Jonathan Thomas (00:12)
Welcome back to the Anglotopia podcast. The podcast are people who love British travel, history and culture. I'm your host, Jonathan Thomas. And today we're going to do our special end of year podcast where we are going to talk about Britain in 2026. We're going to talk about Anglotopia's plans for 2026. We're going to talk about major events happening. We're going to talk about, uh, West End plays. You're going to want to see special exhibitions. You're going to to plan your trips around.

and kind of just give you an overview of what the next year looks like for Britain. This is not something we've done before, so I'm trying something new. I'm on my own. Mrs. Anglotopia is at work, so I'm gonna do this on my own. And my hope is that you get lots of ideas for planning your trips next year. ⁓ Many of us Anglophiles will plan our trips a year or more in advance, so.

To know about these things in advance means you'll be prepared to book tickets because a lot of these exhibitions will sell out and you'll be nice and prepared. to be, to have foreknowledge is to be prepared. mean, I was a Boy Scout, so I always want to be prepared. So today's tea is Cornish Smuggler's Tea, which we sell in the Anglotopia store. Link in the show notes. We have more stock right now, so it's in stock. It will be for a bit.

⁓ So.

Let's start with Anglotopia in 2026. So the big thing in 2026 is that I will be going to Britain in 2026. In fact, I will be achieving a lifelong goal of mine, which is to walk Hadrian's Wall from Newcastle to the other end and Barrow on Furness I believe, or Solway on...

I should know the name by now, but from one end to the other.

So this is a pretty big deal and it's been in the works for a while. If you are a member of the Friends of Anglotopia Club, I've been chronicling my preparations for the last six months. And it involves, well, the planning part of the trip, but also physically preparing to walk 84 miles on purpose. ⁓ And I, as you can see, I'm not in the best of shape. ⁓ So the...

The idea of walking so many miles is kind of daunting to me. The most I've walked on walks has been four or five miles. And some of the stretches of the Hadrian's Wall walk are 15 miles. So I have instituted a training regimen, which I'm not really following right now because ⁓ winter has hit really hard here in the Midwest. ⁓

We've been lucky the last few years to have very mild winters, but this winter has not been mild. We are getting hit with winter. We've had two snow storms already and we've had Arctic cold, which is unusual for December. And so I've not been able to walk outside like I hope, because anybody who follows will know that I hate to treadmill. So I have to walk outside. That's the only way I can do it. That's the way I prefer it.

And I've got a new dog that needs to be walked. so, but we haven't been able to walk the last few weeks. It's just been too cold or too snowy. And the roads around my house, ⁓ I live out in the country, but these country roads are dangerous when there's snow or ice on them. So we'll fall a little behind, on training for Hadrian's Wall. But I have time on my side. ⁓ The real long distance walking I need to do doesn't even start until the spring. And then it will.

increase in length up until my departure in August. And so I will be doing the walk in August. I will not say exactly when. I've worked on the internet long enough to know not to tell people where and when you're going to be just for privacy and safety concerns. But it will be in August. So it won't be too hot. It won't be too cold.

hopefully not too wet. Looking at the weather for this past year, August, seemed to be pretty mild so I should have good weather when I do it. They prefer you do the walk from May to October I believe, or September, so ⁓ I'm in that window of time and I'll be able to get the stamps on the little passport as I go along the route. ⁓ Now this walk is a big deal for me personally but

It's going to be a big deal for Anglotopia as well. We will be covering this on all of our social media channels, on the website for members of the Friends of Anglotopia Club, the podcast and many other things that I haven't even laid out yet ⁓ because it's a big investment in time and money to do this walk. So I have to, you know, make it worth it. And then, but I also have to remember I'm doing this also for me. It's for my own health. I'm not in great health. ⁓

preparing training for the walk will improve my health and having done it will also improve my health and I'm hoping that it kind of ushers in a new era where hopefully once a year I do one of these famous long distance walks in Britain I'm already kind of knowing the way I am I'm already lining up the next ones after this one so but I got to do this one first and I got to be able to prove to myself that I can do it ⁓ because it's you know it doesn't seem hard

It's only 84 miles, but ⁓ it is gonna be a difficult thing to do for somebody who's very sedentary, doesn't do a lot of exercise. But the joy of this trip is that I'll get to do it in England, beautiful countryside, I'll get to start a Newcastle where I've never been, so I'll get to explore a new castle, I get to walk out of a city into the countryside, English countryside.

follow the route of Hadrian's Wall all the way to the other end and ⁓ it's very exciting. And so, and I can reveal now, one of the most exciting aspects of it is that we've partnered with Macs Adventure ⁓ and they are sponsoring my walks. So what that means is they specialize in planning these adventure trips, these long distance walks and they...

