Things to do in London today

Once again, Hyde Park has had its annual transformation into a dazzling, snow-covered, Alpine-themed, 350-acre festive funscape. One of the largest Christmas events in the UK, Winter Wonderland returns for its eighteenth year in 2025, and is expected to welcome around 2.5 million visitors over six magical weeks.  As you make your way around the space, you’ll find fairground rides, a child-friendly Santa Land (including a Santa’s Grotto, where presents lie in wait) and traditional Christmas markets where you’ll be able to buy gifts for all your loved ones, which has been freshly extended for 2025 with the addition of premium, artfully lit shopping spot Luminarie Lane. Other highlights include circus shows from Cirque Beserk, which take place three times each evening, and the biggest outdoor ice rink in the UK. Surrounding the park’s Victorian bandstand, the 1,795 square foot rink is sponsored by Mayfair’s new art museum Moco. Not only is it lit up by more than 100,000 lights, it’s also a rather cheerful shade of candyfloss pink in keeping with the museum’s logo. Continuing the chilly theme, there's also an ice sculpture exhibit that's been freshly reimagined as a 'Mystical, Mythical Fantasy World', a Real Ice Slide and ice sculpting workshops, after which you can warm yourself up later with frothing steins and steaming cups of mulled wine at the German-style Bavarian Village. ...

There's arguably nowhere in London more Christmassy than Covent Garden's Piazza in December. Every year, the shopping district aims to outdo itself for sheer festive pizzaz. In 2025, the theme is 'The Theatre of Christmas', which means that there'll be decorations taking inspiration from the nearby playhouses and the performances in them. And of course, this year will also see the return of Covent Garden's 55ft Christmas tree, decked with 30,000 lights  Meanwhile, the roof of the Market Building is adorned with 40 gigantic bells, 12 giant baubles and 8 spinning mirror balls in a reprise of its oh-so-festive annual display. There'll also be pop-ups and events to enjoy as the season unfolds, including mulled wine stations and a Santa's sleigh photo op. 

Somerset House’s annual ice rink pop-up has long been one of the city’s favourite festive traditions, with thousands of Londoners and tourists alike making it part of their celebrations each year, and for good reason. Gliding (or nervously shuffling) around the rink, gazing upon the surrounding Georgian architecture and the courtyard’s magnificent 40ft Christmas tree feels like you’ve skated onto a movie set, ready to be watched by families settling in for their post-turkey food coma.  There’s more to this rink than just skating, though. There are seasonal drinks and warming food options available from a rinkside chalet, alongside a Shelter Boutique with takeovers from sought-after brands including Oliver Bonas, All Saints and Nobody’s Child in the run-up to Christmas. And there also a variety of events to keep you entertained throughout the season, including the venue's famous Skate Lates, where you can soar round the rink to a DJ soundtrack. The line-up for 2025 includes trailblazing women-run radio station Foundation FM, NTS Radio host Ruf Dug and queer dance party Sue Veneers. How much does Skate at Somerset House cost? Ticket prices for Skate at Somerset House vary depending on what time you visit, with cheaper tickets at less popular times, and concessions available for kids. They start at £11 for super off-peak times, reaching £26 for the most in-demand slots. Booking for the 2025-2026 goes live on Friday September 26 or you can sign up to the presale here for early...

Escape the Oxford Street crowds with a detour into pretty Carnaby Street, which puts on memorable Christmas light displays each year. A revamp of last year’s ‘Into the Light’ display, 2025’s ‘All is Bright’ features giant cuboid Christmas crackers and stars illumin illuminated in bright neons by more than 60,000 LED lights, and apparently captures ‘the joy and optimism of the season while reflecting the creativity and vibrancy that make Soho unique’. Find more fabulous Christmas light displays in London

