Ochre restaurant review: Art on the walls and plates at the National Gallery July 20, 2022 The National Gallery seems like the kind of place you go for dinner when you’re a grown up. I’ve wandered past the stately, towering entrance to Ochre restaurant for the past decade, ogling the formidable doormen and wondering what lies inside this easterly stretch of the building that houses so many priceless paintings. Ochre used [...]
Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre, review: Pop Shakespeare at its finest July 19, 2022 Much Ado About Nothing is Shakespeare for people who don’t like Shakespeare. Alongside A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it’s one of the Bard’s funniest and least demanding offerings, which has given rise to a degree of snobbishness about it. Kenneth Branagh’s 90s version, in which he plays a brilliant Benedict, is a landmark modern edition of [...]
Visit St Andrews if you’re mad about golf, but make time for Kate and Wills nostalgia too July 18, 2022 Adam Bloodworth visits St Andrews, checking into the newly-refurbished Rusacks, the hotel overlooking The Open’s 18th hole on the Old Course Imagine waking up in your hotel room, pulling a jaunty yawn-stretch, opening the curtains and revealing the finishing line of one of the most famous sporting tournaments in the world. There aren’t many hotels [...]
Anything Goes at Barbican review: All aboard! This is a five-star musical thrillride July 14, 2022 Anything Goes achieves a rare kind of alchemy by succeeding at everything it turns its hand to. It’s a sterling effort in song, dance, staging, acting and storytelling, and it keeps the pace throughout. Tonally, it tightropes between farce and sentimentality deftly. The romance doesn’t veer toward schmaltzy, the comedy never towards cringe. This will [...]
Pride in London: How to avoid crowds or party with the masses June 29, 2022 Making a noise about Gender Recognition Act reforms or just, well, making a noise, here’s where to spend Pride in London this weekend After a few dreary weather days it’s looking up for Pride in London on Saturday, where over 1.5 million queer people and allies will fill the streets of the West End with [...]
Inside the brilliantly creative Glastonbury Theatre & Circus fields June 28, 2022 It’s not all about Macca and Billie Eilish, don’t you know? Some of Glastonbury’s best areas involve no music at all. For instance, the Theatre & Circus fields are some of the festival’s oldest areas, where performers surprise punters with spontaneous shows as they pass by, and there are full-scale acrobatics pieces that you’d pay [...]
Glastonbury 2022: Protest and celebration as festival roars back June 27, 2022 It’s been an anxious three years for Glastonbury, but this weekend the most important and influential of the UK’s music festivals, and one of the most essential stages in the world, returned for the first time since 2019. Did it rain? Of course it did – but only a little bit. Late afternoon crowds on [...]
Where to eat to support Ukraine and learn about the country’s fabulous cuisine June 22, 2022 One of Ukraine’s most famous chefs is hosting a series of fundraising pop-ups, with a London restaurant on the way. Yurri Kovryzhenko, one of only two Ukrainian chefs mentioned in the Michelin guide, will be cooking next Monday 27 June at City Social at a fundraising dinner in collaboration with chefs like Jason Atherton and [...]
Festivals like Glastonbury aren’t about music, they’re about friendship June 22, 2022 Research tells us that many of us in densely-populated cities are lonely. For a period of my life, I feared Saturdays, spending half the week drumming up a plan so I wasn’t alone, but often I was anyway. This shouldn’t happen in your twenties, but it does. Festivals offer an escape, a weekend in a [...]
Alex Webb at Number One Park Lane: A thrillride of British flavours June 22, 2022 It’s clear that Alex Webb – loveable Essex boy and Masterchef winner 2020 – truly gives a well-seasoned asparagus about British eating and drinking. When I asked for a glass of wine at his London pop-up simply called Alex Webb at Number One Park Lane, I forgot our shores and thought of a sharp New [...]