Things to do in London this weekend

The name might not be particularly tinselly, but this winsome, musical two-hander is an extremely charming tribute to – but also a subversion of – the Christmas romcom, both the Richard Curtis variety and the trashy Netflix it’s-snowing-in-New-York! breed. Leads Dougal (Sam Tutty) is a gawky, blissfully optimistic 25-year-old Brit who has turned up at JFK airport to commence a whirlwind 36-hour trip to New York and Robin (Dujonna Gift) is a stressed out 27-year-old local, grow closer, but it’s not quite the story you’re expecting. The book does a great job of gleefully embracing festive romcom tropes while deftly resisting sentimentality. It’s a perfectly balanced little show - snowflake light but with a surprising sting. 

In a 2020 interview, young Belgian painter Bendt Eyckermans said ‘my paintings are no great enigmas’. But this show of sombre images, full of symbols to decode and narratives to unravel, sure makes that seem like bs. It’s the works’ very enigmatic-ness that’s appealing. Eyckermans is inviting you into this dark, complex world of watching and making, of films and cinema and sensuality and emotional tenderness, of the gaze and where it’s aimed. These are tense portrayals of what’s seen and unseen, said and unsaid. They’re beautiful paintings; uncomfortable, disconcerting and very enigmatic.

The London International Animation Festival, the UK’s largest and longest-running animation festival, returns for its 20th year, championing the world of illustrated and stop-motion moving pictures in all their different guises. The event spans gala premieres, Q&A sessions with filmmakers, workshops, tours, screenings and more, and will feature animators from across the world. To mark its big birthday, there’ll be tribute screenings shining a light on animators who have changed the game and screening medleys of the best animations out there. 

Scandinavians take Christmas seriously, so expect plenty of festive feels at Rotherhide’s Finnish Church’s Christmas market. Browse traditional Finnish toys, design pieces, Christmas cards and plenty of Moomin memorabilia before tucking into barbequed food, cinnamon buns and salmon sandwiches, all washed down with a glass of steaming glögg. 

It’s been three decades since the nefarious penguin Feathers McGraw and his rubber-glove hat entered our lives when ‘Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers’ was released in 1993. To mark the big anniversary, the Cartoon Museum and Aardman Animations have collaborated for this exhibition, shining a light on the short film’s legacy. Visitors can look at never-before-seen behind-the-screen shots, once-believed lost set pieces and models and every surviving piece of original artwork. There’ll also be original art showcasing early designs for characters and original storyboards and other artworks from the Aardman vault. Cracking exhibition, Gromit! 

Hoxton’s Museum of the Home (formerly the Geffrye Museum) is hosting a very special ‘yard sale’ of designer furniture, pieces by local makers, textiles, homeware and other mid-mod and mid-mod-inspired goodies. As an added incentive to get you to pony up your hard-earned cash, a percentage of all sales will be donated to the Campaign for Change: Food Equality. Come on, that Danish(?) coffee set won’t buy itself.  

Powell and Pressburger’s cinematic classic ‘The Red Shoes’ turns 75 this year. To mark the anniversary of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tale-turned-visually stunning film, the BFI is opening a free exhibition following lead actor Moira Shearer’s personal story through the production as well as casting an eye over the iconic dance film’s legacy. Look out for two pairs of THE red shoes, personal items from Shearer’s family estate and Michael Powell’s viewfinder and 16mm camera used in ‘Peeping Tom’. 

Hans Holbein was special. And he had to be to make it in the Tudor Court. Arriving from Basel with nothing but a letter of recommendation from humanist philosopher Erasmus, Holbein worked his way to the very top of English society, painting aristocrats, lawyers, politicians, soldiers and, eventually, the king himself. This deeply atmospheric show brings together sketches and drawings by Holbein into a single vivid portrait of sixteenth-century life. The real gold is in watching a master figure things out, in finding out how he made images that have survived the centuries, and still somehow look modern today. 

Marcelo Dos Santos’s ‘Backstairs Billy’ is that rare thing: a new play that’s debuted straight into the West End. Set in the late 1970s, it puts the Queen Mother centre stage – following her relegation to bit-part player in ‘The Crown’ – and then focuses on how sidelined she is in Clarence House. The Billy of the title is William ‘Billy’ Tallon (Luke Evans), who joined the Royal Household aged 15, then moved to Clarence House with the Queen Mother (Penelope Wilton) after the death of her husband, King George VI. It’s an archly funny play, which is something deeper than just a straightforwardly heartwarming story. 

