London may have been abuzz with the news that Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean was going to be the first film to get the immersive treatment at Greenwich’s newest Secret Cinema site. The new first-of-its-kind permanent venue will be hosted the swashbuckling flick for the ultimate immersive movie experience - but it’s not the only big London venue to be hosted the iconic piratical film, as a one-night-only concert is coming to The Royal Albert Hall.

Climb the rigging and shiver whatever your timbers are as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (aka the first one in the series) is setting sail for London’s Royal Albert Hall on 29th December. Not just a screening spectacle, the showings will be accompanied by a huge live orchestra with vocalists too, all bringing the incredible soundtrack to life.

The Academy of St Martin in the Field are performing the soundtrack, along with the London Voices who will all be conducted by David Mahoney. The soundtrack was co-created by Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt, and whilst people tend to associate it more with Zimmer, it was actually Badelt who was credited as the primary composer for the first film.

If you haven’t watched the film since an early sleepover circa 2006, let us refresh your memory. The film follows Captain Barbossa who steals Jack Sparrow’s ship and kidnaps the governor’s beautiful daughter, Elizabeth Swann. In response, Elizabeth’s childhood friend Will Turner joins forces with Jack to save her and recapture Jack’s ship, the Black Pearl. It stars Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann, Orlando Bloom as Will Turner, and Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbossa – we don’t blame you if you don’t remember entirely, it has been a staggering 13 years since it first came out.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in Concert is just one of the many orchestral performances of classic films hosted by the Royal Albert Hall. Whilst they’re aren’t currently any of the film’s sequels planned in the series, you can currently catch Top Gun: Maverick (with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra), The Moonwalkers, Black Panther, Matilda, and even a very fitting Bond screening with the full orchestra and people dressed up in suits.

Tickets are already on sale, with two screenings taking place on the same day – an afternoon showing at 1pm, and an evening concert at 6pm. Tickets range from £30 for standing tickets, ranging up to £93 for the posh seats. You can grab tickets and browse the movies in concert series via the Royal Albert Hall website.

• BFI London Film Festival 2026 has officially revealed its competition line-up

The Natural History Museum’s exhibition of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year opens on 16th October, and some for the competition’s most-lauded shots have been revealed.

More than 65,000 photographs were submitted to the competition’s judges, while the final exhibition will feature 100 images. A handful of those have been published for anyone on the internet to enjoy.

You’ll find a handful of them below.

“This exhibition offers visitors a rare opportunity to experience the wonder of our planet through the eyes of some of the world’s most talented photographers. At a time when nature is under more pressure than ever before, these photographs remind us of both what is at stake and what is worth protecting,” says Doug Gurr, Director of the Natural History Museum.

Tickets for the exhibition are on sale now. Adults will pay £19 for standard admission, while off-peak mid-week tickets are £17.

You book a time and that includes entry to the museum too — it’s free to enter, but you may not be able to do so if it’s sold out that day.

This will be the 62nd Wildlife Photographer of the Year show, and the actual winners will be revealed a few days ahead of the exhibition’s opening, on 13th September. That ceremony will be available to check out on YouTube too.

The image at the top of this article is from Audun Rikardsen, a Norwegian photographer who papped the female polar bear using a rigged-up underwater camera.

You wouldn't want to get that close a polar bear, and Rikardsen apparently spent eight hours waiting for it to get far enough away to safely retrieve the images.

Here are a few of the other most eye-catching photos we’ve seen so far:

This shot from Andrea & Maceo Grammatico is called Btiing Back and was shot in Costa Rica. It’s a mosquito on the head of a viper, a venomous snake.

Split-Second Escape by Germany’s Jens Cullman is an action shot of a bullfrog attempting — and failing — to eat a butterfly. It was captured in Botswana.

Shane Cross from Canada was the winner of the 2024 competition, and got a highly commended prize for Calm Amid the Storm. Taken in Seychelles, it’s half a scene of Bigeye trevally fish swimming underwater, half of an incoming storm. Atmospheric.

Or for something completely different there’s Pooltime Pastime from the USA’s Loren Elliott. This one barely needs an explanation, but her capture of a black bear chilling in the outdoor pool of a home in Monrovia, California, is something else.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

Ted Lasso season four hasn’t even finished its streaming roll-out yet but season five filming plans are reportedly underway already.

This is according to Apple TV commentator Sigmund Judge, who claims he has heard from “multiple sources” the “provisional” plan is to start shooting the next series in January 2027, in London.

Ted Lasso is back in action it seems, following a chunky three year gap between the release of the show’s third and fourth seasons.

Based on the typical schedule of these large productions, you can usually expect to see a gap of around a year between shooting and release — although Judge is even more optimistic, suggesting it could arrive in “Summer 2027.”

Too optimistic? Probably.

"It's certainly good enough"

As part of the celebrations for the release of Ted Lasso season four we took a look at some of the key sights from the show, including Selhurst Park stadium, the beautiful Richmond riverside and Brockley’s Rivoli ballroom.

We don’t yet know exactly which haunts we’ll jaunt through in season five, not least because it hasn’t even been greenlit yet.

Apple exec Eddy Cue told made a coy signal the show would go on, though.

“I hope so. It's certainly good enough for that. So I think there's plenty of stories to go on. We'll show up. No worries,” Cue told Screenrant in a “red carpet interview,” which helps to explain the short, kinda glib response.

Following Ted Lasso season 4’s release, Apple revealed the show was its biggest launch to date, racking up 296.6 million watched minutes in just two days.

Show co-creator Jason Sudeikis originally envisioned Ted Lasso as a three-season arc, and was reticent to return for more despite reportedly being offered big bucks for the work.

Despite this sort of success-following often opening the door to cynicism and general televisual badness, Ted Lasso season four received comfortably better reviews than season three.

What’s coming to Apple TV that’s actually new?

There’s Ryan Reynolds-Kenneth Branagh buddy movie Mayday on 4th September, TV mystery Last Seen on 9th September, and Brothers out on 23rd September, a comedy series that sees Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson play fictionalised versions of themselves — and best buds living together on a ranch.

• The best Apple TV shows you really need to be streaming (August 2026)

A Christmas Carol has had a pretty starry history already – you know you’ve reached "made it" status when you have a muppet parody film. That’s just the rules. Now, the Dickensian classic is getting a refresh with a fresh cast of fantastic actors who are uniting for a one-night-only reading of the wintery tale.

Bella Ramsey, Dame Imedla Staunton, and Paapa Essiedu will be heading up an all star cast, joined by felllow acting heavyweights Adjoa Andoh, Jim Broadbent, Emma Corrin, Paapa Essiedu, Alex Lawther, Matthew Macfadyen, Tanya Reynolds, and Grace Savage. The West End show will be a charity gig, raising money for homelessness charity Crisis. They’ll be coming together for a one-night-only performance on 7th December at Lyric Theatre in London.

As well as being a charity fundraiser, the event is also inspired by how the work would have been originally performed back in the 1800s, as Dickens began his own public readings in 1853. Dickens’ own first reading of the play was also for charity, raising funds for local organisations in Birmingham where he was performing, and the writer went on to perform A Christmas Carol more than 120 times during his life.

The production has been directed by Bessie Carter – daughter of Imelda Staunton, and fellow Bridgerton alum alongside Adjoa Andoh.

Talking about why this was the chosen piece for the performance, Andoh said: "A Christmas Carol is a story rooted in compassion. It is a powerful reminder of the precarity of life and the shared value of all human beings.

“It feels incredibly powerful to be bringing this story to life during the Christmas season alongside such an amazing cast while supporting people experiencing homelessness."

She added that: “Crisis’ vital work all year round helps people leave homelessness behind by providing practical support including housing advice, employment opportunities and training.

“Everyone deserves the warmth, safety and security of a home and I’m delighted that people joining us for this special evening can help make that possible.”

It's a pretty incredible line up, with national treasures as well as beloved new faces and a bucketload of awards between them. Across the cast, they have two Primetime Emmy Awards, four BAFTAs, four Golden Globe Awards, and six Olivier awards, to name a few. And those are just wins – if we listed nominations we'd all be here a while.

The show will take place on December 7 at the Lyric Theatre, with tickets going on sale at midday on September 1 via Nimax Theatres.

• BFI London Film Festival 2026 has officially revealed its competition line-up

Festivals are all well and good, even with the tornadoes of dust sweeping London’s most recent ones. When you start getting food and drink festivals, you know you’re approaching GOATed territory. Woolwich Works is the latest London crowd to be venturing into hopsy grounds as it has announced its first ever beer festival as part of an eclectic autumn season of events.

The festival comes from Woolwich Works, a former fireworks factory and very much a poster child of hipster London gentrification, now serving as a cultural hub. It currently hosts a rotating roster of community focused events like a stitch night, games nights, concerts, and workshops. On 19th September, it will be hosting its first ever beer festival which will kick off an entire autumn programme of food and drink focused events, bringing live entertainment along with it.

Taking over Woolwich Works for a full day, the Big Beer Fest will bring together 24 beers on tap from the venue’s own festival bar alongside six local guest breweries, hand-picked street food traders, live music, guided craft beer tastings and a Big Beer Quiz.

Some of the brewtiful beers on offer are from guest breweries too, smaller spots that all serve up more speciality sips. Five of the six breweries are already confirmed, with Margate's Northdown Brewery, Bianca Road Brew Co and Big Hug Brewing from London, Bexley Brewery, and Iron Pier all set to make an appearance.

The festival is designed as a full day out rather than simply a sampling session. Alongside the breweries, visitors can explore street food, live music and guided masterclasses covering brewing, ingredients and flavour profiles. If you're off the sauce or just trying to make it through an enjoyable day without accidentally stumbling your way home, there will be a dedicated wine bar, with low and no-alcohol options and soft drinks available.

Tickets start at £8 for the festival, with a range of different options depending on how much you want included in your pass. A standard festival pass is £14, whilst the premium pass gets you a branded festival cup and three one-third pint tasting pours. The £8 option is for those who fancy tagging along just for the evening, granting visitors entry from 4pm so you an catch an evening pint and watch some live music from The Passenger.

Later in the season, the programme will also host cabaret, contemporary circus, poetry, theatre, heritage and live entertainment, including a spoken world evening and a world class show led by Ethiopian acrobatics.

You can find out more about it including buying tickets here.

• London’s 10 best craft beer bottle shops

An Avengers film is coming to cinemas next month, and it’s one you’ve already seen, but with a twist: Avengers Endgame: Encore.

A trailer for the film’s re-release was just posted online, and has already collected more than six million views. It is, of course, here to drum up some extra Marvel fan anticipation ahead of Avengers: Doomsday’s release on 18th December.

The film returns to cinemas on 25th September, including IMAX and Infinity Vision screening rooms. And tickets for those higher-end screens are available to book now.

One of our big questions: does this put an end to the dream of more The Odyssey screenings at BFI IMAX and our other fave London spots?

• BFI London Film Festival 2026 has officially revealed its competition line-up

Current listings for the film at BFI IMAX end on September 24th. And while no listings for Avengers Endgame: Encore are online just yet, the timing is just a little too perfect for this one.

The next major BFI IMAX film coming to the legendary cinema is Dune: Part Three, which opens on 18th Decmeber. Yep, in the battle of Arrakis versus the Avengers, Marvel lost out this time.

You can see all the currently-announced screenings for Avengers Endgame: Encore at the movie’s own website. Here are the London cinemas confirmed to be getting the re-release so far:

• Cineworld Leicetser Square
• Cineworld Wandsworth
• Cineworld The O2 Greewncih
• Cineworld Wembley
• Odeon Enfield
• Odeon Greenwich
• Odeon Luxe Acton
• Odeon Lee Valley
• Odeon Kingston
• Omniplex Sutton

For the most part, Avengers Endgame: Encore will offer the film as you remember it, but will also include “an exclusive look” at Avengers: Doomsday, while those in IMAX and Infinity Vision screens apparently get yet another different teaser.

Avengers: Endgame was originally released in 2019, and is the second-highest-grossing movie of all time before accounting for inflation, second only to Avatar.

As any fan will know, the MCU’s fortunes took something of a downturn after the Avengers saga — so can Avengers: Doomsday turn things around?

It’s expected to bring in up to $300 million on its opening weekend, which while far better than today’s Marvel norm isn’t quite on par with Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s $360 million first weekend. It has gone on to make more than $2.2 billion, and is still filling seats.

• The best Marvel movies - Marvel Cinematic Universe ranked

Gamescom is here. The annual video game showcase kicked off in Cologne, Germany, and began with an opening night ceremony hosted by The Games Awards’s Geoff Keighley, one absolutely packed with trailers for upcoming games.

You can expect loads more news to pour out of the show in the coming days. But can these headlines really be topped?

If you have two-plus hours to spare the full opening night Gamescom live stream is available below. But for those with lives, responsibilities and other hobbies, let’s keep it to five of the trailers that really stood out.

1. The Witcher 3: Remastered

If you’re frugal and already own one of the 60-million-plus copies of The Witcher 3 sold, this one should put a smile on your face. Existing owners of the game on PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox Series consoles get an upgrade to the just-announced remastered version for free. And if you didn’t already own ‘em, the two major story DLCs are bundled in free too. This is also kinda the second remaster it has had, after a next-gen console refresh a few years ago. It’s a more substantial one this time, though, with improved mechanics and enemy behaviours as well as visuals. Switch 2 version incoming, too.

2. Metro 2039

Dark and moody first-person shooter series Metro is back, with Metro 2039. This isn’t the first we’ve seen of the game, but this latest Renegade trailer does give us a closer look at some gameplay snippets, as well as some insight into who we’ll play as — The Stranger. It’s looking dark as anything, with moments where the player character is taken over by some sort of dark and scary force. Expect more tightly designed and confined spaces than we saw in Metro Exodus.

