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May 16, 2008
Resonance FM are putting on a days worth of fund-raising this Sunday at the Arts Theatre, near Leicester Square, with afternoon comedy and evening music. Londonist's favourite radio station is always in need of funds, and is run almost exclusively by volunteers, so we'll be going to support the charity just as much as we'll be going to see the acts. In there afternoon, there's a comedy gig with a very strong bill of...
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Lovvers at Stag and Dagger The inaugural Stag and Dagger took place last night around Shoreditch, bringing out artists, film makers, and tons of bands. Londonist took on the challenge of trying to determine just how much we could pack into a six hour space. We started our evening early at Black Rat Press to see, appropriately enough, the works of French street artist Blek le Rat (Londonist had the priveledge to see him in...
Continue Reading "Review: Stag and Dagger"May 15, 2008
The last of the ghostly revellers have left the building and Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) has finally peeled away the last of the cobwebs and velvet curtains from the mega-successful Masque of the Red Death. The forest has been uprooted from the foyer, the corpses have been taken out of the basement, the grisly bridal chamber is once more an office: Edgar Allan Poe's residency is over. It is now time for Burst. Running...
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This Saturday might well be your last chance to catch Missed Connections, the supremely heart-warming, twee, and utterly hilarious show by Terry Saunders. Terry is a stand-up storyteller whose gentle, melancholic and spellbinding stories can make you laugh, cry and laugh again, all in one breath. He's also one of the brains behind laughterinoddplaces, which we recommended in the olden days. Londonist is a big fan of Terry Saunders, and so should you be....
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Cellars are this season's must have for the budding psychopath as the horrific Fritzl story shows so it's a creepy coincidence that John Fowles' play "The Collector" should be running at the Etcetera Theatre this week. This two hander works claustrophobically well in "London's smallest theatre". Frederick is a man lacking in social skills and advantages who wins the lottery. He's a repressed lepidopterist nurturing a random and unhealthy infatuation with a vibrant, young,...
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May 14, 2008
After the fantastic sound journey we took with Philip Jeck on Thursday night, we returned to the Museum of Garden History on Friday evening for the second instalment in Touch's Atmospheres 2 festival. With a line-up ranging from processed field recordings to solo piano and laptop-filtered electric guitar, Touch ensured that our interest would be held through sonic diversity as well as stellar performances. Placing effects-treated field recordings at the centre of their sound,...
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Art lovers: brace yourselves for the onslaught of tutting, snorting and Daily Mail outrage that breaks out every summer. That's right - the Turner Prize shortlist was announced this morning. Mark Leckey is the biggest name on a list with no celebrity artists on it; his combinations of film, performance and sculpture have made him odds-on favourite with the bookies already, and the obsession with Felix the Cat in his work should get him...
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Exterior. The London Eye, central London. A van is parked nearby. Zoom in to VAN INTERIOR. A projector, some seating, two men. Zoom out to VAN EXTERIOR. Focus on big sign on the side reads CANNES IN A VAN. Roll opening credits. Cannes in a Van is the event in the film festival calendar where the smallest mobile film festival roars into the midst of the biggest static film festival in Europe. Two men...
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Give us the means to see an absurd number of bands in one night and Londonist is there. This Thursday, Stag and Dagger is taking over the East End in what has lovingly been dubbed "Shoreditch Crawl". In the tradition of other London neighbourhood-based music fests, Stag and Dagger will have roughly 100 bands playing at 15 venues around Shoreditch (except for the Slaughtered Lamb, which is comparatively remote, though is probably the least...
Continue Reading "Music Preview: Stag And Dagger"May 13, 2008
Although Bertie Wooster gets into an alarming number of scrapes in P G Wodehouse's Jeeves novels, we can't help but admire his fortitude and stick with it attitude when it comes to dining. Hot weather, bright sunshine, crowds of yelping children are no obstacles for the man who wants, needs, and has to have his tea. It helps, of course, to have a butler like Jeeves to provide the necessary. And so it was...
Continue Reading "PG Wodehouse Picnic in Pictures"May 12, 2008
And the livin’ is easy: the weather’s been divine, and summer is here at last. There is the compulsion to spend every possible moment outdoors (Pimms preferably in hand), as it’s London after all and you never know when the good meteorological fortune will end. To that end, welcome to an al-fresco themed London On The Cheap week – get out there and take proper advantage of the next week of forecasted warmth and...
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When bands get hyped beyond normality they can become pretty annoying, particularly if like New Young Pony Club you don't really have anything to back it up. The Ting Tings are the latest example of mega hypedom. From Salford, they formed previously hyped but failed band Dear Eskiimo before deciding to start afresh and sign with Columbia Records. Catch us on a Friday night and there's no doubt we'll be jumping about to 'Great...
