Having suffered a cruel spring with very little at Cannes, fans of British film look set for a fruitful autumn. New films dangle like apples ripe for picking: juicy names include Stephen Frears directing Dame Judi Dench in Philomena (1 November) and the return of Sexy Beast director Jonathan Glazer with Under the Skin, at the Venice film festival. Endure the inevitable fuss around Naomi Watts in Diana (20 September) and October awaits as a bumper month for big-screen Brit-watching: Clio Barnard’s admired poetic-realist tale, The Selfish Giant; Dexter Fletcher’s Sunshine on Leith, featuring the music of the Proclaimers; Kevin Macdonald’s return to features (after two docs) with How I Live Now, starring Saoirse Ronan; and Roger Michell’s Le Week-End with Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan. Jason Solomons Photograph: PR
It’s brave of the Royal Ballet to commission Carlos Acosta to mount a new version of Don Quixote as the ballet is a signature Bolshoi work, and has never sat comfortably with the Royal. Neither Anthony Dowell’s 1993 staging (after Baryshnikov) nor Ross Stretton’s in 2001 (after Nureyev) made much of a mark. But it could be third time lucky. If anyone can inspire the Royal Ballet to great things, and bring this mad 19th-century romance to life, Acosta can. The Cuban star will be dancing the lead role of Basilio himself at some performances – a perfect fit, as the character triumphs by dint of wit, charm and sheer panache. His Kitri is Marianela Nuñez, so expect fireworks. Luke Jennings Photograph: Johan Persson/PR
Autumn 2013 sees a tempting slate of established names with new offerings, led by that veteran survivor Peter Ackroyd with his new novel Three Brothers, set in 1960s London. Ackroyd is that timeless figure, a man of letters, dipped in ink, apparently versatile in a breathtaking variety of genres. Equally gifted, from across the Atlantic, Stephen King has a new thriller, Doctor Sleep, a sequel to The Shining. It is safe to predict that the autumn’s other big American contenders will be Donna Tartt’s long-awaited third novel The Goldfinch; Pulitzer prizewinner Paul Harding’s Enon; and David Leavitt’s The Two Hotel Francforts set in Lisbon during the second world war. Closer to home, there’s the delightful prospect of some assured literary entertainment from three bestselling musketeers – Robert Harris, William Boyd and Sebastian Faulks. Robert McCrum Photograph: PR
The Royal Academy’s hotly anticipated Daumier (1808-1879): Visions of Paris opens in October. Radical republican, social satirist, painter, sculptor, cartoonist, scourge of the bourgeoisie, Daumier is the most singular figure in 19th-century French art. Nobody can take you into the heart of Paris as he does – dark tenements on the Île Saint-Louis, cholera epidemics in the Marais, itinerant clowns, walking fashion plates, crowds at the Salon, lawyers, drinkers, dawdlers: every image is unforgettably potent. Which is just as well, because memory is about all we’ve got in Britain when we rarely get to see more than one or two Daumiers at a time (this show is the first here in 50 years). Laura Cumming Photograph: PR
Autumn means one thing for fans of American TV drama: more of it. As shows like Homeland, Boardwalk Empire and The Newsroom get back under way in the US, new episodes begin to trickle out over here. Sky Atlantic begins showing series two of The Newsroom – starring the brilliant Jeff Daniels as a prickly news anchor – next week and premieres the third series of Boardwalk Empire (gangsters, gaming dens, Steve Buscemi) on 29 September. Channel 4 resumes its beloved thriller Homeland a little later; look out for more Brody and Carrie in series three from 6 October. Channel 4 also have the rights to another US import from Showtime (who make Homeland) – the 50s-set Masters of Sex, starring Michael Sheen as real-life sex researcher William H Masters. Intrigued? It debuts on 29 September. Tom Lamont Photograph: Showtime
Festival line-ups are always something of a patchwork. But the annual iTunes festival – a month-long urban pop jamboree, held under the vaulted roof of London’s Roundhouse venue – has long pulled off the trick of being eclectic but right on the pulse. Leaving aside the sensational coup of Lady Gaga’s international ARTPOP premiere (next Sunday), 2013’s roll call was already mixing pop A-listers (Justin Timberlake, 29 September) with superstar DJs (Avicii, 13 September), upmarket rappers (Kendrick Lamar, Tinie Tempah) and the sharpest guitar bands in the drawer (Sigur Rós, Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys). It’s all free to competition-winners, and fully streamable by everyone else on their shiny devices. Kitty Empire Photograph: Brian Rasic/REX
