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TIMEOUT.COM/LONDON November 12 ñ 18 2019 No. 2556
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Inside Light-bulb moments
It’s Christmas switch-on time in
This week’s Time Out London. And nowhere does it better
in no time at all than Kew Gardens. Way to glow!
PAGE 44
Mao Chow
Chinese. Vegan. Cheap.
And five-star! Who knew smacked
cucumber could taste soooo good?
PAGE 80
Best mowers
baa none
Meet the greyface Dartmoor sheep
that ‘lambscape’ the Natural History
Museum’s Wildlife Garden
PAGE 32
Henry Golding ‘& Juliet’

KEW GARDENS: JEFF EDEN; MUSUEM WILDLIFE GARDEN: ANDY PARSONS
We talk to the ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ star What if she didn’t kill herself at the end?
(and potential Bond) now playing the Superproducer Max Martin takes that idea for
tall, dark, handsome stranger in festive his musical and injects
romcom ‘Last Christmas’ a massive dose of smash-hit pop
PAGE 62 PAGE 72
FEATURES AND REGULARS

9 City Life 20 Free London 22 Trees and the city 27 Walk on the wet ’n’ wild side in London 37 Remote-working hot spots 44 Christmas lights
52 Exclusive offers 54 Things to Do 62 Film 66 Music & Nightlife 72 Theatre & Dance 76 Art 80 Food 84 Drink 85 Escapes
5 November 12 – 18 2019 Time Out London

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MD EMEA Lawrence Horne
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Ian Tournes (Director),
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Global Editor-in-Chief Reynolds, Juliet Grant,
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Hooper, Robyn Eldridge,
Emma Myland
Head of Media Partnerships
Karen Fischer
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Wayne Mensah (Director),
Tamsin Vincent, Callum
Sinclair, Charlie Liddington,
Do you know that we don’t actually live in a city at all? There Nicola Foxwell
Project Management
are nearly as many trees as people in London – a staggering Junior Olokodana
(Project Management Lead),
8.4 million – and it is so densely planted with them that it Nicki Wymer, Frankie Biggs,
Zara Taylor, Chloe Godwin
officially qualifies as a forest (p22). Trees are crucial for our E-commerce Minesh Shah
(Senior Director)
wellbeing: filtering air pollution, soaking up CO2 and making Live Events Sylvia Kowalska
us feel happier. As the winter tree-planting season kicks off, Global Editor-in-Chief
we’re celebrating the many ways you can get down and dirty Caroline McGinn
Associate Editor/Chief
with nature in the capital (p27). And we’re looking forward Sub Editor Chris Waywell
Deputy Chief Sub Editors
to some of the season’s frostiest outdoor illuminations (p44). Kei Kikuchi, Sarah Cohen
Digital Editor Ellie Walker-Arnott
Come with us into the woods… Associate Editor/
Drink Editor Laura Richards
Features Kate Lloyd (Editor),

Isabelle Aron (Deputy Editor)
Events Katie McCabe
(Editor), Alexandra Sims
(Deputy Editor)
City Life James Manning
(Editor)
Film Phil de Semlyen
(Global Editor)
Music & Nightlife
YOU SAID IT COMMENT OF THE WEEK Oliver Keens (Editor)

Theatre, Dance & Comedy
Andrzej Lukowski (Editor)
Art & Culture
We showed you atmospheric Eddy Frankel (Editor)
What you’ve been rating and hating online Food Tania Ballantine (Editor)
pics of the Underground Commercial Stephen
taken by photographer Mike Farmer (Global Editor), Rose
Johnstone (Branded Content
Goldwater back in the 1970s. Editor), Julia Robinson
The National Portrait Gallery is Staying on a story theme, there was For many readers, they evoked (Designer), Katherine Lovage,
Emily Watson
shutting next June for a three-year a giant gingerbread house in Covent memories, both good and bad. Social Media Sam Willis (Editor)
refurb. A lot of its collection is Garden. Okay, it was a recreation ‘The world was in colour back Video Angela Elvira Bruce
(Global Commissioning Editor)
going on tour, but this reader was of the market building, so possibly then. And public smoking was Global Content Huw Oliver
more worried about his own art. slightly corporate. Still, delicious, allowed. And there was always (Commissioning Editor EMEA)
‘What’s going to happen to the you’ll no doubt agree. the faint smell of piss and Art Director Bryan Mayes
drop-in drawing sessions? My life ‘Should we ask if they have stale tobacco in the tube…’ Designers Philip Lay
(Senior), Jason Tansley
revolves around them. Please let a gluten-free option?’ Howard S via facebook (Senior Commercial)
there be a substitute.’ James M via Facebook Picture Desk Manager
Ben Rowe
Jack S via Facebook Happy days, Howard! Okay, Photographer Andy Parsons
There was a rare opportunity public smoking was a terrible Head of Production
Dave Faulkner
There’s nothing like a winter to spot Mercury this week, as it idea in a confined space full of Deputy Production Editor
weekend away. We told you about made its way across the face of the flammable man-made fabrics, Katie Mulhern-Bhudia
how Harry Potter’s birthplace, a sun. Everyone was very excited but we loved the smell of Time Out Group CEO
medieval house in Suffolk, is now and definitely not using it as an piss in the morning: smelled Julio Bruno
Founder Tony Elliott
on Airbnb. Magic, eh? Er, no… opportunity for terrestrial sniping. like… Victoria (line). Don’t
‘The thing is, it’s not his birthplace. ‘Problem in London is to spot remember colour, mind you. Cover
He doesn’t exist.’ the sun, not Mercury!’ You sure about that? Owen Gildersleeve
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NOT FOR RESALE
Time Out London November 12 – 18 2019 6

BREWED,
SERVED
& ENJOYED
FOR 60 YEARS.
City Teenage kicks
FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR, the Museum of Youth
life
Culture has been gathering flyers, photos,
films and other keepsakes after putting out a
call for public submissions. Its aim? To build a
huge archive documenting the UK’s teenagers
over the last 70 years. Now, you can view the
treasures from its mega-haul at this weekend’s
exhibition, ‘Grown Up In Britain’.
Edited by James Manning From slick-quiffed New Romantics and
@timeoutlondon leather- jacketed punks , through to Mods with
shiny scooters, the show is a deep dive into the
influential scenes and subcultures that young
people kickstarted.
Head down to Ugly Duck for a glimpse of what
to expect from the museum’s permanent site,
set to open in London next year. Along with
thousands of images, there’ll be projections,
vintage motorcycles and a soundsystem
pumping out choice tunes. Far out, man. ■
El Hunt
www.youthclubarchive.com/museum-of-youth-culture.
Ugly Duck, Tanner St. London Bridge. Fri Nov 15-Sun Nov 17. Free.
THE ESSEN T IALS Three things you have to do this week

MUSEUM OF YOUTH: TONY OTHEN; ROH LATE: ELLIOT FRANKS
Eat this Book this See this

Italian street food hotspot Mercato The immersive dining champs at Gingerline are The Royal Opera House is hosting an after-dark
Metropolitano has opened north of the river. mashing up grub with ’90s game show nostalgia late this Sunday. Head to Covent Garden for LED
You’ll find its second sustainable food market – from this month. Snap up a ticket for TV Dinners if dance performances, reimagined ballet and
Mercato Mayfair – in St Mark’s church. you like your competitions served up piping hot. opera, and hands-on crafting. All for just £8.
Get the latest from London at timeout.com/news

City life
MOST GOOGLED How do Oyster cards work?
ARE YOU EVEN a Londoner if That all sounds pretty easy in

you’ve never owned an Oyster today’s tech-saturated world, but it
card? Paying with your debit card was a revolution back in July 2003
might be on the rise, but the Oyster when the Oyster card launched. And
is still as quintessentially London it’s still snazztastic compared to
as jellied eels, Adele or a night backward places like, er, New York,
out at Rowans. In fact, 2.4 million which is gearing up to launch an
Londoners (that’s about a quarter Oyster-style card in 2021. (Guys, get
of us) make a journey using an with the programme!)
Oyster every day. But how do these However, there are drawbacks.
little blue cards work? You’ve been Oyster cards are expensive to make,
googling it, so we thought we’d and the next generation is already
find out. here: TfL has started encouraging
Inside every Oyster card there’s contactless payments via phones
a small chip that uses radio and bank cards and monitoring wifi-
frequency identification (RFID) connected devices to track people’s
technology. When you beep on to movements far more accurately
a bus or through a ticket barrier, than Oyster can. Don’t be surprised
the tech transmits radio waves if your blue key to the city finds
through the electromagnetic itself at the bottom of your sock
reader to a ticketing system. This drawer sooner rather than later.
keeps the Oyster’s balance updated Thomas Hobbs
and checks that you’ve got a valid
Travelcard loaded. It also lets TfL
track how people are moving around
on public transport. More London FAQs answered at
timeout.com/googled
Sculpture at
Wisley 2019
Reproduced by permission of The Henry Moore Foundation
30 May – 1 December
Locking Piece 1962-63 bronze.
Henry Moore, Henry Bruce, Lynn Chadwick, Tracey Emin,

Photo: Sarah Mercer.
Philip Haas and Phillip King

rhs.org.uk/wisley
Your visit supports our work as a charity
RHS Registered Charity No: 222879/SC038262.

