Things to do in London today

What do an Enigma machine, an Apple AirTag and Lady Mountbatten’s silk underwear all have in common? Well, they’re all currently on display at the British Library’s riveting Secret Maps exhibition. Why are they all together? Because they all tell stories about how information is created, concealed, disseminated and controlled, via mapping. And that’s exactly what Secret Maps is all about.  Through more than 100 items, from hand-drawn naval charts gifted to Henry VIII, to Soviet Cold War-era cartographies, and modern-day satellite tracking technology (TL;DR: a whole lotta maps), the British Library illuminates how maps can be powerful political tools, create communities, and act as a form of protest.  It’s a dense, information-packed display with plenty of granular detail to get stuck into, so if you’re not, like, really into maps, then it may not be for you. But it’s sort of what you’d expect for an exhibition dedicated to maps hosted by the British Library. There are a few fun and interactive elements, too; visitors are invited to peer through secret spy holes, place their phones on a futuristic screen that tells them exactly how the tech overlords are mapping and harvesting their data (gulp), and find Wally in an original drawing from the children’s book.  For £20 you are guaranteed to see a lot of cool old shit The most compelling aspect of the exhibition is its anti-colonialist streak (other London museums could do with taking a leaf out of the British Library’s...

Opening in time for Spooky Season and running through to May 2026, ‘Dark Secrets’ is a massive new exhibition of esoteric artefacts in Waterloo’s appropriately dingy Vaults – and a cracking day out for anyone into the occult, macabre or bizarre. A sprawling labyrinth of 27 rooms, ‘Dark Secrets’ is fundamentally an exhibition of stuff: more than 1,000 individual artefacts, many of them (apparently) displayed for the first time outside of private collections. Ritual masks, cursed dolls, leather-bound Renaissance books on witchcraft, a fragment of Aleister Crowley’s Thelema temple… if your idea of fun is gawping at weird and creepy shit (and mine certainly is), there’s a lot of it here – and it’s a refreshing change from the wave of immersive ‘exhibitions’ which often don’t amount to much more than a blank room with some projectors in. There is a vaguely chronological structure, running from Celtic druids through to the influence of the esoteric on Hollywood and comics. Horror-movie fans, look out for the original screenplay of Suspiria signed by Dario Argento. Along the way there are rooms dedicated to folkloric creatures, shamanism, voodoo, zombies, satanism, spiritualism, witch trials, Freemasonry, curses, miracles, divination, astrology, tarot… it’s like an occult bookshop brought to life. My favourite item in the show was an (ostensibly genuine) Victorian vampire-hunting kit. But I was also fascinated by a room about the collision of technology and science with the...

Every winter the Southbank Centre turns the banks of the Thames into a frosty wonderland, full of little wooden Alpine-style cabins selling gifts, warming drinks, and snacks. You’ll find huts serving up truffle burgers, duck wraps, mulled wine, Dutch pancakes, churros and many more tasty morsels to nibble on while you look through gifts, jewellery and decorations made by independent craft traders. Or, once you’re done browsing, snuggle up at pop-up king Jimmy Garcia’s riverside venue Fire And Fromage, where you can snaffle all you can eat raclette, sip on seriously decadent hot chocolates, and even toast your own marshmallows round a cosy fire pit.  When is Southbank Christmas Market open? The market opens at the start of November, and will stay open until Boxing Day, Friday, December 26, with a few pop-ups staying open slightly longer until the New Year. Do you need to buy a ticket? No, it's free to enter and have a wander. 

Each year, the bright lights of Leicester Square get a little bit more dazzling with its massive festive pop-up, which boasts a Christmas market, tons of scrumptious food and drink, and live entertainment. The square is also switching things up a bit this year, replacing its circus and cabaret venue The Spiegeltent with an ice skating rink. Wrapping around the Shakespeare statue in the centre of the square, London’s newest pop-up skating venue for nine weeks over the festive season, encircled by the market stalls. 

