Shoppers in Covent Garden were treated to an impromptu Shakespearean performance yesterday, as a flashmob of Shakespearean characters emerged from the crowd.

Performers introduced themselves (in character) to members of the public, quoted some of the Bard’s most famous lines and sang songs, before disappearing into the crowd again.

It was the first What You Will: Pop-up Shakespeare event, created by actor Mark Rylance as part of the Mayor of London Presents programme and London 2012 Festival.

Fifty actors, aged 17 to 70, are taking part in the event, including deaf and disabled artists. They will play characters including Hamlet, Puck, Cleopatra and Juliet.

Similar performances will be happening across London until Sunday 2 September. Today’s performances will take place in the Exhibition Road area from 12pm to 4pm. Other locations are secret until the day, so keep an eye on the Mayor of London Presents website or follow @molpresents on Twitter to find out where there’ll be.

This weekend is the last before the Olympics begin – make sure you soak up all the culture London has to offer before the city goes sport mad.

BT River of Music
The BT River of Music is a huge weekend music festival is a one-off to welcome the world to the Olympic city. Six stages – each hosting music from a different continent – will be set up along the Thames at venues like the Tower of London and Battersea Park. Artists representing every Olympic and Paralmypic nation will perform, including the Scissor Sisters and Noisettes. Tickets are free but you’ve got to book them in advance: at the time of writing, there are still some left for Asia Stage at Battersea Park and Oceania Stage at Old Royal Naval College, and for Africa Stage at London Pleasure Gardens on Sunday only.
21-22 Jul

Blue Peter’s Big Olympic Tour
Catch Blue Peter presenters Helen and Barney this weekend on the kids TV show’s Big Olympic Tour. They’ve been following the Olympic torch on its journey around the UK for special live programmes and events, and will touch down in Central Park in East Ham this Saturday and Sunday. From 10am to 4pm, there’ll be free family activities like Olympic sports, learning about the history of the Games and having a go at being a sports commentator.
21-22 Jul

Shakespeare: Staging the World at The British Museum
The British Museum has teamed up with the Royal Shakespeare Company for this major Shakespeare exhibition which explores the playwright’s London through his plays. It gives a taste of what going to the theatre was like 400 years ago, and how it connected London with the rest of the world as international trade, colonisation and diplomacy increased. The exhibition includes performance and objects from paintings and rare manuscripts to everyday items like maps and coins, all piecing together the world of the famous dramatist and his characters.
Until 25 Nov

Floating Market on Regent’s Canal
From tomorrow, a magnificent floating market will moored in Mile End near the Olympic Park. A collection of narrowboats and barges will be selling everything from books and hats to vintage frocks and handicrafts. If strolling along the official Olympic walking route makes you peckish, you can sample various foodie delights on offer, including sausages from a barge called “Marilyn”, Slovakian delicacies from “Vareska” and a selection of candyfloss, popcorn and other fun-fair based treats from The Zebra Boat.
20 Jul-16 Aug

What will you be doing this weekend? Let us know by commenting below.

Going out in London? There’s an app for that, actually there are loads. London apps are like a knowledgeable friend in your pocket, telling you where to eat, get the best deals or even how to get home. Here’s our favourite London apps which will help you find everything from free stuff to Shakespeare’s favourite haunts.

London Tube
With this comprehensive app you’ll never get lost in London again. Indispensable to any traveller, it provides Henry Beck’s classic map of the London Underground. The app offers live updates, a journey planner tool, a directory of Tube lines and stops and can locate the nearest Tube station from your position. (£0.69, iPhone only)

Toptable
A fantastic app for foodies who want an easy way to search for restaurant deals. Easy to navigate, you can find and book great restaurants across London and enjoy thousands of special offers. The app can locate nearby restaurants and features a tip calculator – perfect for those tricky bill splitting/tip calculating moments! (Free, iPhone and Android versions)

