“He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice” - yeah, well, so am I. And mine won’t lead to elves having to toil under questionable working conditions. And it won’t leave anyone out based on moral judgement: you’re welcome here, whether you’re naughty or nice.
Let’s be honest. This Christmas, your mum doesn’t need another hand cream. You’ve actually never asked her whether she likes hand cream, and yet here you are again at the Boots checkout buying her hand cream because you’ve never felt that you truly know her as a person. But the UK’s regional galleries and museums do need you to swing by and to drop a fiver into the donation box this December. And what better gift for your mum than some quality time spent in a town that you’ve otherwise only heard of on the traffic report and that large proportions of locals maintain is a shithole? (don’t be fooled by this - locals always think their charming town is a shithole)
So consider your gifting conundrum solved, with my list of ten exhibitions not to miss this December outside of London, from West Sussex to the West Midlands, boasting everything from Stanley Spencer to Stuffed Slugs.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Outlandish - until 10 January 2026
I’m generally of the opinion that most things have more or less been done before. It takes a lot to surprise me. But I left ‘Outlandish’ at the John Hansard Gallery with my jaw on the floor, thanks to a truly astounding twist which I won’t reveal here. Although, not revealing the twist here does slightly shoot me in the foot in terms of getting this section up to word count... All I will say is that it’s brilliant. Anyway… Southampton also has a better-than-usual Christmas market on… if you fancy it…
Grosvenor Museum, Cheshire - Christmas: Present and Past - until 11 January 2026
A suitably seasonal recommendation, ‘Christmas: Present and Past’ has got you covered if you’ve not already out-festived yourself by deciding to send Christmas cards in the post but then remembering it’s a faff that leads to nothing but cycles of guilt about who is/isn’t receiving one and who you are/aren’t receiving one from in return so maybe you shouldn’t bother after all, conveniently buying people’s presents on Amazon and then feeling guilty about it, and getting excited for the annual Christmas adverts and getting confused about why everyone is crying about the John Lewis one when, to your mind, every one in it seems massively tense. The Grosvenor Museum is ready to teach visitors about the history of Christmas celebrations, how Pagan traditions were absorbed into Christian ones, how these were later impacted by Roman and Viking settlers, and how we’ve always loved to stuff ourselves silly.
Site Gallery, South Yorkshire - Slime Mother - until 01 February 2026
Warhol had soup, Monet had his lily pond, and Picasso had the abstracted faces of women he chronically mistreated. Abi Palmer has slugs. Multidisciplinary artist Palmer released her slug manifesto last year, exploring “a creature that survives by being disgusting” as a vehicle for discussions about disability, queerness, and political fallout. Now the slugs are back (they never do really go away), once again representing more than their blobby mollusc bodies. This time, they’ve used it as an analogy for Catholic worship and religious dogma. Including a film, stained glass sculptures, church kneelers, and enormous stuffed slugs copulating on a massive disco ball, this show really does have it all (and a lot of it is covered in slime).
Like those Royal Navy adverts, Mary Linwood (1755 - 1845) was born in Birmingham, but she was made in Leicester. The pioneering “needle painter’s” legacy has been largely forgotten, despite her successes as both an artist and an entrepreneur, establishing London’s first female-run gallery. ‘Art, Stitch, and Life’ at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is the first retrospective of her work since 1945. The exhibition will still be on during Valentine’s weekend, when me and my mates will be doing improv in the basement of a pub for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year, we did a musical about a polyamorous office cubicle who all hated the market town of Bedford. Sadly, as it’s improv - I obviously can’t guarantee that you’ll get such a rigorous and compelling plot this coming February…
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Turner: Always Contemporary - until 22 February 2026
What with it being his 250th birthday, there have been a lot of Turner exhibitions this year, almost all of them have promised to be a hot new take on the British legend. One exhibition that effectively achieves this is ‘Turner: Always Contemporary’ at the Walker. Alongside work by Turner, the Walker has pieces on display by artists who have been inspired by the London lad over the last quarter millennium, as well as examples of Turner merch, proving that we’ve always been keen to squeeze every penny we can out of artists the moment they’re dead. The exhibition boasts several of Turner’s best works, which is no mean feat this year, given how many Turner shows are running at the same time. I imagine there was a room where all of the UK’s curators had to fight over the canvases like those 00’s clips of Americans beating each other senseless on Black Friday over toasters.
There is more to Northamptonshire than a race track full of emotionally distant fathers, a dying shoe industry, a slightly ropey football team, but a comparatively better rugby team, and my primary school. ‘A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects’ takes us back - before the middling sports teams, before the era of cobbling supremacy, and even before emotionally distant fathers - 150 million years to celebrate the county’s history. The exhibition is the work of 51 guest curators, with everything from prehistoric pots to ancient accessories on display. Oh, and lots of coins. There are always lots of coins at this sort of thing. Northampton Museum and Art Gallery have also released a podcast about their 100 Objects, thanks to Arts Council England Lottery funding, which is the reason I excuse my light scratch card habit.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk - Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk - until 22 March 2026
Gainsborough House was the childhood home of Thomas Gainsborough, the world-renowned 18th-century painter of aristocrats, who were often cousins and frequently married. The museum has recently teamed up with another gallery dedicated to a single artist, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Berkshire (which, although it wasn’t Spencer’s home, did used to be a chapel that Spencer regularly attended as a child), for their latest exhibition. While Spencer dedicated much of his career to painting the village of Cookham, where he lived (heavily featuring Jesus, but we can get into that another time), the artist did visit Suffolk regularly, where he married his second wife in the 1920s and 1930s, and this exhibition is dedicated to Spencer’s Suffolk Era.
2012 was a big year for opinion-splitting Olympic mascots, Higgs boson enthusiasts, and Grayson Perry. Channel 4’s ‘All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ hit our screens in June, following the artist’s journey through Britain's class system in search of inspiration for his new set of tapestries. I remember the series included a lot of chat about Jamie Oliver’s chokehold on middle-class mothers, but that I can remember anything about it is surprising, given how engrossed I was in the third series of Glee (Finn and Rachel finally together!) and not ever really working out how to do winged eyeliner. One of Perry’s ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ six-tapestry series, inspired by William Hogarth’s 1735 ‘A Rake’s Progress’, is now on display in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In this edition, Perry’s hero, Tim Rakewell, is enjoying middle-class luxury, blissfully unaware of his inevitable cash-chasing downfall. These tapestries are brilliant and a real time capsule for 2012 - which, looking back, was surely one of the better years we’ve had in the last 20 (Finn and Rachel finally got together!).
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - ERASURE - until 26 April 2026
Sure, an exhibition focused on the destruction of cultural heritage that comes as a result of climate breakdown doesn’t sound like my most festive recommendation. And you’d be right, but this isn’t actually a Christmas-specific list, and, after all, is anything more important than climate change (this column is not sponsored by Extinction Rebellion… yet)? Showcasing work by three international artists, ranging from sculpture to installation to film, ‘ERASURE’ highlights one of the often forgotten consequences of ecological disaster - the loss of cultural legacies and inheritances. After seeing the exhibition, a crisp walk through Goodwood Art Foundation’s 70-acre ancient woodland will surely be in order, which has been cultivated specifically to unite culture and ecology - very on brand for ‘ERASURE’.
“He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice” - yeah, well, so am I. And mine won’t lead to elves having to toil under questionable working conditions. And it won’t leave anyone out based on moral judgement: you’re welcome here, whether you’re naughty or nice.
Let’s be honest. This Christmas, your mum doesn’t need another hand cream. You’ve actually never asked her whether she likes hand cream, and yet here you are again at the Boots checkout buying her hand cream because you’ve never felt that you truly know her as a person. But the UK’s regional galleries and museums do need you to swing by and to drop a fiver into the donation box this December. And what better gift for your mum than some quality time spent in a town that you’ve otherwise only heard of on the traffic report and that large proportions of locals maintain is a shithole? (don’t be fooled by this - locals always think their charming town is a shithole)
So consider your gifting conundrum solved, with my list of ten exhibitions not to miss this December outside of London, from West Sussex to the West Midlands, boasting everything from Stanley Spencer to Stuffed Slugs.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Outlandish - until 10 January 2026
I’m generally of the opinion that most things have more or less been done before. It takes a lot to surprise me. But I left ‘Outlandish’ at the John Hansard Gallery with my jaw on the floor, thanks to a truly astounding twist which I won’t reveal here. Although, not revealing the twist here does slightly shoot me in the foot in terms of getting this section up to word count... All I will say is that it’s brilliant. Anyway… Southampton also has a better-than-usual Christmas market on… if you fancy it…
Grosvenor Museum, Cheshire - Christmas: Present and Past - until 11 January 2026
A suitably seasonal recommendation, ‘Christmas: Present and Past’ has got you covered if you’ve not already out-festived yourself by deciding to send Christmas cards in the post but then remembering it’s a faff that leads to nothing but cycles of guilt about who is/isn’t receiving one and who you are/aren’t receiving one from in return so maybe you shouldn’t bother after all, conveniently buying people’s presents on Amazon and then feeling guilty about it, and getting excited for the annual Christmas adverts and getting confused about why everyone is crying about the John Lewis one when, to your mind, every one in it seems massively tense. The Grosvenor Museum is ready to teach visitors about the history of Christmas celebrations, how Pagan traditions were absorbed into Christian ones, how these were later impacted by Roman and Viking settlers, and how we’ve always loved to stuff ourselves silly.
Site Gallery, South Yorkshire - Slime Mother - until 01 February 2026
Warhol had soup, Monet had his lily pond, and Picasso had the abstracted faces of women he chronically mistreated. Abi Palmer has slugs. Multidisciplinary artist Palmer released her slug manifesto last year, exploring “a creature that survives by being disgusting” as a vehicle for discussions about disability, queerness, and political fallout. Now the slugs are back (they never do really go away), once again representing more than their blobby mollusc bodies. This time, they’ve used it as an analogy for Catholic worship and religious dogma. Including a film, stained glass sculptures, church kneelers, and enormous stuffed slugs copulating on a massive disco ball, this show really does have it all (and a lot of it is covered in slime).
