Things to do in London this week

Notting Hill Carnival is one of London’s annual highlights – it wouldn’t be summer in the city without it. Every late August bank holiday, the streets of west London are flooded with an explosion of colourful, feather-decked dancers, steel pan drums, booming basslines and plenty of Red Stripe-fueled good times. More than two million people flocked to Notting Hill to dance in the streets of W11 last time round, and we expect 2026 will be no different. Keep your fingers crossed for good weather, but the action will continue even if it’s chucking it down. Here’s everything you need to know about the Caribbean celebration. 

No London summer is complete without the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival – aka GDIF – which, as ever brings a spectacular array of gargantuan street theatre shows and spectacular installations to the streets of Greenwich and the Docklands for a couple of weeks in late summer. Running throughout August at multiple venues, the 2026 theme of ‘We Move’, carries on this week with Meet My By the Fountain (Romford Market, Aug 28 and 29), a stunning son-et-luminaire bringing Romford’s ‘lost’ Liberty Fountain back to life, and in probably the most ‘wow’ show of the festival Argentina’s Efectos Especiales (pictured, Aug 29 and 30, Greenwich Peninsular) which will thrust you into an actual action movie. 

Having outgrown its first home in Hackney Wick, London’s queer nightlife festival Body Movements levelled up in 2024 making a dazzling debut in Southwark Park with five stages showcasing the great and good of the LGBTQ+ party scene in the capital and beyond. We’re thrilled that the great and good of the London queer scene will once again come together in the same location for its 2026 edition, on the Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend. This year, the five stages of Body Movements (Mother, The Strap, Snatch, Hot Mess, and Glory Hole) will be helmed by DJs including Babymorocco, Blasha & Allatt, FAFF, Roza Terenzi, Marie Malarie and GIDEÖN as well as collectives like Dalston Superstore, Daytimers, Fèmmme Fraîche and Queer House Party. More names are still to be announced. 

Situated on the most stylish block in central London, Café Clement is a glitzy all-day bistro on the ground floor of St Clement, the glammy new hotel from hospitality kingpin and founder of the Soho House empire, Nick Jones. Café Clement has already seen a rotating door of A-listers, in part due to the lure of Jones, but also thanks to the pull of former River Cafe head chef Danny Bohan, who’s hit the ground running with a menu of flair-packed French and Italian classics. Low-slung ceilings and frosted-glass partitions between beige leather booths make the place feel like vintage Manhattan on a financial upswing. The food is just as pleasant. Zucchini fritters are light, minty and stodge-free. A molten volcano masquerading as a cheese souffle chuckles in the face of Mounjaro. Sea bass, gurnard, mussels and various mullets mingle with silky, flash-cooked tomato in a light and decadent stew. Impressive? Sure. Slightly mad? Also yes. 

Southwark Park festival Rally is back for a fourth edition in 2026, with a very exciting line-up curated by Blood Orange. Dev Hynes – AKA the guy behind Blood Orange – will bring his signature blend of synth funk, experimental beats and emotional depth. Hynes will headline and has hand-picked the rest of the line-up. Of course, we always knew we could trust his good taste. The rest of the fest’s programme includes Daniel Avery, ethereal electronic pop girlie james K and the legendary Glaswegian DJ duo Optimo (Espacio). 

This hugely popular installation from British artist Luke Jerram has been on a global tour over the last eight years, visiting more than 30 countries since it was first displayed at Bluedot Festival back in 2018. An internally lit, seven-metre-wide replica Earth made using detailed NASA imagery, the sculpture is supposed to give you a taste of the Overview Effect, the overwhelming sensation of connection to the planet and its inhabitants that astronomers describe when viewing our pale blue dot from outer space. Now it’s stopping off at Royal Festival Hall over the August bank holiday. Visitors can get up close to the sculpture suspended above the concert hall’s stage throughout the Saturday, or settle in for two atmospheric concerts. 

