EXHIBITION: Timo Arnall Lighthouse from Thurs 5th
Timo Arnall visualises our usually-invisible technological infrastructures, doing so in the kind of way that makes you want to grab a lightsaber and say something rude to your father, as opposed to, say, unsellotaping the tangled web of wires decorating your house. This should be most explicit in Immaterials: WiFi Light Painting, which sounds like the sort of fare luddites gawp sadly at in Lighthouse, dealt a further blow to underline the passing of simplicity in a world hot-wired to alien futurism. (BM)

EXHIBITION: Mutator 1 + 2: Evolutionary Art
Phoenix from Sat 7th
Perhaps it’s the battle-hardened 80s kids peddling the analogue mechanisms of the Source culture department, bereft of parental riches or enough mates to ever have looked beyond Ataris and PCs with hard-drives destined to form toasters, but the art of William Latham comes saturated by nostalgia. Rotating and rolling, naïve and yet precise and clinically brilliant, Latham’s mutations originate from forms and binds resembling imagined complex dreams. His computer-generated prints and early drawings elucidate the methodologies of a beautifier of binary. (BM)

FILM: Don’t Look Now / Side By Side
Duke Of York’s Sun 8th / Duke’s At Komedia Tues 10th
Yes, Charlie Brooker’s talking about Black Mirror for Brighton Digi Fest, but if you’ve got a ticket you’ll already know that – conversely, if this is the first you’ve heard of it, you may be seething. Try Side By Side, in which, curiously, Keanu Reeves interviews Martin Scorsese, James Cameron and more on the joys of digital. Beyond the fest, Don’t Look Now – Nicholas Roeg’s deathly premonition – will be explained by the director in a discussion with Ben Wheatley. (BM)

FESTIVAL: Brighton Japan 2013
Old Steine Gardens Fri 13th – Sun 22nd
Few fail to find themselves seduced by Japanese culture, although the pace at which this festival has grown – having started out as a one-dayer in Bartholomew Square five years ago – illustrates its popularity in a city where sushi bars are as rad to dudes and dudettes as Facebook and chai lattes. The opening and closing weekends pray tell to rock and roll, dance, drumming, body painting and fashion shows. Individual events range from horror screenings to whisky tasting. (BM)

FESTIVAL: City Reads
Various venues Fri 13th – Sun 29th
Guards! Guards!, the 1989 instalment of Discworldliness from bearded sorcerer genius overlord Terry Pratchett, is the chosen page-turner for this year’s city-wide leaf, and the highlight will be an appearance from the Ankh-Morpork creator himself at the Dome (Sun 29th). Other hoo-hahs include tales under the watch of a massive dragon (Jubilee Library, Sat 14th), a screening of Baron Munchausen (Duke’s at Komedia, Sun 22nd) and therapy from a Book Doctor as part of a Vintage Fair (The Old Market, Sat 21st). (BM)

COMEDY: Andrew Lawrence Komedia Weds 18th
It’s not totally clear whether Andrew Lawrence is professionally odd or actually odd – certainly he plays up to it, making his name with self-mocking routines about his outsider status. Luckily he’s funny ha ha as well as funny peculiar, and he’s loosened right up on stage lately. No longer able to deny he’s one of the stars of the circuit, he now looks more at how everyone’s life is awful, not just his own. If your glass is half empty you’ll lap it up – you may even laugh. (JK)

COMEDY: Stewart Lee
Dome Thurs 19th – Fri 20th
The last time Stewart Lee played in Brighton he had a comedy battle with Mark Watson. Both on a charity bill, a drunk and joke-free Watson, bringing a deflated balloon to a knife fight, ended up begging for more laughs than his nemesis. Stew, who’d thankfully left by then, conversely, was on razor sharp form, as ever. We’re interested to see if he’s still ploughing his deconstruction of comedy thing or if Canadian alter-ego Baconface is his new direction. (JK)

COMEDY: Rob Newman
Komedia Tues 24th
Returning to the Komedia with his first full show in seven years, Rob Newman picks up where Darwin left off (but with more jokes) with his ‘New Theory Of Evolution’. Since turning his back on the rock’n’roll excesses of the 90s comedy boom, Newman’s proved himself an intelligent chronicler of science and politics, and his thesis here is that natural co-operation drives evolution rather than ‘survival of the fittest’ competition. One for all you smart monkeys. (SH)

COMEDY: Stand Up For Labour
Dome Sun 22nd
The formidable line-up of Eddie Izzard, Jo Brand, John Bishop, Stephen K Amos and Lloyd Langford might spell good news for the Labour Party, to whom the proceeds of this gig are going. The joke, unfortunately, is on all of us, given that they’re almost certain to fritter the beans away on campaigns lacking the relatively simple elements of common sense and human charisma required to oust our rotten government. An unwitting tragi-comedy bearing all the wit the opposition lacks. (BM)

CABARET: Terry Garoghan
Komedia Sun 22nd
After a 17-year run, comedy institution Terry Garoghan finally retired his famous ‘Brighton The Musical’ with a sell-out performance at the Dome last year. You can’t keep a restless musical satirist down though, and Garoghan’s already bounced back with his Satan-on-the-shoulder show ‘The Devil Keeps Tugging’. Garoghan presents his new album ‘The Aunty Flo Slide Show’ at this lunchtime cabaret for grown ups, accompanied by cellist Angie Wilson. (SH)

Theatre: Call Mr Robeson
Dome Studio Tues 24th
This one-man show, written and performed by Tayo Aluko, traces the life of gospel singer, actor and radical pre-Dr King civil rights campaigner, Paul Robeson. Best known for his definitive ‘Ol’ Man River’ and soul-stirring spirituals, Robeson was fêted by the world’s socialists, from Welsh miners to jailed Russian poets, but his outspoken attacks on the US government and its apathy towards racism made him an exile in his own country. A fascinating subject, long overdue for re-evaluation. (SC)

THEATRE: Oh My Irma
Upstairs at Three and Ten Thurs 26th / Sat 28th Haley McGee, a Canadian performer with pitch-black tinted glasses and an eye for social awkwardness capable of making anyone yearn for an evening in the company of a gaggle of virginal Belle and Sebastian fans, began this piece as a two-minute poem. Its heroine, Mission Bird, is a fully-realised character these days, adding a crime she didn’t commit to her well-established through-the-fingers human interactions. McGee’s own indomitable wordplay serves to smooth things out without detracting from the beautifully uncomfortable. (BM)