One of London’s most exciting festivals is tipped to be making a comeback.

Camden Rocks, the multi-venue rock-and-metal-focussed event, is being considered for a revival, according to founder Chris McCormack.

McCormack, the former guitarist of alt-rockers 3 Colours Red who now co-owns the freshly re-opened Camden Barfly venue, is hoping to bring back the long-running festival, with the resurrected Barfly at its heart.

“Camden's still Camden,” McCormack told Shortlist at the grand re-opening of the Barfly.

• Bringing back the Barfly: Frank Turner and the Camden venue’s new owners on the importance of London’s grassroots music scene

“There's not many places you can pull off a festival like Camden Rocks. You can do it in Brighton, but you've got to get taxis everywhere.

“But Camden is very concentrated, you've got your great venues like The Underworld, The Black Heart, the big ones like Electric Ballroom and The Roundhouse. You’ve got all different size venues, it's great — when you're walking down the street any day of the week, you hear bands playing.

“It's important that the venues group together. We're not against each other, we're all part of the same thing, and that's what creates the scene in Camden.”

Big name bands

The festival last took place in 2019 with headliners Frank Turner and Ash. Over the years it also saw performances from bands including The Cribs, Sea Power, Bullet For My Valentine, PiL and The Damned, as well as hundreds of other acts across more than 20 Camden venues.

The Camden Rocks name currently lives on at venues across Camden, with spots like The Underworld hosting Camden Rocks club nights and gig showcases. But the plan would be to revive Camden Rocks as a multi-venue event — the festival previously operated with an open-doors wristband-entry system, with gig-goers able to wander from one venue to another (capacity allowing), to check out all the acts performing across its many stages.

A revival is very much in the early planning stages it seems, but with the Barfly’s re-opening adding fresh energy to Camden’s live scene, the return of Camden Rocks could help further boost the area’s reputation as one of London’s premier gigging hotspots.

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They’re trying to send Camden’s live music scene to rehab, and we say “go, go, go”.

The launchpad for artists including Amy Winehouse, Coldplay and dozens of others, the Camden Barfly celebrated its grand re-opening last night, giving London’s grassroots music scene another vital performance space.

The venue at 49 Chalk Farm Road has had many names over the years, from The Camden Assembly to The Monarch, but its noughties-era incarnation as the Barfly was its most loved, with the 200-capacity space attracting the then-stars-of-tomorrow, including Adele, The Strokes, Ed Sheeran and many more to its stage.

And now it's back — and at a crucial moment for London’s grassroots scene, as more and more small performance spaces disappear. Yes, there’s still space for the superstars at London’s arenas and stadiums — but where do the first-gig teenagers get their opportunities to perform in front of a crowd?

That’s where the Barfly comes in.

“It's not that the music industry as a whole is in a bad place, it's just in a bit of a state of flux at a certain level,” says Barfly co-owner Richard Buck.

“It's just about revalidating the ecosystem and how you do that, so I think we should all be hugely optimistic about where music in creative arts is. It's just about how we engage it and make it commercially viable for those that are really at the developing level.”

“I think there's a lot more awareness about the challenges of grassroots venues and venues of this capacity, because fundamentally they don't stack up financially,” adds Dan Ickowitz-Seidler, fellow co-owner at the Barfly, and Buck’s partner in the Propaganda Independent Venues (PIV) group, of which Barfly is now a part.

“We're providing something really important for the music industry, providing the first opportunities for artists to play and really engage with a fan base and build a fan base.

“Over the years we've had Adele, Amy Winehouse, Frank Turner played his first sold-out show here, The Strokes, Libertines, Killers, The National — so many incredible artists have played on this stage, but as a venue it's really hard to stack up when you've only got so much capacity.”

Making Camden rock again

The team behind Barfly’s re-opening is well-positioned to help it succeed. Buck and Ickowitz-Seidler’s PIV has already successfully taken ownership of Tramshed and The Globe in Cardiff, as well as the XOYO clubs in London and Birmingham, clawing back their independence from Australian live entertainment giant TEG. Fellow co-owner Chris McCormack (formerly the guitarist in alt-rockers 3 Colours Red), founded the Camden Rocks festival, which united Camden’s many live music spaces under one banner. And each has a personal connection to the venue, whether having gigged there, DJ’d there, or promoted nights at the Barfly.

Support for grassroots venues is picking up speed as awareness grows too, with charities like the Music Venue Trust helping struggling sites keep their doors open, and bigger shows and performers pushing funds towards the cause.

“We've got the £1 Pound Ticket Levy that's going on to more and more shows [an additional £1 fee artists and venues can optionally add to their ticket prices to help fund the restoration of grassroots venues, .ed]. Royal Albert Hall, and a lot of other large venues are starting to do it more and more, and I think people realise that they need to be supporting venues of this size to allow them to continue to exist,” says Ickowitz-Seidler.

“So we’re optimistic, hopefully, of the future support that's going to be here for venues of this size. Nervous about the challenges of the industry as a whole, but I think we're confident we can at least get to break even and hopefully make it work.”

And there are plans for more to come — McCormack is looking to revive the multi-venue Camden Rocks festival, with the Barfly at its heart. Stretching a mile through Camden’s music heartland, it saw punters dip in and out of more than twenty venues on a single ticket to see hundreds of acts across a weekend.

“Camden's still Camden,” says McCormack. “There's not many places you can pull off a festival like Camden Rocks. You can do it in Brighton, but you've got to get taxis everywhere.

“But Camden is very concentrated, you've got your great venues like The Underworld, The Black Heart, the big ones like Electric Ballroom and The Roundhouse. You’ve got all different-sized venues, it's great — when you're walking down the street any day of the week, you hear bands playing.

“It's important that the venues group together. We're not against each other, we're all part of the same thing, and that's what creates the scene in Camden.”

Barfly’s biggest fan takes to its stage

The new era of the Barfly was kicked off by not one, but two sold-out shows in a single night from punk singer-songwriter Frank Turner. The long-time North Londoner played his first ever shows at the Barfly in its original incarnation — both as part of his band Million Dead, and then later as a solo artist. Revealing his very own (unofficial) blue plaque at the venue, it’s a space that’s close to the musician’s heart.

“I feel that I have a debt of gratitude to repay, because my career would not exist without rooms like this,” says Turner.

“I would not have the career I have, the living I have, the art that I have, all that kind of thing, if I hadn't had the opportunity to find myself, find my audience, figure out who I am, figure out what I want to say, in rooms like the Barfly.”

Turner’s route to stardom has been a steady ascension, with 3,166 shows under his belt following the Barfly double-header. Venues like the Barfly have allowed him the space and time to build a loyal following — something not always afforded the artists of today where social virality is sometimes seen as the key currency.

“That sort of viral TikTok success type thing is just so flimsy,” he says.

“Everybody's heard horror stories about getting a billion streams on TikTok, booking a big venue, and then selling 12 tickets. It's important to view that kind of virality as almost a totally different thing to actually building an audience — they're two separate phenomena. We don't have to be judgmental about one or the other in saying that, but having a million kids who know 30 seconds of one of your songs is not the same as building an audience for your career.”

There’s an education to be had for a generation of young gig-goers lost to “COVID-weirdness” too, says Turner, youngsters that were deprived of the joys of those formative nights out at sweaty clubs and gigs, with an industry instead keen to push them towards shows at enormodome venues for stars charging several hundred pounds per ticket.

“Yeah, you can spend 400 quid and see Olivia Rodrigo, which is fine, and she's great. But you could also spend just 15 quid and go and see a bunch of bands you’ve never heard of and maybe discover something amazing. Also, more to the point, you make connections with people in the room, and then you'll meet the band afterwards, and they'll sweat on you during the gig, and you feel part of something in a way that you just don't in a corporate arena setting.

“There's something so direct about the connection in the room like this. The audience is there, you can touch them — you can touch about half of them if you lean! There's this sort of feedback loop, because a good show is a dialogue, not a monologue, it's about an exchange of energy, and that is so very apparent in a room like this.”

Want to know what’s on next at the Barfly? Check out all the upcoming shows here.

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Remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Of course you do. Remember when Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo would grab their favourite dish, a New York pizza? And remember how delicious those animated slices looked, and wishing you could wrap your tastebuds around them?

Borough’s Spring Street Pizza remembers, and it’s brought that perfect slice to life.

The Little Italy-inspired restaurant, tucked away beneath the railway arches of Borough, has become one of London's most sought-after pizza destinations, serving enormous New York-style pies to crowds of diners. With Michelin-star pedigree in the kitchen, it’s a must-visit spot for any self-respecting, pizza-loving Londoner.

WHERE IS IT?

You'll find Spring Street Pizza in Borough, a short walk from Borough Underground station and within easy reach of London Bridge. Set beneath railway arches, the space combines exposed brick, industrial details and an open kitchen where diners can watch pizzas being stretched, topped and fired throughout service.

Outside seating spills onto the pavement during warmer weather, while inside there's a constant hum of conversation, clinking glasses and the occasional gasp as another enormous 18-inch pizza lands on a neighbouring table.

WHAT'S SPECIAL?

London isn't short of pizza restaurants, but Spring Street Pizza is chasing a very specific dream: bringing authentic New York-style pizza culture to the capital.

The restaurant's oversized pizzas arrive with the characteristic thin base and crisp underside you'd expect from a proper NYC pie, while ingredients lean heavily into Italian-American comfort food territory.

That focus on doing one thing exceptionally well gives Spring Street Pizza its edge, and it’s masterminded by a true pro: Michelin-star chef, Tom Kemble, formerly of The Pass and Bonhams. And so there’s the craft and care with ingredients you’d expect from the top-tier of the culinary world, but presented in as laid-back a fashion as you’d hope from a humble pizzeria. It’s the best of both worlds.

It’s worth noting that the Spring Street Pizza restaurant doesn’t have to be your only destination to enjoy the pies on offer — sat right next door to Rae’s (formerly the O’Meara venue), you can have a slice at the bar there, and even order to the nearby retro-gaming bar Four Quarters, too.

WHO SHOULD YOU BRING?

Is there anyone in the world who doesn’t love pizza? All are welcome at Spring Street, and walk-ins are happily accommodated too. But this is very much a friends-first restaurant.

The atmosphere is relaxed, chatty and youthful, making it ideal for group dinners, post-work catch-ups or weekend gatherings where nobody wants to spend three hours discussing wine pairings.

Dates would work too, particularly if both parties appreciate good pizza over white tablecloths. Families can easily fit in, although the evening crowd tends to skew younger. It's a lively spot without being overwhelming and busy without feeling chaotic.

Most importantly, it's somewhere built around sharing. Unless you’re a true pizza fiend, an 18-incher demands company. If you’re hoping for clean plates, bring mates.

WHAT SHOULD YOU WEAR?

Whatever you wore to get there. Spring Street Pizza is comfortably casual. Trainers, jeans, T-shirts and overshirts dominate the dining room. Nobody is trying too hard and nobody expects you to either.

This isn't a place for suits, ties or dressing up for the sake of it. The focus is firmly on eating well and having a good time.

WHAT WILL YOU PAY?

Spring Street Pizza is definitely on the affordable end of the scale for a night dining out, especially with a Michelin-botherer in the kitchen. Pizzas start at £24 for a simple Marinara, rising to £36 for fancier options like the Fennel Sausage fest. It’s not a huge menu, and we’d recommend getting a half-and-half pie to try out a little more of what’s on offer (a £2 top up fee on the price of the most expensive half.)

When one pizza can comfortably feed two hungry diners, you can get some drinks and starters and come away with change from a £50 note.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DRINK?

The cocktail list sticks to crowd-pleasers and executes them well.

The Negroni arrived exactly as it should: bitter, boozy and balanced, with gin, Campari and sweet vermouth working in harmony.

Meanwhile, the Venetian — combining Select Aperitivo, prosecco and soda — proved lighter, brighter and ideal for easing into the meal.

Both fit the restaurant's Italian-American identity perfectly — if you're coming for pizza, starting with one of these feels like the right move.

MUST-TRY DISHES

Whatever you order at Spring Street, you’re in for a treat — the base underpinning all of the pies is truly excellent, a perfect balance between crisp bite and satisfying stretch. The phrase “this is a life changing pizza” was thrown around by my dining partner, and it’d be difficult to argue otherwise. Alongside some Perello Manzanilla olive openers, we tucked away:

Fried Breadcrumbed Mozzarella Sticks (£8)

Spring Street's sticks arrive golden and crunchy, paired with house marinara sauce, hot honey and a snowfall of 22-month parmesan. The contrast between molten cheese, sweet honey and savoury parmesan makes them dangerously moreish.

New Yorker Pizza (£34, 18-inch)

One half of our enormous pizza featured the restaurant's signature New Yorker combination of San Marzano tomato, fior di latte mozzarella, pepperoni, Pecorino Romano and hot honey. The pepperoni curls crisped beautifully, while the honey added just enough sweetness to cut through the richness, a hint of heat keeping things interesting. It's exactly the kind of pizza that explains why New York-style pies have such devoted fans, and the don’t-miss highlight of the menu.

Fennel Sausage Pizza (£36, 18-inch)

The second half showcased pork and fennel sausage alongside scamorza, Pecorino Romano, friarielli, Calabrian chilli flakes and guindilla pepper salsa. Where the New Yorker leans comforting and familiar, this one delivers greater, earthy complexity. The fennel notes, smoky cheese and gentle chilli warmth create a pizza that's packed with flavour, but not so heavy as to enter roast-dinner-on-a-pizza territory. Those two made for a great duo in a half-and-half, and we’d certainly recommend ordering a similar combo.

Tiramisu (£8)

Ending with tiramisu felt obligatory (if a little bit excessive after the very-filling pizza), but it still managed to impress. Mascarpone mousse layered with Marsala-soaked savoiardi and bourbon coffee brought together richness, bitterness and sweetness in all the right proportions. Light enough not to finish you off, indulgent enough to justify every calorie.

Honourable mention: The dips (£6.50 for 3)

The best in the business. Green Goddess has a light basil pesto freshness, Confit Garlic Aioli is perky and zingy, while the Jalapenos & Sour Cream dip adds some kick that cheese-covered crust. Try them all, you won't regret it.

GET ON THE GUESTLIST?

Spring Street Pizza gets two licked-clean thumbs up from Shortlist. The pizzas are excellent, the atmosphere is lively and friendly and we left instantly planning our next visit. It isn't trying to be London's fanciest pizza restaurant, but its slices would put meals three times the cost to shame. Michelangelo would be proud.

Spring Street Pizza is found at Arch 32, Southwark Quarter, Southwark St, London SE1 1TE, and is open Tuesday to Sunday. Reservations can be made through OpenTable, but walk-ins and takeaway are accommodated, too.

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With the World Cup taking place across North America, millions of fans are adapting to disrupted routines, bleary-eyed mornings and alarm clocks set for the middle of the night. According to E.ON Next research, around eight million fans are expected to tune into late-night fixtures this summer, with many changing work schedules and daily habits to make sure they don't miss a moment.

It's why Defoe has teamed up with E.ON Next's Watch and Wash campaign, encouraging supporters to make use of cheaper off-peak electricity while watching matches. The idea is simple: if you're already staying up for football, you may as well put the washing machine on too.

While the campaign focuses on smart habits off the pitch, Defoe's attention is firmly on what could happen on it, how the summer will go and why E. ON Next’s campaign is so important.

Why the World Cup still stops the nation

For Defoe, there is still nothing quite like a World Cup. "It's just football," he says. "Football's got this thing of bringing people together. When football's on, especially the World Cup, it is the pinnacle of sport, and I feel like it brings everyone together."

The time difference may force fans to change their routines, but he believes that only adds to the occasion.

"It's different as well. People sort of complain about the kick-off times and stuff like that, but because it's different, because you're having to set your alarms and wake up, I'm excited for it, to be honest."

More than anything, he sees major tournaments as a rare moment of collective optimism. "As a nation, you come together and try to support this group of players and try to achieve something special. I'm looking forward to it."

Missing tournament football

Having represented England at multiple major tournaments, Defoe admits there are plenty of things he misses about international football.

"Just everything," he says. "Just the whole environment. Being amongst a group of players that potentially got a chance of creating history."

For him, the World Cup remains the pinnacle of the game. "You look over the course of World Cups over the years, even as a young kid growing up watching them, and you know how people just become legends overnight."

That opportunity is what makes the tournament so special for the players involved.

"If you represent your country at a World Cup, it's the biggest thing. For this group of players to have that opportunity to go and do it again, the ones that have been there before and the ones going to their first tournament, you've just got to embrace it because it goes quick."

Defoe believes England's opening matches could prove crucial. "I think it's important to start a tournament well and then hopefully you build a little bit of momentum, and you can go on and achieve something special."

The small margins that make the difference

The Watch and Wash campaign centres around the idea that small changes can make a big difference, something that resonates with Defoe's own experiences as a player.

"I've tried everything," he says. "You have to try and tick all the boxes and try and get an advantage." That mindset extended well beyond training sessions.

"You have to be able to do things that maybe you're thinking other people aren't willing to do in terms of your recovery, your diet, how you train, how you live. It's that 24-hour athlete."

Naturally, that attention to detail often drifted into superstition. "If I scored a goal or had a really good game, I'd want to wear the same boots. You want your preparations to be identical."

One particular example still makes him smile. "I remember scoring five goals against Wigan for Tottenham, and then the new boot colour came out. I was told I had to wear the new ones, but I was thinking, 'I can't change this boot at the minute.'" Footballers, it turns out, can be just as irrational as supporters when things are going well.

The pressure fans never see

One thing Defoe is keen to stress is that the pressure of playing for England is often underestimated from the outside. "I think people don't understand the pressure," he says. "You hear a lot of people speak like it's easy. You just couldn't imagine the pressure of playing for England."

That pressure has only intensified as England has edged closer to ending its long wait for major silverware. Reaching finals and semi-finals has raised expectations rather than easing them.

"When you play for England, there's an expectation and a demand to win football matches and a demand to win major tournaments." Because England has come so close in recent years, supporters now travel to tournaments with genuine belief.

"We've been in touching distance. We've been so close over the last few tournaments." At the same time, that belief inevitably creates another layer of pressure for the players themselves.

"Because we've come so close, and because it's been so long, it's almost like we're just so desperate as a nation to win a major tournament."

Still, Defoe believes that pressure is part of what makes international football special. "If we managed to do it, could you imagine the celebrations over here? For the country, it would just be something so special."

Jermain Defoe's World Cup predictions

• Winner: France
• Runner-up: England
• Dark horses: Japan, or "hopefully an African Nation"
• Player of the tournament: Bruno Fernandes or Michael Olise
• Top scorer: Harry Kane or Kylian Mbappé

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Whilst tennis fashion is creeping into a fashion category in its own right, the 'fits that immediately spring to mind when you hear the phrase are probably more along the lines of Serena Williams’ trendy gear, Naomi Osaka’s striking Aussie Open 2026 fit, or the chic lines of Roger Federer. However much like how cricket jumpers have crept out of Lord's and into loungewear, Wimbledon’s yearly collection is proving that tennis-inspired chic is quietly carving out its place in the fashion world.

From varsity inspired track-style jackets to functional, match-ready workout gear which will have you looking like you can clean up a 7-0 set even if the reality is your backhand can’t make it over the net, the 2026 collection is stacked. Here are our favourite picks.

1. Mens Racket T-Shirt, Green

There is a fine line between sportswear, merch, and a really nice basic done well, and that line is actually a fine-lined tennis racket logo. We seem to be in a deficit of classy but fun basics at the moment, and this tee shirt really helps to remedy that. Rock up to a chilled match in it, or wear it to the pub – the choice is yours and it works for both.

2. Navy Wimbledon Script Varsity Jacket

If one thing Americans do better than the UK it's sports merch – and specifically Varsity jackets. If you’ve also binged watch Off Campus and then pretended you’ve never heard of it, let alone seen it, you may have found yourself a). Believing in love again and b). Googling “Varsity Jackets” and trying to find one that doesn’t scream imposter. The Wimbledon take on the Varsity jacket adds a classy spin on the classic silhouette in a casual navy tone.

3. Men’s Performance Pique Swearshirt in White

Picture the scene – or rather the temperature: you’re heading to a casual game with your mates, and whilst you know you’ll heat up approximately 35 minutes into the game, shedding layers and sweating more than the Buckingham Palace press team during Newsnight. However, the only niggle is that it’s seriously cold out, and you need a jumper that isn’t from your floordrobe and doesn’t undermine your ensemble. Enter this jumper. The pique fabric is sweat-wicking so you can keep it on even when you do start feeling the heat too. Ideal.

4. Men’s Performance Court T-Shirt

Whilst our picks so far have leaned on the fashion side rather than the sporting gear, this performance tee earned a spot. You’ll probably be familiar with the MO of the strict Wimbledon palatte for the players – i.e. they’re required to wear whites, with only a small amount of colour shown across the whole outfit. One of the things that’s cool about the collection is that those rules apply to all the pieces, meaning you’re basically playing to the same level in some respect as the pros. The upshot of this is that the design team have to be a lot more creative with how they construct each piece. This sport top mirrors the classic lines of the court, bringing the architecure and design core of Wimbledon into the pieces. Plus, it looks cool and has great sweat wicking fabric. Win win.

5. Ottoman Bomber Jacket

Speaking of the strict colour rules, another way the design team creates interesting pieces is by playing with texture. This jacket which would undoubtedly make you look like your serve is more deadly than anything someone can cook up on Wii Sports is a prime example of this, using a classic silhouette updated with contrasting textures. Obviously the key thing we look for in any sports collection is the ability to wear the pieces from the court to the pub without looking out of place at either. Needless to say this jacket is a perfect example.

6. Cotton Sweatshirt with Crest Embroidery

Wimbledon holds the same kind of reverence as ‘Eton’ and ‘Oxford’, feeling indulgently traditional although luckily with less elitism and more athleticism. And whilst we love the collection pieces for being chic and sporty, sometimes you do just want a classic sweatshirt that screams merch (in a good way). This cotton sweatshirt brings all the old lines and old-school style you’d want with a clean, updated look. Whether you want to pretend you’re a preppy teen in The Crown or just want a comfy jumper that can be worn to gym classes instead of your brother’s baggy hand-me-down, this is one to have on your list.

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There are sequels, and then there are legendary franchises which you semi-groan at when you hear there’s going to be yet another release, before putting your faux-adult-standards behind you and fangirling with the rest of the nation.

Pixar’s latest flick falls firmly into this category with the beloved Woody, Buzz, and Jessie reuniting on our screens in Toy Story 5. In the latest instalment, the toys are facing their biggest threat yet: screens. Voiced by Greta Lee, Lilypad is the newest arrival in Bonnie’s life and poses the biggest threat to playtime. It’s arguably relatable stuff, making parents look up with guilty faces and silently promise they won’t just stick an iPad in front of their kids' faces when they’re throwing a tantrum in public anymore. Or maybe just on special occasions.

Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, Tom Hanks: whilst it’s easy to focus on the frankly whopping names attached to the project, it’s the duo Andrew Stanton and Lindsey Collins who are the powerhouses behind the films, writing and directing, and producing respectively (and restoring our faith in love, being high school sweethearts as well as movie makers). We sat down with the pair in London to talk about sneaky jokes, whether there will be a Toy Story 6, and educating them on the universal experience for most British kids of watching Pixar films on a tiny screen in Russell and Bromley.

SL: You know, watching Toy Story 5 was actually the first Pixar film I’ve watched as an adult.

Andrew Stanton: Wow

SL: I don’t know if you guys are familiar with this as it’s a very cult British experience, but until now I’d only watched the films whilst getting your school shoes fitted? The two main shoe shops would have little TV screens in the corner which only ever showed Toy Story or Finding Nemo. You’d be glued to the screen not caring if your shoes actually fit or not…

AS: Oh my God I didn’t know this

Lindsey Collins: Did you feel like you needed new shoes watching Toy Story 5?

SL: Yes! It was like some kind of Pavlovian response, Where are my new shoes?

LC: You’ve got to get yourself some!

SL: One of the things I loved is how many jokes there are in the film, especially ones that I think would have gone over my head as a kid. Are there ever any jokes that don’t make the cut? Any that are too rude that you can’t get away with?

AS: Always. We throw so many at it so we make sure we’re as funny as we can be. Sometimes it’s because of the film and the story goes in another direction.

LC: And we throw in some that we know will get flagged and taken out so the ones we really want end up staying in

SL: Nice! Like a Trojan Horse?

LC: Yeah, some sacrificial lambs

SL: The cameos are insane in this film: Bad Bunny, Alan Cumming – we interviewed him on Monday and he didn’t let slip that he was in the film

AS: Oh good on him!

LC: He runs the Traitors, he know not to let slip

SL: If you do Toy Story 6, is there anyone you’re eyeing up who you’d love to make a cameo?

AS: Oh god the list is so long… But it tends to be the scenario – we weren’t thinking of Bad Bunny ahead of time, it was more the moment when we needed to fill in these one liners

LC: Bad Bunny came about because during the pandemic he made videos of his Toy Story toys so we knew he was a fan, so we were asking one another Do you think we can get Bad Bunny to do a voice??

AS: And we literally only had one line for Pizza with Sunglasses, but [once he was on board] we said let’s expand him, and we got him to record it in Spanish and English, so the character spoke in this Spanglish

LC: He had a blast, it was so much fun. He was awesome

AS: Did you stay to the very end of the credits?

SL: I did not…

AS: Ohh there is a little scene at the end – you’ll have to go and watch it again

SL: Oh, no worries there I will be. I asked my housemates who they’d pick to make a cameo and they all said Hugh Grant… What Toy do you think he’d be? What Toy would you envision he voice if he did come on board?

LC: [gasps] I love Hugh Grant

AS: Why do I wanna say, Calculator?

LC: I love that he’s been playing villains recently, I’d love him to voice a villain. A Dr. Facilier maybe?

SL: Maybe the Operations guy? Who always just yells when he gets buzzed

LC: Oh I like that

AS: Gonna write that in

SL: Andrew you’ve made a small cameo in a lot of your Pixar films, did you have one in this film?

AS: I did, I was Jimmy Queen

SL: Really?!

LC: [makes pig noises]

AS: Yeah, that’s all I did

SL: Where is your Oscar?!

AS: I know. I think I’ve just offended a whole nation there

LC: He makes us call him Jimmy Queen now around the house

SL: Is it good for when he’s being a diva?

LC: Yeah, exactly [to the side] Jimmy Queen just got here. If I was going to be a Toy, I don't know, I like Dolly, she’s pretty great, bit of a wise ass.

Toy Story 5 is now out in cinemas across the UK

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Toy Story 5 arrives in cinemas later this week (June 19th), marking the latest entry in a storied series of CGI movies.

Indeed, the original Toy Story film holds a very special place in cinematic history. When it arrived in 1995, it became the first ever feature length CGI film – that is, the first movie to be made entirely using computer animation techniques.

As such, Pixar’s landmark production did much more than kick off a franchise, or even a successful studio. It spawned an entire industry.

By way of a tribute to the decades-spanning Toy Story series and the entire form of cinema that it created, we thought now would be the ideal time to run through the best CGI movies ever made.

It’s a thorny subject for a list. Many of us have grown up with these films, so I’m quite aware that rating them (and omitting so many absolute bangers) is likely to provoke outrage.

I can only say that I’m sorry for the actual physical pain I’m about to inflict on you. Even if I am 100% right.

9. Sausage Party

Part of me wanted to include Sausage Party for the sake of variety, and perhaps just a little mischievous contrarianism amidst all this kiddie-focused fare. But when it comes down to it, this is a deft piece of work that goes to places most live action Hollywood movies dare not tread. It sets out its stall as a bawdy Seth Rogen comedy vehicle all about anthropomorphic sausages itching to get together with suggestively shaped buns in a quintessential supermarket, but soon expands into an unabashed statement about atheistic humanism. You don’t get that from Disney, God bless ‘em.

8. Big Hero 6

It would be a stretch to suggest that Big Hero 6 has flown under radar, but it rarely seems to be spoken about in the same terms as many of the other CGI films on this list. You can probably blame Frozen, which was released to billion-dollar-grossing success the previous year by the same studio. For my money, though, Big Hero 6 is the better film, with a stunning aesthetic that mashes together Japanese and American sci-fi culture. But it’s the heart-warming relationship between a young robotics nerd and his inflatable buddy (not like that) that forms the core of the movie’s appeal.

7. Shrek

If Toy Story paved the way for all computer animated movies to follow, then Shrek established the fact that this was indeed a CGI movie industry rather than a Pixar movie industry. It might have been DreamWorks Animation’s second computer animated feature, but it was the first to hit big with audiences, capturing the zeitgeist with its tongue-in-cheek send up of Disney’s hackneyed fairytale schtick. Which is truly amazing, when you read into the troubled nature of the production. Mike Myers brings the grouchy ogre to life, aided by a stellar supporting cast, an irreverent script, and a bracingly anachronistic soundtrack.

6. WALL·E

What really separates Pixar (at its best) from the rest of the family-oriented CGI movie crowd is that it has something to say. Arguably its grandest statement comes via WALL·E, which goes in strong on humanity’s complacency in the face of impending environmental disaster, with a side-order of disdain for consumerism. Don’t worry, though – it’s also got an adorable trash-scooping robot protagonist, who falls in love with a sleeker and deadlier model during a masterfully wordless opening stretch.

5. The Lego Movie

Warner Bros finally crashed the CGI movie space in 2014 with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s riotous riff on everyone’s favourite blocky toy brand. The Lego Movie represented a huge swing at the time, and its success surely paved the way for Barbie’s similarly irreverent cinematic treatment a decade later. Featuring a nigh-on perfect visual style that nods to stop motion animation and the sheer chaotic creativity of Lego itself, as well as a surprisingly meta storyline, it’s an absolute hoot with genuine cross-generational appeal.

4. Toy Story 2

This was a tricky one. As we’ve already discussed, the original Toy Story was foundational to this entire list, while Toy Story 3 reaches emotional depths and deals with the kind of weighty themes you simply don’t see too often from an ostensibly kiddie-focused film genre. But Toy Story 2 is sheer perfection, from its expressive animation to its razor-sharp script and impeccable characterisations. If there’s been a more joyful and thrilling exploration of mid-life crisis in all of cinema, I have yet to see it.

3. The Incredibles

Eight years before the first Avengers movie and more than two decades before Marvel’s so-so Fantastic Four reboot, Pixar aced the whole ‘quippy super-family’ thing with The Incredibles. Not only that, but they also produced one of the finest spy movies of the 21st century while they were at it. The Incredibles has it all, with a beautiful ‘60s sci-fi aesthetic, outrageously thrilling set pieces, and bags of heart, as our extraordinary nuclear family gets pulled back into the super-heroing business.

2. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

No-one, but no-one expected this. While the world was distracted by Tom Holland’s lovably dorky live action hero and his dalliances with the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe, Into the Spider-Verse quietly swung ahead with the best Spider-Man movie yet. The film’s successes are many and varied, but core to its appeal is that it does something genuinely new and daring in the field of computer animation. It’s impossible to describe Into the Spider-Verse’s aesthetic beyond made-up words like ‘comic-booky’, such is the vivid impression of ink-on-paper being given life and motion.

1. Ratatouille

Peak Pixar truly could do no wrong, as evidenced by this fact: its best ever film was about an aspiring Parisian chef fighting to work amidst wanton discrimination and corruption. The premise suggests ‘Ken Loach indie’ rather than ‘family-friendly box office smash’, but those Pixar magicians had it covered. They made the protagonist a gourmand rat named Remy, who finds that he can indulge his prodigious talent in the kitchen by hopping onto the head of a gormless kitchen assistant and controlling his movements. No other CGI film so expertly evokes childlike wonder in adults and kids alike.

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London is a hotbed for fantastic venues for live music – everything from the sweaty back room at the Dublin Castle in Camden to the pomp and circumstance of my favourite, the Royal Albert Hall, and the immense scale of the O2 in Greenwich.

However, for as long as I've been going to gigs in London (and that's quite a bit over the last 15 years), I've often felt it was missing a venue. London has lots of theatres with a sub-3000 capacity – think the Palladium, Lyceum and such – and then some slightly larger halls, such as the Hammersmith Apollo and Royal Albert Hall that push 4000 to 6000 people in one room.

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Above that, and you're getting into arena territory with the O2 and Wembley Arena. It's the gap between the Palladium and the Albert Hall that's difficult to fill.

That's where the new British Airways Arc comes in. The first venue of its kind to be built in London for the best part of a decade, with a sweet-spot 3,800 capacity situated at the Olympia in west London, that's sitting on a site with more musical heritage than people realise. The likes of Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and the Cure all played in Olympia's West Hall (where the Arc is situated atop), and in more recent years, it's played host to Richard Ashcroft and Alicia Keys, amongst the sea of trade shows that usually occupy the venue.

It's part of a hefty £1.3 billion renovation to the Olympia site, where I'm told that a concert venue of some form was central to the plans, reviving Olympia's musical heritage in a thoroughly modern manner. This is all part of an idea to make the exhibition hall into more of a destination – Birmingham has tried it with the NEC complex, adding the Resorts World outlet shopping centre and the associated BP Pulse arena a decade or so ago, but it feels a bit soulless considering it's mostly shut before doors open for a show at the arena.

On the other hand, the Olympia already has several venues open for business, and with a good variety, too. Everything from coffee and fried chicken to Japanese cuisine and beyond, with Wolves of Tokyo, a rooftop Japanese restaurant and bar from the Incipio Group, as the marquee opening. The space already feels alive with a clean and modern feel, and is worth checking out on its own. I recommend arriving an hour or so before doors to make the most of it.

What's on

The opening season AEG is going for reflects the ambition to revive Olympia's musical fortunes. There's an excellent spread of artists for the venue's opening season – Self Esteem has opened up this week, with the likes of McFly, Zac Brown Band and The Black Keys to follow. Van Morrison is down for a five-night residency in a more intimate setting, while there's also a jazz festival partnership featuring Branford Marsalis and Dianne Reeves towards the back end of 2026. AEG's target is 200 events a year, meaning this could be the hustling and bustling venue to see your favourite artist in a new and different setting.

AEG has said the venue is built for multi-night runs and that the idea of artists having residencies is arguably the whole point of the venue. It's designed to attract arena sellers to a smaller space, potentially encouraging a different kind of show with a better atmosphere. Van Morrison is a prime example, as is the rarely seen Zac Brown Band – a country artist not seen at a standalone UK show in the best part of a decade, the last of which was at Wembley Arena, outside of sporadic country festival appearances at the O2. If they're selling out the Arc in the next week or so, that's an indication of things to come.

The best seats in the house

Once inside, you wouldn't know it's a nearly 4,000-capacity venue. It doesn't feel particularly big. The entire bowl is wide and deep, rather than narrow and high, feeling closer to the Roundhouse in Camden than a traditional theatre. The balcony is quite modest in scale, stretching back for only a handful of rows, and there isn't necessarily a bad seat in the house – I sat in a good few to check! There's a gentle rake, too, and good legroom between rows. If you're at the extreme side at the top, though, in seats 85 to 91 or so, just beware that they sit close enough to the stage that a large speaker may affect your view a bit. Of course, as time goes on, we're going to see photos from folks inside with specific seat and row numbers, but just a small tip for you.

If you're happy to spend a bit more and want to sit in the balcony, then the Arc has specific 'Front Row' seating – a lowered section at the front of the balcony with clean sightlines and no one in front of you.

For an even plusher option, there's the British Airways Wing, which is genuinely one of my favourite parts of the venue. It features a private bar serving made-to-order cocktails with its own lounge area that sits at the literal side of the stage – like the backstage viewing area you see well-to-do people using at Glastonbury.

Once the show's about to begin, you get your own little pen of even plusher seats that look more like ones you've found in a nice cinema than a concert venue. It's available via the Premium Seating option through AXS when buying tickets for certain shows — allocations are likely to be very limited, so you'll need to move quickly when a show goes on sale.

Downstairs, the floor is standing, but can be changed to seated arrangements for certain shows. It's a big, wide and open space, complete with ample opportunity to buy things, with a large bar and merchandise stand right as you go in the main auditorium door. Moving down the side is a self-serve bar if you don't want to deal with large queues with contactless payment terminals to make it as easy as possible to get that pre-show pint down your neck.

Comfort and accessibility

One thing I wasn't expecting was how much standing room there is outside of the main bowl, and that the bar areas and such are slightly raised up by a couple of steps against the main room. There are lots of spaces to lean with your drink, a few steps away from the back of the main standing bowl, and you get a surprisingly good sightline, especially with the stage being 1.7 metres high – that's higher than a lot of other venues. If you still want a good view without the hassle of being in a mosh pit, the rear standing area could be the play.

The venue has 37 accessible spaces on the ground floor at the side of the room, too, by the self-service bar, and you get good views in your own designated section, rather than having to deal with the problem of potentially being stuck behind a pillar in other venues.

Admittedly, it's a small thing, but the fact that the entire venue is air-conditioned makes a difference, especially with it opening at the height of summer. At this time of year, older halls can be very hot and stuffy in the summer months, especially as places in this country are mostly designed to keep heat in, rather than get rid of it. It's a small thing that will make a noticeable difference on a hot night.

If you're not already a member, it's worth signing up to the BA Club – British Airways' free membership scheme. As well as earning points on flight bookings, holidays and other things, you can also collect Avios if you spend at selected bars and restaurants across the new Olympia complex. From 22nd June, you can earn 10 Avios per £1 spent, which seems like a no-brainer if you're saving up points for a reward flight and want to maximise your earnings. Likewise, you also get access to your own specific presale for when artists go on sale at the Arc, giving you another route to book tickets to a show.

Getting there

One last tip is on public transport. To navigate to the Arc, you're genuinely best using public transport. On-street parking directly outside is restricted to permit holders until 10pm, ruling out most gig-goers. You've otherwise got a couple of options, with the Kensington Olympia station being served on the Mildmay Overground line, a branch of the District line on certain days and weekends, and Southern Rail's National Rail services. Otherwise, it's a short walk from Barons Court station on the Piccadilly line, which is useful if you're coming from central London or connecting from Heathrow, for instance.

Overall, I think the British Airways Arc is a genuinely worthwhile addition to London's entertainment landscape with a modern and considered feel that's unlike a lot of the other venues we've seen in London over the years. It's a little early to tell whether folks will seek it out for the wide, open room itself, for the pre-gig dining options, or simply because their favourite artist happens to book it. However, on the evidence of what's here already, the foundations are solid, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with it in the future.

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I could smell the smoke as I approached Twickenham stadium as it towered over the surrounding houses. The scent of low and slow meat filled the air, tantalising passers-by, and setting the taste-buds on a recon mission for some deftly-charred meats.

Fume is not only London’s largest BBQ festival, but it’s the biggest in Europe, hosted this year over a long weekend in the shadow of the home of rugby. The annual event features 30 of the best barbecue pit masters the world has to offer, and is spearheaded by social foodie phenomenon Eating With Tod.

Fortunately, I was heading to where the smoked meats were being cooked and, as it turned out, I learned a thing or two just in time for BBQ season.

Hosted at the Pit Boss stand, I met East London-born Jack Rowbottom, who runs Jack’s Meat Shack in Sudbury, Suffolk. He’d prepared melt-in-your-mouth, 12 hour smoked Wagyu brisket on the Austin XL wood pellet grill, and four hour smoked honey, butter and coffee ribs — and we were along not only to taste it, but to get a master class from one of the best in the business, too.

While the meat shone, I’m now considering investing in the Austin XL. As someone who loves low and slow meats, but doesn’t have the fire skill or patience to tend to a wood-burning fire for hours on end, this could be the answer:

Once I’d finished gawping at the grills, Jack had me making a smash burger while imparting his top tips for your smashed patties and BBQs this summer.

