Alice Saville

‘Topshop really anchored retail in the UK in a way that is REALLY missed. Sounds dramatic but I don’t think British fashion has been the same without it.’ Two years since storied Oxford Street fashion destination Big Topshop closed its doors, shoe designer Aize Omoigui is still feeling the loss, and the reaction to her recent tweet suggests she’s not alone. When we catch up on the phone, her voice fills with warmth as she remembers its glory days. ‘Topshop defined fashion for a generation. You could go there straight after work on Friday and get a head-to-toe look to wear that night, whatever your style: jewellery, nails, hair, all in one place. I remember I re-styled one of my ex-boyfriends. Four hours in there and he was like a new person. It’s just such a shame it doesn’t exist anymore. I’m getting emotional!’ It might seem weird to feel such a deep connection to what was essentially a chain clothing store. But I get it. Oxford Street’s flagship Topshop was both a destination, and a rite of passage – stepping onto those escalators and gliding into its subterranean underbelly meant deciding what kind of person you were going to be. For me, it’s been a lifesaver. I’ve cemented teen friendships in its depths, searched sweatily through it for emergency Monday morning fits to save face in the office, or imagined whole new personas for myself among its rails. Whenever I pass it, I half-imagine its familiar landscape is still intact behind the hoardings, with bored guys still wai

London is a bookworm’s paradise. Whether you’re after novels, comics, antiquarian tomes, or just somewhere beautiful to curl up with a good book, you’ll find it here in one of the many shops dedicated to the printed word. Hearteningly, the rise of online retailers hasn’t put a dent in the city’s characterful, welcoming book monger scene. Instead, bookshops have upped their game, offering personalised recommendations, readings, bookgroups and cosy cafés where you can enjoy your purchases over a steaming cuppa. Ready to turn over a new leaf? Here’s our guide to the best bookshops in London, whether you’re in central, north, east, south or west London. More of a borrower? Head to these lovely London libraries.  RECOMMENDED: Literary destinations and activities in London.Also: Our pick of the 100 best children’s books ever.    

Love him, hate him or express total indifference to him, there’s little denying that Andrew Lloyd Webber remains Britain’s most popular ever composer of musical theatre. From his great ’70s works with Tim Rice to his ’80s enormo-success and his more, ah, mixed years since, here’s our ranking of his major musicals, from the genuinely great stuff to the shows that history would probably have been better off forgetting. 18. Starlight Express Trains. Singing. On rollerskates. Why? Sure, the standard response is, ‘It’s for kids.’ But honestly, our nation’s youth have enough on their plates without having to worry about the love lives of a bunch of frisky steam engines. It runs permanently in a custom-built arena in a German city called Bochum: they can keep it. 17. The Beautiful Game Even at their worst, the truth is Lloyd Webber’s scores are rarely the main problem with his musicals, but his choice of lyricists not named ‘Tim Rice’ is often catastrophic. Teaming up with Ben Elton to write a very earnest original story about Ireland during The Troubles is possibly as bad an idea as either of them have ever had, and they have both had some truly terrible ideas. 16. Whistle Down the Wind On paper, the pairing of Lloyd Webber and Meat Loaf’s songwriter Jim Steinman sounded agreeably bombastic. In reality, this adaptation of the classic Brit flick – torturously transposed to the American South – was ponderous and dull. 15. Stephen Ward Maybe there is a good musical to be made from t

Marylebone is certainly one of London's swankier districts, its streets teeming with tourists, thrill-seekers and well-heeled locals. But that doesn't mean you have to resign yourself to boring, overpriced food. The area is chock-full of great restaurants, whether they're peddling haute cuisine or down-to-earth fare. You'll find fine dining, relaxed neighbourhood restaurants and hot new openings from hyped chefs sitting side by side in this fashionable corner of the West End. Venture off Oxford Street and seek out a meal to remember. Recommended: London's best restaurants

‘At first, I thought it was kind of weird. But now I’ll queue for over an hour. It’s kinda like being at a festival waiting for the best act to come on,’ says Sam Wong. She could easily be talking about a drop of limited-run trainers, the kind that have got streetwear savants salivating over nostalgic suede detailing. But instead, she’s talking about joining the queue for one of Chatsworth Bakehouse’s wildly popular sandwiches. ‘Even if it’s frickin pouring down with rain, it’s something to look forward to on a Saturday morning,’ she says. Once, the key to being a successful baker was mastering your lamination or nailing your sourdough. Now, it’s also about being a marketing genius who borrows strategies from the streetwear playbook to create clouds of hype and exclusivity around your wares, teasing your customers with Instagram stories that lovingly chronicle each fresh bake, the steam still rising from each golden crust. And Londoners are lapping it up, queuing round the block to cop one of Chatsworth Bakery’s one-off creations, hunting down Toad Bakery’s elusive wild garlic barrels or charting their fruitless quest to get a viral Korean milk doughnut from Bethnal Green’s Greedy Cow Bakery. There’s even a viral ‘croissant crawl’ trend on TikTok: ‘I think I’m in love with you… woke up and I can’t get you out of my head,’ runs the dreamy AWS song that inevitably soundtracks these narratives of pastry obsession. But when did pastries and bakes start becoming must-haves, instea