3. LEGO Skylines

This is a LEGO version of the beloved Cities Skylines series, which — for lapsed city-builder nerds — largely took on the baton from the classic Sim City series. The series has had its own issues, never quite stacking up to the original in the eyes of fans, but this one looks like it could be great fun for families. You get the idea: it’s a city-builder, but everything’s made of LEGO.

4. Final Fantasy VII Revelation

Cor' they’re really dragging this one out, aren’t they? Revelation is the third and final (for now) part of the remake of 1997 PlayStation classic Final Fantasy VII. It’ll arrive 30 years after the original, in Spring 2027. In this part of the original, the player spends a lot of time bumbling around the map in an airship, with more open access to the game world than in the earlier stages. Oh, and there are giant monsters around the place.

5. Warlock Dunegons & Dragons

There are all sorts of games we could have given this last slot to, but let’s go for something a bit newer. Warlock Dungeons & Dragons got a pretty substantial outing at the show, and is a fantasy-drenched third-person action title in which you play as Kaatri in a “dark fantasy open world.” This comes from the makers of Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, which received mixed reviews. But we’ll be keeping an eye out for more news ahead of its 2027 release.

London loves a marathon – so much so that this year will see a (apparently one off) double marathon where two of the 26.2 mile races will have a double run on the Saturday and the Sunday. If you’ve ever fancied the idea of running a marathon but in reality fall on your knees with a red face after about 10km (or in our case, a messy 1.5km in) then this new London marathon might be right up your street.

Called a Team Marathon, the new concept basically allows you to split your standard marathon distance with your mates. Teamwork makes the dream of being able to casually brag “yeah, I’ve done a marathon” work. Specifically, you can split the traditional marathon with three of your mates.

Different from a bog-standard, school sports day-esque relay, the race has the whole team staring together, each running their own 10.55km legs. It's up to you whether you stick together and run as a quartet or if someone jumps ahead and races to the finish line. Your team time will be your four legs added together. Imagine blending an adult sports day with run clubs with a touch of ‘organised sporting event’ professionalism and you’ve pretty much got the new marathon.

The race will be debuting in London in May 2027, hosted in Hackney Wick because, well, sometimes you’ve got to go to where your audience is. According to the organisers, runners can expect “a race experience like no other - with live music stages, a brass band, DJs, cheer zones and spectator viewing areas packed around a short-loop course and central, festival grade race village”.

It looks as though you'll need to have your team already assembled to sign up, so you're not a man short on the day before the race. Unlike Hyrox, during the actual run, you split the legs equally between the four of you, so even if one person is a stronger runner, you all put in the same amount of legwork – literally. You can run your 6.55 mile leg however you want though, at any pace that suits you rather than having to keep up with a super speedy pace your predecessor was going for.

If it sounds like something you want to do but currently can't persuade any of your mates to sign up, there is a way around it. The team behind the race is currently organising individual tickets so you can sign up solo and find your team along the way. If April 2027 arrives and you're still looking, they'll match you with other solo runners.

Behind the race is actually sports brand Benchmark who clearly love exercising with their mates as much as we do. Explaining why it wanted to create a race like this, CEO Nick Keller said “80% of 18-24 year-olds are signing up with others, and a 59% increase in run club participation has been seen globally - the numbers don’t lie - but, while running has become increasingly social and community-driven, most race formats still centre on competition and individual achievement."

Team Marathon’s pre-sale for their debut London event on May 22nd 2027 will go live on August 26th at 10am, with 100 founding team tickets (accommodating 400 runners) available. These tickets will be priced at £26.20 per person. You can find out more and sign up for presale here.

• BFI London Film Festival 2026 has officially revealed its competition line-up

The 80s provided us with plenty of iconic things – shell suits, leg warmers, neon... everything. Really, we sort of peaked with 80s culture. Smack bang in the middle of all the colourful goings on was Freddie Mercury who graced stages with his enchanting presence, sequinned leotards, and absolute rockstar flamboyance. Now his glorious garms are heading to London’s V&A.

Eight of the singer’s spectacular outfits are set to go on display at the V&A South Kensington from October 24th, all part of the celebrations on what would be his 80th birthday. To make the celebrations even better, the exhibition will be free to visit.

Called Freddie Mercury | Splendid Things, the exhibition has been curated by the V&A and Mary Austin – a close friend and former fiancee of Mercury. The exhibition’s name comes from a remark he made in 1978, where he said ‘I like to be surrounded by splendid things. I want to lead a Victorian life surrounded by exquisite clutter.’

Whilst the Queen singer might be best known for his yellow leather jacket, other unforgettable fits include flowing kimonos, a banana hat crown, slinky dresses, chequered jumpsuits, and whatever that red eye covered singlet was.

Presented as a walkthrough trail at the museum, it celebrates Mercury’s career through costumes and accessories worn in some of the most memorable music videos and performances of modern times. The trail will walk visitors through Freddie’s career, from his early days performing at small, student venues, to some of his biggest gigs and solo performances. On the trail you’ll find six different stops each complete with a full Freddie 'fit alongside a theatrical installation – think lights, sets, sound – which will help bring each look to life.

Obviously, all the outfits Freddie wore were pretty dazzling, but luckily we do know which ones will be included as part of the exhibition. The outfits include the Mercury Wing catsuit he wore for the Night At the Opera tour and Bohemian Rhapsody music video, and that regal fit – complete with the opulent crown and cloak – he wore on the Magic tour and during his final stage appearance with Queen at Knebworth in 1986. What’s an outfit without accessories? Incomplete, quite frankly. Which is probably why there will be an array of accessories from the star’s personal collection alongside the outfits.

Freddie Mercury | Splendid Things will be on at the V&A South Kensington from 24th October 2026 to 17th January 2027.

• Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh is curating a new movie season in London

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times – talking here of course about big adaptations of beloved books. Think Where the Crawdads Sing (best), The Golden Compass (worst). Also equally applicable when it comes to film-to-stage adaptations: Mean Girls, Mamma Mia, Chicago, Matilda – all great and beloved.

Then you’ve got Cats. The less said here the better.

However, one recent production which has landed very much on the side of 'best' is the National Theatre run of Pride, an adaptation of the 2014 film of the same name.

Pride recounts the real life story of the unlikely solidarity and friendship between the gay community and the striking miners during the '84 and '85 strikes. Screenwriter Stephen Beresford and director Matthew Warchus have reunited for the musical, bringing the same heart, fabulous writing, and immaculate direction with them.

The original film boasted a bucketload of National Treasures as well as biiiig names, including George MacKay, Bill Nighy, Andrew Scott, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton and Jessica Gunning. The against the odds, community-championing, utterly joyous flick was a big hit on release, and its musical adaptation has received a similar reception. After a short run in National Theatre’s intimate Dorfman Theatre, it’s heading to the Bridge Theatre in November.

The production was sold out for ages during its early days at the NT, so the news of the transfer isn’t exactly a surprise. The Dorfman Theatre is the smallest auditorium within the National Theatre, holding a maximum of 450 viewers, and historically acts as a flexible space where new productions (especially musicals) can have more of a trial run as they find their feet, before heading to a larger, established venue. Not that Pride really needed a trial run though, receiving rave reviews from critics.

Pride will start its run at Bridge Theatre on 12th November, taking over from its current show The Oresteia. It looks as though the production will have another limited run though, wrapping up in May 2027 as Chris Pine’s Ivanov will be taking over for the end of July

Current cast members Samuel Barnett, Matthew Durkan, Gillian Elisa, Chris Jenkins, Darren Lawrence, Kirsty Malpass, Madeleine Morgan, Sarah Pugh, Caroline Sheen, Courtney Stapleton and Matthew Woodyatt will return. Interestingly, this suggests that the rest of the roles – including the leading role of Mark Ashton – will be recast.

Tickets go on sale on 2nd September, and from the looks of things you’ll be able to book for the whole run from November 12th until May 8th.

• BFI London Film Festival 2026 has officially revealed its competition line-up

Last year, Outbreak festival had its first London edition, held in association with LIDO. In 2026 it was All Points East’s turn, bringing a day of rock and alternative to a multi-day line-up otherwise largely dominated by pop and hip-hop.

Guitar bands are still alive and well, though. And not just the headline stars like Deftones — who to be fair are as vital and current now as they have been in decades. What a feat.

We spent the whole day marching between stages (and inhaling a lot more dust than would be recommended under WHO guidelines) in order to bring you some of our favourite picks.

Here are our top 5 stars from Outbreak x All Points East, spanning the big names and some newer faces you may not have encountered yet...

Idles

How do they keep it up? Almost a decade on from their first album, Idles sound as aggressively potent and vibrant as ever. While 2024 album Tangk brought out a somewhat softer side of the band’s sound, the snarl singer Joe Talbot is known for is still present and correct in Idles’ live performance. The day’s highest-energy performance? Perhaps so.

Interpol

Interpol have a new album out this week, This Mirror Weighs a Ton. Early released tracks suggest we’re getting a more atmospheric and airy sound, from a band whose best-known songs trade in edgy pneumatic guitar lines. Saying that, recent single See Out Loud slots into tracks from the band’s first two celebrated albums just fine. It’s those tracks that bring a bit of punctation to a performance that doesn’t even try to bring the bombast of the Amyl and the Sniffers and JPEGMAFIA sets that bookend Interpol’s slot. Check out the new album from 28th August.

Wisp

Apparently shoegaze goes down well on TikTok? Who knew. Wisp’s Your Face was a social media hit back in 2023 — a song that was reportedly built off a licensed backing track rather than composed by Wisp from scratch, but it has launched her into a more substantial music career. That she has covered Coldplay’s Yellow shows this is an entirely new school, new generation of interpretation of shoegaze from, say, My Bloody Valentine, but the band built around Wisp sure do sound great. She also wins the award for the day’s most polite act.

Good Health Good Wealth

In the slot that should — according to the festival timetable — have given us Liam Gallagher son Gene Gallagher’s Villanelle, we got Good Health Good Wealth. And they are almost undeniably a lot more fun. There’s an anachronistic charm to this twosome I’m going lean on the lazy habit of comparison to relay. If you took The Streets, but gave the front man some added Suggs’s cheekiness and layered in some Damon Albarn nonchalance, you’re about there. Sure enough, the group supported The Streets’ 2026 tour. Witty spoken word storytelling.

Deftones

We are in a different era of Deftones to those who may have fond — not to mention ancient — memories of the band’s first three albums. Huge backdrop visuals and the more alt-slash-shoegaze leanings of the band’s Private Music album make for an atmospheric watch — more groove than slam in this Deftones sound. Sadly, we didn’t get to see Stephen Carpenter, who for the last few years has not toured internationally with the band following health issues. But Chino? He’s looking trimmer and more spritely than he has in a long time.

• Four Tet All Dayer 2026 review: The 5 best acts at Four Tet’s London Finsbury Park festival

All Points East’s second day of 2026 one-day festivals may appear to be all about Lorde from the poster, but it was more of a "state of play" of modern pop.

The line-up was packed with powerhouse women of music — oh, plus that guy from Stranger Things, with Djo.

All Points East’s healthy stage separation, both geographically and with set times, mean there were no big problems with sound leakage. In the trade-off, you do spend what feels like half the time in a dusty river of people trudging from one end of the festival site to the other.

But the only real issue? PinkPantheress’s oversubscribed tent set filled up so fast, fans would have had to cut short their watch of collaborator Zara Larsson to have a chance of getting a look in. No doubt this left many grudgingly watching Djo, waiting for him to play “that song” ahead of Lorde’s headliner slot.

But this day was all about the women of pop. Here are five of our highlights.

Zara Larsson

A brief holiday from the seemingly ever expanding badness of the world, watching Zara Larsson is a bit like that feeling of getting off the plane and Balearic sun hitting your face. She has the songs, the moves, the voice and a festival stage setup more like that of a dedicated tour than a festival slot. Larsson may not have been the official headliner of ATP but it's clear that a good chunk of the audience considered her just that. Her set also gave us what would turn out to be our one chance to see PinkPantheress, who joined the stage for the pair’s collab single Stateside.

Lorde

We got to witness a similar version of Lorde's festival set earlier this year one afternoon at Mad Cool 2026 in Madrid. But it makes a whole lot more sense as a UK headliner spot. With the sun having set, her jacket dotted with lasers firing out into the night and her stark pvc costume hit in a way they just could not in searing Spanish sunlight. Her stage show is concert meets art installation, her face at times smushed against glass and fired up onto the huge display screens. Lorde is a moody, dark and more complex counterpoint to the technicolour of Zara Larsson. And it's a contrast that works.

Rose Gray

Rose Gray has some of the most banging songs of the entire festival. It's not often you get an established act of this quality this early in the day. Her dynamic dance-pop is crowd-moving stuff, and her Madonna inspiration comes out in her live presence and performance more so even than on record. Gray is a local, of course, having grown up down the road in Walthamstow, and her set is laced with sections from her song Hackney Wick — which references Victoria Park directly. It’s a hometown gig, basically. Final track Party People is the perfect end of a set that primes you for a day at a London music festival.

Audrey Hobert

You’ve possibly only encountered Audrey Hobert through nasty social media discourse in recent times — yet more fuel for the argument maybe the internet was a bad idea in the first place. But she provides All Points East with easily digestible slices of guitar-led indie pop, with bouncy and super-catchy songs. It's only some guitar distortion and more aggressive drums away from 2000s pop-punk, and we're here for it.

