THURSDAY 6 JULY 2017 THISWEEKCULTURE.COM
  Hello there. Somehow it is July already! Who let that happen? You know what that means - the Edinburgh Festival is now very nearly upon us.

And with that in mind, do check out our latest Edinburgh Fringe Q&As which we link to from this week's TW Weekly. Both comedy this week. I chat to Edinburgh veteran Caroline Mabey about her show 'Quetzals', while Chris finds out more about sketch comedy duo Next Best Thing.

Back in London, as always we have Three To Sees for each of the coming seven days, plus I find out more about the upcoming Postcards festival at Jacksons Lane, returning for its seventh year!

That should be enough to be getting on with! See you back here in a week's time for more.

Don't forget to tell all your culture hungry friends to get signed up to the TW Weekly, which they can do here, and to get our daily updates during the Edinburgh Fringe in August, they should sign up here as well.

Have a great week,

Caro Moses
Editor, ThreeWeeks Edinburgh and ThisWeek London
CAROLINE MABEY: QUETZALS
Caroline Mabey heads northwards this summer as a pretty much verified Edinburgh Veteran (we should get them those ticks like on Twitter) as she presents her fifth full length show 'Quetzals', which is mostly about the fact that her memory isn't quite what it used to be, and an attempt to memorise the 103 allowable two-letter Scrabble words.

That sounds interesting, thought I. So, time for a quick chat. Read the interview here.

Caroline performs 'Quetzals' at Edinburgh Festival 2017 at Just The Tonic at The Caves from 3-27 Aug, and in 'Michael Legge & Caroline Mabey are Two Stupids' at Laughing Horse @ The Free Sisters from 16-27 Aug.
NEXT BEST THING: HOW TO BE GOOD AT EVERYTHING
Next Best Thing are sketch comedy duo Jay Bennett and Katie Davison. And they really are a sketch comedy duo. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Especially Next Best Thing.

In their Pleasance show this August they are promising to tell you 'How To Be Good At Everything'. Everything! It sounded like there was lots to talk about, so I threw some questions in their general direction. Read the interview here.

'How To Be Good At Everything' is on at Edinburgh Festival 2017 at Pleasance Courtyard from 2-28 Aug.
ADRIAN BERRY: POSTCARDS FESTIVAL AT JACKSONS LANE
Coming up at Jacksons Lane is the two-week long Postcards Festival, a showcase of mostly shorter work covering a broad sweep of genres. There are lots and lots of great events - a veritable smorgasbord - and the whole thing is 'pay what you decide'.

To find out more about the festival, I managed a quick chat with the man behind it, Jacksons Lane's artistic director, Adrian Berry. Read the interview here.

The Postcards Festival takes place at Jacksons Lane from 11-29 Jul, see the venue website here for details of all the shows involved.



FRIDAY 7 JULY 2016 >>

Twinkle Twinkle | Little Angel Theatre | 7-8 Jul (pictured)
"There are melodies that live in all of us. No one knows that more than Marty the puppy, whose bedtime songs and play-time with his Dad are the best part of his day. But sometimes, you have to learn how to find the music inside yourself..." A lovely sounding show featuring original music and puppets for your teeny pre-schoolers aged 18 months to 3 years. See this page here for more.

Briefs | Waterloo East Theatre | 7 Jul
If you don't know by now that we here at TW Towers are big fans of collections of short plays, then you clearly haven't been reading our bulletin carefully enough. And if we haven't yet persuaded you to attend a staging of a collection of them, then we are clearly not doing our job properly. This one offers short works, monologues, musicals, and extracts from longer pieces. Click here for info.

Touch | Soho Theatre | 6 Jul-26 Aug
I would urge you to get your skates on regarding booking if you'd like to see this show, because I bet it will be busy. And that's because this show is brought to you by DryWrite, the company created by Vicky Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, creators of the hugely successful show 'Fleabag'. It has a similar sort of theme, focusing as it does on the "secret life" of a 33 year old woman. See the venue website here for details.


