Things to do in London this week

‘Take tissues’ is a hopeless cliché for Chloé Zhao’s (Nomadland) Tudor tearjerker. Tissues won’t do. You’ll need towels. With Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal delivering the performances of their careers, Hamnet tells the story behind Shakespeare’s great tragedy – Hamlet – and much more besides. The wild power of motherhood; the fearsome responsibility of parenting; the jolting anxiety of nurturing something precious in a time of death; the drive for creative expression. Zhao holds all these primal but relatable forces in check before unleashing them in an emotionally totalising final reel. Hamnet is a deep-felt ode to loss and resilience. Zhao doesn’t just tell you about the healing power of art, she shows you. Prepare your tear ducts accordingly. 

The Orange Tree’s artistic director Tom Littler brings an assured touch to Richard Sheridan’s eighteenth-century comedy of identity confusion, aided by a top-drawer cast who know how to tap into the play’s brand of jubilant absurdity. Littler treads nimbly through the archly funny contrivances that make up this play. He keeps the same setting – the city of Bath – but has cannily shifted the time period to the 1920s and made a few minor modernisations to the language. The decade’s changing social and gender morés, signified by between-scene bursts of joyful Charleston dancing, neatly serve to renew the focus on the male pomposity and anxiety that drive the plot. This production keeps the laughter rate high, skewering pretentiousness with some well-aimed potshots at fragile egos. It’s an excellent pick-me-up for the post-Christmas slump.    

In 1824, the young King Liholiho and Queen Kamāmalu travelled across oceans from their kingdom, Hawaiʻi, to seek an alliance with the British Crown. This winter British Museum will shine a light on the lesser-known story about the historical relationship between Hawaiʻi’ and the United Kingdom, showing artefacts and treasures created by Hawaiian makers of the past and present. You’ll be able to see everything from feathered cloaks worn by chiefs, to finely carved deities, powerful shark-toothed weapons, and bold contemporary works by Kānaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) artists.

The original Plaza Khao Gaeng surprised everyone with its monumental greatness. A restaurant slipped into a food hall mezzanine isn’t supposed to be one of the best in London, and yet the bijoux, southern Thai-inspired canteen blew minds and mouths with its relentless approach to flavour and fun when it opened in 2022. Run by a Brit, Plaza held up its hands when it came to its inauthenticity, but made up for it with the dedication that chef-founder Luke Farrell poured into the place. Now, Plaza has a space to call its very own in Borough Yards. Menu favourites from the first location remain: creamy massaman curry with huge hunks of tender beef shoulder and the khua kling muu, punchy dry-fried pork with chillies, but there are also plenty of dishes unique to Plaza 2:0: a sexy strawberry dish that’s actually the hardest fruit salad in south London and the gaeng som pla, a sour orange curry with fillets of flaky bass. Go for big Thai flavours, super spice levels and lots of fishy dishes. 

Akram Khan’s remarkable reinterpretation of Giselle is back on at the Coliseum for a very short run. One of the most interesting takes on a classical ballet to come out of London in the past decade, Khan's electric choreography combines with Vincenzo Lamagna's earthier take on Adolphe Adam's wildly romantic score, played live by English National Ballet Philharmonic.

If you've been depleted by a December of office parties, omnipresent treats, and mulled wine on weeknights, then help is at hand. New festival Equanimity is designed to help Londoners reset and recharge in the heart of King's Cross. The centrepiece is Slomo's pop-up spa, which offers two wood-fired saunas, three cold plunge pools and a roaring fire, offering a corner of Scandinavia in Lewis Cubitt Square. On Sundays, the Slomo tipi will offer somatic breathwork sessions and Reset Retreats. There'll also be yoga, breathwork, meditation and sound healing sessions led by a range of expert practitioners. 

The ultimate sadgirl ballet is returning to the Royal Opera House in winter 2026. Wayne McGregor’s sweeping and expressive ballet exploring the life and work of Virginia Woolf, accompanied by Max Richter’s haunting original score, has been one of the Royal Ballet’s big hitters over the past decade. First staged in 2015, the dance triptych inspired by extracts from Mrs Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves picked up an Olivier award for best dance production. 

