From outdoor musicals to adult face-painting and a very expensive Scotch egg, there’s plenty of excitement to be found in London this weekend. Here are our recommended things to do.

West End Live

Fans of musicals should pay a visit to Trafalgar Square this weekend for West End Live, a huge free festival on Saturday and Sunday afternoons which celebrates London’s West End shows from Phantom of the Opera to Wicked. For the first time ever this year, the line-up includes performances from every single West End musical currently playing. 23 – 24 Jun

Taste of London

Forty of London’s best restaurants will dish up feasts as part of Taste of London, the capital’s fine dining festival which is returning to Regent’s Park. There is also a boutique food market, delicious demonstrations from top chefs like Jason Atherton and Michel Roux Jr, a masterclass in matching champagne to the scent of flowers and the chance to win the world’s most expensive Scotch egg – priced at a mere £500. 21 – 24 Jun

BP Portrait Award

Young New York artist Aleah Chapin has won the renowned portrait-painting award with a nude picture of her family friend. The artwork, titled Auntie is on show at the free exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery, alongside 54 other finalist portraits which were whittled down from 2,187 entries. Until 23 Sept

Greenwich and Docklands International Festival

The Greenwich and Docklands International Festival is an outdoor arts extravaganza that will bring theatre, dance and eccentricity to spots around Greenwich like the Cutty Sark Gardens and Greenwich Market. Don’t miss Prometheus Awakes on Friday night – a spectacular retelling of the Greek myth featuring an enormous glowing puppet at the National Maritime Museum. Another highlight this weekend is the recreation of the 19th century Greenwich Fair, which includes a show inside a 30ft pig and gravity-defying piano. 21 – 30 Jun

Zoo Lates

See the animals but leave the kids at home: ZSL London Zoo is offering grown-up fun by opening its doors after hours every Friday in June and July for Zoo Lates. A silent disco, street food, music, comedy and cabaret performances transform the zoo into a festival – and you can even turn into a creature with costumes and face-painting (we all know we’re tempted when the kids get it done). Over 18s only. Fridays until 27 Jul

Every September, the current crop of London exhibitions close to make way for exciting new shows. That means it’s your last chance to see some of the summer’s hottest exhibitions…

Closing on 5 September:

• Rude Britannia: British Comic Art
• Ernesto Neto
• The New Décor
• Francis Alys
• Urban Africa – David Adjaye’s Photographic Journey
• Sustainable Futures

Closing later this month:

• Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes, Discoveries – 12 Sep
• The Surreal House – 12 Sep
• Magnificent Maps – 19 Sep
• Wolfgang Tillmans – 19 Sep
• BP Portrait Award – 19 Sep
• Sargent and the Sea – 26 Sep

But don’t worry, there’s plenty to look forward to this autumn. Major new exhibitions include Gauguin, Treasures from Budapest, Serge Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, and the Turner Prize.

It was announced yesterday that Daphne Todd’s Last Portrait of Mother had won the prestigious award.

The oil painting is a moving portrait of the artist’s 100 year-old mother after her death.  Todd has captured the moment perfectly, the two separate panels coming together in a sense of the disconnection between life and death. Although painting after a sad loss, she admits it was “riveting to do” and this is shown in the openness of the painting.

I studied Michael Gaskell’s Harry (second prize), David Eichenberg’s Tim II (third prize) and Elizabeth MacDonald’s Don’t Be Too Serious (Young Artist Award). All are outstanding portraits that evoke the differing demeanours of their subjects.

Another notable work is Mayor Boris Johnson by Helen Masacz, which captures the subject’s relaxed character with slightly ruffled hair and a loosely un-tucked shirt.

While Brain Shields’ Inside Outside (Claire with Claire) also stands out. The portrait of the painter’s wife carrying a poetry book displays the moment of quiet refection as birds flutter around her.

The BP Portrait Award 2010 is open to the public at the National Portrait Gallery from tomorrow until 19 Sep.

Changeling 2 by Peter Monkman. Copyright Peter Monkman

You can’t help but feel pleased for the BP Portrait Award winners. They’re not famous and they probably don’t earn a fortune, but their portraits have been selected from 1901 entries to represent the best in the country.

The winners were a closely guarded secret until last night’s awards ceremony, when they were invited up on stage to collect their awards in front of cultural luminaries such as Sebastian Faulks, Jon Snow and Gillian Wearing.

Peter Monkman, an art teacher from Surrey, won top prize for a luminous painting of his daughter, Anna. Strangely, he says the portrait is one of a series exploring the idea of a changeling – a child secretly substituted with an elf.

You can see the winning portraits and the best of the other submissions at the National Portrait Gallery.

Many of the artists in the exhibition have chosen to focus on their family. Stephen Earl Rodgers submitted a portrait of his young son, Beau, scowling. Rodgers says, “This is not the sum total of his character, but I expect to see this expression a lot more as he gets older.”

Portrait of a young woman by Emmanouil Bitsakis, 2008. Copyright Emmanouil Bitsakis

Sue Rubira painted a close-up, wrinkes-and-all picture of her mother, and says, “I chose to position her purposefully under a skylight, which presented her in the natural, unembellished state most familiar to me.”

Other highlights include a portrait by Karl Rudziak of Portsmouth FC supporter John Anthony Portsmouth Football Club Westwood, whose body is covered in Portsmouth tattoos (including “Play up Pompey” on his cheek).

And don’t miss the tiny portraits by Emmanouil Bitsakis, right at the back of the gallery. Bitsakis won the BP Travel Award last year, and spent time painting the minority Uigur people of North West China.

The BP Portrait Award exhibition opens tomorrow and runs until 20 September. Entry is free.