Things to do in London this week

Another hotly anticipated FIFA World Cup is here, along with all the thrills, spills, soaring highs and beer-soaked disappointments it brings. This year, 16 stadiums across Canada, Mexico and the United States will host this epic tournament, which plays out until Sunday July 19 2026. And of course, England fans will be glued to the screen for the team’s second outing on Tuesday June 23 against Ghana, while Scotland will be closing out their group stage campaign against Brazil on Wednesday June 24. Practically every pub and bar in London will be getting in on the action and vying for your attendance during the World Cup’s biggest games. However, we’ve whittled it down to the places that offer the best atmosphere and the best view of the screen, wherever you station yourself.

You need only look at the shelves piled high with unibrowed fridge magnets, tea towels, plant-pots and earrings in the average museum gift shop to know that Frida Kahlo is one of the 20th century’s greatest icons. 

Featuring over 130 works alongside documents, photographs and memorabilia taken from Kahlo’s archives, Tate Modern’s blockbuster summer exhibition Frida: The Making of an Icon will explore how the Mexican painter became the kind of cultural phenomenon whose likeness adorns everything from novelty socks to limited-edition eyeshadow pallets. The first major London exhibition on the feminist icon since the V&A’s fashion-focused 2018 show Making Her Self Up, it will include some of her most iconic paintings, as well as the work of more than 80 fellow artists, from her contemporaries to the later generations she inspired. 

All in all, it promises to be a fascinating exploration of the transformative role of women artists in the 20th century, as well as notions of fandom and the diverse communities who claim Frida as their own. Keep an eye out for the on-sale date as it’s sure to be a hugely popular show. 

BST is back for its thirteenth edition starting this Saturday, bringing some of the world’s biggest pop stars to Hyde Park for over the next few weekends. The line-up is as eclectic as as ever in 2026; Saturday sees legendary country singer Garth Brooks headline, in his only European performance in 2026, with support from the Zac Brown Band and Ashley McBryde, while South Korean boyband Ateez take the headline slot on Sunday, accompanied by American singer Bazzi and girlband Flo.

And if you’re up for some spontaneous plans, you can still grab general release tickets for both days, starting at £59.05 for Ateez and £124.95 for Garth Brooks. 

Steven Spielberg returns to sci-fi. The fabulous Emily Blunt is Detroit TV meteorologist Margaret Fairchild, whose life takes a freaky turn after a strange kitchen table encounter with a cardinal bird. Within moments, she’s speaking fluent Russian to her boyfriend (Thunderbolts*’ Wyatt Russell) and doing an alien-sounding clicking sound on live TV. ​Turns out ET isn’t phoning home any more, ​h​e’s presenting the weather. Also​ on the run is cybersecurity wonk-turned-whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) with stolen files from ​a sinister agency that prove the existence of aliens. It’s a lot to pack in. Boiled down, though, it’s the connection between Margaret and Daniel that underpins the fugitive thriller that breaks out. 

Earlier this month, Time Out announced our new list of the 50 Best Restaurants in London for 2026.

After much deliberation and much eating, we’re pleased to put our arteries on the line to crown Camille as our new number one. Hiding in plain sight, you’ll find the demure Camille on the very edge of Borough Market.

Opened a couple of years back by the same team behind Soho’s Ducksoup, this French bistro immediately blew its forebear out of the water thanks to the skill and tenacity of head chef Elliot Hashtroudi. He’s not French himself, but is committed to the full-throttle nature of the country’s rustic, earthy cuisine.

A case in point; offal. You’ll find cocks comb schnitzel and snout cassoulet on the menu, and both are sublime. For the less adventurous, there is still a world of wonder here. The tartare is one of the best we’ve had, and rosy slices of onglet are topped with Pevensey blue cheese.

It’s a triumph of imagination, talent, and guts. Be sure to book dinner soon, and check out the full top 50 list here. 

The National Theatre has brought back 2007’s blockbuster War Horse, a show that closed on the West End in 2016 but has lived on via endless tours and a Stephen Spielberg-directed screen adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s source text. It’s still incredible. Number one, the puppets are astonishing. Number two: sure, it’s a reasonably trope-filled story about the First World War, adapted by Nick Stafford from Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 book with a plot that revolves around the doomed British cavalry who discovered they were obsolete in the worst way possible during the early weeks of the conflict. It’s sturdy, unfussy storytelling, but this gives it a purity and timelessness.  The years haven’t touched War Horse, and short of a radical rethink of our attitude to WW1 or, puppets, it’s hard to imagine why it would ever age. 

The Greenwich Planetarium has been shut for a big old refurb, and while it might be exaggerating the case to say that this has left the city’s astronomers lacking anything to do with their time whatsoever, it is true that a fair number have been dragooned into helping out with Astronomers Take Over, a new temporary exhibition at the Maritime Museum. 

