Iris Murdoch's Booker winner The Sea, The Sea (1978) is arguably her best book, a novel of obsession, memory, and self-deception. An interesting and accessible choice from one of Dubai's most interesting book clubs ...
Second performance of Culture Emulsion's Francophone take on the Baz Luhrmann film, bringing 1900s Montmartre to the stage for a tragic love story with a modern pop soundtrack.
The Canadian comedian plays Abu Dhabi in the middle of his latest world tour. It's sure to be a good night; he manages to make these arena-scale gigs feel really quite intimate, thanks to a mix of sharp crowd work, [... more]
Surrounded by toys and objects from her childhood, Mallika Taneja uses a harmonium and a microphone to look for what she has lost – a singer and her songs. As she moves between this tale of searching, singing and grief, [... more]
Dubomedy’s main man brings his new show to one of his regular haunts. Expect something of a masterclass in delivering standup in a club environment. All seats must be pre-booked …
Prof. Leonardo Barilaro, Visiting Associate Professor of Space Technology and Sonic Arts and Lead for the Space Art Laboratory at NYUAD, examines how music and artistic practice can connect scientific research with human experience, from creative interventions in space missions [... more]
Spring 1945 on the German island of Amrum, a remote dot in the North Sea. The front is far away, and 12-year-old Nanning (newcomer Jasper Billerbeck) spends his days working the nearby farm and his nights fishing; despite the hardship, [... more]
Dom Art Projects' third non-selling exhibition explores the formal and perceptual aspects of light through a variety of approaches from the 22 participants, "from rationalist modernism and expressionism to ironic conceptualism" as Dom Arts puts it. The artists are Akram [... more]
Makarov's solo exhibition responds to the mediated nature of contemporary reality by reconstructing armed conflict environments from fragments of media imagery circulating in a post-analogue world. Working across figurative painting and digital media, Makarov explores the relationship between virtual and physical [... more]
421's season of talks and panel discussions developed in collaboration with afikra, Localized Futures, explores the future of key cultural and civic sectors through a regional lens – challenging the dominant global narrative by looking at the complexities, innovations, and [... more]
Mad Cat’s standup team at their regular stop at the Easy Tiger bar in Abu Dhabi’s Al Ain Palace. The door price of AED 99 includes two drinks …
This special gig brings Concert Series alumni and fan favourites back to the stage for one-off collaborations and extended jams. The artists will be announced ahead of the night, and "you never know who might walk on next". Food for [... more]
ATypI is the Association Typographique International, the nonprofit global forum for type and typography. It was established in 1957 to unite European type manufacturers at a time of technological change and to promote typography education and awareness in general. Its [... more]
Christie’s first live auction of fine art in Abu Dhabi takes place on 1 November, preceded by two viewing days open to all. There will be more than 70 works from six decades of museum-quality art that traces the evolution [... more]
Celebrating the UAE Year of the Family 2026, the UAE National Orchestra brings audiences of all ages together for a joyful and interactive concert. Rhythm games, listening challenges and conversations with the narrator invite families and first-time concertgoers to become [... more]
The Courtyard’s popular evening of elimination improv. Ten actors converge for a night of scenes, songs and games based on audience suggestions. After each round you score the players on a scale of 1 to 5, and the one with [... more]
For more than five decades, the Syrian artist, poet, and critic Talal Moualla has approached the image not simply as representation, but (says the gallery) “as a form of thought ... Moving between painting, criticism, poetry and research, his practice [... more]
Bassam Freiha Art Foundation's monthly lecture series, led by Dr Michaela Watrelot, BFAF Curator and Director of Exhibitions, returns with a second series – this one on individual artists rather than art movements. Nine monthly lectures, running to next June, will [... more]
The launch event for the sixth cycle of ELF's First Chapter, the only global-standard professional development scheme in the region for writers. Meet this year’s mentors, discover what’s in store for the new cohort, and celebrate the release of The [... more]
The Pepp's regular early-evening showcase of Dubai’s local comedy talent, always with four standups on stage.
Mad Cat Comedy's regular Thursday stop in Silicon Oasis promises "insane laughs every week". The door price of AED 99 includes one drink and popcorn.
Sharif’s first solo exhibition in the UAE presents an autobiographical and very personal series of works about the struggles of private and artist life in a closed society – "a vulnerable, nuanced presentation of life”. The Bahraini artist uses colour [... more]
The forum, now in its fourth annual edition, promises two days of conversations, practical workshops and opportunities to connect organised by Dubai Culture: “from building a brand and finding funding to exploring AI and telling your story, the programme offers [... more]
Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual celebration of indie/experimental cinema returns for its ninth edition with a 10-day lineup of films (26 of them) plus talks and artist development programmes. Screenings and events will take place at Mirage City Cinema, SAF’s open-air [... more]
The Pepp's regular early-evening showcase of Dubai’s local comedy talent, always with four standups on stage.