What do an Enigma machine, an Apple AirTag and Lady Mountbatten’s silk underwear all have in common? Well, they’re all currently on display at the British Library’s riveting Secret Maps exhibition. Why are they all together? Because they all tell stories about how information is created, concealed, disseminated and controlled, via mapping. And that’s exactly what Secret Maps is all about.  Through more than 100 items, from hand-drawn naval charts gifted to Henry VIII, to Soviet Cold War-era cartographies, and modern-day satellite tracking technology (TL;DR: a whole lotta maps), the British Library illuminates how maps can be powerful political tools, create communities, and act as a form of protest.  It’s a dense, information-packed display with plenty of granular detail to get stuck into, so if you’re not, like, really into maps, then it may not be for you. But it’s sort of what you’d expect for an exhibition dedicated to maps hosted by the British Library. There are a few fun and interactive elements, too; visitors are invited to peer through secret spy holes, place their phones on a futuristic screen that tells them exactly how the tech overlords are mapping and harvesting their data (gulp), and find Wally in an original drawing from the children’s book.  For £20 you are guaranteed to see a lot of cool old shit The most compelling aspect of the exhibition is its anti-colonialist streak (other London museums could do with taking a leaf out of the British Library’s...

A humongous light trail that takes over south west London’s 300-acre World Heritage Site botanic garden, Christmas at Kew has become a key date in London’s festive calendar since its first iteration in 2013. Visitors embarking on the 3km trail will get see the space lit up with dozens of larger-than-life illuminations, with both the venue’s glass houses and the trees that cover its grounds drenched in different hues. The whole thing is stunning, but don’t miss the lake, where you’ll catch reflections of the vibrant bulbs dancing on the water, taking the magical feeling to another level. For 2025, Kew’s iconic Great Pagoda will be adorned with festive lights for the very first time, too. Keep yourself toasty along the way with warming winter snacks from food vendors curated by Kerb, and make sure say hi to Father Christmas himself as you walk past.  How to get Christmas at Kew 2025 btickets  As the UK’s original festive light trail, tickets to this illuminated adventure tend to sell out fast. Keep an eye on Kew Garden’s booking page, which tells you what dates and times at each of the different entrances are available. If you’re willing to wait until the New Year, there are normally a decent number of tickets available for the first week of January. And if your desired dates are booked up, it’s worth checking back regularly for returns.  What are the prices and opening times? Tickets for non-members start at £27.50 for off-peak slots and £34 at peak times. Members can get...

Central London’s beautiful St Martin’s in the Field church is right next to Trafalgar Square which means every Christmas it’s in the shadow of one of London’s most impressive Christmas trees, so you can bet its programme of festive carols and services is a special one. Throughout December the church holds a wealth of events led by the famous and well-loved St Martin's Voices. Make a beeline for the Blessing of the Crib Service, which involves carols, drama and a real-life donkey, or head to one of the special ticketed concerts which range from performances from groups like the Gay Men’s Chorus to candle-lit celebrations. 

Dreaming of a kitsch Christmas? New York’s famous Miracle on Ninth Street bar is popping up in London for its seventh year, ‘50s Christmas decorations, nostalgic accessories and creative new spins on beloved cocktail favourites in tow. Past years have seen the bar slinging the likes of a Snowball Old Fashioned or a Christmapoliton, which includes cranberry sauce and absinthe mist – a take on Christmas trimmings that’s not for the faint-hearted. If you’re failing to get into the Christmas spirit, this is one great place to find it.

Backyard Cinema is back with a mega immersive cinema to give you all the festive feels. Roam through a fairylit winter forest and you'll find screenings of Christmas classics including Elf, Home Alone, Love Actually, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Holiday, The Muppet Christmas Carol, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, The Grinch, and It’s a Wonderful Life. Things begin in a Christmas cabaret room with live performances of festive classics and table service so you can enjoy seasonal refreshments. Then, you'll enter an enchanted forest, with real bark underfoot, surprise performances, themed bars and photo opportunities. Finally, you'll end up at the Forest Cinema, a retro-style cinema where snow flutters down before every screening. A trip to the movies really doesn't get more festive than this. 