5 top tips for perfect smash burgers

1. Embrace the fat

Jack says “fatty mince is key. Go to the supermarket and look for something with 20% fat. Some supermarket chains do 25%, but I think you lose a bit of flavour with that, so 20% would be my goal.”

He mentions beef is his go-to, but you can try other meat. “Pork can work quite nicely, but you need the fat content there.”

You can also use leaner meat - Jack suggests turkey or chicken thigh mince, ideally something with a line of fat running through it - but you’ll need to season the cooking surface with fat to help the flavour. He recommends Spanish avocado oil, as it has a high smoke point. You’ll want to watch the heat, and don’t cook leaner meat as high as it’ll dry out.

2. Don’t get greedy

I was presented with a 100g ball of 20% fat rib cap beef mince to cook my smash burger. No other ingredients, no binders, just pure beef. And you don’t want much more mince than that per burger, as Jack explained.

“I would go no bigger than 125g, because then you lose the thinness of the smashed patty.” Stick to his recommended weights and “the thinner, crispier and quicker your smash burger will cook.”

3. Hot and flat

When it comes to preparing your smash burger cooking surface, Jack notes you need a “nice hot, flat surface”.

I cooked my smash burger on the Pit Boss Griddle, but you can just as easily do one at home “with a cast iron pan or something that can conduct the heat really well. Stainless steel pans work nicely, [as does] carbon steel.”

4. No touching!

Patience is key when making the perfect smash burger, so don’t be tempted to move the meat around too much.

“The key is to let the ball of meat sit, render a bit of fat out of it, then press it nice and flat (we’re talking millimetres thin) against the surface”. And don’t press it more than once. Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper then “don’t touch it”, Jack tells me as I close the lid of the griddle. “You want the meat to form a reaction, a bit of a caramelisation, and then it will release naturally from the surface.”

Once it’s ready, flip it, add salt, pepper and cheese to the top and cover again to allow it to steam. As Jack says, it’s “really simple. It’s a quick process.”

If you don’t have one of the best BBQs with a lid, you can instead use a frying pan with a lid, or a burger cloche, to trap in the heat while the patty cooks.

5. Have everything ready

And finally, once your smashed patty is ready, you’ll want to plate it up as soon as possible and tuck in. Jack says “have everything ready, have all your sides and bits and pieces done so you don’t have to run around, get your cheese out the wrap and all that.”

Lightly toast your burger buns next to the burger as it’s finishing off, allowing the bread to soak up some of the fat and gain structural integrity, ready to hold the burger and any other sauces and toppings you want to add.

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After tasting Jack’s work, I wasn’t letting him out of my sight until I’d got his advice on how I can elevate all the other elements of my BBQ this summer. Thankfully, he was more than happy to oblige. Here are his key points to consider.

1. Master two zone cooking

“Whatever you’re cooking on, have half the grill hot and half the grill not hot” Jack tells me. “That way you have a zone to roast, and a zone to grill.”

I’m certainly guilty of firing up the barbecue and just letting the heat rip across the whole surface, which tends to deliver varying results.

As Jack explains, with two zones “you have a safe zone - so if you’re doing something really fatty like sausages, and cooking them directly over the charcoal for 20 minutes, the fat is going to drip down and you’ll get flames and char - you want to control it. Start them off on the indirect side, close the lid, let them slowly come up to temperature.”

This will get your perfectly cooked meats, instead of the British summertime classic of burnt on the outside and raw in the middle.

2. Know your temperatures

Purely eyeballing your meat on the grill isn’t enough to achieve the perfect cook though, even if you are practising the two zone cooking approach.

“Invest in an instant read thermometer, that way you know your meat is safe to eat, you can nail a perfect steak. If you want it medium, how do you know it’s medium? The temperature.”

It’s a simple, yet effective tip, and with food thermometers starting at less than £10, it’s also an affordable investment.

3. BBQs are more than just the meat

“Don’t overcomplicate things, meat is really simple to cook” Jack says. “Sometimes it’s the sides that make a BBQ. Look at sauces, look at doing things you wouldn’t normally think to do on a BBQ. Do a dessert, do your starters, do a bit of fish.

“Desserts are really nice, because fruit takes on smoke really nicely. It becomes nice and jammy.” And I can attest to that, as I also tried a cocktail infused with pineapple Jack had smoked.

When it comes to cooking outside, Jack concludes “anything you can do in your oven you can do on your BBQ outside, especially if it has a lid.”

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If there’s anyone you can rely on to lift the spirits of you and your (cha)buddies, it’s comedian Asim Chaudhry.

The quick-quipping wheeler-dealer star of TV’s People Just Do Nothing and Hollywood sleeper hit Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die has already made it to honorary wingman status after joining us in the Shortlist Pub Corner earlier this year for a hilarious chat. So, as Men’s Mental Health Week kicks off in the UK, who better than Asim for some friendship-saving life advice?

Asim’s teamed up with men's grooming brand Harry's for the Dial Up The Feel Good campaign, in partnership with men's mental fitness charity Talk Club, encouraging men to check in on the people they care about.

The campaign follows new YouGov research commissioned by Harry's, which found that more than half (56%) of UK men say humour or banter makes emotional conversations easier, while 41% say sending a funny meme or video is their way of saying "I'm thinking of you" without getting too mushy.

While we’re slowly stepping away then from the ‘Man-up’ approach to dealing with our personal struggles, there’s still work to be done, and even a star on the rise like Asim isn’t immune to those mood-killing moments of doubt and despair.

“A few weeks ago, I was in a proper rut, just completely stuck in my own head, staring at the walls of the studio and feeling creatively drained,” he tells us.

“It’s that classic imposter syndrome thing where you pour everything into a script, it hits a wall, and suddenly you're looking at the whole industry thinking, ‘What am I even doing here?’ When your job is making people laugh, feeling completely blank inside is a weird, heavy place to be.”

The route to recovery? A simple chat with his closest of friends, his wife.

“My wife actually works as a therapist, so she knows how to handle my emotional maturity, or lack of it. She saw I was spiralling. What got me back on my feet wasn't some massive epiphany. She didn't give me a big motivational speech or try to fix my career. She just dragged me out of the house for a massive walk to the park.

“We just sat there, and it grounded me. It reminded me of the team element of being married, and how much the simple things matter. We went home, I spent some time with my little boy, and hearing him laugh just completely shut down all the silly industry anxieties I was holding onto.

“Growing up in Hounslow, left to my own devices, I learned how to just get on with things. But sometimes you get so caught up in the madness of the business that you forget to unplug.”

Got a friend who’s also in need of a pick me up? We asked Asim for his top tips for helping a friend through some of life’s most challenging life events.

Asim Chaudhry on what to say or do if…

1…Your pal breaks up with their partner

I think the instinct is often to try and fix it, but most of the time your mate doesn't need solutions - they just need someone in their corner. I'd probably start by checking in and seeing what they need. Sometimes that's a proper chat, sometimes it's getting them out of the house for a coffee or a walk, and sometimes it's just sending them a stupid meme to let them know they're not on their own.

Breakups can make people feel isolated, so I think the important thing is consistency. Don't just ask how they're doing once and disappear. Keep checking in, even if it's with something as simple as "Fancy a pint?" or "Want to watch the game?" Those little moments can make a bigger difference than people realise.

2…Your mate loses their job

I've had moments in my career where things haven't gone to plan and it can really knock your confidence. When someone loses a job, it's easy for them to start questioning their value, so I'd remind them that a job is something you do, not who you are.

I'd also try and be practical. Ask if there's anything you can actually help with - whether that's looking over a CV, making introductions or just giving them a break from thinking about it for an hour. Sometimes the best thing you can do is help someone remember they're more than whatever setback they're dealing with.

3… A friend’s loved one passes away

That's one of those situations where there's rarely a perfect thing to say. I think people put pressure on themselves to come up with some profound words when actually just being there is what matters.

When someone is grieving, I try not to make it about finding a solution because there isn't one. I'd check in, listen if they want to talk, sit with them if they don't and help with practical things where I can. A lot of people disappear after the first week or two, but grief doesn't work to a timetable. Sometimes checking in a month later can mean just as much.

4… You’ve had a massive bust-up with a (cha)buddy

The older I've got, the more I've realised that being right isn't always the most important thing. If it's someone you genuinely care about, you've got to be willing to put your ego to one side.

I'd probably start by picking up the phone. Text messages are brilliant for a lot of things, but they're terrible for tone. I'd be honest about my part in whatever happened and actually listen to their side too. Most friendships survive disagreements if both people are prepared to have an honest conversation.

And if it gets too serious, a badly timed joke can sometimes help as well. That's probably the comedian in me.

5…Your mate is so blue they can’t even get out of bed

I'd take it seriously and I'd make the effort to show up. Sometimes when people are struggling, the smallest tasks can feel overwhelming, so I'd try not to pile pressure on them.

Maybe that's a phone call. Maybe it's turning up with a coffee. Maybe it's sitting with them and getting them out for a ten-minute walk. The key thing is reminding them they're not carrying everything on their own.

That's one of the reasons I wanted to support Harry's partnership with Talk Club. The campaign is all about encouraging people to make that call, send that message or check in on a mate, because those small acts of connection can genuinely make a difference when someone's having a tough time.

One of the things I like about the Harry's Feel Good Hotline campaign is that it recognises connection doesn't always have to be some huge emotional conversation. Sometimes it's a check-in, a joke, a message or a quick call. Those little moments can be enough to let someone know they're seen, and that can be incredibly powerful when they're having a tough time.

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Marcel Wanders, the acclaimed Amsterdam-based product designer, doesn’t really get the enduring trend for modernism, in all its stripped back, plain functionality.

For him, it says nothing. It’s “outmoded”; even, like so much modern design, rather boring. Not so the London showroom of Moooi, the hugely influential design collective (of which Wanders is creative director) which marks its 25th anniversary this year.

But then what would anyone expect from the man who modelled a vessel on a spectacularly explosive nasal emittance, and then called it the Snotty Vase; or who worked out a way of effectively suspending rope in aspic, making it hard and forming it into his Knotty Chair; or a way of covering inflated party balloons with carbon fibre to produce, appropriately, the world’s lightest chair?

Here Wanders gives his off-the-top-of-his-head guide to appreciating design. Just not the boring stuff.

1. DESIGN IS NOT SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO OWN

People go to the theatre and like to discuss it. They don’t feel the need to own the play. They can see a lot of beautiful architecture and yet live in none of these buildings. That doesn’t mean you can only appreciate the home you live in.

And yet there is this idea that design has to be affordable, that it has to be owned to be enjoyed. It doesn’t. A painter painted for someone to own the painting but that’s never been the role of art for most normal people. The great thing about culture - of which design is a part - that we can step into that realm and recognise others in it. Ownership is irrelevant.

I find it tends to be people who complain about the prices of design who tend to be least appreciative of it. You can even hate design for free too.

2. THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO APPRECIATE A PIECE OF DESIGN

We all experience the world in different ways, some more visually, some through sound. And a piece of design can be liked for different reasons too. It might be how its made - the craft of it. Or on an intellectual level - what it might now about. Or It might be as simple as the fact that it makes a cool sound when you close it.

The task of the designer is to make sure that there’s something for everyone - and it makes me a better designer for trying. The task for you is to find what you do like in a piece of design - to make the same effort.

3. KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN - GOOD DESGN IS EVERYWHERE

Not everything is well-designed Some things are just put together without care, maybe just to copy what others already make but do it cheaper. And people will buy it because it’s cheaper. Other people will only notice design when something doesn’t work.

Yet there is great design all around us even if most people just don’t see it. The railing in the Metro in Milan, for example is so beautiful but most people just see a railing. In short, pay attention.

4. A CHAIR IS NOT JUST A CHAIR

People think they understand chairs because they sit on them. But a chair is more than something to sit on. There’s a reason why designers love chairs. A chair is connected to the world of culture, to manufacturing and engineering. The more you understand the big picture behind what makes a chair, the more you’ll appreciate it, in the way that knowing the full complexity of the Milan Metro and so understanding what the railing does as part of that makes your sense of the entire design that much more amazing.

How to understand a chair better? Get active. Read about your subject. Talk to designers if you get the opportunity. I’m not going to argue with a dentist if he wants to put a hole in my tooth. I just trust him. But I can know more about dentistry with study. And I find it’s hard to get them to shut up about centrists if you ask them about it.

5. THE IDEA OF BAD DESIGN IS A BAD IDEA…

If I design chairs in Europe, or I teach design in San Francisco, the gods in each place are very different, because the cultures are different, and so ideas of what makes for ‘good’ or ‘bad’ are different. That’s why I think there are no set rules for design.

I’m not saying there aren’t stupid designs, because there are: they make no sense, or break easily. And yes designers are allowed to make stupid designs sometimes, maybe one every other year - though not if they design pacemakers.

But I think most of us know more than we think we know - and that means we can sometimes just know if a design piece works. And by work I don’t just mean function. You can buy a functional chair for €11 and if you pay more than that you’re not paying for function anymore. Obviously a €500 chair isn’t about function. For me the whole principle of design is that that it says new things. It has ideas, a sense of fantasy.

6. ...BUT KEEP HOLD OF THE GOOD STUFF

It’s fact that nobody finds a Marcel Breuer chair just sitting on a skip, unless maybe it’s a copy. People just know that it’s worth keeping. But that’s more than because it’s just useful. It speaks to them.

I’ve always liked the idea of making things that last forever, but not necessarily in the sense of being unbreakable — more psychologically. Most people throw stuff away not because it’s broken but because their relationship with that object is broken. I remember a fellow design student created this textile and as it wore away with use it revealed a pattern underneath. And I just loved that. It made me think about how poor we are at accepting things that get old, especially since design is fixated on the shiny, clean and new. Nothing has a patina, nothing can have a crack.

But nothing grows old faster than the new, so I like to make designs that are old to start with. They have the cracks already, so to speak. It makes for pieces that the people who like them are connected to for longer. That’s durability.

7. GIVE THE MODERNISM A REST

I think modernism is an outmoded way of thinking about design. It doesn't reflect the way we live now. It always puts forward this idea that the past is irrelevant to tomorrow - and tomorrow is all that matters. But the past is part of who we are. When I was young even to think about decoration was so not what designers did.

I went to Giulio Cappellini with this idea of 'new antiques', which is what I wanted to make, and the company was subsequently excluded from a design fair because it was no longer seen as being 'modern'. It was crazy. But why shouldn't we make connections with old or traditional products? They're beautiful and can be made relevant.

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Got a Worthy Farm-shaped hole in your social calendar? Everywhere at Once is a three-day showcase of incredible music happening nationwide between 26th and 28th June, that might just plug the big Glastonbury gap.

Taking place on what would have been the Glastonbury weekend were 2026 not a fallow year for the Somerset based festival goliath, Everywhere at Once has been organised by the Music Venue Trust, the not-for-profit organisation that champions, supports and promotes grassroots venues.

The event will see a diverse array of established names, cult favourites and up and coming acts play at intimate spaces.

Grassroots venues are the foundation on which our live music scene is built. They’re where the artists of tomorrow cut their teeth and where new scenes and movements are born. This gig series gives you the chance to catch some amazing gigs in fantastic small spaces – supporting the venues, the bands and the future of the UK live music scene.

Below we pick five not to be missed shows happening in London and a further five amazing artists playing in other cities and towns around the country.

London shows

1. STOP THINKING

When: Friday 26th June
Where: 93 Feet East, 150 Brick Lane, E1 6QL

Formed in 2024, London’s STOP THINKING have become one of the UK’s fastest rising indie acts. Known for their energetic live performances, punchy vocals and gutsy riffs, the four piece have turned many heads before even putting out a full-length album. Their impressive rise makes them one of the most electrifying up and coming acts playing at Everywhere at Once. Their set at 93 Feet East may prove to be one of the last chances to see them in a venue of this size.

2. Old Dirty Brasstards present Brasstonbury

When: Friday 26th June
Where: The Garage, 20-22 Highbury Corner, N5 1RD

London based 10-piece tweed wearing brass band Old Dirty Brasstards are known for bringing the party with their dance-inducing takes on well-known pop, rock and hip-hop tunes. Anyone pining for a weekend of musical delight in a Somerset field can’t go wrong with this gig. Cheekily dubbed “Brasstonbury” – the band’s performance is set to draw upon the music of artists who have put in legendary sets at the festival – from The Prodigy to Alanis Morissette and David Bowie to Radiohead and Elton John. This one is sure to be a whole heap of fun. Not to be missed.

3. Master Peace

When: Saturday 27th June
Where: Sebright Arms, 31-35 Cote Street, E2 9AG

Peace Okezie aka Master Peace started turning heads with his vibrant combinations of indie-rock, indie-dance and hip-hop influences around 2018. Hype and anticipation grew as he dropped tunes over a few years and then released his much-anticipated debut full length album How to Make a Master Peace in 2024. Anticipation is building once again as he works towards the October release of his sophomore effort if i don’t love you who will? Catch him at Sebright Arms to hear favourites and new material alike.

4. Omar

When: Saturday 27th June
Where: 229, Great Portland St W1W 5PN

Sometimes referred to as the Godfather of UK Neo-Soul, Omar Lye-Fook, better known simply as Omar has been delighting audiences for decades with his distinctive sound. Masterfully combining various shades of soul and R&B with touches of jazz, funk and more, he has collaborated with the likes of Erykah Badu and Stevie Wonder. Don’t miss this captivating cult UK artist at 229.

5. London Ambient Orchestra

When: Sunday 28th June
Where: St Giles' Church, Camberwell Church Street, SE5 8RB

Offering up a truly immersive experience at St Giles Church, London Ambient Orchestra (LAO) is an experimental collective who weave highly improvised soundscapes that, as the name suggests, exist at the quieter end of things. Numbering anywhere between a dozen and as many as 30 players, depending on the performance LAO features members of Penguin Café and players who have collaborated with cult figures such as Lubomyr Melnyk and Douglas Dare. They also have the approval of ambient music legend William Basinski, who has described their sound as “gorgeous”.

Shows around the UK

6. Jodie Harsh

When: Friday 26th June
Where: Gut Level, 32-34 Chapel Walk, Sheffield, S1 2PD

LGBTQ+ icon, DJ and drag queen Jodie Harsh is known for high energy sets where they play a pumping blend of house, disco, pop and more. Equipped with their signature beehive and good time style, Harsh (who has remixed for everyone from Kylie Minogue to Charli XCX and Rina Sawayama) is sure to bring their trademark sense of fun to Sheffield’s Gut Level on the opening night of the festival.

7. Tinie Tempah (multiple dates)

When: Friday 26th June
Where: 1 St Michael's Road, Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 1QU.

When: Saturday 27th June
Where: Voodoo Daddy’s, 68a London Street, Norwich, NR2 1JT

When: Sunday 28th June
Where: The Brook, Portswood Road, Portswood, Southampton, SO17 3SD

For a few years in the 2010s Tinie Tempah was an inescapable force within the UK scene. The MC fused hip-hop, dance music and pop sensibilities to create huge hits such as ‘Pass Out’ and ‘Written in the Stars’. Years later, he still commands a strong following and is set to be a big draw with his three shows during the festival. The good people of Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich and Southampton will have a chance to catch him in action on the event’s three days respectively.

8. The Divine Comedy

When: Saturday 27th June
Where: The LCR, Union House, University of East Anglia Norwich, NR4 7TJ

Known for his rye wit, his way with melody and a sense of the grandiose, Derry native Neil Hannon has been releasing records under the name The Divine Comedy to his adoring fanbase for decades at this point. Existing somewhere between chamber-pop and indie, the project is set to be a huge draw during Everywhere at Once. This university venue is admittedly one of the larger spaces playing host to gigs during the series, but it is still an opportunity to see this legendary act in a more intimate setting than usual.

9. Rizzle Kicks

When: Sunday 28th June
Where: Patterns, 10 Marine Parade, Brighton, BN2 1TL

Forming in Brighton in 2008, Rizzle Kicks delivered a series of tunes such as ‘Mama Do The Hump’ and ‘Down With The Trumpets’ that became inescapable pop rap anthems. Splitting after releasing two albums, the duo then reformed in 2024 and have since dropped another record and been delighting audiences with their lively performances. Where better to see them than at a home-town show?

10. Fatboy Slim

Brighton (Date and exact venue TBA)

One of the most tantalising prospects for Everywhere at Once is a set from big beat originator, veteran party starter and Glastonbury staple Mr Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim. The exact date and venue are being kept closely under wraps. What we do know is that it will be at a grassroots venue in his home city of Brighton. Demand will undoubtedly be huge, but for the lucky few who manage to get into whichever of the south coast city’s excellent intimate venues it turns out to be, they're sure to have a hugely memorable night.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

For all the technological changes that have transformed football over the past two decades, some things remain reassuringly familiar.

Major tournaments still send people flooding into pubs. Pals still gather around screens, piling into homes, and entire communities still find themselves living and dying by every kick of the ball.

It's a tradition Samsung is celebrating through its Raise The Bar campaign, which has awarded Margate pub The Lord Byron a major technology upgrade ahead of the World Cup after thousands of public votes. To mark the occasion, former England midfielder Joe Cole paid a visit to the pub and joined locals gearing up for another summer of football.

The campaign may be focused on improving the viewing experience, but for Cole, football has never really been about the screen itself. It's about the people standing around it.

Ahead of the tournament, we spoke to the former England star about football's unique ability to bring communities together, the greatest atmospheres he experienced during his playing career and why England's fortunes this summer may ultimately come down to moments rather than performances.

Why football still matters

For Cole, football's enduring appeal comes down to something fundamentally human. "Football cuts every corner of the globe, every nook and cranny," he says. "Ultimately, we're human beings, and we love to play. It's a release of pressure."

Part of the sport's power lies in its simplicity. Anyone can play it. Anyone can understand it. And when the world's best players gather every four years, it becomes something far bigger than a game. "We're playful creatures," he says. "The game is simple, it's beautiful, and it can be played by everyone."

At a time when so much feels increasingly polarised, Cole believes football offers something increasingly rare. "So much is divisive and so much is easy to compartmentalise. The pureness of football is a beautiful thing and something that should be cherished and celebrated."

The importance of watching together

That sense of togetherness is one of the reasons Cole remains such a believer in watching football with your pals. After visiting The Lord Byron in Margate, he was reminded of how much local pubs still matter during major tournaments.

"The people were so happy for it," he says. "You could sense them getting excited." For Cole, football remains one of the few places where people from completely different backgrounds can gather around a common passion.

"Regardless of race, religion or politics, people come together at football," he says. "Especially when it's England."

As the tournament approaches, he hopes supporters across the country can rally behind the national team and enjoy the occasion together.

"Hopefully, England sends their support and their love, and we go and have a great tournament."

The greatest atmospheres of his career

We asked Cole about the best atmosphere he experienced as a player, and the answer isn't straightforward. Football crowds can transform in an instant, he says. A tense game can explode into life through a goal, a tackle or a moment of brilliance.

Still, a few nights stand above the rest despite such an illustrious career.

"The Champions League semi-final away at Anfield was a really brilliant, hostile atmosphere," he recalls. Chelsea's famous victory over Barcelona at Stamford Bridge also remains etched in his memory.

"It was really rocking that night," he says. "That's probably the best I've heard at Stamford Bridge." This was the game featuring that Ronaldinho goal that many still regard as one of football's greatest moments. "That's a wild goal," Cole laughs. "But it came from a wild player."

Why tournaments are decided by moments

Few players understand tournament football better than Cole, and his theory on what separates winners from everyone else is refreshingly simple. "It's about moments."

He points to the tiny gap that exists between the world's elite teams. "The margins between the top ten teams are minuscule," he says. "To win a tournament, you need the football gods with you." That's why he likes much of what Thomas Tuchel has been saying ahead of England's campaign.

Rather than obsessing over systems and tactics, Cole believes international football is often decided by individual moments of quality, resilience and fortune. "A goal, a goal-line clearance, a save, a sending off, a referee decision," he says. "You have to get the big moments right."

With extreme temperatures expected to play a role and squads likely to be stretched throughout the competition, Cole believes depth could prove just as important as star quality. "It's a 15 or 16-man game now," he says. "You'll use every substitution."

A World Cup memory that never fades

Cole's own defining England moment arrived on the biggest stage of all. "Scoring against Sweden at the World Cup was the highlight," he says. "To score a great goal on the biggest stage means it lives long in people's memory."

What continues to surprise him is how often supporters still approach him to share where they were when they watched it. "I must have heard everyone's story of where they were when I scored that goal," he says. For Cole, that's one of football's greatest gifts. "You can have a moment that affects someone's life where they can say, 'I remember that.' That's incredible."

This England team feels different

Cole believes England's current squad has evolved beyond being reliant on one or two stars. While Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham remain the standout names, he sees a more balanced team than in previous tournaments.

"Under Gareth Southgate, it was often very Harry Kane-driven, and then it became Jude Bellingham," he says. Now, he believes the collective is becoming just as important as the individuals.

"I think people are buying into the team."That doesn't diminish the importance of England's biggest stars, however. "We have two absolute major stars in Bellingham and Kane."

• Best football books: brilliant books about the beautiful game

With a heatwave seemingly always on the horizon and summer holidays looming, caring for your skin when the temperature rises is of upmost importance. From keeping it hydrated to protecting from sun damage - both the biggest risk factor in premature ageing, and most importantly, skin cancer – giving some TLC to your face is paramount.

The sun can play havoc with your skin, so following a consistent routine is worth prioritising to keep it clean, hydrated and protected. And whilst it doesn’t need to be complicated, there are certain steps you should follow to ensure skin remains burn-free, smooth and nourished.

Below, our grooming writer Suzanne Baum speaks to a leading skincare expert about how best to protect your skin and has you covered with her guide to the best products to wear in the sun.

Every men’s skincare routine should consist of three simple steps: cleanse, moisturise and protect the skin. And during the summer months, when the heat can cause everything from inflammation and dehydration to sunburn and peeling of the skin, caring for your face has never been more important.

Below, renowned skin and laser expert Debbie Thomas, founder of the London-based D.Thomas Clinic and the skincare brand Cellis breaks down the process.

“It’s really important to cleanse the skin in the morning as this helps remove overnight sweat and oil, and again, in the evening, to rid of any dirt or impurities that have settled on the face during the day.

“Adding some hydration to the skin is important and this is when moisturiser comes into play. It replaces lost hydration which can happen in hot weather and soothes dryness or that tight feeling skin can get. It also provides antioxidant support that protects the skin barrier without feeling heavy.

“Finally, protect the skin with a broad-spectrum SPF 30 or higher every single day (don't forget to reapply if you are outside).”

If you are normally a quick water and soap fan, these three steps may sound more time-consuming to follow but trust me when I say the routine is super quick and your skin will thank you for it!

As well as the above, if you have extra time or want to treat specific skin issues such as heavy eyes, annoying stubble or a sore scalp, there are plenty of other additional products you can use to help enhance summer skin. Serums and balms to nourish the face and exfoliators to rub away dead skin can be added into your routine too.

Below, our guide to the best products to help keep men’s skin protected from the sun

P20 Sensitive Face SPF50

A sun cream designed for sensitive skin, so if you have stubble rash or are prone to breakouts, this is ideal as it contains Vitamin C and E that provide antioxidant properties that calm the area down. Bonus points for being factor SPF 50!

Weleda Men's 2 in 1 Face Wash

This gel cleanser is better than a foaming one as it is gentler on the skin barrier, which can become more inflamed during hot weather.

It really goes to work in removing any dirt or grime that has built up over the day on the face and leaves skin soft and smooth, thanks to ingredients including liquorice root and willow bark extracts. The addition of toning witch hazel water helps add hydration to any dry areas of the skin.

CELLIS Everyday Cleansing Gelee

As a beauty editor who shares this cleanser with my husband, I have to include it in my product suggestions because it leaves skin with such a lovely feel. It’s a unisex product with the dermatologist-tested tick, so you know it contains no skin baddies.

It literally melts and washes away all grime, sweat, sun cream and impurities on the skin, leaving it properly cleansed and deeply hydrated.

Clinique for Men Daily Hydrating SPF 50 Moisturiser

A perfect multi-tasking product that works as a moisturiser and high protection sunscreen too. This is a very lightweight lotion which is ideal in the hot weather as it doesn’t sit heavy on the skin and blends in invisibly. Infused with the skin-loving ingredient hyaluronic acid, your face is left feeling soft as it really goes to work in adding moisture back into it.

La Roche Posay Toleriane Sensitive skin moisturiser

If skin is feeling tight from dryness or tingling from too much sun, this is like a hug to the face.

It instantly soothes the skin and, with key active ingredients such as squalane, helps to lock in moisture and nourish dry areas.

Kiehl's Facial Fuel Energizing Moisturiser

An excellent face cream specifically designed for men, this is a great one to reach for in hot weather as it has a non-oily texture so won’t make skin feel greasy if you are feeling the sweat from the sun.

It also really goes to work in hydrating and brightening the complexion, with Vitamin C and E ingredients helping to give a nice glow to lacklustre skin.

Hawaiian Tropic Hydrating Protection Scalp & Hairline Mist SPF 30

This mist is such a clever product to have on hand as the scalp and hairline can often get burnt as it is one area many of us overlook.

An invisible spray (note it does have a tiny tropical scent to it), it is perfect for those days when you don’t wear a sunhat or are driving with the roof top down! It also helps boost hair care thanks to its addition of Vitamin E that helps keep the scalp conditioned and healthy.

helloSKIN Charcoal Hydrogel Eye Masks

For a pick-me-up and something super refreshing for the skin when it is hot outside, these eye masks are a treat.

The ultimate long-haul saviour, if eyes are puffy from jetlag or little sleep, they are super cooling on the face and work by depuffing the sensitive thinner skin area that surrounds the eyes.

RITUALS Homme After Shave Soothing Balm

The sun can make shaving your skin sore, so a good aftershave soothing balm will help calm it down.

As well as smelling amazing (think a fresh, woody scent), it has skin-loving ingredients that pack a punch, including Vitamin E and shea butter that hydrate, soothe and support the skin barrier.

• The best men’s fragrance: Tom Ford, Hugo Boss, Versace and more

For most people, wandering through central London on a weekday involves headphones in, head down, and a fairly committed relationship with your phone screen.

Sam Thompson had other ideas. As part of the LEGO Group’s World Play Day celebrations, the Made in Chelsea TV star, I'm A Celebrity winner, and radio presenter took to the streets of the capital armed with LEGO bricks, inviting strangers to stop, talk and, crucially, play. The idea behind it is simple but increasingly urgent. New research from the LEGO Group suggests that half of UK parents say work or long hours are stopping them from playing with their families as much as they would like, despite evidence that just five hours of play a week can significantly boost wellbeing.

For Sam, though, the issue goes beyond schedules. It is about something more fundamental. Somewhere along the way, he thinks, adults stopped feeling allowed to play at all.

“I find it a real shame that adults almost feel embarrassed to play now,” he says. “As a child and a teenager, you are taught it is good for you, good for your mind, good for your development, and then suddenly we decide as adults that it is not the way to go anymore. I do not understand the science behind it at all.”

It is not just a campaign talking point for him, either. He circles back to it repeatedly, almost surprised at how normal it has become to lose that side of yourself, especially in the big city where life can become so serious.

“Play for me has been so important and has got me through loads of times in my life,” he says. “I think it is something that should stay with you forever.”

Why play never really leaves you

Spend any time with Sam, and it does not take long for the conversation to drift towards childhood energy, imagination and chaos. The man has more energy than you thought was possible without consuming your own body weight in sugar, and it's immediately endearing.

In his case, fun often involves his nephew, whom he credits with helping him reconnect with the kind of unfiltered creativity most adults quietly abandon.

“I’ve got a nephew and one of my favourite things is to play with him,” he says. “What I thought I would love about it and what I actually love are two very different things. I love seeing his reaction to things I used to do when I was a kid. You can see the wonder in his eyes, like his imagination is just going.”

That sense of wonder, he says, is infectious. It is not about the LEGO sets or the finished product, but what happens in the process. “You can see his brain thinking, like this is an actual castle I have made or this is a car zooming around. It is like he is in a sort of flow state. I just love that so much.”

He pauses on that idea, that adults are the ones who have forgotten something, rather than children being the ones who need to learn it.

“I really hope I do not lose that at any point,” he adds.

London, parks and never really growing up

For someone who has spent much of his life in London, Sam is clear about where his own sense of play still lives. Not in nightlife or big city landmarks, but in something far simpler.

“The parks”, he says without hesitation. “There is something magical about a city park. You have got all these buildings everywhere, and then suddenly greenery. I have spent so much of my childhood in parks, playing football with my mates, pretending I was a wizard, building things, doing all sorts.”

Even now, that feeling has not really left him. “That magic as an adult is still there,” he says. “I wonder if it would be the same for someone who did not grow up in a city. For me, a park is everything.”

It is also where his idea of “proper play” still exists in full force. Not curated experiences or structured activities, but the kind of messy, improvised afternoons that tend to run on far longer than anyone planned.

“I love sports days,” he says. “Getting a group of friends together, playing rounders in the park, doing sack races, egg and spoon races. In the summer, that is my idea of heaven.”

With his nephew, it is even simpler.

“Swings,” he says. “I know it sounds boring, but to him it is a rocket ship. He thinks he is flying. You push him, and he is on the moon. That is my play as well, not just his”.

Why adults should stop overthinking play

The point Sam keeps coming back to is not that adults need to behave like children, but that they need to stop putting so much distance between themselves and the idea of play. “You do not have to play like a young child,” he says. “But if you have a kid or a nephew, just join in their world. If he is going to space, I am the rocket fuel. I am in his world.”

That mindset, he believes, changes more than just the moment itself. “It genuinely makes you more peaceful,” he says. “It calms your mind. If you can release that barrier of ‘I am an adult, and I need to think about everything all the time’, you can have so much fun.”

He also points to the broader importance of play in development, something he has become more aware of through his work.

“I did not realise how important it was until I saw the science behind it,” he says. “We have a responsibility to play with our kids because it is incredibly good for their brain development. We should be doing it, not just for them but for us too.”

An ideal London would be built out of LEGO bricks

Away from the parks and football pitches, Sam’s imagination still drifts back into the city itself, especially after a recent visit to the LEGO store in Piccadilly Circus.

“I was in the LEGO store last week, and they’ve got this amazing city build,” he says. “It’d be a bit like that for me. I’d have water, rivers flowing through the city, clean, fresh rivers, loads of greenery everywhere, futuristic buildings.”

It is a very Sam Thompson version of London. Less grey commuter belt, more living, shifting playground.

“I’ve got a pretty decent idea of what I’d build with my LEGO bricks,” he adds. “It all comes from what you can see in your head. That’s the fun of it.”

Sam Thompson’s World Cup predictions

Before heading back out into the streets of London, off the back of a strong Soccer Aid and the spirit of fun, we asked Sam about the upcoming summer of football and who he thought would take home the trophy.

He didn’t hesitate for long before stating “England.” Sam went on to add, “I wouldn’t normally say it, but I think this could be the time.”

His reasoning is rooted in manager Thomas Tuchel’s approach and what he sees as a more structured, decisive England side.

“I think he has picked a team he believes can win the tournament. There is no space for egos. It is about structure, and I like that.”

• Winner: England (Thanks to Tuchel’s cup management experience)
• Runner-up: Portugal
• Dark horses: Norway
• Player of the tournament: "Hopefully some kind of unknown like a James Rodriguez from 2014"
• Top scorer: Harry Kane. "Maybe Kai Havertz as a rogue choice. Especially after that header against the USA"

• 10 places to watch the 2026 World Cup in London (even if you’re not an England fan...)

For most footballers, a World Cup final is the biggest game they'll ever play. For Sir Geoff Hurst, it became something much bigger than that.

The former England striker remains the only player ever to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final and go on to win, a feat that helped secure England's one and only World Cup triumph back in 1966. Sixty years on, that afternoon at Wembley still looms large over English football, revisited every time another tournament rolls around and another generation dares to dream that this may be the year.

Now, as England prepares for another shot at the big one, Hurst is teaming up with The Ivy Collection to launch its limited-edition 1966 menu, a World Cup-inspired lunch offering celebrating the year that changed English football forever.

Ahead of the tournament, we caught up with the England legend to talk heritage, penalty pressure, Harry Kane's chances of claiming the Golden Boot and why he believes England could still be lifting the trophy this summer.

Becoming part of football history

For Hurst, his place in football history is less about medals and memories and more about belonging to something bigger than yourself.

"Heritage is about pride and being part of something that lives far beyond your own career," he says. "It's knowing that what you did on the pitch becomes part of the nation's memory."

That feeling has only grown as the decades have passed. What happened at Wembley in 1966 has transcended British football, becoming a cultural touchstone that continues to shape how England supporters view every major tournament that follows.

Looking back, Hurst says he never imagined the final would take on such significance. "In some ways it's strange," he says. "You're just focused on the game. It's only afterwards that you realise what it has come to mean to people. It's a privilege."

The qualities that would still thrive today

Football has changed dramatically since England's World Cup-winning side lifted the trophy, but Hurst believes some qualities never go out of fashion.

"Our teamwork and resilience," he says when asked what elements of the '66 squad would translate into the modern game. "What made us successful was how well we worked as a unit and supported each other."

It's that collective spirit that stands out most when he reflects on the squad. "I miss the team dearly," he adds.

While tactics, technology and athleticism have evolved, Hurst believes the emotional side of football remains remarkably consistent.

"The pressure of big moments," he says. "Penalty shootouts will always feel the same, no matter the year or event. They're scary and thrilling."

Why the World Cup magic hasn't disappeared

Football's relationship with fans looks very different in 2026 than it did in 1966. Players live under constant scrutiny; every moment is analysed online, and supporters can follow every detail of a tournament from their phones.

Yet Hurst believes the essence of the World Cup remains untouched. "It's changed, but mostly for the better."

"Fans are closer to the action than ever before, but the excitement of a World Cup and what it means still feels exactly the same."

As another England squad prepares to shoulder the expectations that come with representing the country on football's biggest stage, Hurst's advice is simple.

Geoff stressed its importance, stating, "Enjoy it, first and foremost, because it can go quickly."

"Stay grounded, stay together as a group and don't lose sight of what got you there in the first place."

It's advice that comes from experience. Few people understand the aftermath of World Cup success better than a man defined by it.

Why England should believe

Few people understand the unique pressure that comes with representing England at a World Cup. Every generation carries the weight of expectation, the constant comparisons and the lingering question of whether they can achieve what Hurst's side managed in 1966.

Yet despite six decades of near misses, his belief in England remains undimmed.

"England have a very good chance," he says.

It's a measured assessment rather than blind optimism. Hurst expects France and Spain to be among the leading contenders, with Portugal his choice as dark horses, but he sees enough quality in the current squad to mount a serious challenge.

"At least the semi-finals," he says. "Anything beyond that and you're in the final and anything can happen."

• Best football books: brilliant books about the beautiful game

It’s a World Cup summer, which means we once again unite as a nation in the hope that England's men's team can finally end the years of hurt. It’s also that time to get weirdly invested in the fortunes of underdog nations or seeing whether Messi still has the legs to guide Argentina to a fourth World Cup.

If you’re not wedded to seeing how the team with the three lions on their shirt progresses, and quite like the idea of watching Brazil in a sea of yellow, we’ve picked 10 spots around the capital where you can watch the World Cup with supporters from other nations competing to beat England to that Jules Rimet trophy...

1. The Garden Vauxhall

6 South Lambeth Place, Vauxhall, SW8 1SP
Whether you’re hoping Mexico is the co-host to go the furthest in the competition or you want to join London’s contingent of Ecuadorian supporters, The Garden Vauxhall is giving its beer garden a full Latino makeover. Along with showing live matches (including the early morning kick-off ones), there’ll be Latino street food to soak up cocktails with, and DJs on hand to amp up the celebrations when Neymar scores a worldie. It’s also worth mentioning that there are areas to take cover if the British summer does its usual and rain interrupts play.