They have all the knowledge because they've done this hundreds and thousands of times. And so they have basically booked me as a customer for the 10 day walk from Newcastle to the other end. So what they've done is they booked my hotels. They've planned my meals out. They are going to keep an eye on me while I'm walking. They have 24 seven emergency help and they have an app that will guide me along the way and give me directions. And it's

It's I'm super grateful that they're gonna do this and then in exchange of them sponsoring and I'm gonna obviously mention them in my coverage ⁓ and And they're kind of my partner along the way in this so you're gonna hear a lot more about them as the trip gets closer And while we're on the trip while I'm on the trip I will be doing the walk alone just to clarify ⁓ and so So yeah Macs adventure is gonna be my partner on this and it's also

So we closed this deal about a month or two ago and that's a big deal because now I have to do it. There's people counting on me to do this. The Macs Adventure is counting on me doing it, my business is counting on me to do it, so I have to do it. I don't have a choice. So hopefully that's enough pressure to just get on with it, get the training done and do the walk. And they've planned some really interesting stops along the way. Some of the hotels are really cool, like.

One of the hotels is in the one of the UK dark sky reserves and people who don't know me personally, I'm a big sci fi and space nerd in addition to being into Britain. they do like there's telescopes and they do like tours of the night sky. And I like, I'm super excited about it. So, so that's, that's the big Anglotopia thing. So the walk takes 10 days. So I'll be going over to the UK for a couple of weeks. How long depends on

forthcoming negotiations with my wife because I'm already there. We should make the most of me being there for content and research for Anglotopia But hopefully I'll be there for a few weeks and then we can I can get more content because I actually the last time I was in Britain was in October 2024 for the Churchill Conference. So it's been over a year now and I feel that urge to get back there. So it'll be almost two years by the time August arrives. So

I have lots of things I'm going to want to see and do, many of which I will talk about on this because they will coincide. I mean, I do everything strategically. One of the reasons I picked August is because it overlaps with a lot of the things I want to see and do while I'm in the country. So, that's the big thing for Anglotopia in 26 is I'm walking Hadrian's Wall. I don't have a choice and you're all coming along for the ride with me.

A few other things related to Anglotopia for 2026 is we have made a decision to revive our online store. ⁓ You might be wondering that store didn't go anywhere. You still had it. Well, we ceased the imports business last year ⁓ because of tariffs and various other things and,

We've really missed it. Not only have we missed it personally, we've missed it from a business perspective with the loss of the income of ceasing the imports business has has hurt Anglotopia's bottom line. And we don't want to go through another year like that. So we're going to revive the store. ⁓ We're going to do it in a more strategic way. ⁓ Not that there wasn't a strategy before, but we're going to import the we're going to.

Restock some of our most popular products that we've always carried like the Cornish tee the adventure maps the Collectible city toys and stuff like that and we're gonna and we're going to balance it out with new Products throughout the year and our goal is to build up an inventory So that by the end of the year when it comes time for the holiday shopping season, we've got a ton of stuff in stock

that we can sell and hopefully end up 2026 in a much better position than we did 2025. So our goal is gonna be weekly product launches, but a little different than the way we did it before. So one of the big changes we did to the store this year was we revived Anglotees designs. for you, if you're unfamiliar with Anglotees back in 2013, 2014,

We launched a novelty t-shirt business called Anglotees where we had British designs on t-shirts and ⁓ it was like a flash in the pan business at the time. Like the novelty t-shirt thing was a big thing in that time period. And we sold a ton of t-shirts and actually the t-shirts helped us buy this house. But then like the trend died and then so Anglotees kind of languished with it. ⁓ Like last year I could count on one hand how many t-shirts we sold, but

⁓ What we've decided to do though is revive the most popular Anglotees designs and bring them over to the Anglotopia store and put them on garments, put them on other types of products that we think people want to buy. We've had some great success with that in the last six months. ⁓ We've sold a lot of hoodies in the build up to Christmas. So we're going to double down on that strategy. So when I say weekly product launches, there's going to be a mix.

