THURSDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2014
AL LUBEL: STILL AL LUBEL
We first came across US comedian Al Lubel when he made his acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe debut with 'Al Lubel Is Mentally Al' in 2013, and became a joint winner of the Amused Moose Laughter Award. He returned to the Festival in 2014 with a new show, 'I'm Still Al Lubel', and this week heads to the Leicester Square theatre to perform it for a London audience.

Lubel is a seasoned stand up, with multiple appearances on 'Letterman' and 'The Tonight Show' under his belt, as well as being a fully qualified lawyer... I sent some questions over, to find out more about the new show, why he abandoned the law, and why he talks so much about his mother. You can read the interview here.

'I'm Still Al Lubel' is on at Leicester Square Theatre on 20 Sep, see the venue website, this page here in fact, for more info and tickets.
 
NITIN SAWHNEY: DYSTOPIAN DREAM
Award winning DJ/composer/producer Nitin Sawhney takes to the stage at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday to showcase tracks from his upcoming new album 'Dystopian Dream', as well as to air a few more retrospective pieces.

I sent some questions over to the renowned music multi-tasker ahead of this weekend's gig, to find out what to expect from the show, the new album, and the future. You can read the interview here.

Nitin Sawhney is on at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday 21 Sep, see this page here for more info and tickets.
FRIDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2014 >>
COMEDY: Joz Norris – Awkward Prophet | Museum Of Comedy | 19 Sep (pictured)
Comic, actor, "idiot optimist" and all-over nice man Joz Norris, one of Edinburgh Fringe poster boy John Kearns' Weirdos Comedy peers, seeks to please with this fairly odd take on his chaotic love life. Details and tickets here.

MUSIC: The Saturdays | Wembley Arena | 18 Sep
Britain's top all-girl pop band with chart-sticky hits to spare, The Saturdays sachay into town toting a show spotlighting all the catchiest tracks on their five LPs. They all also happen to be available now via The Sats' new 'best of' compilation 'Finest Selection'. I know, that sounds like a range at M&S, let's just pretend we didn't notice. Details and tickets here.

THEATRE: Interrobang?! – The Curious Departure Of Dustin Spektor | Theatre Delicatessen, Farringdon | 19 Sep – 1 Nov
The always-piquant Theatre Delicatessen leads an "immersive game of detection, questions and interjections", putting audiences on a trail of clues winding all over East London (like outside, on the actual pavements, in the cold, smog and potential rain) and giving them only four hours to solve a murder against all odds. There's a daily Daytime edition for families, and an after-dark repeat for aspiring criminologists aged fifteen and over. Details and tickets here.
SATURDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2014 >>


ART: Constable – The Making Of A Master | V&A | 20 Sep – 11 Jan 2015
The V&A's big-deal new mega-show reviews Great British Romantic John Constable's main inspirations, techniques and legacy in re-examine his art in new ways. The exhibit will present JC's quintessential Dedham Vale etc paintings (and the missing link between land and canvas, his game-changing oil sketches of earth, sea and sky) alongside works by the old masters of classical landscape. Details and tickets here.

CABARET: Miss Behave's Gameshow | London Wonderground | 20 Sep
Miss Behave, the Olivier Award-winning first lady of late-night entertainment, presents her final extravaganza in the Spiegeltent this year, playing a medley of silly interactive games with a prize incentive, and dolloping in a mix of variety acts and disco so dirty, it's suitable for sixteen year olds and overs only. Details and tickets here.

MUSIC: King Buzzo | Oslo | 20 Sep (pictured)
Distinctive-haired King Buzzo, ruler of US rock's great uncles Melvins, is still going strong on a solo basis (and still not appearing to give a single damn), and this unplugged Oslo show is all part of the party he's throwing around his latest LP, the take-it-to-the-man-themed 'This Machine Kills Artists'. Details and tickets here.
SUNDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2014 >>


COMEDY: Laugh Out London w/ Liam Williams + Nish Kumar + Tom Craine | The Lion, Stoke Newington | 21 Sep (pictured)
Self-deprecating Sheeps man Liam Williams headlines the first ever LOL night to be based in villagelike-oasis-of-North-East-cool Stoke Newington, closing off a showcase that also co-stars smart anti-optimist Nish Kumar and Tom Craine, commissioned player in forthcoming BBC Three series 'Josh'. Details and tickets here.

