BEST Things To Do In London Today
The Event Oracle knows ALL the fun things to do in London. Select your date above then scroll down to check out what events are going on this week...
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As I Live and Breathe
100 London Rd, Forest Hill
London, SE23 3PQ
Award-winning, internationally-exhibited visual artist Claire Morgan has created stunning new pieces for the Horniman, including a dramatic installation in Gallery Square.
Claire’s thought-provoking works draws on the theme of waste and the impact that humans have on their surroundings.
Her pieces include thousands of fragments of colourful waste polythene frozen in time, and nature combined with plastics.
As I Live and Breathe features new pieces specially commissioned by the Horniman. A dramatic large scale installation suspended from the ceiling and descending over two floors captivates visitors as they enter the Museum. The three forms are composed of thousands of fragments of colourful waste polythene, torn by hand from used shopping bags. These suggest a dramatic movement, being pulled by gravity from overhead down to the ground below, but here the movement has been halted in order to freeze a fleeting instant in time.
Inside our Natural History Gallery will be a display combining plastics and nature, featuring four taxidermy specimens of prolific residents of urban London: grey squirrel, red fox, carrion crow and rose-ringed parakeet. A conical form – made from fragments of torn black polythene from bin bags - protrudes from the mouth of each animal.
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Mary Quant
Cromwell Road
London, SW7 2RL
From miniskirts and hot pants to vibrant tights and makeup, discover how Mary Quant launched a fashion revolution on the British high street, with over 200 garments and accessories, including unseen pieces from the designer's personal archive.
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Cairo Streets
Cromwell Road
London, SW7 2RL
This display brings visitors face to face with everyday life in Cairo in the 19th century, through historic photographs of local people going about their daily lives. It also features examples of turned wood window screens, called mashrabiyyah, which gave a characteristic visual flavour to Cairo’s streets.
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Everybody Razzle Dazzle
Royal Albert Dock Liverpool
Liverpool, L3 4BB
Liverpool Biennial, 14–18 NOW WW1 Centenary Art Commissions and Tate Liverpool have co-commissioned one of the major figures of British pop art, Sir Peter Blake, to ‘dazzle’ a Mersey Ferry in partnership with Merseytravel and National Museums Liverpool (Merseyside Maritime Museum).
Everybody Razzle Dazzle will see Peter Blake transform Snowdrop – an active Mersey Ferry – with one of his iconic, colourful designs into a fully working Dazzle Ferry.
Step aboard a moving artwork! Travelling on Snowdrop you’ll have the opportunity to learn more about the history of dazzle – a painting technique employed to camouflage British ships – and the role that Liverpool’s much loved Mersey Ferries took in the First World War in a special on-board display.
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Manners and Modernity: Ukiyo-e and etiquette on the Seibu Railway
Cromwell Road
London, SW7 2RL
Featuring courtesans, Kabuki actors and other images found in ukiyo-e woodblock prints the posters illustrate the bustle and thrill of city life in modern Japan. Humour tempers the message about how to be a well-behaved commuter. The display includes original ukiyo-e prints which depict some of the artistic influences that inspired the posters.
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BMW Tate Live Exhibition
Tate Britain
Millbank, Westminster
London, SW1P 4RG
In 2020 Tate Modern’s Tanks will again play host to an exciting series of installations and live performances.
In 2019, Anne Imhof created a new large-scale commission, Sex. 2018 celebrated the performance pioneer Joan Jonas, while the first exhibition in 2017 included work from a range of artists including Isabel Lewis, CAMP, Wu Tsang, Fred Moten and Fujiko Nakaya.
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Matilda - The Musical
32-34 Earlham Street
London, WC2H 9HU
Adapted from the incomparable children's novel by Roald Dahl, Matilda The Musical is the multi-award winning musical from the Royal Shakespeare Company that continues to delight audiences in the West End. Since opening at the Cambridge Theatre in November 2011, the hit show has gone on to win over 50 major international awards, including 12 for Best Musical. Featuring a smart and witty original score by Tim Minchin, alongside an exciting book by Dennis Kelly, the musical adaptation is one of the most successful British musicals of modern times, and entertains audiences both old and young.
Matilda The Musical tells the story of an extraordinary little girl who, armed with a vivid imagination and a sharp mind, dares to take a stand and change her own destiny. After opening at the RSC's home in Stratford upon Avon, the musical transferred to the West End where it was greeted with a set of excellent reviews, with critics praising not only the charm of the score and book, but also the ingenious staging by director Matthew Warchus and choreographer Peter Darling.
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The Phantom of the Opera Tickets
57 Haymarket
London, SW1Y 4QL
Andrew Lloyd Webber's sensational long-running musical The Phantom of the Opera continues to run in its original form at the West End's Her Majesty's Theatre. Since opening in 1986 where it won the Olivier Award for Best Musical, the show features some of Lloyd Webber's most memorable music alongside the original stunning set design, costumes and special effects.
