Things to do in London this weekend

There’s nothing like gathering in a park in the nippy nights of early November to watch fireworks piercing the sky and a pile of flaming wood. Yes, Bonfire Night – aka Guy Fawkes Night –might sound strange to those unfamiliar with it, but it’s a great British tradition and one of the highlights of the second half of the year. Wrap up warm and get ready to head out to one of London’s many Bonfire Night and fireworks displays, where you’ll find sparkly skies, yummy street food and so much more.

With its legend tied up in that of its director Stanley Kubrick, its star Peter Sellers, its magnificent monochrome cinematography and moreover its release against the backdrop of the actual Cold War, Dr Strangelove is a film comedy that gets treated with arthouse reverence. And for that reason, there are nagging doubts about the idea of a stage version. Is director Sean Foley in the same league as Kubrick? Is Coogan in the same league as Sellers? At its heart Armando Iannucci and Foley‘s stage adaptation is just very aware that Dr Strangelove is fun, funny and possessed of a play-like structure. Rather than try and out-auteur Kubrick, it’s an accomplished, funny West End comedy, and even if the Cold War is over it still has some topical bite. 

Oxford Street is one of the most iconic areas for London’s Christmas lights and for good reason – the ultimate combination of festive illuminations lighting your way as you do battle for Yuletide gifts. As is now tradition, the lights this year will be once again made with cost-friendly materials, including 300,000 LED light bulbs and recycled plastic. The big switch took place mid-week, but get your weekend off to a good start with the ‘Big Day Of Joy’ on December 7 full of shopping deals and offers. 

Daniel Watkins, the ex-ACME Fire Cult founder is now executive chef at the first permanent home of Holy Carrot (previously known for its supper clubs and Knightsbridge residency). Carrot is prim as a perfume shop, soft clay surroundings fronting a menu that is plant-forward, ‘root to peel’ and sustainable. There’s plenty of Watkins’ signature punch. The pre-starter ‘snacks’ offer a studied but unshowy sort of tastiness, while the cold ‘smalls’ are intricately flavoured. Imprinted upon our memory the most was one of the ‘larges’: the crispy celeriac with pickle butter. Holy Carrot isn’t out to blow your mind – this is innovation of a dependable, not reckless, sort – but this gets close.

Twelve-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) is a kid adrift. She lives in a squat in Gravesend, Kent with her older brother Hunter (Jason Buda) and tattooed-to-the-eyeballs dad Bug (Barry Keoghan), a sparky man-child who defines the word ‘chaos’. Bird unfolds over a few hazy summer days after Bug announces he’s going to marry his girlfriend on Saturday, a fixation that competes for his attention with a mad project to extract some hallucinogens from a toad to fund the nuptials. Elsewhere, Bailey’s mum and younger siblings are living with a lairy Liverpudlian whose every move screams ‘abuser’. Arnold gives us a stream of marginal characters and scrappy Thames estuary locations vaguely familiar from her early feature Fish Tank. She lands a tone that balances a fearless focus on life’s tough realities with a hefty dollop of teary sentiment. 

Get ready for a Rock n' Roll revival at 100 Wardour St’s new Friday night cabaret, launching on 27th September. Powered by Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, this lively event brings together drag performers, vocalists, and rock musicians to recreate the iconic days of the Marquee Club, where legends like Bowie and Hendrix once played. Enjoy a three-course meal featuring tantalising starters like scallop ceviche and burrata, mains like baked cod and BBQ lamb cutlets, and decadent desserts such as vanilla panna cotta and apple tarte tatin, all paired with a glass of fizz. Join every Friday in the heart of Soho for an unforgettable night!

Get three-courses, a glass of prosecco and a show at 100 Wardour Street £39.95 (down from £49), only through Time Out Offers.

Richard Bean sails into familiar, yet new waters with his second play about the Hull distant water trawling fleet. Reykjavík very much takes place on dry land. Set in 1975, its protagonist is the trawler fleet owner Donald Claxton (John Hollingworth), the Cambridge-educated son to the fleet’s retired founder who is largely disliked by his employees. It begins with the company reeling from a recent sinking off the coast of Iceland. Ultimately, it’s an elegy for the Hull deep sea fleets and a way of life that went with them, a version of Bean’s hometown that no longer exists. It’s a heartfelt play.

Nia Archives is a producer, DJ, singer and songwriter who's redefining jungle music and bringing it to a new, young audience that connects to her sugary yet powerful sound. This is exemplified in her debut album Silence Is Loud, which is a cathartic trip through classic junglist breakbeats, melodic Britpop riffs and honest lyricism. This is the kind of thing teenage girls yearn for – the chance to stamp their feet on the floor, sing at the top of their lungs and skank out their anxieties. Go on, join ‘em.

