Mike Leigh: ‘The Queen dying is emotional but King Charles? That’s another matter’ September 15, 2022 For a man seven-times Oscar nominated for films about so-called ‘ordinary’ people, Mike Leigh certainly plays the part. We meet outside the newly opened Garden Cinema, but there’s no blacked-out car to deliver perhaps Britain’s most famous living director. Instead, Leigh appears from around a street corner, alone, clasping a folded chair under arm. If [...]
Wonderville is the capital’s enchanting new Cabaret bar September 15, 2022 There’s honestly very little funnier than awkward suburban dads getting flirted with by overly ostentatious female performers. Especially when they’re dressed in tiny scraps of clothing. Brits are awkward, and then there are suburbanites that get dressed up to go into London to see a cabaret show. They are awkward. At new London cabaret venue [...]
The Score is a strange and unusual musical – but not in a good way September 14, 2022 The Score’s writer-director Malachi Smyth has sketched an idea of what the British Wild West could look like, and it has a stylish twist: singing gangsters. When the central musical segments work, they’re captivating, making The Score’s tone feel daringly out-of-the-box. But the meat of this movie fails to score. Credit to Smyth for pulling [...]
Handbagged at the Kiln Theatre is a timely new show about the Queen September 14, 2022 This article is the first in a new series called The Lowdown, where we speak to writers, directors and actors to get the lowdown on their latest creative project And they say that life imitates art… Handbagged, a show featuring fictional accounts about the Queen’s weekly meetings with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, had always planned [...]
The Queen ate at The Stafford hotel, so we booked a table in her honour September 12, 2022 St James’ Street near Green Park Tube is heaving with tourists, but turn onto Little St James’ Place toward The Stafford hotel and you enter a private enclave where the racket of the capital’s buses, taxis and tourists cannot be heard. Here you’re in St James proper, amongst the type of discreet private roads no-one [...]
Exclusive: What King Charles III said to well-wishers outside Buckingham Palace September 9, 2022 Thousands are gathering at Buckingham Palace following King Charles’ walkabout after he returned from Balmoral earlier this afternoon. Diana from London met King Charles: “I held out my hand, shook his hand, and I said: ‘Your mother has been absolutely wonderful for this country – and I know you will be too.’ ‘“And he responded [...]
Tasting rare 16-year-old beef at Meatopia food festival September 7, 2022 Thick wafts of smoke cover me in the sweet smell of resin and meat. The translucent shapes of the fumes drift skywards from more than a dozen barbecue grills. I’m at Meatopia on the top floor of Regency-era warehouse Tobacco Dock, a fitting name for the sight I see around me. Halfway along the top [...]
The best things to do in London this September and October September 2, 2022 Massive new musicals, snooping around some of the best private houses in the capital, eating with Tom Kerridge and making the most out of those final long late-summer evenings. There are still so many things to do in London this September, including three more festivals before the summer calls it quits. Here’s the best of [...]
I, Joan, The Globe, review: Trans lead makes London theatre history with gripping performance September 2, 2022 Gay men had it in the 1980s and 1990s when two landmark plays, Angels In America and The Normal Heart, humanised the tragedies of the AIDS crisis on major theatre stages. And now I, Joan, a new adaptation of the story of Joan of Arc, feels similarly like a crucial and history-making piece of theatre [...]
Al Mare restaurant review: Forget La Dolche Vita, there’s an ideal Italian escape in SW1 August 31, 2022 Living and working in the Square Mile, I rarely venture too far west, but when I do I get all the rush of a foreign holiday. There’s the expansive feel of the grand parklands and the glamorous feel of the hotels with air-conditioned lobbies. Then there’s the contrasting intimacy of the red brick mansions on [...]