ponders on his life/lack of future. With a dream-team cast (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ana Paquin, Brian Cox...) it's a gentle look at apathy and moral choice. A small film -- which Lee stretches to the epic, by making the Twin Towers tragedy not just a backdrop but a metaphor for what is happening in Monty's life and vice versa. In parts, it pulls a bit, but the message is still pleasantly messy with Lee just starting a conversation that goes beyond the cinema: questioning how all of us, lead-players and extras, live.

NB: Catch Spike Lee's retrospective at the Barbican Centre (runs untill Thu 24/04).

Friday 25 April (7pm)

@ Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Rd., SW7 (020.7942.2000) Tube: South Kensington

The most famous kitchen as artwork in the world was Gordon Matta-Clark's soup kitchen, Food, in which he provided food as a context for further artistic discussion and production. However, there can be no simpler nor purer moment of artistic production than cooking. It is literally magic: you take one thing, add heat of some sort, then add another and another -- and if not so clever, swear some magic words -- and so on until the first thing and the last thing make a perfectly tasty bond; combine that with a few other tasty things, and you have a meal. If you know your wines and desserts... then you too are approaching domestic-Goddesshood, becoming a performance-artiste, or at least performance-cookiste! No other international artist has proved the power of food's glorious sociality than Rirkrit Tiravanija, but put in the same space, Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray of the River Cafe, academic and cultural critic Marina Warner, and London artworld stalwart Bob & Roberta Smith amongst others, and you have a recipe for either art-meltdown or food heaven...

NB: Panel discussion, chaired by Marina Warner. Performing Kitchen (presented by artists Ursula Martinez, Marcia Farquhar and Robin Deacon) starts at 8pm and costs £5. All other events are free (6:30 - 10pm)

Saturday 26 April (8pm )

@ Barbican Centre, Barbican Centre, EC2 (020.7638.8891) Tube: Barbican

Wire are the definitive art punk pioneers. Not nearly as gob-soaked as their contemporaries, Wire's continual musical evolution has kept them relevant, long after Sid Vicious snuffed it and John Lydon turned into a knob-head. Much of the best music of the last 20 odd years owes a debt to these Watford Art College graduates. And their longevity seems all the more amazing when you consider some of their proteges (Sonic Youth and laterly Blur) are themselves not exactly spring chickens. In spite of the heritage, tonight's live performance of their classic debut Pink Flag, will not be a slavish nostalgia trip for 50 something punks. Wire have already deconstructed the live album (It's Beginning to & Back Again) so expect them to do the same for the live performance of a studio one. Expect reinvention and re-interpretation and with the enfants terribles of the contemporary art scene, Jake and Dinos Chapman providing the stage direction and design there will be visual treats to match the aural.

Giveaway: We have two pairs of tickets for the this event to give away. They'll go to two randomly picked subscribers who can tell us in which year was Pink Flag released.

Monday 28 April (6.30pm)

@ Geological Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1 (020.7434.9944) Tube: Piccadilly Circus

Louisa Hutton and Matthias Sauerbruch studied and taught at the AA during the '80s, they established their practice in London in '89, tackling the design of residential buildings, renovating and transforming private houses. During that time they discovered the structural potential of colour... a way to amplify space and intensify experience. In parallel, a number of urban-scale competition projects allowed them to explore themes derived from their academic studies, which led to an architecture engaged with the post-industrial urban condition and an approach devoted to the development of an ecological and sustainable environment. After winning competitions in Germany they moved to Berlin in '93. At that time the frenetic rebuilding of the city together with the public competition system that awarded projects like Libeskind's Jewish Museum, offered a better prospect than the slow rhythm of London. They then built the widely published GSW Headquarters and the amoeba like Photonics Center in Berlin-Adlershof. Both these buildings present a facade that is activated by the colouring of the glass panels. Recent competition wins include the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and the Sammlung Brandhorst in Munich where their design was finally chosen over projects by Chipperfield, Hadid and Moneo amongst others.

NB: Hutton's talk will focus on her Berlin practice.

Ends Saturday 26 April (Tue to Sat 10am - 6pm)

@ Greengrassi, 39c Fitzroy St., W1 (020.7387.8757) Tube: Warren St./Great Portland St.