Like those Royal Navy adverts, Mary Linwood (1755 - 1845) was born in Birmingham, but she was made in Leicester. The pioneering “needle painter’s” legacy has been largely forgotten, despite her successes as both an artist and an entrepreneur, establishing London’s first female-run gallery. ‘Art, Stitch, and Life’ at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is the first retrospective of her work since 1945. The exhibition will still be on during Valentine’s weekend, when me and my mates will be doing improv in the basement of a pub for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year, we did a musical about a polyamorous office cubicle who all hated the market town of Bedford. Sadly, as it’s improv - I obviously can’t guarantee that you’ll get such a rigorous and compelling plot this coming February…
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Turner: Always Contemporary - until 22 February 2026
What with it being his 250th birthday, there have been a lot of Turner exhibitions this year, almost all of them have promised to be a hot new take on the British legend. One exhibition that effectively achieves this is ‘Turner: Always Contemporary’ at the Walker. Alongside work by Turner, the Walker has pieces on display by artists who have been inspired by the London lad over the last quarter millennium, as well as examples of Turner merch, proving that we’ve always been keen to squeeze every penny we can out of artists the moment they’re dead. The exhibition boasts several of Turner’s best works, which is no mean feat this year, given how many Turner shows are running at the same time. I imagine there was a room where all of the UK’s curators had to fight over the canvases like those 00’s clips of Americans beating each other senseless on Black Friday over toasters.
There is more to Northamptonshire than a race track full of emotionally distant fathers, a dying shoe industry, a slightly ropey football team, but a comparatively better rugby team, and my primary school. ‘A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects’ takes us back - before the middling sports teams, before the era of cobbling supremacy, and even before emotionally distant fathers - 150 million years to celebrate the county’s history. The exhibition is the work of 51 guest curators, with everything from prehistoric pots to ancient accessories on display. Oh, and lots of coins. There are always lots of coins at this sort of thing. Northampton Museum and Art Gallery have also released a podcast about their 100 Objects, thanks to Arts Council England Lottery funding, which is the reason I excuse my light scratch card habit.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk - Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk - until 22 March 2026
Gainsborough House was the childhood home of Thomas Gainsborough, the world-renowned 18th-century painter of aristocrats, who were often cousins and frequently married. The museum has recently teamed up with another gallery dedicated to a single artist, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Berkshire (which, although it wasn’t Spencer’s home, did used to be a chapel that Spencer regularly attended as a child), for their latest exhibition. While Spencer dedicated much of his career to painting the village of Cookham, where he lived (heavily featuring Jesus, but we can get into that another time), the artist did visit Suffolk regularly, where he married his second wife in the 1920s and 1930s, and this exhibition is dedicated to Spencer’s Suffolk Era.
2012 was a big year for opinion-splitting Olympic mascots, Higgs boson enthusiasts, and Grayson Perry. Channel 4’s ‘All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ hit our screens in June, following the artist’s journey through Britain's class system in search of inspiration for his new set of tapestries. I remember the series included a lot of chat about Jamie Oliver’s chokehold on middle-class mothers, but that I can remember anything about it is surprising, given how engrossed I was in the third series of Glee (Finn and Rachel finally together!) and not ever really working out how to do winged eyeliner. One of Perry’s ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ six-tapestry series, inspired by William Hogarth’s 1735 ‘A Rake’s Progress’, is now on display in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In this edition, Perry’s hero, Tim Rakewell, is enjoying middle-class luxury, blissfully unaware of his inevitable cash-chasing downfall. These tapestries are brilliant and a real time capsule for 2012 - which, looking back, was surely one of the better years we’ve had in the last 20 (Finn and Rachel finally got together!).
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - ERASURE - until 26 April 2026
Sure, an exhibition focused on the destruction of cultural heritage that comes as a result of climate breakdown doesn’t sound like my most festive recommendation. And you’d be right, but this isn’t actually a Christmas-specific list, and, after all, is anything more important than climate change (this column is not sponsored by Extinction Rebellion… yet)? Showcasing work by three international artists, ranging from sculpture to installation to film, ‘ERASURE’ highlights one of the often forgotten consequences of ecological disaster - the loss of cultural legacies and inheritances. After seeing the exhibition, a crisp walk through Goodwood Art Foundation’s 70-acre ancient woodland will surely be in order, which has been cultivated specifically to unite culture and ecology - very on brand for ‘ERASURE’.
“He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice” - yeah, well, so am I. And mine won’t lead to elves having to toil under questionable working conditions. And it won’t leave anyone out based on moral judgement: you’re welcome here, whether you’re naughty or nice.
Let’s be honest. This Christmas, your mum doesn’t need another hand cream. You’ve actually never asked her whether she likes hand cream, and yet here you are again at the Boots checkout buying her hand cream because you’ve never felt that you truly know her as a person. But the UK’s regional galleries and museums do need you to swing by and to drop a fiver into the donation box this December. And what better gift for your mum than some quality time spent in a town that you’ve otherwise only heard of on the traffic report and that large proportions of locals maintain is a shithole? (don’t be fooled by this - locals always think their charming town is a shithole)
So consider your gifting conundrum solved, with my list of ten exhibitions not to miss this December outside of London, from West Sussex to the West Midlands, boasting everything from Stanley Spencer to Stuffed Slugs.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Outlandish - until 10 January 2026
I’m generally of the opinion that most things have more or less been done before. It takes a lot to surprise me. But I left ‘Outlandish’ at the John Hansard Gallery with my jaw on the floor, thanks to a truly astounding twist which I won’t reveal here. Although, not revealing the twist here does slightly shoot me in the foot in terms of getting this section up to word count... All I will say is that it’s brilliant. Anyway… Southampton also has a better-than-usual Christmas market on… if you fancy it…
Grosvenor Museum, Cheshire - Christmas: Present and Past - until 11 January 2026
A suitably seasonal recommendation, ‘Christmas: Present and Past’ has got you covered if you’ve not already out-festived yourself by deciding to send Christmas cards in the post but then remembering it’s a faff that leads to nothing but cycles of guilt about who is/isn’t receiving one and who you are/aren’t receiving one from in return so maybe you shouldn’t bother after all, conveniently buying people’s presents on Amazon and then feeling guilty about it, and getting excited for the annual Christmas adverts and getting confused about why everyone is crying about the John Lewis one when, to your mind, every one in it seems massively tense. The Grosvenor Museum is ready to teach visitors about the history of Christmas celebrations, how Pagan traditions were absorbed into Christian ones, how these were later impacted by Roman and Viking settlers, and how we’ve always loved to stuff ourselves silly.
Site Gallery, South Yorkshire - Slime Mother - until 01 February 2026
Warhol had soup, Monet had his lily pond, and Picasso had the abstracted faces of women he chronically mistreated. Abi Palmer has slugs. Multidisciplinary artist Palmer released her slug manifesto last year, exploring “a creature that survives by being disgusting” as a vehicle for discussions about disability, queerness, and political fallout. Now the slugs are back (they never do really go away), once again representing more than their blobby mollusc bodies. This time, they’ve used it as an analogy for Catholic worship and religious dogma. Including a film, stained glass sculptures, church kneelers, and enormous stuffed slugs copulating on a massive disco ball, this show really does have it all (and a lot of it is covered in slime).
Like those Royal Navy adverts, Mary Linwood (1755 - 1845) was born in Birmingham, but she was made in Leicester. The pioneering “needle painter’s” legacy has been largely forgotten, despite her successes as both an artist and an entrepreneur, establishing London’s first female-run gallery. ‘Art, Stitch, and Life’ at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is the first retrospective of her work since 1945. The exhibition will still be on during Valentine’s weekend, when me and my mates will be doing improv in the basement of a pub for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year, we did a musical about a polyamorous office cubicle who all hated the market town of Bedford. Sadly, as it’s improv - I obviously can’t guarantee that you’ll get such a rigorous and compelling plot this coming February…
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Turner: Always Contemporary - until 22 February 2026
What with it being his 250th birthday, there have been a lot of Turner exhibitions this year, almost all of them have promised to be a hot new take on the British legend. One exhibition that effectively achieves this is ‘Turner: Always Contemporary’ at the Walker. Alongside work by Turner, the Walker has pieces on display by artists who have been inspired by the London lad over the last quarter millennium, as well as examples of Turner merch, proving that we’ve always been keen to squeeze every penny we can out of artists the moment they’re dead. The exhibition boasts several of Turner’s best works, which is no mean feat this year, given how many Turner shows are running at the same time. I imagine there was a room where all of the UK’s curators had to fight over the canvases like those 00’s clips of Americans beating each other senseless on Black Friday over toasters.
There is more to Northamptonshire than a race track full of emotionally distant fathers, a dying shoe industry, a slightly ropey football team, but a comparatively better rugby team, and my primary school. ‘A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects’ takes us back - before the middling sports teams, before the era of cobbling supremacy, and even before emotionally distant fathers - 150 million years to celebrate the county’s history. The exhibition is the work of 51 guest curators, with everything from prehistoric pots to ancient accessories on display. Oh, and lots of coins. There are always lots of coins at this sort of thing. Northampton Museum and Art Gallery have also released a podcast about their 100 Objects, thanks to Arts Council England Lottery funding, which is the reason I excuse my light scratch card habit.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk - Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk - until 22 March 2026
Gainsborough House was the childhood home of Thomas Gainsborough, the world-renowned 18th-century painter of aristocrats, who were often cousins and frequently married. The museum has recently teamed up with another gallery dedicated to a single artist, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Berkshire (which, although it wasn’t Spencer’s home, did used to be a chapel that Spencer regularly attended as a child), for their latest exhibition. While Spencer dedicated much of his career to painting the village of Cookham, where he lived (heavily featuring Jesus, but we can get into that another time), the artist did visit Suffolk regularly, where he married his second wife in the 1920s and 1930s, and this exhibition is dedicated to Spencer’s Suffolk Era.
