Katie McCabe

Want to get more involved with your food than just mere peeling, chopping and cooking? Head to a pick-your-own farm in and around London to get as close as you can get to the process without growing your fruit and vegetables yourself. Core picking season is May to August, but the produce available depends on the season. Go along in June to fill a punnet with gleaming strawberries, delight in sunflowers in August, or gather autumnal apples, pumpkins and squashes in September – the choice is yours! London is surrounded by farms with acres of PYO fields to keep you busy all summer. Heading into the fields and getting picking isn’t just a great day trip (although it definitely is that, too) – it’s also a brilliant way of boosting your sustainability, cutting out all that extra plastic packaging at the supermarket. Plus, you’ll be able to snap a ton of stunning selfies and keep the kids occupied. REMEMBER: Check the farm’s website beforehand to find out what produce is available, as crop seasons change from year to year. And no eating while you pick. Keep all your juicy finds in their punnets for weighing up. RECOMMENDED: Outdoor London

The 2024 cherry blossom season is drawing closer, so it’s time to gear up for the capital’s special colourful spectacle that signals warmer days are on the way.  Cherry blossom season in Japan is a major event, with vistors from around the world flocking over to get a glimpse of the petals in full bloom but if you can’t make it over for this year’s sakura season London has plenty of bloomin’ marvellous places to see the flowers. The pastel pink blooms tend to grace our parks from April, but in warmer years this can be as early as much, whereas in cooler years as late as May.  You can find cherry blossoms in some of London’s best parks and lining pretty suburban streets. From the candyfloss arches of Greenwich Park, to the Cherry Walk in Kew Gardens, London folk are spoilt for choice. Get your camera at the ready and find out if one of these top places to see cherry blossom in London is conveniently on your doorstep. RECOMMENDED: The best places to see spring flowers in London

Online escape rooms take place entirely through your screen, and even though it’s a novel concept dreamt up during the Covid-19 lockdown, there are already many variations of the genre. Some blend the code-cracking with a bit of interactive theatre using Zoom, others use a digital version of an escape room that can be played through an avatar. London escape rooms have now reopened, but unlike the virtual Zoom quiz boom, these online replacements seem to have stuck. Want to assemble a team and try one for yourself? Here are four online games that have proved themselves to be more than a lockdown fad. Want some more ideas for hosting a virtual fun night? Get friends and family living at distance together by playing some of our best online party games, testing your knowledge with online trivia games or getting messy with drinking games you can play over a screen.

A large chunk of this year was spent hiding under a hypothetical rock that robbed us of all sense of time, so it’s understandable if you forgot Father’s Day is on its way (this year it’s Sunday June 20). But we just reminded you. So don’t forget. With most international holidays still off the cards, it’s going to be a tough date for anyone who doesn’t happen to live in easy travelling distance of their family members. If you are fortunate enough to live in the same city as your parent, we’ve gathered some decent and not at all naff ways to spend the day together. If not, we’ve included some online-only ideas to help you catch up remotely.  Still not found what you’re after? Try our guide to London’s unusual things to do. RECOMMENDED: Our full guide to celebrating Father’s Day in London.

Matthew Barney’s first UK show in ten years is an ambitious exploration of the Idaho landscape told through etchings and huge tree sculptures. But its core piece is a work you can take home via Mubi link: Barney’s wordless two-and-a-half-hour feature film about wolf hunters, set in the Sawtooth Mountains. Here the artist explains the ideas behind his conceptual American art western, and tells us why wolves are ‘nothing like dogs’. Hi Matthew. How has lockdown been for you?‘I work with a team of people, and have for some time. The filmmaking and sculpture demand that, and a number of the people I work with have been a part of the team for many years, so there’s a trust and shared knowledge that we have developed. The pandemic certainly changed the pace with which we could work at the studio, but we managed to reopen quite early in the process and have maintained productivity throughout. I think, in part, this is because we are so close as a team.’ Your latest exhibition involves a feature film, large-scale sculptures and etchings, what was the most difficult aspect of pulling it all together?‘Making a comprehensive exhibition with all of the elements of a larger project is always a challenge. Balancing the presence of the film with that of the sculpture is the trickiest part. The architecture of the Hayward Gallery provides an interesting frame for this show, with its bunker-like volumes and the slot windows that resemble turrets – it creates a meaningful conversation with t

Digital theatre has come a very long way since the first lockdown in March 2020: initially, a number of big institutions threw open their digital archives to allow free streaming of the productions they’d pre-recorded for cinema or archive. As time wore on, an increasing number of original works of digital theatre have been created, while several theatres – notably the Old Vic – have opted to stream fully live performances from empty theatres, a practice that is allowed to continue during lockdowns. While some shows are simply now available to stream indefinitely, this is a round up of shows that are either performed live or only available to watch for a limited time. Many of them are pay-for and ticketed. There’s also a basic round-up of digital streaming platforms.

