Motown the Musical’s songs deliver, but the lack of story lets it down March 17, 2016 Shaftesbury Theatre | ★★☆☆☆ If you don’t like at least one song released on the Motown label between 1960 and 1975, you’re utterly joyless and there’s something wrong with you. Berry Gordy’s hugely successful label discovered a young Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson among literally hundreds of others. Many of their hits [...]
Top tips for choosing the right tenant for your buy-to-let investment March 17, 2016 So you’ve spent months searching for the perfect property investment and transforming it into a modern, comfortable home. Now it’s time to hand over the keys to a perfect stranger and hope they pay up. Or perhaps you’re upsizing and you’re hoping Mr Rando won’t destroy your beloved first home. But how can you be [...]
Will Steinway & Sons’ newest invention, the Spirio, bring the player piano back into homes? March 17, 2016 The digital revolution has upset a lot of industries, but perhaps none more so than the music industry. With file sharing and streaming via subscription services the norm, the sight of vast collections of CDs stacked up around a home entertainment system is already becoming a rarity in living rooms. As a heritage brand with [...]
Focus On Canning Town: For affordability and an easy commute to Canary Wharf, the only way is E16 March 17, 2016 East London’s post-industrial landscape is rapidly disappearing in favour of quirky cultural venues, artfully rustic cafes and glassy residential towers. While the investment potential in Hackney and Tower Hamlets has been well-documented, other locations that are just as accessible have managed to slip under the radar. One of these is Canning Town, a part of [...]
Property of the Fortnight: Rare Tower Walk townhouse on sale in the middle of St Katharine Docks March 17, 2016 House-hunting usually requires some compromise: a downgrade in location, a flat rather than a house, the sacrificial shedding of car parking space. At first glance, Johan Denekamp a former advertising CEO, seems to have it all – the townhouse, the location, the views – but take hope, because it took him and his wife a [...]
Working Lunch review: 28°- 50° Fetter Lane, St Paul’s has a fine wine cellar and lofty ambitions March 15, 2016 140 Fetter Lane, EC4A | 2850.co.uk/fetter WHAT? 28°-50° Fetter Lane is a relaxed “wine workshop” turned restaurant tucked away in a cellar-like room that infuses ustic country decor with modern city stylings. WHERE? In the legal quarter, just off of Fleet Street. WHO? Head chef Julien Baris left Michelin-starred Le Moulin de l’abbaye in France to [...]
The LCCM, Amy Winehouse’s former music school, is moving to The Music Box on the Southwark – and you could too March 15, 2016 Hear the stars of tomorrow rehearsing in the comfort of your own home by investing in the latest cultural centre around the South Bank. The latest apartments have gone on sale at The Music Box, a new housing development that incorporates the London Centre for Contemporary Music (LCCM). The school, which counts Amy Winehouse among its alumni, [...]
Merchant Terrace in Ravenscourt Park proves good things come in small packages March 11, 2016 Building new homes takes years; that’s why it’s more important for a developer to know where the market is going than where it’s at. With rumours of oversupply at the top end of the market in some areas and a bubble blooming on the horizon, it’s perhaps wise to think small. And that’s something London [...]
The Royal Academy’s In the Age of Giorgione promotes a little known but pivotal painter of the Italian Renaissance March 9, 2016 Royal Academy | ★★★★☆ In the Age of Giorgione argues that this elusive painter, of whom little is known and to whom only a handful of surviving paintings have been definitively attributed, was a pivotal figure in Venetian art in the 16th century. It says, “his influence was profoundly felt by contemporaries”, yet the show is [...]
Anomalisa’s puppetry is more powerful than most live action human dramas March 9, 2016 Anomalisa (PG) | Dirs. Duke Johnson, Charlie Kaufman ★★★★★ It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Charlie Kaufman. Having spent much of the 2000s writing films that became instant classics (Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind) he capped off the decade with his directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York, which divided critics, but to many [...]
