Louise Schwartzkoff

Don't be silly. Of course I've been to Buckingham Palace. Okay, sure, you’ve probably passed by the gilded gates. But have you been inside? Now’s your chance to have a snoop: the State Rooms of Her Maj’s pad are open to visitors until October. How are the interiors? As fancy as you’d expect: sweeping staircases, marble fireplaces, floor-to-ceiling mirrors and walls covered with silk. It’s worth picking up an audio guide to learn more about the palace’s treasures. In the Music Room, for instance, every crystal drop on every chandelier was cut by hand during the reign of George IV, and cleaners kept them soot-free using hunks of stale bread. So, plenty of fancy fittings and furniture. Anything else?  There’s a banging art collection: the walls of the Picture Gallery are home to paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens and Titian. Much of the art is exactly what you’d expect – gilt-framed and classical. But there’s a surprise outside the entrance to the Ball Supper Room: four screenprinted panels by Andy Warhol showing a young Queen Liz in eye-watering shades of magenta, turquoise and yellow. Any insights on royal life?  Unsurprisingly, the royal family’s private quarters are firmly off-limits. An army of staff in red and navy uniforms are on hand to keep visitors from straying – albeit with great courtesy and friendliness. The closest you’ll get to the lady of the house is in the large, temporary exhibition of her dresses and accessories, ‘Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from the

Remember that summer we hosted the Olympics? Yeah, fun times. Neighbours doing 'the Mo' at each other, Games Makers swaggering around like rock stars – the capital was completely transformed for two weeks of sweaty sport. So, as the baton is passed over to Rio de Janeiro, here are seven ways to relive the excitement of London 2012. Get in the spirit with the best bars for drinking caipirinhas and our favourite Rio Olympics screenings in London.

What's this, then? 19 Princelet Street is a Spitalfields townhouse, built in 1719, that’s seen better days. What's so special about it? It might not look like much from the outside, but step over the threshold and you’ll find one of the most intriguing and evocative exhibition spaces in London: Britain’s Museum of Immigration and Diversity. © Andy Parsons What's on show? The house is packed with fascinating old objects. A stone sink in the basement kitchen has been there since the place was built and was home to a Huguenot family, who had escaped persecution in France. Wooden pews and a handsome candelabra in the central room date from the nineteenth century, when the house was transformed into a synagogue by Eastern European Jews. The rooms are dark and supported here and there by scaffolding. Every corner whispers of lives lived years ago. © Andy Parsons Are there actual exhibits? Yes, but they’re subtle and blend into the building. The ‘Suitcases and Sanctuary’ show is a collaboration by artists and and local kids, exploring how immigration has shaped Spitalfields. One display features a suitcase full of potatoes, on which children have written the reasons that forced Ireland’s starving refugees from their homes in the nineteenth century. A screen downstairs shows footage of students of different ethnic backgrounds reciting an old Jewish tale. It’s all about empathy and the similarities between diverse groups. © Andy Parsons When can I pay a visit? It’s rarely open. The

When Neil Gaiman speaks, the world takes notice. More precisely, the internet takes notice. The English author has more than 2 million Twitter followers. A sentence from him can transform an obscure crowdfunding campaign into a money-spinner. His tweets regularly become headline news. It seems somehow appropriate that he’ll discuss his new book at the Union Chapel this month, in front of an audience seated beneath stained-glass windows; for a worldwide community of sci-fi and fantasy readers, Gaiman is god of the geek universe. His new book, ‘The View from the Cheap Seats’, steps away from the magical worlds that made him famous into the strange territory of reality, with a collection of non-fiction essays, articles and past speeches covering everything from ‘Doctor Who’ to the refugee crisis. You’ve said you’re nervous about publishing non-fiction. Why’s that? ‘Because it’s not actually what I do, at least in my head. I make stuff up. I lie to you and if I lie properly, I can teach you things and elevate you and break your heart. With this book, everything in there is true.’  In the book, you talk about your friend, the late fantasy writer Terry Pratchett. You’re adapting ‘Good Omens’, the book you wrote together, for TV. What’s it like working on it without him? ‘Frustrating. Working with Terry was like having Michelangelo phoning you up and asking you to paint a ceiling with him. You were working with somebody who was the best at what he did. When I get stuck, all I want i