Online escape rooms take place entirely through your screen, and even though it’s a novel concept dreamt up during the Covid-19 lockdown, there are already many variations of the genre. Some blend the code-cracking with a bit of interactive theatre using Zoom, others use a digital version of an escape room that can be played through an avatar. London escape rooms have now reopened, but unlike the virtual Zoom quiz boom, these online replacements seem to have stuck. Want to assemble a team and try one for yourself? Here are four online games that have proved themselves to be more than a lockdown fad. Want some more ideas for hosting a virtual fun night? Get friends and family living at distance together by playing some of our best online party games, testing your knowledge with online trivia games or getting messy with drinking games you can play over a screen.

Trying to see a museum exhibition in 2020 was like playing a game of cultural Whack-a-Mole (now you see them, now you don’t!). If you were lucky, you might have scored a time slot to see the Design Museum’s sensational ‘Electronic’ exhibit or the British Museum’s ‘Arctic’ display between lockdowns. Just as we were getting used to wandering around these half-empty landmarks in a mask, they’d suddenly shut up shop again. But for every exhibition you missed last year, there will be a shiny new one to make up for it in 2021, whether it’s the V&A’s deep dive into the abject weirdness of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ or the welcome return of the ‘Museum of the Home’ (formerly known as the Geffrye Museum). Launch dates may be tenuous, but London’s museums are still working away behind closed doors so there will be something to see when they finally reopen. It might not seem like it now, but there’s a lot to look forward to. You’ve got some time on your hands; might as well spend it booking tickets for the good stuff.

This year sucked. Yes, almost everything life-affirming about London was curtailed, diminished or banned in 2020. But unless we find some way to feel positive about the future, the present becomes a grim place indeed. In 2020, unable to rely on the conventional triad of friends, nice food and booze, Londoners had to find new ways to channel positivity. The city’s ever-resourceful pubs, restaurants, theatres, galleries, cinemas, performers and artists have found ingenious ways to keep going in the hardest of circumstances. And Londoners learnt and discovered new things about the city while their busy lives were on pause. From takeaway pints and drive-in cinemas to canalside ballet and seated clubbing, here are some of the things that have brought joy in this godforsaken year. Recommened: our Love Local campiagn supporting the city’s independent businesses. 

The concept of ‘heroes’ is a complex one. In the early months of lockdown, a new, effusive kind of gratitude opened up for what was broadly termed ‘the key workers’ – the delivery drivers, the teachers, the carers, the refuse collectors and the NHS frontline staff – many of whom were forced to carry out their jobs in unsafe conditions so we could hold on to some semblance of normality.  It begs the question, why did it take a crisis like this one to recognise the people our society cannot function without? At the Southbank Centre, just a few of these individuals have had their faces and stories represented in an enormous outdoor exhibition. There are intimate portraits of taxi drivers, shopkeepers, nurses and religious leaders that can be viewed at a distance, on a gigantic scale. Other tributes come in the form of poems and texts that have been blown up on colourful posters placed on the side of the building. More than 21 artists and writers contributed, some creating artworks about friends or family, others celebrating key workers they encountered during lockdown. In light of the exhibition, we asked a few of the participating artists, ‘who has been your everyday hero during the pandemic, and why?’

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London Favourite bookshop: The Riverside Bookshop, Hay’s Galleria Lockdown reads: ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ by Bernardine Evaristo ‘This incredible book shines a light on the rich diversity of Black womanhood and gave me an insight into experiences and perspectives too rarely explored in literature.’ ‘NW’ by Zadie Smith ‘Zadie Smith once said London is “a state of mind” and this novel – vivid and affirming, yet unflinching in its portrayal of ordinary Londoners – offers us a flavour of what that means.’ ‘Black and British: A Forgotten History’ by David Olusoga ‘Recent conversations about racism, slavery and historical injustice have exposed gaps in our collective understanding about the contribution Black people have made to life in Britain for centuries. David Olusoga’s book provides a comprehensive overview of a long and complex history.’  ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race’ by Reni Eddo-Lodge ‘This book has seen a surge in popularity following the brutal killing of George Floyd, and rightly so. If you want to understand why racism isn’t simply about cruel words or personal prejudice but structures and systems, this is a great place to start.’ ‘Noughts & Crosses’ by Malorie Blackman ‘People of colour are shamefully under-represented in books for children and young adults, which is why a whole generation credit Malorie Blackman with giving them relatable characters to read about. This groundbreaking novel, recently adapted into a TV series

You order a box of 106 secondhand children’s books on eBay. You are excited, because this was a time-capsule-level find: a stack of 1980s ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books, many by writer and series originator Edward Packard. They have schlocky names like ‘The Trumpet of Terror’, ‘The Phantom Submarine’ and ‘The Cave of Time’, each one crammed with alternative endings. The books arrive. You crack open one for an afternoon of nostalgic reading and... out falls a slip of paper covered in large, loopy handwriting. It’s four pages of a long-forgotten child’s diary made up of short, sad entries: ‘Two days before summer holiday, stole money from parents’ reads one. ‘Bought airline tickets, ran away to Scotland’ says another. You look at the handwritten name scribbled on the book’s title page and realise these lines were written by the same child who once owned the book you now hold in your hand. His name is Terence Prendergast.  Do you: a) Immediately throw away the diary pages and carry on living your life? b) Do a quick search for Terence on Google then forget about it? c) Go on a colossal journey trying to find Terence and turn the experience into an interactive documentary? For Nathan Penlington, a self-described ‘obsessive’, the answer was always going to be ‘c’. Back in 2006, Nathan did actually order a box of ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books that led him to those four pages of Terence Prendergast’s diary. The discovery sent the Hackney-based writer and performer on a path t

Open now through the end of the year, the new Converse Seaport Pop-up is offering interactive in-store customization, the latest in-season styles, exclusive limited-edition collaborations, and more. Get all the details here.

