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Hrair Sarkissian © Kate Elliott, Courtesy of The Photographers’ Gallery.
Hrair Sarkissian © Kate Elliott, Courtesy of The Photographers’ Gallery.

Things to do in London this week

Discover the biggest and best things to do in London over the next seven days

Rosie Hewitson
Alex Sims
Written by
Rosie Hewitson
&
Alex Sims
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Give yourself a big pat on the back. The first day of spring arrives this week, so we can officially say we’ve made it through the Great Britsh winter. Phew. Celebrate by hitting up London’s new season of art, theatre and events or start preparing for Easter which is just around the corner. 

There are some cultural treats in store this week, including Raven Row’s five-star art show ‘Some May Work As Symbols’, which according to Time Out’s art critic is a ‘gorgeous, in-depth, museum-quality’ exploration of mid-century Brazilian art.

There are also glittering Ramadan light displays to spot across the city, an inaugural literature festival at Ally Pally to visit with some wonderful speakers, beautiful ceramics markets to browse and a film fest dedicated to Italian cinema to get stuck into. 

Still got gaps in your diary? Embrace the warmer days with a look at the best places to see spring flowers in London, or have a cosy time in one of London’s best pubs. If you’ve still got some space in your week, check out London’s best bars and restaurants, or take in one of these lesser-known London attractions.

RECOMMENDED: Listen and, most importantly, subscribe to Time Out’s brand new, weekly podcast ‘Love Thy Neighbourhood’ and hear famous Londoners show our editor Joe Mackertich around their favourite bits of the city.

Top things to do in London this week

  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • Art
  • Spitalfields
  • Recommended

The story goes that modernism ripped everything up and started again; and nowhere did more of that mid-century aesthetic shredding than Brazil. Helio Oiticica, Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark, Ivan Serpa et al forged a brand new path towards minimalism. But Raven Row’s incredible new show is challenging that oversimplified narrative, showing how figuration, traditional aesthetics and ritual symbolism were an integral part of experimental Brazilian art from 1950-1980. The whole thing’s great. It’s a gorgeous, in-depth, museum-quality exploration of creativity at its most fertile, modernism at its most exciting and abstraction at its most beautiful. 

  • Things to do
  • City Life

Ramadan 2024 has begun, with Muslims all over the world participating in a period of reflection, prayer, fasting and community gatherings from the evening of Sunday March 10 until Tuesday April 9. To mark the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, areas across the capital will be lit up with Ramadan light displays. The huge display of 30,000 lights will illuminate the streets from Piccadilly Circus all along Coventry Street to Leicester Square. There’s also a brand-new Ramadan display at Edgware Road with a bespoke, 2.9m tall installation featuring a crescent moon. 

 

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At the heart of London’s lively, eclectic dining scene is Madison, offering unparalleled views across the Capital’s skyline from its large rooftop terrace, delicious grilled food, great cocktails and live music. Madison invited you to be a part of its world with a delicious three-course menu that combines playful takes on American classics with a broad range of influences from the diverse communities of New York. Book in with this ideal catch-up spot and take in the rooftop views while you take in a refreshing glass of bubbly.

Get this three courses and bubbles at Madison for £29, only through Time Out offers

  • Things to do
  • Literary events
  • Alexandra Palace

Grade II-listed north London icon Alexandra Palace plays host to the inaugural edition of this brand new literary festival, which promises four jam-packed days of readings, panel discussions, workshops and book signings. Celebrated authors in attendance include former Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen, ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ creator Lemony Snicket, bestselling crime writer Erin Kelly and Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlistee Natalie Haynes. 

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Get half-price bottomless dim sum and a glass of bubbly at Leong’s Legend
Andy Parsons

5. Get half-price bottomless dim sum and a glass of bubbly at Leong’s Legend

Never ending baskets of delicious dim sum. Need we say more? That means tucking into as many dumplings, rolls and buns as you can scoff down, all expertly put together by a Chinatown restaurant celebrating more than ten years of business. Taiwanese pork buns? Check. Pork and prawn soup dumplings? You betcha. ‘Supreme’ crab meat xiao long bao? Of course! And just to make sure you’re all set, Leong’s Legend is further furnishing your palate with a chilled glass of prosecco. Lovely bubbly.

Get 51% off bottomless dim sum at Leong's Legend only through Time Out Offers

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Art
  • Bethnal Green
  • Recommended

There’s a warning in Sibylle Ruppert’s art: if the devil doesn't get you, technology will. And if they both miss, it’s your own perverse instincts and desires that’ll consume you. The German artist (1942-2011) filled her drawings, paintings and collages with writhing bodies and gnashing teeth, evil spirits and throbbing phalluses. The implication is that all of this chaotic sci fi horror porn was a way for Ruppert to deal with the legacy of the war and a litany of personal traumas. All this erotic, traumatic horror is way too over the top, absolutely obscene, disconcertingly vile and genuinely amazing.

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  • Things to do
  • Brixton

Some of London’s best spots in the fried thigh biz are going head to head to battle it out for the title of the best fried chicken in the city. Hosted by top-notch Indian restaurant Kricket Brixton, chefs from the likes of Coqfighter, Smoking Goat, Thunderbird Fried Chicken, Chicken Shop, Kanada-Ya, Studio Kitchen, Soho Hotel, Daffodil Mulligan, Tonkotsu and Black Bear will be trying their luck. Judges including Top Jaw’s Jesse Burgess, Professor Green and Zena Kamgaing will decide who cooks up the best dish, while guests will be able to chomp on an abundance of Keralan Fried Chicken. 

