Hot cultural dates for 2006

Television

Talent to watch: A couple of oldies, but goodies. Three years after her on-air walkout of Blind Date, Cilla Black returns to ITV this year as a judge on the new talent show Soapstar Superstar. Screenwriting talent Stephen Poliakoff returns to the Beeb with two one-offs set in the Eighties and Nineties.

Something to get excited about: Film Four, hitherto only available on subscription will be joining the Freeview bandwagon soon. Everyone?s favourite zoologist David Attenborough will take a jaundiced look at The Truth About Climate Change.

Don't bother staying in for: Davina McCall's (left) new chat show on BBC1 will doubtless be awful. The Beeb have a dismal record with Channel 4 talent - witness the demise of Graham Norton. Norton will be aiming for yet another career relaunch on the channel when he fronts a second series of Strictly Dance Fever, the weakest of the Strictly Come Dancing spin-offs. Once they've got another 10-year charter safely under their belt, BBC1 will doubtless revert to type: dross.
Charlie Courtauld

Visual Art

Blockbusters: In case you haven't been updating your birthday book, next year marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of Rembrandt van Rijn. As you'd imagine, the major festivities are being held in Holland: two that promise to be particularly unmissable are the Rijksmuseum's Rembrandt-Caravaggio (24 Feb to 18 June) - a show that pits the geniuses of the northern and southern Baroque against each other - and Rembrandt the Etcher at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam (8 July to 3 Sep). If you can't handle all those polders and dykes, then the National Gallery's Velazquez brings important works by the Spanish master to brighten up a dull London autumn (18 Oct to 14 Jan 2007). If you're in need of more literal brightening up, then the Hayward Gallery's retrospective of the wonderful American neon artist, Dan Flavin (19 Jan to 2 Apr) should fit the bill nicely. And should you want to get the measure of the latest British art, the Tate Triennial rolls around again at Tate Britain (1 Mar to 14 May).

Trends to look out for: Quietness, littleness and introspection. As last year's degree shows proved, big, brash and shocking are out in new British art, fiddliness and navel-gazing are in.

New talent: Takahiro Iwasaki, whose teensy floor sculpture at last year's Bloomberg New Contemporaries quietly stole the show.
Charles Darwent

Classical music

Birthday boys: Shostakovich and Mozart dominate 2006. Valery Gergiev's Shostakovich Cycle continues at the Barbican with the Rotterdam Philharmonic (11 Jan), London Symphony (5 Feb and 13 Apr), Vienna Philharmonic (13 and 14 Sept), and Mariinsky Theatre Orchestras (5-7 Dec). Meanwhile Manchester sees the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras combine for Shostakovich and His Heroes (from 14 Jan). At the Wigmore Hall, the Classical Opera Company begin a series of monthly Mozart programmes (7 Jan). And ahead of July's extended Mostly Mozart season at the Barbican, Le Nozze di Figaro enjoys a new staging at the Royal Opera House (from 30 Jan), Don Giovanni comes to Glasgow (from 4 May), and Cosi fan Tutte opens Glyndebourne (from 19 May).

Tired of anniversaries? Go to Cardiff, where Bryn Terfel is Welsh National Opera's Flying Dutchman (from 17 Feb), or see Lisa Gasteen go out in a blaze in the final part of the Covent Garden Ring Cycle (from 17 Apr). Chen Shi-Zeng's Orfeo comes to English National Opera (from 15 April), and Aldeburgh Festival has new production of The Rake's Progress (from 9 June). More Stravinsky? Sakari Oramo and the CBSO continue their IgorFest (from 14 June). More glamour? Angela Gheorghiu is the new Tosca at the Royal Opera House (from 13 June). Ticket of year, however, has to be Luc Bondy's production of Hercules (from 15 March) at the Barbican Theatre.
Anna Picard

Dance

Hot to trot: The Sadler's Wells season kicks off in February with its annual Flamenco Festival, opening with the magnificent Sara Baras and ending with a gypsy blast from veteran Cristina Hoyos. Still on a Spanish theme, in April the great guitarist Paco Pena brings his flamenco troupe to the Peacock, and then in June Catalan company Compania Metros brings to Sadler's Wells a dance version of Bizet's Carmen, set in a present-day tobacco factory . For ballet fans a rare, month-long UK tour from late March by the Bolshoi with productions of Spartacus, Swan Lake and Giselle should have folk calculating how they can get to Birmingham, Salford, Nottingham or Southampton. Rambert celebrates its 80th birthday, while the Royal Ballet marks its 75th with a lavish new production in May of Sleeping Beauty (yes, another new RB Beauty - they might get it right this time). The Edinburgh Festival promises sparks with a Don Q from America's Suzanne Farrell Ballet, while around the country, starting in March, Michael Clark tours his take on Stravinsky's Apollo. During July Carlos Acosta cements what has become a mutually beneficial relationship with Sadler's Wells, and for those who like to laugh till they cry, the legendary Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo make their first visit to London for five years. Ida Nevasayneva, what made you stay away so long?