2. Nordic Bar

25 Newman St, London W1T 1PN
The clue is in the name. This is a place to join Norwegian and Swedish supporters, with the Fitzrovia spot just a few minutes walk from Tottenham Court Road station. The Nordic Bar invites you to watch the World Cup like a viking with bookings and walk-ins welcomed. You can look forward to enjoying a pint of Thor’s Piss Lager, dining on Swedish meatballs and swapping a pint glass for a viking horn. Doors will remain open at 2am to cover any games kicking off later in the evening too.

3. Gold Coast Bar & Restaurant

224 Portland Rd, London SE25 4QB
Head south of the river and you’ll find a place where Ghana’s World Cup hopes are the priority. You can knock back a bottle of Ghanian beer and it won’t take long for that food aroma to hit you and have you grabbing a menu. Tuck into some nyma choma or some yam balls. Gold Coast is offering entry packages for the World Cup, which gets you some food, your first drink and entry. There’ll also be DJs and giveaways to get you in the mood to get behind the Black Stars this summer.

4. A Toca

341 Wandsworth Rd, London SW8 2JH
This restaurant is roughly ten minutes walk from Stockwell or Nine Elms underground stations and one for the Portugal fans, and maybe the Cape Verde ones as well. You can fill up on Francesinhas, grilled meat or tackle the tapas menu, then slump back and take in the action on the big screens. You will need to book a table to secure your viewing and eating spot.

5. Tia Maria

126 S Lambeth Rd, London SW8 1RB
Pull on something yellow and make your way to South Lambeth to the Brazilian bar and restaurant known for its live music (that does like to stick on the football as well). The food and drink menu has everything from Fejioda to Caipirinhas and aims to give you a bit of Brazil — minus the weather, sadly, and definitely the beaches. If you like your drinking or eating spots lively and want to get swept up in the sights and sounds of the nation that’s lifted that trophy five times already, this is a place to be.

6. De Hems

11 Macclesfield Street, W1D 5BW
One of the most iconic images of any World Cup is when the Orange Army makes it to the tournament. Expect a flood of orange to descend on this Dutch cafe and bar just a short walk from Covent Garden underground station. You’ll need to book a spot with confirmed viewings of the Netherlands’ three group stage matches. There’s an extensive drinks menu and plenty of small plates and larger ones to tuck into here as well. It might also be a spot to find Curaçao supporters as this will be the Dutch Caribbean island’s first ever World Cup appearance.

7. The Maple Leaf

41 Maiden Ln, London WC2E 7LJ
Canada is co-hosting this year’s tournament, so if you want to join fellow Canadians and root for the team nicknamed the Canucks, this is the best-known Canadian-themed bar in London. There’s poutine on the menu, you can sip on Canadian beers and get distracted by the sports memorabilia as you wander to the toilets. They’ve got 14 screens to stare and shout at, so you should have no problem finding a prime spot to watch the action.

8. Munich Cricket Club

Tower Hill location - 9 Crutched Friars, London EC3N 2AR
Don’t be confused by cricket in the name, as the Bavarian-themed Bierkeller is a hot spot for German Bundesliga football action and will also be a place to see how the national side fare. All of Germany's matches will be shown here letting you sink steins of beer, and feast on bratwursts with offers available if you’ve turned up in a big group. Along with its Tower Hill location, you can also have a Germanfest at Munich Cricket Club locations at Canary Wharf and Victoria.

9. The Volley

211 Old St, London EC1V 9NR
The East London pub dedicated to football has become a hub for French domestic football viewing and should be a prime spot to watch Mbappe and company try and make it to the final... and be on the right side of the result this time. There’s plenty of screens dotted around including private ones, craft beers aplenty and unlike most pubs, it takes its pre-match and half-time grub a little more seriously.

10. Club 360

Unit 10, The High Cross Centre, Fountayne Rd, London N15 4QN
Scottish scran spot Auld Hag is hosting a World Cup fan zone for the Tartan Army where all three of Scotland’s group games will be shown. They’ve got a license until 6am if you want to keep drinking through the night and there’ll also be plenty of food including Auld Hag’s morning rolls and pies. It’s a ticketed event if you want to join the Tartan Army and you’ll need to get to Club 360 in North London, which is about a five minute walk from Tottenham Hale station.

• Best football books: brilliant books about the beautiful game

By the power of Greyskull, they’ve gone and done it. A brand new live-action version of Masters of the Universe has hit cinemas, and a generation brought up on the chunky muscleman toys and Saturday morning cartoon will have their childhood dreams fulfilled.

We’ve been here before, of course, around the time of the original Mattel cartoon’s airing. Even a buff Dolph Lundgren couldn’t rescue that particular mess.

But with a little more distance, some GGI wizardry, and a smattering of self-aware humour, the second attempt has proved far more successful with critics and audiences.

Masters of the Universe isn’t the first ‘80s cartoon to receive the live action treatment, of course. Transformers, Inspector Gadget, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (technically a comic book adaptation... but still) have all made their way to the silver screen.

Meanwhile, a live-action She-Ra television series is said to be in development.

But there’s a whole host of ‘80s animated favourites that have yet to make the same journey. Here are some of our favourites — and most deserving of a comeback.

1. Pole Position

As someone who was both watching a lot of TV and playing a lot of video games in the 1980s (plus ça change), I count it a major oversight that I was unaware of the link between Pole Position (the 1984 cartoon) and Pole Position (the Namco arcade game).

Perhaps I should cut myself some slack. Beyond a title and a loose automotive theme, the two really share very little in common. The cartoon features a pair of crime fighting siblings and their gadget-laden cars, which could skim over water and fly through the sky at the press of a button.

2. Defenders of the Earth

Perhaps we’ve all had our fill of heroic superteams Marvel's Avengers, but I suspect that a large cohort of 40-and-50-somethings (and their offspring) would place their genre weariness to one side for a live adaptation of Defenders of the Earth.

This was the 1986 cartoon that assembled a series of pre-existing comic book characters, including Flash Gordon, The Phantom, and, er, Mandrake the Magician. Just Google him. The combination of all these disparate talents into one crime-fighting crew felt like a huge deal at the time, even to kids who probably didn’t know any of their previous work.

3. Bananaman

American readers will likely find this inclusion baffling – as well as many British readers, to be fair. Bananaman did not have the cool swagger of the other cartoons on this list. Indeed, he didn’t take himself very seriously at all.

This send-up of Superman (though he’s technically more like Shazam/Captain Marvel) was a very British brand of superhero, as schoolboy Eric Twinge turned into a superpowered crime fighter at the chomp of a banana. For a live action treatment, we’re imagining something akin to a low-budget UK-set version of The Tick, sending up the superhero genre with affection.

4. The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers

One of two space westerns on this list, The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers felt way ahead of its time when it aired in the late ‘80s. As one of the first American cartoons to employ a Japanese anime studio in its production, it simply looked way better than the other shows of its time, and used early instances of CGI to good effect.

The series concerned a gang of wild west-inspired law enforcement agents policing humanity’s galactic frontier, and notably made the effort of maintaining narrative continuity between episodes.

5. Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors

Developed by Joseph Michael Straczynski (who would go on to create cult sci-fi show Babylon 5 and co-write the first Thor movie), Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors had a slightly different vibe to the other cartoons of the mid-‘80s.

Yes, it was essentially developed to sell action figures to kids, just like the rest of them. But it had an actual overarching plot (left sadly unresolved) and a distinct aesthetic, with its young hero engaging the show’s unique organic villains in vehicular combat.

6. BraveStarr

BraveStarr was the last ever animation from Filmation, the storied American animation studio behind He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. While nowhere near as successful, BraveStarr was notable for its combination of Western and sci-fi elements, as well for its deployment of a Native American protagonist.

Marshal BraveStarr could call upon a variety of “spirit animals", employing the Speed of the Puma or the Strength of the Bear in his efforts to preserve the peace. More importantly, he had a talking bipedal horse for a deputy – and who doesn’t want to see that given the live action treatment?

7. The Mysterious Cities of Gold

The Mysterious Cities of Gold (aka Esteban: Child of the Sun) was a wondrous French-Japanese collaboration that first aired in the early 1980s. It concerned a Spanish orphan (that’s Esteban) who became caught up in the rush to explore the Americas during the 16th century, and more specifically in a quest to find seven legendary cities.

Needless to say, this wasn’t your typical ‘80s Saturday morning effort, with a cohesive story arc and no muscular heroes or transforming robots to speak of – though it did manage to sprinkle in some anachronistic solar-powered mechanical wonders and a killer theme tune.

8. M.A.S.K.

In the cold light of 2026, it’s easy to look back on M.A.S.K. as a cynically calculated mash-up two hugely successful toy-driven cartoons of the time, splicing together G.I. Joe’s militarism with the transforming vehicles of Transformers.

For a year or two in the late ‘80s, however, Mobile Armored Strike Kommand was all the rage in the playgrounds of the UK. It had a cool title sequence of course – show me a hit ‘80s cartoon that didn’t – but it was the individual characters with their uniquely powered helmets and dual-purpose vehicles that really captured the imagination.

9. ThunderCats

Developed as a direct response to the success of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, ThunderCats adopted a similarly heady blend of high fantasy and sci-fi tropes, but stirred in a distinctive animalistic theme. The heroes here weren’t muscle-bound humans, but rather a gang of anthropomorphised feline warriors.

Every kid had their favourite, whether that was heroic Lion-O, speedy Cheetara, or brawny engineer Panthro. If nothing else, the cartoon gave us the most thrillingly urgent title sequence of any show ever – and I’ll set my claws to anyone who says any different.

10. Ulysses 31

Ulysses 31 was a striking space-age retelling of Homer's Odyssey. The story follows Ulysses as he angers the Gods of Olympus by destroying the Great Cyclops, a divine construct. This act leads to a perilous journey through the galaxy as he and his crew seek the Kingdom of Hades to find a way back to Earth.

The French-Japanese-Luxembourgian production stood out for its distinctive blend of Greek mythology and science fiction, as well as its incredibly memorable opening theme tune — and no doubt had a profound influence on the aesthetic of the Discovery-era Daft Punk.

• Every Steven Spielberg movie ever… ranked!

To call Steven Spielberg one of the greatest directors of all time would be to make a great understatement; his films are iconic and awe-inspiring, influencing popular culture and defining generations.

And we’re on the cusp of an all new adventure from the master film-maker. Spielberg is again turning his attention to the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, with the much-anticipated release of Disclosure Day, hitting cinemas on June 12th:

But which of his works stand out among his best? And which aren’t worth the celluloid they’re printed on? Here, we rank all of the films he has directed, from the rare misfires all the way through to the movies that best exemplify his genius…

34. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

Unfortunately, this was the era where over-reliance on CGI became a keymark of many films, and Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull would prove emblematic of this. Harrison Ford is still every inch Indie, and the likes of Ray Winstone and Cate Blanchett put in perfectly game performances, but they are badly let down by a script that judders from pratfall to pratfall.

33. Ready Player One

A book whose whole message seems to be ‘isn’t nostalgia great?’ should be tailor-made for Spielberg. While the film’s flaws are shared with the novel, some narrative choices, such as signposting every reference possible (“Look: the bike from Akira! There’s the Iron Giant!) and a bizarre re-run of The Shining don’t help its cause.

32. 1941

Spielberg is more than capable of comedy, but hasn’t centred a whole film around it since this one early on in his career. Considering the sub-standard results, you can understand why. The Jaws-aping opening promises much, but ultimately it fails to stick the landing.

31. Always

A rare misstep, this uncharacteristically schmaltzy romance about the spirit of a deceased pilot watching over his wife falls flat, despite an excellent cast, including the likes of Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter and Audrey Hepburn (in her final film role).

30. War of the Worlds

This film has its fans, but we’re afraid that we’re not numbered among them. Transporting the location of a classic novel across the Atlantic generally isn’t a good sign, but even if you put that to one side, it all feels it has been put together as a Tom Cruise star vehicle rather than an earnest adaptation of HG Wells’ seminal sci-fi thriller.

29. The Terminal

Of the Spielberg canon, this one can be classified as… fine. Tom Hanks is watchable as ever, but while the director has never been afraid to embrace sentimentality, he generally avoids things becoming too twee. Here is one of the few cases where the mark is overstepped.

28. The BFG

Some films are victims of what came before them, despite not doing a lot wrong.Throughout the run time, one thought is inescapable: the original was better (we’re talking about Brian Cosgrove’s 1989 animated feature). While Mark Rylance is a decent enough BFG, it just feels like a re-tread of a better film made on a smaller budget.

27. The Colour Purple

Some films are easier to admire than enjoy – technically a great film, this isn’t a fun watch. Spielberg has never shied away from dark themes, but even by his standards, this is a lot: incest, rape and domestic abuse all heavily feature – and that’s even before we get to Danny Glover’s ‘Mister’, recipient of perhaps the most undeserved redemption arc in film history.

26. The Empire of the Sun

Another World War Two-set drama, despite a promising performance from a young Christian Bale, this is all a bit meandering and unfocused. Despite the positive reviews, it’s only the presence of its future star that stops this being forgettable.

25. Lincoln

Every film with Daniel Day-Lewis is an event. Yet, for all the commitment of its lead, and a supporting cast that includes the likes of Sally Field and Jared Harris (who Day-Lewis repeatedly questioned about Mad Men while in character), the final result is a bit flat. Such is the allure of Day-Lewis that the rest of the film seems a bit stilted as a consequence.

24. The Sugarland Express

Like Bonnie and Clyde, only with unsympathetic protagonists, this Goldie Hawn-starrer is one of Spielberg’s earlier outings. While there are clear rough edges (the chase goes on… and on…), there is clear promise for the filmmaker he would eventually become.

23. The Adventures of TinTin

A perfectly serviceable action flick that nonetheless never really seems to get talked about now. Why is that? Honestly, we’re not sure – it has two excellent leads (Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis deserve a bigger platform), a recognisable IP, and even more talent behind the camera (Peter Jackson and Joe Cornish joined forces with Spielberg for this).

22. The Post

Sometimes, letting actors act is as good as any direction that you’ll need. The Post follows this mantra avidly, giving Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks meaty roles as high-ranking publishing professionals determined to ensure that the truth gets out. In other hands, this could feel heavy-handed, but the two leads’ performances could sell snow to eskimos.

21. West Side Story

A remake of a cult original is always a risk, but there’s a case to be made for this surpassing the 1961 film production. From the music to the choreography, everything is on point (Rachel Zegler especially is a standout). It’s enough to make you wish that he’d tried his hands at musicals earlier.

20. The Lost World Jurassic Park

If this had been the first Jurassic Park movie, would people think of this more favourably? Possibly, but that doesn’t excuse all its flaws. Totally abandoning the deeper philosophical thoughts of the first movie, this throws absolutely everything at the wall, some of which sticks. In short: not as bad as the naysayers would have you think.

19. Amistad

Spielberg doesn’t gloss over the horrors of slavery in this moving legal drama about the captives on a slave ship gaining one over their captors. At times a difficult watch, it all builds up to an incredibly bittersweet ending.

18. War Horse

Spielberg has never shied away from depicting the horrors of war. Here, one horse experiences the full horror of the Western Front, hopping from owner to owner and one human encounter to another. Embraces something that’s too often forgotten about by today’s filmmakers: the wonder of cinema, and the possibilities it provides.

17. Bridge of Spies

Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance meet across the divide in this very competent Cold War-set spy drama. Few do ‘good men sticking to their principles despite excessive public pressure’ as well as Hanks, and he carries the day here once again.

16. Hook

The subject of a number of (very unfair) critical reappraisals in a number of recent Spielberg rankings. Essentially, it starts as a warning: adulthood comes for us all, even the Boy Who Never Grew Up. From there, the wonder it evokes is pure Amblin; Neverland is depicted perfectly here, and Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman shine as Peter and Hook.

15. Minority Report

Tom Cruise displays his trademark focus as a man who has total faith in a morally dubious system – right up until the moment it turns against him. Philip K Dick’s work has long been mined for scientific cautionary tales, with mixed levels of success, but this is reaching up just behind Blade Runner as one of the highlights of his source material.

14. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Okay, so Raiders Of The Lost Ark wasn’t exactly light or fluffy, but boy is Temple Of Doom bleak. Both Spielberg and writer George Lucas credit this as due to the breakdown of their relationships around the same time, and it doesn’t possess the same sense of fun as Raiders or Last Crusade, but it is still a better film than it often gets credit for.

13. Catch Me If You Can

Leonardo DiCaprio puts in one of his most underrated performances as Frank Abagnale Jr – a quick-witted conman who’s out for a good time. It’s testament to DiCaprio how hard he is to dislike, despite his inherent amorality. Spielberg’s comedies have generally been misfires, and while this isn’t exactly an out-and-out laugh-a-thon, it’s probably his funniest film.

12. Munich

Probably his darkest movie – and considering he also directed Schindler’s List, that’s quite a statement. Watching it afresh, it all seems depressingly prescient; it could have been made today (not that we imagine it would have been – think of the discourse). In fact, its relevance makes it an even tougher watch now than it was back then.

11. The Fabelmans

This seems almost tailor-made to be a career epitaph (thankfully it’s an intermission rather than a coda), with Spielberg trekking back in time for a fictional reminisce about his own childhood. It’s all reflected in his back catalogue: first love and lost; the family unit; light shining out of darkness, and most pivotally, the challenges and tribulations of growing up.

10. Duel

One advantage of a filmmaker gaining incredible popularity is that their earlier, overlooked works get critically reappraised. Duel has deservedly benefited from this. This 1971 thriller sees a meek salesman’s encounter with a massive truck escalate into an improbably terrifying game of cat-and-mouse that wastes no opportunity to up the ante.

9. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Of all the films that followed Raiders Of The Lost Ark, this is the one that came closest to replicating its sense of adventure. Harrison Ford is his usual deadpan self – a performance only enhanced by a truly star turn from Sean Connery as his father. Stacked up against the high benchmark of the first film, it doesn’t quite match up, but it’s more than good enough.

8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

AI is the one Spielberg inherited from Kubrick, but Close Encounters is both quintessentially Spielberg, and his film that bears the most similarities to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Things simply happen, and not a massive amount is explained – making it testament to Spielberg that none of this really matters; wonder takes over, and it remains gripping throughout.

7. AI

By rights, this should have been an all-time classic – and if Stanley Kubrick had directed it as planned, it might have been. Instead, we have one of the all-time ‘what might have been’s. Even so, Spielberg’s version has a lot going for it, encompassing themes of life and sentience that still bear plenty of relevance today.

6. Saving Private Ryan

The spectacular D-Day-set opener is one of the most viscerally horrifying openings to a war movie every commited to film. Centring around the hunt for a sole surviving brother on the French mainland, it’s a very human tale set amid total chaos. And through it all, Spielberg structures perhaps the defining war movie of the ’90s.

5. Schindler's List

Everything about this – the score, the cinematography, the performances – is tailored to brilliance. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes put in arguably their best ever showings in this tale of flawed humanity amid the horrors of the Holocaust.

4. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Possibly the quintessential action movie: an unforgettable opener, the perfect protagonist, action set-pieces galore, and story-influencing tales from the set galore (yes, we know why Indy just shot the sword-wielding guy). It spawned a couple of perfectly serviceable sequels (and a couple more that weren’t), but it will forever remain the high point of the series.

3. Jaws

One film to have truly transcended the medium of cinema. People who’ve never seen this will hum the shark theme tune, and ‘Jaws’ has become many an affectionate nickname for an unhinged pet. And the film itself? Utterly terrifying. Even the things that went wrong behind the scenes only work in its favour. It’s lightning in a bottle; no more, no less.

2. Jurassic Park

A Frankenstein’s Monster of a story disguised as a dinosaur romp, arguing that this is far better than people give it credit for might seem strange, considering its impact on cinema, but it’s the truth. Its warning against unchained, irresponsible ambition is arguably more relevant today than it was when it was made.

1. ET

Some films are just… perfect, defying simple explanations as to exactly why. We can point to a number of contributing factors that define ET’s greatness: the perfection of the central character’s design; John Williams’ timeless score; the more believable than reality bond between Henry Thomas’s Elliot and the titular alien; the series of iconic cinematic images (who can forget the silhouette of the bicycle against the Moon), and the most bittersweet of happy endings (“I’ll be right here”). Many would-be imitators have tried and failed to replicate the greatness on show here – which is to say, timeless, zeitgeist-defining brilliance. It’s hard to imagine there ever being a film like this again.

• From YouTube to Hollywood: 6 of the greatest films from YouTuber directors

Summer brings a shedload of goodness – weather (at least 50% of the time),. barbecues, the return of the summer wardrobe. One thing you can rely on is someone suggesting getting a pint at roughly 11am. And if you're anything like us, if by four pm you've forgotten that Pimms has alcohol in it and want to switch to something non-alcoholic but water doesn't seem exciting enough, then having a few good non-alcoholic bottles to hand.

Luckily, there have been exponential amounts of innovation in the no and low sector, and this summer a brilliant bounty of new releases are heading to every bit of green space in London, probably.

Nirvana Brewery Hazy Grapefruit Lager

Hands down one of the best brews we've tried in sipping memory, the Nirvana Hazy Grapefruit Lager is a fresh and zingy twist on a classic lager but without any of the booze. It doesn't have that almost stripped tartness that you get with some lagers; instead, it's nuanced and light with just the right mix of fruitiness.

Lucky Saint Lime and Sea salt larger

Ever gone for a cheeky pint and mid-way through realised you were planning a gym sesh / run? You end up looking at the glass half full with regret and half full with relief that you have an out. Enter: the alcohol free beer. Then look at the doorway again as another diva makes its entrance, totally overshadowing it. And that is the Lime and Sea salt Lucky Saint Lager. It's a first-of-its-kind electrolyte lager, where flavour meets function with added sodium, magnesium and potassium. And it's pretty delicious. Win-win-win.

Sigalas Rabaud x Moderato

Alcohol-free wines, for the most part, really ain't it. Like, really, really ain't it. Usually, I'd recommend you grab a Ribena and call it a day. However, Moderato happily proves this pre-conception wrong – if anyone is going to do alcohol free wine right, it's the French. The Sigalas Rabaud x Moderato Rose release is a step up even from the norm, crafted with Sémillon grapes grown in the South West of France, using Moderato's de-alcoholisation techniques.

Grapefruit Picante

Sometimes the alcohol free world gets accused of being a little boring – and it's a fair critique. Sometimes there's only so many alcohol-free beers you can pound before you feel a little meh. However, this Grapefruit Picante firmly puts this argument to bed, proving that just because it's sans sauce doesn't mean it's not a stunning and special tipple. It's sharp yet spicy without being overly sweet, which a lot of 0% beers can be guilty of. A lovely cocktail alternative that won't leave you missing the real thing.

The Pathfinder ready-to-drink cocktails

If you happen to dabble in the non-alcoholic world, you'll probably be familiar with The Pathfinder already. It's a name up there with Mother Root and Botivo, all synonymous with actually interesting and delicious 0% options. The Pathfinder has unveiled new tinnies which take its signature complex, herbaceous notes, and mixes them up into something seriously special.

• 99p shots that want to be the next BuzzBallz are coming to the UK

For many football fans, tournament season comes with a familiar feeling: excitement mixed with the nagging fear that someone is about to ask them to explain the offside rule.

According to new research commissioned by Asda, 60% of Brits consider themselves "fair-weather fans", while almost half admit they feel out of their depth when football chat starts flying around.

But if you're worried about not knowing every tactical nuance or refereeing law, footballing legend and National Treasure Chris Kamara has a simple message: don't.

"You don't need to know all the rules," Kamara tells Shortlist. "Just talk about what you see and enjoy what you see."

It's a refreshingly uncomplicated view from one of football's most recognisable broadcasters, particularly at a time when the game often feels buried beneath statistics, tactical analysis and endless debates about VAR.

"Football is fun," he says. "Hopefully, I've reflected that over the years. It's a serious business, but you've got to enjoy yourself and have fun.

"Technical terms of football are important, and stats are important, but they're for the professionals. The bystanders like me who just want to enjoy the game, enjoy it."

It's this message that's led to Asda's Match Fit campaign in the hope of helping fans of any level enjoy the upcoming World Cup. So if you're in an Asda and see a badge reading ‘Football Fanatic’ or ‘Fair Weather Fan’ on a member of staff, it means they're game for a chat, just as we spoke with Chris. We covered VAR, the beautiful game and his predictions before the summer:

Football's biggest problem isn't VAR, it's the people using it

Modern football has become increasingly complicated, with rule changes and technological interventions creating fresh confusion for casual viewers.

Few topics divide supporters more than VAR, and Kamara admits his own relationship with the technology has changed over time.

"I was a massive campaigner for VAR," he says.

Having spent years analysing controversial incidents on television, Kamara initially believed the system would eliminate many of the game's most obvious mistakes.

Instead, he's become frustrated by the people operating it.

"It's not the technology. What they have to understand is it's the people using the technology who are not good enough," he says.

"They get some good calls right, but others they don't."

Kamara believes football authorities should bring former professionals into the decision-making process to provide additional context.

"Within a group of VAR people, they should have an ex-professional to give their point of view," he explains.

It's a criticism many supporters will recognise. While technology can provide the evidence, Kamara argues football still needs people who understand the realities of the game itself.

What makes a great pundit?

Few broadcasters are better placed to answer this question.

Kamara spent decades becoming one of football's most beloved television personalities, combining insight with warmth and humour. His infamous "unbelievable Jeff" moment remains one of the most iconic clips in British sports broadcasting.

So what separates the best pundits from the rest?

"Be honest," he says. "Say what you see. Don't try to make out what you see is anything different than what anybody else sees and explain it in a way that's comfortable for the viewer."

For Kamara, clarity matters more than showing off expertise.

"Don't try and hit them with science," he explains.

It's a philosophy that arguably explains his enduring popularity. While football coverage has become increasingly analytical, Kamara built his reputation on making the game accessible.

Unbelievable Jeff, even in Tanzania

Kamara spent decades becoming one of football's most beloved television personalities, combining insight with warmth and humour. His infamous "unbelievable Jeff" and the iconic moment he missed a red card remains one of the most iconic clips in British sports broadcasting.

The clip has followed him far beyond football, too.

"Me and my wife went on safari to Tanzania," he says. "We love travelling and even out in Tanzania people recognised me. Asking how I missed the red card"

"It's caught the imagination of everybody."

More than a decade on, it's still the moment most people bring up when they meet him.

"Every single day somebody will say, 'Unbelievable, Jeff'," he laughs.

Football's unique ability to bring people together

The theme running through Kamara's answers is accessibility.

Whether he's talking about fans, punditry or tournament football, he repeatedly returns to the idea that football should be open to everyone.

"Football is worldwide. It brings everybody together," he says.

Kamara points to his travels around the globe as evidence.

"Wherever you go, there is somebody wearing a football shirt. Whether it's a Premier League shirt or club colours, football brings the world together. It really does."

He argues that no other sport has quite the same universal reach.

"As far as football is concerned, it transcends everybody."

That collective spirit is what he hopes first-time viewers will take away from any major tournament this summer.

"The whole country would celebrate if we win that big tournament this year," he says.

Kammy's tournament predictions

Asked for his quickfire predictions ahead of the tournament, Kamara wasn't short of confidence when it came to England's chances.

• Winners: England
• Main challengers: Spain, France, Portugal, Argentina and Brazil
• Dark horses: Scotland ("I'd love to say Scotland. I'll be supporting them, of course.")
• Player of the tournament: Harry Kane
• Golden Boot winner: Harry Kane

Kamara believes Kane is primed for a much stronger tournament than his last major international outing.

"I was out in Germany for the Euros, and he didn't look fit at all," he says. "This season I've watched him, and he looks fit and in top form. His finishing has never ever been questioned.

"The Golden Boot and player of the tournament. Please." Chris went on to add that Kane should be one of the favourites for this year's Ballon d'Or.

For Kamara, though, the beauty of football isn't really about trophies, tactics or technology.

It's about enjoyment. "Football is fun," he says.

"It's a serious business, but you've got to enjoy yourself and have fun."

And for anyone worried they don't know enough to join the conversation this summer, his advice couldn't be simpler.

"You don't need to know all the rules. Just enjoy what you see."

• The Ballon d'Or is coming to London for the first time ever

London is full of incredible places to drink beer, whether a historic pub or a funky craft focused bar with a vast selection. But little can beat the pleasure of drinking amazing beer at source, next to the vessels it was brewed in. Sitting in view of the brewing tanks, on a wooden bench with the brewery’s latest special, has become a favourite way to while away a Saturday afternoon for many. Whether you’re a fan of juice-bomb New England style IPAs, crispy lagers or massive imperial stouts, the brewery tap rooms of London have something for you. For this list, we teamed up with London-based beer expert and writer Will Hawkes. He is the author of London Beer City, a newsletter devoted to the city’s pubs and breweries. You can sign up here.

Will Hawkes Selects:

The Kernel

The Kernel is London’s most important independent brewery, having kickstarted the city’s craft-beer movement back in 2009. One of the reasons why they’ve been so successful is they’ve always done things their own way. Founder Evin O’Riordain is a singular figure, apparently unmoved by the vagaries of fashion, but with a commitment to quality and equality that contrasts sharply with some of his erstwhile competitors.

It’s no surprise then, that the Kernel’s taproom is so unique. It’s a modern, almost Scandinavian space where Japanese comfort food (Gyoza, Udon, etc) shares top billing with The Kernel’s beers. There’s exposed pipework, a concrete floor, pine furniture and plenty of space. Taproom general manager Mauritz Borg is amongst the best in the business too.

Find it at 32 Spa Road, Dockley Estate, SE16 3AG

Eko

Copeland Park, Peckham’s self-described ‘cultural quarter’, has got a lot going on. There are film production companies, rooftop bars, artists of many persuasions, vegan cafes, Balkan food and a hugely popular annual hot sauce festival – to name just a few.

Perhaps my favourite spot though, is Eko Brewery’s taproom. Founded in 2018 by husband and wife duo Anthony and Helena Adedipe, Eko is a modern brewery with a difference: there’s a focus here on African ingredients and techniques which makes for a refreshing change. Appropriate, too, in this most West African of London neighbourhoods.

Find it at Unit 2A-2, 133 Copeland Park, Copeland Road, SE15 3SN.

Five Points

Five Points has become a fixture of East London life, most notably here and at the pub they run, the magnificent Pembury Tavern. It’s a brewery that has a number of pots on the boil, from a craft-defying (and very popular) Best Bitter to more mod-ish styles. The key unifying factor, as with all the best breweries, is drinkability. This approachability defines their taproom too. It is an expansive space, taking in a cosy front room next to Mare Street, a mezzanine area, a large partially covered yard and BBQ food.

Find it at 61 Mare Street, Hackney, London, E8 4RG.

Saint Monday

Andreas Akerlund and Anselm Chatwin, the duo behind pub group Graceland, are steeped in London hospitality. They’ve clocked up decades of experience at the rockface, running pubs as renowned as Stoke Newington’s Axe and the Black Heart in Camden. It’s the latter that feels most akin to this brewpub in London Fields. Both gents are metal fanatics, and this place is as much about music as beer. Opened in 2023 when Graceland acquired the site and the brewing equipment from Carlsberg (for a relative song), it’s a delightful space. The pale ales and IPAs are particularly good.

Find it at 4 Warburton Road, E8 3RR.

Pillars Brewery

The best lager brewery in London? It could well be. Walthamstow’s Pillars was founded in 2016 and since then they’ve gradually established a reputation for quality, all the while expanding their range. My favourite is the delightfully crisp Pilsner, but you can’t really go wrong.

When it comes to taproom options – you’ve got two choices. There’s the official taproom and Malt Haus, a space dedicated to not only high-quality beer but whiskey too, a few doors down. The latter maybe has the edge since it’s open an extra two days a week.

Find it at Unit 2, Ravenswood Industrial Estate, Shernhall St, London E17 9HQ

Shortlist selects

Howling Hops Brewery and Tank Bar

After starting out brewing in the basement of legendary Mare Street pub the Cock Tavern, Howling Hops moved to its current site in 2015, becoming London’s first and only tank bar. As you enter their stripped back and industrial space, you’re greeted by a line of shiny stainless steel fermentation tanks where the beer is finished, right behind the bar – it doesn’t get fresher than that! The beer line-up is regularly changing and offers something for most tastes.

Find it at Unit 9A Queen's Yard, White Post Lane, Hackney Wick, E9 5EN

Bullfinch Brewery

Started from the kitchen of former travelling sound engineer and enthusiastic home brewer Ryan Mclean – Bullfinch Brewery now operates from a railway arch in Herne Hill. The tap room is a sociable space, rooted in the local community, offering up the brewery’s bang fresh beer, including favourites such as their 4.2% session pale Rascal. With a line-up completed by specials and a rotating selection of guest beers – there’s much to recommend this south London spot.

Find it at Arch 886, Rosendale Road, Herne Hill, London, SE24 9EH

Signature Brew

Located on the Black Horse Beer Mile, Signature Brew was founded by a brewer and a musician and has always been about bringing together the two worlds. The core beers have names like Studio Lager and Roadie IPA, while artists often collaborate on specials. The tap room is a spacious affair and often has punters spilling outside on nice days. They of course run regular live music events and also play host to some amazing street food vendors.

Find it at Unit 15, Blackhorse Lane, E17 5QJ.

Gipsy Hill Brewing

Session IPA Hepcat, from South London brewing stalwarts Gipsy Hill has become a firm favourite among discerning London drinkers and the rest of their range is excellent too. Their tap room, which is located opposite their main production brewery, opens from Wednesday to Sunday and is a bustling and lively space for enjoying top quality beer. They don’t have an in-house kitchen, but they partner with Yard Sale Pizza, who will deliver directly to your table.

Find it at Unit 5, 160 Hamilton Road, Norwood. SE27 9SF

Pretty Decent

Originally founded in Forest Gate, where they maintain a taproom, Pretty Decent moved their main production to the current site in 2022. Located conveniently around the corner from Signature Brew on the Black Horse Beer Mile, their tap room is a lively space offering their core beers and specials. You will also find one of the most hilarious beer names in London at Pretty Decent, in the form of their session IPA ‘I Could Get Better At T*sco For A Quid’. Expect top-notch beer and a fine atmosphere at this excellent addition to the London beer scene.

Find it at Unit 10, Uplands Business Park, Blackhorse Lane, E17 5QJ

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Televisions are becoming gloriously complicated again.

Just when you thought you’d nailed all the acronyms (OLED, HDR, QLED, etc), there’s a bunch of new jargon to master as a fresh wave of screen TV tech heads to the high street. But don’t fret if you don’t know your True RGB from your Freely - we’re here to help you through what’s hot to watch in 2026.

It’s actually a great time to buy a new telly. The latest display innovations mean better-than-ever picture quality, while screen sizes are getting bigger than ever.

And with a summer of sport on the way, led by the FIFA World Cup, who doesn’t want a shiny new screen to catch all the action on?

We’ve taken an early look at the latest models and the best of the rest, so you can upgrade your viewing with confidence. Whether you want a picture-perfect OLED, massive Micro RGB, or simply the best value gogglebox around, we’ve got you covered…

Best TV for Picture Quality

• Samsung R95H Micro RGB
• Price: £3,299 (65-inch)
• Screen sizes available: 65-, 75-, 85-inches
• Size: 1442.9 x 831.2 x 52 mm (wxhxd)
• Display Technology: Micro RGB
• HDMI: Yes, x 4
• HDR: YesOperating System: Tizen
• Price: £3,299
• Weight: 19.1kg

Samsung’s latest flagship TV, the R95H, uses ground-breaking Micro RGB display technology for a truly scintillating picture. Micro-sized red, green, and blue LED backlights offer breathtaking brightness and colour richness. Powered by Samsung’s Micro RGB AI Engine, the R95H delivers exceptional colour accuracy, along with deep blacks and pristine detail. Not only is the R95H exceptionally bright, it sports a Glare Free screen coating that keeps unwanted room reflections and lights at bay. All this makes it ideal for bright room viewing.

Sound isn’t too shabby either, thanks to an 8-channel Dolby Atmos audio system. And if you need more reasons to buy, there’s also Tizen, Samsung’s highly polished smart platform, which comes with all the key streaming services, alongside Samsung TV Plus, a collection of free-to-watch linear channels.

The price tag may be toppy, but if you want the next-gen image quality, it’s definitely worth paying.

Best TV for Sports

• Sony BRAVIA 7 II True RGB
• Price £1,999 (55-inch)
• Screen sizes available: 50-, 55-, 65-, 75-, 85-, 98-inches
• Size: 1228 x 784 x 80mm (wxhxd)
• Display Technology: True RGB
• HDMI: Yes, x 4
• HDR: YesOperating System: Google TV
• Price: £1,999
• Weight: 18.4kg

Sony has been turning heads with its own take on Micro RGB technology, dubbed True RGB. The BRAVIA 7 II is the more affordable of its two debut launches (positioned under the all-singing and dancing BRAVIA 9 II), and we reckon it's the sweeter buy. Prices range from £1,899 for the 50-inch, up to £6,999 for the 98-incher.

Image quality is exceptionally good, with superb colours, punchy HDR and pronounced contrast. It looks great when you want to hunker down in the dark and watch a movie (it boasts Dolby Vision and IMAX Enhanced certification), but what’ll win you over is its bright room performance, colour fidelity and motion handling.

Long a strong suit for BRAVIA screens, frame interpolation is top-notch, with minimal blur and exceptional clarity, perfect for watching fast-moving sports.

Best TV for games

• LG OLED Evo C6
• Price: £2,599 (65-inch)
• Screen sizes available: 42-, 48-, 55-, 65-, 77- 83-inches
• Size: 1441 x 826 x 45.1mm (wxhxd)
• Display Technology: OLED
• HDMI: Yes, x 4
• HDR: YesOperating System: web OS
• Price: £2,599
• Weight: 16.6kg

The C series from LG is one of the world’s best-selling OLED TVs for good reason. Combining superb 4K picture quality with a feature-rich webOS smart TV platform, it’s a premium all-rounder and an irresistible option for gamers - and this year’s C6 OLED Evo may be its best yet.

All four HDMI inputs offer 4K/120Hz support, and there’s a host of PC friendly features, including a 165Hz refresh rate for PC gamers, low input lag Game mode, and NVIDIA G-Sync / AMD FreeSync Premium support.

OLED picture performance, as you’d expect, is gorgeous. Powered by LG’s latest Alpha 11 Gen 3 processor, HDR highlights are the brightest we’ve seen on a C series model, while black levels remain deep and inky. Whether you’re playing Overwatch or binging The Boroughs, the C6 looks detailed, vibrant and highly cinematic.

Best TV for value

• Hisense E7Q
• Price: £319 (50-inch)
• Screen sizes available: 43-, 50-, 55-, 65-, 75-, 85-, 98-inches
• Size (Dimensions without stand): 1119 x 649 x 80 mm (wxhxd)
• Display Technology: QLED
• HDMI: Yes, x 4
• HDR: YesOperating System: VIDAA
• Price: £319
• Weight: 9.4kg

Flagship flatscreens are all well and good, but when your purse demands you rein in your expectations, there are still exceptional buys to be had. This 50-inch Hisense E7Q will set you back just £319, while the monster 98-inch Pro version is a mere £1,199 (from AO.com).

There’s no skimping on features either. The E7Q is built around the VIDAA smart TV, so it comes with all the usual streaming apps and offers bright, colour-rich pictures courtesy of its QLED panel. Home cinema niceties include Dolby Vision HDR support and Filmmaker Mode, but there are also dedicated Game and Sport Modes, making it ideal for the footie.