For more than a thousand years, the Egyptian city of Heracleion was the stuff of myth. Ancient texts spoke of a bustling town on the Nile delta, but many scholars doubted it ever existed. Then, in 1996, archaeologist Franck Goddio and his team discovered magnetic abnormalities in the ocean off the Egyptian coast. They found nothing but sand when they dived down, but began to dig anyway. They uncovered a fragment of wall – the remains of a temple. As they worked, barely able to see through the murk, they realised they had found the lost city, destroyed by earthquakes and tidal waves. Under more sand, they found a broken granite face. Even in the dark Goddio recognised it as Hapy, god of the Nile’s flood. Hapy now stands – nearly 18 feet tall – at the British Museum’s ‘Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds’. Here's the story of how it got there: Discovery Hapy seemed like an impossible find. No one had ever seen such a huge statue of an Egyptian god. ‘Underwater, it looked even bigger,’ Goddio says. ‘I was looking at the god of the flood of the Nile in a sunken city.’ Up, up and away The archaeologists cleaned each of Hapy’s parts – a fragment of leg, a shard of crown – then attached canvas straps to hoist him into the sunlight. His face and torso, the largest piece, weighed approximately five tons, but the swell made it even harder to lift. The crane balanced on the waiting barge was capable of lifting 50 tons. Dropping the priceless statue was not an option. 'A big puzzle' Thin

This review is of ‘Schism’s original 2016 run at Theatre 503 The world needs authentic stories about disability, and ‘Schism’ is as authentic as they come.  Playwright Athena Stevens, who also performs in the work, was born with athetoid cerebral palsy. When her character, Katherine, rages against being placed in special education despite her intelligence, it feels like a howl of protest from a writer who understands her character’s anger and despair. The two-hander follows the evolving relationship between Katherine and her teacher, Harrison (Tim Beckmann). Over a period of 20 years, ‘Schism’ explores ideas around disability, ambition and expectations. This is important stuff, so it’s a shame so much of the writing is clunky. No subtext is left unexplained in Alex Sims’ production. That might have been forgiven had the story been more absorbing, but the  leaps through time (bridged by a radio announcer rattling off news stories from Monica Lewinsky to 9/11) rob the audience of the chance to invest in the characters. We don’t see the moment Katherine and Harrison’s relationship transitions into romance, so it never feels as real as it should. It’s a play full of messages that audiences need to hear, but sometimes it’s better to whisper than to shout.

If ever a show was made for Instagram, this is it. The Natural History Museum’s exploration of colour, vision and their roles in the natural world is chock full of beauty. Stuffed hummingbirds glimmer like opals. A case holds dozens of cinnabar moths, scarlet wings spread wide. Even the jars of bisected animal eyes have a gruesome aesthetic appeal. It’s only right that an exhibition about sight should look spectacular. Plenty of thought has clearly gone into the show’s design. Among the first objects are trace fossils left by blind, burrowing creatures in the millennia before the evolution of the eye. They’re spotlit in a black-painted room, which opens to lighter, brighter spaces as we learn how eyesight and, eventually, colour vision developed. Later rooms are a visual feast, their walls decked with eye-popping shades and engaging line drawings of animals. For all its style, though, this is also a show of substance. It paints evolution as a kind of arms race. As the hunters developed sight, the hunted developed defence mechanisms such as camouflage and hues that warned of toxicity. As vision evolved, the world literally grew more colourful in response. Objects and information are the focus, rather than fancy interactives, but one touch screen offers the chance to experience what the world looks like to a snail (black, white and blurry), a dragonfly (psychedelic) and a bulldog (as it does to humans, but less colourful). It becomes clear that the shades that seem to make up o

