Things to do in London this week

Spoiler alert: ‘Paddington’ is a small woman (Arti Shah) in a bear costume (by Gabriella Slade), with a regular-sized man (James Hameed) doing the voice and remote controlling the facial expressions from backstage, and it’s enough to make us believe that Paddington is really in the room with us. He’s not the Paddington of the films or of Michael Bond’s books, but he’s not really him either, on account of all the singing he does and how much more wordy that makes him. He is a new Paddington. But he is, fundamentally, Paddington, right there in the room with us. Main attraction aside, a fine creative team led by director Luke Sheppard has created a very enjoyable show indeed. It’s by and large a stage adaptation of the first Paddington movie, although writer Jessica Swale has been quite free. It has a looser, more knockabout air, less droll, more cartoonish. It’s a luxury musical, and when the maximalism works, it really works.

Head to Columbia Road on a Wednesday evening this Christmas and you’ll find its more than 60 indie shops open late for all your present buying needs. Starting from November 26, mulled wine and locally-made mince pies will be on hand to give you much-needed sustenance as you shop. Sadly, the weekly carol singing that went viral in recent years is no more. 

Casa Felicia is helmed by chef Francesco Sarvonio, formerly of Manteca and currently of Elephant. The menu switches up daily, but always promises southern Italian ‘soul food’. A pleasing heap of puntarelle salad embellished with pear and hazelnuts, and a faultless seabass crudo speckled with crispy red pepper starts us off. We’re then presented with the most intriguing take on parmigiana I’ve ever seen. It comes as the whole vegetable roasted, skinned and fried in a tempura batter. The bowls of pasta are truly generous with a perfect al dente bite, and they’ve nailed the sauce to carb ratio. The fettuccine porcini and the paccheri with mussels and squid are both simple but impeccable. We finish with a potato doughnut coated in lavender sugar and a pile of Verdello lemon zest perched on top. It’s a wholesome tribute to Neopolitan cooking. 

John le Carré breakthrough The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is in safe hands with playwright David Eldridge and director Jeremy Herrin, whose adaptation settles in at the West End after scoring good notices in Chichester. This is a slick and yes, maybe slightly MOR adaptation of Le Carre’s taut, brutal espionage yarn. But it’s a very good one, and Eldridge deftly crafts an intensely interior world, with us seeing the action unfold as much from within jaded spy protagonist Alec Leamas’s head as without. Herrin’s production goes heavy on the noir, and with good reason. Rory Keenan is magnificently grumpy and rumpled as Leamas, a hardbitten British spy in Cold War Berlin who is brought home after his last informer is executed by Hans-Dieter Mundt, a ruthless counterintelligence agent who has systematically dismantled the British spy apparatus in East Germany. The story feels fresh because Keenan’s it feels like Leamas is really living it – those shocking final hairpin plot twists are still jaw-dropping.

Cementing the Lyric Hammersmith’s place at the top of the London panto pantheon, here’s a wonderfully inventive new take on Jack and the Beanstalk for 2025. Returning writer Sonia Jalay and director Nicolai La Barrie are impressively assured as they relocate the bean-centric action to a strict Hammersmith school concealing a sinister secret. The imperious grandeur of regular Lyric dame Emmanuel Akwafo is somewhat missed, although replacement Sam Harrison is great fun when he’s allowed off the leash. It’s pepped up by a wonderfully chosen barrage of pop songs that runs the gamut from ‘Seven Nation Army’ to ‘Espresso’, ‘Formation’ to a version of ‘Pretty Fly for a White Guy’ about Ofsted inspections. There are some great visual gags, too. Superbly done as ever, and an object lesson in how London pantomime not only survives, but actively thrives.

Ten of Blackhorse Beer Mile’s finest drinking holes are combining forces to bring a mega Christmas fest to E17. A Christmas tree market will pop up at Big Penny Social with entertainment from nine-piece brass band Brass Funkeys; a live marachi band will be stationed at Exale performing their twist on Christmas classics and a swathe of local artisans will line up at Renegade Urban Winery for its festive market. And that only scratches the surface. Festive drinks and dishes will be available up and down the mile all afternoon – including a bespoke menu from chef Josh Dallaway at 40FT Brewery – and DJs will take the reigns at different venues to keep the festive spirit alive until 1am.  

Get ready to settle in for another two-and-a-half more hours of Elphaba and Glinda belting out anthems of empowerment while Jonathan Bailey’s army officer Fiyero suffers a crisis of conscience in the background. Whisper it, but the concluding part of John M Chu’s musical epic will be a disappointment for anyone who hasn’t sipped the green and pink Kool-Aid. Wicked: For Good magnifies the shortcomings of the stage musical’s underpowered second half. But, while the songbook is depleted, Cynthia Erivo and Ariane Grande’s lungs are in full effect. There’s a mighty rendition of No Good Deed and a couple of new tunes from Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz. Fans will be obsessified; everyone else, ossified.

The magnificently restored Victorian subway in Crystal Palace will be open to visitors for one day only in December. Visits to the Grade II-listed subway will be self-guided, but staff and volunteers will be on hand to share nuggets of the subway's remarkable history; from its original use as an entry point to the Crystal Palace for railway passengers, to an air raid shelter, to illegal raves. It’s free, but booking is required. 

