Things to do in London this weekend

Condo is a city-wide mega-exhibition, a collaboration between dozens of galleries from around the world, and it’s the best thing that happens in the London art world every January. The idea is that galleries from over here invite galleries from over there to share their spaces for a month. This year’s edition will see 49 galleries showing across 22 spaces, including Sadie Coles HQ hosting Jahmek Contemporary Art from Luanda, The Sunday Painter hosting Proyectos Ultravioleta from Guatemala, Project Native Informant hosting Nova Contemporary from Bangkok and loads more. It’s a chance to see what contemporary art from all around the world looks like. 

Condo is at various London venues, Jan 18-Feb 15. Free. More details here.

For Tarantula, Philip Ridley’s nightmarish monologue’s in-person debut at the Arcola Theatre, director Wiebke Green and actor Georgie Henley have created a 90-minute immersion into the mind of a person who is sensationally and irreparably disturbed. Erstwhile Chronicles of Narnia star Henley plays Toni, a teenager at the top of her class with big dreams of going to Oxford. She’s counting down the hours until her first date with fellow romantic amateur Michael. This is Ridley in his prime. Toni’s story blends roaring humour with shocking horror – and yet, we’re never quite certain where this excruciating tale will go. It’s an agonising portrait of terror, that leaves both Henley and the audience gasping for breath. 

Scotland’s national poet Rabbie Burns turns 266 this year and Burns Night is an opportunity to have a kilt-raising, haggis-scoffing, whisky-fuelled good time in celebration. You don’t have to be in the big guy’s motherland to join in the festivities. An estimated 200,000 Scottish expats live in the capital, which technically makes it the third most populous Scottish city, so you can guarantee there’s plenty of feasting, boozing and partying to be done down here too. Whether you want to get sweaty at a ceilidh, pipe in a haggis, or have a classy time at a whisky tasting or indulgent Burns supper, this is how you can enjoy Burns Night 2025 in London. 

There is something deeply chill about Roketsu. A fastidiously finessed Japanese restaurant in the Marylebone backstreets. Opened by chef patron Daisuke Hayashi – who trained at Kyoto’s triple-Michelin starred Kikunoi – it specialises in high-end kaiseki experience; a not-cheap tasting menu of which there are about as many courses (nine!) as there are seats in the restaurant (10!). The chef’s table is the only table, and placed on it are spectacularly seasonal dishes delivered in the form of stories, quietly but clearly told. There’s a layer of thinly cut radish across a bowl of soup made to look like ice on a lake, an all-seeing eyeball crafted from an egg wrapped in a sliver of conger eel and a hot-pot dish served in a ceramic castle tower. It’s thoughtful rather than twee, calmly suggesting that food shouldn’t just sustain your stomach, but your imagination too. 

Is there a better way to start 2025 than writhing around in a mosh pit? Heavy Lungs frontman Danny Nedelko certainly thinks not. Join the Bristol-based rock band as they headline Duck and Dive Festival at Signature Brew’s Haggerston tap room this month, alongside an equally loud line-up of new artists including Guardian-tipped punk foursome Loose Articles, noise-pop group Sick Joy and Ipswich rapper Native James. 

Signature Brew Haggerston, E8 4EA. Sat Jan 25 and Sun Jan 26, 1pm. From £21.83.

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 as well as sweet treats and hot drinks to warm you up. 

If you have claws and an insatiable craving for human flesh, can you still be a great dad? That’s the theme underpinning Leigh Whannell’s latest go at dragging a Universal Monster into the cold light of the 2020s, a more hard-bitten and demanding age than the one Lon Chaney’s Wolf Man prowled – and a lot harder to scare. Obviously, the answer is ‘no’ but the Aussie horror auteur behind Saw and 2020’s terrific The Invisible Man deserves some credit for bringing a new prism to the furry critter first made famous by Chaney in 1941. It’s an atmospheric, sporadically disquieting depiction of fatherhood in freefall.

In cinemas worldwide Jan 17.

