Things to do in London this week

Although we’ve had to say a fond farewell to Wales, England are through to the Women’s Euro’s quarter finals, which run from Wednesday July 16 to Saturday July 18 this week. If you’re not travelling to Switzerland, where the tournament’s taking place this year, there are plenty of spots hosting screenings, fan zones and parties across the city. Here are our favourite places to celebrate the beautiful game, catch all the action and cheer on the Lionesses. Will it be coming home again? Keep your fingers crossed!

In Mansfield, the wedding of the year is about to take place. Local girl Sylvia (Sinéad Matthews) is marrying Polish lad Marek (Julian Kostov). The ceremony plays out in real time at Beth Steel’s Till The Stars Come Down, now running in the West End after debuting at the National Theatre. Director Bijan Sheibani sucks you right into this world through fast-paced dialogue and artfully constructed tableaus. It is heady, hilarious and emotional; the wedding itself might be a car crash, but this imaginative production is anything but. 

Feeling thirsty? Desperate for a funky sour, cheeky saison or a fruity IPA? You’re in luck. The Capital’s biggest beer celebration is back for 2025, taking place at events warehouse Magazine London, for four-hour sessions of non-stop-beer-drinking bliss. Set over two days, you’ll get to sample London’s best beers as well as some international standouts, including our faves Gipsy Hill, Verdant, Deya and more. Hungry? The food line up is pretty serious too, this year featuring Meltdown Cheeseburgers, Bone Daddies and Chick N’ Sours. A £64.50 ticket gets you a four-hour session and access to more than 800 beers from over 100 brewers, and there are group discounts available too. All the beer is included in the ticket price. Happy drinking, folks. 

Pasero is a welcoming space with something of the 1960s primary school aesthetic about it, with shades of beige, terracotta and British racing green, as well as a small deli and bottle shop. Chef Diamantis Kalogiannidis, who honed his skills at double Michelin star wonder Da Terra in Bethnal Green, has penned a short and sweet blackboard menu. A plate brimming with tomatoes (on top of bright, light Cretan cheese) tells us that Kalogiannidis goes giddy for fresh produce. Dishes here are topped with springs of lemon verbena, elevated with flirty, flapping shiso leaves - it’s like Monty Don’s offering a helping hand in the kitchen, liberally flinging the day’s haul from the allotment onto each plate on the pass. Dessert is joyfully clumpy crumbles of caramelised white chocolate dusted onto what is basically an artisan Mini Milk. It is beauty, it is grace. Pasero then, the almost perfect neighbourhood restaurant.

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.

Enjoy your Token Studio session from just £23, only with Time Out Offers. 

The second feature from directors Danny and Michael Philippou, the brothers behind Talk To Me, takes the gore and frights of their debut and ally it to an examination of maternal instincts gone batshit crazy. Anchored by a terrific Sally Hawkins, it firmly cements the Australian duo as fresh, interesting voices in the horror market. It doesn’t rely on jump scares or cheap thrills for its effect. There are startling moments, but it really finds its impact in slow creeping dread fostered by a patiently built narrative. The slow-burn screenplay (by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman) is further amped up by the filmmaking tekkers; from Emma Bortignon’s unnerving sound design to the tangible practical prosthetics, it’s a film that gets under your skin and stays there.

London’s newest major immersive experience is, as you would imagine from the title, all about Elvis Presley, and promises to offer a whirlwind two-hour tour through his life, building up to his classic ’68 comeback special. It comes from Layered Reality, the company behind the hit shows The War of the Worlds and the Gunpowder Plot, and ‘will use cutting-edge technology and live actors and musicians to deliver intimate moments that offer an insight into the man behind the myth’. 

Having premiered at the Old Vic in 2017 – and gone on to conquer the West End and Broadway – Girl From the North Country has lost none of its potency as it returns to the theatre where it all began — a dreamy, sepia-soaked production of character-driven vignettes and reimagined Bob Dylan songs. It’s 1934 in Duluth, Minnesota – Dylan’s actual birthplace – and the Great Depression is chewing through the soul of the town. At the centre is the Laine family, struggling to keep their guesthouse (and each other) from crumbling under debt, loss, and the weight of time. As we follow their story, we enter a world that feels like the inside of an old jukebox: full of half-remembered stories, crackling melancholy, and music that never quite stops playing.

Dig out your best cosplay for this annual festival bringing a touch of Tokyo to London. Hyper Japan is the UK’s largest celebration of Japanese culture. Across three days, there’ll be Japanese arts and crafts workshops, martial arts classes, performances from acclaimed Japanese musicians, a treasure trove of Studio Ghibli merch, lots of Japanese garb for sale and, of course, an irresistible banquet of Japanese food to sink your teeth into. 

Europe’s largest celebration of Indian film arrives in London for its 16th edition this year. It’s a chance to see UK premieres, anticipated restorations and discover new emerging talent. This year, watch the high-action gangster film Little Jaffna, a filmic restoration of one of legendary British theatre impresario Peter Brooks’ most famed works, The Mahabharata, the smoulderingly powerful Village Rockstars 2, Boong about the many challenges facing young people in rural India today and Pyre, a Himalyas-set and sumptuously photographed story about an elderly couple struggling to survive in a changing mountain society. Plus, look out for industry events encouraging more British South Asian talent into the industry and the festival’s popular programme of Brit-Asian shorts. 

