Things to do in London this weekend

Austin’s music, film and media festival SXSW is renowned across the world for being the place to discover the next big thing. In previous years, superstars like Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and Chappell Roan have all given early performances at the Texas event. And now, the week-long, multi-venue event is coming to London for the first time. The inaugural SXSW London will take over various venues around Shoreditch, with 420 talks and panels delving into the most pressing issues across business, a film festival will feature 250 film screenings, and then there’s the music festival, featuring headline sets from Tems, Mabel, Sasha Keable Alice Glass and Nao, alongside more than 500 gigs. Phew. 

Founded during the Arab Spring in 2011, biennial festival Shubbak has become one of London’s largest celebrations of contemporary Arab and South West Asian & North African (SWANA) culture. The 2025 edition of Shubbak features a plethora of performances, exhibitions and community-driven events scheduled over three weeks across many venues. This year, see fashion catwalks, the largest Palestinian theatre production staged in the UK for 25 years, as well as 40+ events encompassing theatre, film, music, dance, spoken word and experimental arts. 

Chaotic explosions of wood, scrap metal and cotton cascade through the gallery in the work of Brooklyn-based artist Leonardo Drew. Known for using found natural materials that are oxidised, burned, and left to decay, Drew creates visceral, large-scale installations that reflect on the cyclical nature of existence. His sculptures evoke the scars of America’s industrial past, while also suggesting forces beyond human control. At the South London Gallery in London, Drew will unveil a new site-specific work that engulfs the walls and floor of the main space, with fragmented wood appearing as if battered by extreme weather, natural disasters, or what he calls ‘acts of God.’

For a script penned in 1893, Mrs Warren’s Profession still feels remarkably fresh. The attitude of George Bernard Shaw’s play towards sex work as a functioning product of the capitalist labour market feels bracingly current even today. Yet at first glance, director Dominic Cooke’s production is as traditional as they come, but something darker bubbles beneath the surface. Imelda Staunton plays the titular Mrs Warren who draws the eye from the moment she strides onto stage in her striped frock coat. There is subtle pain in her voice when she talks about the circumstances that led her to her profession. You don’t leave with clear answers about Mrs Warren or even her profession, but you will leave unexpectedly entertained. 

One of London’s most elderly restaurants, Wiltons has been in the game since 1742. Beginning life as simple shellfish mongers, Wiltons became a proper restaurant in 1841, and, after numerous address changes, moved into their current premises in 1984. The dining room itself is pitched somewhere between Victorian grandeur and Jilly Cooper camp, and there’s some seriously impressive cooking happening here. An implacably good, twice baked stilton soufflé is perfectly crisp on the outside and cashmere-soft on the inside, while lobster bisque is funky and dank in the best possible way. There are also bountiful platters of oysters, various plates of smoked fish, dressed crab and caviar to start, and, for pudding, the trifle is a sturdy, solid thing of creamy wonder. 

Writer-actors Tim Key and Tom Basden have delivered a rare blend of unkempt charm, emotional precision and soulful folk music with this British rom-com. Key plays Charles, who has retreated to a remote British isle to mourn his wife and wear out the LPs of his favourite folk duo, McGwyer Mortimer. Once an ‘it’ couple, Herb McGwyer (Basden) and Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan) have long since split up – romantically and musically – but for Charles, their music is the sound of happier times. In the manner of Robert Redford in Indecent Proposal, he’s offered them a suitcase of cash in return for a reunion gig on his island. Only, he sold it to them both as a solo gig. It’s a funny, smart premise that pays off in myriad ways. This musical comedy sings when it’s exploring the vagaries of the human heart. 

Playwright David Ireland’s The Fifth Step is about two men in Alcoholics Anonymous – which Ireland was a member of in the past – but the play is not really about the institution as a whole. Rather, it’s AA’s ambiguous spiritual dimension that holds the most interest to the playwright. Jack Lowden plays young Glaswegian Luka, an alcoholic who suffered an abusive upbringing and is desperately lonely to boot. Martin Freeman is James, an AA old-timer who exudes a sort of seen-it-all serenity. Ireland remains a swearword-heavy comic writer with a specialty in bruising one-liners and there are fine performances from Lowden and Freeman. 

You might know The Hotelier for their groundbreaking emo album Home, Like Noplace Is There, but their back catalogue of achingly brilliant rock music spans much more than their legendary sophomore release. In 2023, the group embarked on a reunion tour with frontperson Christian Holden teasing potential new music in their interview with The Ringer that year. While it’s not clear you’ll hear anything fresh at The Garage, you can be assured that you’ll get the chance to yell the hook, ‘I called in sick from your funeral’ at full volume.

The Garage, N5 1RD. Sat May 31, 7pm. From £32.33.

Roll up ageing ravers, curious young clubbers and anyone who just fancies hitting a dance floor and still being home in time for Emmerdale. This hour-long virtual reality experience promises to transport you back to the height of the Acid House era during 1989’s Summer of Love. Having premiered at the London Film Festival back in 2022, the hour-long experience takes over the The Pit at the Barbican for ten weeks this summer. The handiwork of filmmaker Darren Emerson and is soundtracked by some of the era’s biggest bangers, from Joey Beltram’s ‘Energy Flash’ to Orbital’s ‘Chime’. Sadly, there’s no discount for anyone old enough to remember Shoom. 

