More than 40 events on subjects including Brunel, Darwin, the environmental future and the role of ideas are taking place in Bristol Harbourside as part of the Brunel200 celebrations. Participants include Joan Bakewell, Charles Handy, Roy Hattersley, Sir Jeremy Isaacs and novelists Margaret Atwood, Andrea Levy and Sebastian Junger. The main debate will explore whether Bristol should apologise for slavery - 2007 will be the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.

www.ideasfestival.co.uk; www.brunel200.com

Mayfest 2006 Until May 27

This month-long festival at Bristol Old Vic celebrates the best in local, national and international physical and visual theatre. Highlights include: Watch This Space - exciting and imaginative alternative theatre artists, May 25; and Take Flight - the Very Best of British Aerial Theatre, presented by Circomedia, May 27. A free workshop introducing visual storytelling will be held for A-level performing arts groups, May 19.

Tickets: pound;7, pound;5 concessions.

Tel: 0117 987 7877 www.bristol-old-vic.co.ukmayfest

Free theatre show June 5-mid July

West Midlands Arson Task Force is inviting teachers and Year 6-10 students to Sparx!, a free musical about the dangers and consequences of arson and playing with fire, and other issues such as peer pressure and bullying. Zip Theatre Company will present two one-hour shows daily at venues in Walsall, Birmingham, Stoke, Telford and Dudley. A free follow-up pack contains activities for maths, literacy, science, citizenship, PSHE and drama.

Tel: 01902 572250 www.ziptheatre.co.uk www.wmarsontaskforce.gov.uk

Art and War

Ends June 25

Shared Experience: Art and War is an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, London SE1, looking at paintings and sculpture produced by Australian, British and Canadian men and women during the Second World War.

The exhibition is divided into areas such as Battle, Captitivity, and Home and Leisure, and ranges from Battle of Britain heroics and the horror of Belsen to liberation and the boredom of potato-peeling.

Tel: 020 7416 53135444 www.iwm.org.uklondoneducation