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- 🥷 27 things to do in London this weekend with the kids (7–8 March)
🥷 27 things to do in London this weekend with the kids (7–8 March)
Jeff – Dads in London
March 04, 2026
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Hey DILFs!
When I first learnt that “Flukes is now open to ages 12+” on Sundays, my reaction was exactly what you’d expect from someone who keeps a mental spreadsheet of venues that tolerate offspring.
“Thank bloody GOODNESS,” I exclaimed to myself. “I finally have something to mention in the intro.”
And I started writing about how FFS (Flukes Family Sundays) takes place at Big Penny Social and cost just £5 per person per hour, and how there are now even packages for children’s birthday parties. And then I realised I had no idea what Flukes actually is. So I found out.
If you think your kids will enjoy a two-hour seminar on pension consolidation or a guided wine-tasting masterclass, phew! My intro has not been wasted.
Kidding!
Flukes is actually where you can play interactive darts (“just aim your throws where the dartboard glows”), interactive shuffleboard (“forget about arguments over who’s winning”), karaoke (powered by industry experts Lucky Voice) and old-school, tech-free pool (featuring “tournament grade slate beds” ooooh!). It’s upstairs at Big Penny Social, in the UK’s largest beer hall – with a huge sunny beer garden if the weather’s good before or after your Flukes session.
Given that I started this introduction entirely in the dark, I’m relieved to have stumbled into something I can actually recommend. I should wing it more often.
Onto the more thoroughly-researched activities!
Enjoy,
Jeff xx
Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends
Saturday and Sunday, 10:00–17:45 (and daily until 15 November)
Young V&A, Cambridge Heath Road, E2 9PA
£11 per person* (under-4s free)
*Note: “Your Exhibition Pass gives you unlimited visits to Inside Aardman - Wallace & Gromit and Friends after your initial visit.”
I was once within spitting distance of Nick Park, the award-winning creator, director and animator at Aardman Animations. I didn’t spit on him, of course – I think he’s wonderful – but it did mean I was close enough to wonder how on earth such an unassuming, low-key and modest man could come up with the astonishing creations that are Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and Chicken Run.
The Inside Aardman exhibition, on the other hand, doesn’t look particularly modest when you first walk in: it’s big, bright and noisy – in a way that implies they really want kids to remain happily absorbed by the interactive elements and fun pictures so their parents (who, let’s face it, are the reason anyone’s here) have time to look around and take it all in.
And there’s LOTS to take in. But, just like Nick Park – the most stereotypically British personality I think you’ll ever find – none of it is “Woohoo aren’t we brilliant! We spearheaded so much cool stuff! Be in awe!” It’s more “Here’s what we did and how we did it. Fun, huh? Now you try.”
The space is divided into various themed areas: atmosphere, storyboarding, worldbuilding, sets and models, sound, lighting, animation, visual effects and voiceover. Each section is packed with sketches, early story ideas, beautifully finished models and sets, videos of voiceover artists trying to get it right, and clear explanations of how it all comes together.
You’ll see how the shape of Gromit’s nose was adjusted over time, and how Wallace once had a beard and a much slimmer face. You’ll learn that a character can have more than 22 clay mouthpieces for a single sentence – and how those mouthpieces are swapped in mid-syllable to give the impression of regular speech. Once you see that, it’s less surprising that it can take animators a week to create about six seconds of film.
You’ll also encounter a variety of those interactive elements. Not just “push a button to hear a noise”, either. In one area, for example, you can become a lighting technician and slide switches to dim or illuminate the set of Feathers McGraw’s cell – and then see what it looks like on a TV screen nearby. There’s also a station where you can create your own stop-motion animation, and another where you can try out some Foley art – banging coconuts together to represent footsteps or scraping a saw along a textured surface to mimic the sound of scribbling on paper.
And then there’s the sets! The real sets used in various Aardman movies – including Wallace and Gromit’s lovely cosy living room. The attention to detail is INSANE.
For a studio responsible for some of the most beloved characters in British film, there’s surprisingly little chest-beating going on here – just like Nick Park. It’s all presented with the air of someone saying, “Oh, it was nothing really,” while standing next to a global phenomenon made of clay.
While you’re there…
👍 When we visited, the Benugo cafe area in the museum was chock-a-block the entire time – and even if you’re prepared to wait for a table, it’s not the most relaxing experience. So after we’d been to the exhibition, we went down the road to Hulya’s Cafe – a marvellous greasy spoon that’s quiet and friendly, and with the hugest portions I’ve ever seen. Even the kids’ meals (about £4) are gigantic.