But what really sells this affordable Hisense to us is the provision of Freely, the Internet delivered stablemate of Freeview. With Freely, you don’t need a traditional TV aerial to watch all your mainstream TV channels (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 and so on), just Wi-Fi and an internet connection. This means you can park your new screen in any room, anywhere you like, without having to run cables. Hurrah!

Best TV for Pay channels

• Sky Glass Air
• Price: From £17 monthly + channel package (65-inch)
• Screen sizes available: 43-, 55-, 65-inches
• Size (Dimensions without stand): 1446 x 829 x 34 mm (wxhxd)
• Display Technology: QLED
• HDMI: Yes, x 3
• HDR: YesOperating System: Sky Entertainment OS
• Price: £17 monthly + channel package
• Weight: 24.2kg

So what if you fancy a snazzy new 4K TV, but would rather pay for one on a contract, like a smartphone? Sky Glass Air is for you. This smart-looking LED model comes with Sky’s premium pay TV services baked in, with no external set-top box or dish required. The entire Sky channel enchilada is delivered over Wi-Fi.

Slimmer and some might say sexier, than the step-up Sky Glass Gen 2, Sky Glass Air is available in three screen sizes (43-, 55- and 65- inches) and comes in a choice of colours - Sea Green, Carbon Grey or Cotton White.

There’s HDMI with eARC, Wi-Fi 6 for ultra stable connectivity, and Dolby Vision HDR. Gamers might want to give the Air a swerve though, as it’s a 60Hz screen with noticeably high input lag.

Picture quality is bright and punchy. An Auto picture mode works in the background, optimising picture quality based on what you’re watching.

Obviously, the real attraction here is the broader Sky experience. The Sky OS neatly unifies live TV, streaming apps and cloud recording into one easy-to-use interface. Obviously what you can watch depends on your subscription package, but there’s no doubting the sheer variety on offer when it comes to entertainment, movies and sports. We’d suggest the best deal is the recently announced Sky Ultimate TV bundle (£24 a month), which includes Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and Hayu, along with all the Sky general entertainment channels.

Sky Glass Air prices start at £6 a month (for the 43-inch model ) for a 48 month contract, plus your chosen monthly channels bundle.

• London’s 10 best experience bars: From time-travelling cocktails to prison break games

Keep up, mate: Tavern, taking over the former Nest site on Old Street, is the new British bistro from the team behind Michelin-starred Restaurant St Barts, and has already become one of those places where everyone seems to know someone who’s been.

“You have to try the onion thing,” people whisper in pubs. “You know what, I actually do like sweetbreads now,” says your newly-converted pal.

Thankfully, unlike a lot of trendy East London openings, Tavern actually earns the hype — a chic blend of classic British dishes with a contemporary (trendy, even) feel, it’s Shoreditch’s soon to be worst-kept secret.

WHERE IS IT?

You’ll find Tavern on Old Street, sitting right on the divide between the tech-bro energy of Silicon Roundabout and Shoreditch’s permanently scruffy creative cool. Old Street station is a short walk away, and it’s an easy trot from Shoreditch High Street overground, too.

Inside, it strikes a smart balance between polished and unfussy. There are paper tablecloths ready to be ripped away between sittings, dishes arrive whenever they’re ready, and the open kitchen dominates the room like a theatre-in-the-round performance — you can watch chefs plate up while nursing a cocktail two feet away, so no sneezing.

The room itself is handsome without trying too hard — candlelit, with whitewashed walls, there are fur throws over the mis-matched wooden seating and what appear to be agricultural tools on the shelves, giving a homely feel to warm the room. The vibe is supposed to invoke that of a local pub — but it’s a darn sight smarter than any pub I’ve ever rolled out of.

WHAT’S SPECIAL?

If you’re a fan of great eats, Tavern’s pedigree precedes it. Tavern is the latest project from the team behind Nest and Restaurant St Barts, pivoting away from Nest’s tasting-menu format into something looser and more nostalgic.

Executive chef Brendan Appleby — whose CV includes Silo, Lyle’s and Inver, as well as most recently Restaurant St Barts — oversees a menu rooted in British produce and bistro-style comfort cooking, with a sustainably-sourced promise, filtered through modern London restaurant sensibilities.

That means rich sauces, open-fire cooking, excellent seafood and deeply savoury snacks designed to make ordering conservatively nigh-on impossible.

The food lands somewhere between elevated pub dining and contemporary British fine dining, without tipping too far into either category. One minute you’re eating cod roe with pig skin crackling like the fanciest pub snack imaginable, the next you’re hitting the ewe’s curd to show off how refined your palate has become in your post-Pot Noodle renaissance days.

WHAT’S NEW?

Tavern itself is just a few weeks old. The restaurant only opened this spring, replacing Nest after nearly a decade of acclaim.

But the bigger story is the tonal shift. Where Nest leaned serious and tasting-menu-heavy, Tavern is intentionally more relaxed. The cooking still has Michelin-level technique humming underneath it all, but the experience is designed to feel jolly rather than ceremonial.

There’s also a big focus on nostalgic British flavours — cocktails riffing on classics, rich meat and rarely-used cuts, buttery puddings, excellent seafood — all served in a room that buzzes from the second you walk in.

WHO SHOULD YOU BRING?

Bring friends who like food enough to discuss sauces, but not those that think sweetbread means, well, ‘sweet bread’.

This is a brilliant group-dinner spot because the room has genuine energy. It’s loud enough to feel exciting, but not so noisy you have to communicate entirely through eyebrow movements. The service style also encourages sharing and grazing, with dishes arriving steadily rather than in rigid courses.

It would work well for a date too — particularly if your ideal romance involves arguments over who tucked away the most crackling.

I’d leave the kids at home, unless your child enjoys offal and natural wine.

WHAT SHOULD YOU WEAR?

Whatever you like, so long as it fits into that nebulous wear-it-like-you-mean-it Shoreditch slither of fashion’s Venn diagram. Nobody’s wearing ties, but equally this isn’t a tracksuit-and-backwards-cap situation.

WHAT WILL YOU PAY?

This is comfortably in special occasion territory, though it won’t bankrupt you.

A couple of cocktails, wine, snacks, mains and dessert will realistically land somewhere around £80-£120 per person depending on how enthusiastically you attack the menu. That sounds steep — and it is — but the quality backs it up.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DRINK?

The sweet negroni was excellent — softer and more rounded than the bitter, aggressive versions currently fashionable across East London. The beef-fat Old Fashioned, meanwhile, was undeniably good, even if the promised savoury depth never entirely materialised beyond “competently made Old Fashioned”.

There’s also a strong natural and low-intervention wine list, with staff happy to guide you through it without making you feel like an idiot. The orange wine we drank worked beautifully with the richer dishes and salty snacks.

The showstopper we’ve heard is the pickleback martini, spiced with chili and served with a slice of salami — though a previous pickleback hangover experience made us a little too shy to knock one back on this occasion.

MUST-TRY DISHES?

The Chunion Puffs are non-negotiable.

Order them immediately. They’re little cheese-and-onion pastry bombs somewhere between a gougère, a pie and a deeply irresponsible pub snack. They’re sure to be the signature calling card of Tavern.

The cod roe with pig skin crackling was another standout — salty, crisp, deeply moreish and perfectly calibrated for drinking alongside cocktails. There’s none of the greasiness usually associated with crackling, and the giant strips are great fun when they turn up on your table.

For mains, the turbot and cockles was superb: delicately cooked fish under a crisp crumb, sitting in laverbread, a boiled seaweed concoction that moved between earthy lentils, sweet peas and complemented the bright bursts of vinegar from the cockles.

The Lowfield farm hogget and ewe’s curd delivered exactly what you’d hope for — rich, deeply savoury meat with properly concentrated flavour. Even the chips — listed simply as “Some chips” — earned their place, soft on the inside and with a nice bite on the outside, performing vital sauce-mopping duties.

For dessert, don’t skip the mini brown butter cakes. Intensely buttery with a salty, shortbread-like base and creamy topping, they perfectly capture the homely vibe that Tavern serves up.

GET ON THE GUESTLIST?

Unlike many fashionable East London restaurants, Tavern understands something crucial: people don’t just want to be impressed anymore. They want to enjoy themselves. This is a generous and warm restaurant, not afraid to challenge you with its menu — but rewarding for those that want to see British cuisine taken to new heights.

Grab a tankard, munch at the pig skin crackling, kick back and enjoy. With quality like this, it’s not like any ‘tavern’ I’ve eaten at before, and your locals (not to mention the rest of East London’s top tier restaurants), will need to up their game in response.

Tavern can be found at 374-378 Old Street, London, EC1V 9LT, and is open Tuesday to Saturday, 12pm–2pm for lunch, and 5pm-9pm for dinner. Reservations are essential, and are booked through OpenTable.

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I’m speaking to Sufiyaan Salam the day after Arsenal have won the Premier League. The night before, he’s been out near the Emirates stadium, where he saw “old people in wheelchairs, young people swigging beers and Jeremy Corbyn mingling with kids in pyjamas, whose parents had woken them up to celebrate.”

“Everyone was singing, I almost got hit by a firework, it looked like an early start to Eid celebrations” he laughs, describing a scene not unlike that in his debut novel, Wimmy Road Boyz. The story follows three brown boys cruising down Manchester’s curry mile in a white bimmer, in pursuit of a wild night out. But with the trio nursing heartbreak, secrets, grudges and a whole lot of feelings, there’s trouble ahead.

Born in Blackburn, the book was inspired by Salam’s own experiences on the curry mile, aka Wilmslow Road, where cars cruise up and down.

“I'd been going there my entire life. I went on this one night out, just me and two other brown guys. I was going through heartbreak, but I didn't know how to tell them. The next day, I thought ‘it'd be funny if those guys also had something that they were struggling with, the three of us having this fun night on the surface, but actually needing to talk to each other.”

• Buy Wimmy Road Boyz here

Wimmy Road Boyz explores British Asian culture — which Salam quite rightly asserts is just British culture — masculinity and nuanced, honest characters as a counter to the trope of the good immigrant. It’s not your typical novel, either, reading like a cross between a book, a screenplay and a music video. As an animator who has worked on music videos for the likes of Grouplove, with a BAFTA-nominated short film, Magid / Zafar, that tracks.

All this from an author who can’t even drive – “not legally, at least.” In lieu of (legal) experience behind the wheel, these are the stories that inspired Salam’s genre-bending surefire bestseller.

1. Pierrot le Fou (1965)

Speaking to Salam from his position underneath a poster of the Jean-Luc Godard film A Woman Is A Woman, it’s perhaps no surprise that he chose Godard’s New Wave classic as his first road trip must-see. He watched it in the dingy basement of a bar in Manchester, where they were screening a season of films starring actress Anna Karina.

“Pierrot le Fou is typical ‘60s Godard. It’s basically a Bonnie and Clyde love story; two criminals want to get a better life for themselves, rob someone and run away in a cool car. Most of the film, they’re just bored and drifting. It’s almost like what would happen after Bonnie and Clyde if it didn’t end in tragedy?”

Salam appreciates the film which he says “is constantly ripping up the rules. The actors will be looking at the camera or coming out of frame. It doesn’t do anything that it's meant to do. I don't even understand the characters, they’re so selfish and we still just love them.”

2. The Road, Cormac McCarthy (2006)

Salam calls this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “brutal” but also “McCarthy’s most optimistic novel, which maybe says more about how dark everything else he did was. Imagine Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, but it’s all horrible,” he laughs.

“It's post-apocalyptic, there's cannibals, but this father and son are on the road trying to survive. It's violent, but it's so beautifully written. The son is quite a tender kid, despite the horrors of the world. He doesn’t remember life before, whereas his dad still remembers the real world. We swing between horrible set pieces where people are being killed to moments of the dad comforting the son.”

Salam first came to The Road during the pandemic, when everyone was searching to understand the time we were living through.

“It was weirdly comforting, because it's way worse than what was actually going on. I was stuck in a flat in Manchester, but I wasn’t having to run away from cannibals. I read it in a feverish couple of nights – what else was there to do? The pandemicness of it really affected the reading experience.”

3. I'm Thinking Of Ending Things (2020)

Although I’m Thinking Of Ending Things is based on a 2016 novel, it’s the Netflix film adaptation that Salam chooses for his third road trip story.

“I didn’t love the book as much, but the film is interesting, innovative and divisive. You get double Jesse/ Jessie (Plemons and Buckley), who go on a road trip to see his parents at their remote farm. Half of the movie is them driving through a horrible blizzard, stuck in this car.”

Salam loves the surreal nature of the film, where the characters are more like ciphers.

“There are purposeful continuity errors the whole way through, lines misattributed and personalities changed. It has the feeling of a mental breakdown”

That abstractness was a big influence on Wimmy Road Boyz, where characters mask their true thoughts.

4. Catch Me Daddy (2014)

Salam’s next pick is an alternative road trip.

“It’s about this South Asian girl, Laila, who’s on the run from her dad. She's with her white boyfriend, who’s not great, driving away in a caravan through the Yorkshire moors. In a similar way to Pierrot le Fou, it’s Bonnie and Clyde, but stylistically it’s absolutely wild. It’s like an American Western set in Yorkshire, but it's also this dark, horrible Greek tragedy.”

Salam’s picks all veer away from the stereotypical American road trip movie, which are about “driving towards freedom. With Catch Me Daddy, I'm interested in these people driving towards destruction, being trapped in a car or trying to escape life, but destiny won't allow you to. Laila is someone who would never normally fit in this type of movie, so the movie has to bend out of shape as a result of her and her struggle.”

5. Sirāt (2025)

This Oscar-nominated Spanish film starts with a father looking for his lost daughter. What follows could have been quite cutesy, an older man connecting with ravers to learn the importance of community. But as Salam puts it, “this movie descends into hell. There’s Islamic allegories going on in the background,” with Sirat referring to a bridge in Islamic theology that souls cross on the Day of Judgement. But for Salam, this film is a warning against going into the desert. “There’s nothing good to be found there, Western man.”

“In the background, shit’s going down. There’s some kind of civil war or global conflict, and as much as the film has a new take on the ravers, where they're not just idiots, they're also very much these white hippies who are doing their thing whilst real-world conflict is going on. Every single person is punished horrifically. It feels like the desert itself is the main villain and the main hero as well.”

Watching the film at Curzon Bloomsbury was “a powerful experience,” according to Salam, “especially from a sound point of view. I was feeling all the music in a crazy way. When things are going wrong, they go wrong so loudly. I love when cinema is just a visceral experience.”

6. Withnail and I (1987)

For his final choice, Salam picks a flick he watched for the first time in lockdown.

“I watched Withnail and I with a bunch of friends in Manchester. I had a projector, but the sofa didn't face the wall, so I had a bean bag. I was 22 so I didn’t really have back problems then.”

The film in question follows Richard E Grant and Paul McGann as two out of work actors needing a holiday.

“They drive to the Lake District, but it descends into alcoholic darkness. It begins lightly, but then becomes a different thing. The genre of the film goes on a journey the same way the characters do, which is a fun way of storytelling.”

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Impasto, impasto everywhere.

In the space of one month, we have Derek Jacobi playing Lucian Freud in James Lucas’ new film Moss & Freud (out in cinemas 29th May), which covers the making of his ‘Naked Portrait 2002’ of Kate Moss, and we have Ian McKellen as a fictional portrait painter named Julian Sklar in Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers (in cinemas from 14th May). Ed Solomon, screenwriter of the latter, has said the story was partly inspired by famous London painters Lucian Freud and his friend Francis Bacon.

The thing about Freud was: he was very much alive and kicking around London until 2011. He was famously private and didn’t like to be approached in the street; he was also a cliched Bad Dad of Art History to his many children. But in between his own childhood in St John’s Wood and his burial in Highgate Cemetery, he was a man about town.

You could seek out Freud’s various home and studio addresses across the decades at 20 Delamere Terrace, Paddington, or 138 Kensington Church Street, Fitzroy Square, Maida Vale and Holland Park. As most long-time Londoners have been, Freud was evicted with his artist pal John Craxton from 14 Abercorn Place, NW8, in the mid-1940s. Their downstairs neighbour, a music critic, complained to the landlord of the incessant noise from the young painters walking on the cracked glass of picture frames, inexplicably covering their floors. You can see the surrealist stuffed zebra head, which resided there, in The Painter’s Room (1944).

Later, in the 1960s, he lived in a series of council properties, including at Clarendon Crescent and Gloucester Terrace, Paddington, which were so dilapidated they were designated for demolition. Interior at Paddington, painted at Delamere Terrace, won him an Arts Council prize at the 1951 Festival of Britain.

More fun than simply staring at the un-unusual exteriors of houses across London, though, is an unofficial tour of Lucian Freud’s preferred pubs, galleries, gambling dens, restaurants and breakfast spots, from Soho to Kensington to the South Bank. Some are still standing and serving; some have become legends themselves.

The Wolseley, Piccadilly

The restauranteur Jeremy King gave Lucian Freud a protected corner table at The Wolseley, where the painter ate five or six nights a week in his final years. The two had met in the 1980s, when Freud began eating at Le Caprice, King’s now-closed St James joint, but they became friends properly after The Wolseley, with its art deco ‘grand European cafe’ interiors, opened in 2003. There’s a very charming recurring bit in Alan Rickman’s diaries in which the actor silently pleads “paint me” across the room, while eating there himself, without ever approaching Freud, who was often dining alone.

In extremely iconic behaviour, Freud kept his own wine stash in the restaurant’s cellars, and liked to order the Atlantic prawns or the moules et frites. He sometimes ate there with friends like David Hockney, Kate Moss and even Jeremy King himself, who also sat for Freud: a copper plate etching of King was sold by Sotheby’s in 2022. When Lucian died, the Wolseley’s staff placed a black tablecloth on his usual table with a single candle.

• The Wolseley, Piccadilly

Clarke’s, Kensington

Opened in 1984 by chef Sally Clarke, this ‘farm-to-table’ restaurant is located at 124 Kensington Church Street, just down the road from Freud’s final home at 138. For fifteen years, the painter ate there almost everyday for breakfast with his studio assistant and model David Dawson: Earl Grey tea or a milky latte and hand-rolled pains aux raisins, Portuguese custard tarts, homemade nougat or scrambled eggs on toast, over a pile of newspapers. Sometimes he popped back for lunch too - to eat “whatever fish was on the menu” or perhaps a spot of game, you know - bringing people like Moss and performance artist Leigh Bowery in with him.

Clarke sat for Freud once or twice a week over a two year period around 2008, initially writing future menus in her head to pass the time before deciding to concentrate on the painting process. The garden room of her restaurant features a collection of his etchings, including Donegal Man (2007). In the main room, you can find work by artist Bridget Riley, another Kensington local who has lunched there, maps by Grayson Perry and a David Hockney portrait.

• Clarke’s Restaurant

The French House, Dean Street, Soho

Lucian Freud first met Francis Bacon in 1944 and soon he was drinking in Bacon’s regular Dean Street haunts, including Soho institution The French House, one corner of a “lethal triangle” of pubs favoured by artists, writers and actors. There’s a great fictionalised version of wartime Soho nightlife with Freud, Bacon, John Minton and the rest of that set in Damian Barr’s The Two Roberts, one of our favourite novels of last year. Just to give a sense of shenanigans, in the preface to the second of William Feaver’s ‘The Lives of Lucian Freud’ biography volumes, Freud tells him (in 1973) that he used to go down to the bar of the Ritz and other war-time haunts “in a fez and postman’s trousers” during WWII.

Originally named York Minster, but known as the ‘French pub’ or ‘French house’, it’s now run by landlady Lesley Lewis, who has been in charge since the 1970s. Tom Baker drank there; Dylan Thomas left a copy of Under Milk Wood under a chair there; Irish writer Brendan Behan wrote some of his first play there; singer Suggs has been known to serve pints there. This is the kind of place that calls itself a watering hole and gets away with it. Send friends to the signature blue and white awnings of The French House and they won’t be mad about it.

• The French House

The Coach & Horses, Greek Street, Soho

The second corner of Soho’s “lethal triangle” is a Grade II-listed 19th century pub, which has, in fact, been on the site for centuries with the current building dating back to 1840: it’s The Coach & Horses. On the corner of Greek Street and Romilly Street, drinkers at this establishment after Freud and Bacon’s 40s and 50s days include actor John Hurt and The Beatles. The staff of Private Eye magazine once had a tradition of fortnightly lunches here. It has even featured in a play by Keith Waterhouse, Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell, about the hard-drinking Spectator columnist who was another regular at The Coach & Horses. I once experienced a bizarre, dream-like sing-a-long around a piano here, somewhere back in the mid 2010s. Magic.

• The Coach & Horses

The Colony Room Club/ Colony Room Green, Soho

OK, OK, the final corner of the “lethal triangle” is no longer with us. But the name and the spirit of The Colony Room may well live on in a new Soho bar within spitting distance, just across Regent Street. The original legendary club on Dean Street was founded by Muriel Belcher in 1948 and ran until 2008. Bacon walked in the day after it opened, was made a “founding member” and then got paid £10 a week to bring his artist friends in, including Lucian Freud. The list of members over the years is quite eye-popping: David Bowie, E.M. Forster, Isabella Blow, William Burroughs, Princess Margaret, Peter Blake and Henri Cartier-Bresson for fucks’ sake. This was back when members clubs were actually cool and not just wanky, bland places for rich people to eat.

In the 90s and 2000s, the YBA’s took it over - Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin - with Kate Moss and Sam Taylor-Wood occasionally stunt-serving drinks behind the bar. Writer Will Self wrote The Colony Room’s epitaph when it finally closed, a moment which some saw as marking the end of the true Soho. But wait! A new ‘Colony Room Green’ opened back in 2023, underneath Ziggy Green on Heddon Street. It’s open to all but with a view to trying to reimagine the old space with live jazz music and exhibitions featuring Cecil Beaton photographs. To quote one eccentric aristocrat in the BBC’s Pursuit of Love, “some of us must protect bohemia”.

• Colony Room Green

National Gallery, Trafalgar Square

When Freud was cutting classes from the Central School of Art and Goldsmiths College as a student in the late 1930s, he’d go to study the Old Masters at the National Gallery directly, particularly the work of Hans Holbein and the Italian Renaissance paintings of Titian, now found in Room 6. The film Moss & Freud stays true to this art history, featuring Ellie Bamber, as Kate Moss, and Derek Jacobi, as Freud, standing in front of Titian’s Diana and Actaeon (1556-1559) in the gallery with Jacobi-as-Freud, perhaps sentimentally, saying: “Could you imagine anything more beautiful? I think a painting could be good.” The NG’s blockbuster exhibition this summer is 17th century Spanish painter Francisco de Zubarán.

• The National Gallery

Slade School of Fine Art, Bloomsbury

Freud taught painting at the Slade, part of University College London, in the 1950s alongside the painter and graphic artist Keith Vaughan. In 1958 he began an affair with one of his Slade pupils Suzy Boyt, the subject of 1959’s Woman Smiling, with whom he’d go on to have four children. Well, we say he taught painting but one of his most famous ‘students’ of that decade, Paula Rego, told visual artist Deanna Sirlin that she remembers it somewhat differently: “Lucian didn’t study at the Slade. He came in as a visiting lecturer. I think he was looking for girlfriends. He didn’t talk at all, he just looked. He said he taught by telepathy.” That said, Rego admired his work “very much”, especially “his precision” and recalled that her husband Victor Willing described Freud as “beautiful as a knife”. For anyone inspired, the Slade’s Summer School of short courses and classes currently includes Painting, Still Life, Life Drawing, Etching and an Introduction to Artists’ Pigments.

• Slade School of Fine Art

National Portrait Gallery

If you actually want to see a permanent collection of Lucian Freud paintings and drawings for yourself, head to the National Portrait Gallery. The NPG’s Primary Collection includes 28 of his works, including a 1963 self-portrait, a 1995 etching of his daughter, the fashion designer Bella Freud and a half-finished painting of Sally Clarke which he was working on when he died. They also have 69 portraits of him by other artists, including Bacon, Frank Auerbach, a pen and ink by Hockney, photographs by Lord Snowdon, Beaton and Cartier-Bresson and a bronze head by Jacob Epstein.

Room 26 of the gallery, on Floor 2, is dedicated to a rotating exhibition of pieces from the Lucian Freud Archive. This treasure trove is made up of 47 sketchbooks spanning from the 1930s to the 2000s, 150 childhood drawings, boxes of letters to and from Freud and his family and his artist’s palette, paints and etching tools. A recent Drawing Into Painting exhibition ran at the Portrait Gallery until May and is now touring to an art museum in Denmark.

• National Portrait Gallery

The Hayward Gallery, South Bank

According to William Feaver’s biography, Freud’s first major mid-career retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in 1974 came about because the Arts Council needed a stopgap: another artist’s exhibition had fallen through. At the time he wasn’t as celebrated as friends like Bacon, though he would go on to be featured alongside other School of London artists in influential group exhibitions including ‘The Human Clay’ at the Hayward in 1976 and ‘The New Spirit in Painting’ at the Royal Academy in 1981. Another retrospective at the Hayward Gallery followed in 1988.

That’s not Freud’s only connection to the South Bank: much earlier in his career, his breakthrough painting, Interior at Paddington, was exhibited as part of the Festival of Britain in 1951, with the main purpose-built festival site right around where the Southbank Centre sits today. Coming up at the Hayward in 2026: the sculptures and paintings of Anish Kapoor (18th June to 18th October) and Kulpreet Singh’s film installations and abstract climate-focused paintings in Indelible Black Marks (16th June to 2nd August).

• The Hayward Gallery

Tate Britain, Millbank

We’re not going to include every London gallery that has ever hung a Lucian Freud here but one retrospective that’s contemporary to the events in the Moss & Freud film is the big Tate Britain exhibition, which ran from June to September 2002, to mark the artist’s 80th birthday. Around the same time, a then 28-year-old Kate Moss posed nude for an almost life-size Freud painting, Naked Portrait 2002, over a period of nine months, while she was pregnant with her daughter Lila Grace. He also famously tattooed a flock of swallows into her thigh.

The Tate show featured over 140 paintings, etchings and drawings and was curated by his biographer, the art critic and painter William Feaver, with an afterword essay by Auerbach in the exhibition catalogue. Currently at Tate Britain, there’s British painter Hurvin Anderson’s first major solo show (until 28th August) alongside the American 19th/20th century artist James McNeill Whistler (until 27th September) and Chris Ofili’s Requiem for the victims of Grenfell in the gallery’s North Staircase.

• Tate Britain

Freud Museum, NW3

A quick word on London’s Freud Museum. It’s dedicated to the founding father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, who was Lucian’s paternal grandfather, and Sigmund’s daughter, psychoanalyst Anna Freud, Lucian’s aunt. It was their final home and Lucian visited the house as a child. In 2022-2023, the Freud Museum ran a retrospective titled ‘The Painter and His Family’ for Lucian’s centenary, curated by the art critic Martin Gayford, who sat for the painter between 2003 and 2005. He turned this unique experience into his book Man With a Blue Scarf: On Sitting For Lucian Freud, which includes their conversations on the work of Van Gogh and Titian.

The current exhibition running at the Freud Museum is Leonora Carrington: The Symptomatic Surreal (until 10th August), which reveals another connection to Lucian. Gayford, talking with Freud’s longtime assistant David Dawson on a Frieze Masters podcast, recorded as part of the Freud Museum retrospective, noted that Freud and his onetime flatmate John Craxton were courted by the London Surrealists in the 1940s and invited to dinners at a Spanish restaurant on Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia. Freud is said to have found the movement too regimented and quoted “nothing is more surreal than two eyes and a noise”.

• Freud Museum

Lost To Time: Clubs, Casinos, Galleries & Seafood Spots

• Wheeler’s, Soho: This fish restaurant at 19-21 Old Compton Street was a favourite of Bacon’s for oysters and champagne. Freud met his gentleman racing bookie Victor Chandler at Wheeler’s: he painted him in Man in a String Chair (1988/ 1989). Earlier, in 1963, John Deakin took an excellent photograph of Freud, Bacon, Auerbach, Timothy Behrens and Michael Andrews eating and drinking there. The spot is now Cecconi’s Pizza Bar.
• Lefevre Gallery, Marlborough Fine Art & Hanover Gallery: Freud’s first solo show was in 1944 at Lefevre Gallery in Bruton Street, Mayfair [which closed in 2002]. Between the 1940s and 1970s, Freud also showed at galleries including the London Gallery (those Surrealists again), Marlborough Fine Art [which shut in 2024] and Anthony d’Offay near Bond Street [which closed up shop in 2001]. The Hanover Gallery on St George Street, Mayfair, closed in 1973 but still features on the National Portrait Gallery’s art walking tour of the neighbourhood.
• The Gargoyle Club, Soho: Another of Freud and Bacon’s Soho haunts in the 1950s and 1960s. It was a private members club on the upper floors of 69 Dean Street and, after the Colony Room, the drinkers would head to the Gargoyle for post-midnight drinks. The original decor included designs by Henri Matisse (with a fountain on the dance floor and yes, wooden hanging gargoyles) and famous members included: Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward, Virginia Woolf, Fred Astaire, Lee Miller and Graham Greene. These days you’ll find Dean Street Townhouse in its place.
• Cafe de Paris, West End & Galicia, Notting Hill: Hannah Rothschild, the art-doc maker and former chair of the National Gallery, remembers that “you could be guaranteed that if you went out clubbing that Lucian would be there, I remember going to the Cafe de Paris [which closed in 2020]; he’d be there, you’d go to Greens, he’d be there; you’d go to that Spanish place down on Portobello, Galicia, really late at night. I don’t know when he slept…” Ed Sheeran now owns Notting Hill gastropub/tapas place Bertie Blossoms where Galicia once was.
• Taboo, Leicester Square: Taboo was performance artist (and friend of Freud’s) Leigh Bowery’s nightclub in the 1980s and 90s: the party was in the basement of Maximus club in Leicester Square. The club’s cashier, Sue Tilley, was the subject of a number of Freud’s paintings, including the famous Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, painted in the early 1990s: she also worked at the Charing Cross Job Centre. Taboo/Maximus is now a studio space for film and TV.
• Esmeralda’s Barn, Knightsbridge: Freud and Bacon would try their luck at this casino in Wilton Place, which was run by the Kray Twins in the early 1960s. The celebrity gangsters Ronnie and Reggie put on private sex shows and extorted regular gamblers who couldn’t pay their debts. The original mid-1950s interiors featured murals by Pietro Annigoni, Cy Grant was the resident singer and the basement was a lesbian bar named Cellar Club. Deadpan voice: Esmeralda’s Barn is now the five-star Berkeley Hotel.

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If you’d have asked me only a few years ago, I would’ve told you that I wouldn’t dare touch a romantasy novel. I’d say: “What do you mean by a book full of swords and smooches?” There’s a good reason for my apprehension, though. I worked fervently amongst the shelves of Waterstones during the 50 Shades craze, selling book after book. It haunted my dreams, and so I swore to actively avoid anything ‘spicy’.

Yet, as an avid follower of many book-related social media accounts, I noticed the shift that brought romantasy to the fore – and BookTok hasn’t let me down yet. In recent years, romantasy has gone from being a somewhat underappreciated mix of two genres to one of the most popular. You’ll see titles storming up the bestselling book charts and ripping through avid book clubs' must-read lists. In its simplest form, it’s fantasy with a romance vein, but the genre offers so much more.

Full of ambition, magic, mystery and some sexy bits, it’s actually really hard to pick out just 10 books you should read, but I’ve done it anyway. Of course, there are many (so many) other things to learn on your romantasy journey, like discovering what tropes you really like. To smut or not to smut, being one of the biggest. Then there’s world-building, conflict, enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, special abilities, and even dragons, if you want. With opportunity abundant, here are the 10 I’d recommend everyone should read. At least once.

10. THRONE OF GLASS (SARAH J. MAAS)

Amongst the great writers of the romantasy genre, you’ll find one name that has really garnered the attention and love of many online (and off), Sarah J. Maas. While her famed ACOTAR series will feature later on in our list, the Throne of Glass series came first and in my personal opinion, it’s one of her greatest.

Celaena Sardothien is an assassin with a complicated past. Liberated from prison and handpicked to fight for her freedom, she enters a competition against other miscreants to become the King’s champion. But, the King of Adarlan is not a man she wants any dealings with.

Celaena’s journey is anything but simple with an expansive world full of intense characters. It also wouldn’t be romantasy without some sizzling courtships. I’ve read all eight books in the series and while Tower of Dawn is a personal favourite, it’s important to start at the very beginning.

• Out now / Buy it: £4.98

9. FOURTH WING (REBECCA YARROS)

In Fourth Wing, Violent Sorrengail joins the Basgiath War College, forced by her mother to train to become a dragon rider. Magic, dragons, fantasy, epic world-building, and, of course, a lot of romance culminate in a series that has been hyped up a lot on TikTok. That may be a good thing or a bad thing, but you know where I sit considering the recommendation.

If you’re wondering about the balance of genres, it’s light fantasy and heavy romance with an intense tension that builds throughout.

It’s sometimes compared to Harry Potter, given its school setting and coming-of-age tales, but only if Hogwarts had dragons, epic battles, and villains that are arguably worse than Voldemort. Known as the Empyrean series, there are two more to read, with Yarros already planning for book 4.

• Out now / Buy it: £4.98

8. CARAVAL (STEPHANIE GARBER)

A tale of two sisters, Tella and Scarlet, as they embark on an epic journey to witness Caraval, a performance that only happens once-a-year. And it’s a pretty big deal, worthy of a story, considering the sisters have never left the tiny island they grew up on. Only they’re not just there to watch. Tella is to be part of the main event, whether she likes it or not. With dangerous games twisting their already unusual reality into even more chaos, the sisters have to navigate a high-stakes game that threatens to destroy everything.

Described as “Magic. Mystery. Adventure,” there’s a light romance in the first book that acts more as a sub-plot. But with three books in the series, it gets spicier as you go. Garber has even written a spin-off series, Once Upon a Broken Heart (OUABH), based in the same universe, so reading Caraval marks your first introduction to a long vein of epic storytelling.

• Out now / Buy it: £7.00

7. OUR INFINITE FATES (LAURA STEVEN)

With so many books populating the romantasy genre and more on the way, the struggle to find an original idea becomes even greater. For Our Infinite Fates, it’s the uniqueness of its storyline that makes it an excellent read (if not as well executed as I might’ve hoped for).

Evelyn is killed before she’s 18, every single time, by the same person, Arden. Unfortunately, she has also fallen for him. Only, in her current life, she’s desperate to stay alive to help save her sister, but that means living past 18.

The only way to fight against it is to head into a hellscape to try and break the curse. The tagline: “They’ve loved each other in a thousand lifetimes. They’ve killed each other in every one.”

• Out now / Buy it: £5.48

6. POWERLESS (LAUREN ROBERTS)

When you search for Powerless on Amazon, it comes under the subheading “TikTok Made Me Buy It!” and I did just that. In Ilya, either you’re an Elite, possessing powers that make you extraordinary, or you’re Ordinary.

And while Ordinary citizens are ostracised, Paedyn Gray manages to convince Prince Kai Azer that she’s worth saving, even though she has to lie about who she is and take part in the intense and jaw-clenching Purging Trials to show off her skills.

It’s a deadly Hunger Games-esque twist of a tale with the ever-appreciated enemies-to-lovers trope sizzling throughout. And if you love this first one, you’ll begin to notice a trend with romantasy books: they’re often part of a series. This one’s a trilogy starter, meaning you can grab Reckless and Fearless when you’re done.

• Out now / Buy it: £4.97

5. SILVER ELITE (DANI FRANCIS)

In Silver Elite, you’re not allowed to have a psychic gift. Only Wren Darlington, a powerful psycho Mod, most certainly does. And while she’s been really good at hiding it, she makes a mistake that lands her in the enemy’s training program, Silver Block.

She can’t let on who she is, but she also can’t stop her feelings when Cross Redden, her ruthless commander, turns up. Well, it’s a spicy storm with lots of slow-burn will they, won’t they?

As an almost flip-reverse to the Powerless trilogy, as well as being compared to Fourth Wing, it’s a great read if you’re looking for something full to the brim with romantasy tropes and easy to consume. Plus, there’s a sequel, Broken Dove, that just hit the shelves on 12th May.

• Out now / Buy it: £5.48

4. QUICKSILVER (CALLIE HART)

Unlike a lot of the entries here, Quicksilver is strictly recommended for 17+, rather than YA, because of how violent and, well, adult it is. Saeris Fane is hiding a lot about herself, and she finds herself tossed into the unforgiving lands of Yvelia… and into Fae warrior, Kingfisher. And it’s the way that Hart writes Kingfisher into the book which borders on unforgettable.

It’s as full of battles as it is earth-shattering passion, but if you’re not into the rom-side of things as much as you are the fantasy then this one might be a step too far. As seems to be the case with the genre, it’s divisive. But it’s always worth dipping your toe in different worlds to determine what it is you like about them. If you do like it, there’s the sequel Brimstone to dive into next. Considering it’s her romantasy debut, it’s definitely worth a read.

• Out now / Buy it: £14.87

3. THE WOLF KING (LAUREN PALPHREYMAN)

Inspired by the Scottish Highlands, humans and werewolves are divided, and the war rages on when a princess is kidnapped by a werewolf alpha. As the clans fight amongst the wild mountains, it’s like if Outlander turned into a romantasy novel. Though it’s also not to be confused with Wolf King on Netflix, an adaptation of the Werewolf novels.

If you’re after a fast-paced fantasy that’s full of slow-burn romance and you’re especially intrigued by a worldbuilder heavily influenced by Scotland, then this one’s for you. And you can follow Princess Aurora through the trilogy, and this tri doesn’t just relate to the number of books, but to a love triangle that ripples throughout.

• Out now / Buy it: £10.36

2. THE SERPENT AND THE WINGS OF NIGHT (CARISSA BROADBENT)

Carissa Broadbent sounds like the name of someone in a romantasy novel, but it is, in fact, the author of many great titles in the genre. And her Crowns of Nyaxia series is most certainly worth a read, spanning six books (two yet TBA) with two optional standalones full of vampires, gods, magic, monsters, and intrigue.

Coined on her Instagram as “#1 NYT bestselling author of books with magic & kissing”, that’s certainly what you’ll get. Serving as book one, The Serpent and The Wings of Night follows Oraya, an adopted human daughter with a vampire king for a dad, competing in the Kejari to fight her way to the top. Only, surprise, surprise, there’s a romance that threatens to throw her off course.

• Out now / Buy it: £4.46

1. A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES (SARAH J. MAAS)

Step into almost any bookstore and browse the shelves of the romantasy genre, and you’ll quickly notice the vibrant spines of the A Court of Thrones and Roses series. ACOTAR, for short. For many, this is where Maas really demonstrates her world-building expertise, introducing readers to 19-year-old Feyre Archeron and the faerie land of Prythian.

This is possibly one of the genre’s most prominent examples of the major tropes you can enjoy, including enemies-to-lovers, as well as fated mates. If you’re yet to read it, you’ll start at the series’ namesake.

Once you’ve read all five in the series, you’ll be pleased to hear book 6 and 7 are already scheduled for release on October 27, 2026 and January 12, 2027, respectively. So, now is as good a time as any to get into the ACOTAR series and start your romantasy journey.

• Out now / Buy it: £4.98

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Fabrice Gueroux used to take just a few minutes to work out whether a watch that one of his clients planned to buy was a fake or not. These days, says watch consultant and author of Real & Fake Watches, the process can take days and require taking apart the watch.

“You can sometimes close your eyes and hold a counterfeit in your hands and there’s something that doesn’t feel right about it, but you need deep knowledge of the genuine watch for that and, of course, that’s what most people don’t have,” says Gueroux.

“With enough time even the best fake shows itself, and the best ones have put in the extra time on the paintwork, the fonts, the bracelet. But even I’m surprised by just how good a counterfeit can now be. Really, this is a battle the manufacturers [of the genuine articles] can’t win”.

