Events in London
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Talks and discussions
Monday 12 October
* Sustainable post-crisis development: the need for a human rights approach, Agnes Callamard, Polly Truscott, Myfanwy James, 6.30-8pm, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, WC2
Tuesday 13 October
* Twelve Days That Shook The Middle East, Marwan Bishara on his book which argues that the post-7 October 2023 conflict was an asymmetric anti-colonial struggle and the genocide was a blueprint, not a misstep, 7pm, from £6.13, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place W2 1QJ. Info: Frontline
Wednesday 14 October
* Weaponising dependency - the new world order, Rory Stuart, 6.30 - 8pm, London School of Economics, Houghton Street WC2
* The role of aggregation and intermediation in scaling private infrastructure finance: what can MDBs and DFIs do differently?, Martin Koehring, Admassu Tadesse, 4 - 5.30pm, online. Info: Overseas Development Institute
Thursday 15 October
* Notes on Solidarity, Fady Joudah gives the Edward W. Said London Lecture 2026, 7pm, £11.50 - £15, Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, South Kensington, SW7 2AR. Info: Lecture
* Decentring race to make sense of social suffering, Amit Singh explores how working-class youth in London interpret identity, hardship, and social conditions across racial lines, 12 - 1pm, Institute of Education. Info: [email protected]
* Sohn Won-Pyung, discusses her latest novel, moving from the inner life of an individual to a society shaped by demographic and generational change, 7pm, £10, Foyles, 107 `Charing Cross Road
* Bringing education front and centre: launch of the Education Loss and Damage Framework, Sara Pantuliano, Akanksha Bapna, Nadia Zaidi, Will Eckersley, Animesh Kumar, 2- 3pm, online. Info: Overseas Development Institute
Friday 16 October
* Launch of Somali Week Festival, Ilhan Abdullahi, Ifrah F. Ahmed, Sabrina Ali, Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, Fatima Hagi, Husein Sulimam, 7pm, £12, British Library, 96 Euston Road NW1. Info Library
* Nussaibah Younis: Fundamentally, the author, a peace-building practitioner and globally recognised expert on contemporary Iraq, on her debut novel about Nadia, an academic dumped by her girlfriend and disowned by her puritanical mother and who takes a UN job rehabilitating ISIS women in Iraq, and Sara, a sweary east Londoner who joined ISIS at 15, 7pm, from £21, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX. Info: Southbank Centre
from Monday 19 October
* National Week of Solidarity to End Immigration Detention, until 25 October. Info: Right To Remain
* China Cure: The Rise of a Biotech, AI Medicine and Global Health Superpower, Ruby Wang, 10.30 - 11.30am, King’s College, Room: KIN 227Strand Campus, Strand, WC2R 2LS
* Chinese Business in the UK: What’s Changing?, Won Liu, Lin Wu, Suwei Jiang, Xin Sun, 1 - 2.30pm, part of King’s Lau China Institute’s China Week (19-23 October)
* China and a Multipolar World Order, Yang Han, Dani Solomon, Guilia Sciorati, Olivia Cheung, Astrid Nordin, 3.30 - 5pm, Room: KIN 227 Strand Campus, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS
Tuesday 20 October
* Unheard, Untreated, Unwell: Women’s Health in Crisis, Sophie Harman and Annabel Sowemimo, in person and online, 6.30 - 7.45pm, free, British Academy, 10 - 11 Carlton House Terrace, SW1 6AH. Info: BA
* Two years on from the racist riots: community cohesion, the hostile environment and Islamophobia, All Party Parliamentary Group meeting, 6 - 7.30pm, Grimond Room, Portcullis House, Westminster.