WE MEET AGAIN,
OXFORD STREET
WE ARE BACK!
313 OXFORD STREET
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City life
AN ODE TO THE VIEW

FROM YOU
on’s pigeons
d
What Time Out readers have
Lon Celebrating the most maligned,

been Instagramming this week
overlooked and underrated bits

of London
@jeanettelphoto
‘A fab Family Southbank
Smartphone Safari this morning.’
@taste4interiors
‘@romulocafelondon in Kensington:
they specialise in Filipino cuisine.’
LOOK AT A pigeon long enough and you’ll find I have a theory as to why we kick and slander
@lolycortese
all the
h traits
its you’d want in a friend. Are they the humble pigeon, and it’s this: when we look
gentle? Absolutely. Do they look after their down
d att pigeons,
pigeons we see ourselves reflected back. ‘Autumn morning over
family? Yes, they do. Do they eat chips off the Just think about it. They bob around London with h The Shard.’
ground? Of course. But because pigeons have the no obvious end goal. Their landlords treat them
temerity to want to share the city’s pavements with disdain. We watch them struggling to make
with us, we treat them with disdain. And this is a ends meet in this brutal city and see the toll that
tragedy, London. This is a scandal. London has taken on their fragile bodies. Their
One reason it’s an outrage is that pigeons – far mangled feet are our broken hearts. They too are
from being the ‘rats with wings’ we make them surviving, but only just. We hate to admit it, but
out to be – are one of Mother Nature’s most these birds are us.
extraordinary inventions. They don’t merely flap When we lash out at pigeons we are, in fact,
around the streets – these strange beasts have punching a mirror. The birds are a scapegoat – a
many talents tucked under their wings. scapepigeon – for the ills of the city. Rather than
‘Go on, then,’ you’re saying. ‘Impress me.’ How’s consider the ways we have fouled the space in
this? Pigeons can reliably distinguish between which we live, we pin the blame on the pesky
@postcards.from.london
Picasso and Monet paintings. They are one of only pigeon. ‘Gross, that pigeon’s eating some sick,’ we
a handful of species able to recognise themselves sneer. Do we ever say, ‘Thank you, Mr Pigeon, for ‘Word on the Water, a floating
in a mirror. They can find their way home from cleaning up the mess we’ve made’? No, we do not. bookshop on an old Dutch barge.’
1,300 miles away. The little fellas can identify We need to mature, admit our fault and make
cancers as well as doctors can, and they navigate peace with our feathered fellow citizens. If we Send us your Instagram
our jumbled streets effortlessly by following road start to love pigeons, who knows? Perhaps we can photos of the city with
junctions. Rats with wings? Complete claptrap. truly love ourselves. ■ Ralph Jones #timeoutlondon
City life
CIT Y ENV Y
Great things that we love in other cities
Hong Kong’s
epic escalator
IF YOU’VE EVER trudged up the never-ending
slope to a gig at Ally Pally or hiked up to the
Crystal Palace Triangle, the idea of gliding
upwards on a gigantic moving staircase might
sound very appealing. In hilly Hong Kong, they
have the right idea – the Central-Mid-Levels
Escalators is the longest covered outdoor
escalator system in the world. It rises 443 feet
from top to bottom, and takes passengers 20
minutes to travel the entire length, passing
bustling bars, clubs and the converted police
station-turned-arts-centre Tai Kwun along the
way. First opened in 1993, the mechanical
walkway now carries around 78,000 people every
day through the city’s Central district – which
beats the bus any day. You’ll be craving a similar
contraption next time you foolishly say yes to a
mate’s birthday drinks in Highgate.■ El Hunt
Stack up your travel bucket list at

timeout.com/dolist
London’s got problems. Here’s how we fix them
Migrateful
WHAT IS IT? WHY DOES HOW CAN I
A social enterprise IT MATTER? GET INVOLVED?
that empowers Some migrants might Book a cookery
refugees, asylum- struggle to find jobs class with one of the
seekers and migrants in the UK due to legal talented Migrateful
in London by helping or language barriers. chefs, and learn how
them run their own As well as providing a to make some of their
cookery classes. It has supportive community, country’s signature
trained up chefs from Migrateful offers dishes. Fasten your
countries including English classes and pinny and take your
Iran, Syria and Eritrea. leadership workshops. pick!■ El Hunt
www.migrateful.org

City life
LONDON E YE
Talking shop
LONDON’S HIGH STREETS are home to
hundreds of independent caffs, greengrocers,
bookshops, stationers, bakeries and chemists.
But gentrification, online shopping and the
decline of the high street means that many of
our beloved local businesses are under constant
threat of becoming yet another Pret – and those
that have survived are increasingly cherished for
the colour and character that they bring to the
capital’s neighbourhoods.
At a time of monumental change for these
places, illustrator Eleanor Crow set about
documenting London’s surviving old-fashioned
shopfronts. She’s created dozens of charming
watercolours of the capital’s favourite chippies,
launderettes, florists, butchers and hardware
stores. Stretching from Chiswick in the west
to Woodford in the east, many of these local
treasures have been serving Londoners
for generations, and some of their historic
shopfronts have even been listed.
Featuring more than 100 of Eleanor’s beautiful
watercolours, the resulting collection is a
fascinating survey of London’s enduring small
shops. Long live the local! ■ Rosie Hewitson
‘Shopfronts of London’ by Eleanor Crow is published by Batsford in
association with Spitalfields Life Books. spitalfieldslife.bigcartel.com
More beautiful
boutiques at
timeout.com/
bestshops
City life
W RD
GREEN GODDESS ON THE
Eco campaigner Natalie Fee answers
your questions about sustainable
STREE T
living in the city
The most ridiculous
things we’ve
overheard in
London this week
‘Do not snort

the Lemsip.’
‘A core part of my
personality is
performatively
disliking “Love
Actually”.’
‘I wish Dad would
carry me and not eat
all my candy.’
‘My husband is
currently singing
a song to a dying
hamster.’
‘‘I refer to myself
as “big sexy” an
awful lot.’
e…
Dear Natali
stuff that ‘would be nice’ often just study, three quarters of workers
doesn’t get a look in. would take a hefty pay cut to work ‘Ryan moved
So where to begin? I think the for a business which doesn’t leave to Berlin a few
heart of your question lies in the a trail of destruction. years ago and, if
‘My office sucks when it comes to ‘becoming the office bore’ bit. So what if your bosses agree with
the environment. We burn through Saving the planet has become quite you – but they don’t want to hire anything, it just
paper towels, disposable cups cool, and I can guarantee that you’re a consultant or create a new role? made him worse.’
and printer paper like nobody’s not the only one in your company There are still ways you and your
business. Everyone leaves their who cares. Speak to your colleagues green team can make a change. Ask ‘Who cares about
computers on overnight. Our and see if you can get a green dream your office manager and IT to reduce arms? Your arms
windows don’t open so we blast the team together. energy usage, bulk-buy recycled
air con all summer. No one recycles Then go to the top. loo roll and make sure
are a bunch of
properly, and our executives fly all Money talks, and if your office is printing piss compared to
over the world for meetings. How you can show your double-sided (or your legs.’
do I even start to change things management how Natalie Fee is an going paperless). You
without getting fired – or becoming eco-friendly changes environmental can see a useful free ‘I’m actually
campaigner, author guide at tinyurl.com/
the office bore who no one wants to will actually save them
and speaker. She
never dating a pop
talk to at the Christmas party?’ cash, you might be sustainablesidekicks.
Nazir via email taken more seriously. founded the City to You never know:
star again.’
The University of Sea non-profit, which your meat-free, plastic-
campaigns against ‘Do you know why
Dear Nazir, Cambridge found free, carbon-neutral
I’ll admit that my first response on that by setting all its plastic pollution. Christmas party could I’m so woke? Because
reading your question was: just quit! staff’s monitors to Her book ‘How to Save turn out to be the most I was born in Woking.’
But seeing as that’s not an option go to sleep after ten the World for Free’ amazing one that
for most people (and maybe you minutes instead of is published by the company has
really love your job), let’s give your 30, they’d save £3,000 Laurence King. Follow ever had! ■
company the benefit of the doubt. each year. On top of her on Twitter at Got a question for
Everyone’s stupidly busy meeting that, being sustainable @nataliefee and on Natalie? Write to Overheard something weird?
deadlines and targets, and without a helps a company hire. Instagram at greengoddess@ Tweet us #wordonthestreet
dedicated sustainability person, the According to one @nataliefee_. timeout.com. @timeoutlondon
Vitality
FREE LONDON
Put your money away! Here are the week’s best free events
DON’T
MISS
A: YOU SHOULD GO
FUNNY TALK PARTY TIME SWEET TREATS STARS IN YOUR EYES
‘The Clash: Laugh Your
Nuts Off
Special Brew’s
first birthday
EllaMia launch
Need a Monday
Stargazing at the
Royal Observatory
London Calling’ KP Nuts and
Movember have
Club night crew
Special Brew is
morning pick-me-up?
New café EllaMia will
Learn about
astrophotography
teamed up for a night celebrating a year of be giving away 100 (photographing
It’s 40 years since The Clash
of comedy that aims hosting free parties coffees and baked astronomical objects)
released their seminal album to raise awareness of with – you guessed goods (like hazelnut at this Google Pixel 4
‘London Calling’. To celebrate the testicular cancer. If it – a massive free praline slices and event. Get tips from
milestone, the Museum of London that sounds a bit heavy, party. Expect house, fruity oatmeal bars) astronaut Tim Peake
there will be lols from disco, ’80s bangers and from 11.30am – just and help capture a
has curated an exhibition from the Omid Djalili and Lee ’90s slammers right in time for the mid- mobile sky map of the
band’s personal archive, including Peart, too. Book tickets through until 4am. See morning slump. stars. Reserve a spot
hand-written notes, sketches, on Eventbrite. you on the dancefloor! EllaMia, St Martins Lane in advance online.
New Moon. Monument. Paper Dress Vintage. Hackney Hotel. Leicester Square. Royal Observatory.
pictures, clothes and even Paul Tue Nov 12. Central Overground. Sat Nov 16. Mon Nov 18. Greenwich DLR. Mon Nov 18.
Simonon’s broken bass guitar
(pictured above). Smashing!
Museum of London. Barbican. Fri Nov 15-Apr 19 2020.
Looking for things to do all year round? Try timeout.com/free
Did you know that London
is a forest? No: literally.
More than a fifth of the capital
is trees. Nature writerer
Paul Wood explains
why that’s a big deall
LONDON’S SKYLINE IS soaring. Sometimes it

feels like the only things growing in this city are
towers of glass, steel and concrete. Look closer,
though, and you’ll find something else putting
down roots and scaling heights around town.
Our capital is full of trees. In fact, while it might
not always seem like it, London is so packed
with foliage that it’s technically a forest. That’s
according to a United Nations definition that
states that a forest is anywhere that’s at least 20
percent trees. London’s a respectable 21 percent.
While that doesn’t quite put the city in the same
bracket as the Amazon, it leaves us competing
with Sherwood and the New Forest – places that
are considered to be pretty leafy. There are a
massive 8.4 million trees across the capital, nearly
one for each of us 8.6million Londoners.

