Things to do in London this week

In 1824, the young King Liholiho and Queen Kamāmalu travelled across oceans from their kingdom, Hawaiʻi, to seek an alliance with the British Crown. This winter British Museum will shine a light on the lesser-known story about the historical relationship between Hawaiʻi’ and the United Kingdom, showing artefacts and treasures created by Hawaiian makers of the past and present. You’ll be able to see everything from feathered cloaks worn by chiefs, to finely carved deities, powerful shark-toothed weapons, and bold contemporary works by Kānaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) artists.

'Dirty Looks' is worth seeing because it blows apart everything you think you know about fashion: instead of pretty dresses behind glass, it delivers a bold, thought-provoking plunge into how dirt, decay and discomfort can become art. It’s funny, unsettling and genuinely fascinating; the kind of exhibition that grosses you out just enough to make you think differently about what clothes and creativity, can really be. The exhibition is in its last weeks, so don't miss it.

Short films are where many of the greats – Martin Scorsese, Lynne Ramsay, Paul Thomas Anderson et al – got started, and for over two decades, the London Short Film Festival has been a trusty showcase of new talents and small, but perfectly formed short films. Returning for its 22nd year, the 2026 edition features a whopping 204 new shorts across more than 60 programmes, as well as a bunch of talks, workshops and walking tours. Loads of great cinemas and arts spaces across the city are hosting screenings, including the BFI Southbank, the ICA, Rich Mix, the Rio and SET Peckham. Highlights of the programme include the opening night which features new work from Andrea Luka Zimmerman and John Smith who delve into their own lives as artists across the decades, from Smith’s emergence in the early 70s artschool scene to Zimmerman’s own forays into 90s music and fashion; Trans Sister Seventies! featuring newly unearthed archival shorts charting the trans-feminine experience of the 1970s; My Eye Is My Ear – a selection of new UK short films exploring Deaf lives, culture and identity; Everybody’s Darling: Melodrama in 80s & 90s Punk Cinema – a series of short films platforming women and queer artistes and the legacy of Warhol’s ‘superstars’, John Waters’ trash cinema and the Cinema of Transgression and a night of films exploring emo subculture in the early 2000s. 

It's no longer impossible to find tasty and satisfying alternatives to pints at London’s pubs and bars – in fact, some of the no-alcohol options on offer right now are even better than their boozy cousins. And they come with an added bonus of leaving you hangover-free. These bars cater to non-drinkers for Dry January and beyond. We've got buzzing drinking dens that also specialise in alcohol-free cocktails, completely dry tasting rooms and pubs with a penchant for low-and-no beers. These zero-percent champions are 100 percent fantastic. 

You can't miss The Voice of Hind Rajab: the searing docudrama from Kaouther Ben Hania that centres on the final hours of six-year-old Hind Rajab, killed in Gaza after her family’s car came under fire by the IDF. Using Hind’s real emergency calls as its emotional backbone, the film follows Red Crescent dispatchers as they race against time, bureaucracy and fear to reach her. Confined largely to a tense call centre, Ben Hania creates an experience that is intimate, claustrophobic and devastatingly human. Prepare for a gutpunch of a film that received a 23-minute standing ovation at the Venice film festival.

Photography fans are in for a real treat this month, as Nan Goldin’s seminal series The Ballad of Sexual Dependency goes on display in full for the first time ever in the UK. Staged at the St Davis Street branch of Gagosian, the exhibition marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of Goldin’s formative photobook, featuring 126 photographs shot between 1973 and 1986. An intimate, wistful portrait of Goldin’s downtown NYC community it includes photographes of pop culture icons like Cookie Mueller and Greer Lankton, shot in Goldin’s signature saturated, moody hues. Don’t miss a very rare chance to see it in all its glory.

Condo is the best thing to hit London’s art scene every January: a citywide mega-exhibition where galleries from around the world take over spaces across the capital. The idea’s simple, London galleries invite international ones to share their walls for a month, but the results are anything but. In 2026, 50 galleries show across 23 venues, from Sadie Coles HQ hosting Paris’s Sans Titre to The Sunday Painter welcoming Mumbai’s Jhaveri Contemporary. It’s a brilliant way to sample global contemporary art in one hit, and to enjoy watching London’s art crowd parade their questionable winter fashion between stops.

Rising star Jordan Fein’s sumptuous revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods is the first actual proper major Sondheim revival to be staged in this country since the great man’s passing. It’s a clever send up of fairytales that pushes familiar stories into absurd, existential, eventually very moving territory, but it’s also a fiddly musical with a lot of moving parts. You need to get it right, and Fein smashes it, largely thanks to exceptional casting. The whole thing looks astonishing: Tom Scutt’s astonishingly lush, vivid woods are glistening, eerie and primal. The costumes are similarly ravishing. It’s just great, really, a sublime production of a sublime musical with a sublime cast.