May 12 – it has been announced that Sheridan Smith will take '2-4 weeks leave of absence from the production due to stress and exhaustion'. Natasha J Barnes will play Fanny Brice during this period Barbra who? It’s no small triumph that Sheridan Smith has all but banished the ghost of productions past in this revival of the musical that made Barbra Streisand’s name in 1964. Streisand owned the role of New York comedienne and singer Fanny Brice so utterly that no-one had staged ‘Funny Girl’ in London since. Until last year, that is, when this Menier Chocolate Factory production sold out instantly, with Smith charming giggles and sympathetic sighs from everyone who saw it at the intimate venue. That show has now transferred to the West End and Smith is still terrific. Songs that have been inextricable from Streisand for decades are transformed. The iconic ‘People’ – traditionally a drawn-out belter - becomes something gentler and more yearning. ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’ deserves its predictable round of applause. Smith’s eloquent (not to mention flexible) face makes it easy to understand how a gauche Jewish girl from Brooklyn won over audiences to become vaudeville’s biggest star in the early 1900s. Her eyebrows alone deserve acting accolades, raising laughs with the tiniest twitch. This is Smith’s parade and other performances tend to suffer by comparison, though Marilyn Cutts brings warmth, humour and energy to the role of Fanny’s mother. Some set pieces have been expanded to

Here’s the thing about sex on stage and screen: it’s usually much better or much worse than it is in real life. The shagging in ‘1972: The Future of Sex’ is stylised; exuberant pieces of choreography that begin with participants donning swimming goggles and end with them sprawled on a rumpled carpet. Emotionally, though, it’s as realistic as it gets. On a simple-but-spot-on retro set the members of theatre collective The Wardrobe Ensemble explore sex in the ’70s via a series of interwoven scenes. It’s the age of the Pill, an excitable announcer tells us. Of groovy chicks and free-thinking dudes. Young people are doing it here, there and everywhere, in all manner of interesting ways. But the ones lined up on the stage look petrified. Turns out sex in the ’70s is a lot like it is in every other era: awkward, joyous, scary, sweet, messy and, above all, ordinary. The Wardrobe Ensemble devises and writes its productions as a group, and it shows. The performance seamlessly transitions between past and present, in scenes that are by turns boisterous and poignant. A chance meeting in the Bowie section of a record store leads to an exhilarating romance. A lecturer seduces a student. A young man applies bright red lipstick but dares not wear it outside his bedroom. As live music plays, the cast dash on and off the stage with effervescent enthusiasm, swapping from lead role in one scene to inner voice or narrator in the next. The script is strewn with clever historical references, from

On September 2, 350 years ago, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary about ‘an infinite great fire’ raging in London. Homes burned, people scrambled to save their goods and pigeons ‘hovered about the windows and balconies till they some of them burned their wings’. It’s a compelling tale but, for a museum, a tricky one to tell. How do you stage an exhibition when so many of the artefacts have been incinerated? There are some poignant objects in the Museum of London’s show about the Great Fire: a Bible with singed pages, a heat-buckled key, a half-finished piece of embroidery, apparently salvaged from the blaze. But many of the exhibits are representative of the kind of objects that were around at the time; generic 17th-century wine bottles stand in for the flasks Pepys buried in the garden to keep them from the flames. The interactive bells and whistles include a stylised recreation of Pudding Lane, complete with the artificial scent of bread to evoke the bakery where the fire began. It’s hard to escape the suspicion that all this is compensating for the lack of objects with the gee-whiz factor. It's a show designed with pint-sized visitors in mind; children will enjoy fighting flames on a touch screen and dressing up as firefighters. Adults may find Pepys’ prose gives a more vivid account of the catastrophe.

What’s this? A video games arcade inside the National Maritime Museum? The large space on the building’s lower level is full of noise and movement. Children spread their arms wide to control the flight of virtual birds. Fingers prod at screens to design drones capable of undertaking space missions. A long queue (too long for me) snakes out of a flight simulator. Only a few exhibits resemble traditional museum displays; a collection of micro-satellites shows how much technology can be squeezed into an object the size of a fingernail, while displays of model aircraft and spaceships demonstrate the cutting edge of flight design. Elsewhere, the emphasis is on doing rather than reading or looking. That doesn’t make it any less educational, though. Everything here is underpinned by science and history, charting man’s journey into the air from balloons to rockets. It’s no coincidence the show opened just in time for the school holidays. It will appeal to children more than adults, who might find some displays more gimmicky than informative. But I defy anyone to step into the virtual space elevator that takes you 33,000 miles above Earth without experiencing a moment of childlike wonder.