Street Museum: Museum of London
A good looking, clever and imaginative app that brings the old together with the new. Using images from the Museum of London’s collections, it the capital’s history from momentous occasions to everyday events. Its focus on central London is a drawback but this is a great use of technology and can only grow. (Free, iPhone and Android versions)

London2Go
This is a great app for those who want to discover and learn more about London. It provides an offline map and a geographically accurate Tube map. You can locate nearby points of interest or you can search by category, such as top places, history and people or geography and transportation. (£1.49, iPhone only)

Time Out London
This is a useful app to help you organise days and nights out in London. It provides up to date information on gigs, events, bars, restaurants, club nights and film releases. The app includes a map showing events near the user’s location and you can search by location and taste. (Free, iPhone and Android versions)

Free London
Want to find out about all things free in London? Then this is the app for you. It provides information on the best free museums, free (or cheap) theatre tickets, cheap eats and accommodation for under £15 a night. Covering a range of London districts, listings can be categorized so that you can easily find what you’re looking for. (£1.49, iPhone only)

Shakespeare’s London
An interesting and informative app that’s an absolute must for Shakespeare fans and anyone interested in the history of London. Well-researched and threaded with great facts, it looks beyond the obvious spots and guides you around the playwright’s favourite haunts and sites of significance in the capital. (£1.99, iPhone only)

24 Hours London
This is an innovative app that lists fun and unusual things to do during every hour of the day in London. With links to contact details, and websites where applicable, this is a neat concept that lists some of London’s best kept secrets. (£1.49, iPhone only)

London on a Plate
Described as a fusion of food and fashion, this stylish app is a guide to London’s food culture. It offers restaurant reviews, tips on the best food shops and markets and provides the home cook with recipes from the capital’s finest chefs. A 10% donation from each app sale is made to the surplus food charity FareShare. (£2.99, iPhone only)

Cycle Hire
This is an accurate and user- friendly app for the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme in London. A clean, easy interface allows you to access your cycle hire account, see bike availability, set reminders as to when you need to return your bike and get a cycling route between two bike hire stations. (Free, iPhone only)

Which London apps are you using? Let us know in the comments below.

Royal Shakespeare Company’s new production of Julius Caesar is directed by Lucy Bailey. It’s an explosive rendition of The Bard’s tale of politics and passion.

Full-on violence is introduced from the start – Romulus and Remus are engaged in an aggressively physical fight to the death. Bailey doesn’t shy away from this bold element of the text, it’s similar in style to her production of Macbeth at the Globe. The play certainly thrilled the audience, who seemed to relish in the gore. Fake blood is used in abundance, in fact some audience members near me were splattered in the stuff!

I am sure the use of film and video will cause a stir with some critics. Moving film was projected onto large rectangular blocks  on stage during the show, the vision of designer Bill Dudley (Bailey’s partner). The more frantic crowd sequences are, at times distracting, but on the whole the concept is highly stimulating and gives the stage an added depth and excitement. Julius Caesar is a difficult play to stage, but this production uses the challenges to its advantage.

Julius Caesar continues until 5 February 2011, book tickets here.

On Tuesday night, I popped along to a festival event – Flaming Nora’s corsage making class in the Earl Ferrers pub. The class was a roaring success – more and more people arrived and soon the entire pub was full of over-excited sewers rummaging in boxes of fabric and producing amazing floral creations!

Nora is running a second fun workshop for the festival week – making scary sock monsters, this one is for kids over the age of 5.

The Streatham festival runs to the 11th July and there are talks, walks, quizzes, photography and more. (We think Shakespeare in the Rookery looks brilliant!)

Streatham Festival 3 – 11 July 2010. www.streathamfestival.com

It was a fantastic evening for the opening of The Comedy of Errors last night: warm, with barely a breeze, and Regent’s Park’s beautiful Open Air Theatre audience was on fine form.

Shakespeare’s early comedy about two sets of twins and a lot of mistaken identity is the second show in the Open Air Theatre’s season. And I loved it.