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For most, the Cannes Film Festival conjures images of red carpet receptions, lavish parties and the best and brightest in new cinema swanking around the Med shores. Yet one London filmmaker has managed to infiltrate the crust of moneyed exclusivity by bringing to the festival a short film that he shot for less than £100. Charles Duke, the head of London-based production company Babarouge, has entered his film Caution: Wet Paint for the Cannes...
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As we walked across Lambeth Bridge towards the Museum of Garden History on Thurdsay evening, we were immediately reminded us of how much we enjoyed the first Atmospheres festival. It was on that bridge in October where we started it with a field recording workshop led by Chris Watson. With the old St Mary-at-Lambeth church in close sight, it was tempting to stop for a quick recording session, but we were too afraid of...
Continue Reading "Atmospheres 2: Day One Review"
Everyone always says that there's not many acts out there that can play Wembley, but I don't necessarily buy that. I reckon at any one point there's probably about fifty acts that could. It just depends how many tour. That's the opinion of Wembley Stadium's Head of Music and New Events, Jim Frayling, the man responsible for clinching the deals that have brought George Michael, Muse and now Madonna and the Foo Fighters to...
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May 11, 2008
This week we previewed the brilliant Atmospheres 2 festival happening over at the Museum of Garden history until Monday. We also introduced you all to rising star Tawiah, announced that Mandela is going to be going to his own concert, and gave you all the details about Coldplay's upcoming free gig at Brixton Academy. If you like the idea of sweating it out in some subterranean venue on Monday night, then Mogwai and Yeasayer both...
Continue Reading "Music Choice: Monday 12th May - Friday 16th May"May 10, 2008
Imagine a style of comedy which combines a love of life with a quick wit, booming voice, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of every single movie that has ever been made, ever. For many years, people would have chased you out of the city for proposing such a ludicrous paradigm. But we've come a long way since the 70s. Thank goodness that, now we live in more enlightened times, one man has dared to bring...
Continue Reading "Don't Ever Heckle: Richard Sandling"
If you go down to Westminster Cathedral today at 3pm, you're sure for a big surprise. Well, for one thing you'll see 700 married couples going in after an invitation from the Archbish of Westminster for a Mass to celebrate their marriages. So far, so blessed. Celebrating partnerships that this year mark significant milestones - 10, 25, 50 or even 60+ years - must be really something. Taking a moment from the every-day to...
Continue Reading "Mass Marriage"May 9, 2008
The Dark Lord of Musical Theatre, funny faced "genius", Andrew Lloyd Webber, last night scooped a Classical Brit for Outstanding Achievement in Music. Andrew (as he likes to be called on his website), who was 60 this March, has been ubiquitous in the West End for 30 odd years. He was recently reinvented himself at Graham Norton's hands as 'The Lord' in his 3 BBC reality TV shows casting lead roles in revivals of...
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Green Apples by Mark Bruce courtesy of The Place Spring Loaded is The Place's annual festival of fresh contemporary dance. We enthused about the opening show, Probe's Magpie, and we weren't disappointed (it was ace - so different and diverse and frankly, smoking hot and funny). Now the season is coming to a close and we're inclined to highlight a couple of gems that are ideal for popping along to on these gorgeously, light and...
Continue Reading "Dance Preview: Spring Loaded @ The Place - Final Week"May 8, 2008
Taher Najib's In Spitting Distance is the latest installation in the Barbican 'bite08' series, mini theatre pieces with short runs and performance duration. In Spitting Distance is a highly charged one-hour, one-act, one-man show performed by the outstanding Khalifa Natour. In turns dark and humorous, and often both, the storyline revolves around the experience of an Arab man with two surnames, carrying an Israeli passport, who tries to fly to Tel Aviv from Paris...
Continue Reading "Review: In Spitting Distance"May 7, 2008
The five leading designs for an Angel of the South have been revealed. The winner will be built in Ebbsfleet, Kent in 2010, as the South's answer to Antony Gormley's Angel of the North. Top left: Turner Prize winner Richard Deacon offers a skeletal tower of polyhedra. Predicted tabloid nickname: the wilting pylon. Top right: a giant horse, echoing the ancient tradition of chalk horses in Kent, by Mark Wallinger, the chap who assembled...
