Notting Hill Carnival turns 60 this bank holiday, Outernet is putting six decades of carnival photography on its screens, and six of the summer’s best free things shut for good before Monday. Here’s our edit of the week of 24 to 30 August.
This is the week London builds up to its biggest street party, and it’s also the week a surprising amount of summer quietly ends. The Bank of England’s beehive, the Barbican’s outdoor cinema, Round the Dock, Spital Beats, the Mr Doodle trail and the Globe’s Midsummer all finish inside the next seven days. Carnival gets the headlines, deservedly, but there’s a whole week of last chances underneath it.
Notting Hill Carnival (Saturday 29 to Monday 31 August)
Notting Hill, Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park, W10 and W11
Carnival is 60 this year, counting from Rhaune Laslett’s 1966 street festival, and the organisers are billing it as the Diamond Jubilee. Saturday is Panorama, the UK national steel band competition, at Emslie Horniman’s Pleasance Park, with the junior heats at 5pm and the main event at 8pm. Sunday brings J’Ouvert from 6am and the children’s parade. Monday is the big one: the adults’ parade steps off at 10.30am and the sound systems run to early evening. At 3pm on Monday the whole route falls silent for 72 seconds, one for each person who died at Grenfell Tower, and it stops everything, music, stalls, conversation.
Sunday and Monday are free and unticketed. Panorama, the Calypso Monarch finals at The Tabernacle on Thursday, and the grandstand seats for Sunday and Monday all need tickets through the carnival’s own site. The 2026 route map hadn’t been published when we checked, though it usually loops around three miles between Great Western Road, Westbourne Grove and Ladbroke Grove. Notting Hill Gate, Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park are the nearest stations and all get very busy, so Royal Oak or Queen’s Park with a walk in is the smarter play. Our carnival guide has the timings, the history and the practical stuff in full.
Carnival 60: Ian Watts at Outernet (Thursday 27 August to Wednesday 2 September)
Outernet, Tottenham Court Road
Ian Watts first photographed Notting Hill Carnival in 1976, as a teenager, and he’s been going back ever since. Outernet is running his archive across its wraparound screens, opening in recent colour and travelling back into black and white as it goes. On screens that size, at that scale, it lands very differently to a print on a gallery wall.
Free, and it takes ten minutes. Go before carnival rather than after, it genuinely changes what you notice on the route.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe (Tuesday 25 to Saturday 29 August)
Globe Theatre, 21 New Globe Walk, SE1 9DT
Emily Lim’s production has been in repertory since April and finishes this week, and it is enthusiastically anti-classical: Athens relocated to a maypole-and-folk-song version of half-Elizabethan England, Bottom in Hamilton and Cats merch, a sequinned donkey, bubble cannons at the end. During the pre-show the company auditions groundlings for the Mechanicals, and one audience member ends up playing Moon in the final scene, for real, in front of everyone.
Standing in the yard is £5 or £10, seated £28 to £88, and the £5 rush releases every Friday at 11am for the following week. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are 7.30pm, Wednesday is a 2pm matinee, Friday has already sold out, and Saturday 29 August is the last performance. Before you go, 14 things worth knowing about the Globe covers the bits the tour guides skip.
Summer by the River: The Karate Kid (Tuesday 25 August)
The Clubhouse, London Bridge City, SE1
Deckchairs, a big screen and Tower Bridge behind it. This is the only film in the London Bridge City programme falling inside our week, so it’s Karate Kid or nothing until September.
Free and walk-in, from 7pm. Tuesday and Friday evenings run Club Pravha beforehand, two Pravhas for £12 or a pizza and a pint for £18.50. Get there early for a deckchair, they go.
Cordelia’s Mayfair opens (Tuesday 26 August)
6 Clarges Street, Mayfair, W1J 8AE
The old L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon site has sat empty long enough to feel like a loss, and what’s replacing it is a live-fire steakhouse from Jordi Sebastianelli, previously of Le Petit Beefbar. British dry-aged beef and heritage breeds over open flame, a theatre kitchen you can watch from the room, an agave-led bar, and a resident DJ once the evening gets going.
À la carte, opening Tuesday, and worth booking rather than chancing it in week one.
Rhythm 108 x The Real Fruit Ice Cream Co (Thursday 27 August)
Old Spitalfields Market, 16 Horner Square, E1 6EW
Two limited-edition flavours, Banana PB Cookie and Strawberry Choc Cookie, both dairy-free and gluten-free, both being handed out for nothing until they run out.
