The Time Out London blog team

★★★★★ The Bridge Theatre has an incredibly consistent track record with musicals. Admittedly that’s because it’s only previously staged one musical. But it was a really good one, the visionary immersive production of Guys & Dolls that wrapped up a two-year-run in January. And great news: rising star Jordan Fein’s sumptuous revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods makes it two for two. After the slightly stodgy tribute revue Old Friends and the weird semi-finished ‘final musical’ Here We Are, this is the first actual proper major Sondheim revival to be staged in this country since the great man’s passing. And the main thing worth saying about 1986’s Into the Woods is that it’s the work of a genius at the peak of his powers: a clever send up of fairytales that pushes familiar stories into absurd, existential, eventually very moving territory. It’s both playful and profound, mischievous and sincere, cleverly meta but also a ripping yarn. While Sondheim is the marquee name, the book and lyrics are by James Lapine (who also did the honours for Sunday in the Park with George and Passion). He naturally does a tremendous job – his lyrics are sometimes hilariously bathetic, sometimes formally audacious, sometimes devastatingly poignant, often all three in a single song. But every second is filled with Sondheim’s presence: his lush, motif-saturated score of baroque nursery rhymes feels as vividly alive as the forest itself. So that’s a big gush about, but the fact is Into the...

There’s nothing like the classic grub and rough-around-the-edges charm of a traditional London boozers. But sometimes you might want somewhere with a little extra glamour. That’s where London’s posh gastropubs come in. And at the height of Sunday roast season, the Times has just named its 13 favourite in the capital.  Much like we do here at Time Out, writers at the Times ‘embarked upon the ultimate pub crawl’ to determine which of the city’s high-end alehouses are the poshest of them all.  One of Time Out’s favourite gastros, the Camberwell Arms was included for its ‘cosy and comfy’ atmosphere and Sunday roasts that ‘taste of home’. We awarded the same Camberwell pub five stars last year. In her review, Time Out food editor Leonie Cooper called it ‘the gastropub to end all gastropubs’ and that ‘“sublime” doesn’t even begin to do it justice’.  The only other east London establishment on the list is the Knave of Clubs, praising it for being ‘Shoreditch at its best — creative, warm and just a little scruffy’. Unsurprisingly for a list that that highlights posh spots, pubs in west London dominate. Four pubs in Notting Hill made the cut: the Fat Badger, the Pelican (both owned by hospitality group Public House), the Cow and the Princess Royal. A shoutout also went to the newly launched The Marlborough X Crisp Pizza. The paper said: ‘The top part of the Marlborough offers a cosy, dimly lit space complete with burgundy leather, barstools and the Devonshire’s famously good...

Though destined to be forever associated with Ireland, Guinness has opened a London brewery. The first UK-based Guinness brewery to be open to the public, it’s a little bit different to west London’s 1930s-built Guinness brewery in Park Royal, which ran until UK production of the brand’s famous stout came to an end in 2005. Leonie Cooper for Time Out This is the fourth public-access Guinness Open Gate Brewery in the world, following the flagship St James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, and US spots in Chicago and Baltimore. It’s pretty massive, set across a number of Victorian warehouse-style buildings in the cobbled backstreets of Covent Garden, parts of which were once home to eighteenth century brewers Combe & Co and, more recently, the flagship branch of H&M. I got a special tour of the megabrewer’s new spot to find out what actually happens here. Leonie Cooper for Time Out The main surprise was that they don’t actually make Guinness’s famous stout here (since the Park Royal site closed that’s all been done in Dublin), but you’ll taste Guinness-made ales, lagers and sours that you won’t be able to find anywhere else. St James cranks out three million pints of the black stuff every day, while the Covent Garden brewery will make just 750,000 pints of their various other ales a year. As we’re told by our jolly tour guide, this place is more about making brand-new beers and letting the public take a peek behind the black velvet curtain to learn about the history of Guinness...