O2 Academy Brixton, SW9 9SL. Fri Nov 8, 7pm. From £32.25.

Pitchfork Music Festival is back in the UK for its fourth edition in November, with a jam-packed schedule of eclectic live music encompassing everything from avant-rock and post-punk to psych-pop, UK rap and deconstructed dance music. Gigs will take place at illustrious music and nightlife venues including Fabric, The Roundhouse, the Shacklewell Arms, Hackney Church and Union Chapel. Over the six-day festival look out for the likes of Tierra Whack, Arooj Aftab, CASISDEAD, Sega Bodega, Kae Tempest, Empress Of, Snow Strippers, Shame, Marika Hackman and plenty of up-and-coming acts who will no doubt be on your Spotify Wrapped come December 2025. 

It’s that time of year when circles of ice start popping up thick and fast across the city. The latest slippy surface is Glide at Battersea Power Station. With magnificent views, a fairground and 30ft Christmas tree twinkling right in the middle of the rink it’s sickeningly festive and the perfect place for a date night or to get you into the Christmas spirit. 

Just like the ever-expanding TfL map, interest in the history of London’s transport network is bigger than ever these days. Now, The Map House, a historic antique dealer in Knightsbridge has curated a wonderful selection of printed maps, adverts and drawings that detail the complex, evolving design we all know so well. Vistors are greeted with a large gilded rendition of Harry Bec’s 1933 masterpiece of topographic design, which is not only the foundation of our current TfL map but the progenitor to all non-geographic transport maps around the world. Look out for Beck’s pencil sketches from the 1960s; showing how the Victoria line could bisect through Euston and Kings Cross. You don’t have to be an anorak or cartographer to appreciate what’s on sale here. 

Kanishka has launched a brand-new brunch menu focussing on PanIndian food, with a menu embracing the flavours of India’s various regions, from Punjab to Kerala, Kolkata to Delhi and everywhere in between. Kanishka’s skilled kitchen team, led by chef Atul Kochhar, have curated a symphony of new dishes, including Khari paneer tikka, Palak paneer and Chicken tikka pie. And the best bit? You’ll be greeted with a seasonal welcome Kanishka punch cocktail and two hours of bottomless wine or beer. 

Enjoy eight dishes, main and dessert from £40 at Atul Kochhar's Kanishka, only through Time Out Offers.

Where there’s pleasure, there’s shame; at least there is in American artist Sarah Slappey’s work. She paints female bodies naked and writhing, reclining in baths, legs and arms intertwined. At first it’s plainly, obviously erotic. But then you notice little cuts and dribbles of blood. Is this an orgy or a crime scene? It’s the erotic as a spectacle, femininity as something constructed, something built to constrict women. It’s a vortex of symbols, art historical allusions and terror. And damn, Slappey can paint. This is precise, expert stuff - super-real, super-sumptuous. It’s a hugely erotic, nasty, tense, beautiful ‘fuck you’.

Every winter the Southbank Centre turns the banks of the Thames into a frosty wonderland, full of little wooden Alpine-style cabins selling gifts, warming drinks, and snacks. This year, you can cosy up at Fire And Fromage with its heated riverside igloos where you can snaffle down cheese fondue. Further down, you’ll find huts serving up truffle burgers, duck wraps, and many more tasty morsels to keep you full and warm. Or grab a glass of mulled wine while you look through gifts, jewellery and decorations made by independent craft traders and take in those sparking riverside views. 

No object is just an object: everything is a symbol. And in Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke’s excellent exhibition of items from the British Museum’s endless archives and stores, every object is a symbol of power, dominance and exploitation. Locke spent two years digging through the stores, finding artefacts that tell countless clashing stories of empire, countless narrative threads. The show comes right in the middle of a long debate about the purpose of the British Museum and the restitution of its many looted treasures. The show doesn’t resolve that debate, it just adds fuel to the fire. It’s about the evils of empire and power. There’s so much shocking, harrowing death and violence here, so much greed and exploitation. It’s horribly, deeply uncomfortable. 

Kick off your weekend plans with a Frameless Lates sessions. Get your after-dark culture fix every Friday and Saturday night in Marble Arch. With over-18s-only sessions, you’ll be able to enjoy four galleries to a specially curated soundtrack from Soho Radio. Whether you want to impress a date or simply enjoy a fun night out with friends, you will be able to take your time exploring the galleries with a drink in hand from the Café Bar.

Exclusive: enjoy £5 off tickets to Frameless Lates, only through Time Out Offers.

