October 2020

• Hollywood tweets pay tribute to Sean Connery, after his death
• No Bass Like Home Online Festival
• ‘Nine Lessons and Carols’: blackly hilarious sketches on life in 2020
• Sip ’N Stroke
• Charitable doughnuts, a Herne Hill food bank and tackling PPE litter: great London causes to get behind
• Hype dish: Smokestak’s ‘perfectly balanced’ brisket bun
• Overheard in London: this week’s #wordonthestreet
• Mo Gilligan: ‘I didn’t have a conventional route into comedy’
• What would a Tier 3 lockdown look like for London?
• The Natural History Museum’s five-acre gardens will become a national centre for urban nature
• A massive boa constrictor has been captured by the Thames
• A new theatre is opening in the West End!
• Eurostar now runs direct trains from Amsterdam to London
• Houseplant Hideout
• Will the government bring back travel quarantine for Germany, Greece and other countries?
• A pop-up pumpkin market is taking over Covent Garden
• Tredwells
• Ricky Gervais will play two London stand-up shows at the Forum
• Dine-in cinema is coming to Bao in Borough Market
• Constellations
• Baby Yoda is coming to the National Portrait Gallery (kinda)
• Marcus Rashford is helping feed London’s children
• Cybertease 11.0 Trick or Treat: a virtual strip club by unionised workers
• Hoppers has launched a store for its Sri Lankan recipe kits and curry powders
• There’s an hour-long Ai Weiwei film taking over Piccadilly Circus
• Save the Crobar! There’s a fundraiser for London’s best heavy metal bar
• Overheard in London: this week’s #wordonthestreet
• Brixton Courtyard has a cosy look for winter – and its DJ line-up is pure fire
• This Google doc of all the London pubs with heated gardens is spreading like wildfire
• Frostbite: Who Pinched My Muff?
• The best pizza to come out of lockdown is returning to London each Sunday
• The London chefs who beat lockdown
• Film Africa
• Yard Sale Pizza is finally opening a branch in south London
• London’s biggest cancelled musicals return to the West End for six special shows
• The fine art of solo dining
• Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley will star in the National Theatre’s screen ‘Romeo & Juliet’
• How a locked-down north Londoner started a bakery from her kitchen
• The Natural History Museum’s magical exhibition inspired by ‘Fantastic Beasts’ is back
• Pecs: Queer Christmas
• Fake News
• Simon Amstell: Work-in-Progress
• There’s a whole night of livestreamed art and music from Somerset House
• Theatre is coming back to the Barbican! (plus more gigs)
• The Petersham is reopening soon
• The Camden Grocer stars in new Southwark pop-up shop
• Dick Whittington (National Theatre)
• Dalston’s getting a new outdoor theatre and bar space
• Shakespeare’s Globe is back, with open-air movie screenings and live improv comedy
• Pricked
• The Natural History Museum’s ice rink is cancelled for 2020
• Poo poo poo and more poo – Sports Banger’s ‘Covid Letters’ show is a hoot
• You can now go wild swimming all year round in West Reservoir sans wetsuit
• Mariah and Friends Boo Bitch
• Horror High by Pop Horror
• These are the most popular experiences on Airbnb right now
• Rudy’s is opening a vegan butcher
• Do you know who this mega-talented London busker is?
• A sparkly new light installation has landed in Chinatown
• Watch an exclusive clip from new Ronnie Scott’s doc ‘Ronnie’s’
• Chef’s Specials: Max Venning and Brodie Meah’s favourite spots in Finsbury Park
• Protests from London nightlife venues denied Culture Recovery funding
• House of Vans
• Strongroom Bar & Kitchen
• You can now get a one-hour Covid-19 test at Heathrow Airport
• David Hockney’s doing a whole exhibition of iPad drawings next year
• The very best of Battersea (as chosen by a local)
• 2020 not scary enough for you? Try these Halloween movie nights
• Solidarity Sounds UK: Change the Record
• Even if you don’t like dance, the Barbican’s Michael Clark show is ace
• Sun, sexts and suspicious flatmates: the realities of dating in lockdown
• Rooftop igloos have arrived in London for winter socialising
• We let a dog loose in a London gallery
• Patty & Bun is launching a new range of budget burgers
• Regent Street is getting nicer, with wider pavements and single-lane traffic
• These resources connect Londoners to Black-owned businesses
• Restaurant and bar industry staff set to protest over current restrictions
• Private Peaceful
• Bah humbug! Two big new productions of ‘A Christmas Carol’ are coming to London
• Educating Rita
• Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
• Nutcracker Delights (English National Ballet)
• Woof down a chocolate dog at Mayfair’s newest patisserie
• Can VR help Londoners escape from the reality of 2020?
• Celebrate World Pasta Day with a free meal from Emilia’s
• London’s bridges are, literally, falling down
• What will Tier 2 lockdown look like for London?
• Trishna London
• Sancho: An Act of Remembrance
• The Comeback
• Dalston’s annual Pumpkin Lantern Festival has been cancelled
• Join a virtual event to honour the Grenfell fire victims
• What does the ‘Tier 1’ lockdown mean for going out in London?