A fascinating feminist hybrid of EastEnders, Samuel Beckett and Wolf Hall, Ava Pickett’s 1536 is set in some marshland on the outskirts of an Essex village in the year Anne Boleyn was executed. The story begins as a funny drama focusing on three young Tudor women – Jane (Liv Hill), Anna (Sienna Kelly) and Mariella (Tanya Reynolds) – effing and blinding away. But news arrives that Henry VIII has arrested Boleyn and accused her of treasonous adultery. The men of Essex start taking cues from their king, with word reaching the village of adulterous local wives executed by their vengeful husbands. The engine of the play is Pickett’s superb dialogue and the sweary, lairy modern-language chats had by the women. It’s a droll and perceptive period piece that’s also a searing and unsettling contemporary feminist drama. 

Get adult tickets for £19 (down from £25) and student tickets for £10 only with Time Out Offers.

From screeching tube carriages to the lulling podcast we listen to on our commute, noise is constantly shaping our lives, and the Barbican’s Feel the Sound exhibition promises to be a multi-sensory journey into our personal relationship with sound. Eleven commissions and installations will take over the arts centre, all exposing visitors to frequencies, sound, rhythmic patterns and vibrations that define everything around us. Even the Centre’s underground car parks will be part of the action as it’s transformed into a club space. Sing with a digital quantum choir, experience music without sound and look out for experiences celebrating underground club culture. 

Mischief Theatre – they of The Play That Goes Wrong – are now aiming their slick brand of ever-escalating theatrical farce at the spy genre in this West End premiere. When a top-secret file is stolen by a turncoat British agent, a deeply mismatched pair of KGB agents and a CIA operative and his over-enthusiastic mother collide in pursuit of it. General chaos ensues. Writers Henry Shields and Henry Lewis mine plenty of daft comedy from spy staples like bugged radios and improbable gadgets while paying homage to a decade in the UK rocked by the revelations of double agent Soviet Union spy rings. A talented cast know their mission, steering into every eccentricity in the play’s helium-filled parade of stereotypes. For bungling wit matched with peerless physical comedy, you’d be hard pressed to find better in the West End.

The National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing is finally open again after being closed for refurbishment for two years. And what a relief that is, because the Sainsbury Wing housed some of London’s greatest art treasures. It was there that you could find gleaming, golden, Byzantine altarpieces and early Renaissance masterpieces. The refurbished wing will allow visitors to gaze adoringly at Piero della Francesca’s ‘Baptism of Christ’, their earliest painting, in a specially designed chapel-like room. There’ll also be Paolo Uccello’s ‘The Battle of San Romano’ returning from its three-year restoration process, and a whole room dedicated to the theme of gold.

Stephen Sondheim didn’t finish his final musical Here We Are, something we can easily determine by the fact there aren’t any songs in the second half. He did however give his blessing for it to be performed, and so here we are. Sondheim’s last gasp is a relatively breezy mash-up of the plots of two seminal Luis Buñuel films, with music and lyrics by the great man and book by US author David Ives. Sondheim’s lyrics are delightfully flippant, spiky and modern, and enormous credit must go to Ives, who has created something deft, funny and perceptive, if relatively restrained. 

The Natural History Museum always has fun with its big, slick exhibitions: for 2025 it poses one of the big questions of our times – are we alone out there? Could Life Exist Beyond Earth? won’t be getting bogged down in what aliens might want from us, but it will be focussing on the geological side of space: the NHM’s collections contain some of the world’s most important space rocks, many of which will be on display here. Snap a selfie with a piece of Mars, touch a fragment of the Moon and lay your hands on the Allende meteorite, which is, remarkably, older than Earth itself. Listen to the sounds of Mars and smell the smells of outer space.

Organised by three Londoners to reflect a ‘year of discussion’, this exhibition is set to explore the shared approaches and creative dialogues between a wide selection of artists. Featuring works that recall specific shows at Raven Row itself, the art you’ll see tends to play on realism, making use of found objects and reused materials – you might see everyday household items or DIY tools incorporated, for example. Expect to see works by artists including Terry Atkinson, Rachal Bradley and Andrea Büttner.

Doing something genuinely original with Romeo and Juliet is no mean feat, but Sean Holmes’s latest Globe version transposes fair Verona to the rootin’ tootin’ American West, the cast donning stetsons and petticoats befitting a trad production of Oklahoma! as the sighs of our star-cross’d lovers are scored by a banjo and intercut with the odd ‘yee-haw!’ This Romeo and Juliet is remarkably unafraid to have fun. The Western theme is wrung tightly to eke out every last drop of comic potential. You have to admire the Globe’s commitment to doing something different. 

Treat yourself to a Mediterranean feast in the heart of Soho at Maresco, where Scottish seafood meets bold Spanish flavours. With this exclusive deal, you’ll get two courses, house sourdough and a glass of wine for under 20 quid – a serious steal in central London. Whether you're craving jamón ibérico, fresh octopus or rich paella, this buzzing spot brings sunshine to your plate without breaking the bank.

