Things to do in London this week

Anna Ziegler’s 90-minute two-hander, Evening all Afternoon, is a tremendous vehicle for two actors. It enables an absolutely storming stage debut for Erin Kellyman. She plays Delilah, the surly university-age American daughter to an unseen British father. He’s taken her back home to England, where she marinates in the grief at her mother’s death and the isolation of the Covid lockdown. And also resentment of her dad’s new wife Jennifer (Anastasia Hille). The play is built on a fascinating variation on the old Brit/Yank culture clash. Over the course of 90 minutes, Ziegler smartly deconstructs their facades.

Joo Young Won used to be head chef at the Michelin-starred Galvin at Windows, his new restaurant, Calong, is cosy and simple, with food made for sharing. Chef Joo was raised in South Korea, but began his cookery career in the UK, and for a long time focused on French technique. It shows. Calong sees him cooking dishes inspired by his native cuisine in a masterful light-touch fusion fashion. A warm pumpkin and crisp pear salad is delicately dressed with gochujang, cured Chalkstream trout with perfectly tart sesame and plum soy, the fried chicken is crunchy yet silky, and a BBQ onglet is sweet and tender with a bulgogi jus. It’s one of the most exciting restaurants Stoke Newington has to offer. 

Strange, ravishing and rhapsodic, there aren’t many movies like Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee, unless you can think of another historical folk musical about a nearly-vanished religious movement that turns its followers’ convulsive expressions of devotion into Busby Berkeley-style dance numbers. A cradle-to-grave portrait of Ann Lee, the founder of the Christian sect known as the Shakers, the film is, at turns, completely stunning and utterly baffling. At its most successful, though, it doesn’t just depict ecclesiastical fervour – it sweeps you up in it. In that way, the movie is really a testament to the performance of Amanda Seyfried. As Lee, she fills her large, expressive eyes with a sense of unwavering belief — appropriate for a woman who came to see herself as the reincarnation of Christ himself.

Get a glimpse of the hidden lives of queer people in midcentury New York at this intimate exhibition. Before homosexuality was legalised, Donna Gottschalk photographed the people she described as ‘brave and defiant warriors’ for daring to live openly as themselves, and take part in the emerging lesbian, trans and gay rights movements. This Photographers Gallery exhibition of her work puts her images in conversation with texts by writer Hélène Giannecchini, who is decades her junior, creating an intergenerational dialogue charting changing times. 

The twists and turns of French-Spanish director Oliver Laxe’s film are as dangerous as a mountain road. At first, the film plays as a fish-out-of-water comedy as the resolutely middle-class Luis (Sergi López) finds himself forced to ally himself to the tattooed, drug-fuelled crusties who can show him the way, ashe and his young son, Esteban, hand out fliers as they search for his daughter who is rumoured to be in the desert area they live in.The sweetness of Luis and Esteban’s relationship is matched by the makeshift family of outcasts and wanderers. Much will depend on how far you’re willing to go with the wild swings the film takes in its second half, but if you’re down for a trip, Sirat is startlingly original, jarringly hilarious and deeply disturbing.

The Young V&A’s Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends is nominally aimed at kids aged eight to 14, but there’s plenty for adults too. It’s a nice mix of nostalgic paraphernalia that will appeal to adults, and hands-on, how-to-make-your-own stop-motion film stuff that youngsters will get a kick out of. The original models are fascinating, charming and surprisingly impressive. From the gargantuan pirate ship from Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! to a series of versions of Wallace & Gromit’s Were-Rabbit that gradually strip it down to its robot skeleton. It’s just really cool – and maybe a little moving. 

The National Portrait Gallery is an education in our collective understanding of British life, culture and history. But who isn’t here? Who doesn’t get to shape the version of the nation’s identity on display? That question is central to the work of American photographer Catherine Opie’s exhibition To Be Seen. Visitors are met with the piercing gaze of actor Daniela (now Daniel) Sea, best known for playing trans man Max in The L Word, another room is filled with vivid portraits shot on black backdrops, redolent of Baroque masters. A nude portrait of long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad evokes Caravaggio. It’s the kind of representation that has an impact. And that’s something worth celebrating. 

Bird Grove is about the young Mary Ann Evans – aka future literary titan George Eliot, and her father, Owen Teale’s Robert Evans. Teale’s Robert is a gruff middle-class widower who is paying a small fortune for the titular abode in fashionable 1840s Coventry, essentially in an effort to engage with society and bag his beloved daughter a suitable husband. Matters between them become tested when Mary Ann works up the courage to tell her dad that she no longer wants to go to church as she no longer believes. Finally, the pair really do clash. But Campbell’s writing is careful and empathetic. It’s an enjoyable, sensitive and heartfelt play, given a trundling but very serviceable period production by director Anna Ledwich. Fans of stately period dramas with a feminist twinkle won’t go away disappointed. 

Scottish Ballet’s award-winning production about the complex relationship between Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I comes to Sadler’s Wells. Created by Scottish Ballet’s choreographer-in-residence  Sophie Laplane and James Bonas , Mary, Queen of Scots puts a modern streak in classical ballet with its stark set and costumes inspired by haute couture and punk. Its original score is performed live by the Scottish Ballet Orchestra.

Tracey Emin: A Second Life is an evocative experience. Positioned as a 40-year retrospective through the pioneering artist’s vast and varied repertoire, the show lays bare Emin’s life through her distinct and often unsettling art, from career highs – such as the iconic, Turner Prize-nominated ‘My Bed’, which is every bit as shocking and moving today as it was in 1998 – to stark personal lows in work depicting her experiences with sexual violence, abortion and recent life-threatening illness. As you can imagine, with such subject matter, it is not always a comfortable experience for the artist and the viewer alike. However, Emin’s flair for dark comedy adds moments of levity throughout. ‘Mad Tracey from Margate’ is truly a force to be reckoned with, and a master of reflecting society back at itself, warts and all.

