The Time Out London blog team

In an insanely busy week for new season announcements (with the Globe, National Theatre and Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre all revealing programming)… here’s another! The Donmar Warehouse had already announced a single piece of 2026 programming, Anna Ziegler’s Evening All Afternoon, which will open next month but now artistic director Timothy Sheader has dropped the entire year of shows at the prestigious boutique Covent Garden theatre. Only the Christmas slot is now unoccupied. The Donmar’s programme is as eclectic as ever, with the opening play being Mass (Apr 18-Jun 6). US actor-writer-director Fran Kranz’s adaptation of his own hit indie film is about two sets of couples – the parents of the victim of a high school shooting, and the parents of the shooter – who attempt a painful reconciliation years after the event. Carrie Cracknell directs a top cast that includes Adeel Akhtar, Amari Bacchus, Monica Dolan, Paul Hilton, Lyndsey Marshal, Rochelle Rose and Susie Trayling. Photo: Helen Murray Next up, Felix Barrett of Punchdrunk fame will tackle Chloë Moss’s new play The Guilty (Jun 20-Aug 15). Like Barrett’s excellent current West End hit Paranormal Activity. Like Paranormal Activity, it’s a film adaptation, being based upon the the Dutch film Den Skyldige and its Jake Gyllenhaal-starring US remake The Guilty. The play will star Russell Tovey (pictured above) as a police officer with a troubled past who takes a shocking 999 call. Expect a Barrett production to be full...

If you want to feast your eyes on the world’s most iconic masterpieces in London, next month you won’t have to trek all the way into central to do so. Croydon will become one of the city’s hottest arty hubs thanks to a new show of National Gallery masterpieces. Paintings including Van Gogh’s legendary painting ‘Sunflowers’ and works by Michelangelo, Monet, Picasso and Renoir will be scattered throughout the south London town next month as part of the National Gallery’s free ‘Art on Your Doorstep’ programme. Before you get too excited (or worried about these paintings being exposed to the elements), no, the real masterpieces aren’t being shown in Croydon. The artworks are life-sized reproductions – though they’ll still be very much worth a look. ‘The National Gallery: Art On Your Doorstep’ is a programme aiming to bring life-sized reproductions of 30 world-famous paintings to neighbourhoods across the UK. The project has already been to Stoke and will also come to 10 other UK locations between now and 2027. Croydon is the first London borough on the docket. The exhibition will debut on February 3 and run all the way until July 5. Photograph: The National Gallery Photographic Department So, where exactly can you search out these iconic pieces of art in Croydon? They’ll be dotted around town centre locations including The Queen’s Gardens, Croydon Minster, Whitgift Shopping Centre and Park Hill Park. The National Gallery is also installing artworks in Coulsdon, New...

After spending months anticipating a holiday, a week spent packing and doing last minute admin, and several stressful hours going through check-in and security at the airport, the very last thing you want to hear is that your flight has been axed.  Cancelled flights are far more common in some UK airports than others. And now, flight compensation site AirAdvisor has looked at data from the Civil Aviation Authority to reveal the cancellation rates across 20 of the UK’s biggest airports in 2025. It also compared it to their rates in 2024 to figure out where cancellations are easing, and where they’re getting worse.  In reassuring news for anyone taking off from the capital, two London airports boast the fewest flight cancellations in the country and are among the UK’s five most dependable hubs.  Luton Airport ranked second in the UK for the fewest cancellations in 2025. Only 0.34 percent of its flights were cancelled in the period analysed, which is far less than the national average of 1.09 percent and a slight decrease compared to its 2024 rate of 0.5 percent.   Photograph: Chrispictures / Shutterstock.com Just below in third place was Stansted Airport with a cancellation rate of just 0.41 percent in 2025. That’s less than one in every 200 scheduled flights that were called off. Such a stellar track record is especially good news for Stansted, which is currently undergoing a huge expansion project with ambitions to overtake Gatwick (which had a cancellation rate of 0.8...