Things to do in London this weekend

Ask any Londoner what the vibe is on bank holidays and they’ll no doubt agree that it’s absolutely bloomin’ marvellous. From blissful drinks in the park to glorious day parties and some of the year’s biggest and best club nights, this city sure knows how to make the most of an extra day or two off. And Easter weekend is a particularly sweet deal. Not only is it a religious holiday that demands you eat as much chocolate as humanly possible, but it’s also a rare double bank holiday. Meaning, yes, you get four whole days of work-free folly. Here are our top picks to fill your weekend. 

We need more Maubys in the world. It is the perfect neighbourhood restaurant. Unpretentious, affordable, friendly, and uncannily delicious. It began life as a West Indian-inspired pop-up that roamed south London cooking up Jamaican-style barbecue. After a successful crowdfunder, Mauby opened last year in a former fish and chip shop in Brockley. The plan was for a wilfully eclectic offering of sturdy, seasonal plates and a cosy, sit-down atmosphere for locals. The priciest dish on the menu is lamb chops - two juicy, flirty things cooked home-style with rosemary, thyme and sherry – and a mound of self-assured fried chicken is seasoned with a radiant, heat-seeking dry rub and served with a mega pepper pickle and huge dollop of spiced mayo.

The Institute of Contemporary Arts hosts the first UK solo exhibition of Croatia-born, Amsterdam-based installation and performance artist Nora Torato this spring. Known for her text ‘pools’, created at yearly intervals using found language gathered from media, conversations, online content and overheard speech, the artist’s UK debut will feature site-specific new work that spans video, performance, graphic design, writing and sound. 

All that glitters isn’t gold – sometimes it’s silver, amethyst, ruby, sapphire or emerald. All the colours of the jewel rainbow will be on display at the V&A as part of its huge Cartier exhibition opening in spring 2025. The UK’s first major display dedicated to the Maison in nearly 30 years will boast more than 350 tiaras, watches, clocks, brooches and other precious objects – some of which have been worn by Queen Elizabeth II and pop princess Rihanna – and trace Cartier’s evolution since the turn of the 20th century. A limited initial ticket sale has already sold out, but keep your eyes peeled for more tickets going on sale. Members can still gain access to the exhibition, so if you’re desperate to gawp at the glamour, consider signing up.

Robert Icke made his name directing boldly reimagined takes on some of the greatest plays ever written, but Manhunt, his play about Raoul Moat, is all him, and it’s compellingly weird as an examination of toxic masculinity. The early stages see Samuel Edward-Cook’s triple-jacked double-stacked Moat in the dock for a variety of changes. Edward-Cook’s vulnerability and direct pleading to the audience aggressively underscores the point that Moat’s traumatic childhood informed his adult actions. Flitting between the courtroom and flashbacks to Moat’s fateful few days after leaving prison, Edward-Cook’s pleading, panic-attack delivery and Tom Gibbon’s naggingly loud, organ-based score give a real sense of Moat’s fraying grip on reality. It’s an emotionally vivid and compelling play, blessed with great performances and an unnerving grandeur as Moat’s odyssey takes him towards his own heart of darkness.

★★★★ '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.

Henry VIII’s former gaff is already one of the most splendid-looking buildings in London, but fill it with 10,000 tulips and you’ve got something mighty special to look at. Hampton Court Palace’s Tulip Festival is one of the biggest planted displays of the colouful flowers in the UK and is a good excuse to celebrate the start of spring. See the buds pouring out of the Tudor wine fountain and in floating tulip vases, and spot rare, historic and specialist varieties. There are also expert talks on the flowers and craft activities themed around them. The palace’s expert gardeners predict the displays will look at their best in mid-April, so don’t wait around to visit. 

Dance your way through the Easter bank hol at one of The Cause's famed day parties. Norwegian disco king Todd Terje tops the expansive bill, which spans the globe and includes Chicago house and techno expert Hiroko Yamamura, rising Canadian star Honeydrip, and Berlin exports Sugar Free. There’ll also be heaps of London talent on the decks, too, including the return of Dalston party crew Disco Bloodbath, who’ll be performing together for the first time in nearly eight years. You’ll need sustenance to make it through all 14 hours of this party, and there’ll be plenty of scran on hand from a range of food vendors to help keep you in ship shape for a big start to your four-day weekend. 

You’ve seen Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum. Now strap in for Bourne Yesterday. Meet Charlie Heller (Bohemian Rhapsody’s Rami Malek), a man who embarks on a mission of revenge with precisely none of the lethal skills he’ll need to carry it out. This is a straight-faced but enjoyably slick espionage thriller from director James Hawes (Slow Horses). While The Amateur lacks the rumpled élan and meticulous characterisation of the Gary Oldman streaming hit, it does deliver some of the same knottiness and unpredictability.  This is for lovers of old-school espionage thrillers and anyone raised on Littell and le Carré’s Cold War yarns. 

