What's On in London This Weekend: the Jazz Festival's Last Weekend and Van Eyck, 21 to 22 November 2026

The EFG London Jazz Festival reaches its last two days on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 November, the same weekend the National Gallery opens its Van Eyck portraits. This is a short, dated list for that weekend and the week around it, written on Saturday 7 November from the organisers' and venues' own listings, linked at the foot of the page. Where a detail comes from one source only, that source is named. Times and availability move, so check the organiser before you travel. The weekend before is in What's on in London, 14–15 November.

Saturday 21 November

• Van Eyck: The Portraits opens at the National Gallery and runs to 11 April 2027; the Gallery gives tickets at £18 including an audio guide, with under-18s and members free. The exhibition
• Branford Marsalis and Dianne Reeves celebrate John Coltrane at the British Airways ARC at Olympia: doors 7pm, on stage 8pm, £80.50 to £88.50 including fees, per the festival's listing, which also warns that only bags of A4 size or smaller are allowed in.
• The Gerald Clayton Trio plays Cadogan Hall at 7.30pm, per the festival, from £34.50.
• The Script play The O2 arena with James Morrison as special guest, from 6.30pm, per The O2's listing.
• Duke Dumont is at OVO Arena Wembley from 6pm, per the arena's listing.

Sunday 22 November

• Samara Joy closes the Royal Festival Hall's festival run, with Lucy-Anne Daniels in support: doors 7pm, on stage 7.30pm, £53.25 to £84.75 including fees, per the festival.
• Cécile McLorin Salvant with the BBC Concert Orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, 6.30pm, is sold out, the festival's listing says.
• Free, for families: Homegrown in the Southbank Centre's Clore Ballroom, from 12.30pm, with ArtsTrain, Audrey Powne at 2pm, Allexa Nava at 4pm and LOX at 6pm, per the festival, which tags it family and free.
• Also free: Xani Kolac and Don Glori on the Barbican's FreeStage at 4pm, presented by the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, per the festival's listing. The festival line-up
• Bill Bailey brings Vaudevillean to The O2 arena at 6pm, per The O2.

Both days: the Design Museum turns ten

The Design Museum in Kensington holds a free 10th Anniversary Weekender on Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 6pm, per the museum and IanVisits. The museum says some sessions need booking, among them an afternoon with Yinka Ilori and Tim Marlow at 4.30pm on Saturday; Sunday is the family day, with a curator tour of PLATFORM: Simone Brewster at 11am and the Kensington Choir at 4pm.

The week around it

• Wednesday 18 November: Greenwich Market at Christmas opens, and Fleet Street switches on its lights, both per Time Out. Every switch-on
• Thursday 19 November: Leadenhall Market and St Katharine Docks switch on, per Time Out, and Hyde Park Winter Wonderland opens, running to 3 January 2027 and closed on Christmas Day; its own site gives £1 off-peak entry from Monday to Thursday in November. Dates and tickets
• Friday 20 November in cinemas: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, Josephine, A Talent for Murder and You Can See Everything are among the releases on Screen Daily's calendar, alongside a re-release of Arthur Christmas. The month's releases

Open throughout

The Southbank Centre's Winter Market is open daily from 11am to 10pm, the Southbank Centre says, and Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden and Winter by the River at London Bridge are all open by this weekend, per Time Out. London Christmas markets 2026. Tarek Atoui's Hyundai Commission fills Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, free, to 11 April 2027, per Tate. The commission

Just after

King's Cross and Camden open their Christmas markets on Thursday 26 November and Borough Market's Christmas starts on the 30th, per Time Out. The London Museum opens in its new home at Smithfield on Saturday 28 November; entry is free with a ticket, the museum says. The rest of the season is in London culture, November and December 2026.

Van Eyck painted a face lit from one side and let the rest fall into shadow, and a studio portrait still starts there. Our guide to studio portrait lighting covers the set-ups, and if the jazz sends you home wanting to record, our recording studio is a treated room built for it. You can check dates on the booking page.