2012 was a big year for opinion-splitting Olympic mascots, Higgs boson enthusiasts, and Grayson Perry. Channel 4’s ‘All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ hit our screens in June, following the artist’s journey through Britain's class system in search of inspiration for his new set of tapestries. I remember the series included a lot of chat about Jamie Oliver’s chokehold on middle-class mothers, but that I can remember anything about it is surprising, given how engrossed I was in the third series of Glee (Finn and Rachel finally together!) and not ever really working out how to do winged eyeliner. One of Perry’s ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ six-tapestry series, inspired by William Hogarth’s 1735 ‘A Rake’s Progress’, is now on display in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In this edition, Perry’s hero, Tim Rakewell, is enjoying middle-class luxury, blissfully unaware of his inevitable cash-chasing downfall. These tapestries are brilliant and a real time capsule for 2012 - which, looking back, was surely one of the better years we’ve had in the last 20 (Finn and Rachel finally got together!).
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - ERASURE - until 26 April 2026
Sure, an exhibition focused on the destruction of cultural heritage that comes as a result of climate breakdown doesn’t sound like my most festive recommendation. And you’d be right, but this isn’t actually a Christmas-specific list, and, after all, is anything more important than climate change (this column is not sponsored by Extinction Rebellion… yet)? Showcasing work by three international artists, ranging from sculpture to installation to film, ‘ERASURE’ highlights one of the often forgotten consequences of ecological disaster - the loss of cultural legacies and inheritances. After seeing the exhibition, a crisp walk through Goodwood Art Foundation’s 70-acre ancient woodland will surely be in order, which has been cultivated specifically to unite culture and ecology - very on brand for ‘ERASURE’.
“He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice” - yeah, well, so am I. And mine won’t lead to elves having to toil under questionable working conditions. And it won’t leave anyone out based on moral judgement: you’re welcome here, whether you’re naughty or nice.
Let’s be honest. This Christmas, your mum doesn’t need another hand cream. You’ve actually never asked her whether she likes hand cream, and yet here you are again at the Boots checkout buying her hand cream because you’ve never felt that you truly know her as a person. But the UK’s regional galleries and museums do need you to swing by and to drop a fiver into the donation box this December. And what better gift for your mum than some quality time spent in a town that you’ve otherwise only heard of on the traffic report and that large proportions of locals maintain is a shithole? (don’t be fooled by this - locals always think their charming town is a shithole)
So consider your gifting conundrum solved, with my list of ten exhibitions not to miss this December outside of London, from West Sussex to the West Midlands, boasting everything from Stanley Spencer to Stuffed Slugs.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Outlandish - until 10 January 2026
I’m generally of the opinion that most things have more or less been done before. It takes a lot to surprise me. But I left ‘Outlandish’ at the John Hansard Gallery with my jaw on the floor, thanks to a truly astounding twist which I won’t reveal here. Although, not revealing the twist here does slightly shoot me in the foot in terms of getting this section up to word count... All I will say is that it’s brilliant. Anyway… Southampton also has a better-than-usual Christmas market on… if you fancy it…
Grosvenor Museum, Cheshire - Christmas: Present and Past - until 11 January 2026
A suitably seasonal recommendation, ‘Christmas: Present and Past’ has got you covered if you’ve not already out-festived yourself by deciding to send Christmas cards in the post but then remembering it’s a faff that leads to nothing but cycles of guilt about who is/isn’t receiving one and who you are/aren’t receiving one from in return so maybe you shouldn’t bother after all, conveniently buying people’s presents on Amazon and then feeling guilty about it, and getting excited for the annual Christmas adverts and getting confused about why everyone is crying about the John Lewis one when, to your mind, every one in it seems massively tense. The Grosvenor Museum is ready to teach visitors about the history of Christmas celebrations, how Pagan traditions were absorbed into Christian ones, how these were later impacted by Roman and Viking settlers, and how we’ve always loved to stuff ourselves silly.
Site Gallery, South Yorkshire - Slime Mother - until 01 February 2026
Warhol had soup, Monet had his lily pond, and Picasso had the abstracted faces of women he chronically mistreated. Abi Palmer has slugs. Multidisciplinary artist Palmer released her slug manifesto last year, exploring “a creature that survives by being disgusting” as a vehicle for discussions about disability, queerness, and political fallout. Now the slugs are back (they never do really go away), once again representing more than their blobby mollusc bodies. This time, they’ve used it as an analogy for Catholic worship and religious dogma. Including a film, stained glass sculptures, church kneelers, and enormous stuffed slugs copulating on a massive disco ball, this show really does have it all (and a lot of it is covered in slime).
Like those Royal Navy adverts, Mary Linwood (1755 - 1845) was born in Birmingham, but she was made in Leicester. The pioneering “needle painter’s” legacy has been largely forgotten, despite her successes as both an artist and an entrepreneur, establishing London’s first female-run gallery. ‘Art, Stitch, and Life’ at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is the first retrospective of her work since 1945. The exhibition will still be on during Valentine’s weekend, when me and my mates will be doing improv in the basement of a pub for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year, we did a musical about a polyamorous office cubicle who all hated the market town of Bedford. Sadly, as it’s improv - I obviously can’t guarantee that you’ll get such a rigorous and compelling plot this coming February…
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Turner: Always Contemporary - until 22 February 2026
What with it being his 250th birthday, there have been a lot of Turner exhibitions this year, almost all of them have promised to be a hot new take on the British legend. One exhibition that effectively achieves this is ‘Turner: Always Contemporary’ at the Walker. Alongside work by Turner, the Walker has pieces on display by artists who have been inspired by the London lad over the last quarter millennium, as well as examples of Turner merch, proving that we’ve always been keen to squeeze every penny we can out of artists the moment they’re dead. The exhibition boasts several of Turner’s best works, which is no mean feat this year, given how many Turner shows are running at the same time. I imagine there was a room where all of the UK’s curators had to fight over the canvases like those 00’s clips of Americans beating each other senseless on Black Friday over toasters.
There is more to Northamptonshire than a race track full of emotionally distant fathers, a dying shoe industry, a slightly ropey football team, but a comparatively better rugby team, and my primary school. ‘A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects’ takes us back - before the middling sports teams, before the era of cobbling supremacy, and even before emotionally distant fathers - 150 million years to celebrate the county’s history. The exhibition is the work of 51 guest curators, with everything from prehistoric pots to ancient accessories on display. Oh, and lots of coins. There are always lots of coins at this sort of thing. Northampton Museum and Art Gallery have also released a podcast about their 100 Objects, thanks to Arts Council England Lottery funding, which is the reason I excuse my light scratch card habit.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk - Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk - until 22 March 2026
Gainsborough House was the childhood home of Thomas Gainsborough, the world-renowned 18th-century painter of aristocrats, who were often cousins and frequently married. The museum has recently teamed up with another gallery dedicated to a single artist, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Berkshire (which, although it wasn’t Spencer’s home, did used to be a chapel that Spencer regularly attended as a child), for their latest exhibition. While Spencer dedicated much of his career to painting the village of Cookham, where he lived (heavily featuring Jesus, but we can get into that another time), the artist did visit Suffolk regularly, where he married his second wife in the 1920s and 1930s, and this exhibition is dedicated to Spencer’s Suffolk Era.
2012 was a big year for opinion-splitting Olympic mascots, Higgs boson enthusiasts, and Grayson Perry. Channel 4’s ‘All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ hit our screens in June, following the artist’s journey through Britain's class system in search of inspiration for his new set of tapestries. I remember the series included a lot of chat about Jamie Oliver’s chokehold on middle-class mothers, but that I can remember anything about it is surprising, given how engrossed I was in the third series of Glee (Finn and Rachel finally together!) and not ever really working out how to do winged eyeliner. One of Perry’s ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ six-tapestry series, inspired by William Hogarth’s 1735 ‘A Rake’s Progress’, is now on display in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In this edition, Perry’s hero, Tim Rakewell, is enjoying middle-class luxury, blissfully unaware of his inevitable cash-chasing downfall. These tapestries are brilliant and a real time capsule for 2012 - which, looking back, was surely one of the better years we’ve had in the last 20 (Finn and Rachel finally got together!).
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - ERASURE - until 26 April 2026
Sure, an exhibition focused on the destruction of cultural heritage that comes as a result of climate breakdown doesn’t sound like my most festive recommendation. And you’d be right, but this isn’t actually a Christmas-specific list, and, after all, is anything more important than climate change (this column is not sponsored by Extinction Rebellion… yet)? Showcasing work by three international artists, ranging from sculpture to installation to film, ‘ERASURE’ highlights one of the often forgotten consequences of ecological disaster - the loss of cultural legacies and inheritances. After seeing the exhibition, a crisp walk through Goodwood Art Foundation’s 70-acre ancient woodland will surely be in order, which has been cultivated specifically to unite culture and ecology - very on brand for ‘ERASURE’.
“He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice” - yeah, well, so am I. And mine won’t lead to elves having to toil under questionable working conditions. And it won’t leave anyone out based on moral judgement: you’re welcome here, whether you’re naughty or nice.
