The Time Out London blog team

Getting a properly good gluten-free pastry can be quite the challenge. That’s why GF folk love Copains, the Parisian boulangerie that is known for its coeliac-friendly bakes, and opened its first London outpost in Covent Garden in November last year. Now Copains has opened another bakery in the capital, this time in Islington.  Copains Islington opened its doors on 133 Upper Street on February 19, taking over what was formerly a Toast store. The bakery said its new venue is ‘sweet, gourmet and always naturally gluten-free’.  Photograph: Copains Copains – translating as ‘friends’ – is known for using organic flours, backing sustainable farming and homemade products which avoid wheat flour. Popular gluten-free bakes include chocolate praline financiers, matcha cookies, lemon poppy seed cakes and chocolate madeleines. It also serves well-loved breads, sandwiches and viennoiserie which include vegan pistachio croissants, cinnamon rolls and gluten-free almond croissants.  Photograph: Copains As well as locations in Paris and London, Copains also has outposts in Lyon, Brussels and will soon open in Bordeaux. The Covent Garden Copains on Neal Street was the bakery’s first opening outside of the French capital.  These are London’s best bakeries.   Did you see that one of London’s top pizza chefs has taken over a hyped Islington pub.  Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke – from news and reviews to events and trends. Just follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel....

Regular users of London’s Piccadilly line, heads up. The navy blue tube service will be severely disrupted for two weekends over the next month or so, with huge sections of the line completely down from Friday night tube all the way through to late Sunday night. On March 6-8 and then again on March 20-22, there will be no Piccadilly line trains running between Cockfosters and Uxbridge. That means the entire central London section of the line will be down (with trains only running between Acton and Heathrow on the western end). TfL says that the closures are so that the Piccadilly can get ready for its long-awaited new trains. The brand-spanking-new carriages, which were revealed back in 2021 and will be walk-through and air-conditioned, were supposed to be introduced in late 2025 but that was delayed to 2026. You can find all the features that the Piccadilly line’s new trains will – and won’t – have here. Image: TfL The March weekend closures won’t be the only disruption to Piccadilly line services in the coming months. A bunch of other closures have been confirmed for between April and July, though few are quite so severe and long-lasting as the ones in March. When will the Piccadilly line be closed in March? These are the dates on which you need to watch out for Piccadilly line closures next month: March 6 (night tube only), all day March 7 and 8. March 20 (night tube only), all day March 21 and 22 Will the entire Piccadilly line be shut? Nope, but the bulk of it...

When Broadway comedy smash Oh, Mary! opened in the West End at Christmas, it did so with no celebrity names, just its own formidable reputation and a couple of very credible stage actors in the form of Mason Alexander Park as narcissistic First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, and Giles Terera as her sexually repressed husband Abraham Lincoln.  So far so good, but it’s hard to imagine Cole Escola’s smash having quite the longevity it’s had on Broadway without a little more celebrity sauce, where the likes of Tituss Burgess, Jinkx Monsoon and Jane Krakowski have played Mary since the departure of Escola themself.  Anyway, long story short, Brit comedy icon Catherine Tate will be the new Mary, taking over from Park April 27, and staying in the role until July 18, as the play extends in tandem. Terera already had an engagement at the Old Vic to co-star in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, so he’ll be leaving earlier (March 14), with his replacement stage actor Scott Karim starting a couple of days later and staying throughout Tate’s run.  Tate feels like perfect casting for a show that is clearly heavily influenced by old school ’70s British comedy; she’ll also clearly bring a completely different tone and energy to things than the younger, non-binary, American Park. Clearly she’s going to open Oh, Mary! up to a new audience; it also begs the question as to whether the show will – like Cabaret and 2:22 A Ghost Story – enjoy a long run on the basis of a series of ever juicier celeb...