May at a glance
We’re all guilty of ignoring what’s on our doorstep, so we’ve made it easier for you. Here’s what’s happening this month
MAY is always dominated by the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, SW3, but there are plenty of other events worthy of your time. Start the month with a bang at The Gunpowder Plot, Tower Hill Vaults, EC3, a virtual-reality and multisensory exhibition about the failed assassination attempt against James I, starring Harry Potter’s Tom Felton, from May 6 (www.gunpowderimmersive.com). Journey back in time (again) with a Shirehorse carriage ride at Hampton Court
Palace’s Artisan Festival, KT8, May 13 to 15. Entry is included in the normal ticket price (www.hrp.org.uk/ hampton-court-palace/whats-on/artisan-festival). Take in world-class photography at Photo London, the annual exhibition at Somerset House, WC2, May 12 to 15 (https://photolondon.org). Or add some colour to your life at ‘When Flowers Dream’, a vibrant exhibition of artworks made out of sugar, among other things, by artist Pip & Pop, at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, TW9, from May 21 (www. kew.org). Enjoy a concert like no other on earth at the Royal Albert Hall, SW7. Ilan Exhkeri’s Space Station Earth, created in collaboration with The European Space Agency, premieres on May 15 (www.royalalbert hall.com/tickets/events/2022/spacestation-earth). Finally, if you need your floral kicks, but haven’t got a ticket to the main event, there’s Chelsea in Bloom, which sees shops in the area attempt to out do each other with bigger and better flowery displays, May 23–28 (www. chelseainbloom.co.uk). Best of all, it’s free.