Sienna Spiro

The latter half of Sienna Spiro’s performance saw a good chunk of the crowd make the festival’s site-long exodus to secure a spot for Zara Larsson. But even a few songs are enough to school you in “what all the fuss is about” surrounding Sienna Spiro. No, she doesn’t have the most subtle or original sound, bearing clear hallmarks of the Amy-Winehouse-slash-Adele successor she’s been hailed as. In the context of a festival set, though, it’s easier than ever not to overthink things, and just enjoy her outsize, earnest and emotional vocal delivery.

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To be or not to be restored, that’s the question that a lot of historians have to face as they go through London’s past. When it comes to Shakespeare, it feels pretty well documented already, with his plays gracing every key stage, GCSE, and A level syllabus, as well as their constant presence in the theatrical programme. However, it wasn’t just the Globe that the bard was heavily affiliated with, and a neighbouring theatre just down the river will be opening up for public tours for the first time in decades.

The Rose Playhouse was home to many early modern playwrights including Marlowe, Fletcher, and Dekker as well as Shakespeare. Originally built in 1587, it was the first purpose-built playhouse on Bankside which predates the Globe by over a decade. Shakespeare was a regular there both acting and trying out new material – basically the Tudor England version of Stockwell’s Comedy Virgins at the Cavendish Arms.

Some of the famous plays staged there include Marlow’s seminal Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, as well as Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Big old regal tragedies were clearly a popular theme for productions as Marlow also staged Tamburlaine the Great there, whilst Shakespeare’s Henry VI part 1 was an early feature.

If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard of it before, it might be because it had quite a short lived run. The playhouse actually closed in 1603, only twenty years after it opened, making it a pretty legendary run. After its closure, much of it was destroyed over the years – think floods, wars, bombs, fires, general people. However, the remains of the theatre were discovered by accident in 1989 thanks to a neighbouring office block that was getting constructed. Plenty of famous actors bandied together to save the theatre’s remains, petitioning for it to receive protected status (successfully), and to undergo a proper excavation Time Team style.

The ruins that were uncovered (one-third are still yet to be excavated) are preserved underwater and highlighted with rope lights. In September and October, the public will be able to see the archaeological remains of the Rose Playhouse for the first time in six years.

There will be guided tours running daily from September 17 to October 29th, which run from 10am until 3pm and last around 45 minutes. Guests will learn how and why the Rose was originally constructed, about the people who worked and performed there and the story of its rediscovery.

This is just one part in the Rose’s construction and excavation, as the Rose Theatre Trust (who currently manage it) hopes to raise enough funds to do a full archeological dig which they can then turn into a permanent exhibition site, with all the bells and whistles a usual historic site comes with – gift shop, cafe, additional exhibition space, learning centre.

You can book tickets for the tours via the Rose Playhouse’s website, which cost £12 for general admission – although Southwark residents go free, but you’ll still need to book.

• BFI London Film Festival 2026 has officially revealed its competition line-up

You might celebrate your birthday with flowers, drinks, bunting, and an obligatory Colin the Caterpillar cake. London however tends to do things a little differently. For its own celebratory shindig marking 20 years of glorious gigs, London’s O2 is putting on quite the show, and we’re all invited.

Jorja Smith has been announced as the latest artist performing at the venue as part of the celebrations. The singer songwriter and two-time Brit Award winner will be taking to the stage on July 17th in 2027 sharing some of her most beloved and brilliant tunes.

The London venue originally opened up as the Millennium Dome back in December 1999 before opening as the O2 Arena in 2007. To mark 20 years since it rebranded and reopened its (security checked) doors, there will be a series of gigs held at the space, with plenty of performers gracing the legendary stage.

Other acts already announced include Maisie Peters, Don Omar, and Shreya Ghoshal who are performing across May, June, and July. Maisie will be kicking things off on 8th May having released her third studio album Fluorescence earlier this year, and will be performing at Reading and Leeds this weekend.

Talking about the upcoming gig, Jorja said: “Performing at The O2 as part of its 20th birthday celebrations is a huge honour,” she shared. “It’s a venue that has hosted so many incredible artists and unforgettable moments over the years, so to be part of this milestone feels really special. I’m excited to celebrate with you all.” It will be Jorja's only UK arena performance of 2027, so a good one to have your eye on.

General tickets go on sale on Friday August 28 at 10am. There are also Priority Tickets available exclusively to O2 and Virgin Media broadband customers via the Priority app from 10am on Wednesday (August 26).

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

There are many things that likely flit through your mind as you descend onto one of London’s tubes: wow, what a feat of engineering, how did they manage to build all those ancient tunnels when they didn’t have all that modern equipment? And maybe a lesser thought one, wow these moquettes are really trendy. To be fair, some of the designs on said seats are so faded that you may not notice how intricate it is – that, or you happen to be one of the unlucky ones who gets on a stop which always seems to have a slew of entirely full carriages (we’re looking at you, Clapham South). Thanks to TFL’s new merch drop, you could be admiring the tube’s artwork from your own accessories.

To mark the 120th anniversary of the Piccadilly line, TFL has teamed up with whimsical accessories brand Signare to launch a new collection which will be a touch of erm, tube chic to your everyday. The new range includes rucksacks, card holders, purses, bags, and make up bags all celebrating the iconic designs of the navy blue line. Suddenly, tube themed birthday parties with mandatory dressing up just got a lot easier to do.

Luckily, the swag hasn’t been made from actual seat coverings, leaving some rather threadbare spots during rush hour. Instead, the range has replicated the design from the seat upholstery, using woven material, bringing the Piccadilly line’s designs to life. Each design features some of the most recognisable tube elements like the Mind the Gap phrase, the round tube station symbol, and the TFL colour palette.

It's not a cheap collection, with the small rucksack retailing at £60, a small round zip purse around £20, and the Barman Moquette Tote Bag also at £60.

Does it feel like something Emily in Paris might come up with? Yes. Is the project is a genuine activation? Also yes. Maybe it's just trying to help fill the Piccadilly shaped gap in your life, as the trains have been undergoing works since 2018, and are set to finish next summer. For those of you doing the maths, yes that does mean you could be wearing matching garms to twin with the reopened trains. Chic doesn't even begin to cover it.

The range will be available to buy across London in select retailers including:

• Tower Bridge Gift Shop – Tower Bridge, London SE1 2UP
• London Transport Museum Shop – Covent Garden, London WC2E 7BB
• Medici Gallery – South Kensington, London SW7 2LT
• Giftbox Britain – Whitehall, London SW1A 2BX
• Cool Britannia – Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0PP
• Cool Britannia – Portobello Road, London W11 2DZ

In the same way you say "walkies" to a dog and they go absolutely mental, uttering the words "Steven Soderbergh" will act as a smoke signal to all film students across the country, add the works “curated film season” and you’ll wake them up from the middle of a Tarantino marathon, frantically booking tickets instead. The auteur behind some of the biggest box office blockbusters is coming to London for a special season of cinematic screenings next month.

Called Man Under the Influence, the special movie season will kick off on 3rd September, showing nine movies across nine consecutive Thursday evenings, wrapping things up on October 30th.

Rather than being scattered across a plethora of different indie UK cinemas, each movie screening will take place in the gorgeous Everyman Cinema The Whiteley in Bayswater. Every single film in the slate has been hand picked by Soderbergh, whose qualifications to host this include having made: Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s 12, Erin Brockovich, Magic Mike, and Sex, Lives, and Videotape. I mean, talk about range.

Much like how Soderbergh’s own portfolio is a diverse mix of crime, comedy, drama, and thrillers, the films chosen for the season will be a range of crowdpleasers, indie faves, and blockbusters. The run kicks off with the 1950s classic Trouble in Paradise, with each subsequent week's pick being from the following decade. So September 10ths film is Notorious (1940), three weeks later you’ve got the 1970s smash hit Jaws and so on and so on. The final film bringing the plush red velvet curtain down on the celebration will be Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread from the 2010s.

Wondering what’s with the six decade theme? Well, the whole shebang is actually a celebration of Soderbergh’s 63rd birthday. Clearly, the filmmaker is switching Colin the Caterpillar cake for a curated cinema celebration. And apparently because staying on theme matters, each event will have a 63 minute happy hour, which will give guests the chance to sip on a cocktail especially creative with a different top London bar – and each will be made with his favourite Bolivian spirit. Yup, you guessed it Singani 63. Do you think people will be getting the number 63 bus there?

Each film shown has had both a personal and cultural influence, each introduced by the man himself, albeit via video rather than IRL.

The full programme and cocktail partner is:

• September 3 – Trouble in Paradise (1930s) Cocktail by Archive & Myth
• September 10 – Notorious (1940s)Cocktail by The Mandrake
• September 17 – The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1950s)Cocktail by Cocktail Trading Company
• September 24 – The Servant (1960s)Cocktail by Viajante 87
• October 1 – Jaws (1970s)Cocktail by Nancy’s
• October 8 – Do the Right Thing (1980s)Cocktail by Murder Inc.
• October 15 – Fargo (1990s)Cocktail by The Natural Philosopher
• October 22 – Lost in Translation (2000s)Cocktail by Equal Parts
• October 29 – Phantom Thread (2010s)Cocktail by Hawksmoor

Soderbergh curated a similar Singani 63 season at New York’s Nitehawk Cinema earlier this year. According to him, "The only partner we considered for the UK version of A Man Under the Influence was Everyman, whose love of movies is matched only by their commitment to the moviegoing experience."

"Ask yourself: Can I resist the idea of a classic movie, Singani 63, and the groovy Everyman vibe all happening at the same time? The answer is no, you cannot, so get your butt to The Whiteley on Thursdays this fall and let's light this candle!"

Tickets are already on sale and are priced at £20.90, although that includes the cocktail. Doors open at 6pm for the drinks reception (with that week’s speciality cocktail) with the films kicking off around 7pm.

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Even if you didn’t go anywhere near the hit Netflix film Kpop Demon Hunters, you will inevitably have found yourself humming one of its main songs, Golden, at some point or the other. It was a tune so catchy, part of me joined the ranks of conspiracy theorists believing it to be some kind of guerilla psychological marketing ploy. Turns out it was less maniacal deviance and more musical genius. Now, some of the voices behind the hit characters are coming to London for a special one-off gig.

The Saja Boys are heading to the capital for a UK first in a live performance in the heart of the city. Andrew Choi and Neckwav – who play Jinu and Abby in the global hit – will play a one-off gig at Outernet Live in London next month.

On 6th September the actors/singers will be heading to Tottenham Court Road’s rather high tech immersive exhibition space, which has already hosted a slew of other musical tributes, most recently an homage to Madonna for her birthday. Fans will be able to gather to watch the on screen stars perform irl bringing some of the show’s most beloved songs to life.

“We’re incredibly excited to be sharing the stage during our first-ever performance in London,” said Choi. “The connection everyone has built with the film’s characters has been beyond anything we could have imagined and seeing our U.K. fans embrace the music makes this an even more meaningful celebration.”

Neckwav (real name Kyung Jay Minn) added: “It is an honour to bring my voice as Neckwav, and the singing voice behind Abby Saja, to life at Outernet Live. The love and support from our U.K. fans has been amazing and having the chance to finally meet and perform for them in person makes this moment so special. This will be a night to remember!”

The film featured two fictional bands: Huntr/x, whose singing voices were provided by Ejae (as Rumi), Audrey Nuna (as Mira), and Rei Aami (as Zoey) and the Saja Boys, made up of Choi, Neckwav, Kevin Woo, Samuil Lee and Danny Chung.

This isn’t the only experiential K-pop Demon Hunters musical gig taking place, as back in May, Netflix announced a new global tour which would bring some of the show’s best tunes into a live concert experience for fans, similar to a standard solo artist’s tour. However, we haven’t yet had any further confirmation about who exactly from the film’s various bands and singers will be featuring on the tour, nor where and when it will take place.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

Much like a celebrity couple (think Dua Lipa and Callum Turner, Posh and Becks), a bougie London hotel finds no better marriage than with a celebrity chef. Gordon Ramsay at the Savoy, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, Heston Blumenthal at Mandarin Oriental – there are many. Tom Kerridge’s spot at London’s glorious Corinthia hotel is getting a bit of an overhaul, and a brand new bar.

Tom Kerridge’s new bar at the Corinthia will sit alongside his existing restaurant, Kerridge’s which is also set to re-open soon after a revamp. The new bar is called Georgie’s, named after Kerridge’s beloved boxer pooch and opens up on 5th September.

The restaurant has been redesigned with Georgie’s in mind, with the new space split into two distinct destinations, a velvet partition separating the 57-cover dining room from the bar.

It’s an upmarket London hotel restaurant / bar so obviously you’ll be in for a pretty tight menu of carefully curated classics, as well as all the house favourites so you don’t need to leave the premises for that one pale ale you’ve been craving. Drinks at Georgie’s will offer a collection of classic and signature cocktails, as well as spirits, wines, beers and ales, with a draught selection including Rebellion Lager, Hazy Pale and IPA from the Marlow Brewery (where Tom has a couple of dinging spots including his two-Michelin-starred gastropub The Hand & Flowers and fellow Michelin spotted The Coach).

It will also have Georgie’s Martini Club, which offers guests a sort of martini flight. There are four Martinis to try out: a dry, a wet, a dirty, and the steak which is a twist on the classic Gibson martini, finished with a house-smoked pickled onion. You’ll also find tipples like a French 75, Cosmopolitan, Hemingway Daiquiri, Negroni, Old Fashioned, Manhattan and more on the cocktail list.

Food wise, there will be a range of elevated snacks like pork scratchings, beef jerky, frickles, and buttermilk fried chicken. Larger plates will include cheeseburger with BBQ brisket, pink shellfish brioche rolls with bloody Marie-rose sauce, and haddock fritters with matson sauce – another Kerridgian riff on a classic.