Gueroux puts that down to the rise of what he calls the ‘super-fake’, which has come about, perversely, through the professionalisation of the counterfeit industry. A few years ago counterfeits were made buy a handful of well-known Chinese mega-factories, making the kind of low grade rip-off you'd see in street markets. More recently factories have opened in Thailand, Vietnam and elsewhere, all to feed a booming demand fuelled by the internet, which has created an accessible global market.

This has meant more revenue to invest in the latest manufacturing equipment and better quality counterfeits. Watches now represent around 30% of all counterfeit consumer goods. (Far, far more problematic is the counterfeiting of the likes of, erm, aircraft parts… but that's another story.)

In fact, there’s now something of an arms race in quality for fakes. A 2023 report by the pre-owned watch dealer Watchfinder & Co noted that, just a few years earlier, 80% of fakes that came its way were easily identified as fakes, with 20% requiring closer inspection. Those figures had now flipped. No wonder most lay people can't tell the difference.

Sticking it to the man — and the muggers

Some sellers of counterfeits have got cleverer too: a counterfeit used to be priced in a way that made it obvious to all but the foolish that it was a fake; now they tend to be priced in a way that still represents a bargain, but not such a suspicious one. And that's bad news for the wider secondary market. It means more and more people are selling their watches believing them to be the real mccoy.

It’s why around 40 million fakes are now circulated every year, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. That’s around 10 million more watches than the Swiss industry itself produces. Some argue that the industry - which tends to argue the moral case that counterfeit watches costs jobs, or are a way of laundering drug money, and so on - isn’t helping itself either. Some brands limit access to the most desirable models by only selling to those customers with a track record of shopping with it, by black-listing those known to (quite legitimately) have later sold their watches on, and so forth. Some customers - even those with the money - maybe figure it’s easier just to buy a counterfeit.

And there’s a twist here. The idea that people only buy a counterfeit because they can't afford the genuine article no longer holds. Of course that’s true for a lot of purchases, but some buy as a way of sticking it to the man - seeing expensive watches as symbolic of everything that’s tasteless and divisive about 21st century status symbols. Such is the proliferation of watch muggings now that some buy a counterfeit of a watch they own to wear in its stead, somewhat reducing that ownership to investment in asset class rather than something to be enjoyed.

Fast fake fanclubs

But there’s another reason. According to Xuemei Ban, professor of marketing at Northumbria University in Newcastle - who has carried out the most in-depth research to date into why people buy fakes - ones of the primary reasons is fun. This spans both seeing watches as part of fast fashion. A fake allows buyers to wear the ‘it watch’ of the moment, knowing well that they’ll have lost interest in it this time next year.

But, more unexpectedly, there are many others now taking pleasure in counterfeits as counterfeits, especially as their accuracy becomes more and more impressive. Look online and there are plenty of fake appreciation groups - whose members necessarily need to know a lot about watches.

“Of course people would be much less willing to buy a counterfeit watch for the design alone, if it wasn’t a matter of [buying into a status] brand,” says Ban.

“And while in terms of its function a counterfeit may not be as good as the original, it still serves a purpose [in that it still tells the time] and lasts long enough to make economic sense. It’s like buying a fake Manchester United shirt. For the few times you’re going to wear it, the fake works.

“But wearing a counterfeit gives them a certain satisfaction,” Ban continues. “It’s not just that there’s little risk of [a fall in social standing] for them to wear a counterfeit. It’s that in doing so it cuts against social norms, and there’s enjoyment in that for them. For many a fake is just another way of interacting with the brands they love”.

Ban argues that the fact that counterfeits are bought by their target audience is the hardest thing for the legitimate watch industry to get its head around. And its not doing very well, which, she says, is why just its habit of just telling us that ‘fakes are wrong’ tends to fall on deaf ears.

“Moral considerations don’t have a significant role,” in the debate, she says, That’s all the more likely when most consumers of counterfeiters aren’t even aware of the potential legal penalties - in most countries buying a counterfeit watch is, technically, illegal - let alone any wider ramifications for society.

So what's the solution for the industry? According to Gueroux, introducing ever more complex anti-counterfeiting measures is a waste of time and money, because the counterfeiters will always find a way around them. Or, more specifically, of copying these too.

“All those anti-counterfeiting measures are just BS,” he says, bluntly. The only answer, hew argues, is for it to push ever harder on improving the quality of its watches, through pushes on innovation and materials. Its one reason why the use of ceramic and titanium, for example, have rapidly become commonplace in high-end watches.

That’s great news for those who appreciate - and can afford - the quality, but naturally it also drives up prices. And what does that do? Yes, it also drives demand for counterfeits.

• 5 iconic watches (and the affordable alternatives everyone can enjoy)

When it comes to capitals, London has a famously green reputation. With over 20% of the metropolis designated as public green space, it’s no wonder it earned the moniker ‘the City of Parks’; finding foliage within walking distance of wherever you might be doesn’t usually take long.

However, many bipedal city dwellers will know that much of the best greenery is locked away; in fact, there are around 600 private gardens throughout the city, fenced off for the exclusive use of their well-to-do residents. Many times, I’ve been caught clutching the black iron railings, my face squished between the bars like a prisoner trying to break into the meticulously manicured spaces.

Well luckily, this summer, across the weekend of June 6th and 7th, gardens in 12 London boroughs will pull back the railings for us regular types. The London Open Gardens Day unlocks over 120 gardens throughout the city, accessible for two-days (some for just one day) with a modestly-priced ticket (free to under 12s), the proceeds of which go to the London Parks and Gardens charity which helps maintain the city’s green spaces. This year, there'll also be events such as walks and tours – and even a cycle ride – for keen participants.

You can plan which ones to visit based on your interests, whether its history, horticulture or simply location using the London Garden Trust’s Garden selector. Each garden opens at different times, so be sure to check carefully ahead of travel.

Here are five of our faves to get you started:

1. Middle Temple

• Where to find it: Entrance near Blackstone Chambers. Nearest postcode: EC4Y 9AT

Often whooshed past by commuters travelling along Victoria Embankment, this treat of a park behind the Church of the Knights’ Templar is usually the exclusive purview of barristers practising at the Inns of Court.

A visit inside reveals a flourishing vegetable garden, mulberry trees planted to celebrate Queen Victoria's Jubilee and beds of scented lavender and rose. Dating back to the 12th century, this cocoon of greenery was galvanising to many artists: Charles Dickens found inspiration here for the likes of Great Expectations, while The Bard was prompted to set a scene of his play Henry VI, part 1, in this very spot.

2. Rosmead Garden

• Where to find it: Rosmead Road (step access only), Notting Hill. Nearest postcode: W11 2JG

Part of the larger Ladbroke Estate, this garden is one of a number conceived in 1823 by London architect Thomas Allason, laid out in concentric crescent shapes throughout the area (see also Arundel Gardens).

Sitting at the bottom of Notting Hill, Rosmead flanks multi-million pound, stuccoed houses and is filled with evergreen shrubberies and three large, oval-shaped lawns. However, what makes it stand out from its neighbours is its blockbuster credentials: this beautiful pocket of serenity is the very same Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant clambered into one night in the classic 1999 rom-com Notting Hill. If you’re after a set-jetting snap, we don’t recommend breaking in, simply visit between 10am-5pm on Sunday 7th (it’s not open on Saturday 6th).

3. Eversheds Sutherland rooftop garden

• Where to find it: 1 Wood Street. Enter the main reception. Nearest postcode: EC2V 7WS

Focused on bee-friendly flora, this rooftop garden is a wild hideaway in the heart of the City of London. Hidden on the top of a Superdrug near St. Paul’s, it provides a thriving pocket of biodiversity essential to insect life.

The garden, which is managed by a group of volunteer gardeners, is specifically designed to promote a breeding ground for the endangered black restart, a small, Sparrowlike bird in the flycatcher family. The gardeners’ efforts have been acknowledged by a number of awards, including the Most Innovative Design Award. It’s a wonderfully wild patch of nature to explore, crowned by beautiful views across the city, including across the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

4. Emery Walker's House

• Where to find it: 7 Hammersmith Terrace. Nearest postcode: W6 9TS

Once owned by notable 19th-century artist Emery Walker, this garden is like a time capsule; it’s been kept much the same as it was over 100 years ago. To wander its terracotta-tiled path is to tread on ground over 120-years old (the tiles are original from 1898) and the plants are primarily those found in the diaries of Emery’s daughter, Dorothy, who inherited the house on his death in 1933. Roses, wisteria, an ancient jasmine and vine planted over 100-years-ago are highlights.

Those with a design mind may notice nods to Emery’s friend, the seminal designer William Morris. Some flowerbeds feature plants popular in his designs, and inside, the house sports many of Morris’ original textiles and furnishings.

5. Eccleston Square

• Where to find it: Outside no. 15 (north/west gate). Nearest postcode: SW1V 1NP

It’s hard to believe this beautiful private garden in Pimlico was once a swamp, but that is indeed its heritage. Now with a tennis court at one end and a circular walkway at the other, it’s a cookie-cutter example of London’s much coveted residential squares.

What makes it truly stand out though, is its global nature. A collection of ceanothus, hailing from California, can be seen flourishing alongside giant Mexican Dahlia, a Guatemalan white sunflower tree and, remarkably, a Wollemi pine donated from Australia, once thought to be extinct. Tree peonies and a variety of climbing roses make for enthusiastically colourful accents, all part of a smart planting plan which has something blooming year-round.

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Sometimes a quiet pint in a cozy pub will hit the spot – but there are other occasions that call for something a bit different!

For years a plethora of experience bars has mushroomed across the capital. Some offer full immersion, transporting punters to another time or a fictional location, with actors adding to the theatricality. Then there are of course the city’s broad array of activity and game-based bars.

Here we're picking 10 of the best venues offering amazing experiences while you drink and eat – whether it’s donning a jump suit and sitting in a cell or taking on your friends for a round of crazy golf. If you’re organising a work social, a birthday gathering or you’re just wanting to change things up from sitting in the pub, this list has got you covered.

1. Cahoots Underground

• 13 Kingly Court, Carnaby Street, W1B 5PW

One of a group of three 1940s themed bars, Cahoots Underground, as the name suggests, is housed in an abandoned tube station where you’ll find yourself sitting in a highly convincing replica of a 1940s underground train carriage. The bar offers up some mighty fine cocktails in this detailed, fun and unique setting. Why not combine it with its sister bar in the old ticket hall of the same station, which is accessed from Kingly Street, just around the corner? The group’s third location is Cahoots Postal Office in London Bridge, and is just as fun.

2. Alcotraz: Cell Block Two-One-Two

• Unit 3B, 127 Hackney Road, E2 8GY

Alcotraz offers an utterly unique theatrical prison experience. Punters (or ‘inmates’ as you become on entering) are furnished with a fetching orange jump suit and locked in a cell. The aim is to smuggle a bottle of spirits in, which is then used to craft personalised cocktails by the corrupt prison guards/mixologists. Your booking lasts an hour and three quarters and every detail from the cells to the actions of the guards is on point. This is perfect for a special occasion, stag or hen do. It’s not cheap, costing £51 per person, but it’s an experience that will never be forgotten.

3. Mr Fogg’s Society of Exploration

• 1A Bedford Street, WC2E 9HH

Part of a group of themed bars that draw inspiration from the classic Jules Verne novel Around The World In Eighty Days, this venue is bound to delight with its attention to detail, quirky artefacts and amazing cocktails. Visitors can marvel at the bar’s weird and wonderful mechanical cocktail maker, and there’s also a full-size Victorian train carriage, which plays host to tabletop murder mystery events.

4. Electric Shuffle

• 10 Bermondsey Street, SE1 2ER

Housed in the red brick arches under London bridge station, this game-focussed venue offers shuffleboard, drinks, pizza and small plates. One of the many activity bars to open in recent years, it fills up with groups enjoying a classic pub game in a modern setting, with a decent selection of drinks. What’s not to love? There’s also a sister venue located at Canary Wharf.

5. 58th Street

• 33 Rye Lane, SE15 3SN

Created by The Lost Estate experience company, 58^th Street offers an immersive evening that takes punters to 1930s New York. Modelled on the venues of the jazz age, the creators have gone to huge lengths to get the details right, from the swinging jazz to the drinks on offer and the six course menu. Technically running for a limited time as a pop-up, it is scheduled to be part of the London scene until at least the end of 2027.

6. Swingers

• John Prince's Street, W1G 0AB

As bars and venues offering activities seemed to be popping up everywhere in London, a game of crazy golf with colleagues or friends became an almost ubiquitous social activity. Swingers is one of the best to do it – offering a fun and well thought out course. The bar serves up a decent range of wine, beer and cocktails, while the food offering comes courtesy of street food vendors.

7. Four Quarters Arcade Bar — Peckham

• 187 Rye Lane, SE15 4TW

Enjoy classic arcade games, while drinking craft beer at this laid-back Peckham based arcade bar. Perfect for those wanting to indulge in a bit of nostalgia, courtesy of the fantastic array of retro games on offer. The food offering is ‘American diner classics’, which fits perfectly with the vibe of the place. Sister sites can be found in Hackney Wick, London Bridge and Elephant and Castle.

8. Evans and Peel Detective Agency

• 310c Earls Court Road, SW5 9BA

Running since 2012, Evans and Peel Detective Agency is a 1920s prohibition themed speak-easy cocktail bar. Punters enter a “detective office”, where they must present a case to get access to the bar through a hidden bookcase. Known for its attention to detail, staff in character and fine drinks selection, visitors can also expect music from swing to blues on several nights per week.

9. Hexmoor Wizarding Prison

• Unit 11, 127 Hackney Rd, E2 8GY

Created by Inventive Productions, Hexmoor Wizarding Prison requires punters to don jump suits and sit in cells. Lasting an hour and forty-five minutes, this deeply immersive experience involves live-action storytelling courtesy of the venue’s cast of actors, plus a range of “magical cocktails”. A good one for Harry Potter heads.

10. Flight Club

• 6 Sir Simon Milton Square, SW1E 5DJ

Part of a chain that has four venues in London and a number in other locations around the country, Flight Club offers social darts in a lively, booze-fuelled setting. Like the pubs of old then, before bars like this stole their thunder! The Victoria venue is one of their best, with its individually themed oches and fairground theme. The bar area is also beautifully designed and features a strong drinks list. Punters can expect a series of mini games using the dart board, rather than just the conventional game, though that's on offer, too.

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Open up an A-Z of British Trailblazers and under “I” for “icon” you’d find Russell T Davies. The writer has penned the heartbreaking and record breaking moments from hit series like It’s a Sin, Doctor Who, and Queer as Folk just to name a few. His latest drama heading to Channel 4 is another ruthlessly brilliant, forensic examination into queer lives in the modern day Manchester.

Tip Toe stars Alan Cumming as Leo, owner of a queer bar in Manchester and David Morrissey his long-standing neighbor Clive, who quickly become embroiled in a feud. Davies said the show that reveals a sliding back of gay rights and showcases how the terrors of the online world have become mainstream. Imagine an Adolescence but for queer culture instead of incel culture.

The show spotlights the LGBTQIA+ experience in Manchester but as Davies himself has highlighted, whilst the show comes from a “queer lens” it's ultimately about “the war between two neighbors and the radicalization of society.”

Ahead of the show’s release on 31st May, we sat down with Russel T Davies, Alan Cumming, and David Morrissey over a couple of bourbon biscuits and a cuppa to chat about balancing the joys of working on the show with the emotional and mental toll its creation took.

SL: One of the things you [Russell] have done brilliantly across all your shows is giving permission for your characters to be messy. Even though we’re seeing a lot more queer characters in mainstream shows, they’re often whittled down to become almost straight-presenting. I love that Tip Toe shows the messiness and the variety of queer stories. What was it like creating that?

Russell T Davies: That’s exactly how I wanted it to come across; there’s almost an uncomfortable gayness at times and I wanted characters like Benny from the Bewery who is so sexualised that it makes [Morrisseys character] wince. Talking about all sorts of difference sexual encounters – I think that’s the first time “ropes” has ever been broadcast!

SL: Thank you so much for that by the way

Russell [laughing]: I’m really glad you like that. So I’m very keen on getting that messy reality across – like when Leo over sexualises things and goes a little bit too far with his stories, it’s much more interesting

SL: It was really interesting the way Tip Toe shows the difference between how much freer and more open people are when they’re in a dedicated, queer space versus how they are in a more straight place. Like how funny and outrageous Leo is in his club, versus how much more reserved he is interacting with Clive. And then on the other side of that situation, when you’ve got Clive [Morrissey] coming into Leo’s queer club [Spit & Polish] how visibly uncomfortable he is. What was that dynamic like to explore?

David Morrissey: It’s different times and different attitudes for Clive. You know, he gets a glimpse of Leo’s life being his neighbour, but he only knows him in that context. It’s funny at the club, seeing the dynamic of Leo becoming Clive’s boss, and Clive having to beg for some work. But for me, what’s interesting is when Clive goes into the club of his own volition, you see there’s a curiosity there, and a small desire for him to understand Leo’s world. And that’s a really lovely moment, and adds to the dynamic between the two

Alan Cumming: It was really amazing, I think the writing is so obviously brilliant, but also the nuance of this subject matter. It makes people feel so much, and helps to understand and empahthise with people - about everybody - to understand how we both arrive at things

I was on board from after the first five seconds into the Zoom meeting. Everything about it was more and better and certainly harder and more demanding and more challenging. It wasn’t “a joy” to do, but it was I felt like we were doing something amazing and important, and doing it in a way that you don’t often see.

SL: I loved episode three in particular, it was like the Daily Mail-ification of a story, as that episode in particular shows so brilliantly how different perspectives, create hugely different versions of an event, and how things can be so cruelly twisted. The cast is brilliant with you two in the lead, but the wider cast seem great as well. How important are those relationships when you’re filming such heavy material? Was it a lot fo dipping in and out of the serious filming and then relief of being out of it?

Russell: Obviously you’ve got two titans of theatre in the show, but it was great as well when you look at Spit & Polish, you’ve got such a great young cast bringing the show to life. In the fifth episode you’ve got the football crowd, who couldn’t have been nicer in real life. A lot of the cast knew each other, have put on shows together and it was lovely to see them come together. The staff at Spit & Polish represent this huge hope for the future of young people and it was joyous to see that offscreen as well. They’re all still mates.

Alan: They’re so sweet, the group chat is still going

David: Yeah, they’re messaging Alan about today

SL: Ahh that’s so nice. I hope the group chat is called Spit & Polish…

David: The fact that we [Alan and I] have known each other for a long time meant that going into this, we had a strong connection already. We knew it was going to be intense, and quite heavy so going in and doing that with someone you’ve only just met would have been much harder. One of the first scenes we did it’s just us walking down the street together and chatting, and at the end of it, Russel came out and went “Can I just say that’s the first time you two have been on set together for forty years.” And I was like, Oh my god I’d forgotten!

Alan: To have finally worked with both of them, and to have a source of friendship, it gave a sense of security which allowed us to go deeper. We were able to get more crazy.

I feel in a way no that dissimilar to Leo, you know he’s a man of my age (61), I run a bar, I have lived through all those things – I’m not HIV positive – but I’ve lived through all those things and fears. All the issues and attitudes prevailing in the show I’ve dealt with. So I felt so deeply and sort of in parallel with the story, I felt so personally connected to it as a human.

David: And that was the whole crew. You’d chat and stand around and laugh with people, and then we’d go and film the most awful sequence.

Alan: People were so emotional and really open about the emotional connections to it

SL: It's quite intense from the very opening scene so I imagine you probably need that connection on set. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say...

David: With the time structure of the show, it starts with the ending, so it’s not really a who dunnit, it’s a why dunnit.

SL: Perfect

• "Between us and Paw Patrol, it’s going to be a better world": Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo talk fighting the far-right in season two of Criminal Record

There are two kinds of Londoners in spring. The first lot buy SPF 50, book a train to Margate and pretend they’ve always preferred pebbles to pavements. The second lot climb onto the nearest rooftop with a £16 cocktail and stare meaningfully at the skyline while pretending they’re in a perfume advert.

There are also two kinds of London in spring. The first hovers around the 12-degree mark and comes with an umbrella, while the second boils the mercury and turns the Thames into a riviera.

Sabine Holborn is ready for both eventualities. A rooftop terrace with a difference, it’s following in the footsteps of its St Paul’s counterpart, with great views, great drinks and an easy-going atmosphere — and is a top choice for seeing in next week’s sweltering heatwave.

WHERE IS IT?

You’ll find Sabine Holborn perched on top of the NYX Hotel in Holborn, just a short stumble from Holborn station and within easy walking distance of Covent Garden, Bloomsbury and the British Museum. It’s a great location to cap off a day of adventuring in the capital — or to settle in for a night of fun.

It’s a summer-y vibe to decor, with coral tones, rattan chairs and floral prints. Yep, there’s the de rigeur neon quote sign for the ‘gram, but it's otherwise a tasteful and breezy spot.

WHAT’S SPECIAL?

London has no shortage of rooftop bars, but Sabine Holborn has a secret weapon — it’s got a retractable motorised roof and windows that make it ready for any weather eventuality. That’s a smart move in London, where rooftop season often lasts roughly eleven minutes.

If the sky has a wobble and comes over all grey and moody, the windows roll up and the roof is pulled over for a cosy hideaway. But when the sun’s ready to put on a show, that can all be stripped back with a moment’s notice with a motorised system that invites the rays back in and the sunglasses back on.

WHAT’S NEW?

The whole venue is new, a makeover from the previous bar space at the hotel’s top. Sabine Holborn is the brand’s second London location, opening in spring 2026 after the runaway popularity of the St Paul’s original.

The drinks list focuses on signature cocktails and lighter serves alongside a menu of small plates and sharing dishes. There’s also a stronger events focus here, with private hire spaces and flexible seating designed for birthdays, launches and corporate shindigs.

WHO SHOULD YOU BRING?

A date, definitely. Few things flatter mediocre flirting like a skyline view and low lighting.

It’s also ideal for post-work drinks with colleagues you actually like, birthdays where nobody wants a sticky pub carpet, or visiting friends who insist they want some nice photos to come back home with. This is not really a family lunch sort of place unless your children enjoy £15 cocktails and house music.

WHAT SHOULD YOU WEAR?

Smart casual is the sweet spot. You can probably get away with clean trainers, but this isn’t the place for football shirts. You can also safely dress optimistically for the best possible weather — if it all goes wrong, that roof comes to the rescue.

WHAT WILL YOU PAY?

Cocktails hover around the typical central London rooftop range — expect roughly £14 - £18 a drink. Small plates and sharing dishes mean a proper evening of drinks and food will probably land somewhere around £60 - £90 per person if you’re letting go rather than budgeting aggressively. Expensive? A bit. Outrageous by rooftop-bar standards? Not really.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DRINK?

The signature cocktails are the obvious move here. Sabine’s wider brand already leans into floral, botanical serves and skyline-friendly presentation, so you’ll find plenty of elegant glassware and drinks designed for the eyes as well as the tastebuds.

If they carry over favourites from St Paul’s, you’re looking at spritz variations, seasonal signatures and lighter aperitif-style cocktails rather than heavy old-fashioneds. The non-alcoholic options also sound more thoughtful than the usual sad lemonade situation, which is increasingly rare for London rooftops.

We settled on three of the signature serves:

First up was the Aurelian (£19.50, Belvedere Pure, Ancho Reyes Chile, Passion Fruit, Lemongrass & Mango Tea, tonic), a herbal, lightly spiced mule-meets-highball that proved refreshingly dry.

Next up was the Sol Feugo 3. (£19, Volcan de mi Tierra Reposado, Cointreau Noir, Pineapple and Pandan), a tropical take on an Old Fashioned, with sweet fruit and citric orange notes.

Finally we gave the Amber Mirage a go (£19, Glenmorangie X, Ardberg 10, Peach, Apple and Sage), the two whiskies duelling with their peaty and vanilla-y textures against the crisp apple and peach flavours, served tall.

There’s a tightly-curated wine menu too if cocktails aren’t your thing, and a greatest hits package of top-notch whisky if you’re after a short. The bar team is happy to go off the menu too, and served us up a great classic Old Fashioned to send us on our way.

MUST-TRY DISHES?

The menu revolves around small plates and elevated bar snacks rather than full-scale dining, but that’s probably the right call when most people are here to drink and stare at the skyline.

We tucked away three simple but delicious dishes: Sourdough bread (£9), whose expensive price tag was easy to swallow given its warm and fluffy texture, paired with delicious whipped chilli and lime butter; Salt and Pepper Calamari Fries (£15), serving up the seafood more like a mozzarella stick than a traditional calamari plate, making them ideal for sharing; and the Lamb Kofta (£20), served with a Biwaz salad and rich tahini, the meat perfectly spiced, with just enough bite to its grilled outer coating.

It’s also worth noting that my guest for the night had a unique dietary allergy — one he said isn’t always very well catered for at cocktail bars. But the incredible staff at Sabine Holborn were attentive and careful throughout, in a way that let him enjoy himself without keeping one eye on the EpiPen.

GET ON THE GUESTLIST?

Sabine Holborn is a game of London rooftop bingo that you’ve already won: skyline views, dangerously drinkable cocktails, and the safety net feature of a covered option if the skies open. You can book in advance with the will-it-wont-it weather, and be safe in the knowledge you’re guaranteed a great time whatever the heavens prescribe.

Reservations are strongly advised as a result, especially for sunset slots and weekends, and if the weather holds, expect this one to become one of the capital’s busiest rooftop hangs by mid-summer.

Sabine Holborn can be found at, 50 – 60 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4AR, at the top of the NYX Hotel. Make a reservation through Sevenrooms.

• Game, set and catch-of-the-day: A preview guide to the Wimbledon 2026 tennis tournament's best food spots

For most people, the Jurassic period means one thing: dinosaurs. But during the time that dinosaurs stomped across the land and pterosaurs soared through the skies, deadly marine reptiles were cruising through the ocean, devouring other animals.

The Natural History Museum’s latest exhibition, Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep, brings these ancient sea creatures to life once more. People can see (and even touch) some of these formidable beasts through the exhibits, many of which are on public display for the first time. I was lucky enough to have an early sneak-peek at what's on show.

Visitors are immediately plunged into the prehistoric underwater world. Rippling shadows dance along the room’s deep blue walls from swathes of fabric draped across the ceiling, and dragon-like monsters swoop across huge TV screens.

There's an enormous amphibian – the size of a crocodile – with a split in its skull. This clue hints at how it may have died: experts think a tree landed on top of it.

Then, there’s the chance to touch the cast of an ichthyosaur skull to get to grips with how massive this creature’s eyes would have been. Its huge peepers gave it the best chance of finding prey in deep, dark waters and, in some specimens, they were massive. This skull is from a nine-metre beastie discovered by 14-year-old Joseph Anning in 1811.

Some ichthyosaurs could grow as long as 25 metres – longer than a tennis court – and their eyes would have been around the size of a dinner plate.

Later, a replica reveals what this ferocious animal would have looked like: a cross between a shark and a dolphin. It thrashed its head from side to side to snap up fish with its long tooth-filled snout. Thanks to preserved soft tissue, experts even know what colour it was. Its streamlined body was a dark grey on top and lighter on its underside. This ‘countershading’ made it harder to see from both above and below, suggesting something even bigger and more terrifying in the water may have wanted to take a bite of it.

Interactive history

While exploring, visitors are invited to touch skull casts and real prehistoric teeth. There’s even the chance to get handsy with a 200-million-year old turd. Thankfully, the coprolite (Jurassic poo) is much less unpleasant than a fresh dung sample.

Perhaps the star of the show is the three-dimensional cast of a plesiosaur that guests can walk around to fully appreciate the impressive length of its elongated neck, which may have enabled the strange creature to sneak up on prey in murky waters.

“We’re used to seeing plesiosaurs laid out flat in slabs with more of a two dimensional pancake-like view,” says Dr Marc Jones, curator of fossil reptiles at the Museum and the exhibition’s lead scientist, speaking of the new exhibitions immersive benefits.

“You can walk all the way around and have a look at it from every different angle.”

Experts once believed that plesiosaurs had flexible necks like a swan, Jones explains, but they’re much more rigid: “When they were first being understood 200 years ago, Reverend Buckland described them as a snake threaded through the body of a turtle.”

These animals are so unlike anything we know on the planet today that they influenced academic understanding of extinction.

“They were a bigger deal than dinosaurs in some ways,” says Jones.

“They have this body plan that just doesn't exist today so this fed directly into discussions of extinction, whether animals could go extinct, and the age of the earth.”

Although these long-extinct beasties seem worlds away from many of the animals in our ocean today, the museum’s curators want guests to recognise the similarities with species that still exist, such as horseshoe crabs and autiluses – both of which have been on the planet for hundreds of millions of years.

Relationships within the food web are similar in today’s ocean: phytoplankton (plant-like plankton) create energy from sunlight and are eaten by small animals. Those are chomped by larger animals and so on, all the way up the food chain to the fiercest apex predators.

“The Triassic and the Jurassic are really a warning to us,” says Jones. Back then, the Earth was much warmer and more humid, the oceans were more than 130 metres deeper than they are today, and there was much more carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.

“You have a much warmer world because of this CO2 and we've put over 2000 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere in the space of 200 years,” he says.

There was also much less oxygen in the ocean because of warmer waters and plankton blooms. “There was lots of extinction among vertebrates, and they think it's because of poorly oxygenated waters,” he says.

In the Jurassic period, the environment was changing much more slowly than it is today but many creatures still went extinct.

“Even climate change taking [place over] millions of years has impacts on the ecosystem and the animals that live in it,” says Jones, “so that should tell us something to be wary of: what we're doing to the atmosphere.”

Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep opens May 22nd, 2026

Times: Monday – Sunday 10.00-17.50 (last entry 16.30)   
Prices: Peak: Adult £17.50, child £8.75   
Off-peak: Adult £15.00, child £7.50 
Members, patrons and children under 4 go free 
Concessions available 

Get Tickets: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/jurassic-oceans.html 

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Wimbledon and food go together like, well, strawberries and cream. The historic tennis tournament has been serving up delicious near-court treats throughout its 150 year+ lifespan. But this year is the first time ever that they have invited folks to try some of the food before a ball is played.

Shortlist was among the select few that recently taste tested a sampler menu — all within the prestigious walls of the Champions’ Room no less — which took in the breadth of the upcoming restaurant menus available to the general public.

We are pleased to report that each dish tried was a Grand Slam when it came to taste; the food on offer laced with sustainability, provenance and the occasional cheeky nod to the championship itself.

The new menu was created under the umpire-like precision of Sam Morgan, who enters his fifth Championships at the AELTC, but marking his first year leading the line as Executive Chef.

There was a lot on offer and the sample menu took in the myriad restaurants available — including The Cavendish, Centenary Restaurant and Brasserie, The Wingfield and Walled Garden — to the public.

While most of these are already booked up, if you manage to squeeze yourself into one while watching the tournament, here are 5 of our favourite dishes you need to try out…

1. Fried artichokes and roasted cauliflower

• Starring in: The Cavendish

This starter can be found in the Cavendish and is a real treat for the senses. The cauliflower — from Hammonds in Nottingham — had a nuttiness in both texture and taste, while the earthiness of the fried artichoke was a delight. All of this was topped off with a rich whipped cauliflower yoghurt and chimichurri for added spice.

2. Royal Parks Venison Tartare Croustade

• Starring in: Centenary Brasserie

Wow. This was our first ever venison tartare and it did not disappoint. The meat is quite lean so it made for a really strong taste, complemented by an unctuous caramelised onion purée, spring onion emulsion and pickles. This dish was truly fit for royalty and there may be a reason for this: the venison has been sourced from the Royal Windsor Park in Berkshire.

3. Grilled Crevettes

• Starring in: Century Restaurant

The title of this dish is deceptively simple. Yes, this dish is grilled crevettes (essentially large prawns) but a punch of chimichurri, the char of the prawns and it being bathed in a superb nduja butter sauce elevates this dish to a whole other level.

4. Fried Chicken with Hot Strawberry Sauce

• Starring in: Walled Garden concessions

This was something of a game changer. The fried chicken was crispy with a lovely heat, but it was the accompanying dipping sauce that sells this dish. Made from tomatoes and Wimbledon strawberries, this aji is glorious and a lovely spin on a Wimbledon classic. It was the highlight dish for us, giving the chicken a tantalising tang, that was made even better thanks to the pickled red onions and superb slaw. Available from concession stands, you won't need a sit-down reservation to try it either.

5. Wimbledon strawberries and cream

• Starring in: EVERYWHERE!

Cop out? Absolutely not. There is no way you can head to Wimbledon and not try the Wimbledon strawberries and cream. Grown by Hugh Lowe Farms in Kent, the strawberries we tried have been supplied to Wimbledon for over 25 years and there is good reason they keep going back to this farm: they are plump and incredibly juicy. The freshness of the strawberries is essential and you couldn’t get much fresher: they are hand picked each morning and delivered fresh to the grounds.

If any of these tennis treats take your fancy, then head to Wimbledon’s official reservation site to try and get yourself a seat.

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The Mandalorian and Grogu land on Disney+ on May 22 (Today), representing a (mostly) well-earned big screen reward for the breakout Star Wars TV show.

How did this humble spin-off show become the first Star Wars movie to hit cinemas in seven long years? Largely thanks to the show’s fabulous first two seasons (the less said about the third, the better), which focused on the seedier side of the Star Wars mythos, and framed the results as a lean sci-fi Western.

Its titular bounty hunter, played almost entirely with his helmet on by Pedro Pascal, is every inch the kind of laconic gunslinger you might find in a Sergio Leone movie – albeit with indestructible armour and a rocket pack.

That’s only half the story, of course. The other major character here is Grogu – essentially Yoda as a kid, conceptually speaking – who quickly stole hearts and helped catapult The Mandalorian into the big time.

All of which got us to thinking about the wider Star Wars universe, and which minor properties and characters might deserve their own standalone film. Which characters, stories and games would you like to see given the full cinematic treatment?

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

There have been a whole bunch of Star Wars video games over the decades that have fleshed out the universe as well as any TV show or novelisation. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic has to be chief among them, and it would make a rip-roaring film.

It’s set 4,000 years before the original film trilogy, which is already excitingly untouched territory for a live-action treatment. It also features the kind of twisty, turn plot that honours the heritage of the franchise, as you take on the role of a Jedi exile with a shadowy past.

The High Republic

We’ve already seen The High Republic covered in live-action form, but the Disney+ series The Acolyte (above) didn’t exactly tear up any trees and left much of this fascinating era unexplored.

The High Republic is the name given to a series of stories set hundreds of years before Anakin Skywalker came to the fore, thus neatly sidestepping the overused space-Jesus trope that had been explored with increasing tedium throughout the nine mainline films. It depicts a more strident Jedi order at the very height of their power, and with (seemingly) no Sith to check their expansionist tendencies. Talking of which...

The tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise

Darth Plagueis is a shady character who first received a mention in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, when Palpatine spun young Anakin a yarn (or did he?) about a powerful Sith Lord who gained the power over life and death.

His story has since been fleshed out in the wider Star Wars Expanded Universe, but in canonical terms, he only really has a brief cameo at the end of The Acolyte to show for himself. There’s a compelling story to be told about Emperor Palpatine’s mysterious master, and how he operated in the shadows to undermine the Jedi at their height.

Shadows of the Empire

The events of Shadows of the Empire are set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, which poses a bit of a problem, since it covers familiar characters (basically all of the original trilogy cast, minus Han Solo) in their fresh-faced prime.

Lucasfilm’s ropey history of ghoulish CGI recreations surely precludes a live-action treatment, but a high-quality animated feature seems feasible. Among the story’s most interesting elements is its attempt to answer one of the original fan questions – how the Hoth did Luke transition from battered naïf to kick-ass Jedi in just a year?

Rogue Squadron

There were three Star Wars: Rogue Squadron games released on Nintendo consoles between 1998 and 2003. They each effectively took the tense thrill of the original film trilogy’s epic space battles and placed you at the controls of a futuristic X-Wing fighter.

We’re already getting a Star Wars film about a fighter pilot in Star Wars: Starfighter (starring Ryan Gosling), but that’s said to be set well after the events of The Rise of Skywalker. We’d like to be thrown back into the pivotal events of the original trilogy, but from the perspective of a crack Rebel Alliance flight crew.

Lego Star Wars

We got a spin-off movie about the Lego take on Batman, so why not one about Lego Star Wars? It’s one of the most enduringly popular lines that the Danish toy company produces, after all. We’ve also got numerous Lego Star Wars video games to attest to the fact that there’s a huge appetite for this nerdy confluence.

If nothing else, it would be a great way to send up the often po-faced sci-fi franchise without putting too many fan noses out of joint.

Star Wars: Droids

Star Wars fans of a certain age will have fond recollections of Star Wars: Droids – an animated series from 1985 that focused on the exploits of everyone’s favourite robotic comic relief, R2-D2 and C-3PO, in the run-up to the events of the first movie.

It only ran for a single season of 13 episodes, but that’s more than enough to prove that they could carry a whole live-action movie on their metallic shoulders. I’d like to think of it as a futuristic Laurel and Hardy, with perhaps a soupçon of ‘80s buddy cop mayhem.

Mace Windu

Die-hard Star Wars prequel fans (there are some, honest) will swear that Samuel L. Jackson’s powerful Jedi Master survived his Force-electrocution, dismemberment, and fall at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

It’s an idea that Jackson himself adheres to, which leads us to the idea for a standalone Mace Windu movie. We can imagine Jackson returning to play the character as a traumatised, embittered old hermit – think Obi-Wan with an attitude – rediscovering his mojo for one last crack at the Sith.

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Hey ho, let’s go. We can pull up live performances like Freddie Mercury at Live Aid quite literally any time we need some pep. But when you need to sink into the music, it’s gotta be a good concert film. We’re talking docs that focus on one specific gig, tour or time period, so not biopics or full-on music documentaries about an entire career, movies in which the concert is a very small percentage of the runtime (Peter Jackon’s Get Back docu-series on The Beatles) or where real-life events take over from the performance itself (the Maysles brothers’ Gimme Shelter on the Rolling Stones). Thus, the criteria for an all-timer concert film is simple: great concert, great film.

And there’s no one way to get it right. Some film-makers keep things slick, pre-planned and focused, others experiment with new forms and out-there camerawork inspired by the playing: case in point, the new concert film of Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft tour is directed, in 3D, by James freakin’ Cameron. The following rundown spans eight decades and while sure, rock is perhaps over-represented, genres including pop, soul, jazz, hip hop and electronic music. Honourable mentions: Woodstock (1970), Prince’s Sign ‘o’ The Times (1987), Madonna’s Truth or Dare (1991), The Cure Trilogy (2002) and LCD Soundsystem’s Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012). What did we miss? Fight us in the comments.

Stop making sense (1984)

Stop Making Sense was both lightning in a bottle and the very deliberate result of people working together at the height of their genius - David Byrne, Talking Heads and director Jonathan Demme. That’s why it’s probably still the definitive concert film, with The Last Waltz (below) a masterpiece of a different kind in a lot of people’s minds. Here, aside from the closing moments when we’re treated to some funky moves to Crosseyed and Painless from the audience at the Hollywood Pantages Theater, Demme is all about what’s going down on stage. Of course, what’s going down on stage is difficult to put into words.

David Byrne acts like a man possessed for most of the runtime, creating one-of-one images - the slicked back hair, the boombox, the oversized jacket - and infecting his bandmates and backing singers with his oddball sensibilities and high-wire frequency. They’ve all turned it up to eleven. But if you’ve encountered this film in the past or at house parties, you’ll find memories start to warp with every rewatch. Did Byrne really only dance with a lampshade for one section of This Must Be The Place? How did Demme essentially make multiple music videos out of just three live performances? Has any frontman ever jogged, yelped, stared, wiggled, slapstick-stumbled and swung quite like Talking Heads’? Or smacked himself round the head with such panache? It boils down to this: you have to watch Stop Making Sense to get the full Talking Heads experience. Life-giving stuff.