From Lebanon to Turkey, Israel to Egypt, the Middle East offers a thrilling range of fresh cuisines and flavours, and London's restaurants are a great place to try them. You'll find a kebab shop on every high street, but venture further afield and you'll discover that this city has been blessed with a host of world-class Middle Eastern restaurants, which will dazzle you with mezze to remember. Offering everything from tender grilled meats and kebabs to exceptional vegetarian dishes, these places will spice up your life. Here's our pick of the best. RECOMMENDED: London's best restaurants

Right now, there’s trouble brewing in Stratford. An unholy coterie of architects and developers are conspiring to bring a gigantic glowing globe to its streets. The MSG Sphere is a new concert venue that’s 110 metres high, and covered in over a million light emitting diodes that’ll either turn the night sky into a wondrous fairyland of glimmering adverts, or will be an obnoxious source of light pollution, depending on your point of view. Thankfully for angry locals, there’s still one step before the MSG Sphere needs to go through: approval from Mayor Sadiq Khan. London’s skyline may be littered with unlovable, seemingly ill-conceived projects (the Walkie Talkie that fried cars, the eerie, James Bond villain-like Strata Tower, the Millennium Bridge that dangerously wobbled) but there are thousands more grand schemes that never made it off the drawing board. Here’s a timeline of some of the most weirdly brilliant buildings to never grace this city’s streets. Photograph: Guildhall Library    1820: The giant pyramid of death 19th century London was literally overflowing with corpses, with putrid results. You may have heard of Necropolis Railway, the Victorian train line designed purely to ferry dead bodies from overcrowded London to graveyards in Surrey. But morbid 19th century inventors nearly went one step further. Pragmatic architect/entrepreneur Thomas Wilson drew up plans for a modish Egyptian-inspired pyramid on Primrose Hill, a 94 storey high behemoth large enough to hol

Thank god for spas. When you're feeling pummelled by the pressures of city life, make for a spa to be pummelled by massage therapists instead: soon, your stress will ebb luxuriously away like the retreating tide. There are some fab day spas right here in London, but venture out into the Home Counties and beyond to find the best (and priciest) examples of the genre: think grand, historic country houses with squadrons of super-skilled masseuses, steamy hot tubs, ornately-tiled pools, and elaborate extras like snow rooms. Most of them also have restaurants, bars and options for overnight stays, so you can keep that ultra-relaxed buzz going into the next day: perfect for a romantic mini break, chilled hen party, or solo treat. Here's our pick of the very best, located just an hour or less from the capital.  RECOMMENDED: Affordable spas in London

Sometimes, trawling London, it can feel like there aren’t that many fish in the sea. Good seafood is hard to come by – but when it’s done well, it’s probably the most delicious thing you can put in your mouth. We did the decent thing, spread the net wide and ate absolutely everything, so we could whittle down the very best. From fish and chips and Michelin-starred must-visits to sushi – with this list, London is your oyster. Go fish. RECOMMENDED: Eight London day-trips for seafood obsessives  

Holborn doesn't always have the most glamorous of reputations: sandwiched between trendier districts, it's full of harried office workers and bland lunch chains. But look a bit closer and you'll find some seriously good dining options, with none of the hype of Soho or the pre-theatre rush of Covent Garden. Whether you're after old school fish and chips, arty cafes, fancy fine dining or down-to-earth little neighbourhood eateries, you'll find it here.  Recommended: Here are London's best restaurants

Ancient traditions don’t get much more fun than Holi, the centuries-old festival where revellers mark the start of spring by hurling brightly coloured paint at each other. When is Holi 2023? Holi falls on Wednesday March 8 this year, although many celebrations will take place on the weekends before or after that date. What is Holi festival? It’s a millennia-old tradition celebrated across the Indian subcontinent by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and nonbelievers alike. For Hindus, it’s a time to celebrate the love of Radha Krishna and the triumph of good over evil with events that begin with a ritual evening bonfire, followed by coloured paint flinging, music and feasting the following day. But the paint-slinging part of the festivities is getting more and more popular across the world with both believers and non-believers, as everyone embraces the chance to cut loose, spread a little chaos, and get some dayglo-brite pics for the Gram.  Whether you’re after a traditional celebration of Indian culture or just an excuse to chuck some coloured power around, here are the places to go. Dig out some old clothes you don't mind getting messy and prepare for some serious fun. Recommended: Hungry for more? Check out London’s best Indian restaurants.

Did you know that there are currently three separate places in London where you can eat penis-shaped waffles? Yup, if you have an overwhelming urge to devour a golden, crunchy phallus in public you can do it here. But who are these erotic waffle joints actually for? Hen parties? Bemused tourists? Recovering cannibals? I first saw these waffles on TikTok and became mesmerised by the idea that such a frivolous, niche business idea could find a market in post-pandemic London (all three spots have opened since 2021). So of course I had to go to all three dick-slingers to try and work out why they’re staging an erotic food takeover of this beleagured city. Go eat a bag of dicks I head first to The Cockery, which serves up penis waffles on sticks in an atmosphere of intensely camp sterility. Its clean white and neon pink decor is ornamented with enigmatic slogans. ‘The experience is lived inside,’ says the frontage in large letters. Puzzling. I guess it makes more sense in Spanish (this joint’s original branches are all in Spain’s tourist hotspots). Within, all is clearer. An almost pathologically peppy woman behind the counter lays on the innuendo with a trowel as she squirts batter into metal dick-shaped moulds. ‘Are you ready to be pounded?’ she asks, aggressively carving extraneous stray bits off the freshly made waffle cocks. Then, it’s time for decoration. ‘Do you want European, Latin, African or Welsh?’ she asks, in what feels like an unnecessarily racialised way of describi