Let’s be honest. This Christmas, your mum doesn’t need another hand cream. You’ve actually never asked her whether she likes hand cream, and yet here you are again at the Boots checkout buying her hand cream because you’ve never felt that you truly know her as a person. But the UK’s regional galleries and museums do need you to swing by and to drop a fiver into the donation box this December. And what better gift for your mum than some quality time spent in a town that you’ve otherwise only heard of on the traffic report and that large proportions of locals maintain is a shithole? (don’t be fooled by this - locals always think their charming town is a shithole)
So consider your gifting conundrum solved, with my list of ten exhibitions not to miss this December outside of London, from West Sussex to the West Midlands, boasting everything from Stanley Spencer to Stuffed Slugs.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Outlandish - until 10 January 2026
I’m generally of the opinion that most things have more or less been done before. It takes a lot to surprise me. But I left ‘Outlandish’ at the John Hansard Gallery with my jaw on the floor, thanks to a truly astounding twist which I won’t reveal here. Although, not revealing the twist here does slightly shoot me in the foot in terms of getting this section up to word count... All I will say is that it’s brilliant. Anyway… Southampton also has a better-than-usual Christmas market on… if you fancy it…
Grosvenor Museum, Cheshire - Christmas: Present and Past - until 11 January 2026
A suitably seasonal recommendation, ‘Christmas: Present and Past’ has got you covered if you’ve not already out-festived yourself by deciding to send Christmas cards in the post but then remembering it’s a faff that leads to nothing but cycles of guilt about who is/isn’t receiving one and who you are/aren’t receiving one from in return so maybe you shouldn’t bother after all, conveniently buying people’s presents on Amazon and then feeling guilty about it, and getting excited for the annual Christmas adverts and getting confused about why everyone is crying about the John Lewis one when, to your mind, every one in it seems massively tense. The Grosvenor Museum is ready to teach visitors about the history of Christmas celebrations, how Pagan traditions were absorbed into Christian ones, how these were later impacted by Roman and Viking settlers, and how we’ve always loved to stuff ourselves silly.
Site Gallery, South Yorkshire - Slime Mother - until 01 February 2026
Warhol had soup, Monet had his lily pond, and Picasso had the abstracted faces of women he chronically mistreated. Abi Palmer has slugs. Multidisciplinary artist Palmer released her slug manifesto last year, exploring “a creature that survives by being disgusting” as a vehicle for discussions about disability, queerness, and political fallout. Now the slugs are back (they never do really go away), once again representing more than their blobby mollusc bodies. This time, they’ve used it as an analogy for Catholic worship and religious dogma. Including a film, stained glass sculptures, church kneelers, and enormous stuffed slugs copulating on a massive disco ball, this show really does have it all (and a lot of it is covered in slime).
Like those Royal Navy adverts, Mary Linwood (1755 - 1845) was born in Birmingham, but she was made in Leicester. The pioneering “needle painter’s” legacy has been largely forgotten, despite her successes as both an artist and an entrepreneur, establishing London’s first female-run gallery. ‘Art, Stitch, and Life’ at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is the first retrospective of her work since 1945. The exhibition will still be on during Valentine’s weekend, when me and my mates will be doing improv in the basement of a pub for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year, we did a musical about a polyamorous office cubicle who all hated the market town of Bedford. Sadly, as it’s improv - I obviously can’t guarantee that you’ll get such a rigorous and compelling plot this coming February…
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Turner: Always Contemporary - until 22 February 2026
What with it being his 250th birthday, there have been a lot of Turner exhibitions this year, almost all of them have promised to be a hot new take on the British legend. One exhibition that effectively achieves this is ‘Turner: Always Contemporary’ at the Walker. Alongside work by Turner, the Walker has pieces on display by artists who have been inspired by the London lad over the last quarter millennium, as well as examples of Turner merch, proving that we’ve always been keen to squeeze every penny we can out of artists the moment they’re dead. The exhibition boasts several of Turner’s best works, which is no mean feat this year, given how many Turner shows are running at the same time. I imagine there was a room where all of the UK’s curators had to fight over the canvases like those 00’s clips of Americans beating each other senseless on Black Friday over toasters.
There is more to Northamptonshire than a race track full of emotionally distant fathers, a dying shoe industry, a slightly ropey football team, but a comparatively better rugby team, and my primary school. ‘A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects’ takes us back - before the middling sports teams, before the era of cobbling supremacy, and even before emotionally distant fathers - 150 million years to celebrate the county’s history. The exhibition is the work of 51 guest curators, with everything from prehistoric pots to ancient accessories on display. Oh, and lots of coins. There are always lots of coins at this sort of thing. Northampton Museum and Art Gallery have also released a podcast about their 100 Objects, thanks to Arts Council England Lottery funding, which is the reason I excuse my light scratch card habit.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk - Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk - until 22 March 2026
Gainsborough House was the childhood home of Thomas Gainsborough, the world-renowned 18th-century painter of aristocrats, who were often cousins and frequently married. The museum has recently teamed up with another gallery dedicated to a single artist, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Berkshire (which, although it wasn’t Spencer’s home, did used to be a chapel that Spencer regularly attended as a child), for their latest exhibition. While Spencer dedicated much of his career to painting the village of Cookham, where he lived (heavily featuring Jesus, but we can get into that another time), the artist did visit Suffolk regularly, where he married his second wife in the 1920s and 1930s, and this exhibition is dedicated to Spencer’s Suffolk Era.
2012 was a big year for opinion-splitting Olympic mascots, Higgs boson enthusiasts, and Grayson Perry. Channel 4’s ‘All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ hit our screens in June, following the artist’s journey through Britain's class system in search of inspiration for his new set of tapestries. I remember the series included a lot of chat about Jamie Oliver’s chokehold on middle-class mothers, but that I can remember anything about it is surprising, given how engrossed I was in the third series of Glee (Finn and Rachel finally together!) and not ever really working out how to do winged eyeliner. One of Perry’s ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ six-tapestry series, inspired by William Hogarth’s 1735 ‘A Rake’s Progress’, is now on display in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In this edition, Perry’s hero, Tim Rakewell, is enjoying middle-class luxury, blissfully unaware of his inevitable cash-chasing downfall. These tapestries are brilliant and a real time capsule for 2012 - which, looking back, was surely one of the better years we’ve had in the last 20 (Finn and Rachel finally got together!).
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - ERASURE - until 26 April 2026
Sure, an exhibition focused on the destruction of cultural heritage that comes as a result of climate breakdown doesn’t sound like my most festive recommendation. And you’d be right, but this isn’t actually a Christmas-specific list, and, after all, is anything more important than climate change (this column is not sponsored by Extinction Rebellion… yet)? Showcasing work by three international artists, ranging from sculpture to installation to film, ‘ERASURE’ highlights one of the often forgotten consequences of ecological disaster - the loss of cultural legacies and inheritances. After seeing the exhibition, a crisp walk through Goodwood Art Foundation’s 70-acre ancient woodland will surely be in order, which has been cultivated specifically to unite culture and ecology - very on brand for ‘ERASURE’.
“He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice” - yeah, well, so am I. And mine won’t lead to elves having to toil under questionable working conditions. And it won’t leave anyone out based on moral judgement: you’re welcome here, whether you’re naughty or nice.
Let’s be honest. This Christmas, your mum doesn’t need another hand cream. You’ve actually never asked her whether she likes hand cream, and yet here you are again at the Boots checkout buying her hand cream because you’ve never felt that you truly know her as a person. But the UK’s regional galleries and museums do need you to swing by and to drop a fiver into the donation box this December. And what better gift for your mum than some quality time spent in a town that you’ve otherwise only heard of on the traffic report and that large proportions of locals maintain is a shithole? (don’t be fooled by this - locals always think their charming town is a shithole)
So consider your gifting conundrum solved, with my list of ten exhibitions not to miss this December outside of London, from West Sussex to the West Midlands, boasting everything from Stanley Spencer to Stuffed Slugs.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Outlandish - until 10 January 2026
I’m generally of the opinion that most things have more or less been done before. It takes a lot to surprise me. But I left ‘Outlandish’ at the John Hansard Gallery with my jaw on the floor, thanks to a truly astounding twist which I won’t reveal here. Although, not revealing the twist here does slightly shoot me in the foot in terms of getting this section up to word count... All I will say is that it’s brilliant. Anyway… Southampton also has a better-than-usual Christmas market on… if you fancy it…
Grosvenor Museum, Cheshire - Christmas: Present and Past - until 11 January 2026
A suitably seasonal recommendation, ‘Christmas: Present and Past’ has got you covered if you’ve not already out-festived yourself by deciding to send Christmas cards in the post but then remembering it’s a faff that leads to nothing but cycles of guilt about who is/isn’t receiving one and who you are/aren’t receiving one from in return so maybe you shouldn’t bother after all, conveniently buying people’s presents on Amazon and then feeling guilty about it, and getting excited for the annual Christmas adverts and getting confused about why everyone is crying about the John Lewis one when, to your mind, every one in it seems massively tense. The Grosvenor Museum is ready to teach visitors about the history of Christmas celebrations, how Pagan traditions were absorbed into Christian ones, how these were later impacted by Roman and Viking settlers, and how we’ve always loved to stuff ourselves silly.
Site Gallery, South Yorkshire - Slime Mother - until 01 February 2026
Warhol had soup, Monet had his lily pond, and Picasso had the abstracted faces of women he chronically mistreated. Abi Palmer has slugs. Multidisciplinary artist Palmer released her slug manifesto last year, exploring “a creature that survives by being disgusting” as a vehicle for discussions about disability, queerness, and political fallout. Now the slugs are back (they never do really go away), once again representing more than their blobby mollusc bodies. This time, they’ve used it as an analogy for Catholic worship and religious dogma. Including a film, stained glass sculptures, church kneelers, and enormous stuffed slugs copulating on a massive disco ball, this show really does have it all (and a lot of it is covered in slime).
Like those Royal Navy adverts, Mary Linwood (1755 - 1845) was born in Birmingham, but she was made in Leicester. The pioneering “needle painter’s” legacy has been largely forgotten, despite her successes as both an artist and an entrepreneur, establishing London’s first female-run gallery. ‘Art, Stitch, and Life’ at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is the first retrospective of her work since 1945. The exhibition will still be on during Valentine’s weekend, when me and my mates will be doing improv in the basement of a pub for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year, we did a musical about a polyamorous office cubicle who all hated the market town of Bedford. Sadly, as it’s improv - I obviously can’t guarantee that you’ll get such a rigorous and compelling plot this coming February…
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Turner: Always Contemporary - until 22 February 2026
What with it being his 250th birthday, there have been a lot of Turner exhibitions this year, almost all of them have promised to be a hot new take on the British legend. One exhibition that effectively achieves this is ‘Turner: Always Contemporary’ at the Walker. Alongside work by Turner, the Walker has pieces on display by artists who have been inspired by the London lad over the last quarter millennium, as well as examples of Turner merch, proving that we’ve always been keen to squeeze every penny we can out of artists the moment they’re dead. The exhibition boasts several of Turner’s best works, which is no mean feat this year, given how many Turner shows are running at the same time. I imagine there was a room where all of the UK’s curators had to fight over the canvases like those 00’s clips of Americans beating each other senseless on Black Friday over toasters.
