Things to do in London today

The first temporary exhibition at Young V&A is a real delight, and should appeal to grown-up Nippophiles just as much as school kids. ‘Japan: Myths to Manga’ is a grab bag of the more eye-catching highlights of the past few centuries of Japanese pop culture, taking in everything from Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave’ to copious Studio Ghibli appearances, to a draw-your-own manga craft corner (complete with arrows to reminds you to draw the cells from right to left). It is relatively light on information about the individual items, and in theory the eclecticism should be a bit bewildering: how exactly do a display of Transformers toys, an ornate screen covered in images of mischievous rabbits, and a truly horrifying folk model of a mermaid that looks like a trout crossed with a zombie foetus all relate to each other? Quite well actually! The mass of eye-popping artifacts is subdivided into four thoughtful zones: sky, sea, forest and city. The import of each of these areas to Japanese culture is stressed, and while there’s little editorialising beyond that, the linkages between the country’s rich folklore and head-spinning contemporary culture are made clear - we see, for instance, how Ghibli’s arboreal masterpiece ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ fits into a long tradition of stories of supernatural encounters in the deep woods, or how Sylvanian Families toys were born out of hundreds-of-years old netsuke animal sculptures. There’s no single object liable to blow your mind in and of itself, and

Think the past couple of years have been rough? Try surviving a Martian invasion only to be captured by an enormous fighting machine and having your blood harvested, ‘The Matrix’-style, in a stifling capsule. That’s the 1898 envisaged by H.G. Wells in his pioneering sci-fi thriller ‘The War of the Worlds’, which was then adapted by Jeff Wayne in his 1978 prog sci-fi album, which imbues Wells’s Victorian tale with rock-opera camp and steampunk kitsch. It’s this rather Marmite pop culture relic that forms the basis of this immersive theatre experience. It launched back in 2019, but it’s changed a fair bit since then. Presumably, techy immersive theatre company Layered Reality has finessed the VR and AR (augmented reality) tech, because now it’s slick AF. In fact, at times it’s terrifying… in the best possible way.  Take for example the moment that I stood, ensconced in a VR-enhanced Fighting Machine capsule, and felt something actually pinch me. I screamed into what (through my VR goggles) I perceived as a hellish Martian human-blood farm. I heard other screams in the distance – my fellow survivors in the booths beside me.  But it’s not all jump scares. The 24 scenes that make up the experience are incredibly varied; as per Jeff Wayne’s album, we follow the path of The Journalist, starting with his first glimpse through a telescope of noxious green gas emerging from Mars. We duck through tunnels, climb through windows and ride hot air balloons, encountering actors who are, for

FEATURE: Why has the world gone crazy for Paddington Bear again? Though you can buy all of Michael Bond’s books in the gift shop, let’s be clear here: the Paddington Bear Experience has very little to do with the first 50 or so years of the marmalade-loving ursine’s existence. Rather, the lavish new central London immersive experience makes no bones about fact it’s a live extension of the world of the two (soon to be three) StudioCanal movies. Theoretically I suppose that’s a shame. Debuting in print in 1958, Paddington has a rich history and London’s first proper attraction dedicated to him doesn’t explore it at all. But who are we kidding here? The Paul King films are modern masterpieces, and Paddington would be left as a beloved but past-his-prime nostalgia character if it weren’t for them. He’d have his little statue at the station. But nothing like this. You don’t absolutely need to have seen the films, but there are countless callbacks to them in this gentle adventure, which essentially an immersive theatre show. As we begin by waiting at a small recreation of Paddington Station to board our train to Windsor Gardens, we’re serenaded by a pre-recorded version of the band from the films playing ‘London is the Place for Me’; when we make it to Windsor Gardens for this year’s Marmalade Day Festival, designer Rebecca Brower has faithfully recreated the entire downstairs of the Brown’s boho Notting Hill pad. And then of course there’s Paddington himself - constantly teased as

