Cirque du Soleil has performed annually at the Royal Albert Hall since 1996 and for 2026, the circus troupe is bringing OVO back to London, with a reimagined set design, reinvented music and new acrobatic acts. OVO, meaning 'egg' in Portuguese, is a celebration of the insect world, with a love story between a quirky fly and a spirited ladybug and a mysterious egg that sparks transformation at its heart.
"It's a huge, huge cultural loss for not just the current musicians, but the musicians of the future, especially working-class ones that used to have this as one of the few possibilities of getting inside the craft," she said.
In March 2025, the UK experimental music scene was pleasantly surprised when London venue Cafe Oto got a mention at the Oscars. Daniel Blumberg, who won an Oscar for the score for The Brutalist, used his acceptance speech to pay tribute to the East London venue and its community of "hard working, radical musicians, who've been making uncompromising music for many years" (the soundtrack features the likes of Seymour Wright, Evan Parker and Steve Noble).
Their debut album Anywhere was originally conceived in and around Des Moines, Iowa: a land where AOR rock and country blast out of car speakers on drives across desolate Rust Belt towns and vast Corn Belt farmlands. Jess Mai Walker and Joseph Ware's artistic and geographic origins seem like a far cry from this distinctly American form of vast nothingness.
For two nights in January, several areas of the City of London will be lit up in a new sound and light festival. Vibrance will feature more than a dozen artworks across five locations, transformed by artists, designers and performers from the Guildhall School. The shows will be free to attend and take place on Thursday 29th and Friday 30th January 2026 from 5:30 to 8:30pm.
this is the first actual proper major Sondheim revival to be staged in this country since the great man's passing. And the main thing worth saying about 1986's Into the Woods is that it's the work of a genius at the peak of his powers: a clever send up of fairytales that pushes familiar stories into absurd, existential, eventually very moving territory. It's both playful and profound, mischievous and sincere, cleverly meta but also a ripping yarn.
We deeply regret that these highly offensive images were presented on our stage and unequivocally apologise to anyone who attended the gig, and to the wider Jewish community. The content, which was used entirely without our knowledge, stands against all of our values.
13. Lily Allen - 'West End Girl' 12. Amaarae - 'Black Star' 11. Wolf Alice - 'The Clearing' 10. PinkPantheress - 'Fancy That' 9. Hayley Williams - 'Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party' 8. Turnstile - 'Never Enough' 7. Rosalía - 'Lux' 6. Oklou - 'Choke Enough' 5. Bad Bunny - 'Debí Tirar Más Fotos' 4. CMAT - 'Euro-Country' 3. FKA Twigs - 'Eusexua' 2. Addison Rae - 'Addison' 1. Geese - 'Getting Killed'
Workplace pressure is no stranger to London professionals. Targets rise. Expectations shift. Schedules tighten. Every sector feels it. Finance moves fast. Tech races forward. Health care strains each day. Creative industries chase constant deadlines. This pace often leaves people drained and searching for something that restores energy and motivation. Music-based activities are filling that gap. They offer relief, structure, and a genuine lift in mood.
Paddington The Musical bursts onto the West End with all the warmth of a freshly toasted marmalade sandwich, transforming Michael Bond's beloved stowaway into a joyous, big-hearted stage star. What could have been a nostalgia-soaked cash-in instead arrives as a genuinely charming, sharply crafted family spectacle, witty enough for the grown-ups, fizzy enough for the kids, and sweet without ever turning sticky.
Non-parents may only be hazily aware of Dav Pilkey's long-running series of graphic novels devoted to the adventures of Dog Man, a police officer with the head - and brain - of a dog. If this sounds stupid, it's meant to be (in a further meta move, the books are supposed to be written by George and Harold, the goofy tween protagonists of Pilkey's older Captain Underpants books). Anyway, you either know this already or it's completely irrelevant to you, but long story short, there was an off-Broadway musical made in 2019 that got good reviews, and now it's headed to London.
Kneecap's meteoric rise continues apace. After a year in which the hip-hop trio has played Glastonbury, headlined Green Man and Wide Awake, and supported the mighty Fontaines DC at Finsbury Park, Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí have more planned for 2026. Today (November 24) Kneecap have announced they'll be playing their biggest ever headline show in London next summer.
Now in his mid-40s, Nico Muhly is a prolific and much in-demand composer of works for a wide range of settings from orchestral to choral music, with scores for the stage and sacred compositions. His music wouldn't be considered 'easy', but when tackled by the brilliantly inventive Irish dance-theatre maker Michael Keegan-Dolan, it makes for a superb spectacle. Keegan-Dolan's The Only Tune, which brings Marking Time to a thrilling end,
The book's designers, Alflie Allen and Max Marshall, brought grime's fashion legacy to the tactile experience. James says: "I said I didn't want to make a coffee table book as I thought that didn't feel right for grime." In consideration of how best to encapsulate the genre's feel, James, Alfie, and Max came up with the idea of condensing the photo book into a poster; each page folds out into A2, creating a storybook that unfurls alongside the narrative.
Not only is it where Nicer Tuesdays has called home for the past few years, but it's also home to London's music and cultural scene. Once a former Art Deco cinema in Dalston, EartH reopened in 2018 by the team behind Village Underground, keeping much of the original character alongside installing remarkable contemporary sound and lighting systems. Since the reopening, EartH has become a top spot for artists and audiences who want a bit more from their night out.
PA Media Lorde has been announced as one of the all-female headliners of the 2026 All Points East Festival. The New Zealander, who played her new album Virgin at a surprise set at Glastonbury on the day of its release this summer, will be joined by Pink Pantheress, Zara Larsson and 2Hollis in an all-female lineup. Launched in 2018, the four-day festival takes place on the last two weekends of August in Victoria Park in east London and attracts tens of thousands of people.
When visitors make their way into Peter Doig's House of Music show at the Serpentine, they're confronted with not one but two sound systems. The north gallery sports a vintage Western Electric and Bell Labs system that was used in cinemas in the 1920s and 30s, while Doig's own set of Klangfilm Euronor speakers (which he acquired from Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider) also pump music into the space.
Recorded at one blistering London live show in April 2024, Libertine collaborated with Chilean guitarist Eva Leblanc, reimagining tracks from Libertine's back catalogue including ones from her time singing with 1970s anarcho-punk pioneers Crass. Produced by Crass founder Penny Rimbaud, it treads a path between performance art, experimental music and earth ritual; with her strident operatic tones, Libertine sounds like a soothsayer foretelling an apocalypse.
This is not a good time to be an Andrew Lloyd Webber hater, with the musical theatre legend on track to be almost as popular as he was in the '80s. Jamie Lloyd's Rachel Zegler-starring revival was the year's most talked about show, a first ever UK revival of Cats was announced to much anticipation; over in New York Lloyd's Sunset Boulevard revival took the Tonys by storm and critics were wowed by hipster off-Broadway Cats revival The Jellicle Ball.
For me personally, queer nightlife has allowed me to find friends, family, and role models, people from whom I could learn. These experiences have given me a sense of not being alone and have emboldened me in many aspects of life. These encounters and experiences continue to influence my music. This song is intended as a love letter to visibility and pride. No one can take away the love you feel; it belongs to you.
