42 awesome things happening in London this week

This week in London it's all about discovering your inner child. Have hula-hooping competitions with your pals down at the South Bank, inhale free Ben & Jerry's ice-cream cones at their annual giveaways across town, then head to the KidZania Adults event where you can pretend you're a pilot, firefighter or anything else you wish you really were! 

Things to do 

Secret 7", Sonos Studio, Tue-Thu, free. Seven tracks from seven bands are each pressed 100 times into 7" singles before artists design them new covers. Artists this year include Anish Kapoor and Jenny Holzer as well as London's own Paul Smith, Gavin Turk, Juno Calypso and Tatty Devine.

Evening of Wellbeing, The Haven, Tue, £25. An evening of pampering, prettifying and fundraising in aid of breast cancer support group, The Haven. London Grace who specialise in formaldehyde-free nail polish will be dishing out manicures and MyShowcase will be giving out mini makeovers and goodie bags.

No 1 Poultry Tour, Mansion House, Wed, £10. Visit one of the most important examples of postmodern architecture with a tour of 1, Poultry. Lead architect Laurence Bain joins historian Henrietta Billings of the Twentieth Century Society to guide visitors around stripey building on the corner by Bank.

Hula-Hooping Gathering, South Bank, Wed, free. Join hundreds of others by the river to work those hips and hula-hoop with award-winning circus company Circa. Hoops and heaps of fun provided.

KidZania Adults Lates, Kidzania, Thu, £29. The incredible children-only city that is KidZania – where kids play a sort of real-life version of the Sims – is opening to grown-ups exclusively for Time Out this April.

This Is A Voice, Wellcome Collection, Thu, free. Through exploration of vocal tracts, speech devices and restless minds, this exhibition sheds light on the human voice and why we make the weird and wonderful sounds we do.

Write and Shine, Waterstones, Thu, £10. Writer Gemma Seltzer is hoping to help sleepy Londoners to embrace the inspirational power of the morning to create new pieces of poetry, fiction and life writing.

magCulture meets Eye Magazine, magCulture Shop, Thu, £6. The magCulture shop welcomes the makers of Eye Magazine to celebrate and discuss the graphic design quarterly’s 91st issue. Expect heaps of beautiful titles, fellow mag-lovers, beers and limited edition postcards.

Annie's 1000 Plays, various venues, all week, free. Twenty-four-year-old Tottenham playwright Annie Jenkins wrote 1000 micro-plays for the Shakespeare in Shoreditch festival. See The Rude Mechanicals work their way through the lot on this ten-day performing tour of Hackney.

London Book and Screen Week, various venues, all week, £5-£25. London Book and Screen Week returns to the capital for six days of storytelling, readings and talks.

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

Eating and drinking

Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day, various venues, Tue, free. It's a tricky decision – which free ice-cream flavour to choose? Ben & Jerry’s are once again giving London brain freeze with their annual Free Cone Day.

Feast for the Senses Dinner, The Zetter Townhouse Clerkenwell, Tue, £55. Antidote head chef Michael Hazlewood will suffuse plates with flavours usually associated with drinks while Tony Congiliaro will play with tastes typically found in food.

Cured Meat and Craft Beer Pairing, King's Cross St Pancras, Tue, free. Borough Market meat experts Cannon & Cannon bring their cured meats to King's Cross and match them to craft beers from Oldershaw Brewery at these free masterclasses in St Pancras station's MI + ME restaurant.

Singha Beer Presents: Songkran Festival, Carousel, Thu, £35. Celebrate Thai New Year without leaving the capital at this dining experience drawing on the tastes, sights and sounds of Southeast Asia.

Headway Eats: Spring Supper Club, Headway East London, Thu, £15 + booking fee. The three courses at this seasonal supper club are cooked, served and eaten with members of east London charity, Headway. All members are survivors of brain injury and are encouraged to explore memories of food, both pre and post injury.

Häagen-Dazs at Liberty, Liberty, all week, free. Chilly treat experts Häagen-Dazs have launched two limited floral flavours just in time for spring. The Lychee Raspberry Rose and Apricot Lavender concoctions can be purchased in Liberty's chocolate shop for two weeks only.

Lyan Cellars Pop-Up, Lantana Cafe Shoreditch, all week. Celebrate the launch of White Lyan’s new ‘wine’ offering at the east London pop-up where the drink which is made using untraditional ingredients will be served alongside bottles of White Lyan cocktails.

…or check out the latest restaurant reviews.

Comedy

Sketch Off! 2016, Leicester Square Theatre, TONIGHT, £15. This comedy competition (from the team behind the Leicester Square New Comedian of the Year and Old Comedian of the Year comps) is searching for the best rising sketch stars. 

