Sanja Iveković is having a well-deserved moment in London.  Her first UK retrospective, Unknown Heroine, is currently on display across both South London Gallery and Calvert 22.  One of the most respected artists of her generation, the Zagreb-born Iveković is one of the most powerful visual artistic voices for the Eastern European woman.

Unknown Heroine spans forty years of Iveković’s career, and takes influence from events in was some of the most turbulent territory of the twentieth century’s second half.  Through collage, film, performance and installation, Iveković’s work confronts attitudes around female identity, consumerism and purported views of recorded history.  This exhibition follows recent retrospectives of the artist’s work at Mudam Luxembourg, MoMA New York, and participation at dOCUMENTA (13).

I’ll be honest with you, dear reader.  It’s a quiet month for visual art in the city (though by January’s end we’ll be back on the rollercoaster of big-name blockbusters – the likes of which we haven’t seen since, well, October).  However, Unknown Heroine makes up for the quietude with a startlingly impressive aesthetic, as well as a having a message that you can take home with you to keep.

Unknown Heroine is at South London Gallery and Calvert 22 until 24 February.

Art imitates art imitates life, in Alan Ayckbourn’s newly-restored version of A Chorus of Disapproval, which ends it’s successful run at the Harold Pinter Theatre this Saturday.  The joy of this reprisal is steeped in the skill with which Ayckbourn weaves his narrative in and around that of John Gay’s classic satire, The Beggar’s Opera.  Itself a take-off of the genteel society of eighteenth century London at the heart of the Enlightenment, Ayckbourn’s 1984 play stands up today.

Guy Jones is a young widower who joins an amateur dramatic company that is putting on The Beggar’s Opera.  He progresses through the ranks of the cast, becoming both the male lead and bedding several of his leading ladies.  Along the way, he meets characters including ostentatious Welsh director Dafydd and his two-timing wife Hannah.

The National premiered this play in 1985 with Michael Gambon and Bob Peck; its success lives long in theatre memory.  This reprisal will be noted for its stealthy direction by Sir Trevor Nunn and a trio of great performances, from former Rob Brydon as Dafydd, Ashley Jensen as Hannah and former Eastender Nigel Harman as our hero/anti-hero.  It closes on Saturday and tickets can be yours for the knockdown price of a tenner.  Wasn’t it one of your New Years’ Resolutions to go be more cultural?

A Chorus of Disapproval is at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 05 January.

Don McCullin has spent his life going face-to-face in some of the world’s most dangerous conditions in order to get the photograph.  Born in London in the 1930s, McCullin returned from RAF after the Suez Crisis and almost immediately had a picture of his published in The Observer.  This image of a local London gang began McCullin’s career, one which would see him enter some of the perilous situations of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in order to capture some of the most exhilarating imagery ever created.

From the secessionist Biafra, to victims of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, to the Vietnam War and Northern Ireland during The Troubles, McCullin has been there, and a new documentary on the man is one of the most engaging arts films of recent years.  Comprised almost exclusively of his images and a voice-over interview narration, McCullin is both a warm portrait of the man, as well as a hard-hitting overview of social documentary photography.

To warn, this isn’t sometimes the easiest of films to watch, but it’s certainly one of the most worthwhile you’ll see all year.

McCullin is on general release.