There is a certain quality to Anne Ryan's paintings. Following an earlier series of cowboy paintings -- yes cowboy as in saloons, Indians, John Wayne -- the London-based, Limerick-born painter has moved on to what appears to be WWII command center scenes... that's men in uniform, milling around, talking and looking serious. None of these descriptive qualities convey what is truly beguiling about Ryan's paintings, and "beguiling" is the exact term here. The more wooden qualities of her cowboys are nowhere present here, instead an almost Men-in-Blackish enigma surround these pale, mutely coloured paintings. Although they seem to suggest scenes from the cinema, these images are entirely made-up. Are they planning the future? Breaking up Eastern Europe? Are these mere infantry men about to be sent to their deaths? Perhaps it's a moment of diplomancy, a moment that we seem to be reminded of constantly at present. Again, painting transcends this... it is the muted colour, the scubbly brushwork, the way the forms are shaped in the breathless spaces, the anonymity of these made-up characters that bring a certain edginess to this show; and from that point, Ryan belongs to a tradition of painters who have painted with politics as subtext... but always painting as text.

Ends Sunday 27 April (8:30pm; Sundays 6:30pm)

@ Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, SW11 (020.7326.8200)

Filter is a young company combining performers and musicians. Faster is their first show together: a show about what it means to be young, professional, urban and falling in love. The piece is based on the book Faster: The Acceleration Of Just About Everything by James Gleick and, as one might expect, the action is fast paced and febrile, lubricated with lashings of sweat and banter. There's Victoria, just back from traveling after dropping out of her lawyer's job and Will and Ben, young advertising creatives, busily employed in selling their grandmothers. The trio are helped on their highly adrenalised way by three musicians, who share the stage and provide sound effects and soundtracks to the unfolding loves, losses and laughter. What makes Filter the plat du jour of the current theatre scene is the beautiful interaction that's developed between performers and musicians. It's a highly watchable, sometimes angry little piece from a company to keep an eye on.

Thursday 1 May (7pm)

@ Brixton Academy, 211 Stockwell Rd., SW9 (020.7771.3000) Tube: Brixton

Since completing a tour with The Music, The Vines took some time out to lay down some tracks at Bearsville Studios in New York that may appear on the as-yet-untitled follow-up to the enormously successful Highly Evolved. After a career-making year, which has included blanket critical acclaim from the music press, appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone, an unsettling performance on David Letterman's Late show and a walk out (since reconciled) from founding member, bassist Patrick Matthews, the question remains: will the group survive? No doubt the question will be answered when their sophomore effort is released. Until then, the band is returning to play a couple of pre-festival dates in the country which made them.

NB: Coinciding with this gig is a limited edition release (1,000 copies) of their "Homesick" single which is backed with a cover of The Beatles' "I'm Only Sleeping".

Friday 2 May (10:30pm - 2am)

@ Jazz Cafe, 5 Parkway, NW1 (020.7916.6060) Tube: Camden Town

Thrift store record bin findings. Old commercial cut-ups. Cartoon out-takes. Random sound effects. Spoken word recordings. These are the sonic materials from which Kid Koala (real name Eric San) crafts his music, eschewing established sampling conventions and embracing a wholeheartedly lost-and-found collage approach to music making. In '95 he released his now legendary Scratchcratchratchatch cassette/10" vinyl, replete with scratch wizardry and Charlie Brown samples. In '96, Koala signed to Ninja Tune and released his ScratchHappyLand 10". In '00, he followed up with the long anticipated full-length, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Recorded with only two turntables and a mixer (no sampler!), it was in turn both technically brilliant and ludicrously silly -- and very well received. In '01 he toured with Radiohead and his band, Bullfrog. Recently, he brought out Nufonia Must Fall, a beautifully illustrated graphic novel and accompanying CD. His DJ set on Friday will start at around 11pm, following a live set from Spacek (on from 7pm - 10:30pm), the futurist break-beat soul quintet whose sophomore Vintage Hi-Tek album has just been released.

NB: Kid Koala will be making an in-store appearance at Borders on Oxford St. on Tue 29/04 at 6.30pm to promote his book/CD Nufonia Must Fall. He'll be using 3 turntables and a projector, for your delight and delectation.