It’s always a happy occasion when Chelsea Physic Garden’s annual Heralding Spring season rolls around. London’s oldest botanical garden has its very own unique microclimate, which means that come late January the ancient spot is home to over 120 species of snowdrops that bloom unusually early each year there. Guests are invited to embark on the Heralding Spring trail to check out the dainty white flowers and other early spring plants including a 70-year-old grapefruit tree. You can also learn more about snowdrops, including their unique place in folklore, at a variety of workshops. 

Imagine indulging in all the dumplings, rolls, and buns you can handle, crafted by a Chinatown favourite with over a decade of culinary excellence. Savour Taiwanese pork buns, savoury pork and prawn soup dumplings, and luxurious crab meat xiao long bao. To top it off, enjoy a chilled glass of prosecco to elevate your feast. Cheers to a truly delightful dining experience at Leong’s Legend!

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. 

This glorious independent film festival is back with a packed programme featuring more than 50 short films, including exciting directorial debuts and award-winning titles 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.

London has a ‘fully reconceived’ take from two old Oliver! hands: Cameron Mackintosh and director Matthew Bourne. Bourne is best known for sexy gothic dance pieces, and he certainly brings his full gothic sexiness to bear here: a cumulonimbus-worth of dry ice seeps through the inky recesses of Lez Brotherston’s brooding multilevel Victorian London sets. It’s solid. The songs remain a remarkable achievement and Bart does an impressive job of telescoping the sprawling plot of Oliver Twist into two-and-a-half hours.

The BFI Southbank’s Lunar New Year film season returns in 2025, with a programme of three films that have been selected by Focus Hong Kong. The big draw is the UK premiere of True Love, for Once in My Life. Produced by acclaimed Hong Kong filmmaker Fruit Chan, screenwriter Siu Koon-ho’s directorial debut is a nuanced drama tracing the lifelong relationship between a couple stuck in a failed marriage. Also on the bill is All Shall Be Well, a moving portrait of a group of older friends in Hong Kong’s queer community that tackles the injustices faced by a bereaved elderly lesbian and a 40th-anniversary screening of Tsui Hark’s timeless 1930s-set rom-com Shanghai Blues. 

Underscore is a new series of music and art events, inspired by the MUBI collection and brought to life by Crack Magazine. Its first edition lands at the ICA on January 24, and is all centred around Bird, Andrea Arnold's coming-of-age tale starring Barry Keoghan. Stop by for DJ sets from Carlos O’Connell (of Fontaines D.C. and the film itself) and Space Afrika, alongside a showcase of never-seen-before on-set photography by Robbie Ryan and Atsushi Nishijima.

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.

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.

Grade II-listed Art Deco masterpiece Battersea Power Station is the backdrop for this festival of shining light installations designed by international artists. Look out for an interactive musical light sculpture inspired by the pollination process in plants, an ‘Aurora’ designed exclusively for the station’s Art Deco Turbine Hall, and another interactive installation in the shape of a horse on a spring which lights up when ridden. 

Drag icon Jonny Woo offers up his most personal work to date in this autobiographical show that traces his journey from the Medway suburbs to the sex dens of New York and on to cult stardom. We’re promised he’ll share his life via ‘burlesque, musical covers and original poetry, prose, and spoken word’.

Ditch the usual pub pint and get hands-on with clay at Token Studio near Tower Bridge! For just £32, enjoy a 90-minute session crafting pottery, from spinning the wheel to painting your own design. Prefer painting? Choose from already-fired mugs, plates, or bowls to customise for £23. The best part? You can BYOB! And if you love your masterpiece, come back in two weeks to pick it up for just £10.

Get the ultimate pottery experience from £23 at Token Studio, only with Time Out Offers.

American ecologist David Abram, whose 1996 book ‘The Spell of the Sensuous’ is the inspiration for this group show at Edel Assanti, had a theory that the codification of language into written form was a turning point for humanity that saw us sever our ties with nature. Mirtha Dermisache’s indecipherable, invented alphabets open the show, before we see Kat Lyons’ swirling, psychedelic painting, Marguerite Humeau’s twisting sculpture and aboriginal Australian artist Yukultji Napangati’s stunning abstract landscapes. It brings together artists who think in similar ways about nature and time and the speculative future of humanity and it’s hard to argue that they’re wrong.