Each year, the bright lights of Leicester Square get a little bit more dazzling with its massive festive pop-up, which boasts a Christmas market, tons of scrumptious food and drink, and live entertainment. The square is also switching things up a bit this year, replacing its circus and cabaret venue The Spiegeltent with an ice skating rink. Wrapping around the Shakespeare statue in the centre of the square, London’s newest pop-up skating venue for nine weeks over the festive season, encircled by the market stalls. 

It would be a mistake to say the humour in Cole Escola’s massive hit Broadway comedy has been lost in translation to the West End: there was a lot of laughter when I caught Oh, Mary! on a Wednesday matinee. However, I’m afraid it was lost in translation to me.  I didn’t hate this lurid cabaret about Abraham Lincoln’s wife. But after the slew of American critics describing the life-changing injuries they’d suffered from laughing so hard at Sam Pinkleton’s production, the whole thing just felt a bit… ’70s? A little bit Airplane!, a little bit Benny Hill, maybe even a touch of Mr Bean… Really it’s broad, dated humour salvaged by a tremendous cast headed by Jamie Lloyd veteran Mason Alexander Park as Mary and the redoubtable Giles Terera as ‘Mary’s husband’ (ie Abe). Of course, a lot of British people like ’70s humour: this is a country that still remains dangerously hooked on the 1976 Morecambe and Wise Christmas special. But Oh, Mary! is an old-fashioned farce built on two gags: one, Mary is a boozy narcissist – borderline feral – who dreams of the stage; and two, Abraham Lincoln is gay. To be fair, there are few cows more sacred in America than Lincoln, and this is of course queer artist Escola co-opting the iconic president, not mocking gay people. Still I’d struggle to say what the difference would be in terms of execution. I don’t know much about Lincoln’s personal life, but the idea of him being a cartoonishly repressed gay man is not in and of itself that funny to me. ...

The Hackney panto’s USP is Clive Rowe: less a dame than a roiling force of nature, post pandemic he has not only starred in every panto at the Empire but directed them too, in what has increasingly felt like a one man (in a frock) show.  But what happens to the one-man show when the man (and his frock) aren’t there?  Rowe is such a panto purist that he refuses to perform in productions of Cinderella, reasoning that there is no dame role in it. So this year, he’s directing only. And it’s probably not a bad idea: the underlying fundamentals of this year’s panto are stronger than in recent years, where the secondary characters feel like they’ve been left to wither on the vine while Rowe swans off with the glory. This show’s heart lies with its villains: Alexandra Waite-Roberts is the very definition of ‘pantomime villain’ as Oblivia, Cinderella’s cacklingly evil stepmother who in this version offed her stepdaughter’s dad years previously and barely makes any effort to conceal the fact. ‘Ugly sisters’ is a term that has fallen out of fashion in recent years, but in the roles that used to be called that, George Heyworth and Kat B are great fun as Nausea and Flatula, two women who aren’t so much evil as incredibly dumb. In the absence of Rowe, the audience work falls to them – they make a solid enough job of it – and they memorably join forces with Nicholas McLean’s prissy Buttons for a run through ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ that lasts something like 10 minutes and heavily...

Cementing the Lyric Hammersmith’s place at the top of the London panto pantheon, here’s a wonderfully inventive new take on Jack and the Beanstalk for 2025.  I’ve seen some high-concept pantomimes take a swing and a miss, but returning writer Sonia Jalay and director Nicolai La Barrie are impressively assured as they relocate the bean-centric action to a strict Hammersmith school concealing a sinister secret. Siblings Jack (Joey James) and Jill (Sienna Widd) are newly enrolled at the ultra strict Fleshcreep Academy, and while John Patridge’s meat-obsessed (he even wears a meat-pattered suit) Fleshcreep bears zero resemblance to the rather scarier Katherine Birbalsingh, it’s not hard to see see the whole enjoyably unruly spectacle as a satire on the fetishisation of ‘strict’ modern schooling.  The imperious grandeur of regular Lyric dame Emmanuel Akwafo is somewhat missed, although replacement Sam Harrison is great fun when he’s allowed off the leash – his best moment is cracking himself up by ad libbing about the Lily Allan album to an audience of bemused primary schoolers. But there’s something fundamentally amusing about the plot point of his Momma Trott being worked in as the flamboyant new Fleshcreep Academy dinner lady, much to the mortification of her kids.  James is nice as socially anxious Jack who communicates with most people via a lairy sock puppet. And in her first named stage role, recent graduate Widd is scene-stealing good as the fearlessly bolshy Jill, a...

