Our stage and star picks of the week

  • Author signing
  • JEREMY CLARKSON: IS IT REALLY TOO MUCH TO ASK?
  • Jaffe and Neale Book-shop, Chipping Norton
  • Tomorrow (Fri), 5.30pm
  • info@jaffeandneale.co.uk

The bad boy of Chippy, and king of the roads, Jeremy Clarkson makes a one-off surprise appear-ance in his home town tomorrow afternoon when he pops up for the only UK signing of his latest book Is It Really Too Much To Ask?, a laugh-out-loud tour of what’s brilliant and what’s plain stupid — as only he can see it.

  • Musical
  • RENT
  • 20th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT
  • New Theatre, Oxford
  • Tomorrow (Fri), 7.30pm
  • Box office: 0844 871 3020 atgtickets.com/oxford

Atomic Kitten star Natasha Hamilton leads this iconic concert of the smash-hit musical, in its final run, made famous on Broadway and the West End by the likes of Nicole Scherzinger and Denise Van Outen. Based loosely on Puccini's La Bohème, the show follows a year in the life of a group of friends struggling to make it in the big city under the shadow of Aids.

  • Choir
  • SOWETO GOSPEL CHOIR
  • New Theatre, Oxford
  • Wednesday, Nov 20
  • Box office: 0844 871 3020 atgtickets.com/oxford

If you’ve never heard them in force, now’s your chance because the Soweto Gospel Choir is a vision to behold, their singing having entertained everyone from Nelson Mandela to The Oscars audience. They have collaborated, recorded and performed with artists including Bono and U2, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Celine Dion and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and their joyful delivery and the uplifting sound they consistently produce is a winner every time.

  • Adventurer
  • MONTY HALLS
  • The Inorganic Chemistry Buildings, Oxford University
  • November 21
  • Tickets cost £10, from montyhalls.co.uk/news

Nicely timed to coincide with his new Channel Five series being broadcast this month An Evening With.... ties in perfectly with Dive Mysteries with Monty Halls in which the modern-day explorer concentrates on the great underwater mysteries. From exploring the single dive site in Egypt to an extraordinary set of underwater ruins off the coast of a tiny island in Japan, mapping a ghostly shipwreck in Thunder Bay in the Great Lakes.