LONDON (Reuters) – Auction houses pinching themselves after bumper 2011 sales are now turning their attention to 2012, amid cautious optimism that the two-year bull run for top works of art will continue.

Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the world’s leading auctioneers, hold a series of big sales in London over the next two weeks at which the old rivals expect to raise more than 500 million pounds ($800 million).

LONDON (Reuters) – Queen Elizabeth is throwing a star-studded party for him at Buckingham Palace and in Buenos Aires, leading cultural figures will gather in an old orphanage to read from his works.

Charles Dickens may have died in 1870, but legions of fans around the world unite next Tuesday and beyond to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of a titan of English fiction.

LONDON (Reuters) – Christie’s shrugged off the euro zone crisis and slowing economic growth in 2011 to post record revenues, selling art worth 3.6 billion pounds, or nine percent more than in 2010.

In dollar terms the total of $5.7 billion was not a record but was 14 percent higher than 2010, as wealthy and super-wealthy collectors snapped up rare works as status symbols, objects of desire and alternative investments.

LONDON (Reuters) – A theatre in east London is staging new play “Guantanamo Boy” this week, focusing on the U.S. detention camp as it marks it 10th anniversary and engaging local Muslims in political debate.

The production, based on a 2009 novel of the same name by Anna Perera, opens on Tuesday at Stratford Circus, located in an area of the capital with a large Muslim population.

LONDON (Reuters) – Danny Boyle, the man overseeing the opening ceremony at the 2012 London Olympics, revealed on Friday that it will be called “Isles of Wonder” and involve a big bell and lots of nurses.

The latter was a tribute to the National Health Service, a public organisation the film director said Britons took particular pride in, while the title came from arguably the greatest of all playwrights, William Shakespeare.

LONDON, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Billed as the first major
exhibition devoted to the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, “Hajj:
journey at the heart of Islam” at the British Museum aims to
lift the veil on a ritual that is a mystery to many in the
non-Muslim world.

Curators also said they hoped the show, which runs from Jan.
26-April 15 at the London venue, would be visited by Muslims as
well as non-Muslims who are not allowed to join the haj.

LONDON (Reuters) – Andrew Miller’s novel “Pure” won the 2011 Costa Book of the Year Award on Tuesday, beating four other category winners after what the chair of judges described as “fierce debate”.

The eight-member panel, led by London Evening Standard editor Geordie Greig, was sharply divided between awarding “Pure” the overall award and “Now All Roads Lead to France”, an account of the final years of poet Edward Thomas’s life.

LONDON (Reuters) – For Daniel Radcliffe, it’s time to forget Harry Potter. The 22-year-old actor, inextricably linked to the boy wizard he played throughout the movie franchise, takes on his first adult role in Victorian-era horror film “The Woman in Black.”

Hitting theatres in Britain on February 10 and a week earlier in the United States, the movie is a step into the unknown for an actor who grew up on the set of one of Hollywood’s most successful series.

LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Digital music revenues rose
eight percent in 2011 to $5.2 billion, but it was not enough to
prevent another annual decline in the overall market to $16.2
billion from $16.7 billion in 2010.

Figures released on Monday by record industry body the
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)
confirmed expectations that a downward trend which began in the
late 1990s continued last year.