May has done its thing — heat, headlines, a long weekend that landed properly. This week’s a softer one, with the bank holiday behind us and a slightly cooler weather ahead. Still plenty on though: cult cinema, a soft launch worth catching, and some quietly excellent exhibitions.
Quick tip before we get into it: MULTI STORY at Peckham Levels is doing £7 cocktails and £4 house pints, Wednesday to Sunday. Handy to know if you’re heading to anything up there (and a lot of this week’s listings happen to be up there).
🌤 Hot, thundery: Thu · 🌞 Sunny: Fri · 🌞 Sunny: Sat · 🌥 Sunny, odd shower: Sun
Thursday clears bright and turns hot again, though afternoon cloud could bring a thundery shower. Friday's a touch cooler but still warm — dry and largely sunny. Saturday stays warm and sunny throughout, then Sunday cools into a mix of sunny spells and patchy cloud, with the odd light shower not quite ruled out. Source: BBC Weather (Peckham)
The annual EAL exhibition returns to Copeland Gallery for the third year — five rooms of sensual and erotic artwork from artists around the world. Expect video work, sculpture, visual installations, live performances, workshops, guided tours, and an awards ceremony for the call-for-art competition. All four days sold out in 2025, so booking ahead is the smart move.
🗓 Thu 28 – Sun 31 May · Thu from 6pm, Fri–Sun from 12pm
📍 Copeland Gallery, 133 Rye Lane, SE15 4ST
🎟 From £7.50 · tickets via Tickettailor · Solidarity tickets for those experiencing financial hardship and free carer tickets (email info@ealexhibition.co.uk)
♿ Wheelchair accessible · gender-neutral toilets
From his lair in deepest South London, Dan Martin of 13 Fingers FX designs the makeups, puppets and props behind some of the freakiest films around — including Peter Strickland’s In Fabric and Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth, both of which have screened at My Eyes! My Eyes! before. On Thursday he’s coming in person.
Expect a Party Tape Clip Show — deep cuts, visual treats and behind-the-scenes stories from the wild fringes of cinema — plus a surprise feature-length treat. My Eyes! My Eyes! is Peckham Levels’ cult cinema collective, championing the strange, the singular and the wildly independent. If you’ve been before, you know. If not, this is a great one to start with.
🗓 Thu 28 May, 7pm–11:30pm
📍 Multi Story, Level 6, Peckham Levels, 95A Rye Lane, SE15 4ST
🎟 £11.92 · tickets via TicketSource
♿ Fully accessible venue
Four Global Majority artists take over South London Gallery for an evening of live sound and audiovisual performance, moving through Afrofuturism, speculative fiction and what the programme calls ancestral technologies. Expect live sampling and remixing in a loud, low-lit room. Closer to a gig than a gallery night.
Heads-up: there’s flashing imagery in one projection, and chairs are available on request.
🗓 Wed 3 Jun, 6:30–9:30pm
📍 South London Gallery, 65–67 Peckham Road, SE5 8UH
🎟 TBC · tickets via Eventbrite
♿ Chairs available on request — check venue for full access details
Live&Lit returns to Peckham Levels with spoken word, an open mic and a smooth live band behind the poets. If you want to be part of the night, doors open at 6pm for open mic sign‑up (limited spots) and the show starts around 6:30pm. Painting tickets include a seat, supplies and a canvas so you can paint along while the room listens.
🗓 Sun 31 May, 6pm–11pm
📍 Multi Story (Peckham Levels), SE15
🎟 £15.87 · tickets via Eventbrite
♿ Fully accessible venue
Two different nights, two different flavours of Peckham — SE15 Nights’ launch week kicks off with a smaller Hidden Gems crawl (proper local bars you might walk past), then comes back with a bigger Tuesday-night circuit designed for meeting people and stretching the week out.
Hidden Gems Thursdays (Thu 28 May) stops at Shorty’s Peckham, Xoto and Kruks — with food available from Phuc Mi Kitchen. Tuesdays Just Got Better (Tue 2 Jun) runs across The Angel Oak, John The Unicorn, The Red Bull (quiz stop), The Copper Tap, and finishes at Nag’s Head for anyone who wants to keep going.
