Things to do in London this weekend (21-22 March)

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was the godmother of rock and roll. Raised by her mother, a travelling Arkansas evangelist, she played guitar and sang on the road from the age of six and grew up to be a huge recording star. Her story and her music are extraordinary. So it’s a privilege and a treat to see British soul goddess Beverly Knight play Rosetta in this intimate two-hander that’s all about the music. Knight is a singer who raises the hackles on the back of your neck, but she does more here, channelling Rosetta Tharpe in a stomping, dramatic performance that conveys the passion, resilience, and sheer physical hard work of her life on the road. During the finger-tapping, off-beat clapping, and irrepressible grinning, there is a higher power being channelled, and it’s pure joy to witness it.

Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is as American as apple pie, so on paper it seems like a strange first choice of play for Michael Sheen’s new Welsh National Theatre. But the whole thing manages to be so exuberantly Welsh that you’ll soon forget the town of Grover’s Corners is supposed to be somewhere in New Hampshire. Francesca Goodridge’s production does Welshify a few details, but it softens (and maybe sentimentalises) a strange play that’s often intentionally served up cold and dry. It’s impressive and undeniable that the Welsh National Theatre has stamped itself on a classic with its very first production. Wales is lucky to have Michael Sheen, who has turned his back on Hollywood to launch his new theatre company. And if the WNT productions keep transferring this way, then we’re lucky to have him too.

Everybody loves David Hockney. So it’s good news that the old geezer can’t seem to stop making art despite pushing 90. More colourful works from the octogenarian are on display at the Serpentine North – the gallery’s first ever Hockney exhibition. It focuses on recent works, including the celebrated Moon Room, reflecting the painter’s lifelong interest in the lunar cycle, plus several digital paintings created as part of his Sunrise series. 

This giddy, wonderfully optimistic intergalactic epic teams Ryan Gosling up with a friendly extraterrestrial rock creature to save the galaxy from a catastrophic solar event. With a near-irresistible combination of Steve McQueen charisma and Droopy Dog reluctance, Gosling brings charm and physical comedy chops as scientist-turned-teacher-turned-reluctant astronaut Ryland Grace, who wakes from hypersleep to find that his crew mates are dead and he’s several lightyears into a one-way mission to save the dying sun. It’s the science-fiction blockbuster we need in these fractious times: an anthem to resilience and co-operation that seeks solutions and rejects exceptionalism – American, or even human – to celebrate the simple possibilities of, well, just getting along a bit better.

Terry’s has changed much since it was founded in 1982. As London’s only caff with its own brand of tea (yes, it’s as good as Yorkshire Gold), this traditional joint is an absolute goldmine for good old British nostalgia. And the food is very good too. Founded by, you guessed it, a former Smithfield butcher called Terry, the caff is now helmed by Terry’s son Austin and still gets its ingredients from London’s finest food suppliers. The food is proper English affair, with an all-day breakfast of mega fry-ups, bacon sarnies, ham, egg and chips and Billingsgate rolls – whopping St John buns stuffed with a generous portion of meaty scallops, thick, smoky bacon, earthy black pudding and topped off with an indulgent spread of Café de Paris butter. 

Tim Foley is a playwright who has also written several Doctor Who audio adventures, two strands to his career that come together very nicely in It Walks Around the House at Night, a rip-roaring horror adventure that packs in laughs and chills in equal measure without actively crossing the line into full-on comedy. It’s about a misfit out-of-work actor who gets caught up in ominous supernatural goings on in a spooky mansion. It’s a hugely enjoyable – and yes, scary – piece of theatre horror entertainment that feels like a breath of fresh air. 

Sverrir Guðnason (Borg/McEnroe’s Bjorn Borg) plays middle-aged dad and trawlerman Magnús in Hlynur Pálmason’s Icelandic family drama. He is lonely and struggling in the aftermath of his recent separation from long-time partner Anna (Saga Garðarsdóttir). For artist Anna, played with steel and soul by Garðarsdóttir, the break-up means rediscovering her own inner life. The intention is to show emotionally connected people dealing with transition with as much strength and grace as they can muster. It has witty interludes and surrealistic touches, all underpinned with humanism and compassion.

