London's ticketed highlights for January 2009; Theatre, Ballet, seasonal Pantomimes and entertainment, fairs, fine art exhibitions and London walks compiled by OfftoLondon's own Burlington Bertie.

Skating at Somerset House. Photo by Just_Tom's photostream

Winter Wonderland
Venue: Hyde Park, near Hyde Park Corner and Serpentine, SW1.
Date: 10 am -10 pm, Until 4 January, 2009.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Marble Arch, Hyde Park Corner.
Description: Entry is FREE but attractions, including the 50m giant observation wheel offering magnificent views of Hyde Park, the popular outdoor ice rink, toboggan slide, etc., are ticketed. Enjoy the traditional German 'Weinachstmarkt' and refreshment booths, (open daily 11am-8pm). Book online for London's largest Ice Rink, (recommended).

Matthew Bourne's Edward Scissorhands
Venue: Sadler's Wells, Rosebury Avenue, Islington, EC1R 4NT.
Date: Until 18 January, 2009.
Tickets: £10-£49. (Concessions). Online booking, in person at Box Office, or Tel: 0870 737 7737.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Angel.
Description: Matthew Bourne's magical production of Edward Scissorhands returns to Sadler's Wells after its phenomenally successful World Tour to provide us with a delicious theatrical Christmas feast.

The Snowman
Venue: Peacock Theatre, Portugal Street, WC2.
Date: 11am, 2.30pm, 7pm. Until 11 January, 2009.
Tickets: £18-£30. (Concessions & Discounts). Online booking, in person at Box Office, or telephone; 0844 412 4322.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Angel.
Description:The Snowman, the much loved stage version of Raymond Briggs' Christmas story also returns to the Peacock Theatre for its eleventh Christmas season. This is a captivating mix of dance, stagecraft and music suitable for all children from 2 to 82; the perfect introduction to dance for the very young. Watch this video clip.

Cirque du Soleil
Venue: Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, SW7 2A
Date: Nightly. 4 January - 8 February, 2009.
Tickets: . From £17. Online booking or at the Box Office. Limited parking offered. See venue website for details.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Knightsbridge, Kensington High Street.
Description: A dazzling show seen by millions of people worldwide that contains elements Cirque du Soleil is famous for; astonishing acrobatics, awe inspiring aerial acts, unique lighting, fabulous music and elaborate set design. A memorable show at this historic rotunda hall, opened 1871 by Queen Victoria.
Wheelchair accessibility: Yes. Adapted Toilets: Yes.

Cinderella
Venue:New Wimbledon Theatre, The Broadway, Wimbledon, SW19 1QG. Tel: 0871 297 5477
Date: 2 pm & 7pm. Until 18 January, 2009.
Tickets: £15-£27, (family discounts).
London Transport: Nearest Tube. Wimbledon.
Description: Enjoy all the elements that Panto audiences have come to expect over the past 100 years from their annual pilgrimage to Christmas- big song and dance numbers, lavish scenes, romance, comedy and lots of audience participation. Cinderella is yet another sell-out success for this charming south London theatre.

Mother Goose
Venue: Hackney Empire, 291 Mare Street, E8 1EJ.
Date: 29 November 2008 - 10 January, 2009.
Tickets: £9.50 - £19.50. Online booking, or Theatre Box Office, Tel: 020 8985 2424.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Bethnall Green, then D6, 106 or 253 bus.
Description: Following Susie McKenna's four previous Christmas Panto box office hits Aladdin, Jack & the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Dick Whittington, she celebrates the Hackney Empire's 10th anniversary Panto season with her biggest, most magical Panto yet for children aged 5 to 80! Expect her to dig deep into the century old traditional core elements of Panto performance; spectacular sets and costumes, magical spectacle, exciting music and dance, slapstick comedy outrageous Dame and great fun. Clive Rowe camps it up once again in his annual star role as the 'Dame'.
Check out The Big Panto Guide for a complete listing of Panto productions across UK.

Encore online
Venues: 37 West End and City theatres
Description: Your online guide to London's vibrant Christmas season theatre programme of plays, musicals, pantos and variety.
Date: Ongoing.
Tickets: Book online with Offtolondon for all seats. Book ahead to avoid disappointment.

Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian
Venue: Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DN
Date: Until 18 January, 2009.
Tickets: £10. Timed entry. Book Online Concessions.
London Transport: Nearest Tube. Charing Cross; Leicester Square. Car Park: St. Martin's Lane NCP.
Description: A remarkable exhibition mounted in association with the Prado, Madrid. XV and XVI century paintings, drawings and sculptures from the centers of the European Renaissance highlight work by the great masters such as Botticelli, Dürer, Cranach, Holbein, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian and Van Eyck. This is a visual delight and a unique opportunity to see all these works assembled in one gallery.
Wheelchair accessibility: Yes. Adapted Toilets: Yes.

