Cleansed at the National Theatre and A Girl Is a Half Formed Thing at the Young Vic reviewed February 25, 2016 Cleansed Dorfman (National Theatre) | ★★★☆☆ I was going to start this review by saying Sarah Kane’s Cleansed has lost a little of its shock value in the 18 years since it premiered. In this time the phrase “torture porn” has entered the popular vernacular and even your mum has probably seen The Human Centipede. [...]
Is TfL lighting the way with its new interiors for the London Underground? February 25, 2016 While most of us can appreciate the marvel that is the London Underground – especially those who have travelled on the Paris and New York equivalents – few actually enjoy using it on a day-to-day basis. So TfL has hired architectural lighting firm Nulty+ and saddled them with quite a challenge; making your commute more [...]
The Art of Slow: cocktails find their perfect food pairings at the Typing Room’s new supper club February 24, 2016 There are right and wrong times to drink certain cocktails. A negroni with breakfast, an espresso martini before dinner and a mojito after supper might suggest you’ve got a drinking problem. A bloody mary in the morning, a martini before dinner and an old fashioned after dessert on the other hand? Well that’s just common [...]
Little Social review: Pollen Street’s classy and cosy Parisian-themed bistro February 24, 2016 WHAT? The pocket-sized little sister of Jason Atherton’s flagship Pollen Street restaurant, Little Social is a Parisian-themed bistro bedecked in dark wood and red leather banquettes, with homely wallpaper that’s barely visible behind a collection of Gallic tchotchkes and period French tourism posters. It’s all faux and make believe of course: the place opened in [...]
Galley on Upper Street in Islington is nice: but we should aim higher February 23, 2016 We can afford to be discerning about things, us Londoners, what with all the lovely London stuff we have, Londoning the place up. “Isn’t everything here great compared to the things in places that aren’t London?” we say to each other, smiling and knowing it to be true. Take restaurants: we have heaps of them, [...]
The Toyota Mirai is the car you can buy – today – that only emits water February 23, 2016 At a modernist house in North London – designed, built and rented out by one of the partners at Norman Foster’s firm – Toyota showed me the future of the car. It’s a long, funny-looking four-door contraption called the Mirai, with exaggerated rear wheel arches and a fittingly modernist front end. Other car companies talk [...]
Focus On Shadwell: Good transport and pubs mean promising times ahead in East London February 23, 2016 St Chad – after whom east London’s Chadwelle, now known as Shadwell, is named – is jokingly referred to as the patron saint of botched elections. This modern nickname was applied after the 2000 US election, when irregular “chads” (punched holes) may have defaced enough ballots cost Al Gore the 2000 US election. Chad is [...]
Channel your inner Attenborough with a trip Australia’s Great Barrier Reef February 22, 2016 “Look, over there – a bull shark.” My guide, Mark, points out the sleek, contoured shape with its distinctive dorsal fin and bluntly-shaped head – one of the most dangerous of its kind in the world – lazing idly in a sun-dappled patch of translucent, turquoise water. My heartbeat accelerates slightly, but thankfully there’s no [...]
Delacroix at the National Gallery does this magnificent painter a disservice February 19, 2016 The National Gallery | ★★☆☆☆ Measuring the influence of one artist on another is no easy task, and the National Gallery fails to pull it off convincingly in this muddled and problematic exhibition. Curators attempt to trace the influence of Delacroix – best known as the romantic painter of the iconic Liberty Leading the People – [...]
Uncle Vanya at the Almeida is brilliantly acted, cleverly staged and gratifyingly reinterpreted February 19, 2016 Almeida | ★★★★★ Anton Chekhov is a cornerstone of modern theatre, one of the fathers of realism; he eschews action in favour of mood and character, and while his Uncle Vanya is an undoubted masterpiece, the prospect of three and a half hours of Russian misery isn’t necessarily the most enticing prospect. Rejoice then that [...]