You’ve probably heard of London music festival All Points East, and as well as hosting gigs with a whole bunch of international megastars, it’s bringing back its community festival In The Neighbourhood in collaboration with Tower Hamlets Council. Taking place in the middle of the festival’s two weekends, it features loads of free family entertainment. Youngsters can get stuck into kids’ sports sessions hosted by local groups like Tower Hamlets Hockey Club, Adore Dance London, Limehouse Boxing Academy and Girls Allowed, while grown-ups can sign up for free barre, yoga and pilates classes. There’ll also be on-stage entertainment from the likes of Limehouse’s Half Moon Theatre, Whitechapel’s Tamaring Theatre and Bethnal Green arts venue Rich Mix. 

Hidden away on a quiet Deptford backstreet, The Dog and Bell is not only known for its charm and CAMRA-approved selection of real ales and craft beers, but it also knows how to put on a good food festival. August is the turn of its sausage and cider celebration. Expect proper bangers, fresh-pressed cider, and good old-fashioned fun. 

When American wrestling promotion AEW rocked up at Wembley Stadium in 2023 they managed to basically sell the place out, which is pretty impressive for what is essentially a weird, niche pseudo sport. However, ask anyone that did go, and they will tell you it’s a fantastic bloody time and if you’re a fan of cheering, beer, larger-than-life characters and jaw-dropping feats of athleticism you should definitely turn up for this year’s instalment. True fans will be ecstatic to see high-flying Essex export Will Ospreay headline the card, but there’s also more than enough hard-hitting, spectacular action to enthral casuals.

If a trip to Hampton Court has been on your to-do list, why not time your visit to coincide with this foodie extravaganza? Over the August Bank Holiday weekend entrance tickets to Henry VIII’s former gaff give you access to more than 150 speciality food stalls, so you can feast like like a Tudor king in the palace’s gorgeous green spaces. There's also pop-up bars, kids’ activities, and an array of local musicians taking to the bandstand to soundtrack your culinary adventure. 

It hasn’t always been clear why Matthew Warchus decided to reconfigure the Old Vic to an in-the-round set-up. But it does all pay off with this fine revival of an early Alan Ayckbourn classic. 1969’s How the Other Half Loves is explicitly written to be performed in-the-round with a single central set standing in for the homes of couples Frank and Fiona Foster and also Teresa and Bob Phillips. Moreover, time is telescoped and chopped up, so that two very different dinner parties that happen on consecutive nights at the two different homes are spliced together into one amusingly unpredictable whole. It’s a funny, zingy, intricately wrought and strangely wholesome play and it’s the brilliant comic performances that make this thing tick. Roger Allam is superb as Frank, and Dorothy Atkinson plays an increasingly panicked Fiona. How the Other Half Loves still sings, a clever, strangely sweet infidelity farce that’s of the ‘60s, but remains timelessly funny.

St Katharine Docks is always worth a visit, with its fascinating line-up of exclusive vessels bobbing on the water. Head there this August bank holiday weekend, and you'll find a big additional incentive: a summery jazz festival packed with sultry acts to enjoy by the water. The free programme features 15 artists performing over three days, on Marble Dock. This international crew include the docks’ artist-in-residence, jazz vocalist Olivia Swann, Brooklyn singer-songwriter Inés Nassara pianist Jamie Safir and more. Pitch up and enjoy a laidback afternoon of new sounds. 

Death Note: The Musical is a remarkably faithful adaptation of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's classic mid-’00s Death Note manga, which concerns Light Yagami, a Tokyo high school student who (via a capricious death spirit) comes into possession of a book that kills anyone whose name is written in it. Frank Wildhorn, Jack Murphy and Ivan Menchell's adaptation is largely drawn from the first half of the series and simplifies the story in various ways. But it doesn't take any major liberties, other than the fact they’re all singing now. This is a gleefully bombastic, tightly drilled, visually impressive rock musical. It has a magnificently flexible avant-industrial set from Jon Bausor, and kinetic, beautifully stylised choreography from Fabian Aloise. It’s certainly never boring. 