This is the tenth anniversary of the Palladium panto, which is remarkable in a way as it kind of feels like London’s biggest festive show has been around forever. In part that’s because there is, to be blunt, relatively little annual variation: a core cast of middle aged men who’ve been there since the beginning do amusing turns byt way of back up to Julian Clary, who effortlessly walks off with the show by playing a series of flimsily disguised variants on himself (this year he plays a character called King Julian), with every utterance is a virtuosically smutty innuendo that blessedly sails over the heads of primary schoolers. There’s usually a big guest headline star from the world of light entertainment too: this year it’s Catherine Tate, who’ll be playing Carabosse the Wicked Fairy. Palladium panto lifers Paul Zerdin and Nigel Havers are back, as are more recent additions to the crew Rob Madge, Jon Culshaw and Amonik Melaco. Compared to the likes of Hackney or the Lyric Hammersmith, the Palladium Panto is much closer to a series of variety turns than a work of theatre with a plot. But that’s all to the good at the Palladium, and ten blockbuster years on they’re perfectly entitled to subscribe to the old adage of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Punchdrunk’s Felix Barrett on Lander 23: ‘it’s high stakes, high adrenaline’. Post 2022’s The Burnt City, immersive theatre legends Punchdrunk seem genuinely liberated by apparently ditching the mask-based format that’s defined most of their previous body of work. Viola’s Room (2024) was a focussed and unnerving hourlong plunge into a twisted fairytale; and Lander 23 is something completely different again, being a ‘stealth based exploration game’ based on ‘videogame mechanics’ that will see audiences deployed in teams of four onto an alien planet to try and find out the fate of the titular landing vehicle, which has disappeared mysteriously. This all feels very new and indeed, in acknowledgement of this the show is billed as ‘early access’, that is to say it’s effectively a work-in-progress for now (and there won’t be reviews, or at least not during this period). Exactly what will happen in it is vague beyond the above synopsis. What we do know is that Lander 23 will run to about 90 minutes, that it’s based on videogames, that it’s possible to ‘die’ in it (you’ll come back to life though), and that the set will be a ‘modded’ version of the Trojan cityscape from The Burnt City. You also have to technically see it in groups of four, meaning tickets are only purchasable in pairs, although if you want to come down solo you can ring the box office on 0208 191 1431. One half of the group will advise the other half what to do over radio, with roles swapping during the course of...

Blame it on the criminally forgotten 2001 movie Barbie in the Nutcracker, but ever since childhood, I’m absolutely convinced that sugar plum fairies and toy soldiers are an integral part of Christmas.  More famous as a ballet, the classic tale comes with nostalgia, magic, and best of all – a superb score from Tchaikovsky. If you’re not a ballet lover, don’t fret: aside from Barbie‘s stab at it there have been numerous non-dance interpretations, most pertinently this one from Olivier-winning theatre company, Little Bulb. Directed by Alexander Scott, this playful production aimed at children ages five to 12 was originally seen at the Polka Theatre, and has now transferred to St Martin’s Theatre for the season.  Pantomime meets puppet show in a bright and bold spectacle that is full of life and laughter. There are plenty of Christmas bangers to sing along to – plus the Tchaikovsky score playing in the background – and above all there’s an abundance of enthusiasm from the brilliant cast.  Sam Wilde’s set design is quirky and inventive. Cardboard boxes are transformed into creative moving parts such as a Christmas tree, a car and much more – all highlighted by Joshua Pharo’s clever use of lighting. Dramatic colour variations change the atmosphere at pivotal moments in the performance; from moody blues to ominous reds at the arrival of the dreaded Mouse King (played by Clare Beresford). The entire production has a DIY feel to it, which feels fresh, successfully capturing the...