A massive neon ladder sits centre stage in this boisterous production of 1961 musical satire ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’. Why? It's the corporate ladder, duh! This is no place for subtlety: instead, it's a tale from the bad old days of corporate sleaze, packed with dangerously sexy secretaries and obnoxiously nepotistic bosses who young hero Finch must step right over on his way to the top.Written by ‘Guys and Dolls’ guy Frank Loesser, the musical's massively popular in the US: there was a big Broadway revival starring Daniel Radcliffe not so long ago. But UK audiences haven't traditionally seen the allure of its overly jaunty take on grim capitalist skulduggery. However, Georgie Rankcom's joyfully queer production has a better chance than most, upturning the original's bleak heteronormativity by casting trans performers in key roles.Gabrielle Friedman takes on the central part of plucky everyguy Finch and plays it straight, a foil to the huge personalities around him. As Finch attempts to work his way out of the mailroom of World Wide Wickets and into the boardroom, he’s helped by his sweet doormat secretary/girlfriend Rosemary. In a standout performance, Allie Daniel subverts this role with velvety-voiced glee – she sweetly sings that she's ‘happy to keep his dinner warm’ but then breaks into a baritone impression of her husband that suggests she's more than a match for him.Tracie Bennett drags up with great success to play JB Biggley, the boss that F

Nope, this play has nothing to do with the barbeques, wasps and ice cream van chimes that fill England in peak summer. Instead Sir Lenny Henry’s sunny but ultimately devastating first play centres on a man named August, who’s as much a part of the nation’s furniture as any calendar month. Alone on stage, he spends most of his time lovingly conjuring the hubbub of ordinary life for this Caribbean-born, firmly British man, before building his story to a formidable critique of the way the Windrush generation has been betrayed. Henry really knows how to captivate an audience, leading us along with him like we're eager dogs on strings as he takes us on an amble through August's formative years. He comes to the UK aged eight, shining with hope and judiciously-applied Vaseline as he contemplates his future. There are shocks along the way: the racism of his classmates, the realisation that he'll never make it as a Black Country Bob Marley. But Henry’s approach favours sunshine over storms, lighting up every corner of the theatre with his serotonin-boostingly warm charisma as he narrates August's life co-owning a fruit and veg shop with his mate Iqbal, and bringing up three kids. Ignore the silvery beard, this 64-year-old bursts with energy, whether he's bopping across the stage or tenderly slow-dancing with a concrete pillar. Henry's so good at joy but perhaps there could be more moody introspection here. We discover August and his dad were both unfaithful with red-haired women, bu

This review is from the Lyric Hammersmith in March. ‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist’ will transfer to the West End in June. If you’re struggling to manage your misery at the general state of the UK, then invigorating political comedy ‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist’ is both much cheaper than a therapy session and vastly more entertaining. Writer Tom Basden and director Daniel Raggett have managed to pull off something nothing less than brilliant. They’ve created an adaptation of Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s 1970s Italian farce that’s simultaneously packed with righteous anger at our country’s political establishment, and so funny that even the most earnest champagne socialist will spit out their drink laughing.Bafta-winning actor Daniel Rigby delivers a toweringly good performance as he presides over the mayhem as ‘The Maniac’. He plays a bumptious fantasist who believes he’s constantly performing for an audience that no one else can see, allowing him to constantly break the fourth wall by vamping for laughs or even throwing sweets, panto-style. In the past, he’s impersonated doctors and lawyers. Now, he’s taking on the criminal justice system by pretending to be a judge who turns up at a police station to investigate the mysterious death of an anarchist in custody. It soon becomes clear that the police are putting on a show of their own, rearranging the facts like so much stage furniture, and delivering fictitious monologues designed to drive suspects into a state of ‘rap

If some jukebox musicals suffer from a flimsy plot, then Broadway import ‘Ain’t Too Proud’ has the opposite problem. This story of Motown vocal quintet The Temptations has more plot complications than its stars have dapper satin suit jackets. I didn't know a massive amount about the group, so was astonished that 27 different guys have been in this ever-changing quintet through its 63 (and counting) year history, as it fragmented under the weight of egos, addiction, prejudice and the cruelties of age. Playwright Dominique Morisseau tells their stories with more efficiency than emotion, only hinting at the pain underneath their silky smooth harmonies. The breakneck narrative of the group's rise is narrated by its longest-standing member Otis, who wrote the memoir on which this show is based. Perhaps that’s why it feels like the book toes the party line a bit, acting as a theatrical victory lap for a band that's had no shortage of accolades. All the expected beats are here. Young Otis (Sifiso Mazibuko) starts out as a plucky fish out of water in ’60s Detroit. But when he discovers that this is a city with vocal groups bebopping on every street corner, he's right at home. Soon, the original five has assembled: Otis, Paul (Kyle Cox), Eddie (Mitchell Zhangazha), Melvin (Cameron Bernard Jones) and David (Tosh Wanogho-Maud), delighting home crowds with smooth Motown numbers like their breakout hit, ‘My Girl’. The vocal performances here are on point, complete with spine-tingling fals

