9 December, 2022
Role play
Virginia Woolf's time-travelling, gender-bending novel Orlando, first published in 1928, was decades ahead of its time, and follows its young hero from the courts of Elizabeth I and James I to the Ottoman Empire, where he transforms into she, and tries to answer the eternal question: who am I? In this new adaptation by renowned playwright Neil Bartlett, Orlando is played by the non-binary actor Emma Corrin, best known as Princess Diana in The Crown. Runs to 25 February.
People power
The British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, born in 1977, creates enigmatic portraits of fictitious people, painted in deliciously rich colours, and has been hailed as one of the leading figures in the renaissance of Black portraiture today. A widely acclaimed exhibition of her work at Tate Britain was cut short by the pandemic, but now returns until 26 February, and brings together around 70 works from 2003 to the present day in the most extensive survey of the artist's career to date.
Code breaker
Two hundred years ago, the French polymath Jean-François Champollion solved one of the greatest enigmas in history, when he finally deciphered the meaning of Ancient Egypt's hieroglyphs. It's the last chance to visit a fascinating exhibition at the British Museum that explores the background to Champollion's discovery, centred on the world-famous Rosetta Stone, which provided the key that helped him crack the code. Packed with remarkable art and artefacts, sculptures and scrolls, Hieroglyphs: Unlocking Ancient Egypt runs to 19 February.
Outer sight
A firm favourite with families, the Science Museum offers a wonderland of delights and discoveries, but its latest major exhibition is literally out of this world. Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination takes visitors on an immersive adventure through the cosmos to explore visions of the future through the science of today. Explore a spaceship, scout a new planet, and discover how scientists and science fiction writers have imagined new worlds that help explain our own. To 4 May.