In the first of three articles – which have taken far longer than they should have done to write – we look back over the past year of Korean events in London and elsewhere. At this point in the year we always ask ourselves the question as to whether there is any sign of the Korean wave receding. And as usual, we come to the conclusion that in fact the opposite is true.
Korean popular culture has become mainstream enough for the Financial Times to review the latest album by a member of BlackPink, while former rock magazine the New Musical Express opines on the best K-dramas of the year. Pubs, restaurants and supermarkets introduce the sweet, spicy punch of gochujang into their recipes, and in London’s flagship shopping centre two K-beauty shops next door to each other proudly market their competing 10-step skin regimes.
On TV, the BBC produces a show documenting the creation of a British K-pop boy band as they are put through a condensed version of the SM Entertainment training regime. Squid Game is recognisable enough to feature in a TV commercial for a well-known fast-food delivery service, while Netflix throws money at promoting its second season with a North London rave complete with pink-suited guards and star DJ Peggy Gou. It’s impossible to keep up with it all…
We’ve divided our review into the following sections:
- Live performance
- theatre
- music
- pop, hip-hop and indie
- world, jazz, fusion, experimental
- classical
- dance
- Exhibitions
- Koreatown and Korean Food
- K-culture in the regions
- Books (in a separate post)
- Films (in a separate post)
The image at the top of the page (click on it for a fullsize version) contains some spoilers as to some of my personal highlights or memorable moments of the year.
Performance: music, dance, theatre
Theatre
This was the best year for stage productions that I can remember, with productions ranging from monodramas to big budget musicals. Kim’s Convenience, the warm-hearted play that gave rise to the popular TV series, had runs in two London theatres (before a 2025 nationwide tour), also distinguishing itself by staging in January and February when there was not much else to entertain us. In the summer, we had a Broadway-style musical in the form of Marie Curie, (for which the treat was to have a mini-showcase with two of the original Korean stars) and a pansori-style musical with the National Changgeuk Company’s performance of Lear, which opened the 2024 K-Music Festival (see below). We weren’t really convinced by Marie Curie, but we’d unhesitatingly go to see Lear a second time.
At the opposite end of the budget scale, individual theatremakers put on productions at small, independent venues such as pub theatres: Moon Kim’s The Waiting Room, Minjeong Kim’s The Comfort Woman, Woori Han’s Housemates and Namoo Chae Lee’s Patji. These productions gave us more intimate, and sometimes more challenging theatrical experiences, and it is always these events that we enjoy more than the more polished, bigger productions, not least for the opportunity to get to know the theatremakers themselves, which is often not possible with the commercial productions.
Music
LKL’s favourite live music experiences of the year were the multi-talented indie musician Bek Hyunjin at the Coronet Theatre, Lee Heemoon at the Purcell Room for K-music, Seayool’s new work for Piri and String Quartet, Suite for Jeju, (for the Bloomsbury Festival and also K-music) and Hera Hyesang Park’s London debut recital at Milton Court.
K-pop, hip-hop and indie
I counted over 40 pop and hip-hop gigs in London venues this year, of which the highest profile were Stray Kids at BST Hyde Park (a flawless show 
– Rolling Stone) and Seventeen at Glastonbury (K-pop maestros earn their place in the history books – NME); the ones I would have bought tickets for (given unlimited budget) were IU at Wembley Arena and Dynamic Duo at The Steel Yard – the hip-hop legends celebrated their 20th anniversary by visiting London for the first time. Sadly, neither of those gigs got covered by mainstream publications.
Not many of the gigs were particularly affordable, but we cannot imagine that we would have got more musical rewards than we got from Bek Hyunjin, which was among the least expensive of the available concerts. His sometimes pensive delivery style reminds me a little of the tramp in Gavin Bryars’s Jesus’ Blood Has Never Failed Me Yet, and the evening started slowly, but the cumulative effect of the succession of songs, many of which were much livelier and had the singer bouncing energetically around the stage, was cathartic and took the audience on an interesting and rewarding journey which was somehow cathartic.