Paul Zerdin – Spongefinger, Udderbelly, Thu, £16.50, £15 concs. Ventriloquist Paul Zerdin has long been a favourite on the UK comedy circuit, and is a regular on the 'Royal Variety Show'. But now he's a full-blown US star, having won 'America's Got Talent' last year, and performing headline shows in glitzy Las Vegas.

Knock2Bag East, Moth Club, Thu, £10-£14. The Knock2Bag team regularly have some of the best comedy bills in London and are always brilliant value. Tonight's bill includes Cardinal Burns, Jamie Demetriou, Natasia Demetriou And Ellie White and Josie Long.

…or check out all the critics’ choice comedy shows.

Live music and nightlife

Animal Collective, Troxy, Tue, £22. The Baltimore post-psych innovators deliver another heady dose of ecstatic, harmony-drenched avant-pop.

Yung, The Nest, Tue, £5. Trap and grime mixes from the likes of Kareful, Vacant, Aesthetic Kid, Glacci, Ducati Boi and Break.

Teleman, Koko, Thu, £13.50. This great new outfit, featuring former members of Pete And The Pirates, fuse classic psychedelic songwriting in the Syd Barrett vein with tasteful synths and sparse guitar.

Mexrrissey, Electric Ballroom, Thu, £16.50. The music of Morrissey gets a Latin twist courtesy of some top Mexican musicians.

Kimya Dawson, Islington Assembly Hall, Thu, £15. The one-time Moldy Peach anti-folkster has been going solo for at least a decade now and tonight returns for a rare UK show to air tracks from her new (seventh) album, 'Thunder Thighs'.

Your Mum's House, The Nest, Thu, £7, £5 before midnight. Not for the faint-hearted, this weekly jaunt is a 'dress up 'n' get messed up' night of mayhem and mischief, with a soundtrack of bassy house, hip hop, old school bangers, trap, R&B and UK garage.

Hip Hop Karaoke, The Social, Thu, £5. If you've ever fancied yourself as a Missy, Eminem, Beastie Boy/Girl or you think you could give Snoop a run for his dough, here's your chance to act out some rap fantasies.

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

Film

Tufnell Park Film Club: ‘The Steel Helmet’, The Star, Tue, £15 membership. This 1951 drama is a characteristically hard-hitting war movie from Hollywood maverick Sam Fuller, charting the fortunes of Sergeant Zack, sole survivor of a POW massacre in Korea.

Jean Genet: Prisoner of Love, Whitechapel Gallery, Thu, £9.50, £7.50 concs. Writer Stephen Barber presents a tribute to the great twentieth-century writer Jean Genet with talks, projections and a screening of his one and only film, ‘Un Chant d’Amour’. 

The Abyss, Prince Charles Cinema, Thu, £7.50, £5 concs. A rare 35mm screening of the special edition of James Cameron’s rollicking 1989 deep-sea adventure.

Or at the cinema...

Midnight Special ★★★★☆ Michael Shannon is a dad who kidnaps his son from a cult in an intriguing sci-fi with echoes of Spielberg.

Dheepan ★★★★☆ Jacques Audiard's Palme d'Or-winning 'Dheepan' is the story of a Sri Lankan man, woman and child who masquerade as a family to escape to France from the aftermath of their country's civil war.

Hardcore Henry ★★★★★ You become the action hero in this adventurous, violent, giddy-making triumph, all shot from the hero's perspective.

…or see all of the latest releases.

Theatre

Radioman, Old Red Lion, Tue-Thu, £10-£15, £12 concs. A twee but beguiling story wit music about a man who breaks into a radio station owner's boat.

Princess Caraboo, Finborough Theatre, Tue-Thu, £12-£18, concs available. Funny, charming fringe musical about a woman who fooled Regency England.

The Beanfield, Battersea Arts Centre, all week, £10-£12.50, £10 concs. Spunky experimental docu-drama about an infamous police attack on new age travellers in the '80s.

The Man in the Woman's Shoes, Tricycle, all week, £24, £22 concs. A tour de force from Irish performer Mikel Murfi in a joyous one-man show about a cobbler in rural Sligo.

…or see our theatre critics’ choices.

This week's best new art

Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979, Tate Britain, Tue-Thu, £12. Ignore the somewhat dry title of this survey of British art. Taking in the period of Harold Wilson’s Labour government and the election of Margaret Thatcher, there’s plenty of switched-on politically-motivated work on offer by artists who, thinking beyond the limits of conventional art.

Fox Talbot: Dawn of the Photograph, Science Museum, Thu, £8. The latest Science Museum Media Space show takes us back to the infancy of photography with a survey of William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), the British scientist, inventor and photography pioneer.

…or see all London art reviews.

And finally

Win... premium tickets to Regent's Park Open Air Theatre and a five-star hotel stay or one of three family weekend tickets to Camp Bestival 2016

Grab... a 36% saving on tickets to Black Cat Cabaret's latest show

Book… these gigs while you still can

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