Letizia Battaglia saw the mafia tearing Italy apart in the 1970s, murdering its sons, raping its daughters, and she documented all of it with her camera. She captured the bloody reality of life under the oppressive rule of the mafia. There are images in the opening room of parties, dances, kids, lovers. But they’re overpowered by the endless photos of death on display. Battaglia was first on the scene after judges were assassinated, politicians killed, henchmen murdered. There’s no Godfather-esque glamourisation of mafia life here and there are some incredible photos. Excellently composed, shockingly confrontational, but tender despite the grimness.

The first ice rink of the season is here. Canary Wharf shakes off its business image a little with the return of its long-running slice of ice. From October through to late February, you’ll be able to spin and drift around the 1,200-square-metre arena, so whether you’re looking for a pre-Christmas activity or a fun way to kick off the New Year, this bad boy’s got you covered. Talking of covered, the whole thing is under a canopy that means not even the unpredictable British weather can spoil a sesh here. There’ll also be a ringside bar and themed DJ nights to ramp the good vibes up even higher. 

Adrien Brody hasn’t performed on stage since 2003. So it’s unexpected but very cool that he’s popped up as the star attraction in the first play in Timothy Sheader’s first season in charge of the Donmar Warehouse. The Fear of 13 is US playwright Lindsay Ferrentino’s stage version of a 2015 documentary by British filmmaker David Singleton, which tells the story of Nick Yarris, a Pennsylvania man who spent 22 years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. It puts Brody’s incorrigible protagonist at the heart of a mostly male ensemble who take on the role of various wardens, cops, prisoners and miscellaneous others. And they sing, too! It’s a beautifully theatrical production and a charismatic turn from Brody. 

The TJ Boulting gallery doesn’t smell great. A gross, acrid odour greets you as you walk in; the stench of eggs. This health and safety nightmare is Sarah Lucas’s fault: the megastar British artist came into the gallery and smashed a thousand eggs against the wall to inaugurate this show. It’s left a vast yellow, dripping stain down the main wall of the space, shell and albumen crumbled against the plaster. It’s a brilliant, joyful, funny work, riffing snarkily on the masculinity of ‘action painting’, the history of abstraction, all while protesting against the way women’s bodies are used and reduced down to nothing but fertility and procreation. 

Robert Icke’s take on ‘Oedipus’ benefits from a lethal but compassionate decluttering, a singularity of purpose that distils a famously lurid story into something empathetic, lucid and quite, quite devastating. Mark Strong is Oedipus, a passionate, self-serious politician whose upstart party is on the verge of securing a landslide victory in a sort-of-British version of Thebes and Lesley Manville plays his wife Jocasta, who gets a lot of meat to her character’s bones. It’s really bloody good, with two astonishing leads. Even if you’re aware of every twist and turn of the story, this ‘Oedipus’ glints with a deadly sharpness. 

A vast engine spins, spilling noxious, viscous liquid onto the floor of the Turbine Hall. Mire Lee’s machine is draped in tentacles which ooze and flop around, drenching the cavernous space. The Korean artist’s machine isn’t useless, it produces, it makes products. Hung from the ceiling of the Turbine Hall, stretched taut on metal frames, are countless ‘skins’; ripped, clay-coloured fabrics which look like leather made from some unknown creature…maybe even made from humans. And that’s the point. By dragging the Turbine Hall’s industrial past back into the present, reanimating the corpse of Britain’s power, she’s talking about the human cost of industry. It’s the best Turbine Hall installation for years. 

Indulge your senses with a Japanese Tapas-style Afternoon Tea at La Bibliothèque. Savour a unique blend of Japanese and Mediterranean flavours, from cured salmon bao buns to sweet potato mochi and chocolate crémeux brownies. Pair it with premium teas, sakes, or cocktails, and enjoy a glass of sparkling wine or a non-alcoholic alternative. Treat yourself to a uniquely delicious afternoon!

Was £80, now £56: Enjoy a Japanese tapas style afternoon tea with bottomless cocktailes at La Bibliothèque, only through Time Out Offers.

Francis Bacon (1909-1992) was a giant of modern art, maybe the twentieth century’s greatest painter. He’s been analysed and over-analysed for decades. It makes you walk into this exhibition of his portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery (coming only two years after the Royal Academy’s Bacon show) and think ‘oh god, more Bacon?’ I'm already full. But then you see the paintings – the writhing bodies, the contorted grimaces, the screaming faces – and damn it, call your cardiologist, you’re ready for another helping. It's full of viscerality, the anguish of existence, the torment of love, etc etc etc, over and over. It’s great.