Andrzej Lukowski

July 2026: There's a brand new Number 1, with the exceptional Impala in Soho taking the top spot as our favourite new restaurant in London. Other fresh additions include Auguste and Teal in London Fields, Jackson Boxer's Vesper in Clerkenwell, All Roads in Brixton, Bar Etna in Newington Green and the nearby Golden Tooth gastropub, as well as a sensational supper club at Haggerston cafe, Logma. Hungry yet? Every week, a frankly silly amount of brilliant new restaurants, cafés and street food joints arrive in London. Which makes whittling down a shortlist of the best newbies a serious challenge. But here it is. The 20 very best new restaurants in the capital, ranked in order of greatness and deliciousness. All of them have opened over the past 12 months and been visited by our hungry critics. So go forth and take inspo from this list, which is updated regularly. Check in often to find out what we really rate on the London restaurant scene. And look here for all the info about the best new openings in August 2026. London's best new restaurants at a glance: 🥩 Central: Impala, Soho 🍷 North: The Golden Tooth, Newington Green 🦐 South: The Victory, East Dulwich 🍝 East: Holy Carrot, Spitalfields 🥗 West: Maai by Nikita, Fulham Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. RECOMMENDED: The 50 best restaurants in London. The hottest new openings, the tastiest tips, the spiciest reviews: we’re serving it all o

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is back for summer 2026. For three weeks (August 7 – August 31, the latest possible dates), a dizzying array of artists will be launching themselves at the Scottish capital in volumes literally unseen anywhere else on the planet. It’s the biggest arts festival in the world, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun.   It’s also so big that it’s difficult to know where on earth to start, with over 3,500 shows across genres. That’s a daunting number to pick from even for seasoned Fringe-goers, and whereas with comedy you can guarantee there will be some household names on the bill, theatre is tricky because it tends to be a lot… well, fringier than the biggest of the stand-ups. But that’s kind of the point. Part of the magic of the Fringe is that you’re supposed to be open-minded: by the end of the month, people who were not famous before, will be famous. Think Phoebe Waller-Bridge, think Richard Gadd, whose careers were made by the Fringe. Still, you’re got to start somewhere and here’s our pick of the best theatre shows accounced so far. We’ll keep adding to the list in the run up to the festival and will update it based upon reviews when the festival actually starts.  While most of our recommendations are for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) is running alongside it as usual and we’ll throw in a few tips and hints from its repertoire, which consists of a much smaller number of much larger shows. (Please note th

Hello, and welcome to the Time Out theatre reviews round up. From huge star vehicles and massive West End musical to hip fringe shows and more, this is a compliation of all the latest London reviews from the Time Out theatre team, which is me plus our team of freelance critics. December is the busiest time of year for London theatre – expect plenty of pantomime reviews and other seasonal fun but also a slew of major openings from across London’s many venues as the industry works itself to a frenzy before shutting down for Christmas. The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2026. A-Z of West End shows.

It’s that time again: the school summer holidays are upon us, and there’s no getting away from the fact they’re long, and that the kids aren’t going to entertain themselves. Not for six weeks anyway.  So good luck with that! And I mean it: my name’s Andrzej, and I’m Time Out’s theatre and kids editor, and as a parent of two I have to deal with this nonsense every year myself. Fortunately, this is London we’re talking about – there is always loads to do, and to help you organise and plan, here are my picks of the best new and temporary London family events this summer season, ie things that are around this summer that aren’t just always around. When are the school summer holidays 2026? Officially the 2026 London school summer holidays run Tuesday 21 July to Tuesday 1 September. That’s a pretty eccentric time to break up, so expect some variation on start day from school to school. Plus virtually all of them will add a teacher training day or two on at the start of September. But that’s approximately what we’re looking at. What to do in London in the school summer holidays 2026? See below for our list of new and temporary kids’ summer holiday activities.  For evergreen ideas for things to do with children in the capital, see our 50 Things To Do With Kids In London. For summer things to do with younger kids, see our 30 Things To Do With Babies and Toddlers in London. For general London summer ideas see our summer in London guide. Check out our full round up of kids’ summer the

July 2026: We've updated our roasts list to reflect the fact it's sunny and pretty warm out. Try the Macbeth in Hoxton, which offers a great Portuguese-style Sunday sesh, the ravishing Jamaican-inspired roast at Buster Mantis in Deptford, or Rice Paddy's northern Thai meat platter in Peckham. There are a couple of posh restaurants in the mix too, with a Nordic roast at the plush Ekstedt at the Yard near Westminster and a serious meat feast at Quality Chop House in Clerkenwell. We also have a new Number 1 to welcome summer in; the masterful roast at The Golden Tooth on Green Lanes. London’s best Sunday roasts at a glance: 🥩 Central: Sessions Arts Club, Clerkenwell 😇 North: The Golden Tooth, Newington Green ⛪ South: Old Nun’s Head, Nunhead 🌈 East: The Nelson’s, Hackney 🍻 West: The Mall Tavern, Notting Hill Sunday lunch. There’s nothing quite like it. An elemental meal, one that Londoners take incredibly seriously. Debates about what constitutes the ‘perfect’ Sunday roast have been known to last for hours. There is no shortage of top roasts and Sunday lunch options in London. We’ve rounded up the city’s best Sunday meals from a host of pubs, restaurants and breweries all around town. What makes a good roast? For us, it’s simple; a welcoming room is a good start, maybe in a pub with an open fire during the winter months. Then it comes to the plate – we need perfect roast potatoes, well-cooked lamb, beef or pork and a decent plant-based option too. A Sunday roast is more th