Interview: Anoushka Lucas, the struggling singer-songwriter who accidentally became the star of ‘Sexy Oklahoma!’ When I started hearing salacious rumours online about a New York production of the Rodger & Hammerstein classic nicknamed ‘Sexy Oklahoma!’, I knew I had to see it, seduced by the promise of a staging that would strip all the gingham kitsch and yeehawing jollity from this 1943 musical.  I was raised on Golden Age movie musicals, but was disillusioned with their sanitised aesthetic, with the Technicolor sheen that the friends I attempted to convert had bristled at. Since then, director Daniel Fish’s massively hyped production has soared from New York's St Ann's Warehouse to Broadway, before being remounted (with some original cast in place) at London's Young Vic. A West End victory lap was inevitable. And I was chomping at the bit (to use an appropriately Western metaphor) to finally experience it.It turns out that when people say ‘Sexy Oklahoma!’, they really mean it. Not because this production’s full of rippling biceps or heaving bosoms – or even actual sex – but because it’s an edgy, rock ‘n’ roll depiction of a community whose only way to cut loose is by having sex or firing a gun. And they do plenty of both.With sex so firmly in the foreground, everything about this story shifts. In traditional productions, boy-crazy farm girl Ado Annie is pure comic relief. When she sings ‘I'm just a girl who can't say no!’, it's a straightforward excuse for some jolly old-ti

Joe White’s intriguing new play is basically a romcom... but a messy one, a pissed-up one, one whose protagonists’ memories are blurred by days and nights of blackout drinking. Named only ‘him’ and ‘her’, their meet-cute happens outside an AA meeting. He’s shaking (from alcohol withdrawal, not romantic nerves) so she whisks him off for a medicinal drink. Delirium tremens can be fatal, she tells him.But failing to quit can be fatal, too. Their downward slide starts as a kind of addled oddball romance between a broke art student and his troubled older lover: he steals a priest’s communion wine for her, and together they smash the window of his art school so they can break in and admire his paintings. Then things get infinitely bleaker, as he gets sick and they try to go dry, together, as a broken health system only intermittently gives them the support they need.Alex Austin is fascinating to watch as ‘him’: he starts out monosyllabic, struggling to squeeze his words out like he’s wringing toothpaste from a nearly-empty tube. But as alcohol starts to pump through his veins again, he’s charismatic and wild, more than a match for Rebecca Humphries’s livewire barfly ‘her’. She‘s written as a kind of booze-pickled manic pixie drunk girl: she attempts Dorothy Parker-esque witticisms, and talks about alcohol in allusive terms, calling it ‘medicine’, or a ‘river’ that fills her up, then bloats her. There’s a bonkers, wonderful scene where she imagines herself as a plague-sore-covered p

Where most art forms strive for novelty, West End theatre’s appetite for artistic cannibalism is pretty much limitless, as it hungrily raids pop culture in search of sweet, sweet box office gold. You’ve got verbatim Wag drama in ‘Rooney v Vardy’. Netflix-inspired excitement in forthcoming play ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’. And now, a chance to relive the thrills and spills of a much-loved reality telly show, in the form of ‘The Great British Bake Off Musical’. As the poster for ABBA jukebox musical ‘Mamma Mia!’ says, ‘You already know you're gonna love it!’.I mean, baking-based innuendo and musical theatre numbers, what's not to like, right? In fact, even if you love its main ingredients, you might not be fully satisfied by Jake Brunger and Pippa Cleary’s show, which arrives in the West End after starting life in Cheltenham last year. This musical resides deep in the murkiest dells of Uncanny Valley: everything about it feels faintly familiar, leaving you playing guessing games about what's been nicked from where. Some bits are oh-so straightforward. ‘Phil Hollinghurst’ is a barely-veiled Paul Hollywood – helpfully, seasoned West End actor John Owen-Jones has the dark eyebrows and silver hair to make that one obvious. ‘Pam Lee’ is self-evidently Prue Leith – here, Haydn Gwynne sports authentically horrible statement necklaces, and makes fabulous work of her old-school Broadway-style song and dance numbers (at one point, she even turns a cartwheel). These charismatic

For the love of God don’t come to the NT expecting warring families, Shakespearian insults, and bumbling apothecaries. Gary Owen’s down-to-earth ‘Romeo and Julie’ wears its source matter very, very lightly, to the point where it’s only after you leave the theatre that you trace the connections between Shakespeare’s tragic couple and this pair of teenagers, struggling with the responsibilities of young parenthood in a working-class Welsh community.Instead of centring the push and pull of romantic love, Owen ingeniously charts another tug of war: the one between achieving your personal dreams, and sacrificing yourself for your family. His 18-year-old Romeo (Callum Scott Howells) has nobly chosen to put aside his own ambitions in favour of dealing with his baby daughter’s ‘poonamis’, with little help from his alcoholic mother Barb (the drily hilarious Catrin Aaron), who’s always minutes away from calling social services. But Julie’s dreams are harder to put on hold. Rosie Sheehy is engagingly spiky and complex as this ambitious teenager, who’s got an offer to study physics at Cambridge. She falls for both Romeo and his baby. But her parents are furious when this love threatens the academic future they’ve given their all to support.Both Romeo and Julie explicitly question why we’ve created a world where a pair of loving young parents are seen as a problem, instead of a potential blessing. But Owen also shows how Julie’s changing priorities drain the life from her: ‘I'm too exhau

