44 Best Performing Arts in London, England

Opened in 1982, The Barbican is an enormous brutalist concrete maze that Londoners either love or hate—but its importance to the cultural life of the capital is beyond dispute. At the largest performing arts center in Europe, you could listen to Elgar, see 1960s photography, and catch German animation with live accompaniment, all in one day. The main concert hall, known for its acoustics, is most famous as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra. The Barbican is also a frequent host to the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Architecture tours take place several times a week.

With the best repertory programming in London, these four cinemas run by the British Film Institute are in effect a national film center. More than 1,000 titles are screened each year, with art-house and foreign-language new releases, restored classics and silents, experimental and niche interest works, and short films favored over recent Hollywood blockbusters. The center also has a gallery, bookshop, events, and a "mediatheque" where visitors can watch film and television from the National Archive for free (closed Monday). The Riverfront Bar and Kitchen offers dining with views, while the BFI Bar is informal and buzzy and the BFI Café offers coffee and light snacks. This is one of the venues for the BFI London Film Festival, though throughout the year there are minifestivals, seminars, and guest speakers.

Opened in 1959 and now a Soho institution, this three-screen independent cinema runs a vibrant program of first-run arthouse and mainstream films, along with an engaging calendar of director talks, Q&As, film festival events, and other cinephile offerings. The first-floor mezzanine bar is great for a quiet drink, even when Soho's Shaftesbury Avenue is heaving with people. There are other equally historic and wonderful Curzon cinemas in Mayfair, Bloomsbury, and Victoria.

Hollywood stars often perform at this not-for-profit theater in diverse and daring new works, bold interpretations of the classics, and small-scale musicals. Heavy-hitters like Nicole Kidman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Ewan McGregor have all graced the stage.

A glamorous contemporary art fair, Frieze London brings the crème de la crème of the international art world to London each October. Its sister show, Frieze Masters, is a 15-minute walk across Regent's Park and focuses on art from the ancient world through the late 20th century. For the two events combined, hundreds of galleries exhibiting thousands of artworks—everything from old masters to Rachel Whiteread—fill two huge pop-up spaces in the park. The food and drink available on-site are pricey but excellent, and there's a compelling program of artist and curator talks. Catch the free Frieze Sculpture Park in Regent's Park between July and October.

An architectural extravaganza of Edwardian style, this baroque-style theater has a magnificent 2,350-seat auditorium and a rooftop glass dome with a bar and great views. As one of the city's most venerable venues, the Coliseum functions mainly as the home of the English National Opera, which produces innovative opera, sung in English, for lower prices than the nearby Royal Opera House. In recent years the company also has presented musicals, sometimes featuring star opera singers. During opera's off-season (including summertime and during winter holidays), the house hosts the English National Ballet and other troupes. Guided tours offering fascinating insights into the architecture and history of the building take place on selected dates at 11 am.

The wildly eclectic and very cool Meltdown generally takes place in June at the Southbank Centre. It's curated by a different big-name artist each year (past curators have included the likes of Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, and Grace Jones), so you never have any idea what to expect until the program comes out.

When this complex designed by Sir Denys Lasdun opened in 1976, Londoners were slow to warm up to the low-rise brutalist block, with King Charles III once describing it as "a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London without anyone objecting." But whatever you think of the outside, the inside offers generally superb theatrical experiences at (relatively) friendly prices—several of which (like War Horse or One Man, Two Guvnors) have gone on to become long-running Broadway hits. Interspersed with the three theaters—the 1,150-seat Olivier, the 890-seat Lyttelton, and the 450-seat Dorfman—is a multilayered foyer with exhibitions, bars, restaurants, and free entertainment. Musicals, classics, and plays are performed by top-flight professionals, whom you can sometimes catch giving foyer talks as well. Seventy-five-minute backstage tours incorporating prop-making and scene-painting workshops as well as the architecture of the building are offered on weekdays at 5 pm and Saturdays at noon. Each weekend in August, the free outdoor River Stage Festival presents live music, dance, family workshops, and DJ sets in front of the theater. There are £10 Friday Rush tickets for some performances.