Wind back the clock a few centuries, and estates, private gardens, London’s iconic squares,
London was a smaller city surrounded by ‘A whopping 900,000 street trees, and raggedy ‘edgelands’ like
countryside, including hefty areas of woodland. railway embankments and road verges too. In
South London’s Great North Wood (the reason for 47 percent fact, a whopping 47 percent of this city is made up
place names like Norwood and Forest Hill) once
stretched from Croydon to Deptford. What’s now
of this city is of green and blue space.
The plants that makes up London’s urban
Heathrow airport was a tiny corner in a heathland made up of forest is important. Trees soak up pollution:
landscape of trees, grass and heather spanning
from Hounslow to Hillingdon.
green and nitrogen oxides, ammonia and sulphur dioxide
are absorbed through their leaves, bark and roots
Precious pockets of this ancient woodland still blue space’ (important, for a city that’s swamped by toxic
survive: Highgate, Queens and Coldfall Woods levels of the stuff). They’re also prizefighters
in north London; Sydenham Hill, Oxleas and in the battle to keep global warming at bay,
Lesnes Abbey in the south. All boast old, gnarled absorbing carbon dioxide and turning it into
and characterful trees; oaks, hornbeam and some carbon. It’s no wonder that 109,077 people
rarities, like the wonderfully named wild service signed a petition to get the government to discuss
tree. According to urban forest myth, its edible restoring nature on a massive scale to help stop
berries were used by the Romans to flavour beer. the climate breakdown in parliament. ‘Rewilding
But it’s not just actual woodland that makes can draw millions of tonnes of CO2 out of the
London a forest; it’s everything else. Unlike some air through restoring and protecting our living
other cities – Paris for example – London has a systems,’ argued campaigners.
wealth of trees and greenery right in the heart of But trees’ impact on our wellbeing is even
the metropolis. Think Hyde Park or Regent’s Park greater than that. A study released in June
for starters. Or Hampstead Heath, Richmond showed that just a two-hour dose of nature every
Park and Clapham Common further towards week significantly increased people’s mental and
the capital’s edges. Then there’s the land around physical health. And while it can be easy to fall

Root and branch
TREE IS
THE MAGIC The view from
Parliament Hill
NUMBER
into the trap of thinking this means mini-breaks
in the Lake District, it turns out that even short
trips to city parks can boost people’s mood for
up to four hours afterwards. And that’s not even
mentioning the joy of sitting under a cooling
8.4m
Total trees in the capital:
nearly one per Londoner
having fewer parks than most boroughs. Packman
wants residents to play an active role, too. ‘More
opportunities are needed for the public to get
involved with looking after trees,’ he says, ‘if we
are serious about increasing the tree canopy.’
canopy on a hot day (though that might feel rather Xanthe Mosley of Street Trees for Living, who
distant in our current chilly weather). plant trees in roadside spots across Lewisham,
As we head into the darker, colder months
of the year it can be easy to feel like the nature
around us has disappeared. In fact, the opposite
900,000
Street trees in the capital
agrees. She says: ‘Getting people to water
young trees in the summer is our priority.’ Her
organisation finds sponsors and organises
is true. November is the start of tree-planting volunteers to look after trees. Mosley reveals some
season. This year that’s happening across the impressive stats. ‘Early next year we will plant our
city thanks to a ballot running as part of National
Tree Week, gifting trees to individuals and
groups. In 2018, the same project led to 90,000
trees being planted around London. It’s not
the only project. There’s Trees for Cities, who
21
Percentage of London that’s
covered by trees
thousandth tree in just five years,’ she says. ‘Next
year, we’re focused on planting trees near schools.’
Street Trees for Living also has an enviable track
record when it comes to nurturing saplings: just
5 percent in their care fail, compared to 30 percent
plant trees around town. In east London, the of those planted by the council.
Tree Musketeers look after Wick Woodland on
the Hackney Marshes and have a nursery for
growing trees to plant.
In fact, each London borough has a department
90,000
Total trees planted during
So, remember: from the small patch of green
outside your flat to the wild sscrub behind your
local pub, the splashes of nature across the city
add up to a massive, successful ecosystem that’s
responsible for the trees in its parks and on its National Tree Week in 2018 helping to sustain our lives. London’s a forest
streets. Some are doing a better job than others. and it’s time we gave our trees some respect.
‘We’re always looking for places to plant more
trees,’ says Greg Packman, Islington’s senior tree
inspector, an urban forester working in London’s
most densely populated borough. His job involves
maintaining existing trees as well as planting
new ones. As a result, inner-city Islington has
2
Number of hours a week you
need to spend engaging with
Paul Wood (@thestreettree) is the author of ‘London Is a Forest’
and ‘London’s Street Trees’. He also leads guided tree walks. His next
is in Ravenscourt Park on Sun Nov 17 with museumofwalking.org.uk.
Read our guide to London’s green spaces

managed to build 25 percent tree canopy despite nature to get health benefits timeout.com/parks
Wet
’n’
wild From woodlands and
wetlands to canals and bogs,
London’s full of different
natural habitats. Five writers
discover their secrets
FACT
There are metre-
long eels living
in London.
The wetlands colourful metal rings on birds’ legs
to keep track of them. ‘We’ve done
crossing over the path between
reservoirs’, Charlie says . Oh, and
‘Sparrowhawk!’ ‘Kestrel!’ the project for two years so far. Birds they grow up to a metre long. I’m
I’m at Walthamstow Wetlands who were ringed here as chicks both intrigued and terrified.
with Charlie Owens, the site’s have been found in the Peak District Putting aside images of an
ecology and conservation ranger, and Brighton, one appeared in eel jumping out at me, I ask
and he keeps stopping mid- Birmingham’, explains Charlie. ‘You Charlie what makes the wetlands
sentence to alert me to the local can learn so much about their habits important. ‘There’s a whole heap of
residents. ‘It’s the one that looks like through these activities.’ birds, invertebrates and mammals
it’s got a topknot’, he says, as I try to Charlie is a mine of information. that rely on these types of habitats,’
get a closer look at a tufted duck. I learn about waxwings – birds with he explains. ‘If reed warblers fly all
Walthamstow Wetlands is both red-tipped feathers, which you’ll the way from Africa and there’s no
a nature reserve and a Thames see in winter at the wetlands – and reed for them when they get here,
Water reservoir site. It only opened I’m surprised to find out that there they can’t breed – that population
to the public in 2017, but the first are mussels in the reservoirs – they could crash.’ It’s not just the birds
reservoirs were hand-dug in the collect on the concrete banks and that benefit. Walking around the
1800s. Charlie’s role here focuses on the tufted ducks (the ones with the wetlands is incredibly peaceful and Eyes on the prize
conservation, including fortnightly topknots?) feed on them. Otters, I learn a lot in one morning. Okay, Izzy goes birdspotting at
Walthamstow Wetlands
ANDY PARSONS
surveys where volunteers count grass snakes and eels have all been I’m no David Attenborough but at
with ranger Charlie
all the birds on the water, and a spotted. ‘Eels can climb over land – least I can now spot a tufted duck.
‘ringing’ project, where they place I don’t think they’d have trouble Probably. Isabelle Aron

Wet ’n’ wild
FACT
London has six
bogs – and they’re
helping to stop
climate change.
The bog spongy sphagnum. ‘The moss at the

bottom is around 6,000 years old,’
the most efficient ways of removing
carbon dioxide out of the air.’
Wading around in a soggy, brown explains conservationist Petra Sovic The moss on the surface absorbs
peat bog doesn’t sound particularly Davies. ‘Testing samples, we can the global-warming gas and turns it
inviting. But the Farm Bog on see that the environment around into carbon during photosynthesis.
Wimbledon Common is so beautiful here used to be a lot more grassy and Normally the gas would be released
it makes up for the fact you have there were far more grazing animals when the carbon decomposes, but
to get a bit muddy. Hidden at the roaming wild across the land.’ at the bog, the carbon sinks below
bottom of a tree-laden path, shallow Bogs used to spread across the water level and can’t fully rot: it
pools of water are scattered with landscape from here all the way remains trapped in the ground.
purple grasses and tufts of green. to Croydon, though today this This makes bogs superheroes in the
In the summer, the vegetation tiny clearing is one of the last six battle to stop climate change.
provides shelter for dragonflies, in London. ‘Over hundreds of It’s no wonder local conservation
while lizards can be found years, many of these wetlands groups are working hard to
ANDY PARSONS
sunbathing on nearby rocks. have been sucked dry to make way safeguard this bog by cutting back
Bog standards As I tread through the pools, it for agriculture and housing, or the nearby brambles and silver birch
Annie checks out moss sometimes feels like my wellies they have been drained by water trees that quench their thirst on its
with conservationist might get eaten up by the ground, companies who feed water back moisture. We should be able to walk
Petra in Wimbledon
Glastonbury style. This suction into our homes,’ Petra tells me. ‘It’s on water in Wimbledon for a short
effect is due to two metres of layered, a shame, because bogs are one of while yet. Annie Lord

Wet ’n’ wild Shroom for manoeuvre
Alex takes a closer look
at fungi called bonnets
in Sydenham Hill Wood
The woodland
I’ve spent ten minutes in Sydenham
Hill Wood and I’ve already passed
the spot where my guide found a
decaying fox carcass. ‘We don’t
usually move dead animals,’ says
Rachel Dowse, a conservation
officer from the London Wildlife
Trust, ‘but this one was starting to
smell.’ Rachel assures me this is all
part of what keeps habitats ticking.
I’m in one of the last swathes of the
ancient Great North Wood. It’s home
to 200 species, all in Zone 2.
Rachel points out what my
urbanite eyes see as lumps
of old wood, but on closer
FACT
inspection I notice they’re South London
covered with colourful
is home to a jelly
fungi at their prime. We
fungus called
spot flubbery jelly ears and
crystal brain.
a rare blood-orange cinnabar
oysterling that only grows in
ancient woodland. ‘The fungi
sound like they were named in the
Middle Ages,’ says Rachel, ‘but a
lot of the names were created in
the noughties to create interest in
mushrooms.’
We rub our fingers over a jelly
fungus called crystal brain that
looks like the slime you grew gooey
aliens in at school, and we flick the
white tips of candlesnuff, releasing
talcum powder spores. Rachel
says the fungi we’re touching are
just small visible parts of a huge
organism which spreads out in
threads under the ground, literally
mushrooming up when it needs to
release spores. My favourite spore-
emitter is the bizarre earthstar – a
starfish-shaped shroom with a sack
in its middle that spurts out dust
when prodded.
We turn our attention to the tops
of the trees where bat boxes hang.
The wood is home to six species of
bat. Over the winter they hibernate
in a railway tunnel. ‘The brown long-
ANDY PARSONS
eareds are really cute,’ says Rachel.

