Things to do in London this week

Known for her surreal and avant-garde haute couture creations – often with striking silhouettes, gilded accents, and unusual appliqués – the groundbreaking fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli is the subject of a first UK exhibition at the V&A in 2026. The spring exhibition will trace the origins of the house, from its first, paradigm-shifting garments, through to its present-day incarnation in the hands of its creative director Daniel Roseberry, whose contemporary designs worn by the likes of Kylie Jenner and Bella Hadid have seen gowns adorned with faux-taxidermy lion heads, and a lung dress fashioned from a delicate network of golden veins. 

Awaken your inner child by delving into enchanted lands, magical creatures and timeless tales at the British Library’s interactive family-friendly exhibition. All the bangers from your childhood will be explored – from Goldilocks, to Aladdin – through books, artworks, interactive displays, theatrical design, story sharing spaces, costumes and activities. Opening in time for the Easter holidays, Fairy Tales is ideal for passing a few hours with the little’uns. 

Sarah Power’s play presents as a cosily familiar comedy about a clutch of small-town eccentrics pulling together in an effort to stage a fundraising fun day for the medieval fort in their sleepy town. But it’s the hiring of Sean Delaney’s ex-con Kurtis that starts the real story, the quirky villager tropes used as cover to ask some very hard questions about community and forgiveness. Really, Power’s play is a meditation on human nature and the ability to forgive, magnified through the lens of small-town life, where every addition to the community is scrutinised and dwelt upon. On the surface, Welcome to Pemfort is a naturalistic drama about quirky rural folks, but scratch that surface, and it’s got a core of steel – an unflinching look at the human condition that’s only cosplaying as cute.

The co-founder of Kokum in Dulwich, Sanjay Gour, was once the head chef of glitzy Gymkhana. His Zone 2 menu pulls all the same indulgent tricks, but in far more casual, wallet-friendly surroundings. A splash-proof A3 menu is your starting point, best perused while nibbling on crisp papad. There are golden, deep-fried nuggets of Amritsari fish, served with a creamy garlic and coriander dip, a Kashmiri chilli marinated lamb cutlet comes with a perfect pink middle, tender and not overly gamey tasting, a giant lamb shank nirhari, and a bowl of creamy, almost fruity, butter chicken. Gymkhana? I don’t know her. 

Somerset House Studios’ biannual experimental sound and music series is back. Based at Somerset House. Assembly bills itself as a ‘live testing ground’ premiering new works in a format that combines a festival with an exhibition. Head along to hear live experiments with sound, listen to works created on site and listen to premieres of works not yet shown in the UK. It brings together current residents and alumni, as well as international artists. There’ll also be critical conversations by leading practitioners across sound and contemporary art. If you’re looking for a different kind of festival experience, this is the place. 

The year is 1938, and Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov), a wet-behind-the-ears young prosecutor in the provincial Russian city of Bryansk, has received a letter from an inmate at the local prison and decides to hear what the man has to say. The man, a veteran Bolshevik, believes his abuse is a sign of rogue elements within the NKVD security forces. What neither man understands is that this is not a bug of Stalin’s Russia; he is just another victim of the Great Purge. Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa (In the Fog) adapts dissident writer Georgy Demidov’s novella into a collision of idealism and cold reality, as Kornyev takes the case to Moscow and sticks his head deeper into the lion’s mouth. It’s a slow cinema treat that rewards patience. It’s a haunting, mesmerising, pessimistic piece of work. 

Out in the UK and Ireland Mar 27.

A festival curated by and made for London’s emerging creatives, the Young Barbican Takeover is a day jam-packed with workshops, live music, performances and talks all hoping to get your artistic juices flowing. Crochet and make zines with Craft Forward and Artizine; experience live music curated by Shai Space and Sad Club Records; learn how to start your own record label or publishing house with ARCCA; or take part in a breaking workshop with Rain Crew. There will also be an afternoon of film screenings curated by the Barbican Young Film Programmers alumni, with a programme that celebrates the African diaspora and women of colour. 

The Wellcome Collection’s big spring exhibition is a deep dive into perceptions of ageing. Expect the Euston Road institution’s typical blend of art, science and pop culture in the 120+ artworks and objects on display, which range from16th century woodcuts made by German printmaker Sebald Beham to Deborah Roberts’ contemporary collages exploring Black childhood. There’ll also be a spotlight on the Wellcome Trust-funded health research project Age of Wonder – one of the largest studies of adoloscence in the world – and an exploration of how societies can adapt to improve everyone’s experience of ageing.

This hugely enjoyable tech satire-slash-thriller from US playwright Aaron Loeb is so good at bamboozling you as to what it’s going to be about. There isn’t a massive rug-pulling twist in ROI, but there’s plenty of fun misdirection in what initially looks set to be a satire on ethical investment funds. Really ROI is about two things: the inevitably of technological change, and how ill-equipped flawed human beings are to be its avatars. Loeb is clearly interested in tech and what the near future, and the writing is fluid and confident on the subject of how our lives might change very drastically very soon. ROI isn’t a self-seriously visionary tech drama, but it’s confident and clever and behind all the brio, genuinely very thoughtful.

How often does the best romantic comedy of the year also contain the year’s best fight scene? Probably as often as any romcom starts with a man standing over a dead stranger on the side of the highway, his penis unknowingly dangling from his shorts. Splitsville is full of surprises. Written by co-stars Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, and directed by Covino, the duo’s second feature is a screwball sex farce for an age when even the most buttoned-down couples are exploring ‘ethical non-monogamy’. Of course, movies about normies awkwardly dabbling in polyamory go back at least as far as 1969’s Bob & Carole & Ted & Alice. What makes Splitsville stand out? Simply put, it’s goddamn hilarious. Gags fly from every angle: onscreen, offscreen, in the background, sometimes all at once, and it just gets funnier as it goes. 

