30 fabulous things to do in London this week

Dine on damn good veggie grub at a supper club in Holloway, get inspired by the vast array of modern and contemporary pieces packed into the London Art Fair in Islington or laugh until your belly hurts at the 100 Club's monthly comedy night. Here are all the best ways to spend your week!

Things to do 

Martin Luther King Day Event, V&A Museum of Childhood, TONIGHT, V&A Museum of Childhood. This evening of talks, film and performance centres on the economic and health challenges faced by the surge of immigrants to the East End of London.

Yoga at St Stephen's, St Stephen with St John, Tue, free. Holy, moly it's a miracle! We've found a free yoga class open to all abilities with mats provided and no advanced booking needed. Yogis will even be served tea and coffee following the class, meaning they'll be heading off to work feeling new levels of heavenly.

The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair, Battersea Evolution, Tue-Thu, £10. More than 140 dealers from the UK and Europe will be selling original twentieth-century and antique furniture, textiles, lighting and more.

Creating A Buzz About Art, Victoria Tower Gardens, Wed, free. Create artwork for inclusion in an exhibition titled 'A Right Royal Buzz' at this outdoor session for all ages. Participants can make their own 3D flowers inspired by the works of famous artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, helping to highlight the importance of pollination and why we must welcome bees into our gardens, window boxes and green spaces.

From Day into Night: Walking the Ginger Line with Iain Sinclair, London Transport Museum, Wed, £19, LTM Friends/concs £8. Hear tonight from author Iain Sinclair who one day decided to walk the full stretch of the London Overground Line. Visiting 33 stations on his way, Sinclair walked the 35 mile loop from Haggerston via Wapping and Peckham Rye, Willesden Junction and Hampstead Heath, ending up in Camden Town.

Mad About the Boy, Fashion Space Gallery, all week, free. The latest exhibition to hit London College of Fashion’s Fashion Space Gallery is Mad About the Boy, an exploration of the way ideas of the teenage boy are constructed through era-defining collections and iconic fashion imagery.

Winter Lights at Canary Wharf, Canary Wharf, all week, free. The bright lights of Canary Wharf's towers already provide quite the spectacle after dark, but the area will glow even more than usual throughout January thanks to the addition of a variety of installations from international artists.

…or check out more events happening in London this week.

 

 

Eating and drinking

The Mid-week Solo Supper Club, The Calthorpe Project, Wed, £18.50. £13.50 students + booking fee. If you're looking to meet new people or 2016's resolution is to improve your culinary skills, then book onto this class that will see participants rustle up a delicious three-course meal together.

Sprig, Vagabond, Thu, £35. Tuck into more than your five-a-day in just one sitting at this vegetarian supperclub in lovely Holloway coffee shop Vagabond. Chef Peter Pickering has worked at Heston Blumenthal's Dinner, Café Royal and Chiltern Firehouse, so you can be sure the five-course tasting menu will be of the highest quality. 

…or check out the latest restaurant reviews.

 

 

Comedy

Morgan & West: Parlour Tricks, Wilton's Music Hall, Tue-Thu, £8-£15. Time-travelling Victorian magicians Morgan & West are a very talented pair, speaking in cut-glass British accents to present their spiffingly good illusions. They managed to baffle Vegas magic kings Penn & Teller when they appeared on ITV show, 'Fool Us', and they're a Fringe favourite in Edinburgh.

Kieran Hodgson: Lance, Soho Theatre, Tue-Thu, £15, £12.50 concs. This is a beautifully written hour, with Hodgson focusing on his teenage hero Lance Armstrong who helps the Yorkshire lad through the tough times of mountain bike races and going to university.

100 Club Presents, 100 Club, Wed, £10. Legendary music venue the 100 Club is hosting top quality, mid-week comedy bills once a month. This month's bill: four-time Foster's Award nominee James Acaster, Simon Munnery, John Kearns and MC Elis James.

Eddie Izzard: Force Majeure Reloaded, Palace Theatre, all week, £15-£45. Following his arena dates back in 2013, and a massive world tour, globetrotting comedian (and future Mayor of London?) Eddie Izzard settles in for a London West End run, at the Palace Theatre, with a 'reloaded' version of his show, 'Force Majeure'. 