‘When they sleep, they cover their
huge ears with their wings. There are
plants and fungi that can only grow
here because it’s so ancient. It’s a
special place.’ Alexandra Sims

Wet ’n’ wild
FACT
The Natural
History Museum’s
garden is looked
after by three
sheep.
The garden For six weeks of the year, the
garden is also home to Bee,
around me, biting off the foliage and
almost tugging me along with them.
‘Baa, baa, baa!’ Three adorable Bracken and Ivy, the three greyface ‘Because they’re a hardier
sheep are bleating at me, one after Dartmoor sheep who are brought breed, they happily munch away
another, as I stand surrounded in as ‘lambscapers’. They’re on loan on anything like bramble, twigs
by ponds, shrubbery and trees from the London Wetland Centre in and smelly plants like mugwort.
shedding golden leaves. If it wasn’t Barnes and play an integral role in They want different nutrients and
for the honking from nearby traffic, sustainably managing the garden. different tastes.’ Tom explains. ‘This
I could be fooled into thinking I was ‘Besides being very cute and project is to get people engaged with
in rural Wales, but I’m actually at the popular, they do an important job of nature and to discover what’s in
Natural History Museum. managing the site and are more than their back garden. Even where we’re
The institution has a wildlife just lawnmowers,’ Tom McCarter, standing, right next to Cromwell
garden that’s accessible to the public wildlife garden manager, laughs. Road, nature is everywhere.’
all year round. Since it opened in ‘The way they eat creates uneven I’m trying my hardest to
ANDY PARSONS
1995, more than 3,000 species mosaic-like grounds which attract concentrate on what Tom is saying
Are ewe for real? have been identified there. Three more diverse plants and insects.’ but I can see the sheep out of the
Angela meets one of full-time staff and 35 volunteers all Tom passes me a birch branch corner of my eye – and they seem
the Natural History chip in to help maintain the urban with leaves and I get the chance to be grinning. Either I’m a natural
Museum’s lawnmowers
green space, which brings increased to feed these cute grass-eating sheep whisperer or they’re just after
biodiversity to the capital. machines. I shake it and they swarm more food. Angela Hui

Wet ’n’ wild Back of the net!
Bobby and ecologist Tim catch
snails near Limehouse Basin
WANNA
GET WILD?
Be a ZSL citizen
scientist and help
count the eels in
London’s rivers.
www.zsl.org/conservation
FACT
Bats use the Walthamstow Wetlands
city’s canals is run by the London
as commuter Wildlife Trust.
highways. Get involved!
The canal (We put them back
afterwards.) Tim’s job
These provide the triple
whammy of flowers
www.wildlondon.org.uk/
volunteer-with-us
Canals and bats might not be the is all about caring for the for pollinators, habitats
most obvious mix. Yet according to water’s residents, which means for underwater animals, and Wild About Gardens
Tim Mulligan, an ecologist with the he knows a lot about the more a natural water filtration system will help you turn
Canal & River Trust, the near-total colourful characters – like the seal which wards off pesky duckweed your garden into a
night-time darkness makes canals a who rocks up to Billingsgate Market (that’s the green stuff you often see thriving habitat.
refreshing route for the nocturnal. for breakfast, or the psychotic on the surface). www.wildabout
Bats are just one of the stars of this swan who drowns Canada geese in That’s not to say it’s all rubbish – gardens.org.uk
surprisingly abundant ecosystem, Camden Lock for kicks. some of the canals’ more wily
alongside crayfish, terrapins, Aside from helping me with bird- residents have made the most of Help the frogs at
mitten crabs and mink. Daylight watching and snail-spotting, Tim is their urban existence. ‘Eels love Greenwich Peninsula
timing means Tim and I are out keen to draw my eye to some of the abandoned tyres,’ Tim says. ‘Every Ecology Park by
today spotting kingfishers instead threats faced by these waterways time we’ve tried to remove one, it’s clearing reeds.
of the spookier critters. There’s – such as the looming high-rise been full of eels.’ Thankfully, our www.tcv.org.uk/getinvolved
a kingfisher burrow just off the developments above, which block walk is tyre-free – although I’m pretty
Limehouse Basin, the perfect out the sunlight necessary for sure I can hear some bats under the Take part in the RSPB’s
place to start. bottom-of-the-food-chain daphnia bridge where we end our trip. I think Big Garden Birdwatch
Tim and his team look after the to develop. There’s pollution, too, I’ll stick to land for now. ■ in January 2020.
wildlife on London’s waterways, a hence the Canal & River Trust’s Bobby Palmer www.rspb.org.uk/
remit which includes everything ongoing initiatives to get London get-involved
from these birds, to invasive exotic residents litter picking, as well
JACK LATIMER
weeds, to the tiny snails we’re now as the in-house efforts to build Get a nature hit at
fishing out with Tim’s trusty net. water-filtering floating ecosystems. timeout.com/green
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Tackle your
1,204 unread
emails, then
make a vagina
cupcake at Drink,
Shop & Do
Hot (desk) spots

Remote working is Drink, Shop & Do that’s you, its spacious café welcomes hard
workers with open arms.
having a moment, but do At this quirky King’s Cross café, there’s loads of
space for freelancers among the brightly coloured
183 Euston Rd. Euston.
you really need to rent a

desk in a shared office?
tables and jazzy hanging lanterns. Grab a coffee
and a pastry to work through the day, then stick Chucs at the
From shops to theatre
around in the evening for a glitter lettering
workshop or some vagina cupcake decorating. Serpentine Sackler
bars, Bobby Palmer picks
That’s all bases covered, then.
9 Caledonian Rd. King’s Cross. Gallery
Fancy making Hyde Park your new office?
unexpected places to
whip out your laptop Wellcome Café The café side of this uber-cool restaurant – in
the Zaha Hadid-designed Serpentine Sackler
The Wellcome Collection is one of London’s Gallery – is a workers’ haven away from the toil
INDIEROLLER.COM
hidden gems, an enormous, totally free museum and trouble of London’s busy (and much less
and library of scientific artefacts and medical pretty) co-working spaces.
paraphernalia for the ‘incurably curious’. If West Carriage Drive, Hyde Park. Lancaster Gate.

Places to work
Spend ages
writing a to
do list and get
distracted by all
the #culture at
Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Garden Café at the

Charles Dickens
Museum
While the man himself might have preferred
a quill and ink to a battered MacBook Air, that
doesn’t mean you can’t channel his writing spirit
in the museum café. The floral courtyard is a
welcome breath of fresh air in an otherwise busy
part of Bloomsbury.
48-49 Doughty St. Holborn.
Fifth Floor Café at Garden Café at the

Charles Dickens Museum
Harvey Nichols
Free wi-fi for all customers means you can take a
seat in the department store’s stylish fifth-floor
café and raise a glass of bubbly to celebrate a
productive day definitely not spent idly scrolling Tate Modern The Wren Coffee at St
through your Twitter feed.
109-125 Knightsbridge. Knightsbridge.
There are a number of restaurants and cafés
at Tate Modern, most with an enviable view of Nicholas Cole Abbey
the Thames. Best of them is the bright and airy If you spend your days praying for unpaid
The Distillery eighth-floor Granville-Grossman Members

Room in the Blavatnik Building (formerly the
invoices to be resolved, where better to work
than in a church? St Nicholas Cole Abbey hosts a
The perfect Friday destination for freelancers, this Switch House). Membership starts at £90 a year, midweek service but it’s also home to The Wren
working gin distillery lets you take a pew to fire which is a lot less than the cost of renting desk Coffee café from Monday to Friday. Aside from its
off some last-minute email chases before treating space at a WeWork – and you get access to all the beautiful interior, the space benefits from loads of
yourself to a chaser of mother’s ruin. You deserve it. exhibitions too. natural light and top-quality coffee. Amen!
186 Portobello Rd. Ladbroke Grove. Bankside. Southwark. 114 Queen Victoria St. Mansion House.

Places to work
Waste hours
on Instagram
while pretending
to work at
Look Mum
No Hands!
Look Mum No Hands
Look Mum No Hands! The Garden Museum

This café-cum-bike workshop is a fave This gorgeous museum housed in an old
destination for Lycra lovers, with cycling events church on the south bank of the Thames is
often shown on the big screen. It’s a great spot for unsurprisingly famed for its gardens. Its Garden
freelancers, too, with its peloton decorations and Café offers all the tranquillity of an alfresco Zen
windowside seats for those riding solo. Bonus retreat while also providing cover from the rain.
points if you cycle there too. 5 Lambeth Palace Rd. Lambeth North.
THE GARDEN MUSEUM: ANDREW BURTON
49 Old St. Old St.

