Your favourite Tokyo what's on guide returns! (abridged)

Your trusty Brit About Town apologises for the radio silence - while still dedicated to bringing you the best of spoken word and cool things to do in Tokyo, I've been on vacation... I'm still on vacation but to keep you entertained while I'm away, don't miss my top picks for the next couple of weeks!

Top spoken word picks
Tonight (Fri 24th) is Improvazilla - always amazing. And don't miss Comedy Sumo Slam tomorrow (25th). For arty talks, Pecha Kucha is on June 29th. Meanwhile, for storytelling, Apocrypha is having another show on July 8. And advance warning: Nerd Night is bringing more sciencey talks in a bar to us on July 15.

Top film picks
The Short Shorts film festival is on til 26th June and it's been amazing. The Rainbow Reel Tokyo LGBT film festival kicks off on 9th July. Tickets available now. I just bought a large haul from the nice assistants at Spiral Hall. Here's the program. Films are in English/have English subtitles.

Top theatre picks
See really high quality theatre on screens around town thanks to the UK's National Theatre Live productions. In English with Japanese subtitles: 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - 25 June - 1 July at Cine Libre Ikebukuro. I've seen it. It's outstanding theatre. 

Coriolanus - 25 June - 1 July at Bunkamura Shibuya

Man and Superman - 1-6 July at Nihonbashi and Roppongi.

Othello - 2-8 July at Bunkamura Shibuya

Or if you're in the mood for a touring Broadway show in English, this is the last weekend of Dreamgirls at Tokyu Theatre Orb in Shibuya. I saw it this week and it was a lot of fun.

Happy couple of weeks. See you after my vacation!

First, a BIG announcement: Perfect Liars Club has a launch date for Tokyo! Put the 6th October into your calendars. It's going to be amazing.

But what else have we been up to?

Film
The joy of the week has been the fabulous Short Shorts festival. I can't believe I haven't seen anyone I know in attendance - if you like film, this festival is unmissable! I've been to three screenings so far. Each screening consists of four short films from around the world that are being considered for an Oscar. Each has English and Japanese subtitles (unless the film is already in one of those languages, obviously!). And they are all free. This has been a major highlight of my Tokyo nightlife so far. And best of all, it's on til the 26th June. So get booking! Here's the schedule.

Spoken word
It was all about nerdery last Friday at Tokyo's first Nerd Night. I've been to these in the US: scientists speak about their science in a jolly way in a bar setting. There were three talks: one that taught me more about recreating jousting in the 21st century than I ever imagined knowing, one about nuclear physics, and the best of all, a brilliant talk about artificial intelligence. After all that I felt slightly more intelligent too. They're planning to do this event monthly.

Art
I was bitter that I missed the art show my lovely wife went to, but I did go and draw with the lovely Pausedraw group. Other than the Short Shorts festival, definitely one of my favourite things in Tokyo.

Food
Restaurant pick of the week is Cafe Olu Olu near Sangenjaya. Really tasty vegan food! My teriyaki tofu was terrific and the coconut milk ramen I stole from my friend's bowl was even better.

Exploring Tokyo
This week I explored a new area: Nakano. Our friends took my lovely wife and me to Nakano Broadway, which they described as an otaku/anime shopping centre wonderland. Extra fun as I'd never have thought to explore it by myself, but really interesting to see all the weird and wonderful things available - and so many people shopping for them! We also had a stroll around Nakano's Central Park, featuring a Hawaii festival - cheery.

PICKS OF THE WEEK FOR 10TH - 16TH JUNE

Well, I will be out of town at a conference in the US, but don't say I'm not good to you, people of Tokyo. Here's a list of my picks of the week, even though I'm not here to enjoy them in person. Actually, it's a pretty quiet week so that you can focus on the short films.

All week
The fabulous Short Shorts festival... Oh, also Tell Me on a Sunday, the stage musical, opens on the 10th. Can't tell what language it's in, but it's all Andrew Lloyd Webber songs so perhaps in English. It's on til the 26th.

Fri 10th - You can see a London production of Hamlet on screen at Bunkamura, Shibuya in English with Japanese subtitles tonight only. Also from now til Tuesday, go see The Curious Incident of the Dog and the Nighttime at Cine Libre Ikebukuro - also from the UK, this National Theatre live screening is the best I've seen. Don't miss it!