👍️ The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities is a modern take on the Victorian wunderkammer: a small, densely packed room full of taxidermy, skeletons, oddities, occult bits, questionable artworks and things in jars. It doesn’t try to explain anything or teach you a moral lesson; it simply presents its collection and leaves you to make of it what you will. There’s also an absinthe bar downstairs, in case you’d like your weekend to feel a little more numb.
Visit the Barbican Conservatory
Saturday and Sunday, slots between 12:00 and 17:00 (and various other dates until 22 March)
Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS
FREE
When I first learnt that the Barbican Conservatory was originally created to hide the theatre’s fly tower, I was disgusted – and that’s because I had, in my ignorance, assumed the centre had an ongoing insect infestation it was trying to cover up.
So imagine my relief-stroke-embarrassment when I realised that a fly tower is actually the tall space above a theatre stage where scenery, backdrops and lights are hoisted up and hidden out of the audience’s sight. In this case, the fly tower belongs to the Barbican Theatre beneath it. (If you want to follow me down my rabbit hole, this one-minute video is a good place to start.)
And what a disguise. They’ve essentially built a tropical rainforest to hide a concrete box, which is about as far away from shoving the toys under the sofa before the guests arrive as you can get.
The conservatory (London’s second largest, after Kew) is home to exotic fish and between 1,500 and 1,800 species of tropical plants (1,500 if you’re hiring the venue for a corporate event; 1,800 if you want it for your wedding – i.e. the number varies depending on which page of the website you’re reading). The fish include beautiful (and lucky) koi carp, a variety of pond fish, and over 100 rehomed terrapins sent over from Hampstead Heath after terrorising the locals.
As for the plants… we’re talking palm trees, banana plants, tree fern, date palm, coffee plants, ginger plants and “the Swiss cheese plant” – all of which are native to tropical areas and survive muggy London thanks entirely to the conservatory’s greenhouse atmosphere.
These days, it’s bloomin’ hard to find dates when the conservatory is open, but there are slots available this weekend and a few other dates in the near future. It’s completely free – which means you really need to book asap to be in with a chance of securing a slot.
While you’re there…
👍 On Sunday there’s an LSO Family Concert: The King Who Tried To Change His Fate. It’s suitable for 7–12s and – if tickets are still available – I highly recommend going because these Barbican Family Concert thingammies are always incredible.
👍 Or for something more Saturday-y (because it’s on Saturday), Hola Frida! is showing at Barbican Cinema. It’s “a gorgeous animated story of feminist icon and inspiring artist, Frida Kahlo's childhood in Coyoacan, Mexico”, and is suitable for ages 5+.
👉 Brief interruption in a horrible colour: if this newsletter has earned its keep, you can buy me a coffee. (Completely optional, of course.)
U-Shirt by NN
Sunday 8 March, 11:00–16:00
Chats Palace Arts Centre, 42–44 Brooksby's Walk, E9 6DF
FREE
Remember when kids were texting stuff like “l8r” and “gr8” because it was “quicker”? (I maintain that “later” is much easier to type on a phone than “l8r”. But anyway.)
Memories of that awful period in history came rushing back when I saw the name and description of this new event at Chats Palace. It says, “Make ur own U Shirt at our upcycling workstation! It’s the evolution of a t shirt. U for upcycled, unique, upgraded & U!”
Crikey.
I’d like to be mad, but I can’t because the mission behind it is so noble. It’s run by a group called “NN”, which stands for Nostalgia Nights and I don’t know why but let’s worry about that later – or maybe not at all. We’ll see how we’re doing for time.
They point out that the cotton industry occupies a vast amount of arable land and uses copious amounts of water – and we don’t exactly help matters by buying new clothes every five minutes when we could be reworking what’s already in the wardrobe. Just look at the mountains of discarded clothing in the Atacama Desert – a huge, illegal dumping ground for unsold and unwanted fashion from around the world.
U-shirt is NN’s small-but-mighty attempt to right all these fast fashion wrongs – by enabling us to take the Sonic t-shirt bought last week that’s already “soooo lame” and turn it into something that aligns with this week’s identity. You bring along an item you already have at home, customise it with your own design or choose from a selection provided, and it’s printed once you’re happy with it. It’s not just t-shirts: it can be a shirt, trousers, top, or whatever else they’re currently obsessed with. Here’s the process in action, and here are some examples of what can be created.
For context: producing a single cotton t-shirt takes around 2,700 litres of water, which is roughly what one person drinks over about 900 days. So if your child walks away having reinvented something instead of demanding something new, you can mentally deduct over half a gallon from your household’s moral ledger and carry on with your day.
It may not redeem the cotton industry overnight, but it’s a start. And it involves fewer vowels.