The Garden Museum
Tamesis Dock Fortnum & Mason

This foodie-friendly department store has ideal
For the money-conscious freelancer, London remote-working credentials: take your pick of
pubs have to offer that extra something to the spacious gallery and the low-key 3 and 6 Bar.
warrant splashing out on a drink as decadent as In need of a sugary pick-me-up? The wi-fi here
a pint or a G&T. How about a pub on a barge? extends to the ice-cream parlour on the first
Yep, that’ll do. floor. Sweet!
Albert Embankment. Vauxhall. 181 Piccadilly. Green Park.

Places to work
Create an
overcomplicated
spreadsheet
at a fancy
table in the
V&A’s café
The Doodle Bar
there’s free wi-fi, fresh pastries and plenty

Find more places of nooks and crannies where you can hide
to get to work at away for the day.
timeout.com/cafes 77-85 Newington Causeway. Elephant & Castle.
The Doodle Bar

Perfect for the more creative remote worker,
V&A
Bermondsey’s Doodle Bar allows (even
encourages) you to draw all over the walls when
the confines of your laptop screen start to be a
Hurwundeki 15 Art Library to the Silver and Ceramics Galleries.

One look at the historic main café, with its domed
little too limiting or you’re stuck staring at the
spinning rainbow wheel of doom.
Want to make the most of your time? There’s no roof and marble columns, and you won’t want to 60 Druid St. Bermondsey.
better way to do it than at this Korean restaurant, work anywhere else.
café and creative space, where you can also get a
haircut. The ‘15’ in the name refers to the number
Cromwell Rd. South Kensington.
The Buttery Café
of minutes they’ll take to cut your hair, so you can
totally squeeze a trim into a screen break. Southwark at Burgh House
242 Cambridge Heath Rd. Cambridge Heath Overground
Playhouse Bar This majestic mansion sits on the south side
THE DOODLE BAR: JAMIE LAU
of Hampstead Heath, housing the historic
V&A Minutes away from Elephant & Castle tube,

you’ll find one of London’s loveliest off-West
collections of Hampstead Museum. The café
offers a range of locally sourced treats, and is an
There’s free wi-fi throughout the V&A, so you can End theatres – but this is a destination for more opulent location for decluttering your inbox. ■
hot-desk anywhere, from the stunning National than just aspiring thespians. In the charming bar New End Square. Hampstead.

It’s beginning
to look
a lot like
Christmas...
Let there be light! The Things to Do team
count down to Christmas with the city’s
most luminous festive events
Nov 12
Covent
Garden
Christmas
Covent Garden’s cobbled piazza
and market buildings are especially
irresistible at Christmas. Last
year saw the iconic square house
London’s biggest hand-picked
Christmas tree, which sparkled with
30,000 lights. Details about this
year’s festive treats are under wraps
for now but keep your eyes on the
website for updates and info on a
potential celeb host.
Covent Garden Piazza. Covent Garden.
From Tue Nov 12.

Christmas lights
Nov 13 Nov 14 Nov 14

Marylebone Regent Street Seven Dials
Christmas Christmas Christmas
Lights Lights Lights
See one of London’s most The grand shopping street has Head to Seven Dials to see the
atmospheric high streets get all lit its usual Christmas makeover, Christmas lights sparkle into action
up this Wednesday. Alongside the with garlands of lights and festive on Thursday. Between 5pm and
lights, there are stalls to browse, a figures decorating the length of the 9pm, enjoy shopping discounts,
Santa’s grotto, in-store discounts, road. This year marks the 200th workshops, promotions and more.
a snazzy tombola and a decent anniverary of Regent Street – with There will also be an interactive
celeb to push the button (soon to be that in mind, the display will be a installation powered by a charity
announced). The lights are usually throwback to its first ever Christmas tap donation point for Shelter. Every
on display until Twelfth Night. light display in 1954. time someone donates, it’ll light up.
Marylebone Village. Bond St. Regent St. Piccadilly Circus. Seven Dials. Covent Garden.
From Wed Nov 13. From Thu Nov 14. From Thu Nov 14.

Regal 1930s apartment close
to the Princess Margaret Hospital.
Christmas lights
Nov 15 Nov 15 Nov 20

The Enchanted Christmas at Christmas at
Woodland Leadenhall Kew Gardens
Market
Each year, Syon Park’s Enchanted
Woodland transforms the 600-year-
Christmas at Kew sees the whole
place get seriously lit. Feast your
old gardens with a light display, Come for the sparkle, stay for the eyes on more than a million
completely illuminating the Great snow and let the mulled wine flow sparkling pea-lights, thousands of
Conservatory. Those with a brisk in this vast Victorian market (better laser beams in the iconic Temperate
JEFF EDEN © RBG KEW
pace can walk the glittering trail in known to ‘Harry Potter’ fans as House and a brand new waterfall
half an hour, but allow longer if you Diagon Alley). A 20-foot tree will of lights falling from tree canopies
want to snap pics and play with the take centre stage, and the Lord flooded with festive colour. Watch
interactive lights. It’s almost always Mayor of London will be doing the out for the return of the singing holly
a sell-out, so book in advance. honours and flicking the switch on. bushes too (it’s not the mulled wine).
Syon Park. Syon Lane rail. Fri, Sat and Sun from Leadenhall Market. Monument. Kew Gardens. Kew Gardens.
Fri Nov 15-Dec 1. From Fri Nov 15. Nov 20-Jan 5 2020.

Christmas lights
Nov 21
Oxford Street
Christmas
Lights
It’s all change this year on Oxford
Street – instead of the usual baubles,
it’ll be lit with 27 LED ‘light curtains’
which will be draped down the
length of the street, each made
up of 222,000 lights. The switch-
on usually attracts more than 1
million Christmas lovers and the
odd famous face – this year’s event
will involve a series of in-store gigs
co-organised with Capital Xtra
(the line-up is TBA).
Oxford St. Oxford Circus. From Nov 21.
Nov 22
Christmas
Lights Bike Tour
Why see one lot of Christmas
lights when you can see them all?
That’s the idea behind this three-
hour, two-wheel trundle around
the capital to gaze at its prettiest
festive illuminations. After taking
in London’s most sparkling sights,
including Oxford Circus, Regent
Street and Seven Dials, you’ll end
your voyage with an atmospheric
ride over Waterloo Bridge. You’ll
even get a free Santa hat.
Starts at 74 Kennington Rd. Lambeth North.
Nov 22-Jan 4 2020.
Nov 28
‘Wave’ at
Eccleston Yards
Eccleston Yards is putting its own
spin on Christmas lights with an
installation of 500 individual orbs
suspended in the space for you to get
lost in. Designed by artist collective
Squidsoup, you might recognise the
installation from Four Tet’s recent
live shows at Ally Pally. ■
Eccleston Yards. Victoria.
WILLY BARTON / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
Nov 28-Jan 11 2020.
Find more festive events at

timeout.com/christmas
TIMEOUT.COM/OFFERS
GO OUT WITH
Food, drink, screenings, pop-ups: don’t miss our exclusive offers and discounts
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What is it? An unconventional
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Why go? To see a fun new musical
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What’s exclusive? These £39.50
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Porky’s BBQ The Winter Bar Bus tour Blenheim Forge Music & Beans
What is it? An all-you-can-eat wings What is it? A 90-minute festive What is it? A previously sold-out What is it? A bottomless brunch
deal at a Memphis-style restaurant. drinking experience aboard an knife-sharpening workshop with feast at a new music café.
Why go? If you’re after some serious open-top bus. the pros. Why go? Hearty dishes and fresh
soul food, Porky’s is where it’s at. Why go? To see London sparkle with Why go? Blenheim Forge knives are puddings take centre stage here,
It champions barbecued meats, a hot toddy in your hand, a cosy loved by chefs around the globe. but what makes this spot stand out
slow-cooked to perfection and blanket on your lap and festive tunes This is your chance to take a peek from the crowd are in-store music
smothered in Deep South sauces. in your ears. inside the workshop and hone your lessons and an affordable rehearsal
Y’all interested? What’s exclusive? Save 39 percent blade-sharpening skills. space that supports local bands
What’s exclusive? Unlimited wings, – £19.50 gets you a ticket and a free What’s exclusive? These classes are and artists.
fries and a cocktail plus 90 minutes glass of mulled wine. just £45 and exclusive to Time Out. What’s exclusive? Three courses and
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Porky’s BBQ. Cannon St. Until Jan 7 2020. Piccadilly Circus. Select dates until Dec 30. Select dates until Mar 29 2020. Music & Beans. Mornington Crescent.
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JOHAN PERSSON
Theatre, music, events: get the best tickets in town at timeout.com/london/offers

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Things
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Edited by Katie McCabe
timeout.com/thingstodo @timeoutlondon
E VENT OF THE WEEK
Fringe!
Queer
Film & Arts
Fest
The big, beautiful celebration
of LGBTQ+ creativity returns to
east London today
WHAT IS IT?
A six-day mix of
queer cinema and
DIY dance parties.
WHY GO?
LAUNCHED IN 2011 as a The fest opens with the UK To sing ‘Under the
‘community response to arts cuts premiere of ‘Wig’, a documentary Sea’ at a drag-
carnage’, Fringe! Queer Arts & about Wigstock, the legendary enhanced screening
Film Fest has blossomed into a New York drag festival founded by of ‘The Little
vital platform and showcase for RuPaul’s pal Lady Bunny. Other Mermaid’.
London’s LGBTQ+ creative scene. must-see docs include ‘Nothing
Taking place from November 12 to to Lose’, a joyous celebration of Various venues. Tue Nov
17 at various east and north-east fat queer bodies, ‘The Archivettes’ 12-Sun Nov 17. Prices vary.
London venues, including the Rose exploring Brooklyn’s Lesbian www.fringefilmfest.com.
Lipman Building, Hatch, Dalston Herstory Archives, and ‘Unsettled:
Superstore and Genesis Cinema, Seeking Refuge in America’, a
this year’s programme is packed poignant portrait of LGBTQ+
with rare films, panels, poetry, asylum seekers. ‘Top 3’, a queer
parties and workshops. If you like rom-com from Sweden, is the life-
your queer culture colourful and affirming closing film.
inclusive, you’ll definitely want this Then there are the stellar live
‘Nothing to Lose’
one in your diary. events, like Speaking from the