Free, first come first served. The timings still haven’t been published, so follow @rhythm108 and @therealfruiticecreamco for the window before you make the trip.
Coq au Vin: KFC x La Vieille Ferme (Friday 28 to Monday 31 August)
Kachette Annex, 1 Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, E2 8AA
Fried chicken matched to wine, played reasonably straight: popcorn chicken with sparkling rosé, hot wings with red, tenders with white or rosé. It’s a joke that turns out to work, because salt and fat and acid have always got along. We’ve got the full story on the pop-up.
£15 a head for a 90-minute slot, and it has sold out. Eventbrite is holding limited walk-in spaces on the day, so it’s a turn-up-and-queue proposition now. Noon to 9pm Friday to Sunday, noon to 5pm on Monday.
House of Burlesque: Overture (Friday 28 August)
QT at The Middle Eight, 66 Great Queen Street, Covent Garden, WC2B 5BX
The last night of the summer run before the show breaks until October. Tightly choreographed, funnier than the genre usually allows, and staged close enough that there’s nowhere to hide. We reviewed it earlier this month.
From £20 general admission, up to £127 for the VIP seats. Doors 7pm, show 7.45pm to 10pm, over-18s with photo ID.
The Power of Honey (last chance, closes Friday 28 August)
Bank of England Museum, Bartholomew Lane, EC2R 8AH
There is a working beehive inside the Bank of England, which is a sentence we enjoy typing. Bompas & Parr built the exhibition around it, tying honey to money in ways that sound like a stretch until you’re standing in it.
Free, no booking, weekdays only, and Friday is the last day. Two things to know: it’s shut all weekend, so this really is now or never, and it closes at 3pm on Friday rather than the usual 5pm.
Spital Beats (final Friday, 28 August)
Old Spitalfields Market, Commercial Street, E1 6BJ
The market’s free Friday live music run finishes this week, two hours of jazz and blues under the Victorian roof with the traders still going on around you.
Free, 5pm to 7pm, no booking. The lineup for the final date hadn’t been posted when we checked, so it’s worth looking at the market’s own channels on the day.
Cotton Beach Club Ibiza at alto by San Carlo (Saturday 29 August)
alto by San Carlo, The Rooftop, Selfridges, 400 Oxford Street, W1A 1AB
Ibiza’s Cotton Beach Club takes over the Selfridges rooftop for a bank holiday one-off: a joint Mediterranean and Balearic menu, roaming caviar and cannoli service, and DJs, sax and percussion as the afternoon turns into the evening.
À la carte, tables from 4pm, booking through SevenRooms. There’s a second date on 26 September if this one goes.
Freight Brixton: The Big Brunch (Saturday 29 August)
Freight Brixton, 33 Brixton Station Road, SW9 8PB
The Saturday series changes genre every week, and bank holiday Saturday is old school hip hop. It’s on Brixton’s rooftop, it’s over-18s, and it commits properly rather than sticking a playlist on.
£33 including an hour of bottomless drinks. Doors at noon, the bottomless hour runs from noon to 1pm and the entertainment goes to 4pm, so this is a daytime thing that leaves the evening free.
Round the Dock closing weekend (Friday 28 to Sunday 30 August)
Canada Water dockside, Surrey Quays Road, SE16 2XU
Six weeks of free music on a floating stage end this weekend, and the final markets are Independent Label Market and N4 Makers: vinyl, art and handmade design rather than the food traders of earlier weeks.
Free, no tickets, just turn up. Note it wraps on Sunday and doesn’t run into bank holiday Monday, so don’t save it for the last day.
Barbican Open Air Cinema (final week, Tuesday 25 to Sunday 30 August)
Sculpture Court, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS
Six films to close the season, all outdoors in the Sculpture Court with the towers going up around you. The Florida Project on Tuesday, Pierrot le Fou on Wednesday, Poetic Justice on Thursday, Beautiful Thing on Friday, Desperately Seeking Susan on Saturday, and American Utopia closing it on Sunday.
£20 standard, £10 for under-18s, with concession and Young Barbican rates below that. Every screening starts at 8.30pm, and there’s nothing on Monday.
Mr Doodle’s Doodle Discovery (last weekend, until Sunday 30 August)
Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and St James’s Market
Five two-metre Mr Doodle sculptures scattered across the West End, each themed to something the area does: cinema, theatre, art, community and food. Scan the QR codes as you go and you’re entered for Royal Academy Summer Exhibition tickets and a meal for four at Gordon Ramsay Street Burger. Our guide to the trail maps the five.