Everyone’s favourite riverside culture hotspot Southbank Centre is aglow again with festive illuminations. Winter Light is a free, open-air exhibition featuring an electric smorgasbord of lightworks (which is what we’re calling these now) from super-talented artists from around the world. All of them make mind-bending use of light, colour and even boundary-pushing film to deal with issues and topics surrounding nature, technology, urban life and spirituality.

What’s a London Christmas, without Somerset House's iconic ice rink? Skate around the grand neoclassical courtyard on this huge, 900-square-metre outdoor rink, with a 40ft Christmas tree plonked in the middle for maximum Insta-potential. This year the rink will have a Swiss wintery theme thanks to Switzerland Tourism and keep an eye an out for all-new skate lounge from iconic rosé brand Whispering Angel and its legendary weekend Skate Lates. 

If anger is an energy, there’s enough here to power the Tate for decades. The gallery is buzzing with the violent ire and shrieking fury of second-wave feminism because after all the freedom and liberation promised by the Swinging Sixties, British women in the 1970s had to deal with the reality: that not much had changed. And they were furious. This is an exhibition of 100 feminist artists and collectives kicking violently against the system. This is art made on the margins, in an attempt to kick back at an unjust society. It’s not meant to look good on a millionaire's wall, it’s meant to change the world. And it did. 

Dreaming of a kitsch Christmas? New York’s famous Miracle on Ninth Street bar is popping up in London for the festive season, bringing ’50s Christmas decorations, nostalgic alpine-themed accessories and creative takes on old-school cocktails to Covent Garden. Think of the ’60s stop-motion version of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ and you'll have your finger on the vibe of this wistful pop-up. Grab a seat at the bar, described as a ‘chalet living room on Christmas Eve’, and sip on a Snowball Old Fashioned or a Christmapoliton (ft spiced cranberry sauce and absinthe mist) served in vintage, festive glassware. 

The mother of all light trails, Christmas at Kew has become a key date in London’s festive calendar as the 300-acre botanic garden is lit up with glistening lights and illuminations. This year’s route will take you past glass houses emblazoned with kaleidoscopic projections, through shimmering tunnels of light and trees drenched in jewel-bright colours. As usual, there’ll also be warming winter snacks and a grotto where you can say hello to Father C himself. Be warned, Christmas at Kew tends to sell out quickly, so look sharp to secure your place.  

Never ending baskets of delicious dim sum. Need we say more? That means tucking into as many dumplings, rolls and buns as you can scoff down, all expertly put together by a Chinatown restaurant celebrating more than ten years of business. Taiwanese pork buns? Check. Pork and prawn soup dumplings? You betcha. ‘Supreme’ crab meat xiao long bao? Of course! And just to make sure you’re all set, Leong’s Legend is further furnishing your palate with a chilled glass of prosecco. Lovely bubbly.

Get 51% off bottomless dim sum at Leong's Legend only through Time Out Offers

The Grinch would have a real job stealing all the Christmas from Hyde Park’s huge tribute to festive fun. The annual favourite is back for its sixteenth year in 2023. Entry to Winter Wonderland is free during off-peak hours and either £5 or £7.50 during peak times, and you can head along for cheerily lit fairground rides, a child-friendly Santa Land (including Santa’s grotto) and quaint Christmas markets. It’s a real treat for anyone wanting to get into the festive spirit – as long as you’re ready to hear all those songs as you potter around. 

Other highlights of Hyde Park’s annual Christmas treat include circuses and the biggest outdoor rink in the UK – it surrounds the Victorian bandstand and is illuminated with more than 100,000 lights. There's also the Real Ice Slide, ice sculpting workshops and a German-style Bavarian Village full of frothing steins and live music.

The usual line-up of rollercoasters and fairground rides is sure to keep thrill-seekers happy. A good alternative for those who prefer to stay on solid ground is the selection of themed bars with real fires, except for the Bar Ice (for obvious structural reasons) where even the glasses you drink from are made of ice.

If you’re skating, be aware that while there’s no minimum age for skaters, under-12s must be accompanied by someone 16 or over and the smallest skates for hire are children's size 9 (adult skates go up to size 13). You can use your own skates as long as they’re not speed skates. Wheelchair users are welcome on the ice. There are also ice guides who can look after groups of up to 15 skaters at a time (for an additional charge).

