Hyde Park
Photograph: Laura Gallant for Time Out
Photograph: Laura Gallant for Time Out

Things to do in London this week

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

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Can you smell a whiff of pumpkin spice in the air? Yep, the inevitable passage of time keeps moving unceasingly forward, and all of a sudden, we’re in autumn. While dark nights and chilly mornings might be making a comeback, October is full of new cultural highlights and things to do, enticing you in from the cold. 

This week, look out for the opening of some much-anticipated exhibitions, including Peter Doig’s DJ-set-meets-art-exhibition House of Noise at the Serpentine and the huge retrospective of photographer Lee Miller at Tate Britain, as well as inventive theatre shows like Ava Pickett’s rip-roaring modern update of Emma at The Rose. 

On top of that, there’s plenty of seasonal fun to enjoy, including Peckham’s annual conker smashing championships, the beginning of the Oktoberfest parties across the city and the creepy, but ever interesting, London Month of Dead festival, which is full of wonderfully macabre talks, workshops and screenings to get you in the mood for Halloween. 

Or, get stuck into cosy season by heading out on an autumnal walk, visiting a warming pub or picking up spoils from London’s best markets. Get out there and enjoy!

Start planning: here’s our roundup of the best things to do in London this October

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Top things to do in London this week

  • Art
  • Hyde Park

Peter Doig is one of the greatest living painters, an artist whose approach to hazy, memory-drenched figuration has had an enormous impact on the visual landscape of today. For his show at the Serpentine, he’s going well beyond the canvas, filling the gallery with speaker systems to explore the impact of music on his work. Does DJ-set-meets-art-exhibition sound like your idea of hell? Mine too, but it’s Doig, so it just might work. Maybe.

  • Film
  • Thrillers
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s tenth film begins at the US-Mexico border, where a gang of revolutionaries prepare to free hundreds of detained immigrants. It’s the early noughts and righteous firebrand Perfidia Beverly Hills (an indelible Teyana Taylor) steps into the fray, and so starts a mighty 162 minutes of danger, comedy, excitement, love, sex and confusion. The first hour flies by as our rebel pairing shoot guns, rob banks and blow up power lines. Perfidia gives birth to daughter Willa but can’t commit to motherhood and the revolution, leaving Pat holding the baby in both senses. There are so many inspired moments, scenes and sequences here, it’s impossible to pick a standout. In a decade or two, when the great New Hollywood directors of the 1970s are gone, Anderson might be the greatest living American director. This is a formidable piece of work.

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  • Spanish
  • Shoreditch
  • price 4 of 4
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended

Led by Nieves Barragán Mohacho, the visionary chef behind Mayfair’s Sabor (which was awarded a Michelin star in 2018), Legado is a stylish Spanish outlet inspired by her Basque childhood and illustrious London career. It feels like an atmospheric taberna. As you peruse the menu, you’re invited to try its ‘3-sip serves’: light, low alcohol cocktails served in elegant ceramics, to awaken your tastebuds. Starters include, the quisquillas de cadiz: raw shrimps with crunchy, cooked heads and the Legado sandwich inspired by Nieves’ grandmother: Swiss chard, Spanish cured beef and smoked cheese, woven together with fried breadcrumbs. The headliner is a quarter Segovian suckling pig: the depth of flavour, tenderness of the meat and salty umami of the crackling skin is an unforgettable combination. Legado is an intriguing journey into Spain’s wider culinary diversity. 

  • Comedy
  • Kingston
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended

Jane Austen’s Emma has always seemed ripe for adaptation, and this is a rip-roaring modern update from rising star Ava Pickett. Directed by Christopher Haydon as a full-throttle, pop song-bedaubed near-farce, Pickett very enjoyably leans into the idea of Emma as a fuck up. After a brief introductory sequence at the University of Oxford, where Emma has just failed her degree, she limps home to the hometown in Essex she never wanted to return to. In many ways, Pickett has cleaved faithfully to the structure of Austen’s story, at its heart roughly the same things happen to people with roughly the same names and Amelia Kenworthy does a phenomenal comic performance in the title role. It’s great fun. 

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  • Things to do
  • Festivals
Raise a stein at Oktoberfest in London
Raise a stein at Oktoberfest in London

Charge the steins! You don’t have to travel all the way to Germany for a lederhosen-clad knees-up this Oktoberfest – and you don't even have to wait until October. Munich’s world-famous beer festival is very much on in London with big steins of beer, platters of excessively long wurst and loud oompah bands blowing brass like they don’t give a schnitzel. You’re sure to get a warm willkommen at one of these London Oktoberfest events. 