Masters of Flemish Painting
Venue: Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, Westminster, SW1A 1AA, London. Entrance in Buckingham Palace Road.
Date: Until 26 April 2009. 10am-5.30pm daily.
Tickets: Book Online, (timed and dated ticket entry), or at door. Take advantage of special online discounts.
London Transport: Nearest Tubes. Green Park, Hyde Park Corner (Piccadilly Line), Victoria Rail Terminal, (Victoria, Circle and District Lines).
Description Superbly appointed gallery at the Palace dedicated to changing exhibitions of items from the Royal Collection, the wide-ranging collection of art and treasures held in trust by The Queen for the Nation. The new exhibition (from 17 October), is the first ever London exhibition of the finest Flemish paintings in the Royal Collection. Comprising 51 works created during the period 1500-1665 in the Southern, (Spanish-ruled), Netherlands, it includes masterpieces by Hans Memling, Van Dyck and Teniers and a wonderful group of landscapes by Jan Brueghel and Rubens depicting the blessings of harmony and fertility. Pieter Bruegel's Massacre of the Innocents forms a powerful centrepiece to the exhibition which emphasises the artistic legacy of the Stuart kings, Charles I and his son, Charles II, whose refined taste so profoundly influenced the character of the British Royal Collection and popular taste.
Wheelchair accessibility: Yes. Adapted Toilets: Yes.

Byzantium 330 - 1453
Venue: Royal Academy, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W.1.
Date: Until 22 March, 2009. 10am-6pm. Ongoing.
Tickets: £12, (Concessions). Book Online or pay on the door. Various.
London transport: Nearest Tube: Piccadilly, Green Park.
Description: A thrilling and epic exhibition of over 300 objects including icons, detached wall paintings, micro-mosaics, ivories, enamels plus gold and silver metalwork. Mounted in collaboration between the Royal Academy of Arts and the Benaki Museum in Athens, this exhibition highlights the splendours of the Byzantine Empire over 1000 years of its history that began with the founding of Constantinople in 330 AD by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great and ended with the capture of the city by the Ottoman forces of Mehmed II in 1453.
Wheelchair accessibility: Yes. Adapted Toilets: Yes.

Francis Bacon
Venue:Tate Britain, Millbank, SW1P 4RG
Dates: Until 4 January, 2009.
Tickets: £12.50, (Concessions).
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Pimlico.
Description: Marking the centenary of Bacon's birth in 2009, this touring exhibition, (Prado, Madrid and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York next year), is the first major retrospective in London of Bacon's work since 1985. Love him or hate him, Bacon will exert an influence on painting for generations to come.
Wheelchair accessibility: Yes. Adapted Toilets: Yes.

Turner Watercolours at the Courtauld
Date: 10am-6pm daily. Ends 25 January, 2009.
Venue: The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, WC2.
Tickets: £5, (Concessions and discounts for joint ticket with other SH exhibitions).
London transport: Nearest Tubes: Strand, Temple.
Description: Watercolour works spanning the artist's career from important early landscapes made when he was a teenager, to the highly finished watercolours and his celebrated expressive late works. ~The exhibition is supplemented by closely related loans from Tate and private collections.

London Ghost Walks
Venue: Departs from Bank or Blackfriars Underground station.. EC. Tel: 020 8530 8443
Date: Tues/Fri/Sats. 7pm-9pm. Check website for 2009 date confirmation.
Tickets: £7. Online Booking
London Transport: Aldgate East, (District, Hammersmith and City Lines).
Description: Alleyways and Shadows; Ghosts, Ghouls and Graveyards; the titles of these walks, painstakingly researched by author and historian Richard Jones, perfectly conjure the haunting atmosphere of these deliciously spooky tours that venture beyond the busy main roads and twist their eerie way through forgotten medieval and Victorian London. Let Richard Jones lead you to places where the disembodied voices from London's eerie past may just whisper in your ear, as their icy fingers lightly stroke the back of your neck.

The Shakespeare City Walk
Venue: Starts from Blackfriars Tube Station, Exit 8. (Circle and District Line).
Date: Mondays and Fridays, 11am. Ends 7 December, 2007. Tel: 020 7625 5155 before date for confirmation. Recommences 3 January, 2008.
Tickets: £6.(Concessions). Book online or pay guide at start.
London Transport: Nearest Tube. Blackfriars.
Description: Thespian Declan McHugh leads you on a 90 minute walk through the City of London, uncovering often little-known monuments and locations with connections to Shakespeare's life, his friends, his loves and his work, while declaiming the Bard's poetry and prose in true Woolfitt style.