SATURDAY 8 JULY 2016 >>

Lucy Aphramor - The Naked Dietitian | Hackney Showroom | 8 Jul (pictured)
One for you lovers of spoken word poetry, and possibly those who don't know they love it yet. Acclaimed performance poet and radical dietitian (she believes we need to make fundamental changes in how we talk about lifestyle, health and justice) Lucy Aphramor addresses topics such as clean eating, identity, privilege, queerness, community, and resilience in what's described as a "viscerally, spiritually, intellectually and emotionally compelling refusal to sign-up to a post-truth whitewash". Click here for more.

Summer In London | Theatre Royal Stratford East | 8-29 Jul
A new romantic comedy about a woman called Summer, who finds herself on the receiving end of attention from four broke and homeless suitors, who each try to get her attention in cost free ways. "We follow the streetwise romeos on boat rides, to museums, parks and firework displays as they try to win their date", runs the blurb. "As the sun sets and the drinks flow things get complicated, and we discover nothing is as it first appears". For info, see the venue website here.

Arna Spek - Museum Peice | Museum Of Comedy | 8 Jul
Like Lucy Aphramor, mentioned above, Dutch comedian Arna Spek is headed to the Edinburgh Fringe this summer, but before that, she's performing her show at the aptly-named-on-this-occasion Museum Of Comedy. In this set she addresses the question of whether she can survive as an EU citizen in 21st Century post Brexit Britain. For details, see this page here.


SUNDAY 9 JULY 2016 >>

Sh*t-Faced Showtime | Leicester Square Theatre | 9, 16, 23 Jul
Well, if you've already witnessed a Sh*t-faced Shakespeare show then you will know what to expect from this production of 'The Wizard Of Oz'. Yes, those "professional pissheads" turn their hand to the musical theatre genre, and get one of their cast members riotously drunk for each performance. Get ready to take an unorthodox route along the Yellow Brick Road, see this page here for details.

Comedie De L'Absurde | Theatre 503 | 9 Jul
"Meet Bill, the self-help guru who hates people; and Jennifer, whose super saccharine niceness might hide an alterior agenda. And have you heard about that new initiative they're rolling out, the Popularity Police?" A play by Jessica King, which aims to "take you on a rollercoaster ride of comedy hilarity, at the same time putting important social issues under the metaphorical microscope". For more info, see the venue website here.

The Dutch Lady | The Cockpit | 9 Jul
This is apparently a restoration comedy that hasn't been seen on stage for more than three centuries, and if that's the case, I'd like to know where it's been all this time...? Well, it seems it's been buried in the bowels of Boston public library, in the USA. Anyway, it's all about the eponymous Dutch woman, who is broke and needs to marry for money, and promises to be a well written and funny piece. Click here for more.


MONDAY 10 JULY 2016 >>

Wet Bread | King's Head Theatre | 10, 11 + 13 Jul
This satirical show is on as part of King's Head Theatre's Festival 47, which is all about the new writing, and focuses on the character of Adele, who just can't believe the Tories won, and wants to change the world, end fracking, help the homeless, save the welfare state and keep Britain in Europe. Unfortunately, everything's against her - not least all her friends who don't agree with her and the love of her life who isn't vegan. For more info on this, see this page here, and to see other festival shows, see this page here.

Jayde Adams Is Jayded | Soho Theatre | 10 Jul
Quite a few works in progress over at Soho Theatre at the moment, so I thought I would pick just one of them, sorry everyone else, but Jayde Adams is very much a TW favourite and won the impromptu contest to get tipped by me. Perhaps I should have warned them all, they could have each run a campaign. It might have been fun, a sort of hark back to all that election fun we have been having lately. Or not. Anyway, go and see Jayde's show, info here.

Poulenc's La Voix Humaine | King's Place | 10 Jul
Francis Poulenc's one-singer, one act forty minute opera for soprano, based on the play of the same name by Jean Cocteau, brought to you by the excellent and award winning OperaUpClose and performed by the brilliant Sarah Minns. "A devastating musical portrait of a human being on the brink of disintegration". Click here for details.