Director Philip Franks has transported Epheseus to 1940s Casablanca for this production; the cast sport stylish 40s suits and dresses, with big, glamorous Hollywood-filmstar sunglasses. The Courtesan, played by Anna-Jane Casey, is now a nightclub owner, while the twin servants (both called Dromio) wear fezzes and seem to suffer more than usual in the heat of this foreign-feeling place.

This is a Comedy of Errors with an emphasis on the comedy. It’s not a terribly subtle production (gorilla suits and burlesque dance pieces in particular!), and knows exactly where the humour can be found in both Shakespeare’s text and in additional clever moments of slapstick.

As Antipholis of Syracuse, Daniel Weyman does a fantastic job of building the confusion and bewilderment throughout the play. I also enjoyed the performances of Joseph Kloska and Josh Cohen as the twin servants Dromio. Kloska’s hilarious description of a fat kitchen maid as a map of the world (with obligatory puns on the “Netherlands”) was brilliant, and made me think of just how incredibly timeless some of Shakespeare’s comedy can be.

The incredible attention to detail means you probably don’t spot all the intricate little looks, precise puns, and comedy in the crowd scenes the first time around. This is ensemble theatre at its best: when everyone on stage is working to create a perfect tableau. It all comes together beautifully.

But if you’re a fan of the sillier side of Shakespeare’s early stuff, as well as the snatches of sublime poetry that accompanies it, for example, in the tear-jerkingly happy ending, I would really recommend seeing this show.

The Comedy of Errors plays at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre until 13 July. Book tickets here

• Bond Girl Gemma Arterton is returning to the London stage in The Master Builder at the Almeida, joining the fantastic Stephen Dillane. Go Gemma!
• In other Bond film star news, Judi Dench will be voicing the The Giant in the Open Air Theatre’s upcoming production of Into The Woods. (She’s not going to be on stage: she’s recording her part in July for the August opening of this summer’s outdoor musical)
• And another British film star, Ben Barnes will appear in the forthcoming production of Birdsong, a stage adaptation of Sebastian Faulks‘ amazing novel. Personally, I can’t wait for this show open in September

In new show news, Five Guys Named Moe returns to London this autumn, opening at the Theatre Royal Stratford East from September. The award-winning jazz musical is heading back to the venue where it first opened 20 years ago!

And the most toe-tingling news for me this week is the RSC’s announcement that they’re heading back to the Roundhouse later in the year. Bringing back memories of the curious Shakespeare marathon that was The Histories, this time the company are presenting a repertoire of eight plays in 10 weeks, including Romeo And Juliet, Antony And Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale, Julius Caesar, As You Like It and King Lear. RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd says:

“London audiences will be able to see our ensemble in full flight – 44 actors pushing each other to set the bar of their achievements higher. When they touch down at the Roundhouse in our specially built auditorium in November it will mark a significant highpoint, two years into their journey together.”

Brilliant news. (Read Boyd’s quote in full)

Finally, theatreland giveth and taketh away: the incredible All My Sons has extended to October (hurrah!), but the wonderful Oliver! is closing (boo!) in January 2011. Book now if you don’t want to miss out on seeing this fantastic London musical!

Earlier this year, I took part in one of City Academy‘s 12-week acting courses.

When I started the course the only thing I knew for certain was, in 12 weeks time, I’d be performing on stage at Sadler’s Wells and the public would be paying to see me…

Our rehearsal room was in Finsbury Town Hall. It was pretty basic with nothing but a few chairs and tables to keep us company. There were 11 of us in the class: a City entrepreneur, a charity CEO, a handful of students, a barman, a film actress (we didn’t know this until much later when we rushed to a laptop to see her in action) and one or two ex-actors like myself looking for a creative outlet.

Our motley crew had two things in common:  firstly, we all had a certain desire to perform on stage and secondly we realised that Sadler’s Wells had reserved two two-hour time slots for our performances in 12 weeks’ time. No pressure then.