Is Winter Wonderland free entry?

Only during off-peak hours. An adult ticket for Winter Wonderland will cost £5 during standard times and £7.50 during peak times. 

What dates is Winter Wonderland in London?

Winter Wonderland will be open to the public from Friday November 17 until Monday January 1, 2024. 

Tips for visiting Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park

This winter spectacle is super popular every year, but there's a couple of things that are good to know before you go.

The queues can get pretty long, so we recommend booking your tickets in advance. Plus, there's so much to explore that you need to leave a fair bit of time — it tends to take about three hours. Make sure you wrap up warm, too!

Lie back and think of the English countryside: do you picture rolling hills, endless green, bucolic perfection, Gainsborough, Constable, Turner? Of course you do, but this little exhibition at the William Morris Gallery proves English landscape art is about much more than undulating hills and gambolling lambs. From ultra-dramatic Gainsboroughs and Constable prints to stunning photos of the industrial north west by Chris Killip and staged images by Jo Spence of her face down and naked in a field as a murdered trespasser or a rebellious land rights protester. This is the messy truth of the English landscape and its somehow even more beautiful.

Lynn Nottage’s monumental 2015 drama ‘Sweat’ is one of the great twenty-first-century American plays, a working-class tragedy every bit as potent as anything written by Miller or O’Neill. ‘Clyde’s’ isn’t quite a sequel. But it’s certainly a companion piece. It’s a bittersweet play about the struggles of the working poor in an America that cares little for them. But it’s also a play that believes a better world might be possible. A radiant drama about love, hope and sandwiches.

There’s immersive theatre, and then there’s staging a classic play in the very room it was written about. The current run of Keith Waterhouse’s 1989 classic placed the titular Jeffrey Bernard in his own personal purgatory, the Coach and Horses pub in Soho. Peter O’Toole, Tom Conti have all played the John Hurtdefinitive original turn as the booze-sodden journalist, inveterate gambler and squiffy raconteur. This time it’s down to Robert Bathurst to don the crumpled linen blazer. The controlled chaos of James Hillier’s production begins when Bathurst’s louche Bernard staggers into the room. He is at once a proud poster-boy for the libertarian urge to ruin your own body, but also a deeply troubling look at the disease of alcoholism. Is it painfully funny, or harrowingly sad? Brilliantly, it’s a lot of both. 

Audrey Niffenegger’s sci-fi romance ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ has already been a book, a film and a TV series. Here’s teh stage version with a book by successful US playwright Lauren Gunderson and songs by Brits Joss Stone and Dave Stewart, directed by Bill Buckhurst. It’s watchable and fun with plenty of enjoyable songs determined to give you a good time.

Escape reality through maximum immersion and experience 42 masterpieces from 29 of the world’s most iconic artists, each reimagined through cutting-edge technology. Marble Arch’s high-tech Frameless gallery houses four unique exhibition spaces with hypnotic visuals reimaging work from the likes of Bosch, Dalí and more, all with an atmospheric score. Now get 90 minutes of eye-popping gallery time for just £19 through Time Out offers.

£19 tickets to Frameless immersive art experience only through Time Out offers 

Release your inner Grayson Perry at this pottery class that lets you get up close and personal with a hunk of silky, soft clay and transform it into something you can be really proud of. Token Studio near Tower Bridge hosts 90 minute potter’s wheel sessions where you can learn clay hand building techniques and paint and already fired piece. The best bit? You can bring your own beer! And if you love what you’ve made, then you can come back two weeks later to collect it for just £10. 

Just £32 for a BYOB Ultimate Pottery Experience only through Time Out offers. 

American artist Max Hooper Schneider got a place on a scientific expedition to deep sea hydrothermal vents, where fungi and bacteria are spewed out, giving life to the seas. But he’s also been to the reefs of Fukushima, where life has been obliterated by nuclear holocaust. His sculptural work here is art for the end times. He makes grisly, oily, grimy little dioramas of life after ecological collapse, after the death of the planet. Each is a dystopian, cyberpunk world unto itself and it’s as terrifying as it is brilliant.

