Day background: Jazz Express, issue 99, October 1988 · Cover artwork by Eduardo Paolozzi.Night background: Swingin’ Soho · Jimmy Jacobs and the Nite Spots · Gargoyle Records. Jacobs co-owned the Gargoyle Club with Michael Klinger. Herbie Flowers — bass guitar (Discogs credit) ↗ · Explore the National Jazz Archive catalogue ↗
The museum programme
A growing record
Posters from talks, screenings and exhibitions created with and for Soho's communities.
Past programme
Presented below with the most recent programme first. We will continue to add earlier programmes as material is catalogued.
September 2026
Bomb and shelter maps, photographs, oral histories and research charting Soho and the West End during the Second World War. The programme also included a special screening of BBC Arena's Dylan Thomas – From Grave to Cradle, with a Q&A featuring writer Nigel Williams and director Anthony Wall. The Open House programme attracted a record 1,467 visitors.
-
An exhibition celebrating the life, work and remarkable world of Mr Mole, presented at 75 Dean Street.
A day of cinema and music at 75 Dean Street, featuring the UK premiere of Making It, live performances and a programme celebrating London underground music.
-
Soho street photography in 1973 and 2026, pairing photographs by Robert Stallard with contemporary pictures by Alice Stallard.
A performance by Adrian Lee, with sound by Steve Ashmore, presented by The museum of Soho at All Is Joy Studios, 75 Dean Street.
Beginning with the familiar setting of children’s storytime, this two-person performance used interference and disruption to unsettle the act of reading.
Doors opened at 6.30pm, with the performance at 7pm. Tickets were £5.
2026 · Television centenary
The centenary exhibition came to the museum at 75 Dean Street following its display at Little Italy, alongside Stookie Bill heads created by Soho Parish School children with Stookie Belinda (@_a_to_z_arts_).
On 26 January 2026, celebrations at Bar Italia, 22 Frith Street, marked 100 years since John Logie Baird’s television demonstration there. His grandson Iain Baird attended and unveiled a World Origin Site plaque.
-
Three centuries of the people, places and cultural pulse that shaped Soho.
The early music-publishing and record-retailing industry in the West End, with talks, film and a question and answer session.
-
More than a century of photographs reflecting the changing faces and places of Soho, presented for Open House.
–
An exhibition of original costume illustrations by Ronald Cobb. Murray’s was a jazz and cabaret club on Beak Street which opened in 1913, whose displays and costumes became more extravagant and risqué in later years. The club finally closed its doors in 1975. The exhibition continues until 12 April 2018.
A free screening of the BBC Arena documentary followed by a question and answer session with director Paul Tickell.
· Record Store Day
A special free screening presented by The museum of Soho with the British Record Shop Archive at 01zero-one Studios, Hopkins Street, Soho, during the 50th anniversary year of Brian Epstein’s death.
The two-part BBC Arena documentary examining the life and career of The Beatles’ manager was introduced by its director and Arena series editor Anthony Wall. During the interval and after the film, DJ Lord Anthony played Beatles B-sides, bootlegs, unusual covers and rarities on vinyl.
-
Record Store Day 2016. A pop-up exhibition presented at 35 Beak Street. The programme also included a screening of BBC Arena’s Nicolas Roeg – It’s About Time, and a talk and presentation by graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook on his collaborations with David Bowie.
Until 14 August 2015
At artFix London, 27 Peter Street, Soho. Curated by Magdalena Moursy in collaboration with the Museum of Soho and Hugo Wheeler. Photography by Robert Stallard, Strangeways and Damien Frost.
29 July 2015
At Novello House, 152–160 Wardour Street, the museum commemorated the staff of Novello & Co Ltd who served and died in the First World War. Mark Brisenden researched the plaque’s history and provenance and led efforts to return it to its original location. The plaque has been listed by the Imperial War Museum. With special thanks to Yorke Property Management Ltd and Yamaha Music London.
Bloomsbury Welcomes Soho. A free screening presented with London Screen Study, upstairs at The French House, 49 Dean Street.
An illustrated talk at Westminster Reference Library by Maurice Poole, with special guest and former Windmill Girl Jill Millard Shapiro. The evening brought together memories of the Windmill Theatre and its celebrated Revudeville years, 1932–1964.
Two Sides of Soho: adventures in eighteenth-century Soho, including Sir Joseph Banks and Mrs Cornelys.
–
The museum of Soho presented at the University of Cambridge’s CRASSH conference (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities), alongside institutions including the Louvre, to discuss the future and rise of the virtual museum.
On 7 July, Joan Navarre, Tony Shrimplin, Ian Stewart and Ulli Schmidt presented the special panel Moving Images and The Virtual Museum: The Museum of Soho as Case Study for Engaging Digital Audiences.
The presentation highlighted how small civic initiatives could pioneer digital participation. Following this digital ethos, the museum later launched its Sherwood Street interactive public touchscreen near Piccadilly Circus, bringing historical galleries, old photographs and neighbourhood maps directly onto the street.
The Sherwood Street touchscreen is no longer active.