🗓 Thu 28 May & Tue 2 Jun, 6pm–11:45pm
📍 Start points vary (see listing)
🎟 Free · RSVP via Arcus
Four photographers — Ciaran Inns, Eia Hopkinson, Léa Chen and Tanja Krebs — come together at Rabbet in Copeland Park for a collaborative exhibition exploring the relationship between the self and the environment. Using the camera as both document and meditative practice, the work moves between the interior and the exterior: staged portraits rooted in childhood memory, studies of how female bodies adapt to urban space, dreamlike figures suspended in dissociation, and ultramacro shots revealing hidden landscapes in the smallest organic structures around us.
It’s the kind of show that rewards slowing down — each photographer brings a distinct lens to the same questions, and the dialogue between them is very much part of the point.
🗓 Private View: Thu 28 May, 6–9pm · Exhibition: Fri 29–Sun 31 May, 12–5pm
📍 Rabbet, Copeland Park, 133 Copeland Rd, SE15 3SN
🎟 Free
Jam Sandwich Live has been running nights of music discovery in Peckham since 2012, and this one brings three original artists to Mountview — James Crowley, Maeve and Solar, moving between soulful, groove‑led and more experimental sets. Hosted by local curator Lou, it leans as much on real talk and community as on the music. 18+.
🗓 Thu 28 May, 7:45–10:45pm
📍 Mountview, 120 Peckham Hill St, London SE15 5JT, Reino Unido
🎟 £11 · tickets via DesignMyNight
♿ Fully accessible venue
🎭 POMP! (Fri 29 May, 8pm, The Old Nun's Head, £12): Alternative cabaret back from a break — drag, inflatable art and unhinged pop, hosted by the one and only Dirrty Harry.
🛍️ Fashion Thrift Society Tour (Sat 30–Sun 31 May, 11am–5pm, Unit 8 Copeland Park, from £4): Two days of vintage and preloved fashion from one of the world’s biggest travelling thrift markets: hundreds of rails, serious finds, reasonable prices.
🧵 MOCA London: Silvia Ziranek ‘By a Thread’ — opening event (Sun 31 May, 12–4pm, MOCA London): Exhibition launch with performance readings at 2:30pm and 3:40pm — come for a gallery wander, stay for the live text.
🎬 Rooftop Cinema Club x Sofar: The Breakfast Club (Tue 2 Jun, 7pm doors, Rooftop Cinema Club (Peckham), £34): Silent-disco-style live band set, then the film under the open skies — address revealed 36 hours before.
♻️ Waverley Garms — Free Clothes Swap (Mon 1 Jun, 5–8pm, The Waverley Arms, free): Bring what you don’t wear and leave with something new‑to‑you — plus 50% off veggie and vegan food for Meat Free Monday.
🎭 God’s Gift (Mon 1–Tue 2 Jun, 8pm, Theatre Peckham, from £7.50): A multigenerational drama spanning 1911 and 2020 — two stories, one school, a century apart. Part of Peckham Fringe. 70 mins, 16+.
The record-breaking heat is set to break next week — good timing for a cool, dark screening room. Three new releases lead the week:
Power Ballad (15) — Paul Rudd as a wedding singer out to reclaim a song stolen by a fading pop star (Nick Jonas). A warm, daft musical comedy. (98 mins)
Fairyland (15) — produced by Sofia Coppola: a true-story drama about a girl growing up with her gay father in the bohemian San Francisco of the 1970s, and the AIDS crisis that followed. Tender and real. (94 mins)
Backrooms (15) — a therapist follows a missing patient through a doorway in a furniture-showroom basement and into a nightmarish parallel dimension. Horror. (110 mins)
HOH subtitled screenings
Passenger (15) — Mon 1 Jun, 5:30pm | Finding Emily (12A) — Wed 3 Jun, 8:20pm
🗓 Full schedule here
📍 Peckhamplex, 95a Rye Lane, SE15 4ST
🎟 £6.99 every film, every seat, every day
♿ Fully accessible venue
The stuff that happens every week or month — pub quizzes, open mics, classes, regular nights, deals.
Browse by day:
MON | TUE | WED | THU | FRI | SAT | SUN | ALL | HAPPY HOUR | FREE
Know a great recurring event? Spotted something that’s changed? Let me know!