Even if you think Christmas is a load of consumerist claptrap, you can’t deny that London looks a whole lot better when it’s hung with strings of glistening lights and glittering Christmas trees decorating every corner. And London is never in short supply of some thoroughly excellent festive light displays. Some of the biggest including Oxford Street and Carnaby Street are being switched on this week, so prepare to fill your eyes with sparkles this weekend. 

Many tech innovators speak about AI like an imminent, unstoppable messianic arrival that must be bowed down to and it’s that quasi-religiosity that’s at the core of Zach Blas’s ‘Cultus’, a throbbingly loud, heady, shadowy installation that imagines AI beings as future gods. The whole thing is like the set of a BDSM episode of Red Dwarf, and it’s visually super impressive. But its future gothic techno immersiveness hides a clever heart. The show feels like a very ancient warning against worshipping false idols. 

How do we know that we are in love? That’s the question at the heart of the melancholic romantic comedy 'Fingernails', in which a superb Jessie Buckley plays ex-teacher Anna, who has to decide whether loving someone is the same as being in love. 

There’s about to be a huge mirrored box in Covent Garden. Yes, you read that right. That’s because world famous fashion brand Marc Jacobs is about to open their first-ever pop-up store (inside this box) to launch their all-new Resort Collection. And don’t be surprised if Covent Garden tube station looks slightly shinier than usual. The platforms, plus a nine-foot tall tote-bag swing, and an immersive installation at Tottenham Court Road, are all also part of the new campaign — it sounds like the area will be glistening even more than usual for the festive season. Shiny is the designer's favourite colour, after all.

Every winter the Southbank Centre turns the banks of the Thames into a frosty wonderland, full of little wooden Alpine-style cabins selling gifts, warming drinks, and snacks. This year, you can cosy up at Jimmy’s Winter Lodge with its heated riverside snowglobes where you can snaffle down cheese fondue. Further down you’ll find huts serving up truffle burgers, duck wraps, Thai street food, Lebanese-Mediterranean cuisine and cheese toasties. Or grab a glass of mulled wine while you look through gifts, jewellery and decorations made by independent designers and take in those sparking riverside views.

It’s rare that the title of an exhibition carries as much weight as this. But with her show of paintings of Black figures, Claudette Johnson is giving space to features, bodies and figures that have historically existed only on the margins of art. Here, at the Courtauld, surrounded by Renoirs and Manets and Cezannes, Blackness is present. Its presence is its essence, these paintings are here, seen on a level playing field. And that matters.

‘Sunset Boulevard’ goes Mulholland Drive in Jamie Lloyd’s wonderfully weird and audacious take on the Andrew Lloyd Webber hit. The Brit super-director dramatically deploys live video and erstwhile Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger to stunningly bridge the gap between the dark comedy of Billy Wilder’s original 1950 film classic and the more earnest stylings of Webber’s 1993 hit. Scherzinger fully embraces the insecurities of the ageing star Norma Desmond, a one-time silent movie star who has become a recluse in the age of talkies, and as a piece of live theatre, it’s truly awesome stuff. Jamie Lloyd has been one of our best directors for a long time now and this feels like a landmark for him. 

Raven Row has been turned into a Lutz Bacher jukebox, and it’s playing all the hits. The American conceptualist (1943-2019) was a magpie, a thief, a sampler, picking up bits of visual and sonic culture to reassemble, twist, break and make into something new. This retrospective is an incredible portrait of countless things: the city, the body, popular culture, religion, the past and present, here and now, then and there. It’s a portrait of being, of existence, in all its delirious, confusing, confounding messiness.

Tara (Mia McKenna Bruce), Em (Enva Lewis) and Skye (Lara Peake) have decided to await their GCSE results in a Crete hotel awash with pre-party shots and sexual opportunity. 'How To Have Sex' is a wild and fun ride, whose sober moments are as important as they are uncomfortable. Through thick and thin, you'll want to join the girls on this trip to remember.

The cost of trade isn’t just financial. The goods we consume have historically been paid for in blood too, in actual lives. And this human cost of the history of trade is at the heart of this year’s Turbine Hall installation. Ghanaian artist El Anatsui has draped the cavernous space in vast reams of fabric. The first is a huge red and gold sail, a symbol of the transatlantic trade of goods and people. Now look close: that gleaming golden sail is made of bottle caps. It’s a whole circular economy of trade, goods, lives, culture and history, billowing in the Turbine Hall. El Anatsui’s installation is a shimmering, gorgeous, powerful elegy for a half-forgotten past, and for the bittersweet taste of endurance in the face of colonial exploitation. 