The biggest events of the year so far have all been devoted to painting and so it continues into the autumn. The National Gallery's Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900 presents the work of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oscar Kokoschka in all its agony and ecstasy, among others. Also opening in October, at Tate Modern, is a huge retrospective of tiny paintings by Paul Klee from all periods of his life. Elsewhere, Painting Now is a bold proposition of a title, and will feature a good, if random sample of well-respected artists including Tomma Abts, who won the Turner prize with her sharp and articulate abstractions in 2006. LC Photograph: Tate Modern/PA
Benedict Cumberbatch had best not plan any sightseeing when he attends the Toronto film festival. The British actor will hardly get off the red carpet. The Fifth Estate, in which a bleached Cumberbatch stars as Julian Assange, opens the festival next week. After that, two more premieres: the movie version of stage smash August: Osage County, in which Cumberbatch plays an Oklahoman dropout, son to Chris Cooper; and Steve McQueen’s Oscar-tipped 12 Years a Slave, Cumberbatch taking on the role of a Baptist preacher and the owner of Chiwetel Ejiofor’s titular slave. The Fifth Estate doesn’t come out in UK cinemas until October and Osage and Slave won’t be released until January, but expect a lot of the talk this autumn to be Cumberbatch-tinged as excitement mounts for the long-awaited third series of Sherlock. TL Photograph: PR
There are many big guns firing at Shakespeare this autumn. The most startling casting comes next month in Mark Rylance’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, in which Vanessa Redgrave (76) and James Earl Jones (82) will star as the wrangling lovers. In Michael Grandage’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, also in September, Sheridan Smith as Titania will be kissing the “fair soft ears” of David Walliams, who plays Bottom. David Tennant returns to Shakespeare in the RSC's Richard II and Jude Law will play one of the dramatist’s most martial kings when he is directed by Michael Grandage in Henry V. Susannah Clapp Photograph: Hugo Glendinning/PR
“If people laugh as much reading it as I am while writing it then we’ll all be very happy,” said the author Helen Fielding last year, confidently announcing her third Bridget Jones book. It finally arrives on 10 October, 14 years after the last instalment, with a subtitle (Mad About the Boy) and a cover (featuring scattered children’s toys) that suggests Bridget’s had a kid or two. Mark Darcy the father? As yet unclear – but don’t rule out Daniel Cleaver as the dad. Fielding has managed to squeeze a lot of mileage out of the Bridget/ Mark/ Daniel love triangle, and might not be done with it yet. TL Photograph: PR
Blue Jasmine, the Woody Allen comedy-drama starring Cate Blanchett, named the director’s return-to-form film by most of the critics who’ve seen it, is released on 27 September. Blue Is the Warmest Colour, Abdellatif Kechiche’s unflinching drama about a lesbian romance, which wowed at Cannes and won the Palme d’Or, is out seven weeks later on 15 November. Blue-tiful stuff. TL Photograph: Rex Features
Her own promotional materials have declared her “over”. Gaga herself, meanwhile, has described ARTPOP, her third album, as “a reverse Warholian expedition”, by which we think she means there is an app. Having rush-released a single, Applause, to stem unsanctioned leaks, Gaga’s semi-musical, semi-naked collaboration with the artist Marina Abramovic has probably already resulted in written warnings for office workers unsure of what NSFW means. Her hip looks fine, though, after an operation on it delayed ARTPOP’s release. This may well be Gaga’s long-promised left-field album, although the presence of long-time producer Fernando Garibay indicates a safe hand still on the tiller. A song called Princess Die (about you-know-who) will probably not be on it. A song called G.U.Y. might. We have six more weeks of this ARTPOP dripfeed informstorm, before it downloads on 11 November. KE Photograph: PR
