Don’t Miss: Tommy Emmanuel, The Dodos and Fringe

If you are making plans for today’s lunch, you may want to try a Czech specialty buchtičky se šodó, a sweet meal of little buns with vanilla pudding similar to Italian zabaione or French chodeau, that is being served at more than 20 restaurants around Prague, including Café Louvre, Kavárna Slavia or Kolkovna. The event is organised by Pragueout.cz where you can find a complete list of the participating restaurants.

On Wednesday night, a Munich-based American-born bass singer and lute player, Joel Frederiksen, and a leader of Hradišťan dulcimer band from Moravia, Jiří Pavlica, will bring their ensembles to Rudolfinum to perform Anglo-Saxon Renaissance and Eastern Slavic ballads centered around the themes of love and war as part of the Autumn Strings festival.

It’s hypnotic to hear how much music Tommy Emmanuel can create with one guitar. (COURTESY)

But you may want to save your energy for the Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel, who will perform his finger-picking style at Prague’s Congress Centre on Friday. Inspired by Chet Atkins, Tommy has learnt to play with both left and right thumbs, pluck the fingerboard strings with both hands and use the whole body of the guitar to produce numerous sounds effects. He will play with the Eve Quartet Prague as part of Guitar Across Styles festival.

If you like drum and bass, don’t miss a night with the British DJ duo ED Rush & Optical who have teamed up under the label Virus and released a number of well-received tracks. They will play at Abaton on Friday.

San Francisco-based duo play folk like a rock’n’roll band. (COURTESY)

Saturday night will see a show of two talented American instrumentalists, a guitarist and a drummer, who have received critical attention and developed a growing fan base in only three years of their existence. The Dodos play what is called psychedelic folk or weird folk, a combination of folk music and romantic ballads with electric guitars and wild drumming. Their show at Palác Akropolis will be accompanied by a New Zealand band, The Ruby Suns.

While The Dodos have only started their career, Electric Light Orchestra‘s best days are over. Yet the symphonic rock group from Birmingham, which used to be among best selling bands, will make it to Prague on Sunday to play at Prague’s Congress Center along with the Czech National Symphonic Orchestra.

The winter edition of the Fringe festival promises to bring the best world comedy, theatre and music to warm up your winter nights in Prague. The festival will last until 16 December and the next show to see is the concert of Andi Neate, a Scottish singer and songwriter, who will play at Divadlo Inspirace on Friday.

If you feel that time is moving too fast, visit the antique fair at the exhibition hall Mánes between 20 and 24 November. More than 60 antique shops from all over the country will present hundreds of watches and clocks from pocket watches to 19th century cuckoo clocks or pendulum clocks. Antique furniture, jewelry, porcelain and glassworks will be part of the fair.

Pass the Popcorn

In 2012, car racing among prisoners is a profitable business. (COURTESY)

Two of this week’s premiers will take us to the future. In Death Race, a steelworker and former racing champ Jensen Ames is sent to prison, which in 2012 is run by shady corporations making profit by staging gladiatorial pay-per-view contests among prisoners. Jensen is promised freedom if he joins the competition. Reading the reviews, only fans of video games and Joan Allen, who plays an ice queen prison warden, will enjoy the screening.

Darren Lynn Bousman’s Repo! The Genetic Opera takes place in 2056 when an epidemic of organ failures has made transplants big business. As the operations grow more popular, surgery becomes a status symbol and fashion statement. GeneCo, a corporation that controls the world’s tiny supply of healthy organs, charges a steep price for transplants and people who don’t pay up have to give their organs back. The horror-inflected rock opera deserves credit for its go-for-broke ambition but offers little more than 98 minutes of pure cacophonic excess.

The movie is supposed to be a horror movie but it moves at a dead slow pace with little or no action and the few scares in the film are few and far between and non of them are overly impressive.

If you aren’t ready for action and horror, replace popcorn with French snails. The Festival of French Film will be on show at Prague theatres Světozor, Lucerna, French Institute and Slovanský dům for seven days starting this Thursday. Or you can visit the 5th Japanese Anime Film Festival Akicon at Zahrada culture centre in Chodov between 21 and 23 November.