World, jazz, fusion, experimental
The K-music festival returned to London with some favourite performers, and some new names. Nah Youn Sun made a welcome return, featuring tracks from her album covering female vocalists, and the National Changgeuk Company opened the festival with a three-day residency at the Barbican Theatre, which would have its director Jung Young-do nominated for the Olivier Award for Oustanding Achievement in Opera. Unfortunately, the timing of the K-music festival, in the middle of the busy Autumn season and overlapping with film festivals, meant that sometimes tough choices had to be made. We didn’t get to see Black String because their performance clashed with director Jang Joon-hwan talking about his movie Save the Green Planet at the BFI. And I de-prioritised other performances to prevent diary overload: for example, the advance publicity for Lee Il-woo’s new project No Noise failed to persuade me that it would be sufficiently different (read: less painful on the eyes and ears) from Jambinai, his more established project. I probably missed a treat as a result. But some of the performances were must-sees. I skipped the gala opening of the London East Asia Film Festival to see the premiere of Kim Seayool’s Suite for Jeju for Piri and string quartet, a sacrifice well worth making, and the CD has been playing in my machine regularly ever since.
Similarly, the bundle of feel-good fun that is Lee Heemoon is never to be missed, and his K-music festival performance was one of the highlights of the year.
In jazz, Sun-mi Hong’s quintet appeared live at the Vortex, and the new album release by the Jihye Lee Orchestra received a warm welcome from the FT. Tacit Group and Gazaebal returned to the Coronet with their computer-assisted electronic work, and Cafe Oto regular Okkyung Lee had a three day residency to showcase her experimental work.
Classical
Yunchan Lim was due to give a recital at the Wigmore Hall, but had to pull out due to a hand strain. But two of his recent LPs made it to the shortlist for the Gramophone piano recording of the year (a shortlist of just three LPs) – which Lim won with his recording of Chopin Studies; he also won young artist of the year. If Londoners were deprived of a live performance by one of Korea’s star young pianists, we were treated to an unexpected performance by another star, as Seongjin Cho stepped in at the last minute to play a late night Prom when Andras Schiff was indisposed. At the Barbican earlier in the year it was rewarding to hear Donghoon Shin’s Cello Concerto getting its UK premiere, and gratifying to see Unsuk Chin’s Piano Concerto gaining a non-Korean performer. Chin’s impressive body of work was rewarded with the 2024 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (said to be the Nobel Prize of music), and her orchestral recordings won the ICMA contemporary music award in early 2025.
Soprano Hera Hyesang Park appeared in the K-music festival; again, we had to de-prioritise that performance from our diary, because we couldn’t imagine she could better her stunning London debut at Milton Court earlier in the year. That concert was easily one of our highlights of the year, and in a programme full of treasures the most precious gem was Woo Hyo-won’s setting of a Goryeo era folksong, 가시리 (Are you going?). This song of love, separation and parting, was commissioned for Park’s Carnegie Hall debut in 2023 and deserves to be performed more widely.
Dance
The Festival of Korean Dance returned with three performances at the end of May, while Coronet Theatre regulars the Ambiguous Dance Company gave us unique and intimate performances in secret nooks and crannies of the building (such as its boiler room, basement and cupola) as well as on its main stage. Ahn Eun-me came to the Serpentine’s Korean pavilion for a performance of North Korea inspired dance.
Exhibitions
It was a big year for both major exhibitions and high-profile commissions.
Architect Minsuk Cho was commissioned to design the annual Serpentine Pavilion. The design was inspired by a Korean open-air madang and featured five separate elements around a central space including a coffee shop, a children’s play area and a library of unread books, to which members of the public were invited to contribute. An entrance corridor was fitted with a sound system that featured work by Jang Young-gyu inspired by the sounds of Kensington Gardens. A covered performance space hosted Eun Me Ahn’s performance in the middle of the summer.
Hyundai’s annual commission to fill Tate Modern’s cavernous turbine hall engaged Mire Lee, and the result was Open Wound. It was neither a thing of great beauty nor an installation for the faint-hearted (nor was it designed to be), resembling what might be the result if an explosive device were to be detonated inside a whale’s stomach. As the curatorial commentary suggested, the work “invites us to revel in contradictory emotions: from awe and disgust to compassion, fear and love.”
Haegue Yang had a solo exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, while Geumhyung Jeong occupied the Institute for Contemporary Arts for three months in an exhibition featuring a newly commissioned installation of sculpture and video, and a series of live performances. Sadly, we didn’t get to the latter exhibition, suffering as we were from Q4 diary overload, which was a shame because Jeong’s 2017 performance at Tate Modern was one of our highlights of the year. Yang’s exhibition, occupying much the same congested space in the diary, was conveniently situated next to the BFI and a visit was easy to schedule alongside a one of the many Korean film screenings there. I was glad to have paid this exhibition some attention: vast in scale, it displayed a wide range of Yang’s work across a number of disciplines. Particularly engaging were the geometric floor decorations and murals which added to the dynamism of the installations.
