While 2011 was all about cuts, the arts community puts its best foot forward in 2012 as the Olympics come to London
The arrival of the Olympics in London will mean that British culture is on show like never before. Commentators will be poring over what these headline events say about us as nation, whether they were planned to tie in with the Games or not.
The Olympics opening ceremony
Directed by Danny Boyle, in November this extravaganza had its budget doubled to more than £80m – either an encouraging sign or an extremely bad one. It was thought impossible to top Beijing's opening ceremony, but the ballooning costs have raised the stakes vertiginously. Could either be a triumph, or that most British of things – a glorious disaster.
Indie's past comes back to haunt it
It's a landmark year for three indie institutions. In April, NME is 60. Three months later, the music weekly is scheduled to meet with Morrissey in the high court over claims that a 2007 interview smeared him as a racist. Light relief will be provided by the almost simultaneous reappearance of some other Mancunian music heroes, the Stone Roses – their gigs will be the pop events of the summer, especially in the absence of Glastonbury.
A big year for Britart
This year involves major shows from the UK's most famous artists. David Hockney kicks things off in January with a selection of massive landscape paintings at the Royal Academy in London and around Yorkshire, his home county. Tate Modern's Damien Hirst retrospective will feature his most talked-about work, from the shark to the diamond skull. Elsewhere, exhibitions of work by Lucien Freud, Jeremy Deller and JMW Turner will stake a claim for Britain's mastery at the installation and easel – or at least our enduring flair for subversion and self-mockery.
Shakespeare in the streets and cinemas
Hammering home the point that Britain is the home of the Bard, this year will showcase almost everything he ever wrote staged at the UK-wide World Shakespeare Festival. There will be Shakespeare in the nation's living rooms, too, with Sam Mendes overseeing big-budget productions of the plays for the BBC. The hottest ticket will be Mark Rylance's return to London's Globe theatre in Twelfth Night and Richard III. He and 50 other actors also promise to ambush unsuspecting passers-by with bursts of Shakespeare on the street or tube, which should confuse a few tourists – and indeed natives. Coincidentally, Ralph Fiennes's Coriolanus also hits cinemas in January.
Smoke and bells
Two Cultural Olympiad projects should reaffirm the UK's reputation for eccentricity. At 8am on 27 July, the first day of the Olympics, artist Martin Creed hopes the whole country will sound doorbells, church bells and wind chimes for his self-explanatory Work No 1197: All the Bells in a Country Rung As Quickly and As Loudly As Possible for Three Minutes. It's already been denounced by the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, who believe that 8am is "not the right time for bell ringing". Over on Merseyside, a plume of mist will rise from Wirral Waters, created by New York-based artist Anthony McCall and visible from 60 miles away.
Classical music, cultural exchange
At the Proms in July, Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra will perform all nine of Beethoven's symphonies, starting on the first day of the Games.
Covent Garden stages Wagner's Ring Cycle in September for the first time in three years. However, the performance with most lasting impact is set to be in Scotland. Since 2008, children in the deprived estate Raploch in Stirling have received intensive tuition in a classical music education programme based on the famous Venezuelan El Sistema.
In June, El Sistema's conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, will spend four days working in Raploch with their orchestra Big Noise, culminating in an unmissable performance at Stirling Castle.