Second chance: At Sadler's Wells in March Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui revive their potent duet Zero Degrees - a quartet if you count the involvement of life-size casts of the dancers by sculptor Antony Gormley. And in June Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant reprise the storming success of their all-Maliphant show Push.
Jenny Gilbert

Film

Torn from today's headlines! Seriousness becomes order of the day in Hollywood this year, with a spate of political and current-affairs films including Steven Spielberg's Munich(released 27 Jan); Sam Mendes's Gulf War drama Jarhead(13 Jan); and a double-header from George Clooney: his own Good Night, and Good Luck(17 Feb), and the provocative, dizzyingly complex Syriana(3 Mar), Stephen Gaghan's exposé of the oil business. And then, God help us, there's Oliver Stone's take on 9/11.

Auteurs we like: Globe-trotting wag Werner Herzog returns with his documentary Grizzly Man (3 Feb), the extraordinary true story of a man who loved bears (until one ate him). Richard Linklater gives us paranoid sci-fi animation, adapting Philip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly. Lovable miseryguts Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World, Bad Santa) reunites with comics genius Daniel Clowes for Art School Confidential. And break out the cava: Almodóvar unveils his latest, Volver.

A good year for grande dames: Charlotte Rampling continues her renaissance as French art cinema's reigning diva, in bizarre comedy thriller Lemming(31 Mar) and as a sex tourist in Haiti in Laurent Cantet's hard-hitting Heading South. Gong Li goes global: after turning Japanese in Memoirs of a Geisha(13 Jan), China's art-house goddess stars in Michael Mann's Miami Vice(Aug) feature and gets grisly in Young Hannibal, about the early years of that Lecter kid. And this time next year, Marie-Antoinette - the grandest dame of all - gets a regal biopic from Sofia Coppola, with Kirsten Dunst doling out the petits fours.
Jonathan Romney

Jazz

It's a grime thing: The unlikely combination of the BBC Concert Orchestra, jazz star Jason Yarde and a collection of young London "grime" artists including DaVinChe come together in a programme entitled Urban Classic at Hackney Empire on 16 February.

Hot tickets: Must-see concerts include a London Barbican date on 11 March for the French accordionist Richard Galliano - on current form one of the most inspired improvisers in the world - with his fabulous New York Trio, plus guest Gary Burton and a string ensemble, in a programme partly dedicated to the music of Astor Piazzolla. There are national tours for the new piano trios of John Taylor (Jan) and Brad Mehldau (Feb), with The Bad Plus following in May, while the second Gateshead International Jazz Festival (17-19 March) features Gilles Peterson with Airto and the Heritage Orchestra, vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, pianist Stan Tracey, and a programme of typically madcap Dutch jazz.

Typically Tropicalia: London's Barbican is also the location for a giant-sized celebration of Brazilian music, visual art, film, dance and related activities. Tropicalia: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture (13 Feb to 22 May) explores the 1960s movement which inspired musicians such as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Os Mutantes.
Phil Johnson

Theatre

Hot tips: The fabulous physical troupe, Kneehigh, stage Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus at the Lyric Hammersmith in late January, while Robert Lepage performs his new multi-layered Andersen Project - about creativity, sexuality, a librettist and Hans Andersen - at the Barbican from late January. Peter Brook tours to Warwick Arts Centre, the Pit and elsewhere with his Dostoyevsky-inspired The Grand Inquisitor from February, when Michael Grandage also premieres Mark Ravenhill's The Cut, with Ian McKellen, at the Donmar. Cheek By Jowl will be resident at the Barbican and join the RSC's epic international fest of all Shakespeare's plays (April to October) alongside Peter Stein and Ninagawa. The Royal Court's 50th anniversary includes, in June, a new Stoppard about Prague revolutionaries and Cambridge philosophers, plus Pinter in Krapp's Last Tape, hopefully in the autumn.

