Credit Munch

What's big this season

Top Five Opera: Elektra

Susan Bullock is stunning as the deranged heroine of Strauss's tragedy in a revival of Charles Edwards's intelligent production

Top Dance: Savion Glover

The virtuosic American tap dancer presents his new show, Bare Soundz, which explores the idea of tap as a percussive instrument

Top Five Museums: Cold War Modern

A look at design on both sides of the Iron Curtain and how it contributed to the Cold War from 1945-70, at the V&A Museum

Top Five Galleries: A Countryman in Town

Refreshingly rural show of works by Robert Bevan and the Cumberland Market Group, including horse studies and leafy landscapes

Top Five for Kids: Children's Film Festival

Annual programme of screenings, workshops and activities for young movie-lovers, at the Barbican Centre

Top Films in Rep: The Apartment

Jack Lemmon plays the obliging office schmuck to perfection in Billy Wilder's cynical 1960 classic, at Duke of York's Picturehouse

Top Five Theatre: In a Dark House

Steven Mackintosh and David Morrissey star in the latest play by Neil LaBute, the tale of two brothers with dark, dark problems

Top Five Events: Christmas Delight

A series of outdoor musical performances, from traditional classical to more contemporary and experimental music

Top Five Jazz: All Star Jazz Circle

John Beasley leads a heavyweight line-up which includes Bennie Maupin, reeds player on Herbie Hancock's funk albums

Top Gigs: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

Cave and his long-serving compadres mark the re-release of the first four Bad Seeds albums with a string of UK dates

Top Five Classical: Kate Royal

Accompanied by the pianist Roger Vignoles, the superb tenor and soprano sing Schubert and Monteverdi, at Wigmore Hall

It's fabulous - and fake

Never mind that a supposed 3,600-year-old crystal skull is a recent forgery, says Richard Morrison

Top Comedy: Dylan Moran; Eddie Izzard; Bill Bailey; Simon Day

Top Five Clubs: Pop Musik

Hummable gems from the 1960s to the present, live performances from the dance troupe Sparkle Motion and MC Cashback

Top Five Galleries: Francis Bacon

The brutality of fact is caught in a magnificent classic retrospective of this greatest of British postwar painters

Top Five for Kids: Skate at Somerset House

The annual ice rink returns, this year with a tuck shop selling exclusive Tiffany & Co cupcakes and gingerbread men

Top Five Opera: Carmen

The full-length original, back on the road in David McVicar’s thrillingly cliché-cleansed Glyndebourne production

Top Five Theatre: Absurd Person Singular

Alan Ayckbourn’s brilliant comedy about three couples experiencing changing fortunes on three successive Christmas Eves

Top Classical: Romeo and Juliet

The complete Prokofiev ballet music, played by the LSO under Valery Gergiev. One of his best interpretations, at Barbican Hall