It’s a very enjoyable experience: there are big, bright colourful guides to the heavens, ranging from jaw-dropping images of galaxies, to an in-depth look at the Mars landers, to a mood board-style area looking at what the astronomers’ various inspirations were for getting into space.

It’s all visually striking, but there’s no denying the USP here isn’t the displays but the people: there are lots of actual astronomers roaming about, in fun NASA-ish boiler suits, giving demonstrations and generally on hand to answer questions. 

It’s rare to go to any sort of exhibition and find such large numbers of helpful staff on hand and heavily involved. It turns out that the ultimate interactive display… is a person. If you’re interested in space, you’ll definitely enjoy this opportunity to put your questions to some real experts. Pop down and have a natter with one before this exhibition closes on Monday. 

Take a look beyond the surface of London with the London Festival of Architecture, and you'll discover the planners, designers, and ideas that have shaped our streets. This year's theme is 'Belonging', which means there's a focus on community, and how we care for the spaces we live in. There are over 400 events on the line-up, including guided walks, exhibitions, talks, installations and performances. For the first time, The London Centre in Guildhall will act as the festival's central hub, hosting talks and performances, a Lego challenge (Sat June 20), and a TfL bus display exhibition. 

The Barbican is shining a spotlight on Pan-Africanism in contemporary art, cinema, music and performance in this summer-long creative series, which will feature more than 30 events as well as an art exhibition. Coined in the early 1900s, the umbrella term Pan-Africanism encompasses political and philosophical movements advocating for self-determination, anti-colonial resistance and transnational solidarity among peoples of African descent. Highlights include the central exhibition, Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica with 300 works, including paintings, installations, posters, journals and film. Look out for Carnival dance workshops, Carnival costume-making workshops, late-night parties and live music performances, too. 

Is it art, or is it maths? It’s a question even MC Escher himself couldn’t answer about his own work. While the Dutch printmaker known for his infinite staircases, metamorphosing tessellations and paradoxical buildings was rejected by the art world, he was revered by mathematicians, and is now one of the most famous optical illusionists of all time. The OG creator of images that make you go ‘Huh?’ is going under the microscope in London with a blockbuster exhibition celebrating his life and work this summer. Created by Italian company Arthemisia and the immersive peeps at Fever, MC Escher: The Exhibition has arrived at Somerset House as part of its world tour. If you are a gaga for geometry, are fascinated by fractals, or just have a penchant for the psychedelic, you will find plenty to be engrossed by here. 

Faithfully capturing the simple joys and craziness of the beloved 1980s TV cartoon, the Masters of the Universe story starts in Eternia, a beautiful, fairytale fantasy. Here, sensitive little Prince Adam is told to ‘be a man’ by his father who forces him into combat training. When the family are attacked by the evil Skeletor, Adam is sent to Earth via an intergalactic rainbow highway (very Thor). Adam gets a Clark Kent-type job in HR before retrieving his magical sword and going back to fight for Eternia. After decades in development hell, Masters of the Universe finally fell into the right hands with Bumblebee director Travis Knight. Where other reboots lean into dour origin stories, his is as brightly coloured as a bowl of e-numbered breakfast cereal. It features many of its fan-favourite, straight-out-the-toybox battle characters and best of all is the epic rock/synth score by British composer Daniel Pemberton. 

Tucked inside the Pan Pacific London hotel, Ginger Lily Bar & Lounge makes a very good case for slowing down over the weekend. Available on Fridays and Saturdays, the experience pairs elegant surroundings with half a bottle of Taittinger champagne, served as sunlight pours through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

On the table, expect freshly baked scones, delicate pastries and neat finger sandwiches prepared by the pastry team. A selection of Newby teas and tea-infused mocktails rounds things off nicely, creating an easy, indulgent way to spend an afternoon in the City.

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This intense debut play from Georgie Dettmer is a vignette-based style of drama, and it’s not apparent for the first third or so that it’s a play that will actually cohere. Its cluster of storylines about the intersection of web-age voyeurism, female sexuality and male violence are compelling but there’s a nagging worry that it’s going to be tricky to pay all this stuff off at the end. But, it does and, moreover, it has an implacable momentum twinned with immaculately icy production from director Jess Edwards. Amidst a barrage of scenes that run the gamut from a Hollywood star aghast at deepfakes to a frustrated mother being schooled by the police on what sort of information she should put out about her missing daughter, there’s a central plot of sorts. It concerns the horrifying case of Gisele Pelicot, the French woman whose husband drugged her and, over several years, invited dozens of men to rape her while asleep, something he filmed and photographed – which is what eventually led to his discovery. It’s a terrific debut play, wonderfully directed, and with a great, hard-working cast. As disturbing an hour of theatre as you’ll see on the London stage.