We’re firmly past 2026’s halfway point and it’s already been a stacked year for excellent new music. The race for song of the summer is a packed field, big-name pop titans – Olivia Rodrigo, Madonna – have delivered lauded albums and there’s been a formidable number of breakout bands. 2026’s end-of-year round-ups are already looking like contentious business indeed.  Looking to inject something new into your mid-year listening habits? Time Out’s music geeks have got together to put together a list of the albums we’ve loved so far in 2026. Raving dance-pop, grotty death metal, stratospheric jazz-funk, paranoid techno, the year’s biggest pop records… whatever’s your jam, you’ll find it here.  Read on for the best albums of 2026 as of July, according to Time Out editors and contributors (they’re in alphabetical order – you’ll have to wait until the end of the year for the definitive ranking). RECOMMENDED: The 10 songs of the summer for 2026.

Hello parents and guardians! I’m Time Out’s children’s editor, and as a parent of two childen I can confirm that London is an amazing city raise kids in. You have to put in a bit of commuter time, but there’s a virtually endless stream of stuff for children to do, from playgrounds and parks to incredible kids’ theatres, free museums to slightly more expensive zoos and aquariums, and all sorts of stuff inbetween. London's best things to do with kids at a glance: 🦖 Best for dinosaur lovers: Natural History Museum and Crystal Palace Park 🦍 Best for animal lovers: London Zoo and Battersea Park Childen’s Zoo 🚣🏻‍♀️ Best for outdoor action: Lee Valley White Water Water Centre 👾 Best for videogame lovers: Power Up (Science Museum)  🪨 Best hidden gem: Chiselhurst Caves This is a sort of ever-evolving checklist of what we think the 50 best things to do in the city with kids are. Some of it is incredibly obvious: you’re probably aware that London has a Natural History Museum. But it’s worth stressing is a really, really great Natural History Museum, and whether you’re just visiting or have lived here all your life, a visit is a terrific day out. Alongside that, we’ve got 49 other ideas for things to do with childen in London – the focus is inevitably on younger children of nursery and primary school age, but we aim to cater for all here, from tots to teens. That’s all ages, all budgets and all times of the year – as well as adding new London attractions as they open or return,

The largest arts festival in the world is also the largest comedy festival in the world– there’s nothing quite like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (August 7-August 31 2026). And indeed, for many punters the Fringe is a comedy – pretty much any British stand-up (and many foreign ones) who has a show, will take it to the Fringe. With literally hundreds of comedy shows to choose from, flicking through the phonebook-like Fringe programme can be more than a little daunting. So we’re here to help. From stand-up legends to award-winning newcomers, these are the comedy shows we’ve either seen and reviewed or are most excited about at this year’s festival. (Please note the list is in alphabetical order). Got some downtime between gigs? Then check out our pick of the best pubs, restaurants and afternoon tea in Edinburgh.  RECOMMENDED: Your ultimate guide to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe The best theatre shows at the 2026 Edinburgh Fringe The best kids’ shows at the 2026 Edinburgh Fringe

L.A. covers a mind-bogglingly massive volume of land (and, for that matter, ocean too). So it’s no surprise that Los Angeles packs in an enormous number of world-class attractions. If you’re a tourist looking for things to do, you’ll have no problem finding vacation inspiration, from Hollywood tours to a day at one of the city’s best beaches. Even locals might very well find ways to fall in love with the city all over again in our extensive list of the best Los Angeles attractions. RECOMMENDED:📽️ The best studio tours in Los Angeles Quick Picks: Best Los Angeles Attractions Best place to see (real) stars: Griffith Observatory (Free, planetarium $12, parking $10/hour) Best venue for a summer concert: Hollywood Bowl (Tickets $1–$150, parking $45–$90) Best new place to see art: The David Geffen Galleries at LACMA ($25–$30, free weekday afternoons for L.A. residents, parking $24) Best spot to stop and smell the flowers: The Huntington ($29–$34, parking free) Best for thrill rides: Universal Studios Hollywood (Tickets start at $109) Best place for moviemaking magic: Academy Museum of Motion Pictures ($25, film screenings $10) Best spot for the perfect beach day: Zuma Beach (Free street parking, paid lot) This article includes affiliate links. These links have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, click here.