In the wake of mega hits ‘Hamilton’ and ‘Emilia’, it feels like a hip hop suffragette musical is what theatre fans are crying out for. But despite a dynamite cast, ZooNation director Kate Prince’s ‘Sylvia’ probably won’t get audiences rioting in the streets. Retooled after an Old Vic run in 2018 that was hastily restyled as a work-in-progress, it’s now polished but painfully polite, steering clear of political rabble-rousing in favour of a historically faithful trundle through early twentieth-century politics. Sylvia starts out as her mother Emmeline Pankhurst’s protegée. In a song that hits many of the same bases as ‘My Shot’ from ‘Hamilton’ (the first of lots of hard-to-ignore parallels), she outlines her mission: to get the vote for women, with her family’s full support. Sharon Rose’s likeable performance here is full of bright-eyed sincerity, but what’s missing is a sense of the obstreperousness that Sylvia must have had: it’s jarring when she’s tried in court for ‘abusive language and causing a public disturbance’ when all she’s done is rather sweetly call a few men ‘cocks’, with accompanying playground flapping-chicken arms. Matters aren’t helped by the tasteful monochrome full-skirted costumes, either, which make Sylvia’s gang look like they’re about to hand you a plate of buns in some kind of old-timey tearoom. As Mama Emmeline, Beverley Knight adds a bit of welcome fire, but she feels underused. She incites the gang to march for women’s rights in a gospel-style numbe

An ordinary suburban house bears the scars of past traumas in Deborah Bruce’s new play: its curtains hide unwanted surprises, its stairs creak with banished memories, its carpet is horribly stained. ‘Dixon and Daughters’ is a different kind of haunted house drama, one that builds from slow beginnings to something disturbing and memorable.At first, you feel like a ghost that's drifted into someone else's home; the relationships and backstories only emerge gradually. Grey-haired Mary (Brid Brennan) has been away for a while, and her daughters are fetching and carrying for her, trying to tempt her out of her apathy with cod and parsley sauce. But she's unwilling to play the cuddly granny. Instead, she's angry that her lost-seeming, hard-drinking daughter Julie (Andrea Lowe) has been sleeping in her bed, and chafes against more sensible sister Bernie (Liz White) when she attempts to mother her.Soon, two still more chaotic presences arrive to stir up the dust. Stepsister Briana (Alison Fitzjohn) leans in to her presence as black sheep of the family by swooping around in a fur-trimmed cape, vengeful in her quest for closure. Homeless Leigh (Posy Sterling) is offered a bed, and in return gives up hilariously inappropriate (but generally correct) insights into the family's underlying tensions: when Mary shows her a picture of her late husband, she says that he looks like he ‘wants sucking off.’Bruce's writing deftly scratches out the outlines of these abrasive, damaged, strange women

The title of Ruby Thomas’s play suggests some kind of cringey comedy double act, but the reality is weightier, stranger and sexier than that. ‘Linck & Mülhahn’ is the true story of two gender pioneers in eighteenth-century Prussia. Anastasius Linck boldly renounces skirts and embroidery in favour of living as a man, and Catharina Mulhahn's own act of bravery is to love and marry him, slipping their relationship right under the noses of their narrow-minded neighbours. They were ultimately tried for sodomy, and this could easily be one of those depressing stories that queer history books are littered with, the ones where people dare to be different and then get crushed by conventional society’s peppermill. But Thomas's big innovation here is to pull out and imagine all the fun, creativity and joy behind the stark historical court transcript that inspired this play. Mülhahn (Helena Wilson) is a 22-year-old rebel who derails her mother's matchmaking attempts by threatening to fart or crap on the floor. Refreshingly, Mülhahn senior (Lucy Black) is given just as much spirit. ‘I don't lurk, it is inelegant. I linger’, she says, both women relishing all the humour in a script that's stuffed with larky historicisms like ‘zounds’ and ‘dunderhead’. Her first meetings with Linck (a cocky, unreadable Maggie Bain) are full of both beautifully written moments of sexual tension and quite a lot of actual sex: he works in a fabric shop, where their fingers lovingly caress folds of silk before