A versatile megastar with wide-ranging musical tastes, Bryn Terfel is back with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, an ensemble he’s worked with often, for a fortnight-long festival spanning grand opera to musicals and Bach. In addition to A Night at the Musicals (9 September), the fabulous Welsh bass-baritone will sing in Brahms’s Requiem (14 September) and two concert performances of Puccini’s Tosca (20, 22 September), as usual calling on close musical colleagues to collaborate, here Catrin Finch (harp) and Llyr Williams (piano) who perform recitals in St George’s Hall Concert Room. Fiona Maddocks
Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
Music theatre is looking darker, more lively and adventurous than usual in the next few months. American Psycho, based on Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 satire on capitalism, will feature a Manhattan banker and a warped mind, and will be directed by the galvanic Rupert Goold at the Almeida from 3 December. Marianne Elliott – of Warhorse and The Curious Incident – will preside over a promising collaboration when she directs The Light Princess at the Lyttelton in October. Singer and songwriter Tori Amos joins with playwright Samuel Adamson to create a coming-of-age fairytale. Next month, at the Young Vic, the composer Olga Neuwirth and director John Fulljames will stage American Lulu, a radical reworking of Alban Berg’s opera Lulu, set in the jazz clubs of 1950s New Orleans, with the civil rights movement stirring in the background. SC Photograph: PR
The long-anticipated Media Space, a new gallery for photography and art, is finally opening on the second floor of the Science Museum in South Kensington in September. Drawing on the extensive archive of the National Media Museum in Bradford, the first exhibition pairs the late Tony Ray-Jones’s photographs of England in the 1960s (above) with Martin Parr’s series The Non-Conformists, from the 1970s. A celebration of the enduring eccentricities of English social customs, Only in England opens on 21 September. Sean O'Hagan
Photograph: Tony Ray-Jones/National Media Museum Photograph: Tony Ray-Jones/PR
Rights and wrongs are at the core of several new plays this autumn. The Ritual Slaughter of George Mastromas (above) by Dennis Kelly (Tony-winning writer of the book of Matilda the Musical) follows its eponymous hero on his journey to success at any cost and is Vicky Featherstone’s first full production since she became artistic director of the Royal Court in April. Over at the Bush, The Herd is the first play by the award-winning actor Rory Kinnear, and tracks the twists of family life. Outside of London, a Nottingham Playhouse and Belgrade Coventry co-production sashays through the exploits of a real-life, 19th-century villain and master of disguise. Building on the tradition of Victorian side-shows, Michael Eaton’s Charlie Peace: His Amazing Life and Astounding Legend is a modern musical melodrama featuring the work of graphic artist Eddie Campbell. SC Photograph: Thomas Zimmer/Royal Court Theatre
They arrived, fully formed, back in February 2012, playing a composite of 1970s soft rock, 90s R&B and any other style you cared to dare them. But instead of capitalising on fawning media coverage, Haim kept their powder dry and their fans waiting, and waiting, for their debut album, re-recording the single, The Wire, more than 20 times to achieve the desired pop-locked folk-troupe effect. Produced in part by James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence and the Machine) and in part by Vampire Weekend producer Ariel Rechtshaid, Days Are Gone is – finally – the lush west coast confection Haim had always threatened to make. Many of the songs here will be familiar from multiple tours, only now they are positively dewy with studio glow. KE
Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian
Scandinavian thriller The Bridge won a lot of fans when it was broadcast on BBC4 last year, the show being a clever mesh of police procedural (there were murders) and culture-clash drama (a Swedish and a Danish cop had to work together to solve them). A British-French remake comes to Sky Atlantic this autumn. Not The Bridge, this time, but The Tunnel – as in Channel tunnel, where a body has been left, sawn in half, on the border between the UK and France… Stephen Dillane plays a British detective, Clémence Poésy his Gallic counterpart. TL Photograph: Jessica Fordecontact@jessicafor/Sky Atlantic