Promising Young Woman is an exercise in misdirection, a revenge thriller that gets the audience to bay for blood, but never delivers the moments we expect to see. The vigilante, Cassie, is played with a slow, crackling fury by Carey Mulligan. She’s a 30-year-old woman who dropped out of med school after a traumatic event – an event that director Emerald Fennell reveals gradually, and carefully, midway through the film. Early on, we meet Cassie half-conscious at a club, where a guy (played by Adam Brody) offers her a lift home, Instead, he takes her back to his place, and plies her with booze. He gets her into bed, and begins to undress her, ignoring her lack of consent, until Cassie sits bolt upright, clearly sober, and looks straight down the lens of the camera, at Brody’s character, at us and says: ‘I said WHAT are you doing?’. It’s a moment that Fennell has described as a kind of Promising Young Woman origin story, an idea for a scene that became the film. It is Cassie’s way of seeking justice – every week she masquerades as drunk in a club until, as she tells one of her marks: ‘A nice guy like you comes over to see if I’m okay’ before taking her home to take advantage. Their mouths deliver pseudo-feminist platitudes as their hands edge up the leg of what they think is a semi-conscious woman. She holds a mirror up to their abusive behaviour, and they are frightened by what they see. Mainly, though, they are frightened to have been caught out. The director has said that the

Documentaries about Hollywood Golden Age stars tend to follow a formula: footage of the early roles, a director talking about their incredible presence on set, then a few talking-head interviews revealing that behind all the glitz and Oscars they were, in fact, secretly sad and insecure.  Audrey covers all these touchstones, but manages to swerve the usual gossipy ‘E!’ channel tone with its immense empathy for its subject.  It helps that Audrey Hepburn’s story is even more dramatic than any of her roles could hope to match. She always had an aristocratic air, and in a way, she was one. Born in Belgium, her early years were privileged and multinational – her mother ‘Baroness Ella van Heemstra’ came from Dutch nobility. It’s what gave her that voice, that husky voice that could be heard speaking six languages, yet seemed to belong to nowhere. But that childhood unravelled when war came to the Netherlands. In the 1930s, her parents had been Nazi sympathisers. Audrey’s father left the family when she was eight years old, a trauma she describes as leaving ‘a very deep mark’. Hepburn and her mother ended up malnourished, joining the Dutch resistance as the Nazi occupation wore on. Major fans will already know how little Audrey hid messages in her shoes, and danced at underground revues to raise money for the cause, but they hit harder when coming from her son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer.  Those secret performances are key to this take on her story – Audrey’s ambition was to be a prima bal

There’s a scene in Shirley that finds American author Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss), in a forest, goading her houseguest, Rose (Odessa Young), to eat a ‘death cap mushroom’. We’ll share it, she tells her, as the sexual tension builds. Is she inviting Rose into the next life or testing her boundaries? The tone is set for Josephine Decker’s feverish psychodrama. We meet Jackson creatively blocked after the publication of her revered short story ‘The Lottery’. Agoraphobic, she scarcely leaves the home she shares with her husband, literary critic and college professor Stanley Edgar Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg). Her process (smoking, drinking, ripping up papers) has been interrupted by the arrival of Stanley’s new research fellow Fred (Logan Lerman) and Rose, his pregnant wife. Soon Rose is drawn into Shirley’s world – to the point of destruction. Through all the film’s fictionalised, domestic delirium, Decker tells a story of female artistic power. Jackson was the main breadwinner in her home in the 1940s and ’50s when such a thing was almost unheard of. Her command of the gothic horror genre had Time magazine dubbing her ‘Virginia Werewolf’. The main focus, though, is on Jackson’s art, and Shirley is one of the best visualisations of the writing process ever captured on screen. In cinemas Fri Oct 30.

There is a look that belongs to a person in grief. Joan Didion said it was a bit like ‘someone who wears glasses and is suddenly made to take them off’. They look naked, she explained, because ‘they think themselves invisible’. But Socrates (played by Christian Malheiros), a 15-year-old boy from São Paulo who has just lost his mother, spends the entirety of this film fighting to be seen. He does not have access to the time and space he needs to heal. Moments after a crushing opening scene where we find him shaking his mother’s unresponsive body, he’s filling in for her at her job as a cleaner. ‘She’s in tomorrow,’ he tells her colleagues, ‘She’s getting better.’  Soon the jig is up, and he’s fired for being underage; he’s not even considered old enough to collect his own mother’s ashes. Socrates needs a guardian, but his father is more of a danger than a support. He’s forced forward at freight-train speed, crossing one fault line after another as he tries to survive.  In the story’s concise 71 minutes, Brazilian-American filmmaker Alexandre Moratto doesn’t so much film Malheiros as allow him to drag the camera along. We’re part of his quest to find a job, one that takes us into grimy internet cafés and awkward moments waving loose CVs at disinterested shop owners.  A temporary relief from the misery comes with the arrival of Maicon, a slightly older guy Socrates meets through a brief job in a metal junkyard. When they eventually kiss, Moratto’s close-ups let their mouths and