The Last Waltz (1978)

The (other) concert film all others must be compared to - even Eric Clapton was stunned by this line-up. The Last Waltz is directed by Marty Scorsese and it forms the beginning of a long and brilliant cinema-music partnership between the film-maker and musician-producer Robbie Robertson. (Pair this with Rolling Thunder Revue). Here, it’s Thanksgiving 1976 and The Band are putting on one peerless final show at Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco after 16 years on the road. The Band were one of those ‘your favourite musician’s favourite musicians’ kinda outfits, hence the bill: Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Clapton, Neil Young, Muddy Waters! Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Ronnie Wood, Ringo Starr..

Marty had a 300-page script of all 37 songs, all the collaborators and a 45-person camera crew. This is meticulous concert film-making that never misses any magic: the intro of The Staples Singers alone! Gorgeous harmonies, gorgeous playing, gorgeous camerawork on The Weight. And lots of that old-school thing we like, where two singers sing into the same mic. Sublime. The vignettes are a cut above the usual too, with stories of stealing food, the merging of country music and R’n’B and playing to empty halls.

Another reason to dig into the concert film archives: getting up close with players - like The Band’s lead guitarist Robbie Robertson - who are no longer with us; Robertson died in 2023. In The Last Waltz, Marty and the team often frame him just behind the singer so you could watch the whole concert film as purely Robbie Robertson’s night, as he switches between focused concentration on backing these legends well and smiling, calling out and enjoying himself as he soaks up moment after moment.

Summer of Soul: Or When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised (1969/2021)

Made by our favourite music teach Questlove, aka The Roots’ Ahmir Thompson, and the winner of a Best Documentary Oscar, Summer of Soul is one of the all-time greats in the niche genre of.. this unbelievable footage has been sitting around for decades and finally someone found it. The tape in question is made up of hours and hours of amazing concert film of the Harlem Cultural Festival which ran over six weeks in the summer of 1969. Yep, the same summer as Woodstock, which got its classic near-four hour doc in 1970. (Also in this particular sub-genre of lost reels: Aretha Franklin performing in a Baptist church in 1972, which got tied up in various issues but was eventually released in the 2018 concert doc Amazing Grace).

Back to Summer of Soul and when we tell you this film may leave you sorta spellbound and speechless we mean it. Stevie Wonder’s here. B.B King, Mahalia Jackson. The 5th Dimension are suitably psychedelic. Gladys Knight & The Pips are electric, drummer Max Roach is on fire. The fashions and the moves are, as they say, outta sight. But the two standouts for us are Nina Simone, whose performance you cannot take your eyes and ears off and who surges towards the urgent political questions that Questlove is interested in, and Sly and The Family Stone, who offer another kind of vision and solidarity in the form of some of the most indelible funk and soul tracks to ever grace the canon. We are not worthy.

Beastie Boys: Awesome; I F*cking Shot That (2006)

So ahead of its time. The Beastie Boys handed out camcorders to 50 audience members at their huge Madison Square Garden show and the result is a concert film that looks like modern day social media feeds, where everyone films gigs all the time, except we’re way back in 2006. It doesn’t feel irritating like it does now, either, instead the joyfully edited result feels genuinely egalitarian. Those crowd reaction shots that started popping up in music docs in the late 50s and 60s? They’re now taken by the crowd themselves: fans singing, shouting and rapping every word, reacting and performing for the camera.

The high energy chaos of the Beasties as a particular hip hop group is matched by all the different angles spliced together: Doug E. Fresh beatboxing, people buying drinks, the lounge band interval sequence, a security guard dancing. It makes for some very funny edits too, like the person who filmed themselves going to the mens’ toilets, while you can hear the tunes getting quieter in the stadium corridors versus what’s on stage. At one point, Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D even run around MSG and pop up amongst the fans in the cheap seats for Intergalactic. Man, to have been there that night.

Kate Bush: Live At Hammersmith Odeon (1979)

Kate Bush is a kite. Wait, now she has aviator goggles on. Holy shit, she’s got a gun. This 1979 film, shot at the Hammersmith Odeon in London as part of her ‘The Tour of Life’ tour, is as glam-am-dram as it gets: the lighting, the slow-mo, the costume changes, the minimalist props and sets, the zooms. And the thing about Kate Bush is she really believes it. Just take the part where she’s (convincingly) driving an invisible car and compare it to Taylor Swift’s attempts at play-acting. The witchy Brit is always intense without ever being alienating.

She was only about 20 years old at the time and yet the persona was fully formed, whether she’s Expressionist dancing to Hammer Horror or there’s that distinctive voice singing to England, her lionheart. It’s narrative without constraints or expectations. Many imitators, few come close. A 53 minute cut of this concert was initially put out on TV and VHS and now you can also find a 90-odd minute version with more tracks from the night. Those last few moments of Kate clutching flowers and waving are so, so sweet.

Nirvana: MTV Unplugged - Live in New York (1993)

If you grew up in the 90s, even if you were a little too young for grunge like some of us, THIS IS YOUR YOUTH. Kurt Cobain in a cardigan on a swivelly desk chair on MTV. Acoustic Nirvana and cover songs. A young, skinny Dave Grohl in his ponytail and turtleneck drummer days. With an in-the-round stage dressed with white lilies and candles. Truly all so iconic and made more so by the tragic timeline: this was taped in November 1993, MTV first aired the show in December 1993, Cobain died in early April 1994 and DGC Records released the live album six months later in November 1994. Oof.

Featuring cult band the Meat Puppets and cellist Lori Goldston, you can hear the band taking requests and casually chatting about which songs they can do acoustically - Sliver? - as if no-one’s watching. They’re lighting up cigarettes, drinking tea and at one point Cobain semi-affectionately says “fuck you all” to the crowd. They play Come As You Are and cover Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World but it’s mostly lesser known tracks and covers shouting out their faves like The Vaselines and Lead Belly. Immortal.

Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii (1972)

OK this one’s a touch self-serious and director Adrian Maben spends maybe a little too much time circling Nick Mason’s drum kit but we also just had to include it. In what other film is Roger Waters dramatically banging a gong in silhouette… in an amphitheatre at Pompeii? Exactly. This Pink Floyd concert film is, in fact, a selection of concerts and studio sessions - there’s no audience for the Pompeii performance so it’s all very much for us, future viewers. And it is goddamn cool, to be fair. Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun played at night, with the wind flowing through the lads’ hair - just yes.

The chats are interesting too, given current conversations on AI and creativity, with the Floyd making a point of saying that they control the equipment, not the other way around. As this is pre-Dark Side, we see David Gilmour quipping and laying down his lead guitar for Brain Damage in the studio. Plus there’s all manner of woozy, experimental editing and repeated shots to match what’s going on with the synths. It’s a definite mood.

Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce (2023)

Alright, alright, most people would pick Beyonce’s Coachella concert doc Homecoming from 2019 in the Queen Bey slot and we get it. That’s the one that proved to the world that none of the other pop girlies will ever match her on work ethic. But there’s another important aspect of concert films that we’ve overlooked so far: what if you were in fact there to see it all live but you got extremely drunk on triples at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, affectionately threw lemonade over some friends and have a hazy memory of the last say, 45 minutes of the show. For example. Then you might find yourself at the cinema six months later, more than happily watching a concert you’ve seen IRL.

Plus we’re just gonna say it: the music’s better. You could play Renaissance start to finish at a party and get zero complaints. The pop culture artistry, from fearless concept to flawless execution, of the Renaissance tour is also unmatched, even in Beyonce’s own touring history. And this concert film lets you see all the alternate costumes, improvised lines and one-off performance moments from all the dates you didn’t get to - or couldn’t see in detail from your seats up in the gods. One to dance around your living room to. “Look around, everybody on mute..:

Nine Inch Nails: Beside You In Time (2006)

Many of the concert films on this list are here because of the chemistry and playing between members of a band or an incredible array of musicians brought together on one day. No shade to anyone else but NIN is here because of the creative vision and sheer intensity of one man: Trent Reznor. The production is slick, director Rob Sheridan’s trad front-on angles are crisp and the band are really fucking going for it. Reznor is absolutely soaking on stage, calling his fans pigs with glee, his guitarist starts crowd-surfing, there’s a mosh pit getting going. By the end, an amp is thrown off the stage.

Throughout it all, Reznor remains the consummate curator. He brings the tempo down for one intimate, heart-baring song - Hurt, four years after Johnny Cash covered it - with lighters in the audience before hurtling right back into Nine Inch Nails’ signature hard, industrial rock again. Beside You In Time is also something of a historical document, alongside the Beastie Boys film, as The Hand That Feeds is an anti-W song with all the montage projections that go with it. A fun one to revisit if you’ve mostly consumed Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ music via their excellent film soundtracks for the past decade or so. (Sidenote: we found this one together with the Depeche Mode classic on Qello, which we just now learned is a subscription service for concert films that you can access via Prime Video).

Fleetwood Mac: The Rosebud film (1977)

There are so many Fleetwood Mac performances available to pour over that picking our fave would be like picking just the one Grateful Dead bootleg. The official concert film (and live album) comes much later with The Dance, in Nashville in the mid-90s, but we have a soft spot for a 30-minute concert doc from 1977. The ‘Rosebud film’ was made by Michael Collins to promote the European leg of the Rumours tour so we’re right in the thick of this band’s heyday.

A mixture of a low-key, outdoor live show at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with some indoor tour rehearsals and behind the scenes chatter, it’s a real slice of life for the Mac of the late 70s. With tunes including Rhiannon, Go Your Own Way and You Make Loving Fun, we get Stevie Nicks shimmering around the stage looking witchy, Lindsey Buckingham strumming in a tight coral cardigan and the late Christine McVie explaining that she only ever wrote songs when they were about to start working on a new record.

Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1959)

Oh my days, is there anything as joyous as Louis Armstrong smiling and cracking jokes? Only Louis Armstrong singing, we guess, and Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet. Photographer Bert Stern’s film of the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress for good reason - it forms a kind of blueprint for concert films. We can take or leave the America’s Cup sailing scenes but otherwise this is one of those ridiculous line-ups that some of the people caught eating and chatting and yawning clearly did not fully comprehend.

Aram Avakian’s editing is superb here, as we roam around footage of people dancing on roofs, smooching in windowsills, kids playing and a car stuffed with a quintet playing When The Saints.. as they roll around town. As for the music, phew boy: it’s Dinah Washington singing All of Me and having a xylophone battle on-stage as the cameramen capture dancers in the audience in close-up. Thelonious bloody Monk and a young Roy Haynes early on. A big-hatted Anita O’Day winning hearts and minds with her virtuoso scatting. Mahalia Jackson doing The Lord’s Prayer. Chuck Berry! Instant mood-lifter.

Depeche Mode: 101 (1989)

A perfect tour bus film with a twist: in 101 we follow Depeche Mode, ten months into touring, as they gear up to an epic live show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in ‘88, playing to over 60,000 fans. And we follow a bunch of hand-picked scene kids and glam punks, travelling across the country to scream and shout and dance at the front of the crowds. The at-the-time mega star band check out new instruments and plays pinball in between shows, not to mention getting nervous and moaning about being tired. Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher do silly radio promo and Dave Gahan talks about picking up steroids for his poor vocal chords backstage.

The 101st concert itself delivers, with dark wave tracks like Stripped from Black Celebration sounding glorious and one of the catchiest songs ever made, Just Can’t Get Enough, getting the audience jumpin’. Even as the audio engineer struggles with the sound in the venue. It’s the cuts to the girl punching in the lighting cues in real-time at an earlier gig, the teens bleaching their hair and the tour accountant trying to find out who spent 1000 dollars on silver t-shirts that really make this concert film, though. Oh, and it ends with them boarding a Depeche Mode PJ. Pair this one with 2025’s Depeche Mode (M) on Netflix.

Placebo: Live in Paris - Soulmates Never Die (2003)

“A friend in need’s a friend indeed, a friend with weed is better”... If you were a Placebo fan in the early aughts, you couldn’t want for much more than this: The Bitter End, Pure Morning, Every Me Every You and Special K on the set list, the chipped black nail polish on Stefan Olsdal’s hands as he shreds, Brian Molko’s impeccable French patter.. and the iconic moment where they look at each over the synth pad and Molko takes a drag of his cigarette.

There’s also the small matter of Placebo bringing out the Pixies’ Frank Black for the last song of the night: Where Is My Mind?

For those of us who weren’t quite on that wave back in 2003, remember this was a live concert DVD release. You had to actually get your hands on the thing, making it more rarified and thus legendary. That’s no doubt part of why this is many people’s fave concert film of all time. It’s pretty classic staging - hella lot of strobing lights - and straight-on photographing for the 2000s but there is huge energy coming from a huge crowd. The emo/glam/punk/alt rock band were ve-ery popular and that passion still vibrates off the screen.

American Utopia (2020)

We know, we know, another David Byrne concert film on the list. But just when you think you’ve seen concert films from every angle, along comes another idiosyncratically conceived live show from this wonderful man’s head. This was a Broadway show, captured for posterity by auteur Spike Lee, and incorporating more political elements than you might first think. American Utopia was a tonic to many music fans during the pandemic and it’s recently been announced that it’s returning to UK cinemas in 4K for one night only this August.

Byrne is part marching-band-leader, part preacher, all showman as he and an eleven-strong troupe of musicians and dancers roam free around the stage thanks to fully wireless instruments. They’re barefoot, wearing matching blue-grey suits and working through a setlist which includes tunes from the 2018 American Utopia album and the Talking Heads back catalogue. If it sounds strange, that’s because it is, delightfully so. We’re not sure any of this will catch on more broadly in live performances but that’s really not the point.

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“We’re all fucked.”

That was my initial reaction to In Other Worlds, the new future-gazing exhibition from artist and film maker Liam Young, running through May until September 6th at London’s Barbican Centre.

A journey through six speculative worlds that each offer a different take on the humanity-ending problems faced by society today, it mixes film, storytelling, fashion, model-making and documentary to force visitors to confront the inevitable end of life-as-we-know-it, as driven by mass consumerism, climate change and corporate indifference.

From ‘e-waste miners’ to ‘drone shepherds’ living in the world’s sole 10 billion-inhabitant super-city, In Other Worlds isn’t interested in high-rise green spaces, or ‘one tree planted for every X,Y,Z regret’. It’s survival as a form of protest, architectures of the future through a science-punk prism — Greta Thunberg by way of Mad Max.

“Our relationship to the future has always been shaped by the medium of imaginary worlds,” Young said at a preview of the show.

“These science fiction imaginaries have been sites where we can prototype and rehearse ideas about who we are and who we might want to be in the future. Rather than just forms of escape or decoration, in this way fiction operates as a form of infrastructure.

“In Other Worlds is an attempt to create a collection of visions for a hopeful future, but also to bring through these mediums, which are quite accessible, general audiences into direct conversation with some of these ideas about how you might live in the future.”

It’s a star-studded exhibition, pulling together collaborations with luminaries from the worlds of literature, cinema, design, and other disciplines. There’s an introduction by Diego Luna of Star Wars: Andor fame; there’s a story from Lisa Joy who brought the Westworld and Fallout TV shows to our screens; there are costumes from Emmy-nominated designer Ane Crabtree (The Handmaid’s Tale, Sopranos); Richard Ayoade (Submarine, The Mandalorian) and Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction, The Batman) narrate stories; and much more.

There's striking imagery throughout, both visual and literary. One story snippet sees a whale swimming through the flooded ruins of an AI data centre, presided over by a blind caretaker whose time within its pitch-black caverns has negated the need for sight. An animated timelapse "spanning 50,000 years" imagines the indigenous people of Australia recycling the ruins of oil rigs as the foundations of the reefs of the future, and the nuclear test beds of the desert repurposed as space-faring monuments to aboriginal culture.

And there's nods to the short-sightedness of today's xenophobic and nationalistic rise, too: yes, a city of 10 billion people might be more than a little cramped, but it'd also be a 365, 24/7 party zone, as the annual cultural festivities of the different amassed peoples overlap, resulting in a never-ending carnival of processions and celebrations.

On a more prosaic, practical note, be prepared to wait around a bit to listen to all the amazing story extracts on show. They’re littered around the exhibition space, each tied to their own corded headphone set, and with each extract lasting several minutes, anticipate queues to hear each one. A few QR codes dotted around so people can listen via their own headphones wouldn’t have gone amiss.

As you come towards the show’s close you’re confronted with a 360-degree projection space that offers perhaps the most stark reality of the mountain to be climbed for us all to survive. The video surrounds you with a vast ocean, from which rises a carbon capturing machine the size of a small town. The good news? These things sorta actually exist! The bad news? We’d need one for every oil rig and refinery in the world just to break even with current carbon output.

“This show is not a collection of solutions, but rather it's an attempt to re-orientate us around new visions for a future that operate at planetary scales,” says Young.

“The crises that we face, they're no longer crises of technology, but rather they're crises of the imagination.”

It’s a line delivered not with doomsday didactism, but hopefulness — through the curation of the show Young’s been left with the feeling that the human imagination remains a super-weapon against any unavoidable collapse.

I, then, left In Other Worlds with a slightly different thought in my head than my first knee-jerked reaction:

“We’re all fucked. Good?”

There’s a shocking pragmatism to In Other Worlds' take on the future. Yes, we’ve made a mess of things and, sadly, honestly, deservingly, it’s probably too late to turn back the tide of destruction we’ve wrought. But it’s not defeatist — the future may not be what we had hoped for, but it’s still ours to shape.

In Other Worlds, a Barbican Immersive exhibition by Liam Young and Collaborators, runs from May 21st until September 6th 2026 at the Barbican Centre. Standard tickets cost £20.50.

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From Royal Blood to Rizzle Kicks, Bat for Lashes to The Kooks, Brighton is no stranger to producing new bands of its own. But once a year, the seaside town famous for its two piers, pebble beach and easygoing vibe is home to The Great Escape – a festival dedicated to new music.

Over the course of four days, venues across Brighton host over 450 up-and-coming bands from all over the globe – a bit like South by Southwest in Texas but with more danger of a seagull stealing your lunch.

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Kneecap, Charli XCX, Sam Fender, Foals, Adele, The 1975, Little Simz, Sleep Token, Bon Iver, and The Last Dinner Party are just a few of the names who have performed at the festival over the years before hitting the big time, so there’s no doubting its credentials as a hotbed for new talent.

This year marked The Great Escape’s 20th anniversary and unfortunately you’ve just missed it, but our man on the ground has braved the weekend’s bad weather, long queues, and some of the venues’ quite inexcusable beer shortages to pick out five acts that had Brighton buzzing and look destined for bigger things.

1. Westside Cowboy

Westside Cowboy are yet to release a full-length album but the Manchester four-piece have been on a steep upward trajectory since winning Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent competition in April 2025. That bagged them a slot at Worthy Farm the following June, while they’ve recently come off a tour supporting band-of-the-moment Geese across the UK and Europe.

It came as no huge surprise, then, that their show at this year’s Great Escape was packed to the rafters, even though they have less than a dozen publicly available songs to their name. The band have coined the term ‘Britainicana’ to describe their sound, and while the sample size is still small they feel remarkably fully formed for such a young band, with a definite transatlantic vibe to what they do. You can hear Pavement, Carseat Headrest and The Walkmen in there, but with an unmistakably British edge.

The quartet finished their Great Escape set all gathered around one microphone to sing the delicate In the Morning and a reverential hush descended on the seaside venue. Make no mistake, though, the noise around Westside Cowboy is only going to get louder.

2. Angine de Poitrine

Angine do Poitrine are not the first band to hide their true identities behind masks and pseudonyms, but the mystery surrounding the duo – known only as Khn and Klek – isn’t the only reason their two shows at this year’s Great Escape were so packed out.

Covered in black-and-white polka dots and dressed like a surrealist Slipknot, the two-piece claim to be space-time voyagers from another planet – and their asymmetrical sound is suitably otherworldly.

Khn’s loop pedal and double-necked guitar/bass allow him to play both instruments at the same time, but it’s the intricate microtonal tunes, which use the notes squeezed in between the conventional ones most bands play, that make Angine De Poitrine’s sound so unusual (if not quite as original as some might claim).

The result is a joyously complex blend of prog, math rock, and techno that makes Klek’s floppy conk bounce hypnotically in time with his jerky grooves.

3. Lime Garden

Not all bands that play at The Great Escape have to travel as far as Angine de Poitrine look like they have (even if they’re actually only from Canada). Lime Garden formed when Chloe Howard (vocals/guitar), Leila Deeley (guitar) and Annabel Whittle (drums) met Tippi Morgan (bass) in Brighton, but have spent the past few years touring tirelessly in support of their self-described ‘wonk-pop’, including support slots with Idles and Yard Act alongside appearances at Glastonbury, Latitude and Green Man.

Their genre-hopping sound is reflective of the liberal, fun-loving city that brought them together, with their recently released second album Maybe Not Tonight encapsulating the ups and down of life as a twenty-something in 2026: nights outs, break-ups and an existential crisis or two.

The energy of the dancefloor certainly plays a big part in Lime Garden’s approach to making music, with echoes of LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip and Bloc Party easy to pick out among the band’s pick ‘n’ mix of influences.

4. The Haunted Youth

Belgium is better known for fancy chocolate, TinTin and dangerously strong beers than its music, but The Haunted Youth are doing their best to change that.

The band is the creation of Joachim Liebens, a self-confessed “lonely emo kid” whose sharp cheekbones are almost permanently obscured by a floppy blonde fringe, so it’ll probably come as no surprise that he spent a lot of his teenage years listening to Joy Division. There’s more of a dream-pop vibe to the band’s debut album, Dawn of the Freak, although only if the dreams in question are those of a sad vampire.

Follow-up Boys Cry Too, which was released earlier this month, has a harder edge to it, but the chiming guitars and shimmering synths are still the driving force. If you like Slowdive, The War on Drugs, and think Tame Impala would be better going goth, The Haunted Youth should be on your radar.

Salarymen

It wouldn’t come as a huge surprise to learn that somewhere in the Australian outback there’s a factory churning out great indie-pop bands, because hot on the heels of Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Royel Otis are Salarymen (aka Renee de la Motte and Thom Eagleton).

The pair started making music together in 2019, and after releasing a succession of EPs their debut album Take It Or Leave It arrived on Halloween last year – but there’s nothing scary about the Sydney-based duo’s timeless tunes.

They cite the Beatles as their biggest influence, although that applies on some level to about 99% of bands that have formed since the Fab Four’s heyday, so we'll narrow it down a bit on their behalf. If Alvvays, Beach House, or the more recent Arctic Monkeys stuff floats your boat, there’s a good chance Salarymen will too.

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Was Nintendo’s movement-based Wii a blip on the gaming cultural radar? The modern games console is usually designed around one thing: sitting still. Whether it’s sprawling online adventures or endless YouTube rabbit holes, most screen time now happens sprawled across the sofa with little movement.

Nex Playground wants to change that.

Launching in the UK and Ireland this summer after selling close to a million units in North America (it outsold the Xbox overseas last year), the motion-controlled console has quickly built a reputation as a different kind of gaming machine — one aimed squarely at families who want children to be active, social and safely entertained in the same space.

A tiny cube that sits in front of your TV and ditches traditional controllers for hands-free movement, the camera-equipped console tracks your frantic waves and weaves, and is designed to be as simple to use as possible. And it’s mighty good fun for all the family, from toddlers right up to nan and grandad.

Here are five reasons why it might become one of the most interesting family tech launches of 2026.

Nex Playground: In Short…

• A controller-free family games console that uses motion tracking
• Launches in the UK in late June 2026, with pre-orders opening from May 18th through retailers including Amazon UK, Argos and Smyths Toys
• Pricing starts at £269 in the UK, which includes the console and five starter games
• Play Pass subscription costs £90 annually or £45 quarterly, unlocking a library of more than 60 games
• Family-friendly franchises and games, with titles tied to Bluey, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Sesame Street and more
• Focussed around child safety and privacy — with no ads, no in-app purchases, no open internet access

1. It Turns Screen Time Into Active Play

Perhaps the biggest selling point of Nex Playground is that it gets players moving.

Unlike traditional consoles that rely on controllers, Nex uses motion tracking to turn players’ bodies into the controller itself. A small camera on the front of the cube is able to see into your room, picking up the players in front of it, and translating the movements of their arms and legs into controls for the games. With Nex Playground games, you’ll be jumping, stretching, dancing, running on the spot and mimicking actions on-screen, making it feel closer to offline play than your standard game session.

That approach has already drawn comparisons with the golden era of Nintendo Wii-style gaming, but Nex is arguably simpler and more intuitive, seeing as no controller is needed — a remote control is included just for navigating menus.

For parents increasingly concerned about their kids being glued to screens, that physical element is a major draw. Nex is positioning the console as an antidote to endless scrolling and sedentary entertainment, and the timing is notable. In both Britain and Ireland, conversations around children’s screen time and online wellbeing have intensified over the past year, creating demand for devices that feel healthier and more purposeful.

2. It’s Built Specifically With Families in Mind

Games consoles from the big three manufacturers — Sony’s PlayStation, Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo’s Switch — try to be all things to all people. Hardcore shooters sit next to cosy farming sims, horror games sit next to cutesy platformers. They are not especially tailored to children, meaning ensuring a child is playing an appropriate title can take a fair bit of preparation.

It’s here where Nex feels it can win, where previous motion-based consoles (like Microsoft’s mega-selling Kinect, which eventually fell from favour with core gamers who demanded more complex experiences) failed. Nex Playground feels different because families are clearly the priority from the outset.

The system is designed as a closed ecosystem, meaning there are no ads, no web browsing functions and no mature content unexpectedly surfacing through recommendations or online interactions. Every game on the platform is published directly by Nex, giving the company tighter control over quality and age suitability.

That safety-first philosophy has become a major part of the brand’s identity. Nex Playground aligns with GDPR requirements, carries PEGI 3 ratings on its starter bundle and maintains kidSAFE+ certification alongside COPPA compliance in the United States.

Importantly, the console also addresses privacy concerns in ways many larger tech brands have been criticised for ignoring. Motion-tracking data is processed locally on the device rather than uploaded externally, and every console includes a physical camera cover.

In a market where many parents remain uneasy about connected devices listening, recording or collecting data, that straightforward emphasis on trust feels refreshingly direct.

The same goes for hidden fees — while there’s a subscription cost to access the vast majority of games available on Nex Playground (a service which feels essential to get the most out of the console, and should be factored into any purchase price), the team has vowed to never allow in-app purchases in its apps. Pay that subscription fee, and that’s all — little Jimmy won’t be running up a thousand-pound bill for Dora the Explorer skins.

3. The Games Library Is Surprisingly Broad

A motion-controlled family console only works if the games are good enough to sustain attention beyond the first week. That appears to be where Nex has quietly exceeded expectations.

The platform now includes more than 60 games covering sports, dance, fitness and educational experiences, with recognisable children’s brands helping broaden its appeal. Bluey is there. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are there. Elmo and Cookie Monster make an appearance. You don’t even have to have kids to recognise the characters fronting games here.

That variety matters because it prevents the console from feeling like a novelty fitness gadget, and having access to all of them under one subscription lets you flit between them all without a major commitment.

Kids in the US that have been playing with Nex over the past couple of years have been seen to play a wide variety of games, Nex tells us, swapping between energetic party games, educational activities and collaborative family challenges. The ease of play encourages cross-generational appeal too — even those not interested in gaming can get involved immediately.

4. It Encourages Co-operative Play Rather Than Solo Gaming

Online multiplayer has never been more popular, but Nex Playground harks back to the lost-art of local multiplayer experiences. There’s still nothing quite like staring into the whites of the eyes of your competitor, or hi-fiving a game-playing comrade. And with Nex focused around living room play, practically every title on the machine offers multiplayer fun.

Most of its experiences are designed around people sharing the same room, taking turns, competing side-by-side or cooperating physically together. Instead of children disappearing into bedrooms with headphones on, the console encourages communal play in the living room. Parents are more likely to participate, younger siblings can watch and join in, and gaming becomes a visible household activity rather than a solitary one.

I can see it being a particularly big hit come those major family gatherings like Christmas — there’s no complicated setup or gaming knowledge required to get involved. Nex Playground doesn’t demand existing gaming literacy, meaning grandparents, younger children and casual players can all take part almost immediately.

5. It Feels Like a Fresh Alternative to Current Consoles

At £269 with five starter games included, Nex Playground is not necessarily a budget purchase. Yet compared with the escalating costs associated with mainstream gaming consoles, subscriptions and accessories, it occupies an intriguing middle ground.

More importantly, it offers something genuinely different.

Rather than competing directly with PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo on graphical power or blockbuster franchises, Nex has carved out a niche centred around movement, simplicity and family interaction.

And, it's a minor point, but boy, is it cute. With colour-matched cabling and a colourful construction, it's attractive but subtle, its playfulness expressed in the device itself in a way that more serious consoles don't match.

For families looking to make screen time feel more active — and safe from the worries of other digital experiences — Nex Playground may arrive at exactly the right moment.

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Though England is a little way off from being regarded as a global powerhouse, premium whisky-producer, the capital is a great place to visit for a dram. From cosy, hidden underground bars to the world's oldest whisky shop, these are the best whisky spots in London.

We pick our favourite venues for a tipple alongside Andrew Watson and Ed King, two of the founders of the British Bourbon Society. We also feature a few favourites from Shortlist-reading whisky lovers. Silanté!

Shortlist Selects

1. Milroy’s

3 Greek St, London W1D 4NX

No list of great whisky spots in London would be complete without Milroy’s, also known as ‘3 Greek Street’. A Soho institution, it opened in 1964, claiming to be the oldest whisky shop in the world and offers a huge selection of whiskies from all over the world, including rare and collectable drams.

Far more than just a shop with a large range of its own bottlings, it’s a bar, a tasting room, and… step through the hidden door in the bookcase, and you’ll find yourself in The Vault, a speakeasy-style, candlelit underground cocktail bar. What more could you ask for?

2. Black Rock

9 Christopher St, London EC2A 2BS

Black Rock is like no other bar we’ve visited. Just an unassuming basement in Shoreditch, you might not even notice it if you’re walking past. However, go down the stairs and inside, and you’ll feel like you’ve truly found a hidden gem.

It’s compact, cosy, and the pièce de résistance is a showstopper 18ft oak trunk table with two glass windows running its length, through which you can see the bar’s own blend ageing. There are hundreds of bottles to choose from with a dot sticker pricing system starting at £9 for a 35ml pour, along with plenty of cocktails and food, too. Black Rock runs tasting and blending sessions and is also available for private hire.

3. Coburg Bar

The Connaught, 16 Carlos Pl, London W1K 2AL

Some of the best bars around the world are found in hotels, and London is no exception. Coburg Bar can be found just by Hyde Park in The Connaught, and the hotel is one of London's most famous and prestigious luxury hotels.

The bar is suitably bougie with panelling and velvet seating, but more impressive is the huge whisky compendium menu with drams from all major whisky-producing countries. It’s a great place to take a group with varied tastes since it also has its own house-distilled gin, signature cocktails, champagne and plenty more to cater to any taste.

4. Soho Whisky Club

42 Old Compton St, London W1D 4LR

Nestled, hidden even, above The Vintage House whisky shop (of the same owner), Soho Whisky Club is one of London’s only private members’ clubs specifically for whisky. While membership is not free, and you must apply, you do not need to be a member to book a private tasting. It’s also significant for having one of the largest collections you’ll find in the capital, with over 800 open bottles.

Members are treated to inclusive tasting evenings from distilleries around the world, hosted by the likes of master blenders, head distillers and owners. The bar has also struck a partnership with Craft Irish Whisky to pour its entire portfolio, including some unreleased whiskey that cannot be found anywhere else.

5. Buffalo Trace Distillery London

32-33 Long Acre, London WC2E 9LA

It might seem like a tourist spot gift shop, and while it is that to some extent, the relatively new Buffalo Trace venue in Covent Garden shouldn’t be overlooked.

Let’s not forget, Buffalo Trace owns some of the biggest and most sought-after brands in the world of bourbon, including Weller, Blanton’s and (via joint venture) Pappy Van Winkle, making it a great location in the heart of London to try a wide range of drams.

Sure, you can pick up a branded washbag or T-shirt, but the bar is best experienced by booking one of the many tasting experiences on offer, ranging from a beginner's introduction to single barrel tasting.

The best Whisky bars in London: British Bourbon Society's Picks

6. The Lexington

96-98 Pentonville Rd, London N1 9JB

The Lexington pub is an old friend of the British Bourbon Society, but doesn’t look like your typical London boozer, adorned with sofas, high ceilings, red velvet drapes and a chandelier. It has one of the best selections of American whiskies in London at great prices.

It's a music venue too, with plenty of gigs, and there's always a buzzing atmosphere, even midweek. Being a pub, it's also got a decent range of beers, including Pabst Blue Ribbon on draught to pair with a bourbon for the classic American Boilermaker.

7. Lowcountry

71 Nile St, London N1 7RD

Lowcountry is BBS’s favourite American whiskey bar, named after the coast of South Carolina to Georgia. The Shoreditch bar aims to recreate that southern hospitality and love of food and drink. The society hosts a regular bottle share event there, and it's one of the few bars in London to focus entirely on American whiskey and cocktails.

Naturally, it has a great selection of curated bourbons and rye whiskies from the likes of Michter’s and Pappy Van Winkle. BBS highly recommends the Fat Fashion cocktail, which uses fat-washed Buffalo Trace, maple syrup and bitters.

Your picks

8. Swift Soho

12 Old Compton St, London W1D 4TQ

Ben Goole says: Although it has two other cocktail bars across London, Swift Soho is the most iconic location and the one with more whisky than you can shake a stick at. A menu stretching almost 70 pages with over 400 whiskies from far-flung locations, as well as those closer to home, will certainly keep you occupied before you even pick up the cocktail menu.

There are two bars - upstairs and downstairs - with very different vibes and different menus to suit different occasions and tastes. Upstairs is well-lit and vibrant, while downstairs is more classically moody. The bar also boasts its own exclusive beer, an Irish Coffee Stout brewed by 40ft Brewery.

9. Scarfes Bar

Rosewood, 252 High Holborn, London WC1V 7EN

Rafa Dunstable says: Scarfes is a top London whisky venue if you feel comfortable setting foot inside a 5-star hotel - this time Rosewood London, which describes itself as a modern manor house. The bar is breathtaking, with a classic yet modern style, and this isn’t simply a case of a cocktail menu which happens to have an Old Fashioned on it.

On the contrary, a stunning whisky cabinet is a focal point, and Scarfes has one of the most comprehensive selections of Scotch in the UK, featuring over 200 rare whiskies and independent bottlings.

A partnership with The Macallan sees it offer exclusive single cask pours and curated tasting experiences. The staff are highly knowledgeable, and it’s known for innovative whisky-based cocktails. Best get that tuxedo dry cleaned!

10. The Scotch Malt Whisky Society

19 Greville St, London EC1N 8SQ

Andy Finch says: It’s a members' club, but the Scotch Malt Whisky Society offers you much more than just access to its London venue. It has three more in Scotland as well as various international branches, plus over 150 partner bars globally.

It’s £100 to join for a year and includes a bottle worth £70, making it very good value. Housed in a grand Edwardian building, the London Members Room has a modern but cosy, smart casual style and holds over 500 exclusive single malts from across Scotland.

You can’t get a meal, but there are nibbles available, such as cheese and charcuterie boards, as well as plenty of other types of drinks. As you’d expect, there’s also a plethora of tasting events, and though some are free, most are ticketed on top of your SMWS membership.

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It’s very easy, if not outright lazy, to lean into superlatives when recommending something. The internet is awash with ‘best’ this and ‘greatest’ that. But to put to bed any question about Notting Hill’s MATER1A, I’m going to cut straight to the chase.

MATER1A has the best, greatest tasting menu in London, without a doubt.

Michelin maestro Victor Garvey’s new 16-seat restaurant, based entirely around a tasting menu grounded in Japanese food culture but sprinkled with learnings from his international culinary experiences, serves the sort of ‘event’ meal that you’ll be telling your foodie friends about for years, and whispering about on your deathbed. You’ll want it flashing before your eyes as those pearly gates beckon.

It’s not cheap, and seasoned diners will get the most from it — but it’s not performative or stuffy either. MATER1A is my favourite meal of the year so far — here’s why you should be checking it out too.

WHERE IS IT?

You’ll find MATER1A on Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill. It’s easy to miss despite its highstreet location — you don’t expect to find a restaurant of this calibre squeezed between a Cafe Nero and a hardware shop, and we initially walked straight past on our visit.

Nearest tubes are Bayswater and Notting Hill Gate, both an easy walk, though arriving by black cab might be more fitting for the experience.

Inside, the space is tiny — just 16 covers ensures the definition of ‘intimate dining’ — but it’s comfortable rather than intimidating. Handcrafted wood, curved seating, warm lighting and soft shadows, the dining room feels somewhere between a Tokyo listening bar and a relaxation pod.

The entrance corridor doubles as a kind of edible exhibition space, showcasing the ingredients used that evening before they appear on the plate. It’s theatrical without feeling cheesy — an insightful tease as to what awaits you inside.

WHAT’S SPECIAL?

The headline is chef Victor Garvey, whose Michelin-starred SOLA already cemented him as one of London’s more technically gifted chefs. But MATER1A is clearly the passion project: smaller, weirder, more intimate and heavily shaped by the two years Garvey spent cooking in Japan.

The restaurant name comes from “materia prima” — raw material, not the magic-infused orbs of the also-Japanese Final Fantasy series that many a nerdy friend has asked me about while I’ve waxed lyrical about the place. That philosophy runs through everything here. Ingredients are treated with near-spiritual reverence, while the dishes are served with technique and precision.

There’s also a refreshing refusal to play by conventional fine-dining rules. One minute you’re eating tuna with umami pavlova, the next you’re being offered a second bowl of unbelievable broth like a 1970s mum who can’t refuse another mug of bovril to her lad on the terraces.

And then there’s the music. A live DJ scores the evening in real time, shifting the room’s energy as the meal unfolds. That small detail stops the restaurant becoming overly reverential, with playful tunes cutting through the gastronomic drama. In fact, the DJ read our taste so well that we had to corner him to ask if our Spotify playlists had been pre-profiled before we arrived, so on-the-nose were his picks. It turned what could have been a conspicuous dining room (there’s more staff than diners) into something more akin to a dinner party.

WHAT’S NEW?

The entire thing! MATER1A only opened a few weeks back, and already feels like one of London’s defining luxury restaurants.

WHO SHOULD YOU BRING?

There’s room for everyone at MATER1A, but those of the culinarily well-versed kind will get the biggest kick out of it. That’s not to say it’s a challenging menu, or one that can’t be appreciated by all. But foodies will marvel at what’s been put together here.

You’ll be fine to bring a date, definitely — ideally one you’re trying to impress rather than relax around, though the background music keeps the vibe playful rather than intense. The room is intimate and relatively low-volume despite the soundtrack, so conversation still flows easily.

It’s also excellent for serious food friends, milestone birthdays or expense-account dinners where someone says “we should do somewhere special” and actually means it.

WHAT SHOULD YOU WEAR?

Smart. Not black-tie smart, but you’ll want to dress up — not so much to match the clientele, but as a mark of respect to the food. It turns up, and you should too. On a practical level, pop some shoes on and a nice shirt. The crowd leans creative luxury rather than City banker, but you’ll feel out of place if you’re not ready to meet the elevated nature of the cuisine halfway. But the MATER1A site itself stresses there’s no real dress code, and is likewise relaxed about table turn around times — you can simply relax and indulge.

WHAT WILL YOU PAY?

