What’s on in London this week: 10 - 16 November 2025
Discover our pick of events in London this week: 10 - 16 November 2025.
Skate
Skate at Somerset House returns this winter, bringing festive fun and magic to the heart of London! From 12 November 2025, the iconic neoclassical courtyard transforms into a sparkling ice rink, complete with a towering Christmas tree, twinkling lights, and the irresistible scent of hot chocolate in the air. Glide to festive tunes, enjoy DJ sets, and soak up the buzzing holiday atmosphere, perfect for family adventures, a fun outing with friends, or a romantic date under the stars. It’s London’s ultimate winter wonderland!
Date: 12 November 2025 – 11 January 2026. Location: Somerset House, Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court, Strand, London WC2R 1LA. Price: Adults £15 - £28.50, Children from £10 + one off transaction fee of £2.95. Book now
Skate at Somerset House. © Somerset House
Christmas at Kew 2025
Christmas at Kew 2025 returns to Kew Gardens from 14 November, showcasing eight world-premiere installations, including Christmas Orchestra by Culture Creative and In Bloom by Dutch artist Wilhelmusvlug, alongside favourites such as the Fire Garden, Christmas Cathedral, and Temperate House light show. This year’s trail features a redesigned 3 km route starting at the Palm House, with stunning new displays of illuminated lilies, interactive dancing floors, and the Great Pagoda lit for the first time. With festive food, drinks, and family-friendly entertainment throughout, the trail offers a magical celebration of nature by night, while supporting Kew’s mission to protect plant and fungal life for future generations.
Date: 14 November 2025 – 4 January 2026 (closed 25 December). Opening times: 4.20 pm – 10 pm (entry by timed slot). Location: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, London, TW9 3AE. Price: Adults from £27.50; Children (4–16) from £18; Families from £81; Under 4s and Essential Companions free; Kew Members from £23.50. Book now
Palm House light show at the 10th Christmas at Kew © Raymond Gubbay Ltd, Richard Haughton
EFG Jazz Festival Opening Gala
The EFG London Jazz Festival Opening Gala: Jazz Voice kicks off the festival on 14 November 2025 at the Royal Festival Hall, featuring renowned vocalists including Dee Dee Bridgewater, Tanita Tikaram, Stella Cole, and more, accompanied by a 44-piece orchestra conducted by Guy Barker with guest conductor Jack Murray. Hosted by Jumoké Fashola, the evening celebrates jazz’s rich vocal traditions and launches the ten-day festival across London.
Click here for the full line up of events for this year’s EGF Jazz Festival.
Date: 14 November 2025. Location: Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX. Price: from £42. + £3.50 BF. Book now
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Sir Simon Rattle: Bruckner 7
Sir Simon Rattle conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre in a thrilling evening of classical music, featuring Janáček’s dramatic Taras Bulba and Bruckner’s majestic Symphony No. 7 in E Major. Known for describing the symphony’s opening as a vision played by an angel in a dream, Bruckner’s work unfolds like a soaring mountain of sound, often described as “soul music.” With Rattle at the helm, audiences can expect a transcendent experience, seeking those extraordinary musical vistas that lift the spirit beyond the everyday.
Date: 12 November 2025. Location: Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS. Price: From £20 + £4 BF. Book now
Image courtesy of the Barbican Centre.
Mulatu Astatke
Legendary Ethiopian composer and multi-instrumentalist Mulatu Astatke, known as the father of Ethio-jazz, brings his farewell show to London as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival. Celebrated for pioneering the fusion of jazz, Latin, and traditional Ethiopian sounds during the Swinging Addis era of the 1960s and 70s, Astatke continues to shape global music. His new album, Mulatu Plays Mulatu, his first major studio release in over a decade, features his full big band alongside Ethiopian cultural musicians, marking a fitting finale to his extraordinary career.
