London events in January

Joining a crowd of over 8,000 people might not sound like the best cure for your NYE hangover, but its hard to stay miserable when you’re surrounded by the mirth of the London New Year’s Day parade. The route will move from Piccadilly, through Regent Street and St James’s, along Pall Mall and through Whitehall, ending at Westminster. Along the way, there’ll be Pearly Kings and Queens, street dancers, brass bands, samba bands and much more making the first day of the new year an absolute blast. Updates on the logistics and performers will be posted on the LNYDP’s website and social media.  

RECOMMENDED: Read our full guide to New Year in London.

What is living if not a sort of time travel? Annie Ernaux’s Booker-nominated book ‘Les Années’ is an artful autobiography that traces her journey from childhood in postwar France to old age in the post-9/11 era. Elegantly adapted by director Eline Arbo, the English-language stage version The Years transfers to the Harold Pinter Theatre after an acclaimed run at The Almeida in the summer. Arbo’s adaptation bucks cliches about ‘memoir plays’ by having the story’s protagonist diffused into a five-strong collective of black and white-clad women. Deborah Findlay, Romola Garai, Gina McKee, Anjli Mohindra and Harmony Rose-Bremner form a superb ensemble – charismatic, fierce and playful, in an unflashy production that is still, at times, incredibly moving.

In what has become a London tradition, the Lions Part theatre company are once again mixing ancient customs with contemporary celebrations for their big Thameside Twelfth Night celebration. Beginning on the Bankside near Shakespeare’s Globe, the company lead a procession to celebrate the ancient Midwinter festival with pagan icons, the Green Man and the Holly Man making an appearance, to ‘bring in the green’ and ‘wassail’.

The procession will pass by the Bankside Jetty for a performance of the Folk Combat Play of St George – a seasonal event recorded from the Crusades, which features wild verse and action, and characters such as the Turkey Sniper, Clever Legs and the Old 'Oss. Two of the cakes distributed at the end of the play have a bean and a pea hidden inside – those who find them are crowned King and Queen for the day, and lead the people to Soap Yards where storytelling and revelling await. 

Short films are where many of the greats – Martin Scorsese, Lynne Ramsay, Paul Thomas Anderson et al – got started, and for over two decades, the London Short Film Festival has been a trusty showcase of new talents and small, but perfectly formed short films. Returning for its 22nd year, the 2025 edition features a whopping 204 new shorts across more than 60 programmes, as well as a bunch of talks, workshops and walking tours. Loads of great cinemas and arts spaces across the city getting involved to host, including the BFI Southbank, the ICA, Rich Mix, the Rio and SET Peckham. Highlights of the programme include the ever-present opening night ‘Funny Shit’ programme featuring comedy flicks from the surreal to the slapstick (Curzon Soho, Jan 17), two always popular programmes celebrating of penny-pinching movie-making (‘Lo-Budget Mayhem’, Jan 20) and wildly unconventional shorts (‘WTF!’, Jan 25) at Dalston’s indie institution the Rio Cinema and the Animation Variety Show programme, featuring everything from claymation and 3D animation to stop-motion embroidery (Rich Mix, Jan 21). And in an exciting new addition to the festival, a series of free screenings will be taking place in a restored 22-seater Mobile Cinema Bus from the 1960s, which will be stoppingin Walthamstow, Hounslow and Crystal Palace. 

Find out what the UK's most promising fine art graduates have been up to in this annual showcase of up-and-coming talent from across the UK, which is now in its 75th year. Featuring 33 exhibitors selected by renowned artists Liz Johnson Artur, Permindar Kaur and Amalia Pica, the exhibition launched in Plymouth in autumn 2024, before arriving at the Institute of Contemporary Art in January 2025.

The Ancient Greeks are definitely having one of their periodic ‘moments’ in London theatres: shortly after the NT’s ‘Antigone’ rewrite ‘The Other Place’  and Robert Icke’s ‘Oedipus’ wrap up and running concurrently with the Old Vic’s, uh, ‘Oedipus’, here’s a fresh take on Sophocles’s ‘Elektra’ from Canadian poet Anne Carson, directed by Daniel Fish, who made his name with his bold recent take on ‘Oklahoma!’. Toss in legendary choreographer Annie-B Parson and that’s quite a conglomerate of New World talent for this most Ancient World of plays, but the real story is Brie Larson, who’ll be playing the title role of Elektra, the daughter of Agamemnon who vows revenge upon her mother Clytamnestra for his death. 