In terms of what the interiors will look like, it’s going to be in keeping with Corintiha’s MO of soft, quietly plush decor, with plenty of warm wintery tones. Burgundy leather, dark joinery and marble-topped tables will feature in Kerridge’s, while Georgie’s Bar will see navy and warm gold alongside antique brass, as well as ‘Steve’, a full-size bronze figure of a man in a suit, by sculptor Beth Cullen-Kerridge.

Kerridge’s at Corinthia London first opened in 2018, with head chef Tom Childs continuing to oversee the kitchen in partnership with Kerridge when it opens up after the refurb.

Tom Childs explained: “The food is still all about great British produce, proper cooking and generous flavours, but we’ve created a more intimate feel in the restaurant and a completely new way to experience what we do at Georgie’s. Whether you’re coming in for dinner, dropping by for a Martini or a beer, or settling in for the evening, we want both spaces to feel relaxed, welcoming and unmistakably Kerridge’s.”

You can head to the new, revamped restaurant and bar from 5th September at Corinthia London, 10 Whitehall Pl, London SW1A 2BD.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

Totes emosh singer-songwriter Noah Kahan has announced a new tour leg that includes just one date in England, but it’s a biggie.

On 23rd July next year, 2027, Noah Kahan will play at the 90,000 capacity Wembley Stadium in London.

It’s comfortably the biggest UK gig of his career, with previous highlights including a two-day stint at the 20,000 capacity The O2 Arena in 2024.

This concert is part of a three date UK and Ireland tour leg, for his The Last of the Bugs world tour series. Here’s the full list of dates:

• 13th July – Glasgow, Hampden Park
• 17th July – Dublin, Aviva Stadium
• 23rd July – London, Wembley Stadium

Tickets for these 2027 shows go on sale at 10am next week on 28th August, while there’s a pre-sale period from 25th August. You have until 5pm on 24th August to sign up for this “artist presale,” accessible from Noah Kahan’s website.

You just need to add your phone number to get an early access code.

There’s no need to wait all that time to see Noah Kahan live in London, though — if you’re willing to put a bit of effort in anyway.

He’s set to play three nights at The O2 Arena, on 13th, 14th and 17th November this year. All three dates are sold out already, but you can always try your luck at one of the non-ripoff resale portals.

Shortlist go-to picks include Twickets, Tixel, Ticketswap and Ticketmaster’s own resale platform (yes, it's surprisingly not dreadful).

Kahan’s current tour is in support of this The Great Divide album, while The Last Of The Bugs edition was a deluxe version released just after the original, adding four new tracks.

This is the first of Wembley Stadium’s 2027 music concerts to be announced. In 2026 it was host to gigs from The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, My Chemical Romance and others, while Bon Jovi are still to play the stadium in 2026, on 4th, 6th and 9th September.

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

Artist and humourist David Shrigley is holding a major exhibition in South London next year, and it’s one with a high-concept pitch.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery show, called simply David Shrigley, will see the UK artist’s works placed alongside Dutch and Flemish paintings from old masters — pieces hundreds of years old — but the aim is not just to take the piss out of old paintings in Shrigley’s signature style.

Instead Shrigley will reference the comedy that was already in those old pieces, but that the viewer does’t always appreciate when viewing them in a gallery all these years later.

That's our take anyway. Here's what the gallery says:

“Shrigley – like our historic painters – has an instinct for finding the funny side of everyday life. He is the perfect artist to bring back playfulness to the old masters, and remind us that great art doesn’t always need to be serious,” says Helen Hillyard, head of exhibitions at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

We’re yet to see what this will look like, though. The exhibitions preview only features the old paintings at present, not any of Shrigley’s reactions to them.

“Through a series of specially commissioned works, Shrigley enters into conversation with artists including Jan Steen, David Teniers the Younger, Rembrandt, Adriaen Brouwer and Pieter Brueghel the Younger, revealing how humour has been used across centuries to explore everyday life, human behaviour and social interaction,” reads the exhibition’s description.

Fans won’t need telling, but Shrigley’s work looks nothing like traditional painting, with a deliberately crude and basic style where the subject is often accompanied by a funny (in context) phrase.

This will be Shrigley’s first major UK exhibition in 15 years by the time it opens, the last being at the Hayward gallery back in 2012.

The David Shrigley exhibition opens on 25th May, 2027, and runs until 5th September. Tickets aren’t available to book just yet, but you can guarantee access by buying a Dulwich Picture Gallery Friend membership. These start at £46 a year, by direct debit, or £74 a year for one that lets you take a friend too.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

London’s theatre scene is unmatched – beyond the starry West End, there are plenty of smaller fringe-esque venues, spaces above pubs, underground gigs, and even open air performances (weather providing). It’s not surprising that its bright lights attract moth-like actors who all prove their Hollywood credentials by providing some spectacular theatre. Now, that’s being recognised in the inaugural Stage Debut Awards.

The awards are in association with Netflix, proving that a). all the arts are interconnected, and b). further proof that the two industries (theatre and film) prop one another up. In case you couldn’t grasp it from the title, the idea is that the awards are solely awarded to those who have made some kind of stage related debut, be it directing, acting, producing or other. (No, your boyfriend who went to the theatre for the first time after being adamant he hated it then proceeded to cry during the whole second half of Hamilton does not qualify for a nomination. Yet). This year, Sadie Sink, Noah Jupe, Brendan Gleeson, Tom Fletcher, Robert Aramayo and Ralph Fiennes among nominees.

Several productions received multiple nominations this year. Romeo and Juliet earned nominations for Noah Jupe in both Best Performer in a Play and Best West End Debut Performer, while The Weir sees both Brendan Gleeson and Kate Phillips shortlisted for their respective West End debuts. New musical Paddington the Musical was nominated for Arti Shah and composer-lyricist Tom Fletcher, while Sing Street was recognised across the performance and composition categories. Redcliffe, 1536 and The Fifth Step also feature across this year's shortlist.

This year's nominees range from 21 to 71 years old, with some embarking on stage careers at the beginning of their adult lives, and others embracing work on and off stage after a career in other areas of the arts . The shortlist celebrates breakthrough theatre talent from across the UK, with nominees recognised for work in the West End, at regional venues from Cardiff and Mold to Bath, Doncaster and Colchester, and on tour.

The nominees are:

Best West End Debut Performer

• Levi Brown for Cyrano de Bergerac at Noël Coward Theatre
• Brendan Gleeson for The Weir at Harold Pinter Theatre
• Liv Hill for 1536 at Ambassadors Theatre
• Noah Jupe for Romeo and Juliet at Harold Pinter Theatre
• Cormac McAlinden for Inter Alia at Wyndham's Theatre
• Ntombizodwa Ndlovu for Marie and Rosetta at @sohoplace
• Alistair Nwachukwu for The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind at @sohoplace
• Kate Phillips for The Weir at Harold Pinter Theatre
• Arti Shah for Paddington the Musical at Savoy Theatre
• Sadie Sink for Romeo and Juliet at Harold Pinter Theatre

Best Performer in a Play

• Robert Aramayo for Guess How Much I Love You? at Royal Court Theatre, London
• Zoë Armer for The Virgins at Soho Theatre, London
• Noah Jupe for Romeo and Juliet at Harold Pinter Theatre, London
• Assa Kanouté for Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, London
• Erin Kellyman for Evening All Afternoon at Donmar Warehouse, London
• Dylan Malyn for To Kill a Mockingbird at Leeds Playhouse, and touring
• Ruaridh Mollica for Clarkston at Trafalgar Theatre, London
• Amber van der Brugge for Vincent in Brixton at Orange Tree Theatre, London

Best Performer in a Musical

• Jess Douglas-Welsh for Redcliffe at Southwark Playhouse Borough, London
• Jess Folley for Burlesque at Savoy Theatre, London
• Lydia Louise for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at Watermill Theatre, Newbury
• Julianne Pundan for Miss Saigon at Palace Theatre, Manchester, and touring
• James Spence for Thespians at Mercury Theatre, Colchester, and touring
• Sheridan Townsley for Sing Street at Lyric Hammersmith, London

Best Writer

• Chris Ashworth-Bennion for The Red Rogue of Bala at Theatr Clwyd, Mold
• Georgie Dettmer for Are You Watching? at Royal Court Theatre, London
• Hannah Doran for The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights at Park Theatre, London
• Leo Drayton for Dynolwaith at Sherman Theatre, Cardiff
• Fran Kranz for Mass at Donmar Warehouse, London
• John Morton for Eclipse at Chichester Festival Theatre
• Jack Nicholls for The Shitheads at Royal Court Theatre, London
• Danielle Phillips for Children of the Night at Cast, Doncaster

Best Director

• Douglas Clarke-Wood for THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME. at Summerhall, Edinburgh
• Ralph Fiennes for As You Like It at Bath Theatre Royal
• Tommaso Giacomin for The Uncontainable Nausea of Alec Baldwin at New Diorama Theatre, London
• Michelle McTernan for HOP – The Hopeful Hare at Swansea Grand Theatre

Millennials and Gen X’ers will surely raise an eyebrow at this one: a Golden Axe show is coming to streaming next month.

And yes, it’s based on the arcade game — or its countless console conversions — which you can tell from just the swiftest glance at Golden Axe’s promo poster. It was a coin-munching hack and slash game in which you played as either a muscle-clad warrior-barbarian, an Amazonian woman or a dwarf. A fun diversion from simpler times.

Golden Axe the show is a 10-part animated series, and all ten episodes will be released on Paramount+ on 16th September. Hungry for more of a taste? Here’s the just-released trailer:

If the approach the team has taken has left you a little unsure on this one, you’re not alone. The current sentiment from the YouTube commentariat is the show may have leant a little too much on the potential for laughs — and folks are none too sure the trailer proves they’ve hit the comedy bullseye.

We’ll wait to see the real thing, as 90 seconds or so doesn’t seem enough to enough to judge a series.

Golden Axe features chunkily animated versions of the player characters you can pick in the original 1989 game, plus an inexperienced “adventurer” called Hampton Squib, who is a stand-in for the player character.

Whatever you think of the tenor of the show, you can’t deny a quality voice cast is involved. Matthew Rhys plays the warrior class character Gilius Thunderhead, while Danny Pudi is Squib.

Golden Axe is the brainchild of Joe Chandler, its showrunner. His previous roles include writer on American Dad! And Napoleon Dynamite’s TV series. There are those comedy roots, clear to see.

Want to give it a shot? A Paramount+ subscription starts at £5.99, for its ad-supported plan, and there’s a 7-day trial available to those who haven’t subscribed before.

What about the Golden Axe games? Sega teased a remake of Golden Axe was coming at the 2023 Game Awards, a 3D version rather than a classic side-scroller, but we have heard little of it since. And with the games industry basically on fire at the moment — and not in a good way — who knows if it will ever actually come out.

• Best video game adaptations: Proof that they don’t have to be terrible

There’s a particular kind of sporting weekend that presents a serious first-world problem: your footie team is playing, the Grand Prix is about to start and a golf Major is reaching those final few holes where it actually gets the heart pumping. Suddenly, one screen isn’t enough.

Sky thinks it has the answer. Launching on 21st August, just in time for the return of the Premier League, Your Multiview will let Sky customers watch up to four live Sky Sports events simultaneously on a single screen.

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Available on Sky Glass, Sky Stream and (refreshingly, given the device's age) Sky Q, the feature puts multiple events side-by-side, meaning you could have four football matches running at once, or keep an eye on the Premier League while simultaneously following F1, cricket, tennis, golf, NFL or rugby.

And it’s not simply a case of cramming four tiny screens onto your telly. Viewers can choose which event to spotlight, change the audio they’re focussed on and switch any individual event to full screen when something particularly important happens.

A suite of Sky Sports changes

Your Multiview is part of a wider overhaul of Sky’s sports experience for the 2026/27 season. Sports Hub will bring live scores, stats, tables, schedules, clips and highlights onto the side of the screen while you’re watching a match, while new Team Pages will gather games, news, highlights, replays and upcoming fixtures in one place.

There’s also Clips, a new autoplaying, scrollable feed of short-form sports videos, which sounds a bit like Sky's attempt to keep your eyes glued to its coverage rather than being distracted by similar content on your phone's TikTok app. There's also a refreshed Live Sports Rail to make it quicker to find what’s happening now and what’s coming next from the front page of the Sky TV operating system.

Sky is also bringing its Moments experience to the Sky Sports mobile app, offering a personalised vertical feed of highlights, analysis, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. Meanwhile, NOW Sports members will get Multiview and a new Key Plays feature for catching up on the biggest moments without leaving a live stream.

It's a comprehensive refresh of Sky's sports-juggling experience then, and at no additional cost to its existing plans. You can bag Sky Sports from £22 per month as an add-on to Sky's Essential TV or Ultimate TV plans on Sky Glass and Sky Stream.

• Sky Glass Air review: Is Sky’s slimmed-down streaming TV its smartest move yet?

A bookshop has its own draw; the slightly musty smell of carpets mingled with the scent of old books, top notes of fresh ink and crisp new novels, and a woodiness which you’re never 100% sure the provenance of. It’s cosiness, calm, and most of all the promise of a thousand universes waiting to draw you in. And a cat – somehow there is always a cat nearby even if it’s just in your mind.

Add in some bona fide acting stars, a period drama, and a whole load of intrigue and you’ve got something even more enticing. And that’s exactly what London is about to get.

Inspired by the upcoming second season of Mark Gatiss’ detective show Bookish, London is getting a free mystery experience. Bearing the same name as its on screen shop, Book’s Bookshop will be popping up in the scholarly capital on 25th and 26th August.

But it’s not just bog standard books you’ll be able to browse — as part of the experience, resident Cover Story writers will use vintage typewriters to create the opening page of each guest’s own secret identity, complete with a bespoke alter ego, occupation and backstory.

