London events in May

There’s wine, and then there’s real wine. If you’re keen to find out what ‘real wine’ actually is (and there’s a high chance it’s not the stuff you chugged in the park as a teenager)‚ check out the Real Wine Fair. This huge celebration of independent vine growers is making a triumphant return to the capital for 2022, bringing together more than 160 organic, biodynamic and natural winemakers. You’ll be able to attend guest talks, seminars and masterclasses, visit an on-site wine shop and chomp on treats from top-quality street food stalls. Oh, and obviously you’ll have the opportunity to sample all of the weird, wonderful, and down-right delicious artisan wines from all over the world. Cheers to that!

Tickets cost £25 on the door. 

An extravaganza of wine, food, live music and entertainment will be taking over Fulham Palace for three days in May. Headline producers include Maison Mirabeau and Léoube, with more than 30 more wine producers around the world making the line-up. Expect a gastronomic feasting experience accompanied by fine wine.

Presented by Michelin-starred chef and longtime ‘Great British Menu’ judge Tom Kerridge, this touring food and music festival features a whopping 150 different dishes, making it the largest menu crisscrossing the UK this summer. But it’s not just going for size over substance; top chefs like Atul Kochhar and Angela Hartnett are taking part alongside a bunch of London foodie favourites including Hoppers, Cue Point and the Princess of Shoreditch.

They’re just a few of the 39 restaurants taking part in the nine-stop tour over the summer, which calls in at three different London locations: Wimbledon from 27-29 May, Dulwich from 24-26 June, and Chiswick from 2-4 September.

As its name suggests, it aims to bring a convivial public house atmosphere to the great outdoors with loads of delicious pub grub and equally enticing live performances. Top music acts booked across the London dates include Craig David, Sister Sledge, Soul II Soul Soundsystem, Basement Jaxx and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, but be sure to double-check exactly who’s playing on each day before you book. 

Well this sounds wildly provocative. Eight years ago, Mike Bartlett had his big stage breakthrough with ‘King Charles III’, a jaw-droppingly audacious verse drama that imagined Prince Charles causing a constitutional crisis upon his ascent to the throne. Now Bartlett reunites with director Rupert Goold for ‘The 47th’, a ‘viciously funny’ verse play imagining of the 2024 US election campaign.

There’s no real specific clue to the plot beyond the fact that it follows the 2024 elections, and the casting: Bertie Carvel will follow up his recent turn as Rupert Murdoch by playing the arguably even more monstrous Donald Trump; Lydia Wilson – brilliant in ‘King Charles III’ as Kate Middleton – will play Ivanka Trump; and US actor Tamara Tunie will take on the role of Kamala Harris. It’s being co-produced by Sonia Friedman, and you strongly suspect a West End transfer is already in the offing.

Ah wella wella… it’s back! When it premiered in 1971, Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey’s musical ‘Grease’ looked fondly back on the ’50s from barely more than a decade’s distance. Now the show – which of course went on to become a globe-swallowing film in 1978 – is so iconic as to practically define our view of ’50s American high schools as awash with greasers, muscle cars and squeaky-voiced girls wearing pink. It pretty much gets revived every couple of decades or so – the last time was back in 2007, off the back of the talent show ‘Grease is the Word’.

Now it returns for 2022 in a brand-new production from Nikolai Foster, with choreography by Arlene Philips. We’re promised a different side to ‘Grease’ than the last, play-it-safe revival, with a grittier edge and songs and script from the original production restored. But don’t go expecting a terrifyingly avant-garde reinvention. The songs that were added for the film – ‘Grease’, ‘You’re the One that I Want’, ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’ – will all remain.

Perhaps surprisingly, there hasn’t been a major London revival of Tennessee Williams’ ‘The Glass Menagerie’ since John Tiffany’s dreamy 2017 take, although that’s largely because the pandemic robbed us of Ivo van Hove’s Isabelle Huppert-starring version, which was due to come to the Barbican in 2020 and certainly isn’t any time soon, if ever.