Get two courses with sourdough and wine, for £19.95 (originally £31), only with Time Out Offers.

In the Barbican’s new, light-filled gallery, the City of London skyline provides a fitting backdrop for the tall, wiry works of Alberto Giacometti beside the hybrid, fragmented figures of Pakistani-American sculptor Huma Bhabha. For ‘Encounters’, the Giacometti Foundation has lent some of the Swiss artist’s most elemental figures for an exhibition that will evolve in the coming months with responses from other artists, including Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum and American sculptor Lynda Benglis.The result? A lens through which the instability, impermanence, and human condition itself are explored.

The home, migration, global displacement: these are all themes Do Ho Suh explores in his work, consisting of videos, drawings, and large translucent fabric installations of interiors, objects, walls and architectural structures. Often brightly coloured, skeletal and encompassing, this survey exhibition at Tate Modern will showcase three decades the celebrated Korean-born, London-based artist, including brand-new, site-specific works on display. 

Imagine indulging in all the dumplings, rolls, and buns you can handle, crafted by a Chinatown favourite with over a decade of culinary excellence. Savour Taiwanese pork buns, savoury pork and prawn soup dumplings, and luxurious crab meat xiao long bao. To top it off, enjoy a chilled glass of prosecco to elevate your feast. Cheers to a truly delightful dining experience at Leong’s Legend!

Patrick Marber’s reputation as a playwright was sealed with 1997’s Closer, but wowee his debut Dealer’s Choice is good. ‘1995’ screams a giant projection at the start of Matthew Dunster’s production, but this isn’t a nostalgia fest. It’s a remarkably prescient play about men, under pressure, playing poker. I’s a lean and thrilling beast that centres on a group of blokes who work in the restaurant in which the after hours poker games are played. Nobody depicts blokes on stage quite like Dunster, who is pretty much the Guy Ritchie of theatre directors and he’s in his element with this grimy thriller, getting the best out of his cast for what is, ultimately, an enjoyable story of terrible male desperation.

Despite recently winning what seemed like every single award that had ever been invented, and turning round the faltering fortunes of the Royal Court Theatre, there was never a guarantee that Mark Rosenblatt’s debut play about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism – and the deep trenches of dispute about Israel – would work in the West End. But it does work, brilliantly with John Lithgow stooping and scowling his way into Dahl, who in 1983, has a bad back, his house is being noisily renovated, is recently engaged, and has aalso just written a very antisemitic review of a book about Israel’s bombing of Lebanon. Aided by Nicholas Hytner’s crystalline production, where humour is never many lines away, he demands arguments play out, stink and vitriol and all, I guess in the hope that we can stop arguing them on repeat for the next forty years.

Japan’s Edo period – from 1603 to 1868 – is thought to have been mostly a time of civic peace and development, allowing new art forms to flourish. In the later part of that era, Utagawa Hiroshige produced thousands of prints capturing the landscape, nature and daily life and became one of the country’s most celebrated artists. This new exhibition at the British Museum offers a rare chance to see his never-before-seen works up close (this is the first exhibition of his work in London for a quarter of a century), spanning Hiroshige’s 40-year career via prints, paintings, books and sketches.

Having begun life as a whimsical jape in a Sydney bar, The Empire Strips Back is indeed a Star Wars-themed bulesque show that takes up residence at Riverside Studios for a walloping three-and-a-half months. We’re not entirely clear if it’s simply pitching to the horny nerd market or if there’s a bit more to it than that. But if your main takeaway from the original trilogy was the Princess Leia bikini scene the you’re definitely in luck.

The great Irish playwright Conor McPherson returns from his long absence with a bang with The Brightening Air, his first original play since The Night Alive in 2013. It’s a slow, wistful affair, the dial firmly tuned to ‘Chekhov’. The setting is a semi-dilapidated County Sligo farmhouse, at some point in the ‘80s, following a sprawling cast of characters centring on a trio of siblings who inherit their family farm from their father. It’s deft stuff, a slow-burn, bittersweet drama about a family finally disintegrating under forces that have been pulling at it for decades. 

The Institute of Contemporary Arts hosts the first UK solo exhibition of Croatia-born, Amsterdam-based installation and performance artist Nora Torato this spring. Known for her text ‘pools’, created at yearly intervals using found language gathered from media, conversations, online content and overheard speech, the artist’s UK debut will feature site-specific new work that spans video, performance, graphic design, writing and sound. 

Ryan Calais Cameron’s fifties-set three-hander about a potentially commie actor has sharp suits, big pours of scotch and a haze of cigarette smoke. But to assume the play is a pastiche of a fast-patter period piece – is to underestimate Calais Cameron who smashed the West End with his beautiful play For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy. Because in walks Sidney Poitier, the guy who’d go on to become the first Black man to win an Oscar. He’s about to be cast in a big breakout role, but NBC’s lawyers want him to sign an oath that he’s not a communist. 

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.