There is much to admire this three-hour production of Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love. Concerned with the life of Victorian classicist and poet AE Housman, its focus is his Oxford days. Here we see the younger version of the man (Matthew Tennyson) revelling in academia and his own burgeoning brilliance while struggling personally with his feelings for BFF Moses Jackson (Ben Lloyd-Hughes). There is a lot of dizzying cleverness here, we’re notionally in the afterlife – or possibly a deathbed hallucination – in which the elder Housman (the redoubtable Simon Russell Beale) trades droll banter with Alan Williams’s dour Stygian ferryman Charon. Ultimately, there is no Tom Stoppard play or Simon Russell Beale performance unworthy of your time.

London might well be the world’s greatest food city, but in the midst of a cost of living crisis, it’s not like any of us can eat out as much as we’d like to. So welcome to our list of London’s best cheap eats. Every highlighted dish here costs £10 or less and variety is the name of the game – so expect London staples like fish & chips and pie & mash, but also discover the best bargain places for burek, dosa, shawarma, naan, jianbing, buns, baps, doubles and bao. These places give you the kind of buzz only a bargain bite can deliver, while you can relish the fact that you’re supporting small independent London businesses when they need you the most.

While the RMS Titanic proved to be all too sinkable, this titanically camp musical spoof of the James Cameron film should sail on for quite some time. Titanique is a cabaret-style parody that marries the considerable kitsch appeal of the 1997 film with that of its true star – Quebecois singing icon Celine Dion, forever associated with the movie thanks to the ubiquitous power ballad My Heart Will Go On. The show’s undoubted masterstroke is making Dion the main character and Lauren Drew is sublime as the Canadian chanteuse. Ostensibly here to tell us the story of the sinking from her perspective, Drew’s spangly whirlwind perfectly captures the real Dion’s peculiar mix of old-fashioned showbiz cheese, mad aunty dottiness and weapons-grade lung power.

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. 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. 

★★★★ 'Frameless has managed to create something genuinely exciting' - Time Out

Escape reality through maximum immersion and experience 42 masterpieces from 29 of the world’s most iconic artists, each reimagined beyond belief, through cutting-edge technology. Situated in Marble Arch, Frameless plays host to four unique galleries with hypnotic visuals and a dazzling score. Enjoy 90 minutes of surreal artwork from Bosch, Dalí and more for just £24!

Get £24.80 tickets (originally £31) to Frameless, only with Time Out Offers.

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. 

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. 

Superstar director Jamie Lloyd takes on this gargantuan production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest – the first non-musical to play at Theatre Royal Drury Lane for decades and featuring the UK stage debut of movie icon Sigourney Weaver as exiled magician Prospero. It’s an awesome spectacle where the play‘s island is represented by a hulking black hill, part industrial slag heap, part Denis Villeneuve's Dune, and Jon Clark’s astonishing lighting is pure magic. Mason Alexander Park’s bound spirit Aerial is a growlingly androgynous figure who feels dangerous. It’s a stylish mix of ideas. 

A platter of three glimmering grilled oysters are garnished with spring onions and thin slices of lemon; slices of wagyu sit plump and perfectly formed; bowls of ramen are topped with chopsticks. Feeling hungry? These dishes aren’t there to eat: every single one is made entirely from plastic. Welcome to a tasty exploration of one of Japan’s centuries-old traditions, Shokuhin Sampuru - Japanese food replicas. Against the backdrop of these brightly-coloured meals, visitors are treated to some tasty little morsels of Japanese culinary history. You’ll leave primed with new facts about the art of food replicas.

Step the first London outpost of the legendary Parisian institution Café Lapérouse at The OWO. Nestled within the luxurious Raffles London at The Old War Office, this iconic destination offers a perfect blend of heritage touches and modern elegance. For £45 per person, indulge in a set-menu lunch or dinner featuring French classics like butternut squash velouté, duck leg confit, and crème caramel – all paired with a complimentary glass of champagne. Make your reservation today and enjoy a Gallic escape in the heart of London.

Make your reservation today and enjoy a truly Parisian escape in the heart of London for £45, only with Time Out Offers.