36 terrific things to do in London this week

Hop onboard the Good Ship Benefit tonight for an evening of wine tasting, fill your brain with facts at a pub-based science festival, or scare yourself silly at the Folk Horror Cinema Club. Here are 35 ways to make the next few days utterly fabulous.

Things to do 

Quiz of Thrones, Steam Wine Bar, TONIGHT, £5. If you know your Westeros from your Essos, battle for the title of London's biggest GOT fan at this new quiz to celebrate the launch of season six.

Pint of Science Festival, various locations, Mon-Wed, £4. Want to know what atomic printing is, how autism develops, or what's new in the worlds of medicine, physics and chemistry? Good news: you can find out all that stuff without even leaving the pub.

Seasons of Love talk, Hackney Attic, Tues, £5. Learn how to create your own 'sex menu' and find out if you're stuck on a sex escalator at the first of these monthly talks on love, relationships, sexuality, kink and intimacy. 

RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Royal Hospital Chelsea, Tue-Thu, £25-£70. Over 500 exhibitors will be showing their most prized plants at the 2016 Chelsea Flower Show, which has taken place annually (apart from a few gaps during the two world wars) for over 100 years now. 

Make, Do and Mend Yourself Workshops, Leake Street, Thu, free. These free monthly workshops, each with an urban gardening theme provide a perfect lunchtime activity for workers in the Waterloo area.

Rush Hour Concerts, St John's Waterloo, Thu, free. Escape the summer rush with a free concert of Mendelssohn's Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, followed by Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 Pastoral. Free, no need to book, AND you get a free glass of wine to boot. 

How to Write Crime, Royal Festival Hall, Thu, £15. If you fancy yourself as the next Arthur Conan Doyle but want a bit of help honing your criminal content, this workshop could be just the ticket.

Chelsea in Bloom, various locations, all week, free. Offering a more affordable floral tribute than its neighbour, the venerable Chelsea Flower Show, this colourful festival sees 37 Chelsea retailers compete to make the most beautiful flowery display in their store windows and on shop fronts.

Clockwork Dog presents: Langstroth's Last Riddle, The Bee's Sneeze, all week, £20-£26. A new game of mystery where teams of friends are tasked with solving riddles and cracking codes in the captivating world of Alfred Langstroth.

Designology, London Transport Museum, all week, £17, £14.50 concs. This exhibition celebrates the impact of great design on our everyday lives, showcasing the integrated approach taken by TfL and predecessor organisations.

…or check out more events happening in London this week.

Eating and drinking

History Of Chardonnay Wine Tasting, Good Ship Benefit, TONIGHT, £20. Benefit Cosmetics and A Grape Night In host this wine tasting evening in celebration of Chardonnay Day. Guests will be given four varieties to try, learn about the drink’s history, and also bag a Benefit beauty product.

Family-Style Feasting, Brunswick House, Wed, £45. Enjoy a feat of eel, buckwheat waffles, vodka squid, brisket and beetroot tartare at Brunswick House, all cooked up by the house chef Jackson Boxer and washed down with plenty of Ketel One vodka. Booking essential.

Red Market, Shoreditch, Thu, free. Red Market – the outdoor pop-up taking place in the large courtyard area of Shoreditch's Red Gallery – returns for 2016, with a 'Last Days of Shoreditch' theme.

London Wine Week, various locations, all week, £10 wristband. Oenophiles rejoice, for London Wine Week is with seven days of decanting vintages, decoding the wine list, and spitting left, right and centre.

…or check out the latest restaurant reviews.

Live music and nightlife

James Blake, Village Underground, TONIGHT, £23. The Mercury-nominated post-dubstep producer from Deptford returns to live action in possession of new material: ‘The Colour in Anything’, another album of moody, glitchily layered loops, jazzy piano chords and soulful, treated vocals.

The Ministry Of Sound Summer Rave 2016, Ministry of Sound, Tue, £6. Hip hop, R&B, grime, house, garage, techno and disco across four rooms, with Martin2smoove, Andy P, Paul Eden, MisterBlaq, DJelley, Raz and Jzn.

The Nest Collective’s Campfire Club, multiple venues, Thu, £10. Folk and flames is one of those magical combinations that just makes sense, like ham and cheese, and it's why Campfire Club is such a winning formula.

FWD>>, Dance Tunnel, Thu, early bird £5. Prime names in dubstep, garage, grime, bass and other dark dancefloor delights every other Thursday.

Cee Lo Green, London Palladium, Thu, £25-£32.50, VIP tickets £159. The Atlanta soul man with the extraordinary set of deep-soul lungs performs from his latest solo album.

Cate Le Bon, Oval Space, Thu, £15. With her beguiling voice and bewitching psych-folk-pop numbers, Welsh singer Ms Le Bon is well versed in charming the pants off a crowd.

Omar, 100 Wardour St, Thu, free. An evening of smooth soul with the singer of ‘There’s Nothing Like This’.

…or take a look at all the live music events in London this week.

Film

Drone Film Festival, ICA, TONIGHT, £14.99. Ever wished you had an eye in the sky? This festival - the first ever in London - celebrates film shot using drones.

Folk Horror Cinema Club, Genesis Cinema Whitechapel, Tue, £8.50. Watch the terrifying The Devil Rides Out (1968), based on a novel by Dennis Wheatley. Introduced by comedian Robin Ince, the film will be followed by a talk from Anna Savory, who inherited Wheatley's library of occult literature.

The Vito Project presents 'Polyester', Cinema Museum, Wed, free. The Vito Project film club dig out this 1981 hit from camp maestro John Waters's back catalogue, which stars his drag muse Divine.

Doctors for Nepal Charity Screening, LOST Theatre, Wed, £12. A charity fundraiser generating money for healthcare in rural Nepal, where in the wake of recent earthquakes access to doctors has become even more difficult for large swathes of the population.

Or at the cinema...

Sing Street ★★★★☆ The man behind 'Once' delivers another foot-tapping, heart-strumming Irish musical tale – this time about a boy dreaming of pop stardom in 1980s Dublin.

Mustang ★★★★☆ In a Turkish village, five orphaned sisters live under strict rule while members of their family prepare their arranged marriages.

…or see all of the latest releases.

Theatre

Running Wild, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, Tue-Thu, £25-£60. Amazing puppets and a bit of preachiness in this fun family Michael Morpurgo adaptation.

Stone Face, Finborough Theatre, Tue-Thu, £16 & £18, concs £14 & £16. A former child captive struggles to adapt to freedom in this new play from Eve Leigh.

Blue/Orange, Young Vic, all week, £10-£35. An agreeably manic take on Joe Penhall's seminal satire.

…or see our theatre critics’ choices.

Art

Boomoon: Skogar & Sansu, Flowers, Tue-Thu, free. The Korean artist has taken a series of black-and-white photographs of the Skogar waterfall in Iceland. Each picture has been taken from the same angle, calling to attention the subtle variations in this falling, shifting sheet of water.

Edward Barber, Imperial War Museum, Thu, free. Images of the anti-nuclear protest movement in 1980s Britain.

Mona Hatoum, Tate Modern, all week, £16, £14 concs. Hatoum's installations of grid structures recalling fences, cages, compartments and racks, such as ‘Light Sentence’ (1992) are grandiose, though hostile and rather chilling experiences. 

…or see all London art reviews.

And finally

Win...a pair of VIP weekend tickets to Lovebox Festival 2016 or dinner for two at one of Taste of London’s top restaurants

Grab...a chocolate tour of London for 58% less

Book…these gigs while you still can

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