• What next for London’s struggling cinemas?
• National Theatre’s ‘War Horse’ is coming back to the cinema
• The Ghost Light
• Two excellent new food delivery services have launched in London
• Club Mexicana is now delivering DIY vegan taco kits – plus Margaritas
• Meet the Brixton prison officer who’s been rehabilitating inmates for 12 years
• Time Out’s manifesto for a future London
• Loyle Carner: ‘Having access to green space should be a human right’
• The UK’s ‘biggest beer hall’ is opening in east London
• Hundreds of London arts venues and organisations have been saved by emergency funding
• The very best of Highbury, Holloway and Finsbury Park, picked by a beloved local restaurateur
• ‘We live in complex times’: Thomas Heatherwick on what lies in store for London
• Shop (safely) at this Christmas market showcasing south London’s craft makers
• Steak & Lobster Warren Street
• ‘Les Misérables’ is back for Christmas – sign up for the pre-sale now
• London restaurants with Eat Out to Help Out offers this October
• The best early-bird deals in London restaurants and bars
• Hackney Flea Market
• ‘Black Sheep’ by MisSa Blue
• Ecstatic Record Fair
• Hype Dish: Four Legs’ incomparable Dexter Cheeseburger
• Overheard in London: this week’s #wordonthestreet
• See inside the secret hat-making room at the Royal Opera House
• Bloomsbury Festival
• Aké Festival
• Secret 7"
• Inside Out
• Cheese conveyor belt masterminds to open a shop on Columbia Road
• The Street That Changed My Life: Michael Dapaah on Recreation Way
• Blessed be the trumpets: EFG London Jazz Festival is happening
• re:connect Concert Series
• Hype Dish: Max’s rustic but rad ham, egg ’n’ chip sandwich
• The world’s oldest surviving music hall is reopening in London
• Sadler’s Wells is back with a season of ‘Social DisDancing’
• An Evening with English National Ballet
• GHBoy
• ‘Lockdown Town’: this immersive gig experience is a cure for the festival withdrawal blues
• One Night Records
• ‘I drank so much Cup a Soup I smelt like a stock cube!’: we meet the Duchess of Canvey, Diane Chorley
• Homeslice is giving away 500 slices of pizza every week
• Sadiq Khan calls curfew ‘counterproductive’ as #CanceltheCurfew gathers momentum in London
• Film and TV on demand
• Pearl Jam are going to headline Hyde Park next summer
• London’s most kitsch Christmas bar Miracle is returning this winter
• Chef’s Specials: Mambow founder Abby Lee’s favourite spots in Hackney
• Avobar
• The original Dishoom in Covent Garden is finally reopening with a swish new look
• Frieze Sculpture’s outdoor art has taken over Regent’s Park again
• You can tour London’s underground again as the Mail Rail reopens
• There’s a free Marina Abramović exhibition opening this week, and you can still get tickets
• All Cineworld and Picturehouse cinemas to temporarily close
• Borough Market is putting on charity sale Bake for Beirut
• Duck & Waffle is now serving bottomless brunch seven days a week
• 11 movies to see at the BFI London Film Festival 2020
• Bonfire Night is pretty much cancelled in London
• A winter forest is taking over outdoor hangout Pergola
• Peckham Record Fair
• Michael Clark: ‘Cosmic Dancer’
• Here’s why we think Soho is London’s coolest neighbourhood right now
• The London Marathon 2021 ballot is open
• Ciné-Real Halloween
• Upcoming Movies: what to watch out for this winter
• Hackney is trialling a new street food market
• Tower of London Ice Rink
• A Tomb with a View: The Stories and Glories of Graveyards
• Death Drawing
• Ghost Tour London and Haunted History
• All Hallow’s Lantern-Lit Tours
• 11 incredible £6 cocktails to neck during London Cocktail Week
• Christmas drive-in cinema is coming to London
• Celebration of Slytherin at Warner Bros Studio: The Making of Harry Potter
• Shark pickler Damien Hirst is having a show of his early works and it looks great
• 8 things you need to know about socially distanced comedy clubs in London
• Kensington and Chelsea Art Week
• Museum After Dark
• London Bakers Against Racism is holding a virtual bake sale
• Flicker
• Colab Tavern
• Sadiq Khan vows to increase teaching of Black history in London schools
• Preem
• More than 60,000 sign petition in support of clubs, dance music and nightlife
• Forbidden Forest Cinema
• RIP Dinerama: the east London street-food hangout closes for good
• Bette Midler and Me
• The Ballad of Corona V
• Stick Man
• Jimmy Carr: Terribly Funny
• ‘Mean Girls’ Movie Night
• Watch out! It’s rutting season, warns London’s Royal Parks
• Red Alert: London arts venues light up in support of the live events industry
• These 11 LGBTQ+ venues in London have been saved by emergency funding
• Inua Ellams: ‘London is the closest I’ve felt to a home’
• Shoreditch is getting a new food hall from the founder of Street Feast
• Actual Christmas concerts plus ‘The Nutcracker’ return to the Royal Albert Hall
• Imad’s Syrian Kitchen is finally getting a permanent London home