Punchdrunk are back! A phrase that feels less momentous this time than last time as it’s barely been six months since the immersive theatre leading lights’ previous show ‘The Burnt City’ wrapped up, as opposed to the seven year gap between that and predecessor ‘The Drowned Man’. ‘Viola’s Room’ is momentous in its own way, though. It’s the company’s first major show to not require the wearing of masks, a long term hallmark that Punchdrunk have apparently now ditched (though previous mask shows will likely be revived). It’s also smaller in scale than anything the company has done for years: once it starts properly it’s just 45 minutes long, for a maximum audience of six people (though there are numerous performances throughout the day), with no live actors.  I say that it’s smaller: ‘Viola’s Room’ is so disorientating that it’s impossible to really say what size space it takes place in. A few tightly-wound square metres? The whole of the company’s vast Carriageworks base? Could be either. ‘Viola’s Room’ is a show based upon Barry Pain’s dark 1901 short story ‘The Moon Slave’. Directed by Punchdrunk boss Felix Barrett, it has an actual text – a true rarity for the company – which has been adapted by Booker Prize-shortlisted Brit novelist Daisy Johnson and recorded by one Helena Bonham-Carter, whose half-whispered reading is played back to us in the headphones we don at the start of the show (the same time as we’re required to put our shoes and socks away into boxes, though there

Surveying 500 years-worth of any sort of music is no easy feat. But tackling the history of Black British music is near impossible – not least because of its legacy permeating nearly every instance of contemporary pop and underground culture. Having said all that, this landmark exhibition at the British Library does a pretty good job at giving it a go.  Around 300 objects are on display here, including letters by 18th-century composer Ignatius Sancho, an outfit worn by jazz singer Patti Flynn in the 1970s, Steel Pulse’s KKK-style hood, a Nokia 3370, imagery of the early days of grime by acclaimed photographer Simon Wheatley and footage from the MOBO Awards. Each object is full of stories, full of songs and sound, taking us through the development of Lovers Rock, to the creation of two-tone, jazz, reggae, jungle, Afroswing and so much more: showing Black British music as celebration, as protest, as ever-evolving, as vital.   We’re left to reflect on the music we listen to every day, the artists we follow, the spaces we dance in What follows is an accessible, holistic view of an impossibly vast scene. The exhibition does an excellent job of balancing commercial artists with essential grassroots activities, spotlighting the carnivals, community centres, record shops and other spaces that have all played a part in cultivating different musical genres: including The Reno in Manchester, Bristol’s Bamboo Club, Scottish club night The Reggae Klub and The Four Aces in London. There’s

Alvaro Barrington is letting you in. He’s opening his arms, opening the doors to his childhood home, opening the windows into his memories.  To walk into the London-based artist’s Duveen commission is to walk into the Grenadian shack he grew up in. The sound of rain hammering on the tin roof echoes around the space as you sit on plastic-covered benches; you’re safe here, protected, just like Barrington felt as a kid with his grandmother. You’re brought into her home, her embrace. In the central gallery, a vast silver dancer is draped in fabrics on an enormous steel pan drum. This is Carnival, this is the Afro-Carribean diaspora at its freest, letting loose, dancing, expressing its soul, communing. You’re brought into the frenzy, the dance, the community. But the fun soon stops. The final space houses a dilapidated shop, built to the dimensions of an American prison cell, surrounded by chain link fencing. Its shutters creak open and slam shut automatically. This is a violent shock, a testimony to the dangers facing Black lives in the West: the police, the prison system, the barely concealed injustice.  After all the music and refuge of the rest of the installation, here, it’s like Barrington’s saying: ‘You want this? You want the carnival, the music, the culture? Then acknowledge the pain, the fear, the mistreatment, the subjugation too.’ I don’t think the paintings here are great, but painting’s not Barrington’s strong suit. He excels when he’s collaborating, sampling, sharin

While its permanent collections are showing their age now – that age being approximately 163 years – the Natural History Museum’s temporary exhibits are a world apart. Modern, witty, spacious and hi-tech: they’re a window into what might be if the NHM was refounded in the twenty-first century. ‘Birds: Brilliant & Bizarre’ doesn’t have an especially incisive story to tell beyond ‘birds are great!’ (It would be weird if it was ‘birds are terrible!’) but it is is, nonetheless, a beautifully put together journey through the story of our avian pals that mixes slick techy stuff with a thoughtful delve into the museum’s vast taxidermy vaults (if your archive includes an entire family of stuffed hummingbirds – including the nesting babies – you might as well give it a public airing occasionally). One great thing for younger audiences is that our feathered friends are an offshoot of dinosaurs - hence licence for the first quarter or so of ‘Birds’ to concern itself with their prehistoric ancestors, with particular attention paid to dino-bird crossover creature archaeopteryx. After that it’s an entertaining grab bag, a nicely laid out mix of… bird stuff, with a striking early piece being the gigantic stuffed albatross suspended from the ceiling with its gigantic fluffy chick under it. We’re told the mother was killed by a fishing trawler, which sets up the eco undertones of the rest of the exhibit. It’s not just about wacky bird facts, but the sense that these creatures’ lives are in ou