Former Time Out cover star Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka Self Esteem, is back with her third album and an all-new show to go along with it. Her 2021 album Prioritise Pleasure was a smash hit for a particular strain of millennials who feel the pressure of getting married, having babies and hiding all things greedy, lazy, horny, etc. This new venture has been billed as ‘a theatrical presentation for a strictly limited and unmissable run’ which will take over the Duke of York’s Theatre for three nights. Given her image, you can expect more messy pop confessions underpinned by catchy choruses and impressive vocals.  

Duke of York’s Theatre, WC2N 4BG. Wed Apr 16-Fri Apr 19, 7.30pm. From £28. 

You’ll get several movies for the price of a single ticket in Ryan Coogler’s period drama-thriller-romance-musical Sinners. The combination is audacious enough to leave you simultaneously awed and overwhelmed. All of this is packed into a single day in 1932 Mississippi: Maverick twins Smoke and Stack (both played skilfully by Coogler muse Michael B Jordan) have finally returned home after a law-eliding sojourn in Chicago. They’ve got money, liquor, and a dream: to open a juke joint for their friends and family. It all takes a sharp turn when the night is interrupted by… vampires. Coogler is making an epic here – and everyone is up to the task.

In cinemas worldwide Apr 18.

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. 

Get tickets to Versailles: Science & Splendour, for just £5.40, down from £10.80, only through Time Out Offers.

Get the Easter weekend off to a good start at this taproom party hosted by Tottenham-based brewery Pressure Drop. They’ve invited Liverpool-based Azvex Brewing, Floc. from Canterbury and Two Flints from Windsor to join a day-long mini beer festival. Expect fresh drops and special pours from the visiting brewers as well as a full Pressure Drop lineup. Expect a soundtrack of live music and DJs, and hotdogs from Walthamstow Dogs to soak up the booze. 

Regarded as one of the UK’s most influential contemporary artists, this new exhibition at Tate Britain surveys Ed Atkins’ career to date, showcasing 15 years of work spanning computer-generated videos, animations, sculpture, installation, sound, painting and drawing. At the heart of it is a series of 700 drawings on Post-It notes. The intimate sketches range from messages of devotion (‘I love you x’) to surreal images. Atkins describes the on-going Post-It drawings as ‘the best things I’ve ever made’, and you can sense the deep affection and care that went into making them. This survey exhibition at Tate Britain is vast, charting Atkins’ artistic development, blending emotion and personal reflection with existential inquiry. The result is something urgent and deeply human. 

Eugene Ionesco’s classic absurdist satire Rhinoceros is a drama about a town full of people turning into rhinos as an allegory for totalitarianism. And Omar Elerian – contemporary British theatre’s most consummate director of leftfield absurdism – has created this enjoyable revival that pays fanboy-esque homage to Ionesco’s 1959 original, while also bolting on loads of fun extra stuff. Elerian rightly trusts in the enduring satirical potency of Ionesco’s 66-year-old play. But he also trusts himself and his cast to give a 2025 audience a damn good time. Faithful without being dogmatic, the tone is kept light and mischievous until a chilling kamikaze ending deliberately breaks the easy-going tone and sends us out deeply unnerved.

The Design Museum’s latest exhibition is dedicated to our adoration of swimming. With more than 200 objects, Splash! is a whistle-stop tour taking us all the way from bizarre Victorian bathing carriages to the present-day mermaidcore TikTok trend. From the politics of the pool (and who gets to learn to swim) to the evolution of swimwear and pool architecture, it covers a lot of ground, with each section designed to mimic different swimming spaces. Look out for a jumper knitted by Tom Daley, a 1984 David Hockney poster for the Los Angeles Olympics, the OG midriff-exposing bikini designed in 1946 by French designer Louis Réard and Pammy Anderson’s bright red Baywatch swimsuit. It’s a comprehensive, heartwarming, and even occasionally funny take on swimming. 

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!

Roundhouse Three Sixty is a brand-new, month-long festival at Chalk Farm’s famous circular arts venue aiming to ‘amplify the voices of today’s most vital and unapologetic artists’ with a line-up featuring live music, visual arts, spoken word, podcasts and club nights. This week, look out for comedy from Instagram funny man Munya Chawawa, a huge poetry slam, artist’s scratch nights and networking evenings. 

The Lost Boys meet Motherland in playwright John Donnelly’s giddily original stage return. It is a drama about postpartum depression and also vampirism that stars Sophie Melville as a stressed mum who turns to forces beyond mortal comprehension to sort out her mess of a life. Blanche McIntye’s production is a punchy affair that cheerily rips off a load of atmospheric stuff from classic horror movies. It’s an enjoyably outlandish way to tell a story about postpartum depression, it’s a serious story told in a wickedly entertaining way.

Snag your ticket for just £15, down from £65, only through Time Out Offers.