Escape the Oxford Street crowds with a detour into pretty Carnaby Street, which puts on memorable Christmas light displays each year. Last year's sustainability-led installation ‘Into the Light’ was a bit controversial, with viewers reckoning that the eco glowing cuboid shapes didn't have the wow factor of previous efforts. It looks like the same display will be repeated this year, but there'll be a welcome splash of neon colour added to bring some jollity to Carnaby's skies. Find more Christmas lights in London Find more festive fun with our guide to Christmas in London

The world’s biggest celebration of drawing is celebrating its 25th anniversary with the theme ‘Drawn Together’ in 2025. Taking place across the UK, and the capital, the month-long extravaganza will have everything from family-friendly doodle sessions, to sketching workshops held at London landmarks. There are also spray painting workshops, ‘sketchwalks’ and kids’ colouring sessions taking place across the city. Check the Big Draw’s website for the full programme. 

Doc’n Roll Film Festival shines a spotlight on some of the movers and shakers who’ve lit up the music world with intriguing and eclectic sounds. This year, the programme covers a wealth of genres and scenes, and takes over the capital’s cinema staples like the Barbican, BFI Southbank, Dalston's Rio and more. Some screenings come accompanied by Q&As with the artists documented and/or filmmakers, or live performances.  The fest kicks off with I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol, punk legend Glen Matlock’s cinematic memoir. The subversive mood continues with How Tanita Tikaram Became A Liar, an anti-documentary directed by filmmaker Natacha Horn, who is also this maverick music icon's wife. Rockers Don't Stop plunges us into the world of 1980s dance pioneers, Not Indian Enough is an exploration of King Khan's roots in indigenous Canada and the devastating impacts of colonialism, and Boy George & Culture Club is a new look back at a storied London scene. 

The Natural History Museum is capable of turning in some pretty giddy exhibitions: notably, the recent-ish Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature revolved around a series of fictional magical animals invented by JK Rowling. Fair warning, though: the venerable museum’s first ever space-based exhibition is pretty sober stuff, that steadfastly refuses to sensationalise its subject. If you want to know what an alien invasion might look like or how realistic Star Wars is then there isn’t a lot for you in Space: Could Life Exist Beyond Earth? But if you’re interested in the actual question ‘is there life out there and how would we detect it?’ then this is the exhibition for you, made with the usual sophistication and care that defines the NHM’s temporary exhibits (which are always considerably less faded and more contemporary than its permanent collections). The entire exhibition is dimly lit, with soothing background music playing everywhere – the vibe is serene spaciousness, graceful emptiness and cosmic stillness. We begin on Earth, with the first galleries examining the extraterrestrial origins of life here. Nobody can exactly say how life on Earth first came to be, but there’s little doubt that its building blocks – carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and water – were brought to us by asteroids, of which there are several bits here, some of which you can even touch. The carefully curated exhibition instils an appropriate amount of awe Correctly contextualised, it’s hard not...

This King’s Cross Lightroom now has surely the weirdest repertoire of any venue in London, possibly the world. With an oeuvre based around massive megabit projection-based immersive films, its shows so far have been a David Hockney exhibition, a Tom Hanks-narrated film about the moon landings, a Vogue documentary and a visualiser for Coldplay’s upcoming album. It’s such a random collection of concepts that it’s hard to say there was or is anything ‘missing’ from the extremely esoteric selection of bases covered. But certainly, as the school summer holidays roll around it’s very welcome to see it add an overtly child-friendly show to its roster. Bar a short Coldplay break, Prehistoric Planet: Discovering Dinosaurs will play daily at Lightroom from now until at least the end of October half-term. It is, as you would imagine, a dinosaur documentary. And indeed, if the name rings a specific bell it’s because it’s culled from the David Attenborough-narrated Apple TV series of the same name. It’s quite the remix, though: Attenborough is out, and Damian Lewis is in, delivering a slightly melodramatic voiceover that lacks Sir David’s colossal gravitas but is, nonetheless, absolutely fine. Presumably Attenborough is absent because he’s very busy and very old, because while the film reuses several of the more spectacular setpieces from the TV series, it’s sufficiently different that repurposing the old narration would be a stretch. Any child with any degree of fondness for the...