Twisting bodies and undulating flesh, all smooshing and splodging into half-abstract semi-chaos: you know what you’re getting with Christina Quarles. The American painter has a distinct visual language. It’s all limbs and skin, contorting and writhing. This new body of work in the huge, swanky new Pilar Corrias space in Mayfair is an explosion of joy, sensuality and summer heat, a bit of warmth just as the weather starts to turn.

Sometimes, big, clever art is there to make you feel small and stupid. Or at least insignificant. That’s what the best work of Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto does. His retrospective at the Hayward finds him toying with light and dark, reality and fiction, life and death, all to make you go slack-jawed in awe at your pitiful place in the universe. From photography of stuffed animals from the American Museum of Natural History, shot to look real, to endless images of abandoned cinemas to beautiful, meditative images of bodies of water, at his best, Sugimato makes you feel like the universe is huge and you’re insignificant. And that’s the point. 

This latest entry in movies that the Australian tourism board probably don’t want you to see. Set in the desert and loosely based on the hectic documentary 'Hotel Coolgardie', 'The Royal Hotel' clearly traces a line of kangaroo-containing shockers from Ted Kotcheff’s seminal outback thriller 'Wake in Fright' by way of 'Wolf Creek'.

Prepare to taste the best British produce with a delicious three-course seasonal menu, which may arguably be the best food in Kensington and beyond. Under the guidance of Executive Chef John Serhal, this restaurant partners with some of the finest suppliers in the country to bring you exquisite dishes, including foraged wild mushroom tarts, confit duck, poached North Sea cod and much more. And with excellent views overlooking the natural beauty of Kensington Gardens, this is the perfect spot to unwind.

Exclusive £30 for three courses and a drink at Origin Kensington only through Time Out offers

‘Skateboard’, an exhibition curated and designed by author, designer and skater Johnathan Olivares, is a comprehensive showcasing of the iconic piece of equipment that’s turned a sport into a full-on subculture. Ninety skateboards, along with more than 100 pieces of hardware, wheels and tucks will be on display, showing the evolution of their design from the retro ’50s Californian models to contemporary examples. Look out for Tony Hawk’s first-ever professional model skateboard, and Laura Thornhill’s Logan Earth Ski 1970s pro model (pictured). 

Proving there’s no time limit when it comes to seasonal activities, London’s longest-running ice rink is back in Canary Wharf’s Canada Square Park adding a dose of frosty fun to the business district. The huge 1,200-square-metre arena is open for 18 whole weeks beginning way before the rest of the ice rinks appear around London and lasting long after we’ve packed away the Christmas decorations and broken our New Year’s resolutions. It’s covered with a canopy so you can slip and side even in bad weather and there’s a rinkside bar and themed DJ nights to look out for. Get your skates on!

A faceless, grey corporate office; patterned carpet tiles, neon strip lights. This is early 2000s corporate America as seen by American artist Avery Singer. But this isn’t just any date in the early 2000s, this is 9/11. This immersive, trippy, beige installation is a meditation on tragedy and collective trauma, on one event which tore apart a country, and shattered Singer’s own youth. She lived down the road from the World Trade Center, her mother worked there. Who she is, what America is, was fundamentally altered by 9/11. You enter the gallery and face a wall of lifts, portals to a seemingly endless array of offices. Inside hang portraits of people impacted by the attack. In the space next door, Singer has created a bookstore filled with 2000s-era thrillers and self-help books. Down an office corridor, you find more paintings. It’s deeply, unsettlingly, brilliantly affecting.

Is ‘Flowers for Mrs Harris’ the feelgood fairytale we need during a cost-of-living crisis? Bronagh Lagan’s revival of Richard Taylor and Rachel Wagstaff’s 2016 musical version of Paul Gallico’s 1958 novella, ‘Mrs ‘Arris Goes to Paris’, makes a good case for it. Jenna Russell plays the eponymous working-class cleaner, who uncomplainingly improves the lives of a litany of selfish or oblivious clients in 1950s Battersea, before falling in love with a Christian Dior dress in a brochure and visiting the Paris store against all the odds. This show brims over with a kindness that may be more wish fulfilment than reality, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that right now. Soak it up and cheer Mrs Harris along.