If you haven't yet heard of ‘Newsies’ (let alone watched the 2012 Broadway production on Disney+), it's kind of hard to explain the appeal of this peppy and thoroughly American musical. But imagine a cross between ‘Annie’, ‘Les Miserables’, and one of those elaborate gymnastic-based spectacles staged by communist countries and you're halfway there. And Troubadour Theatre's high-octane production captures all its vigorous spirit, sending its huge cast of plucky, rebellious paperboys tumbling and leaping across its mammoth stage as they stand up to the big bosses who are determined to grind them down. The year is 1899, the place is New York, and the times are hardscrabble ones, where orphans must choose between fending for themselves, or living three to a bed in a rat-infested institution called The Refuge. Needless to say, this show's protagonists choose freedom, eking out a precarious living selling newspapers on the street. But when dastardly newspaper boss Joseph Pulitzer decides to eat into their meagre profits by raising the prices they must pay for each paper, the boys risk everything by going on strike.It's a story that feels massively relevant at a time when half the UK's either on strike or wishing it was, but this is not the show for gritty social realism. Lead rabble-rouser Jack Kelly, played with spirit by Michael Ahomka-Lindsay, is easily this show's most complex character, as he wrestles with guilt about leading his mates into potential penury. His more thinly dr

It looked great in the pics. Then it arrives and there's a weird pit stain, the sleeves are designed for someone with Barbie doll arms, or the fabric is as sweat-inducingly plasticky as an Aldi bin bag. Sound familiar? Online shopping for secondhand clothes means rolling the dice, with as many dismal failures as shining successes. But if you long to try before you buy, you're in luck. Depop, the app that makes buying secondhand fashion online both easy and addictive, has decided to go old school and host a live London event this May. What makes this pop-up different from just going to a vintage shop or market is the fact that it runs after dark, with DJs and plenty of artful curation. Big Depop sellers including PascaleEliza, bensbits, byeanna, shopvivien, karakoa, youthclubstore, att_a_Gril, and marieyoung will all bring their carefully selected wares along. And their stuff will be arranged according to themes like ‘romantic grunge’, ‘exaggerated minimalism’, ‘sports remix’, or the more cryptic ‘alien waters’ – giving you everything you need to soft launch a new summer aesthetic (the space sea monster lewk is going to be huge at the festivals this year). There'll also be plenty of hands on extras, with stalls where you can get nail art or tooth gems, try screen printing, or make your own phone beads, plus the obligatory photo ops. Female-led radio station Foundation FM has curated a line-up of DJs with surprise headliners tba, and there'll also be rum cocktails from Havana C

We've barely shaken off the spring drizzle, but already, London's gearing up for a summer of transport drama. Rail strikes are planned across the network, as disputes continue over pay and working conditions. The freshly-unveiled Elizabeth line is the sparkling purple jewel in the crown of TfL's network, renowned for its fierce air conditioning and vertiginous escalators. But it's not safe from this latest round of disruption. The Elizabeth line cost £20bn to build but it's already paying off. Ridership levels are higher than TfL's projections, with two million more riders than they predicted trying the service in its first 10 months, and nearly half of Londoners having taken a trip on its Quality Street-hued trains. This popularity has been a bonanza for its bosses, and it's on track to break even this year. Still, it's not all good news.  The TSSA union isn't happy with its workers' pay packages, which it says are often less than two thirds of the salaries paid to other TfL workers in similar roles. Now, it's planning industrial action that's calculated to embarrass transport bosses into action. When is the Elizabeth line strike? Strike action is scheduled for Wednesday May 24, which is exactly a year since the Elizabeth line opened to great fanfare. As well as tarnishing the line's big anniversary, this action will have big knock on effects. It's set to affect the most used section of the line, which falls between Paddington and Abbey Wood, and the disruption is likely to

Hidden away among the abundant retail opportunities of Lewisham Shopping Centre is a space it doesn't cost a penny to enjoy. Lewisham Community Space has taken over an old shopfront and transformed it into a spot that offers a jam-packed line-up of activities for locals. Parents can turn up to the nursery and have a coffee while volunteers entertain their kids. There are tons of fitness classes that have a special emphasis on appealing to women and teenage girls, including yoga, dance, archery, table tennis, Zumba, boxing, and spin sessions, as well as seated exercise for people who can't access standard classes. And there's also a programme of social support and hot meals available on a drop in basis to those in need.  All this was made possible by a link-up between Lewisham Council and a group of not-for-profits and charities including Enable and The Felix Project. But now, its trial period is coming to an end, and the project's organisers are asking people to sign a petition to keep its doors open. So why sign? Well, as the cost of living crisis bites, there's a massive need for free opportunities for people to get healthy and connect with other people, instead of just struggling to get by. It's also an example of the kind of public health project that'll ultimately take a lot of pressure off the overstretched NHS, by giving people accessible ways to take care of their own physical wellbeing. And it's also a bit of a vision of the kind of thing that London's shopping centr

Prince Charles Cinema is better known for boozy all-night movie marathons than making political statements, but it delighted its loyal (and sleep-deprived regulars) this week when it proudly announced that it had no intention of bowing down to our new monarch. ‘No, we are not changing our name,’ its marquee now reads in proud black letters. Thank god for that. And how did the cinema follow up its tweet about their refusal to name change? With some movies you can see there on Saturday, instead of the wall-to-wall telly corrie naish coverage, including ‘Evil Dead Rises’ and deeply disturbing art horror classic ‘Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom’. ‘Coronation or Salo. Both stomach churning.’ replied one commenter. But not every London landmark has that kind of invigorating anti-establishment spirit. Here are the places that are actually changing their name: Her Majesty's Theatre The stained glass on the front of this venerable West End playhouse has already been changed to read ‘His Majesty's’, but the big switcheroo hasn't been made official yet. Still, given that the venue's owned by ardent royalist Andrew Lloyd Webber – who's even taken it upon himself to compose a coronation anthem he hopes will be sung in churches across the land – you can bet there'll be substantial amounts of fanfare involved in its grand unveiling.  And perhaps as much drama as the famous chandelier drop in the venue's resident spectacular, ‘The Phantom of the Opera’. Premier Inn Not content with paying Sir

