6 September – 13 September
A week of archives and afterlives: cinema, exhibitions, and the stories we remake
665 events · 123 venues · AI-synthesised from Looge listings
This week London's cultural landscape is dominated by cinema and archival material—a deep dive into restored classics and overlooked films, alongside several major exhibitions closing their runs. The Prince Charles Cinema and The Garden Cinema are particularly active, screening everything from Patrick Tam's experimental Hong Kong New Wave work to Jacques Tati's Playtime, while the Barbican's Pan-Africanism survey and Serpentine's tech-focused shows wrap up by Sunday. Parallel to this archival momentum, there's a quieter but insistent interest in retellings and reimaginings: theatre at the Royal Court, Bridge Theatre, and Hampstead is exploring how we revisit familiar stories—from Aeschylus reframed as a contemporary family nightmare to Wuthering Heights told through Catherine's eyes. The week also reveals London's thriving talk circuit, particularly around Chiswick Book Festival and the British Library, where conversations about business, fashion, and literature sit alongside more experimental programming at venues like Ibraaz and the Otolith Library-in-Residence.
Threads this week
Cinema and restoration
Archival cinema is unusually concentrated this week, with restored and repertory screenings across multiple venues. The Prince Charles Cinema alone is running Taika Waititi's Hunt for the Wilderpeople (10th anniversary), Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love, and Jacques Demy's 1970 Donkey Skin. The Garden Cinema offers Patrick Tam's Love Massacre (4K restoration) and Andrzej Żuławski's Cosmos, while Brazilian Summer Nights and Jukebox Film Club's UK premiere of Tamara Stepanyan's In the Land of Arto suggest a week of discovery alongside canon.
Exhibitions closing and Pan-African culture
Several major shows close by Sunday, creating a final-week urgency. The Barbican's Project A Black Planet (250+ works spanning Pan-Africanism from the 1920s onward) and In Other Worlds (Liam Young's speculative futures) wrap this weekend. At Serpentine, both processing... (an archive of art and technology) and Cecily Brown's Picture Making finish their runs, while Ibraaz's Ciné Césaire exhibition and library-in-residence at The Otolith Library offer connected meditations on Black artistic legacies and archival practice.
Remaking narrative: theatre and literary adaptation
Theatre this week circles around retellings—how we revisit and reframe canonical stories. The Bridge Theatre's The Oresteia relocates a Greek tragedy into a contemporary family's nightmare; the Royal Court's Book Club marks its 70th anniversary by rereading groundbreaking plays from its past; at Chiswick Book Festival, Essie Fox discusses her retelling of Wuthering Heights through Catherine's voice. Even Hampstead Theatre's Kimberly Akimbo and Hackney Empire's stand-up from Marine Leonardi reflect a cultural moment interested in marginal perspectives and dark comedy about modern life.
Music across genres: from jazz to world traditions
Music programming spans jazz, folk, electronic, and global traditions. Vortex Jazz Club's Klara Devlin tribute to Miles Davis (closing this weekend), pianist Olivia Belli's Southbank debut, and Classically Black at Ronnie Scott's represent classical and jazz contexts. Elsewhere, Green Note hosts singer-songwriter nights; The Magic Garden continues its funk night; World Music Method brings Viento Suelto's Colombian gaita; and Hundred Years Gallery programmes Dissidences, a hybrid evening of poetry, song, and improvisation.