Things to do in London this week

Of all of the UK’s winter traditions, there’s nothing like gathering in a park in the nippy nights of early November to watch a pile of flaming wood and fireworks piercing the sky. Bonfire Night – aka Guy Fawkes Night –might sound strange to those unfamiliar with it, but it’s a great British tradition and one of the highlights of the second half of the year. London puts on a plethora of Bonfire Night and fireworks displays with sparkly skies, yummy street food and so much more. See our list of the best celebrations taking place this week. 

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.

Pitchfork Music Festival is gearing up for another edition, with a jam-packed schedule of eclectic live music encompassing everything from avant-rock and post-punk to psych-pop, UK rap and deconstructed dance music. This year's headliners include Aussie psych band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (Royal Albert Hall, November 4), anonymous electronic mavericks Two Shell (Here at Outernet, November 5), Canadian techno producer Marie Davidson (Fabric, November 6) and rising French electronic pop artist Oklou (Roundhouse, November 7).

The seriously good Soho flagship of this creative Filipino bakery is part of the 1996 Group, which also includes the acclaimed Donia restaurant. Their Manila-flavoured take on the humble bakery serves all manner of treats, including doughnuts pumped full of photogenic purple ube ooze and chocolate-slathered brown butter cookies, as well as iced ube matcha drinks for unbeatable TikTok clout. But it’s their savoury goods that are particularly outstanding. Everything is made on-site, and the longanisa roll offers a giddy take on the sausage roll, its sweet, flaky pastry stuffed with succulent meat, while their chicken adobo pocket is like Greggs gunning for a Michelin star.

Played by Riz Ahmed with terse meticulousness in David Mackenzie’s New York-set thriller, Ash is a former addict who runs a business as a ‘fixer’, helping corporate whistleblowers and malcontents to quietly take their hush money from angry companies. In Relay, an old-school thriller with a drum-tight script and real style, he runs into trouble when a client, Sarah (a tenacious Lily James), seems to be at risk of being snuffed out.  The unlikely duo, forced together by desperate circumstances, race against time and the arrogant capitalist goons on their tails. Relay is enjoyably tactile and old-fashioned, contriving to allow its characters to interact in an environment where things can play out with maximum mystery. 

Born in a fishing village in Denmark in 1859, Anna Ancher painted and memorialised life on the coast, cementing herself as a Danish household name. Now Dulwich Picture Gallery brings Ancher’s work to a UK audience in her first ever British exhibition, which will showcase over 40 of her luminous paintings, many of which are reminiscent of the coastal community where she grew up. Also featuring in the exhibition will be four of Ancher’s contemporaries: Marie Luplau, Emilie Mundt, Marie Sandholdt, and Louise Bonfils. 

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. 

Director Michael Grandage and playwright Jack Holden’s stage adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst’s seminal novel of the ‘80s 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 (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. 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 open about, but also othered by. It’s a fine, sensitive articulation of the novel. 

Returning for a fourth winter season in 2025, this ice-skating pop-up in the shadow of the rejuvenated Battersea Power Station is one of London’s most aesthetic. Returning to its usual spot right next to the Thames, it offers magnificent views over the riverside, a twinkling 30ft Christmas tree that forms the perfect backdrop for your on-ice selfies, and all the fun of the fair courtesy of an adjacent vintage fairground. It’s the perfect date night spot, Christmas party location or a well-earned reward after a hectic day of gift shopping. 

Anna Ziegler’s play The Wanderers makes its UK debut at the Marylebone Theatre after becoming an off-Broadway hit in 2023, starring Katie Holmes. Tracking the lives and loves of two Jewish couples from different generations in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, it is a crafty, gradually intensifying drama that examines the values we embrace and reject. Directed here by Igor Golyak, it’s staged on two sides of a translucent screen, with the tensions from the separate eras overlapping and reverberating across time.

Bugonia, an English language remake of 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet!, is Yorgos Lanthimos’s first film since the early Greek ones to be set in something approximating recognisable modern times. Here, in an armpit of smalltown America, Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons go head to head, delivering bravura performances that put a shine on what, at its core, is a high-concept exploitation movie. Teddy (Plemons) is a greasy-haired, beekeeping, tinfoil-hat wearing obsessive who recruits his sweet-natured cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) into a plan to kidnap the CEO of a big pharma biotech company. Because he believes, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that sleek girlboss Michelle Fuller (Stone) is an alien from the planet Andromeda. Lanthimos is at the peak of his powers when it comes to production-design led set pieces, while Stone and Plemons’ verbal battles of wits are worth the price of admission alone. 

