The Week’s guide to what’s worth seeing and reading

Last chance

946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips at Shakespeare’s Globe, London SE1 (020-7401 9919). This all-singing, all-dancing adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel about a little girl and her cat growing up in wartime Devon is full of “fizz and crackle” (London Evening Standard). Ends 11 September.

Showing now

Stanley Spencer at Yorkshire’s Hepworth Wakefield gallery (01924-247360). A “hugely rewarding” exhibition of Spencer’s work, which demonstrates its remarkable range, from his visionary religious paintings to his moving selfportraits (Yorkshire Post). Ends 5 October.

Book now

London’s Fine Art Society will hold the first posthumous retrospective of work by Gerald Laing – the British pop artist who, with his striking, playful portraits of 1960s icons such as Brigitte Bardot and Anna Karina, helped define the visual language of that era. 19 September13 October (www.thefineartsociety.com).

This year’s Oxford Lieder Festival features performances of every one of Robert Schumann’s songs, as well as works by his wife Clara, and by his friends and contemporaries. 14-29 October (www.oxfordlieder.co.uk).

Just out in paperback

The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel (Canongate £8.99). There’s “a lot to take on board” in the Life of Pi author’s latest novel – including a dead bear cub “found clinging to a chimpanzee” inside a human’s body. “Luckily, Martel is an excellent storyteller” (Times).