This rolling list is constantly updated to share the best of what’s coming up and currently booking: these choices aren’t the be-all and end-all of great London theatre in 2026, but they are, as a rule, the biggest and splashiest shows coming up, alongside intriguing looking smaller projects.   London's best shows to book for at a glance: Best musical: Sunday in the Park with George, Barbican Centre Best Shakespeare play: Lear, Yard Theatre. Best celebrity show: The Lives of Others, Adelphi Theatre Best blast from the past: Cats, Open Air Theatre Best batshit crazy idea: The World is Full of Married Men, Yard Theatre. London’s theatre scene is the most exciting in the world: perfectly balanced between the glossy musical theatre of Broadway and the experimentalism of Europe, it’s flavoured by the British preference for new writing and love of William Shakespeare, but there really is something for everyone. It’s also beweilderingly big: between the showtune-centric West End and the constant pipeline of new writing from the subsidised sector – plus the Wild West of the fringe – there’s well over 100 theatres and over venues playing host to everything from classic revivals to cutting-edge immersive work. This is my attempt to make sense of all that for you. These are shows worth booking for, pronto, both to avoid sellouts but to get the cheaper tickets that initially go on sale for most shows but tend to be snapped up months before they actually open. Please note that the pric

While the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is famed for late night fun and adult-rated standup, the truth of the matter is that with well over 3,000 shows annually it offers all things to all people: including families! There’s a dedicated family section in the Fringe brochure, and the mornings at the festival in particular are bustling with shows specifically aimed at children, from theatre to stand-up. Whether you’re a local looking for summer holiday activities, a visitor with kids, or you just really dig bubble-based shows, there’s something for everyone here. Here’s our top picks. RECOMMENDED: Your ultimate guide to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe The best theatre shows at the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe The best comedy shows at the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe  

For many people, musical theatre basically is theatre, and certainly there are a hell of a lot of musicals running in London at any given time, from decades-long classics like Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera to short-run fringe obscurities, plus all manner of new shows launched every year hoping for long-running glory. London's best musicals at a glance: The summer’s big hit: Jesus Christ Superstar, London Palladium/Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Best of the oldies: Les Miserables, Sondheim Theatre Best for families: Paddington the Musical, Savoy Theatre The next big thing: One Day, Garrick Theatre. Funniest musical: Operation Mincemeat, Fortune Theatre Here Time Out rounds up every West End musical currently running or coming soon, plus fringe and off-West End shows that we’ve reviewed – all presented in fabulous alphabetical order. SEE ALSO: How to get cheap and last-minute theatre tickets in London.

Chiave is a cosy bar that comes with a certain amount of conceptualising, not least the fact that the cocktails on bartender Bilal Tekec’s menu are nominally paired to individual songs (which you can access by QR code). It’s quite fun – I was thrilled when I got the fact that the name of the boldly savory, olive oil centric martini the Spybreak was a reference to a modest successful 1997 single from big beat combo the Propellerheads. Still, the concept never really gets in the way of what is really a fairly simple experience: Tekec’s drinks are on the whole tasteful remixes of tried and tested cocktails. The bar snacks selection is petite but perfectly formed and refuses to get into small plates territory (the fanciest thing on it is the very delicious £10 plate of cream cheese and mushroom truffle sauce crackers). There is, naturally, a nice soundsystem. The staff are extremely friendly. What makes it magical on a hot day is grabbing a seat by the fully open front and just watching backstreet Shoreditch drift by like an unusually trendy Mediterranean country. Chiave is in no way flamboyant, but the vibes are immaculate. Order this Flamenco Sketches – named after a Miles Davis number – is a sensational pomegranate and raspberry-based vodka cocktail-slash-fruit explosion that also comes in a non-alcoholic variety. Time Out tip If the weather’s nice, do anything in your power to get a window seat .

This lightweight musical about the very ‘complicated’ FBI director J Edgar Hoover – who dominated America’s 20th century,  serving for 48 years – began life as a 1994 radio play starring Kelsey Grammar. Exactly how it ended up making its stage debut 32 years later at an off-West End theatre in Islington I am fairly unclear. But on some level it’s obviously something to do with the big name creative team: Harry Shearer (of The Simpsons and Spinal Tap), Tom Leopold (a writer for Cheers and Seinfeld) and Peter Matz (Barbra Streisand’s musical director, who died in 2002). Given Shearer – who seems to be the driving force behind this production – reputedly makes $300,000 per episode of The Simpsons, it’s not hard to imagine he’s thrown a bit of his own cash at a musical that – while modestly sized – is as big a show as the King's Head Theatre has ever staged. It even has a bona fide US star in the form of Bryan Batt (aka Mad Men’s Salvatore Romano) who plays Hoover. The man was infamous for harvesting kompromat on people he wanted to blackmail, (or people he might want to blackmail one day,) or whose love lives he was just generally interested in. He’s also alleged to have been a closeted gay man and crossdresser: there isn’t really hard public domain evidence for this, especially the crossdressing bit, but certainly he was a ‘confirmed bachelor’ who never married and lived with fellow agent Clyde Tolson, so, er, go figure. The musical goes all in on the idea that Hoover was gay –

Located in an idiosyncratic former Victorian department store building, the ‘new’ Peckham Palais opened in 2026 after the original version of the club closed its doors back in 2011. It’s a serious and sophisticated night of clubbing for serious and sophisticated people playing serious and sophisticated electronic music of all stripes. (One might even call it the spiritual successor to Corsica Studios, which closed a couple of months after Palais reopened). There’s a zero phones policy and even if you breached it, good luck taking snaps on the gratifyingly dark 500-cap basement dancefloor, where spots in the low ceiling pick out precarious patterns of light in the gloom. If you want to break for a chat, you can do so in high style via the cocktail-centric Victorian opulence of the first floor Ballroom bar.