We met once a week for 12 weeks. In the first five weeks, we learnt the vocal, physical and emotional necessities of a theatrical performance. In week six, we were put in pairs and given a script. Having the scripts enabled us to put into practise what we’d learnt, using words by Shakespeare and Euripides as well modern writers such as Durang and Pinter.

After last-minute tweaking and script-learning (some left it very late!) friends, family and the general public were given the call to attend our performance at Sadler’s Wells in Islington. From the safety of the dark backstage we 11 amateurs stepped out under the warm lights of the London stage. Under the new-found safety of our characters we fought and glared, screamed and stared, laughed, jumped, broke down and fell in love all before our (mostly) captive audience.

Perhaps there wasn’t the standing ovation Enron or Les Miserables see on a daily basis but – shock horror – the audience stayed awake!

Throughout the course we had many laughs, many disagreements and many pints in the local pub after each lesson. I met some fantastic people. Our course co-ordinator, Cat Clancy (Head of Acting at City Academy) struck the perfect balance between educating us and giving us the freedom to make our own creative choices. I thank her and strongly recommend you take a look at the courses City Academy has on offer. Options range from one evening or 2-3 days, up to six, eight, 10 or 12 weeks. If acting isn’t your game they have salsa, tap dancing, singing, bollywood, improvisation and even musical theatre courses. Visit www.city-academy.com

West End: watch out!

Here’s a few weekend ideas to get you started:

• St George’s Day Celebrations in London: I spotted people dressed in knightly garb proudly emblazoned with the St George’s cross (collecting money for war heroes) on my way to VL Towers this morning, and I’m sure tomorrow will provide more of the same! Find out more about the free festival in Trafalgar Square.
• Ether Festival at the Southbank Centre: this annual festival of music and arts finishes on Sunday, but pitch along this evening for the ultra-cool Berlin Sounds, where you’ll get to hear the cream of Berlin’s underground music scene.
• Virgin London Marathon: if you’re running it, good luck! If you’re heading along to cheer the competitors, don’t forget the sunscreen.
• East End Film Festival: see great films in some of London’s coolest venues.
• Pick Me Up: Contemporary Graphic Art Fair: snap up edgy prints, books, T-shirts and more at Somerset House.
• Plus, with the weather forecast to  reach 17°C over the weekend, there’s all of London’s parks and outdoor spaces to explore. So get out there and enjoy it!

Supermarket Shakespeare returns this spring with a new free show performed just for you in the aisles at Sainsbury’s! The performances are created by theatre company Teatro Vivo who love performing in unusual places.

This year’s performances are based on Sonnet 23. Six performers will create contemporary characters and perform their stories around the supermarket while you shop. Popping out in your pyjamas to buy fish fingers and custard will suddenly be so much more exciting!

We caught up with actor Mark Stevenson to find out more:

Why are you doing Shakespeare in a supermarket?
We want to put theatre in places where everyone goes in order to make the show a truly universal experience. People don’t have to worry about expensive tickets and feeling that the theatre isn’t the place for them. It’s in their supermarket!

How do the shoppers react?
We’ve had shoppers hugging the characters, giving them advice, crying with them and, of course, the odd person being completely perplexed by what’s going on.

Where are your favourite Shakespearean places in London?
Temple – the inns of court where some of his performances took place. His portrait in the National Portrait Gallery and, of course, The Globe.

Where are your favourite places in London to perform?
Places like BAC and The Pleasance where there are always exciting things going on, and found spaces like parks and museums.

Where do actors like to go in London?
Anywhere there is good coffee and late night drinking (so mostly Soho).

What’s the best thing you’ve seen in London recently?
Kursk at The Young Vic – it felt like being in a submarine.

Supermarket Shakespeare 20 Apr – 16 May at Sainsbury’s in Lee Green, Forest Hill, New Cross and Lewisham. Check website for dates and times. www.teatrovivo.co.uk