Maimuna Memon’s Manic Street Creature did the rounds at the Edinburgh Fringe a few years back. Now it’s back in a slightly expanded form: a gig-theatre show that mixes Memon’s original songs with her spoken-word storytelling, she’s joined on stage by a three-strong backing band. The story concerns a young musician named Ria, who moves to London and falls for Daniel, a sensitive soul who struggles with his mental health – he is the titular Manic Street Creature. The engine of the show is its form, being built around a cycle of Memon’s folky, jazzy songs, with her earnest, ethereal singing voice and emotive lyrics wilfully juxtaposed with her blunt, sweary Lancastrian vowels when speaking.

There’s a double bill going on at the Hayward Gallery, and the theme is fabrics: whether it’s what we wear or the fabric of life itself. The companion exhibitions are designed to be experienced one after the other. First is Chinese sculpture artist Yin Xiuzhen’s Heart to Heart, which is an ode to used clothes. She uses pieces of clothing stitched together and stretched over metal frames to make her huge immersive installations. Next, Yin Xiuzhen’s work is a perplexingly dense tangle of crimson thread. Both installations encourage you to engage with how they’ve been constructed and exhibited. But more universally, both shows tap into something invisible yet ever-present; whether it’s the interconnectedness of all things, or how history moves forward one wardrobe change at a time. 

Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass is a really weird play. It concerns a Jewish Brooklyn housewife who is inexplicably paralysed in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, Germany’s 1938 anti-Jewish pogrom. But that doesn’t touch the fact that Miller’s last big hit is a seething Freudian stew, spiced with Jewish guilt, a heady, occasionally surreal blend of desire and regret. This is a fascinating and fitfully brilliant production of a fascinating and fitfully brilliant play. 

Have you ever swum with a sea snake? If not, you may soon get your chance. Apparently, UK waters are about half a century off becoming habitable to these potently venomous creatures, but if you’re impatient, Somerset House has you covered. Artist Diana-Fiona Armour has scaled up a 3D scan of this endangered sea snake (more professionally known as Aipysurus fuscus), sliced it into three parts, illuminated it with mesh-LED, and set it among the courtyard’s dancing fountains. By night, it makes for impactful viewing, the snake gleaming with the cold shine of a vodka luge: slick, slippery, disco-lit. 

Known to many in her home country of Colombia as ‘La Maestra’, Beatriz González is considered to be one of the most influential artists to come out of Latin America, and this vast collection of over 150 works spanning her six-decade-long career leaves you with no questions as to how she garnered such a reputation. There’s a Warholian quality to much of her work, which uses images of figures from mainstream media and pop culture as subjects, ranging from Queen Elizabeth II to Jackie Onassis to Botticelli’s Venus, all in bright, vibrant block colours. González passed away at the age of 93 in January of this year, making this reflection on her once-in-a-generation career feel all the more poignant. Paying a visit to this splendid survey of her most consequential work feels like the perfect way to pay tribute to an artist who, right up until her death, used her talent to challenge mainstream opinion and shine a light on those who needed it most.

Anna Ziegler’s 90-minute two-hander, Evening all Afternoon, is a tremendous vehicle for two actors. It enables an absolutely storming stage debut for Erin Kellyman. She plays Delilah, the surly university-age American daughter to an unseen British father. He’s taken her back home to England, where she marinates in the grief at her mother’s death and the isolation of the Covid lockdown. And also resentment of her dad’s new wife Jennifer (Anastasia Hille). The play is built on a fascinating variation on the old Brit/Yank culture clash. Over the course of 90 minutes, Ziegler smartly deconstructs their facades.

Joo Young Won used to be head chef at the Michelin-starred Galvin at Windows, his new restaurant, Calong, is cosy and simple, with food made for sharing. Chef Joo was raised in South Korea, but began his cookery career in the UK, and for a long time focused on French technique. It shows. Calong sees him cooking dishes inspired by his native cuisine in a masterful light-touch fusion fashion. A warm pumpkin and crisp pear salad is delicately dressed with gochujang, cured Chalkstream trout with perfectly tart sesame and plum soy, the fried chicken is crunchy yet silky, and a BBQ onglet is sweet and tender with a bulgogi jus. It’s one of the most exciting restaurants Stoke Newington has to offer. 