This review is from 2024. The show is probably somewhat different now, although the same basic idea. We tend to think of New Yorkers as pathologically grouchy souls. But primary schooler-orientated NYC wizard Mario the Maker Magician is defined by his infectious elan. Whether he’s goofing around with the petty logic of a seven-year old or accessibly expounding on his love for Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, it’s the giddy atmosphere that the Sesame Street and David Blaine-endorsed Mario fosters in his show that makes it work as much as the actual magic. And the magic is great: a lot of sleight of hand stuff that impresses and winds up the smaller members of the audience in equal measure, plus a fair amount of out-and-out trolling of the adults. And this is the key: while never actually losing control, Mario encourages an air of borderline anarchy that’s extremely good fun (one audience member is required to look after a box and run off if Mario gets anywhere near her… which he does, a lot). His nominal USP is his homemade robots and devices (the ‘maker’ bit), and it has to be said that while these are very much part of the show – there is a very cute extended section with one little DIY droid – his act doesn’t lean on them quite as much as one might expect from the spiel. But that’s hardly an issue unless you’re an obsessive robophile: Mario himself is the main attraction. To be honest, aside from shonky kids’ party entertainers I’m not sure I can remember another child

While the RMS Titanic proved to be all too sinkable, this titanically camp musical spoof of the James Cameron film should sail on for quite some time. Or at least it will if its manifest target audience  – unsubtly shouted out to as ‘gays’ at least twice during the show – is as enthusiastic for it here as in New York, where it’s been sitting pretty off-Broadway since 2022. Devised by Tye Blue (who also directs), Marla Mindelle, and Constantine Rousouli, Titanique is basically a cabaret-style parody that marries the considerable kitsch appeal of the 1997 film with that of its true star – Quebecois singing icon Celine Dion, forever associated with the movie thanks to ubiquitous power ballad My Heart Will Go On. The show’s undoubted masterstroke is making Dion the main character. Although clearly standing on the shoulders of previous US performers, Lauren Drew is sublime as the Canadian chanteuse. Ostensibly here to tell us the story of the sinking from her perspective, Drew’s spangly whirlwind perfectly captures the real Dion’s peculiar mix of old-fashioned showbiz cheese, mad aunty dottiness and weapons-grade lung power, while less realistically painting her as a delusional (albeit affable) narcissist who genuinely believes she was on la Titanique. Early on I felt a bit iffy over whether this was entirely appropriate given Dion’s recent health problems - does it feel cruel to parody a version of her that we probably won’t see again? But ultimately it’s an affectionate, funny a

A Frank Sinatra musical is a great opportunity: a titan of the 20th century, he was a complex figure who was both emblematic of America and in many ways an outsider to it. He also had a pretty stonking songbook.  But this sauceless bio-musical manages to do the impressive job of acknowledging Sinatra’s many, uh, foibles while making him seem incredibly bland as a human being. Joel Harper-Jackson’s Frank comes across like the work experience guy in his own life, drifting through an endless stream of affairs on something like autopilot, as if he simply couldn’t see any other option other than to sleep with a stream of hot Hollywood starlets behind his wife’s back. Here’s the thing: bio-musicals are always a trade-off because they have to be approved by the subject or the subject’s estate. The route that Sinatra the Musical writer Joe DiPietro and Broadway director-choreographer Kathleen Marshall have taken is to acknowledge Frank’s philandering but just take the view that everyone was basically cool with it. Phoebe Panaretos as his first wife Nancy Sinatra does at least express some exasperation about how little he’s around for their children. But we’re never far away from somebody telling Sinatra that he’s a great dad. His mob ties are crisply raised and then shot down. He boozes and fights but there’s never any danger there. It would be excessive to describe it as gaslighting, but it does feel like the MO is to show Ol’ Blue Eyes doing a series of things that would normal

If you’re in the market for a meticulously accurate, 100 percent culturally sensitive drama about the events that led to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand… then approach US playwright Rajiv Joseph’s play with caution. Indeed, I spent the first half hour or so of Lyndsey Turner’s UK premiere slightly distracted by imagining the probable reaction of a Serbian friend of mine.  That’s not to say Joseph hasn’t done his research. His absurdist account of the recruitment and radicalisation of Ferdinand’s would-be assassins in the name of Yugoslav nationalism is very, very obviously not how it went down exactly. But this pointedly surreal play never pretends otherwise,and it has a spine of fact, particularly in its darkly comic but relatively illuminating depiction of Dragutin Dimitrijević, the Serb nationalist paramilitary who’d led the massacre of the country’s royal family in 1903 and who is widely held to have orchestrated – or at least enabled – the murder that triggered the First World War.  Were the assassins really the gormless, ideology-free naïfs that we see in Gavrilo (Stanley Morgan), Trifko (Abraham Popoola) and Nedeljko (Chris Walley) - sweet young men with no interest in Balkan politics at all, who Marc Wootton’s bonkers Dragutin grooms into enacting his plans? All evidence says no, although at the same time there’s no question that they were disaffected teenagers, not hardened soldiers. It is also clear that they had strictly regional ambitions and the