The seemingly unstoppable David Attenborough has achieved more since hitting retirement age than most of us - let’s be honest, all of us - will achieve in our entire lifetimes. This new immersive film is his second major project since turning 99 in May, following his more traditional documentary Ocean. Produced by Open Planet Studios, Our Story sees the Jerwood Gallery at the Natural History Museum transformed into a smaller version of the Lightroom in King’s Cross (a sort of projection-based theatre). While ‘immersive’ is a word exhausted by overuse, ‘immersive documentary’ is emerging as a fairly distinct genre with clear hallmarks. As with the Lightroom’s shows, Our Story is based around powerful digital projectors beaming the film onto the four walls of the space, wrapping around the surfaces so there are different images whichever direction you look. You are indeed immersed. It’s still a narrative documentary film, in which Sir David tells us the story of the planet from fiery, lifeless rock to the advent of mankind to a possible future. Attenborough narrates, and appears at the start and end. There’s a fair smattering of expectedly dazzling wildlife footage. But Our Story isn’t really a nature doc in the style of Attenborough’s most famous works, and rather than painstakingly captured original footage of animals, it uses pre-existing stuff plus heavy use of CGI to supplement its storytelling. Occasionally this feels like a minor letdown: though they’re not trying to...

Though it would be pushing it to say Tom Morris directs Othello as a comedy, he certainly wrings more laughs than usual out of Shakespeare’s great tragedy. To be fair I don’t think I’d appreciated the extent to which other productions must try to avoid audience giggles every time a character describes the villainous Iago –  the greatest snake in English literature – as ‘honest’. Morris just cheerily milks it, and the result is a lighter-than-usual take on the play. Not out-and-out hilarious, but with a glossiness that speaks of a desire to go easy on a West End audience.  The title role is played by David Harewood, who returns to the part 28 years after he was the first Black actor to star as the doomed Moorish general at the National Theatre. His new Othello is a precise, confident, seemingly unflappable man who shows little sign of jealousy or doubt for a long time. But his extreme rationalism proves his downfall: once Toby Jones’s Iago presents ‘proof’ of Othello’s wife Desdemona (Caitlin FitzGerald) being unfaithful, her husband simply accepts it, something that speaks as much of misogyny as insecurity or insanity.  Jones is a thoroughly entertaining Iago, who tackles Shakespeare's elegant verse with a coarse vigour that helps explain why the other characters like him so much: he comes across as plainspoken, dowe to earth, and funny.  Why does he want to destroy Othello? Being overlooked for a promotion in favour of Luke Treadway’s dashing Cassio is the initial...

Have we finally reached Peak Paddington? The young Peruvian bear’s spectacular renaissance hasn’t just yielded a trilogy of hit films: there’s a TV series for younger kids, and 2024 saw the opening of official immersive attraction the Paddington Bear Experience. A really banging computer game aside, it’s hard to see what else there is to do with the character beyond ‘more films’. Apart from, of course, a big splashy West End musical. Which we’re now getting: West End super-producer Sonia Friedman has done the honours, assembling a crack team headed by playwright Jessica Swale doing the book and kids’ author and McFly member Tom Fletcher on songs, all directed by Luke Shepherd, who did such a good job with the smash revival of Starlight Express. The cast is now confirmed as Timi Akinyosade (Tony), Amy Booth-Steel (Lady Sloane), Tarinn Callender (Grant), Delilah Bennett-Cardy (Judy Brown), Adrian Der Gregorian (Mr. Brown), Tom Edden (Mr Curry), Brenda Edwards (Tanya), Amy Ellen Richardson (Mrs. Brown), Victoria Hamilton-Barritt (Millicent Clyde),  Teddy Kempner (Mr Gruber), Bonnie Langford (Mrs Bird). Plus there’s the bear himself who is being depicted by a team of two perfomers: Arti Shah will don a bear suit that makes her look alarmingly like a giant Paddington doll come to life, while James Hameed will be the ‘off-stage performer’, which sounds like it’ll involve doing Paddington’s voice and remote controlliung his facial expressions. Although not conformed, it seems...