A lot, though not irrationally so for this level of ambition. You’re not going to walk away without at least denting £250 a head once drinks are counted. That said, compared to some London tasting-menu restaurants charging similar money for faceless luxury, MATER1A at least feels distinctive.

MUST-TRY DISHES?

As a tasting menu only set up, you’re going to get the full force of the MATER1A experience with every booking, and there’s not a duff dish among the pack. But there’s a few moments that are really breathtaking.

The Marinda Tomato, your opening dish, really sets the scene. Paired with a sakura miso, the agar agar Tokoroten noodles, using that same tomato base hits with a sharp, flavourful bang, totally slurp worthy.

‘May in 5 bites’ follows, an inventive and beautifully presented cornucopia of fish dishes representing the month, each a playful reconstruction of sushi favourites from otoro tuna to yellow tail.

It’s followed by Mr Tanaka’s Tuna — decadent chunks of deep red fish with leek and edamame in a gloriously syrupy base.

Skip forward a dish to the Oden — MATER1A’s tongue-in-check ‘surf and turf’, and arguably the star of the show. Suckling pork belly with daikon and quail egg, it’s served with a broth left to sit and warm in front of you for a few minutes, having brewed for 48 hours before being delicately poured over the meat.

But it’s eaten with anything but delicacy — you're actively encouraged to gulp down the slightly-sweet umami juices from a serving plate that includes a sippy spout on its side. Reader, I have no shame — I asked for seconds, and MATER1A was only happy to deliver.

The menu continues on in kind: a Joselito Ham served with truffle on a creamy duck liver; some of the finest A5 cuts of Kagoshima Wagyu I’ve ever tasted; a menagerie of strawberry desserts, each showing a different attribute of the berry, served from an urn that breaks away like a matryoshka doll, each layer hiding a fresh goodie.

It’s mind-bogglingly good, and the attentive staff are only too happy to talk you through the finer details of the epic construction.

As for drinks, that’s a guided experience too, paired confidently to “showcase small producers from Spain, France and the U.S,” and there are also non-alcoholic pairings for anyone pacing themselves.

GET ON THE GUESTLIST?

Absolutely, without hesitation. If you can afford the asking price, this is core-memory establishing stuff, an unforgettable trip into the inner workings of one of the best chefs working right now. It’s like jumping aboard that Wonka paddleboat, swapping the river of chocolate for a stream of soy.

Reservations are essential, unsurprisingly, and with only 16 seats the prime slots will disappear quickly. If you can swing a weekday lunch, you’ll probably have an easier time getting in. Right now, though, MATER1A feels like one of those rare London openings that genuinely earns the hype: ambitious without ego, theatrical without gimmicks, and memorable long after the final course lands.

MATER1A can be found at 115 Westbourne Grove, W2 4UP, with reservations handled through Open Table.

The original Shrek movie celebrates its 25th anniversary on May 15th. If you can remember watching it at the cinema as an adult, congratulations! You’re officially old.

DreamWorks Animation’s second computer animated feature hit big at the 2001 box office, making $492.5 million against a $60 million budget. That'll do, Donkey. That'll do.

As one of the most rewatched movies of the 21st century (it’s become something of a Christmas staple for many families), and an eminently quotable one at that, you might well feel that you know Shrek inside out.

But there’s plenty about this DreamWorks production that we’d vouch you weren’t aware of. It had a fascinating gestation, and underwent a production that was both protracted and tragic.

Here, then, are 10 things you probably didn’t know about Shrek...

1. Mike Myers wasn’t the first or even second choice to play Shrek

It’s now impossible to separate Wayne’s World actor Mike Myers from the central part of Shrek, but the truth is that he wasn’t meant to take the role. It originally went to American comedian and Saturday Night Live star Chris Farley, who had recorded most of his dialogue at the time of his untimely death in 1997. Nor, indeed, was Myers even the second choice for Shrek, with Nicolas Cage turning down the chance to fill Farley’s considerable boots because he didn’t want to be presented to kids as an ugly ogre.

2. Cameron Diaz wasn’t the original Fiona either

It was a far more ordinary casting switch, and one that has never really been accounted for, but Cameron Diaz wasn’t the initial choice to play Fiona. Janeane Garofalo got the nod at first, but was discarded as part of the huge creative overhaul that followed original lead Chris Farley’s death. The arrival of Mike Myers was accompanied by a shift to a sunnier and more mainstream tone, which might explain why the cynical comedian was dispensed with – though she reckons it was because of her deep voice.

3. Shrek originally spoke in a Canadian accent

As we’ve already discussed, Mike Myers was flown in to play the part of Shrek relatively late in the day. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, to learn that he initially struggled to find the ogres’s voice. Indeed, he initially recorded virtually all of his dialogue in a Canadian accent, but found that he wasn’t satisfied with the results. Myers duly convinced DreamWorks to allow him to re-record his dialogue in the generic Scottish accent he had previously deployed in So I Married an Axe Murderer and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. The rest is history.

4. It won the first every Academy Award for Best Animated Feature

It feels as if it’s been a thing forever, but the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was only instituted in time for the 74th awards, which was held in early 2002. As such, Shrek found itself in contention for the inaugural trinket, which it duly won. It was a strong year for CG movies too, with Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and a certain Monsters, Inc. both in contention. These years Pixar’s golden years, too, making Shrek’s achievement all the more impressive.

5. It also made a rare trip to Cannes

Besides its aforementioned Oscar success, Shrek was the first animated movie to be entered into the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in almost 50 years. The previous film to do so was Disney’s Peter Pan in 1953. Few Palme D’Or face-offs have covered as much cinematic ground as Shrek vs Mulholland Drive, that’s for sure.

6. It was loosely based on a book

It might come across as a total original (with obvious riffs on classic fairytales and Disney properties), but the original Shrek film is based on a children’s picture book from 1990. It’s not a like-for-like adaptation by any means, but author William Steig’s book has the core essentials down, from Shrek’s basic green ogre look to his misanthropic nature, and even his encounter with a similarly ‘ugly’ princess. With that said, the film version of our hero didn’t wind up with the ability to breath fire or shoot lasers out of his eyes.

7. Production was kicked of by a legendary director

Shrek’s journey from book to cinema screens was all kicked off by a certain Steven Spielberg, who purchased the rights to the story way back in 1991. Spielberg brought the project to the then-fledgling DreamWorks Pictures, who ultimately purchased the rights from the director and commenced production in 1995.

8. It could have gone the Wallace and Gromit route

Spielberg originally wanted to produce Shrek as a traditional hand-drawn feature, which makes sense given those early-‘90s origins. What might surprise you, though, is that even when DreamWorks Pictures took over the project, it wasn’t in line for the full CGI treatment. They initially planned it as a stop motion animated feature, à la Aardman’s Wallace and Gromit, and also explored a live-action/3D animation hybrid treatment before settling on full computer animation in partnership with Pacific Data Images.

9. The word Shrek comes from Yiddish

What’s in a name? Quite a lot, in the case of our favourite green ogre. Shrek’s name wasn’t arrived at lightly. The word ’shrek’ in Yiddish is related to the German word ‘schreck’, and means ‘fright’. This linguistic influence makes sense when you consider that the author of the original book (see above) was the late William Steig, a Jewish American cartoonist whose parents originally over came from Eastern Europe.

10. Without Shrek, some of your favourite animated movies wouldn’t exist

Shrek was the making of DreamWorks Studios, quite literally. In a 2007 interview, co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg revealed that the film both saved the studio financially and established its identity as a producer of 3D animated movies. As such, it directly paved the way to some stellar animated franchises. No Shrek, no Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, or How to Train Your Dragon.

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In late 2025, the fine wine world was sent into a spin when Aldi’s humble own-brand Champagne bagged the top spot at the prestigious World Champagne Awards. This supermarket sparkler outperformed storied houses like Veuve Clicquot and Bollinger, proving that a high price tag isn't always a prerequisite for high quality.

This seismic shift in the industry serves as definitive proof that you no longer have to splash the cash or hunt for a luxury label to sip some seriously moreish, award-winning fizz. Whether you are prepping for a large celebration or simply fancy a mid-week tipple, the high street is now a legitimate destination for connoisseurs.

To help you navigate the aisles and find the true gems among the duds, we've put together this comprehensive guide to the best supermarket own-brand Champagnes currently on the market — and some expert tips on how to find the bargain bottles.

Four tips to help spot the best bottles

1. All champagnes are not equal

Yes, Champagnes are all produced in one region, but it’s a region with seven different grape varieties and two quality-related classifications: Grand Cru refers to ones produced on vineyards ranked the highest on the AOC scale (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, the designation given to Champagnes, which must be made in the Champagne region while also meeting certain criteria) and Premier Cru is the second-highest tier.

There’s also a huge range of soils featuring different amounts of clay and chalk. All of this affects the finished product, as do processes such as ageing, and the amount of time the bottle spends on its “lees”, which refers to the amount of contact the wine has with the dead yeast cells (sediment), post-fermentation. Tweaking this step can affect texture, aroma and depth.

2. Does bigger always mean better?

There are several advantages enjoyed by the larger Champagne houses. To start with, their cellars are often much larger (sign up for tours of Moët & Chandon’s cellars, for example, and you’ll learn that they extend to a staggering 28 kilometres). This allows for longer ageing periods but it also enables Champagne houses in Riem, Epernay and other areas of the province to build up more reserve stock. 2021, for example, was a bad year for Champagne due to poor weather, and this had a much bigger impact on smaller Champagne houses. Moët & Chandon’s master blenders, meanwhile, could dig into their reserves to ensure Champagnes made during 2021 tasted just as good as the ones made during previous years.

3. The age factor

The most well-known Champagne houses will often age their Champagnes for several years, while supermarket brands will often age them for the minimum period of time (15 months).

The good news? While we wouldn’t go so far as to celebrate climate change, warmer temperatures have made it easier for supermarkets to produce top quality fizz.

“Rising temperatures and improved techniques in vineyards and wineries help supermarkets obtain higher quality wine with less need for longer ageing, and at better prices,” says Dawn Davies, wine expert at the Whisky Exchange.

“This doesn’t necessarily mean the big brands are overcharging, but it does mean good Champagne can be found at a wider range of prices.”

4. Bottoms up

Our top tip? Remember that you don’t need to be a wine expert to find your favourite Champagne. Simply get drinking – it’s the only way to work out which Champagnes tickle your tastebuds and which don’t. And make notes – especially if the label references a specific vineyard, village or producer. “

If a bottle names a village or vineyard, it usually means more care and intention has gone into it, often resulting in better quality and a more distinctive drinking experience,” says Peter King, head sommelier at the Michelin-starred The Yan at Broadrayne in Grasmere, the Lake District.

“Once you find a village style you like, it’s easy to explore similar wines from other producers in the same area.”

The best supermarket Champagnes

Majestic Wines Nicolas Courtin Brut Champagne

Expect plenty of fizz from this corker from Majestic Wines, produced in collaboration with a Champagne house founded in 1993. Its founder, Nicolas Gueusquin, relied heavily on his long-term relationships with some of the region’s oldest growers to produce this easy-drinking sparkler, which uses Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes. Notes of green apple and citrus which, paired with its abundance of bubbles, makes this a brilliant choice for celebrating special occasions. There’s a hefty dose of sweetness, but it’s also incredibly easily drinkable, and we’re awarding bonus points for the fact that the label’s top serving suggestion is to “pair it with oysters, baked goats’ cheese… or fish and chips.”

Asda Exceptional by ASDA Champagne Benoît Renaud Blanc de Noirs Brut

Made entirely with black grapes (Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier), this fantastic fizz is incredibly well balanced, with an on-point acidity which doesn’t overshadow its gorgeous richness. We loved the initial toasty notes of brioche and biscuits, as well as the fruity aftertaste. Wines with more pronounced acidity pair well with seafood (due to the acidity’s ability to cut through any oiliness while enhancing delicate flavour notes) and this is another fantastic partner for fish dishes.

Morrisons The Best Signature Collection Vintage Champagne

"This Champagne, crafted from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, has undergone extended ageing in the cellar to develop pronounced floral aromas,” says Emma Jenkinson, wine sourcing manager at Morrisons. But don’t just take her word for it – in recent years, Morrison’s has earned major brownie points from the wine world for its range of sparkling wines (including its various award-winning crémants). This particular Champagne might not be the cheapest supermarket offering, but it’s a seriously moreish sparkler, with a delicate blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes. We loved its dryness, as well as the floral and biscuity notes – a combination which added a freshness perfectly suited to hot summer days. A side note – we’re suckers for Moët & Chandon, and we struggled to tell the difference between the two in a blind test.

Co-Op Les Pionniers Champagne Non-Vintage

Co-Op has form when it comes to top quality sparkling wines, and awards bagged by its own-brand Champagnes include gold at previous Decanter World Wine Awards. Co-Op didn’t mess around when they launched this own-brand fizz – they joined forces with renowned Champagne house Piper Heidsieck. Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay provide a top quality hat trick of grapes which infuse this wallet-friendly, golden fizz with a buttery creaminess alongside a subtle sweetness. Pair it with charcuterie or drink it as an aperitif.

Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Blanc De Noirs Champagne

Another Champagne made entirely with black grapes (Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier), this tipple is all about balance – the initial blast of fresh fruit soon gives way to delicious toasted notes, while the richness and well-balanced acidity add an unexpected complexity which ensuring it’s a Champagne which is still fabulously drinkable. The perfect partner for aperitifs and smoked salmon, it’s another Champagne with a gorgeous label and a bottle you’ll want to display loud and proud. Move over Moët…

Aldi Nicolas de Montbart Champagne Brut 

There’s something rather regal about this bottle, with its pure white label framed in gold. And without blowing our own trumpet, if you were wondering what this Champagne tastes like, you’ll be grateful for our review, because the website’s description is absolutely rubbish (read: non-existent). Perhaps Aldi is resting on its laurels – after all, in December 2025 the supermarket had to impose a four-bottle limit per customer on this Champagne due to its popularity. It’s another fizz which uses a combination of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes, resulting in a wine which bursts with floral notes, but which is still wonderfully fresh, thanks to its distinct fruitiness. The abundance of soft, creamy bubbles makes this a great option for toasting special occasions.

Aldi Veuve Monsigny Champagne

Expect notes of apples, red fruits, citrus and strawberry when sipping this sparkler, which bagged World's Best Champagne at the World Champagne Awards 2025. Not so keen on cramming your five-a-day into a single bottle? Don’t panic, because toasty brioche notes ensure it’s wonderfully well-balanced, while subtle florals enhance its smoothness and delicacy, albeit with a crisp acidity which ramps up its drinkability.

Marks and Spencer Delacourt Champagne Brut

This M&S champagne uses the same combo of grapes as Coop’s offering (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier) although in this case, selected reserve wines were added to ramp up the richness. We were wowed by its creamy smoothness, enhanced by notes of brioche and vanilla, although sparkling notes of apple and peach kept it fresh, lively and very, very moreish. It’s another bottle which bags extra points on account of its tasting notes – in this case, the recommendation that it pairs best with salmon, chicken….and triple-cooked chips.

Waitrose Brut NV Champagne

Waitrose teamed up with top Champagne producer Alexandre Bonnet to create this stone fruit-themed fizz. It’s a house famous for its pinot noir Champagnes, and we loved the way this one’s minerality perfectly complemented its subtle fruitiness. Its cuvée status is another reminder that this is a top quality tipple – cuvée refers to a Champagne made with the first pressing, designed to extract the purest, highest quality juice from the grapes. Oh, and if you’ve always wondered what type of glasses are best for champagne? We got the lowdown from Nicola Hattersley, buying manager at John Lewis. “A tulip shape with its slightly wider flute is best for champagne, as it allows the aroma to build in the glass,” says Nicola. “A traditional flute is perfect for both Champagne and Prosecco – the glass's narrower profile helps maintain the drink's bubbles longer and keeps it cool.”

Waitrose Rosé Champagne Brut NV

We’ll admit it – we were Rosé snobs until now, but Waitrose’s offering has prompted us to ditch the derision. It’s a deliciously fruity Champagne packed with a ripeness stemming from the use of Pinot Noir grapes from the Les Riceys area of Champagne – an area where monks (including Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon, no less) have been producing sparkling wine for centuries. “Grower-producers make small batches from specific sites, so their wines tend to express a real sense of place,” says Peter King at The Yan at Broadrayne, Grasmere. When it comes to the wine pairing? Sip this one with aperitifs, and keep a few extra bottles close to hand for the main course. And dessert….

Tesco Finest Premier Cru Brut Champagne

Tesco claims that a longer ageing process is the secret of this Champagne’s success, which was an instant hit. Everything about it screams elegance – from the fine mousse (bubbles, to you and me) and the wine’s dainty lemon hue, to the way the notes of fresh apple, citrus and brioche all play their part, but never overwhelm. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are the stars of this easily-drinkable delight, produced by the region’s Union Champagne, one of the biggest producers of premier and grand cru grapes. A final bit of advice for fans of brut (dry) Champagne? “It’s hard to know how ‘brut’ a brut is when it comes to Champagne,” admits Dawn Davies, wine expert at The Whisky Exchange. “What you do know is that it will be less than 12 grams per litre, but unless this is written on the bottle or website (and it’s not usually) you won’t know. If you prefer drier styles, look for the word “extra” on the label. This means it will have less than six grams per litre.”

Harvey Nichols Premier Cru Brut Champagne NV

Granted, Harvey Nichols might not be a supermarket, but this fabulous bottle of fizz is still significantly cheaper than a bottle of Veuve, Ruinart or Bollinger. This deliciously dry blend of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay grapes was assembled for Harvey Nichols by Lombard & Medot, a Champagne house founded in 1925 and based in the Champagne region’s town of Épernay, where its neighbours include Perrier-Jouët, Pol Roger and Moët & Chandon. The tasting notes referenced notes of brioche (confirmed) and hazelnut (debatable), but the gorgeous hints of red fruits and florals were our favourite elements, making it another brilliant option for hot summer days. We recommend pairing it with seafood canapés.

• Laphroaig's latest limited edition whisky, Willem By Willem, comes with a taste of Hollywood

Open your go-to social media service in 2024, and you would have almost been guaranteed to see some Rivals on your feed. Whether you watched the Disney+ show in 10-minute increments on TikTok, watched the BTS interviews with the A-list cast on Instagram, or rolled your eyes at someone on LinkedIn talking about how watching a five-person-orgy made them rethink communication skills in b2b networks, it was everywhere.

Now Jilly Cooper’s hit novel Rivals from her Rutshire Chronicles is back for a second series, which is just as much of a fun, fantastic, frivolous romp through the 80s.

Series 2 of Rivals picks up in the middle of the battle for the South West ITV franchise, with Tony Baddingham (David Tennant’s) Corinium going up against Venturer, led by TV presenter Declan O Hara (Aidan Turner), tech mogul Freddie Jones (Danny Dyer), and ex-Olympian MP and heartthrob Rupert Campbell-Black. The battle for power leads to more shocking scandals, betrayals, and new romance.

Playing the half-brother of Lord Tony Baddingham, Luca Pasqualino stars as Basil "Bas" Baddingham in Rivals, returning in the second season as a key part of the competing Venturer company who are going to head to head with Corinium. Known for his flagrant sexual encounters, being a wickedly good polo player, and serving team members on both sides of the heated rivalry in his pub, Bas is a fun loving 80s incarnation of the prodigal younger brother – although this couldn't be more different from the laid back guy who joined us in The Admiralty Pub in Trafalgar Square.

From bursting onto screens as the dope-smoking rebel Freddie in Skins aged 18, and going on to star in TV favourites like Our Girl, Snatch, Criminal Record, and The Musketeers, Luca looked back on his worst auditions, the best sets, and what life would have looked like had he not gone into acting.

TV is comfort, and he's always picking the classics

It's funny to think of actors watching TV as a comfort when they know all the BTS secrets that might spoil the magic of it – in some ways, it would be like an accountant settling down with some bank statements for a chilled evening in. However, for Luca, it's classic British sitcoms that have his heart.

"Only Fools and Horses or Fawlty Towers are my comfort shows - any of those old quintessentially British TV shows," he reveals over a pint.

"With this kind of work, you're travelling a lot, and it’s easy to get homesick. Put something like that on, and I immediately feel at ease again."

The cast are anything but Rivals IRL

Look, maybe we're just blinded by the TV magic, but between the on-screen laughs and the off-screen good times, Rivals looks like the most fun project in history to work on — the TV equivalent of a massive school trip but with way more booze. Is it all it seems to be? Do they all hang out IRL??

"It's such a great cast," says Luca.

"A lot of the time, the days off do [overlap] – certain characters have certain storylines and scenes with each other, so you have ones that don’t overlap a lot. Then you’ve got these big ensemble scenes when you know everyone is going to be there. They seem a lot longer, and sometimes you can’t wait to get out of a certain location, but they are some of the most fun days."

Taking on the greatest onscreen rivalries

It's almost a bold statement to call a series Rivals, almost laying down a gauntlet to be compared to the greatest onscreen rivalries in cinematic and televisual history. Once again, for Luca, it's the classics that reign supreme:

"I watched Heat again the other day, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino – two of the most epic actors of all time, and seeing them play rivals when they're probably quite good friends in real life. I love that iconic scene of them in the diner, I just don’t know if it gets better."

He's not a London local but he's got a few favourite spots

It's easy to think that actors reside exclusively in Soho or The Groucho Club, and on BAFTA-esque red carpets. But for Luca, life is a lot more picturesque and wholesome – in fact, he's a self-confessed country bumpkin. Luckily, that doesn't mean he doesn't have a favourite foodie spot, and he's not gatekeeping either...

"I live out in a little countryside village, which makes coming to London exciting. I like the slower pace of life. I’m in and around Soho a lot [and a favourite is] Boco Di Lupe. I love going there for lunch on a special occasion."

The 80s are the great-ies, but it's not Luca's favourite era

Rivals is doing great PR for the 80s, reminding us all how iconic the outfits, hair, and music were, even if we weren't alive the first time around. Despite having done a few period pieces, there are a couple of epochs Luca's still eyeing up.

"I did a show a few years ago that was set in the 70s, and that was a lot of fun," Luca reflects.

"I would like to do something in the 70s in maybe Italy or Monte Carlo, where you see these amazing pictures of like Formula One back in the day."

Maybe he just wants to race Formula 1 in Monte Carlo?

"Yeah, I do!" he laughs.

He's an F1 mega fan

Speaking of F1, it's a big part of life for Luca, or at least, an obsession. If all roads lead to Rome, then the cars on said roads are probably all of the F1 ilk.

"I do love Formula 1," he admits.

"With my Italian roots, I’ve got a bit of a penchant for Ferrari. I've driven a couple of them before – they’re a sexy car."

If he wasn't acting – or F1 driving, he'd be cheffing it up

"If F1 weren’t taking me on as a driver, then I’m from a family of restaurateurs and hairdressers," he reveals.

"I worked as a chef, and I’ve got a passion for food, so probably in the culinary world. It’s a very unsociable job though – but then again so’s this job.

"Being Italian, it’s a lot of Italian dishes – I was a pizza chef when I was 16 until 18. I make a really nice homemade pasta, I’ve got the machine, and I like the ceremony of it. It might sound basic, but I love a Penne – I’ll slide it onto the fork and line them up. I found out that my grandfather used to do it, so I guess I inherited it from him, unknowingly."

A dream gig would be a biopic of a cinematic heavyweight Marlon Brando

Normal People, The Shawshank Redemption, Rivals – what do they all have in common? They've all been great books which have been made into even greater cinematic adaptations. If the magic wand of commissioning at a streaming house were in Luca's hand, it wouldn't be a book that would be getting the big screen treatment, but more of a biopic.

"I don’t have a favourite book really," he says.

"But I recently watched a documentary called Listen to Me Marlon, during the clearance of all of his belongings his family found all of these tapes that he basically recorded his diaries on every evening. They made a documentary about all of the tapes and stuff and I think to make a movie about that – because he was quite a complex man – to make a movie about him making these tapes as a journal would be a really interesting thing to visualise."

There are a couple of auditions that still haunt him – although luckily Rivals wasn't one of them

"I do still have to audition," Luca admits.

"When you get the call up saying you’ve got a direct offer, you don’t feel like hot shit, it’s more like 'why??'" he laughs.

"But I have had some really bad auditions – one of which I was semi-forced into by my old agent. I’m no singer, and I’m not very musical, but I’d been asked to go in and do a reading for a new show about a band. They said 'this is the song they want you to sing' and it was some kind of 80s rock ballad, and I thought there’s no way I'm going to do that.

"So they said, you know, just go in and sing whatever you want. At the time, I was listening to this Canadian artist called Matt Anderson, and why on God’s green Earth I thought I pulled off this deep register soulful voice – it seemed like a good idea at the time, probably because I knew all the lyrics all the way through. There were 15 other dudes outside with guitars and pianos. I put my headphones in and pressed play, ready to sing, and forgot that there was about 45 seconds to a minute before the lyrics kicked in, and we were all standing there in silence. It was a whole thing – I tried to skip forward and went too far... It was awful. I left and thought: I am never doing that again."

• "Between us and Paw Patrol, it’s going to be a better world": Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo talk fighting the far-right in season two of Criminal Record

Don’t say it too loudly, but summer is just around the corner. For years now, London has been offering up a fine array of festivals featuring everything from rock and pop to underground dance music, hip-hop, jazz and much more besides.

With 2026 being a fallow year for Glastonbury, there will be many Londoners feeling the hole in their diary without the annual pilgrimage to Worthy Farm. Whether you’re pining for music and mayhem in a Somerset field or just looking for some great music in one of London’s fantastic parks and open spaces, then we’ve got you covered!

London’s festivals offer something for everyone, whether you’re looking for roots reggae, pounding beats, laid back jazzy vibes or vintage pop. Sit back, crack open a drink and dream of partying to your favourite tunes, on a (hopefully) sunny day in London this summer!

1. Field Day

• When: 23rd of May
• Where: Brockwell Park
• Notable artists: Floating Points, Honey Dijon, Andy C, Joy Orbison

Happening back-to-back with Cross the Tracks at Brockwell Park, Field Day is a festival that has gone through some pretty major evolutions since its inception in 2007.

In its early days, the event focused on indie and folk, but then changed tack significantly as it moved into electronica, hip-hop, grime and R&B. Before finding its current home, the event was staged at Victoria Park and even in a warehouse in Enfield. This year’s line-up features Floating Points, Honey Dijon, Andy C, Joy Orbison and many more.

2. Cross The Tracks

• When: 24th of May
• Where: Brockwell Park
• Notable artists: Little Simz, Joy Crookes

Established in 2019, Cross The Tracks has made a huge impact on the London festival scene. It focuses on showcasing a blend of jazz, funk, soul and hip-hop – often with a dash of dance music in there for good measure.

This year’s line-up features boundary-pushing afro-jazz collective Kokoroko, The Outlook Orchestra, Fabio and Grooverider and many more. The day will be closed in fine fashion by all-conquering UK MC Little Simz.

3. City Splash

• When: 25th of May
• Where: Brockwell Park
• Notable artists: Beres Hammond, Aidonia, Elephant Man, Gyptian

City Splash is a joy filled celebration of Caribbean and African music. It focuses predominantly on reggae, dancehall and afrobeats. This time, punters will be treated to a UK exclusive show from veteran reggae artist Beres Hammond, plus Aidonia, Elephant Man, Gyptian, Channel One and many more.

4. Mighty Hoopla

• When: 30th-31st May
• Where: Brockwell Park
• Notable artists: Lily Allen, Jessie J, Scissor Sisters

Mighty Hoopla is a gutsy and fun celebration of all things pop culture. Designed as an inclusive event, it celebrates LGBTQ+ artists and queer art. Expect pop nostalgia, drag acts, DJs and a whole lot more.

The line-up features headline sets on the Saturday and Sunday respectively from Lilly Allen and Scissor Sisters. Other artists on the bill include Jessie J, JLS, Five, Horse Meat Disco, Jodie Harsh and Heather Small.

5. Somerset House Summer Series

• When: 16th-26th of July
• Where: Edmond J Safra Fountain Court, Somerset House
• Notable artists: The Cribs, Three Scared Souls, Naïka, Benjamin Clementine

Arguably more of a concert series than a festival, the Summer Series is, however, a stellar set of events hosted by Somerset House in July. True to form, the event will feature both beloved classic artists and current innovators across a range of genres.

Taking to the stage in the beautiful Edmond J Safra Fountain Court will be Lightning Seeds, Black Country New Road, Flaming Lips, Benjamin Clemantine and more.

6. Jazz Café Festival

• When: 2nd of August
• Where: Burgess Park
• Notable artists: Ari Lennox, Greenta Peng, Smino

A relative newcomer to the London scene, Jazz café festival returns with its third edition in 2026. The event takes the musical ethos of the legendary Camden venue and showcases a range of soulful sounds and boundary-pushing artists.

Ari Lennox, Greentea Peng, Durand Bernarr, Boldy James and Smino are among the event’s stellar line-up.

7. Maiden Voyage

• When: 8th of August
• Where: Burgess Park
• Notable artists: SHERELLE, Helena Hauff, TYGAPAW, DJ Heartstring, HAAi, Job Jobse,

Organised by the team behind The Jazz Café, Maiden Voyage has been bringing unmissable line-ups showcasing the best of contemporary electronic music to London each summer since 2019.

Originally held in Stratford before moving to the Lea Valley – it now finds a home alongside Jazz Café Festival at Burgess Park. This year’s line-up features Confidence Man, ALCATRAZ, DJ Gigola, DJ Heartstring, Helena Hauff and many more.

8. Roots Picnic

• When: 8th-9th of August
• Where: Crystal Palace Bowl
• Notable artists: Nas, The Roots, Floetry, Nia Smith, Sasha Keable

Created by the legendary hip-hop group The Roots, this event originates from Philadelphia. London is being treated to the first international edition, which offers up two days of top-tier hip-hop, soul and jazz. It will, of course, feature The Roots, performing here with fellow legend Nas.

Other artists on the bill include Anthony Hamilton, Musiq Soulchild, Benny the Butcher, Yasiin Bey, Black Thought, Robert Glasper & Questlove and Common.

9. All Points East

• When: 21st-23rd August + 28th-30th August
• Where: Victoria Park
• Notable artists: Tyler, The Creator, Baby Keem, Jorja Smith, Tems, Lorde, Deftones, Idles, Twenty One Pilots

Each year since 2018, All Points East has brought hugely varied line-ups featuring big names and cult artists to Victoria Park. The 2026 edition keeps things going with another set of themed one-day events.

Major draws include Tyler, The Creator, Jorja Smith, Lorde and Twenty One Pilots. On Sunday 23 August, the series will host Outbreak Fest – a day of rock and metal featuring acts such as Deftones, Amyl and the Sniffers, Interpol and more.

10. GALA

• When: 22nd-24th May
• Where: Peckham Rye Park
• Notable artists: Giggs, CASSISDEAD, Seth Troxler, Todd Terje, Saoirse

GALA takes place on the May bank holiday weekend and is now London’s largest independent festival. This three-day event is proud of its independence and known for using high-quality sound systems and featuring a diverse selection of electronica and underground dance music.

The 2026 edition features one of its strongest line-ups. Giggs will play a much-anticipated homecoming set, while others on the bill include CASSISDEAD, Seth Troxler, Todd Terje, Saoirse and more.

• The London Heavy List: Every Metal, Rock & Punk gig you need to see in 2026

Run to the hills!

No, actually, the cinema.

Few British bands have shaped heavy music quite like Iron Maiden. Fifty years after forming in East London pubs, the metal pioneers are still packing out stadiums, inspiring generations of bands, and proving that Eddie will always be one of the most recognisable mascots in music.

Now, their definitive new documentary, Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition, is storming into cinemas - charting the band’s rise from gritty pub gigs in Stratford to becoming one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. And with their huge 50th anniversary celebrations continuing, including their own upcoming massive festival Eddfest, which will see them take over Knebworth this July 10th-11th, Maiden-mania is showing absolutely no signs of slowing down.

So when Shortlist was invited front row to the film’s Leicester Square premiere, it was the perfect opportunity to reflect on the highs, lows and lineup changes which had shaped the band along the way - and the band shares that it hits an emotional note, too.

“There’s a few emotional moments,” frontman Bruce Dickinson tells Shortlist, of all the history in the defining doc. “Paul Di’Anno passing… Nico departing… the reaction of the fans, the way people talk about us.”

“It’s a good document, not only for the fans, but for us,” guitarist Adrian Smith tells Shortlist, “To look back on the journey we’ve shared together.”

From the pubs of Leytonstone and Stratford to conquering London Stadium in front of tens of thousands of fans last summer, Iron Maiden’s relationship with the capital runs deep. Proud East End icons, lifelong West Ham supporters, and one of the UK’s most defining live acts, the band’s DNA is stitched into London music history.

Which begs the question: for a band who’ve played everywhere from sticky-carpet pub backrooms to some of the biggest stages on Earth - what are the greatest music venues in London?

From legendary lost rock institutions to the intimate venue they’d still love to return to - you heard it here first - these are Iron Maiden’s official favourite London music venues. Eddie approved.

1. O2 Forum Kentish Town (Previously The Forum & Forum Dancehall)

“Unfortunately, most of my favourite venues are ‘past’ rather than present,” Bruce Dickinson laments with Shortlist.

“I loved The Rainbow, and it's gone. The Astoria. The original Marquee Club - gone. All that's left, really, is the Forum. I played The Forum, and that venue is pretty cool.”

“I'm not from London, I'm from the north - from Worksop, which nobody's ever heard of, but there you go,” Dickinson shares of his formative London years.

“I came down to London to go to uni, and my uni happened to be in the East End - so when Maiden were going around the East End, I was in Mile End - going from Mile End to Leyton, to Leytonstone to South Woodford, Stratford and all of those places. I was at college from ‘76 to ‘79, so right on the cusp of when the whole punk thing was happening as well - so it was an interesting time!”

2. Eventim Apollo (previously Hammersmith Odeon), Hammersmith

“Of course, the Hammersmith Odeon - as I still call it - is pretty cool,” Dickinson tells us, of the famed West London art deco-style venue now known as Eventim Apollo.

So, would the metal icon be up for returning to the iconic venue for an intimate show any time soon?

“Absolutely, I would, yeah! But probably with my solo band,” the rockstar reveals, “Watch this space.”

The band’s no stranger to the area, of course. “Also, we played at The Swan pub, in the Hammersmith Odeon area. There are a few pubs around that we played in London!” adds guitarist Dave Murray.

Naturally that gig wasn’t without chaos - when the band played the Hammersmith pub in 1970 in their early career, right before the band was set to take the stage, then-singer Paul Di'Anno was arrested for carrying a knife. The show went on - albeit mostly instrumental, given that their singer had just been arrested.

3. Marquee Club, Soho

“We used to play at the Marquee Club. That was the one! Everybody played there, from Led Zeppelin to Pink Floyd, and Jimi Hendrix - everybody that grew up in the ‘60s. When we played there, I think we sold out for a week,” Murray tells us, of his all time-favourite London venue, which opened as a jazz club in the Fifties and closed on Wardour Street in 1996.

“It was little - there was one little dressing room behind the stage. But there's something about the Marquee - the sticky carpets! It had an atmosphere in there. I’m a big Jimi Hendrix fan, and when you see some of the footage of Hendrix playing there, that did it for me.”

Iron Maiden famously played a string of shows at the Soho club - including their influential Live!! +one live EP - while every major rock band of the time also graced the stage, from the Rolling Stones to David Bowie and The Who.

4. London Stadium, Stratford

“That was like - wow,” says Murray, of Iron Maiden’s landmark homecoming show last June which saw them take over Stratford’s London Stadium as part of their Run For Your Lives World Tour, playing to over 70,000 fans - their largest UK headline show outside of festivals, ever.

“It’s West Ham’s stadium - which is also Steve Harris’s favourite football team. So he planned that", adds Murray. The band are famously West Ham fans, having even released their own Iron Maiden West Ham football shirt to jointly celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary and the club’s 1975 FA Cup win.

“I remember it was a very hot evening, very light, but the buzz there was just incredible,” Murray remembers of the mega stadium gig last year.

“I really enjoyed that. And when it's daylight, you can see everyone, it's like, whoa!

“But the reaction from them! The London fans have always been fantastic. Saying that, though, all over the world, everywhere we play, the Iron Maiden fans are a family that stick together and talk to each other. And I think we're fans as well. We're joining them on this journey.”

5. The Cart & Horses, Stratford

A stone’s throw from the London Stadium is a rather different kind of venue, just as - if not more - influential to Maiden lore.

Of the Stratford show, Murray explains, “It wasn't far from the Cart & Horses, where we used to play way back… so we came from there to that huge football stadium” recalls Murray, of the East End pub affectionately coined as the ‘birthplace’ of Iron Maiden (and so says the signage above the door, too), where the band played weekly gigs in their early years during the Seventies.

6. Koko (previously The Music Machine), Camden

“We were just talking about the old days - of the Marquee and The Music Machine,” Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith tells us, who hails from Clapton, where he also first met Maiden’s Dave Murray.

“That's where Iron Maiden started off, and a lot of the bands cut their teeth in those places,” he remembers.

“London will always be important, because that's where the band started - even in some places not too far from this spot we're standing on,” nodding to the West End surroundings where the Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition premiere is taking over Leicester Square as we chat.

“It’s always going to be our home town, so it'll always be a special connection.”

Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition is in cinemas now

• The London Heavy List: Every Metal, Rock & Punk gig you need to see in 2026

This season’s non-fiction sweep is so rich and varied it could easily be plugged into Portlandia’s iconic ‘Did You Read It?’ sketch. You know, the one where Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein rapidly trade magazine article subjects back and forth.

'Did you read that thing about how artists through history paid the bills?' 'Of course. But did you read that thing about the Gen Z girls who got into metal detecting?' 'I did read that.' 'Did you read John Robins memoir.. (Yes)' 'Did you read Patrick Radden Keefe on.. (Yes)' Did you read.. Did you read.. Did you read...?

Shortlist Pick: Thirst (John Robins)

Most comedian’s books simply do not need to exist. OK they’re funny enough but it’s usually some glossed over origin story, a few lists of sketches or stand-up that never made it to air and a smattering of ultimately disappointing anecdotes about other famous people. Thirst feels like a book that needs to exist: for John Robins and for its readers. One half of Radio 5Live’s Elis & John show (with Elis James. Robins also presents a podcast named How Do You Cope?), he has structured this book around twelve drinks that changed his life, from a stubby at Scouts camp through to Wood’s Old Navy Rum and White Russians. Mostly because he’s a recovering alcoholic.

Robins is, sensibly, writing about some of the lowest points in his life from the scar not the wound but his honesty together with his ability to laugh at himself is infectious and inspiring. No, it’s not all funny. The sheer detail and intensity he brings to the recollections of his nirvana-like pub visits, his crying-on-the-toilet days and the small wins and fails in-between is quite something, though. Not to mention he’s quoting bloody Philip Larkin, Neko Case and Simone Weil throughout. Robins generously and unabashedly throws every mantra, wise word and toolkit that’s ever helped him into Thirst. If you’re currently addicted to something, this might just unlock part of it - surely the best use of a funnyman there is.

• Out now / Buy it here

The Edge of Space-Time (Chanda Prescod-Weinstein)

Don’t let the main title of Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s The Edge of Space-Time spook you: the subtitle is the delightful ‘Particles, Poetry and the Cosmic Dream Boogie’. And, in fact, the whole point of her book is to bring curious non-scientists into the big questions we still have about the universe. An associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of New Hampshire, Prescod-Weinstein researches dark matter, the Big Bang and neutron stars in addition to Black feminist science studies.

