What’s on in London this week: 20 - 26 April 2026
Discover our pick of events in London this week: 20 - 26 April 2026
Little Venice Film Festival 2026
The Little Venice Film Festival is a community-led celebration of independent cinema that champions accessibility, underrepresented voices, and new filmmaking across features, documentaries, and shorts. Known for transforming unconventional London spaces into shared screening environments, the 2026 edition runs from 22–28 April and presents a programme of over 100 films. Across the week, themed strands include LGBTQ+ Films, Disability Films, Mental Health, Female Stories, Kids Films, Swiss Films in Focus, Narrative Shorts, and a Student Showcase, alongside documentary programmes and special screenings such as My Husband the Child Soldier, culminating in the LVFF Awards on 28 April.
Date: 22–28 April 2026. Location: Little Venice, London. Click here for a link to the full schedule for the Little Venice Film Festival 2026.
Revisit, Director Teng Teng Wong. Image courtesy of Little Venice Film Festival
Brick Lane Jazz Festival
The Brick Lane Jazz Festival returns for its fifth edition, unveiling a full conference programme and new artists while continuing to champion London’s underground music scene. Bringing together jazz, neo-soul, R&B, electronic, and experimental music across 12 East London stages, the festival also introduces the Flow State Hub conference, featuring panels, workshops, and networking with industry figures including Soweto Kinch, Binker Golding, and DJ Ritu, alongside partners such as Women in Jazz and Solid State Logic. Highlights of the line-up include performances from Joe Armon-Jones, Brian Jackson, anaiis & Grupo Cosmo, Steam Down with a 10-piece NYJO brass section, Charlotte Dos Santos, JGrrey, Lucinda Chua, and HolyBrune & Girls Of The Internet.
Date: 23 – 26 April 2026. Location: Central hub at the Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London E1 6QL. Price: Pro Pass from £19, Early Bird festival tickets from £34.95, Weekend passes from £125. Book now.
Soundhub Showcase
An evening of cutting-edge contemporary music featuring four world premieres by LSO Soundhub 2025/26 Members. The programme includes audiovisual and experimental works: Light Echoes explores a dying star through the Breton language; Sweet People traces the evolution of cinema; Elegy for my Hair combines dance with sound inspired by shaving and beauty standards; and a cybernetic performance piece for electromechanical clarinets and organ pipes.
Date: Wednesday 22 April 2026. Location: LSO St Luke’s, 161 Old St, London, EC1V 9NG. Price: £10 + £1.50 BF. Book now
Image courtesy of Brick Lane Jazz Festival
Summerfolk
It’s the last few weeks to see Summerfolk at the National Theatre, a revival of Maxim Gorky’s portrait of privilege and denial set during a sweltering summer in 1905, when Russia’s wealthy elite retreat to the countryside in search of leisure, romance, and distraction. As they swim, sip champagne, and embark on affairs, Varvara begins to sense that their carefree world is fragile, built on borrowed time, with tensions quietly simmering beneath the surface. Directed by Robert Hastie and newly adapted by Nina Raine and Moses Raine, the production offers a sharp and unsettling exploration of class and complacency as the looming sense of crisis steadily intensifies.
Date: 29 April 2026. Location: Olivier Theatre, National Theatre, South Bank, London, SE1 9PX. Duration: 2 hours 45 minutes including a 20-minute interval. Price: from £20 - £89 + £4 BF. Book now
North London Book Festival 2026
The North London Book Festival 2026 returns this week, a four-day literary event at Alexandra Palace featuring panels, readings, workshops, Q&As and book signings. It brings together established and debut authors including Laura Bates, Natalie Haynes, Michael Rosen, Rachel Parris, Alan Hollinghurst, Tessa Hadley and Natasha Brown. The festival opens with Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason’s To Be Young, Gifted and Black, alongside live music, and includes a Waterstones bookstore for on-site purchases.
Date: 23 – 26 April 2026. Location: Alexandra Palace, Alexandra Palace Way, London N22 7AY. Click here for the full programme of events.
Chronic Youth Film Festival 2026. Image courtesy of Barbican Centre
An Evening with an Immigrant
Taking place at the Southbank Centre this week as part of Multitudes, An Evening with an Immigrant is a powerful one-man performance by poet and playwright Inua Ellams. The show traces Ellams’ journey from Nigeria to the UK, reflecting on identity, displacement, and belonging through a mix of humour, personal reflection, and poignant narrative. This new version includes a specially commissioned live score by Laura Mvula, performed by Chineke! Orchestra.
