From a free art exhibition by Bob Dylan to 14-day-long Jane Austen festival – these are the best things to do in the UK this summer
The concerts
Neil Young was supposed to headline Glastonbury this year but, on 1st January, he pulled out because it was a 'corporate turn-off'. Then, 48 hours later, the 79-year-old changed his mind (apparently, there had been 'an error in the information' he'd received) and revealed he would, actually, headline the festival. It sounds like a lot of faff, but who cares: what matters is that the Canadian singer is also playing a show on 11th July in London's Hyde Park. Tickets start at £123, bst-hydepark.com. Cat Stevens is supporting, and, unlike Glasto, the experience requires no camping. After that, go to the Piece Hall in Halifax. On 29th August, the Venetian-looking outdoor concert venue is hosting Nile Rogers & CHIC. Tickets start at £55, thepiecehall.co.uk. Good times.
The play
In 2022, the Australian barrister-turned-playwright Suzie Miller had her first show put on in the West End. It was called Prima Facie and it was a one-woman drama starring Jodie Comer as a lawyer who gets sexually assaulted. It did so well it transferred to Broadway, was filmed and broadcast in cinemas across the country, and, also, got turned into a book. If you missed it, don't worry. This summer, Miller's at the National Theatre with another legal drama starring another Hollywood actress: Rosamund Pike. According to the National's website, Inter Alia, is about a crown court judge whose life is thrown 'completely off balance'. It runs from 10th July to 13th September. Tickets start at £30, nationaltheatre.org.uk.
The anniversaries
If you haven't seen it yet, the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester has an exhibition on JMW Turner until 2nd November. It's in honour of the painter's 250th birthday and has original watercolours plus 71 prints that haven't been seen for more than 100 years. (Entry is free for Manchester locals and £1 for visitors.) And there's another British bigwig who turns 250 this year: Jane Austen. The novelist is being celebrated everywhere. In September, there's a 14-day-long Austen festival in Bath; from 14th June there's an exhibition about Austen's relationship with the seaside in Dorset; and on 16th December – her actual birthday – there's a Thanksgiving Service at her family's chapel in Hampshire. Bonnets at the ready.
The film
Lincoln Castle was built in 1068 by William the Conqueror, has intact medieval walls, two motes, and is home to one of the four original copies of Magna Carta. Just as importantly, on 16th August, the castle is also hosting a back-to-back cinema screening of Mamma Mia and Mamma Mia Here We Go Again in its gardens. According to the website, fancy dress and singing along are encouraged. Tickets start at £26, adventurecinema.co.uk.
The festival
Most festivals involve dancing/not showering/wading about in mud – which sounds wonderful, if you're aged between 18-28. If you're not, The Queen's Reading Room Festival might be preferable. The royal-backed literary weekend was started in 2024 and is held in Derbyshire at Chatsworth House (as in Mr Darcy's pile in the film version of Pride and Prejudice). This year's line-up of speakers is excellent and exhaustive: there's Jilly Cooper, Helen Fielding, Sebastian Faulks, Robert Harris, Rupert Everett, Richard Osman, Natasha Brown and lots of others. It runs from 19-20th September and tickets for the day are £20, thequeensreadingroom.co.uk.
This year's line-up of speakers at the Queen's Reading Room Festival is excellent and exhaustive
The exhibition
Bob Dylan has written more than 600 songs, bagged ten Grammys, and is the only musician to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is, also, a good painter. Until 9th July, the Halcyon Gallery in London is displaying 97 of the 83-year-old's oil paintings. Subjects are varied: one shows a man playing guitar, another is a still life of some beans being poured from a can into a pot. It's titled Beans for Breakfast. Everything is for sale and, while the gallery doesn't disclose prices, on the art-selling website Artsy some of Dylan's paintings go for up to £250,000. Thankfully, the exhibition itself is free.
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