Yiddisher jazz is not something you’re likely to find in the ‘genres and moods’ section of Spotify, but from the 1920s-1950s, swinging hot Jewish dance bands were the toast of the East End. Levy’s record shop in Whitechapel was the epicentre of this scene, a place where the community could buy 78rpm discs with klezmer and swing music set into their grooves. Outside the store’s entrance, couples could be found waltzing to songs about Jewish life. Until oral historian Alan Dein began his search for these old 78s, this epoch of East End jazz had been largely forgotten. By scouring the archives of the British Library and the Jewish Museum – and the charity shops of Golders Green – he found enough to compile into a record called: ‘Music Is the Most Beautiful Language in the World’. At the JW3 centre this Thursday (January 30), Dein will share the stories behind these recovered tunes, while displaying rare images from the period in which they were made. It’s more than a lecture, it’s a DJ night – a chance to dance to  singers like Rita Marlowe, Stepney’s ‘siren of Yiddish song’, and the thumping ‘A Kosher Fox Trot Medley (Petticoat Lane)’ by Mendel and His Mishpoche Band that gives the event its name. The songs  move from slapstick tributes to Brick Lane beigels to haunting Yiddish ballads about pre-war life. They are relics of another world, salvaged from charity shop crates. Now they’ve found a new life online, ready to pass the beautiful language of Yiddisher jazz on to new ge

Cosy east London boozer with a heated outdoor area, board games and weekly events.

Have you ever been to a club night that offered a midnight mass? No? That’s because you’ve never been to Brazilian Wax, a filthy-gorgeous queer Latin dance party that’s about to rock your world. It started out as a fundraiser for a stripper-stigma-smashing theatre show called ‘Fuck You Pay Me’ by playwright Joana Nastari. It’s now upping its game for another massive late-night party at The Vaults. The idea is to create a safe, political nightlife space that champions sex workers, queer minorities, immigrants, non-binary and trans people and, well, everyone – while making sure they’re all having a fucking good time. ‘As we sink further into political tragedy and everyone sinks head first into their mobile phones, we’re even more desperately in need of spaces that bring us together in real life to celebrate each other,’ says Ellen Spence, co-organiser of Brazilian Wax.  So what will it actually involve? There’s a show from Samba Sisters Collective along with some tassel-swinging performances and a sign-up-on-the-night strip off contest with a cash prize of £100.  To help everyone feel at home on the night, the team have enlisted the help of trained ‘Care Bears’ who anyone can turn to if they feel unsafe, ‘It just makes it really clear to everyone that we won’t tolerate racism, whorephobia or any of that rubbish at our party,’ says Nastari. The Care Bears will be out in force on the night at the all-bodies, all-identities pop-up strip club, a radical new alternative to convent

Every Londoner deserves to feel like a kid who’s been accidentally left alone in a toy shop after closing time. Slightly freaked out, with a slow dawning of uncontrollable excitement. When done right, a museum ‘late’ can have the same abandoned-in-a-toy-shop effect. It’s that moment you realise you’ve been let loose in a major institution, holding a full drink, next to some priceless artefacts. Culture ‘lates’ are such an important part of London nightlife that, until recently, there was a four day festival dedicated to them – Museums at Night. It’s not happening in the capital this year, but we may have something even better. From its ashes comes Emerge Festival, a similar concept, but with a kind of endurance challenge. With Emerge, your ticket is swapped for a wristband that will get you into as many of the 30 ‘late’ events as you can make on the night (or two nights, if you can swing for a full weekend ticket).  Best start mapping out the logistics now, because there are some real crackers planned. Ever noticed the big stone curve at Hyde Park Corner? You can go inside, and for Emerge, that Wellington Arch is transforming into a gin bar. Just four minutes walk away, you can find a debauched regency soiree inside the stunning eighteenth century Apsley House. Cross the river to London Bridge and catch a gory Victorian surgery taking place inside the Old Operating Theatre – blunt saws and all. It’ll be like trying to make every gig at Glastonbury, with a little help from th

