Ice Age art was created between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago and many of the pieces are made of mammoth ivory and reindeer antler. They show skilful, practised artists experimenting with perspectives, scale, volumes, light and movement, as well as seeking knowledge through imagination, abstraction and illusion.

These exceptional pieces are presented alongside modern works by Henry Moore, Mondrian and Matisse, illustrating the fundamental human desire to communicate and make art as a way of understanding ourselves and our place in the world.

One of the most beautiful pieces in the exhibition is a 23,000-year-old sculpture of an abstract figure from Lespugue, France. Picasso was fascinated with this figure and it influenced his 1930s sculptural works.

The culmination of 8 years’ work, Sebastião Salgado: Genesis draws together some 200 black and white images of landscapes and wildlife, alongside depictions of human communities that continue to live in accordance with their ancestral traditions and cultures.

Salgado says of the Genesis collection, ‘This has been one of my longest photographic adventures: eight years researching, exploring and celebrating nature’s unspoiled legacy. I have journeyed through 32 countries to rediscover the mountains, deserts and oceans, the animals and peoples that have so far escaped the imprint of modern society. It is a pictorial depiction of the lands and lives of a still pristine planet. I feel Genesis also speaks urgently to our own age by portraying the breathtaking beauty of a lost world that somehow survives. It proclaims: this is what is in peril, this is what we must save.’

Genesis is Sebastião Salgado’s third long-term examination of global issues, following his previous acclaimed collections Workers and Migrations. He has been awarded numerous major photographic prizes in recognition of his accomplishments, most recently receiving the Gold Medal Award for Photography from the National Arts Club in New York.

Born in Brazil in 1944, Salgado trained as an economist before starting work for the International Coffee Organization and travelling to Africa on missions for the World Bank. By 1973, he had abandoned his life as an economist to become a photographer, working on news assignments before steering more towards documentary and reportage work. Salgado is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and is also an honorary member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in the USA.

After the London premiere, the exhibition will travel to Toronto, Rio de Janeiro, Rome and Paris and is supported by Vale.

Featuring more than 70 images, in Alive: In The Face of Death, photographer Rankin sets out to explore and challenge our perceptions of death. Through his lens, the stories of those touched by death are revealed. 

They include people living with a terminal illness, those who have faced death and survived, and those who work within the death industry. 

One portrait is of 48-year-old Mum, Sandra, who was diagnosed with breast cancer eight years ago.  In Rankin’s image of her, Sandra feels she is displaying her ‘inner warrior’ as she battles her condition.

Death; we can deny it and medicine can delay it, but it is life’s only certainty.  Despite this, it remains the ultimate taboo in British society today.

Rankin’s own response to the subject is reflected in a series of self-portraits and in his ‘life masks'. These include images of living stars such as Jarvis Cocker, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Joanna Lumley along with those who have passed away such as Marlon Brando and Peter Cushing. 

Developed over a three-year period, Geoffrey Farmer’s The Surgeon and the Photographer will be shown for the first time in its completed form for its UK premiere.

The work consists of hundreds of puppet-like figures, composed of images cut from old books and magazines mounted onto fabric forms, and is accompanied by a new film commission. His work blends the collage and assemblage traditions of Hannah Höch and Robert Rauschenberg, the element of chance employed by John Cage and Merce Cunningham, and an animist perspective from Pacific Northwest Coast cultures.

La Bayadère
Choreography: Natalia Makarova
Music: Ludwig Minkus
Orchestrated by John Lanchbery
Production: Natalia Makarova
Set designs: Pier Luigi Samaritani
Costume designs: Yolanda Sonnabend
Lighting design: John B Read
Revival staging: Olga Evreinoff

The Royal Ballet

Kyle Eastwood Band

Kyle Eastwood grew up in Carmel, California, as the eldest son of actor Clint Eastwood. As a child he listened to records of jazz stars such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Miles Davis playing in the house. His father had been attending the Monterey Jazz Festival since it began in 1958 and when his children were born it became a yearly family outing. His latest album, ”The View From Here” (Jazzvillage, Harmonia Mundi), embraces this musical heritage which goes back to the soundtrack of his youth when his father introduced him to the joys of the bass line.