There is more to Northamptonshire than a race track full of emotionally distant fathers, a dying shoe industry, a slightly ropey football team, but a comparatively better rugby team, and my primary school. ‘A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects’ takes us back - before the middling sports teams, before the era of cobbling supremacy, and even before emotionally distant fathers - 150 million years to celebrate the county’s history. The exhibition is the work of 51 guest curators, with everything from prehistoric pots to ancient accessories on display. Oh, and lots of coins. There are always lots of coins at this sort of thing. Northampton Museum and Art Gallery have also released a podcast about their 100 Objects, thanks to Arts Council England Lottery funding, which is the reason I excuse my light scratch card habit.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk - Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk - until 22 March 2026
Gainsborough House was the childhood home of Thomas Gainsborough, the world-renowned 18th-century painter of aristocrats, who were often cousins and frequently married. The museum has recently teamed up with another gallery dedicated to a single artist, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Berkshire (which, although it wasn’t Spencer’s home, did used to be a chapel that Spencer regularly attended as a child), for their latest exhibition. While Spencer dedicated much of his career to painting the village of Cookham, where he lived (heavily featuring Jesus, but we can get into that another time), the artist did visit Suffolk regularly, where he married his second wife in the 1920s and 1930s, and this exhibition is dedicated to Spencer’s Suffolk Era.
2012 was a big year for opinion-splitting Olympic mascots, Higgs boson enthusiasts, and Grayson Perry. Channel 4’s ‘All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ hit our screens in June, following the artist’s journey through Britain's class system in search of inspiration for his new set of tapestries. I remember the series included a lot of chat about Jamie Oliver’s chokehold on middle-class mothers, but that I can remember anything about it is surprising, given how engrossed I was in the third series of Glee (Finn and Rachel finally together!) and not ever really working out how to do winged eyeliner. One of Perry’s ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ six-tapestry series, inspired by William Hogarth’s 1735 ‘A Rake’s Progress’, is now on display in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In this edition, Perry’s hero, Tim Rakewell, is enjoying middle-class luxury, blissfully unaware of his inevitable cash-chasing downfall. These tapestries are brilliant and a real time capsule for 2012 - which, looking back, was surely one of the better years we’ve had in the last 20 (Finn and Rachel finally got together!).
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - ERASURE - until 26 April 2026
Sure, an exhibition focused on the destruction of cultural heritage that comes as a result of climate breakdown doesn’t sound like my most festive recommendation. And you’d be right, but this isn’t actually a Christmas-specific list, and, after all, is anything more important than climate change (this column is not sponsored by Extinction Rebellion… yet)? Showcasing work by three international artists, ranging from sculpture to installation to film, ‘ERASURE’ highlights one of the often forgotten consequences of ecological disaster - the loss of cultural legacies and inheritances. After seeing the exhibition, a crisp walk through Goodwood Art Foundation’s 70-acre ancient woodland will surely be in order, which has been cultivated specifically to unite culture and ecology - very on brand for ‘ERASURE’.
“He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice” - yeah, well, so am I. And mine won’t lead to elves having to toil under questionable working conditions. And it won’t leave anyone out based on moral judgement: you’re welcome here, whether you’re naughty or nice.
Let’s be honest. This Christmas, your mum doesn’t need another hand cream. You’ve actually never asked her whether she likes hand cream, and yet here you are again at the Boots checkout buying her hand cream because you’ve never felt that you truly know her as a person. But the UK’s regional galleries and museums do need you to swing by and to drop a fiver into the donation box this December. And what better gift for your mum than some quality time spent in a town that you’ve otherwise only heard of on the traffic report and that large proportions of locals maintain is a shithole? (don’t be fooled by this - locals always think their charming town is a shithole)
So consider your gifting conundrum solved, with my list of ten exhibitions not to miss this December outside of London, from West Sussex to the West Midlands, boasting everything from Stanley Spencer to Stuffed Slugs.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Outlandish - until 10 January 2026
I’m generally of the opinion that most things have more or less been done before. It takes a lot to surprise me. But I left ‘Outlandish’ at the John Hansard Gallery with my jaw on the floor, thanks to a truly astounding twist which I won’t reveal here. Although, not revealing the twist here does slightly shoot me in the foot in terms of getting this section up to word count... All I will say is that it’s brilliant. Anyway… Southampton also has a better-than-usual Christmas market on… if you fancy it…
Grosvenor Museum, Cheshire - Christmas: Present and Past - until 11 January 2026
A suitably seasonal recommendation, ‘Christmas: Present and Past’ has got you covered if you’ve not already out-festived yourself by deciding to send Christmas cards in the post but then remembering it’s a faff that leads to nothing but cycles of guilt about who is/isn’t receiving one and who you are/aren’t receiving one from in return so maybe you shouldn’t bother after all, conveniently buying people’s presents on Amazon and then feeling guilty about it, and getting excited for the annual Christmas adverts and getting confused about why everyone is crying about the John Lewis one when, to your mind, every one in it seems massively tense. The Grosvenor Museum is ready to teach visitors about the history of Christmas celebrations, how Pagan traditions were absorbed into Christian ones, how these were later impacted by Roman and Viking settlers, and how we’ve always loved to stuff ourselves silly.
Site Gallery, South Yorkshire - Slime Mother - until 01 February 2026
Warhol had soup, Monet had his lily pond, and Picasso had the abstracted faces of women he chronically mistreated. Abi Palmer has slugs. Multidisciplinary artist Palmer released her slug manifesto last year, exploring “a creature that survives by being disgusting” as a vehicle for discussions about disability, queerness, and political fallout. Now the slugs are back (they never do really go away), once again representing more than their blobby mollusc bodies. This time, they’ve used it as an analogy for Catholic worship and religious dogma. Including a film, stained glass sculptures, church kneelers, and enormous stuffed slugs copulating on a massive disco ball, this show really does have it all (and a lot of it is covered in slime).
Like those Royal Navy adverts, Mary Linwood (1755 - 1845) was born in Birmingham, but she was made in Leicester. The pioneering “needle painter’s” legacy has been largely forgotten, despite her successes as both an artist and an entrepreneur, establishing London’s first female-run gallery. ‘Art, Stitch, and Life’ at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is the first retrospective of her work since 1945. The exhibition will still be on during Valentine’s weekend, when me and my mates will be doing improv in the basement of a pub for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year, we did a musical about a polyamorous office cubicle who all hated the market town of Bedford. Sadly, as it’s improv - I obviously can’t guarantee that you’ll get such a rigorous and compelling plot this coming February…
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Turner: Always Contemporary - until 22 February 2026
What with it being his 250th birthday, there have been a lot of Turner exhibitions this year, almost all of them have promised to be a hot new take on the British legend. One exhibition that effectively achieves this is ‘Turner: Always Contemporary’ at the Walker. Alongside work by Turner, the Walker has pieces on display by artists who have been inspired by the London lad over the last quarter millennium, as well as examples of Turner merch, proving that we’ve always been keen to squeeze every penny we can out of artists the moment they’re dead. The exhibition boasts several of Turner’s best works, which is no mean feat this year, given how many Turner shows are running at the same time. I imagine there was a room where all of the UK’s curators had to fight over the canvases like those 00’s clips of Americans beating each other senseless on Black Friday over toasters.
There is more to Northamptonshire than a race track full of emotionally distant fathers, a dying shoe industry, a slightly ropey football team, but a comparatively better rugby team, and my primary school. ‘A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects’ takes us back - before the middling sports teams, before the era of cobbling supremacy, and even before emotionally distant fathers - 150 million years to celebrate the county’s history. The exhibition is the work of 51 guest curators, with everything from prehistoric pots to ancient accessories on display. Oh, and lots of coins. There are always lots of coins at this sort of thing. Northampton Museum and Art Gallery have also released a podcast about their 100 Objects, thanks to Arts Council England Lottery funding, which is the reason I excuse my light scratch card habit.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk - Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk - until 22 March 2026
Gainsborough House was the childhood home of Thomas Gainsborough, the world-renowned 18th-century painter of aristocrats, who were often cousins and frequently married. The museum has recently teamed up with another gallery dedicated to a single artist, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Berkshire (which, although it wasn’t Spencer’s home, did used to be a chapel that Spencer regularly attended as a child), for their latest exhibition. While Spencer dedicated much of his career to painting the village of Cookham, where he lived (heavily featuring Jesus, but we can get into that another time), the artist did visit Suffolk regularly, where he married his second wife in the 1920s and 1930s, and this exhibition is dedicated to Spencer’s Suffolk Era.
2012 was a big year for opinion-splitting Olympic mascots, Higgs boson enthusiasts, and Grayson Perry. Channel 4’s ‘All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ hit our screens in June, following the artist’s journey through Britain's class system in search of inspiration for his new set of tapestries. I remember the series included a lot of chat about Jamie Oliver’s chokehold on middle-class mothers, but that I can remember anything about it is surprising, given how engrossed I was in the third series of Glee (Finn and Rachel finally together!) and not ever really working out how to do winged eyeliner. One of Perry’s ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ six-tapestry series, inspired by William Hogarth’s 1735 ‘A Rake’s Progress’, is now on display in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In this edition, Perry’s hero, Tim Rakewell, is enjoying middle-class luxury, blissfully unaware of his inevitable cash-chasing downfall. These tapestries are brilliant and a real time capsule for 2012 - which, looking back, was surely one of the better years we’ve had in the last 20 (Finn and Rachel finally got together!).