Dramatic suspense: Everyone is waiting to see how Shakespeare's Globe will fare under Mark Rylance's somewhat surprising replacement, the new-writing guru Dominic Dromgoole. With Ian Rickson preparing to quit the Court, it's rumoured Trevor Nunn and Thea Sharrock of London's buzzing Gate Theatre are on the successors' shortlist. Meanwhile, Sam West is just getting rolling as the Sheffield Crucible's Artistic Director and Jonathan Church, from Birmingham Rep, is to be entrusted with Chichester Festival.
Kate Bassett

Rock

Chimps and typewriters: The Arctic Monkeys are nailed-on certs to be the biggest band of '06. Whether or not they're any good isn't the issue. What their success signifies, however, is. The first band to break through almost entirely from a word-of-mouth internet fanbase (their single "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" reached No 1 last October), they're proof that in the new world of digital file-sharing, bands and listeners remain one step ahead of the game, with the industry torn between crackdown tactics (legislation and copy-protection) and desperately playing catch-up in pursuit of a buck. This can only be a good thing.

Conscience rock: In the wake of Live 8, a revival of charity concerts and consciousness-raising gigs is upon us, with two massive ones happening on the same day. Manchester vs Cancer (New Order, Badly Drawn Boy, Doves) takes place at the MEN Arena on 28 January, while the One Earth concert for awareness of climate change (The Darkness, The Strokes, Super Furry Animals) happens in the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff. One hopes that they're more successful than Geldof & co, or we're all doomed.

Fix up, look sharp: The antidote to Dohertyism is at hand. The Acute, a warpaint-wearing triumvirate from Edinburgh, write songs about alienation, mortality and the brutal truth about the male psyche, and make an abrasive, intense noise with shades of Placebo, Pumpkins and mid-Nineties Manics. One year old - a year spend incubating in a Leith studio - The Acute are currently unsigned but creating an almighty buzz (Interpol and The Bravery are known to be admirers), and have acquired a thousands-strong legion of internet fans (called Acuties). Oh, and they're unapologetically hostile to anyone and everyone else. Which always makes good copy (www.theacute.com). m
Simon Price

I can't wait for...

Alice Rawsthorn, director, Design Museum

Every design buff has their favourite Bauhüssler and as mine is László Moholy-Nagy, I'm looking forward to Tate Modern's spring retrospective on his and Josef Albers' work (9 Mar to 4 June). And as I love the dry Swiss silliness of Peter Fischli and David Weiss, my autumn highlight will be their exhibition at Tate Modern (from 18 Oct). As for architecture, I'm longing to see yet another Sejima + Nishizawa building, this time their zinc-plated New Museum on Manhattan's West 14th Street.

Sway, musician

I'm looking forward to the Kanye West dates in February, Dizzee Rascal's new album, and, personally speaking, touring all over the UK. I think the UK scene will have a big year - people should look out for Pyrelli, Sincere, Baby Blue, Bigz, and Lethal B. There's a film coming up called Rollin' with the Nines. It features cameo appearances from Kano and Dizzee. One of my tracks will on the soundtrack to that too.

Tacita Dean, artist

I am looking forward to the upcoming show of Bas Jan Ader in Camden Arts Centre (28 Apr to 2 July). As a long-time fan, I have still yet to see many of the works in reality.

Alain de Botton, writer

I'm much looking forward to the annual Architecture Week (16-25 June). It's a nationwide series of events, which includes walking tours and lectures - all with the general mission of inviting people to take more of an interest in great contemporary architecture.

Alan Yentob, Creative Director, BBC

I'm most looking forward to the big Modernism exhibition at the V&A, Modernism: Designing a New World (6 Apr to 23 July).

Andy McNab, novelist

I always enjoy going to the Hay Festival (26 May to 4 June). There seem to be a thousand second-hand bookshops in the town, you could spend weeks just browsing though the books. Thankfully there are also quite a few pubs...

Tim Marlow, director, White Cube gallery

I'm looking forward to Velazquez at the National, to be hung upstairs in grander rooms with natural light (18 Oct to 14 Jan 2007).

Justin Cartwright, novelist

The new film, Capote , which I saw in preview, is astonishingly good, absolutely pitch perfect (released 24 Feb).

Mylo, musician

In the new year, I'm looking forward to seeing the Mystery Jets. I'm also looking forward to the album from Glasgow band Union of Knives. Zongamin has just put out a brilliant 12-inch called "Bongo Song". Maybe he's got a new album on the way. Mr Zongamin, if you're reading this, can I put it out on my label?