For those unacquainted, Bookish has been created by Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentleman, Sherlock, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning). It stars Gatiss in the titular role as Gabriel Book, with Bridgerton’s Polly Walker playing his (lavender marriage) wife Trottie. Brook, along with wife Trottie run a bookshop in London, and take in recently released petty criminal Jack (Connor Finch) who becomes more and more intertwined in the pair’s lives. Together, the trio help the police solve crimes alongside the bookshop.

Bookish and crime drama fans will be free to roam the shelves, uncover hidden surprises and teasers for the upcoming season and chat with the bookshop’s mysterious keeper (Mark Gatiss? Well, at least a good lookalike) before taking a seat with one of the shop’s resident cover story writers.

Commenting on the bookshop opening, Mark Gatiss, series creator and star said:

“Bookish is all about hidden depths - the idea that everyone might be concealing a secret history, hiding in plain sight. With Your Book's Bookshop, we want to give fans the chance to do exactly that.

“Walking through those doors, sitting down at a typewriter and walking away with your own alias and cover story - it's the closest you'll get to actually living inside the show. I can't wait for people to discover what's been waiting for them on the shelves."

Officially called Your Book’s Bookshop, it will open on August 25th August from 2pm at Cecil Court near Leicester Square. Like all good bookshops, entry is free, but you may want to book a ticket ahead of time, as there is only a limited number of walk-in spaces available.

You can book tickets here, and find Your Book’s Bookshop at 22-24 Cecil Ct, London WC2N 4HE.

• BFI London Film Festival 2026 has officially revealed its competition line-up

The National Conversation has dug into government data to work out the most and least friendly places in the UK.

Want the headline-grabber? Barking and Dagenham is the bottom of the pile according to the data, scoring a measly 8/100 points.

This is based on The National Conersation’s connection barometer, which is based on questions like how much someone feels like they belong to their neighbourhood, whether they are proud of their local area and whether people from different backgrounds get on.

Let’s cut to the chase and run down the top five best and worst scorers:

The bad list

1. Barking and Dagenham
2. Stoke-on-Trent
3. Ashfield
4. Mansfield
5. Ipswich

The good list

1. The Isles of Scilly
2. South Hams
3. West Devon
4. The Derbyshire Dales
5. Richmond upon Thames

You can see what score your own area gets over at the National Conversation website.

All this data comes from Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government survey and statistics info. But part of this attention-grabbing presentation of the data by the National Conversation is to get us to fill in the initiative’s own survey.

It’s operated by the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, which is part of the University of Oxford.

“Your participation will help create one of the few resources where people can see how their area feels, not just how it votes,” is the pitch.

But what are they gong to do with it? The stated aim is to “conduct academic research and analyse societal trends,” which it deems are in the “public interest.”

Whether you want to participate or not, it’s kinda interesting to dig into the data of your current and previous home towns.

The primary source is the Community Life Survey 2024/25 — which was undertaken between October 2024 and March 2025, and includes answers from upwards of 175,000 participants aged 16+, from across the UK.

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It may sit in the mind alongside the eras of impressionist paintings and romantic poetry, but London’s Royal Opera House is both a historic institution and modern icon. Always changing with the times, the conservatory-cum-Gallerie-Lafeyette looking building has hosted some incredible performances from royal-attended operas to free lunchtime concerts. Now, it’s time for something a little different as it opens up for a series of exclusive after hours tours.

Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House will be hosting new late-night experiences which will feature talks, tours, demonstrations, installations, and other activities in a first-of-its-kind project. The evenings will finish with a silent disco in the Paul Hamlyn Hall – although presumably the playlist is more pop anthems than Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Who knows though, maybe you’ll be throwing shapes to Mozart’s greatest hits.

Currently it’s a one-night only kind of event, which will take place on 21st August, where, similar to the usual day-time tours, you’ll be invited to step behind the scenes, exploring rehearsal studios, costumes, and production workshops which are usually off limits to the public. The evening will kick off at 5.30pm, running until 11.30pm where you’ll take in the historic wanders of the space. The evening will be split into four separate pillars: stories, stage, screen, and style. Guests will be treated to a programme of different snippets from the Opera’s history, including: a fight choreography demo, live music score performances, a discussion on ballet’s influence on fashion and a demonstration of how iconic costumes are maintained, restored and reused.

There is also a pretty incredible line-up of creatives from inside some of the Opera's recent productions. Uzma Hameed who has worked on Woolf Works and MADDADDAM will explain how she transforms literature into dance. Costume designer Esther Bialas will reveal how she comes up with costumes and brings them to life, and chorus director William Spaulding will highlight how important the ensemble is to opera productions.

Tickets cost £60 per person, which includes a welcome drink as well as access to the Hall for the disco. You’ll get to choose two of the four tours – you get to pick whether to learn about the props department, the rehearsal rooms and side stage areas, the costume and jewellery department or the sound and broadcast department.

You can book tickets and find out more here.

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Virgin Trains has secured a deal to let it operate trains running from London to destinations across Europe, including Paris.

This is all thanks to the rather unglamorous-sounding Office of Rail and Road (ORR), which has granted Virgin Trains the right to operate on the lines you currently have to head to Eurostar to travel across.

Eurostar has effectively had a monopoly on its services since its passenger services began in 1994. And that’s about to be nixed — although we do have a bit of a wait ahead.

The deal will allow Virgin Trains to operate rival services from October 2030, and runs until 2040.

Plans are for up to 20 “return services a day,” with locations including Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.

More competition, better prices?

This not a new plan, of course, just another step along the road to making it happen. For example, almost a year ago in October 2025 Virgin Trains was granted access to the Temple Mills International depot. And rumours of these Virgin Trains plans began circulating at pace in 2023.

The hope, from the consumer’s end, is the increased competition will see these train services become lower-cost. Book early enough and you can get a return ticket to one of Eurostar’s key terminals for under £100, or under £80 during the company’s fairly regular sales events.

It’s not bad, but it’s not on the level of the £50 return flights to Paris you can pick up from Easyjet for this September, if the less desirable times suit your schedule.

“This is an important next step in bringing competition and growth to the market for international rail services, and we welcome the progress Virgin Trains and London St Pancras High Speed have made,” says Martin Jones, the Office of Rail and Road’s deputy director of “access & international.”

“While there is still more work to do, we are supporting Virgin and the wider industry to grow international services.”

One of the next steps is for Virgin to actually get hold of the trains it needs. Back in August 2025 it was reported the company made an order for 12 high-speed trains capable of running at up to 300km per hour.

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The K-Music festival has revealed its programme of events for 2026: a celebration of Korean music that will take over some of London’s top venues from late September to November.

Unlike most other London music festivals, this K-Music one is spread across dates and venues, a looser collection of concerts rather than a one-shot hit of acts. But you do get a full line-up of acts on the opening night, which lands on 28th September.

This takes place at EartH in Hackney, and features Lil Cherry & Goldbuuda, Chang Kiha and ADG7. Tickets are a mere £21.94 including all fees, from DICE.

The concept behind the festival is to celebrate Korean music beyond K-pop, which is of course already massively popular.

Here’s the full list of events at the K-Music festival, now in its 13th year, after the opening night concert.

3rd October - Wind Alone, Sand Alone at Stone Nest in Soho

• How much? £20
• What is it? “Immersive sonic theatre” from a six-piece of musicians from Korea and France.

11th October - Korean Games in Concert at the Southbank Centre

• How much? From £17 (adult tickets)
• What is it? Video game music played in part using traditional Korean instruments. Some of the most famous titles on the list include Black Desert and Lies of P.

17th October - Chudahye Chagis at Rich Mix

• How much? £20.34
• What is it? A genre-mashing group from Seoul.

29th October - Kyungso Park + Björn Meyer at Royal Albert Hall

• How much? £20
• What is it? A performance by Kyungso Park, who plays traditional stringed Korean instrument the gayageum, alongside bassist Björn Meyer.

11th November - Dongyang Gozopa at Rich Mix

• How much? £20.50
• What is it? A three-piece band who combine western genres with Korean musical influences. Trippy stuff.

23rd November - Jisu Jung’s Baroque in Blue at Upstair’s at Ronnie’s

• How much? From £33.50
• What is it? An interpretation of Charlie Parker’s Baroque in Blue arranged for a classical ensemble by composer and pianist Jisu Jung.

In what sounds like the start of an Indiana Jones movie, London’s Natural History Museum is cracking open a previously sealed secret gallery that has been off limits to the public since World War Two. Instead of secret enigmas, buried treasure, or soon-to-be-reanimated extinct species, the gallery will be showing a new exhibition, all about humans' relationship with nature.

Called Nature and Us, the exhibition opens up on 16th September and will explore our evolving relationship with the natural world through 50 remarkable objects. The space was previously an osteology gallery in the 1890s, with mammals from around the world displayed and studied.

Closed to the public since 1943, this gallery will initially reopen for 18 months, with Nature and Us being the primary exhibition during that run. According to the museum, some of the highlights and key specimens appearing in Nature and Us include a miniature model of a Crystal Palace dinosaur, illustrating how early scientists and artists imagined prehistoric life; Jenny, a Victorian skeleton of a monk seal that reveals how wild animals were once exploited for entertainment; a bryozoan-encrusted Star Wars toy from the 1980s, showing how everyday objects can acquire new meanings through nature and time; and a 400,000-year-old handaxe whose discovery transformed our understanding of when humans first existed.

Visitors will also be able to touch a replica jaw of one of Britain's earliest known domesticated dogs, dating to around 14,300 years ago and offering evidence of the long relationship between people and pooches.

The exciting announcement is part of NHM150, a transformation of the Museum that will open a new or revitalised gallery each year leading up to its 150th anniversary in 2031.

The space can be found on the second floor of the museum, and has been used for different features across the years. After the Museum's original herbarium was damaged during the Second World War, the gallery was repurposed to house the botanical collections and closed to the public. The gallery's original wooden herbarium cabinets remain in place, reflecting its history as a working scientific collections space.

• A first-of-its-kind punk festival dedicated to women is heading to London

Shortlist has put together an epic Punk retrospective as the snarling genre hits a milestone 50th anniversary, looking back at interviews with Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, as well as chatting to fans young and old about their favourite memories. And it’s not just us getting a little nostalgic and dusting off our leather jackets — London is getting a brand new festival which is all about the women who changed the punk scene, including a pretty cool reunion.

Called God Save the Queens, the festival is taking to the capital in October and November with gigs, talks, screenings, and workshops all celebrating the female rockers and all-out legends who made the genre what it is. The inaugural festival comes fifty years after legendary punk pioneer Poly Styrene and a generation of women helped shape punk's music, art and identity.

The festival will bring together a landmark exhibition, a one-night-only reunion performance, talks, and the release of previously unheard recordings by Poly Styrene, who passed away in 2011.

Whilst the celebration has already been teased with a punk takeover of summer’s Everyman on the Canal back in July, the events keep unfolding across Autumn 2026. The festival’s centrepiece is a standout gig at Electric Brixton on Friday 16th October that will see the formation of God Save The Queens, a unique supergroup bringing together leading musicians from across generations. The 75-minute performance will reimagine the Poly Styrene playlist alongside iconic she-punk anthems.

The headline performance will feature an historic X-Ray Spex reunion, with original members Lora Logic and Paul Dean returning to the stage alongside Celeste Bell, daughter of Poly Styrene, performing her mother’s songs and honouring her extraordinary legacy.

On 12th September Bell will also be running an exclusive talk at the V&A, exploring the radical legacy of her mother Poly Styrene. On September 18th, the festival takes over the Saatchi Gallery which will host A Night of T/Reason featuring Lauren Estelle Jones and Celeste Bell as panellists.

Moving onto 19th October, the festival will be camping out at the British Library for a flagship panel discussion on the enduring multi-generational impact of women in alternative and DIY music culture. Bringing together original ’77 punk pioneers, contemporary artists, and leading cultural scholars, it will explore how female creativity continues to challenge the mainstream and rewrite the rules of artistic independence.

Music and art icons contributing to the festival include X-Ray Spex saxophonist Lora Logic, fashion designer Dame Zandra Rhodes, The Specials collaborator and The Bodysnatchers lead singer Rhoda Dakar, The Raincoats founder Gina Birch, visual artists Caroline Coon, Linder and Sue Webster, BBC Radio 6 Music DJ, The Slits manager, and The Clash music video director Don Letts and Big Joanie. Also contributing to the landmark event are The Sex Pistols’ official photographer Ray Stevenson, The Slits members Tessa Pollitt and Hollie Cook, and cult fashion brand BOY London.

You can find out more information about the festival and its events including booking tickets via the website.

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In October, a Queen concert film is getting a release in cinemas, including IMAX, but it will also have a special one-day-only screening at London’s Roundhouse.

Queen Budapest will be shown at the popular gig venue on 3rd October, a few days ahead of its cinema release on 7th October.

There will be two screenings on that day, one at 2pm, another at 7pm. And the pitch is it will get you closer to the atmosphere of an actual Queen gig than just watching at a cinema could hope to.

The audience will watch the show standing, with the concert film displayed on a “giant LED screen, with full surround sound [and] synchronised lighting.” You’re welcome to sing along too, a factor we’re less persuaded by.

One vision

Queen Budapest is a filming of the band’s 1986 stadium concert, in which they played in front of 80,000 fans.

The 2026 re-release sees the original film re-scanned and remastered in 4K. It was originally relesed on VHS and laserdisc back in 1987, and on Blu-Ray in 2012.

The concert was from Queen’s last tour, in support of their A Kind of Magic album.