Opened in 1871, this splendid iron-and-glass-domed auditorium hosts everything from R&B, pop, and classical headliners to Cirque du Soleil, ballet, and RuPaul's Drag Race, but it is best known for the annual July–September BBC Promenade Concerts. Bargain-price standing-room (or promenading or sitting-on-the-floor) tickets for "the Proms" are sold on the night of the concert. The circular 5,272-seat auditorium has a terra-cotta exterior surmounted by an 800-foot-long mosaic frieze depicting figures engaged in advancing the arts and sciences. The hall is open most days for daytime guided tours and Tuesday through Sunday for afternoon tea.

Along with Milan's La Scala, New York's Metropolitan, and the Palais Garnier in Paris, this is one of the world's great opera houses. First established in 1732, the Royal Opera House has staged countless spectacular performances during its illustrious history, while recent shows have tended toward a more contemporary repertoire. Whatever the style, the extravagant 2,250-seat auditorium delivers a serious dose of gilt and glamour. The famed Royal Ballet performs classical and contemporary repertoire here, too, and smaller-scale works of both opera and dance are presented in the Linbury Theatre and Clore Studio. A small allocation of tickets for each performance of main stage productions for the week ahead—even those that are sold out—goes on sale online at 1 pm every Friday.

If you wish to see the famed auditorium but are not able to procure a ticket, you can join a backstage tour or one of the less frequent tours of the auditorium; they book up several weeks in advance.

If you're into leading classical and contemporary dance companies, head to this purpose-built complex, which opened in 1998 and is the sixth theater on this site in its 300-year history. Choreographers like Matthew Bourne and Hofesh Shechter often bring their work here. The smaller Lilian Baylis Studio hosts avant-garde work.

The general public has never really warmed to the Southbank Centre's hulking concrete buildings (beloved by architecture aficionados), products of the brutalist style popular when the center was built in the 1950s and '60s—but all the same, the masses flock to the concerts, recitals, festivals, and exhibitions held here, the largest arts center in Europe. The Royal Festival Hall is truly a People's Palace, with seats for 2,900 and a schedule that ranges from major symphony orchestras to pop stars. The smaller Queen Elizabeth Hall is more classically oriented. It contains the Purcell Room, which hosts lectures and chamber performances. For art, head to the Hayward Gallery, which hosts shows on top contemporary artists such as Antony Gormley and Cy Twombly. The center's riverside street level has a terrific assortment of restaurants and bars, though many are branches of upscale chains. Friday through Sunday, a street food market with food trucks serves cuisines from around the world.

In 2015, Matthew Warchus, the director behind Matilda the Musical, took over as artistic director of this grand venerable theater, where stage legends like Maggie Smith, Vivien Leigh, Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton, and Judi Dench once trod the boards. Today, you'll still find some of the best shows in town here—both new work and revivals of modern classics—some featuring contemporary stars like Andrew Scott and Claire Foy.

Hosted predominantly in the epic Royal Albert Hall, The BBC Proms is an eight-week-long festival of classical concerts that takes place every summer. More than 100 years old, the festival is considered an institution, but the lineup doesn't shy away from embracing the new and quirky aspects of classical music. Expect to find the likes of children's concerts, classic film scores, and avant-garde African salsa on the bill. Standing tickets of £8.50 are available for most performances.

London’s most beautiful venue for chamber music also happens to boast near-perfect acoustics. The hall has a rich history, including hosting the premieres of a number of works by the British composer Benjamin Britten, and today attracts leading ensembles from all over the world. The varied program contains lunchtime and Sunday morning concerts plus workshops, as well as concerts for babies and toddlers.

Arguably London's most atmospheric cultural space, Wilton's has been entertaining the crowds since 1743, first as an alehouse, then as a music hall. It now hosts gigs, talks, theater performances, movie screenings (often with live scores), and swing-dance evenings. The cozy Mahogany Bar, the oldest part of the building, serves a good range of quality local ales, along with snacks and meals that change according to what's playing in the theater. Hourlong historical guided tours take place about once a month (£10).