The haunting story of The Phantom of the Opera is adapted from Gaston Leroux's novel of the same name and is set in the heart of the Paris Opera House. As young ballet dancer Christine Daae becomes the object of The Phantom's secret affections, he manipulates her career at the expense and horror of the Opera House staff and stars. A truly romantic tragedy, this beautiful story is set against one of the West End's most memorable scores that includes hit songs such as “The Music of the Night”, “All I Ask of You”, “Think of Me”, and of course, “The Phantom of the Opera”.
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Faustus: That Damned Woman
King Street, Lyric Square
London, W6 0QL
"My name is Johanna Faustus. I was born almost four hundred years ago.
I gave my soul to achieve the impossible.
I watched this city grow sick and I swore to heal it.
I might be damned, but I would save the world to spite the Devil.”Award-winning playwright Chris Bush reimagines the Faust myth to explore what we must sacrifice to achieve greatness, and the legacy that we leave behind.
Caroline Byrne directs this radical new work in which the iconic character of Faustus becomes a woman who makes the ultimate sacrifice in order to traverse centuries and change the course of history.
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The Mousetrap
West Street
London, WC2H 9NZ
Agatha Christie's legendary 'whodunit' is still delighting and thrilling audiences in London's West End, as the show enters its 65th record-breaking year on stage. Running at the St. Martin's Theatre since 1974, the original production opened across the road at the Ambassadors Theatre on 25 November 1952 and has since been presented in 27 different languages in more than 50 countries around the world.
"A group of people gathered in a remote part of the countryside discover, to their horror, that there is a murderer in their midst. Who can it be? One by one the suspicious characters reveal their sordid pasts until at the last, nerve-shredding moment the identity and the motive are finally revealed. A cracking yarn and an irresistible treat for amateur sleuths everywhere!"
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Come From Away
Charing Cross Road
London, WC2H 0JP
Come from Away, the Broadway musical by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, is based on the events in the week following the 9/11 attacks on America, when 38 planes were ordered to land in the small Canadian town of Gander. This true story tells the tale of the town who kept 7,000 stranded visitors housed and fed following the biggest tragedy the US had seen.
The musical began previews in London at the Phoenix Theatre on 30th January 2019, and tickets for the West End premiere of Come From Away are on sale now.
Come From Away saw Sankoff and Hein modestly set out to write a musical they wanted high school kids to perform, rather than aspiring for a Broadway musical. The pair travelled to the Newfoundland town on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and learnt of the kindness of its residents. They felt like these stories had to be told and wrote a positive, upbeat musical to celebrate the residents.
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9 to 5 the Musical
Strand
London, WC2R 0ET
Tickets are now on sale for 9 to 5 the Musical which brings the brilliant music of Dolly Parton to life on stage. With a story based on the 1980 film of the same name, the show gets its West End premiere at the Savoy Theatre from January 2019. Dolly Parton - 9 to 5 The Musical is a hilarious story of friendship, gossip and revenge.
9 to 5 runs at the Savoy Theatre until 31st August 2019, with tickets on sale now. The show stars Louise Redknapp, Bonnie Langford, Natalie McQueen, Amber Davies and Brian Conley.
The musical opened on Broadway in 2009 at the Marquis Theatre, starring actress Megan Hilty. The production was nominated for four Tony Awards, including one for Parton herself who was up for Best Original Score. Reviews for the musical were generally positive, with The Guardian calling the musical “a triumph” when it opened in New York.
9 to 5 the Musical opened at the West End's Savoy Theatre on 17th February 2019 in the presence of Dolly Parton herself, who took to the stage during the curtain call to express her pride in the show and added that the cast 'made her look good!'.
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Les Miserables
London, W1D 6BA
The West End's longest running musical, Les Misérables has been enjoyed by over 70 million people in 42 countries and in 22 languages around the globe and is still breaking box-office records as it passes its 30th year in London. The original production, which features direction by John Caird and Trevor Nunn, continues to run at the Queen's Theatre, having transferred from the Palace Theatre in April 2004.
Featuring a stunning score by Boublil and Schönberg, Cameron Mackintosh's original production opened in London at the Barbican Theatre on 8th October 1985 (beginning previews on 28th September), where it went on to become a musical theatre phenomenon. It opened at the Palace Theatre on 4th December, and transferred to its current home at the Queen's Theatre on 3rd April 2004. Fans of the show continue to revisit this dazzling original that includes hit songs such as “I Dreamed a Dream”, “Do You Hear the People Sing?”, “Bring Him Home” and “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables”.
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Only Fools and Horses
8 Haymarket
London, SW1Y 4HT
A stage adaptation of the classic British sitcom Only Fools and Horses, co-written by Paul Whitehouse, which is now in London's West End at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.
First broadcast on the BBC in 1981, Only Fools and Horses was the quintessential British comedy show. Starring David Jason as South London market trader Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter and Nicholas Lyndhurst as his younger brother Rodney, the Peckham brothers spent their lives trying to get rich quick with a number of schemes devised through their company, Trotters Independent Trading Co. Their yellow three-wheeler Reliant Regal is an icon and can be spotted on the odd road across Britain if you’re lucky…