Get ready to see Philip Guston implode. Because over the course of this big retrospective of the American artist’s (1913-1980) work, you watch one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century fall to pieces, collapse in on himself, and then be born anew. It’s amazing. The child of Jewish refugees, he watched racism flourish on the streets of LA at the hands of the KKK and chose to create art of resistance. He painted revolutionary murals in Mexico, portable frescoes for left-wing events and murals for housing projects. Then came big fleshy canvases smudged over with pink and blue and black, like vast bruises. They’re staggering, brilliant paintings, satirical, aggressive, caked in nicotine, paranoia and obsession.

Ben Weatherill’s ‘Frank and Percy’ is a largely charming comedy-drama about two elderly dog owners from Yorkshire: Ian McKellen’s Percy, and Frank, played by fellow national treasure Roger Allam. Meeting one day in Hampstead Heath, the duo take to scheduling their walkies together. They’re lonely, apart from their canine pals: the prickly Percy is apparently divorced; Frank is widowed. Idle chats turn into a friendship that largely seems pragmatic until Percy lets slip that his ex was a man. It’s a cracking play, crisply directed. It’s two of our greatest actors flexing their comedy muscles and Yorkshire accents. 

This winter, find the perfect alternative to the classic roast at Shoreditch-based restaurant The Light Bar. Enter the Engine Room and indulge in the don’t hold back Weekend Feast menu every Saturday and Sunday. Choose from a hearty roasted chicken or wood-grilled bavette, both served with deliciously cooked fries and fresh green salad. This experience is set to be the highlight of your week, with bottomless Bloody Marys and seasonal Bellinis accompanying this delectable meal.

Enjoy the weekend feast and bottomless cocktails at The Light Bar for £30 only through Time Out offers.

For decades Marina Abramović has put her body on the line to make big, bold, sweeping, direct art about nothing less than life, death, sex and love. She is totally, utterly committed to the art – that’s why it works, even when it gets a bit silly. This long-delayed retrospective at the RA shows her work is still influential, pioneering and moving, and still powerful enough to endure, to forge connections, maybe even to bring you to tears, even if she isn’t present.

Pioneering couturière, and Nazi sympathiser: the V&A’s latest fashion blockbuster tells the story of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel’s revolutionary designs, and the wartime ventures which still eclipse her legacy. This substantial retrospective is a gentle guide through her whole design journey – the story of a girl from humble beginnings who worked her way up to establishing one of the world’s biggest fashion brands. As well as flouncy dresses, sharp, luxurious Chanel suits and elegant gowns it also deals with some of the trickier questions about her morality, but elegantly chronicles her undeniable, innovative talent.

It’s hard to know if Italian Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna was issuing a doom-laden warning or just a doe-eyed love letter to history. Because written into the nine sprawling canvases of his ‘Triumphs of Caesar’ (six of which are on show here while their gallery in Hampton Court Palace is being renovated) is all the glory and power of Ancient Rome, but its eventual collapse too. For contemporary viewers, the triumphs offer a faded vision of a lost world. This is the peak of empire, of grandeur and riches and dominance and avarice and cruelty and subjugation, the pinnacle of society before an inevitable fall. 

Head to Hapmstead Theatre and catch Magdalena Miecznicka’s 'Nineteen Gardens', starring Olivia Le Andersen and David Sturzaker for just a tenner. Follow the story of John and Aga, as they meet once again, two years after the end of their affair. There is a void in both of their lives, he’s immersed in a world of wealth and privilege, while she struggles to support her family by working as a chambermaid. Both feel the spark. Will they rekindle their fling or is there a darker game about to be played out? 

Exclusive £10 tickets to see 'Nineteen Gardens' at Hamptead Theatre, only through Time Out offers.

Sarah Lucas’s art isn’t big, and it isn’t clever. But who says art needs to be either of those things? Maybe, instead, art can be vulgar, puerile, obscene, grotesque and childish, just like Lucas’s. As soon as you walk into this big look back across her career, you meet a mechanical hand tossing off an invisible man, a wax cock on a wooden chair, a wall of tabloid tits, and lists of words for shit and wanking. Not big, not clever, but funny, shocking and, genuinely, deeply insightful. It turns out, the best art is satirical, cynical, vulgar, stupid, funny and absolutely full of knob gags. It’s not big, and it’s not clever, but it’s very, very good.

