London events in June

The Natural History Museum’s big exhibition for 2024 is this massive new celebration of our avian pals. As you can doubtless glean from the title, ‘Birds: Brilliant & Bizarre’ focuses on the weirder end of the feathered spectrum, from actually strange-looking birds to exploring things like the links between pigeons and T-rex, or daring you to sniff a stinky seabird egg. While some of the NHM’s permanent exhibitions can look a little tired these days, its big temporary exhibitions are typically cutting-edge, interactive and hugely fun.

This mid-career survey of South African visual activist Zanele Muholi captures the breadth and power of an extensive body of work dedicated to presenting a multifaceted view of Black LGBTQI+ individuals. This show originally opened near the start of the pandemic, and has now been expanded with more recent work, all tackling big important themes like labour, racism, sexism and sexual politics.

Grab your sunblock and hiking boots to explore Phantom Peak’s starlit summer, as the residents of Phantom Peak are heading to the great outdoors!Follow ten ground breaking trails with new characters, and thrilling new stories, and for the first time, Phantom Peak will host an audience-wide competition! Compete in camp activities, uncover secrets, and impress the townsfolk to gain points and support your cabin!

Perhaps more so than ‘Cats’, more so than ‘Phantom’, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Starlight Express’ is his most quintessentially ’80s musical, its world of highly competitive trains played by people on rollerskates somewhat unimaginable as a product of any other era. This new UK production, which will convert the Troubadour Theatre in Wembley Park into the Starlight Auditorium and what we’re promised will be an ‘immersive’ take on the show directed by Luke Sheppard of ‘& Juliet’ fame. 

At Time Out we’re big fans of cosying up in our favourite London cinemas and entering a whole new world through the power of projection. But, when the sun’s out and the weather’s at its best, hiding away in a dark, stuffy room isn’t quite as appealing. Thank god then, for outdoor cinemas letting us get our film fix under the stars and with a sweet summer breeze in our hair. London is home to some brilliant alfresco movie spots, which will be popping up all over the city in 2023. Welcome to the summer of the big-screen extravaganza.