Sat 11th - Curious Incident of the Dog and the Night Time's still on.

Sun 12th - Curious Incident of the Dog and the Night Time's still on.

Mon 13th - Curious Incident of the Dog and the Night Time's still on.

Tue 14th - It's the weekly stand up comedy new material night in Shibuya. Or The Curious Incident of the Dog and the Night Time's still on.

Wed 15th - Good Heavens Stand-up Comedy open mic night tonight! Also in Setagaya, Macbeth opens tonight in Japanese with English subtitles.

Thu 16th - From tonight til the 19th, go see Japanese silent comedy Gamarjobat based on Charlie Chaplin's City Lights.

Enjoy!

Spoken word
There's been all sorts of spoken word fun this week. Improvazilla, the monthly very funny improv show was again a lot of fun. Then the monthly Pecha Kucha night had lots of interesting talks by artists and architects and the like, though it was more in Japanese than usual which alas was not very helpful for those of us who still can't understand Japanese well enough! Can't help but think investing in a few other-language comments on their slides would be very helpful... Yuriko Kotani from the UK and Phil Nichol from Canada visited Tokyo and did a great comedy night at Good Heavens bar. Almost as good, obviously, as the true highlight of the week: your very own Brit About Town Layla's comedy debut, four minutes about Japanese language errors, also at Good Heavens bar. Great fun.

Art, cheese and a nice park
My lovely wife and I have long been compelled with the tale of Morioka Shoten, a Tokyo bookshop that sells only one title per month. Google Maps let me down by sending me to their old location... but a lot of hunting later and we found it! Obviously the book itself was in Japanese (curse my language skills!) but the shop had a big cool exhibition around it, which was quirky and fab. Really, this is more of an art gallery than a bookshop. That said, assuming I didn't need to make too much money, this is my dream business. Can you imagine how fun it would be to choose the book every month and design an exhibition and events around it?

5 minutes from Morioka Shoten is the famous Okuno Building. This is an old Japanese tenement that is crammed with art galleries - about 50 of them. You can spend ages exploring the nooks and crannies of this unusual building, popping your heads into the different little rooms, each of which is a gallery. The building is as much fun as the art. Definitely worth a little expedition.

I also tried to go to the Pixar exhibition on its last weekend at the Museum of Contemporary Art. A horrible mistake - there were lines two hours long to get in! I have so far found that Japan goes to one of two extremes with art: there's almost nobody there and it's cheap and easy to see the art, or everyone goes absolutely nuts and demands to see the same thing at the same time. But on the plus side we finally got to go to Cheese No Koe, a cool Hokkaido cheese shop where I spent all my money, and also to explore cool local Kiba Park that is attached to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I loved that it has a huge bridge, that reminded me a little of the Brooklyn Bridge, spanning a motorway through the park. In other cities this would be a major design feature in guidebooks, but here there are clearly too many cool things. Anyway, I liked it! Here are the photos from my week: my comedy debut, crazy park bridge, and one-book bookshop.

Two particularly fabulous things to do, running all week.

• Britain's National Theatre Live is back - you get to see London's West End theatre productions in cinemas in Tokyo and it is amazing! You can see both Coriolanus and Hamlet this week in English.
  
• There's a free, fab festival of Short Films running all month, and while I make no guarantees, word on the street is that they mostly have English subtitles (or are indeed in English). Some are sold out already - so here's the schedule: get booking!
  

For specific one-night events, read on:

Friday 3rd - Tonight is Nerd Nite at Bar Gari Gari near Shimokitazawa - three scientists talking in an amusing way about their research over beers. And tonight only, the Donmar's production of Coriolanus at Ikebukuro's Cine Libre.

Sat 4th - And for your continuing National Theatre live fix, from tonight, and running all week, see Benedict Cumerbatch as Hamlet at Bunkamura. Or else go to Craft beer and comedy night at Two Dogs Taproom in Roppongi.

Sun 5th - Hooray, it's time for my favourite afternoon drawing event of the month: Pause Draw.

Tue 7th - Tonight is Shibuya's new material comedy night.

Wed 8th - Open mic comedy at Good Heavens bar in Shimokitazawa. Also Dreamgirls opens - this musical is apparently in English.