Free, self-paced, and about an hour at a wander. Sunday is the last day.
Marrone, London’s tiramisu-only counter (weekends)
15-16 Sherwood Street, Soho, W1F 7BJ
Giancarlo Fanigliulo opened Marrone this month doing one thing: tiramisu, in three versions. Original, DOP Bronte pistachio, and Valrhona dark chocolate finished with Maldon sea salt, each available with or without the alcohol.
Check before you go. Reported hours are Saturdays from noon until it sells out and Sundays 10am to 3pm, which makes this a weekend errand rather than a weekday one.
Best Pizza at Double Standard (until 13 September)
Double Standard, The Standard London, 10 Argyle Street, WC1H 8EG
Frank Pinello brings Williamsburg’s Best Pizza to King’s Cross: 14-inch New York rounds, grandma and veggie squares, and a Soppressata Coppola made only for London. Two Tribes on the beer list.
Walk-in, running to 13 September, so no rush, but it’s the best pizza reason to be in King’s Cross right now.
Babur x Horniman: Together in Bloom (until 20 September)
Babur, 119 Brockley Rise, SE23 1JP
Babur is 41 this year and the Horniman is 125, and they’ve marked it with a menu built from botanicals foraged in the museum’s own gardens: wild lavender, cat mint, thyme and rosemary, worked through both the food and the cocktails. Tasting menu or à la carte.
Bottled cocktail gift sets are £12.95, sold at the restaurant and in the museum shop. Book on 020 8291 2400.
Monet and Renoir, side by side (until 15 September)
Room 41, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square
In 1869 Monet and Renoir set up at the same bathing spot on the Seine and painted the same scene next to each other. The two canvases are hanging together for the first time in nearly twenty years, with Renoir’s on loan from the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, and standing between them you can watch two painters solve the same problem differently in the same afternoon.
Free, hanging in the main collection, nothing to book. Renoir’s canvas goes into Renoir and Love when that opens on 3 October, so this pairing has a hard stop.
1996: 30 years on (until 19 September)
Barbican Music Library, Level 2, Barbican Centre, EC2Y 8DS
Spice Girls costumes, Oasis memorabilia and Britpop photography, assembled by Dominic Mohan into a portrait of the year Britain lost its mind. It’s in the Music Library rather than a gallery, which suits it.
Free, no ticket needed. One catch for this week: the Music Library shuts on Sundays and bank holidays, and closes at 4pm on Saturday, so Sunday 30 and Monday 31 are out.
Horrible Histories Live at the Museum (daily until 2 September)
NEON, Battersea Power Station, 2 Circus Road East, SW11 8DQ
A live guided tour of the Ramses and the Pharaohs’ Gold exhibition, led by Ramses II himself, with a Making Mummies routine in the middle of it. The artefacts are the real thing: 180 pieces on loan from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, including the coffin of Ramses the Great.
£37.50 adults and £17.50 children at face value, though it’s often discounted, plus a booking fee. Ages 5+, tours at 11am, 1pm and 3pm, and it runs daily to 2 September before dropping to selected weekends.
Smithsonian Starstruck (until 30 September)
Technicians Gallery, Level 1, Science Museum, Exhibition Road, SW7 2DD
Free-roam VR built from real Hubble, JWST and Chandra data rather than an artist’s impression, so what you drift past on the way to a dying star is what’s actually out there.
£24 for adults and £21 concession, about an hour with a 40-minute VR segment. Ages 10 and up only, and you’ll need a separate free Science Museum admission ticket alongside it.
Space Explorers: The ISS Experience (Camden)
Eclipso London, 213-219 Camden High Street, NW1 7BT
A full-scale walkthrough of the International Space Station, built from footage shot on the actual station rather than modelled, so the clutter and the wear are real.
£27 adults, £20 for children aged 8 to 15 and students, around 40 minutes. Ages 8+, open daily, and worth knowing it’s a basement venue down two flights of stairs with no step-free access.
The London x London Take: if you only do one thing this week, make it carnival. Sixty years in, there is no atmosphere in London that comes close, and the argument about whether it should still be on the streets has been running almost as long as the carnival has. Go Sunday if you want it calmer and the children’s parade, Monday if you want the full thing. Either way, give Outernet ten minutes first. Watts’s archive is free, and it will change what you’re looking at by the time you reach Ladbroke Grove.