Nicola Walker is a brilliant TV actor: her sullen, sarcastic charisma brings an edge to sundry MOR terrestrial Brit dramas – we’re talking Spooks, Last Tango in Halifax, River, The Split, Annika – in which her career has flourished. But even though she has done some great stuff on stage – notably her excellent turn in Ivo van Hove’s landmark production of A View from the Bridge – I’m not sure Nicola Walker has ever truly successfully brought her innate Nicola Walkerness to bear in a theatre role. Until now.  Nick Payne’s new Royal Court play The Unbelievers isn’t the instant classic his last one (2012’s Constellations) was. But its star gives a turn that is absolutely, magnificently, unfettered Nicola Walker. Her unique gift for proper nuanced acting filtered via an unshakeable deadpan grumpiness is harnessed to perfection as she plays a grieving mother whose sorrow and grief at the unexplained disappearance of her son has curdled into something darker and more disturbing. The play is set in three timelines, albeit heavily jumbled up and somewhat blurred. There’s the immediate aftermath of Oscar’s disappearance, when Walker’s Miriam is terse and snappy but fundamentally reasonable in both her grief and her burning desire to make progress on the case. There’s one year on, where things are beginning to slip with her. The play opens with a scene from this timeline in which a somewhat out of it Miriam is tending to a wounded hand which has arisen from a complicated series of...

Although Aussie director Simon Stone has staged only a handful of shows in the UK, it has to be said that you can see a pattern developing. Take a classic play – previously Lorca’s Yerma and Seneca's Phaedra – rewrite the whole thing into aggressively modern English that revolves around long, light hearted stretches of posh people swearing amusingly, season with a bit of Berlin-indebted stage trickery, and finally change tack and wallop us with the tragedy, right in the guts.  The Lady from the Sea is based on Ibsen’s 1888 drama of the same name, and shares its basic plot beats while tinkering with much of the underlying characterisation and motives.  In a starry production. Edward (Andrew Lincoln) is a wealthy neurosurgeon married to his second wife Ellida (Alicia Vikander), a successful writer. They live with Edward’s two pathologically precocious daughters from his first marriage: Asa (Grace Oddie-Jones), who is at university, and Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike), who is at school. Tossed into the mix are Heath (Joe Alwyn), a hot but nerdy distant cousin who has come to Edward to get a diagnosis for a worrying neurological symptoms, and Lyle (John Macmillan), Edward and Ellida’s droll family friend, who is also hot but nerdy. On Lizzie Clachlan’s bougie white thrust set – suggestive of a fancy modern home, without spelling it out – The Lady from the Sea proceeds exactly as you’d expect a Simon Stone play to proceed. There is a lot of very posh banter, that’s very entertaining...

Punchdrunk’s Felix Barrett on Lander 23: ‘it’s high stakes, high adrenaline’. Post 2022’s The Burnt City, immersive theatre legends Punchdrunk seem genuinely liberated by apparently ditching the mask-based format that’s defined most of their previous body of work. Viola’s Room (2024) was a focussed and unnerving hourlong plunge into a twisted fairytale; and Lander 23 is something completely different again, being a ‘stealth based exploration game’ based on ‘videogame mechanics’ that will see audiences deployed in teams of four onto an alien planet to try and find out the fate of the titular landing vehicle, which has disappeared mysteriously. This all feels very new and indeed, in acknowledgement of this the show is billed as ‘early access’, that is to say it’s effectively a work-in-progress for now (and there won’t be reviews, or at least not during this period). Exactly what will happen in it is vague beyond the above synopsis. What we do know is that Lander 23 will run to about 90 minutes, that it’s based on videogames, that it’s possible to ‘die’ in it (you’ll come back to life though), and that the set will be a ‘modded’ version of the Trojan cityscape from The Burnt City. You also have to technically see it in groups of four, meaning tickets are only purchasable in pairs, although if you want to come down solo you can ring the box office on 0208 191 1431. One half of the group will advise the other half what to do over radio, with roles swapping during the course of...