This nailbitingly tense thriller is director Felix Barrett’s second ‘normal’ piece of theatre to open in London in the last year, following West End smash Paranormal Activity. If you don’t know the name, Barrett is the founder and driving force behind brooding immersive theatre legends Punchdrunk. But his straight plays aren’t so much a case of him moonlighting as a normie director as a fascinating extension of the day job. Yes, The Guilty is fairly straightforward as a text. Concerning a troubled police call centre operator, it’s writer Chloe Moss’s adaptation of the Danish film Den Skyldige and its Jake Gyllenhaal-starring Hollywood remake. You could probably have a fairly good time taking a version to the Edinburgh Fringe. But at the risk of throwing around an entirely debased term, this production is about as immersive as sitting in a seat watching a single guy onstage gets. The action is enhanced by an arsenal of disorienting light and sound tricks, some of which you might recognise from Punchdrunk shows (most notably the thunderous deployment of Massive Attack’s ‘Angel’ at the start, also recently used in Punchdrunk’s Viola’s Room). Gareth Fry, the sound designer for Viola’s Room and Complicité’s landmark The Encounter is back on board, as is much of the rest of the Paranormal Activity creative team. Subtle shifts in light and the crackly strangeness of the calls he receives take on a feverish, nocturnal quality, only growing stranger as the show wears on. The single gu

While the Science Museum remains one of London’s quintessential free days out, there’s an ever-growing list of paying bolt-ons for those who are happy to spend a little (or a lot), from the glorious hands on experiments of the WonderLab to the retro videogames mecca of Power Up to a very decent science afternoon tea featuring petri dish jellies and test tubes filled with sweets. Joining them is Smithsonian Starstruck, a galactic VR experience from America’s prestigious Smithsonian Institution, in which the 360 digital imaginings of some of space’s most stunning and surreal vistas are rooted in hard astronomy, and not the fanciful slop that creeps into several nominally educational London VR experiences I could name.  It's basically a guide to all the mad shit in our galaxy, with a reassuring-voiced American man taking us on a virtual journey around various observatories and space telescopes, and the wild celestial phenomena they can nominally see. We watch the dawn of the universe. We visit an uninhabitable planet strewn with diamonds. We stand before the event horizon of a black hole. It is all, undeniably, pretty visually stunning: from a looming gigantic sun on another world to the bizarre spectacle of light being dragged into a physics-defying gravity well, this is spectacular (albeit, to be clear, often an interpretation of what these things might look like given available data). You’ll also learn a decent amount about the phenomena depicted without feeling aggressively

This latest entry in London’s unending stream of Midsummer Night’s Dreams has plenty of ideas. But does Atri Banerjee’s production have a single coherent central idea? If it does, I couldn’t see it. And not for the trees. Naomi Dawson’s set isn’t a bucolic forest but a sort of unadorned wooden copy of the steps on which the audience sits, which later opens up to reveal a dressing area with a marginally more foresty look. The quote ‘this green plot’ is ironically printed at the top. The minor fairies also hang out there: they are styled as a hippie-ish band who play the new agey ballads specially written for this production by rising theatre polymath Maimuna Memon. Add to this a fairly standard quartet of runaway lovers, a largely timid group of Mechanicals dominated – for better or worse – by Nadeem Islam’s cacophonously exuberant Bottom, and the main fairies, who leave little impression beyond Oliver Huband’s adorably hangdog Oberon, who seems to be dressed for a night of disco dancing.  There are so many concepts flitting around that it can be hard to focus on what’s actually going on. The design recalls Jamie Lloyd’s MDF period, but Lloyd really committed to the bit in his stark, pared-back productions. Banerjee has disco fairy kings and songs that get in the way of all that: at one point it takes Jenny Rainford’s Titania about five minutes to go to sleep because there’s an entire number about it. It’s just a bit disjointed, and less of a laugh than it should be. Character

If you’re expecting a sober history lesson from a show called Vikings: The Immersive Experience, then you have not been paying attention to the current trend for large-scale, teched-up, AI-slop-kissed international touring ‘experiences’ that take an unashamedly fast-and-loose attitude towards historical fact. Even by the standards of the form, Vikings feels unusually batshit. There’s a reasonable amount of sensible historical stuff around the fringes, meaning you probably will learn something if you want to. But there’s no denying that the core of it lies in a couple of grandiose filmed works of incoherent CGI pro-Viking slopaganda (with a girlboss edge). Let’s take the sensible stuff first. For starters, some lovely interactive maps provide a clear overview of the Viking Age, which is here defined as running from the raid on Lindisfarne in 793 until its end, 300-ish years later. Every visitor is issued with headphones that play a sober initial commentary; although the exhibition isn’t exactly heaving with facts, figures or period artefacts, when you get to certain symbols in it, you can press a corresponding button on the handset to conjure detailed historical exposition commentary.  But this is not what you’d call the meat of the exhibition. Using animation, VR and a big sloppity slop immersive film that you watch from a recreation of a longboat (obviously that’s cool), the show nominally tells the story of Kraka, a young woman descended from the gods themselves, who marrie