* Demographic Anxieties: Bodies, Borders, and Reproductive Injustice in Palestine/Israel, Osama Tanous (online), Ghada Majadli, Ala Sirriyeh (online), Patricia Hamilton, 6.30 - 8pm, Common Ground, Room G11, Ground Floor, South Wing, UCL, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT. Info: University College London
* The good, the black and the boujee - how Black Britain became middle class, Symeon Brown, Clive Chijioke Nwonka, 6.30 - 8pm, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, WC2
from Tuesday 20 October
* London Literature Festival, includes 22 Oct, Kwame Dawes: Afro-Style School & Kinships, Jamaica’s Poet Laureate celebrates the influential poetry programmes and collectives that have fought against literature and publishing’s lack of diversity; 23 Oct, readings from – and conversation about – books that defy the ordinary, hosted by Okechukwu Nzelu and Eliza Clark; 24 Oct, A Celebration of British Somali Poetry, Somali poets rework an ancient tradition through readings and conversation with award-winning poets; 28 Oct, Malorie Blackman: Noughts & Crosses at 25; 31 Oct, Real-life stories from journalists, writers and activists, readings and discussion confronting rising threats to expression; Wasafiri: New Writing Prize 2026, the magazine announce the winners. Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road SE1 8XX until 1 November. Info: Festival
Exhibitions
* Moved to Care: Stories of Health and Migration, explores the contributions of migrants from across the globe to healthcare over the last 150 years, from the 19th century colonial legacy of missionary nurses to the Windrush Generation, free, 20 Cavendish Square, W1G OR until 2 November. Info: Royal College of Nursing
+ Migrant nurses: Looking after Britain’s health
* The Music is Black: A British Story, how Black British music has shaped British culture from 1900 to today through objects like Joan Armatrading’s childhood guitar, fashion worn by Little Simz and photographs, £22.50 weekdays, £24.40, V&A East, Queen Elizabeth Park, Olympic Park. Info: V&A East Museum
* Frida: The Making of an Icon, how Frida Kahlo became one of the most influential artists of all time, from her political activism to global Fridamania, £25, Tate Modern, Bankside SE1 9TC, until 3 January. Info: Tate
+ How the zeitgeist helped create Fridamania
* Rising Voices, Contemporary Arts From Asia, Australia and the Pacific, work by more than 40 artists from 25 countries, £17, V&A Museum, Cromwell Road SW7 until 10 January. Info: V&A
+ Arresting voices of the Asia-Pacific
* Korea, exploring over two millennia of Korean art and culture, £18, British Museum, Great Russell Street WC1B 3DG until 31 January. Info: Korea
+ Two millennia of K-history: hard to remember, hard to forget
* Anish Kapoor, sculptures and paintings by the Mumbai-born Indian-British artist, £22, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX until 18 October. Info: Hayward.
* Hybrid forms and live realities: the sculpture of Bharti Kher, the British Indian artist explores the body, womanhood, mythology and cultural identity, V&A Museum, Cromwell Road, until 24 January. Info: Exhibition
* Childhood in War, the UK’s first dedicated exhibition exploring how war affects and shapes young lives, Uk oriented but including contemporary stories and quotes from Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, SE1 6HZ until 28 February. Info: War Museum
* Rudy Loewe: Intimacies of Care – Spaces of Grief and Possibility, the lived experience of Black people whose mental healthcare in the UK is shaped by racist discrimination, free, Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, NW1 2BE until 7 February. Info: Wellcome
* Amar Kanwar, the New Delhi-based artist and filmmaker’s film trilogy investigate legacies of decolonisation and the 1947 Partition, free, Serpentine North Gallery, West Carriage Drive, W2 2AR until 31 January. Info: Serpentine
* The Unclassified, group exhibition of four leading contemporary Korean and Korean-heritage artists: Meekyoung Shin, Ayoung Kim, siren eun young jung and Gala Porras-Kim, Korean Cultural Centre, Grand Buildings, 1-4 Strand WC2N 5BW. until 31 December. Info: KCX
* Salman Toor: Someone Like You, born in Lahore and currently living in the US, his work “depicts queer and immigrant lives that straddle different cultures and inhabit the tension between intimacy and exposure, belonging and estrangement. What it means to find a community, but also the daily costs associated with visibility”, £10 - £16, Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 0RN until 10 January. Info; Courtauld