Giveaway: We have three copies of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and three copies of Hexstatic's Solid Steel: Listen and Learn CDs to give away. They'll go to three randomly picked subscribers who can tell us what is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

Ends Wednesday 14 May (Fri to Sun 12pm - 6pm)

@ One in the Other, 4 Dinglew Place, EC1 (020.7253.7882) Tube: Old St.

One year after her death, the Queen Mother Show proposes a tribute to the life of Queen Elizabeth. Interpretations of this tribute range from the pleasantly idyllic, to the sarcastic and to the outright bizarre, creating a cynical and satirical remembrance of the Queen Mum -- which until last April was Britain's most popular living royal. Ian Munroe's faux-marbre floor mandala addresses the class crisis in Britain by raising the question of value and the illusory nature of wealth and its imitators. Ben Judd's video, I'll Never Forget filmed at the Queen Mum's funeral, combines more romantic notions of remembrance and longing as he "watches the watchers" attempting to realize their own remembrance of the obsolete monarch. Howard Dyke's collection of plates commemorate the unfortunate incident where the Queen Mum choked on a fishbone. More a spoof of her media presence than a commemoration of her life, the Queen Mother Show advances a series of parodies demonstrating the obsolescence of the ruling class. It is the portrait of an alcoholic, a political non-entity and a cultural antiquity. A creative solution to the swell of royalist sentimentality that surrounds the remembrance of such a prolific social and cultural monument, the Queen Mother Show is not to be missed.

Ends Sunday 18 May (Daily 12pm - 7:30pm)

@ ICA, The Mall, SW1 (020.7930.3647) Tube: Charing Cross/Piccadilly

Showcasing Inventory's documentation of a football match in The Mall and Carey Young's investigations into the corporate world in works like I am a Revolutionary (2001), this year's Beck's Futures -- the UK's most generous art award, worth £65,000 pounds -- offers an interesting and often comical take on social integration. The artists have made great use of the gallery, often painting directly on the exhibition space, inlaying works in the walls (Bernd Behr's Ectoplasmic (2002)) and ripping up floorboards (Francis Upritchard's Save Yourself (2002)). This, and works such as Alan Currall's Message to My Best Friend (2000) and Bernd Behr's man leaping up at a gatepost in Theatre Du Vide (2001), offer a light hearted approach, while David Sherry's demonstration of sewing wood onto his feet in Stitching (2001) takes it a stage further, adding an almost Jackass feel to the proceedings. With a lot of off-site work (check out Nick Crowe's digital artpiece) some may, at first glance, mistake this for a rather sparse exhibition. It is only when you settle into it the show that you discover its true vastness.

NB: The winner will be announced at the Gala Awards Night at the ICA on Tue 29/04 along with the winner of the Student Prize for Film and Video, which will also be shown at the ICA from 25-28/04. Lucy Skaer, Rosalind Nashashibi and Sherry will join other artists in Scotland's first independent presence at the Venice Biennale open from 15/06 to 02/11.

Ends Thursday 29 May

@ National Film Theatre, South Bank, SE1 (020.7928.3232) Tube: Embankment/Waterloo

Of the great Italian film-makers of the last century, Luchino Visconti is perhaps the least seriously considered. This may be largely due to an assumption of dilettantism on account of his aristocratic and wealthy background, an assumption perhaps compounded rather than assuaged by his Marxist politics. It may also have something to do with the tremendous variety of Visconti's output. Unlike his contemporaries Fellini and Antonioni, there isn't a single clearly identifiable style that might be referred to as Visconti-esque, and although he was one of the key figures in the Neo-Realist movement, he's probably best known for the visual opulence of The Leopard, or the lush, not to say overblown aestheticism of Death in Venice. Even within a genre, Visconti seems incapable of repeating himself. You've got the neo-realist noir of Ossessione (Visconti's take on James M Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice), the neo-realist realism of La Terra Trema with its fishermen playing fishermen and improvised dialogue in an obscure Sicilian dialect, and then there's the neo-realist homo-eroticism (and misogyny?) of Rocco and his Brothers . Through it all though, runs a consistency of underlying themes, not to say obsessions that drove Viscounti's creative urge: decadence, families on the edge of collapse, mother fixations, a weakness for beauty and a taste for the operatic.