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It's your weekly guide to culture in the capital. Chris Cooke and Tom Bragg are joined by Maddy Carrick as she prepares to perform her Edinburgh show at the Leicester Square Theatre. Tom finds out more about Hammer & Tongs Theatre's 'Myths' and Action Hero Theatre's Hoke's Bluth, plus we have a poem from Jonny Fluffypunk, a sketch from Twins and a snippet from Soho Theatre show 'Symphony'.
Click here to download or stream this edition.
'Cans', a co-production from Theatre 503, Kuleshov Theatre and Etch Theatre, certainly has an interesting premise, which sees the central characters, a woman and her uncle, drinking can after can of cider as they explore issues of grief, the generation gap, and the nature of family secrets. Ahead of the show's three week run at Theatre 503, I sent some questions over to Stuart Slade, co-artistic director of Kuleshov, and writer of the play. You can read the interview here.
Cans is on at Theatre503 until 29 Nov. See the venue website here for more info and tickets.
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FILM: The Unloved | London College Of Communication | 14 Nov This year's nationwide Homeless Film Festival closes with this showing of the first film directed by actress Samantha Morton (and based on her own early life), 2009 BBC TV feature 'The Unloved', which follows a young girl's hardships after she is placed in a children's home. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the film's main star, a now seventeen year old Molly Windsor, and its producer Kate Ogborn. Details and tickets here. THEATRE/KIDS: Dusk | Young Vic | 14-29 Nov (pictured) Created especially for 4-7 year olds, Fevered Sleep's 'Dusk' mingles film and live theatre to paint an animated, interactive portrait of the wide, wide world, zooming in on a band of woodland creatures with ears pricked, 'watching and waiting for someone to arrive'. But who? Or, what? And most importantly, why? Details and tickets here. THEATRE: Feast | Battersea Arts Centre | 14-15 Nov BAC mainstays Clout Theatre take a bite out of the stuff of life... aka 'Food'; tracing humanity's big evolutional dinner party from first course (primordial soup), to last (the gross and sickly cupcake towers of consumerism). And all the tasty distractions in between. Clout will also host a Dada-esque food-based cabaret at the BAC's Scratch Bar on 14 Nov only. Details and tickets here. |
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COMEDY: Dave Gorman Gets Straight to the Point* (*The PowerPoint) | Hammersmith Apollo | 15 Nov Factual comic and cool tech dork Dave Gorman delves further into the art of PowerPoint-based comedy, once again toying with the world's fave slideshow-making tool for his latest touring show. Details and tickets here. MUSIC: Nonclassical Bloc w/ Nathan Fake | Bloc | 15 Nov Promotions co Bloc plays host to this longform live billing from alt music label Nonclassical; which this year features a collaborative set by headliner Nathan Fake and the always-innovatory Multi-Story Orchestra, plus composer Nonclassical boss Gabriel Prokofiev, futurist musician John Matthias, non-conventional 'electronic' project Klavikon, Nick Ryan, John Richards and also his brother (not) John Richards. Details and tickets here. THEATRE: Loaded | Jack Studio Theatre | until 29 Nov First staged at the auld Edinburgh Fringe in 1999, David Brown's 'Loaded' follows a rag-tag pair of garage mechanics who plan a high-stakes stick-up job in order to save their shared acquaintance Carol 'from herself'. Stream a ThisWeek London interview with the play's makers AlterEgo Theatre via the TWL Podcast to discover more. Details and tickets here. |
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COMEDY: World Toilet Day – It's No Joke! Comedy Festival | various locations | 16-19 Nov A drip-drip of fresh and clean comics appearing at a chain (sorry) of one-time public lavatories all over the city, Water Aid's charitably-motivated first ever comedy fest is flush (I really am so, so sorry) with the live likes of Helen Lederer, Bec Hill, Phil Wang, Harriet Kemsley, Tom Craine; and also features a stand-up workshop with acclaimed trainer Logan Murray, and a 'toilet disco finale'. "Urine for a treat!", claim Water Aid, who are certainly not yanking anyone's chain with all this. Details and tickets here. DANCE: Candoco Dance Company - Curious Encounters / Close Encounters | Sadler's Wells | 16-17 Nov This showcase by Candoco, a contemporary co comprising both disabled and non-disabled dancers, is split into two halves; interactive matinee event 'Curious Encounters' - a chance for families to quiz the choreographers and dancers on their work, and 'Close Encounters' - a more conventional performance followed by a Q&A. Details and tickets here. MUSIC: Tinariwen | Roundhouse | 16 Nov Desert blues tribe Tinariwen, a band of Malian musicians who met in exile in Libya, present a rare live set celebrating the their mystic latest LP, 'Emmaar'. Details and tickets here. |