Get a glimpse of the hidden lives of queer people in midcentury New York at this intimate exhibition. Before homosexuality was legalised, Donna Gottschalk photographed the people she described as ‘brave and defiant warriors’ for daring to live openly as themselves, and take part in the emerging lesbian, trans and gay rights movements. This Photographers Gallery exhibition of her work puts her images in conversation with texts by writer Hélène Giannecchini, who is decades her junior, creating an intergenerational dialogue charting changing times. 

The Young V&A’s Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends is nominally aimed at kids aged eight to 14, but there’s plenty for adults too. It’s a nice mix of nostalgic paraphernalia that will appeal to adults, and hands-on, how-to-make-your-own stop-motion film stuff that youngsters will get a kick out of. The original models are fascinating, charming and surprisingly impressive. From the gargantuan pirate ship from Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! to a series of versions of Wallace & Gromit’s Were-Rabbit that gradually strip it down to its robot skeleton. It’s just really cool – and maybe a little moving. 

The National Portrait Gallery has been on a solid run in recent years, particularly when it comes to exhibitions on contemporary portraiture – we loved its exhibitions on The Face and Jenny Saville last year – so we have high hopes for this, the biggest exhibition to be shown in the UK to date from the iconic photographer Catherine Opie. Curated in collaboration with the artist, the exhibition will span the Ohio-born artist’s three-decade career, exploring representations of home, family, identity, politics and power structures through Opie’s vivid and colourful portrait photographs. Works featured in the exhibition will span her first major work, Being and Having (1991), her portraits of LGBTQ+ friends inspired by court painter Hans Holbein, to her Baroque-like portraits of artists.

Tracey Emin: A Second Life is an evocative experience. Positioned as a 40-year retrospective through the pioneering artist’s vast and varied repertoire, the show lays bare Emin’s life through her distinct and often unsettling art, from career highs – such as the iconic, Turner Prize-nominated ‘My Bed’, which is every bit as shocking and moving today as it was in 1998 – to stark personal lows in work depicting her experiences with sexual violence, abortion and recent life-threatening illness. As you can imagine, with such subject matter, it is not always a comfortable experience for the artist and the viewer alike. However, Emin’s flair for dark comedy adds moments of levity throughout. ‘Mad Tracey from Margate’ is truly a force to be reckoned with, and a master of reflecting society back at itself, warts and all.

The Picture Comes First, Rose Wylie’s marvellous retrospective at the Royal Academy, is hugely varied in its subject matter – ranging from the Blitz to Nicole Kidman – Wylie’s paintings are unified by a joyful and vibrant energy which beams out from all of them. The RA’s high ceilings and grand interiors act as a brilliant canvas for the artist’s large-scale, often child-like works. The 91-year-old Wylie is the first female painter to have a full retrospective in the space and it only adds to Wylie’s credentials as a trailblazing feminist artist. This show is a fantastic testament to an artist who has proven tenfold that age is no barrier to reaching one’s full potential. Equal parts puzzling, entertaining and thoughtful, this show is guaranteed to leave you in a better mood than when you arrived.

After a five-year-long world tour, this blockbuster exhibition on the ancient Egyptians is finally arriving in London. Ramses and the Pharaoh’s Gold will display 180 priceless treasures on loan from the Supreme Council of Antiquities, of which the pinnacle is the coffin of Ramses II, giving Londoners the chance to see an original sarcophagus here in the Big Smoke. Other gems on show will include gold masks,  silver coffins, animal mummies, amulets, jewellery and colossal sculptures. Although superficially sounding quite similar to the recent Tutankhamun immersive exhibition, this one seems a lot more based around Ancient artefacts, with none of the fanciful CGI frippery that’s come into fashion in the world of international touring exhibitions the last couple of years.