Sandra Oh makes a very decent UK stage debut as Alice, the misanthrope in question in Martin Crimp’s new adaptation of the classic Molière comedy. Avant-garde playwright and translator supreme Crimp has taken a few passes at The Misanthrope over the years, delivering versions in 1996, 2009, and now 2026. And it’s easy to see why. If the title character hates the modern world, then the modern world is always changing; there are always new things to get misanthropic about. A playwright in previous Crimp versions (and a jaded courtier in Molière), here Oh’s Alice is a revered novelist who grumpily shuns most of the fripperies of the modern world. ‘Misanthrope’ actually seems quite strong to describe Oh’s gruff but essentially likeable Alice, who is warm to her friends but whose interest in the bullshit that glues society together is close to zero.  As the play opens she’s berating her playwright BFF John (Paul Chahidi: bumbling, likeable) for having offered an enthusiastic greeting to a woman they passed on the stairs who it turns out he didn’t actually know; as the play progresses it becomes apparent that Alice’s dream is to live off grid and away from humanity with her troubled actor boyfriend Stefan (Tom Mison: fey, distracted). In a promising early development, Alice is approached by Esmee (Imogen Elliott: very funny), a posh girl feminist book influencer who insists on making Alice read the extremely bad first draft of her novel. Alice mercilessly dissects it, much to Esmee

August is, as ever, a quiet month for London theatre, with theatremakers distracted by the summer holidays or the action north of the border at the Edinburgh Fringe (see our preview recommendations here). However: this is London! There’s still bloody loads of great stuff opening in theatreland! And here’s our guide to the best of it. Family and outdoor shows dominate: it is, after all, the month of the school holidays and the peak of the outdoor theatre season. There’s no doubt that the first ever UK revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is the biggest deal, but there’s plenty more besides, from the stage debut of the extremely silly kids’ graphic novels Dog Man, to the spectacular outdoor wonderments of the returning Greenwich + Docklands International Festival. The best new London theatre in August 2026 Image: Regent’s Park Open Air TheatreCats 1. Cats The last time we saw Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats it was via the fever dream of butt-holed furry homunculi that was the cat-astrophic 2019 film version. It’s had a happier last few years, with immersive US adaptation Cats: The Jellicle Ball a critical hit on Broadway. And now here comes the second-ever UK production, the first after the original 1981 version that ran in the West End for over two decades. Open Air Theatre boss Drew McOnie directs a fresh take on the lovable adaptation of TS Eliot’s feline-centric kids’ poetry. While it’s hard to imagine it’ll be a total reinvention of the

The school summer holidays are upon us. And while some of you will be going about your lives normally, for parents it’s six weeks of ‘how the hell am I getting through this with my bank balance and annual holiday allowance intact?’ While we can’t actually help you with the second point, we can with the first: here’s our recommendation of five genuinely great new free London activities and days out this summer holidays. Some are actually new, some are classic London venues or activities with something new to offer for the 2026 hols – all of them should offer a proper day out. Check out our longer list of the 25 best activities for the 2026 school summer holidays. The best free things to do in London with kids during the 2026 school summer holidays Photo: Chris RedgraveCrystal Palace Dinosaurs 1. Step back in time to the new look Crystal Palace Park London’s idiosyncratic Crystal Palace Park has just concluded the mother of all glow-ups via a regeneration project that has notably restored its 30 iconic Victorian dinosaur sculptures back to their original condition and paint jobs. It’s the perfect free morning or afternoon out this hols, with the extremely nice new playground – also part of the project – something else fun to do after you’ve gawped at the anatomically incorrect beasts. Go in the afternoon and you can also sneak in a visit to the free Crystal Palace Park Farm. 2. See spectacular outdoor theatre for free at the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival If you

Small but hard-hitting Covent Garden theatre the Donmar Warehouse has just officially announced its winter season, which will start when its current sold-out show The Guilty and its immediate follow-up A Month in the Country end. First up is Danny Lee Wynter’s Ilford Boy (Oct 10-Nov 28), which had been announced previously but goes on sale at last alongside the two new announcements. The semi-autobiographical comedy-drama about coming of age as a mixed-race teenager in ’90s London also has a cast now, which includes heavyweights Sinead Matthews and Ria Zmitrowicz, plus newcomer Leo Whitfield-Harris making his professional stage debut as Ted.  Next up big-name director Matthew Dunster will bring his heft to a new play by Stuart Slade called The King’s Ransom (Dec 5-Feb 6 2027), a dramatisation of the shocking 1977 attempt by four men to steal the body of the newly deceased Elvis Presley and bag a $10m ransom for its return. There’s no casting announced yet but Dunster does have a habit of swinging celebrity actors in his shows (he’s notably the man responsible for Lily Allen’s theatre career, and by extension the album West End Girl). Finally the splashiest show of the season is a revival of the great Harold Pinter’s cryptic masterpiece No Man’s Land (Feb 13-Apr 10 2027), its first London production since Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart did it a decade ago. This time starring big names Rupert Everett and Simon Russell Beale (pictured above), the play follows the bizarre, unse

Rebecca Frecknall is one of the great Brit directors of the last decade, having risen to fame via her empathy-heavy takes on the classics for the Almeida Theatre, directing stars like Paul Mescal and Michael Shannon in mostly American work. She scored West End transfers with her productions of Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke and A Streetcar Named Desire, and her smash version of Cabaret has been in the West End for almost five years. She’s off to the Old Vic now, to work with her Almeida boss Rupert Goold. First, though, one last show at the Islington powerhouse: a revival for uncompromising Brit playwright Sarah Kane’s horrifying 1998 classic Cleansed, an extraordinary and unsettling play about a group of people whose love is tested by torture in the mysterious institute in which they’re interred. One does not simply stage Sarah Kane’s Cleansed – it’s about as extreme as theatre gets. How do you describe what it is to people? ‘I think for me it's an exploration of human love and connection, and can that survive in hell? A lot of people have been like: that feels so different for you doing Sarah Kane. But for me it feels like this play is like the purest distillation of the themes I’ve looked at in all the pieces I’ve done because really it's about love and brutality and how those two things exist together.’ When did you first come across it? ‘I came across Sarah Kane‘s work when I was at university, and I didn’t get it at all. We studied Blasted as part of a module in m