Date: 26 April 2026, 7.30pm. Location: Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. Price: from £17 (+ £4 booking fee). Book now
Chronic Youth Film Festival 2026
The 11th Chronic Youth Film Festival returns to Barbican Cinemas with Shifting the Lens: Self-Documentation on Screen, curated by Young Film Programmers. Designed for young audiences by young curators, the festival explores the power of self-documentation, showcasing how filmmakers turn the camera into a tool of memory, self-expression, and resistance. Across documentaries, fiction, experimental works, and DIY filmmaking, the programme highlights artists repurposing personal archives and inventive storytelling to document their communities and histories. Click here to discover the full programme of events.
Date: 25 - 26 April 2026. Location: Barbican Cinemas, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS.
Abel Selaocoe. Image credit Phil Sharp.
Mohopolo / Ancestral Memory Weekend – Abel Selaocoe & Friends
The Mohopolo / Ancestral Memory Weekend is a specially curated series led by South African cellist Abel Selaocoe, focusing on heritage, spirituality, and collective memory through music, storytelling, and dance. Across the weekend, Selaocoe is joined by artists including Mbuso Khoza, Nduduzo Makhathini, and Gontse Makhene for an opening night of traditional songs and ancestral stories. Saturday features performances from BCUC and Toya Delazy, followed by amapiano DJ sets from SNO. The weekend concludes with the world premiere of a new dance work by Mthuthuzeli November, performed with Selaocoe’s Bantu Ensemble, celebrating cultural and spiritual connections.
Date: 23 – 26 April 2026. Location: Milton Court, Silk St, London, EC2Y 9BH. Price: from £20. Book now
Shobana Jeyasingh Dance: We Caliban
We Caliban is an inventive reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, told through the perspective of Caliban as colonial power struggles reshape his island, identity, and sense of belonging. Choreographed by Shobana Jeyasingh, the work focuses on power, oppression, and transformation through choreography, striking projections by Will Duke, and an original score by Thierry Pécou, performed by eight leading British dancers.
Date: 21 – 23 April 2026. Location: Sadler’s Wells East, 101 Carpenters Rd, Stratford Cross, London E20 2AR. Price: From £15 (+ £4 transaction fee). Book now
We Caliban. Image credit Chris Nash
Cinema
Father Mother Brother Sister
Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Brother Sister presents a triptych of interlinked stories following emotionally distant siblings across different parts of the world. Featuring Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver, Vicky Krieps, Charlotte Rampling, Indya Moore, and Luka Sabbat, the film sees encounters in New Jersey, Dublin, and beyond, as siblings reconnect with their parents and each other in moments shaped by distance, memory, and change. Combining humour with quiet observation, Jarmusch builds a character-led exploration of family relationships, marked by subtle storytelling and a reflective tone that considers how little is often known about those closest to us.
Date: 19–25 April 2026. Location: Barbican Cinema, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: £14 + £1.50 BF. Book now
Father Mother Brother Sister. Image courtesy of Barbican Centre
Arts & Culture
Opening this week
Jack Scollard: Cruising Archaeology: The Pleasure Archive Research Centre
Opening at Studio Voltaire, Jack Scollard’s Cruising Archaeology: The Pleasure Archive Research Centre explores the connections between queer cruising and the experience of viewing art in public space. Drawing on archaeological methods, the project presents discarded objects from cruising sites as traces of queer life, transforming overlooked materials into an archive that reflects intimacy, anonymity, and the tension between preservation and disappearance.
Date: 22 April–5 July 2026. Location: Studio Voltaire, 1A Nelsons Row, London SW4 7JR. Price: Free. Book now
Jack Scollard, Cruising Archaeology, 2025. Image courtesy of the artist and SMUT Press.
Sara Cwynar: Baby Blue Benzo
Baby Blue Benz, a large-scale video installation by Sara Cwynar, opening this week at The Approach gallery, explores how contemporary visual culture shapes desire, value, and identity through the constant circulation of images. Using the Mercedes-Benz 300SLR as a starting point, it develops into a wider critique of capitalism, advertising, and consumer aesthetics, while also linking these themes to anxiety, insomnia, and the accelerated pace of modern life. Through a continuous scrolling format and imagery of people, objects, and media, it creates a sense of visual overload that reflects how meaning is constructed in today’s image-saturated environment. Accompanying photographs extend these ideas through collage, fashion references, and critiques of consumer culture.