Alan Ayckbourn’s 1985 play Woman in Mind, has been a West End hit a couple of times before, in productions directed by Ayckbourn himself. Here, Michael Longhurst does the honour, in an alluring revival. Sheridan Smith plays Susan, an embittered middle-aged mother who begins the play having taken a bump to the head that’s caused her perception of reality to become unmoored. She believes she’s a model parent with a dream life, before long Susan’s ‘real’ family intrudes, headed by her windbag vicar husband Gerald (Tim McMullen), who she drawlingly tears strips off while yearning for his imaginary counterpart. It’s an extremely handsome production with something melancholic and Chekhovian at its core. 

Wayne Thiebaud treated the basic kitsch of American life as if it was the most important subject matter in the whole history of art. His bold, gorgeous, luscious still lifes of hot dogs, pies and ice creams were a stunning precursor to pop art, an exercise in elevating the everyday to almost divine levels. Delicious.

The Southbank Centre is shining a light on some great artworks this winter – literally. In its annual Winter Lights exhibition, the institution will be bringing a selection of pieces to the streets surrounding the venue. Everything on display uses light and colour to dive into topics like identity, environment and tech, making it both an attention-grabbing and thought-provoking exhibit.

Rising star Jordan Fein’s sumptuous revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods is the first actual proper major Sondheim revival to be staged in this country since the great man’s passing. It’s a clever send up of fairytales that pushes familiar stories into absurd, existential, eventually very moving territory, but it’s also a fiddly musical with a lot of moving parts. You need to get it right, and Fein smashes it, largely thanks to exceptional casting. The whole thing looks astonishing: Tom Scutt’s astonishingly lush, vivid woods are glistening, eerie and primal. The costumes are similarly ravishing. It’s just great, really, a sublime production of a sublime musical with a sublime cast.

Kerry James Marshall is an artist with a singular vision. He has become arguably the most important living American painter over the past few decades, with an ultra-distinctive body of work that celebrates the Black figure in an otherwise very ‘Western’ painting tradition. This big, ambitious show will be a joyful celebration of his lush, colourful approach to painting.

If you boil a sauna down to its nuts and bolts, it’s essentially just a really hot room and some water to create steam with. Wild, then, how much of a positive affect those two simple ingredients can have on our bodies, healing weary muscles, doing wonders for our skin, and helping all the horrible toxins we insist on putting in our insides get back out. There are a wealth of top saunas around the city. From plunge pools and infrared therapy rooms to Finnish-style homages and ones soundtracked by DJ sets, you’ll find the steam sesh for you in the capital.

Look, we love London. But even so, we can't deny that this city is devilishly good at coming up with ways to drain your bank balance. As Time Out editors, we’ve become experts at hunting down ways to enjoy the city on a shoestring. Lots of us started out as broke students here, and since then, we’ve scoured every corner for cheap things to do before payday hits. Read on for some fab, free ways to make yourself (and your bank balance) very happy indeed. 

Taskmaster hero Ivo Graham headlines this fundraiser for Palestine, organaised by Gazan para-cycling team the Gaza Sunbirds. He’ll be joined by Amir El-Masry, Fatiha El-Ghorri, Karl Porter, Finlay Christie, Thomas Green, Tez Ilyas, Sami Abu-Wardeh and Sukina Noor for an evening of comedy and poetry. 

It's no longer impossible to find tasty and satisfying alternatives to pints at London’s pubs and bars – in fact, some of the no-alcohol options on offer right now are even better than their boozy cousins. And they come with an added bonus of leaving you hangover-free. These bars cater to non-drinkers for Dry January and beyond. We've got buzzing drinking dens that also specialise in alcohol-free cocktails, completely dry tasting rooms and pubs with a penchant for low-and-no beers. These zero-percent champions are 100 percent fantastic. 

In a city where eating out seems to be getting pricier by the minute, this list remains one of Time Out London's handiest guides. We've given the list a seasonal spin and here you'll find some of the cosiest (and best value) meals for embracing winter in London, such as Durak Tantuni's comforting Turkish meat wrap, a champion curry at Indian YMCA, and a visit to the Oyster Shack in Epping Forest - perfect to cap off a woodland walk in the wilds of the suburbs. 

Even we culture-mad London superfans have to admit that every once in a while, it’s nice to have a little break from it all. When the capital’s hustle and bustle leaves you feeling a little drained, you can find some escape from the crowds and hordes of tourists by getting up and getting out just for a day. In dire need of crisp country air, a relaxing spa day or a gorgeous, long walk? These day trips from London are all under two hours from Zone 1 and will give you the relief you need this winter.