☃️ What's on in Madrid: January 9
Nazis at the Kit Kat Klub, an immersive experience in a church and much more!
Madrid | Issue #127
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Here Are 5 Things to Do in Madrid This Weekend
We’re back!
We know you missed us, but we were trying to enjoy the holidays with our friends and family, who repeatedly complain about how we’re always trapped in a basement working on The Bubble, and they never get to see us anymore. So, yeah. Seeing some daylight was nice, thanks for asking.
Anyway, January is settling in and Madrid has plenty to offer if you’re willing to bundle up and go out.
You can dive into the smoky world of Cabaret, get hit with light and music at FLOW, or watch Oriol Pla unravel modern excess at the Valle-Inclán. Sala Berlanga also has a small run of buzzy Spanish films.
Happy weekend!
1.🪩 Cabaret, Hedonism and History at the Albéniz Theater Hotel
Yes, it’s cold outside. And many of you feel like staying home. But if you’re looking for something that isn’t another dinner-drinks-Uber-bed loop, go see the new immersive production of Cabaret that everyone in Madrid is talking about.
More than just a revival of the 1966 Broadway classic, Cabaret is a full transformation of the Albéniz theater into the Kit Kat Klub, complete with dancers, smoky atmosphere, and a wink-wink decadence that somehow feels both very 1930s Berlin and very 2026 Madrid.
This version is directed by Federico Bellone, who has done everything from Ghost to El Fantasma de la Ópera, and features a cast led by Abril Zamora, Amanda Digón and Pepe Nufrio.
The story is still the same one that made Cabaret a global cultural staple. Sally Bowles chasing pleasure, an American writer chasing purpose, and a cabaret full of people trying to ignore the rise of Nazism just outside the doors.
The show’s power lies in that collision between hedonism and history, and in how disturbingly easy it is to recognize our own era in a story set nearly a century ago.
What makes this staging worth seeing now is how immersive it feels. The Albéniz (a few steps away from the Puerta del Sol) doesn’t look like a traditional Madrid theater anymore; it’s dressed up as a functioning cabaret, with an environment that makes you forget the outside world in the same way Sally and company try to forget theirs.
It’s good for dates, for friends, for people who miss going to the theater, and for anyone who wants to see a show that isn’t afraid to be fun and political at the same time.
🖥️ What: Cabaret at the Kit Kat Klub
📍 Where: UMusic Hotel Teatro Albéniz, Calle de la Paz 11, Madrid
📅 When: Tuesdays–Sundays, through March 1
🎟 Tickets start at €23,20
2.🎻 Classical music meets digital art inside the Castellana’s quietest church
Not into being reminded about how the Nazis could be making a comeback? That’s fine, we get it. How about an immersive, apolitical art experience instead? Yes? Then go see FLOW.
This incredible performance turns Bedřich Smetana’s La Moldava into a live river of light, sound, and electronic texture inside one of Madrid’s most unexpected venues: the Friedenskirche. (That’s a church for the evangelical German-speaking community here.)
Classical music meets electronic soundscapes in an audiovisual installation, all staged in a freaking church (yes, it’s as cool as it sounds)
The show has already made waves in Lyon, Liverpool, and Marseille, but Madrid’s iteration has a particular charm because of the space. The church sits right on Paseo de la Castellana and has this warm, historic intimacy that makes the contrast with digital projection and modern sound design feel even sharper.
There’s also a thoughtful artistic dialogue at play. The Prague Philharmonic provides the classical backbone, PROJEKTIL handles the audiovisual direction, and the result is an experience that reads like a conversation between old Europe and new Europe.
It’s a perfect plan if you want a break from screens, or need to impress someone who claims there’s “nothing interesting happening in Madrid in January.”
🖥️ What: FLOW (immersive audiovisual performance)
📍 Where: Friedenskirche, Paseo de la Castellana 6, Madrid
📅 When: This weekend
🎟 Tickets: Check website
3.🎬 Navidad de Cine brings the year’s most intimate Spanish stories to Sala Berlanga
The Fundación SGAE turns Sala Berlanga into a small seasonal ritual every year — a “Navidad de cine” marathon of some of the best Spanish films of the year, screened for the price of a coffee and a croissant.
