What’s on in London this week: 4 - 10 August 2025
Discover our pick of events in London this week: 4 - 10 August 2025.
Krankbrother Finsbury Park
Krankbrother is hosting two major electronic music events this weekend at Finsbury Park in London. On Saturday, Honey Fcking Dijon In The Park* takes place from 1pm to 10pm, featuring Honey Dijon alongside Horse Meat Disco, Kerri Chandler, KILIMANJARO, and TSHA, with two stages, street food, craft beers, and cocktails. The following day, CamelPhat headlines from 1pm to 9.30pm, supported by Mind Against, Julya Karma, and Mita Gami.
Date: 9 - 10 August 2025. Location: Finsbury Park Rd, London N4 2NQ. Both events are 18+ with tickets available through Resident Advisor and Krankbrother’s official channels. Entry is before 7pm.Book now
Krankbrothers. Image credit Mike Portlock
Edward Gardner Conducts the LPO
Edward Gardner conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra this Sunday at the Royal Albert Hall. The programme features Sibelius’s The Oceanides, Tippett’s The Rose Lake, Ravel’s Shéhérazadeperformed by mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina, and Debussy’s La mer. The concert promises a rich exploration of evocative orchestral works by four master composers. This performance is part of the ongoing BBC Proms, which runs until 13 September 2025.
Date: Sunday 10 August 2025. Time: 7.30pm. Location: Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AP. Price: £11–£56 (plus booking fee). Book now
Mahsa Salali: THE CALL – MUBĀH مباح
As part of Whitechapel Gallery’s London Open Live series, Mahsa Salali presents THE CALL – MUBĀH مباح, a durational performance exploring resilience, identity, and the politics of the body. The work poses the central question, “Is the body an enabler or an entrapment?” Rooted in ritual and endurance, Salali stands motionless, bearing 20 kilograms of chain, connected to seven double bassists. This sculptural image pays tribute to radical Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya and the mythological force of Medusa. The piece confronts and dismantles societal and religious expectations imposed on the female-presenting body, reclaiming vulnerability as power and stillness as protest. Salali invites the audience into a space of collective witnessing, ritual, and reckoning. Please note this performance contains nudity.
Date: 7 August 2025. Time: 7–8.30pm. Location: Whitechapel Gallery, 77–82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. Price: Pay What You Can. whitechapelgallery.org
Edward Gardner to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra this Sunday, at the Royal Albert Hall.
Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby
A Peaky Blinders show opens at Sadler’s Wells Theatre this week as Rambert reimagines the Shelby legacy in The Redemption of Thomas Shelby. Set in the aftermath of the First World War, it follows Tommy’s rise through Birmingham’s underworld, told through fierce and cinematic choreography, with a live band playing music from Radiohead, Nick Cave, Anna Calvi and more. It is visceral, stylish and darkly moving, Peaky like you’ve never seen it before.
Date: 5–16 August 2025. Duration: approx. 2 hr 10 min run time with interval). Location: Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Rosebery Avenue, London EC1R 4TN. Price: from £15 + BF. Book now
Labyrinth on the Thames
Labyrinth on the Thames continues this week at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, with a final weekend of shows from Solomun (8 August), FISHER (9 August), and Anjunadeep (10 August). Set against the beautiful backdrop of the River Thames and 17th-century architecture, this groundbreaking series brings leading names in dance music to a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
All dates for Labyrinth on the Thames have now sold out. Join the waitlist.
Camden Fringe continues this with shows including People by Anna Manuelli.
People
People is a new solo performance by Anna Manuelli, best known for SAS: Rogue Heroes 2, premiering as part of the Camden Fringe. Exploring the idea of doppelgängers across time, the piece follows different characters in different eras, each with distinct lives and choices, yet all sharing the same face. Inspired by the belief that every person has seven doubles in the world, it asks who these people might be and what they were searching for. Shifting timelines and identities unfold in a haunting meditation on identity, destiny, and the universal search for meaning. Next week is your final chance to see this thought-provoking show.
Date: 4 August 2025. Time: 5pm. Duration: 60 mins. Location: The Etcetera, 265 Camden High Street, NW1 7BU. Price: £12. Book now
Big Smoke Festival
Skepta’s Big Smoke Festival returns this weekend, Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 August 2025, at London’s iconic Crystal Palace Bowl. Curated by the Mercury Prize-winning artist, the festival celebrates grime, house, and underground music across two days. Saturday’s grime day features headline sets from Skepta, Central Cee, Chip, JME & Frisco (B2B), and more, showcasing the best of UK rap and grime. Sunday, curated by Skepta’s house and techno collective Más Tiempo, offers hypnotic house and underground beats with sets from Skepta (DJ set), Maceo Plex, Ilario Alicante, and others. Both days run from 2pm to 10:30pm, are for ages 16+.