"Comedy is just tragedy plus time. It's been 3,000 years. We're legally allowed to be hilarious." This original comedy – written and co-directed by top Dubai photo/videographer Ovidiu Dugulan – surveys the final stretch of a ten-year siege of Troy, [... more]
The UAE premiere of Näss (People) by Moroccan choreographer Fouad Boussouf and his company Le Phare – CCN du Havre Normandie is an encounter between the raw energy of 1970s Moroccan music and the physical intensity of contemporary hip-hop. Inspired [... more]
Mad Cat Comedy’s regular standup night at Xandros in Signature 1 Hotel, TECOM. The cover charge of AED 80 includes one drink.
Improv "where anything can happen and the audience becomes part of the show". Which is sort of how improv is defined, though in this case the title suggests there may be an extra element of gun-fingers ... The 3albaraka guys [... more]
This group show is the culmination of the second edition of NIKA Project Space's Open Studio programme: four artists based in the UAE were invited to develop new bodies of work in dialogue with the space, one another, and the [... more]
Stephan Kaluza’s practice is fundamentally concerned with depictions of nature, either as hyper-realistic oils or near-abstract renderings. These two modes of painting should be seen as different stages of the same subject in a process of transformation: disruptions creep in, and [... more]
A solo show for the Palestinian-Syrian-Dutch artist that reinterprets celebrated masterpieces from Western art. Diab revisits iconic works by artists including Picasso, van Gogh, Michelangelo and van Dyck, applying his own distinctive visual language to allow the images to speak [... more]
A survey of works by the French artist, "one of the most restless practitioners of his generation" as the gallery has it. Since the early 1960s Venet unusually broad range of media has included tar poured on to canvas and [... more]
Bringing together paintings, archival photographs, sketches and ephemera produced after 2018, this exhibition offers an immersive encounter with Salah Elmur’s world, "one where memory, landscape and identity merge and ripple through time" as the Jameel puts it. Through paintings that [... more]
Full-length Wallace & Gromit action that won Aardman an Oscar for animation. Our plasticine heroes' latest business venture is a humane pest-control outfit called Anti-Pesto, but a mysterious superbunny-shaped beast is decimating the town’s vegetable plots and threatens Lady Tottington’s [... more]
The Pepp's regular early-evening showcase of Dubai’s local comedy talent, always with four standups on stage.
Second performance (of three) for this original comedy. Written and co-directed by top Dubai photo/videographer Ovidiu Dugulan, it surveys the final stretch of a ten-year siege of Troy, a job that should've taken three days ...
Bait Al Oud Abu Dhabi presents the third edition of its Strings Orchestra Concert, an evening that features outstanding students and graduates, professional musicians, and guest artists: "experience melodies and voices coming together as the energy of young talent meets [... more]
A regular Mad Cat Comedy night – “Dubai’s wildest comedy show on Saturday” at “the first purpose built comedy room in the country”. The cover charge of AED 99 includes two F&B coupons.
Competitive improv – four teams teams representing the Hogwarts wizarding houses face off in a fast-paced tournament of wit, wild imagination, and wizardry. As ever, the audience decides who will win the coveted House Cup of Improv Glory. And if [... more]
The Callback Comedy crew with "Dubai's only variety comedy show ... coming back from the grave for one frightfully funny night ... Hosted by sinister Sunny and the nightmarish Noha 911, featuring wickedly good improv from the Off Script crew [... more]
A 6m bench along the front edge of the stage compresses the space into a narrow, linear runway. Five dancers trace this boundary through a sequence of calculated tableaus, their bodies caught between rest and anticipation. The bench acts as [... more]
An hour of new material from the always excellent Valentina, this time on the people we love, the things they do that drive us crazy, and all those moments that make relationships so complicated.
One of the Candlelight favourites. Vivaldi wrote the original as concerti for violin and orchestra, but it's often arranged for a quartet – as here, performed by the Gulf String Quartet. The ambiance is (non-flammable) candlelight, of course. The performance [... more]
A monumental one-room installation that restages the Bangladeshi artist's The River Remembers. Originally commissioned by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation and created in 2023, this large-scale textile work has handcrafted threads mapping the colour of the water of the Teesta and [... more]
Bringing together paintings, archival photographs, sketches and ephemera produced after 2018, this exhibition promises an immersive encounter with Salah Elmur’s world – "where memory, landscape and identity merge and ripple through time", exploring the artist’s shifting sense of belonging and [... more]
The Mad Cat team does the rather cool Moon Bar at the Sana Restaurant in Mina Al Salam – a great venue: quite intimate, few distractions. Featuring surprise drop-ins, fresh material, and “the kind of intimate room where sitting in the [... more]
The final performance for this original comedy. Written and co-directed by top Dubai photo/videographer Ovidiu Dugulan, it surveys the final stretch of a ten-year siege of Troy, a job that should've taken three days ...
Dubai Design Week goes from strength to strength as the region's design festival and establishing Dubai's position as the design capital of the Middle East. This time there's a very busy, very programme around d3 includes installations, new commissions, exhibitions, [... more]
Sehiri’s intimate drama follows four generations of Ivorian immigrant women as they find solidarity, conflict and sometimes a sense of displacement in one another’s company. We're dropped into the lives of Marie (Aïssa Maïga), Naney (Debora Lobe Naney) and Jolie [... more]
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