Things to do in London this week

In scenes only slightly less dramatic and probably far more entertaining than the Grand National, more than 40 pantomime horses (plus a few pretenders in the form of zebras and cows) will gallop through Greenwich on this race, dodging bizarre obstacles, stopping at the local public houses for ‘refuelling’ breaks and generally horsing around, all while raising money for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. This year's theme is ‘Rockstars’ meaning you can expect horsey acts including Beatles tribute The Fab Foals, Liam & Noel Gallopher and Amy Winehorse. There’ll also be plenty of entertainment throughout the day, including an opening procession on King William Walk, and an after-party with live music, comedy and DJs. There may even be a celebrity appearance or two. Everybody’s welcome at the bash. 

Spoiler alert: ‘Paddington’ is a small woman (Arti Shah) in a bear costume (by Gabriella Slade), with a regular-sized man (James Hameed) doing the voice and remote controlling the facial expressions from backstage, and it’s enough to make us believe that Paddington is really in the room with us. He’s not the Paddington of the films or of Michael Bond’s books, but he’s not really him either, on account of all the singing he does and how much more wordy that makes him. He is a new Paddington. But he is, fundamentally, Paddington, right there in the room with us. Main attraction aside, a fine creative team led by director Luke Sheppard has created a very enjoyable show indeed. It’s by and large a stage adaptation of the first Paddington movie, although writer Jessica Swale has been quite free. It has a looser, more knockabout air, less droll, more cartoonish. It’s a luxury musical, and when the maximalism works, it really works.

At Sabiib aesthetically pleasing plates all demand a moment of admiration, from the hummus oodkac (traditional dried beef jerky) and meat sambus (filo pastry parcels) with homemade spicy bisbaas sauce, to nafaqo (mashed sweet potato, sauteed spinach and mixed veg) with a meat of your choice. Not playing about? Get a platter to share, featuring Sabiib’s signature haniid (slow-cooked lamb shoulder) and your other chosen meat. Round it off with some Somali-style pasta and sabaayad (flatbread), perfect for mopping up your platter.

At first sight, Candice Lin’s g/hosti, a new commission from the Whitechapel Gallery, evokes a childlike playfulness. At its centre is a maze of cardboard panels which are painted with animals like dogs, cats, and mice, cavorting in a mythical forest. Its simplistic style and bright, warm colours feel akin to the sort of whimsical mural you might find painted on the wall of a primary school. The more you weave through the circular labyrinth, however, the more you realise you’re immersed in something altogether more sinister and political than first meets the eye. g/hosti is a show that could be misconceived if you do not linger long enough to absorb its hidden details. The more it unfolds, the more it unsettles and makes you think. 

You might think that Camden is too alternative to throw a classic Christmas knees up, but it's 2025 and times have changed at its sprawling, eclectic markets. The shiny new market at Hawley Wharf is the hub of this year's festivities, with tons of family-friendly activities. The Ice Palace Grotto offers a meet-and-greet opportunity with Father Christmas and Mother Christmas, alongside festive crafts, face-painting and decorations (£10 per ticket). The Wharf will also host live musical performances from the Big Sing and Camden Rock Choir.

Had more festive goodwill and cheer than you can stomach? The Satanic Flea Market’s (anti) Christmas special is the perfect antidote. As always, there’ll be a whole range of traders selling stuff from the darker side of life, like taxidermy, occult trinkets and even human skulls, plus other slightly more unusual goods than you might find at your typical Christmas market. It might not be the kind of place where you can get all your gifts sorted under one roof, but at least you won’t hear ‘Last Christmas’ or any other saccharine festive hits as you’re making your way around. 

St Mary’s Church Islington will lead a festive carol service accompanied by the Christmas story from the Bible this Yuletide. The church will be lit up by hundreds of flames with every visitor given their own candle. A classical choir will lead the carolling in what promises to be an atmospheric evening. 

Fallen Angels is a nicely crafted old-fashioned pleasure. Or certainly in this straight-down-the-line period revival. Julia (Janie Dee) and Jane (Alexandra Gilbreath) are middle-aged best friends. Julia is posh and poised. Jane is posh and shambolic. They are spending the weekend together while their distant husbands go off golfing. But things get spicy, quickly: they receive word that Maurice, a Frenchman they both had sexual relationships with before marriage, is in town and intending to visit them. They freak out and start drinking heavily, convinced that Maurice will want to play hide the saucisson with them both. And they’re sorely tempted to sample his charcuterie. In this slick-but-conservative take it’s fun enough, but it was genuinely ahead of its time 100 years ago. 

In a world of mass-produced, identikit homewares, there's something special about giving a gift that's so homemade it's got the makers' signature carved lovingly on the bottom. Find a memorable mug, bowl or plate to give a loved one at Turning Earth's Winter Ceramics Market, which will showcase pottery of every colour and shape under the sun. It's got 120 ceramicists selling their wares at Turning Earth's Highgate premises, alongside street food and live music. Smashing. 

Nothing says ‘I’ve put a lot of thought into this’ more than a one-of-a-kind Christmas present. So if you’re looking to make someone feel special this Crimbo, at the Battersea Power Station Christmas market you’ll be able to pick up totally unique gifts and support independent business. The Salad Days Market will be open for three weekends in December with more than 30 indie makers on site to shop from. The station is also hosting the Your Brand, Your Story pop-up market in the South Atrium, which will have eight small businesses selling a mix of gifts and treats including fashion, jewellery and perfume, open until early January. 

