London events in June

Her unibrowed face has been plastered over everything from tattoos to fridge magnets. Now, London's getting a rare chance to get to know the towering artistic talent behind the kitschy merch, with the first major Frida Kahlo exhibition in eight years. The Tate Modern's massive summer exhibition will feature over 130 of her works alongside documents, photographs and memorabilia taken from Kahlo’s archives. It'll explore how she created the images that captured so many people's imaginations, as well as looking at the fans that spread her image all over the world.

Marilyn Monroe would have been 100 this year. So National Portrait Gallery is throwing an arty party in her honour, gathering together hundreds of images of the Hollywood legend. This exhibition will showcase works by some of the twentieth century’s greatest artists and photographers, including Andy Warhol, Cecil Beaton, Marlene Dumas, Milton Greene and Eve Arnold. And you'll also get to peek at scripts, books, and even clothes owned by the legend herself.

The Open Air Theatre started out life as a Shakespeare only venue. These days you're more likely to find musicals on its tree-framed stage, but all that's changing with a summery staging of the Bard’s ultimate crowd-pleaser, as directed by Atri Banerjee. We’ve no massive steer for how this one will play out, but it’s described as ‘blissful’, indicating it’s probably not going to do anything too outre, and it’ll have an original folk-infused score from Maimuna Memon.

A few years back, wildly popular French playwright Florian Zeller (‘The Father’, ‘The Mother’) had his plays plastered all over the West End. If you missed his work the first time round, here's your chance to find out what all the fuss was about. This zippy, witty farce explores the ever-shifting layers of infidelity as experienced by two middle-aged Parisian couples, with lots of laughs with painful truths behind them.

From swanky skyscrapers to casual warehouse hangouts and hidden pub terraces, London has a real crush on a rooftop bar. Here's our pick of the best places to enjoy a natural high along with your bevvies, from Soho to Peckham to Shoreditch. 

After making its spectacular debut last summer, Lido festival is moving to Victoria Park for two June weekends in 2026. Headliners announced so far include creator of the ‘woke macarena’ CMAT, downtempo electronica duo Maribou State, Kelis, Father John Misty, Sharon Van Etten and more.

Austin’s music, film and media festival SXSW is legendary for attracting massive stars: the likes of Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and Chappell Roan have all given early performances at the Texas event, while Steven Spielberg, Barack Obama and Malala Yousafzai have all appeared at the conference arm of the festival. After the success of last year's inaugural UK edition, SXSW London is back again for the second year running, and will once again take over various venues around Shoreditch in June. If 2025 is anything to go by expect the line-up to be absolutely massive, with talks and panels, big keynotes, film screenings, and a music festival.

If you thought Jamie Lloyd’s hipster, prosthetics-free production of Edmund Rostand’s classic play had killed off the classic big-nosed take on Cyrano de Bergerac, you’d be very wrong. Nonetheless, to suggest this RSC production from director Simon Evans just an old school trad take would be off the mark. Co-adapted with writer and poet Debris Stevenson, it won glowing reviews in Stratford-upon-Avon for its bitter intensity and moreover for superb lead performances from Adrian Lester as the dazzlingly witty but physically ugly soldier Cyrano, and the wonderful Susannah Fielding as his love Roxane, unaware that the poetic letters purportedly sent to her by her hunky suitor Christian are in fact written by Cyrano.

Usually, Sadlers Wells is all about seeing wordclass dancers leap, pirouette and sweat their way through live performances. But this year the Islington venue is changing pace with its inaugural dance film festival, Dance Digital. Held in the Lilian Baylis studio, the three day event will be packed with film screenings, talks, VR/XR installations, networking sessions and mentoring opportunities.