“Peter Jackson’s team have done a magnificent job of restoring the original film footage, at the highest resolution ever; it’s pristine and the quality is breathtaking. I think you’re going to love it. For the sound, we’ve been able to do some top quality restoration work as well,” says Brian May.

And, yes, he’s referring to Peter Jackson of The Lord of the Rings fame — his Park Road production studio is behind the new remaster.

The release is around 90 minutes long, just like the original version. 2012’s re-release was padded out to almost two hours thanks to added documentary segments.

Tickets for the two screenings will be available from the Roundhouse website, while you can sign up for ticket alerts for the cinema release over at the film’s own site.

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This one will instantly check out for anyone who has tried to get hold of tickets to a screening: The Odyssey is now BFI IMAX’s biggest-grossing film of all time.

It has nudged past 2009 mega-blockbuster Avatar to become the London cinema’s top-charting movie, with 101,000 tickets sold and upwards of £2.63 million gross revenue in ticket sales.

This also makes the BFI the second-highest grossing IMAX screening room for the film globally, second only to the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. And that one’s a much more capacious space. While around 500 can fit in the BFI IMAX, 932 can fit into the LA room, according to the Chinese Theatres website.

Guess what? The entire The Odyssey run at the BFI IMAX is, once again, completely sold out.

Current listings show the last screening for the film on 17th September. But the next big film on the roster isn’t until December, with Dune: Part Three arriving on 18th December.

Could there be two more months of The Odyssey screening at BFI IMAX ahead of us? Stay tuned for news of further ticket drops.

The Odyssey is just one of six Christopher Nolan films on the BFI IMAX all-timer chart. Here’s the roll-call of the top 10:

1. The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan, 2026)
2. Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)
3. Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan, 2023)
4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015)
5. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
6. The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012)
7. Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, 2024)
8. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, 2017)
9. Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)
10. Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron, 2022)

Christopher Nolan made IMAX a central part of the The Odyssey story, as it’s the first film to be shot entirely on IMAX cameras.

It’s never been an easy task thanks to the sheer noise IMAX cameras generate, and even with the latest IMAX Keighley Film Camera tech, major practical concessions are required. It shoots on film, and a fully-loaded 1000-foot film canister only gets you up to around three minutes of filmed footage.

At the time of writing, The Odyssey has made $1.298 billion. It’s Christopher Nolan’s highest grossing film to date, at least before adjusting for inflation.

We’re in a summer of massive blockbusters, though. Spider-Man: Brand New Day has already made more than $2 billion, while horror smash Obsession has made $495 million, despite costing less than $1 million to make.

Perhaps all those years of claims saying cinema is in its death throes were overstated.

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Oasis: the comeback that launched a thousand tie-in clothing launches, screaming fans, and parodies. Live 25 was one of the biggest and most anticipated reunion tours in history, with tickets selling out last year in the blink of an eye. Following in the footsteps of Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift, it was announced earlier this year that the duo were getting a new landmark documentary – created by Steven Knight no less. Now, we finally have a trailer.

Called Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger, the trailer shows snippets of the new feature-length documentary — a Hulu Original, meaning it'll eventually make its way to Disney+ streaming. Unlike the actual reunion which was years in the making, fans don’t have long to wait for the film which will land in select cinemas on September 11th before releasing on Disney+ later.

The trailer opens with overlapping reports from various news outlets around the globe all talking about the brothers. The clips are taken across the duo’s career, from early days when they were being compared with the Beatles, all the way up to the “days of speculation” surrounding their reunion. There is a mix of footage, some earlier, grainier clips showing the pair significantly younger although with pretty similar hairdos, then more recent videos from 2025.

Later, frontman Liam is seen at the mic in the dark practice room, moments before the concerts kicks off. The two brothers eye each other up in the clip as Noel speaks about past “tension” between the pair in a voiceover. “Will it fall apart again?” he asks.

Then it breaks into the full on behind-the-scenes, crowds-in-full-swing footage that brings chills to your whole body, as the last moment of quiet before the gig kicks off rolls around is quickly replaced with millions of fans, lights, fireworks, and cheering crowds.

According to the official synopsis, the documentary “charts Liam and Noel Gallagher’s triumphant reunion tour" calling Oasis Live ‘25 "one of the most anticipated rock ‘n’ roll comebacks of our time."

"The film is an unapologetically uplifting account of the biggest musical event of 2025, capturing the experience and emotions of the band and their fans across the world," it added.

The unique perspective includes rehearsal, backstage, and onstage access as well as the first joint interview with Noel and Liam in over 20 years. Alongside the band’s sold-out world tour, the film also explores the profound emotional impact of this phenomenal global cultural moment and what their music means to audiences and generations worldwide.

Speaking about the doc, Steven Knight said: “I genuinely cannot wait for the world to see this film. I believe it captures the spirit and emotion of a global cultural moment and does justice to the wit and genius of two exceptional people.

"I wanted to tell the story of the brothers and the band, but just as important, the story of the fans whose lives the music has touched and sometimes changed forever. It is also the story of how music and songwriting can unite generations, cultures, countries and in a time of spite and division, give us all some reason to hope.”

Working alongside Knight is Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace (“Shut Up and Play the Hits”, “Meet Me in the Bathroom”) who have directed the film. The producers are Sam Bridger (who also worked on Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now) and Guy Heeley (Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man). Whilst the rest of the creative team is suitably behemothic — maybe most notably involved is Oscar®-winning sound mixers James Mather (Top Gun: Maverick and Belfast) and Tarn Willers.

The film will be heading to selected cinemas with bookings already open for some UK cinemas.

London's BFI will be hosting two exclusive preview screenings of the documentary, with tickets already available for screens on 9th and 10th September, priced between £24 and £28. You can check out tickets and screenings here.

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The idea of a Martini Tester job feels up there with a swimming pool full of lemonade or a house made of chocolate; the kind of ridiculously extravagant invention that doesn’t seem quite real. However, one lucky (and slightly inebriated) person will get the gig of official Martini Tester for London based event page DesignMyNight, giving them a chance to drink their way around some of the best bars in London.

There has been a martini boom over the last year, with the sophisticated tipple having a resurgence as Gen Z cosplay as being a functioning adult rather than the broke trainwreck they are (at least in my case).

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The martini is sort of like the Victoria Sponge of the cocktail world: with stripped back ingredients, you have nowhere to hide. Martinis (and Viccy Sponges) are all about the quality of ingredients, and the little twists each chef or mixologist has which makes their signature serve unique.

That might help explain the quiet rivalry across plenty of London bars all claiming to make the best one. Bob Bob Ricard serves up the world’s coldest martini at -22 degrees; Dukes Bar in St James’ has a long legacy of serving up perfect pours from its iconic tableside cart; newer kid on the block and Topjaw favourite Three Sheets is a strong contender, and that’s before we get to all the adventurous twists on the classic from a Spiced Okra Martini at Chishuru, Caviar bump accompanying tipples, and Rita’s coveted £9 mini martini with a touch of lemon oil in Soho.

With interest in the classic martini growing (dry martini orders surged almost 20% year on year), events listings site DesignMyNight is looking for someone to separate the wheat from the chaff – or the vodka(n) from the vod...kant. The job isn’t exactly your usual LinkedIn salaried affair, instead it’s a position worth £1,400 in food and drink tabs, as well as an overnight stay in one of London’s most luxury hotels. They’ve also got your travel covered so you don’t even have to be a local to do it.

You’ll be testing martinis across five different top rated bars, including: The Egerton House Hotel, Bob Bob Ricard, Hawksmoor Martini Bar, Archive & Myth, and Murder Inc. You’ll be treated to an overnight stay and fully decked out breakfast at Egerton House Hotel, as well as taking part in a martini masterclass so you can replicate your favourite sips after the gig’s up. Egerton House Hotel is one of those traditionally, discreetly bougie red-bricked hotels in the heart of Knightsbridge. You’ll get a three-course meal for two at Bob Bob Ricard, the same at Hawksmoor, and three rounds of snacks and drinks at Murder Inc, rounded off by yet another couple of rounds of drinks at Archive & Myth – and hopefully a couple of aspirin before bed too. Not a bad day on the job.

There are no qualifications or restrictions to apply for this job. Candidates have to be aged 18 or over but that’s about it. Hopefully you actually like martinis too, but there’s not actually a stipulation that you have to be enamoured with the serve… This gig would certainly be a kind of martini-drinking boot-camp of sorts if you didn't. Applications are now open and will close on 14th September. You can find the application here.

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London has a plethora of markets, forming a delicious spider's web across the capital with local spots in Peckham, Dulwich, and Hackney to name a few. The markets really do a fantastic job of highlighting how multi-cultural our city is, bringing flavours of home for some and a world culinary tour for others without having to leave their postcode or drop dough on transatlantic flights. But as much as the slew of stunning spots try to rival the big kahuna, Borough Market remains the undefeated King of London’s food markets. Now, it’s flinging open its doors after hours for a full on party all about the art of barbecuing.

Evocatively called Flame & Smoke, the evening will take place on 10th September – presumably after the nationwide barbecue ban has lifted — between 6.30pm and 9.30pm. The evening will include live demonstrations, fire pits, masterclasses, Q&As with chefs and producers, a live DJ, and of course plenty of good food. In fact there will be a range of small plates specifically created for the evening showcasing exactly how good flame grilled food can be.

It’s not the first time the Market has put on an after hours foodie rave, having hosted an evening of fish back in May, as well as a festive special celebrating all things cheese. The idea behind the evenings is to do a deeper dive into a specific ingredient or food category, with expert advice on how to prepare, cook, and eat it. This time, it’s the tempestuous barbecue that’s coming into the spotlight, or, flame.

Forget the days of burnt burgers and sausages which are blackened on the outside and dangerously underdone and suspiciously pink on the inside. The Borough Market BBQ bonanza is all about righting those scorched wrongs. The idea is to make your grilled goods more gourmet, learning how to go from charcoal-tastic to perfectly cooked fare.

The evening will showcase “just how exciting, skilful and versatile cooking over fire can be.” Flame & Smoke celebrates the theatre, versatility and irresistible flavour of cooking over fire – the oldest cooking method we have.

Confirmed vendors so far include:

• The Black Pig
• Kolae
• The London Cider House
• Mei Mei
• Oak & Smoke
• Padre
• Porteña
• Utobeer
• Wyndham House Poultry

As Bethan Davies (head of the market) explains: "Our traders draw on traditions from around the world to create bold flavours and make exceptional produce sing. This is barbecue, Borough Market style.”

Tickets need to be booked for the gig, priced at £7 for standard admission, and on sale now. It's set in Green Market and the open-air space beside Southwark Cathedral, but presumably once you get to the general Borough area, you can just follow your nose (and your rumbling stomach) like a cartoon character following a trail of smoke. You can book tickets here.

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Love ‘em or loathe ‘em, we’ve all nipped into a Wetherspoons pub for a quick, cheap pint at one point or other. But a new rule rolling out across the budget-friendly bar chain might make a round at your local Wetherspoons more tempting than ever before.

Wetherspoons pubs have announced that they are banning the act of playing music, videos or taking calls over a smartphone loudspeaker in its bars.

“Following complaints from customers who are being driven nuts by other people’s videos and amplified phone conversations, Wetherspoon has asked customers to switch their phones to silent or to use earphones,” reads a statement from the chain.

I never thought I’d find myself agreeing with Wetherspoons’ chair and founder, Tim Martin, but we can’t help but respect the move. He said: “In a world dominated by other people’s music and amplified sound, Wetherspoon pubs are an oasis of tranquillity and contemplation. In order to avoid customers being driven chicken jalfrezi by a cacophony of sound, we are kindly asking phone users to pipe down.”

Can we get him to enforce the rule on buses and trains, too?

The best thing Wetherspoons has ever announced?

Wetherspoons pubs have a reputation for being a bit soulless — few play music to keep licensing costs down, and there’s a canteen-like approach to the layout of many of the chain's locations, rather than the cosy feel of more intimate pubs.

Wetherspoons has a knack for finding grand old buildings and reviving them, if not recapturing the original magic of the venues, while low prices pile pressure on independent pubs nearby that can’t be matched.

And yet, is there anywhere better in London for a pre-drink? Or an affordable breakfast? If Wetherspoons does manage to ban disturbing, obnoxious phone use in its bars, all the power to them, and it’s something I’d like to see other bars enforce.

Will Wetherspoons actually be able to manage it though? Seeing how busy its bar staff usually are, I’d be surprised — and I personally wouldn’t fancy telling a punter a few pints in that they need to turn down their TikTok feeds.

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The BFI London Film Festival is a London institution, a lighthouse to cinephiles, movie nerds, and ex film students as well as a calling card for people who love a subtitled film. This year’s festival lineup has already been teased, with the fantastic opening and closing films already confirmed.

Now, fresh off the bookender announcements of Jesse Eisenberger’s new comedy and Andrew Scott’s Oscar tipped biopic as the closer and opener of the festival, the films in the running for the Best Film award have been announced.

10 films will be going head to head for the prestigious award, during the festival’s run from 7-18th October.

Ten different countries are represented in the category, with films from the UK, Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Italy, France, Hungary, Japan, and Poland all in the running. The winner will be announced on the festival’s last night on 18th October.

The UK’s entry is 7 Miles Out, a new semi-autobiographical film from Carol Morley whom you’ll know from her other work including Dreams of a Life starring Zawe Ashton, and The Falling which starred Maisie Williams and Florence Pugh. It stars California Schemin’ and The Testaments star Lucy Halliday as Anne who, after losing her father in tragic circumstances, finds solace and trouble in Manchester’s music scene in the 70s and 80s.

Act 3, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s rumination on ageing, is an Ireland-UK production, while period drama The Idiot(s), which stars Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn and is directed by Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert is UK-Polish.