Walk through the soundproofed corridor that opens the Wellcome Collection’s latest show and you hear a surprising sound: birdsong. What place does this twittering have in an exhibition about the human voice? It’s astonishing to enter Marcus Coates’s installation ‘Dawn Chorus’ and see footage of people singing like wrens and robins. Coates recorded birds individually, then slowed their songs down to be imitated by singers. He filmed the humans in their natural habitat – in bed, on the couch, in the bath – then sped his footage up until their voices were indistinguishable from the birds they mimicked. The films play on a forest of pole-mounted screens. Like most Wellcome Collection shows, ‘This Is a Voice’ mixes art and science. It’s full of interesting things to hear. In Katarina Zdjelar’s video ‘The Perfect Sound’ an immigrant chants inarticulate syllables in an effort to remove his accent. An iPad plays old footage of deaf and blind Helen Keller, one hand on her teacher’s face, learning to speak through sensation. Understandably enough, curator Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz wants the audience to experience the show through their ears, rather than squinting at wall labels. The information available is succinct – so much so that it’s sometimes difficult to understand the significance of particular objects. We learn that a contraption of tubing and velvet is a ‘phantom larynx’, used in the nineteenth century as a medical teaching aid, but have little precise information on how it wo

A wedding bouquet soaring through a blue Australian sky. Toni Collette in a huge, white frock, grinning ear-to-ear. Rachel Griffiths in a curly wig, lip-syncing to ABBA’s Waterloo. Most of us remember Muriel’s Wedding in flashes of colour and snatches of song. So it seems fitting that the story is coming to the stage as an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza. More than 20 years after the film’s release in 1994, Muriel’s Wedding the Musical is being brought to the stage by Sydney Theatre Company. The girl from Porpoise Spit still loves ABBA, tells porkies and dreams of getting hitched. But some things have changed, so we’re asking the team behind the show what it took to create a thoroughly modern Muriel.   Maggie McKenna (centre) and cast in rehearsal for Muriel's Wedding the Musical Photograph: Christine Messinesi     Out of the ’90s and into the now The puffed sleeves, side pony-tails and scrunchies of the film might seem a little dated, but there are elements of Muriel’s Wedding that feel so relevant today it’s tempting to call them prescient. Take Muriel’s flexible approach to the truth. She thinks nothing of tweaking the facts of her life into something more glamorous. Facebook was made for people like her (OK, people like pretty much all of us). PJ Hogan, who wrote and directed the film, has created the book for the stage show, bringing the story into the present time. Where the Muriel of the movie found fame on telly and in the gossip mags (thanks to her marriage o

  Brexit schmexit. The week’s really big news story is that the 178-metre-long slide wrapping round the ArcelorMittal Orbit is finally opening for business. We don’t like to boast (much) but we were among the first to don the regulation elbow pads and foam helmet and speed down the slide’s 12 twists and turns. So how was it? Pretty exhilarating, really.   © Jack Latimer       You can hear the screams well before you enter Anish Kapoor’s towering 114.5-metre-high sculpture, which now sports the addition of a long silver tube designed by Belgian artist and mega-slide specialist Carsten Höller. Some of the screamers are clearly having the ride of their lives. Others sound bloody terrified. The lift up to the Orbit’s observation deck takes approximately 40 seconds: about the same amount of time it’ll take to whizz all the way back down. The view at the top is spectacular: the Olympic Stadium is directly below and, further out, Londo’s skyscrapers punch the air. The workmen below are tiny. It really is quite a long way down.   © Jack Latimer     For once, though, no-one is paying much attention to the view. The real action is happening at the centre of the viewing platform, where the slide’s mouth opens through a hole through the floor. The first step of the long journey down is to sit on a mat that ends in a sack to keep flying feet in place. ‘Tuck your chin, bend your knees a bit and make sure you keep your elbows in,’ warns an attendant. A sign says screaming is welcome, as