Find nights from the fringes at
timeout.com/thingstodo
‘Top 3’
‘Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America’
EDITORS’ PICK
More
brilliant
LGBTQ+
nights this
week
‘Gay Sex and the
Disappearing City’
Head to LGBTQ+ superpub
The Glory for a fascinating-
sounding ‘performance-lecture’
about the importance of queer
spaces and the way they’re
threatened by gentrification.
And by attending, you’re helping
to support one of the East End’s
most vital LGBTQ+ venues.
The Glory. Haggerston Overground.
‘Wig’ Sun Nov 17. Free.
Oh Queer Cupid
This queer speed dating
‘The Little Mermaid’: A Drag-a-Long night isn’t all about romance;
instead, the focus is on making
friends and connecting with
people from across the LGBTQ+
spectrum. After the mini-dates,
you’ll enjoy stand-up sets from
queer comedians riffing on sex,
dates and relationships.
Diaphragm – A Vagternoon with For dancing, there’s Happy The Apple Tree. Farringdon.
Ms Vaginal Davis, in which the Endings: Fringe!, which is billed
‘UNSETTLED: SEEKING REFUGE IN AMERICA’: LYDIA DANILLER; WIG: HBO / SKY ATLANTIC;
Sun Nov 17. £8.

boundary-pushing queer performer as a ‘multi-sexual musical orgy’ at
will present short films, artwork and Dalston Superstore, and ‘The Little Drag Graduation
a lecture, the Bi and Mighty panel on Mermaid’: A Drag-a-Long. Given that Showcase
bisexual visibility, Activism Speed the Disney classic’s villain, Ursula, The gaggle of drag queens and
Dating and Black Yogis, a space for was modelled on gay icon Mae West kings who’ve completed the
queer people of colour to connect and game-changing drag queen Royal Vauxhall Tavern’s ‘Art of
NOTHING TO LOSE IMAGE: KELLI JEAN DRINKWATER
through yoga. Meanwhile, Madge Divine, this immersive screening Drag’ course strut their stuff,
fans can attend a screening of her hosted by east London queens sickeningly, at their graduation
iconic 1991 documentary ‘Truth feels like a playful act of queer show. Expect lewks, lols and a
or Dare’ aka ‘In Bed with Madonna’ reclamation. Long live Fringe! ■ whole lotta queer irreverence.
and Extra Virgin: The Madonna Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Vauxhall.
Symposium, a panel discussing By Nick Levine Wed Nov 13. £8.
her relationship with the LGBTQ+ Who retired his fringe in
community as an ally, icon and 2009 and never looked
arguably, appropriator. back.

SKATE BACK IN
TIME THIS
CHRISTMAS
7 D E C A D E S | 6 N I G H T C L U B S | 12 D J S | L I V E B A N D S
F I R E W O R K S | C O C K TA I L S | D R E S S T O I M P R E S S
New Year’s Eve

22 November to 5 January
Spectacular Book online now at:
hamptoncourtpalaceicerink.co.uk
BOOK NOW
Tickets
from £3*
23 & 24 Nov
Family Film
Weekender 2019
Join us for a packed weekend of
films, workshops and events for
families and young people
*plus booking fee per transaction of 60p online, 70p over the phone. No booking fee in person.

Things to Do
SOMETHING FOR Saturday

THE WEEKEND
EXPERIENCE
Friday Digital Weekender

Get an augmented
stone massage, see
dancers controlled by
technology and VR
inspired by Kafka
at this weekend of
digital art. ‘Streetstyle: From
Watermans Arts Centre.
Brentford rail. Sat Nov 16- Teddy Boys to
Sun Nov 17. Prices vary.
BROWSE
Grime Kids’
Winter Craft Show See portraits of punks,
Meet local makers, join
skinheads, ravers and today’s
creative workshops
and pick up handmade grime fans in this exhibition
pieces at this modern charting the evolution of
take on a craft fair. subcultures in the UK.
Unit 6, Bellenden Rd
Trinity Art Gallery. Canning Town. Fri Nov 15-Dec 7. Free.
BusinessPark. Peckham Rye
Syon Park’s Overground. Fri Nov 15-Dec 8.

Free entry.
Enchanted
Woodland
Prepare to be dazzled as Syon
Sunday
Park’s 600-year-old gardens BUY
Tits London
are filled with illuminations. The breast pop-up
Follow a twinkling trail dotted shop in London is
with luminous sculptures, Grown Up back championing
female designers and
lasers and tutti-frutti hues.
Syon Park & House. Syon Lane rail.
in Britain giving 10 percent of
all proceeds to the
Fri Nov 15-Dec 1. £10-£12. Weekender CoppaFeel! breast
ENCHANTED WOODLAND: SIMON HADLEIGH-SPARKS, STREETSTYLE: KANEM HUTCHINSON, GROWN UP IN BRITAIN: ZOEGAIGER
cancer charity. Pick

See photos, flyers, films and up cards, clothing,
ceramics and more.
ephemera submitted by the
188 Shoreditch High St.
SCREAM SHOP public at this exhibition Shoreditch High St Overground.
Soho Horror #LoveNotLandfill celebrating youth culture Sat Nov 16-Nov 30. Free entry.
Film Festival The clothes at this over the last 70 years.
Halloween’s not over pre-loved pop-up GET MERRY
Ugly Duck. Bermondsey. Thu Nov 14-Sun Nov 17. Free.
yet. Brace yourself have been picked from Primrose Hill
for three days of new charity shops by style- Christmas Festival
and obscure blood- savvy influencers. Watch the Hill’s
curdling horror films, Expect labels and one- famous dog show, eat
with many showing for offs at low prices. All street food, play at the
the first time in the UK. proceeds go to charity. fairground and see the
Karma Sanctum Soho Hotel. 47-49 Neal St. Christmas lights being
Piccadilly Circus. Covent Garden. Thu Nov 14- switched on.
Fri Nov 15-Sun Nov 17. From £8. Sun Nov 17. Free entry. Regent’s Park Rd. Chalk
Farm. Sun Nov 17. Free entry.
More twinkling lights at

timeout.com/christmas
THREE OF THE BEST
Sustainable
Christmas workshops
Scrap the tat and plastic packaging and find out
how to have a more eco-friendly Christmas
ING Discerning Eye

Exhibition 2019 Conscious Christmas Decorations
It might be the most wonderful time of the year, but
Christmas is also the most wasteful. Now learn how to
14 - 24 November 2019 transform household waste into upcycled decorations.
at Mall Galleries, London Think tin-can baubles and old wrapping paper tinsel.
Cake or Death Vegan Bakery. Dalston Junction Overground. Wed Nov 13. £30.
Admission free, all works for sale
@ingdiscerningeye
LONDON’S LATEST BINGO EXPERIENCE

Rag Rug Wreath Making Workshop
BOOK YOUR Don’t buy an unrecyclable plastic wreath, let expert Elspeth Jackson
PLAYERS BINGO
school you in art of rag rugging and help you turn fabric scraps into a
beautiful garland for your door. Now you know what to do with those
CHRISTMAS PARTY!
Christmas socks from your nan.
The Village Haberdashery. West Hampstead. Sun Nov 17. £75.
BINGO | LIVE MUSIC | PRIZES | COCKTAILS
FESTIVE PACKAGES AVAILABLE

Scan the QR Code with your phone camera or email:
info@players-bingo.com to find out more
Plastic-Free Christmas Cracker Workshop

We all love a fortune-telling fish, but odds are it’ll end up
in landfill after Christmas. Craft your own planet-friendly
crackers from recycled tissue and fill them with recycled
paper hats and eco-friendly trinkets. Alexandra Sims
Crate St James Street. Walthamstow Central. Wed Nov 20. From £30.
WWW.PLAYERS-BINGO.COM/CHRISTMAS
Inverness Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7HJ
More ways to be sustainable at
timeout.com/green
Things to Do
JUST ANNOUNCED
New Year’s Eve

at Somerset
House
WHAT IS IT?
A big, central London
NYE party.
WHY GO?
To skate your way
into 2020 on a
moonlit ice rink.
Somerset House.
Temple. Dec 31. £50,
skate tickets £70.
House Gospel Choir
IF YOU’VE EVER spent New Year’s house and garage tunes into their done your round of midnight kisses LE
Eve wedged into the crowd in harmonies, with a little help from a and ‘It’ll be better in 2020’ chats, SAMP
S A L E
Trafalgar Square, craning your neck big brass band. get your second wind at a ‘House
to catch a glimpse of the Mayor’s Aside from the main party, you Party’ in the East Wing. Basically,
fireworks display on a big telly, can wander through the former no Millennium Bridge tears. You
you’ll know it’s an experience that palace like a lonely old monarch can be spontaneous on the other
must never be repeated. Even the to see ‘I Came Apart at the Seams’, 364 days of the year, but if you’re
shrewdest of Londoners can fall an exhibition of photographic and determined to spend NYE in central
victim to last-minute NYE panic. sculptural works by South African London, it’s time to get your skates
All it takes is one friend suggesting artist Mary Sibande. Once you’ve on. ■ Katie McCabe
you ‘have a big one’ and ‘see what
central’s like for once’ and, bang!
You’re crying on the Millennium
SATURDAY
Bridge at 1am, trying to Google
16 TH NOVEMBER 2019
Map a Sam Smith pub that might 10AM — 4PM
take pity on you and let you in for a
pint of Doom Bar before closing. KNOLLSTUDIO
At the Somerset House NYE party, ANNUAL ONE-DAY
however, you can get a brilliant view SAMPLE SALE
of the official fireworks from the A rare opportunity to acquire
River Terrace, do a bit of moonlight original licensed iconic
furniture at up to 70% off
skating on the ice rink (which opens retail prices.
this Wednesday, November 13) and
stay fed with something other than Knoll International
91 Goswell Road,
a £7 pizza slice. Last year’s NYE
© MABDULLE (MOHAMED ABDULLE)
Clerkenwell, London EC1V 7EX

do featured drag crew Sink The T 020 7236 6655
Pink, and Somerset House has just Nearest tube stations:
Barbican, Angel, Farringdon
announced that the House Gospel
Choir will be singing the crowd into knolleurope.com
2020. Never heard of them? Picture
an 18-strong troupe mixing gospel,

