We’ve rounded up the best things to do this month:
Waddesdon Winter Weekends
Every Saturday and Sunday from 11 January until 9 February, the grounds of Waddesdon are open and free of charge for everyone to enjoy. It’s a great time for those interested in exploring, getting fit, photography or simply for spending time with loved ones.
Bankside Twelfth Night Celebrations
In what has become a London tradition, the Lions Part theatre company are mixing ancient customs with contemporary celebrations for their big Thameside Twelfth Night celebration. Beginning on the Bankside near Shakespeare’s Globe, the company lead a procession to celebrate the ancient Midwinter festival with pagan icons, the Green Man and the Holly Man making an appearance, to ‘bring in the green’ and ‘wassail’.The procession will pass by the Bankside Jetty for a performance of the Folk Combat Play of St George – a seasonal event recorded from the Crusades, which features wild verse and action, and characters such as the Turkey Sniper, Clever Legs and the Old 'Oss. Two of the cakes distributed at the end of the play have a bean and a pea hidden inside – those who find them are crowned King and Queen for the day, and lead the people to Soap Yards where storytelling and revelling await.
The London Short Film Festival has been a trusty showcase of new talents and small, but perfectly formed short films. Returning for its 22nd year, the 2025 edition features a whopping 204 new shorts across more than 60 programmes, as well as a bunch of talks, workshops and walking tours. Loads of great cinemas and arts spaces across the city getting involved to host, including the BFI Southbank, the ICA, Rich Mix, the Rio and SET Peckham. Highlights of the programme include the ever-present opening night ‘Funny Shit’ programme featuring comedy flicks from the surreal to the slapstick (Curzon Soho, Jan 17), two always popular programmes celebrating of penny-pinching movie-making (‘Lo-Budget Mayhem’, Jan 20) and wildly unconventional shorts (‘WTF!’, Jan 25) at Dalston’s indie institution the Rio Cinema and the Animation Variety Show programme, featuring everything from claymation and 3D animation to stop-motion embroidery (Rich Mix, Jan 21). And in an exciting new addition to the festival, a series of free screenings will be taking place in a restored 22-seater Mobile Cinema Bus from the 1960s, which will be stoppingin Walthamstow, Hounslow and Crystal Palace.
London’s established winter art fair opens with over 120 galleries showing modern art, photography, sculpture and everything in between. This year’s London Art Fair will feature large-scale installations and thematic group displays from some very influential artists, including Tracey Emin and Francis Bacon. A new partnership with the Sainsbury Centre will also introduce an immersive 'Living Art' experience, which hopes to encourage visitors to rethink their relationship with art.