Looking for a wholesome, creative night out that doesn’t involve a hangover (unless you BYOB)? Token Studio in Tower Bridge offers relaxed, hands-on ceramics classes where you can spin, shape and decorate your own pottery piece. Whether you fancy throwing a pot on the wheel (£32) or painting a pre-made mug or plate (£23), it’s the perfect mix of fun, mindful and surprisingly therapeutic. And to top it all off, you can sip while you sculpt as it’s BYOB and super chill.

Buy a Token Studio session from just £23, only through Time Out Offers

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  • Art
  • Millbank

This huge show at Tate Britain is the most extensive retrospective of Lee Miller’s photography in the UK, celebrating the trailblazing surrealist as one of the 20th century’s most urgent artistic voices. Around 250 vintage and modern prints will be on display – including some previously unseen gems – capturing the photographer’s vision and spirit.

  • Things to do
  • Festivals
  • London

London Month Of The Dead’s annual programme returns this spooky season to get you in the mood for Halloween with a programme of more than 60 fascinatingly macabre events investigating our city’s relationship with death. The line-up offers a plethora of ghostly tours that will take you around crypts, cemeteries, undertakers, execution sites and other eerie locations across the city, alongside talks exploring everything from the study of human decomposition and the psychology of fear to the theme of murder in art. There’s also an immersive workshop where you can try your hand at some forensic anthropology and a screening of the original Nosferatu with live musical accompaniment. 

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  • Things to do
  • Games and hobbies
  • Peckham

Conkers isn’t just for kids, at least judging by the hordes of Londoners who show up to take part in Peckham Conker Club’s epic tournament each autumn. The playground favourite is treated with a great deal of reverence in the ‘Battle Royale’-style contest, which takes place under the arches of Peckham Rye train station. There’ll once again be a Junior and Senior competition in 2025, and as always, ‘nut-pimping’ and ‘stampsies’ are fair game in this chaotic contest, with the winner taking home a coveted Golden Nut. It’s free to enter, simply secure your ticket beforehand. 

  • Drama
  • Whitehall
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended

American writer Samuel D. Hunter’s 2015 play, making its UK debut at Trafalgar Theatre, isn’t big on laughs. Heartstopper’s Joe Locke is Jake. Just diagnosed with the degenerative Huntington’s disease and dumped by his boyfriend, he’s run away to Clarkston, Washington, so named after his distant ancestor, where he meets the brooding Chris (Ruaridh Mollica), who is saving to go to college while dealing with his meth-addicted mother, Trish (Sophie Melville), and the pair form a complicated bond. It’s a play about how people can become stuck in small-town America, the doubts that lurk beneath people’s hopes, and how life can fall short.

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Hidden somewhere between a theme park, an escape room and a real-life video game, Phantom Peak isn’t just your average day out. This open-world adventure based in Canada Water invites you to explore a fictional steampunk town at your own pace, chatting to quirky characters, uncovering mysteries and slowly piecing together your own story.

With 11 unique trails, a rotating calendar of seasonal storylines, and a cast of live actors guiding your experience, no two visits are ever the same.

Get discounted adult tickets exclusively through Time Out Offers

  • Things to do
  • Exhibitions
  • Bloomsbury

The chances are, at some point, you’ve probably heard the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ by George Frideric Handel. In a new exhibition, the Foundling Museum will explore how this exhilarating piece of classical music is still a banger today. Why is the Foundling Museum dedicating an exhibit entirely to one piece of music? You might be wondering. Well, originally composed as part of his famous Messiah oratorio, Handel later incorporated the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ into an anthem he created specially for the Foundling Hospital that premiered in 1749 to help raise money for the charity. Bringing together musical scores, librettos, and musical instruments as well as paintings, photographs, audio, video, personal testimony, and other archival material, A Grand Chorus: The Power of Music will shine a light on the history of the composition and examine the profound effect it has had on people over the past three centuries. 

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  • Things to do
  • London

London has a new, and most importantly, free biennial festival. Royal Docks Originals will see over 50 events take place across the industrial riverside district, including world-class arts, installations, and original performances, all inspired by the area’s unique landscape and revealing its stories, history, heritage, plus shining a light on the aspirations of the Royal Docks community. Highlights include fire installations, illuminated light artworks and a live art piece on the IFS Cloud Cable Car. 