Broadwick Soho landed in 2023 with serious flair and has been delivering a hit of West End glamour ever since. Inside the hotel, Dear Jackie is its seductive Italian dining room, all Murano glow, red silk walls and plush booths made for lingering. Expect refined Italian comfort food, standout pasta and classic cocktails from Bar Jackie to set the mood.

Our exclusive Time Out offer saves you 30% (now £33), for three courses and a cocktail worth up to £14. It’s an indulgent pre-theatre treat or the kind of Soho dinner that could easily turn into a late night.

Get 30% off with vouchers, only through Time Out Offers

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 £23.60!

Save 20% on tickets, only through Time Out Offers 

A revival of William Nicholson’s 1989 play, Shadowlands, stars Hugh Bonneville as the devoutly Christian Chronicles of Narnia author CS Lewis, and traces his real-life romance with the younger American poet Joy Davidman. And it’s largely delightful, not an odd couple meet cute, but a story about a genuine, real connection between two somewhat lost souls. It’s high-class MOR, a chaste romantic fantasy that plays great with the Bonneville stans. 

This year’s New Contemporaries exhibition, a showcase of 26 of the UK’s finest emerging artists, includes themes of – and you may want to take a breath here – dystopian futures, the climate crisis, industrialisation, gentrification, displacement, critical approaches to systems of power, digital technologies, mourning, remembrance, and loss. Among others!

Sweetmeats, from writer Karim Khan and director Natasha Kathi-Chandra, offers a love story about the older generation – slow-burning and cocooned in domestic simplicity. Two widowers, Hema (Shobu Kapoor) and Liaquat (Rehan Sheikh), meet at a Type 2 diabetes management course. It’s hardly a classic meet-cute, but it’s a plausible one. As with most romances, they begin by bickering. It has something resonant to say about forgotten generations and their desires, about the cultural specificities that connect and nourish, and about intergenerational families at a stage of life we rarely see onstage. It’s not glamorous, but it’s very sweet.

The NPG will be the UK’s first museum to stage an exhibition focussing on Lucain Freud’s works on paper, including some artworks seen on display for the first time. Focussing on Freud’s mastery of drawing in all forms, Drawing into Painting will look at the artist’s lifelong preoccupation with the human face and figure, from the 1930s to the early 21st century.

Tom Stoppard’s 1993 masterpiece is a work of burning, ravenous intelligence, and almost universally acknowledged as his best work. It’s a play about the unpredictability of humanity, how we’re defined by our transience, our sex drives, and our desire to understand. Carrie Cracknell’s revival is not an attempt to radically reconfigure Arcadia. She and her team - notably designer Alex Eales - have leaned nicely into the Old Vic’s current in-the-round configuration with a revolving circular stage that neatly encapsulates the underlying sense of cosmic wonder that underpins it all. Arcadia is a perfect play, which means there’s a lot less wiggle room for a director to impose themselves. It’s also unforgiving to actors. Cracknell gives it a nice air of intimacy and avoids having her cast speechify Stoppard’s ornate prose.

French painter Georges Seurat was dead by 31, but in fewer than 50 canvases, he left an indelible mark on art history. By applying thousands of dots and dashes of pure colour right next to each other, he pioneered the technique of Pointillism. More than half of Seurat’s output is stoic visions of the sea from towns along the northern French coast. Featuring works painted over five summers between 1885-90, the linear curation of the show tracks you through each stop Seurat made along the coast. As his style becomes more refined with each sojourn, dashes turn into dots, which condense tighter and closer, deepening the dreamy shading of these scenes. The paintings become windows through which you can feel the sea breeze. This is him returning to the fundamental aspect of not just painting but sight itself. 

Did you know that the samurai believed gender and sexuality were fluid, and that they practically invented the concept of being non-binary? This progressive view is one of many riveting – and surprising – things to be learnt at the blockbuster Samurai exhibition at the British Museum. There’s a lot crammed into the exhibition, which outlines the past 1,000 years through 280 objects and pieces of digital media, following the rise of the samurai from fierce mercenaries in the 1100s, through to their reign as an aristocratic social class from the 1600s to the 1800s. There are enough brilliant facts, bloody details and fascinating items on display for any non-Japanophile.