FILM: Scalarama 2014 – Film Noir All-Dayer | Genesis Cinema | 21 Sep
This year's Scalarama film fest takes a noirish Sunday turn with this all-day programme of dames, dark streets and shady dealings. Dick Richards' 1975 detective thriller 'Farewell My Lovely' is on first, with 'The Killers', 'Kiss Me Deadly', 'Touch Of Evil', 'In A Lonely Place' and 'Pick-Up On South Street' all stealthily trailing at a safe distance. Details and tickets here.

THEATRE: Golden Kite Gala | Lyceum | 21 Sep
The Lyceum's 'Lion King' cast, backstage crew and staff present an evening of musical theatre and dramatic readings in aid of the Urdang Academy's Aaron Morgan Bursary Fund. Whilst tickets are free via RVSP, donations are, of course, invited. Details and tickets here.
MONDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2014 >>
MUSIC: Ibeyi | Rough Trade West | 22 Sep
The twin daughters of late Franco-Cuban musician Miguel 'Anga' Diaz, kind-of-identical sisters Naomi and Lisa-Kainde released their first EP as Ibeyi recently via a still-wet deal with the revered XL Recordings. Drop in to this Rough Trade in-store (entry's free, so why the heck not?) to hear them sing 'Oya' – a cold, bony paean combining shades of the pair's African lineage with 'Westernised' electronics – and muscular follow-on single 'River'. Details here.

THEATRE: Electra | The Old Vic | 22 Sep – 20 Dec (pictured)
The always-captivating Kristin Scott-Thomas teams once again with her go-to theatre director Ian Rickson in this revival of grim Sophcolean tragedy 'Electra', a bloody story of power and retribution that plays out in an in-the-round adaptation by Frank McGuinness. Details and tickets here.

THEATRE: Every Brilliant Thing | Hackney Downs Studios | 22-25 Sep
A one-man 'celebration of life' that begins with a dead dog, Jonny Donahoe's bittersweet 'Every Brilliant Thing' finds its central character inviting the audience to collaborate on a list of reasons to carry on living; which he then shares, point-by-point, with his suicidal mother. Details and tickets here.
TUESDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2014 >>


MUSIC: Woman's Hour | Village Underground | 23 Sep
Having recently released their first LP 'Conversations', a stylised synth-pop vision in shades of blue and grey, young London-band Woman's Hour bring it softly to light in their biggest LDN headline show to date. Details and tickets here.

THEATRE: Flowers Of The Forest | Jermyn Street Theatre | 23 Sep – 18 Oct
'I Am A Camera' playwright John Van Druten's First World War-time love story plays at Jermyn Street Theatre in an 80th anniversary staging directed by Antony Biggs. 'Flowers... stars actress Sophie Ward as Naomi, a woman whose pleasantly staid married life is jolted by a visit from her disapproving sister, who brings with her reminders of Naomi's past love affair. Details and tickets here.

THEATRE: Third World Bunfight – Exhibit B | The Vaults | 23-27 Sep (pictured)
Still in town following a radical adaptation of Verdi's 'Macbeth' at the Barbican last week, South African stage master Brett Bailey and company dig down into The Vaults to build a stark and haunting installation critiquing 19th/20th century 'human zoos', which put Africans on show like museum curiosities. The idea is translated here into twelve still-life tableaux, each featuring motionless actors recreating colonial atrocities committed in Africa, as well as Western notions of racial supremacy and the present-day plight of immigrants. Details and tickets here.
WEDNESDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2014 >>


COMEDY: Greenwich Comedy Festival | National Maritime Museum | 24-28 Sep
Stewart Lee is first-night headliner of this year's GCF tent, playing to the gallery following appearances by the inimitable Josie Long, Tony Law and Aisling Bea. Also tightly packed in over latter bills are the likes of the great and good David O'Doherty, Milton Jones, Stephen K Amos, Rich Hall, Ardal O'Hanlon, esteemed TW interviewees Cardinal Burns, and a special screening of 'Tunnel Club', a film tracing the rise of comic compere Malcolm Hardee's famed nightspot of the same name. Details and tickets here.

