London art guide August 2026 – quick links
Million Dollar Quartet
Million Dollar Quartet transfers to London this month after a big summer season at The Barn Theatre in Cirencester. Share the moment as four men make musical history in a recording studio in Memphis. It’s 4 December 1956 and Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley are brought together in a jam session that would change popular music across the world. Stage and screen favourite Darren Day leads the cast as Sam Phillips, the visionary producer who discovered the sound of rock‘n’roll. This really is a feel good musical, full of brilliant songs you know and love.
Million Dollar Quartet is at The Arts at Marble Arch, London from 4 September to 6 December.
As You Like It at Shakespeare’s Globe
Don’t miss As You Like It, the final show in this year’s Globe Summer Season. This is a sparkling new take on Shakespeare’s much-loved comedy. It has all the key elements of a girl dressed as a boy testing her true love, an adventure in the forest, unexpected romances and a happy ending – all wrapped up in mischief and mirth.
This is the play that gave us the famous ‘All the world’s a stage’ monologue, delivered here by Katherine Pearce playing Jaques, so it’s worth seeing just for that. The Globe has one of the best theatre deals in London with £5 standing tickets released every Friday for the following week. There’s also a magical Midnight Matinee (yes, at midnight!) on 11 September. The Globe only does three of these each year, so it’s something very special.
As You Like It plays the Globe Theatre, London from 9 September to 25 October.
Totally Thames Festival
The Totally Thames Festival presents an exciting program of performances, exhibitions and family fun across the city. Highlights this year include Turner Prize-nominated artist Catherine Yass’ award-winning public film installation Turning the Tide at Blackfriars Railway Bridge and The Waterfront Journals, a promenade performance celebrating London’s LGBTIQA+ community.
There’s also the inaugural Swim London, The Great River Race, the St Katharine Docks Classic Boat Festival, and a traditional Ganga Aarti at Greenwich. You can even see Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest, performed on board the historic ship The Golden Hinde.
Spanning historic landmarks, riverside spaces, and unique venues, the Totally Thames Festival celebrates the river as one of London’s most important cultural, environmental, and heritage assets. The festival runs across the city until 30 September.
Mere Mortals at Sadler’s Wells
The superb San Francisco Ballet returns to London for the first time since 2019 with Mere Mortals. Premiering in 2024, this was the company’s first full-length commission by a female choreographer, marking Tamara Rojo’s appointment as Artistic Director. Mere Mortals has just enjoyed its European premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival and now comes to Sadler’s Wells for just six performances.
The production reimagines the ancient Greek myth of Pandora’s Box, using a modern perspective on the rapid acceleration of technology and scientific progress. In the original myth, Pandora is gifted a box by Zeus with a single instruction ‘do not open’. You know what happened next! Mere Mortals fuses movement, music and cutting-edge visuals to examine the promises and perils of humankind.
Mere Mortals is at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London from 9 to 12 September.
Trent Park House of Secrets
London’s newest museum is now open! Trent Park is a grand stately home in North London that has witnessed some of the most pivotal events of the 20th century. The house was formerly the weekend retreat of Sir Philip Sassoon before it was requisitioned by the government in 1939 to play an important role in the intelligence battle with Germany throughout the second world war. Beneath the state rooms, teams of ‘Secret Listeners’ worked in concealed basement rooms producing intelligence that gave the Allies a crucial advantage in the war against Germany. Many of these were German-speaking Jewish refugees. Trent Park is now open as House of Secrets, showing its past as both an important intelligence centre and an opulent home full of 1930s grandeur.
Trent Park House of Secrets is at Daffodil Crescent, Enfield and is closed on Mondays.
Funny Weather
Another new exhibition venue opens this month in Hampshire. Funny Weather is an open air exhibition space only an hour from London. Set among gardens and forests, it is designed as a new way to view sculpture, taking it out of the traditional white-walled gallery and into the wild. The venue’s name, Funny Weather, comes from Olivia Laing’s writing on Art in Emergency; it’s also a nod to the unpredictable British climate. The first exhibition, Strange Objects, is an exploration of materiality, origin and wonder, with works by eight international artists in bronze, resin, stone, ceramic and organic matter.
Funny Weather is open Thursday to Saturday from 12 September to 12 November. It is free to visit but bookings are essential.
You’re So Special
You’re So Special is a dark comedy written and performed by Julia Grogan. Set in a tiny tots ballet class, Grogan stars as Miss June, a struggling performer and dance teacher who believes her life is about to change after being chosen for a television talent show. You’re So Special talks to ambition, delusion, failure and the need to succeed, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments amid the critical reflection. Anyone who has been to a kids’ dance class (as a student or a dance mum!) will be transported right back to the ballet barre with ‘good-toes-naughty-toes’ ringing in their ears!
You’re So Special plays the Soho Theatre Upstairs, Dean Street from 3 to 26 September.
Queen’s Park Book Festival
The annual Queen’s Park Book Festival is a vibrant celebration of the literary arts set in one of London’s prettiest leafy suburbs. The area has a long literary history and has been home to authors, artists, poets and actors for generations. The festival welcomes authors from celebrities to emerging writers in this full weekend of events. Sadly, 2026 is to be the final festival, so don’t miss out.
Featured authors include actor Tuppence Middleton discussing her new book Scorpions, Michael Lewis of the British Museum talking about the Bayeux Tapestry, and local author Richard Tyrrell in conversation with actor Mike Simkins about his new book The Fox of Kensall Green. There’s also a comedy night with Rich Wilson, Dominic Holland, Samantha Day and Rob Deering. There are almost 30 events across the weekend, free and ticketed, along with a bookshop, a bar and a café.
The Queen’s Park Book Festival is in Queen’s Park, London on 5 and 6 September.
Still Life Afternoon Tea
Still Life, Noël Coward’s play that inspired the British film classic Brief Encounter, comes to life this month in a new immersive production at the Grand Saloon Bar of Theatre Royal Drury Lane. With Coward’s imposing bronze statue looking down from the balcony, the audience will be transported to the tearoom of Milford Junction railway station and a chance meeting between two married strangers that becomes one of the most enduring love stories ever told. This new afternoon tea show comes complete with tea and cakes in one of the most stunning Regency dining rooms in London. Such fun!
Still Life plays in the Grand Saloon Bar, Theatre Royal Drury Lane, for one week only, 8 to 12 September, with two performances each day.
Famous faces on London stages:
There’s always an opportunity to see a famous face from film and television live on stage in London. This month, see Tamzin Outhwaite in Mike Leigh’s classic play Abigail’s Party at Harold Pinter Theatre to 19 September; Julian Clary plays Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar to 5 September alongside Sam Ryder in his West End debut as Jesus at the London Palladium; Stephen Mangan and Sarah Hadland star in The Truth with Ardal O’Hanlon and Janie Dee at the Apollo Theatre to 12 September; Adrian Lester is powerful as Cyrano de Bergerac at the Noël Coward Theatre to 5 September; Rory Kinnear is John Maynard Keynes in The Standard of Living from 21 September at Theatre Royal Haymarket; and everyone’s favourite actor, Richard E Grant, stars with Christine Baranski in Noël Coward’s classic comedy of bad manners Hay Fever from 22 September at Wyndham’s Theatre.