Makeba Garraway tells Louise Schwartzkoff what it was like to get hitched at the Festival of Love When Makeba and Soliheen Garraway were falling in love, the Southbank Centre was their favourite date night. They’d meet on the footbridge outside, then grab dinner. After six years together, they returned, this time to exchange wedding vows on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall. Waiting backstage were 11 other couples ready to do the same. That was the Southbank Centre’s first Big Wedding Weekend, which in the two years since has seen more than a hundred couples tie the knot in the company of strangers. ‘Backstage, everybody had the same nervous butterflies,’ says Makeba. ‘When you said your vows, it was your day. When the others were doing it, you were sharing their joy. Everybody had people cheering for them from the audience.’ Getting married at the Big Wedding Weekend can cost as little as £2,450 – a bargain for London – and for the Garraways the added bonus was that there was no agonising over any decisions. Everything from photographs to the disco in the ballroom after the ceremony was organised. ‘I chose my dress, got some shoes and rocked up,’ says Makeba. At the reception, the newly married couples voted to decide the song for their first dance. It was Stevie Wonder’s ‘For Once in My Life’. The Garraways would have preferred Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell but, Makeba says, ‘We were just happy to be married. We didn’t care about little details.’ The Garraways now have t

For more than two centuries, tourists visiting London have gawped at wax likenesses of killers and criminals in the basement of Madame Tussauds. Arthur Conan Doyle, the Scottish creator of Sherlock Holmes, visited the Chamber of Horrors as a teenager on a school holiday in 1874. ‘I was alternately thrilled and horrified,’ he said years later, recalling the trip. Some have speculated that Doyle’s affection for the wax museum is the reason his famous detective made his home in Baker Street. In recent months, the Chamber of Horrors has been banished to make room for a new spectacle. The museum will soon make an announcement about the fate of the grisly exhibition, but for now it’s been replaced by something novel: a show designed to attract Londoners as well as tourists. The bowels of the building have become home to a carefully constructed Victorian streetscape. Lanterns glow on brick walls and a cobbled lane leads to a door marked with a familiar number: 221b. This is the first step in Madame Tussauds’ new Sherlock-themed interactive experience, created by Les Enfants Terribles, the theatre group behind the Olivier Award-nominated ‘Alice’s Adventures Underground’. In daylight hours, visitors of all ages can wander through ‘The Sherlock Holmes Experience’, set to become a permanent fixture. By night, a limited-run theatrical challenge ‘The Game’s Afoot’ offers an adults-only adventure, where visitors roam the space, uncovering clues to solve a murder. Some characters are well-

Today marks the start of two weeks of Pimm's, strawberries and nail-biting tennis. To celebrate the occasion, four of the sport's biggest stars share their Wimbledon memories, tips and disasters.    Tim Henman Four-time Wimbledon semi-finalist; former British No 1 My favourite memory ‘My first time on Centre Court when I played against Yevgeny Kafelnikov in 1996. He’d just won the French Open, but I saved two match points and beat him 7-5 in the fifth.’ That time it all went wrong ‘My biggest Wimbledon disaster was in 1995 when I accidentally hit a ball girl in the head with a tennis ball. I was the first player in 125 years to be disqualified at Wimbledon.’ Top tip for spectators ‘Make sure you get the chance to catch some of the action on Henman Hill.’ Where to watch if you can't be courtside ‘In your garden with a big bowl of strawberries and cream.’  Martina Hingis Four-time Wimbledon champion; women's doubles No 1 My favourite memory ‘Winning Wimbledon doubles at 15 and becoming World No 1 at 16 are up there! Holding up the trophy and hearing the crowd cheering my name was the greatest feeling.’ That time it all went wrong ‘Nothing really awful has happened (so far – fingers crossed!). I really only have great memories of the tournament.’ Top tip for spectators ‘You can’t beat setting the scene with strawberries and cream and a glass of Pimm’s.’ Where to watch if you can't be courtside ‘London has so many great places to watch. I’d recommend anywhere outside to enjoy th

