Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial gets its
international premiere at the Royal Festival Hall as the BFI London
Film Festival turns 70. Tate Britain and the National Portrait
Gallery open the two biggest shows of their autumn on back-to-back
days. Eleven free sculptures sit in Regent’s Park a week before
Frieze descends on the same lawns, and a Vortex residency pianist
launches a debut album.
A hand-checked shortlist of the week in London culture
· new every Thursday
Two national galleries open their marquee autumn shows on
back-to-back days this week: Tate Britain’s The 90s: Art and
Fashion today, the National Portrait Gallery’s Tim Walker
retrospective tomorrow. In between, the BFI London Film Festival
— five days into its 70th edition — reaches its first
weekend with Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial making its
international premiere at the Royal Festival Hall. A Samuel Pepys
show gets one unrepeatable last day at Wilton’s, Meera Syal
closes a UK tour of her own stories at Soho Theatre, and eleven
sculptures sit free in Regent’s Park the week before Frieze
takes over the same lawns.
A fatigue note: Kings Place returns for a second issue running
— a genuine exception, not the new norm. Café OTO, the
Arcola, the Donmar and Battersea Arts Centre all rest completely
after closing runs last issue. No food pick made the bar this week:
the one lead we chased, a one-off supper at a Borough Market
restaurant, came with a wine-partner credit and no second source
confirming it was real, so we cut it rather than guess.
Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre · SE1 · Sun 11 Oct, 9pm · from £21 (gala band; BFI's general gala floor is £10, £6 concession)
Luca Guadagnino’s new film gets its international
premiere as a Gala screening in the 70th BFI London Film
Festival’s first weekend — one of 33 world or
international premieres among 251 features, shorts and series
screening across the festival’s 12 days. A single public
screening of a major director’s newest work, in the
festival’s biggest venue, the week it first exists outside a
festival jury room.
A premiere, not a run — miss Sunday night and you wait for general release.
Tate Britain · Millbank, SW1P · opens Thu 8 Oct, to 14 Feb 2027 · £22 (£20 concession, £5 Tate Collective 16–25, members free)
The first major exhibition built around the decade
that mixed Britpop, Young British Art and fashion into one
culture: work spanning Damien Hirst, Alexander McQueen and Kate
Moss’s overlapping orbit, tracing how a scrappy, deregulated
art scene and the fashion industry started borrowing each
other’s shock tactics. Tate Britain’s biggest autumn bet
this year, opening today.
National Portrait Gallery · St Martin’s Place, WC2H · opens Fri 9 Oct, to 7 Feb 2027 · price TBC — the gallery's own booking page returned nothing when we checked
Billed as the largest exhibition ever devoted to the
British fashion photographer: elaborately staged, fantastical
portraits built around queer identity, community and love,
spanning a career that runs from Vogue covers to gallery-scale
tableaux. First full UK retrospective of this size for a
photographer whose work most people know from magazine covers,
not museum walls.
We couldn’t confirm the ticket price — the gallery’s site blocked every fetch. Dates and run length are solid across three independent sources.
Vortex Jazz Club · 11 Gillett Square, Dalston, N16 · Tue 13 Oct, doors 7.45pm, music 8.30pm · £17 (£15 members, £13 students/UC)
The pianist behind a monthly Vortex residency launches
his debut album, Finding Home (Whirlwind Recordings), with
Kaidi Akinnibi on tenor sax, Josh Vadiveloo on double bass and
Blake Cascoe on drums. Carter has spent the last few years as a
sideman for Loyle Carner, Olivia Dean and Rex Orange Range —
this is the first time his own writing, pulling from Alice
Coltrane and Andrew Hill, gets the room to itself.
A sideman stepping out, at the venue where his monthly residency has been the warm-up.
Soho Theatre · Dean Street, W1D · Wed 14 Oct, 7.30pm · £33–£43 (some bands sold out — check availability)
Meera Syal tells her own stories — career,
family, the bits that didn’t make it into a script — on
the final date of a tour that's run since late August, timed to a
memoir published alongside it. A true-stories evening from a
writer-performer who's spent a career putting other people's
stories on stage; tonight it's hers.
The Regent’s Park, English Gardens · NW1 · daily, on since 16 Sep, to 1 Nov · Free
Eleven large-scale sculptures by international
artists, curated this year by Fatōs Üstek, installed free
in the open air near the Broad Walk. It's been up since mid-
September, but this week is the one to actually go — Frieze
London and Frieze Masters move into the same park on 14 October,
and the sculptures are free precisely because the fair next door
isn't.
The free preview of a £40-plus-a-ticket fair, a week before it arrives.
Wilton’s Music Hall · Graces Alley, Wapping, E1W · today only, 2.30pm & 7pm · £17–£32 (£14.50–£29.50 concession)
Edward Bennett and Grace Davidson play Samuel and
Elizabeth Pepys in a two-hour staging of the diarist’s
account of plague, fire, war and court intrigue, scored live
with Baroque pieces and street ballads on lute and violin.
Two performances only, both today — this is the last
chance, not a preview.
Old Truman Brewery · Brick Lane, E1 · to Sun 11 Oct · artworks from £100; entry price not listed on the fair's own booking page when we checked
A juried fair of (mostly) undiscovered artists
selling direct, no gallery markup: original paintings,
photography and prints from £100, deliberately pitched against
the big commercial fairs happening the same month. Closes
Sunday.