Amazing things to do in London in September 2026

Huge news, history fans, the Bayeux Tapestry is going on display in Britain for the first time in 900 years. The 70-metre-long artwork is an intricately embroidered depiction of the 1066 Battle of Hastings, in which William the Conquerer took the English throne, and it’s coming to the British Museum. Although it’s believed to have been embroidered in Canterbury, the tapestry has resided in Bayeux, Normandy for the past nine centuries. Despite numerous attempts from Brits to borrow the masterpiece over the past century, it will finally be on show on British soil for the first time since it was made. 

It's pretty rare for a stage designer to get a big art show devoted to their work, but multi-awardwinning artist Es Devlin thoroughly deserves her first UK museum show this autumn. The Design Museum’s landmark retrospective will delve into the stories behind the London-based designer’s 30-year practice. Developed in close collaboration with Devlin – who has worked on everything from the Olympic opening ceremony to the Superbowl half-time show – it will feature rare maquettes, sketches, as well as new large scale installations conceived especially for the exhibition. 

Organised by the people behind Percolate and Love International festival in Croatia, mid-September’s electronic music festival Waterworks is a final chance to squeeze every last drop of festival fun out of the summer. It’ll take place across seven spaces around the industrial megaclub in the Docklands, with the same DJs playing across a mixture of indoor and outdoor rooms. The big name selectors on the programme include Alex Kassian, babyschön, djrum, Midland and Sofia Kourtesis, who'll be ready to keep energy levels high through this 36-hour dance marathon.

London's musical theatre fans have been eagerly waiting for their chance to see wildly acclaimed US indie musical Kimberley Akimbo, created by composer Jeanine Tesori and writer David Lindsay-Abaire. And now it’s finally here, putting a musical spin on the story of a 16-year-old girl afflicted by a rare/essentially magical disease that makes her age four times faster than usual. It bagged multiple wins at the 2023 Tony Awards – including the all important best new musical – and now it's aiming to wow UK audiences with a Michael Longhurst-directed production at Hampstead Theatre.

Anyone who’s ever stepped inside the Royal Albert Hall will understand that it can’t be filled with just any old music – it needs scale and drama. And every year it gets exactly that with the BBC Proms, which brings the world's greatest classical soloists and ensembles for an epic series of concerts. The line-up winds up each September with Last Night of the Proms, which is apparently the world's biggest classical music party: and you don't have to be up for waving a Union Jack to join the fun. 

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The big surprise of the Royal Court's current season is a revival of Man to Man, Manfred Karge’s hallucinatory solo play about a widow who assumes her late husband’s job and identity in inter-war Germany. When it first premiered in 1987, Stephen Unwin’s production provided a breakthrough for an androgynous young actor named Tilda Swinton, starting her down the path to global cult fame.  Now, the whole band is back together for a revival of Man to Man once again starring Swinton and directed by Unwin. Although Swinton has starred in the odd stage role in Europe since, she’s not performed in the UK for over three decades, so this production is seriously hyped: tickets are sold out, but check out the Royal Court's £15 Mondays to be in with a chance.

Each year, Greenwich and Docklands International Festival wraps up summer with a spectacular array of outdoor performances across southeast London. Its final weekend falls in September, and it's all about the joy of movement. Head to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for Dancing City on Sep 5 and you'll find pop-up performances including all-male football-inspired dance Benched and physical storytelling piece Man Down. Or head to Woolwich on Sep 6 for (In)visible Dancing (General Gordon Square, Woolwich, Sep 6) and exhilarating 90-minute mass dance event, with the opportunity for everyone to join in at the end.

Despite Lin-Manuel Miranda’s relentless recent hyping of Rent’s writer Jonathan Larson, it’s been ages since we actually had a revival of his magnum opus. Here, finally, were are, as star director Luke Sheppard reworks a version of the show he did during the pandemic into a full-blown West End extravaganza. For those unfamiliar, Larson’s show is a reworking of Giacomo Puccini opera tragedy La Boheme, but with the action moved from the freezing garrets of 19th century Paris to New York City at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Gaten Matarazzo of Stranger Things will star as Mark, the boho filmmaker lead character. 

Tired of merely listening to your favourite podcast hosts yabbering away? Now you can watch them at it IRL at London Podcast Festival, which is hosting some of the best podcasting talents from the UK and US live at Kings Place over another 11 days this September. This year get a front seat at plenty of big shows in the audio world, including hugely successful British Asian pod Tommy's Brownload, Wrong Turns with Jameela Jamil, family fact show No Such Thing As A Fish, The Empire Film Podcast and The Beef and Dairy Network Podcast (trust us, it’s waaay more fun than it sounds!)

London is widely recognised as one of the design capitals of the world. Cementing this title is the annual Design Festival, a colourful and thought-provoking celebration of some of the world's best designers, who interrogate the boundaries of design through events, exhibitions and installations. There'll be tons to see, including a celebration of Japanese craftsmanship colliding with new tech at the V&A, a pangolin-inspired pavilion on the Strand, and a Kenzo retrospective at the Design Museum. As ever, the festival is spread across 11 Design Districts including spots like Soho and the V&A Museum, where the events will reflect the unique identity of each area.