Larson is of course best known for playing Captain Marvel in the MCU films, to slightly mixed success (‘Captain Marvel’ was a box office beast; ‘The Marvels’ tanked so hard people started writing think piece about how superhero movies were over). It’s always been clear there’s a lot more to her than that, not least because she’s is a literal Oscar winner thanks to 2015’s psychological kidnap thriller ‘Room’, but she also writes, directs, produces and has an indie-leaning CV if you take out the 'lady with magic space powers' stuff. Getting involved with all this leftfield theatre royalty feels like a smart move and an interesting challenge – she’s done little in the way of stage work before and this will surely be something of a baptism of fire. She’ll be supported by a cast that includes fellow US star Stockard Channing, plus Greg Hicks, Patrick Vaill and Marième Diouf.

London’s established winter art fair opens with over 120 galleries showing modern art, photography, sculpture and everything in between. This year’s London Art Fair will feature large-scale installations and thematic group displays from some very influential artists, including Tracey Emin and Francis Bacon. A new partnership with the Sainsbury Centre will also introduce an immersive 'Living Art' experience, which hopes to encourage visitors to rethink their relationship with art. 

Settle in for a night of poetry as your host Ian McMillan introduces ten talented wordsmiths, who have been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. The ten poets taking part are Raymond Antrobus, Hannah Copley, Helen Farish, Peter Gizzi, Gustav Parker Hibbett, Rachel Mann, Gboyega Odubanjo, Carl Phillips, Katrina Porteous and Karen McCarthy Woolf. It’s a chance to hear some of the most exciting verse coming out of the UK and Ireland right now and to make your mind up about who you think should win the much-coveted accolade. 

London might always be bustling with fun things to do and, come winter, a jam-packed calendar of unmissable events, but sometimes you just need a break from it all. When the capital’s hustle and bustle leaves you feeling a little drained, you can find some escape from the crowds and hordes of tourists by getting up and getting out just for a day. In dire need of crisp country air, a relaxing spa day or a gorgeous, long walk? These day trips from London are all under two hours from Zone 1 and will give you the relief you need this winter.

RECOMMENDED: The best day trips from London

Bring in the new year by rollicking around to a colourful ceilidh band. Expect dynamic ceilidh dancers, banjoes and fiddles brought to you by traditional London-based troupe. Get ready for a hoedown New Year extravaganza at The Royal Festival Hall’s Clore Ballroom. 

Not had enough fun this New Year? Get yourself down to KOKO for a special edition of Glitterbox, Defected’s long-running party, for the first big bash of the year. The lineup is still TBA, but if you’re looking for an inclusive, welcoming and uplifting place to let your hair down, you can’t go wrong here.

The London International Mime Festival was a true city staple, bringing weird and wild physical theatre from across the globe to the capital each year. Rarely ‘mime’ in the stereotypical sense, the fest brought mind-expanding theatre to London for 47 years straight. The 2023 edition was its last, but MimeLondon is the same idea in all but name, and returns for its second edition in January 2025, with shows spread across the Barbican, Southbank Centre and the Sadler’s Wells Peacock Theatre and The Place, with a series of workshops at Little Angel Studios and Shoreditch Town Hall. 

Reese Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s long-running BBC comedy horror anthology ‘Inside No. 9’ may be wrapping up on our screens but the duo don’t seem to be in any hurry to step away from it: this new live spin-off entitled ‘Stage/Fright’ premieres in the West End in 2025. Written by and starring the duo, the plot is unknown but we’re told it’ll be a mix of old and new elements and that it’ll lean heavily into being a theatre performance (as opposed to just being bits from the telly faithfully re-enacted) – not a surprise seeing as how both creators are now seasoned stage actors. It’s directed by Simon Evans, probably best known for the extremely meta David Tennant/Michael Sheen lockdown comedy ‘Staged’, though also a heavyweight theatre director.

In a city brimming with bars, breweries and prosecco-based pop-ups, it would seem that drinking in London without actually, erm, drinking is an impossibility. Leave your beer goggles at home for one night, however, and you’ll see the selection of non-alcoholic cocktails and booze-less blends available in the capital is pretty extensive. In some venues, the alcohol-free offerings are even more creative and tastebud-seducing than their liquor-rich counterparts. Don’t believe us? Have a sip on one of these teetotal tipples...

Soil – it’s not something you really think about, unless you’re doing the gardening. But this new exhibition at Somerset House will change all that, shining a light on its important role in our world, including the part it plays in our planet’s future. Top artists, writers and scientists from across the globe are all involved in the thought-provoking exploration, which aims to stop you thinking of soil as mere dirt and start considering it as something far more powerful instead.

Is there anything more wonderfully wintry than wrapping up warm, pulling on some ice skates and gliding around a frosty slab of ice with your loved ones? Each winter, London fills up with pop-up rinks, from the legendary Somerset House to the newer Glide at Battersea Power Station. At all, you’ll find festive vibes ramped up to the max, especially come December – and a lot of fellow Londoners vying for a spot on the ice. Book in advance to guarantee you can show off your best ice moves (or your ability to stay upright, at the very least). Here are some of the best rinks to soar across this winter.