As we wind down into colder months, it’ll be hard not to reminisce about those balmy European summer holidays. Opera Tavern offers a temporary fix, inviting you on a trip to Spain and Italy's bustling bars and restaurants. Head Chef Pavlin Karantatski and his team have created a menu of exciting southern Europe-influenced dishes using the very best seasonal ingredients, including Chicken ballotine, Burrata, Panzanella salad, Gorgonzola and pear tortellini and more.

Get seven courses and a glass of Prosecco at Opera Tavern for £35, only through Time Out Offers.

London’s famous Argentinian steak house has an offer you can’t refuse. Tuck into a three-course meal including cuts of some of the world’s best quality steak from premium Black Angus cattle bred at hand-selected farms in the Pampas region of Argentina, along with other contemporary, globally-influenced dishes. They’ll also throw in a glass of fine wine. 

£35 for three courses and a glass of wine at Gaucho only through Time Out offers. 

Discover Gallio, the ultimate Mediterranean dining experience in London’s Canary Wharf. Indulge in all-day freshness as talented chefs craft delectable dishes from scratch, from freshly homemade falafel, cured beef croquetas and honey-truffled patatas to a wide array of signature pizzas with unique flavours. Wash down your meal with a cocktail, mocktail or beer – whatever takes your fancy.

Get three courses and a cocktail at Gallio for just £20, only through Time Out offers. 

The name might not be particularly tinselly, but this winsome, musical two-hander is an extremely charming tribute to – but also a subversion of – the Christmas romcom, both the Richard Curtis variety and the trashy Netflix it’s-snowing-in-New-York! breed.

Dougal (Sam Tutty) is a gawky, blissfully optimistic 25-year-old Brit who has turned up at JFK airport to commence a whirlwind 36-hour trip to New York, built around the wedding of his father… who he had never actually met, but has invited him regardless.

Robin (Dujonna Gift) is a stressed out 27-year-old local and sister to the (very young) bride-to-be. She’s been charged with meeting Dougal at the airport. Being a cynical New Yorker, she is instantly horrified by his excitement at being there, desire to see the sights, and belief that the Golden Gate Bridge is in NYC.

Their froideur doesn’t last: Dougal is like a human pillow, immune to any sarcasm or cynicism or attempt by Robin to get rid of him: he blithely invites himself along on her trip to Brooklyn to pick up her sister’s wedding cake.

They grow closer, but it’s not quite the story you’re expecting. Co-written by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan, the book does a great job of gleefully embracing festive romcom tropes while deftly resisting sentimentality. Neither does it have any problem turning on the old endorphins, but it’s the gradual dawning that both Dougall and Robin’s lives are much more complicated than convention dictates that powers the show. We increasingly feel for them not because we’re expecting a Hallmark ending, but because it’s obvious one isn’t possible.

With just a small band and an aversion to overemoting, Barne and Buchan’s tunes fit nimbly into Tim Jackson’s fast-paced production but show-stoppers they’re not. What works best are the more patter-style, semi-spoken word numbers, which best channel the spark and humour of the book – the one in which Dougall assesses Robin’s Tinder profile and prospects is an absolute hoot.

There’s a lovely revolving set from Soutra Gilmour, based around piles of battered silver suitcases. They contain various smart tricks and surprises, but also the gimmicks aren’t laid on too thick.

Mostly, though, it’s powered by two delightful leads. Tutty made his name with his Olivier-winning starring role in ‘Dear Evan Hansen’. This is only his second major stage part, but lightning has very much struck twice. True, Dougal is an awkward young person, but there the similarities with Evan end - Tutty shows his range with a funny and somewhat tragic performance as a loveable nerd who sweet-natured zest for life blinds him to the sadness of his own circumstance. Gift is less well-known, and saddled with the straighter role, but she’s also excellent. Yes, Robin is a badass with a heart of gold, but Gift is superb at showing how she has withdrawn into her shell, nursing a complex sense of disappointment at herself.

The first half is about 15 minutes too long, and I think Dougal could be a grating character in the hands of a less winning actor than Tutty. But these are minor quibbles in the face of this perfectly balanced little show - snowflake light but with a surprising sting. A properly charming turning on of the lights for the 2023 London Christmas theatre season.