The National Maritime Museum is putting on a huge exhibition unearthing the truth behind the infamous swashbuckling sailors. Pirates traces the changing depictions of pirates through the ages and reveals what the brutal reality of pirate life was like behind the mythologised fictionalised accounts we’ve all grown up with. Explore piracy in popular culture – from comical characters like Captain Pugwash and Captain Hook to anti-heroes like Long John Silver and Captain Jack Sparrow, the global history of piracy and issues of modern piracy facing seafarers today. You’re in for a buccaneering time, me’hearties. 

Ryan Calais Cameron’s fifties-set three-hander about a potentially commie actor has sharp suits, big pours of scotch and a haze of cigarette smoke. But to assume the play is a pastiche of a fast-patter period piece – is to underestimate Calais Cameron who smashed the West End with his beautiful play For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy. Because in walks Sidney Poitier, the guy who’d go on to become the first Black man to win an Oscar. He’s about to be cast in a big breakout role, but NBC’s lawyers want him to sign an oath that he’s not a communist. 

Time Out and W London are rolling out the red carpet for film lovers with the W London Film Club – a one-of-a-kind private screening experience in an intimate, 38-seater cinema. Nestled in London’s iconic West End, tickets start at £24 and include your screening, a handcrafted cocktail, and popcorn. For those looking to indulge further, upgrade to the £44 ticket, which adds a two-course meal and a glass of prosecco. Whether you're planning a date night, a stylish Sunday screening, or a special night out, get ready to sit back, sip on a cocktail, and escape into the magic of the big screen.

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.

The Yard Theatre’s artistic director Jay Miller is not a man afraid to throw out a lot of ideas and see what sticks, and this revival of Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece eschews period detail in favour of a dreamy no-place chased by contemporary music. The ’30s-set 1944 drama tends to depict ageing Southern belle Amanda Wingfield as a suffocating force of nature whose overbearing love has ruined the lives of her children, Tom (probably gay) and Laura (probably disabled). Miller upends this. Sharon Small’s Amanda is ultimately a decent sort and the engine of the play is her relationship with her troubled son. It’s a beautifully humane read on this classic. 

Leeds is another planet in this exhibition from veteran British photographer Peter Mitchell. A Londoner who moved to Leeds in 1972 and never left, Mitchell’s photos in this small but transporting exhibition take us on a tour of the backstreets and alleys of his adopted city, mainly during the 1970s, giving us proud shopkeepers and aproned artisans standing in front of crumbling premises, many of which look more Victorian or Edwardian than late-twentieth-century. It’s odd to imagine now, but when Mitchell was taking these photos, colour photography was barely respected, Mitchell was breaking new ground. Now a retro appeal – a chance to transport yourself to a long gone time and place – but to his contemporaries, this was strange and radical work, strikingly modern and engaging.

We all know Edvard Munch’s masterpiece ‘The Scream’, but there was a lot more to him: this show at the National Portrait Gallery catalogues the great Norwegian expressionist through his portraits of family, friends, fellow artists, writers, art collectors and others in his lifetime. Intimate, energetic and deeply human, this exhibit is set to remind us why Munch had such influence in his sphere and far beyond.  

Whether you're a full-on F1 obsessive or just fancy flooring it with your mates, The Drive Lounge in Shoreditch has your name on the grid. This slick new sim racing hub is part e-sports arena, part bar, and all-out good time. Race your mates (or rivals) on hyper-realistic rigs, climb the leaderboard, and share your lap wins online. Then grab a drink, watch the pros on screen, and soak up the electric atmosphere. With tickets for just £12.50, there’s never been a better time to burn some (virtual) rubber.

Get a race and a drink of beer, wine, cocktails or a soft drink for just £12.50, only with Time Out Offers.

Punch is the perfect example of what playwright James Graham does best. It tells the poignant story of Jacob (David Shields), a lad from Nottingham who got into a totally pointless fight with James, a (never-seen) paramedic just a few years older than him. Jacob punched James precisely once. James went down, and a couple of weeks later he died. Graham’s script delves into this with typical deftness. Shields’ performance is a modulated study in the ferocity but also the innocence and vulnerability of a young offender. Punch is on the smaller side for a Graham play, but its climax will have you blubbing. 

Leigh Bowery was a convention-shunning icon of 1980s London nightlife, taking on many different roles in the city’s scene, from artist, performer and model, to club promoter, fashion designer and musician. His artistry also took many shapes, from reimagining clothes and makeup to experimenting with painting and sculpture. A new Tate Modern exhibition will celebrate his life and work, displaying some of his looks and collaborations with the likes of Charles Atlas, Lucian Freud, Nicola Rainbird and more.

Noah Davis, the Los Angeles painter known for his figurative works depicting dreamlike visions of everyday Black life, was not one to be pigeonholed: each canvas here is technically unique, yet they still work as a set, each brushstroke deliberate, considered. In this retrospective, we are taken into his personal life – ‘Painting for My Dad’ was created when he lost his father  – we discover his deep, well-referenced knowledge of art history and learn about his hopes and dreams, where vast canvases show scenes of his crime-striken neighbourhood transformed into a utopia where Black ballerinas dance in the street. Davis was an artist that played with paint, commanded it. The result? Quietly, yet urgently political art.