Barbican Hall · Tonight, 7.30pm · From £40 (Young Barbican £18)

Tonight. ANOHNI takes the Barbican stage with pianist Gaël Rakotondrabe, percussionist Chris Vatalaro and guitarist Leo Abrahams for a career-spanning performance under her own original films. The repertoire reaches back to I Am a Bird Now and forward through My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross — two decades of music that moves between grief and tenderness, protest and devotion. No support act, no interval — just two hours of one of the most extraordinary voices alive, in a room built for it. Her recent Mourning the Great Barrier Reef tour sold out everywhere it went. This is the London date. If you can get a ticket, go.

Theatre Royal Haymarket · Opens tomorrow, Fri 24 Apr · Until 11 Jul · From £30

Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison in David Hare's new play about the greatest partnership in English stage history — Victorian actors Henry Irving and Ellen Terry at the Lyceum Theatre. Irving was the first actor ever knighted, a man who transformed British theatre and destroyed himself doing it. Terry was the most celebrated actress of her age, luminous and overlooked in equal measure. Hare writes both with the kind of intelligence that makes two hours and thirty minutes feel like an evening you chose. Four-star reviews from The Guardian, The Observer and The Telegraph after a sell-out Bath run. This is the West End transfer. Under-24 tickets from £25. Mon–Sat 7.30pm, matinees Thu & Sat 2.30pm.

Lightroom, King's Cross · Just opened · Until 28 Jun · From £25 (students £15)

Lightroom's eleven-metre-tall walls become the inside of David Bowie's mind. Directed by Mark Grimmer — the curator behind the V&A's landmark David Bowie Is exhibition — and Tom Wexler, the experience uses rarely seen and never-before-exhibited material from the David Bowie Archive in New York: performance footage, drawings, photographs and personal notes, projected in 360 degrees with Bowie as sole narrator. The spatial audio, designed by Gareth Fry, places his voice around and above you. It runs for about an hour on a loop — you can stay as long as you like. Bowie Nights launch in May with themed decades, cocktails and DJs. This is not a museum exhibition with headphones. It's immersion. Go in the evening if you can.

Truman Brewery, 93 Feet East, Rough Trade East, Rich Mix & more · Wed 23 – Sun 26 Apr · From £39

The fifth edition of the festival that's become East London's annual jazz weekender. Over a hundred musicians across twelve stages, with the music spilling out of Truman Brewery, 93 Feet East, Rich Mix and Rough Trade East into the streets around Brick Lane. Joe Armon-Jones headlines. Steam Down joins forces with the NYJO Big Band. Neo-soul, R&B, electronic and experimental acts fill the margins. New for 2026: the Brick Lane Conference at Ely's Yard — three days of panels, workshops, mentoring and networking for working musicians and industry. Festival Pass from £39. Pro Pass from £19. The afterparty moves to Village Underground. This is London jazz at its most alive.

Greenwich to the Mall · Sun 26 Apr · Elite races 8.50am, mass start ~9.30am · BBC One from 8.30am

Twenty-six point two miles from Blackheath to Buckingham Palace. 50,000 runners. A million spectators. The London Marathon is the single day when the city most belongs to the people who live in it — the road closures, the crowd noise, the strangers cheering strangers, the pub gardens along the route filling up by 10am. Even if you're not running, go and watch. Best spectator spots: Cutty Sark at the ten-kilometre mark, Tower Bridge at halfway (arrive early — it fills up fast), the Canary Wharf loop around miles 18–20 where runners need you most, and the Embankment for the final push to the Mall. DLR to Westferry or Poplar gets you close without the crowds. Dress for standing. Bring something to eat. Stay longer than you planned.

Also This Week

Queen Elizabeth Hall · Sun 26 Apr, 7.30pm · From £17

The poet and playwright performs his one-man show with a specially commissioned live score by Laura Mvula, performed by the Chineke! Orchestra — Europe's first majority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra. Part of the Multitudes festival at the Southbank Centre. This is the kind of one-off collaboration that doesn't repeat. Book now.

This Sunday

The O2 · Wed 29 & Thu 30 Apr (first 2 of 6 nights)

Olivia Dean's arena debut. Six nights at The O2 — the first two begin next Wednesday. From Peckham to the biggest venue in the city in the space of three years. The voice, the songs, the crowd that loves her. This is the moment.

Next week

National Portrait Gallery · Closes Mon 4 May · £22

170 rarely-seen drawings and preparatory studies alongside the paintings they became — an unprecedented look inside Freud's working process. The intimacy of the sketches changes how you see the finished portraits. Tours to Louisiana in Denmark this summer, but seeing it here, in the building Freud painted in, is the point. Eleven days left.

11 days left

Hampton Court Palace Tulip Festival

Hampton Court Palace · Closes Sun 26 Apr

Over 10,000 tulips across the palace gardens in their final days. This is the last weekend — peak bloom, maximum colour. The kind of afternoon that justifies the train to Hampton Court and a long walk home along the river.

3 days left

MIKO Mei Fair

55 Curzon Street, Mayfair · Opens today

Fire-led Thai cooking comes to Mayfair. The kitchen works around applewood fires, turning out dishes like Peking duck Penang curry. A new opening that puts heat and technique before the usual Mayfair gloss. Opens this evening.

Opens today

The Latimer

274 Latimer Road, North Kensington · Just opened

The team behind Caravel open a proper gastropub on Latimer Road. A neighbourhood spot for North Kensington, the kind of place where you walk in for a drink and stay for dinner. Early reports suggest it's exactly what the area needed.

Just opened