YOUR GUIDE TO THIS WEEK IN CULTURE
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Comedy Festivals Film Theatre
Thursday 1 May 2014 in London
By TW Editorial | Published on Friday 25 April 2014
ThisWeek’s tipped events for this here May Day in London (ie proper May Day, rather than the Bank Holiday that also takes that name) are as follows…
COMEDY: London SketchFest, Backyard Bar & Kitchen, 1-4 May
London’s premiere fest of sketches begins tonight with the golden boys of sketch comedy Pappys, who’ll open proceedings with their ‘Best Of’ medley. Wicked women Shirley & Shirley, young-buck double acts The Pin and Thunderbards, top Irish trio Foil, Arms & Hog, the acclaimed Real MacGuffins, the bizarre ghost-story ‘House Of Nostril’ from ThreeWeeks Editors’ Award winning Casual Violence, and rebel sketch prefects Max & Ivan complete the long-weekend listings. Details and tickets here.
FILM: Hollywood Babylon – Early Talkies Before The Censor, BFI Southbank, 1-31 May
This provocative BFI season takes the cloche off Hollywood’s headiest cinema era, when, in the early 1930s, film studios roundly ignored the ushering-in of the Motion Picture Production Code, and turned out some seriously shocking (for its time) celluloid gold. From naughty comic romps, to raw social commentaries, the period also proved a hothouse for rising figures like James Cagney, Jean Harlow and Clark Gable. Details and tickets here.
THEATRE: The Testament Of Mary, Barbican Centre, 1-25 May (pictured)
Acting marvel Fiona Shaw plays a mother, any mother, wracked with pain at the looming loss of a son (who in this case is, incidentally, Jesus), playing The Virgin Mary in director Deborah Warner’s vastly praised ‘Testament’, an adaptation of writer Colin Tóibín’s fictionalisation of the story of Christ. Details and tickets here.