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COMEDY: Shappi Khorsandi - Because I'm Shappi | Soho Theatre | 17-29 Nov Leading comic lady and whip-crack wit Shappi Khorsandi was away from the circuit for most of 2013, on account of her being "knocked up like a 1950s teenager". Well she's back again, and on a haphazard forward march, honing in on her life's positive points (and positive people) in her peppy new solo show. Details and tickets here. MUSIC: Girlpool + Oscar | Shacklewell Arms | 17 Nov LA-based indie cindies Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad, aka Girlpool, shoot off a slimmed-down line in opinionated screamo pop, as is typified on their self-titled 'Girlpool' EP, re-released this month via Wichita. It's a free-entry show, and co-stars lovesick alt-pop creatonist Oscar (Scheller) as support act. Details and tickets here. THEATRE: The Collector | Arcola Theatre | 17-22 Nov Awarded a Fringe First prize in Edinburgh earlier this year, writer Henry Naylor's new play, a topical story of evil, betrayal and killing, is based inside Mazrat Gaol; one of Saddam Hussein's most feared Iraqi torture houses, and follows a local translator who catches the eye of a psychotic inmate. Details and tickets here. |
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COMEDY: An Evening With Noel Fielding | Hammersmith Apollo | 18 Nov Caped kook and pal-to-Kasabian Noel Fielding, certainly one of life's real one-offs (if not the most topical or realist comedian going), hits the Eventim Apollo with a big, weird, lyrically-bent stick via his first live progress in five years. 'An Evening With...' combines live animation, 'musical interludes' and Noel's face smeared in shaving foam as 'The Moon'. Details and tickets here. THEATRE/CABARET: Mimetic Festival | The Vaults, Waterloo | until 29 Nov A full-to-the-brim saucy pan of devised, physical and visual theatre, puppetry and cabaret, Finger In The Pie's thrill-a-minute Mimetic fest this year features 'preposterous' Vaudeville(ainous) puppets Boris & Sergey, a grisly spin on one-time 'Dr Who' Tom Baker's short story 'The Boy Who Kicked Pigs', Antler's wintry polyphonic song-and-storytelling piece 'Where The White Stops', and many-faced mime Pi's 'Un Cas de Nostalgie'. Details and tickets here. THEATRE: Stink Foot | Yard Theatre | 18 Nov - 13 Dec Jeff James directs this treacle-steeped (literally) adaptation of Sophocles' 'Philoctetes', following the Greek playwright's ancient narrative of a 'master archer' exiled to an island because of the stench of his injured foot. Odysseus is dispatched to trick the bitter castaway into coming back to the Trojan war. Details and tickets here. |
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COMEDY: Twins | The Invisible Dot | 19-20 Nov Let's get this straight; joined-at-the-hip comics Annie McGrath (the "navigator of the off-beat") and Jack Barry (the "gormless" natural humourist) are 100% identical twins. If not in the genetic, nor the 'being born on the same day' sense. The pair's self-titled first show, is a 60 mins mish-mash of self-deprecating sketches, droll flights of fancy, and "a few theatrical scenes". Details and tickets here. THEATRE: Howie The Rookie | Barbican | 19-29 Nov (pictured) First produced in 1999, playwright Mark Rowe's dark, funny and "outrageous" horror-ride into Dublin's underworld stars Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as both tough guy Howie, and soft-hearted novice Rookie, and also as a cast of rather hideous supporting characters; all of whose lives cross over en route to a common misfortune. Details and tickets here. THEATRE/SPOKEN WORD: Nothing | Camden People's Theatre | 19-22 Nov A meditation on 'alienation and being young' by Sunday Times Young Playwriting Award-winning young playwright Lulu Raczka, 'Nothing' finds its cast picking one of eight monologues (on topics like action films, sex, talking and... buses) at random and, in fact, on stage; and improvising their own new edit then and there. Details and tickets here. |
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COMEDY: Comedy At The Duke w/ John Kearns + Stuart Laws + Joe Sutherland | Duke Of Wellington, Dalston | 20 Nov Weirdy AND beardy (really!) comedian John Kearns, the man the whole world wants a slice of following his Best Newcomer win at this year's Edinburgh Comedy Awards, headlines this beefy night's billing at the Dalston's beery Duke Of Wellington; doing so with the support of Stuart Laws and Joe Sutherland. Details and tickets here. MUSIC: Mo Kolours | Corsica Studios | 20 Nov (pictured) Anglo-Mauritian producer/percussionist/artist Joseph Deenmamode, aka Mo Kolours, fishes a rich catch of sounds, styles and tastes from his eponymous first LP; a taster-plate of woozy looped beats and colour-block sampling in shades of reggae, dub, and anything else you'd care to think of. Details and tickets here. THEATRE: Chimera | Gate Theatre | 20 Nov - 20 Dec Transferring to the Gate direct from New York, this science-inspired one-woman play by Suli Holum and Deborah Stein follows a girl, Jennifer, whose sense of self starts to spiral when she is diagnosed with a rare medical condition. Details and tickets here. |
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