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Londonist isn’t always very good about our extremities. You know, the north and south and west and east of our great conurbation. Which is a shame ‘cos there’s a lot happening out there. Take Redbridge. Redbridge is one of those places that this Londonista travels through a lot, but has never had recourse to explore. It is lodged in Londonist’s collective psyche as ‘somewhere on the North Circular’, which is rather unfortunate, and for...
Continue Reading "Redbridge Rocks"A couple of weeks ago Ladyhawke wowed us at the Camden Crawl, and tonight she's back in town playing her very own gig in Hoxton. Sounding like the younger daughter of Stevie Nicks, Ladyhawke is 26 year old Kiwi who's self produced her debut album, out soon on Modular. She's full of 80s synth sounds with a rockier edge and it's no surprise to find out that she mates with Peaches, who'll be joining her...
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Recommended to us by London girl gone global Estelle, today's Listen! Up Tawiah made her mark on our pod with her smooth soulful grooves, and her excited performances during Mark Ronson's live shows. Born in Battersea, she's a former Brit School classmate of Kate, Amy and has fans such as Gilles Peterson and Rob Da Bank loving her every move. Tawiah! Hello, fill us all in on who you are I am Tawiah! I...
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May 7, 2008
Picnics in the park are great... even better if the ultimate butler is there to hand out the cucumber sandwiches. It is with great excitement that we tell you about a simply ripping picnic planned for Saturday: The Wodehouse Picnic in Russell Square. We're so excited our straw boater hats are twitching at the thought of it, and we're having our finest linen pressed as we speak. All this happy Wodehouse-ian larking about is...
Continue Reading "Thank You, Jeeves: What A Smashing Picnic!"May 6, 2008
When we first learned that Touch was planning a follow-up to last autumn's brilliant Atmospheres festival, the question wasn't whether or not we would attend but what line-up they had in store for us this time around. Once again occupying Lambeth's beautiful Museum of Garden History for a long weekend, Atmospheres 2 returns with a focus on hauntology, particularly with respect to music. If your Derrida is as rusty as ours and you fancy...
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Londonist is thrilled by the announcement that the Government Art Collection is to open its doors to the public, with pre-booked tours to be available to interested plebs on Saturday May 17 as part of Museums and Galleries Month. Having previously taken advantage of a rare opportunity to see the home of the GAC during Open House Weekend last year, we urge all art lovers to grab the chance with both hands, as the unassuming location of the collection - a side alley near the Goodge Street end of Tottenham Court Road - hides some beautiful art treasures which deserve better than to be hidden away in some obscure embassy or government office. Set up originally to provide cheap decoration for His/Her Majesty's representatives' official residences around the world, in recent times the GAC's objectives have been shifted to emphasise the promotion of British art and artists, although giving embassy staff and civil servants something nice to look at while they toil away furthering the national interest is still very much an important part of the collection's role. The GAC, we were told on our Open House tour, is a thing constantly in motion, with pieces shipped around the world constantly, and with works sent back to London to be lovingly restored by a team of art experts, before being crated up and sent back out....
Continue Reading "Rare Public Opportunity To See Government Art Collection"May 5, 2008
What a busy week! What with the Bank holiday, Cans Festival, Pangea Day, May ’68 celebrations and more, free cultural activities abound across London. So get out of bed, you lazy hungover git, and go sample what’s on in our summery city. Monday: In case you missed it over the weekend, catch the last day of the Cans Festival, a graffiti art exhibition headlined by none other than London’s lovable guerilla stencil artist Banksy....
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Tra la, it’s May, the lusty month of May – and we, apparently, feel like singing. Is it the gorgeous weather? The lovely literary events in our diary? Our trips up and down the too-hot-to-trot Northern Line? The Pimm’s coursing through our veins? (No, surely not that.) Need to ramp up your own book lust for the week? Then have a gander at our groceries: Wednesday: Your choice of poetry events today: As part...
Continue Reading "The Book Grocer"May 4, 2008
When it was announced Friday that an abandoned tunnel formerly used by the Eurostar was going to be given over to graffiti artists, Londonist cleared space in our Bank Holiday weekend. Of course the big name that’s bringing the crowds to the Cans Festival is Banksy: it’s always interesting when he’s part of a project with prior approval. But visitors take note: Banksy isn’t the star of the show, he’s just one of many...
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As everyone recovers from their extended break, this Bank Holiday Monday's music selection is a bit lacking really - a bit like our weather at the moment, really. If you want to shake away that hangover with some doom metal, then pop along to the Underworld in Camden, for Witch. Tickets are £12 each. Meanwhile, if you like things with a bit more of a bluesy tone, something a bit country from the US, then...
Continue Reading "Music Choice: Monday 5th May - Friday 9th May"