Betty Tompkins’s paintings were once considered so obscene, the French wouldn’t even let them into the country. Her ‘Fuck Paintings’ – extreme close-ups of photorealistic genitals – were seized at customs in 1973 and denied entry for their ‘vulgarity’. Betty couldn’t catch a break among her peers in the 1970s feminist art movement, either. Many criticised her work, seeing it as an objectifying play into patriarchal hands. Body politics might have been popular then, but this was the wrong kind of politics. The wrong kind of radical. It would be 30 years before dealers recognised that she was trying to subvert the objectification of pornography, rather than replicate it. In the early noughties, Betty got her second coming. ‘Fuck Paintings, Etc’ is her first ever solo London exhibition. And what a show it is: enormous depictions of full-on penetration and vivid greyscale labia fill the entire gallery. This kind of aggressive, intensely sexual display is largely given to male artists who are then lauded for it, like Andy Warhol’s ‘Sex Parts’ or the perversity of Paul McCarthy (though Marlene Dumas and Celia Hempton have produced their share of brilliant erotically-charged paintings). It’s thrilling to see a woman claiming this space with such graphic art. Betty is still making the ‘Fuck Paintings’ today and there’s a mix of old and new on show here (the more recent capturing a shocking lack of pubic hair). It is unashamed, but the world at large doesn’t allow them to exist wit

Popular TV shows don’t have to ‘end’ any more. A zeitgeist-capturing series can find new life in spin-offs and reboots long after a finale has aired. And if not, there’s always the themed events: an Alan Partridge bingo night or a ‘Peaky Blinders’-styled bar to fill that boxset-shaped void. Last year, ‘Sherlock’ fans were quivering in their deerstalkers when it was announced that a purpose-built escape game based on the BBC drama was going to open in London. It’s easy to be cynical about the decision to tap into the escape game boom; in 2013, there were only seven in the UK, now there are around 108 in London alone. But this is not some ‘inspired by’ cash-in. Writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (who also played Mycroft) teamed up with escape-game-maker Time Run to make this happen, and their sharp, sardonic tone runs right through the experience. The journey begins in ‘Doyle’s Opticians’ (as in Arthur Conan), a cover for a ‘spy training agency’ that looks so realistic shoppers have been wandering in asking to get their eyes tested. Listen carefully and you’ll hear Dr John Watson’s (Martin Freeman) voice on the speakers. With the guidance of an actor, you’re ushered in to a secret room to start your mission as rookie spies out to rescue Mycroft. But the play within the play really starts at 221b Baker Street, an exact replica of Sherlock’s living room, recreated with the help of the show’s designer. Everything is the same, from the black-and-white damask wallpaper to the lea

When it was discovered in the shell of a bombsite near Mansion House in 1954, the remains of the Roman Temple of Mithras had Londoners transfixed. It was all over the news, attracting 30,000 visitors. Then the whole thing was dismantled to make way for post-war construction and moved 100 metres away – pride of place on the roof of a car park, with very non-Roman crazy paving on the floor. In 2009, tech and media giant Bloomberg bought up the original location to build its multi-million-pound HQ, and announced plans to ‘rebuild’ the Temple of Mithras. It delivered: inside that glossy waffle-shaped building is a full reconstruction of the original temple, part of the three-storey London Mithraeum Bloomberg Space, now open to the public.  On the first floor, impressive artefacts discovered during the archaeological dig of the site are displayed behind glass. Among the worn leather shoes and broken pots, you’ll  find a wooden tablet from AD 57, with marks on its surface: one of the oldest handwritten documents found in the UK. The main event is found below ground level: an atmospheric reimagining of the  temple, built with the help of mud casts and archive material. Almost 1,800 years ago, this room was the home of the men-only cult of Mithras, a place to drink, misbehave and worship the ‘god of Mithra’, a deity known for slaying a primordial bull. It was a bit like gentlemen’s club, so it should fit right in with the financial district. Thankfully, women are welcome in the Bl

London’s history is laced with witches, and we’re not just saying that because Halloween is around the corner. Marble Arch was an execution site for women accused of ‘witchcraft’ for more than 600 years in the medieval times. Dark, sexist stuff. In fact, Britain’s last conviction for witchcraft was as recent as 1944. Here we’ve documented their history: from Nazi-fighters to the hippy covens of the seventies to the modern-day witches of London. Hold tight, it’s a wild ride.  1. The witch who inspired a play Marble Arch, 1621 The medieval London village of Tyburn, near modern-day Marble Arch and its Primark-bag-toting crowds, acted as an execution site for more than 600 years. Among those killed there were thieves, highwaymen and – yep – women accused of ‘witchcraft’. Elizabeth Sawyer, ‘The Witch of Edmonton’,  was executed there in 1621, after it was claimed she had been lured into serving Satan by a dog called Tom. Her story hit the capital’s book stalls within days and quickly became a stage adaptation. A stone plaque can still be found in the area, on the spot where the ‘Tyburn Tree’ – a three-sided gallows that allowed multiple executions to take place – once stood. Dark stuff. 2. The witch who scared a baker Wapping, 1652 In 1652 a pamphlet was circulated around London detailing the ‘crimes’ of herbalist Joan Peterson,  aka ‘The Witch of Wapping’. There were stories of Joan morphing into a black cat, having incriminating conversations with a squirrel and, horror of horro