If you’ve seen a ballet at the Royal Opera House, there’s a high chance you will be familiar with the work of Wayne McGregor. The ROH’s resident choreographer since 2006, the dance polymath brought a sleeker, more minimal and modern style of ballet, rooted in contemporary, to the Covent Garden stage. He has worked with numerous companies, including his own Studio Wayne McGregor, and even choreographed ABBA Voyage. Now Somerset House is staging a huge exhibition dedicated to McGregor’s three-decade-long repertoire, which includes ballets inspired by Virginia Woolf, Margaret Attwood, and 1980s sci-fi. Through a series of multi-sensory choreographic installations, performances and experiments, Infinite Bodies will explore how technology is used in dance choreography, music, and lighting, with works that incorporate motion capture, machine learning, AI interactivity, and digital imaging, alongside hybrid realities and robotics. 

Deliver Me from Nowhere digs into Bruce Springsteen’s bout with depression and the childhood trauma from which it stemmed, as well as his fastidious dedication to (arguably) his finest album, 1982’s moody Nebraska. As a living, loving portrait of blue collar Americana, Deliver Me from Nowhere excels. The late-night diners, faded fairgrounds, and classic cars are gloriously, richly rendered while black-and-white flashbacks to Springsteen’s youth and original are shot with all the misery of Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era portraits. Jeremy Allen White also slips into Springsteen’s Levi’s with ease. From his spot-on incidental grunts to the uncanny singing voice, it’s clear that White has put in the work. If you want American gothic with a side of pancakes, this is the right place. 

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, a year on, and seven years on where Miram’s grief has metastasised into something truly monstrous. It is a remarkable performance from Walker, affecting, upsetting and often savagely hilarious, it grabs you instantly and paints a haunting but disarmingly funny portrait of grief turning into something else. 

Looking for a wholesome, creative night out that doesn’t involve a hangover (unless you BYOB)? Token Studio in Tower Bridge offers relaxed, hands-on ceramics classes where you can spin, shape and decorate your own pottery piece. Whether you fancy throwing a pot on the wheel (£32) or painting a pre-made mug or plate (£23), it’s the perfect mix of fun, mindful and surprisingly therapeutic. And to top it all off, you can sip while you sculpt as it’s BYOB and super chill.

Buy a Token Studio session from just £23, only through Time Out Offers. 

Things tend to look different in the glow of candlelight, whether that’s the curious faces of people or stony sculptures sitting spectre-like in the shadows. It’s a phenomenon that Joseph Wright of Derby interrogates in the pieces displayed here – the first major exhibition dedicated to his candlelight paintings –questioning what we see and the act of looking itself. Submerging his work in darkness, he explores themes like death, morality and scepticism in a way that challenges more typical views of his output as a painter.

Hidden somewhere between a theme park, an escape room and a real-life video game, Phantom Peak isn’t just your average day out. This open-world adventure based in Canada Water invites you to explore a fictional steampunk town at your own pace, chatting to quirky characters, uncovering mysteries and slowly piecing together your own story.

With 11 unique trails, a rotating calendar of seasonal storylines, and a cast of live actors guiding your experience, no two visits are ever the same.

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If you fancy switching things up a bit and find yourself near Borough, why not roll up your sleeves at Comptoir Bakery's London Bridge workshop space? Choose from sessions where you’ll learn to craft buttery croissants and pain au chocolat, the cult-favourite Brionuts, or delicate tartelettes. Expert bakers—trained under culinary legends—will guide you through every step, from mixing the dough to perfecting the fillings. You’ll also nab a slick £20 apron to keep and plenty of fresh pastries to take home. Starting at just £69 per person or £118 for two, with over 30% off, it’s a delicious way to spend a few hours.

Get discounted workshop sessions, only through Time Out Offers

Peter Doig is one of the greatest living painters, an artist whose approach to hazy, memory-drenched figuration has had an enormous impact on the visual landscape of today. For his show at the Serpentine, he’s going well beyond the canvas, filling the gallery with speaker systems to explore the impact of music on his work. Does DJ-set-meets-art-exhibition sound like your idea of hell? Mine too, but it’s Doig, so it just might work. Maybe.