By: Steve Dinneen

Life&Style Editor I'm the editor of City A.M. The Magazine, and editor of the daily newspaper's Life&Style section. We cover food, wine, going out, culture, technology and travel. I'm also the head judge of our Toast the City awards that celebrates hospitality in the Square Mile. Find me on X @steve_dinneen

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Camp Siegfried at the Old Vic: As bright and bouncy as brainwashing gets

September 20, 2021

A true story about the indoctrination of American teenagers into fascism sounds like a heavy evening of theatre, but the Old Vic’s Camp Siegfried is as bright and bouncy as brainwashing gets. Set in the titular Long Island summer camp in 1938, it follows two unnamed teenagers who meet on the outskirts of a dance [...]
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2021 is the best in years

September 17, 2021

British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, coordinator of the 253rd Royal Academy Summer Exhibition has managed something extraordinary: he’s created a show that actually makes sense. Where the Summer Exhibition – once again shunted to the autumn thanks to Covid – is usually a maddening, overwhelming jumble of artworks, this year there’s a thread of urgency and [...]
The Memory of Water at Hampstead Theatre review

September 10, 2021

Some plays seem to never age, maintaining the feeling of newness and revelation in each subsequent staging. Recent productions of Under Milk Wood and The Dumb Waiter spring to mind, conjuring such a stark sense of otherness that they feel forever young. Others become period pieces before the ink dries on the script, such as [...]
Opportunity International exhibition is both harrowing and hopeful

September 10, 2021

Tucked away in the secluded Southwood Garden of St James’s Church, just off Piccadilly, you will find a new outdoor photography exhibition hosted by the charity Opportunity International. It consists of a series of large, freestanding portraits of Ugandan refugees taken by the award-winning photographer Kate Holt. Each one comes with a harrowing story: artist [...]
Mixing It Up at hayward Gallery is a sprawling, unruly exhibition

September 8, 2021

Collective exhibitions are tricky things. The work of each artist demands attention all of its own, but needs to be in dialogue with those around it. The best have a solid theme to tie all the unruly ideas into something approaching a thesis, such as Among the Trees, an exhibition all about… well, trees, which [...]
Rockets and Blue Lights at National Theatre review

September 3, 2021

First performed in March 2020 at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, Rockets and Blue Lights ran for just three weeks before the pandemic yanked down the curtain. Now this strange, urgent, flawed, exasperating and occasionally brilliant play finally opens in London on the National Theatre’s Dorfman stage. Winsome Pinnock’s play focuses on the legacy of [...]
Playhouse, a shrine to video games, launches at Selfridges as industry sales surge

August 31, 2021

Video games have been big business for decades, with the top titles vastly out-grossing the most popular cinema releases. Were there any remaining doubts over whether the medium now represents one of the cultural megaliths of our time, lockdown answered those. Almost two third of UK adults played video games over 2020, with every age [...]
Working Lunch: Isabel is as bouji and buzzy as anywhere in Mayfair

August 27, 2021

In the decade I have lived in London, I must have walked down Albemarle street a hundred times. And, gun to my head, I would have sworn that Isabel had always been there. Despite opening in 2017, it has the feel of a classic Mayfair restaurant-cum-nightclub, with a neat row of understated outdoor seats giving [...]
The Two Character Play at Hampstead Theatre reinvigorates Tennessee Williams’ late work

July 28, 2021

There’s something comforting about the way Hampstead Theatre, always a bastion for experimental works that tease at the boundaries of mainstream theatre, has emerged from the pandemic. At a time when the pressure to stick on something that’s guaranteed to fill seats must be overwhelming, it instead decided to revive a tricky series of plays [...]
Somerset House brings all the fun of the fair to its courtyard

July 21, 2021

The Somerset House courtyard has become a staple of the winter calendar with its picturesque ice rink and warming cocktails. But a new summer installation by artist-architect Yinka Ilori could make it one of the most sought-after summer hangouts, too. The huge courtyard has been transformed into a “a joyful spectacle of colour, sound and [...]

‘Bond market tantrum risks’: Gilt traders brace for Labour leftward pivot as Starmer future uncertain

Manchester City: Sheikh Mansour faces calls for ban from English football over UAE links to genocide

In the watch world, exposed movements usurp the vintage revival

By: Steve Dinneen

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