In UK and Ireland cinemas Fri Mar 27. Streaming on Hulu in the US.

Maxim Gorky’s Summerfolk concerns a group of dissolute nouveau-riche Russians spending a frivolous summer arguing among themselves as societal storm clouds gather; it is pretty damn Chekhovian. This new adaptation by Nina and Moses Raine feels like you’ve been plunged into a sprawling existential soap opera, teeming with characters and plot lines that have been running for years. Gradually, though, Robert Hastie’s revival takes shape thanks to some delicious luxury casting. Foremost is Sophie Rundle as the gorgeous, disaffected Varvara. Blessed by a gorgeous wooden Peter McKintosh set surrounded, in the second half, by dappled water, Hastie’s production has a bucolic but beautifully deadpan rhythm. It’s the sort of luxury revival the NT was made for.

Tate Britain is hosting the first major solo show dedicated to the Turner Prize-nominated Hurvin Anderson this spring, bringing together more than 60 of his vibrant paintings. Born in Birmingham to Jamaican parents, Anderson’s work flits between the two regions, exploring his struggle with belonging and cultural identity. His colour-drenched landscapes and interiors are uniquely composed to exquisitely explore markers of identity.

Just over eight decades ago, London was ablaze, suffering from nightly bombardments during WWII. And its artists were inspired as well as terrified by seeing their city transform into a strange, damaged new place. This Imperial War Museum exhibition sees 1940s London through their eyes, combining 45 artworks with photos, objects, and oral testimonies from people who lived through the time. 

Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough are superbly creepy in a not-quite-horror that begins promisingly but teases more than it delivers. Tommy (Anson Boon) is a deeply antisocial young man. After various substances cause him to black out, he wakes up in a basement. He’s now the prisoner of married couple Chris (Stephen Graham) and Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough), who intend to teach Chris the error of his ways and make him the titular good boy. It’s lifted by some very convincing performances. Graham and Riseborough are playing almost one-note characters, but play that note with sinister effectiveness. There’s a powerful sense of dread here. 

In UK and Ireland cinemas Fri Mar 20.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was the godmother of rock and roll. Raised by her mother, a travelling Arkansas evangelist, she played guitar and sang on the road from the age of six and grew up to be a huge recording star. Her story and her music are extraordinary. So it’s a privilege and a treat to see British soul goddess Beverly Knight play Rosetta in this intimate two-hander that’s all about the music. Knight is a singer who raises the hackles on the back of your neck, but she does more here, channelling Rosetta Tharpe in a stomping, dramatic performance that conveys the passion, resilience, and sheer physical hard work of her life on the road. During the finger-tapping, off-beat clapping, and irrepressible grinning, there is a higher power being channelled, and it’s pure joy to witness it.

Tracey Emin: A Second Life is an evocative experience. Positioned as a 40-year retrospective through the pioneering artist’s vast and varied repertoire, the show lays bare Emin’s life through her distinct and often unsettling art, from career highs – such as the iconic, Turner Prize-nominated ‘My Bed’, which is every bit as shocking and moving today as it was in 1998 – to stark personal lows in work depicting her experiences with sexual violence, abortion and recent life-threatening illness. As you can imagine, with such subject matter, it is not always a comfortable experience for the artist and the viewer alike. However, Emin’s flair for dark comedy adds moments of levity throughout. ‘Mad Tracey from Margate’ is truly a force to be reckoned with, and a master of reflecting society back at itself, warts and all.

Get a glimpse of the hidden lives of queer people in midcentury New York at this intimate exhibition. Before homosexuality was legalised, Donna Gottschalk photographed the people she described as ‘brave and defiant warriors’ for daring to live openly as themselves, and take part in the emerging lesbian, trans and gay rights movements. This Photographers Gallery exhibition of her work puts her images in conversation with texts by writer Hélène Giannecchini, who is decades her junior, creating an intergenerational dialogue charting changing times. 

The National Portrait Gallery is an education in our collective understanding of British life, culture and history. But who isn’t here? Who doesn’t get to shape the version of the nation’s identity on display? That question is central to the work of American photographer Catherine Opie’s exhibition To Be Seen. Visitors are met with the piercing gaze of actor Daniela (now Daniel) Sea, best known for playing trans man Max in The L Word, another room is filled with vivid portraits shot on black backdrops, redolent of Baroque masters. A nude portrait of long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad evokes Caravaggio. It’s the kind of representation that has an impact. And that’s something worth celebrating. 

Celebrate the Year of the Horse in Chinatown with a feast that keeps the good fortune flowing. Tucked in the heart of Chinatown, Leongs Legend is a long-running Taiwanese favourite offering 45 percent off its bottomless dim sum and prosecco brunch, with 90 minutes of unlimited handmade dumplings and a glass of fizz from a very enticing £24.95. Expect plent of baskets (over 40 dishes) of xiao long bao, and a lively, teahouse-style setting that makes it an obvious pick for ringing in the lunar celebrations with friends.

Save 40% with bottomless dim sum vouchers, only through Time Out Offers

Newsflash! The Idler has given Victoria a bit of a glow-up. The Mediterranean restaurant sits inside The July hotel and feels stylish without trying too hard, just the place to slide into a booth for a date or grab a solo seat at the bar and still feel right at home. The dishes lean on seasonal British produce with a bright Mediterranean lift. Until March 31 you can enjoy two or three courses with our exclusive Time Out offer.

Save up to 25% off vouchers, only through Time Out Offers