It’s a great antidote to the chaos of holiday Madrid. There are no IMAX lasers, no superheroes, no popcorn buckets bigger than your head. Just good cinema in a room full of people who still care about stories.
This year’s selection focuses on intimate dramas, moral dilemmas, and a kind of generational melancholy that Spanish directors have mastered better than anyone.
This weekend’s lineup (its final one) includes four of the year’s most talked-about titles. Today’s screenings:
Nosotros, from Helena Taberna, is a bare-knuckle marriage drama that nods to Bergman but filters the crisis through contemporary exhaustion: precarity, emotional interdependence, and the sense that love can dissolve just by force of speed.
Maspalomas, where Jose Mari Goenaga and Aitor Arregi explore sexuality, aging, and identity with a tenderness that refuses to turn old age into a dignified cliché. It’s a film that understands the violence of going back into the closet for survival, and how memory and desire refuse to age on command.
Tomorrow’s screenings:
Los domingos, one of the critical darlings of the season and already decorated on the festival circuit, is Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s meditation on family intimacy and moral distance — the kind of film that feels small until it suddenly hits a universal nerve.
Romería, Carla Simón’s deeply personal journey through Galicia’s 1980s AIDS crisis, reimagined through dreams, folklore, and biography. It’s a film that could have been purely tragic but instead becomes an act of love: a reconstruction of a family history that couldn’t be lived but can still be told.
The screenings are affordable, the crowd is respectful, and you walk out feeling like Madrid still has room for serious cinema.
🖥️ What: “Navidad de cine 2025” (Spanish film screenings)
📍 Where: Sala Berlanga, Andrés Mellado, 53, Madrid
📅 When: Jan. 9 & Jan. 10, 6:30 p.m. / 7:00 p.m. / 9:00 p.m.
🎟 Tickets: €3,50
4.🎭 Scroll, consume, repeat: Gula is a clown monologue for the doom era
There’s something immediately compelling about a show that takes one of the seven deadly sins and turns it into a diagnosis of modern life. That’s essentially what Pau Matas Nogué and Oriol Pla Solina are doing with their new piece at the Teatro Valle-Inclán: a clown allegory about gula, not just as gluttony, but as the endless hunger that defines the contemporary psyche.
Forget the glamorous kind of consumption — this is about the impulse that devours meaning, attention, resources, intimacy, and, eventually, identity.
The show is performed as a monologue by Oriol Pla, who takes on the role of a harlequin that never stops moving, jumping, trying, demanding to be seen. (You may remember him as the star of the fantastic Disney+ drama miniseries I, Addict, that earned him an International Emmy for best actor last year.)
It’s frantic, funny, tragic, and uncomfortable in the way the best clown work is. The humor lands precisely because the critique is sharp; we recognize the frantic scrolling, the dopamine loops, the need to produce, to compare, to be witnessed.
The piece also expands outward toward the climate crisis, institutional mistrust, inequality, and resource depletion.
It’s a show that refuses to hand out solutions. Instead, it makes the void visible, and then suggests that maybe accepting that void is the first step toward actually feeling something again.
It’s rare to find theater in Madrid that blends clowning, philosophy, and contemporary critique without sliding into TED Talk territory, but this one manages.
There are also extras for the theater nerds: performances in Catalan on Jan. 28 and 29, plus a post-show talk with the creative team on Jan. 22. If your New Year’s resolution involved “reading more,” “touching grass,” or “fixing your screen time,” consider this research.
🖥️ What: Oriol Pla’s Gula
📍 Where: Teatro Valle-Inclán, Plaza de Ana Diosado s/n, Madrid
📅 When: Wednesdays to Sundays, 6 p.m. (Catalán version on Jan. 28, 29)
🎟 Tickets: €25
5.🖼️ Inquietud. Libertad y democracia: art, memory and the long road to democracy
Whoopsie! Sorry, we’re talking about democracy again, just in case you need a reminder that it didn’t magically appear out of nowhere: that it was fought for, negotiated, and painfully built in living memory.