  • Art
  • Aldwych

The world’s longest-running art fair comes to Somerset House for its 39th edition. Wend your way from stall to stall to see what the exhibitors have to offer from rare prints by Old Masters, themed exhibits and newly published print works. With prices ranging from a few hundred into the thousands, this favourite among collectors is also a good place for any novice looking to start buying art. Special exhibits this year include a tribute to British Pop Art pioneer Joe Tilson and a curated display by Norman Ackroyd, one of the UK’s most distinguished artist-printmakers. 

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  • Things to do
  • Markets and fairs
  • Haggerston

Turning Earth’s seasonal ceramics market is back and this time around it’s celebrating its 10th anniversary, making a return to its very first Hoxton studio where the original market was held. More than 120 makers will come together for two days to sell their wares alongside live folk music, street food, delicious coffee and craft beer. 

  • Things to do
  • Film events
  • South Kensington

Back for its fourteenth edition, the Cinema Made In Italy festival has a packed programme at South Kensington’s Ciné Lumière curated by Adrian Wootton OBE, chief executive of Film London. Look out for everything from new releases like crime drama ‘Adagio’, which was a favourite at the Venice Film Festival, and period drama ‘La Chimera’ starring Josh O’Connor, to restored old favourites, as well as Q&As with the filmmakers. 

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Lightroom is back with another spectacle set to take your breath away. See this exciting Apollo Remastered collaboration with Tom Hanks, Christopher Riley and 59 Productions with an insight into the impending return of crewed surface missions by going behind the scenes of the Artemis programme, including interviews between Hanks and Artemis astronauts. With a musical score by Anne Nikitin, Lightroom’s powerful projection and audio technology will transport you to another world.

Get tickets to 'The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks' at Lightroom for £19, only through Time Out offers

  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • Theatre
  • Drama
  • Richmond
  • Recommended

There is a samovar onstage from the get-go in Trevor Nunn’s Orange Tree debut. This is period dress, crisp English accents and a big honking samovar, Chekhov done as ‘authentically Russian’ in the way that literally only the British actually do. The cast is solid, and ‘Ted Lasso’ star Lance is particularly good with a funny, boisterous take on the character. Sometimes Vanya can feel like an eccentric, unchanging spirit of the estate on which the play is set, but here you can sense his happier, more vibrant past. It’s still poignant and piercing, one of the greatest plays ever written. 

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  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Art
  • Bow
  • Recommended

As artist and writer Joshua Leon shows in his Chisenhale exhibition, names are malleable things for Jews; signifiers that can be altered to allow you to better fit in. Bob Dylan’s real name is Robert Zimmerman, Joey Ramone’s was Jeffrey Hyman, and on and on. Leon’s grandfather was born Kurt Hutter, but in the programmes to accompany his musical performances he became Ken or Curtis. This nominative malleability is at the heart of Leon’s sparse show. The ideas are brilliant, moving, intimate. He asks what it means to have a name, to hide, to choose a path, to integrate, to be rejected. The work has Jewish roots, but these are big universal questions filled with a silent pain that anyone can relate to. 

  • Things to do
  • Film events
  • South Bank

BFI Flare is back at BFI Southbank (and to the BFI Player online) for its 38th edition, showcasing the best new LGBTQ+ cinema from around the world over ten days. This year’s festival kicks off with a world premiere of ‘Layla’, a debut film from London-based drag performer, screenwriter and director Amrou Al-Kadhi, and closes with ‘Lady Like’, Luke Willis’s documentary on ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ contestant Lady Camden. In between there’ll be an extensive programme of LGBTQ+ films as well as talks with actors and makers including Elliot Page, Amrou Al-Kadhi and Jeffrey Schwarz and plenty of after-parties. 

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Undeniably one of Chelsea’s most iconic restaurants, Bluebird is a gleaming Art Deco London landmark on King’s Road. See why this D&D London restaurant sits at the forefront of the capital's food scene, With a best of British menu, created by executive Head Chef Owen Sullivan. With a three-star Sustainable Restaurant Association rating, you can enjoy refined dining with a clear conscience.

Get your three courses and a glass of Prosecco at Bluebird for just £23, only through Time Out offers

  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • Theatre
  • Musicals
  • Covent Garden
  • Recommended

‘Standing at the Sky’s Edge’ is a musical about three generations of incomers in Sheffield’s iconic – and infamous – brutalist housing estate, Park Hill. It’s a stunning achievement, which takes the popular but very different elements of retro pop music, agitprop and soap opera, melts them in the crucible of 50 years of social trauma and forges something potent, gorgeous and unlike any big-ticket musical we’ve seen before. It has deeply local foundations, based on local songwriter Richard Hawley's music and it was made in Sheffield, at the Crucible Theatre, with meticulous care and attention. It has all the feels – joy, lust, fear, sadness, despair, are crafted into an emotional edifice which stands nearly as tall as the place that inspired it.

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Escape reality through maximum immersion and experience 42 masterpieces from 29 of the world’s most iconic artists, each reimagined through cutting-edge technology. Marble Arch’s high-tech Frameless gallery houses four unique exhibition spaces with hypnotic visuals reimaging work from the likes of Bosch, Dalí and more, all with an atmospheric score. Now get 90 minutes of eye-popping gallery time for just £20 through Time Out offers.

£20 tickets to Frameless immersive art experience only through Time Out offers 

  • Things to do
  • Exhibitions
  • Lewisham

After celebrating its 75th anniversary last year, this multimedia exhibition at the Migration Museum in Lewisham delves into the history of the NHS, and to the thousands of dedicated non-British workers who have contributed to its delivery of healthcare. Through photography, artifacts, and a newly commissioned interactive music video installation, their stories are lovingly told. Around 1 in 6 people within the organisation today are non-British, and many others are descendants of migrant healthcare workers. It’s a wonderful way to gain some insight into how working for such a precious but pressured organisation has impacted their lives.

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