Less intellectually demanding was the long-running installation of Korea-inspired video projections under the railway arches at Borough Market. Riding on the trend of immersive artistic video experiences and originally opening in 2023, the Delight show went through a number of revamps and extensions to the run, indicating its popularity with the audience and presumably profitability too, finally closing its doors in early 2025.
Also at the Hayward early in the year was a well-curated group exhibition entitled When Forms Come Alive. Choi Jeong-hwa contributed a series of works to the show, one of which was a totem pole constructed of uninflated balloons, leading one to wonder if his 2012 balloon installation outside the gallery had been recycled.
Koreatown and Korean food
Korean food maintained its position in the capital’s culinary scene with some high-end new openings. Jang opened during the year in a very plush location on the mezzanine of the Royal Exchange in the heart of the City: we’ve had a few very pleasant meals there. Also on my list of places to visit is the Korean Grill Kensington, which opened in the Millennium Hotel towards the end of 2023 and, according to their website, was “voted by OpenTable diners as one of the best restaurants in 2024”. Meanwhile, at the Mandarin Oriental, Akira Seung-Wook Back launched two restaurants, including the exclusive “Dosa” chef’s table at which the menu starts at £195. And the now well-established Sollip (with its Michelin star) continues to win fans, and LKL spotted its chef Ki Bo-mee among the roster of Michelin-starred judges in BBC TV’s Professional Masterchef finals week.
I haven’t really been tracking the number of budget and mainstream Korean restaurant openings in the centre of town, though I suspect the number of corndog and chimaek places is expanding; and it was this year that a Korean ramen bar called Saba opened in Kensington’s upscale High Street. Sadly, Yoshi Sushi, my own local Korean, closed earlier in the year as the owner decided to focus on his Kimchimama brand which opened its second outlet in Fleet Street. However, his expansion into the City had its advantages, as it meant that this year’s Kimchi Festival was held in the shadow of St Bride’s church as a result of interest from the local City authorities.
The promotion of Korean food continued, with the Korean Cultural Centre supporting the Korea Food Month at Westminster Kingsway College and what now seems to be a regular visit by temple food expert Ven Beop Song to the Cordon Bleu school. And earlier in the year the KCC gave some exposure to Joseon dynasty cookery masters, when chef Kwak Mi-kyung visited the KCC to talk about the works of Pungseok Seo Yu-gu (1764-1845) and Yi Bingheogak (1759-1824). And, independent of the Korean Cultural Centre, the Korean British Cultural Exchange organisation in Kingston announced a collaboration with Gwangju that will result in the first Kimchi School outside of Korea.
I have to say that I find the number of kimchi events promoted by the various local Korean communities a little bewildering. The Kimchi Festival mentioned above, held this year in Central London at the end of November on the weekend closest to 22 November – the date officially designated as Kimchi day – seems to be the most official one. This year the festival was graced by as many as 17 Kimchi chefs including Yoon Sook-ja, many of them brought over from Korea for the occasion, along with the Alderwoman of Castle Baynard Ward, the Kingston Mayor and the Korean Ambassador. For those wanting to celebrate kimchi down in New Malden a local Korean councillor had arranged a competing kimchi fried rice workshop on the same afternoon. Earlier in the month was the Kimjang Festival, held at Chessington School in Surrey; in October there was the Korea Kimchi Festival, held in Samsung’s glamorous Kings Cross premises; in mid-summer there was the World Korean Food Festival in New Malden Methodist Church. All the festivals seem to have kimchi, and Korean food more broadly, at their core, with additional attractions comprising k-pop dance participation events, perhaps traditional music performances or even taekwondo demonstrations. Perhaps some of the spill-over of non-food-related items into these events reflected the fact that there didn’t seem to be the customary mid-August Independence Day celebrations in New Malden this year.
While the Korean-sponsored food demonstrations can be fun, the more instructive workshops are the ones you have to pay for yourself. The Hoxton Shoreditch is a superb venue for cookery classes, and this year the Korean Pantry held a kimchi workshop there, and the Sool Company held a makgeolli-brewing workshop which for me was one of the year’s highlights. One bit of information I picked up from that workshop is that we now have a commercial makgeolli brewer in South West London, and it doesn’t taste half bad. And while researching for this end-of-year review I tripped over a new enterprise: a Korean alcohol showroom near the Elephant and Castle which conducts tastings of imported traditional alcohol. Things are definitely looking up.