Probably the greatest of the ‘dinner party plays’ of the ’00s, Tracy Letts’ August: Osage Country is a seriously heavyweight piece of American drama that follows the addled Weston family as they rip each other to shreds over the course of several eventful weeks. And as plays from 2007 go, it’s pretty well known thanks to the hit 2013 film adaptation. A stonkingly stacked cast was led by Meryl Streep as toxic matriarch Violet Weston, with the likes of Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor and Benedict Cumberbatch in support. August: Osage Country has only actually had a single London production: at the National Theatre, in 2008, and that was itself a transfer of the previous year’s US premiere, running for just a couple of months. Part of the reason is that this thing is BIG – it requires a pretty enormous cast, and the OG production ran at three-and-a-half hours. Image: August: Osage CountyAugust: Osage County at Nöel Coward Theatre, London But next year it’ll receive its first UK revival – and indeed, first production to originate in the UK – as the great Lesley Manville steps into the role of Violet, with Anna Maxwell Martin as Barbara Fordham, Violet’s controlling eldest daughter. There are loads of great roles in this play, so while we should probably assume they’re the extent of the slebs, we can assume we’ll be in for a treat in terms of further casting. August: Osage County is at the Noël Coward Theatre, Jan 18-Apr 10 2027. The best new London theatre shows to book for in 202

It’s been a rocky couple of centuries for the iconic Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. They debuted to a storm of hype in 1854, with Victorian audiences astounded by the life-sized sculptures of dinosaurs and other extinct creatures. But the paleontological community’s rapid conclusion that they were hilariously anatomically inaccurate saw them fall from favour until their first restoration in 1953, when it was generally concluded that actually it was cool that they were wrong. They were in no way built to last as long as they did, and had begun to look a little sorry of late, with cracks appearing in many of the 30 sculptures and vandals damaging several during lockdown.  Photo: Andy BateHylaeosaurus But as regular visitors to the southeast London park will know, a full scale restoration has been underway for some time now, and this morning (July 16) mission accomplished has been declared, with the dinosaurs and their various giant aquatic, pterosaur and mammal friends fully restored. Not only that, but where previous restorations have take a variable approach to colour schemes, this one has aimed to have the beasts look as close as they did to when the debuted 172 years ago.  It certainly won’t be the last time the beasts require a lick of paint and some TLC, but it means the sculptures have been removed from Historic England’s Heritage’s at Risk Register. What a joy it is to finally have one of London’s most idiosyncratic attractions back how the Victorians intended. Photo: Chr

★★★★ Director Simon Stone – an Australian – seems obsessed with the English upper-middle classes. He works internationally but in this country, at least, his free adaptations of the classics all concern sweary, witty, slightly awful posh people who live in nice Grand Designs-style houses in which they say funny, cutting things until tragedy inevitably raises its head.  It’s easy to be cynical about this: the starts of all his plays are functionally identical, and could easily be swapped with each other without really affecting the main plots.  However, it has to be said that The Oresteia is in many ways the apotheosis of Stone’s style, an expansive adaption of the Greek legend about the fall of the house of Agamemnon that is trashy as hell and yet relentlessly gripping, its three-and-a-half hours whizzing by.  Photo: Johan PerssonDavid Morrissey, Rakhee Thakrar, Mary-Louise Parker and John Macmillan The original story starts with one of the most infamous murders in myth, as Agamemnon sacrifices his own daughter Iphigenia to the gods in order to allow the vengeful Greeks to sail to Troy. Here, the exact circumstances of the death of Iphigenia-equivalent Isobel are shrouded in mystery until the very end. A non-linear structure maximises shock value in a way that clearly takes a leaf or two from the world of true crime podcasts. After a classic Stone opening scene that introduces us to dad Christopher (David Morriseey), mum Montie (Mary-Louise Park) and kids Augie (Tom Glynn-C

★★★ Sam Ryder is not the Messiah. But he did come second for the UK in Eurovision, which places him close in some people’s eyes. And you can see the logic of casting him as the lead in a splashy summer revival of Jesus Christ Superstar. Though he wasn’t born until almost 20 years after Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical theatre romp debuted, Ryder’s eclectic, guitar heavy pop should theoretically position him well to front this loveably mercurial rock opera.  And with all due caveats re: the fact he’s clearly not Middle Eastern, he also looks a bit like Jesus, or at least popular Western depictions of Jesus, which is at least mildly qualifying, surely.  Can’t act though, can he? Well, maybe that’s unfair. He can act a bit. It’s not horrible for a stage debut. But it’s not really lead-actor-at-the-Palladium stuff either. This production actually started 10 years ago at the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park, where star Declan Bennett didn’t look a thing like classic Jesus, but had brooding charisma to spare, a troubled man struggling to accept his fate and the difficult questions being asked of him by his relentless frenemy Judas.  Ryder by contrast looks like a mildly perturbed middle manager distracted by some tricky mental arithmetic. A lot of Timothy Sheader’s production involves Jesus listening to Tyrone Huntley’s wiry, street rat Judas and looking conflicted while not saying anything. Bennett aura farmed the hell out of this. Ryder does not have the chops.  The lo