We're going to launch our own products with the books that we release. We're going to try and release a book a month and I'll talk more about some of the books we want to come out next year. We're going to release some of these old Anglotees designs that we still haven't brought over. We want to release some new designs on t-shirts that people may want to buy. And then we're going to mix it in with these imported products from the UK and have this nice mix of, of our own books, our own designs, and also imported products.

Hopefully, it will revive the store and help the business. So like I said, new products are coming down the line. And then the big thing, the big focus for 2026 will continue to be the big focus that 2025 has had, is growing the Friends of Anglotopia Club. That has changed the landscape for Anglotopia, that has changed...

the way we're doing things, having paying members. We reached our initial goal this past year, which allowed us to remove the awful Google Ads from Anglotopia which has made browsing the website a joy for everybody. And so ⁓ we wanna keep going on that. when we hit that goal, we set a new goal, we wanna get to 300 members, and we'll remove the ads from LondonTopia, and then we're gonna start a London.

dedicated London email newsletter as part of membership. So as of today though, we're at 260 members, which is great. So I think we'll hit 300 hopefully in the first quarter of next year. If you haven't joined the Friends of Anglotopia Club, please do cost $6 a month or $64 a year. If you're listening to this in 2025, if you sign up by December 31st, you're to get a free 2026 Anglotopia calendar.

And then you get the quick benefits of the club weekly article in your inbox every Sunday called the Sunday Post, which is about a British thing, a British experience or cultural aspect that I've written a thoughtful essay on. You get access to the exclusive Anglotopia Friends of Anglotopia Forum, which is a private discussion forum to talk about all things British or your trip plans or culture questions. We get early access to this podcast.

So and a bunch of other features. So I'll put a link to it in the show notes. So our goal is to get to 300 members and then obviously we'll set a new goal after that. we've added 150 members this year alone. So we wanna keep that momentum going. ⁓ If we could get to 500 members or a thousand members, ⁓ it would mean so much for the future of this business. We could do so many wonderful interesting things that we can't do now just because of.

costs. So ⁓ if you haven't joined, please join the Friends of Anglotopia Club. ⁓ Also in 2026 Anglotopia will turn 19 years old. ⁓ Not really a milestone year. 18 was kind of a milestone year. It's officially an adult for a business. Most businesses don't survive three to five years. So we're very lucky to keep going. ⁓ We've you know,

Lots of pivots, lots of changes in the business over the years have just kept us going. We plan to continue going obviously. ⁓ But in the buildup to our 20th anniversary, then the year after next, we're gonna have some really interesting things planned. ⁓ Gonna shift ⁓ the attention into some new directions and ⁓ start focusing on the legacy of this business. So stay tuned for all of that. So that.

That is 16 minutes of Anglotopia. That's probably more than you wanted. And so now we will move on.

So, Britain in 2026. There is a lot happening in 2026 all over Britain. ⁓ The focus of this will definitely be on London because that's where a lot of these major events are happening. It is the capital after all. But some of these events are countrywide. ⁓ So we're gonna start with ⁓ major events that are kind of happening countrywide or big anniversary years.

Then we'll talk, then we'll dial down into museum exhibitions that are gonna be worth going to. And then we'll talk about London's West End and plays and musicals that you're gonna wanna see. And we'll also, when we get to the exhibitions and stuff, we'll talk about stuff that's from 2025 that's still going on that's gonna be worth seeing if you're gonna be traveling there in the first or second quarter of the year. So without further ado.

The first thing I want to talk about is Elizabeth 100. ⁓ April would have been Queen Elizabeth II's 100th birthday. And so we're expecting a lot of commemorations around that. And there's going to be some special exhibitions. There's going to be some special openings of royal places. ⁓

We're gonna put out a special Queen Elizabeth book, a hardcover book in the spring. ⁓ And we expect there to be a lot of attention on the royal family in April to kind of commemorate her wonderful and amazing life. ⁓ And it'll be a chance for people to kind of reflect and remember the lovely days of the reign of Elizabeth II. So that's coming up in April.

As far as royal things go, there's not much on the docket for 2026 for royal events. There are two worth mentioning. ⁓ The first is in, I believe in May, they have scheduled the next state opening of parliament ⁓ in May. So if you schedule your trip to coincide with this, you will see the full...

political role that the monarch plays in full display. You'll see all the pomp and ceremony, all the soldierism, lying in the streets, marches. You'll see the carriage rides to ⁓ Parliament, and then the King will make his King speech. it's a whole, well actually it takes just the morning, but it's a whole day of events.