Down in New Malden, I don’t manage to keep tabs on the constantly changing streetscape. Was it this year, for example, that the sons of the owners of Imone opened up their own BBQ restaurant next door to the mothership? Or that a new bingsoo cafe opened upstairs from the new Shabu Shabu place? It was, however, definitely the year that a new martial arts studio opened on the site of the old Fountain pub. Maybe we can look forward to some Kummooyeh demonstrations in future Korean festivals…
Before I leave Koreatown, I can’t help noting that while the physical landscape is constantly developing, and the community itself evolves (for example, nowadays the North Korean community is much more evident than it was twenty years ago), there’s one feature that hasn’t changed much over the time that I’ve been showing an interest in such things: namely the seeming aversion to websites. Twenty years ago Korean community cultural events were publicised via word of mouth and handbills placed in shops and restaurants, and never seemed to make it onto the residents association website; nowadays there may still be physical handbills but the main form of publicity seems to be e-handbills shared via kakaotalk messages or posted on Instagram via a constantly changing menu of accounts – you need to be pretty lucky to be following the right ones – while the more permanent websites such as KBCE, KCAUK and the New Malden Partnership, where people might logically go to find out about Koreatown events, risk becoming irrelevant. Tellingly, as I write this the second of those websites is offline.
K-culture in the regions
Although this site is focused on London, we do keep an eye on what is happening elsewhere in the UK, and try to get to events wherever possible. Visiting various cities for these regional events, it’s good to see Korean businesses spreading outside of London, with Korean foodstores and K-beauty shops popping up in central shopping areas. And Bristol is particularly blessed with Korean food establishments, with the well-reviewed Bokman (a casual eatery with authentic-tasting banchan) joined this year by its sister restaurant Dongnae serving more refined cuisine in a relaxed environment giving a dining experience that is far superior to anything available in London at that price point.
This year was particularly strong for first-rate exhibitions outside of London. In Scotland, Suh Do-ho had a major retrospective in Edinburgh which the Quintessential Review opined was “an absolute treat. Thought-provoking, enchanting, technically bewildering, and a whole lot of fun. .” Kim Bohie had a solo show at the Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art (reviewed in the ArtMag here).
We invested in trips to Manchester for Jane Jin Kaisen’s solo exhibition at esea contemporary1, and Bristol to see Young In Hong’s solo exhibition at Spike Island. The two exhibitions had interesting and completely unintentional areas of overlap. Kaisen’s long-standing interest in her native home of Jeju Island brought to the fore the role of the haenyeo in resisting Japanese colonial oppression; Hong’s ongoing research into women involved in political protest celebrated the role of many unsung female heroes, including those same Jeju haenyeo.2
Appealing to a younger demographic were the Korean Days at various universities across the land: Liverpool had its first Korea Day, while Lancaster, Leeds, Oxford and Sheffield repeated the success of prior year events. Elsewhere, Durham’s Oriental Museum paid tribute to Bishop Richard Rutt and his wife, and Sheffield hosted a season of Korean documentaries.
In addition, Oxford hosted a interesting conversation with actor / author Cha In-pyo talking about his comfort woman novel and a discussion-concert with Kim Hyung-Suk, the “Godfather of Kpop”, in the Sheldonian Theatre. The highlight of the latter event was a treble from Christchurch Cathedral performing one of Kim’s early songs, and in the former event Cha demonstrated himself to be an inspirational speaker, remarkably so given that he was not talking in his native tongue.
Celebrity visitors
While on the subject of well-known or eminent Koreans paying a visit to this country, the International Booker nomination meant that Hwang Sok-yong came to London for a book talk, and the BFI’s season of classic films from the late 90s and early noughties brought Save the Green Planet director Jang Joon-hwan for a Q+A. One of my enduring memories of the year will be seeing Jang’s wife Moon Sori happy to lurk quietly and virtually unnoticed on the sidelines while her husband was the focus of everyone’s attention.
- The exhibition is reviewed in the Burlington Magazine: pdf download. [↩]
- Another area of overlap is that both artists have in the past been shortlisted for the Korean Artist Prize: Hong in 2019 and Kaisen in 2024. [↩]