Date: 23 April—7 June 2026. Location: The Approach, 47 Approach Road, London E2 9LY. Price: Free. theapproach.co.uk
Sara Cwynar Baby Blue Benzo, 2024 Anamorphic video projection, digital video and 16mm film transferred to video 21 minutes, sound Overall dimensions variable
Katharina Grosse: I Set Out, I Walked Fast
Bringing together new works, large-scale painted interventions, and rarely seen pieces from her archive, Katharina Grosse’s I Set Out, I Walked Fast will be opening at White Cube Bermondsey, where it explores painting as something that extends beyond the canvas into surrounding space. Using bold colour applied across architecture, sculpture, and ground, Grosse challenges the boundaries of painting, treating it as a force capable of reshaping perception and altering environments. To mark the opening, the artist will be in conversation with writer and curator Tom Morton, followed by an exhibition preview.
Date: 22 April–31 May 2026. Location: White Cube Bermondsey, 144–152 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3TQ. Price: Free. whitecube.com
Katharina Grosse, 2025. Photo © Diana Pfammatter.
Conceptual Art and Christine Kozlov
This week is the final opportunity to see Conceptual Art and Christine Kozlov, an exhibition that highlights Christine Kozlov’s influential but often overlooked role in the development of Conceptual Art from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s. The exhibition on show at Raven Row brings together her objects, ideas, and collaborative practices, situating her within an international network of artists who moved away from Minimalism, Pop Art, and modernism towards more politically engaged and dematerialised approaches. Alongside Kozlov’s works, it includes pieces by key peers and collaborators such as On Kawara and Joseph Kosuth, tracing her practice across different contexts and her engagement with global political events.
Date: Until 26 April 2026. Location: Raven Row, 56 Artillery Lane, London E1 7LS. Price: Free. ravenrow.org
Christine Kozlov, Self-Portraits (detail), 1968–70. © Christine Kozlov Estate Photo: Chloe Page
#FLOFavourites: Pick of the Week
Free event of the week
Tate Modern Lates: Tracey Emin – A Second Life
Photography Sophie Shaw
Tate Modern Lates returns this week on 24 April 2026, celebrating Tracey Emin’s A Second Life with a night of music, performances, workshops, talks and film across the gallery. Curated with Tracey Emin, the event brings together artists from Margate and London and highlights the creative community around TKE Studios. The programme includes live performances by TKE residents Keziah, Ted Rogers and Pink Suits, DJ sets from Paul Camo, Reggy Brown, Sophie Stirling and Fat Tony, plus workshops, film screenings, drawing activities, talks and a treasure hunt for prizes throughout the building.
Date: 24 April 2026. Time: 6pm - 10pm. Location: Tate Modern, Turbine Hall, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. Price: Free entry, but some events require advance booking or tickets (check programme for details). tate.org.uk
Art news of the week
National Art Pass announces 2026 Museum of the Year Finalists
The National Gallery, London, Museum of the Year, Shortlisted, 2026. © David Leven
Five institutions have been announced as finalists for the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2026, the world’s largest museum prize recognising excellence and innovation across the museum sector. The shortlisted museums are The Box in Plymouth, The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, The National Gallery in London, Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, and V&A East Storehouse. The winner will be announced on 25 June at Cutty Sark in London, with £120,000 awarded to the winning museum and £20,000 to each finalist.
Click here for more art news to be on your radar this week.
Food of the week
MOI
Image courtesy of MOI
MOI, the Japanese-inspired Soho restaurant, has introduced a new seasonal Chef’s Choice Lunch Menu. Priced at £38 for three courses, the menu combines traditional Japanese techniques with high-quality British ingredients, offering a calm and relaxed lunchtime experience in serene surroundings. Designed as a welcome escape from Soho’s busy midday atmosphere, it is ideal for both business lunches and solo dining. The menu includes seasonal dishes including smoked cod’s roe with fried steamed buns, bluefin toro temaki, sashimi selection, grilled baby squid, shiitake and smoked celeriac, and Hereford sirloin with sansho sauce.
Location: 86 Wardour St, Soho, W1F 0TQ. Website: moirestaurant.com Instagram: @moi.soho
Cause of the week
Radio Lollipop
Radio Lollipop
Radio Lollipop promotes the healing power of play by bringing comfort, laughter and normality to children in hospital. With one in four children admitted before the age of 14, many face repeated or long-term stays, and some spend much of their lives receiving care. The service helps young patients feel more in control by giving them a voice and choice through radio requests, music, prizes and on-air participation, offering a welcome break from the unfamiliar and often stressful hospital environment. Radio Lollipop welcomes volunteers to help deliver care, comfort, play and entertainment to children in hospital. Interested applicants can complete a short form and will then be contacted with next steps, while donations are also welcomed to support the work.
Click here to discover more about volunteering at Radio Lollipop.