This glorious independent film festival is back with a packed programme featuring more than 50 short films, including exciting directorial debuts and award-winning like Spirit of Place starring Mark Rylance, Dammi with Riz Ahmed, Weightless starring Toyah Willcox and Keep with Phil Davies. Look out for panel discussions, workshops and, of course, live screenings, before the festival culminates in a fantastic award ceremony, recognising the best student film, the environmental impact award, and everything in between. All audience members also get to vote for their favourite film at the festival, the results of which go towards the audience favourite award.

A Full Festival Pass lets you watch all 52 films screened live at the SohoLIFF in the Dean Street screening room. You will have to book into each screening block you choose to attend, and you will have one vote overall for your favourite film.

The bright lights of Canary Wharf's towers are quite the spectacle after dark, but the business district will glow brighter than usual in January thanks to the addition of sparkling illuminations created by artists from around the world. The Winter Lights festival returns for its ninth edition with a new set of dazzling artworks, installations and interactive experiences, plus some old favourites from previous years.

There’ll be 11 immersive illuminations dotted across the area, including some intriguing sounding sculptures like a ‘towering stack of bathtubs pulsing with light and sound’, an orbiting pylon emitting a ‘tornado’ of light, luminous saris fabric, an iridescent mirage on Montgomery Square and a 20m-wide sink hole encircled by light. There’ll be sweet treats and hot drinks to warm you up between the installations. 

A vast engine spins, spilling noxious, viscous liquid onto the floor of the Turbine Hall. Mire Lee’s machine is draped in tentacles which ooze and flop around, drenching the cavernous space.

The Korean artist’s machine isn’t useless, it produces, it makes products. Hung from the ceiling of the Turbine Hall, stretched taut on metal frames, are countless ‘skins’; ripped, clay-coloured fabrics which look like leather made from some unknown creature…maybe even made from humans.

And that’s the point. By dragging the Turbine Hall’s industrial past back into the present, reanimating the corpse of Britain’s power, she’s talking about the human cost of industry, the shocking violence of manufacturing, the exploitative drive of capitalism. This is where it ends up: a broken, rusting machine spewing out vile, useless products at shocking human cost.

Come wintertime, Chelsea Physic Garden is the home of snowdrops in London with many ancient and unusual varieties growing among its greenery. As the white flowers start to bloom, head down to this little Eden in the city to learn the Japanese art of Kokedama making. Expert gardeners will help you craft the ancient ‘moss balls’ which let you display small plants in a soft moss-covered sphere to use as decoration at home. Each workshop will provide you with all the materials you need to craft a kokedama using seasonal snowdrops.

Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival is in residency at the Southbank Centre this winter, with three days of performances celebrating the legacy of Nina Simone. Across the series, the Nu Civilisation Orchestra and special guests including Corinne Bailey Rae will pay tribute to the jazz legend, while saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch will give the world premiere of his new album, ‘Soundtrack to the Apocalypse’, and more.

Burns Night always falls on January 25 (which is a Thursday in 2024) and gives London an excuse to celebrate Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, with lots of food, whisky and partying. 

It is never too young to introduce the little ones to the joys of monster truck rallies, and in this they’re considerably aided by this lavish touring show in which the trucks are souped up to look like their favourite Hot Wheels ‘characters’ – think Mega Wrex, think Tiger Shark, think Bone Shaker, think Bigfoot, think the brand new Skelesaurus. If that means nothing to you and nothing to your little one… don’t worry about it too much. If it does, you’ll be thrilled to know this is the ‘Glow-N-Fire’ edition of the show.

Yes, it's cold out. It's also quite wet. The leaves have fallen from the trees and turned the pavements into a slimy, slippery ice rink. But we're lucky to have some amazing, huge, parks in London, and walking around in them on a crisp winter's day is genuinely one of life’s great joys. Whether you're a Royal Parks stan or a fiend for Hampstead Heath, there are loads of parks to choose from. So, get out there. 

You’ve probably heard all about Versailles’ dazzling Hall of Mirrors and its gorgeous, well-manicured gardens – maybe you’ve even seen them IRL. But do you know about the role the French royal court played in not just spreading scientific knowledge, but making it fashionable, too? The Science Museum’s latest exhibition, ‘Versailles: Science And Splendour’, will uncover that lesser-talked-about side of the palace’s history, diving into the royal family’s relationship with science, women’s impact on medicine, philosophy and botany at the royal court, and showcasing more than 100 items that reinforce those stories – many of which have never been displayed in the UK before. 