Celebrate the Year of the Horse in Chinatown with a feast that keeps the good fortune flowing. Tucked in the heart of Chinatown, Leongs Legend is a long-running Taiwanese favourite offering 45 percent off its bottomless dim sum and prosecco brunch, with 90 minutes of unlimited handmade dumplings and a glass of fizz from a very enticing £24.95. Expect plent of baskets (over 40 dishes) of xiao long bao, and a lively, teahouse-style setting that makes it an obvious pick for ringing in the lunar celebrations with friends.

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The Picture Comes First, Rose Wylie’s marvellous retrospective at the Royal Academy, is hugely varied in its subject matter – ranging from the Blitz to Nicole Kidman – Wylie’s paintings are unified by a joyful and vibrant energy which beams out from all of them. The RA’s high ceilings and grand interiors act as a brilliant canvas for the artist’s large-scale, often child-like works. The 91-year-old Wylie is the first female painter to have a full retrospective in the space and it only adds to Wylie’s credentials as a trailblazing feminist artist. This show is a fantastic testament to an artist who has proven tenfold that age is no barrier to reaching one’s full potential. Equal parts puzzling, entertaining and thoughtful, this show is guaranteed to leave you in a better mood than when you arrived.

After a five-year-long world tour, this blockbuster exhibition on the ancient Egyptians is finally arriving in London. Ramses and the Pharaoh’s Gold will display 180 priceless treasures on loan from the Supreme Council of Antiquities, of which the pinnacle is the coffin of Ramses II, giving Londoners the chance to see an original sarcophagus here in the Big Smoke. Other gems on show will include gold masks,  silver coffins, animal mummies, amulets, jewellery and colossal sculptures. Although superficially sounding quite similar to the recent Tutankhamun immersive exhibition, this one seems a lot more based around Ancient artefacts, with none of the fanciful CGI frippery that’s come into fashion in the world of international touring exhibitions the last couple of years.

Newsflash! The Idler has given Victoria a bit of a glow-up. The Mediterranean restaurant sits inside The July hotel and feels stylish without trying too hard, just the place to slide into a booth for a date or grab a solo seat at the bar and still feel right at home. The dishes lean on seasonal British produce with a bright Mediterranean lift. Until March 31 you can enjoy two or three courses with our exclusive Time Out offer.

Save up to 25% off vouchers, only through Time Out Offers

A revival of William Nicholson’s 1989 play, Shadowlands, stars Hugh Bonneville as the devoutly Christian Chronicles of Narnia author CS Lewis, and traces his real-life romance with the younger American poet Joy Davidman. And it’s largely delightful, not an odd couple meet cute, but a story about a genuine, real connection between two somewhat lost souls. It’s high-class MOR, a chaste romantic fantasy that plays great with the Bonneville stans. 

Groundbreaking Colombian artist Beatriz González gets her first solo UK show – and biggest ever European show – at the Barbican this spring. Famed for her vibrant, Pop Art-influenced depictions of Colombia during the decade-long civil war known as La Violenca and known in her native country as ‘la maestra’, González draws on found images to tell stories about power, grief, conflict, community and more. Featuring over 150 artworks made between the 1960s and the present day and spanning painting, sculpture, furniture and monumental printed curtains, this major will look at Gonzalez’s work not only from a Colombian and Latin American perspective, but a global one. 

Terence Rattigan’s Man and Boy is a truly extraordinary revival. Anthony Lau’s production is the first Rattigan we’ve seen that throws off the shackles of naturalism. Here, Rattigan joins Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen et al in being deemed a playwright whose work can be given a batshit staging and still stand tall. Staged in the round, designer Georgia Lowe’s distinctly Brechtian, wilfully anachronistic set, it liberates star Ben Daniels from period constraints, freeing him up to deliver what is easily the best stage performance of the year to date. He plays Gregor Antonescu, a Machiavellian Romanian-born financier who on the cusp of triggering a fresh financial crash. It’s an extraordinary couple of hours of theatre, the performance of the year wrapped up in a wild production that tears up everything we thought we knew about how to stage good old Terence Rattigan.

Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota will bring her mesmerising web-like installation to the Hayward in her first major London solo show. Floor-to-ceiling woven artworks will take over the gallery, engulfing ordinary objects – such as shoes, keys, beds, chairs and dresses – within the huge structures. These will be accompanied by new large-scale sculptures, drawings, early performance videos and photographs. 

Following his Self Portraits show at the Royal Academy in 2019 and then New Perspectives at the National Gallery in 2022, the most recent fix comes from the National Portrait Gallery. Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting focuses on an often-overlooked aspect of the celebrated painter’s oeuvre; his works on paper. Compared to the grand monuments of Freud’s paintings, his drawings are delicate and vulnerable, which is why he largely made them as preparatory sketches or to keep a visual diary. Where the show really succeeds is in its curation, fostering a dialogue between Freud’s drawings and paintings. When they’re hung side by side you really appreciate his keen observation of the body reflected in every determined line. If you’re crazy for Lucian Freud, then this show will give you a peek into his practice. 

The Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens is taking a voyage to China this February, courtesy of the latest annual mind-bending orchid display that takes over the iconic glasshouse each year. As ever, the exotic display will celebrate the natural beauty and biodiversity of its subject country: China is home to thousands of varieties of orchid, plus vast amounts of other flora and fauna besides. Look out for sculptures of dragons and Chinese lanterns, as well as intricately woven plant installations. There’ll also be ticketed after-hours events with live Chinese music, food, cocktails and dance performances.