Date: 9 - 10 August 2025. Location: Crystal Palace Bowl, Crystal Palace Park, Ledrington Road, London SE26 6UT. Price: from £75.60. Book now
Tai Chi on Lakeside To take place at the Barbican this week.
Wellness
Tai Chi on Lakeside
Join a beginner-friendly Tai Chi session at Lakeside Terrace during the Play Make Do festival from 9 to 16 August 2025. This calming, meditative practice combines slow, flowing movements to improve balance, strength, and wellbeing. Suitable for all ages and abilities, the session offers a gentle introduction to Tai Chi, guiding you to connect mind and body with ease and focus. No experience is needed.
Date: 9–16 August 2025. Location: Lakeside Terrace, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: from £10. Book now
Cinema
My Beautiful Laundrette
This week is the final chance to catch My Beautiful Laundrette at the ICA, presented as part of the Cinema Rediscovered on Tour season. The film famously launched the careers of writer Hanif Kureishi, actor Daniel Day-Lewis, and director Stephen Frears. This bold and controversial 1985 comedy explores themes of multiculturalism, Thatcherism, and neoliberalism, centring on a gay interracial relationship that challenged social norms and drew both acclaim and criticism. Its sharp portrayal of social tensions, economic ambition, and racial identity remains strikingly relevant 40 years on. A new 2K restoration, supervised by cinematographer Oliver Stapleton in collaboration with Criterion, Park Circus, and Channel 4, brings this landmark British film back to the screen.
Date: 5 - 7 August 2025. Location: ICA is situated at 12 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH. Price: from £14. Concessions available. Book now
My Beautiful Laundrette, dir. Stephen Frears, UK 1985, 98 min. 15
Arts & Culture
Opening this week
Tai Shani: The Spell or The Dream
Turner Prize winner Tai Shani will present The Spell or The Dream, a major free commission that will celebrate Somerset House’s 25th anniversary. A ten metre glass enclosed sculpture of a sleeping figure will form the centrepiece, accompanied by an immersive soundscape and The Dream Radio, a global radio broadcast that will stream continuously. The project will invite audiences to explore dreaming as a radical act of imagination through live talks, performances, and a family programme running throughout the summer holidays. A series of conversations and special events will offer space to reflect on themes such as power, democracy, and possible futures. The work will remain at Somerset House through August before touring to Jupiter Artland near Edinburgh from October 2025.
Date: 7 August – 14 September 2025. Location: Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA. Price: Free. somersethouse.org.uk
Tai Shani: The Spell or The Dream. © Adam James Sinclair and Lotti V Closs, 2024
Millet: Life on the Land
The National Gallery marks 150 years since the death of Jean-François Millet with Millet: Life on the Land, a display of his most iconic works. Born into a farming family, Millet brought dignity to rural life in 19th-century French art. Highlights include L’Angelus (1859), and his influence can be seen in artists like Van Gogh, Degas, and Pissarro.
Date: 7 August – 19 October 2025. Location: National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN. Price: Free. nationalgallery.org.uk
Pictograms: Iconic Japanese Designs. Image courtesy Japan House London
Pictograms: Iconic Japanese Designs
Pictograms: Iconic Japanese Designs celebrates the art of Japanese visual communication and is now open at Japan House London. The exhibition traces the evolution of pictograms from ancient cave paintings to today’s digital emojis, highlighting Japan’s lasting influence, most notably the 1964 Tokyo Olympic icons and the creation of the emoji. Highlights include the Experience Japan Pictograms project, featuring over 600 designs to assist international travellers, interactive 3D pictograms, and original pictogram designs by UK schoolchildren inspired by their vision of London.
Click here for our review.
Date: 30 July – 9 November 2025. Location: Japan House London, 101–111 Kensington High Street, W8 5SA. Price: Free.
Last chance
Encounters: Giacometti x Huma Bhabha
Giacometti x Huma Bhabha at the Barbican Centre, bringing together the work of contemporary artist Huma Bhabha and renowned 20th-century sculptor Alberto Giacometti. Launching the Barbican’s new, more intimate gallery space, the show spans nearly a century of sculpture, with pieces in plaster, bronze, terracotta, assemblage, and found materials. Bhabha’s post-apocalyptic figures are shown in conversation with Giacometti’s iconic postwar forms, both artists examining the human body as a vessel for trauma, memory, and transformation.