Revolving around the state opening of Parliament So if you can manage to be in London while this is going on it'll be really cool to see because it only happens once every couple of years And then the other thing you're gonna want to see is the trooping the color in June which is scheduled for June 13th this year That's the official birthday parade for the monarch which ⁓ They've just they've been holding it in June for over a hundred years now just because the weather is nicer. It's where all the the soldiers present their colors to King

and he watches them all parade and then there's a carriage procession and then there's a fly past at Buckingham Palace and they do the balcony wave and all that. So if you can be there in June for that, worth seeing. If you want to actually attend the Trooping the Colour, ⁓ you have to apply for tickets through the Ministry of Defence starting in February and you basically enter a ballot and then, because there's very limited seating, and then if you're lucky, you'll get tickets and then you can actually be...

in the horse guards parade where the the where the trooping actually happens. It's really hard to get tickets to that so but it's always worth a try. I mean I apply every year and I've never I've never gotten them so that's worth doing. All right so move on from royal events. Let me take a sip of tea.

2026 is the 200th anniversary of the Royal Scottish Academy. So that means Scotland's lead art institution is celebrating its 200th birthday. So they will have a year long schedule of exhibitions, talks and programming across all its galleries, especially at Edinburgh. So if you have a particular interest in Scottish art, ⁓ you're going to want to plan some trips around this. Check out the Scottish Academy website for more details.

It's also the 75th anniversary of the Southbank Center. So the Southbank Center is that that big brutalist arts performance hub on the on Southbank and the Thames. It turned 75. They're going to do obviously special shows, exhibitions, performances, commissions. Check out their website to sign up so you know what's going on. There will definitely be some things worth seeing and doing throughout the year for that.

⁓ this is big for walkers. ⁓ I'm not going to tackle this one, but the England Coast Path is going to be completed. they have the powers that be the heritage organizations and the mapping organizations and have been working very hard to make a continuous walking route around the entire coast of England, just England. ⁓ So ⁓ that means that it's

several thousand miles. The finished and that's taking a lot of work and there's already publishing books about this, one of which I have because it was written by a friend. ⁓ And it's going to be the longest continuous walking route in the world because it's going to be several thousand miles. ⁓ You know, there are there are many famous coastal walks in the UK like the Southwest Coast Path, which was kind of immortalized in the film The Salt Path. Well, now all of these various paths are being linked up into one national trail called the King.

Charles III, England Coast Path in honor of King Charles. So that's going to open and I'm sure quite a few people are going to try and try the challenge of walking the entire way. ⁓ I don't know if there are any plans to kind of extend the national route through Scotland, but the problem with that is, ⁓ and I learned this talking to Quentin Lake earlier this year about his walk around the British Isles, is that ⁓

the the coastlines there's more coasts in scotland than there is in england and ⁓ it's way more remote way more dangerous to walk the coastline in scotland so it's similar in wales too so we'll we'll see if they expand the path but ⁓ i suspect we'll see lots of ⁓ books come out in the next few years of people walking the entire england coast path so that should be interesting ⁓ the biggest thing for history nerds

happening in 2026 is, don't know, I get, don't know how they got the French to agree to this. Apparently it took years of negotiations, but the Bayeux Tapestry is gonna leave France and come to the British Museum for a special exhibition from September through mid 2027. For those who don't know, the Bayeux Tapestry chronicles the,

the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest of England.

And it's a beautiful work of art. It's a beautiful tapestry. I've obviously never seen it because I've never been to Bayeux in France. And so it is going to make the short journey across the pond and visit the British Museum. And one hopes they give it back, when they're done. I'm sure the French are going to be keep a close eye on that thing ⁓ because it's obviously the whole thing is a symbol of British and French rivalry. But it's going to be a super cool that's coming to the British Museum. So.

I think I'm just gonna miss this, which is kind of annoying. We'll see. So many people don't know that a Brit actually made invented television. And so January 26, 2026 will mark the 100th anniversary of Brit John Logie Baird's first public demonstration of television in London. I should clarify that he's a Scot, so some people are gonna get really mad that they called a Scot a Brit.

semantics. ⁓ And so that marks 100 years of television. So and the corollary to that is ⁓ November 2nd, 2026 will mark the 90th birthday of BBC television. So expect lots of ⁓ celebrations about about those two events. Pretty big for TV. So as far as other cultural events, there's so much.