Inquietud. Libertad y democracia is a large-scale exhibition that brings together more than 50 artists to reflect on the parallel transitions that Portugal and Spain went through in the 1970s, after decades of dictatorship.
It offers something much more interesting than nostalgia — discomfort, resistance, and the uneasy feeling that history never really ends, it just mutates. Great way to spend your weekend.
The show places names like Miró, Tàpies, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Paula Rego, Cristina García Rodero, Equipo Crónica, Equipo Realidad, Santiago Sierra & Jorge Galindo, and many others in a shared visual dialogue about power, trauma, propaganda, and cultural reconstruction.
What makes the exhibition compelling isn’t just the roster of artists; it’s the way the show is staged. The visitor becomes part of the historical tension, moving through film, photography, archival documents, posters, sound, and new commissions that refuse to let the past sit quietly behind glass.
It’s immersive without being gimmicky and political without being didactic. It also closes the gap between the Iberian stories we know (Franco, Salazar, censorship, transition, counterculture) and the European democratic anxieties we are living today.
🖥️ What: Inquietud. Libertad y democracia
📍 Where: La Casa Encendida, Ronda de Valencia 2, Madrid
📅 When: Through March 8
🎟 Tickets: Check website.
📺 What to watch if you’re staying in this weekend…
🖥️ What: Innato (Innate) | Miniseries | 2025
📍Where to watch: Netflix
❓What’s it about: Following the release from prison of the notorious diesel killer, a new string of identical crimes shakes everyone. Is it the same killer… or an even more dangerous copycat? Innato is a dark, psychological, and intense thriller where nothing is as it seems.
🤩 Why you should watch: Because it’s the new thriller that’s captivating all of Spain. If you enjoy suspense series, twisted crimes, and unexpected plot twists, this show is for you. Also, it stars legendary Spanish actor Imanol Arias. Chef’s kiss.
💬 English Subtitles: No
💃🏻 Something to try this weekend…
🍷 La Indigna: a neighborhood taberna without the nonsense
What’s it about: Taberna La Indigna is a casual Spanish tavern with two locations (Centro + Retiro) serving classic tapas, croquetas, vermut, and wine in a laid-back, neighborhood vibe.
Why you should go: Because it’s affordable, friendly, and feels like a real Madrid taberna — no gimmicks, just good food, good service, and a crowd that actually lives here.
Bottom line: A reliable go-to for tapas, vermut, and catching up with friends.
Address: Centro: Calle Santa Brígida 5 / Retiro: Calle Ibiza 26
☕️ Libis: A specialty coffee spot with heart on Zurbano
What’s it about: Libis Specialty Coffee is a small café and roaster with Colombian roots, founded by Carloman Castaño, whose family worked in coffee farming back home. After losing his job during the pandemic, he finally launched the project he’d dreamed of for years: roasting high-quality coffee with traceability and soul.
Why you should go: Because the coffee is excellent and the story behind it is real. Libis sources great beans (especially from Colombia), roasts thoughtfully, and serves espresso and filter brews that actually taste like something. It feels personal, unpretentious, and genuinely passionate — a nice break from the “flat white factory” cafés Madrid keeps producing.
Bottom line: A neighborhood café with specialty coffee and heart. Go for the beans, stay for the warmth.
Address: Calle de Zurbano 61, Madrid
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Chilled to the bone by what the kids asked for their Christmas gifts
Fantastic roundup of Madrid's cultural scene. The Cabaret immersive setup at the Albéniz sounds intense, transforming the whole theater into Kit Kat Klub is ambitious. I caught a similiar production in London last year and the immersion really does amplify the political undercurrent of the story. FLOW at the Friedenskirche church also seems like a cool contrast, bringing digital art into that intimate historic space on the Castellana.