Date: 16 November 2025, 7.30pm. Location: Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX. Run time: Approximately 3 hours. Price: from £34.50 + £3.50 BF. Book now
Mulatu Astatke. Image credit Karston Tannis
Winter Light
Returning to the Southbank Centre this week, Winter Light once again transforms the site into a radiant outdoor gallery filled with illuminated artworks that play with light and colour while exploring themes such as identity, the environment, and technology. Visitors can wander freely or follow a map to discover installations by artists including Samia Halaby, David Batchelor, Rafaël Rozendaal, France Lise McGurn, Jakob Kvist, Nathaniel Rackowe, Squire & Partners, Liz West, Oteki, and Tavares Strachan. Best experienced after dark, the exhibition offers a dazzling and thought-provoking journey through the long winter nights.
Date: 10 November 2025 – 18 January 2026. Location: Riverside Terrace, Level 2, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX. Price: Free.southbankcentre.co.uk
Jakob Kvist: Dichroic Sphere, 2022
Writing Workshop: Tori Tsui – Writing Ecologie
Writing Workshop: Tori Tsui – Writing Ecologies returns to the Barbican’s Garden Room and Conservatory, offering a chance to connect with nature through the power of words. Led by climate justice campaigner and author Tori Tsui, the workshop begins with a conversation and Q&A before guiding participants through creative prompts and quiet writing time surrounded by greenery. Focusing on themes of interdependence, activism, and healing, it’s a unique opportunity to reflect, create, and be inspired by the natural world, as part of the Dystopia is Not the Future season and COP25 events.
Date: 16 November 2025. Time: 1pm - 5pm. Location: Barbican Centre, Garden Room & Conservatory, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: £10 (+ £1.50 booking fee). Book now
K-Music Festival 2025: Won II's Dionysus Robot
Composer and sound artist Won Il returns to the K-Music Festival 2025 with Dionysus Robot, a daring fusion of traditional Korean and electronic instruments, shamanic vocals, movement, and projections. Inspired by Nietzsche’s Dionysian philosophy and media art pioneer Nam June Paik, this immersive performance unfolds as a modern Korean ritual where sound, light, body, and technology collide. Featuring drag artist and dancer Jimin Mo as a contemporary Dionysian high priest, the work explores the tension between chaos and control, instinct and machine, and the sacred and synthetic.
Date: 14 November 2025, 7.30pm. Location: Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX. Run time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes.Price: From £17 + £3.50 booking fee. Book now
K-Music Festival 2025 opens at the Barbican this week
Cinema
The Mastermind
The Mastermind is Kelly Reichardt’s comedic art-heist drama set in 1970s America, starring Josh O’Connor as JB, a suburban man who leads a secret life as an art thief. When his next heist goes wrong, he faces unexpected challenges. The film also features Alana Haim, Hope Davis, John Magaro, and Gaby Hoffman, with cinematography by Christopher Blauvelt. It premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival in the main competition and was nominated for the Palme d’Or.
Date: 24 October - 13 November 2025. Location: Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: £14 + BF £1.50. Book now
Josh O’Connor in Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind.”Photograph courtesy MUBI
Arts & Culture
Opening this week
Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize 2025
Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize 2025 showcases the finest contemporary photography, featuring works by emerging talents, gifted amateurs, and established professionals. The exhibition highlights the creativity and skill of portrait photographers, offering a diverse and compelling look at how individuals and communities are captured through the lens.
Date: 13 November 2025 – 8 February 2026. Location: National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London WC2H 0HE. Price: £9.50 / 10.50 with donation. Book now
Ottavia Sotto Casa Mia by Elena Bianca Zagari from the series Napoli Dopo Il Buio, 2025 © Elena Bianca Zagari
Joseph Yaeger: Polygrapher
An exhibition by the artist Joseph Yaeger, Polygrapher, opens at Modern Art, Bennet Street, exploring the elusive nature of truth and perception through text and painting. The title also refers to an accompanying text in which Yaeger recounts an interrogation conducted via a Stoelting UltraScribe, with only the answers recorded. This concept extends to the paintings, where subjects are obscured by masks, paint, screens, taped-over goggles, debris, and foam, reflecting on the fragile and uncertain boundaries between reality and perception.
