Things to do in London this week

Where to go in London: events, concerts and shows worth your night

London has more live music, theatre, comedy and club nights on any given evening than any other city in Europe, spread across dozens of neighbourhoods rather than one centre. That is the trick to going out in London: pick an area and stay in it. Below are the venues locals actually use, with addresses, and what tends to be on when.

Concerts and live music in London: from Brixton to the Royal Albert Hall

The two rooms every touring band wants to play are the O2 Academy Brixton (211 Stockwell Road, SW9 9SL), a 1929 art deco cinema with a sloped floor and a 5,000 crowd, and the Roundhouse (Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8EH, roundhouse.org.uk), a Victorian railway shed in Camden. The Royal Albert Hall (Kensington Gore, SW7 2AP, royalalberthall.com) stages over 350 events a year, from the BBC Proms every July to September to rock, jazz and film concerts. For jazz, Ronnie Scott’s (47 Frith Street, Soho, W1D 4HT, ronniescotts.co.uk) has run two sittings a night since 1959; the late show is the one to book.

London nightlife: clubs in Farringdon, Dalston and south of the river

fabric (77A Charterhouse Street, Farringdon, EC1M 6HJ, fabriclondon.com) is the club the rest of the city measures itself against: three rooms in a former cold store opposite Smithfield Market, house and techno on Fridays and Saturdays, drum and bass on its own nights, and doors that stay open until the morning. Dalston and Hackney, in the east, are where the smaller clubs and late bars cluster; Peckham and Brixton are the southern equivalents. Most London clubs get going after midnight, and the last Tube runs until around 12.30 am on weeknights and all night on Fridays and Saturdays on the main lines.

Theatre in London: the West End and the South Bank

The West End has around forty theatres within a ten-minute walk of Leicester Square, with the long-running musicals and the new plays that transfer from the subsidised houses. Those houses are the ones to watch: the National Theatre (Upper Ground, South Bank, SE1 9PX, nationaltheatre.org.uk), three stages by the river with a rolling repertoire and cheap day tickets, and the Barbican Centre (Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS, barbican.org.uk), home of the London Symphony Orchestra and a theatre that brings in the best international companies. Ballet and opera are at the Royal Opera House (Bow Street, Covent Garden, WC2E 9DD); contemporary dance at Sadler’s Wells (Rosebery Avenue, EC1R 4TN, sadlerswells.com).

Art galleries and museums in London for an evening out

Tate Modern (Bankside, SE1 9TG, tate.org.uk) is free to enter, open late on Fridays and Saturdays, and its paid exhibitions are the ones that fill the city’s posters. The Southbank Centre (Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX, southbankcentre.co.uk) next door runs classical, jazz and world music in the Royal Festival Hall and the Hayward Gallery upstairs. Most of the big national museums are free and several open late one night a week, which is the quietest time to see them.

London festivals and events by season

• Spring: the London Marathon in April, and the theatre season’s spring transfers to the West End.
• Summer: the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall from mid-July to mid-September, open-air concerts in the royal parks, Wimbledon, and outdoor theatre in Regent’s Park.
• Late August: Notting Hill Carnival, Europe’s biggest street festival, over the bank holiday weekend.
• Autumn: Frieze London in Regent’s Park in October, the London Film Festival, and the start of the concert season at the Barbican and the Southbank Centre.
• Winter: Christmas lights on Regent Street and Oxford Street from November, ice rinks at Somerset House and the Natural History Museum, and pantomime season in the theatres.

Things to do in London tonight and this weekend

The listings above are the live version of all this: every concert, show, club night and exhibition on in London tonight, tomorrow and this weekend, with times, prices and tickets, updated every hour.