Herbs, as everyone knows, come in plastic packets at the supermarket. But, would you believe, that’s not the only place to find them. As part of the Grow London fair, herbalists Kim Walker and Victoria Chown from Handmade Apothecary will lead a walk on Hampstead Heath, pointing out the useful plants you’ll find growing wild in London. Here's five of them you can forage for yourself: Feeling stressed? Try lime blossom How to spot it: The heart-shaped leaves often grow in clumps at the base of the tree. The flowers are creamy white. Where to find it: In parks and city streets, blossoming in June. Time to get picking. How to use it: Stressed? (This is London, so we’ll assume the answer is yes.) A small handful of lime blossom steeped in boiling water can be a relaxing remedy. Add honey for a sweet-tasting nightcap. Got a bruise? Try daisies How to spot it: Everyone knows how to spot a daisy, right? Yellow centre, white petals.  Where to find it: Carpeting lawns and fields. How to use it: Daisy-chains, of course. They’re also good for bruises and sprains. Place clean flowers in a jar and cover with oil. Let it sit for two weeks, then strain and use externally. Got a papercut? Try yarrow How to spot it: Each leaf is covered in small, feathery fronds. Yarrow can grow to almost a metre tall, with big, flat clusters of white flowers. Where to find it: Meadows and lawns. How to use it: If you find yourself with a cut or a scrape, crush clean, fresh leaves or flowers and apply. No woun

In our new series 'secretly brilliant' we explore London's best bits with all the new, hidden or just straight-up amazing spots to explore this summer. First up, N16's Woodberry Wetlands: What's all this, then? Reed-fringed ponds and dappled woodland. Very pretty and not quite what you expect to find behind the area's urban high-rises. The Woodberry Wetlands nature reserve opened this month – a piece of peace in the city. A nature reserve in N16? Yep. This was once the site of an aqueduct bringing water from Hertfordshire. In 1833 the New River Company built reservoirs to quench the growing thirst of a booming population. Rich Victorians built mansions overlooking the water before the area fell from fashion. For a while there was talk of filling in the reservoirs, but a campaign by residents saved them – luckily for all the wildlife that calls these 11 hectares home.  How much wildlife are we talking? We spotted swans, plenty of birds flitting over the water and an almighty cloud of midges. At the opening event, Sir David Attenborough pointed out reed warblers, chiffchaffs and great crested grebes. Is there anything else to do after getting your nature fix? Coffee and cake? The Coal House Café serves breakfast, lunch and snacks from its kitchen in – you guessed it – an old coal house. It's a Grade II listed building previously used as a coal store for a nearby boiler house. There's also a packed programme of events planned for the coming months, ranging from birdwatching c

It’s a rare treat for Londoners to see Neil Gaiman in person. The mega-selling author still thinks of England as home, but his wife, musician and geek goddess Amanda Palmer, is American and, says Gaiman, won’t move to England ‘no matter what’. We can reveal he’ll be heading home temporarily this month for a live appearance in London. On May 31, he’ll be appearing at the Union Chapel in Islington, chatting with fellow author Audrey Niffenegger and taking questions from the audience. The event, which will be streamed around the world, celebrates the release of Gaiman’s new book, ‘The View from the Cheap Seats’.   The collection of nonfiction is a departure for Gaiman, who specialises in, as he puts it, ‘making stuff up’. He has gathered essays, articles and speeches from his long career as a writer, including one written for a certain Time Out magazine in 1990. The book also includes two tributes to Gaiman’s friend and collaborator, the late Terry Pratchett. Gaiman has almost finished writing episode five of the TV adaptation of ‘Good Omens’, the book they wrote together. It’s been tough working on the series since Pratchett’s death from Alzheimer’s. ‘When I’d get stuck, all I wanted to do was to be able to phone Terry,’ he says. Gaiman’s name has recently been linked with another fantasy writer. When he went to Santa Fe, there was speculation he must be there to help George RR Martin finish his fantasy saga, ‘Game of Thrones’. (He wasn’t, he was there to spend time with his f

