How the Barbican Theatre has rivalled the West End for four decades August 21, 2025 Our Toast the City Awards are celebrating the City’s top spots and takes place this October. This week: the Barbican Theatre. Think of the Barbican Centre and you might picture the lakeside suntrap or Brutalist passageways that feel purposefully designed to get lost in. You might not immediately think of the Barbican Theatre, but here’s why you [...]
We Out Here festival review: Dorset isn’t supposed to be this cool August 19, 2025 We Out Here festival programmes a line-up of jazz-inflected music. Its diversity is exciting, says Adam Bloodworth Over fifty festivals have shuttered in the past year. Shockingly, turning a patch of rural grass into a temporary metropolis for the weekend doesn’t chime well with the cost of living crisis. For a midsize event, upfront fees [...]
Lunchtime Tourism: Is there a better City green space than the Garden at 120? August 18, 2025 To get you in the mood for out Toast the City Awards celebrating everything that makes the Square Mile great, we asked a professional tour guide to recommend his favourite City spots. “The first weeks of August,” said American writer Natalie Babbitt, “hang at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, [...]
‘Wonderfully weird’: 7 of the best Edinburgh Fringe shows to book now August 14, 2025 City AM’s theatre writers have been catching the very best of the shows at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. We’re only reviewing productions with London transfers in the autumn, so if you can’t make it to Edinburgh this August, everything you read here is coming to the capital at a later date. From Fleabag to Flight [...]
Freakier Friday review: Lindsay Lohan sequel offers innocent fun August 8, 2025 Last year’s musical remake of Mean Girls sparked a re-evaluation of Lindsay Lohan, the Disney star whose personal life made her tabloid fodder in the noughties. Now she has reunited with Jamie Lee Curtis to make a sequel to one of her biggest hits. Freaky Friday was a famous example of the body swap comedy, [...]
Wilderness festival review: silliness and beauty combine to offer five-star escapism August 7, 2025 Around a quarter of the people who attended Wilderness festival this year glamped, swerving the surely horrifying idea of pitching their own tent, and they quaffed champagne at banquet feasts and from lakeside hot tubs. There is no getting around it: Wilderness attracts what the festival likes to call a “bouji” crowd (bosses don’t like [...]
This Grease immersive show isn’t the one that I want August 7, 2025 Grease: immersive musical review: ★★ A Titanic experience where you’re aboard the ship as it sinks, the heavily-mocked Elvis show (that I actually loved), a new Traitors experience and similar ones for Squid Game and Friends. Whatever you want to call them, experiences or immersive theatre (categorising these experiences has instigated a fierce debate raging [...]
Goodnight, Oscar review: Will & Grace star Sean Hayes is magnetic August 7, 2025 Goodnight, Oscar review and star rating: ★★★★ It’s fairly obvious why writers turn to televisual ratings to source their intrigue: every scribe knows the pain of having their stories or subjects exploited to reach bigger audiences. File Goodnight, Oscar next to a litany of West End hits on the subject, including Network at the National [...]
Lunchtime tourism: All Hallows by the Tower in the City of London August 6, 2025 To get you in the mood for out Toast the City Awards celebrating everything that makes the Square Mile great, we asked a professional tour guide to recommend his favourite City spots. All Hallows By The Tower looks lonely. A dual carriageway cuts her off from the City, and behind her, the Tower of London [...]
UK Heatwave 2.0: 8 best London restaurants with outdoor dining terraces for summer August 6, 2025 These London restaurants have new outdoor dining terraces ready for summer Right then, it’s blistering. The sun is showing up – probably temporarily – so it’s imperative to get outside and celebrate while this UV onslaught lasts. A range of new terraces have launched in time for social season, so no matter your vibe, here [...]