So 2026 marks 160 years since the birth of Beatrix Potter, you know, who wrote the iconic Peter Rabbit story, so expect the Lake District at least to have something to do with Beatrix Potter. ⁓ Winnie the Pooh turns 100, and so expect celebrations in East Sussex at the Ashdown Forest where the stories were set. ⁓ There's supposed to be a touring exhibition of illustrations, manuscripts, and memorabilia.

That's gonna tour. It's gonna go to Nymans, Tatton Park, and Anglesey Abbey. So hopefully you can catch it at one of those That'll definitely be worth seeing Also, it's the 250th birthday of John Constable the famous landscape artist It's also the 100th birthday of Eric Morcombe one of the the other half of the iconic duo Morcombe and Wise and

Ardman Animation, who were the creators of Wallace and Gromit, they turned 50. And so... And... The source where I got this information would also like to clarify that it is now 25 years, a whole quarter century, since the first Harry Potter film was released, which... That makes me feel old. Because I grew up with Harry Potter, and grew up with the film as an adult. Yes, I turned 42 this year.

And also I believe and at the end of 2026 we're supposed to get the new Harry Potter TV show So and that's actually a topic I didn't cover in the 2026 Podcasts movies and TV shows to look forward to so maybe I'll have to do another one in January All right, so we're gonna move on. So those are the big events. Oh, should mention the World Cup is happening in 2026 and it's happening in the USA, which is unusual because

you're not a nation of football slash soccer fans. ⁓ So the world is coming to the US to do the World Cup.

They just announced the groups a few weeks ago. ⁓ England and I believe Scotland and Wales are all competing and Ireland is as well. Not sure about Northern Ireland. ⁓ And it should be, it might be interesting because the U.S. team is pretty good and there could be a chance that we play England at some point. And if it happens to happen, ⁓

you know, around July 4th, it could be a big deal because it is the 250th anniversary of America's declaration of independence in 2026, which is not an event that I talked about as part of this, but it's something that's gonna be happening here. So we'll see how the World Cup turns out. Rumors are that it might not even happen here. We'll just have to wait and see. All right, we're gonna move on to exhibitions. So...

I'm going to first cover the exhibitions that are from 2025 that will still be going on into the next year and which ones are worth seeing.

⁓ There's a Picasso exhibition at the Tate Modern that's running until the spring of the Three Dancers, one of Picasso's most famous works. The Lee Miller exhibition is still going on ⁓ until February 15th. ⁓ She was the famous ⁓ World War II photographer. She was an American, but she spent most of her life in Britain and her children are British. ⁓

I highly recommend the movie that came out last year called Lee about her life. ⁓ It was super, super good. I would actually, I'm kind of bummed that I'm gonna miss this exhibition. The Tate Modern is having an exhibition on Nigerian modernism that runs until the spring as well. ⁓ And then there's a big exhibition going on right now at the Tate Britain Turner and Constable.

Turner, J. M. W. Turner and John Constable lived at the same time. so ⁓ art critics and art historians kind of like try to put them in opposition to each other. They did different things and different focuses. ⁓ Supposedly they didn't really like each other. ⁓ But there's a definitive exhibition ⁓ going on at the Tate Britain about these two landscape painters. ⁓

I'm bummed I'm gonna miss this one too. I might ⁓ buy the book for this one at least.

two really interesting guys and their arts their works of art are my favorite so ⁓ let's see

And then currently going on the National Portrait Gallery, which ends on January 11th. So you don't have much time after listening to this. They did a big exhibition on Cecil Beaton, the famous ⁓ celebrity photographer. ⁓

Now we're gonna move on to a couple of museum openings and then we'll talk about what exhibitions you're gonna wanna see. So the big landmark opening for 2026 is going to be the new V &A East. it's kind of...

Bits and pieces of it have already opened, like the V &A storehouse opened earlier this year, along with the new David Bowie archive. They're part of V &A East, so there's like...

but now the full museum is gonna be opening. And so what is the V&A East gonna be? Well, it's in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. It's a big five story new museum. The two of its permanent exhibitions will be Why We Make, and then we'll have galleries showcasing 500 objects from the V&A's collection across 10 themes. And then they will also... ⁓

I have a new art exhibition on ⁓ 18th century Italian paintings. They're gonna do an exhibition on black British music, celebrating music from 1900 to today, the black community. ⁓ And there's gonna be community spaces, more exhibitions. it's scheduled to open on April 18th. So this will be.

and it's going to be in the East of the End of London where the Olympics were. It's been in the works for a long time. You're definitely going to want to check this out. The fundamental problem the V &A has had since even since its founding is that its collection is massive and the museum in South Kensington is huge, but they have never been able to show even a fraction of their collection. So this will allow them to expand that.

and it'll be worth checking out

The V &A storehouse is really cool and it opened a few months ago and it's basically their giant warehouse but they've presented it in a way where you can wander around and see all the artifacts and then you can go and request to see anything in the museum, anything in their collection that's in the storehouse. You can make an online request and they will pull it out for you to look at. You don't have to be a historian, you don't have to be doing research, if you just want to see it, you can see it. So that's really cool.