In London, it's a sound as regular as, well, clockwork. The bells of Big Ben ring out across the river every 15 minutes, accurate to the second. Even as bombs pelted down during the raids of World War II, the clock kept time and continued to chime. But the great clock will stop during a three-year conservation and repair programme, scheduled to begin early next year and estimated to cost £29 million. After more than 157 years of faithful service, it's hardly surprising that Big Ben is in need of some loving care. There are worries about the pendulum's accuracy. The suspension spring, which holds the pendulum in place, needs replacing. That can't happen without stopping the clock. There will be repairs to the Elizabeth Tower's water-damaged masonry and iron work. The clock could also be in for a facelift, with plans to swap the black-and-gold paint applied in the '80s with the green and gold thought to be original. (Who didn't make the odd make-up faux pas in the '80s?) As the clock stops, it might feel like Armageddon is nigh, but it's not the first time Big Ben has fallen still. Here are some moments when London's most iconic landmark has malfunctioned, broken down or been interrupted by circumstances. World War I The bells fell silent and the clock faces stayed dark for two years during World War I. Best to avoid creating a gigantic clock-shaped beacon for German attackers. World War II The bells bonged on, but the clock faces were darkened. Despite the precautions, there w

The London Marathon is not the only endurance game in town. Louise Schwartzkoff searches the city for other activities that take strength, stamina and competitive zeal. Knockout Speed Dating: Putney   Okay, so this does involve exercise, but with the added incentive of potential romance. Turn the hard work of speed dating into a hard workout by going toe-to-toe with hopeful singles in the boxing ring. After slogging it out, chat up your favourite sparring partner over drinks and healthy snacks. They say all's fair in love and war. That's doubtless truer than ever when love blooms in the ring. St Mary's Church. Putney Bridge. Mon Apr 25. £20. The Homebaked Bake Off Battle: Baker Street   Skilled competitors, gut-clenching suspense, the elation of victory and the misery of defeat. As a spectator sport, baking competitions have it all. Bakers will bring their sweetest showstoppers, appropriately enough, to Baker St to be judged on taste and looks. There'll be masterclasses from champion bakers and treats to try. Ready, set, bake! Sherlock Holmes Hotel. Baker St. Sat Apr 23. Free. Movie marathons: Leicester Square   A photo posted by Amy Withnall (@crazyaimz) on Feb 27, 2016 at 12:53pm PST Grab your jim-jams and ingest caffeine liberally before settling in for an all-nighter at the Prince Charles Cinema. The independent West End venue was once famous for screening porn, but the programme has moved from sleaze to a blend of new-ish blockbusters, arthouse titles, horror, sci-

Daniel Sloss is already a comedy veteran at 25 years old. He did his first stand-up gig at 16, then went on to sell out shows in his Scotland hometown at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. At 19, he became the youngest comedian to perform a solo season in London’s West End. His provocative humor and barbed social commentary have won him regular appearances on Conan, which built a U.S. fan base that helped land his first NYC shows at the SoHo Playhouse (Feb 10–13, $26.50). He filled us in on what to expect (like jokes about his disabled sister) and why he doesn’t care if you’re offended.  Why is your show called Dark?Because I was sick of people claiming I was a dark comedian. I mean, I’m dark if you watch daytime television and vote for the conservatives. If you are one of those idiots who gets upset by everything, then yeah, it’s a dark show, but you have to listen to the meaning and not the words. It does explore some difficult territory, though, especially about your sister’s cerebral palsy. How does it feel to share such personal stories onstage?I learned from American comics that you can go there—as long as you can make it funny. Every member of my family that’s come to see it has bawled. When I was young, in interviews when I mentioned my sister, people would be like, “Why don’t you talk about that on the stage? Is it too hard?” I just didn’t think I could make it funny. I didn’t try it until I was in L.A. last year, and I got booked for a gig called RISK!, where they make