  • Things to do
  • Food and drink events

Delectable Deptford pasta restaurant Marcella is celebrating the change in season by teaming up with Margate’s family-run Italian restaurant Bottega Caruso for an autumnal feast focusing on the food and wine of Campania. The special four-course menu will feature dishes inspired by classics from the Southern Italian region, which is the home of Bottega Caruso’s owner Simona Di Dio, who co-owns the spot with Harry Ryder. Expect vibrant antipasto, fresh handmade spaghetti, a hearty octopus stew, and decadent rum baba, all created with seasonal produce and thoughtfully paired with natural wines that showcase Campania’s unique volcanic terroir. Chef’s kiss. 

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  • Music
  • Music festivals
  • Barbican

Korean music isn’t just about K-pop and the return of K-Music Festival – now in its 12th year –will help you discover a whole range of the country’s diverse aural culture at iconic venues including the Barbican, the Southbank Centre, the Royal Albert Hall, and Kings Place. Highlights of this year’s programme include Seoul-based post-rock outfit Jambinai joining forces with the London Contemporary Orchestra for a one-off orchestral spectacle, composer Won Il delivering Dionysus Robot, an immersive piece merging sound, shamanic rhythm and drag, and genre-hopping quartet Gray by Silver bringing an idiosyncratic blend of contemporary, jazz and classical music incorporating Korean folk instruments to the Royal Albert Hall’s Late Night Jazz Series. 

  • Theatre & Performance

Aussie director Simon Stone’s The Lady from the Sea is based on Ibsen’s 1888 drama of the same name, and shares its basic plot beats while tinkering with much of the underlying characterisation and motives. It’s a starry production: Edward (Andrew Lincoln) is a wealthy neurosurgeon married to his second wife Ellida (Alicia Vikander), a successful writer. They live with Edward’s two pathologically precocious daughters from his first marriage: Asa (Grace Oddie-Jones) and Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike). Stone is a real throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks guy and he excavates some interesting, complex stuff on consent, memory and the controlling nature of men. 

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  • Art
  • Design
  • Barbican

From Vivienne Westwood’s mud-inspired collection, to Acne Studio’s stained jeans, the autumn exhibition at the Barbican traces fashion’s obsession with all things dirty, grimy and messy. That’s right. Through the collections of more than 60 designers from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, Dirty Looks: Desire and Decay in Fashion will take a look at everything from models wrestling in mud at New York fashion week, to Hussein Chalayan’s dresses buried underground, and the newish trend, hailing from Copenhagen, ‘bogcore’. Containing pieces from Paco Rabane, Dilara Findikoglu, Maison Margiela, Issey Miyake and Alexander McQueen, Dirt’s lineup promises to give a comprehensive look at the grubbier side of clothing design, with enough to impress any fashion lover. 

  • Art
  • Piccadilly

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.

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  • Museums
  • Art and design
  • South Kensington

Fashion lovers will lose their heads over the V&A’s big autumn exhibition, focusing as it does on the sartorial tastes of one of history’s most notable bonce droppers. Marie Antoinette Style will look at the ill-fated French queen’s enduring impact on fashion, design and culture, as well as ‘the origins and countless revivals of the style shaped by the most fashionable queen in history’. The V&A’s art collection features two portraits of Antoinette by Jean-François Janinet and François Hubert Drouais which we’d imagine will feature in the exhibition, while visitors can also expect to get up close to some serious couture pieces too; Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Moschino, Dior and the exhibition’s sponsor Manolo Blahnik have all created past collections inspired by the guillotined French Revolution monarch. Let them eat ’fits!

If you fancy switching things up a bit and find yourself near Borough, why not roll up your sleeves at Comptoir Bakery's London Bridge workshop space? Choose from sessions where you’ll learn to craft buttery croissants and pain au chocolat, the cult-favourite Brionuts, or delicate tartelettes. Expert bakers—trained under culinary legends—will guide you through every step, from mixing the dough to perfecting the fillings. You’ll also nab a slick £20 apron to keep and plenty of fresh pastries to take home. Starting at just £69 per person or £118 for two, with over 30% off, it’s a delicious way to spend a few hours.


Get discounted workshop sessions, only through Time Out Offers

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