* A Life of Navigation, Taiwanese artist Musquiqui Chihying explores our ambiguous relationship with both analogue and digital technologies through installation, video, photography, and sculpture, free, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX, until 18 October. Info: Hayward
* Zifzafa, free exhibition of video works by Lawrence Abu Hamdan that address how sound can both sustain and disrupt the richness of community life, Barbican Centre, Silk Street EC2Y 8DS. Info: Barbican
Thursday 8 October
* Our Bodies Have Been Bridges, three feminist artists from the Americas whose work acknowledge how bodies carry memory and ancestry while resisting erasure; Charan Singh: Your Tongue in My Mouth, celebrating the lives and collective resistance of gender fluid communities in India. Both free, Autograph, Rivington Place EC2A 3BA until 13 February. Info: Autograph
from Wednesday 14 October
* Sanle Story: The Colour Years, photographs capturing daily life, youth culture and fashion in Burkina Faso, £7 - £12, Photographers Gallery, Ramillies Street, W1 until 21 February. Info: Gallery
from Thursday 15 October
* Reimagining Democracy, exhibition of illustrations by artists from refugee and migrant backgrounds, Kensington Central Library, 12 Phillimore Walk, W8 7RX until 30 October. Info: Counterpoint Arts
Performance
* Darkling, one-woman show exploring the impact of the 1984 Bhopal industrial disaster, £15 - £45, Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Road, W12 8LJ until 24 October. Info: Bush
+ A bleak story that needs to be re-told
* The Story, when a white teacher is killed in a black neighbourhood, four journalists race to get the headline. But when shocking new evidence pulls them into the dark heart of the case, they are each forced to confront what they’re prepared to risk to tell their version of the truth, National Theatre, South Bank SE1 9PX, until 24 October. Info: National
* For coloured girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf, “Stories of love and violence, joy and survival - and what it feels like to come out the other side”, Yard Theatre, Queen’s Yard, White Post Lane, E9 until 17 October. Info: The Yard
* The Hungry Ghost, Mei Leng Yew’s sexy horror rom-com exploring what takes root in the space between superstition and rationality, £15 to £25. Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Rd, W12 8LJ until 31 October. Info: Bush
+ Blood of My Blood, South Carolina, 1862. As war rages beyond the plantation, Ginnie Good raises five children in a cabin that will outlast them all. Today, in the same cabin, now a trendy Airbnb, a pregnant Black woman communes with her ancestors, seeking answers to questions she's afraid to ask anyone else, £15-£30, Royal Court, Sloane Square, SW1W 8AS until 7 November. Info: Royal Court
* Fences, alive with rhythms of blues and jazz, humour and heartbreak, August Wilson’s Pulitzer prize-winning masterpiece, set in the 1950s, is a timeless portrait of grief, love and what it means to be a family in post-war Black America, £10 - £55, Lyric Hammersmith, Lyric Square, King Street, W6 0QL, until 31 October. Info: Lyric
* For The Culture, Celebrations of Blackness Festival, “an act of resistance, a space for joy, reflection, and conversation, a place to champion and celebrate Black British artists, activists, and thinkers within our community”, Lyric Square, King Street W6 0QL until 31 October. Info: Lyric
Tuesday 13 - Thursday 15 October
* Bad Indian, funny and personal solo show written and performed by Saaj Raja. From suburban Britain to the trading floors of Hong Kong, the show asks what happens when the life you’re expected to live isn't the one you want, £10 - £17, Riverside, 101 Queen Caroline Street W6 9BN. Info: Riverside
Tuesday 13 - Wednesday 14 October
* Application 39, satirical, future‑facing drama by Palestinian writer Ahmed Masoud, imagines a Gaza risen from ruin, unexpectedly awarded the right to host the 2048 Olympic Games, exactly 100 years after the Nakba, £10 - £30, Theatre Royal, Stratford East, Gerry Raffles Square, E15 1BN. Info: Theatre Royal
Tuesday 20 October
* Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, the dazzling, defiant world of artist and activist Joséphine Baker, as soprano Julia Bullock brings her voice, spirit and story vividly to life in this genre-crossing performance, 8pm, from £24, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS, Info: Barbican
Film