Date: 15 November 2025 – 17 January 2026. Location: Modern Art, 8 Bennet Street, London SW1A 1RP. Price: Free. modernart.net
Mary Kelly, Circa 2011, 2016. Compressed lint, projected light noise. 80.50 x 127 x 1.25
Mary Kelly: We Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire
We Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery is Mary Kelly’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, examining the power of protest and its influence on both personal and political history. The show features World on Fire Timeline (2020), a non-linear work spanning 71 years of global conflict, civil rights and anti-war movements, and the climate crisis, interwoven with events from Kelly’s own life. Also included are pieces from her Circa Trilogy and News from Home, using her signature compressed lint medium and collage to explore how historical trauma and memory are processed through everyday life. The exhibition highlights the continuing relevance of past protests and their impact on contemporary society.
Date: 14 November 2025 – 17 January 2026. Location: Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, 6 Heddon Street, London W1B 4BT. Price: Free. houldsworth.co.uk
David Hockney Vincent's Chair and Gauguin's Chair, 4 July 2025, 2025 acrylic on canvas 91.4 x 121.9 cm. © David Hockney
#FLOFAVOURITES
David Hockney: Some Very, Very, Very New Paintings Not Yet Shown in Paris
Annely Juda Fine Art’s new Hanover Square gallery features a series of brand-new paintings created in Hockney’s London studio over the past six months alongside the first full UK presentation of The Moon Room, 15 iPad paintings of the night sky. The works continue Hockney’s exploration of “reverse perspective,” depicting interiors with multiple vanishing points to reflect how humans perceive the world, while The Moon Room captures moonlit landscapes outside his Normandy studio with his signature use of line and colour and the immediacy of digital painting. This exhibition highlights Hockney’s ongoing innovation and dedication to expanding the possibilities of visual perception, cementing his status as one of the most influential artists of our time.
Date: 7 November 2025 – 28 February 2026. Location: Annely Juda Fine Art, 16 Hanover Square, London W1S 1HS. Price: Free. annelyjudafineart.co.uk
#FLOFavourites: Pick of the Week
Free event of the week
Covent Garden Christmas Lights 2025
Christmas at Covent Garden. Image credit MTotoe
Covent Garden kicks off the festive season this week with the return of its dazzling Christmas celebrations. From 12 November 2025, the area will glow with over 300,000 lights, a 55-foot British-grown Christmas tree, and the iconic gold bells suspended inside the Market Building. This year’s theme, “The Theatre of Christmas,” turns the piazza into a lively stage filled with festive markets, street performances, and seasonal entertainment running for seven weeks. A perfect mix of sparkle, tradition, and theatrical flair, the switch-on marks one of London’s most anticipated holiday moments.
Date & Time: Wednesday 12 November 2025, 5pm. Location: Covent Garden, Covent Garden Piazza, London WC2E 8RF. Price: Free.
Interview of the week
In conversation with Jaguar
Jaguar
BBC Radio 1 presenter, DJ, podcaster, and entrepreneur Jaguar is a leading figure in the UK dance music scene, known for championing diversity, equality, and emerging talent. In a recent interview, she discusses her journey from sneaking out to raves on Alderney to releasing her debut EP Flowers, sharing insights on creativity, mental health, and the lessons that have shaped her influential career.
Click here for the full interview.
Food of the week
The Pot Luck Club
The Maldon Oysters. Image courtesy of The Pot Luck Club
The pop-up of Cape Town chef Luke Dale-Roberts’ Pot Luck Club at The Waldorf Hilton brings his acclaimed small-plate, Asian-fusion cuisine to London. Housed in the hotel’s Homage restaurant, the menu features inventive dishes such as bite-sized fish tacos, roast beetroot tartare, and peanut coconut curry, alongside signature items like smoked beef fillet with truffle sauce. The restaurant’s grand interior, attentive service, and vegetarian-friendly options make for a memorable dining experience.
Click here for the full review.
Location: The Waldorf Hilton, Aldwych, London WC2B 4DD. Website: tasteofwaldorf.co.uk Instagram: @potluckclubldn
Cause of the week
Trussell Trust
Every year, more than 30,000 volunteers give their time, skills, and compassion to support the Trussell Trust and its network of food banks across the UK. By volunteering, you can help the Trust work towards its mission of ending the need for food banks, whether by packing food parcels, welcoming visitors, tackling loneliness, or signposting people to additional support in your local community. There are also opportunities to contribute remotely with administration, project management, and development tasks.
Click here to discover volunteering opportunities available.
