Things to do in London this week

Easter is an underrated holiday. It doesn’t get anywhere near as much hype as Christmas, but it’s almost as good, largely because we get a whole four-day weekend to spend however we like. This year, this glorious double bank holiday lands between Good Friday on April 3 and Easter Monday on April 6, and there’s tons to do in the capital over Easter weekend, from checking out spring flowers and other kid-friendly activities to making the most of the spring sun at one of London’s top rooftop bars and parks.

Cafe Kowloon is an extremely good-looking restaurant. You’ll find it by walking through the empty Wonton Charlie’s (a lunchtime noodle bar next door to London Fields station) and into the two roomy railway arches behind it with a stainless steel counter, curvy tan booths and a neon-lit bar. Without a single window, it feels more like a club than a restaurant. The food is equally beguiling. In the kitchen is acclaimed chef Budgie Montoya, who kicks out Cantonese classics with aplomb, including a soupy bowl of beef tendons, squishy yun cheong sausage, crispy-edged turnip cake, juicy prawn toast, and Hong Kong French toast. These are Cantonese classics with a Hackney attitude. 

John Proctor is the Villain is a period drama about 2018, and what Kimberly Belflower’s play does brilliantly is nail the intersection between the relatively brief apex of the #MeToo movement and a generation of smart, naive school girls who would have been the right age to absorb its rhetoric at the precise moment they’re discovering what it was a reaction to. Plus, it has a banging soundtrack, with Lorde’s 2017 hit ‘Green Light’ embedded deep in its bones. Danya Taymor’s production is an absolute blast, the many serious issues raised all of a piece with its breathless ebullience and Belflower’s endlessly witty text. As much as anything else, it’s a wholehearted celebration of teen girl dorkiness and a rebuttal to the idea their lives should be viewed through a sexual lens, even in sympathy.

Rebecca Lucy Taylor, the artist also known as Self Esteem, is a hugely versatile character actor, and here she plays the theatrical, theatre-literate singer Maggie Frisby – a minor rock singer, angry, amused and very drunk as her band disintegrates at a 1969 Oxford student ball. David Hare’s 1975 play Teeth ’n’ Smiles is a vehicle to fire Taylor up as she pours her heart and soul and cynicism at the music industry into the role of Maggie, combusting spectacularly – and at one point, almost literally – at the tail-end of the ’60s. 

Ghanaian-American playwright Jocelyn Bioh returns with director Monique Touko to bring the play that earned her five Tony Award nominations in 2024 – and it’s easy to see why it was such a hit on Broadway. Set over the course of a single working day in the heat of summer, it begins with the shutters of Jaja’s Harlem salon being hauled open. But Jaja herself is nowhere to be seen: instead, her 18-year-old daughter Marie has been left in charge, while her mother is off preparing for her wedding day to a white American. The daily grind continues as the staff arrive to braid hair, bitch and banter, offering us a small slice of their everyday routine. The play uses the salon space to host big conversations. As customers pass through the women open up about their lives in America, their journeys to get there, and their relationships and ambitions. The skill of Bioh’s writing lies in simply presenting a moment in time and place. 

In 2022 66-year-old Veronica Ryan was the oldest artist to ever win the Turner Prize. Four years later Whitechapel Gallery is staging one of the biggest presentations of her work to date. Known for her prize-winning exhibition at Spike Island in Bristol, Ryan has also created comissions dedicated to the Windrush generation, which included giant marble and bronze sculptures of fruit. Through more than 100 works, Multiple Conversations will span Ryan’s multifaceted practice, which includes work with sculpture, textiles and on paper. As well as displaying her most recent creations, the exhibit will include rediscovered works from the 1980s – large-scale sculptures made from plaster and beaten lead, as well as vivid drawings.

With over 400 objects, including 100 ensembles and 50 artworks (by the likes of Salvador Dalí, Picasso and Man Ray), as well as accessories, jewellery, photographs, perfumes and an excellent collection of buttons, Schiaparelli presents a deep dive into the fantastical and surreal world of the fashion house. Founded on Paris’ Place Vendôme in 1927, the exhibition spans the 1920s to the present day, showing glorious garments from Creative Director Daniel Roseberry, who has been at the helm since 2019. The clothes truly are pieces of art and prove that haute couture could always do with a bit of humour. 

Awaken your inner child by delving into enchanted lands, magical creatures and timeless tales at the British Library’s interactive family-friendly exhibition. All the bangers from your childhood will be explored – from Goldilocks, to Aladdin – through books, artworks, interactive displays, theatrical design, story sharing spaces, costumes and activities. Opening in time for the Easter holidays, Fairy Tales is ideal for passing a few hours with the little’uns. 

Sarah Power’s play presents as a cosily familiar comedy about a clutch of small-town eccentrics pulling together in an effort to stage a fundraising fun day for the medieval fort in their sleepy town. But it’s the hiring of Sean Delaney’s ex-con Kurtis that starts the real story, the quirky villager tropes used as cover to ask some very hard questions about community and forgiveness. Really, Power’s play is a meditation on human nature and the ability to forgive, magnified through the lens of small-town life, where every addition to the community is scrutinised and dwelt upon. On the surface, Welcome to Pemfort is a naturalistic drama about quirky rural folks, but scratch that surface, and it’s got a core of steel – an unflinching look at the human condition that’s only cosplaying as cute.