For some, music is a sprint. For others, it’s a marathon. The generation that swung will be swinging by again in force this autumn. Paul McCartney is readying an album for October, as yet untitled. That sound on the wind is Bob Dylan’s charabanc rolling around again for three sets of three dates in Glasgow, Blackpool and London (starts 18 November). Elton John, meanwhile, teams up with producer T Bone Burnett for The Diving Board, his 30th album (due 16 September). Reunions are 10-a-penny nowadays, but Fleetwood Mac’s latest tour has involved the kind of fence-mending that usually requires a UN special envoy. The 70s survivors hit the UK on 24 September and might feature a cameo from non-touring Mac, Christine McVie. KE Photograph: C Flanigan/WireImage
The Tudor court – warring queens and better still those who had their head chopped off – fired the imagination of Italian romantic opera composers. Welsh National Opera has brought together, for the first time and in new productions, three “Tudor” operas by Donizetti: Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux. It’s unlikely to happen again. Each opera is self-contained so whether you see all on consecutive nights or only one – starting in Cardiff on 7 September then on tour until 26 November – won’t matter. Donizetti was the master of bel canto, so expect showpiece arias, high-wire vocal acrobatics and limitless trills. FM Photograph: PR
Jeremy Deller, whose British Pavilion in Venice is open until late November, is rumoured to be up for a knighthood for services to British art. He has certainly laboured so hard this year that a second exhibition, exploring the roots of working-class musical culture, from 19th-century folk to glam and heavy metal, opens at Manchester Art Gallery in October. Levellers, Ranters, Williams Blake and Morris, 70s rock: it’s a typically riveting combination of words, images and sounds. And it keeps on going – Nottingham, Warwick and Newcastle next year. LC
Photograph: Dennis Hutchinson/Manchester Art Gallery Photograph: Dennis Hutchinson/PR
First broadcast in November 1963, Doctor Who turns 50 this autumn. The BBC are not stinting their popular, profitable time-traveller any celebrations. On 23 November a special feature-length episode of the sci-fi show airs – in 3D, no less, and starring Doctors past (David Tennant) and present (Matt Smith). A returning Billie Piper will also appear in an episode the show’s creators have called “a love letter to fans”. Meanwhile the BBC will broadcast a one-off drama, An Adventure in Space and Time. Written by Mark Gatiss it will tell the story of the cast and crew who made that first, November ’63 episode of the show, kicking off all of this frenzied Who-hah in the first place. TL Photograph: Adrian Rogers/BBC
Almost killed late last year for speaking up about women’s education in Pakistan, the teenager Malala Yousafzai releases her autobiography, I Am Malala, on 8 October. In it the 16-year-old revisits the day she was shot in the head by Taliban militants on her way home from school. “When I almost died it was just after midday,” she writes. The book comes out exactly a year and a day after the attack. TL Photograph: PR
The roaming Turner prize show alights in Derry this year. From October, citizens will be able to judge the work of Laure Prouvost, Tino Sehgal, David Shrigley (above) and the wild card Lynette Yiadom-Boakye for themselves and have their say on the Tate’s scrupulously public-minded comments cards. That’s what you get for being European City of Culture 2013. LC Photograph: David Shrigley/PR
If the singles thus far are anything to judge by, it seems Drake’s third album might not find the A-list Canadian rapper agonising over loves lost and the vacuity of fame, but, rather, having a nicer time of it. Fellow Canadian Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye, meanwhile, has described his forthcoming album proper, Kiss Land, as being “like a horror movie”. Expect scenes of a graphic nature, if his previously twisted anomic R&B is anything to go by. The two Torontonians were snapped together in the studio in July, firing anticipation of a co-write. KE Photograph: PR