Your next gig is a work in progress, what can we expect? ‘It’s about me kind of grappling with my relationship with violence, but in a funny way, because I saw some people get into a fight at aqua aerobics. If you saw it in a UFC ring, you’d be like “Grand!”, but not at a mid-tempo aqua aerobics class with about 50 pensioners. It was quite the brawl.’ So what went down? Did you try to intervene? ‘No, no, I was too busy exercising. I’m a lover not a fighter.’ You moved from Dublin to London two years ago, how has it been? ‘I am happy that I spent lockdown here. I live in Camden and it’s mad. When the puddles of sick started appearing again on my way to Aldi, it was like “Nature is healing.” You know things are going to be okay. It’s like being in Jurassic Park and seeing a fresh dinosaur poo: “It’s coming, they’re nearby!” I love living there.’ Are there any differences between Dublin and London audiences? ‘Big time. They’re more discerning in London. In Ireland, they’ll give you a bit of leeway at the start. In London, you kind of have to prove you’re funny upfront.’ What made you choose Camden? ‘Genuinely: because I’d heard of the place. Amy Winehouse loved it and if it was good enough for her… I’m not a goth, but Camden is like a goth Disneyland. I also like that people will tell you that Camden’s not good. If I tell people I live there they’ll be like, “That place was good 20 years ago, it’s a dump now.” Catch Alison Spittle: ‘Work in Progress’ at Battersea Arts Centre th

How do you solve a problem like Hannah Horvath? As ‘Girls’ comes to an end on April 17, the answer is pretty clear: you can’t, and you should stop asking. Her creator Lena Dunham knows female characters are not puzzles to complete with a neatly cut piece for a happy ending. And the finale will bring it all to a close not with a bang but with a shrug: Hannah’s pregnant and leaving New York to move upstate, as she’s landed a job in a liberal arts college (much like Oberlin, the one Dunham attended). The problematic friendship quad of Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shosh that hooked us in during 2012 has more or less disbanded. Sky Atlantic ‘Female characters are not puzzles to complete’ Hannah’s ‘surprise’ series six pregnancy rubbed many up the wrong way, and for good reason. The show prided itself on avoiding conventional female TV stories; the kind then-23-year-old Dunham told HBO she ‘couldn’t see herself or her friends in’ when first pitching ‘Girls’. And yet here we are in the go-to plot twist for the female storyline arc: perfect for a cliffhanger (‘Friends’), movie plot (‘Bridget Jones’), finale (‘Gilmore Girls’) or even a whole series (‘Jane the Virgin’). Pregnancy is an important part of many women’s stories. But it’s not the only story. And it doesn’t feel like Hannah’s. Still, Dunham writes it so well that you still want to hear it. She invites the audience to cast judgement along with Hannah’s friends. The series has been losing steam for the past two seasons, but in

The arrival of large-scale light installations in London is pretty standard for the winter months. By November, there are usually three or four elaborate LED-laden trails across the city, each trying to coax us all into feeling Christmassy. But this year, one has arrived early in the form of Summer Lights at Canary Wharf, a festival brought to you by the same people behind the area’s Winter Lights festival. Much like its cold-season sibling, Summer Lights is an exhibition of individual works by UK light artists (there are 11 in total), and will be free to visit, but the summer edition is designed to be explored during the day, and uses bright sunlight to ‘reflect and refract a spectrum of colours’ with installations that respond to themes of sustainability, plastic pollution and LGBTQ+ culture.  Photograph: David Parry‘Ocean Rise’ by Aphra Shemza One of the most eye-catching light works is ‘Hymn to the Big Wheel’, a huge multi-coloured octagon structure that sits inside a larger octagonal shape that visitors can walk through, watching the colours blend as they go. Others to look out for are Hugh Turvey’s X-ray images of flora and algae inside Crossrail Place Roof Garden and Aphra Shemza’s ‘Ocean Rise’, a sustainably built structure which carries a field recording of crashing waves that can be accessed by QR code.  As with most light experiences in London, it’s easy Instagram fodder, but if you happen to work near Canary Wharf, this free festival is worth a look.  When is i

Earlier this month, the organisers of Notting Hill Carnival announced that the event would not be taking place on the streets this August bank holiday due to ‘the ongoing uncertainty and risk Covid-19 poses’. It was disappointing for Londoners to hear that Carnival as we know it would not be going ahead for the second year in a row, but it turns out that phrase ‘on the streets’ was key. Last night it was announced that Notting Hill Carnival will have a presence in London this August, but will take the form of a series of ticketed events designed to raise money for the Carnival Trust. The Notting Hill Carnival Recovery Fund will also be supported by the sale of a hardback coffee-table book that sets the record straight on the rich history of the event, ‘Carnival: a Photographic and Testimonial History of the Notting Hill Carnival’ edited by Ishmahil Blagrove Jr with a preface by Margaret Busby.  The ticketed events for Carnival Culture in the Park will cost £10, and will involve three days worth of shows across August 19, 20 and 21, held in the open-air setting of Opera Holland Park. So far the performances are split into Classic Calypso (which includes artists such as Giselle Carter and G String), Pan in the Park (with legendary UK steel bands Mangrove and Ebony) and Pan Jazz (featuring the Engine Room Collective).  The idea of a ticketed Carnival is likely to make a lot of people nervous. Over the years, there have been various proposals to move Notting Hill Carnival to Hyd