After what feels like an infinity of iterations of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, finding something genuinely new or interesting in it is a difficult feat. But it’s something that writer-director Tanika Gupta’s pulls off in her new take for the Orange Tree. She reimagines Ibsen’s restless anti-heroine as a mixed-heritage actress in postwar London, still suffocating under societal expectations, but now also constrained by race, class, gender, and reputation in a new Britain. It is 1948. The Blitz scars are still visible, but a veneer of gentility has returned. Inside a pristine Chelsea mews house — Simon Kenny’s blinding white-on-white set is simple but effective — Hedda (Pearl Chanda) lives with her dependable new husband, George (Joe Bannister). Outwardly, she’s living the dream: a glamorous ‘retired’ film star, she’s still admired (and feared) for her beauty and clout. But beneath that polish, she’s suffocating — aching for the freedoms enjoyed by those around her. Gupta’s inspiration comes from real-life film legend Merle Oberon, who famously concealed her South Asian heritage to survive Hollywood’s racist studio system under the Hays Code (the strict moral censorship guidelines that ruled American cinema until the late 1960s). That parallel gives Gupta’s Hedda a modern edge while retaining Ibsen’s familiar structure — the domestic cage, the manipulations, the doomed flirtations. Around Hedda orbit familiar figures: Leonard (Jake Mann), the brooding playwright; John...

There are no wild directorial flourishes or big awards-bait performances in director Michael Grandage and playwright Jack Holden’s stage adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst’s seminal novel of the ‘80s. The wheel is at no point reinvented. But, by Thatcher’s ghost, it does a tremendous job of cutting Hollinghurst’s period odyssey into a gripping, flab-free two-and-a-half hours of theatre. It is, above all, a great piece of storytelling.  If you’re not familiar, The Line of Beauty concerns Nick Guest (here played by Jasper Talbot), a young gay man who in 1983 moves into the ultra fancy home of his uni mate Toby Fedden’s parents as a lodger. ‘Welcome to Kensington Park Garden,’ intones Nick’s mother Rachel (Claudia Harrison), as she introduces Nick to the house she shares with her newly elected Tory MP husband Gerald (Charles Edward) and depressive daughter Catherine. The story charts his journey through the decade: adjacent to the ruling classes but not a member of them, he is further removed from the mainstream by his sexuality, which he is entirely open about, but also othered by. A relationship with Leo (Alistair Nwachukwu), a Black councillor (one assumes for Labour) is largely conducted on the down-low. Though nominally invited in, Nick is wary of bringing Leo into the circle of the Feddens for a multitude of reasons. Some are clearly self-interested: the pointedly ‘apolitical” Nick is aware Leo is unlikely to get on with his Tory benefactors. Others are more...

Ella Hickson’s Wendy-centric RSC retelling of JM Barrie’s classic tale of lost boys, pirates, a ticking crocodile and perpetual childhood finally lands in London after premiering in Stratford-upon-Avon over a decade ago. However, some clunky characterisation and awkward modernisation mean that it never truly soars. Original director Jonathan Munby’s production is certainly visually sumptuous. From the vintage toy-filled nooks and crannies of the children’s nursery to the colourfully salvaged look of Neverland, Colin Richmond’s set is a playbox spilled delightfully across the stage. And Taiki Ueda’s video design of crashing waves and twinkling stars pattern atmospherically across the theatre as the children fly or fight Captain Hook. There’s also a bold directness to some of the changes that Hickson makes to the story. Here, Wendy and her brothers go with Peter to find the brother they ‘lost’ a year ago. Barrie’s tale of ageless children who had fallen out of their prams was always a ghost story beneath the fairy dust, with mortality haunting everyone from Hook to Wendy, being shot out of the sky. This version sets the emotional stakes high from the start.  It's also refreshing to see Wendy reject the role of ‘mother’ assigned unquestioningly to her by the Lost Boys, paralleled by her mother’s determination to forge her own life as a seamstress in scenes in early twentieth-century London. Unfortunately, Hannah Saxby only really has one note of stressed-out exasperation to...

