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This week’s packed with ace talks across town, film events for every occasion and workshops that will ensure a super fun Monday to Thursday. Diaries at the ready, gang!
Things to do
Life Drawing With The East London Strippers' Collective, Crown & Shuttle, TONIGHT, £15. Whether you're familiar with East London's strip pubs or not, this life drawing class - organised and run by a strippers' collective - welcomes people in for a twist on the average life drawing class.
Christie’s Lates, Christie's South Kensington, Tue, free. An après-ski themed evening with talks on creating cosy atmospheres and paper-cut snowflake workshops. Poster expert Paul Rennie will be presenting and Bluebird Chelsea will be holding a cocktail masterclass.
Cash or Kind Pop-Up, Westfield Stratford City, Tue, free. If your nearest and dearest didn't come up with the goods this Christmas, have no fear as the minimal effort gift vouchers they dished out can be swapped for cold, hard cash instead.
Botanical Paper Art, The Dolls House Islington, Tue, £39. This two-hour session led by artist Hannah Miles will cover a range of techniques used to create three-dimensional flowers, which will include snowdrops and crocuses in cool wintery colours.
Derren Brown and Nina Conti in Conversation, British Library, Tue, £15, concs £12-£10. Watch mind-bending illusionist, Derren Brown, and comedian and ventriloquist, Nina Conti, discuss their stage craft in conversation with Christopher Green, the co-curator of the British Library’s 'Victorian Entertainments' exhibition.
D&AD President's Lecture: Rapha's Simon Mottram, Conway Hall, Wed, £15, free D&AD members. Rapha founder Simon Mottram talks tonight about his cycling brand and the cult following he's created.
Shami Chakrabarti hosted by the Alternative School of Economics, Rabbits Road Institute, Thu, £5, free concs. Barrister and human rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti gives tonight's inaugural Lantern Lecture. Her talk will cover her thoughts on the importance of libraries and the relationship they have with freedom and mutual understanding.
…or check out more events happening in London this week.
Eating and drinking
The Laughing Heart, Hackney Road With such a pared-back look, bold modern-European plates peppered with Asian flavours came as a surprise, and some dishes challenge as much as delight.
Rok Islington, Upper Street Although the decor whispers Nordic, the menu is smattered with wider Northern European influences.
Four Hundred Rabbits, Nunhead Brace yourself: Four Hundred Rabbits is a restaurant that serves pizza and beer. Not pizza sliders that come in Lilliputian pizza boxes or beer cocktails with ironic names: just pizza and beer, done really fucking well.
…or check out the latest restaurant reviews.
Live music and nightlife
Remembering Sharon - A Night For Sharon Jones, Jazz Cafe, Tue, £10. Featuring DJs Keb Darge, Snowboy, Perry Louis and Adrian Gibson plus a live set from Speedometer, who worked with Jones in 2001 on a Marva Whitney tribute concert.
The Outlook Orchestra: A Celebration of Sound System Culture, Southbank Centre, Thu, £26.50-£36.50. Outlook Festival pitch up at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall to continue celebrating the anniversary of their annual Croatian sound system get-together. Expect a 20-piece orchestra performing some of the biggest tracks from the past decade.
Will Young, Pizza Express Jazz Club, Thu, £150 inc three-course meal, phone for availability. The pop singer-songwriter, who rose to fame on 'Pop Idol', performs jazz material with his band.
…or take a look at all the live music events in London this week.
Endless Poetry (Poesia Sin Fin)
Film
Cinema Matters: Industrial Light & Magic, Barbican Centre, Thu. Throughout 2017, the Barbican will be hosting Cinema Matters, an exploration into the art of filmmaking, with workshops, talks, exhibitions and screenings.
The Badlands Collective: ‘Wonder Boys’, Prince Charles Cinema, Thu, £7.50. Celebrate the life and work of filmmaker Curtis Hanson – who died last year aged 71 – with a screening of this crumpled, likeable drama starring Michael Douglas as a struggling author and Tobey Maguire as his brilliant pupil.
Alison Steadman season: ‘Nuts in May’, BFI Southbank, Thu, £8.35–£11.75. This month, the BFI Southbank pays tribute to the great British actress Alison Steadman.
Or at the cinema...
Endless Poetry (Poesia Sin Fin) ★★★★☆ Groundbreaking filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky looks back at his formative years in this powerful drama.
Silence ★★★★★ Martin Scorsese has hit a career high with this searing, thoughtful literary adaptation about two Jesuit priests venturing into seventeenth-century Japan.
…or see all of the latest releases.
Manuel Harlan
Theatre
Art, Old Vic, all week, £12-£65. A twentieth anniversary revival of Matthew Warchus's blockbuster comedy.
Mary Stuart, Almeida Theatre, all week, £10-£38. Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams toss for the roles of Mary and Elizabeth in Robert Icke's genius Schiller update.
Dreamgirls, Savoy Theatre, all week, £20-£79.50. Amber Riley blows everybody else away in this '60s girl group musical.
…or see our theatre critics’ choices.
This week's best new art
Lucy Raven: Edge Of Tomorrow, Serpentine Gallery, Tue-Thu, free. Two staggeringly bright eyes burn through you when you enter Lucy Raven’s show at the Serpentine. And that’s a potent visual metaphor, because this American video artist tries to look through and beyond the things around her, with a particular obsession with film.
Ken Price: A Survey of Sculptures and Drawings, 1959-2006, Hauser & Wirth, Tue-Thu, free. The ceramics on display here span half a century, and fall into two broad categories. There are the formal pieces: speckled, blobby, amorphous and weirdly sentient-looking. Then there are the functional pieces: jugs, cups and plates, some decorated with snails, others with palm trees.
Rehana Zaman, Tenderpixel, Wed-Thu, free. A digital woman emerges from a virtual desert. Her skin is the same colour and texture as the sand and rock that she’s surrounded by. She melts into the landscape and re-emerges, disappearing into it yet standing apart.
…or see all London art reviews.
And finally
Grab... tickets to the first ever UK exhibition of Josef Frank's work at the Fashion and Textile Museum
Book… these gigs while you still can
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