Things to Do
CHRISTMAS LEARN
LIGHTS
TO
Being Human
Festival
C Coal Drops
Yard Lights
See the swanky
shopping spot’s
‘Northern Brights’ turn
on at 7.15pm. Before
DO This nationwide
festival removes
academics from
classrooms, putting
talks, masterclasses
and panels into pubs,
and after there’ll be The best events in your area cafés and public
DJs and carols from spaces. Look out for
the London Gay Men’s C Central N North S South E East W West gallery takeovers,
Chorus. Plus, perform hands-on workshops
your favourite Yuletide and behind-the-
tunes to compete to scenes tours, on
push the big switch-on topics spanning
button yourself. everything from
Coal Drops Yard. King’s Moroccan hip hop to
Cross. Wed Nov 13. Free. LGBTQ+ history.
Various venues. Thu Nov 14-
Nov 23. Free-£5.
WATCH
W Bright Nights:
Empire
S Hayman‘s Kensington Palace’s
Ginema next late explores
Trans(ition) Love. Elio and Luci (detail) by Reme Campos, from the series
Screenings the complex and
Trans(ition). Portraits of Transgender Teens, 2018 © Reme Campos

Hayman’s of London contested legacy of the
is opening its distillery British Empire. Hear
for this gin-themed spoken word artist
pop-up cinema. Jaspreet Kaur on the
Watch top flicks impact of Empire on
like ‘When Harry the Asian community
Met Sally’ and ‘The and Dr Erica McInnis
Greatest Showman’ talk about the need
while sipping fine for more African-
gins and getting cosy centred approaches
on giant beanbags. to psychology.
Tickets include two gin Kensington Palace. High
cocktails and a goody St Kensington. Wed Nov 13. £25.
bag with a distillery
tour voucher. N Night at the
Hayman’s Distillery. Until 16 February 2020 Vet College
Balham. Wed Nov 13- Meet practising vets,
Book now
Sun Nov 17. £37. see demonstrations
Members Free and animal art and
npg.org.uk take part in interactive
SHOP # PhotoPrize activities at this late.
Leicester Square Royal Veterinary College.
S p o n s o re d b y
Mornington Crescent.
E E8 Handmade Wed Nov 13. Free.
Market
Grab handmade, S The Craft Half C Tower of London
sustainable and JOIN IN Marathon Ice Rink
ethically sourced
bits and bobs from
this Dalston market C #LeakeStreet-
Want to help children
in need, get fit and
drink beer while you’re
Want to whizz around
the moat of one of
London’s most famous
EXCLUSIVE
Watch the greatest players on
showcasing local Live at it? Sign up to this landmarks? Visit this the greatest stage with our
designer-makers. Get your fix of urban half marathon or 10k. fortress by the Thames exclusive tickets to Champions
Browse ceramics, culture after dark at You’ll have to commit for skating sessions Tennis at the Royal Albert Hall.
knitwear, vegan soaps, graffiti paradise Leake to a £150 fundraising with epic views of Now from £16.
natural skincare Street Arches. Leave target for the Street London in a grand
products, jewellery your own mark on the Child charity, but historical setting.
and home accessories walls at a free spray- you’ll get to sip six half- Tower of London.
using recycled fabrics. painting workshop, pints over the course of Tower Hill. Sat Nov 16- TIMEOUT.COM/TENNIS
Plus, meet the crafters join a silent disco and the race (three for 10k Jan 5 2020. £15-£16.50.
to discuss their work. listen to live music at runners) to sweeten
The Factory. Dalston this new weekly night. the deal.
Kingsland Overground. Sat Nov Leake Street Arches. Wimbledon Common. Slip and slide at
16-Sun Nov 17. Free entry. Waterloo. Thu Nov 14. Free. Wimbledon. Sun Nov 17. £35. timeout.com/icerinks
Film
Film
Edited by Phil de Semlyen
timeout.com/film @timeoutfilm
TIME OUT MEETS
Henry
Golding
The ‘Last Christmas’ star on
Wham!, those 007 rumours
and taking compliments
FOR HIS STARRING role in the world-

conquering romcom ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, former
presenter of ‘The Travel Show’ Henry Golding
seemed to come out of nowhere, lighting up the
screen and breaking hearts. In ‘Last Christmas’,
a winning slushfest co-starring Emilia Clarke
and soundtracked by George Michael’s back
catalogue, he’s about to do it all over again – this
time as Clarke’s mysterious new crush.
Were you a George Michael fan before this movie?

‘Massive. The majority of my childhood was in
Surrey – I arrived [from Malaysia] in 1996 – and
George was the king of pop stars. My go-to karaoke
song is “Faith”. I grew up singing it.’
Are you good at it?

‘I’m terrible, of course! As all good karaoke
‘“Faith” is
[singers] should be.’ my go-to
How do you feel about ‘Last Christmas’ becoming karaoke
a future Boxing Day telly staple in years to come?
‘Every year I’ll be like, “What else is on?! Let’s song. I’m
watch ‘Love Actually’ instead.” But, you know,
I think that’s what we’re in the movies for – to terrible
create timeless classics.’
at it’
It’s a very pretty portrait of London. You lived here
for years, didn’t you?
‘I lived 500 metres down the road from Tom’s
house on Brick Lane. It’s so crazy. We filmed
on Cheshire Street in E2.’

Film
Last Christmas
IF HELEN FIELDING reworked ‘A Christmas
WHAT IS IT… Carol’, it might look a little like this good-natured
A fizzy Christmas romcom about a struggling millennial finding
romcom with a hope in a handsome stranger. If you can get past
helping of cynicism. a daft twist that the film’s trailer telegraphed
months ago, and some low-flame chemistry
WHY GO… between Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding, it’s
Want to hear Emma a feel-nice addition to the festive canon.
Thompson wailing Clarke plays Kate, a wannabe singer and
folk songs? Course George Michael superfan, slumming it as an
you do! elf in a Covent Garden Christmas shop. ‘I’m
not a career elf,’ she says, though such is her
Director Paul Feig (12A)
wrecking-ball outlook, she’d probably be sued for
103 mins.
reputational damage by other elves if she was.
Enter Golding’s mysterious Tom. But who is he?
And why does he have (gasp!) no phone?
Soundtracked by George Michael tunes, their
Do you think it’s a good representation of the city? romance spans a picture-postcard London. In
‘I think so. We filmed in Covent Garden, the spirit of all good Christmas movies, it’s wildly
Embankment, along the Strand, Regent Street. It untroubled by geography (Islington to Covent
shows how multicultural the city is, and it tackles Garden via Brixton?) or realism (strangers talk to
homelessness too. Perhaps it’ll make people think each other – on an actual bus). The cast’s charm
twice about those who are less fortunate – who are mostly carries you through the sluggish bits, with
spending Christmas on the streets.’ Emma Thompson (who also co-wrote the script)
a hoot as Kate’s intense Croatian mum.
‘Crazy Rich Asians’ was celebrated for its Asian The mushiest bits are borderline indigestible,
cast. With this one, you’re the co-lead but your but its effervescence makes it a fun enough
heritage is irrelevant. That feels just as important. watch. At the least, it’ll make you fall hard for its
‘Massively. It’s normalising. My character and other romantic lead: London. ■ Phil de Semlyen
Michelle Yeoh’s character [in ‘Last Christmas’]
aren’t related. When people see two Asian faces in
a movie, they’re like, “Ah, mother and son.” Isn’t
that weird? Is every white person related?’ Le Mans ’66
There are Bond rumours swirling around you.
Are we at the point where it’s accepted that the MATT DAMON AND Christian Bale race fast cars
character could be half-Malaysian, as you are? WHAT IS IT… and bicker like brothers in ‘Le Mans ‘66’, a movie
‘There will always be naysayers and supporters.
Ford’s battle with works best when it’s hooning around the track.
At the end of the day, the story has to remain king.
Ferrari at the 1966 Texan Carroll Shelby (Damon), a car constructor
Who you use or how you portray is important, but
Le Mans race. whose heart problems stalled his career, and
it’s not the end-all. If it’s a bad script, whichever Ken Miles (Bale), the salty British-born driver who
actor gets chosen is gonna get destroyed.’
WHY GO… would dominate the field, were a real-life duo
The racing scenes are born to be at the centre of a chatty action movie.
What’s it like to be the subject of these rumours? properly terrifying. ‘Logan’ director James Mangold keeps the
‘It’s an honour. I’m a massive fan of the movies. drama nicely loaded with quick-fire banter.
Director James Mangold
Growing up, [James Bond] was the guy you There’s a much less interesting plot thread
(12A) 152 mins.
wanted to be. If I’m able to be part of something that introduces corporate interests. Brusque
that has some kid roaming a playground with his Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) hopes to make a name
hand pistol in the air, living a world of fantasy? for himself beyond his father’s reputation and
Those are the types of films I want to be a part of.’ is convinced to take on Ferrari at the 24-hour Le
Mans race, thus rebranding Ford as a hot new
Apparently, Emilia Clarke said that when she saw upstart. But it’s a dull peg to hang the movie on
‘Crazy Rich Asians’ she thought you were the most and, sure enough, these ‘Mad Men’ bits fall flat.
attractive man she’d ever seen. Thankfully, the driving scenes are a joy,
‘Ha, ha, ha! She’s a charmer.’ especially when Le Mans is pounded by a
HENRY GOLDING: ADAM PARSONS, LAST CHRISTMAS: © 2019 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
rainstorm and the whole idea of a non-stop