Find out more: https://chatspalace.com/events/u-shirt-by-nn/
Samurai
Saturday and Sunday, 10:00–17:00 (and daily until 4 May)
British Museum, Great Russell Street, WC1B 3DG
Adults £25, under-16s free
There’s nothing we enjoy more than boiling several hundred years of history down to one adjective. Vikings were fierce. Knights were chivalrous. Romans were organised. Pirates were fun at parties.
The samurai? Honourable. Obviously.
Except, as the British Museum is keen to point out, that version was assembled later and with considerably more editing than we tend to admit.
The exhibition begins by giving you what you probably came for, which is armour. Proper, full-body suits built from iron plates laced together with silk and leather, with thick shoulder guards and breastplates designed to stop arrows. The helmets are the real show-offs: one has golden blades radiating from it like a metal sunburst, while another rises into a shape that looks suspiciously like the tip of an aubergine. The face masks are carved into permanent grimaces, complete with moustaches, so the wearer appears furious even when standing still and doing nothing. Put someone inside it and they start looking like something out of a legend.
The exhibition then moves on to show what became of the samurai after a brief period of being the coolest people on the planet. After 1615, Japan entered a long period of peace that lasted for more than two centuries – but the samurai didn’t go on the dole or hang around on street corners making scary poses at babies. Instead they became officials, administrators and cultural tastemakers. They supervised land, handled government business and took pride in poetry, ceramics and painting. The exhibition includes scroll paintings, ceramics and tea wares from this period, when swords were still worn as a sign of status but daily life often revolved around paperwork and patronage rather than combat.
Samurai was also a social class, which meant families – including the oft-forgotten female sex – were part of it. In earlier periods, some women trained with weapons such as the naginata, and in peacetime many managed estates within this elite group. You’ll see lots of garments, personal items, armour and blades belonging to samurai women – which is a refreshing change from the usual “wife of famous man” footnote treatment.
Later on, the exhibition tackles bushido – “the way of the warrior” – the supposed ancient rulebook built around loyalty, discipline and dying nobly for your boss. It’s explained that this neat code was written down and promoted in the 19th century, after Japan had modernised and the samurai had been abolished as a hereditary class. By that point, many former samurai had cut their hair, put on Western suits and moved into new roles, but the idea of the fearless, self-sacrificing warrior was polished up and presented as timeless tradition.
In the final rooms, it’s all about how the legend of the samurai has influenced contemporary culture. So there’s Darth Vader, obvs. And fashion, film and video game references. And other bits and bobs that show how pervasive the armoured, warrior-heavy version of the samurai has been far beyond Japan.
So “honourable” works as a starting point. It just doesn’t account for the centuries spent running the country, commissioning pottery and writing poetry – nor for the later reinvention of the samurai as a walking code of noble sacrifice. Add in the afterlife in film and fashion, and the single-word summary begins to look optimistic.
Find out more: https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/samurai
While you’re there…
👍️ You’re close to two historical and beautiful squares in London. The Bloomsbury Squares website provides lots of background (and information relating to cafes, events, etc.) about Bloomsbury Square and Russell Square.
👍️ I haven’t visited yet, but the British Museum’s other exhibition, Hawaiʻi: A Kingdom Crossing Oceans, is meant to be fantastic.
👉 Brief interruption in a horrible colour: if this newsletter has earned its keep, you can buy me a coffee. (Completely optional, of course.)
Tiny Planet
Saturday 7 March, 11:00 and 14:00
Half Moon Young People’s Theatre, 43 White Horse Road, E1 0ND
£9 per person
Age guidance: 5+
You may have heard of a book called The Little Prince. If you haven’t, you definitely know the storyline and central message because it’s been adapted into everything short of a scented candle.
It’s about a pilot who crashes in the desert and meets a small boy from a tiny planet, who’s travelled to Earth because he had a quarrel with his rose and now feels hurt and confused. (Go with me on this.) Once he reaches Earth, he stumbles across an entire garden full of roses and is devastated to discover his rose isn’t unique at all. She’s just one of many.
He’s already encountered a run of adults who are Very Busy Being Important about things that don’t matter in the slightest – issuing orders, demanding admiration, following orders unthinkingly, etc.. Then a fox steps in (please stay with me!) and explains the bit that’s carried this book for 80 years: his rose is special, but not because she’s rare. She’s special because he’s watered her, protected her and worried about her. What makes something meaningful isn’t uniqueness – it’s the time and care you choose to give it.
Tiny Planet takes that same idea and strips it back: no interplanetary sightseeing, and no parade of symbolic grown-ups. Instead just one small world – no bigger than a house – and a wanderer exploring it as asteroids collide and strange new creatures evolve. The whole thing is built through puppetry, live music and camera work that turns miniature details into major events.
