Daisy Finch

While New York is the city that never sleeps, London’s nightlife seems all-too-fond of an early bedtime. But it is still possible to do an all-nighter in the capital, as shown by a recent report by Metro. Back in 2010, 1,000 venues across the UK had all-day, all-night licenses, with 91 of those in the capital. These days, however, a measly 58 24-hour licenses are left. Back in 2024, the number of 24-hour gyms in the city officially surpassed the number of 24-hour bars and clubs.  Fortunately, the tide could be about to change. Sadiq Khan’s independent London Nightlife Taskforce, which was established in 2025, has put together an action plan to bring London’s club scene back from the dead. The ‘comprehensive’ plan was unveiled in January and includes everything from changes to night-time transport and rethinking approaches to noise monitoring to a Nightlife Future Fund.  Club rats will recognise the iconic Islington venue fabric and Canning Town favourite FOLD as late-night havens. But could there be a new wave of sites staying open – and serving – for longer? Last year new 24-hour licenses were awarded to both Brixton Storeys and Bow’s Starlane Pizza Bar. According to Metro, Lambeth is now reportedly home over 30 pubs and bars with 24-hour licenses, while Islington has 10 licensed venues, including fan-favourite Fabric and NQ64.  Elsewhere, the stats don’t look quite so promising. Greenwich reports 17 venues operating with 24-hour licenses but only one of these – The Mitre –

Is Ari Lennox’s newest album Vacancy your early contender for 2026 album of the year? If so, we have big news. The R&B star has been confirmed as a headliner of the third instalment of Jazz Cafe Festival, which will take place this August. The show is set to be Lennox’s only UK date of 2026.  Last year’s Jazz Cafe Festival was headlined by Masego and it was a sell-out, with around 15,000 attendees dancing down in Burgess Park. If you’re keen to snap up tickets to see Ari Lennox this summer, worry not: we’ve rounded up all the information you’ll need to know below. Jazz Cafe Festival date and location Booked in with the best chance of a sunny Sunday afternoon, Jazz Cafe Festival is back at south London’s Burgess Park on August 2.  Confirmed lineup so far Ari Lennox is scheduled to headline with an exclusive UK show following the release of her third album Vacancy. No doubt hits like ‘Pressure’, ‘Twin Flames’ and ‘Shea Butter Baby’ will also get an outing.  While Jazz Cafe is keeping a lock on the rest of its 2026 line-up, the event’s organisers promise a nod to ‘the finest names leading the worldwide R&B stage’.  Last year, the lineup named Masego headliner, with support from Westside Gunn and artists across hip-hop, jazz and soul.  Image: Jazz Cafe Festival Tickets and pricing Tickets aren’t up for sale just yet but particularly eager fans can keep themselves busy by signing up for the waitlist. In 2025, pre-sale tickets dropped in late January while general admission went

Among Ana Mendieta’s best-known photographs is of a woman lying across a rocky grave, flowers seeming to grow around, and even through, her skin. Provocative, beautiful art tied to tragedy is something of a Mendieta trademark. The artist’s work digs its claws deep into the dirt, inspiration sprouting twisted flowers from cracked earth, appealing to feminist scholars and floppy-fringed emos alike. Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery and Alison Jacques, London. © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York. DACS 2026.Ana Mendieta, Imágen de Yágul, Mexico 1973. © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York. DACS 2026. The Cuban-American artist’s work is often introduced alongside the nature of her suspicious death at 36, when she allegedly fell from the 34th floor of her Manhattan apartment in 1985. This truncated life means that her potential remains lost to time, her rep forever linked to her husband Carl Andre’s murder trial.  Tate Modern wants to change all that. This summer (from July 15), the biggest ever UK exhibition of Mendieta’s work will open at the Bankside gallery with a host of pieces never before seen on these shores.  A total of 150 Mendieta pieces will be on show at the Tate, including rarely seen drawings and restored film, with the exhibition pulling from her 1970s and 1980s works to tell a thematic and biographical story that keeps the natural world at its cent

Good things, as the saying goes, come in small packages. Behind the unassuming, well-aged residential stone wrapping of Kensington’s Leighton House is a mighty public museum that has been open for a whopping 100 years.  Originally home to Victorian artist Lord Frederic Leighton, the address had a 19th-century stint as a children’s library before opening as a public museum in 1926. To celebrate its impressive birthday, the small-but-mighty institution is hosting an exciting array of exhibitions and workshops. Leighton House is an explosion of colour, a melting pot of international influences and the result of careful conservation. What began as a palazzo-inspired, relatively modest artist’s dwelling gradually transformed with the addition of the Arab Hall and Silk Room, the former a work of art in its own right and the latter built to house artworks by Lord Leighton’s contemporaries. The big one-oh-oh birthday season got off to an early start in October last year. Until March 1, it is hosting a triple-threat exhibition run.   In Leighton House: A Journey Through 100 Years, curators have charted a century of transformation, tracing the building’s history as an artist’s home, a children’s library and a theatre museum with a selection of photographs and rarely-seen objects. Image: Dirk Lindner (©RBKC) Ghost Objects: Summoning Leighton’s Lost Collection is a nod to the home’s artistic origins, exhibiting paper replicas of original objects. Bringing an extra dose of glamour to an