This review is from 2022. My Neighbour Totoro is now running at the Gillian Lynne Theatre in the West End with a mostly new cast. Studio Ghibli’s 1988 cartoon masterpiece My Neighbour Totoro is a stunningly beautiful, devastatingly charming film, in which not a huge amount happens per se.  It follows two young sisters who move to the countryside with their dad and basically get up to a lot of extremely normal things… while also fleetingly encountering a succession of astounding otherworldly creatures, most notably Totoro, a gigantic furry woodland spirit, and the Cat Bus, a cat that is also a bus (or a bus that is also a cat, whatever). Its most iconic scene involves young heroines Mei and Satsuki waiting at a bus stop, and Totoro shuffling up behind them, chuckling at their umbrella (a new concept to him) and then hopping on his unearthly public transport. So if you’re going to adapt it for the stage you’re going to have to absolutely nail the puppets you use to portray Totoro and co.  The RSC absolutely understood the brief here, although you’ll have to take my word for it, as for this first ever stage adaption – by Tom Morton-Smith, overseen by legendary Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi – the company hasn’t allowed a single publicity photo of a single puppet (bar some chickens) to be released.  Nonetheless, the puppets – designed by Basil Twist, assembled by Jim Henson's Creature Workshop – are fucking spectacular. They have to be fucking spectacular because that’s the...

It’s hard to know if the creative team behind this wildly misguided immersive theatre adaptation of Douglas Adams’s satirical sci-fi classic loves the source material too much or not at all.  On the one hand, its incorporation of elements of the less well-known book So Long and Thanks for all the Fish suggest a deeper familiarity with the novel series and a desire to not simply do a straight retelling of the OG Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which has been famously already done via radio, novel, video game, TV series, film and various cult theatre shows (albeit none of this very recently). On the other hand, it seems to have been made by people who don’t get Adams’ humour, characters or why people like the first book, and uses the romance plot from So Long… to create a far more saccharine story than Adams himself did. The writer and co-creator is one Arvind Ethan David, a former Adams protege. So I assume he’s a fan. But this play hardly makes a case for his mentor’s brilliance. It begins (mostly) harmlessly enough. The first scene is set in the pub which – in the Adams telling – hapless Englishman Arthur Dent is dragged to by his eccentric friend Ford Prefect, on a very specific mission to drink six pints of bitter ahead of ‘hitchhiking’ aboard a spaceship belonging to the Vogons, the incredibly tedious alien race about to blow Earth up to build a galactic bypass. This all gets a bit immersive theatre’d up. There are novelty cocktails. There is audience interaction. We...

JW3’s panto is only in its third year, but already it feels like a seasonal ficture thanks to its idiosyncratic Jewish humour and distinction of being pretty much the only form of entertainment in all of London to have a Christmas Day performance. It’s the same creative team as the last two, headed by writer Nick Cassenbaum and director Abigail Anderson. Talia Pick stars as baker Cinderella, alongside her bad sisters Milchig (Rosie Yadid) and Libby Liburd (Fleishig).  Here Cinderella goes on a journey takes her to the upside-down Land of Traif, where they sing songs of ‘cockles, escargot, bacon, lobster and oysters, and veal sauteed in its mother’s milk’. 