  At the National Theatre last Christmas, Max Webster’s vividly queer take on Oscar Wilde’s magnum opus felt quite a lot like The Ncuti Gatwa Show. Back on stage for the first time since he hit the big time, the Doctor Who actor’s stupendously arch take on dashing young protagonist Algernon Montcrieff had an ultra-knowing quality that defined the production. It’s very, very obvious that in Webster’s take, Algenon and his cousin-slash-BFF Jack are meant to be closeted gay men (it begins with a dragged up Algie writhing away at a grand piano, and doesn’t get noticiably straighter). But whereas Gatwa’s sardonically adult interpretation of Algernon seemed very aware of his own sexuality, that’s not necessarily the case in the West End cast. Gatwa’s replacement is fellow Russell T Davies alumnus Ollie Alexander, and he plays Algie with a waspish dandyishness that feels childish, not adult, a little boy roleplaying his whirlwind romance with Jessica Whitehurst’s bolshy Cicily. Likewise, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett‘s Jack is basically a gigantic overgrown puppy, wagging his tail in delight at the attentions of Kitty Hawthorn’s Gwendolyn, but with zero sexual intent.  All four ‘lovers’ go about their relationships with the breezy silliness of a group of primary schoolers playing mummies and daddies. Webster’s interpretation amps up Wilde’s wit by unburdening it of any need for us to believe in the romance. Indeed, the contrived plotting – Bunburying, the women only being into guys...

This review is from 2023. SplitLip’s delightful spoof WW2 musical has been heading inexorably for the West End for something like five years now. It’s a fringe theatre comet that’s gathered mass and momentum via seasons at the New Diorama, Southwark Playhouse and Riverside Studios, and has now made impact in Theatreland – wiping out a West End dinosaur to boot, as it displaces ‘The Woman in Black’ after over 30 years at the Fortune Theatre. And it’s really hard to be anything but delighted for the company, which consists of David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Robert. All bar Hagan perform in the show, with Claire Marie Hall and Jak Malone rounding out the cast. This is very much their triumph. And though it’s been redirected for the West End by Robert Hastie, ‘Operation Mincemeat’ is at heart the same show it always was. There are no added backing dancers or bombastic reorchestrations. It’s slicker and bigger in its way, but still feels endearingly shambolic where it counts. It’s a very larky account of the World War 2 Operation Mincemeat, a ploy from British intelligence to feed the German army disinformation via a briefcase of false war plans strapped to a corpse that they hoped to pass off as a downed British pilot (yes, there was a recent film with exactly the same name, about exactly the same thing, and yes they do make a joke about this). The story centres on Charles Cholmondeley (Cumming), the socially inept MI5 operative who dreams up the plan, and...

It’s hard to know if Italian Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna was issuing a doom-laden warning or just a doe-eyed love letter to history. Because written into the nine sprawling canvases of his ‘Triumphs of Caesar’ (six of which are on show here while their gallery in Hampton Court Palace is being renovated) is all the glory and power of Ancient Rome, but its eventual collapse too. It starts, like any good procession, with a load of geezers with trumpets, parping to herald the arrival of victorious Caesar. As they blare, a Black soldier in gorgeous, gilded armour looks back, leading you to the next panel where statues of gods are paraded on carts. Then come the spoils of war, with mounds of seized weapons and armour piled high, then come vases and sacrificial animals, riders on elephant-back, men struggling to carry the loot that symbolises their victory. The final panel, Caesar himself bringing up the rear, remains in Hampton Court, so there is no conclusion here, just a steady, unstoppable stream of glory and rejoicing.  The paintings are faded and damaged, and have been so badly lit that you can only see them properly from a distance and at an angle. But still, they remain breathtaking in their sweeping, chaotic beauty.  Partly, this massive work is a celebration of the glories of the classical world and its brilliance, seen from the other side of some very dark ages. But along with its rise, you can’t help but also think of Rome's demise, of what would eventually...