A Viking longboat’s worth of Icelanders will be invading the capital this September. After two and a half decades of charming its way round more than 20 cities across the US, Canada, Germany and Japan, Taste of Iceland is arriving in London for the first time. The three-day festival offers loads of opportunities to get better aquainted with the food and culture of the remote country who many Londoners mostly know through Sigur Rós and travel TikTok.

Vauxhall brasserie Darby’s is hosting with Iceland’s reigning Chef of the Year, Hinrik Örn Lárusson, there’s a guided cocktail journey through Iceland’s wildest regions, and comedy fans can catch Iceland’s biggest stand-up Ari Eldjárn breaking down the realities of Icelandic life, fresh from his Netflix special. And don’t miss an Iceland-themed exhibition from the World’s Worst Photographer, chosen from 127,000 entries, whose slightly blurry Iceland shots are somehow still better than anything on your camera roll.

Richard E Grant’s delightfully wayward career has taken in plenty of theatre, but none of it’s been in London for a very long time (his last appearance here was in 2005 with Simon Gray’s Otherwise Engaged). A treat, then, to finally see the great thesp give the people what they want: playing a bonkers posh person in Noël Coward’s ultimately bonkers posh person comedy, Hay Fever. He’ll star opposite big name US star Christine Baranski – in her UK stage debut – in a whimsical farce set in an English country house.

Serpentine North is set to host an evocative trio of film works by Indian filmmaker Amar Kanwar, known for lyrical films which move between documentary, travelogue and visual essay while exploring the legacies of decolonisation on the Indian subcontinent. The darkened galleries will house free screenings of Such a Morning (2017), multi-screen installation The Peacock’s Graveyard (2023), and the premiere of a new multi-screen work titled The Charcoal Man (2026).

Bringing together a wide spectrum of voices from various disciplines of alternative East and South-East Asian creativity, Margins United is back for its third one-dayer this autumn. Created by Eastern Margins, a platform for alternative Asian culture in the UK, the day-to-night festival will feature a full takeover of the Club 360 in Tottenham, with tickets available for the day part, the night part or the whole thirteen-hour marathon if you can hack it. Headlining this year’s edition is South Korean singer Yves from K-pop girl group Loona. She’s joined by J-pop superstars F5ve, singer The Deep and British-Asian rapper Heroic Dragon for the daytime part of the festival, before a night-time line-up that features virally successful DJ and saxophonist Amanda Sze, Filipino producer DJ Love (Sherwin Tuna), audiovisual duo Tamanaramen and more. 

Make the most of the last of the year's light evenings at one of London's very best rooftop bars. From swanky skyscrapers to casual warehouse hangouts and hidden pub terraces, you'll find the opportunity for booze with views all over this city. So browse our list and take your pick from spots in stylish Shoreditch, buzzing Soho and Covent Garden, hipster haven Peckham and more.

Nadia Fall’s second season at the Young Vic gets off to a real firecracker of a start, with the world premiere of a new musical based on Ridley Scott’s smash 1991 film about two women who snap one day and head out on a nihilistic road trip with a very famous denoument. Written by the film’s screenwriter Callie Khouri, helmed by US indie director Trip Cullman and with songs – rather astonishingly – by cryptic alt country icon Neko Case, who'll offer something much weirder and hopefully more interesting than trad showtunes.

Former National Theatre deputy artistic director Clint Dyer is at the helm of this widescreen Olivier Theatre UK premiere of Tracey Scott Wilson's 2003 play. Based on a series of real-life stories, it follows four journalists as they frantical scrabble to land the story of a white teacher murdered in a Black neighbourhood. Letitia Wright of Black Panther fame is the big name in the cast – other members include Ashley Thomas, Lorraine Toussaint and Wilf Scolding.

Trafalgar Square’s huge, free celebration of Black culture returns for a fourth year this Spetember, with a jam-packed day of activities, workshops and live music. The line-up for this year’s event is still being finalised, but you can expect some legendary Black British musicians and culture groups to take to the stage, plenty for little ones to do, including interactive workshops and face-painting. A variety of Black-owned food stalls will be serving up African and Caribbean classics, while market stalls will be selling everything from art prints and jewellery, clothes and books. 

Who doesn’t love sunflowers? Those golden, spindly, great-vibe giants are always a real treat to see in people’s gardens come the summer months. But seeing the vibrant blooms en masse is even better.  For those not so in the-know, sunflowers usually hit their bright yellow peak from August to September. And there are plenty of gorgeous pick-your-own sunflower fields within very easy reach of London, ready for scenic picnicking, photoshoots, or simply gathering armfuls of flowers for your mantelpiece. Before you head off on a sunny adventure, make sure to check in with these sites in advance to be sure of fresh crops and full blooms – Mother Nature is an unruly and unpredictable force.

Even the most hardcore Sting fans might have missed the fact that he wrote a whole musical, inspired by his childhood in the northeast and relationship with his ship engineer father. And that's because attempts to turn it into a massive Broadway hit didn't go all that well, despite the star himself joining the cast in an attempt to boost sales. But now The Last Ship is back in a large scale production that’s hopping around global capitals and stars Sting himself in the lead role of Jackie White. It'll be in the West End for just a fortnight, introducing audiences to the emotive story of a shipyard in a downward spiral.