And they also ⁓ opened the David Bowie estate collection went to the V &A. And so they finally they've opened up a whole different section dedicated to David Bowie. So if you're a big David Bowie fan, you're going to want to check this out.

The other big museum opening, and I hope that this coincides with my trip in August, ⁓ has been in the works for like 15 years. ⁓ The new London Museum. You may be wondering, London Museum? There isn't a London Museum. Well, you may be familiar with the Museum of London, which was in the city. It was in the most inconveniently placed

spot imaginable, where you had to like get lost on various pedways to get to this museum and it was a great museum loved loved it great collection great history of London, but it was in the worst spot imaginable.

So, and they knew that and it's for that reason, ⁓ they worked for years to get control of the Smithfield Market site. So, Smithfield Market is just down the street and still in the city of London. they took over the Grand Victorian General Market, which is the beautiful Victorian edifice that the market vacated quite a while ago. And so they took that over and now have been restoring it and turning it into.

the London Museum, they've rebranded, it's gonna be the London Museum, Smithfield, and then the museum, the Docklands is gonna be the London Museum, Docklands. And so it's gonna be the premier museum opening of the year. Like I said, I hope it coincides with my visit in August. If not, it might all almost be worth making a special trip for.

not just because I like London's history, but it's to see the building itself that it's moving into. The Smithfield Market is an architectural jewel of London. ⁓ Many books have been written about this place and the Smithfield is still an active market, although I believe the rest of it's gonna be vacated in a few years and moved elsewhere.

Although there was a, there was discussion that the market may just close altogether and not move at all. But it's one of those things that's been around for like a thousand years and nobody wants it to die, but it's hard to get everybody to agree to save it. And so they're going to tell the 6,000 year history of London. ⁓ There's trains will literally run right through the gallery at the bottom of the museum. There's going to be restaurants and cafes, exhibitions, and it's going to be.

great. I cannot wait to see it myself. So look out for that. obviously, we'll cover the opening of both this and the V &A on Anglotopia. ⁓ If I can't be there personally, we'll send somebody to cover it because it's worth covering.

Other museums opening, London and Shoreditch is getting a museum of Shakespeare in 2026. It's gonna be built above the remains of the Curtain Playhouse where Romeo and Juliet was first performed in the 1590s. It promises to transport visitors to Elizabethan London and the world of Shakespeare. Actually haven't heard much about this one, but I'm gonna keep an eye on it. That sounds really interesting.

The further field, the Football Museum for Wales is reopening in 2026. It is ⁓ located in Wrexham, which is famous from the TV show, Welcome to Wrexham, and they're expecting this to be a big pilgrimage site for fans of the TV show and the football team. Let's see. Oxfordshire is getting a new motor museum.

the Mullen Motor Museum showcasing the American car collector Peter Mullen's treasures.

The also opening in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will be BBC Music Studios, which will be dedicated to the musical history of the BBC, which should be interesting. I already talked about the Bayeux Tapestry. ⁓ You're gonna wanna see that. ⁓

that will be at the British Museum from September to July, 2027. But the exhibition I'm most looking forward to, and I'm so excited that my trip is coinciding with this, is there's gonna be an exhibition on the paintings of Winston Churchill at the Wallace Collection. So for many who don't know, Winston Churchill was a big advocate of hobbies. At the age of 40, he took on the,

on painting and he actually became a really talented painter. ⁓ He painted hundreds of canvases throughout the rest of his life. He didn't paint much during World War II. He painted one painting, which I think will be a part of this exhibition. He gifted it to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. ⁓ Then somehow Brad Pitt ended up owning it, which I don't know. ⁓

but he was a very, very talented painter. ⁓ He famously used it to help cope with his mental health, ⁓ because when he was having the most troubles, he would just go paint, and he would find solace in painting. And he painted all kinds of different subjects, mostly landscapes, and his exhibition has been in the works for quite a few years with the team ⁓ at Chartwell. ⁓

they are going to do a major exhibition. The first one since the 1950s, hopefully have dozens of paintings on display and then they're gonna include a lot of works from private collections, which means they're gonna have paintings that we may not have seen previously or haven't seen in quite a while or only seen in books. ⁓ if ⁓ you can't make it to see that exhibition,

You can see his paintings at Chartwell. Make sure you visit when his studio there is open. There are hundreds of paintings there. ⁓ There's paintings all over ⁓ the house at Chartwell. And Blenheim Palace has quite a few paintings as well. And you'll also find paintings in random places throughout Britain, National Trust properties that were friends and family of the Churchill family.

