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London’s got pub quizzes to compete in, an opera to watch on board the Cutty Sark and oyster masterclasses to ensure you have a shucking good week. Check out 28 ways to brighten up the daily grind!
Things to do
Down With This Sort Of Thing! Quiz Night, Steam Wine Bar, TONIGHT, £6. A Monday night quiz for fans of the work of Graham Linehan. Anyone who digs Father Ted, The IT Crowd or Black Books should get involved, but brush up on your TV comedy beforehand, because we reckon they'll be some real buffs in attendance.
Listen to The Women, The Emmanuel Centre, Tue, £5. Join Juliet Stevenson and women who have escaped conflict to listen to the stories of refugees - verbatim and live.
From East To East, Old Truman Brewery, Wed-Thu, free. Jason Freeny’s worked with everyone from Disney to Jeff Koons - now you can check out over 45 of his sculptures at this pop-up gallery/shop with Chinese brand FUN.
Mental Wealth Festival, City Lit, Wed-Thu, prices vary. Ruby Wax, Hugh Grant, Alastair Campbell and Big Issue founder Lord John Bird present a series of talks at this festival about mental health in faith, policy, the family and everyday life.
A Crystal Maze, Merchant Square, Thu, free. The summer of outdoor events at Merchant Square concludes with a pop-up Crystal Maze. This lunchtime version of the popular '90s show will challenge competitors with tricky tasks all leading to the Crystal Dome and potential legend status amongst friends.
The Big Boozy Quiz, Water Poet, Thu, £25 per team of six. Your years of epic boozing are good for something after all. Expect blind drinks tasting, 'creative' rounds and a tiny bit of general knowledge at this charity pub quiz in Spitalfields.
Bedlam: The Asylum, Wellcome Collection, Thu, free. A new exhibition at the Wellcome looks at the tensions between biomedical and psychosocial therapy for mental illness, the imperative to protect patients, and how integration benefits patients and the public.
…or check out more events happening in London this week.
Eating and drinking
Peruvian Edible Cinema, Union Chapel, Tue, £20. Martin Morales and his Andina colleagues cook up a storm, making dishes to be seen on screen in films made by young people from the Quechua community in the Andes.
Oyster Masterclasses, Outlaw's at The Capital, Wed, £60. Seamus Heaney called them 'the philandering sigh of ocean': now Outlaw's bar serves them raw, grilled, crispy, pickled and baked as part of an hour-long masterclass on how to prepare them.
One Day, One Dish for £1, Le Restaurant de Paul Tower 42, Thu, free. Le Restaurant de Paul at Tower 42 celebrates its first birthday by serving coq au vin, salad boulangère or brioche perdue for just £1 a dish.
Korean Thanksgiving, Chi Kitchen, all week, from £3.50. This menu designed by 2014's 'Masterchef' winner Ping Coombes will be available for one week only. A mix of traditional Korean treats will be teamed with modern twists in celebration of Chuseok – Korean Thanksgiving.
…or check out the latest restaurant reviews.
Live music and nightlife
OperaUpClose presents Puccini’s La Bohème, Cutty Sark, Mon, TONIGHT. Swap cavernous opera houses and festival amphitheatres for knee-bumping intimacy at this performance of OperaUpClose's award-winning adaptation of La Bohème, set onboard the Cutty Sark.
Treehouse Presents Paleman, Phonox, TONIGHT, £8, adv £6. Innovative underground dance tunes from Paleman, Foss, Kapil, C-K, Ferrero, Val, Yens and Britt.
Tony Christie, Churchill Theatre, Thu, £26. Yorkshire pop-soul belter Christie is now in his mid-seventies, but still has a fine, emotionally expressive voice and offers much more than the Peter Kay-related albatross that is ‘Amarillo’.
Gospeloke, Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, Thu, £12. Absolutely no prizes for guessing what this event is all about. That's right, it's a gospel music-focused karaoke night – 'think "Sister Act" meets a school assembly via "Top of the Pops",' say the organisers.
…or take a look at all the live music events in London this week.
Film
Tufnell Park Film Club: ‘Grey Gardens’, The Star, Tue, £15 membership. In the 1970s, America’s obsession with Jackie Kennedy-Onassis was overwhelming, and led to the unexpected success of this documentary about two of her family who live in isolated squalor on Long Island.
BFI Flipside presents: ‘Psychomania’ + Q&A, BFI Southbank, Wed, £8.35–£11.75. This pitch-black British comedy-horror is finally getting a proper DVD release courtesy of the BFI, marked by this special event featuring cast members who’ll reminisce about making this unique oddity.
Scalarama & Rochester Kino: ‘Re-Animator’, Genesis Cinema, Thu, £8, £7 concs. Another cracker from Scalarama – this is a pitch-perfect ’80s exploitation movie crammed with gore, laughs and wild ideas.
Or at the cinema...
Captain Fantastic ★★★☆☆ Living off the grid has its pros and cons in a domestic drama touched by a wayward spirit.
…or see all of the latest releases.
Theatre
If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You, Old Red Lion, Tue-Thu, £15, £13 concs. Two gay robbers snort a lot of coke in this arresting debut play.
Britten in Brooklyn, Wilton's Music Hall, Tue-Thu, £19-£27.50. Sadie Frost stars in this uneven tale of a 1940s celebrity house share.
The Emperor, Young Vic, all week, £10-£20. Kathryn Hunter's virtuoso account of the final days of Haile Selassie.
…or see our theatre critics’ choices.
Courtesy the artist and gallery Cyprien Gaillard, Nightlife, 2015. Installation view
This week's best new art
The Infinite Mix, 180 the Strand, Tue-Thu, free. This show is a collaboration between the Vinyl Factory and the Hayward Gallery (currently closed for renovation but stepping away from the South Bank for this offsite endeavour).
Giuseppe Penone: Fui, Saro, Non Sono (I was, I will be, I am not), Marian Goodman Gallery, all week, free. Giuseppe Penone is almost 70 now, and it’s weighing on him: age, ageing, time flitting by, youth evaporating. And that’s what this big, spacious show by the founding member of the Italian Arte Povera movement is all about.
Jack McConville: Capital Depths, Ibid Gallery, all week, free. The Scottish painter’s exhibition here shows a singular obsession with the benjamins: clouds of notes float in the sky in one piece (yeah, like ‘The Crystal Maze’); nude bathing women grasp for bills and dance around pools of coins in others.
or see all London art reviews.
And finally
Win... a fabulous forest getaway with South West Trains or a culture trip with Bombay Sapphire
Book… these gigs while you still can
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