Things to do in London today

Having debuted in 2024, it looks like Kew’s Halloween trails – from the producers of Kew Gardens’ beloved Christmas trail – is here to stay and a permanent seasonal fixture. It’s a light trail, basically, but a souped up one: we’re promised eerie illuminated trees, ghoulish installations, fire performers and more, with a troupe of actors on hand to stoke up our horrors (in a family friendly way, of course). There are three timeslots: only available in half-term week, Daylight sessions run during the daytime and are intended for younger audiences who want an absolute minimum of spookiness (or simply not be out too late); Twlight slots are between 6pm and 7.30pm and things are definitely getting a bit scarier (ie darker); finally the Moonlight slots run after 7.30pm when it should be fully dark. It’s worth stressing that the trail is suitable for all ages at all times, but certainly there are ways a means of managing the spook factor and fitting it around the bedtime of younger audiences. If none of that’s your bag, there will be a host of activities themed around beloved Julia Donaldson children’s book Zog-themed running at Kew until November 3. Halloween at Kew opening dates Halloween at Kew 2026 begins Friday October 16 and runs until Sunday November 1. From October 16 to October 24 it will run 6pm to 10pm; from Octover 24 to Novemeber 1 it will run 4pm to 10pm. Tickets and pricing Tickets for Halloween at Kew cost £19.50 for adults during off-peak times, or £24 during...

London Month Of The Dead’s annual programme returns this spooky season to get you in the mood for Halloween with a programme of more than 60 fascinatingly macabre events investigating our city’s relationship with death. The line-up offers a plethora of ghostly tours that will take you around crypts, cemeteries, undertakers, execution sites and other eerie locations across the city, alongside talks exploring everything from Victorian child bereavement to anthropodermic leather. Highlights of this year’s programme also include a bat skeleton mounting workshop, a magic shadow show in West Norwood Cemetery, a five hour immersive forensics workshop, a screening of eerie classic The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari with live piano accompaniment by Stephen Horne, and creepy Halloween festival A Danse Macabre. It doesn’t get more gothic than that! Check out the full programme here. 

Turn picking your pumpkin into a whole seasonal extravaganza at Berkshire's Wasing Estate, which has laid on plenty of fun add ons to the main event. Cast your wish at a wishing well, explore a mysterious witches apothecary, and spot woodland creatures at this whimsical October spectacular. There's also a dining tent on offer, serving up locally grown delights including, naturally, pumpkin soup.

Bloomsbury has got a formidable reputation for artsy goings on, with bohemian artists and writers making it their stamping ground a century ago. But this neighbourhood's relationship with creativity isn’t just in the past – it’s right here in the present too, as is more than evident with the Bloomsbury Festival, a haven of music, theatre, talks, walks and much more. The festival celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2026, with a month-long edition featuring 150+ events at more than 40 venues around WC1, under the theme of ‘Create and Celebrate’.  Keen to learn more about the area? There’ll be a variety of fascinating walking tours throughout the month, including a Trailblazers of Bloomsbury tour (Fri Oct 2), a behind-the-scenes tour of Cockpit Studios (Fri Oct 2), a Dickens-themed musical walk (Sat Oct 3), a Bloomsbury bookshop crawl (Wed Oct 7) and a poetry-focused walk featuring the works of William Blake, Thomas Hardy, Yeats, Rimbaud and the Romantics (Fri Oct 9). You can even put your newfound knowledge to good use at a Bloomsbury-themed quiz night (Sun Oct 4).  With the 200th birthday of UCL coinciding with this year’s edition, there’s plenty going on across its sprawling Bloomsbury campus, including ‘Two Centuries Here’, an exhibition exploring the legacy of London’s oldest university. There’s a slew of performing arts events too, including a one-night-only stop at City Lit for fringe theatre hit PATIENT:SOLDIER (Sun Oct 11).  And the festival concludes with some...

A hat in the shape of an upside-down shoe; a dress resembling an inside-out human body; embroidered jackets covered with gorgeous pink roses, sparkling zodiac symbols and vibrant vegetables. Elsa Schiaparelli made clothes that were as surprising as they were beautiful. The V&A has plundered the well of ingenuity that is Maison Schiaparelli in its latest landmark fashion exhibition – the first British exhibition dedicated to the Italian designer, who rose to fame in Paris between the World Wars – and there are some real treasures to be found.  With over 400 objects, including 100 ensembles and 50 artworks (by the likes of Salvador Dalí, Picasso and Man Ray), as well as accessories, jewellery, photographs, perfumes and an excellent collection of buttons, Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art presents a deep dive into the fantastical and surreal world of the fashion house. Founded on Paris’ Place Vendôme in 1927, the exhibition spans the 1920s to the present day, showing glorious garments from Creative Director Daniel Roseberry, who has been at the helm since 2019.  Excitingly, many of Schiaparelli’s 20th-century creations appear astoundingly contemporary. Knits from 1927, some of the designer’s first works, are patterned with pretty bows that the TikTok girlies of today would die for. There’s also an incredible gold chainmail headdress which wouldn’t look amiss on Florence Pugh in Dune, or on a ‘medievalcore’ Pinterest board. A shirred form-fitting dress with a visible zip – a...