TUESDAY 11 JULY 2016 >>

The Weir | White Bear Theatre | 11-15 Jul
A production of Conor McPherson's award winning 1997 play, which you will no doubt remember premiered at the Royal Court Theatre; if you're not old enough, you might instead remember the 2013 staging at the Donmar Warehouse. If you haven't seen it at all, then here's a chance. A group of people are spending the evening in a remote farmhouse pub in rural Ireland, telling each other stories with a supernatural theme, but then the conversation becomes more personally haunting. See this page here for info.

The Cloak & Dagger Club - Great British Mysteries? | Hen & Chickens | 11 Jul (pictured)
"Join Olive Bacon (Supernaturalist) and Dr Teddy Tyrell (Scorpio), in this live mockumentary adventure investigating monsters, myths and Noel Edmonds. Prepare to be mildly unnerved". This sounds fun, and comes courtesy of a pair of performers with great Cvs, Rose Robinson and Will Close. For details and tickets see this page here.

Heroines | Theatre N16 | 11-15 Jul
This take on Shakespeare's women plucks six of the Bard's female characters from their respective plays and puts them in a room together, in what sounds like a fairly contemporary setting, and I suspect the results will be interesting. The creators of the show argue that these characters' roles are muddied by the male-centric storyline of the pieces they appear in, and this show will explore who they really are. Click here for more.


WEDNESDAY 12 JULY 2016 >>

Bring Your Own Baby Comedy | Battersea Arts Centre | 12 Jul
I am pretty sure that I have tipped this before, but I am not going to apologise for tipping it again, mainly because I really, really wish I could have gone to these shows when I had a small baby. Those of you who don't get up to as much cultural fun as you used to because you have a months-old child, here's your chance to see some funny comedians in a comfortable and comforting location, with said child in tow. Click here for more.

The Believers Are But Brothers | Ovalhouse | 12-15 Jul
"We live in a time where old orders are collapsing: from the postcolonial nation states of the Middle East, to the EU and the American election. Through it all, tech savvy and extremist groups rip through twentieth century political certainties. Amidst this, a generation of young men find themselves burning with resentment; without the money, power and sex they think they deserve. This crisis of masculinity leads them into an online world of fantasy, violence and reality". This one man show by Javaad Alipoor draws on time he spent in this digital realm, and explores a world of extremists, spies, journalists and fantasists. See the venue website here for details.

Boys Club | Jacksons Lane | 12 Jul (pictured)
Part of the Jacksons Lane Postcards festival, this, a "gender-bending satire" presented by London-based bilingual company Two Tongue Theatre. The play is about two unemployed actresses who dress as men in order to find work: together they host the male cabaret Boys Club, and perform macho dances and jokes until an accident forces them to reconsider what they are doing. See this page here for info.


THURSDAY 13 JULY 2016 >>

The God Of Hell | Theatre N16 | 12 Jul-5 Aug
A production of US playwright Sam Shepard's 2004 satire, which was written partly as a response to the events of 9/11, and tells the story of a Wisconsin dairy farmer whose rustic peace is shattered with the arrival of a radioactive refugee from a plutonium-producing establishment, and the supposed salesman who turns up in pursuit of him. Click here for more info and to book.

Chinese Whispers | Greenwich Theatre | 13-23 Jul
This is a play based on the life of Sir Edmund Backhouse, a Victorian con artist who claimed to have had affairs with the likes of Oscar Wilde and the Empress Dowager Cixi of China and managed to pull off some hugely ambitious swindles: he tricked the British government regarding an arms deal, John Brown's Shipyard over a number of battleships, and the American Banknote Company over the printing one hundred million banknotes. So that sounds like an interesting subject for a show, doesn't it? See this page here for details.

Dessert | Southwark Playhouse | 12 Jul-5 Aug (pictured)
"A British financier and his wife host a lavish dinner party for their affluent American friends. The food is delicious, the conversation animated and dessert is on its way - when, from one second to another, the evening takes a sinister and alarming turn". A new play, written by the long-established Oliver Cotton, and helmed by a celebrity director, Trevor Nunn. I expect it's on your to-see list already, but if it's not head right this way.
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