The Christmas lights may have been stowed away for another year but there is plenty of cultural magic coming our way. Here are ten reasons to be cheerful.
After a frequently bruising, crisis-laden 2025, it’s comforting to know that the months ahead are packed with big films, brilliant books, joyful theatre and a few glamorous returns we’ve been longing for. These are the ten things - from cinematic epics to high-street revivals – already giving us something to look forward to in 2026. Consider this your advance list of reasons to be cheerful.
Hamnet
Flavours of the month Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal star in this film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s heart-wrenching 2020 novel, Hamnet, which imagines Shakespeare’s family life. The Guardian describes it as ‘a stately, occasionally lugubrious drama whose closing minutes are among the most poignant in recent memory’.
Gap, the beloved heritage brand that started out selling jeans and records in San Francisco in 1969, went on to dress all of our childhoods and then lost its way, returns to the UK high street this year with shiny new standalone stores in Covent Garden and Westfield.
Wuthering Heights
Emerald Fennell’s take on Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights will be as intense, modern and clever as her previous movies. It stars Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and is liable to shock. Opening in UK cinemas on February 13, it is perfect Valentine’s fayre.
March brings the publication of John Lanchester’s latest novel, Look What You Made Me Do. This typically biting black comedy follows two very different women whose lives collide over a hit TV show that seems eerily drawn from their real marriages. It explores betrayal and in contemporary London. Delicious.
The Odyssey
Christopher Nolan’s epic adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey hits our cinemas in July. Starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, along with Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o and Charlize Theron, it promises to be a serious cinematic spectacle and must be seen on the big screen.
The Hunting Wives
If you haven’t yet watched this irresistible series about a group of naughty, wealthy, trashy Texan pals, tune in to ITV to do so immediately. If you have, it’s time to start looking forward to series two, which, fingers crossed, will launch this summer. The Guardian says: ‘This starry bonkbuster is about as good as nonsense television gets. It is your reward for getting through Christmas and the crisis-laden sorrowfest that was 2025.’
The award-winning playwright Nina Raine has joined forces with her brother Moses to adapt Maxim Gorky’s drama about idle Russian elites and impending social change. The fresh and exciting result is Summerfolk, which runs at The National from March 6 until April 29. Book tickets.
If you were to imagine the perfect scenario in which a genius restaurateur revitalises a 200-year-old London restaurant, you would select Jeremy King for the task. His grand revival of Simpson’s in the Strand is due to open next month. Expect two glamorous bars, a private ballroom, restored period features and high-end, theatrical, welcoming London dining vibes. Book a table.
Anya Hindmarch has applied her signature whimsy to the company’s new collaboration with Boots. Tapping into the British pharmacy’s heritage, the range features 1970s-style design, limited-edition bathroom essentials, quirky branded accessories, special wash bags and a blue-white Universal Bag. Leap when it launches later this month.
It is a sort of civic duty to read a Maggie O’Farrell when it comes out. Her latest, Land, will not be a chore when it hits the shelves in June. Set in post-famine Ireland, it is a sweeping, sensitive, intimate tale that follows a father and his son as they map their country amid upheaval, loss and hope.
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