The last supper: Actor Nathaniel Parker on his dream final meal dream meal I prefer the sound of a “final meal on Earth” to “Last Supper”, as otherwise it feels a bit too much like the night before an execution. I also like it because if I was religious, I’d feel as if I was going on to somewhere else, which would be nice. My final meal on [...]
The big cheese: How old food can sell for crazy prices at auction It took two hours for bidding to draw to a close, but it was worth it. The 2.62kg Cabrales cheese left the auction tent at the 2018 Cabrales Cheese Competition to rapturous applause. Cream of the crop, the cheese had caught the attention of 15 restaurateurs from around Spain, each bidder hell-bent on blessing their [...]
We’re taking fewer flights – now’s the time to bring back aviation’s glamour Travel If you’ve tried going abroad lately, you will know that the process has changed drastically. Gone is the relative ease of perusing a travel site and booking your flights, your main concern being whether you’d remembered to pack your passport. Travelling in the age of Covid is dogged with confusing new lingo and a protocol [...]
Quick review: Wine bar and restaurant Hackney Coterie is boldly sophisticated December 1, 2021 WHAT IS IT?A wine bar and restaurant, Hackney Coterie manages to both be relaxed and boldly sophisticated. Opened in July 2021, it’s the brainchild of two friends, restaurateur Anthony Lyons (of Lyons Seafood & Wine Bar) and sommelier Kelvin McCabe. The wines hail from across Europe, and form a seriously impressive collection. As for the food, [...]
‘night, Mother at Hampstead Theatre, review: Misses the mark November 5, 2021 You know there’s a problem when you realise, half way through a play’s performance, that you don’t care what happens to either of the protagonists. On paper, ‘night, Mother at the Hampstead theatre seemed a recipe for success: a revival of Marsha Norman’s 1985 Pulitzer-winning play starring stage and screen icon Stockard Channing (Grease, Six [...]
Diana’s story is pure cinema – but will it continue to enthrall? October 29, 2021 As the old adage goes, you wait an eternity for a bus to arrive, and four come along at once. The same could be said of cinematic incarnations of Princess Diana: the past decade has seen at least four actresses don flaxen wigs and unwieldy shoulder pads, with Kristen Stewart the latest to cast bashful [...]
Frieze 2021: An electric start to the new art season October 22, 2021 It is telling, though perhaps unsurprising, that in a time of expanding digital exhibition spaces, curators, artists, and collectors still value face-to-face contact provided by art fairs. Frieze is the best of them all to kickstart the new London art season, with its sculpture garden and two imposing marquees – Frieze London and Frieze Masters [...]
Helene Binet at the RA, review: Architectural photography at its finest October 22, 2021 In her first major retrospective, photographer Helene Binet’s work at the Royal Academy offers a fresh look at the lines found in architecture. Over a 35 year career, the internationally acclaimed Swiss-French photographer (b.1959) has captured both historic and contemporary structures, reducing them to their simplest forms. A practitioner of analogue photography, her work focuses [...]
White Noise, Bridge Theatre review: A provocative take on racism in America October 15, 2021 White Noise, Suzan-Lori Parks’ explosive play on race in twenty-first century America, is as much about the problem of silence in the face of injustice as it is about performative solidarity. The play centres on four thirty-somethings: Leo (Ken Nwosu), a black artist, his white lawyer girlfriend Dawn (Helena Wilson), and their old college friends, [...]
What If If Only, Royal Court review: a punchy analysis of grief October 5, 2021 Could things have been different? Can we change the past? Should we risk the consequences? These are the questions posed by Caryl Churchill’s latest wisp of a play, What If If Only – and which it teasingly, infuriatingly, only half answers. Perhaps that’s due to the play’s length: at just 17 minutes long, it is [...]