You could say that Marie Antoinette was the original celebrity. The last Queen of France worked with personal stylists, had her barnet done by celebrity hairdressers, and set the agenda for the fashion of the day. She had her own personal brand – an elegant ‘MA’ monogram – which she plastered all over her jewellery, furniture, belongings, and even most intimate toiletries. Like many celebs today, the queen’s dodgy reputation, founded on obscene rumours of debauchery, promiscuity and gorging on cake, was created by tabloid sensationalism. So it’s only fitting that a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the style of the world’s most fashionable and infamous monarch should be just as fabulous, bold, sparkly and, at times, salacious. Featuring 250 objects, including loans from Versailles that have never been exhibited outside of France before now, Marie Antoinette Style takes visitors on a journey through the ill-fated queen’s forward-thinking wardrobe, dizzyingly elaborate jewellery, lavish interiors, huge hairstyles and enduring influence on fashion and art today. Alongside the myriad guffaw-inducing riches on display (a replica of the most expensive necklace ever made in France is particularly astonishing), mysteries surrounding the queen are confidently dispelled. Did she really say, ‘Let them eat cake’? (No.) Was the coupette glass actually modelled on her breast? (No, but a very realistic porcelain ‘breast bowl’ commissioned by Antoinette is on display.) What appears...

If you thought the National Gallery answered every question that could possibly be asked about what came after the impressionists in their huge blockbuster ‘After Impressionism’ show in 2023, you thought wrong. Because they’re coming back for another go with ‘Radical Harmony’, which will feature the work of the neo-impressionists, including pointilist masters Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. It’s enough to drive you dotty.

If you thought the National Gallery answered every question that could possibly be asked about what came after the impressionists in their huge blockbuster ‘After Impressionism’ show in 2023, you thought wrong. Because they’re coming back for another go with ‘Radical Harmony’, which will feature the work of the neo-impressionists, including pointilist masters Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. It’s enough to drive you dotty.

Celebrating the centenary of one of Picasso’s most iconic artworks, The Three Dancers, this exhibition explores the Spanish artist’s fascination with performers – including dancers, bullfighters, musicians, acrobats and other entertainers – via more than 45 works ranging from paintings and sculpture to textile and works on paper, some of which are being exhibited in the UK for the first time. They’ll be exhibited in an appropriately theatrical environment too, courtesy of courtesy of contemporary artist and filmmaker Wu Tsang and author and curator Enrique Fuenteblanca, who will transform the Tate Modern’s exhibition rooms into a theatre space that will host a variety of dance and performance pieces throughout the exhibition, including an excerpt from Carmen presented by interdisciplinary arts collective Moved by the Motion, and a site-specific work by flamenco artist Yinka Esi Graves.  Picasso exhibitions might be ten a penny in London these days, but this one sounds like it might stand out.   

Video games are the medium for Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. The young artist uses them to ‘imaginatively archive and empower Black Trans stories’ - this isn’t just point-and-shoot, slack-jawed gaming for the sake of it, this is one of contemporary society’s most important cultural forms being used to give voice to marginalised identities. 

It’s not that long ago that British art bigwigs Gilbert & George grew so frustrated with what they saw as a lack of attention from the UK’s art institutions that they set up their very own museum dedicated to themselves. That big whinge seems a bit premature now that the Hayward is giving them a big exhibition looking at their work since the turn of the millennium, a period that has seen them satirising everything from hope and fear to sex and religion.

Kerry James Marshall is an artist with a singular vision. He has become arguably the most important living American painter over the past few decades, with an ultra-distinctive body of work that celebrates the Black figure in an otherwise very ‘Western’ painting tradition. This big, ambitious show will be a joyful celebration of his lush, colourful approach to painting.

This new show by mixed media artist Tanoa Sasraku will examine the seductive and destructive nature of oil, and its ties to war and national identity. Through found objects, sculpture, works on paper, and textiles, Sasraku’s stark artworks – which include corporate paper weights infused with crude oil, and drawings of military symbols on paper that will gradually fade away – use emblems and mementos to shine a damning light on the oil industry.   

‘Nigerian Modernism’ celebrates the achievements of Nigerian artists working on either side of a decade of independence from British colonial rule in 1960. As well as traversing networks in the country’s locales of Zaria, Ibadan, Lagos and Enugu, it also looks further afield to London, Munich and Paris, exploring how artistic collectives fused Nigerian, African and European techniques and traditions in their multidimensional works.