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - ERASURE - until 26 April 2026
Sure, an exhibition focused on the destruction of cultural heritage that comes as a result of climate breakdown doesn’t sound like my most festive recommendation. And you’d be right, but this isn’t actually a Christmas-specific list, and, after all, is anything more important than climate change (this column is not sponsored by Extinction Rebellion… yet)? Showcasing work by three international artists, ranging from sculpture to installation to film, ‘ERASURE’ highlights one of the often forgotten consequences of ecological disaster - the loss of cultural legacies and inheritances. After seeing the exhibition, a crisp walk through Goodwood Art Foundation’s 70-acre ancient woodland will surely be in order, which has been cultivated specifically to unite culture and ecology - very on brand for ‘ERASURE’.
“He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice” - yeah, well, so am I. And mine won’t lead to elves having to toil under questionable working conditions. And it won’t leave anyone out based on moral judgement: you’re welcome here, whether you’re naughty or nice.
Let’s be honest. This Christmas, your mum doesn’t need another hand cream. You’ve actually never asked her whether she likes hand cream, and yet here you are again at the Boots checkout buying her hand cream because you’ve never felt that you truly know her as a person. But the UK’s regional galleries and museums do need you to swing by and to drop a fiver into the donation box this December. And what better gift for your mum than some quality time spent in a town that you’ve otherwise only heard of on the traffic report and that large proportions of locals maintain is a shithole? (don’t be fooled by this - locals always think their charming town is a shithole)
So consider your gifting conundrum solved, with my list of ten exhibitions not to miss this December outside of London, from West Sussex to the West Midlands, boasting everything from Stanley Spencer to Stuffed Slugs.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Outlandish - until 10 January 2026
I’m generally of the opinion that most things have more or less been done before. It takes a lot to surprise me. But I left ‘Outlandish’ at the John Hansard Gallery with my jaw on the floor, thanks to a truly astounding twist which I won’t reveal here. Although, not revealing the twist here does slightly shoot me in the foot in terms of getting this section up to word count... All I will say is that it’s brilliant. Anyway… Southampton also has a better-than-usual Christmas market on… if you fancy it…
Grosvenor Museum, Cheshire - Christmas: Present and Past - until 11 January 2026
A suitably seasonal recommendation, ‘Christmas: Present and Past’ has got you covered if you’ve not already out-festived yourself by deciding to send Christmas cards in the post but then remembering it’s a faff that leads to nothing but cycles of guilt about who is/isn’t receiving one and who you are/aren’t receiving one from in return so maybe you shouldn’t bother after all, conveniently buying people’s presents on Amazon and then feeling guilty about it, and getting excited for the annual Christmas adverts and getting confused about why everyone is crying about the John Lewis one when, to your mind, every one in it seems massively tense. The Grosvenor Museum is ready to teach visitors about the history of Christmas celebrations, how Pagan traditions were absorbed into Christian ones, how these were later impacted by Roman and Viking settlers, and how we’ve always loved to stuff ourselves silly.
Site Gallery, South Yorkshire - Slime Mother - until 01 February 2026
Warhol had soup, Monet had his lily pond, and Picasso had the abstracted faces of women he chronically mistreated. Abi Palmer has slugs. Multidisciplinary artist Palmer released her slug manifesto last year, exploring “a creature that survives by being disgusting” as a vehicle for discussions about disability, queerness, and political fallout. Now the slugs are back (they never do really go away), once again representing more than their blobby mollusc bodies. This time, they’ve used it as an analogy for Catholic worship and religious dogma. Including a film, stained glass sculptures, church kneelers, and enormous stuffed slugs copulating on a massive disco ball, this show really does have it all (and a lot of it is covered in slime).
Like those Royal Navy adverts, Mary Linwood (1755 - 1845) was born in Birmingham, but she was made in Leicester. The pioneering “needle painter’s” legacy has been largely forgotten, despite her successes as both an artist and an entrepreneur, establishing London’s first female-run gallery. ‘Art, Stitch, and Life’ at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is the first retrospective of her work since 1945. The exhibition will still be on during Valentine’s weekend, when me and my mates will be doing improv in the basement of a pub for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year, we did a musical about a polyamorous office cubicle who all hated the market town of Bedford. Sadly, as it’s improv - I obviously can’t guarantee that you’ll get such a rigorous and compelling plot this coming February…
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Turner: Always Contemporary - until 22 February 2026
What with it being his 250th birthday, there have been a lot of Turner exhibitions this year, almost all of them have promised to be a hot new take on the British legend. One exhibition that effectively achieves this is ‘Turner: Always Contemporary’ at the Walker. Alongside work by Turner, the Walker has pieces on display by artists who have been inspired by the London lad over the last quarter millennium, as well as examples of Turner merch, proving that we’ve always been keen to squeeze every penny we can out of artists the moment they’re dead. The exhibition boasts several of Turner’s best works, which is no mean feat this year, given how many Turner shows are running at the same time. I imagine there was a room where all of the UK’s curators had to fight over the canvases like those 00’s clips of Americans beating each other senseless on Black Friday over toasters.
There is more to Northamptonshire than a race track full of emotionally distant fathers, a dying shoe industry, a slightly ropey football team, but a comparatively better rugby team, and my primary school. ‘A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects’ takes us back - before the middling sports teams, before the era of cobbling supremacy, and even before emotionally distant fathers - 150 million years to celebrate the county’s history. The exhibition is the work of 51 guest curators, with everything from prehistoric pots to ancient accessories on display. Oh, and lots of coins. There are always lots of coins at this sort of thing. Northampton Museum and Art Gallery have also released a podcast about their 100 Objects, thanks to Arts Council England Lottery funding, which is the reason I excuse my light scratch card habit.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk - Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk - until 22 March 2026
Gainsborough House was the childhood home of Thomas Gainsborough, the world-renowned 18th-century painter of aristocrats, who were often cousins and frequently married. The museum has recently teamed up with another gallery dedicated to a single artist, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Berkshire (which, although it wasn’t Spencer’s home, did used to be a chapel that Spencer regularly attended as a child), for their latest exhibition. While Spencer dedicated much of his career to painting the village of Cookham, where he lived (heavily featuring Jesus, but we can get into that another time), the artist did visit Suffolk regularly, where he married his second wife in the 1920s and 1930s, and this exhibition is dedicated to Spencer’s Suffolk Era.
2012 was a big year for opinion-splitting Olympic mascots, Higgs boson enthusiasts, and Grayson Perry. Channel 4’s ‘All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ hit our screens in June, following the artist’s journey through Britain's class system in search of inspiration for his new set of tapestries. I remember the series included a lot of chat about Jamie Oliver’s chokehold on middle-class mothers, but that I can remember anything about it is surprising, given how engrossed I was in the third series of Glee (Finn and Rachel finally together!) and not ever really working out how to do winged eyeliner. One of Perry’s ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ six-tapestry series, inspired by William Hogarth’s 1735 ‘A Rake’s Progress’, is now on display in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In this edition, Perry’s hero, Tim Rakewell, is enjoying middle-class luxury, blissfully unaware of his inevitable cash-chasing downfall. These tapestries are brilliant and a real time capsule for 2012 - which, looking back, was surely one of the better years we’ve had in the last 20 (Finn and Rachel finally got together!).
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - ERASURE - until 26 April 2026
Sure, an exhibition focused on the destruction of cultural heritage that comes as a result of climate breakdown doesn’t sound like my most festive recommendation. And you’d be right, but this isn’t actually a Christmas-specific list, and, after all, is anything more important than climate change (this column is not sponsored by Extinction Rebellion… yet)? Showcasing work by three international artists, ranging from sculpture to installation to film, ‘ERASURE’ highlights one of the often forgotten consequences of ecological disaster - the loss of cultural legacies and inheritances. After seeing the exhibition, a crisp walk through Goodwood Art Foundation’s 70-acre ancient woodland will surely be in order, which has been cultivated specifically to unite culture and ecology - very on brand for ‘ERASURE’.
“He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice” - yeah, well, so am I. And mine won’t lead to elves having to toil under questionable working conditions. And it won’t leave anyone out based on moral judgement: you’re welcome here, whether you’re naughty or nice.
Let’s be honest. This Christmas, your mum doesn’t need another hand cream. You’ve actually never asked her whether she likes hand cream, and yet here you are again at the Boots checkout buying her hand cream because you’ve never felt that you truly know her as a person. But the UK’s regional galleries and museums do need you to swing by and to drop a fiver into the donation box this December. And what better gift for your mum than some quality time spent in a town that you’ve otherwise only heard of on the traffic report and that large proportions of locals maintain is a shithole? (don’t be fooled by this - locals always think their charming town is a shithole)
So consider your gifting conundrum solved, with my list of ten exhibitions not to miss this December outside of London, from West Sussex to the West Midlands, boasting everything from Stanley Spencer to Stuffed Slugs.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Outlandish - until 10 January 2026
I’m generally of the opinion that most things have more or less been done before. It takes a lot to surprise me. But I left ‘Outlandish’ at the John Hansard Gallery with my jaw on the floor, thanks to a truly astounding twist which I won’t reveal here. Although, not revealing the twist here does slightly shoot me in the foot in terms of getting this section up to word count... All I will say is that it’s brilliant. Anyway… Southampton also has a better-than-usual Christmas market on… if you fancy it…
Grosvenor Museum, Cheshire - Christmas: Present and Past - until 11 January 2026
A suitably seasonal recommendation, ‘Christmas: Present and Past’ has got you covered if you’ve not already out-festived yourself by deciding to send Christmas cards in the post but then remembering it’s a faff that leads to nothing but cycles of guilt about who is/isn’t receiving one and who you are/aren’t receiving one from in return so maybe you shouldn’t bother after all, conveniently buying people’s presents on Amazon and then feeling guilty about it, and getting excited for the annual Christmas adverts and getting confused about why everyone is crying about the John Lewis one when, to your mind, every one in it seems massively tense. The Grosvenor Museum is ready to teach visitors about the history of Christmas celebrations, how Pagan traditions were absorbed into Christian ones, how these were later impacted by Roman and Viking settlers, and how we’ve always loved to stuff ourselves silly.