The contentiously named ‘Freedom Day’ is today. So what does it actually mean? Well, broadly, it marks the date that lockdown restrictions will supposedly come to an end, with a caveat from Prime Minister Boris Johnson that we must proceed with caution, given that ‘this pandemic is not over’. Things, as always, are subject to change, but from Monday July 19 (today), the ‘one metre plus’ social distancing rule will no longer be enforced, the government order to work from home will be scrapped, there will be no cap on the number of people who can meet indoors or out, and the wearing of face coverings in public settings will no longer be legally mandatory (though they are ‘strongly encouraged’, which means – keep wearing them).   Many are understandably nervous at the thought of zero restrictions, given the recent spread of the Delta variant, and confusion around what ‘Freedom Day’ will actually entail. In Monday July 11’s update, Johnson implied that restrictions could be reinstated in the case of ‘exceptional circumstances’ such as the ‘arrival of a new variant that we haven’t bargained for or budgeted for’. One of the biggest changes from July 19 is that nightclubs are now officially allowed to reopen for the first time since lockdown began, and festivals will be able to go ahead. It’s also good news for arts venues that are unable survive at reduced capacity, though some have chosen to put safety first and keep social-distancing measures in place. It’s far from a free-for-al

2020年は中止や閉鎖になったことが多かった反動からか、どの街でも2021年以降の新しい動きに注目が集まっている。ロンドンの場合は、2022年から建設が始まる巨大なリゾート施設、The London Resortが話題だ。 この施設ができるのは、テムズ川を下ったダートフォード近郊のスワンコム半島。完成後は、ロンドン中心部のセント・パンクラス駅からリゾートまで電車が開通し、17分で行けるようになるという。 ヨーロッパで建設されるテーマパークとしては、1992年にオープンしたディズニーランド・パリ以来の規模。つまり、ロンドンにも「ディズニーランド的なもの」ができるといえるだろう。提携パートナーは、パラマウント・ピクチャーズ、BBC、ITVスタジオなど。各社のコンテンツや技術を生かした「次世代型」のアトラクションの登場が期待されている。 初期計画案で目を引くのは、失われたメソアメリカ文明の遺跡で埋め尽くされたThe Jungle、ハイオク車のカーチェイスや危険なスパイ活動といった大ヒット映画のスリルを味わうことができるThe Studio、23世紀のSFをテーマにしたStarportといった野心的なエリア。また、リゾートに欠かせない商業施設もある。High Streetと名付けられたこのエリア周辺には、ショップ、レストラン、ホテル、水辺の公園が作られる。 ロンドン・リゾート・カンパニー・ホールディングス（LRCH）の最高経営責任者（CEO）であるピエール・イヴ・ ジェルボーは、「私たちは、世界で最もエキサイティングなテーマパークプロジェクトの一つを創り上げます。ロンドン・リゾートは、次世代のテーマパークリゾートであり、インタラクティブ性や没入性が高い、幅広い技術や体験を最大限に活用した世界的なデスティネーションとなるでしょう」と述べている。 このリゾートには最終的に2つのパークで構成される。スケールの大きさから、建設には3万人の人々と約35億ポンド（約5,316億円）の費用が必要になる見込み。第1パークは2024年、第2パークは2029年頃にオープンする予定だ。 原文はこちら 関連記事 『ソニー・ピクチャーズ、タイでコロンビア映画のテーマパークを開業』 『ハリポタの世界に旅へ、テーマパークについて現在分かっていること』 『2021年に行くべき新施設とイベント』 『ロンドンの古いトラムトンネルが一般公開』 『ロンドンのオックスフォード・サーカス、一部が歩行者専用に』

Walthamstow Wetlands looks like a landscape you might see in a children’s story. The 211-hectare nature reserve is filled with reservoirs that shine like mirrored glass, and are occupied by curious little islands that hum with the sound of wildlife. Confident geese march freely on its immaculately mown grass mounds, seemingly unbothered by the thousands of visitors which pass through the Wetlands each weekend.  The space is just calling out for an outdoor art exhibition, which is why we're excited to hear today’s news that Walthamstow Wetlands has teamed up with the William Morris Gallery to produce a year-long exhibition about Finnish artist and Moomins creator Tove Jansson.  Titled ‘The Woman Who Fell in Love with an Island’, the exhibition will draw parallels between the nature of the Wetlands and the island of Klovharun in the Gulf of Finland, which Jansson visited every summer for almost 30 years, along with her partner Tuulikki Pietilä. The small exhibit of Jansson’s drawings, writings and photographs will take place inside the Wetlands’ restored engine house, but it will also spill out into nature with an outdoor art trail, and will include a downloadable recording of Jansson’s essay ‘The Island’ read by her niece Sophia Jansson as well as an audio composition from multi-instrumentalist Erland Cooper. The exhibition may coincide with the delayed UK release of ‘Tove’, a biopic on the artist by director Zaida Bergroth, which featured on the 2021 programme at BFI Flare. T