Respectable theatre? Not tonight. Plied and Prejudice is Jane Austen gone off the rails — and we mean that in the best possible way. Think corsets, cocktails and chaotic costume changes as five actors tear through 20 roles with a wink, a wobble, and maybe a whisky or two. Expect scandal, silliness, and the wettest t-shirt contest Regency England never asked for. Whether you're Team Darcy or just here for the drama, this one's a riot.

From June 28 to August 2 at The Vaults, Waterloo

Buy a £19 ticket through Time Out Offers

A new wholesome day festival has entered the chat. From the people behind Brainchild, Desire Lines promises to be an all-day extravaganza of DJs, live music, theatre, works-in-progress performances, local craft, zine and art vendors, and a selection of eats from some of southeast London’s finest independent restaurants. It’s taking place at the Shipwright, a multi-purpose venue by the river in Deptford. The line-up features some of London’s hottest home-grown DJs, including Rohan Rakit, Lagoon, Shivum Sharma, otta, Bushbby, Papaoul and more. 

Writer-director James Gunn’s puckish and political blockbuster skips jauntily past the entire plot of Richard Donner’s 1978 classic, leaving out the basics of DC’s most righteous figure. There’s none of the scene-setting Smallville stuff, no early flirtations with girlfriend Lois Lane (the impressive Rachel Brosnahan) either, and not very much of Clark Kent. Instead, there are team-ups with Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and someone called Mister Terrific (House’s Edi Gathegi). The story cedes the floor to the villain: Lex Luthor, played by Nicholas Hoult as an alpha tech man-baby and David Corenswet, talented-spotted by Gunn playing Pearl’s creepy projectionist, makes the best Man of Steel since Christopher Reeve, a lovely balance of sweetness, strength and self-doubt bubbling beneath the surface. Gunn never shies away from the political optics of this immigrant hero and his zeitgeisty nemesis, a billionaire megalomaniac adept at manipulating talk shows and social media discourse alike.

The Arcola Theatre's alt-opera festival Grimeborn returns for its eighteenth year in 2025 and it’s as eclectic as ever, from a stripped back reworking of Wagner’s magnum opus Tristan und Isolde (Aug 13-16) to the first ever full staging of John Joubert’s final opera Jane Eyre (Aug 6-9)  and the return of last year’s bit of fun Sense & Senibility, The Musical (Aug 19-23) which is, you know, a bit more musical-y, and also last year’s Lucia di Lammermoor, which is, you know, bleak.

Somerset House Summer Series is back for another year. Held in the Edmond J. Safra Fountain court, in the enclave of the iconic Neoclassical building, this open-air series of gigs has long held space for both exciting up-and-comers and well-known trailblazers from the UK and beyond. Every year, the Summer Series plays host to an eclectic mix of legends and exciting current acts, and 2025 is no different. This week look out for shows from Akinola Davis Jr with unionblack and other special guests, Joy Oladokun, St. Vincent, The Snuts, The Paper Kites, FLO and Giggs & Family. 

The balcony scene from Jamie Lloyd’s Evita is the biggest news to come out of the theatre world in years. People have been entranced by Rachel Zegler’s fame and the sheer ballsiness of Lloyd having her sing ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ for free to the good people of Argyll Street at 9pm each night from the London Palladium balcony. Opening the second half, the balcony sequence is a study in pure artifice. Clad in flowing white dress and an elegant blonde wig, Evita – now the First Lady – sings her great song of love and yearning for the country she’s cynically worked her way to the summit of.  But the Eva the outside audience sees is a lie: wig, dress and her sense of empathy are torn off before she returns to the stage. There is so much that is good about it – from Zegler, to the choreography, to the timely antifascist sentiment, to That Scene. It’s not just the London theatre event of the summer, but the London event of the summer full stop. 

London Palladium. Now until Sep 6. Buy tickets here. 

The Jamaican-born, London-raised photographer Dennis Morris is best known for his portraits of Bob Marley: a teenaged Morris, then a Hackney schoolkid, first photographed the reggae star in 1973. He went on to photograph the Sex Pistols and other reggae and punk icons, and there are plenty of stunning portraits of the likes of John Lydon and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry in this hugely satisfying first UK retrospective of Morris’s work. Morris’s musical portraits are thrilling, but it’s his 1970s documentary work capturing Black and Asian life in Hackney and Southall that steals the show. They’re valuable, essential moments in time, capturing the capital at a point when Black British and British Indian communities were becoming well-established in some neighbourhoods but were anything but integrated or widely accepted. 

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

Deptford X, SE8’s beloved contemporary visual art festival, is back – but this time with a brand new format. For the first time, it’s going biennial, expanding the festival to 18 days packed with art, exhibitions, events, and a street parade. Plus, fringe art events will leave almost no part of Deptford untouched. 

Popping up each summer on the steps where the Regent’s Canal passes Granary Square, Everyman’s Screen on the Canal is one of the city’s best-loved outdoor cinemas. This year’s pop-up will be looking more Instagrammable than ever before, thanks to designer and architect Yinka Ilori, who has created an eye-popping screen design. Head down on a sunny afternoon to catch live coverage from Wimbledon every day of the tournament, plus the usual mix of live sports, classic movies, family-friendly flicks and recent hits.