Kyle Eastwood, bass
Graeme Blevins, sax
Quentin Collins, trumpet
Martyn Kaine, drums
Andrew McCormack, piano

Fourteen-time Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, and producer Alicia Keys palys the O2 Arena in London where she showcases her fifth studio album, Girl on Fire.

Alicia Keys is often compared to the soulful likes of Roberta Flack and Aretha Franklin, bringing classical training and old-school sensibility and R&B to the hip-hop music of this generation. The talented young singer, songwriter, and extraordinary pianist released her sophomore album entitled The Diary of Alicia Keys in December 2003, a follow-up to her award-winning, multi-platinum debut album Songs in A Minor. Already a major pop and R&B hit, The Diary of Alicia Keys reflects the artist's love for the music of the sixties and seventies, featuring the chart-topping single "You Don't Know My Name."

Grammy nominated American artist Miguel has been announced as support.

Eddie Izzard is one of the best stand-up comedians of his time. In 2011 the man who turned talking ‘Bollocks’ into an art form performed and sold–out Madison Square Garden in New York. He spent a three-month residency at the Théâtre de Dix Heures in Paris performing STRIPPED: ‘Tout en Francais’ (in French!) and then became the first stand-up to play a solo show at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl.  Never one to rest on his laurels Izzard now plans to take on the world with a brand-new comedy tour, Force majeure. The tour visits 27 countries in Europe, the USA, Africa, Asia and Australia.

Cocktail Sticks is a new short play that revisits some of the themes and conversations of Alan Bennett’s memoir A Life Like Other People’s.

A son talks to his dead father as his mother yearns for a different life. It’s funny, tender and sad.

Nicholas Hytner directs Alex Jennings as Alan Bennett. He is joined by Derek Hutchinson, Gabrielle Lloyd, Maggie McCarthy and Jeff Rawle, with music performed by Rachel Elliott and Chris Fish.

The pinnacle of my social life is a scrutty bit of lettuce and tomato and some tinned salmon. Mind you, I read in Ideal Home that if you mix tinned salmon with this soft cheese you can make it into one of those moussy things. Shove a bit of lemon on it and it looks really classy.                                             - Alan Bennett

Thea Sharrock's production of new musical The Bodyguard is based on Lawrence Kasdan's 1992 Oscar nominated Warner Bros. film, The Bodyguard, with book by Alex Dinelaris.

This version of the smash hit film which starred Kevin Costner and the late Whitney Houston, is now playing in London's West End starring  Heather Headley & Lloyd Owen.

Joining Headley and Owen are Debbie Kurup (Nicki Maron), Mark Letheren (The Stalker), Ray Shell (Bill Devaney), Nicolas Colicos (Tony Scibelli), Mark McKerracher (Herb Farmer), Sean Chapman (Sy Spector), David Page (Rory Fryman) and Oliver Le Sueur (Ray Court).

Former Secret Service agent turned bodyguard, Frank Farmer, is hired to protect superstar Rachel Marron from an unknown stalker. Each expects to be in charge – what they don't expect is to fall in love.

Maxim Gorky: The Children of the Sun 
Directed by Howard Davies

Maxim Gorky’s darkly comic play is set in Russia as the country rolls towards revolution. It depicts the new middle-class, foolish yet likable, as they flounder about, philosophising and flirting, blind to their impending annihilation.

Cast:

Geoffrey Streatfeild (Protasov ), Lucy Black, Matthew Flynn, Paul Higgins, Gerald Kyd, Emma Lowndes, Maggie McCarthy, Justine Mitchell, Steven Blake, Florence Hall, Jonathan Harden, Lucas Hare, Matthew Hickey, Paul Hickey, Gemma Lawrence, Gerard Monaco, Anna O’Grady, Rhiannon Oliver, Stephen Wilson, Karren Winchester

Design: Bunny Christie
Lighting: Neil Austin

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is based on Mark Haddon’s novel, adapted by Simon Stephens and directed by Marianne Elliott.

Christopher, fifteen years old, stands beside Mrs Shears’ dead dog. It has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington. He has an extraordinary brain, exceptional at maths while ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. But his detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world.

Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was originally published in 2003. It was the winner of more than seventeen literary awards, including prizes in Japan, Holland and Italy as well as the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in the UK in 2004.