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It's your weekly guide to culture in the capital. Chris Cooke and Tom Bragg are joined by Annie Jenkins, Writer In Residence at the Shakespeare In Shoreditch festival. Plus we chat on the phone to John Hewer about his show 'Just Like That: The Tommy Cooper Show' at the Museum Of Comedy and enjoy some musical interludes courtesy of McNeil & Pamphilon and Marcel Lucont.
Click here to download or stream this edition.
Comic duo Guilt & Shame first caught our collective TW eye at the Edinburgh Fringe, when our reviewers were impressed by their dark and sometimes shocking sketch comedy style. The pair, aka Robert Cawsey and Gabriel Bisset Smith, head to Soho Theatre this month for a run of their latest show 'Going Straight'. To find out more about the show – and them – I called them in for questioning. You can read the interview here.
'Guilt & Shame: Going Straight' is on at Soho Theatre from 9-11 then 16-18 Oct. See this page here for info and tickets.
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EXHIBITION: Terror And Wonder – The Gothic Imagination | British Library | 3 Oct – 20 Jan 2015 Taking off the coffin lid on 250 years of Gothica, the British Library's 'Terror And Wonder' traces our fascination with all things wild, strange and macabre through an array of books, posters, film clips and ephemera. From Horace Walpole's 1974 novel 'The Castle Of Otranto', to late greats of the genre like mother-of-'Frankenstein' Mary Shelley and 'Dracula' animator Bram Stoker, to modern horror aficionados like Stanley Kubrick, Alexander McQueen, to the bloody 'Twilight' books. Details and tickets here. MUSIC: Goat | Roundhouse | 3 Oct Whilst Swedish psych mystics Goat might keep their faces hidden behind masks, there's no sense of the same secrecy to the acidic vibes, tribal hypno-pop incantations and serpentine arrangements of their latest LP 'Commune', which they'll be placing parts of at this show, alongside slightly older hits from the band's 2012 tour-de-force 'World Music'. Details and tickets here. THEATRE: Henry IV | Donmar Warehouse | 3 Oct – 29 Nov (pictured) With 'she-Hamlet' Maxine Peake already doing it for Shakespearean gender-reversal over at Manchester's Royal Exchange, here's an all-female adaptation of Shakey's' 'Henry IV', the mid-point in a trilogy of collaborations between stage actress Harriet Walter and director Phyllida Lloyd, who linked so brilliantly on 2012's 'Julius Caesar'. Taking place in the 'so hot right now' scenario of a women's prison, it's a play about family, kingship, power and patriotism. Details and tickets here. |
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COMEDY: The Human Loire – Part Man, Part Longest River in France | Etcetera Theatre | 4 Oct Having proven an intriguing act at the Edinburgh Fringe earlier this year, award-winning man/waterway Michael Brunström, aka The Human Loire, is now in London to dribble forth a swift-flowing stream of surreal stunts and batshit antics. Details and tickets here. EVENT: A Soiree In A Cemetery w/ Stewart Lee + Matthew Robins | secret location, Zone 2 | 4 Oct A promenade 'party' in a Victorian graveyard 30 mins from London Bridge, this clandestine cemetery seance features comic Stewart Lee as the smart-talking spectre at the feast (because there will be tea, cake and hot toddies at the event, served by the WI), not to mention appearances by acclaimed puppeteers Matthew Robins and Henry Maynard, storied singer-songwriter Nigel of Bermondsey, the British Humanist Choir, and special mystery beings. Details and tickets here. MUSICAL: The Scottsboro boys | Garrick Theatre | 4 Oct – 21 Feb 2014 (pictured) Based on the landmark plight of nine black teenagers convicted of rape (and later imprisoned) in 1931, this despite overwhelming evidence they were innocent, John Kander and Fred Ebb's 'Scottsboro Boys' plays to the dark side of the real life story, framing the case within the musical as a black minstrel show hosted by a grotesque white interlocuter. A honey-trap for awards in its lifetime, it transfers to the Garrick after a smash hit stint at the Young Vic. Details and tickets here. |