This Off West End venue, helmed by artistic director Rupert Goold, premieres excellent new plays and exciting twists on the classics, often featuring high-profile actors. A good café-bar serves tasty food, wine, and cocktails.

This arts center has a reputation for producing innovative new theater and dance works as well as hosting top alternative stand-up comics. It also hosts a number of community arts initiatives to develop local talent. Performances take place in quirky spaces all over this atmospheric former town hall. The bar, which serves snacks and shared plates, is open all day.

More than 200 feature films, many of them world or European premieres, plus shorts, talks, and workshops, grace the program of the BFI London Film Festival, which takes place over 12 days every October. There's a total of nine venues across town that are involved, but the heart of the action centers on the BFI Southbank, with the big movie theaters in Leicester Square being the focus for the galas and major releases. Booking ahead is advised.

The British Film Institute's glazed, drum-shaped IMAX theater has the largest screen in the United Kingdom (approximately 75 feet wide and the height of five double-decker buses). It shows state-of-the-art 2-D and 3-D films.

Once a church, this spacious venue is home to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the English Chamber Orchestra performs here regularly. The hall also hosts a wide range of choral and chamber concerts, plus the occasional folk, rock, and world-music gig.

The French Institute, a cultural center devoted to all things French, is also the home of Ciné Lumière, a cinema that shows a thoughtfully curated selection of current arthouse releases, repertory classics, documentaries, and French films, all either in English or with English subtitles. The Institute also hosts lectures and panels on a wide range of contemporary issues and concerts by French artists. There's a café-restaurant and, for Francophones, the U.K.'s largest multimedia French language library that includes periodicals, books, and DVDs.

The biggest annual performing arts event in London is Dance Umbrella, a three-week festival in October that hosts international and British-based artists at venues across the city.

The history of this treasure of a theater is drama in its own right. Charlie Chaplin is said to have appeared at Hackney Empire during its days as a thriving variety theater and music hall in the early 1900s. The venue now hosts traditional family entertainment and variety shows, opera, music, musical theater, dance, and drama, often with a multicultural slant. Its annual Christmas pantomime show is legendary.

Located in nearby Swiss Cottage, this handsome theater specializes in commissioning and producing new work. Established names like Mike Bartlett, Terry Johnson, and Joe Penhall have debuted plays in the upstairs theater (with several productions eventually going on to the West End), while fresh voices are produced in the downstairs studio theater at friendly ticket prices. It's also known for its productions of recent Pulitzer Prize–winning plays imported from the United States. There's a good café that's open all day as well as during performances.

You would never suspect that behind the stately white John Nash--designed stucco facade in the heart of Establishment London, you'll find a champion of the avant-garde. Since 1947, the ICA has been pushing boundaries in visual arts, performance, theater, dance, and music. There are two movie theaters, a performance theater, three galleries, a highbrow bookstore, a reading room, and a café-bar.

The cultural jewel of the King's Cross transformation, this airy concert venue is the headquarters of the London Sinfonietta. Its resident orchestra, Aurora Orchestra, is the world's first professional orchestra to perform whole symphonies by the likes of Mozart and Beethoven without sheet music. There's a varied cultural calendar here, including jazz, comedy, folk, and political and literary lectures, plus two gallery spaces.

Innovative puppetry performances for children and adults have been taking place in this adorable former temperance hall since 1961.

Come November, international jazz superstars rub shoulders with emerging local talent and cutting-edge bands at dozens of venues across the city during the 10 days of the London Jazz Festival. A varied program of around 350 performances, including free concerts and gigs for toddlers, means both jazz connoisseurs and those new to the genre will find plenty to enjoy.

This converted industrial space has become celebrated for its inspired reworkings of classic musicals, with several of its productions eventually transferring to the West End and even winning Tonys on Broadway. It's not unusual for shows to feature top British talent and stars-of-tomorrow, like Sharon Horgan and Tom Hollander, before they become famous. It also hosts comedy nights.