  ‘What does a woman have to do to be remembered?’ ask Sh!t Theatre, the duo stood naked on the yawning, pink-draped stage of the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room. It’s a good question. Rollerskate in said state of undress while a video of Andrew Lloyd Webber DJing Phantom of the Opera plays? Travel to Argentina, then Spain, in an attempt to track down a living historical figure they’ve become obsessed with? Write a musical about this woman that leads to a lightly threatening (and extremely passive aggressive) email from Lloyd Webber’s legal team? It’s something theatremakers Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole have been thinking a lot about since they became interested in Isabel Perón, the second wife of Argentinian president Juan Perón. Of course, as their earlier project DollyWould proved, a play about a prominent woman is more than a simple biopic when done by Sh!t Theatre. That show explored the inevitability of death by way of Dolly Parton; here, under Ursula Martinez’s direction, they wrestle with legacy, memory, grief, having (and not having) children, and even democracy. The result is a predictably anarchic production, one rife with levity and remarkable profundity. While most audience members won’t have heard of Isabel – I certainly hadn’t – we know of Juan’s first wife, Eva, remembered in life, history, and Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical as Evita. Evita Too was first staged at Soho Theatre in 2022; since then, Jamie Lloyd’s edgy musical revival has put...

Born in a fishing village in Denmark in 1859, Anna Ancher painted and memorialised life on the coast, cementing herself as a Danish household name. Now Dulwich Picture Gallery brings Ancher’s work to a UK audience in her first ever British exhibition, which will showcase over 40 of her luminous paintings, many of which are reminiscent of the coastal community where she grew up. Also featuring in the exhibition will be four of Ancher’s contemporaries: Marie Luplau, Emilie Mundt, Marie Sandholdt, and Louise Bonfils. 

Once again you can expect to see remarkable feats of astrophotography at the Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition. It’s a chance to see magical views of both our own night sky and of galaxies far, far away. The winning spacey visions come from dozens of professional and amateur snappers in various categories including ‘Planets, Comets and Asteroids’, ‘Stars and Nebulae’, ‘Galaxies’ and ‘Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year’ for under-16s. Soar down to Greenwich to see the winners from 2025's competition on display. 

London’s cultural institutions are having a love affair with the New Romantics this year. First there was Outlaws, the Fashion and Textile Museum’s exhibition on the subversive fashion trends of 1980s London. Then the Tate Modern announced a major retrospective on pioneering fashion maverick Leigh Bowery. Now it’s the Design Museum’s turn to direct its attention towards the most flamboyant subculture of its era, via this exhibition on the Blitz club, the iconic (and we really don’t use that word lightly) Covent Garden nightclub where New Romanticism was born in 1979. Forty years after it closed, the trailblazing club’s atmosphere will be recreated through a ‘sensory extravaganza’ incorporating music, film, art, graphic design and some very ostentatious outfits. This will include several items that have never been on public display before, while some of the scene’s key figures have been involved in the development of the exhibition. Time to liberally apply the kohl eyeliner, fish out your frilliest shirt and whack on some Spandau Ballet: the 80s are back, baby!

Hot on the heels of September’s merry-go-round of Fashion Weeks, the National Portrait Gallery’s latest opening is another moment to reflect on what fashion and beauty mean to us today. A second outing in five years for the trailblazing 20th century photographer, Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World unfolds like a billowing ballgown; opulent and eye-catching, but it can’t help tripping over its long hem. The glittering charm, however, forgives its clumsiness.  Beaton’s previous outing at NPG in 2020 was cut short after only five days because of the pandemic. Rather than reviving Cecil Beaton’s Bright Young Things, this revamped exhibition presents him as more than just a photographer. Younger audiences are likely to find this show more relatable, through its emphasis on his contributions to costume and set design, given their ascendant roles in contemporary fashion. From curious beginnings to his rise through the cultural upper-class, his war photography and costume designs for My Fair Lady, we get a good look at how places and periods influenced Beaton’s style.  If anything, this show is about how big Beaton’s prop and costume chest is. Elaborately grandiose outfits screaming over intricate backgrounds made his early shots look like stills from the kind of plays Aristophanes would’ve put on during his day. Flirting with the avant-garde in Paris, Beaton’s staging and costumes turn weird and uncanny. Even during the war there’s a bold expressionism to his framing that only...

