Have a highbrow time this Christmas

Theatre and comedy

August: Osage County

A family reunion play riddled with incest, adultery and alcoholism: Jack and the Beanstalk it ain't. Still, Tracy Letts's Pulitzer-winning black comedy, in a masterful production by Chicago's Steppenwolf, has been hailed as a modern American classic and is the must-see of the season

To 21 Jan, National Theatre, London SE1 (020-7452 3000)

Don John

As anyone who saw the stunning Brief Encounter set in an old cinema this year will already know, Kneehigh excels at visual invention, live music and cheeky physical larks. All of which should make its latest, a 1970s take on the Don Juan legend – all lonely hearts columns and Open University students – a pleasurable romp.

To 10 Jan in rep, RSC Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (0844 800 1110)

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover ... at Christmas

Hands down the funniest show to emerge on the fringe this year. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (right) started life at Latitude festival when members of the public were invited to send in their worst break-up tales to be stitched together by a gang of young playwrights – including Skins writers Lucy Kirkwood and Ben Schiffer – into a hilarious sketch show. Following a successful extended run at the Bush in the summer, the cast, including The Royle Family's Ralf Little, and show return with new material, some of it festive.

To 10 Jan, Bush Theatre, London W12 (020-8743 5050)

Awaking Beauty

This has been Alan Ayckbourn's year with a hugely successful revival of The Norman Conquests at the Old Vic and Woman in Mind coming into the West End in January. For Christmas, he's joined forces with Denis King on a new musical version of the classic fairy tale in which the wicked witch Carabosse sets her lusty sights on snaring her dream man. Not suitable for children – which might be a recommendation in itself.

To 17 Jan, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough (01723 370541)

Lessons and Carols for Godless People

Robin Ince has brought together a gang of his fellow comedians including Ricky Gervais, Stewart Lee, Josie Long and Chris Addison, musicians Jarvis Cocker and Robyn Hitchcock and the celebrated atheist academic Richard Dawkins for a secular celebration of the scientific and the rational in "a variety version of the Royal Institute Christmas lectures".

18, 19 Dec, Bloomsbury Theatre, London WC1 (020-7388 8822); 21 Dec, Hammersmith Apollo, London W6 (0870 606 3400)

Music and dance

A Thompson Family Christmas

There are festive family singalongs and festive family singalongs, but when the family involved is the famous folk dynasty of the Thompsons – mother Linda, son Teddy and daughter Kamila (but no Richard, sadly) – it becomes a musical event. Add in some famous friends - Eddi Reader, Bert Jansch, Ed Harcourt, Badly Drawn Boy and Rachel Unthank & The Winterset, to name but a few – and it's practically a musical miracle.

17 Dec, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London SE1 (0871 663 2500)

The Hold Steady

Majestic rock storytelling, big chords and neuroses from the thinking man's Springsteen, Craig Finn and his Brooklyn band (left). If you missed them at the festivals this summer, make sure you see them this time round.

14 Dec, Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth; 15 Dec, Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton; 17 Dec, Roundhouse, London (www.theholdsteady.com)

LSO/Andre Previn

Andre Previn conducts the LSO in a programme of Haydn, Mozart and Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. The violin virtuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter also performs the conductor's own concerto.

21 Dec, Barbican, London EC2 (020-7638 8891)

The Thief of Baghdad

The Thief of Baghdad fuses the exotic fantasy of the Arabian Nights with the grim reality of wartime London as three young boys find themselves transported into a magical world when they shelter inside a West End theatre.

To 3 Jan, Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House, London WC2 (020-7304 4000)

Art

The Dream of Fluxus

Gags, games, trinkets and manifestos – walking round Baltic's latest exhibition feels a little bit like walking round a classy gallery gift shop – perfect for Christmas time, then. Joseph Beuys and Yoko Ono are among the artists whose names pop up in this celebration of the slippery 1960s anti-art movement Fluxus.

To 15 Feb, Baltic, Gateshead (0191-478 1810)

Evil Xmas Fayre

If you like your fêtes to be edgy, then the Evil Xmas Fayre at Shoreditch's private members' club, the East Room, is for you. A pop-up exhibition, it features the work of top international street artists, on sale from £25 to £3000.

To 31 Jan, The East Room, 2a Tabernacle Street, London EC2 (www.thstrm.com)

GSK Contemporary

The Royal Academy has set up a cooler younger sibling at 6 Burlington Gardens. As well as work by Malcolm McLaren and William Burroughs, there's an exhibition devoted to visions of post-apocalyptic London by young artists such as Ryan Gander and Cyprien Gaillard. And then there's Flash, a temporary restaurant with graffiti-patterned Wedgewood and a chandelier designed by Giles Deacon, from the people behind Bistrotheque

To 19 Jan, Royal Academy, London W1 (www.royalacademy.org.uk)

Film

Twilight

This year's Harry Potter. In other words, a flight of fantasy adults and children will enjoy – Twilight is the much-hyped teenage vampire romance based on Stephenie Meyer's best-selling novels. Expect sales of pale foundation and eyeliner to soar.

Released nationwide on 19 Dec

Christmas on Mars

Seven years in the making and shot mainly in the Oklahoma backyard of Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, Christmas on Mars, below, is the first film from the psychedelic rock band. It tells the story of Major Syrtis (played by band member Steven Drozd) during the first Christmas on a newly colonised Mars. Coyne has described the film as "maybe Eraserhead or Dead Man crossed with The Wizard of Oz and maybe A Space Odyssey, except done without real actors or money and set at Christmas time". He plays a mute Martian but will break his silence to introduce the film to Barbican audiences.

13, 14 Dec, Barbican, London EC2 (020-7638 8891)