Although technically set in Birmingham, Peaky Blinders is the gift that keeps on giving in terms of London attractions. Setting aside the million barber shops shamelessly inspired by the show, the last few years have given us immersive theatre show Peaky Blinders: The Rise and an actual honest-to-god ballet in the form of Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby. And now here comes Peaky Blinders: Underworld, a new attraction that we’d probably have called ‘immersive’ two years ago but now everyone is over that word and so officially it’s an ‘experience’. Image: Peaky Blinders: Underworldconcept art of The Garrison Tavern Openings its doors next month in the railway arches under London Bridge, the focal point will be the Garrison Tavern, a ‘faithfully recreated post-WW1 pub’ in recreation of the Peaky Blinders’ hangout from the show. The Garrison is non ticketed and open to all, so while we can only stress that it’ll probably be 2026 booze prices, you can nonetheless soak up a bit of those late 1910s Brummie criminal gang vibes without needing to pay an entry fee or do anything beyond have a nice pint and listen to some live music. Of course, that’s only the tip of the iceberg, as paying ticket holders have an entire Underworld to explore. Once admitted into the space behind the pub, you’ll experience ‘interactive gameplay’ and ‘actor-led encounters’ as you roam recreations of Garrison Lane, the Bookies, Chinatown and the Small Heath Fairground. It sounds quite a lot

Summer is here and although the London theatre season is starting to slow down a bit – August is, famously, not a busy month – we still have more exciting new shows opening in July than any other city in the country, if not the world. The highlight of July is always the London Palladium’s big musical: following last year’s blockbuster Evita, we have another Andrew Lloyd Webber classic in the spot. And there’s plenty more besides, of all shapes and sizes, from a rare revival of Sarah Kane’s greatest and most disturbing play to the return of the beloved Yard Theatre with a brace of weird indie shows that’ll melt your brain. Read on for all the month’s theatrical essentials. The best new London theatre shows opening in July 2026 Photo: Johan PerssonSam Ryder (Jesus)   1. Jesus Christ Superstar Eurovision winner Sam Ryder may or may not seem like a random choice to front the summer’s biggest musical, but he more than deserves a chance to prove himself. The show in question is a revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar – with Ryder as JC – and we basically know it’s good already because it’s a reworking of Timothy Sheader’s superb 2016 Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre production. Its wackiest flourish is a rotating selection of celebrity King Herods: Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Richard Armitage, Boy George, Layton Williams and Julian Clary will be sharing the role over the summer, with a different set of performers lined up for its transfer to Theatre Royal Drury Lane in

A famous story about the two greatest British playwrights of the twentieth century is that Harold Pinter once complained to Tom Stoppard by letter that he felt the Comedy Theatre in the West End should be renamed after him while he was still alive, to which Stoppard amusingly replied by suggesting that Pinter simply change his name to Harold Comedy. Now, alas, both men have passed on, Pinter in 2008 and Stoppard last year. And just as the Comedy Theatre did indeed become the Harold Pinter Theatre, now the Duke of York’s Theatre becomes the Tom Stoppard Theatre, with the name broadly in effect now and signage to be updated over the next few weeks.  That’s good as not only is the name a fitting tribute generally to the man who wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it’s also the case that his greatest play Arcadia is currently conveniently running at the Duke of York’s (and therefore will end its run at the Tom Stoppard). Image: ATGThe Tom Stoppard Theatre (artist’s impression) Stoppard’s ’00s hit Rock ‘n’ Roll also ran at the Duke of York’s, and – like the Pinter – it’s a smaller venue that stages plays rather than musicals. It’s a good fit. The name was probably also due for change: there is longer a Duke of York after the erstwhile Prince Andrew gave the title up. While the theatre wasn’t named after Andrew (it’s had the name since 1895), the Tom Stoppard feels like an altogether more solid title in general. It marks a relativel

This long, hot summer is only just getting started. However, end it will – and we have proof in the form of an exclusive announcement for one of London’s most prestigious winter theatre seasons.  Between October and March the outdoor theatre at Shakespeare’s Globe shuts and the indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse opens for four shows of intimate, candlelit work. The programming has changed quite a lot over the years – it used to have a no-Shakespeare policy, which was obviously nuts – but under artistic director Michelle Terry it’s largely settled down to a four-show season comprising two Shakespeare plays, one classic play by somebody else, and one new play. That’s exactly what we’re getting this year, with the season kicking off with one of Shakespeare’s most beloved history plays, the always timely story of democracy under attack Julius Caesar (Nov 6-Feb 14 2027). It’ll be directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins, who made his name at the Young Vic with a series of marvellously provocative takes on classic works including a version of Measure for Measure that had a set entirely made of sex dolls. Previous announced, veteran Brit playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Animals Come to the Table (Dec 11-Jan 24 2027) was originally submitted anonymously in shorter form for the Globe’s anonymous Burnt at the Stake festival in 2022. Now we get the full version of this surreal drama in which animals put humanity on trial. Photo: Johan PerssonPaul Ready and Michelle Terry Another all time class