Date: 8 May - 10 August 2025. Location: Level 2, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London,EC2Y 8DS. Price: £8 + BF. Book now.
Installation view, Encounters: Giacometti x Huma Bhabha, Nothing is Behind Us, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 2025. Photo by Max Creasy
Artist Talk
Pratibha Parmar, Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth
This week at the ICA, Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth offers a powerful portrait of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s journey from the segregated American South to international acclaim as a writer and activist. Featuring rare archival footage, interviews, and poetic storytelling, the film explores Walker’s lifelong commitment to racial, gender, and ecological justice. Directed by her longtime friend and comrade Pratibha Parmar, the documentary situates Walker’s legacy within Black feminist, queer, and anti-imperialist movements. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Parmar and season curator Nydia A. Swaby.
Date: 6 August 2025. Time: 7pm. Location: ICA, 12 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH. Price: £15 full price / £13 concessions / £5 25 & under. Includes a free exhibition ticket for the day of the event, accessed from a member of staff at the front desk. Book now
#FLOFavourites: Pick of the Week
Free event of the week
Deptford Northern Soul Club & Friends
Deptford Northern Soul Club & Friends
Deptford Northern Soul Club & Friends brings an evening of Northern Soul to the Southbank Centre’s Riverside Terrace, inviting everyone to spin, shuffle and dance to a top-tier line-up of DJs. With sets from Sherry’s Soul Society, Let Me Cry DJs, and headliners Deptford Northern Soul Club, the event promises a night of rhythm, movement and classic soul sounds. Known for their appearances at festivals like Glastonbury and Green Man, and residencies across the UK, Deptford Northern Soul Club channel their deep passion for soul music into inclusive, high-spirited nights that celebrate dance culture across generations. Part of the Dance Your Way Home series.
Date: 8 August 2025. Time: 5.30pm–10.30pm. Location: Riverside Terrace, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. Price: Free. southbankcentre.co.uk
Pop-ups and Venues
Summer shop in celebration of Somerset House’s 25th birthday
Summer shop in celebration of Somerset House’s 25th birthday
In celebration of Somerset House’s 25th birthday, a pop-up shop is currently open in the East Wing until 28 September 2025. The shop showcases a curated selection of books, artworks, zines, and handcrafted décor from the onsite creative community, including Studios artists, Black Business Residency participants, and creative start-ups. It also features rare items from Somerset House’s rich cultural history. With a variety of price points, most sales directly support the artists and innovators behind the work.
Date: 23 July – 28 September 2025. Location: East Wing, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA. somersethouse.org.uk
Food of the week
Fire & Wine
Image courtesy of Fire & Wine
This week’s Food of the Week is Fire & Wine in Marylebone, the newly rebranded evolution of Boxcar Bar & Grill. Led by chef Zisis Gkalmpenis, the menu focuses on open-fire cooking and seasonal, bold-flavoured dishes, paired with low-intervention wines. Highlights include tiger prawns with chilli and garlic, a perfectly grilled 56-day aged ribeye, curried cauliflower with sultanas and lime, and a seriously tasty grilled croissant tiramisu for dessert. With its style and delicious food, Fire & Wine is a fresh and exciting addition to London’s dining scene.
Location: Fire & Wine, 45 Blandford St, Marylebone, London W1U 7JG. Website: boxcar.co.uk. Instagram: @fireandwinebyboxcar
Cause of the week
Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
This week, we’re highlighting Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) as our Cause of the Week for their critical, life-saving work across some of the world’s most urgent and overlooked crises, including in Gaza, Sudan, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). MSF is an independent humanitarian organisation that provides emergency medical care to people affected by war, disaster, disease, and exclusion from healthcare. In Gaza, MSF teams are treating the wounded and supporting overwhelmed hospitals amid what they have called an unfolding genocide. In Sudan, they are delivering care in collapsing health systems during a brutal civil war. In Haiti, they remain one of the few organisations operating as gang violence devastates communities and healthcare access. In eastern DRC, MSF is responding to a worsening conflict between the M23/AFC armed group and the Congolese army, which has displaced hundreds of thousands and triggered a humanitarian disaster marked by sexual violence, cholera outbreaks, and extreme malnutrition. You can discover more about what MSF is doing in each of these regions and donate here to support their emergency teams working on the frontlines.