European entries include Sergei Loznitsa’s archival Imperium, Giovanni Tortorici’s coming-of-age story Ketticè, Lili Horvát’s domestic drama My Notes on Mars and May el-Toukhy’s drama Woman Unknown.

The three final entries are Benjamín Naishtat’s period-noir thriller Glaxo, a Brazilian-Argentinian production, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Look Back, another coming-of-age story from Japan, and Rubaiyat Hossain’s body horror The Difficult Bride, which is a France-Bangladesh-Portugal-Norway-Germany co-production.

There are plenty of other films featured across different categories in the Festival, including The Audience Awards (Hamnet being its most recent winner), the Grierson Award for Best Documentary, the Sutherland Award for Best First Feature and the Short Film Award. The films shortlisted for these awards will be announced in September.

BFI London Film Festival director Kristy Matheson said: ”As we celebrate the 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival, it’s an honour to have a number of alumni filmmakers represented in the Official Competition alongside those making their first appearance at the festival.

“Our 2026 competition selection brings an astounding array of filmmaking styles to the screen. As ever, it’s been creatively nourishing for myself and the team to encounter each of these works - we’re excited to share these with audiences in October.”

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It may have taken a million dreams to get Hugh Jackman to play a circus ringmaster in a massive blockbuster, but it's not going to take any more wishes to see an IRL production of The Greatest Showman, as Disney’s hit film is heading to London stages soon.

It's the latest movie to be given the glitter wand glow up, having been adapted into a musical earlier this year. After a run at Bristol’s Hippodrome, it’s heading to a London stage soon.

Disney isn’t a stranger to commercialising transforming some of its hit animations into IRL musicals, with its most recent production – Hercules – wrapping up its run at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in September. In fact, the little mouse has made a home for itself in London’s historic West End with productions including The Lion King, Frozen, Aladdin, High School Musical, and even Beauty and the Beast having been staged previously. Now, it’s the 2017 Hugh Jackman fronted flick that’s next in line for the treatment.

Roll up, roll up!

The original film followed the ambitious P. T. Barnum trying to leave a creative legacy, and bring something spectacular to the American public, along with his team of misfits-turned-stars. Its musical sister will follow the same storyline, having completed a short run in Bristol before transferring down to the. West End.

The production already boasted some big hitters on the creative side, including director Casey Nicholaw who helmed the musical version of Disney’s Aladdin and whose work you can see all over London stages, including the long-running classic The Book of Mormon. Working alongside him to bring a bit of Broadway magic are the film’s original songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who have written several new tunes to expand the musical, adding a bit of beef to the show's book which has been written by Tim Federle. As well as the music and storyline, the production is expected to incorporate some classic circus skills and scenes, blending the stunts from the film with London's long running connection to Circus spectacles.

Whilst there’s a strong Yankee team on the creative side, thanks to the Bristol tryouts there’s some young British talent bringing the original characters to life on stage. The cast is led by Oliver Tompsett as Barnum and Samantha Barks as Barnum’s wife Charity, who performed in the original Bristol run, and also played Elsa in the West End’s Frozen.

Whilst the musical has been rumoured for a while, with the new cast and confirmed venue, it feels as though London is one step closer to getting the red-velvet jacketed ringmaster and his crew. The Greatest Showman: The Musical will open at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in spring 2027, with an exact date yet to be confirmed.

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A very different kind of Italian restaurant is coming to Soho, one where all the “food” is knitted.

Kate’s Knitalian is taking over Soho’s Air Contemporary Gallery later this year, featuring croched and knitted creations inspired by Italian food. No, you can’t eat them, but you can buy them.

Kate Jenkins’s exhibition opens on 30th October and as a commercial gallery, it’s free to visit. Kate’s Knitalian will be on display until 5th December.

Jenkins’s work is not all food-related, but her pieces typically have a funny, characterful bent. And in this latest exhibition, the Air Gallery will effectively be turned into a deli.

“She turns her attention to the flavours of Italy, building a mouth-watering world of pasta, pantry staples, plates piled high, and details you’ll catch on the second look,” reads the gallery’s blurb on the exhibition.

“Think lasagne with a basil flourish, tangled spaghetti, ravioli, farfalle, tins and treats.”

The price of a plate

Her larger-scale works sell for a few thousand pounds, but plenty smaller ones go for under £100, while she also produces a series of keyrings at £12.50 a pop. It’s not clear if they’ll be part of Kate’s Knitalian, though.

Air Contemporary sits in Ham Yard, nearby Piccaddilly Circus. It’s open 10-6pm Tuesdays to Fridays, and from 10am to 5pm on Saturdays.

The gallery is currently hosting Summer Hang, which features the work of an array of works “chosen to reflect the energy, warmth and optimism of the season.” It’s on until 29th August.

It’s not Jenkins’s first exhibition in the space either. In 2025 she had another called Fishy Business, which featured a display made up like a fishmonger’s.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

London is getting a new dessert option this week: frozen yogurt from Yo-Chi.

Yo-Chi was established in Australia more than a decade ago, and it opens its first UK branch on 20th August, as the brand revelaed on Instagram.

Yo-Chi Notting Hill Gate will live at 81–85 Notting Hill Gate. That’s right by Notting Hill Gate station, on the former site of a Le Pain Quotidien branch.

It will serve six-plus flavours of frozen yoghurt, which is gluten-free and low in fat compared to normal ice cream, and you can load it up with all sorts of toppings to undo all those initial health benefits.

Yo-Chi has been around in Australia since 2012, but it only became massive after the brand was taken over in 2020 by Oliver and Riley Allis. At the time there were just four Yo-Chi stores, but there are now upwards of 70.

Pay as you weigh

One of the more unusual parts is Yo-Chi has a self serve model, and you pay by weight. You take your cup, pick your frozen yoghurt flavour(s) choose your toppings, from fruit to mochi and cookies, and then pay. We haven’t yet seen the setup to confirm everything will work the same in London as it does in Australia, but the Notting Hill site is bigger than you might guess.

It’s a two-storey location with upwards of 2000 square feet of space. And the idea is to make Yo-Chi into a hang out and date spot, not somewhere you just nip into for a quick treat.

“People go on dates there, mates meet up there, you get every age in the room at once, all having a good time together. That's what we want to bring to Notting Hill – somewhere to actually spend an evening, not just pop into,” Oliver Allis told Broadsheet.

He says the UK expansion is the result of fans of the Aussie chain asking when it would come over here.

“People were messaging us asking when we're opening in London, tagging their mates, sending us videos begging us to come over,” says Allis.

“At some point you can't ignore that. We thought, alright, they want it, let's go listen to them and get over there. So this launch genuinely started with the fans, not with us deciding London needed a Yo-Chi.”

Over in Australia you pay $4.20 for 100g, which equates to around £2.21, although pricing for the London branch is yet to be confirmed.

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A whole host of Mario-themed Lego sets are on the way, and the full details of the line-up have now leaked.

Eight Lego sets featuring characters from the Mario universe are coming in January 2027, headed up by a fairly large Fire Mario & Bowser’s Castle set.

That’s the most expensive of the upcoming kits, according to Unibricks, with the rest more on the cheaper end of the LEGO scale. Here’s the full list, along with the US prices we have so far:

• Mario's Pipe Jump — $9.99
• Mario Kart - Racing with Mario — $14.99, 84 pieces
• Mario's Beach Adventures — $19.99, 196 pieces
• Mario Kart - Luigi & Bowser Jr's Karts — $29.99, 104 pieces
• Yoshi at Mario's House — $39.99, 147 pieces
• Mario Kart - Bowser's Rumbling Kart — $59.99
• Fire Mario & Bowser's Castle — $99.99, 850 pieces
• Fire Luigi vs. Koopa Troopa Battle — $29.99, 241 pieces

LEGO teased these Mario sets earlier this year in an Instagram post. “New form unlocked! New sets coming in 2027,” it posted.

LEGO already has a whole host of Nintendo-themed sets, the first of which was released back in 2020. Among the biggest to date are the Mario and Luigi Mario Kart kits, at £149.99/£159.99 a pop and around 2000 pieces.

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There’s nothing quite at that scale in these upcoming drops, then, but a whole bunch of current Mario sets are listed as “retiring soon,” leaving room in the line-up for these new kits.

Sets leaving the catalogue include the “animated” Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi, a pixel art-style creation where Yoshi walks when a hand crank is turned, and the Piranha Plant set.

LEGO’s most recent Nintendo set isn’t a Mario one at all, but the brilliant Donkey Kong Arcade, a recreation of the 1981 arcade machine. A new wave of Pokemon 'Smart Play' sets with interactive electronic play features has recently launched, too.

No firm release date has been revealed for the new sets yet, but with January 2027 the expected window, these ones won’t classify for Christmas present buys — unless they’re willing to accept an IOU slip on Christmas Day, anyway.

• The 20 best LEGO sets of all time, ever!

There are many famous walks – the walk of shame, walk the walk (of talking the talk), like an Egyptian, On Sunshine... the list goes on. One that definitely makes the list is The Beatles’ iconic Abbey Road walk across the zebra crossing from 1969. It’s the walk that launched a thousand posters stuck on the bedroom walls of indie teens for 45 years, and now it has been officially recreated by the new fab four in Sam Mendes’ upcoming Beatles biopics.

Over the weekend, fans were quick to spot Harris Dickinson (John Lennon), Barry Keoghan (Ringo Starr), Paul Mescal (Paul McCartney), and Joseph Quinn (George Harrison) recreate the iconic Abbey Road album cover for The Beatles — A Four-Film Cinematic Event. The four were seen in full retro hair and outfits as they recreated the famous album cover moment 57 years after the original.

The quick snippet shows the four actors in London by Abbey Road studios walking across the famous crossing, dressed in familiar outfits that anyone who memorised the album cover will remember – Lennon in a flared white suit, Starr in a wide shouldered black suit and red tie, McCartney walking barefoot in a navy blue suit, and Harrison in a tight double denim combo. This new footage – albeit grainy and fan shot – is another exciting (if brief) look at how the creative teams behind the films are managing the visuals, transforming the quartet into their musical counterparts. All we’ll say about the new looks is that all those long locks are giving us Covid flashbacks.

We’ve only seen very small teases of what the core four look like in their Beatmania transformations so far, with the first official visuals released back in January thanks to a localised marketing campaign in the band’s hometown. Exclusive postcards were distributed at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, an institution co-founded by Sir Paul McCartney himself, which showed a glimpse at the lead actors in character. This most recent footage is the first in action snaps showing the leading men in character whilst filming.

Earlier last year, it was confirmed that Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials Mystery star Mia McKenna Bruce would be starring as Starr’s wife, Maureen Starkey. Saoirse Ronan, Anna Sawai, and Aimee Lou Wood have also been confirmed to star, playing Linda McCartney, Yoko Ono, and Pattie Boyd, respectively.

It's an exciting insight into the new films which have already created a serious amount of hype (and skepticism) from fans of both the music and the filmmakers. Given the films' distant release dates of April 2028, you can't really blame the fans for grabbing any glimpse of the upcoming flicks that they can.

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Nolan’s Odyssey has been the film of the year, and one of those big cultural events you know will date you in the 2070s when you tell a kid studying film that you remember the summer it came out. It’s not the only famous Odyssey though, as Picturehouse are rightly reminding us, with the classic sci-fi flick 2001: Space Odyssey turning a whopping 58 years old this year. Putting its own retro spin on the whole vintage Odyssey, putting on a new season of screenings created especially for ZIilenials.

Called 2001: A Big Night Out Odyssey, Picturehouse has created a series of summer screenings especially for Zillenials who grew up on sleepovers with DVDs, and the kind of noughties rom coms we seem to be seriously lacking. The idea is to give the public the chance to revisit those classics in a fun cinema setting, complete with themed nights, dress codes and more. It's sort of like Ali Plumb's Big Film Quiz (which is well worth a visit btw), meets your 2005 birthday sleepover on steroids.

And for those wondering, a Zillenial is a micro-generation of those born between 1993 and 1998 who are technically Gen Z but refuse to accept it. It’s that bracket of twenty-somethings who are old enough to remember an analog childhood but also survived their teenage years with the first wave of social media.

The evenings will each feature a different noughties classic, from Spy Kids to Mamma Mia (our original Greek mythological obsession) across different London cinemas. The first evening kicks off on 20th August, running until 24th September.

The line up includes:

• The Princess Diaries: A slumber‑party celebration for its 25th anniversary at Finsbury Park Picturehouse, with princess‑y touches, pyjamas and peak Hathaway energy.
• Spy Kids: A wild 25‑year throwback at Hackney Picturehouse, packed with gadgets, globe‑trotting chaos and early‑2000s sibling‑powered heroics.
• Legally Blonde: a back‑to‑school night at Finsbury Park Picturehouse, with cocktails, crafting, vision boards and full Elle Woods confidence.
• Surprise Film / Mystery Movie: A chaotic mystery night at Finsbury Park Picturehouse, with games, prizes, drinks and a very of‑its‑time 2001 deep cut.
• Mamma Mia!: A Greek‑island party at Arts Picturehouse, with cocktails, ABBA blasting and big sing‑along energy.
• The Mummy Returns: A spooky‑season opener at Ritzy Brixton, with Fraser, Weisz and a giant CGI Scorpion King, plus tomb‑raiding trivia and giveaways.

It makes a change from the days watching these films hunched over a tiny iPod Nano 2nd Gen whose screen was roughly the size of a singular skinny glasses lens.

Picturehouse has done these kinds of evenings before as part of its Big Night Out series where they put on fun, themed screenings of complete guilty pleasures, Gen Z nostalgia, pop-culturey films. Some of its recent events include Challengers, a Scooby Dooble Feature, Pride & Prejudice (2005), the whole of the Twilight Saga, Mean Girls on October 3rd, 10 Things I Hate About You, an overnight Hunger Games marathon and more.