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COMEDY: The Geekatorium w/ Nick Revell | The Phoenix, Cavendish Square | 5 Oct Presented 'on-the-reg' by comic/'Nintendo apologist' Paul Gannon and his peer-in-nerddom, humble genius Eli Silverman, this particular edition of Sunday night pop-culture hub 'The Geekatorium' features dorky guest witticisms from Nick Revell. Details and tickets here. FILM: Witching & Bitching + Violet + Who Killed Bambi? | Cine Lumiere | 5 Oct (pictured) Making that 'a wrap' on the final day of this year's London Spanish Film Festival, it's a trio of films starting off with Álex De La Iglesia's nail-biting horror 'Las Brujas De Zugarramurdi's (or 'Witching & Bitching). And following that, in order, are Luiso Berdejo's polaroid-based love story 'Violet' (pictured), and 'Quién Mató a Bambi' (aka 'Who Killed Bambi?'), a crazed black comedy from director Santi Amodeo. Details and tickets here. MUSICAL: Free As Air | Finborough Theatre | 5-21 Oct A chirpy, paradisiacal musical dating back to 1957, Julian Slade's 'Free As Air' is set on the tiny floating oasis of Terhou amidst its happy Channel Island natives. It's here revived by Stewart Nicholls, and stars Wiltshire-born soprano Charlotte Baptie as 'beautiful stranger' (and potential May Queen) Geraldine. Details and tickets here. |
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COMEDY: Centrepoint Laughing Point w/ Daniel Kitson + Stewart Lee + Sara Pascoe | Palace Theatre | 6 Oct Lending their high-profile backing to this comic conglom in aid of Centrepoint, the charity dedicated to helping homeless young people, are ambi-skilled Perrier-winner Daniel Kitson, telly's most beloved SOB Stewart Lee, soon-to-have-his-own-show-on-BBC-Three-man Josh Widdicombe and inimitable character actress Sara Pascoe. Oh, and Tony Law, Katherine Ryan, Aisling Bea and Joe Lycett, who aren't even top of the bill, so high is the caliber of this showcase. Details and tickets here. THEATRE: Confirmation | Battersea Arts Centre | 6-25 Oct (pictured) Theatre/verse-writer Chris Thorpe's Fringe First-winning show, a collaboration with Rachel Chavkin (of innovative NYC drama co The TEAM), is based on a series of interviews the confirmed 'liberal' Thorpe held with a white supremacist named Glenn. 'Confirmation', as in 'confirmation bias', finds Thorpe scaling the gap that separates his and Glenn's views, in a bid to discover why and how two people's ideas, beliefs and interpretations of the world can wind up so far apart. Details and tickets here. THEATRE: Notes From Underground | The Print Room | 6 Oct – 1 Nov Co-adapted by and starring 'Game Of Thrones' actor Harry Lloyd, aka evil (and later, gilded) Prince Viserys Targaryen, this claustrophobic take on Dostoyevski's novella comes from the mind of a man locked away from the 'Real World' by his own choosing. Details and tickets here. |
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COMEDY: Jam Sponge – Broadcasting Bites | Leicester Square Theatre | 7-8 Oct 'Broadcasting Bites' is a tasty dollop of skit-based action from Jam Sponge, who set their new sketch series both behind the scenes, and on camera, at at imaginary TV show. It follows the company's last foray, last year's “tight and entertaining” (said ThreeWeeks at the time) 'Bench Bites', which was all situated on a single bit of park seating. Details and tickets here. MUSIC: Real Lies | Upstairs @ The Garage | 7 Oct The nonchalant-looking poster kids for a kind of 'normcore'-variety dance pop, London boys Real Lies play The Garage behind their critically-hyped new split single 'North Circular'/'Dab Housing' with an all-new live set, which will feature them playing real guitars and singing and everything. Details and tickets here. THEATRE: Secret Theatre Festival | various locations | 7-18 Oct (pictured) The Lyric Hammersmith's new and exciting tray of select theatre tidbits features, which places the emphasis heavily on the 'new and exciting' bit, features, first off, 'Woyzeck', a 'mind-boggling' twist on playwright Georg Büchner's still-incomplete story of story of a lowly soldier and his unfaithful wife. Also on the Secret Theatre horizon; a bold upgrade of 'A Streetcar Named Desire'; the lo-fi 'Series Of Increasingly Impossible Acts', which is essentially an interactive game of dares and party tricks; and, finally, leading stage writer Mark Ravenhill's arresting new thriller 'Show 6'. Details and tickets here. |