Jermyn Street Theatre have gone a little left field with their festive programming. Scrooge has been ditched for an adaptation of Dickens’s ‘favourite child’, David Copperfield. And, in Abigail Pickard Price’s production, the reasons for this great honour shine loud and clear. With a small cast of three – Eddy Payne as David, and Luke Barton and Louise Beresford as, erm, everyone else – the diverse and sprawling world is pulled out bit by bit. Does it manage to include all the intricate chronicles and glory of the book’s 882 pages? Well, of course not. But good god, Pickard Price keeps Dickens’s irresistible richness intact. Much of that is down to Barton and Beresford, who must be dying for a lie-down after their final bow. The pair dash from one personality to the next, changing costumes, physicality, and accents at the rate of a runaway train. The speed alone is enough to impress you, but with every new face so sharply etched, it becomes a magnificent, character-exploding evening.

Sweet, shy Colin is having a shit time. His mother is terminally ill (but still trying to set him up with inappropriate men), his only hobby is barbershop quartet singing with his father, and to top it all, he’s a parking attendant. Played with wide-eyed bemusement by an outstanding Harry Melling, Colin’s dreary existence changes dramatically when he meets very tall, exceedingly handsome and inscrutable biker Ray in a Bromley boozer. Ray, a fittingly stern Alexander Skarsgård, propositions him over a bag of crisps, and before he knows it, Colin’s licking Ray’s boots (and rather a lot more) by the bins next to Primark. Pillion starts as it means to go on; aligning its oddly innocent nature with extreme, hardcore imagery, and managing to give screwball humour an emotional gravitas. Think, if you will, Kenneth Anger’s horny, leather-clad opus Scorpio Rising as directed by Richard Curtis. 

‘Yokimono’ means ‘good things’ in Japanese and you’ll find plenty of stuff that falls under that category at this Dalston market. Head here for a wide variety of Nippon-themed goodies, including ceramics, stationery, clothing, jewellery and more. Everything on sale here is either made in Japan or produced by Japanese artists in London, so you know it's authentic. While you shop, you can enjoy live performances by Japanese musicians and demonstrations in everything from fruit mochi making to furoshiki gift wrapping. Need sustenance to keep you going? There’ll be tons of yummy Japanese treats to enjoy, from onigiri to wagashi.

This exhibition will put the work of two rivals – and two of Britain’s greatest painters – J.M.W. Turner and John Constable side by side. Although both had different paths to success, they each became recognised as stars of the art world and shared a connection to nature and recreating it in their landscape paintings. Explore the pair’s intertwined lives and legacies and get new insight into their creativity via sketchbooks, personal items and must-see artworks.

‘Blue moon, you saw me standing alone’ runs the line from songwriting double-act Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s classic ballad, and Boyhood director Richard Linklater’s long-term collaborator Ethan Hawke transforms into the rumpled, melancholy Hart. He slouches in the washed-up man’s shrunken frame and balding crown. Down on his luck and drinking heavily, his once-grand writing partnership with Rodgers (a sharply tuxedoed Andrew Scott) has been dashed, thanks to his increasing unreliability. It hurts on a bone-deep level. Linklater knows how to draw the most intimate performances from Hawke – and he’s brilliant here. His pairing with Andrew Scott, so devastating in All of Us Strangers, is note-perfect. 

Prepare for a feast for the eyes, but resist the urge to nibble! The sweetest festive event you’ll find, the Museum of Architecture’s edible exhibition tasks leading architects and designers to ditch their conventional building materials for dough bricks and sugar paste mortar to construct a miniature biscuit metropolis erected in King’s Cross’s Coal Drops Yard for the festive season. With a new theme each year, the exhibition aims to encourage innovation and future-forward city planning, and this year’s ‘Playful City’ theme has resulted in some really fun designs, from school buildings with slides between classrooms to candy-coloured climbing walls. As well as marvelling at all the confectionery craftsmanship on display, visitors can take part in a series of hands-on gingerbread house workshops where they’ll be able to construct a delicious souvenir to take home. 

Amazing news for lovers of neat symmetry, loud primary colours and twee outfits. West London’s Design Museum will be staging a blockbuster show delving into the iconic aesthetic of another of Hollywood’s most distinctive auteurs, the Texas-born Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning director Wes Anderson. The film director’s first official retrospective promises to be a different beast. A collaboration between the Design Museum and Cinémathèque Française, it has been curated in partnership with Wes Anderson himself and his production company American Empirical Pictures and follows his work from his early experiments in the 1990s right up to his recent Oscar-winning flicks, featuring original props, costumes and behind-the-scenes insights.

Get £19 tickets, only through Time Out Offers

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. 

Given that their nation is home to Lapland, is covered in snow for half the year and boasts a healthy population of wild reindeer, it’s no surprise that the Finns love Christmas. You can expect plenty of festive feels at this always-popular annual Christmas Market at Rotherhithe’s Finnish Church. Browse traditional Finnish toys, design pieces, Christmas cards and plenty of Moomin memorabilia before tucking into barbequed food, cinnamon buns and salmon sandwiches, all washed down with a glass of steaming glögg. 

Maggi Hambling and Sarah Lucas are good friends. Since meeting on their shared birthday, they have portrayed each other in paint and sculpture, shown their work together multiple times and, perhaps, developed something of a shared sensibility. On the surface, Hambling’s gestural, subconsciously macabre canvases have little in common with Lucas’ euphemistic sculptural assemblages. This year, though, a joint presentation at Sadie Coles HQ and Frankie Rossi Art Projects on Bury Street will tease out hidden commonalities between the two canonical British artists.

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