Happy New Year! And Here's Your Arts Ahead for 2012

Well, here's my mighty round-up ahead of all the excitement this Olympic year from londonist.

Another Tuesday, another Arts Ahead for you. But this time, it's for the whole of 2012.

Alphabetically, you could look at it like this:

Adam Cooper, Big Dance, Cultural Olympiad, David Hockney, Exposure, Freud (Lucien), Globe Theatre, Hirst (Damien), I-Einstein on the Beach(!), Jubilee (Diamond), King Lear and Kronos Quartet, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Metamorphosis: Titian, (All) New People, Oil Tanks, Porgy and Bess, (The) Queen, Reverb, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, (Sweeney) Todd, Umbrellas (for Singin In The Rain), Viva Forever, World Shakespeare Festival...

X.. Y... and...

Zach Braff.

That's not to mention Cate Blanchett at the Barbican's 30th birthday, Mozart at the Royal Opera House or any of the 1000s of Dickens 2012 events happening in London. Even Nick Curtis at the Standard is getting excited: does that say Annus Fabulous in that url?!

Can you see why I might've been somewhat, shall we say, restless over the Christmas break?!

I've likened the past few weeks to the clunking, jerky movements heading up a rollercoaster before you finally get to the top, look at a beautiful view all around you (thanks, Christmas in the Shire), and then, Wwwoooosh! From today I've plunged into a spinning, twisting, unrestricted, unregulated freefall that'll continue until ooh, it's all over. In the middle of September.

Welcome to 2012.