Taiwanese artist Musquiqui Chihying uses a blend of installation, video, photography, and sculpture to explore our complicated relationship with technology and how modern-day tech systems are reshaping the ways we live our lives – all with a humorous and surreal edge. See four of the artist’s imaginative, idiosyncratic and quietly provocative works at this free Haywood Gallery exhibition. A Life of Navigation includes Chihying’s early works commenting on our hectic urban lives, as well as two newly produced video installations commenting on artificial intelligence and gaming culture. 

First rule of film criticism is: beware of movies bearing exclamation marks. So I am flabbergasted to report that: You! Must! Watch! This! Produced by (and starring) RuPaul, this zany disaster-movie spoof is led by Drag Race favourites Ginger Minj and Jujubee. They play Tess and DeeDee, middle-aged stewardesses at budget loco Stank Rail. But when that company hits the skids, the besties blag two trolley dolly jobs aboard the uber-glossy Glamazonian Express, stitching their own uniforms to blend in. Hairspray director Adam Shankman just about keeps the silliness on the rails as the gags keep coming. Smart one-liners, old-school slapstick, satire, queer in-jokes, surreal Anchorman flights of fancy and improv nonsense. Drag artists have always taken the worst life can hurl at you and made it fabulous and funny. Stop! That! Train! is exactly the pick-me-up we need.

All Points East returns to Vicky Park for its eighth edition in 2026. Since debuting in 2018, the festival has garnered a reputation for building some of the most exciting line-ups in the UK. Its headliners are often indie or dance-focused big-hitters, while its undercards are packed with cult heroes and rising stars you can say you saw first. This weekend Tyler, The Creator headlines on August 28 and 29. Across those dates he’ll be joined by Rex Orange County, Turnstile, Ravyn Lenae, Daniel Caeser, Ghostface Killah, Danny Brown, Mariah The Scientist and more. 

After pulling in millions of visitors in Amsterdam and Barcelona, Moco Museum London has landed beside Marble Arch with a three-floor showcase of modern, contemporary and immersive art. Inside, you’ll find more than 100 works from names including Banksy, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Yayoi Kusama, alongside immersive digital rooms and sensory installations designed to pull you into the artwork. There’s also the limited-run exhibition ‘Voice of the Street’, dedicated to Haring’s legendary New York subway drawings from the early 1980s. Flex-entry tickets start from £15, so you can drop in whenever suits during opening hours.

Get over 40% off tickets, only through Time Out Offers

There are few more striking spots to catch a movie than the iconic surrounds of the Barbican Sculpture Court. As usual, the City of London’s temple of the arts has an inventively curated line-up in store for the final week of August. On the year’s line-up is a kaleidoscopic array of films and filmmaking styles, ranging from Spike Lee concert docs to Denis Villeneuve science fiction, via the French New Wave and the best of Iranian cinema. Standard tickets are £20 (£18 concessions and £10 for under-18s) and there’s street food to feast on while you sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

Three feature films deep and it’s safe to say that Jane Schoenbrun has created a brand new subgenre of cinema. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is both a continuation of the preoccupations of their first two features and a leap into more vulnerable territory, accompanied by a dazzling step up in the sophistication of the world-within-a-world building. Schoenbrun has form in creating additional media to sit within their films as a source of nurture for protagonists wrestling with secret shames and desires. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a meta horror-comedy and a whip-smart entertainment industry satire.

When the pace of city life starts to catch up with you, an hour spent switching off can make all the difference. Spa & Massage offers relaxing treatments in luxurious London settings, with heated beds, organic oils and highly experienced therapists, each with at least seven years’ experience.

It’s the kind of treatment that gives you an excuse to put your phone away, slow down and properly unwind. And for a limited time, you can book the 60-minute massage for £59, saving £40 on the usual £99 price, with a signature Buddha Tea served before and after your session.

Get over 40% off vouchers, only through Time Out Offers