Winter activities in London: 22 best things to do

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.

There’s a new festival in town and it’s highlighting one of the more unsung parts of our favourite movies – the soundtracks. London Soundtrack Festival puts the scores front and centre in March 2025, with a series of screenings, talks and performances celebrating the musicians who make Hollywood sound so exciting, tense and emotional. Highlights include Hildur Guðnadóttir introducing the first and second Joker movies and, later in the programme, holding her own concert, David Cronenberg and Howard Shore in conversation, screenings of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, The Silence of the Lambs and Eighth Grade with live scores, a day-long celebration of video game music at The Roundhouse ‘Great Movie Songs with Anne Dudley & Friends’ featuring guest appearances from the likes of the Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant and Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters. Tickets are on sale now!

Reese Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s long-running BBC comedy horror anthology ‘Inside No. 9’ may be wrapping up on our screens but the duo don’t seem to be in any hurry to step away from it: this new live spin-off entitled ‘Stage/Fright’ premieres in the West End in 2025. Written by and starring the duo, the plot is unknown but we’re told it’ll be a mix of old and new elements and that it’ll lean heavily into being a theatre performance (as opposed to just being bits from the telly faithfully re-enacted) – not a surprise seeing as how both creators are now seasoned stage actors. It’s directed by Simon Evans, probably best known for the extremely meta David Tennant/Michael Sheen lockdown comedy ‘Staged’, though also a heavyweight theatre director.

Find out what the UK's most promising fine art graduates have been up to in this annual showcase of up-and-coming talent from across the UK, which is now in its 75th year. Featuring 33 exhibitors selected by renowned artists Liz Johnson Artur, Permindar Kaur and Amalia Pica, the exhibition launched in Plymouth in autumn 2024, before arriving at the Institute of Contemporary Art in January 2025.

Here’s a fresh take on Sophocles’s ‘Elektra’ from Canadian poet Anne Carson, directed by Daniel Fish, who made his name with his bold recent take on ‘Oklahoma!’. Toss in legendary choreographer Annie-B Parson and that’s quite a conglomerate of New World talent for this most Ancient World of plays, but the real story is Brie Larson, who’ll be playing the title role of Elektra, the daughter of Agamemnon who vows revenge upon her mother Clytamnestra for his death. She'll be supported by a cast that includes fellow US star Stockard Channing, plus Greg Hicks, Patrick Vaill and Marième Diouf.

A pretty juicy piece of festive programming from Hampstead Theatre: Simon Russell Beale and Matthew Tennyson star as the old and young incarnations of Victorian poet AE Housman in the first major British revival for Tom Stoppard’s hugely acclaimed 1997 play. As ever with Stoppard, the main reason The Invention of Love hasn’t been revived in over 25 years probably boils down to how dizzyingly high concept it is: the play follows a deceased Housman as he crosses the River Styx and returns to Oxford University, then voyages through the high Victorian era. Blanch McIntyre directs. 

Canary Wharf isn’t high on our list of London spots to hit up if you’re looking for cheeriness – most of the time it’s filled with finance bros hurrying to and fro – but every January, a warm, glowy feeling descends on the financial district thanks to this annual January spectacular. The area’s towering skyscrapers become the backdrop for Winter Lights, a collection of illuminating artworks, installations and interactive experiences.

What is living if not a sort of time travel? Annie Ernaux’s Booker-nominated book ‘Les Années’ is an artful autobiography that traces her journey from childhood in postwar France to old age in the post-9/11 era. Elegantly adapted by director Eline Arbo, the English-language stage version The Years transfers to the Harold Pinter Theatre after an acclaimed run at The Almeida in the summer. Arbo’s adaptation bucks cliches about ‘memoir plays’ by having the story’s protagonist diffused into a five-strong collective of black and white-clad women. Deborah Findlay, Romola Garai, Gina McKee, Anjli Mohindra and Harmony Rose-Bremner form a superb ensemble – charismatic, fierce and playful, in an unflashy production that is still, at times, incredibly moving.

The comically grotesque world of Tim Burton – the esteemed director behind ‘Corpse Bride’, ‘Edward Scissorhands’ and ‘Dark Shadows’ – is put under the spotlight at this exhibition, which concludes its decade-long world tour with a stint at Kensington’s Design Museum this autumn, shortly after his much-anticipated sequel ‘Beetlejuice 2’ lands in cinemas. Curated in collaboration with the famous goth himself, the collection draws from Burton’s personal archive of drawings, paintings, photographs, sketchbooks, moving-image works, sculptural installations, set and costume designs to shine a light on his distinctive, darkly humorous aesthetic. 

