The Time Out London blog team

The past few months have been a real roller coaster for pubs in the UK.  In November Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in her Budget that business rates would rise for all businesses in Britain in April 2026. This was obviously bad news for pubs, many of which were already struggling. Following widespread backlash from pubs, today (January 28) Reeves declared that all pubs and music venues would receive a 15 percent discount on their rates business bills from April 2026 until 2029. However, many pubs are still in trouble thanks to a range of factors, including the rise of the National Living Wage, climbing energy costs, increasing alcohol duty and falling consumer spending.  That’s why Ben Guerrin created ismypubfucked.com, a map showing the risk of closure for every pub in the UK. Guerrin’s site also includes a leaderboard of the ‘most fucked’ pubs in Britain which can be filtered by postcode, ranking 45,936 drinking spots on a scale of ‘fine’ to ‘absolutely fucked’. The website uses official data from the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), the government body responsible for business rates in England and Wales. It compares the current rates with the proposed new rates for 2026 to calculate how big the risk of closure will be when the rates change in April of this year.  Image: ismypubfucked.com According to the map, some of the most at-risk pubs in London include the Spit and Sawdust in Southwark, the Duke of Wellington in the City of London, the Nobody Inn in Newington...

The Arts Theatre is a little venue with a big past and a low profile. Just 350 seats, it’s the smallest receiving house in the West End, although it’s so small it’s not typically considered to be a West End theatre in the classic sense. Nonetheless, it’s been quietly plugging away for almost a century now – next year is its centenary – and has seen some history, notably the English-language premiere of Samuel Beckett’s landmark Waiting for Godot. In recent years the Arts Theatre was home to the musical Six before it went on to bigger things, and post-pandemic it’s been given over to touchy feely bloke musical The Choir of Man.  Why is this relevant to a story about a new theatre at Marble Arch? Because the Arts Theatre has shut down for a period of refurbishment and rather than simply taking an extended holiday, Arts Theatre co-runners Louis Hartshorn and Brian Hook are building a 550-seat temporary theatre as a stopgap that will keep all current theatre staff fully employed. Image: HH Productions Rather than simply continue Arts Theatre business as usual, the venue’s creative team seem to have taken this as an opportunity to flex their muscles a bit. There’s no actual confirmed programming for Marble Arts (nice name), but we’re promised a state of the art theatre that will host ‘a mixture of new productions and established smash-hit shows’. So presumably not just more Choir of Man. The venue has just had its planning permission granted and will go up this summer, and is...

Great news for the City slickers with a taste for posh nosh (we know there’s loads of you out there): Leadenhall, one of London’s oldest markets, has revealed ambitious plans to up its food game. Leadenhall is one of the City of London’s most iconic landmarks. Dating back to 1321, the place was originally a trading hub for meat. Today’s red and gold market buildings – decked out with dragons, shields and sacks of money carved into the stone entrance ways – date back to 1881. And yes, it was where they filmed Diagon Alley in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The blood and guts of the OG Leadenhall Market are long gone: these days it’s a beautiful indoor shopping space home to weekday stallholders offering jewellery, arty gifts and a variety of tasty lunch options to nearby office workers and tourists. But soon Leadenhall’s foodie game is going to level up big time. The market’s operator, the City of London Corporation, has announced plans to make Leadenhall the ultimate foodie destination, with more restaurants, premium wine bars and popular lunchtime brands. Photograph: Shutterstock Details of the plans will be announced soon, but changes are set to mean longer opening hours and more options for people visiting on weekends. The idea is that the market will no longer be just a pit stop for corporate workers to grab a bite to eat on their lunch break.  The plans are all part of the local authority’s ‘Destination City’ programme, designed to turn the Square Mile...