Site Gallery, South Yorkshire - Slime Mother - until 01 February 2026
Warhol had soup, Monet had his lily pond, and Picasso had the abstracted faces of women he chronically mistreated. Abi Palmer has slugs. Multidisciplinary artist Palmer released her slug manifesto last year, exploring “a creature that survives by being disgusting” as a vehicle for discussions about disability, queerness, and political fallout. Now the slugs are back (they never do really go away), once again representing more than their blobby mollusc bodies. This time, they’ve used it as an analogy for Catholic worship and religious dogma. Including a film, stained glass sculptures, church kneelers, and enormous stuffed slugs copulating on a massive disco ball, this show really does have it all (and a lot of it is covered in slime).
Like those Royal Navy adverts, Mary Linwood (1755 - 1845) was born in Birmingham, but she was made in Leicester. The pioneering “needle painter’s” legacy has been largely forgotten, despite her successes as both an artist and an entrepreneur, establishing London’s first female-run gallery. ‘Art, Stitch, and Life’ at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is the first retrospective of her work since 1945. The exhibition will still be on during Valentine’s weekend, when me and my mates will be doing improv in the basement of a pub for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year, we did a musical about a polyamorous office cubicle who all hated the market town of Bedford. Sadly, as it’s improv - I obviously can’t guarantee that you’ll get such a rigorous and compelling plot this coming February…
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Turner: Always Contemporary - until 22 February 2026
What with it being his 250th birthday, there have been a lot of Turner exhibitions this year, almost all of them have promised to be a hot new take on the British legend. One exhibition that effectively achieves this is ‘Turner: Always Contemporary’ at the Walker. Alongside work by Turner, the Walker has pieces on display by artists who have been inspired by the London lad over the last quarter millennium, as well as examples of Turner merch, proving that we’ve always been keen to squeeze every penny we can out of artists the moment they’re dead. The exhibition boasts several of Turner’s best works, which is no mean feat this year, given how many Turner shows are running at the same time. I imagine there was a room where all of the UK’s curators had to fight over the canvases like those 00’s clips of Americans beating each other senseless on Black Friday over toasters.
There is more to Northamptonshire than a race track full of emotionally distant fathers, a dying shoe industry, a slightly ropey football team, but a comparatively better rugby team, and my primary school. ‘A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects’ takes us back - before the middling sports teams, before the era of cobbling supremacy, and even before emotionally distant fathers - 150 million years to celebrate the county’s history. The exhibition is the work of 51 guest curators, with everything from prehistoric pots to ancient accessories on display. Oh, and lots of coins. There are always lots of coins at this sort of thing. Northampton Museum and Art Gallery have also released a podcast about their 100 Objects, thanks to Arts Council England Lottery funding, which is the reason I excuse my light scratch card habit.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk - Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk - until 22 March 2026
Gainsborough House was the childhood home of Thomas Gainsborough, the world-renowned 18th-century painter of aristocrats, who were often cousins and frequently married. The museum has recently teamed up with another gallery dedicated to a single artist, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Berkshire (which, although it wasn’t Spencer’s home, did used to be a chapel that Spencer regularly attended as a child), for their latest exhibition. While Spencer dedicated much of his career to painting the village of Cookham, where he lived (heavily featuring Jesus, but we can get into that another time), the artist did visit Suffolk regularly, where he married his second wife in the 1920s and 1930s, and this exhibition is dedicated to Spencer’s Suffolk Era.
2012 was a big year for opinion-splitting Olympic mascots, Higgs boson enthusiasts, and Grayson Perry. Channel 4’s ‘All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ hit our screens in June, following the artist’s journey through Britain's class system in search of inspiration for his new set of tapestries. I remember the series included a lot of chat about Jamie Oliver’s chokehold on middle-class mothers, but that I can remember anything about it is surprising, given how engrossed I was in the third series of Glee (Finn and Rachel finally together!) and not ever really working out how to do winged eyeliner. One of Perry’s ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ six-tapestry series, inspired by William Hogarth’s 1735 ‘A Rake’s Progress’, is now on display in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In this edition, Perry’s hero, Tim Rakewell, is enjoying middle-class luxury, blissfully unaware of his inevitable cash-chasing downfall. These tapestries are brilliant and a real time capsule for 2012 - which, looking back, was surely one of the better years we’ve had in the last 20 (Finn and Rachel finally got together!).
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - ERASURE - until 26 April 2026
Sure, an exhibition focused on the destruction of cultural heritage that comes as a result of climate breakdown doesn’t sound like my most festive recommendation. And you’d be right, but this isn’t actually a Christmas-specific list, and, after all, is anything more important than climate change (this column is not sponsored by Extinction Rebellion… yet)? Showcasing work by three international artists, ranging from sculpture to installation to film, ‘ERASURE’ highlights one of the often forgotten consequences of ecological disaster - the loss of cultural legacies and inheritances. After seeing the exhibition, a crisp walk through Goodwood Art Foundation’s 70-acre ancient woodland will surely be in order, which has been cultivated specifically to unite culture and ecology - very on brand for ‘ERASURE’.
“He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice” - yeah, well, so am I. And mine won’t lead to elves having to toil under questionable working conditions. And it won’t leave anyone out based on moral judgement: you’re welcome here, whether you’re naughty or nice.
Let’s be honest. This Christmas, your mum doesn’t need another hand cream. You’ve actually never asked her whether she likes hand cream, and yet here you are again at the Boots checkout buying her hand cream because you’ve never felt that you truly know her as a person. But the UK’s regional galleries and museums do need you to swing by and to drop a fiver into the donation box this December. And what better gift for your mum than some quality time spent in a town that you’ve otherwise only heard of on the traffic report and that large proportions of locals maintain is a shithole? (don’t be fooled by this - locals always think their charming town is a shithole)
So consider your gifting conundrum solved, with my list of ten exhibitions not to miss this December outside of London, from West Sussex to the West Midlands, boasting everything from Stanley Spencer to Stuffed Slugs.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Outlandish - until 10 January 2026
I’m generally of the opinion that most things have more or less been done before. It takes a lot to surprise me. But I left ‘Outlandish’ at the John Hansard Gallery with my jaw on the floor, thanks to a truly astounding twist which I won’t reveal here. Although, not revealing the twist here does slightly shoot me in the foot in terms of getting this section up to word count... All I will say is that it’s brilliant. Anyway… Southampton also has a better-than-usual Christmas market on… if you fancy it…
Grosvenor Museum, Cheshire - Christmas: Present and Past - until 11 January 2026
A suitably seasonal recommendation, ‘Christmas: Present and Past’ has got you covered if you’ve not already out-festived yourself by deciding to send Christmas cards in the post but then remembering it’s a faff that leads to nothing but cycles of guilt about who is/isn’t receiving one and who you are/aren’t receiving one from in return so maybe you shouldn’t bother after all, conveniently buying people’s presents on Amazon and then feeling guilty about it, and getting excited for the annual Christmas adverts and getting confused about why everyone is crying about the John Lewis one when, to your mind, every one in it seems massively tense. The Grosvenor Museum is ready to teach visitors about the history of Christmas celebrations, how Pagan traditions were absorbed into Christian ones, how these were later impacted by Roman and Viking settlers, and how we’ve always loved to stuff ourselves silly.
Site Gallery, South Yorkshire - Slime Mother - until 01 February 2026
Warhol had soup, Monet had his lily pond, and Picasso had the abstracted faces of women he chronically mistreated. Abi Palmer has slugs. Multidisciplinary artist Palmer released her slug manifesto last year, exploring “a creature that survives by being disgusting” as a vehicle for discussions about disability, queerness, and political fallout. Now the slugs are back (they never do really go away), once again representing more than their blobby mollusc bodies. This time, they’ve used it as an analogy for Catholic worship and religious dogma. Including a film, stained glass sculptures, church kneelers, and enormous stuffed slugs copulating on a massive disco ball, this show really does have it all (and a lot of it is covered in slime).
Like those Royal Navy adverts, Mary Linwood (1755 - 1845) was born in Birmingham, but she was made in Leicester. The pioneering “needle painter’s” legacy has been largely forgotten, despite her successes as both an artist and an entrepreneur, establishing London’s first female-run gallery. ‘Art, Stitch, and Life’ at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is the first retrospective of her work since 1945. The exhibition will still be on during Valentine’s weekend, when me and my mates will be doing improv in the basement of a pub for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year, we did a musical about a polyamorous office cubicle who all hated the market town of Bedford. Sadly, as it’s improv - I obviously can’t guarantee that you’ll get such a rigorous and compelling plot this coming February…
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Turner: Always Contemporary - until 22 February 2026
What with it being his 250th birthday, there have been a lot of Turner exhibitions this year, almost all of them have promised to be a hot new take on the British legend. One exhibition that effectively achieves this is ‘Turner: Always Contemporary’ at the Walker. Alongside work by Turner, the Walker has pieces on display by artists who have been inspired by the London lad over the last quarter millennium, as well as examples of Turner merch, proving that we’ve always been keen to squeeze every penny we can out of artists the moment they’re dead. The exhibition boasts several of Turner’s best works, which is no mean feat this year, given how many Turner shows are running at the same time. I imagine there was a room where all of the UK’s curators had to fight over the canvases like those 00’s clips of Americans beating each other senseless on Black Friday over toasters.