Jack The Ripper's Sinister London
Venue: Selected departure points by coach.
Date: Fridays, Sundays. from 6.40pm
Tickets: From $50.13 per person. Pay online.
Description:Tread in the footsteps of the infamous Jack The Ripper down the dark, narrow, gas-lit alleyways immortalized in such films as "From Hell". Led by one of the renowned London Blue Badge Guides, you will visit four murder sights. Your "Ripperologist" will run through some of the suspects who sparked a Victorian Whodunit that will leave you as gripped as its victims. Approx. 4 hours.

London Eye. Millenium Wheel
Date: Daily.
Venue:
Westminster Bridge Road, (Riverside Building County Hall), SE1 7PB. Tel: 0870 990 8883 Tickets: £15. (Concessions). Book online.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Westminster.
Description: Opened at the beginning of 2000 to celebrate the Millennium, this huge 450-foot British Airways Ferris wheel on the South Bank of the Thames overlooking Westminster gives a fabulous bird's eye view of Royal and Civic London, with spectacular views stretching for 25 miles on a clear day to include views of Windsor Castle. Up to 25 people can fit in each of the wheel's "capsules." The wheel turns surprisingly slowly, taking 30 minutes to go round, so you will have plenty of time to spot landmarks, take photos, propose to your beloved, get married and celebrate the occasion with champagne! Combine your London Eye experience with a Thames River cruise. Online booking discount, (champagne supplied)!

Sherlock Holmes Museum
Venue 221b Baker Street, NW1 6XE. Tel: 020 7935 8866.
Tickets Adult £6, Child £4. Daily 9:30a.m. - 6:00p.m. Discount Group admissions for 10 + persons. Advance booking telephone: 020 7738 1269, Online or email: info@sherlock-holmes.co.uk
London Transport Nearest Tube. Baker Street. Nos 13 and 139 buses run between Baker Street and Trafalgar Square. The trams and horse drawn hansom cabs of Holmes's day are regrettably a thing of the past.
Description Permanent Exhibition. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson lived at 221b Baker Street, (built 1815), between 1881-1904, according to Holmes's biographer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The famous 1st floor study, where the world's most illustrious detective played the violin while pondering and solving those mystifying cases before the use of fingerprints or DNA made detection so much easier, is still faithfully maintained as it was kept in those late Victorian and Edwardian days of gaslight, horse drawn Hansom cabs and London fogs. Nothing has changed. The rooms are exactly as described by Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes's possessions are in their usual places: his deerstalker, magnifying glass, calabash pipe, violin, chemistry equipment, notebook, Persian slippers and disguises, soda water gazogene on the sideboard. Dr Watson's hand-written notes made at the time of the famous case of the Hounds of the Baskervilles may be perused and visitors will be interested to admire a waxwork in the likeness of the infamous Moriarty. Recommended, though the house is not designed for wheelchair access.

Imperial War Museum: For Your Eyes Only
Venue: Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, SE1 6HZ. Tel: 0207 416 5320.
Date: Until 1 March 2009.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Lambeth North; Elephant and Castle; Waterloo, (wheelchair accessible); Southwark, (wheelchair accessible). Carparks: Union Carparks/53 Southwark Street.
Tickets: £8.(Concessions). Book online. The rest of the museum is FREE.
Description: Temporary Exhibition. A celebration of the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth with a fascinating exhibition devoted to his James Bond, the 007 gizmos and gadgetry, and Fleming's own remarkable life and wartime experiences. A special book is available to accompany the exhibition.
Wheelchair Accessibility: Yes. Adapted Toilets: Yes, on all floors bar the 3rd and 4th. Accessible cafe on ground floor. The Museum has a number of manual, folding frame wheelchairs that can be borrowed for the duration of your visit. Check for full details.

Leighton House Museum and Art Gallery
Venue: 12 Holland Park Road, W14 8LZ.
Date: 11am-5.30 pm daily except Tuesdays, 2009.
Tickets: £3, (Concessions). Pay at door.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Kensington; High Street, Kensington. Carparking: Olympia Hylton NCP.
Description: Permanent Exhibition. Victorian opulence in art and architecture shown at its best and most spectacular, (or worst and most decadent if your taste is for modern minimalist). The former studio-house of the great Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896), who designed and decorated it between 1864 and 1879, the house is one of the most extraordinary buildings of the nineteenth century. Filled with golden mosaics, gilded walls, elaborate paintwork, domed ceilings, trickling fountains, cool marble and peacock blue tiles. Leighton House also became home to the owner's extensive collection of Victorian paintings, 81 of which are exhibited here together with a fine collection of ceramics and lustreware. Over 1000 Islamic tiles adorn the Arab Hall, reflecting the influence the East had on Lord Leighton following his travels. It forms the centrepiece and focal point of the house. The Arab Hall, Dining Hall or Studio are available to hire for receptions and functions.
Wheelchair accessibility: No.