…or check out all the critics’ choice comedy shows.

 

 

Live music and nightlife

The Maccabees, O2 Academy Brixton, Thu, £27.50. Battersea’s finest are back, bashing out their radio-friendly indie rock full of angular riffs, south London accents and infectious, anthemic tunes.

Mystery Jets, Rough Trade East, Thu, free w/wristband. It's been ages since Mystery Jets have played a proper London gig, so it's great to have them back. The boys from Eel Pie Island will be breaking out fantastic indie pop tracks from their back catalogue and some new material too from album five.

Hip Hop Karaoke, The Social, Thu, £5. If you've ever fancied yourself as a Missy, Eminem, Beastie Boy/Girl or you think you could give Snoop a run for his dough, here's your chance to act out some rap fantasies.

…or take a look at all the live music events in London this week.

 

 

Film

BURN Film Night, Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Tue, £5, £3 concs. Cabaret expert and occasional Time Out Film writer Ben Walters returns with his regular evening of queer performance and community. This month, he’ll be screening a number of his short films featuring performances and reminiscences from some of London’s leading cabaret artists, featuring everyone from ‘irrepressible postpunk homocore legend’ Vaginal Davis to gender revolutionary Tricity Vogue.

Tufnell Park Film Club: ‘Wonder Boys’, The Star, Tue, £15 m’ship. Seven years after his first novel was hailed a 'modern classic', Grady Tripp can't finish the follow-up. Then there's his writing student James, who's enviably gifted, even if he's suicidal, a congenital liar and a thief. On the eve of the university's WordFest festival, Grady's wife leaves, his lover announces she's pregnant and, worst of all, his editor comes calling.

Audition, Regent Street Cinema, Wed, £11, £10 concs. Seven years after losing his wife to cancer, video producer Aoyama finds the new bride of his dreams at a casting call for a non-existent movie. Asami is modest, polite, sexy, a trained dancer – and, apparently, available. As Aoyama nervously begins dating her, the film slips into nightmare.

Or at the cinema...

Room ★★★★☆ Brie Larson is harrowing as a young mother abducted and trapped in a shed for years.

The Revenant ★★★★☆ Leonardo DiCaprio battles the elements – and a ferocious bear – in this fierce, elemental western from 'Birdman' director Alejandro González Iñárritu.

Creed ★★★★☆ In this low-key boxing drama, Sylvester Stallone is on impressive form as the ageing Rocky - now playing mentor to a new generation of fighters.

…or see all of the latest releases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theatre

Jane Wenham: The Witch of Walkern, Arcola Theatre, Tue-Thu, £17-£19, £14-£15 concs. Set in 1712,'The Witch of Walkern' centres on one of the last woman to be tried for witchcraft, and the villagers who are torn between fear of the devil and suspicion that the whole thing is nothing more than a few herbal teas and foolishness.

Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, Union Theatre, Tue-Thu, £20, £17 concs. A powerful and topical revival of Brecht's daring assessment of Hitler's Germany.

Akram Khan: Until the Lions, Roundhouse, all week, £10-£39. One of Britain’s most acclaimed choreographers, Akram Khan may have the Olympics opening ceremony on his CV, but latest work 'Until the Lions' – although only an hour long and using just three dancers – feels truly epic.

…or see our theatre critics’ choices.

 

 

 

 

 

This week's best new art

Giacomo Manzù: Sculptor and Draughtsman, Estorick Collection, Wed-Thu, £5, concs £3.50, mems £2.50. Although largely self-taught, Giacomo Manzù established himself as one Italy’s foremost sculptors of religious subjects. He won his first major ecclesiastical commission in 1930, decorating the chapel of the Catholic University in Milan.

London Art Fair, Business Design Centre, Wed-Thu, £20, £14 adv, £35 six-day ticket, £30 adv six-day ticket, £13 concs. Returning to the Business Design Centre for its twenty-eighth edition, the London Art Fair presents a varied programme of Modern and contemporary art.

…or see all London art reviews.

And finally

Win... a pair of return tickets to Paris with Eurostar or the perfect weekend in Barcelona

Grab... £30 tickets to Inspire Day: interactive lifestyle workshops and inspirational talks from sports stars on January 22

Book… these gigs while you still can

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