* BFI London Film Festival, this is the big one - films from everywhere, for everyone. Features, shorts, immersive and extended reality, discussions, free events, until 18 October. Info: Festival website
+ Africa, Asia and Latin America at the London Film Festival
+ Vietnamese migrants’ daughter breaches the barrier of silence
+ Congo Boy becomes a Bangui man and hits the jackpot
+ The war reparations scam that snagged a South African community
+ Bravery on Tehran streets and in The Friend’s House
+ An Afghan rom-com interrupted by the Taliban
+ A message from Yemeni women: ‘No men, no weapons, no politics’
+ The Bedouin land that turned into concrete
+ The Philippines as a luxury golf resort
+ More a whydunnit than a whodunnit
+ China’s one-child policy delivers a girl with three names
+ Inspirational biopic of The Arch who helped topple apartheid
* Hong Kong Film Festival, free virtual programme available online until 31 October. Info: HKFF
+ The return of the Hong Kong Film Festival
* Cotton Queen, in a Sudanese cotton-farming village, teenage Nafisa grows up with her matriarch grandmother's heroic tales of resistance against British colonisers. But when an ambitious businessman arrives with genetically engineered cotton, Nafisa finds herself at the centre of a battle for her village's future, ICA, until 14 October
* Kikuyu Land, while investigating Kenya's global tea industry, Nairobi journalist Bea Wangondu stumbles upon her own family's concealed secrets, pushing her to peel back the layers of Kenya's colonial legacy, Curzon Bloomsbury until 13 October; Garden cinema 13 October
+ Two Kenyans fight on for a glimpse of paradise
* Black is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story, the story of photographer and activist Kwame Brathwaite, Curzon Bloomsbury 14, 15 October
Monday 12 October
* The Cycle of Love, reconstructs a 1977 journey, by a Delhi street artist on a 6,000-mile trip to find the woman who had captured his heart, Lexi
Wednesday 14 - Thursday 15 October
* Black is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story, the story of photographer and activist Kwame Brathwaite, Curzon Bloomsbury
Thursday 15 - Friday 16 October
* Dao, a formally inventive, politically attuned meditation on the enduring ties of the African diaspora, and the meaning of family and community, 7.15pm, 16 Oct, 2.50pm, National Film Theatre
from Friday 16 October
* NAZA, st at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, the film reveals in detail the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, by the people who designed and operated them, Curzon Bloomsbury, until 22 October
Sunday 19 October
* Burning An Illusion, Menelik Shabazz showcases the complexities of Black love and community in 1980s London, 6.20pm, National Film Theatre + 27 October
Tuesday 20 October
* MKO, examines the cover-up behind one of Africa’s most consequential political crimes, the suspicious death of Nigeria’s 1993 election winner: Moshood Abiola + Q&A, 6.20, £10/£12.50, Curzon Bloomsbury
* Still a Brother: Inside the Negro Middle Class, a multilayered interpretation of race and class at a watershed moment in American history + introduction by Matthew Barrington, 6.10pm, National Film Theatre
* Sapphire, an investigation into the murder of a young woman reveals issues of racial identity and racism in 1950s London, 8.40pm, National Film Theatre
* Young Soul Rebels, two young Black men reckon with the death of a close friend while pursuing their dreams in 1970s East London, 8.50pm, National Film Theatre + 24 October
TV and radio
Monday 12 October
* Global Eye, news magazine, 7pm, BBC2
* Being Muslim After 9/11, documentary, 9pm, BBC2
* Michael Palin in The Philippines, part 3, thankfully less bland than the 83-year-old’s previous travelogue series, 9pm, Channel 5
* Killing Anna, documentary about Syrian-born researcher Annsar Shahoud, who ran a Facebook site aimed at entrapping Syrian officials and others into admitting their roles in mass murders, 11.05pm, Channel4
Tuesday 13 October
* Being Muslim After 9/11, documentary, 11pm, BBC2
* Sorry, I Didn’t Know, Black comedy quiz, 11.35pm, ITV1
* History’s Secret Heroes, how midwife Sybil Kathigasu and her husband helped the resistance during the Japanese occupation of Malaya, 3pm, Radio4
Wednesday 14 October
* Finding Britain’s Slave Traders With David Olusoga, documentary, 12.30am, BBC2
Thursday 15 October
* Alexander Armstrong in India, bland travelogue, and, to add insult to injury, the broadcaster’s name ranks higher than the name of the country, 10.10pm, Channel5
Thanks to volunteer Daniel Nelson (editor of Eventslondon.org) for compiling this list.