Olympia Musicmania
Venue: Olympia Two, Hammersmith Road, W14 8UX.
Date: 10am-6pm, (8.30am Earlybird ticket), 24 January, 2009.
Tickets: £5, (£10 Earlybird ticket). Pay at door.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Kensington. Car Parking: Olympia Hilton NCP.
Description: London's biggest retro bargain hunt for music memorabilia, vinyls, videos, books, posters, programmes, tour T-Shirts, etc.

Hampton Court Palace
Venue: Hampton Court Palace, East Molesey, KT8, 9AU. Tel: + 44 (0)844 482 7799.
Date: Daily, 10am-4.30pm until end February, (winter opening times).
Tickets: £13.30, (concessions and online discount) until end Feb, 2009. Prices may change.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Richmond.
Description: Must see sights include Henry VIII's Great Hall and Tudor kitchens, the Maze and the celebrated Gardens. In depth description
Wheelchair Accessibility: Yes. The ground floor of the Palace is wheelchair accessible and there are limited facilities for viewing the upper floors with the use of an elevator. Adapted Toilets: Yes. See Palace Disabled Access for full details and help.

Buckingham Palace State Rooms
Venue: Buckingham Palace, Westminster, SW1A 1AA.
Access: 9, 11, 16, 18, 23, 25, 30 January 1 February, 11, 12, 13 April, 2009, (special guided tour with champagne);
Tickets: £65 with champagne. Take advantage of special online discounts and advance booking.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Victoria Rail Terminal; Hyde Park Corner; Green Park.
Description: An expert guide takes you on an Exclusive Guided Tour, while the Palace is unoccupied and The Queen is in residence at Sandringham. This gives you a very special insight into the history and use of the State Rooms, and the many works of art on display. The tour lasts approximately 2 hours. Each tour is limited to 30 members, so early booking is essential. 2009 General public admission dates: 1 August - 27 September; 9.45am - 6pm.£16.50.

Kensington Palace
Venue: Kensington Gardens, W8 4PX. Tel: 0870 751 5170.
Date: Daily, 10am-5pm, (winter opening times).
Tickets: £12.30, (concessions and online discount) until end February, 2009. Prices may change.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: High Street, Kensington.
Description:. As well as the fascinating exhibition of Court Ceremonial dress which gives us a good idea of the splendour of the British Court, (compare this with the V&A Museum Exhibition The Magnificence of the Tsars), there is a great deal worth seeing, from the Cupola Room, where Queen Victoria was baptised, to the exquisite trompe d'oeuil ceiling executed by Palladian architect William Kent for George II, (1722). While the original State Rooms have been turned into a museum, this is still a working palace and Royal Residence, housing working members of the Royal Family. Princess Diana lived here after her divorce.
Wheelchair Accessibility: Yes.

Clarence House
Venue: St. James's Palace, SW1A 1BS, (entry from the Mall). Tel: 020 7766 7303.
Access: Summer opening. 10am-3pm, 5 August - 27 September 2009.
Tickets: £8, (concessions), Take advantage of special online discounts and advance booking.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Green Parl.
Description: Built by John Nash for the Duke of Clarence who became King William IV from 1830 until 1837 and used it as his palace, it was later the home of The Queen, then Princess Elizabeth and The Duke of Edinburgh following their marriage in 1947, and thereafter the London home of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother from 1953 until 2002. It is now the official London residence of Charles Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.

The Royal Mews
Venue: Buckingham Palace, Westminster, SW1A 1AA, London. Entrance in Buckingham Palace Road.
Access: Summer opening. 11am-4pm, 28 March - 31 October, 2009.
Tickets: £7.50, (concessions), Take advantage of special online discounts and advance booking.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Victoria Station.
Description: The Mews houses the Queen's horses in what are undoubtedly one of the finest working stables in existence. Also on view are the Monarch's State Coache and other official vehicles

Kew Palace
Venue: Access: Summer opening. 10 April.
Tickets: £5, (concessions). London Transport: Nearest Tube: Kew Gardens.
Description: The country palace of George III, (d.1820) and his Queen Charlotte, Kew Palace has recently been meticulously refurbished under Royal patronage and is a masterpiece of Georgian taste, decor and furnishings.

Palace of Westminster
Access: Open to overseas visitors during the Parliamentary summer recess in August and September, 2009. Exact dates to be announced. Guided tours daily, Monday to Saturday inclusive.
Venue: Westminster, London SW1A 1AA.
Tickets: Online only.
London Transport: Nearest Tube: Westminster.
Description: This is an unrivalled opportunity to see the Victorian Neo-Gothic magnificence of the Palace of Westminster with its debating Chambers of the 'House of Commons' and 'House of Lords'. Fascinating guided tour.