Video games are the medium for Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. The young artist uses them to ‘imaginatively archive and empower Black Trans stories’ - this isn’t just point-and-shoot, slack-jawed gaming for the sake of it, this is one of contemporary society’s most important cultural forms being used to give voice to marginalised identities. 

If you’re a non-disabled person, you may never have given any proper thought to the many ways in which the world is designed without regard for the needs of disabled members of our society.  Described as ‘both a celebration and a call to action’, this V&A exhibition seeks to rectify that, exploring the social history of design and disability from the 1940s to the present. Opening in summer 2025, it promises to highlight the contributions made by disabled, Deaf, and neurodiverse communities to art, design, fashion, photography and architecture, as well as outlining how design can be made more inclusive and accessible in the future.   

To the layperson, high-fashion shows can be a source of confusion. Why would anyone spend thousands on a dress constructed entirely of razor blades, or a pair of decrepit shoes that have been deliberately sullied or even torched? Well, because sometimes creating unwearable garments is actually the point, thank you very much. And that’s exactly what the Barbican’s latest fashion exhibition illustrates.  From the controversial £1,400 Balenciaga destroyed trainers, to Jordanluca’s pee-soaked jeans, and dresses that have been pulled out of bogs, Dirty Looks peers at the muckier side of fashion design. Don’t expect immaculate gowns displayed solemnly in glass cases. This isn’t a historical look at haute couture, or a glossy advert for a fashion house concealed inside a gallery show. The exhibition, featuring more than 120 garments from designers including Maison Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Issey Miyake, takes a clever thematic approach to the philosophy of dirt within fashion, showing how ideas around industrialisation, colonisation, the body, and waste, can be illustrated on the runway.  One particularly icky room is dedicated to bodily fluids, showing artificially sweat and period-stained garb, others to food stains, pieces made with rubbish and to trompe l’oeil faux-grimy clothing.Stand-out pieces include a torn and muddy lace dress from Alexander McQueen’s controversial ‘Highland Rape’ collection, a creepy Miss Havisham-esque Comme des Garçons...

The Anmatyerr artist Emily Kam Kngwarray only took up painting during the last decade of her life. Making up for lost time, she produced thousands of paintings in the years leading up to her death in 1996. She worked frenetically, changing her style multiple times. This, her first major European solo exhibition, presents just a sliver of her oeuvre. It’s an impressive introduction to a visionary artist and, to those unfamiliar with Aboriginal art, a new way of understanding art. Naturally, this show needs more exposition than most. It requires European audiences to let go of their art-historical baggage. For example, the colourful works on show here aren’t straightforwardly representational but it would be wrong to call them abstract. Rather than leave us to experience Kngwarray’s work on the familiar-but-inaccurate terms that define western art, the exhibition takes two rooms to provide a potted education on Aboriginal art and life and the artist’s place within it. Dreaming, for example, is an important religio-cultural term that pervades the exhibition, connecting Aboriginal Peoples with their ancestors through the land. This show needs more exposition than most The exhibition finds confident form in its third room, where more than a dozen large-scale acrylic paintings, all replete with coloured dots, surround a procession of batik prints on silk that hang from the ceiling. Interconnectedness is less a feature of these works than an underpinning of them. In each of the...

It’s not that long ago that British art bigwigs Gilbert & George grew so frustrated with what they saw as a lack of attention from the UK’s art institutions that they set up their very own museum dedicated to themselves. That big whinge seems a bit premature now that the Hayward is giving them a big exhibition looking at their work since the turn of the millennium, a period that has seen them satirising everything from hope and fear to sex and religion.

Every year, Tate Modern teams up with Hyundai for the Hyundai Commission – a chance for one artist to share an exciting new work in the museum’s iconic Turbine Hall. The chosen masterpiece that will be on display in 2025 will be announced in the coming months, but previous selections for the coveted spot include Mire Lee, Anicka Yi, El Anatsui, Superflex, Abraham Cruzvillegas, among others.