Tiny Planet ends up having basically the same moral lesson as The Little Prince, but with less faffery and fewer anthropomorphised roses. Basically: what matters is what we choose to devote time and attention to. Nothing else – not rarity, not scale, not anything else – is relevant.
Find out more: https://www.halfmoon.org.uk/events/tiny-planet/
Other listings
This section now brings together both new events I don’t have room to expand on and selected older ones from past newsletters that are still running. If you see a “(see my write-up here)”, that’s your cue to click through and rediscover whatever Past Me felt strongly enough to write about.
Brave Bettie
Sunday 8 March, 11:00 and 14:00
Jacksons Lane Arts Centre, 269a Archway Road, N6 5AA
£14 per person
Age guidance: 3–8
Relaxed Saturday Live: Songs of Imagination and Play
Saturday 7 March, 11:00
St James's Church, 197 Piccadilly, W1J 9LL
FREE
Age guidance: suitable for all
LSO Family Concert: The King Who Tried To Change His Fate
Sunday 8 March, 14:30
Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS
£12–£18 per person
Age guidance: 7–12
Hola Frida!
Saturday 7 March, 11:00
Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS
Adults £5, under-18s £2.50
Age guidance: 5+
Ramses and the Pharaohs' Gold: The Exhibition (see my write-up here)
Daily until 31 May (various timeslots)
Adults £32.05, 5–15s £28.05, under-5s free
Battersea Power Station, 2 Circus Road East, SW11 8DQ
Age guidance: 5+
Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First
Tuesday–Sunday, 10:00–18:00 (until 21:00 on Fridays) until 19 April
Royal Academy, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1J 0BD
Adults £23, under-16s free
Samuel Laurence Cunnane: Blue Road
Tuesday–Sunday until 3 May, 10:00–18:00 (until 20:00 on Saturdays)
Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX
FREE – no ticket required
Uniqlo Tate Play: Make Studio: Memory
Wednesdays 10:30–15:00 and weekdays 10:30–18:00 until 22 July
Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1 9TG
FREE
Age guidance: suitable for all ages (under-5s only on Wednesdays)
Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life
Until 3 May, 10:00–18:00 (until 20:00 on Saturdays; closed Mondays)
Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX
Adults £19, 12–16s £8, under-12s free
Who Let The Gods Out
Until 22 March, various start times
Polka Theatre, 240 The Broadway, SW19 1SB
£10 per person
Age guidance: 8–13
The Jolly Postman (exhibition)
Tuesday–Sunday until January 2027, 10:00–17:00
The Postal Museum, 15–20 Phoenix Place, WC1X 0DA
Free with museum entry (adults £18.50, 2–15s £11, under-2s free)
Voyage to the Deep – Underwater Adventures
Daily until 1 November, 10:30–17:30
Horniman Museum & Gardens, 100 London Road, SE23 3PQ
Adults £9.80, children £7, under-3s free
Age guidance: 2+
Octonauts: Adventure at the Horniman
Daily until 1 November, 10:00–17:30
Horniman Museum & Gardens, 100 London Road, SE23 3PQ
FREE
Mundo Pixar Experience (full review coming soon!)
Daily until 28 June, various timeslots throughout the day
Fulton Road, Wembley Park, HA9 0TF
Adults £34, 3–15s £22, under-3s free
Age guidance: suitable for all (but prams will need to be stored in a designated area)
Marie-Antoinette: An Eye for Beauty (see my write-up here)
Daily until 31 March, 10:00–17:00
The Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, W1U 3BN
FREE
Love Letters: Love Letters: 500 years of devotion, longing, sacrifice and passion (see my write-up here)
Tuesday–Sunday until 12 April
The National Archives, Kew, TW9 4DU
FREE – no booking required
Water Pantanal Fire
Daily until 31 May, 10:00–18:00
Science Museum, Exhibition Road, SW7 2DD
Free – admission ticket required
Hawaiʻi: A Kingdom Crossing Oceans
Daily until 25 May, 10:00–17:00 (Fridays until 20:30)
British Museum, Great Russell Street, WC1B 3DG
Adults £16, under-16s free
Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting
Daily until 4 May, 10:30–18:00 (until 21:00 on some days)
National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, WC2H 0HE
Adults £23, 12–25 £5, under-12s free
REPLAY: A Limitless Recycled Playground (see my write-up here)
Daily until 12 April, various slots throughout the day
Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX
£7.50 per person
Age guidance: different sessions for 6 months–3 years and 4–11 years (younger children can join older siblings in the older session if necessary)
Tracey Emin: A Second Life (see my write-up here)
Daily until 31 August, 10:00–18:00
Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1 9TG
Adults £14, 12–18s £5, under-12s free