COMEDY: John Kearns – Shtick | Soho Theatre | 24 Sep – 18 Oct
The first and only human to win the main Foster's Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe only a year after taking the like-prize for Best Newcomer, wig-and-teeth-wearing John Kearns appears 'in character' to reminisce on the ways his life has changed since all the critical acclaim. Details and tickets here.

THEATRE: Speed-The-Plow | Playhouse Theatre | 24 Sep – 29 Nov (pictured)
West End vet Lindsay Posner sits in as director on this considerably high-risk remake of David Mamet's 'Speed-The-Plow' stars 'Mean Girls' tearaway Lindsay Lohan (a stage debutante) as Karen, a temp secretary at a film company whose bosses think signing on an A-list actress will make their movie a big box-office hit. Madonna played the part originally on Broadway to less-than-great reviews – so it remains to be seen whether Li-Lo can act it any better. Details and tickets here.
THURSDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2014 >>
ART EXHIBITION: Witches & Wicked Bodies | British Museum | 25 Sep – 11 Jan 2014
A concoction of Albrecht Dürer's aptly-titled 1501 engraving 'Witch Riding Backwards On A Goat', Francisco de Goya's occult grotesques, and the Pre-Raphaelites sexualised, siren-like enchantresses; the British Museum's free-entry 'Witches & Wicked Bodies' eyeballs representations of witches and witchcraft from the Renaissance era to the late 1800s. Details here.

FILM: Doc N Roll Festival | Hackney Picturehouse | 25-28 Sep
The cool-looking first ever Doc N Roll Festival, a tight schedule of rock-themed film screenings of a doc-like ilk, features the likes of new release 'Looking For Johnny' (which looks at the life of late New York Dolls/Heartbreakers guitarist Johnny Thunders, who died in 1991 aged 38); Stones Throw Records review 'Our Vinyl Weighs A Ton'; a strand given over to Brit director Julien Temple (and a Q&A with JT); and, tonight, the London premiere of 'A Band Called Death', Mark Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlet's doc on 1970s rock trio Death, who are oft-hailed as the first black punk band. Details and tickets here.

MUSICAL: Snakes! The Musical | Leicester Square Theatre | 25 Sep – 19 Oct
Quite Nice Theatre play a quite little theatre company searching for a £50 million investment to take their modest-sized musical adaptation of 'Snakes On A Plane' to the West End. A cleverly 'meta' piece of new writing with a "versatile, creative and energetic cast", 'Snakes!' received a rave 5/5 review from ThreeWeeks at this year's Edinburgh Fringe. Details and tickets here. And look out for a snippet from the show in the next edition of the ThisWeek London Podcast, out next week.
 
CARO MOSES | Editor & Co-Publisher
Caro heads up the ThisWeek London operation, and regularly interviews our favourite performers, creators and directors for Caro Meets. She also co-edits of our sister publication ThreeWeeks Edinburgh.
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ALY BARCHI | Staff Writer
Aly compiles all the ThisWeek London recommendations, and writes the blurbs telling you more. She is also Staff Writer for our other sister publication Complete Music Update.
Email aly@unlimitedmedia.co.uk (except press releases, see above)
   
CHRIS COOKE | Podcast Host & Co-Publisher
Chris oversees the commercial side and business development of ThisWeek, and hosts the weekly podcast. Chris also co-edits ThreeWeeks and is Business Editor of Complete Music Update.
Email chris@unlimitedmedia.co.uk (except press releases, see above)
   
TOM BRAGG | Podcast Editor
Tom oversees the ThisWeek London podcast, booking guests, co-hosting and overseeing the production side. He does the same for ThreeWeeks Edinburgh, where he is also Website Manager.
Email tom@unlimitedmedia.co.uk (except press releases, see above)
   
ANDY MALT | Editorial Associate
Andy looks after the social media side of ThisWeek, and contributes to the ThisWeek London recommendations. He is also Editor of our sister publication Complete Music Update.
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