While super-producer Cameron Mackistosh still has breath in his body we’ll never be too far from the next revival of Lionel Bart’s all-singing Dickens adaptation Oliver!. Fifteen years after the last, Rupert Goold-directed London revival (which closed in 2011), it’s back in new guise in a Matthew Bourne directed production that premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre back in the summer to reviews that praised it as comfortingly nostalgic rather than doing anything particularly bold. But that’s what we want from ‘Oliver!’ really, isn’t it? All your favourite songs – Food Glorious Food, Consider Yourself, I’d Do Anything – are present and correct, with a cast that includes Simon Lipkin as Fagin, Shanay Holmes as Nancy, Aaron Sidwell as Bill Sikes, Billy Jenkins as the Artful Dodger and Philip Franks as Mr Brownlow.

This renowned annual photography exhibition returns to the Natural History Museum for its sixtieth edition, showcasing the very best entries of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. On display are images of the most extraordinary species on the planet captured by professional and amateur photographers. This year’s entries are TBA right now, but the winners are reliably spectacular – pictured is last year’s champion Max Waugh’s triumphant ‘Snow Bison’. Don’t miss what is always a highlight in the NHM’s calendar.

Few have worked with as many designers, publications and photographers in the fashion industry as model and activist, the legendary Naomi Campbell. And now, the V&A has created a dazzling exhibition to delve into this icon’s 40-year career, which she has collaborated with. Campbell’s haute couture wardrobe, as well as loans from designer archives and the V&A’s own collection, will be on display, and there’s a photography installation curated by Edward Enninful OBE, former editor of British Vogue.

Sigourney Weaver was eight the last time Shakespeare was performed at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. A lot has happened to both Weaver and the theatre since then, but at the age of 75, the star of the ‘Alien’, ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Avatar’ films will make her UK stage debut in the first Shakespeare play to be staged at the venerable theatre for over half a century. It’s ‘The Tempest’ (again), with Weaver taking on the role of exiled magician Prospero in Jamie Lloyd’s revival. She’ll be joined by a cast of Jude Akuwudike (Alonso), Jason Barnett (Stephano), Selina Cadell (Gonzalo), Mathew Horne (Trinculo), Mara Huf (Miranda), Forbes Masson (Caliban), Mason Alexander Park (Ariel), James Phoon (Ferdinand), Oliver Ryan (Sebastian) and Tim Steed (Antonio).

‘No one can tell the story better than ourselves,’ proclaims a quote from artist-photographer Zanele Muholi as you enter this exhibition. Maybe so, but the Tate makes a decent fist of trying in this extended showcase of a visual activist who has spent more than two decades focusing their lens on the lives of the South African Black LGBTQIA+ community through vivid portraits and self-portraiture. An earlier incarnation of the exhibition in 2020 fell prey to Covid restrictions after only five weeks, and in the intervening time, its narrative has grown, reflecting Muholi’s importance as a creative force for change.

London might always be bustling with fun things to do and, come winter, a jam-packed calendar of unmissable events, but sometimes you just need a break from it all. When the capital’s hustle and bustle leaves you feeling a little drained, you can find some escape from the crowds and hordes of tourists by getting up and getting out just for a day. In dire need of crisp country air, a relaxing spa day or a gorgeous, long walk? These day trips from London are all under two hours from Zone 1 and will give you the relief you need this winter.

RECOMMENDED: The best day trips from London

The V&A is home to an extensive collection of Islamic art (which the institution began collecting way back in the 1850s) but this prestigious award, which was established in 2009, celebrates contemporary art and design inspired by Islamic tradition. It’s open to designers from any age group or from any ethnic, religious or cultural background and the finalists’ work (selected by a jury) will be displayed in this winter exhibition. Previous winners include artist Mehdi Moutashar and architect Marina Tabassam, who won Jameel Prize 5, and Jameel Prize 4 was won by Ghulum Mohammad for his works of paper collage. Film, video, installation and new tech are the mediums that are focussed on, but that could be anything from animation to virtual reality – pretty exciting, right?

Artists spent centuries making art about light – the divine rays of the Renaissance, the shimmering seascapes of Turner, the foggy hazes of the Impressionists – but it wasn’t until the 1970s that anyone really thought to make art with light. British artist Anthony McCall was one of the first, creating pioneering films that used projectors to trace shapes in the air, somehow seeming to turn nothingness solid. Tate Modern exhibition 'Solid Light' is simple art stuff: it’s light, geometric shapes, the illusion of solidity. And that’s when it’s best, when it’s just quiet immersion in geometric movement. It doesn’t need to be about breathing or bodies, it doesn’t need conceptual heft. It’s like all of art, cinema and photography history condensed down to its very barest form.