Gigs in London tonight

The Southbank Centre kicks off an exciting new partnership with Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival this winter, via a weekend of events celebrating the legacy of legendary Nina Simone. The main event is a Friday night concert with the Nu Civilisation Orchestra, where special guests including Corinne Bailey Rae and Laura Mvula will perform some of the American jazz and blues singer’s biggest hits. Elsewhere you can catch saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch premiering his new album, ‘Soundtrack to the Apocalypse’, join a celebration of writer and activist James Baldwin with young talents from the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, and get down with gender-diverse musical platform Peng Femme Jam at a Saturday night afterparty. It’s not just music on the programme either. Award-winning playwright and poet Inua Ellems is bringing his R.A.P.P. (Rhythm, Poetry and Prose) party to the Southbank, while Nigerian British writer Yomi Sode also hosts a special edition of First Five, chatting to special guests about what Nina Simone means to them. It promises to be a fitting tribute to one of the greatest jazz acts in living memory.    

Returning for 2025 – ten years after it first debuted at the London Coliseum – here’s a fresh chance to catch noted Gilbert & Sullivan head Mike Leigh’s 2015 ENO production of the duo’s beloved light operetta The Pirates of Penzance. Although legendary for his devised films and plays, that’s obviously not a quality Leigh brought to bear on his take on the 1879 classic, and it’s actually a pretty trad production. But that’s no bad thing at all for this delightful, family-friendly show about a kind-hearted apprentice pirate intent on wooing the daughter of the inept Major General. Suitable for ages five-plus.