But 2022 should give us an exciting looking new edition, as Jeremy Herrin directs the magnificent Amy Adams – six times Oscar nominee, and six times robbed – as she makes her London stage debut in the role of Amanda Wingate, the monstrous southern matriarch – based on Williams’ own mother – whose suffocating love leaves her children Laura and Tom deeply emotionally scarred.

TED hosts its first-ever event in Soho, with confirmed speakers including art historian, author and curator Aindrea Emelife, computational biologist and autism advocate Dr Camilla Pang, and BBC podcaster, writer and journalist Danny Robins. Check the website for the full line-up for this all-day event.

If you're addicted to podcasts, have a podcast, or just dream of starting your own, this one's for you. The Podcast Show is a new international festival for podcasting that brings together some of the biggest players in the biz, like Audible, Acast, BBC Sounds and Spotify, alongside some of the best creators out there, including Fearne Cotton and My Dad Wrote A Porno.

There are also tons of chances to learn more about podcasting, with 150 in-person panels and sessions to choose from, plus masterclasses with industry figures, and 350 speakers. Sounds like a perfect way for aspiring podcasters and fans alike to turn up the volume on their passion. 

For centuries, artists have been hellbent on painting women in windows. Just stood there, looking wistfully out at the world. It's a very odd, but very real, trope, which pops up over and over again in the work of artists ranging from David Hockney to Rembrandt. And now, the Dulwich Picture Gallery is dedicating a whole exhibition to asking: 'errr… why?'

She's exploded sheds and trampled French horns, and in the process, Cornelia Parker has become one of the most mesmerising, instantly recognisable British artists working today. This major retrospective will include loads of breathtaking installations, all dealing with issues of violence, ecology, history and human rights – and also her apparent hatred for garden furniture.

Combining ancient sculpture, sacred artifacts and contemporary art from six continents, this exhibition explores the global history of female spiritual beings. We're talking demons, spirits, saints, fairies and everything in between. From satanic consorts to gods of death, this show is an exploration of the enduring power of female spirituality throughout history.

Munch is the great master of human torment. His iconic paintings have defined how generations of artists depicted pain and anguish. So this show of works largely loaned from his home country of Norway should be fun.

This is no ordinary flea market. To raise money for the theatrical charity Acting for Others, a variety of top West End shows will set up stalls selling signed posters, themed merch and all kinds of collectibles, plus special items for auction. You’ll also get the chance to take selfies with a host of West End stars and take part in a theatrical tombola. The last West End Flea Market (in 2019) raised more than £26,000 in a single morning, so this follow-up event will be pulling out all the stops to beat it. It takes place on the morning of 21 May, with exact timings to be announced shortly. 

The UK’s largest outdoor fitness festival returns to Hackney in May, with a three-day programme of activities that’ll help you work up a nice sweat. As usual there’ll be plenty of free fitness classes taking place on the Marshes, plus a free-entry 5k race for those who have made smashing Couch to 5k their new year’s resolution. It all leads up to the Hackney Half on the Sunday, with the 21km route winding its way around the borough through crowds of cheering spectators.

Each year, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show sees garden lovers flock to SW3 to get their annual fix of horticultural goodness. There’s always much chatter about the most spectacular floral displays, but one of the gardens at this year’s show has been designed to spark debate of a different kind: about racial and climate injustice. 

Titled Hands Off Mangrove by Grow2Know, the garden is inspired by the story of the Mangrove Nine, a group of activists who were arrested and persecuted by the police in 1970 following raids on the Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill. The subsequent trial saw all nine defendants acquitted, with the judge describing ‘evidence of racial hatred’ in the Metropolitan Police. Steve McQueen made a film about it, ‘Mangrove’, which was part of his ‘Small Axe’ anthology series that screened on the BBC in 2020. 

Another inspiration for the garden is the deforestation of mangroves around the world. In its centre will be a four-metre-tall sculpture with nine bare roots, each recognising a Mangrove Nine defendant, surrounded by various lush species, including edible plants like beetroot, peppers, rocket and tomatoes. The crushed concrete path that runs through the garden represents the challenges and threats of racism, poverty and violence in 1970s Notting Hill and today. 

Hands off Mangrove by Grow2Know will be presented at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show from May 24-28. Tickets are on sale now.