So that exhibition is in May, don't miss it. I can't wait to go see that one. ⁓ National Portrait Gallery is gonna do a new exhibition on Lucian Freud, never ⁓ doing his, focusing on his sketches and drawings. The British Museum ⁓ is going to have a special exhibition on Hawaii called, A Kingdom Crossing Oceans, and it's gonna celebrate the artistry and history of Hawaii, pre and post-colonialization.

so that should be really interesting. ⁓ I'm gonna miss that one though, which sucks. ⁓ And then the Young V &A, ⁓ for those who don't know, the Young V &A used to be called the Museum of Childhood, is gonna have a big exhibition on Aardman and Wallace and Gromit from February to November celebrating the 50 years of the iconic studio. ⁓ I love Wallace and Gromit, so.

I'm going to be there when this is happening, so I'm definitely going go see this.

And then also in 2026 is going to be the UK's biggest exhibition of Titanic memorabilia, which is going to happen at Olympia, the exhibition center. I'm not a huge fan of the Titanic touring exhibitions, but I don't know which collection this is or from who there's just but it's going to be happening. It's going to be popular. I guarantee it.

The Courtauld Gallery is going to have a Surat and the Sea exhibition about the post-impressionist painter bringing together 27 of his paintings and oil sketches. ⁓ That's going to be worth seeing. The Tate Britain is going to have an exhibition on James McNeil Whistler, the American artist. ⁓ He spent quite a bit of time in England, so it should be interesting to see. ⁓

That should be worth seeing. It's going on from May to September. And then there's going to be at the Tate Britain are going to do an exhibition on the 90s, which is going to be about art and culture in the 90s Britain, which should be really interesting because that's that's when I was coming up into my Anglophilia during the cool Britannia days. So it'd be really interesting to see what what that exhibition is like. That's going to go from October to February 20, 27. And then the the

big landscape event of the year, British landscape event is ⁓ is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Sir John Vanburgh Van Borough, he obviously designed Blenheim Palace and several other famous buildings. And so ⁓ there's going to be ⁓

there's gonna be several things going on around Britain related to that. Most notably at Blenheim Palace itself, they're planning a whole year long raft of exhibitions and events to coincide with this. ⁓ That's gonna be worth checking out. ⁓

So you're gonna wanna check that out. Let's see, major sporting events in the UK in 2026. Glasgow will be hosting the Commonwealth Games. Many of you may not know that the Commonwealth hosts its own Olympic style games every four years. This time it's gonna be July 23rd to August 2nd and it will be in Glasgow.

I already talked about the World Cup, which I scooped myself there. And then we're gonna talk about the West End. ⁓ we try to go to plays when we're in London, but we only really go if it's something special because there's so many plays going on, there's so many musicals going on, and ⁓ we're kind of spoiled here in Chicago. We get all the major plays and musicals here in Chicago, like we had Harry Potter last year, we had Six, we had...

We're getting Hamilton in a few weeks.

So I only go out of my way to see things I know we'll probably never see in the US. But two plays in particular caught my attention that I thought I would share with you. Hugh Bonneville is gonna be doing a run of Shadowlands from February 5th to May at the Aldwych Theater. ⁓ And it's a...

This has been made into a play before, it's been made into a movie, and it's about ⁓ C.S. Lewis and ⁓ his meetings with American poet John Davidman. And it talks about, it has to do with... ⁓

uh to cover religion and literature and fantasy and it it sounds really cool um but and that's so that's running from February to May but Hugh Bonneville from Downton Abbey I mean it would be worth seeing him on stage at anything so it's really cool that he's doing that show and then um the next one I'm gutted to miss I actually we were planning a whole trip a whole press trip around going to this in February

but unfortunately we had to cancel it because it just didn't work out. ⁓ But they are reviving the iconic British comedy, Yes Prime Minister for the West End. ⁓ For those who don't know, Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister are my favorite British comedy show of all time. I've watched it a dozen times over and over. It is so funny. And there have been various...