K-pop, K-beauty, the films of Bong Joon Ho; for the past few years, South Korea has been having a main character moment. The Korean Wave (or hallyu) has already been the subject of a major V&A exhibition in recent years, and is no doubt the inspiration for the British Museum’s new show all about the peninsula. Spanning 2,000 years, from the Bronze Age to the 2010s, Korea is the first major exhibition on Korea’s art and history at the British Museum in over 40 years. Mainly focusing on art and crafts, Korea documents the development of ideas from 300BC up to today. It begins with the golden age of Buddhism during the Goryeo Dynasty (918 – 1392 AD) and takes us right up to the present day, via the Neo-Confucian ideals of the Joseon period (1392 – 1910), and the Korean War in the 1950s. Of course, there are many stunning objects to be seen here, including more than a few treasures not usually seen outside of South Korea. Much of the display comes from the collection of Lee Kun-Hee, the late chairman of Samsung (also the exhibition’s corporate partner). Other bits are loaned from the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.  The olden days stuff is classic British Museum fodder, with many a beautiful ceramic, chonky piece of jewellery and stunning silk painting on display. An enormous and intricate bronze temple bell from 900 AD bulges with carvings of dragons and plants. Orb-like moon jars are mesmeric in their simplicity, their...

A giant tent is once again springing up on Clapham Common this autumn, ready for locals to get their fill of Bavarian fun. Oktoberfest On The Common is a big operation, with nine sessions packed with live oompah music, DJs, crowd games and a huge Oktoberfest dancefloor. And it's not as sedentary as most beer festivals; guests can take on fairground rides, axe throwing, keg tapping, photo booths and traditional games including hammerschlagen.  The food’s also levelled up this year, with a Bavarian feast on offer featuring everything from bratwurst sausages in brioche buns with sauerkraut and mustard to Bratkartoffeln, pretzels, schnitzel and frikadellen pork burgers. Vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options will also be available.

Before I enter The Music is Black: A British Story I’m handed a pair of headphones with a sensor on top. These will be my auditory guide through an exhibition that tells the story of Black British music from the past 125 years. As I move through the show, my ears are blessed with the sounds of composer and conductor Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, ‘Silly Games’ singer Janet Kay, Sade, jungle pioneer Shy FX and Little Simz. What is a music exhibition without the melodies, after all?  Kicking things off with a bang, the V&A East’s first exhibition explores the trailblazers, visionaries and unsung heroes of Black music in the UK from the 1900s to the present day. From swing and jazz, to jungle, grime and trip hop, no genre goes uncovered. More than 200 objects from the V&A’s collection are displayed, with photographs, instruments, fashion, sheet music and artworks on show.  The Music is Black doesn’t shy away from the murky past. At the beginning, you are confronted with the horrifying realities of slavery and colonialism – from a graphic showing the volume of slave ship voyages through the 16th to 19th centuries, to the 1633 Royal charter legalising the trade of enslaved Africans. There are items, like an Ethiopian prayer book, marked as looted by British troops (although there’s no mention of returning it). The stark opening is a grave reminder that early protest music paved the way for the tunes we listen to today.  It’s a comprehensive and triumphant ode to some of the best...

Bermondsey Bierkeller claims to offer ‘London’s most authentic Oktoberfest celebration,’ and while that’s not something we're necessarily qualified to adjudicate on, it does sound pretty damn Bavarian. This underground cellar is serving up a revolving programme of Munich-style fun from September 19 until the end of October. On Thursdays and Fridays, that means Oompah bands and DJs, while things get a bit more glitzy on Saturday nights, with fire-eaters, stilt-walking German wenches, jugglers and more. Or head over on Saturday afternoon for a bottomless Bavarian brunch with beer and bratwurst galore. 

This review is from 2023. Power Up prices have gone up slightly and the games are changed occasionally. There's been a gaping chasm, an unfillable abyss, in London's recreational heart ever since the Trocadero finally closed its doors in 2011. It has left the city crying out for an arcade experience, somewhere to go and lose yourself in gaming. And now, Power Up is here to answer all of your RPG prayers. Admittedly, it doesn't have a rocket-shaped escalator or countless dark corners for snogging, but what it does have is bank after bank of classic videogames.They've made an attempt at education with a wall of consoles from throughout history, from the Amiga to the Xbox, but you can ignore all that if you want and just concentrate on turning your eyes square. Everything here is grouped by theme. There's a Mario section and a Sonic section, a rhythm action game bit and a VR gaming bit, there's 16-player Halo and solo Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. There are PC games and handheld consoles, Gamecubes and Megadrives. Want to save Lemmings? Race Micromachines? Fight the Empire? It's all here.If it seems a bit familiar, it should be: Power Up isn't new. The Science Museum did a version of this for Easter half-term every year for a while, but this new version of Power Up is permanent and costs just £10 to access for unlimited, all-day gaming. But even better than that, you can get an annual pass for £15. That's a hell of a lot cheaper than having to invest in a new Playstation, plus you...