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ART: Tracey Emin – The Last Great Adventure Is You | White Cube Gallery | 8 Oct – 16 Nov (pictured) It's easy to take a shallow reading of pre-Eminent (see what I did there?) artist Tracey E's work, yet here she still is, as present and anti-relevant as ever, and represented in her first show at Bermondsey's White Cube in five years. Featuring bronze casts and placques, gouaches, paintings, neon creations and her famed large-scale embroidery, 'The Last Great Adventure Is You' is, says Emin, a contemplation of “rites of passage, of time and age, and the simple realisation that we are always alone”. Details and tickets here. DANCE: New Adventures – Lord Of The Flies | Sadler's Wells Theatre | 8-11 Oct This ballet adaptation of William Goulding's novelette from dance maestro Matthew Bourne – him of all-male 'Swan Lake' fame – moves the 'kids gone wild' story of Ralph, Jack, Piggy et al from a desert island to an empty theatre, with a cast of muscular adult dancers posing as the book's bunch of abandoned schoolboys. Which is always fun. Details and tickets here. FILM: BFI London Film Festival | various locations | 8-19 Oct So this is it, the big one. The big, massive, film-based one. The LFF. London. Film. Festival. Starting with a red carpet gala screening of the highly-anticipated 'Imitation Game' (aka the one with Benedict Cumbersquatch playing computing genius Alan Turing); it kinds of goes without saying that this year's programme covers both movies by dyed-in-the-wool Brit directors – like Mike Leigh's Timothy Spall-starring painter biopic 'Mr Turner', or 'Dreams Of A Life' filmmaker Carol Morley's new feature 'The Falling' – AND the best in A-list and fringe cinema from all over the world. Details and tickets here. |
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ART: Alibis – Sigmar Polke 1963-2010 | Tate Modern | 9 Oct – 8 Feb 2014 The Tate Modern hosts this lifetime review of 'insatiably experimental' late German art rebel Sigmar Polke, who in his five decade career defied classification; dipping into painting, drawing, photography, film and sculpture, and also working with things like notebooks, slide projections, photocopies and many a 'weird' material. Like snail juice, to name one. The show's title 'Alibis' is a nod to Polke's scorn and hatred of the Nazi party, and to all those who relied and still rely on the alibi 'I didn't see anything' as a way to shirk responsibility for the war crimes and atrocities of WW2. Details and tickets here. COMEDY: Doc Brown – The Weird Way Round | The Forum | 9 Oct (pictured) Doc 'Ben Smith' Brown, seriously smart comic, rapper, actor, cultural pundit and kid-brother-to-Zadie-Smith ponders 'life, love and lyricism' in his new show 'The Weird Way Round'. Details and tickets here. MUSICAL: Made In Dagenham | Adelphi Theatre | 9 Oct – 28 Mar 2015 Apple-cheeked starlet Gemma Arterton, off of films, here tries a bit of real-time acting (and singing, and dancing) as the fearless Rita, who leads the Essex girls – nay, ladies – of the Dagenham Ford car-making plant in a game-changing 1968 pay-strike. Based on the zippy 2010 film by Nigel Cole, which itself was based on real events that happened in real people's real lives, 'Made In Dag' has a very credible creative team behind it, not least 'One Man, Two Guvnors' script-writer Richard Bean, BAFTA and Grammy-winning composer David Arnold, Olivier-winning lyricist Richard Thomas (who also did 'Anna Nicole', FYI) and, to cap it off real nicely, acclaimed Almeida Theatre AD Rupert Goold. Details and tickets here. |
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