You can book tickets for 2001: A Big Night Out Odyssey via Picturehouse's website, and if you're under 25 you can get all of the evening antics for £5.99.

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You may have heard Spider-Man: Brand New Day has broken box office records and absolutely raked-in the cash. But our favourite news of the summer blockbuster hype cycle is about Tom Holland’s fave South London pub spot.

As part of an interview with the New York Times, no less, Tom Holland revealed one of his favourite places to eat is a pub in Kingston.

“There’s a pub in Kingston called the Cocoanut. It’s a Thai restaurant, and you can bring your dogs there,” Holland said while describing the place he’d take co-star Matt Damon to in his hometown.

“It’s a bit of a family favourite of ours.”

He gave the place a plug while making pizzas with Matt Damon as part of the press cycle for The Odyssey — it was a while back, but was brought to our attention by Secret London.

The video itself is quite a fun watch, and you get to hear about Matt Damon’s gluten intolerance if that’s your bag.

The Cocoanut sits a short walk from the shop-filled centre of Kingston, but offers Deliveroo as well as takeaway for its Thai kitchen delights.

Its menu covers a familiar array of dishes, including a full complement of curries and stir fries. Most mains clock in at well under £15 too.

One warning comes from exactly the bit Tom Holland seems to love, that the Cocoanut is a very dog-friendly place.

“People let their dogs off, so it becomes a dog free-for-all,” says Holland.

We’re now picturing Tom Holland surrounded by dogs eating a Pad Pak Ruam with his dad Dominic Holland, a veteran London circuit stand-up comedian and author.

Tom Holland can currently be seen in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey. But it may be a bit of a wait before his next big starring roles, which include playing Fred Astaire in a biopic. And if you’ve seen his viral performance of Umbrella from almost a decade ago, you’ll know he has a better chance than most of pulling that off.

• You can officially dine in Bridget Jones’ flat as a new Turkish restaurant opens up in the iconic rom com location

The team behind the beloved Fallow restaurant nearby Piccadilly Circus and Roe in Canary Wharf have taken on a new challenge: the OXO Tower Restaurant.

Restaurant-operating power house trio James Robson, Jack Croft and Will Murray have acquired the OXO Tower Restaurant, the hope being they’ll give it some of the energy seen in their other two current establishments.

Robson speaks carefully about the team’s ongoing plans for the place, though.

He says they want to “empower the current team” and “patiently tweak and give some love back to the operation from 2027 and beyond” rather than starting with a brand new identity.

The restaurant’s current menu features plates including halibut, a mushroom Wellington and lamb shoulder — or there’s the £140 sharing platter of beef Chaueatubriand, with “beef dripping crisp potato cake.” Indulgent.

But it’s clear some changes will eventually be made.

“I’m excited to see how our various media and culinary teams can help bring this beloved site to full potential,” says Robson.

The restaurant sits on the eighth floor of the OXO Tower, offering amazing views across London from the riverbank. And this was all part of the appeal for the team’s site takeover.

“We could not resist this gem of an Art Deco landmark,” Robson said.

“The eighth-floor views are world famous and we look forward to working with the incumbent team and landlord to bring some additional character and energy back to this wonderful site.”

The team’s flagship restaurant Fallow launched in 2021 and has a low-waste “nose to tail” approach to cooking. But it’s absolutely not just for the meatheads, with a “plant” menu section on offer too.

Fallow has made it into the Michelin guide but is yet to earn a star.

The news of the group’s acquisition of the OXO Tower Restaurant follows that of the Frasers group buying up Harvey Nichols. It owned the place, but the restaurant was not part of the deal. Frasers — known best these days for Sports Direct — is after all a titan of retail, not gastronomy.

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There are few literary characters as beautifully chaotic as Bridget Jones, perfectly brought to life by Renee Zellweger over the years – an allegory for all frazzled, underfunded twenty-somethings trying to 'make it' in London. You may feel like you already walk in Bridget’s shoes to some extent as you dodge f*ckwit workaholics and work bollockings, but soon you’ll *actually* be able to walk in the same sacred grounds of the beloved heroine as Bridget Jones’ former living room is being transformed into a new restaurant.

Cast your minds back to the early films, and you’ll have spotted Bridget’s jealousy-inducing and highly, highly unrealistic one bed flat located just outside of Borough Market, on top of The Globe Tavern on Bedale Street. Without its cinematic history, it’s still an iconic street and building, but add its former on-screen resident and you’ve got a bona fide piece of rom com real estate.

Back in 2025, it was announced that a Thai restaurant would be the latest resident inside the building, and has since been home to a series of delicious restaurant residencies, with different pop ups from West African to Cambodian fusion. The latest instalment is another London favourite which comes courtesy of Dom Handy and Kerian Mustafa. Called Kismet, the latest resident pays homage to the lively meyhanes found in Istanbul and northern Cyprus, bringing the spirit of its traditional local taverns to the Southwark spot.

The menu – as you’d expect – has a strong Middle Eastern and Mediterranean influence. It’s built around Souğuk Meze dishes and Mangal grilled kebabs, whilst the drinks menu features plenty of Turkish wine and spirits. Talk about putting the dish in traditional. Plus, the experience doesn’t end with the food, as every Thursday guests will be treated to live music from traditional instruments like the qaran. Basically, they’re taking a classic night at traditional meyhanes and transporting them to an iconic London landmark.

Whilst you won’t see Bridget’s exact living room interiors replicated (it has been over 20 years), there will be plenty of gorgeous decor from dark wooden furniture to whimsical memorabilia to remind you of the place’s origins.

You can find Kismet at 8 Bedale Street, SE1 9AL.

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In just under a month, Soho is getting a new retro gaming bar — plus there’s pool and darts if you’re more a Luke Littler fan than a Luigi one.

NQ64’s new London Soho location opens on 11th September and, just like the one in Berwick Street right now, it promises arcade machines, retro consoles, themed cocktails and more.

It’s a two-floor venue found within Orange Yard, just a couple of minutes’ walk from Tottenham Court Road station. And, funnily enough, less than 10 minutes’ walk from NQ64’s current Berwick Street location.

Either that place’s lease is ending soon, or it’s popular enough to justify another location just down the road.

We’re told it will have UV-lit pool tablets, darts enhanced with “augmented reality” games, and loads of retro console stations. What hasn’t been revealed yet is the part we want to know most: what arcade games will be at NQ64’s new Soho spot.

We have pretty high expectations. The Berwick Street branch currently has 31 arcade cabs and two pinball machines — including House of the Dead, Crazy Taxi and Mortal Kombat 3.

The Orange Yard branch is described as NQ64’s “biggest venue yet” so we’re hoping for a haul at least as impressive.

Not been to NQ64 before? Here’s how it works.

You can book a time slot at NQ64, and rather than setting the machines to freeplay, they use tokens. With a standard Arcade Gaming slot you’ll get 25 tokens — 1-2 are required per arcade cab credit. This costs £14 per adult at the Berwick Street branch.

Or over the weekend you can get a Supercharge Weekend slot, which includes “unlimited” game tokens and four cocktails — but you only get a 90-minute slot. That’s a lot of cocktails in a relatively small amount of time.

You can also just enter for free, and buy tokens while you’re there. These cost £10.50 for 15 tokens, £14 for 25 tokens.

Retro consoles are free to play on, but the message from management: “don’t be snide, buy a drink.”

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London’s West End revival of Cabaret has had enough A list actors to rival the Celebrity Traitors’ lineup. Previous stars include Eddie Redmayne, Hannah Dodd, Self Esteem, Callum Scott Howells, and even Love Is Blind co-host and Busted member Matt Willis. Now, two American actors will be taking on the legendary production, taking over the leading roles of Emcee and Sally.

Modern Family star Sarah Hyland will be taking on the role of Sally, following Broadway performances in the Great Gatsby and Little Shop of Horrors, whilst Pitch Perfect alum Skylar Astin will become the new Emcee. This iteration of the show will mark both Austin and Hyland’s West End debuts. Astin will finish his run on December 12th, whilst Hyland will be continuing on until the New Year, with her final performance planned for 23rd January 2027.

The duo are not the only new faces in the show; also joining the company will be Ronan Burns (Matilda the Musical) as Ernst Ludwig and Lindsay Atherton (Top Hat) as Fraulein Kost/Fritzie, as well as Lily Frances, Peter Houston, Samuel How, Bailey Johnson, Ellie Mitchell, Kirsty Anne Shaw, Natasha Wilde, and Nicky Wong Rush.

For those uninitiated, Cabaret is set in 1929–1930 Berlin, and follows American writer Cliff Bradshaw and English singer Sally Bowles as they navigate the hedonistic nightlife of the Kit Kat Klub and the ominous rise of the Nazi party.

The company is currently headed by Olivier nominee Jamie Muscato who is responsible for pretty much all of your favourite (and most hyped) West End shows including The Great Gatsby, Les Misérables, and the upcoming One Day: The Musical – an adaptation of David Nicholls’ hit novel. Moscato is currently starring as the Emcee whilst Tony and Grammy nominee Joy Woods (The Notebook, Little Shop of Horrors) plays Sally Bowles.

Cabaret is currently booking through September 18th, 2027 so it's not exactly like you have to rush to book tickets before it's gone. The production recently surpassed its 1,900th performance, making it the longest-running production of Cabaret in West End history.

This year will mark both the 60th anniversary of the musical, which originally opened on Broadway on November 20th, 1966, and the fifth anniversary of the current production. To mark the occasion, on 20th November, the Kit Kat Club will have a limited allocation of tickets priced at £19.66, £60, and £196.60.

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If there’s one thing the Barbican knows how to do, it’s franchise – only the other day it announced it was giving away free cuttings from its famous Greenhouse, plus its summer cinema is in full swing. Now, like hundreds of nepo children without any career plan but a vague bit of residual influence, the Barbican is commencing an artsy side hustle, and dabbling in furniture.

Specifically, the Barbican is releasing a furniture range all inspired by its iconic brutalist architecture. So if you’re really London mad it’s the perfect time to be in the market for a new sofa which has a more local touch than IKEA. The range will cover furniture, lighting, and accessories, bringing the best of the Brutalist building into your own London pad.

The Barbican has teamed up with furniture brand MADE to create the range, a full interior collection which blends the building’s architecture, history and influence. For those of you who don’t know, back in the 1960s the Barbican had show flats designed by Mariam Howitt. And yes, that means the interiors really lived up to the 60s stereotype of geometric shapes, swirly patterns, retro colours – a glorious Austin-Powers-esque technicolour which seems great until you’ve got a raging hangover. Apparently, some of the new range has taken inspiration from these original lewks, bringing a bit of 60s flair into modern day minimalism.

For something doused in London history from an architectural icon, it’s not actually too pricey. It’s no Facebook Marketplace, but a curve table lamp will set you back £50, there's a rug for £100 and pricier options for bigger statement pieces. You’ll be able to browse coffee tables, sofas, chests of draws, even shelving as well as smaller soft furnishings like cushions and the aforementioned rug.

The collection will be available to shop (or at least whatever the website equivalent of window shopping) is from 17th August, both from the Barbican’s online store, in person (at Barbican Centre’s Level G Hub Space) and via MADE’s website. You’ll be able to read more about how each piece has been inspired by a different part of the building, from the old Hall’s tubular acoustic panels to the 1960s flats.

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London is no stranger to a Twin Peaks celebration – just think back to the Prince Charles’ Cinema Twin Peaks marathon last year where they screened the entire series across a couple of weeks. Commitment to the max. And David Lynch fans will soon get another chance to celebrate that bizarre world, this time at Mile End’s independent Genesis cinema.

Since creator, filmmaker and artist David Lynch passed unexpectedly last year, there have been plenty of tributes across the UK, with screenings of some of his most beloved works as well as gigs and art installations. However, Genesis Cinema’s new marathon might just top them all, as the independent cinema will be throwing a huge weekend event where film screenings will be shown, alongside meet and greets with cast members, cosplay, live cabaret, and even a series of interactive accompanying works from some of Lynch’s most beloved shows and films.

If you’re getting slight deja vu, it’s not just the heat. Genesis ran another Lynch weekender last year called Gathering of the Angels. Now, it’s making a comeback. On 26th-27th September, Lynch devotees will be able to gather once again, seeing appearances from quartet of iconic characters including Harry Hoaz who you’ll recognise as the loveable if hapless Deputy Andy in Twin Peaks, Ian Buchanan who play Andy’s cunning love rival Dick Tremayne, and George Griffith who played the disdainful villain Ray Monroe. Sabrina Sutherland who was one of the producers on Twin Peaks: The Return and Lynch’s long time collaborator is also set to be there.

As not all of Lynch’s crew will be able to make it IRL, there will be an online panel as part of the celebrations, featuring a number of Lynch’s closest colleagues and creators. Editor Duwayne Dunham is one of said speakers, alongside legendary special effects man Gary D’Amico. Similar to the previous year, there will be live cabaret performances, this time courtesy of London’s legendary Double R Club, as well as a DJ set from mixmaster and Lynch fan DJ Yoda. Whereas a lot of previous marathons have focused on Twin Peaks, this time round there will be a new theatrical Blue Velvet Immersive Experience. The actual screenings will show both Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me on the Genesis’ massive main screen, which just hosted the premiere for independent British comedy Sunny Dancer.

If you're not a Lynch fan but do love a bit of independent cinema, it's worth checking out some of the other film festivals and events on at Genesis, like the Bloody Mary Film Club special screening of Alien, and the London premiere of The Botanist with a Q&A which you can book tickets for. You can check out the events via their website.

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