OOF Gallery – the world’s only contemporary art gallery in a football stadium at Tottenham Hotspur’s ground – is showing the first ever exhibition dedicated to the portrayal of football in photographer Roger Mayne’s work. One of Britain’s most acclaimed street photographers, Mayne’s inner-city scenes from ’50s and ’60s London document a seismic period of postwar social change in the UK, and football is at the heart of so many of his photographs, especially of the children he captured, playing jumpers for goalposts-style games in the street. It’s children living totally free – joy against the odds and the simple ecstasy of youth.

There’s something magical about the way Swedes hold carol services. This traditional Lucia service sees the Ulrika Eleonora Church Choir wear angelic white gowns and process through the church wearing crowns of green leaves on their head and holding candles, before singing carols in a candlelit church led by director of music Fredrik Karlsson, to mark Advent and Christmas. As well as performing at their own church, they’ll also be taking the glowing concert to several other illustrious venues, including St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral. 

Explore this blockbuster poster exhibition celebrating 100 years of the art deco style comes to the London Transport Museum. Visitors will be able to pore over more than 100 original 1920s and 1930s transport posters and poster artworks, alongside photography, short films, ceramics and other objects to mark the centenary of the 1925 Paris exhibition where the style originated. Highlights include designs by Edward McKnight Kauffer, Dora Batty and Jean Dupas, including some rarely seen vintage posters. 

Sack off wholesome festive fun and head to the Divine for a night of unadulterated Christmas debauchery instead. Spread out across the venue’s two floors, drag queens Coco Couture, Lucinda B. Hind and Femmi will front the Chrimbo sesh, alongside DJs Princess Julia, Jane Norman and Jonjo Jury. Stay lubricated with the Divine’s special festive cocktails, like its winter cherry negroni, white chocolate Bumbo espresso martini and prolapse fairy shot (made with Bumbu creme rum and raspberry liquor). 

John le Carré breakthrough The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is in safe hands with playwright David Eldridge and director Jeremy Herrin, whose adaptation settles in at the West End after scoring good notices in Chichester. This is a slick and yes, maybe slightly MOR adaptation of Le Carre’s taut, brutal espionage yarn. But it’s a very good one, and Eldridge deftly crafts an intensely interior world, with us seeing the action unfold as much from within jaded spy protagonist Alec Leamas’s head as without. Herrin’s production goes heavy on the noir, and with good reason. Rory Keenan is magnificently grumpy and rumpled as Leamas, a hardbitten British spy in Cold War Berlin who is brought home after his last informer is executed by Hans-Dieter Mundt, a ruthless counterintelligence agent who has systematically dismantled the British spy apparatus in East Germany. The story feels fresh because Keenan’s it feels like Leamas is really living it – those shocking final hairpin plot twists are still jaw-dropping.

Sweet, shy Colin is having a shit time. His mother is terminally ill (but still trying to set him up with inappropriate men), his only hobby is barbershop quartet singing with his father, and to top it all, he’s a parking attendant. Played with wide-eyed bemusement by an outstanding Harry Melling, Colin’s dreary existence changes dramatically when he meets very tall, exceedingly handsome and inscrutable biker Ray in a Bromley boozer. Ray, a fittingly stern Alexander Skarsgård, propositions him over a bag of crisps, and before he knows it, Colin’s licking Ray’s boots (and rather a lot more) by the bins next to Primark. Pillion starts as it means to go on; aligning its oddly innocent nature with extreme, hardcore imagery, and managing to give screwball humour an emotional gravitas. Think, if you will, Kenneth Anger’s horny, leather-clad opus Scorpio Rising as directed by Richard Curtis. 

Looking for a wholesome, creative night out that doesn’t involve a hangover (unless you BYOB)? Token Studio in Tower Bridge offers relaxed, hands-on ceramics classes where you can spin, shape and decorate your own pottery piece. Whether you fancy throwing a pot on the wheel (£32) or painting a pre-made mug or plate (£23), it’s the perfect mix of fun, mindful and surprisingly therapeutic. And to top it all off, you can sip while you sculpt as it’s BYOB and super chill.

Buy a Token Studio session from just £23, only through Time Out Offers. 

‘Blue moon, you saw me standing alone’ runs the line from songwriting double-act Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s classic ballad, and Boyhood director Richard Linklater’s long-term collaborator Ethan Hawke transforms into the rumpled, melancholy Hart. He slouches in the washed-up man’s shrunken frame and balding crown. Down on his luck and drinking heavily, his once-grand writing partnership with Rodgers (a sharply tuxedoed Andrew Scott) has been dashed, thanks to his increasing unreliability. It hurts on a bone-deep level. Linklater knows how to draw the most intimate performances from Hawke – and he’s brilliant here. His pairing with Andrew Scott, so devastating in All of Us Strangers, is note-perfect. 

Amazing news for lovers of neat symmetry, loud primary colours and twee outfits. West London’s Design Museum will be staging a blockbuster show delving into the iconic aesthetic of another of Hollywood’s most distinctive auteurs, the Texas-born Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning director Wes Anderson. The film director’s first official retrospective promises to be a different beast. A collaboration between the Design Museum and Cinémathèque Française, it has been curated in partnership with Wes Anderson himself and his production company American Empirical Pictures and follows his work from his early experiments in the 1990s right up to his recent Oscar-winning flicks, featuring original props, costumes and behind-the-scenes insights.