Money can buy a lot of things, but it can’t buy taste. Luckily, Sir Elton John would probably know his art from his elbow even if he hadn’t become one of the world’s biggest, richest megastars. For decades now, he has been building a world class collection of photography with his partner David Furnish. It’s been shown all over the world, even at the Tate in 2017, and now it’s the V&A’s turn.  The exhibition is absolutely rammed full of iconic images by some of the most important names in photography: Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, Juergen Teller, William Egglestone and on and on. Like you’d expect from a megastar, it’s pretty dazzling. The show is grouped into big overarching themes: fashion, reportage, desire, etc. The fashion bit runs the gamut from experimental Harry Callahan cut-outs to stark Irving Penn minimalist luxury via debauched guy Bourdin naughtiness and a beautifully tasteless portrait of Sir Elton’s bejewelled hands by Mario Testino. Style, glamour, cheekbones, cocaine; that’s fashion for ya.  Things get a little grittier in the celebrity section. There are famous images of Joni Mitchell, Ray Charles,Frank Sinatra, and three incredible photos of Miles Davis’s hands by Irving Penn. But this is where the cracks start to appear. Images of tragic figures are everywhere; Marilyn Monroe forlorn and lost, Chet Baker broken by drug abuse, James Dean beautiful and young, but not for long. Celebrity is a curse, a dangerous burden that can crush you just as readily as

Hajime Sorayama dares to ask the questions everyone is too afraid to know the answers to, like: ‘what if there was a sexy robot at the Hindenburg Disaster’ and ‘what if Marilyn Monroe was a sexy robot?’ and ‘what if mermaids were sexy robots?’ and ‘what if Joan of Arc was a sexy robot, but with a genital piercing?’ You’ve always wanted to know, admit it, and now the answers are all right here. The Japanese illustrator has been melding photography with digital printing and painting techniques for decades, creating a collection of instantly recognisable ‘gynoid’ female robots with perfect metal carapaces, pouting cyborg lips and ample robo-bosoms. There’s a sculpture of one of his golden gynoids in the middle of the gallery, reaching for the stars and launching herself into a future of unbound horniness, but the rest of the show is made up of works on canvas. There’s Joan of Arc, Marilyn Monroe, that mermaid, but also a ludicrously sexual Cleopatra and a naked zebra-woman hybrid. Soft, plump flesh is housed in curving, gleaming metal, the tenderness of the female body collides with the harsh reality of steel in slack-jawed worship of perfect future pin-ups. It’s almost painfully randy, throbbing with ridiculous sci fi turgidity.  Throbbing with ridiculous sci fi turgidity You can read a lot into this, if you want. These robots are gods to Sorayama, idols to be worshipped. But are they also a warning about the future of human-cyborg relations? The gallery argues that Sorayama’s

Turns out, not only does Harmony Korine make difficult obtuse films, he makes difficult obtuse paintings too. His show at Hauser & Wirth is full of psychedelic, violent, eye-searing paintings of scenes from his latest film, ‘Aggro Dr1ft’. The movie (starring Travis Scott and Jordi Molla) takes you on a dizzying, weird, fully infrared trip into the world of a masked assassin, patrolling deep undergrowth and lavish villas on a mission to kill a demonic crime lord. The paintings are full of that same tropical violence, 8-bit menace and throbbing, silent aggression. Figures brandish machine guns, they slice their way through dense foliage with machetes, stalk around deserted corridors, all rendered in acidly bright yellows, pinks and oranges.  It’s obviously and heavily indebted to modern ultra-violent videogames, which makes it feel teenage and adolescent, immature and stoned, a 2am gaming sesh rendered in paint. But freezing these gaming moments highlights the intensity and weirdness of the activity: gaming allows you to embody a character who’s out to kill, it allows you to take a life in an act of leisure and relaxation. These paintings act as a sort of kink-infused celebration of violence as distraction, as fun, as a break from reality. A brilliant, atmospheric, intelligently dumb look at violence and leisure But Korine is an artworld interloper, an outsider, he’s doing it wrong; where’s the fine art degree, where are the art historical references, where are the necessary c