Amazing Things To Do in London in September 2023

Coco Chanel, noted Nazi and one of history’s greatest designers, is the subject of the V&A’s next major fashion exhibition. ‘Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto’ will explore the French couturiere’s enormous influence, from her Parisian roots to establishing the House of Chanel. Expect oodles of sequins, tons of power suits and the overpowering odour of Chanel No5 wafting over you as you wander about. This is an in-depth look at the looks that defined the look of a century. It’s good they’re concentrating on her fashion manifesto though, because her political one hasn’t aged particularly well.

This month-long annual celebration of the Thames makes a splash with its mix of art festivals, community events, regattas, river races and environmental activities. This year look out for an immersive exhibition about the planet’s simultaneous beauty and fragility with satellite views and a live performer, plus free walking tours, a kayak taster session, creative workshops and a climate cabaret. 

Frieze Sculpture is transforming Regent’s Park into a massive outdoor gallery again. Fatoş Üstek takes the curation reins for the first time, and visitors can appreciate the new works by leading international artists, including Ayşe Erkmen, Ghada Amer and Hank Willis Thomas. Look out for performances and talks enhancing the art which will also be free to the public. Slap on the sun cream (or a raincoat) and go soak up some sculpture.

Plenty of blockbuster fashion shows have graced London’s most iconic museums and galleries, but plenty of stories remain untold, particularly when it comes to Black British fashion. This new major exhibition at Somerset House aims to correct this. Spanning from the 1970s to the present day and curated by Black Orientated Legacy Development Agency (BOLD) will show what impact Black creativity has has on British fashion and how Black creativity and style has evolved across the decades. Look out for work from the likes of Joe Casely-Hayford OBE, Chris Ofili, Maud Sulter, Rotimi Fans-Kayode, Marc Hare and Jennie Baptiste.  

It is a truth generally acknowledged that 1993’s ‘Sunset Boulevard’ is on the relatively select list that comprises Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals That Are Actually Quite Good. There is, however, some debate over whether Webber, Don Black and Christopher Hampton’s claustrophobic adaptation of Billy Wilder’s 1950 film noir has ever really had the production it deserves. Maybe this will be the one! Perennially hip director Jamie Lloyd directs erstwhile Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger as Norma Desmond, a former silent screen star losing her mind as she rots away in her Hollywood mansion. 

The first institutional solo exhibition from Sierra Leonian poet, artist and filmmaker Julianknxx will turn Barbican Curve gallery into a multi-screen film installation showing footage from Julianknxx’s travels around Europe with Black choirs. Filmed across 4,000km in Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, London, Marseille, Barcelona and Lisbon, the project is a collection of the choirs’ performances and testimonies showing the power of choral song.

Frankly a one-man version of ‘Uncle Vanya’ sounds like a terrifying idea, but when the man in question is Andrew Scott then you pretty much have to throw your arms up to the heavens and accept that it’ll probably be great. In his first major stage part in four years, Scott will take on every single role in Chekhov’s wistful masterpiece, performed in a new solo adaptation by Simon Stephens. It undeniably sounds a bit eccentric, but then so does much of Scott’s CV. 

Need a break from city living? This relaxed art class will transport you to the pristine shores of Lake Garda. Lakes & Mountains Summer Sessions, presented by Time Out and TUI Lakes & Mountains, is a painting session at the drop-dead gorgeous Shoreditch Treehouse, hosted by the excellent Brush and Bubbles. Open to all skill levels, the session will have you sipping prosecco while creating your own masterpiece inspired by the dreamy holiday destination. Plus, you’ll leave with a little keepsake to brighten your walls. 

The fact that acting legend Ian McKellen seems to be, if anything, speeding up as he hits his mid-’80s is strange and remarkable but very welcome. Just a few months after we saw him in the panto ‘Mother Goose’, here comes the London transfer of ‘Frank and Percy’, the droll comedy about a pair of loners who bond over their dogs that played the Theatre Royals Windsor and Bath earlier this year. McKellen stars opposite Roger Allam – a legend in his own right!

Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’s ‘Death of England’ powerful series of plays about Black and white working class identity in modern Britain reaches its climax with the fourth and final entry. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to call ‘Closing Time’ a coda, in which the women in the series protagonists Michael and Delroy finally get their say. Jo Martin and Hayley Squires play Hayley and Denise, respectively the mum and wife to the troubled Delroy, contemplating the loss of the family shop in what’s billed as a standalone installment.

After endless delays, the Royal Academy's much anticipated major exhibition of everyone’s favourite performance artist, Marina Abramovć, is finally coming to London this autumn. The show will span her iconic career, featuring more than 50 works, including some brand new ones, and the one everyone’s talking about, ‘Imponderabilia’. The idea is simple: two naked performers, one male and one female, stand either side of a doorway. To pass through, visitors must squeeze sideways through the narrow space facing either the man or the woman. The now 72-year-old Abramović will not perform it herself (the artist will be present in other ways). Visitors will also experience a selection of her other famous works, plus some brand-new ones designed specifically for the RA. 

US playwright Kimber Lee’s Manchester International Festival hit is by all accounts a funny and furious satire on passive depictions of Asian women in Western drama. It stars Olivier-nominated ‘My Neightbour Totoro’ star Mei Mac in a sardonic pastiche of various narratives about tragic Asian women who fall for chiselled, transient Western men – of course including Cameron Macintosh opus ‘Miss Saigon’.

UK premiere for the great Lynn Nottage’s 2018 play about the corruption of the international ivory trade. In a bold idea that seemed to go down a storm off-Broadway, the play follows the vengeful ghost of the eponymous elephant – here played by Ira Mandela Siobhan – after he’s poached in a Kenyan game preserve and traces back his fate. Miranda Cromwell directs.

An RSC stage version of Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling novel ‘Hamnet’ was clearly always going to end up in the West End. The novel is an imagining of the life and untimely death of William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet, as seen through the eyes of his mother Agnes and the story of Shakespeare and Agnes’s relationship. Madeleine Mantock will star as Agnes in a production directed by Erica Whyman.

There’s little question that Bernard Shaw’s archetypal rags to riches drama has become comprehensively overshadowed by its enormously popular musical adaptation, ‘My Fair Lady’. So despite the fact we probably all know the plot of ‘Pygmalion’ – professor Henry Higgins decides to see if he can make a ‘lady’ out of Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle – most of us probably haven’t ever actually seen a production. Well here comes one from Richard Jones, with a tweaked script – it incorporates aspects of the 1938 film – and two stars to die for in the form of Bertie Carvel and Patsy Ferran.

The most famous classical music concert series on the planet enters its last few days for 2023 this month, but it’s going out with a bang. Look out for The Chineke! Orchestra – Europe’s first majority Black and ethnically diverse ensemble – playing Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, The Aurora Orchestra performing Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’ by heart, Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Baroque pop’ party and the ever-phenomenal ‘Last Night of the Proms’ featuring cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and soprano Lise Davidsen.