Happy Dry Jan! In the past those two words have signified a dull month of self-discipline, with mango and passionfruit J2O being the most exciting non-alcoholic beverage on offer. But over the last few years that’s all changed. The ‘no and low’ drinks market is now huge and London now has a vast spread of sober events happening throughout January. Among them is the brand new G0.0D Week festival. The nine-day fest will involve zero-alcohol masterclasses and tastings, restaurant hopping tours, live music and a one-night-only street food bonanza at Market Place St Paul’s. 

January 2026 marks one whole year since the film world lost one of its greatest auteurs, and the BFI is marking the occasion with a month-long season celebrating the mastermind behind Mullholland Drive, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. ‘David Lynch: The Dreamer’ promises to be a joyful deep-dive into the director’s wonderfully warped world, featuring big-screen revivals of Eraserhead, Lost Highway and The Elephant Man alongside shorts, documentary portraits and a bunch of Lynch-themed goings-on. If you're a fan this is not one to miss.

Jade Franks was a hit at last year's Edinburgh Fringe (there's talks of a West End transfer, as well as a potential Netflix series in the pipeline). But for now, she's at Soho Theatre to perform her Legally Blonde-esque monologue about going to study at Cambridge. Based on her own experience of being working class at the univerisity, it is a hurricane of a performance and not one to miss; all things point to her reaching super stardom in no time. 

In a city where eating out seems to be getting pricier by the minute, this list remains one of Time Out London's handiest guides. We've given the list a seasonal spin and here you'll find some of the cosiest (and best value) meals for embracing winter in London, such as Durak Tantuni's comforting Turkish meat wrap, a champion curry at Indian YMCA, and a visit to the Oyster Shack in Epping Forest - perfect to cap off a woodland walk in the wilds of the suburbs. 

If you like your horror bold, brainy and genuinely unsettling, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a must-see. This isn’t just another zombie sequel, it’s the most daring and soulful entry in the franchise yet, blending brutal action with sharp ideas about addiction, memory and what humanity becomes when society collapses. With blistering direction from Nia DaCosta, a knockout script from Alex Garland and real, killer performances from Jack O’Connell and Ralph Fiennes, the film delivers shocks that stay with you long after the credits roll. It’s weirdly moving and proof that this series still has new ground to cover.

If you boil a sauna down to its nuts and bolts, it’s essentially just a really hot room and some water to create steam with. Wild, then, how much of a positive affect those two simple ingredients can have on our bodies, healing weary muscles, doing wonders for our skin, and helping all the horrible toxins we insist on putting in our insides get back out. There are a wealth of top saunas around the city. From plunge pools and infrared therapy rooms to Finnish-style homages and ones soundtracked by DJ sets, you’ll find the steam sesh for you in the capital.

Look, we love London. But even so, we can't deny that this city is devilishly good at coming up with ways to drain your bank balance. As Time Out editors, we’ve become experts at hunting down ways to enjoy the city on a shoestring. Lots of us started out as broke students here, and since then, we’ve scoured every corner for cheap things to do before payday hits. Read on for some fab, free ways to make yourself (and your bank balance) very happy indeed. 

Alan Ayckbourn’s 1985 play Woman in Mind, has been a West End hit a couple of times before, in productions directed by Ayckbourn himself. Here, Michael Longhurst does the honour, in an alluring revival. Sheridan Smith plays Susan, an embittered middle-aged mother who begins the play having taken a bump to the head that’s caused her perception of reality to become unmoored. She believes she’s a model parent with a dream life, before long Susan’s ‘real’ family intrudes, headed by her windbag vicar husband Gerald (Tim McMullen), who she drawlingly tears strips off while yearning for his imaginary counterpart. It’s an extremely handsome production with something melancholic and Chekhovian at its core. 

The London International Mime Festival was a true city staple, bringing weird and wild physical theatre from across the globe to the capital each year. Rarely ‘mime’ in the stereotypical sense, the fest brought mind-expanding theatre to London for 47 years straight. The 2023 edition was its last, but MimeLondon is the same idea in all but name, and returns for its third year in January 2026. With the iconic Barbican shut this year for upgrade works, MimeLondon will go travelling, with shows at Sadler’s Wells and The Place. If you're keen to see one of the biggies, we'd reccommend physical theatre legends Gecko’s returning dystopian classic The Wedding (Sadler’s Wells, Jan 21-24), which was a big hit at LIMF in 2019. 

Even we culture-mad London superfans have to admit that every once in a while, it’s nice to have a little 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.