As the King’s coronation approaches, London is finding ever more creative ways to court the hordes of royalists who’ll be in town for the big weekend. In the transport-themed category alone, there are boat parties, bus tours or rides in the London Eye’s official Coronation Capsule, complete with velvet-draped throne. But why stop there? One company is letting people pretend to be an actual member of ‘the firm’ by offering chauffeured rides in the late Queen Mother’s car.This high-end set of wheels is a Jaguar Daimler limousine that could once be spotted pootling round ’80s Kensington, carrying its headscarf-wearing owner and a corgi or two, and painted in the royal colours of black and burgundy. In 1991, it was given to the mayor of Richmond-upon-Thames, and its origins were soon forgotten as it changed hands multiple times. Eventually, car enthusiast Trevor Lee bought it for just £2,000, and devoted himself to restoring it, before doing some serious digging to uncover its royal origins. Now, Milestone Hotel and Beyond Curated are teaming up to provide city tours in this historic motor. The route focuses on the UK’s three King Charles, past and present. That means getting a secret tour from Tower of London’s Yeoman Warders, poking around Hampton Court Palace before it opens and stopping in at more unexpected destinations like Guildhall Art Gallery, which holds a bust of a youthful Prince Charles made in 1969. There’s also the chance for shopping sprees at top hat shop Locke &

The London marathon happens (pretty much) every year, but somehow that doesn't stop it coming as a huge surprise to even the most seasoned city-dwellers. So if you're not already clued up, please be warned that this Sunday April 23, you'll find 42,000 sweat-drenched runners stampeding through the city, trailing cheering fans, road closures, traffic restrictions in their wake. If your weekend plans involve a pleasant stroll through Blackheath, motoring over Tower Bridge, or picnicking in St James' Park, please read on. Knowledge is power.  RELATED: Here's where to watch the marathon from along the routeHow to watch the London marathon on tv or livestream this yearThe full route the London marathon is taking in 2023 What roads will be closed for the London marathon 2023? Photograph: courtesy of London Marathon This handy map marks the overall route. But the roads on it aren't necessarily closed all day. Instead, their closing times are staggered as the runners make their way from Greenwich to central London, meaning that an afternoon browsing the chichi shops of Blackheath is far from off the cards. Read on for a full breakdown of road closures and times:Charlton Way, Greenwich: 4am to 1pmShooters Hill Road: 4am to 1pmSt John’s Park: 4am to 1pmCharlton Park Road: 4am to 1pmOld Dover Road: 4am to 1pmLittle Heath: 7am to 1pmCharlton Park Lane: 7am to 1pmArtillery Place: 7am to 1pmJohn Wilson Street: 7am to 1pmWoolwich Church Street: 7am to 2pmWoolwich Road: 7am to 2pmTrafalgar

If you splashed out £18m on a mansion, you'd imagine you'd want to actually live in it, right? Pick out some classy rugs, splash some Farrow & Ball paint around, and then put some cheesy garden gnomes out front just to piss off your oh-so-tasteful neighbours? Well, not everyone thinks that way. In Westminster neighbourhood Chesterfield Hill, 53% of homes are unoccupied. And that's despite homes on its streets going for nearly twenty million, attracting stratospheric prices thanks to their seven storey size and prime location just minutes from Mayfair. New data from This is Money shows that Chesterfield Hill is London's most unoccupied neighbourhood, and that's backed up by a look around this pricy street: the blinds on many of its mansions are down and everything looks eerily immaculate, with few traces of human activity to be found. Their billionaire owners often appoint receptionists or concierges to protect these valuable houses, but seldom visit them, either leaving them empty as investments, or staying there for the odd flying visit each year. The other neighbourhoods with the highest unoccupied rates fall in the boroughs of Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, and Camden; the places where London's priciest residential properties are to be found. It's all particularly galling given that London's in the grip of an intense housing shortage, with the latest SpareRoom figures showing that average rent jumped by a whopping 20 percent in the first quarter of this year as demand

Frankly, most of us would rather forget our teen years: the spray-on jeans, the greasy fringes, the humiliating bids for romantic love and the undying allegiance to Panic! At the Disco. But that doesn't mean we should forget about the people that are actual teens right now. London’s current crop of young people may have missed out on the golden age of emo, but even so they’ve had a seriously rough ride of it lately. They’ve missed out on months or years of schooling due to the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis is biting and the spaces that offer them a refuge are under threat. New research by charity London Youth has found that a third of this city’s youth clubs are at risk of closure, due to rising costs and local authority funding cuts. And it’s offering you a chance to help. Its new campaign asks Londoners to donate to keep these precious spaces alive, raising cash for over 600 youth clubs and organisations. These local hubs offer sports, arts, mental health, employability and social programmes to young people, keeping them inspired and out of trouble (and/or off TikTok). They give teenagers trusted youth workers they can confide in, away from the fraught environments of home and school. And they also help guide them into jobs, something that’s extra important given that 21 percent of the UK’s unemployed young people live in London.   So if you've got warm fuzzy memories of your local youth club (or just of nights in front of the telly wishing you could go to Grange Hill