Attempts to bring it back. There was a there was a TV adaptation a few years ago That wasn't that great, but it was so but the fundamental problem is that the actors in that are all dead? So it's hard to capture that lightning in a bottle again But this caught my attention when it appeared when the press release appeared in my inbox earlier this year So it's called. I'm sorry Prime Minister and it's gonna have Gryff Rhys Jones as Jim Hacker Gryff Rhys Jones is a ⁓

He's most famous now for doing calm exploration travelogue documentaries, ⁓ some of which are my favorites, ⁓ but he's also a comedian. so I actually think he will play a great Jim Hacker. And so I desperately wanted to see this ⁓ on the West end. Clive Francis will be Sir Humphrey Appleby I'm not sure who's gonna be the foil of Bernard, but. ⁓

It sounds funny. The plot is Jim Hacker is back, older but perhaps not wiser, and still utterly baffled by the real world, hoping for a quiet retirement at the tranquil Hacker College. In Oxford, Jim instead finds himself facing the ultimate modern crisis, getting cancelled by the college committee. Enter the delightfully devious Sir Humphrey Appleby, who has lost none of his love for bureaucracy, Latin phrases, and well-timed obstruction.

Humphrey out maneuver the meddling students to fellowship and reality itself sounds great so I'm gonna gutted to miss it ⁓ some other ⁓ shows coming to the West End new shows Disney's Hercules is coming ⁓ I'm Every Woman the Shaka Khan musical that opens in March ⁓ Kinky Boots is coming back to the West End from March at the London Coliseum

Beetlejuice is coming to the West End for a limited run from May, which is a weird time to see Beetlejuice, but okay. This sounds interesting. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. That sounds familiar. It was a movie that came out a few years ago about a guy named Harold Fry who goes on a walk across Britain ⁓ unexpectedly. ⁓ But it's a new musical adapted from the original book, so not adapted.

from the movie instead of from the original novel. It's gonna run from January 29th to April 18th. Mark Addy will be Harold, which in the movie, Harold was much older than that. So I'll be interested to see how that goes. ⁓ Apparently had a sold out run at the Chichester Festival Theater. they already know, they've already mastered it. So that could be worth seeing. Let's see.

I don't want to just read off a bunch of shows because that's not what you're here for. I'll put this list that they gave me, that I put together, I'll put it in the show notes. ⁓ Because there's a ton, I mean there's always something new premiering on the West End. ⁓ Or they're always reviving old things like... ⁓

but some notable ones here. ⁓ Dangerous Liaisons is coming back to the National Theater from March. Lesley Manville and Aiden Turner, that's gonna be worth seeing. Let's see, Michael Sheen is gonna do Our Town at the Rose Theatre, Kingston based on the Pulitzer Prize winning play. That'll be worth seeing. mean, it's worth seeing Michael Sheen in anything. And let's see.

The biggest show that started this past fall was Paddington the musical which has been getting great reviews That's gonna continue through 2026. Actually, I expect that to be a show that basically runs forever They're not gonna spend all that money to make that robot Paddington for nothing

That's it for the West End. So like I said, I have a much longer list of that, but instead of reading all those off, I'll just link to it in the show notes. But lots to look forward to in Britain 2026. If I had to pick five things to make sure I see and do in 2026, other than my walk on Hadrian's Wall, which I'm very excited about,

I would definitely do the

Either do the V &A East opening when that museum opens or the London Museum opening is gonna be big. ⁓ I would do the Turner and Constable exhibition that's still going on. And I would definitely do the Winston Churchill painting exhibition and the Hawaii exhibition at the British Museum and the Inside Ardman at the Young V &A. ⁓ I would also ⁓

Since I'm planning here. I Would also make sure to visit Blenheim Palace for the Vanburgh 300 stuff because Blenheim Palace is a special place and to hear History would be really cool. So with that I Really I if everything came when according to plan this came out on Boxing Day. So happy Boxing Day. Hope you all had a very lovely Christmas and

From this moment on, the Anglotopia podcast is officially on hiatus until February. So we will see you back then. We've got some great interviews lined up. We already have six scheduled, so that's definitely coming back. It's not gonna be one of those things where we went on hiatus and then didn't come back for a while. No, we have to come back. This podcast is a key part of Anglotopia now and part of our business. So we will be back in February.

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