The year is 1938, and Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov), a wet-behind-the-ears young prosecutor in the provincial Russian city of Bryansk, has received a letter from an inmate at the local prison and decides to hear what the man has to say. The man, a veteran Bolshevik, believes his abuse is a sign of rogue elements within the NKVD security forces. What neither man understands is that this is not a bug of Stalin’s Russia; he is just another victim of the Great Purge. Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa (In the Fog) adapts dissident writer Georgy Demidov’s novella into a collision of idealism and cold reality, as Kornyev takes the case to Moscow and sticks his head deeper into the lion’s mouth. It’s a slow cinema treat that rewards patience. It’s a haunting, mesmerising, pessimistic piece of work. 

Out in the UK and Ireland Mar 27.

The Wellcome Collection’s big spring exhibition is a deep dive into perceptions of ageing. Expect the Euston Road institution’s typical blend of art, science and pop culture in the 120+ artworks and objects on display, which range from16th century woodcuts made by German printmaker Sebald Beham to Deborah Roberts’ contemporary collages exploring Black childhood. There’ll also be a spotlight on the Wellcome Trust-funded health research project Age of Wonder – one of the largest studies of adoloscence in the world – and an exploration of how societies can adapt to improve everyone’s experience of ageing.

This hugely enjoyable tech satire-slash-thriller from US playwright Aaron Loeb is so good at bamboozling you as to what it’s going to be about. There isn’t a massive rug-pulling twist in ROI, but there’s plenty of fun misdirection in what initially looks set to be a satire on ethical investment funds. Really ROI is about two things: the inevitably of technological change, and how ill-equipped flawed human beings are to be its avatars. Loeb is clearly interested in tech and what the near future, and the writing is fluid and confident on the subject of how our lives might change very drastically very soon. ROI isn’t a self-seriously visionary tech drama, but it’s confident and clever and behind all the brio, genuinely very thoughtful.

How often does the best romantic comedy of the year also contain the year’s best fight scene? Probably as often as any romcom starts with a man standing over a dead stranger on the side of the highway, his penis unknowingly dangling from his shorts. Splitsville is full of surprises. Written by co-stars Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, and directed by Covino, the duo’s second feature is a screwball sex farce for an age when even the most buttoned-down couples are exploring ‘ethical non-monogamy’. Of course, movies about normies awkwardly dabbling in polyamory go back at least as far as 1969’s Bob & Carole & Ted & Alice. What makes Splitsville stand out? Simply put, it’s goddamn hilarious. Gags fly from every angle: onscreen, offscreen, in the background, sometimes all at once, and it just gets funnier as it goes. 

In UK and Ireland cinemas Fri Mar 27. Streaming on Hulu in the US.

Maxim Gorky’s Summerfolk concerns a group of dissolute nouveau-riche Russians spending a frivolous summer arguing among themselves as societal storm clouds gather; it is pretty damn Chekhovian. This new adaptation by Nina and Moses Raine feels like you’ve been plunged into a sprawling existential soap opera, teeming with characters and plot lines that have been running for years. Gradually, though, Robert Hastie’s revival takes shape thanks to some delicious luxury casting. Foremost is Sophie Rundle as the gorgeous, disaffected Varvara. Blessed by a gorgeous wooden Peter McKintosh set surrounded, in the second half, by dappled water, Hastie’s production has a bucolic but beautifully deadpan rhythm. It’s the sort of luxury revival the NT was made for.

This is a big show of big paintings. Big, energetic, happy paintings which are just as enjoyable to stand in front of as one can imagine they were to make. Hurvin Anderson is the artist responsible, and the 80 paintings on show at Tate Britain amount to 30 years worth of work. Some date back to 1995 when he was an art student at the Royal College of Art; others were made this year (some he even finished off once they’d been hung). Looking at them feels like you’ve been carried somewhere else, if only briefly, sharing in that condition of being in one place while thinking about another.

Just over eight decades ago, London was ablaze, suffering from nightly bombardments during WWII. And its artists were inspired as well as terrified by seeing their city transform into a strange, damaged new place. This Imperial War Museum exhibition sees 1940s London through their eyes, combining 45 artworks with photos, objects, and oral testimonies from people who lived through the time. 

Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough are superbly creepy in a not-quite-horror that begins promisingly but teases more than it delivers. Tommy (Anson Boon) is a deeply antisocial young man. After various substances cause him to black out, he wakes up in a basement. He’s now the prisoner of married couple Chris (Stephen Graham) and Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough), who intend to teach Chris the error of his ways and make him the titular good boy. It’s lifted by some very convincing performances. Graham and Riseborough are playing almost one-note characters, but play that note with sinister effectiveness. There’s a powerful sense of dread here. 

In UK and Ireland cinemas Fri Mar 20.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was the godmother of rock and roll. Raised by her mother, a travelling Arkansas evangelist, she played guitar and sang on the road from the age of six and grew up to be a huge recording star. Her story and her music are extraordinary. So it’s a privilege and a treat to see British soul goddess Beverly Knight play Rosetta in this intimate two-hander that’s all about the music. Knight is a singer who raises the hackles on the back of your neck, but she does more here, channelling Rosetta Tharpe in a stomping, dramatic performance that conveys the passion, resilience, and sheer physical hard work of her life on the road. During the finger-tapping, off-beat clapping, and irrepressible grinning, there is a higher power being channelled, and it’s pure joy to witness it.

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.

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.