If you’re the kind of person who froths with rage when someone puts their phone on loudspeaker on public transport, you’re going to need to stay away from the tube for the next few weeks. It’s just not safe for you down there right now. Because some weird guy is popping up everywhere on the London Underground network, performing energetic tapdancing routines while wearing only silk boxer shorts and a flapping dressing gown. Frankly, it’s the kind of attention-hogging behaviour that gives theatre kids a bad name, and understandably, not everyone’s happy about it. Disgruntled TikTok user Molly posted a video of her interrupted Central line journey, with the caption ‘casual tap dancer on the tube. see it. say it. pls will someone sort it.’ The comments were similarly bewildered. ‘Y is he doing this on every line like he’s collecting infinity stones,’ asked one commenter. ‘Saw him on northern yesterday.’ Other videos show the nimble eccentric tapdancing on empty platforms and going down escalators. But what’s this guy’s deal? ‘We’ll see a lot more of that if our energy bills keep going up,’ said another commenter, implying that tapdancing guy has had a cozzy livs-induced nervous breakdown.  Certainly, his state of semi-undress does suggest that either he got locked out when he was putting the rubbish out, or that he’s living in a different reality from the rest of us. But look a bit closer and the picture gets more complicated. For starters, he’s clearly a professiona

Ah, there’s something so deliciously refreshing about a good transport-related complaining session. Pretty much every Londoner loves to spend a pleasurable hour or two grumbling about TfL services: the inevitable strikes, the sweat-inducing overcrowding, the ever-rising ticket prices, and the inspirational quotes on whiteboards saccharine enough to make you spit out your coffee in disgust. But don’t for a single second think that they actually mean it. Because, according to Time Out’s new survey, a frankly astonishing 91 percent of Londoners are happy with their city’s public transport options. Time Out asked 20,000 city-dwellers from around the world whether they thought it was easy to get around their city by public transport, and more than nine out of ten Londoners said it was. It’s easy to see why: our city’s Underground, bus, tube, train and tram options mean that you can get pretty much anywhere in London without ever needing a car. Maps and apps make services extra easy to use. And the branding is pretty iconic, with Londoners willingly giving house room to tube-roundel mugs or moquette-patterned sofas.  Still, that doesn’t mean that London’s transport bosses should get complacent. Berlin bagged the top spot, with 98 percent of locals waxing lyrical about the city’s chic, comfortable, and oh-so-easy-to-use public transport options. Other cities that beat London in terms of approval ratings include Prague, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Shan

Forget the London Dungeons and its crew of facepaint-wearing, caterwauling ghouls. One of London's most genuinely haunting attractions has to be the Old Operating Theatre Museum, which resides in a creaky timber-lined attic above St Thomas’s Church, next to London Bridge Station. Two hundred years ago, operations were performed up there without either anaesthetic or antiseptic, making them a bloody dangerous business. Surgeons would wait until noon to get the best light they could, and would conduct amputations in front of an audience of medical students who watched the gory action from five rows of bearpit-style wooden benches. And although you can no longer hear the screams of the patients who once lost limbs here, you can still see a fascinating array of 1820s medical paraphernalia, from terrifyingly pointy instruments to mysterious herbal tinctures to arcane texts.  Since December, it’s been closed, as its cracked 1960s skylight was replaced with something both more modern, and more sensitive to the atmosphere of this historic space, thanks to a £157,230 grant from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports. But now, it’s back in action and ready to send shivers down the spines of curious museumgoers once more. Its newest attraction is a Local Artist Exhibition featuring 20 works inspired by its collections: there’s certainly plenty to draw on, whether it’s the natural beauty of the dried plants that hang from the roof of its herb garret or the more sinister ch

Apart from a few pockets of wildness – buddleia sprouting from abandoned pockets of land, the wooded sprawl of Hampstead Heath, overgrown railway sidings where foxes frolic – there’s not much that’s natural about London’s landscape. Even its most green and pleasant bits are often covered in carefully managed lawns or deliberately planted patches of flowers. So it’s pretty surprising that one of the UK’s latest Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) could be a little-known patch of this city. You probably haven’t heard of Farthing Downs in Coulsdon, south London, but if its bid to become an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty gets approved, that’s likely to change. The planned proposals would add it to the Surrey Hills AONB, which it adjoins, making it the first London area to achieve this honour, giving it extra protection from planning proposals and ensuring it’s well conserved in the future. So what makes Farthing Downs so special? To the untutored eye, it looks like a large and especially nice park, one with scrubby grass, hedgerows and trees. But go deeper and you’ll discover that it's a magical place, one that’s dotted with the mysterious detritus of history, from neolithic burial mounds to traces of Saxon farms to the remnants of WWII anti-aircraft guns. It’s already designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for its impressive range of flora and fauna, including skylarks, orchids, pipistrelle bats, roe deer and Roman snails (which our Latin-speaking for