Here, as she dives into gravity, relativity, electromagnetism, cosmic boundaries, event horizons and quantum field theory, she tells readers not to worry if things feel fuzzy, dropping in silly-to-complex diagrams and her own, inclusive, personal real-world experiences. Prescod-Weinstein’s project requires deploying all sorts of literary, cinematic and pop culture references in order to expand the metaphors we use when we think about space and physics. From ones you might expect - Christopher Nolan movies, Trekkies are well-served - to ones you might not: Drake vs Kendrick, Missy Elliott, Sun Ra, even the Electric Slide. Jordan Peele’s Us helps with gravitational lensing, Alice in Wonderland with the stretching of space-time. Imagination-expanding and utterly unique.

• Out now / Buy it here

What The Bouncer Saw (George Bass)

You’ve never read a memoir like this before. Within about the first ten pages, security guard George Bass has told us his hourly wage and the exact amount, down to the pence, of his latest water bill. So refreshing and so true to the running internal monologue of millions of people. What The Bouncer Saw colours in the lines of the years long cost-of-living crisis, letting us feel the tension and stress over food prices, mortgage rises and energy bills day after day. A rare takeaway coffee is half an hour’s wages, the small Christmas bonus will go to the dentist...

As Bass does campus security for Canterbury University, we also get a term’s worth of student stories that are wild, funny and heart-breaking - if you’ve ever lived in halls, you’ll recognise the fights, fire alarms and wayward guests - and Bass lets us in on his own tales of sex, drugs and techno from his teen and twentysomething days. As he and his longterm partner Jess try to stay afloat and stay joyful with their daughter Rose, we see how his watchful security mindset creeps in to his home life. One genuinely shocking element: just how much university guards are now called on to cover, whether that’s parking duties, gritting, cleaning, frontline mental health support, dealing with endless Amazon and food deliveries. Remarkable.

• Out now / Buy it here

Cosmic Music: The Life of Alice Coltrane (Andy Beta)

From White Rabbit Books, Andy Beta’s biography of Alice Coltrane is pretty special. One-of-one doesn’t quite do her justice: musician, composer, bandleader, harpist, pianist, guru… This book is one to cancel all your plans and really sink into, rich and textured as it is with many decades’ worth of stories and reflections on making music and finding transcendence. Beta weaves Alice’s story into an oral history of 20th century jazz legends, from the clubs of ‘Motor City’ Detroit and Paris to the famous sessions and performances in New York City and Long Island, where two geniuses - Alice and John Coltrane - made house.

Journey in Satchidanada, Alice Coltrane’s fourth album, has become an undeniable touchstone in the recent and much overdue re-evaluation of her place in music history. Yet there’s so much more “cosmic music” to dig into, spiritual jazz and beyond, in her own discography and in the John Coltrane records made during their time together. Alice Coltrane lived many lives, culminating in her leading an ashram in the hills of California, and this book is devoted to understanding and celebrating all of them.

• Out now / Buy it here

If We Tolerate This (Daniel Trilling)

If We Tolerate This is a short, sharp look at how we got here, here being Reform consistently on over 25% in the polls and worryingly successful in the locals. It’s from Daniel Trilling, who writes for the LRB, The Guardian and the New York Times. And, sure, we open with a survey of the “fanatics” - Farage, Yaxley-Lennon, Musk et al and their emotive allure - but Trilling swiftly and wisely moves on to analyse two other distinct groups within Britain’s establishment: the Tory “opportunists” - most notably Johnson and then Sunak - and the Labour “cowards” in Starmer’s government. He argues that they have made the far-right “respectable” through mimicking hateful rhetoric, copying hard-line policies and failing to be honest with the public about immigration.

Alongside this central thesis, Trilling alights on many interesting nuggets and questions: for instance, who most represents the working class between MPs Lee Anderson and Hannah Spencer? Are we loyal to a system in which Reform only needs to get to that “magical 32%” of the electorate to gain power? How can we combat Ben Goldsmith’s nature-loving eco-fascism? And should we start preparing the bulwark for Danny Kruger’s plans to directly appoint judges and push laws through without parliamentary votes?

• Out now / Buy it here

A People’s History of Football (Mickaël Correia, Jean-Christophe Deveney, et al.)

From Pluto Press, A People’s History of Football is a labour of love that spins football on its head(er). First written by Mickaël Correia and Jean-Christophe Deveney in French and gorgeously illustrated by Italian comic artist Lelio Bonaccorso, the English edition of this graphic novel has been translated by Fionn Petch. As we flit from medieval English folk football to the pan-African championships. Bonaccorso, who has worked with Marvel and DC, gives each chapter its own distinct colour palette, with sepia tones for the older sections: we always know if we’re in Stalinist Russia or ‘70s Brazil. The throughline to the stories? The people, the fans, the players, the streets.

And the stories are truly incredible, including the Austrian player who defied the Nazis their propaganda match win to the Russian brothers who ended up in the gulag for beating official police teams. And did you know which player first started dribbling with the ball and why? Or just how big women’s football was in the 1920s? A wonderful gift for anyone who’s about to become obsessed with this summer’s World Cup.

• Out now / Buy it here

London Falling (Patrick Radden Keefe)

If you read non-fiction, you’ll know the work of Patrick Radden Keefe, a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain. London Falling is his propulsive, meticulous account of the mysterious death of nineteen year-old Zac Brettler. In 2019 Zac, who had been posing as the son of a Russian oligarch, fell to his death from a block of luxury apartments overlooking the Thames. This tragedy for his family then transformed into a maze of confusion, contradictory stories, London underworld figures and police force failures as they tried to find the explanations behind Zac’s death.

The book illuminates some shockingly murky depths of the city that might shift your opinion of the capital - we’ve all heard stories about crooks, con men, ghost flats and shell companies but this narrative makes it all real and unavoidable. It explores the links between dirty money, criminal activity, Russian oligarchs and the glossy lives of their families, with keen insights into why we might lie at different points of a life. Keefe’s reporting gets closer to important answers in the mystery but he never forgets that he’s telling the sad story of one young man who found himself in circumstances he couldn’t control.

• Out now / Buy it here

Things We Found In The Ground (Eleanor Bruce, Lucilla Gray)

It doesn’t get much more wholesome than this. Ellie and Lucie are two cousins and Gen Z ‘detectorists’ who, stuck with family in Lincolnshire during the pandemic, caught the metal detecting bug hard and eventually set up their @romanfound Instagram account to document their finds. Their tales of trudging through fields, bogs and up stormy hills in search of coins, badges and all manner of jewellery, toys and accessories from throughout history, including yes some Roman denarii, are lovely to escape into. Even when they’re soaked through and only picking up disappointing Coke ‘can slaw’, bits of lead and shotgun shells.

This is a conversational, welcoming and charming joint memoir that introduces the subculture, the gear and the camaraderie and competition of group digs to new audiences. Plus, of course, the terminology and tactics - from beep deciphering and ‘gridding’ to the official definition of ‘treasure’. Things We Found.. also serves as a way in to histories of both the county and coinage, currency and monarchs, touching on religion, trade, war, fashions and plagues. The most heart-warming bit? The ways Ellie and Lucie’s hobby leads to encounters with locals of all ages, including birdwatchers, artefact sorters, the ‘lady of the manor’ who gives them permission to dig her land and bakers of excellent cakes.

• Out now / Buy it here

Making Art and Making A Living (Mason Currey)

Cereal, bread, ice cream, tinned fish. Just some of the appetising, low-cost, low-effort diets of artists, writers and musicians struggling to get by on art alone. Mason Currey, who put out the brilliant book Daily Rituals in 2013 and writes the newsletter Subtle Manoeuvres, returns to the lives of artists through history, this time focusing on how they paid the bills. Inspiring and with a strong point of view - in the sense that we can perhaps learn something from this moany, stubborn, alternative lot - Currey gives us a sense of the combination of luck, circumstance and individual choice which dictated how names including Joyce, Kafka, Van Gogh and Woolf spent their time and money.

Making Art.. is full of amusing and consoling anecdotes, diary entries and letters from artists asking friends and family for money. There’s a great chapter on FDR’s Federal Art Program in the ‘30s and early ‘40s and at one point Currey compares poet Alexander Pope’s Homeric translation subscription service to Substack writers today. Haydn’s prince-pleasing, Godard’s compulsive stealing, John Cage’s game show winnings, even Pessoa blowing his inheritance — this isn’t exactly advice as such but it certainly shows how many ways there are to (just about) make a creative life.

• Out now / Buy it here

The Age of Alchemy (Kit Chapman)

This romp through the history of alchemy takes as its focal point how the traditions and writings of craftsmen, physicians, charlatans, ‘professors of secrets’ and other early innovators shaped modern chemistry. The author Kit Chapman is a lecturer at Falmouth University, who you might know from his 2019 book Superheavy, on the race to make elements with atomic numbers over 100 with particle accelerators. Here, he’s more concerned with ideas around the transmutation of base metals into gold, the search for immortality through the Philosopher’s Stone, the four humours, questionable potions and lotions and the Mercury-Sulfur theory.

This is an accessible book that’s stacked with intriguing asides - like the esoteric chemistry Easter Egg in the Baldur’s Gate game series - and characters’ stories you’ll want to explore further, like Mary ‘the Jewess’, Paracelsus, Ibn Sina and Jabir from the Islamic Golden Age and Pope Clement VII, who did proto-clinical trials of posions and antidotes on prisoners. Chapman argues that the emperor Diocletian inadvertently made alchemy into the mysterious dark art when he ransacked the workshops of Alexandria, leaving only scraps of ‘recipes’ behind. He also reinstates a number of overlooked - or simply unlucky - early chemists who prioritised experiments, process and sharing knowledge over hidden tricks and magical thinking. Fascinating stuff.

• Out now / Buy it here

• 10 more must-read non-fiction books to kickstart 2026

Two relatively minor Marvel comic book characters are being give the spotlight in May, which has prompted us to reflect on some of the other niche Marvel heroes that deserve their own spin-offs.

The Punisher: One Last Kill hits Disney+ on May 12th, and is being listed as a Marvel Television Special Presentation that bridges the gap between the events of the recently concluded Daredevil: Born Again season and his expected appearance in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

While some would balk at the description of Frank Castle’s deadly antihero as a ‘niche character’, we’d argue that nicheness (might have just invented a word there) is baked into the character.

Starting out life as a brutal Spider-Man antagonist, his whole raison d’etre was to stand apart from the more traditional do-gooding heroes with a particularly ‘70s brand of violence and cynicism.

Still, The Punisher seems positively mainstream compared to Spider-Man Noir, who gets his own stand-alone TV series on MGM+ (in the US) and Amazon Prime (in the UK) later this month.

Part of the already-pretty-weird Marvel Noir universe, he’s an alternate version of Spider-Man with a hard-boiled detective vibe. In this particular iteration, he’s being played by the incomparable Nicolas Cage. It’s out there, alright.

So which other oddball or just plain unknown Marvel characters should be next for the big (or small) screen treatment? Here are a few candidates.

1. Beta Ray Bill

Remember when people actually liked Thor? Taika Waititi did well to give the Norse dolt a fresh lick of paint (not to mention a welcome humour injection) with Thor: Ragnorok, before taking the silliness way too far with the execrable Thor: Love and Thunder. Beta Ray Bill could help restore some of that quirky cosmic magic as an equine alien who proves himself worthy of wielding Mjolnir, Thor’s mighty hammer. Fun fact – the levelled-up Storm Breaker hammer that was shown being forged during the Avengers: Infinity War movie was originally made for Beta Ray Bill in the comics.

2. New Warriors

Originally created in 1989, the New Warriors can ultimately be thought of as a kind of junior version of The Avengers, with younger superheroes filling out the usual superteam roles. The lower age of these heroes naturally dictates a zestier, more youthful brand of costumed heroism than we’ve grown accustomed to through successive cinematic versions of Marvel’s middle-aged A-team. Interestingly, Marvel actually made a pilot of a New Warriors TV series back in 2017 featuring Squirrel Girl (see elsewhere on this list), but it never aired. Time for another go, perhaps?

3. Captain Britain

There have been rumours of Captain Britain appearing in the MCU for years now, with none other than Henry Cavill heavily linked with the role. The hero himself is a hugely camp mish-mash of Arthurian legend and posh English tropes – the kind of nominally British character only an American could come up with – but we’d love to see the character reimagined by a skilled set of UK writers. Given Marvel’s often very US-centric cinematic universe, it’d be nice to add a splash of self-deprecating UK flavour to proceedings.

4. Blue Marvel

For all Chadwick Boseman’s (RIP) stellar work as Black Panther, there remains a vacancy for a Marvel hero who reflects the black American experience – especially when you consider how badly underserved Anthony Mackie’s The Falcon/Captain America has been through successive televisual and cinematic duds. Blue Marvel has the potential to tell a compelling story – a godlike Thor/Sentry-tier hero who is forced to retire in the 1960s due to the civil unrest that comes about when the public discover he is black. Assuming Marvel’s writers can keep the generic sassy quip quotient to the minimum, it could be great.

5. Nova

According to industry rumour, there is already a Nova project in the works, but until we receive official confirmation we’re treating the IP as fair game. The Nova Corps is essentially Marvel’s equivalent of DC’s Green Lantern Corps, with a similar ‘superpowered space cops’ angle. We’ve actually seen them appearing in the MCU before in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, before they were wiped out (off screen) by Thanos in the lead up to Avengers: Infinity War. That sounds like the perfect set-up for the most prominent member, Earth’s Richard Rider, to make his fish-out-of-water entrance.

6. Howard the Duck

He might have starred in his own George Lucas-produced film in the mid-‘80s, and has already appeared in the MCU via three Guardians of the Galaxy cameos and a What If... episode (voiced by Seth Green), but Howard the Duck remains the cultiest of cult Marvel heroes. This sarcastic anthropomorphic duck – he’s actually an extra-dimensional alien, but let’s call a waterfowl a waterfowl – could provide just the left-field twist that the Marvel Cinematic Universe so sorely needs, as well as a vehicle for even more detective noir goodness.

7. Miracleman

If anyone wanted Marvel to take a crack at the whole adult-oriented superheroes thing in the wake of the success of The Boys and Invincible, then Miracleman would be an intriguing candidate. This obscure godlike hero (he’s quite literally Marvel’s Shazam, as the legal records will attest) started out in the ‘50s, before receiving an acclaimed revisionist treatment by Alan Moore in the ‘80s. The latter run recontextualised Miracleman’s wholesome origins in a much more sinister light, and dealt with the whole ‘what if Superman was real?’ concept decades before it became the cool thing to do.

8. Squirrel Girl

Doreen Green, aka Squirrel Girl, is a human mutate (though we could well imagine her becoming part of the MCU’s upcoming mutant phase) with the agility and giant prehensile tail of a squirrel, as well as the ability to communicate with the furry critters. Squirrel Girl might just be the silliest hero in the wider Marvel universe, but she’d surely be a brilliant fit for the post-Deadpool MCU, given the right self-aware treatment – especially with her uncanny ability to defeat all comers through her smarts and her empathy rather than bishy-bashy hyper-violence.

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London has plenty of places to swim outdoors, but the best one is not always the longest, warmest, or most aggressively lane-disciplined.

Sometimes it’s the one with the nicest walk afterwards; sometimes it’s the one that makes you feel briefly heroic for getting into cold water before breakfast (or lunch); and sometimes it’s just the one near a decent pub.

So, as summer 2026 approaches, this is a lido ranking based on actual vibe: the setting, the crowd, the post-swim options, the faff level, and whether you leave feeling like you have made the most of London, rather than simply completing 40 lengths in municipal water.

As a keen swimmer, I love the option of heading to a well-managed and well-kept lido whilst remaining within the cocoon of the city. On top of the swim itself, visiting lidos is a good way to explore London and make its history real.

To help you get your swimming groove on, we’ve found the 10 best lidos spread across all four corners of London, including some options you might have overlooked. Without further ado, let’s dive in (with my apologies for the pun).

Brockwell Lido – Herne Hill

• Best for: The complete London lido experience

Brockwell Lido has the rare quality of feeling like a proper destination without trying too hard.

The art deco building does a lot of the work, obviously, but so does the setting: tucked into Brockwell Park, close enough to Herne Hill for coffee or even a post-swim pint, but still just removed enough from the road to feel like you have stepped out of ‘normal’ London.

It is not the quietest, cheapest, or most secret option in the city, and on a hot weekend it can feel like half of south London had the same idea. But we say that’s also part of the appeal.

Vibe: art deco, flat whites, wet hair, linen shirts, sunshine, and pretending you only came for a quick dip.

Parliament Hill Lido – Hampstead Heath

• Best for: Beautiful misery, in the best way

Parliament Hill Lido is for anyone who wants their outdoor swimming with a bit of grit.

The lido is not soft, spa-like, or especially interested in making things easy for you. The pool is unheated, the setting is open and exposed, and on the wrong day the whole experience can feel like a minor act of character-building.

That is also exactly why people love it. There is something brilliant about the scale and simplicity of the place; it feels more elemental than decorative, and far less performative than some of London’s trendier swim spots.

Vibe: cold water, clear heads, North London stoicism, and a towel carried with quiet purpose.

Tooting Bec Lido – Tooting

• Best for: Scale, spectacle, and some proper lido history

Tooting Bec Lido is the big one: a long, open stretch of blue water that makes most outdoor pools feel like they were built for people who enjoy queuing politely in shallow ends.

It feels like a proper public institution, used, defended, complained about, and returned to by generations of Londoners. The lido can be busy, and it is not the most intimate option on this list, but intimacy is not really the point.

Vibe: huge towels, bright changing cubicles, big groups, serious swimmers, and the faint sense you have joined a civic tradition rather than booked a swim.

London Fields Lido – Hackney

• Best for: The easy east London choice

London Fields Lido is popular for the most obvious reason: it is extremely good at being useful. It is heated, 50 metres long, open year-round, and close enough to Broadway Market that a swim can become lunch, coffee, a pint, or all three with almost no planning.

The downside is that everyone else has worked this out too. On a hot day, it can feel less like a secret and more like Hackney’s collective out-of-office reply. Still, the appeal holds.

London Fields is handsome, reliable, and easy to fold into a bigger day out, which makes it one of the city’s most useful outdoor swims.

Vibe: morning lengths, tote bags, pastries, pints by 2pm, and a towel that somehow smells faintly of sourdough.

Hampstead Heath Ponds – Hampstead Heath

• Best for: Wild swimming without leaving London

The Hampstead Heath Ponds are not lidos, but leaving them out of a London outdoor swimming list wouldn’t feel right. They are colder, muddier, and more ritualistic than most pool swims, with the added thrill of sharing the water with ducks, weeds, and people who seem to have been doing this every morning since the 1970s.

The appeal is the feeling of slipping out of London while still being very much in it. You get trees instead of tiles, birdsong instead of lane etiquette, and the strange post-swim glow of someone who has just done something faintly feral before lunch.

Vibe: cold water, serious regulars, improvised modesty, and someone nearby explaining that this is actually very good for your nervous system.

Oasis Sports Centre – Covent Garden

• Best for: the surreal central London swim

The main thing to know about Oasis is that it feels faintly improbable. One minute you are in central London dodging office workers, and the next, you are outside, in a pool, looking up at the sky.

Nobody comes here for grand lido romance; this is not Brockwell, and it is not trying to be. Its appeal is pure convenience with a little bit of weirdness attached: a proper outdoor swim in a part of London better known for theatres, shops, and sandwich queues.

Vibe: desk job escapism, chlorine hair, theatreland weirdness, and the quiet thrill of swimming outdoors.

Serpentine Lido – Hyde Park

• Best for: The London postcard moment

There are arguably better pools for lengths, facilities, and pretending you are the sort of person who wakes up naturally at 6am. The Serpentine Lido, though, wins on setting.

It’s Hyde Park, open water, deckchairs, grass, passing tourists, and the slightly odd pleasure of doing something that feels both very wholesome and mildly attention-seeking.

I’d recommend treating it as a summer outing rather than a training session. Go when the sun is out, give yourself time afterwards, and lean into the fact that this is closer to a London scene than a pure swim.

Vibe: deckchairs, damp hair, goose-adjacent bravery, and main-character energy in the middle of Hyde Park.

Charlton Lido – Greenwich

• Best for: South-east Londoners who know

Charlton Lido does not have the same myth-making machinery as Brockwell, Tooting, or London Fields, which is partly why it works. It is a proper 50m heated outdoor pool with a pleasantly unfussy feel: local, practical, and a little underrated. You go because you actually want a swim, not because someone has told you it is a personality.

Pair it with Greenwich, Blackheath, or a lazy south-east London afternoon and it starts to make even more sense.

Vibe: low-hype lengths, warm water, and the quiet satisfaction of not fighting half the city for a swim slot.

Park Road Lido – Crouch End

• Best for: The quieter family spot

Some lidos announce themselves with history, scale, or postcard good looks. Park Road is more of a slow-burner. It is the kind of place that makes most sense when you build a gentle north London afternoon around it: swim first, dry off properly, then wander towards Crouch End for coffee, lunch, or a pint you will insist is “basically rehydration”.

Vibe: families, regulars, leafy pavements, post-swim wandering, and the quiet pleasure of a lido that still feels mainly local.

Hampton Pool – Hampton

• Best for: The mini escape

Hampton Pool loosens the definition of London a little, but earns its place. An open-air, heated, and leafy lido, it is enough to feel like a proper summer plan without the admin of a full day trip. You are still in reach of the city, but the mood is softer, slower, and more suburban-holiday than commuter-rush.

Vibe: heated water, trees, relaxed regulars, and the kind of summer afternoon that accidentally turns into a full day.

• Covent Garden is getting a new pizza slice joint this summer

The Steam Deck has quietly become the best way to play PC games full stop. Not because it’s the most powerful machine around — it absolutely isn’t — but because Valve’s handheld has nailed something the games industry spent years overcomplicating: convenience.

This is a machine that lets you chip away at a 100-hour RPG on the sofa, sneak in a roguelike run on the train, or replay an indie classic in bed with headphones on and the rain battering the windows outside. It’s the Nintendo Switch energy PC players had been craving for years.

And while every week brings another “Steam Deck Verified” badge, not every game actually feels right on a handheld. The best Steam Deck games are the ones that respect your time, suit shorter sessions, scale beautifully to the Deck’s screen, and don’t require a keyboard shortcut cheat sheet taped to your forehead.

From sprawling epics and endlessly replayable deckbuilders to indie darlings and old-school action classics, these are the Steam Deck games worth installing immediately.

New must-play games

Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred

Buy it on Steam

There was a point where the idea of playing Diablo IV on a handheld sounded faintly absurd. Blizzard’s demon-slaying action RPG is huge, relentlessly online and visually dense — the sort of game traditionally associated with expensive desktop rigs glowing in dark bedrooms at 2am. And yet on Steam Deck, it feels unexpectedly perfect.

Part of that comes down to the structure. Diablo IV is built around loops: quick dungeon clears, gear grinding, seasonal objectives and endlessly tweaking character builds until entire screens explode into showers of gold and gore. Those rhythms naturally suit portable gaming. You can jump in for 20 minutes, complete a Nightmare Dungeon, salvage a mountain of loot and suspend the Deck instantly without disrupting the flow.

What’s also helped is Blizzard’s steady stream of post-launch improvements. The game today feels dramatically stronger than it did at launch, with smarter itemisation, faster levelling and far more satisfying endgame systems.

Vessel of Hatred, the game’s first major expansion, pushed the story deeper into Mephisto’s corruption while introducing the lush jungle region of Nahantu and the agile new Spiritborn class. Blizzard also added Mercenaries, the Dark Citadel co-op activity and major gameplay overhauls alongside the expansion.

Then there’s the all new Lord of Hatred add-on.

The new Skovos region swaps endless muddy wastelands and gothic misery, for an eerie Mediterranean-style island full of ancient temples, cults and sun-bleached ruins, and is one of the most visually interesting places Blizzard has made for Diablo in years.

And then there are the classes. The new Warlock class lets you play like a complete menace — summoning demons, corrupting enemies and chaining together ridiculous spell combinations. Meanwhile the returning Paladin scratches that classic Diablo power fantasy of becoming an unstoppable holy tank smashing through hordes of demons.

But the thing that will keep you glued to the Steam Deck is the loot and build variety. Blizzard’s finally leaned into the sort of experimentation that’s made rivals like Path of Exile such gigantic hits. Skill trees are more flexible, and the new Horadric Cube systems let you customise gear in genuinely interesting ways, letting you spend hours tweaking builds as almost everything feels viable now. Basically, if you bounced off Diablo IV originally because it felt a bit repetitive, the new expansion finally gives the game an identity of its own, not just within the Diablo franchise, but within the wider ARPG genre. Even cynical longtime Diablo fans on Reddit seem cautiously impressed, which honestly might be the strongest endorsement of all.

The result is a version of Diablo IV that feels bigger, darker and considerably more confident than the original release.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Loot-heavy dungeon runs, seasonal grinding and instant suspend-and-resume make it dangerously easy to play for “just 10 minutes” before accidentally losing an entire evening.

The best Steam Deck games

1. Animal Well

Buy it on Steam

One of the cleverest indie games of recent years, Animal Well drops you into a strange subterranean labyrinth full of cryptic puzzles, hidden pathways and deeply unsettling pixel-art creatures. It looks cute from a distance, but there’s something wonderfully eerie beneath the surface.

The joy here comes from Metroidvania-esque discovery. Every screen hides another secret, every item opens up fresh possibilities, and the game trusts players enough to work things out for themselves.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: The low-power visuals barely dent battery life, while the pick-up-and-play exploration loop feels perfect for handheld sessions. Just a few MB to download, you’ll hardly notice it on your hard drive, either.

2. Aperture Desk Job

Get it on Steam

Valve essentially made Aperture Desk Job as a playable Steam Deck instruction manual, but thankfully it’s also very funny. Set in the Portal universe, this short comedy adventure turns office work into total chaos.

It’s packed with sharp writing, absurd gadgets and enough in-jokes to keep longtime Valve fans grinning throughout, even if the runtime is only a couple of hours. But hey, it’s a freebie with every Steam Deck purchase, so just fire it up!

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: It was literally designed to showcase the Steam Deck’s controls, haptics and features.

3. Balatro

Buy it on Steam

The game responsible for thousands of destroyed sleep schedules, Balatro somehow transforms poker into one of the most addictive roguelikes ever made. Every run becomes an escalating whirlwind of jokers, multipliers and gloriously broken point-spiralling combinations.

It’s easy to learn, impossible to stop playing and dangerously suited to the “just one more run” mindset.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Short runs, simple controls and instant suspend-and-resume make it borderline too convenient.

4. Batman: Arkham Asylum

Buy it on Steam

Before superhero games became bloated live-service monsters, Arkham Asylum delivered a tightly focused gothic action adventure with brilliant pacing and still-excellent combat.

Roaming the asylum as Kevin Conroy’s Batman remains a genuine thrill, while Rocksteady’s detective mechanics and predator encounters still hold up remarkably well. Just note that you’ve got to mess around with an ageing launcher to get things running here, requiring some touchscreen use that isn’t best suited for hooking up a Steam Deck to a TV. A minor inconvenience for an all-time great.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Older AAA games are often ideal Deck material, and Arkham Asylum runs beautifully while barely touching the battery.

5. Blue Prince

Buy it on Steam

Part puzzle game, part roguelike mystery box, Blue Prince turns a shifting mansion into one of gaming’s most compelling mind-scratching challenges. Every room placement changes the shape of your run, and every clue drags you deeper into its layered secrets.

It’s exactly the kind of smart, conversation-generating indie hit that flourishes on PC.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Ideal for slower, thoughtful sessions curled up on the sofa with headphones.

6. Cuphead

Buy it on Steam

Studio MDHR’s run-and-gun masterpiece remains one of the most visually stunning games ever made. Every frame looks hand-animated, every boss feels wildly inventive, and every victory feels earned. If Walt Disney circa-1940 had a Steam Deck, he’d probably have commissioned something just like it.

Yes, it’s brutally difficult at times, but the sheer charm of its mid-century cartoon aesthetic makes repeated failure weirdly enjoyable.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Tight controls and quick retry loops make handheld play feel natural.

7. Dave the Diver

Buy it on Steam

One minute you’re harpooning sharks in a mysterious underwater trench, the next you’re managing a sushi restaurant. Dave the Diver should feel like total chaos, yet somehow everything clicks together perfectly.

It’s charming, funny and constantly introducing new mechanics before you’ve had time to get bored.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Bite-sized objectives make it dangerously easy to squeeze in “just 20 minutes”.

8. Death’s Door

Buy it on Steam

A moody little action adventure about a crow collecting souls shouldn’t work this well, but Death’s Door nails the balance between melancholy atmosphere and satisfying combat.

There’s a touch of Zelda, a hint of Dark Souls, and a gorgeous isometric art style tying everything together.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Smooth performance and compact dungeon design make it perfect for portable play.

9. Disco Elysium

Buy it on Steam

Still one of the best-written games ever made — if not THE best game ever — Disco Elysium transforms a detective RPG into something strange, political, hilarious and deeply human.

The real action happens inside your own head, as competing personality traits argue with each other while you attempt to solve a murder. It runs like a dream on Steam Deck, with a cracking soundtrack and some of gaming’s most memorable characters.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: It feels surprisingly close to reading a great novel on a handheld device.

10. Dispatch

Buy it on Steam

A stylish narrative adventure built around emergency-response decision making in a superhero-filled world, Dispatch mixes branching storytelling with tense real-time choices.

It’s one of those games where conversations matter as much as reflexes, making every decision feel loaded with consequence. Just keep an eye out for the surprise willies — this one's not for kids...

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Dialogue-heavy games feel wonderfully intimate on the Deck’s smaller screen.

11. Dredge

Buy it on Steam

At first glance Dredge looks like a relaxing fishing game. Then the fog rolls in, strange creatures emerge from the depths, and things become worryingly Lovecraftian.

Its blend of exploration, inventory management and creeping horror is quietly brilliant.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Slow-paced exploration and short voyages make it ideal for handheld gaming.

12. Elden Ring

Buy it on Steam

The idea of playing Elden Ring on a handheld still feels faintly ridiculous, yet Valve’s machine handles FromSoftware’s masterpiece surprisingly well.

The Lands Between remains one of the greatest open worlds ever created — vast, mysterious and packed with unforgettable boss fights. And it’s of course tough-as-nails, a trait that feels a little more manageable when you can chip away at its brutal combat gauntlets on the go.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Being able to chip away at exploration and boss attempts in portable sessions is genuinely transformative.

13. Hades & Hades II

Buy ‘em on Steam: Hades | Hades II

Supergiant’s Hades already felt like one of the greatest handheld games ever made, and Hades II doubles down on the formula with even slicker combat and richer storytelling.

Both games marry fast-paced roguelike action with genuinely excellent characters and writing. The comic-book-like isometric art style is bold without being demanding, meaning it's easy to get consistently great framerates to match the speedy combat.

• Why they're great on Steam Deck: Few games complement the Deck quite as perfectly as a quick Hades run before bed.

14. Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Buy it on Steam

Six Halo games in one package is already absurd value, but the Steam Deck turns Master Chief Collection into a portable nostalgia machine.

Whether you’re replaying Combat Evolved or diving into Reach, Bungie’s original trilogy still delivers some of the best FPS campaigns ever made.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Older Halo titles run smoothly and feel surprisingly natural with handheld controls.

15. Hollow Knight & Hollow Knight: Silksong

Buy ‘em on Steam: Hollow Knight | Hollow Knight: Silksong

Hollow Knight remains one of the defining modern Metroidvanias: beautiful, melancholy and deceptively enormous.

Meanwhile Silksong spent years becoming gaming’s most mythical sequel before pummelling waiting fans into submission with its difficulty upon release. But whether you’re revisiting Hallownest or stealing yourself for Hornet’s follow-up adventure, the series feels tailor-made for portable play.

• Why they're great on Steam Deck: Tight platforming and exploration-heavy design work brilliantly on the Deck.

16. Inside

Buy it on Steam

Playdead followed Limbo with something darker, stranger and even more visually arresting. Inside is a short experience, but every moment feels meticulously crafted.

Helping a mysterious boy navigate a dangerous, Lynchian world, it has perhaps the most memorable ending in indie-game history. It’s the kind of game that sticks in your brain for years.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: The cinematic pacing feels incredibly immersive on a handheld screen.

17. Into the Breach

Buy it on Steam

Subset Games took the tactical brilliance of FTL and distilled it into razor-sharp mech combat. Time travelling mechs take on city-stomping kaiju in a strategy game with the complexity of chess and the cool-factor of a Godzilla film.

Every battle in Into the Breach feels like a tiny puzzle box where careful planning matters more than luck.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Turn-based gameplay makes it perfect for quick sessions or travel.

18. Marvel Cosmic Invasion

Buy it on Steam

Dotemu’s retro-inspired Marvel brawler channels the spirit of classic arcade beat-’em-ups while modernising the action with slick visuals and co-op chaos.

It’s colourful, fast and gloriously comic-book ridiculous, letting you tear enemies to shreds as Wolverine, Spider-Man, and more Marvel superheroes than even an Avengers film can handle.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Beat-’em-ups have always thrived on handhelds, and this feels built for portable co-op.

19. Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Buy it on Steam

Commander Shepard’s trilogy still represents one of gaming’s greatest sci-fi sagas. The remastered collection sharpens the visuals while preserving everything fans loved about BioWare’s space opera.

The Steam Deck also makes those lengthy RPG campaigns feel far more approachable, with the revamped visuals giving some spit and polish to the classic games without giving the Steam Deck too much of a workout. If you’re the lucky owner of an OLED Steam Deck, the HDR mode here is a real showcase for the quality of that premium screen, too.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Being able to tackle missions in shorter bursts makes the trilogy less intimidating. For those that remember Mass Effect the first time around, playing it now on a handheld feels like a mini marvel.

20. No Man’s Sky

Buy it on Steam

A whole galaxy in the palm of your hand? Why not?! Few games have transformed themselves like No Man’s Sky. What launched as a disappointment is now one of the most expansive and relaxing sci-fi sandboxes around, letting you explore incalculable individual planets, and carving out your own personal story among the stars.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Great suspend-and-resume support makes interstellar wandering incredibly convenient.

21. Outer Wilds

Buy it on Steam

Explaining Outer Wilds without spoiling it is almost impossible. What starts as a charming space exploration game slowly becomes one of the smartest and most emotionally devastating mysteries in gaming. Go in blind if you possibly can — it’s quietly one of the greatest puzzle games of all time.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: The game’s slower pace and exploration-heavy structure feel ideal for handheld immersion.

22. Pentiment

Buy it on Steam

Obsidian’s murder mystery trades explosions and combat for illuminated manuscripts, theological debates and Renaissance politics.

That might sound wildly niche, but Pentiment turns historical storytelling into something utterly absorbing. There’s nothing else quite like it.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: It plays beautifully in handheld mode thanks to its slower pace and text-driven structure.

23. Persona 5 Royal

Buy it on Steam

Stylish to an almost absurd degree, Persona 5 Royal combines dungeon crawling, social simulation and turn-based combat into one of the best JRPGs ever made.

It’s massive, yes, but the Steam Deck somehow makes its length feel manageable. For anyone that ever wished they could have lived their youth out as a moody, impeccably dressed teenager on the streets of Tokyo’s Harajuku district, this is the one.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Daily in-game routines translate perfectly into shorter portable sessions.

24. Pizza Tower

Buy it on Steam

Imagine Wario Land after six espressos and you’re halfway towards understanding Pizza Tower.

Its manic animation, chaotic speed and wonderfully unhinged energy make it one of the funniest platformers around, with an animation style that’d make 90s Nickelodeon fans proud.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Fast levels and snappy controls feel superb on handheld hardware.

25. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Buy it on Steam

Ubisoft quietly delivered one of the best Metroidvanias in years with The Lost Crown. Combat feels fluid, movement is razor sharp and the time-manipulation mechanics are brilliantly inventive.

It deserved far more attention than it received, re-inventing the classic franchise for a new era. It’s also generously priced.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Smooth platforming and compact exploration loops make it ideal for portable gaming.

26. Resident Evil: Requiem

Buy it on Steam

Capcom’s latest survival horror entry proves the RE Engine remains astonishingly scalable. Resident Evil: Requiem balances tense horror with cinematic action while still running impressively well on handheld hardware.

It’s exactly the kind of technically ambitious game that makes the Steam Deck feel slightly magical.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Suspense-heavy gameplay works brilliantly with headphones and handheld immersion, and somehow manages to run at a decent pace on the modest hardware.

27. Slay the Spire & Slay the Spire 2

Buy ‘em on Steam: Slay the Spire | Slay the Spire 2

The original Slay the Spire essentially invented the modern deckbuilding roguelike boom, blending card strategy with endlessly replayable runs.

The sequel expands on that formula without losing the elegant simplicity that made the first game such a phenomenon, eating away hours while you battle monstrous foes in quick succession with a deftly-managed card hand.

• Why they're great on Steam Deck: It feels dangerously close to carrying an infinite time machine in your backpack.

28. Stardew Valley

Buy it on Steam

No list of Steam Deck essentials would be complete without Stardew Valley. Farming, fishing, mining and romance shouldn’t be this compelling, yet millions of players continue disappearing into Pelican Town for hundreds of hours.

Few games feel as comforting, and few games offer as much memorable player-steered storytelling.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: It genuinely feels like the game was born for handheld play.

29. Thank Goodness You’re Here!

Buy it on Steam

A gloriously daft comedy adventure packed with surreal British humour, Thank Goodness You’re Here! feels like an interactive cartoon made by people raised on The Beano and regional pub banter. It’s wonderfully silly in the best possible way, and the perfect way to wile away a gloomy Sunday with its explosive energy.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Short scenes and quick laughs make it perfect for casual portable sessions.

30. The Case of the Golden Idol & Rise of the Golden Idol

Buy ‘em on Steam: The Case of the Golden Idol | Rise of the Golden Idol

These brilliantly strange detective games ask players to reconstruct crimes using observation and deduction alone from mostly-static crime scenes.

There’s no hand-holding, no glowing objective markers — just your brain, a notebook and an increasingly bizarre conspiracy to unravel.

• Why they're great on Steam Deck: Solving mysteries on a handheld somehow makes the experience feel more intimate and tactile.

31. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Buy it on Steam

Yes, Skyrim has been re-released more times than anyone can count, but there’s a reason Bethesda’s fantasy RPG refuses to die.

The freedom, atmosphere and sheer volume of things to do remain wildly compelling over a decade later. And having all those ruins, forests and tombs to explore in the palm of your hand is a perfect reason to return to this all-timer.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Wandering Skyrim from a handheld still feels faintly impossible.

32. Undertale & Deltarune

Buy ‘em on Steam: Undertale | Deltarune

Toby Fox’s RPGs balance absurd comedy, emotional storytelling and inventive combat systems unlike anything else around. Both games thrive on personality, constantly surprising players with clever fourth-wall-breaking ideas. If you were raised on JRPGs and are looking for a series that understands what makes them great while having a wildly subversive streak, you shouldn’t miss out.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Their retro presentation and compact download sizes make them ideal handheld companions.

33. Unpacking

Buy it on Steam

A game about unpacking boxes shouldn’t be emotionally devastating, yet Unpacking quietly tells an entire life story through objects alone. Cosy, meditative and surprisingly affecting, it’ll churn up nostalgic memories while scratching that itch for a good tidy-up.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: The tactile drag-and-drop gameplay feels wonderfully relaxing on handheld.

34. Vampire Survivors

Buy it on Steam

Another game responsible for countless vanished evenings, Vampire Survivors strips action games down to pure dopamine. You move — controlling nothing else onscreen — while thousands of enemies explode, numbers go up, and suddenly two hours have disappeared.

It’s ridiculously cheap, endlessly replayable and impossible to uninstall.

• Why it’s great on Steam Deck: Few games better demonstrate the Steam Deck’s “instant gaming machine” appeal.

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