Surely our foremost Shakespearean, the great Simon Russell Beale narrates the return of former RSC boss Greg Doran’s lovely puppet-driven 2004 staging of Shakespeare’s great poem about the tragically unrequited love of goddess Venus and hunt-loving young man Adonis.

On for a limited run this week only, the show features a variety of puppets designed and created by Lyndie Wright, cofounder of Islington’s lovely Little Angel Theatre, including marionettes, shadow puppets and more, accompanied by live music. 

With its real life spacecraft and other impressive extraterrestrial paraphernalia, Science Museum is about as close as you can get to going to actual space within walking distance of the Piccadilly line. And your proximity to the cosmos is about to increase a heck of a lot with the arrival of this 40-minute free-roaming VR experience, which will take you into the deepest and most spectacular parts of the galaxy.

Recently debuted in Washington DC, and developed in tandem with the US’s flagship Smithsonian Museum and its Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the Science Museum’s latest attraction has some real scientific credentials, so while the literally otherworldly scenes of space you find yourself stepping into are digitally crafted, they’re meticulously crafted on the backs of decades of real scientific data, rather than just AI slop. 

Your journey starts off with a tour of our world’s observatories before heading up to the Hubble Space Telescope… and then far beyond. Diving headlong into the cosmos – we’re told you will ‘witness the birth and death of stars, explore distant galaxies, and come face-to-face with a black hole’. Just don’t go falling in.

Tate Modern’s (more-or-less) monthly Friday Lates series continues this month with an evening curated by this year’s Infinities Commission recipient, Zimbabwean choreographer, film-maker and installation artist Nora Chipaumire. 

Centred around ‘gadzi’, Chipaumire’s monumental commission in the East Tank the evening, and will feature the first of three one-hour performances staged by the artist throughout this weekend.Starting in the installation and progressing through the Tanks Lobby and into the Turbine Hall, the performance incorporates the installation’s impressive sound system, plus live musicians and a troupe of thirteen dancers. 

Aftet the performance, there’ll be plenty more music throughout the galleries, with sets from Rhythm Section’s Bradley Zero in the Turbine Hall, and Future Nostalgia’s Atiyyah Khan in the Corner Bar. 

Visitors can also take part in a communal textile-making workshop, watch a selection of Chipaumire’s previous film work in the Starr Cinema, and join Tate curators for LGBTIA+ tours and ten-minute talks throughout the galleries. 

High Society is, of course, a pure joy, the stage incarnation of a ludicrously frothy Golden Age Cole Porter musical that has a plot you could blow over with a feather, plus some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century. ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’, ‘I Love Paris in the Springtime’, ‘Well Did You Evah’, ‘Let’s Misbehave’, ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ – the banger level is off the chart. With songs as good as these and a cast just as good to match them, you’re in for a very nice evening at the theatre. 

As one of Britain’s most celebrated sculptors of the 20th century, Barbara Hepworth made stunning modern creations inspired by the nature and lanscapes of Cornwall, where she lived. Her abstract shapes often featured smooth ovals, holes, undulating surfaces and strings. This summer the Courtauld will stage an exhibition interested in one aspect of Hepworth’s practice: her obsession with colour, which often came up in her work in unexpected ways. Featuring 20 of her most significant sculptures, alongside 30 drawings, Hepworth in Colour will unite for the first time her early innovative sculptures with colour of the 1940s with major examples of her work with colour from the 1950s and 1960s.

South London’s beloved anthropological museum is going big with the birthday celebrations this year. To mark its 125th anniversary, the Horniman is hosting a series of fun-packed, family-friendly events completely free of charge this June. 

Visitors can flock between three stages hosting local and young musicians, DJs and musical storytelling for youngsters, as well as taking part in craft sessions including birthday hat and hedgehog highway sign-making sessions. 

Guests can also partake in a variety of interactive trails and tours, including birdspotting and a recently added AR ‘Animals Everywhere’ trail, which allows you to interact with a series of 3D-animated creatures around the museum, including the Horniman’s most iconic resident, the overstuffed walrus. Prefer IRL interactions? Make a beeline for the Butterfly House, which is offering reduced-cost tickets for the weekend, or get hands-on at the Handling Collection. 

There’ll also be all the usual street food stalls and bars that you may have seen at the Horniman’s regular spring fairs and late openings, so you can fuel up after a busy day of activities. Tickets are free but are being snapped up fast – grab yours  here before they’re gone!

Mexican architecture firm LANZA atelier has been chosen to design this 2026 Serpentine Pavilion, which features a ‘crinkle-crankle’ wall. Traditional structures seen in English architecture from the 18th century, these wavy partitions temper climate, create shelter, and are ideal for growing fruit. And fittingly, they’re also known as serpentine walls. The prestigious architectural commission celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2026, with a landmark series of talks programmed in collaboration with the Zaha Hadid Foundation.