There is more to Northamptonshire than a race track full of emotionally distant fathers, a dying shoe industry, a slightly ropey football team, but a comparatively better rugby team, and my primary school. ‘A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects’ takes us back - before the middling sports teams, before the era of cobbling supremacy, and even before emotionally distant fathers - 150 million years to celebrate the county’s history. The exhibition is the work of 51 guest curators, with everything from prehistoric pots to ancient accessories on display. Oh, and lots of coins. There are always lots of coins at this sort of thing. Northampton Museum and Art Gallery have also released a podcast about their 100 Objects, thanks to Arts Council England Lottery funding, which is the reason I excuse my light scratch card habit.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk - Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk - until 22 March 2026
Gainsborough House was the childhood home of Thomas Gainsborough, the world-renowned 18th-century painter of aristocrats, who were often cousins and frequently married. The museum has recently teamed up with another gallery dedicated to a single artist, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Berkshire (which, although it wasn’t Spencer’s home, did used to be a chapel that Spencer regularly attended as a child), for their latest exhibition. While Spencer dedicated much of his career to painting the village of Cookham, where he lived (heavily featuring Jesus, but we can get into that another time), the artist did visit Suffolk regularly, where he married his second wife in the 1920s and 1930s, and this exhibition is dedicated to Spencer’s Suffolk Era.
2012 was a big year for opinion-splitting Olympic mascots, Higgs boson enthusiasts, and Grayson Perry. Channel 4’s ‘All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ hit our screens in June, following the artist’s journey through Britain's class system in search of inspiration for his new set of tapestries. I remember the series included a lot of chat about Jamie Oliver’s chokehold on middle-class mothers, but that I can remember anything about it is surprising, given how engrossed I was in the third series of Glee (Finn and Rachel finally together!) and not ever really working out how to do winged eyeliner. One of Perry’s ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ six-tapestry series, inspired by William Hogarth’s 1735 ‘A Rake’s Progress’, is now on display in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In this edition, Perry’s hero, Tim Rakewell, is enjoying middle-class luxury, blissfully unaware of his inevitable cash-chasing downfall. These tapestries are brilliant and a real time capsule for 2012 - which, looking back, was surely one of the better years we’ve had in the last 20 (Finn and Rachel finally got together!).
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - ERASURE - until 26 April 2026
Sure, an exhibition focused on the destruction of cultural heritage that comes as a result of climate breakdown doesn’t sound like my most festive recommendation. And you’d be right, but this isn’t actually a Christmas-specific list, and, after all, is anything more important than climate change (this column is not sponsored by Extinction Rebellion… yet)? Showcasing work by three international artists, ranging from sculpture to installation to film, ‘ERASURE’ highlights one of the often forgotten consequences of ecological disaster - the loss of cultural legacies and inheritances. After seeing the exhibition, a crisp walk through Goodwood Art Foundation’s 70-acre ancient woodland will surely be in order, which has been cultivated specifically to unite culture and ecology - very on brand for ‘ERASURE’.
“He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice” - yeah, well, so am I. And mine won’t lead to elves having to toil under questionable working conditions. And it won’t leave anyone out based on moral judgement: you’re welcome here, whether you’re naughty or nice.
Let’s be honest. This Christmas, your mum doesn’t need another hand cream. You’ve actually never asked her whether she likes hand cream, and yet here you are again at the Boots checkout buying her hand cream because you’ve never felt that you truly know her as a person. But the UK’s regional galleries and museums do need you to swing by and to drop a fiver into the donation box this December. And what better gift for your mum than some quality time spent in a town that you’ve otherwise only heard of on the traffic report and that large proportions of locals maintain is a shithole? (don’t be fooled by this - locals always think their charming town is a shithole)
So consider your gifting conundrum solved, with my list of ten exhibitions not to miss this December outside of London, from West Sussex to the West Midlands, boasting everything from Stanley Spencer to Stuffed Slugs.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Outlandish - until 10 January 2026
I’m generally of the opinion that most things have more or less been done before. It takes a lot to surprise me. But I left ‘Outlandish’ at the John Hansard Gallery with my jaw on the floor, thanks to a truly astounding twist which I won’t reveal here. Although, not revealing the twist here does slightly shoot me in the foot in terms of getting this section up to word count... All I will say is that it’s brilliant. Anyway… Southampton also has a better-than-usual Christmas market on… if you fancy it…
Grosvenor Museum, Cheshire - Christmas: Present and Past - until 11 January 2026
A suitably seasonal recommendation, ‘Christmas: Present and Past’ has got you covered if you’ve not already out-festived yourself by deciding to send Christmas cards in the post but then remembering it’s a faff that leads to nothing but cycles of guilt about who is/isn’t receiving one and who you are/aren’t receiving one from in return so maybe you shouldn’t bother after all, conveniently buying people’s presents on Amazon and then feeling guilty about it, and getting excited for the annual Christmas adverts and getting confused about why everyone is crying about the John Lewis one when, to your mind, every one in it seems massively tense. The Grosvenor Museum is ready to teach visitors about the history of Christmas celebrations, how Pagan traditions were absorbed into Christian ones, how these were later impacted by Roman and Viking settlers, and how we’ve always loved to stuff ourselves silly.
Site Gallery, South Yorkshire - Slime Mother - until 01 February 2026
Warhol had soup, Monet had his lily pond, and Picasso had the abstracted faces of women he chronically mistreated. Abi Palmer has slugs. Multidisciplinary artist Palmer released her slug manifesto last year, exploring “a creature that survives by being disgusting” as a vehicle for discussions about disability, queerness, and political fallout. Now the slugs are back (they never do really go away), once again representing more than their blobby mollusc bodies. This time, they’ve used it as an analogy for Catholic worship and religious dogma. Including a film, stained glass sculptures, church kneelers, and enormous stuffed slugs copulating on a massive disco ball, this show really does have it all (and a lot of it is covered in slime).
Like those Royal Navy adverts, Mary Linwood (1755 - 1845) was born in Birmingham, but she was made in Leicester. The pioneering “needle painter’s” legacy has been largely forgotten, despite her successes as both an artist and an entrepreneur, establishing London’s first female-run gallery. ‘Art, Stitch, and Life’ at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery is the first retrospective of her work since 1945. The exhibition will still be on during Valentine’s weekend, when me and my mates will be doing improv in the basement of a pub for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year, we did a musical about a polyamorous office cubicle who all hated the market town of Bedford. Sadly, as it’s improv - I obviously can’t guarantee that you’ll get such a rigorous and compelling plot this coming February…
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Turner: Always Contemporary - until 22 February 2026
What with it being his 250th birthday, there have been a lot of Turner exhibitions this year, almost all of them have promised to be a hot new take on the British legend. One exhibition that effectively achieves this is ‘Turner: Always Contemporary’ at the Walker. Alongside work by Turner, the Walker has pieces on display by artists who have been inspired by the London lad over the last quarter millennium, as well as examples of Turner merch, proving that we’ve always been keen to squeeze every penny we can out of artists the moment they’re dead. The exhibition boasts several of Turner’s best works, which is no mean feat this year, given how many Turner shows are running at the same time. I imagine there was a room where all of the UK’s curators had to fight over the canvases like those 00’s clips of Americans beating each other senseless on Black Friday over toasters.
There is more to Northamptonshire than a race track full of emotionally distant fathers, a dying shoe industry, a slightly ropey football team, but a comparatively better rugby team, and my primary school. ‘A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects’ takes us back - before the middling sports teams, before the era of cobbling supremacy, and even before emotionally distant fathers - 150 million years to celebrate the county’s history. The exhibition is the work of 51 guest curators, with everything from prehistoric pots to ancient accessories on display. Oh, and lots of coins. There are always lots of coins at this sort of thing. Northampton Museum and Art Gallery have also released a podcast about their 100 Objects, thanks to Arts Council England Lottery funding, which is the reason I excuse my light scratch card habit.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk - Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk - until 22 March 2026
Gainsborough House was the childhood home of Thomas Gainsborough, the world-renowned 18th-century painter of aristocrats, who were often cousins and frequently married. The museum has recently teamed up with another gallery dedicated to a single artist, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Berkshire (which, although it wasn’t Spencer’s home, did used to be a chapel that Spencer regularly attended as a child), for their latest exhibition. While Spencer dedicated much of his career to painting the village of Cookham, where he lived (heavily featuring Jesus, but we can get into that another time), the artist did visit Suffolk regularly, where he married his second wife in the 1920s and 1930s, and this exhibition is dedicated to Spencer’s Suffolk Era.
2012 was a big year for opinion-splitting Olympic mascots, Higgs boson enthusiasts, and Grayson Perry. Channel 4’s ‘All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ hit our screens in June, following the artist’s journey through Britain's class system in search of inspiration for his new set of tapestries. I remember the series included a lot of chat about Jamie Oliver’s chokehold on middle-class mothers, but that I can remember anything about it is surprising, given how engrossed I was in the third series of Glee (Finn and Rachel finally together!) and not ever really working out how to do winged eyeliner. One of Perry’s ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ six-tapestry series, inspired by William Hogarth’s 1735 ‘A Rake’s Progress’, is now on display in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In this edition, Perry’s hero, Tim Rakewell, is enjoying middle-class luxury, blissfully unaware of his inevitable cash-chasing downfall. These tapestries are brilliant and a real time capsule for 2012 - which, looking back, was surely one of the better years we’ve had in the last 20 (Finn and Rachel finally got together!).
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - ERASURE - until 26 April 2026
Sure, an exhibition focused on the destruction of cultural heritage that comes as a result of climate breakdown doesn’t sound like my most festive recommendation. And you’d be right, but this isn’t actually a Christmas-specific list, and, after all, is anything more important than climate change (this column is not sponsored by Extinction Rebellion… yet)? Showcasing work by three international artists, ranging from sculpture to installation to film, ‘ERASURE’ highlights one of the often forgotten consequences of ecological disaster - the loss of cultural legacies and inheritances. After seeing the exhibition, a crisp walk through Goodwood Art Foundation’s 70-acre ancient woodland will surely be in order, which has been cultivated specifically to unite culture and ecology - very on brand for ‘ERASURE’.
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