There was a time when we hardly noticed flower installations in central London. It was normal for arches of cherry blossom or white irises to appear the moment spring hit, usually splashed with branding for some sweet pink gin. But things have changed. Lockdown turned London into a city of obsessive gardeners and houseplant hoarders, people who stop dead in the street to identify shrubs growing between pavement slabs.  We’re all a bunch of petal heads now, which is why we’re unusually excited by the news that a big floating botanical garden has been installed above Gerrard Street in Chinatown today (Wednesday, June 16). The garden features artistic recreations of seven different flower species: pink Chinese Peony, orange Tiger Lily, blue orchids, tulips, hibiscus, sunflowers and peach blossom. And they do look pretty, even though they’re fake.    Photograph: Jamie Lau   The garden will be hovering above Chinatown until the end of August to try and tempt Londoners to make use of the area’s 40 outdoor restaurants as well as outdoor seating for 150 people in Newport Place that can be used for takeaway.  It shouldn’t take a publicity stunt to get people to visit somewhere as objectively fantastic as London’s Chinatown, but if it means we get to eat dim sum from Gerrard’s Corner under a kaleidoscopic sky of flowers, we’re all for it. The floating botanical garden will be hanging above Gerrard’s Street from June 16.  In other elaborate garden news, have you seen the giant forest

So, it’s Father’s Day this Sunday (June 20). If this is the first you’ve heard of it, don’t beat yourself up. Lockdown rendered time meaningless, when we say ‘see you soon!’, it usually means months, not weeks. But now that you know it’s coming up, you can do something about it.  According to the Father’s Day gift guides that proliferate in magazine pages and targeted Facebook ads around this time of year, dads are simple beings whose only desires can be summed up with beer subscriptions, Patagonia duffel bags and assorted steak seasonings. But dads are people too, and they want the thing we all want: free stuff.  If you’re fortunate enough to live within easy travelling distance of your parent, you can take advantage of all the London bars and restaurants that are dishing out free drinks to dads for Father’s Day. As with a lot of these kinds of offers, unless you happen to follow dozens of London restaurants on social media, they can be tricky to find, so we’ve gathered a bunch of them below. Nothing takes the edge off an eye-wateringly high food bill like that first sip of a free pint.  The Farrier  Brand new pub The Farrier recently opened in Camden Market with three Michelin star-trained chef Ash Finch manning the kitchen. It has some fairly swish looking Sunday roasts, and all dads booked in for one will receive a free pint of Guinness as well as a lamb scotch egg this Father’s Day. Camden Stables Market, NW1 8BF. Make a reservation here.  Photograph: The Farrier Homes

If you are one of the 200,000-odd people whose summer used to revolve around a Glastonbury blow-out, you’re probably feeling a little glum right now. First 2020 was cancelled, then it was announced that Glasto 2021 would not be going ahead. Even the Glastonbury live stream weekender was a bit of a bust, thanks to a technical glitch that left thousands of people locked out from pre-recorded shows by IDLES, Roisin Murphy and Wolf Alice. It’s  like there’s some celestial force trying to stop our wellies from squelching down on the mud of Worthy Farm.  While we feel the sting of another fallow year, the V&A will be providing a soothing dock leaf in the form of a free interactive Glastonbury Weekender, both online and in-person at the museum. Last year, the V&A put a call out asking people to contribute memories and photographs of the festival for its Glastonbury @ 50 research project. The upcoming weekender has built on that research to create Mapping Glastonbury, an interactive online map that will chart the evolution of the festival through oral histories, sounds, objects and hundreds of photographs. It’s all part of a larger collaboration between the V&A and AHRC (that’s Arts and Humanities Research Council) which plans to create a searchable database of Glastonbury’s archive and performance history.    Photograph: Glastonbury 2005, Barry Lewis   Kate Bailey, Senior Curator of Theatre and Performance at the V&A, said that, ‘Glastonbury Festival’s rich and diverse archive is

God’s Own Junkyard is a godsend to the residents of Walthamstow. Whenever you’re feeling too lazy to travel beyond E17, this rainbow grotto of neon signs can be used to coax friends over to your borough. Sat in an industrial estate next to Pillars Brewery, God’s Own is a mix of shop, café and neon museum. The space is run by the Bracey family, who could easily charge visitors to enter, but instead they allow people to wander in freely, snapping photographs that make them look like they’ve just stepped into a poster for a Nicolas Winding Refn film. Unfortunately the sheer volume of neon on show means people tend to wander out without ever learning the history behind some of those signs. A new exhibition at Leadenhall Market is hoping to change that. For ‘Electric City’, God’s Own Junkyard will cover the market in cinematic neon for an exhibit that showcases its 40-year influence on the film industry. God’s Own began as ‘Electro Signs’, founded by Welsh miner Richard Bracey in 1952, but was taken over by his son, the late Chris Bracey, a neon artist who went on to produce glowing set-pieces for ‘Mona Lisa’, ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘The Dark Knight’. Pieces from all these films can be seen at ‘Electric City’, but the exhibit will have a strong focus on Bracey’s contribution to Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, which saw the artist recreate parts of Greenwich Village inside Pinewood Studios for Kubrick’s neon-heavy street scenes.  God’s Own Junkyard is now run by Chris’s sons, Marcu