Things are kicking off in January with ‘Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism’, an ultra-colourful look at how modernism took hold over in that bit of South America. It will feature over 130 artworks from the 1910s to the 1970s by ten Brazilian artists, including quite a few you might have seen in Raven Row’s very good and very recent exhibition ‘Some May Work As Symbols: Art Made in Brazil, 1950s-70s’.

What if you could pay to be a participant in your favourite game show? I don’t mean that to sound grubby: Taskmaster the Live Experience does not involve you slipping Channel 4 a bung (though it’s not cheap). But it is a lavish immersive recreation of ‘Little’ Alex Horne’s delightful absurdist game show, currently on its 18th series, having blossomed from cult beginnings on Dave to fully fledged C4 mainstay. Or rather it’s a recreation of the fun bit - the ridiculous, clever, infuriating tasks that happen in the so-called Taskmaster House, as opposed to the bit where the season’s comedian participants sit in the court of the Taskmaster, aka Greg Davies.

The key thing is to make it funny. I’m not going to spoil what any of the tasks actually involve. But while somewhat ridiculous they are not necessarily particularly hilarious in and of themselves. Unlike the show, you can’t rely on the participants to be funny. But Taskmaster the Live Experience nonetheless nicely captures the humour of the show. This is partly achieved by some very slick video and projection work that heavily integrates a pre-recorded Davies and Horne into matters. But also shout out to our live guide. Dubbed Little Little Alex Horne (as are all the guides), she was nominally just there to stop us walking the wrong way and to make sure we understood the tasks. But ours was also drolly funny in her own right, a perfect intermediary between ‘our’ Taskmaster and the glitzier telly one.

Letizia Battaglia was a witness, she was there. She saw the mafia tearing Italy apart in the 1970s, murdering its sons, raping its daughters, and she documented all of it with her camera.

She started out as a late-budding journalist, an apprentice in her mid-30s for Palermo’s daily newspaper l’Ora. Camera in hand, she captured the bloody reality of life under the oppressive rule of the mafia. There are images in the opening room of parties, dances, kids, lovers. But they’re overpowered by the endless photos of death on display. Battaglia was first on the scene after judges were assassinated, politicians killed, henchmen murdered. There’s no Godfather-esque glamourisation of mafia life here, just the mundane, basic, ordinary reality of everyday murder.

There are some incredible photos here. Excellently composed, shockingly confrontational, but tender despite the grimness. None of this is pleasant, or joyful, or beautiful, but it’s all something that photojournalism must always be: it’s real.

January might not be the jam-packed extravaganza of gigs and club nights that the rest of the year often offers, but there’s four Fridays of fun to look forward to at Brixton’s Phonox. Renowned electronic group Mount Kimble will be in residence at the venue, kicking off every weekend for four weeks in January. The nights are billed as ‘a testament to their latest exciting direction’, so expect these curated nights out to be both a voyage through their seminal catalogue so far and a hint at where they could go next.

1. ‘Fragile Beauty’ at the V&A

One of the many benefits of being Elton John is that you’ve got the dosh and star power to buy some of the finest art on earth. And his collection of photography, as this huge V&A exhibition proved, is absolutely world class, filled with the best works by the biggest names. The show was quite literally a ‘best of’ compilation of modern photography, including fashion, reportage, erotic and fine art takes on the genre, and all tied together with the narrative thread of Elton John and David Furnish’s own personal tastes. Dazzling, glamorous, excellent photography that absolutely won’t go breaking your heart. 

Read our five-star review here. Until January 5, 2025. 

2. ‘Monet and London. View of the Thames’ at the Courtauld 

Claude Monet came to London and liked what he saw. From the balcony of his suite at the Savoy, he watched the interplay of sun and fog across the Thames and knew he had to paint it, and paint it he did, over and over. This show at the Courtauld brought together 21 of the impressionist big dog’s fuzzy, hazy, almost psychedelic views of London’s big grey river, and it was absolutely perfect.

Read our five-star review here. Until January 19, 2025.

3. Mike Kelley: ‘Ghost and Spirit’ at Tate Modern

Unbelievably cacophonous, totally hectic: performance-punk-poet-conceptualist Mike Kelley’s Tate show was a wild mashup of heavy metal, high school imagery, Superman-references and ectoplasm for a genuinely moving exploration of youth, adolescence and rebellion by a special and much-missed artist. 

Read our four-star review here. Until March 9, 2025. 

4. ‘The Imaginary Institution of India’ at the Barbican

After years of the Barbican disappearing right up its own curatorial backside, it emerged in 2024 with a new sense of clarity, and this show saw it approach the difficult, powerful, thorny concept of Indian art during times of turmoil with simplicity and approachability. The show was full of fantastic, moving and often shocking political art, all presented in a way that welcomed viewers rather than pushed them away. That’s worth celebrating. 

Read our four-star review here. Until January 5, 2025.