Barbican: Collabs like SXSW are the future of creative industries Life&Style This week SXSW returns to London for its second year. For decades, this festival has brought together music, tech, film and the arts, creating cultural moments and sparking new ideas. The Barbican is proud to be a part of it, hosting a number of world film premieres in the heart of the City. SXSW shares our belief that great things happen [...]
£450m City block approved after developers lop three storeys of plan Property Revised plans for a new £450m tower in the City have been rubber-stamped by the Square Mile’s planning committee after developers chose to lop three stories off the building’s design in response to fierce local criticism. Canada Corporation greenlit an adjusted proposal for the 1 Silk Street mega-scheme on Thursday, saying it [...]
In Other Worlds at the Barbican: Is this what the future looks like? Life&Style In Other Worlds | The Barbican | ★★★★☆ The Barbican seems to have found its groove when it comes to contemporary art, utilising its modernist spaces to create sprawling, immersive exhibitions that couldn’t exist anywhere else. Last year Feel the Sound explored the concept of noise in all of its forms – scientific, spiritual, cultural [...]
Secret Barbican: visit these beautiful parts of the famous building May 19, 2026 I’m not sure anyone can really consider themselves an ‘insider’ at the Barbican. It’s a giant, complex dream of a place, a vision of what a community and a life might be like with creativity at its heart. I’m just lucky enough to be one of the people looking after it for a bit. And [...]
The City pub boasting taxidermy boar, deer and squirrel April 29, 2026 Our Toast the City Awards celebrating the best of the Square Mile returns later this year. Adam Bloodworth dines at City pub The Jugged Hare WHAT’S THE VIBE? At The Jugged Hare, I pass a boar growling at me. It has been upturned and beheaded and presented unceremoniously on a dining table. Fierce-eyed boars, slender [...]
Barbican Centre: the brutalist landmark weaving art into everyday London life. April 2, 2026 For many people, the Barbican is a place to visit, to catch a show, enjoy some food or just hang out. For others, like Jo Davis (Head of Retail) and Oluwatoyin Odunsi (Senior Producer for Learning & Participation), it’s a place of work – as seen in the video below. And for a fortunate few, [...]
Ariana Grande tickets for London musical ‘could easily go over £300’ January 16, 2026 “Dynamic pricing” has forced some West End ticket prices as high as £400 – will Ariana Grande’s new production of Sunday in the Park with George cost as much as an all-inclusive break in the Med? While some figures including Andrew Lloyd Weber have criticised dynamic pricing – the act of putting prices up in [...]
Rohtko at Barbican: Savage and gripping satire of the art world October 3, 2025 Rohtko at the Barbican | ★★★★★ Rohtko is one of the most astonishing pieces of work I’ve seen on a London stage. Created by Polish director Łukasz Twarkowski, it’s a genre-defying mash up of theatre, live cinema, installation art, dance and techno. The Barbican stage is filled with an ever-shifting series of sets built inside [...]
Beyond the Barbican: meet the Square Mile’s Bridewell Theatre October 2, 2025 Other than the Barbican, the Bridewell Theatre is the Square Mile’s most significant live performance venue. Here they tell us why they should win at this year’s inaugural Toast the City awards, celebrating the best of the Square Mile later this month. Why does the Bridewell Theatre deserve to win a coveted Slice of Toast at the [...]
How the Barbican Theatre has rivalled the West End for four decades August 21, 2025 Our Toast the City Awards are celebrating the City’s top spots and takes place this October. This week: the Barbican Theatre. Think of the Barbican Centre and you might picture the lakeside suntrap or Brutalist passageways that feel purposefully designed to get lost in. You might not immediately think of the Barbican Theatre, but here’s why you [...]