This week’s pick: 🎲 Persepolis Rooftop Board Game Nights · Every Tuesday in June · The team at Persepolis are taking things outdoors — and upward. Every Tuesday from June, the Peckham High Street deli and food hall opens up its rooftop for board game nights — backgammon, chess, and the kind of slow summer evening that does you good. Bring a friend or come solo and see who’s around.📍 Persepolis, 28–30 Peckham High Street, SE15 5DT 🎟 Free · book a spot by calling 020 7630 8007 or popping into the shop
Looking ahead — 2 dates to bookmark now.
🧩 Turncoats: The Ick (Love, Dating, London & Landlords) · Fri 12 Jun · SET Social
A properly punchy night of comedy-meets-debate on London dating, housing pressure and the whole “is it you or is it the city?” spiral. Expect a panel with writers, architects and broadcasters, plus an open mic element — so it’s part audience, part group therapy, part urbanism chat. Turncoats nights tend to draw a full room at SET Social, so it’s worth bookmarking and grabbing a ticket early. 🎟 From £8 · tickets via Phineas Harper
🌈 bless! – Pride kick-off · Sat 6 Jun · The Old Nun’s Head
A high‑energy Pride warm‑up launching the pub’s stacked June celebrations, with big DJ sets and serious dancefloor joy (come early for pizza from @SliceCircle). 🎟 Free · tickets via Outsavvy
📸 Women of South London photobook — launch party
Jasmine Waldorf’s debut photobook lands this Friday after two years of work — over 30 women photographed across South London, all shot on 35mm film. The project documents womanhood, identity, community and how gentrification reshapes who gets to call this side of the river home. Postcards, prints and the book itself will all be on sale, with a one-night-only discount on the book. 🗓 Fri 29 May, 6–10pm 📍 Paintbox, New Cross 🎟 Free entry
🎬 Submissions are open for SET Film Festival 2026
The grassroots festival returns to SET Social in Peckham for its fourth edition this November. They’re calling for short films of all genres: experimental, documentary, drama, animation, artists’ moving image, essay film and everything in between. It’s free to submit (one film per artist), films must be under 30 minutes and completed after 1 Jan 2023. Deadline: 23:59 on Sun 7 Jun. Full guidelines and submission link at setspace.uk/set-film-festival.
🎨 Open call: Palais wants a visual artist for In House
Palais is opening up a collaboration for its In House club series. They’re after a single piece of lead artwork for the next edition, which they’ll then adapt across digital formats. Open to any discipline: photography, video, illustration, painting, 3D or digital, mixed media. Budget is £250 all-in, and previous editions are viewable here for reference. Submissions stay open — next two editions are Fri 20 Jun and Fri 28 Aug. Apply here.
👉🏽 Know something local more people should hear about?
Suggest local news here (selected listings featured weekly).
A year ago, Tava Rakh served its first masala chai and Indian-inspired truffles at SET Social — quietly, to almost no one. A week ago, the plant-based Punjabi kitchen opened its first proper restaurant at Copeland Park, and it's worth marking.
The name means “put the hot plate on” in Punjabi — a phrase founder Mala grew up hearing from her mum, signalling tasty food was on the way. We’re catching it mid-launch. Each week of the soft launch has a different focus. Breakfast already came and went; lunch is on right now through Sunday, and dinner lands next week.
Expect crispy paratha with yoghurt, pickle and butter, and masala chai to finish — Mala’s idea of a perfect plate.
🗓 Lunch (now on): Thu 28–Sun 31 May, 11am–4pm
🗓 Dinner: Thu 4–Sun 7 Jun, 5pm–9pm
📍 Copeland Park & Bussey Building, 133 Copeland Road, SE15 3SN
That’s it for this week’s wander around SE15. Next issue lands Thursday morning.
If you go to anything here, I’d love photos, tiny reviews, or overheard moments, get in touch or DM @peckhamlive.
See you out there,
Cat 🐾
😺 Small print: double check the details (and the weather!) before heading out — Peckham loves a last-minute change.
📸 Send in tips or pics to get featured next week
📨 Forward to someone who needs weekend plans
📬 Local business? Get in touch — let’s chat collaborations
PS: Peckham.Live will always be FREE 💌
Buy me a pint if you fancy helping me explore more of SE15
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.