So are you getting used to the compliments now? race seems like a death wish. And Damon and
‘Um... I take them with a pinch of salt. You’re Bale are great company, steering the drivers’
making me embarrassed now, dude! Look, the psychology to something complex and even
best compliments for me are if I remind people of mystical (Bale gets some spacy dialogue about
old Hollywood. Because that [was] a time when the ‘perfect lap’). No points for guessing who
men didn’t have to be toxic to be the leading man. takes the checkered flag, or for knowing which
Everything else makes me blush.’ ■ version of ‘Le Mans ‘66’ – the half-smart
‘Last Christmas’ opens Fri Nov 15. business fable or the rough-and-ready boys’
own adventure – works best. ■ Joshua Rothkopf
By Alex Godfrey
Who thinks ‘Wham Rap!’ may be a seminal
moment in hip hop. The 50 greatest sports movies
at timeout.com/film
Film
London’s 25 best cinemas at

FIRST LOOK timeout.com/film
Secret Cinema
presents
‘Stranger Things’ IF YOU’RE A convert to Secret Cinema’s richly
realised movie worlds, the launch of tomorrow’s
new ‘Stranger Things’ extravaganza can’t come
soon enough. As this exclusive first-look shows,
a secret London location has been transformed
into a corner of ’80s Indiana. Attendees will be
met with this eerily accurate frontage of Hawkins’s
Starcourt Mall. A shoppelgänger, if you will.
Secret Cinema presents ‘Stranger Things’
is billed as ‘the inaugural TV experience’ from
the pioneers of experiential cinema. It’s a
departure – not least for not having a movie as
a centrepiece. ‘The fact that everyone keeps
asking how on earth we are going to deal with
the lack of a film is great,’ says creative director
Matthew Bennett. ‘We hope everyone finds our
solution as magical as we intend.’
So can Secret Cinemagoers expect the odd
Demogorgon? ‘Let’s just say we have our Barb on
the Secret Cinema staff,’ hints Bennett, ‘and she
just happened to “catch her thumb” on a beer
can the other night.’ Sounds like a ‘yes’ to us. ■
Secret Cinema presents ‘Stranger Things’ runs from Wed Nov
13-Feb 23 2020. www.tickets.secretcinema.org/stranger-things
Marriage Story
NOAH BAUMBACH’S STUNNING divorce drama

kicks off with a rare gentle moment. Married
Brooklyn parents Nicole (Scarlett Johansson)
and Charlie (Adam Driver) introduce themselves
via a double diary of sorts as we watch snippets
of their life: pizza munched and bedtime stories
told. Nicole makes people feel comfortable,
Charlie tells us. He, in turn, rarely gets defeated,
she says. Both are deeply competitive. Alas,
that’s the side ‘Marriage Story’ is about.
Charlie and Nicole are splitting
up. He’s a rising theatre director
whose brooding used to be catnip WHAT IS IT…
to LA-raised Nicole, a former teen A divorce drama
movie star. But she has deferred starring Adam
her dreams for his, and now the Driver and Scarlett
relationship has soured. Expertly Johansson.
scripted by Baumbach (and partly
based on his own break-up with WHY GO…
SECRET CINEMA: GRAHAM TURNER, MARRIAGE STORY: WILSON WEBB
Jennifer Jason Leigh), ‘Marriage It’s got Oscars written FILM OF THE WEEK
Story’ may remind you of ‘Kramer vs all over it. In tears.
Kramer’, but that movie was harsh
Director Noah
on Meryl Streep’s discontented Alda, respectively). ‘It’s like a death alone at a mic in a New York bar, investing it with
Baumbach (15) 137 mins.
mother. Baumbach is scrupulously without a body,’ says Alda’s lawyer tear-stained cynicism. Nicole sees Charlie only
fair to both. of the divorce process. He’s grimly on custody days, swapping a sleepy kid between
Even the lawyers are a star turn on the money. shoulders, tying his shoelaces out of practical
here. Laura Dern’s high-powered Somehow Baumbach burrows safety, not love. With ‘Marriage Story’, Baumbach
Nora butters up Nicole with tea and even deeper into his characters’ has turned his trademark comedies of urban
sympathy, while Charlie ping-pongs pain once all the paperwork is dissatisfaction into something truly universal.
between a legal attack dog and a done. Driver belts his way through It’ll be clear-eyed company to anyone who’s felt
gentle giant (Ray Liotta and Alan Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Being Alive’ betrayed by their own hopes. ■ Joshua Rothkopf

Film
Little Monsters

LIKE ITS DECOMPOSING antagonists, ‘Little
Monsters’ starts slowly and lurches around a
bit. For the first 20 minutes or so, you wouldn’t
guess it has zombies, and will be wondering
as to the whereabouts of its two biggest stars
(Lupita Nyong’o and Josh Gad). Australian
writer-director Abe Forsythe’s scrappy film
opens with an overlong introduction to failed
death metal frontman – and failed
man in general – Dave (Alexander
England), who falls for his five-year- WHAT IS IT…
old nephew’s ukulele-strumming A zombie comedy
teacher Miss Caroline (Nyong’o). set partly in a
But once the needy man-child petting zoo.
volunteers to help on a fateful class
outing to a petting zoo, the film finds WHY GO…
its rhythm and ultimately proves to Because it’s a
be a bloody charmer. zombie comedy set
Much of this is down to Nyong’o, partly in a petting zoo.
who’s as adept at decapitating a children’s TV entertainer named Despite the prevalence of pre-schoolers in
Director Abe Forsythe
zombies as she is at strumming the Teddy McGiggle – the joke being the cast, this is a firmly grown-up horror-comedy,
(15) 94 mins.
ukulele, as Miss Caroline and Dave he’s a sweary, alcoholic sex addict featuring a few ‘did they really just go there?’
attempt to protect their confused – but the focus is on Nyong’o and belly laughs. But it’s the movie’s non-saccharine
young wards from the grasping England, who manage to summon warmth which really impresses. As Miss Caroline
dead after a mishap at the zoo’s up some endearing double-act and Dave grow closer, the film reveals what it
neighbouring military base. Gad chemistry amid all the f-bombs takes for an arrested-development loser like
makes intermittent appearances as and guts-spilling. Dave to become a real man. ■ Dan Jolin
ALSO OPENING
BOOK NOW
THE GANGSTER, speeches, and the
THE COP, THE DEVIL strong supporting cast
(Jon Hamm, Matthew
Sylvester Stallone was Rhys) get lost amid all
impressed enough the yakking.
to commission a US Joshua Rothkopf
remake of this frisky
Korean crime flick in 2040
which Ma Dong Seok
(‘Train to Busan’) plays Move over Al Gore,
a gang boss hunting chipper Aussie actor
down the serial killer THE REPORT Damon Gameau is
who nearly offed here to take your crown
him. Sly was half on As this deafeningly with this optimistic
to something: the dull political thriller documentary he
film is a solid, if not
quite exceptional,
records, the CIA
embarked on a post-
presents and directs. It
addresses the climate
‘Rocketman’
time-passer full of
gangland vendettas,
9/11 programme of
extreme interrogation
crisis, suggesting
ways to ameliorate
at The Shard
backdropped by lurid that amounted it within 20 years The city’s most spectacularly appointed
splashes of neon. Ma, to torture. None using only existing
cinema is throwing open its doors for a
a former mixed martial of it resulted in solutions (local energy
‘Rocketman’ screening, 800 feet up. With
LITTLE MONSTERS: SIMON CARDWELL, REPORT: ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA
arts trainer, makes a any actionable hubs, electric cars,

charismatic co-lead intelligence, ever. something called ‘the those views, a free G&T and popcorn –
alongside the story’s Writer-director Scott donut’). He calls it plus costumes encouraged – it’ll be worth
nominal hero cop Z Burns parlays the ‘fact-based dreaming’
(Kim Moo Yul). There’s events into a dry and and it translates into the outlay. So fish out your feather boa
major carnage along academic-feeling an encouraging watch and get along to the only screening higher
the way, including affair in which only that’s embroidered than ’70s Elton himself.
one hair-raising mass Adam Driver makes an with nifty CG touches
The View from The Shard. Wed Nov 20, 8pm. London Bridge. £45.
brawl with blades and impact as a crusading and animation.
www.travellingfilmshow.co.uk.
iron bars. The villain investigator. It’s Hopefully the right
is supremely hissable, a relentless data people will watch it. ■
too. Trevor Johnston dump, loaded with Phil de Semlyen

Music &
Nightlife
Edited by Oliver Keens
timeout.com/music @timeoutmusic
21 SHOWS TO SEE AT
EFG London
Jazz Festival
We distil the best of the 2,000 artists and 350 shows
still on sale that make up this annual jazz-a-palooza
1Let Soweto Kinch take you

back to 1919 5Hear the best of vocal jazz
The incredible UK jazz wizard
The festival kicks off with
its usual celebratory Jazz Voice
debuts his new project, ‘The Black event. This year’s line-up includes
Peril’, which revisits a time of Corinne Bailey Rae, Jalen N’Gonda
monumental social change. and Cherise Adams-Burnett.
Earth. Nov 22. Royal Festival Hall. Fri Nov 15
2Celebrate 100 years of

the Bauhaus 6Catch a true jazz
chanteuse
Created around the Bau.Haus. Sublime vocalist Cécile McLorin
Steam Down
Klang project, this event sees Salvant performs from her latest
musicians Michael Wollny, Émile album ‘The Window’ with pianist
Parisien, Leafcutter John and Sullivan Fortner. The evening
others mark the centenary of the opens with support from The
Bauhaus. McCormack & Yarde Duo.
Barbican. Nov 24. Barbican. Sat Nov 16.
3 Go to a mini festival within

a festival 7 Watch a rock singer take
on jazz
9 Learn about the Jazz
Penguin
A children’s show that includes
ncludes
The Royal Docks area in Newham Chrissie Hynde shows off the latest all kinds of quirky musical
cal animal
hosts a weekend of jazz gigs, string to her bow by performing characters, presented byy Goblin
workshops, and installations that from her newly released jazz album theatre company.
includes a trail of free shows. ‘Valve Bone Woe’, which features Crazy Coqs Live at Zédel. Sat Novv 16.
Various Newham venues. Nov 23-24. reworkings of songs by the likes of
4 Discover if your toddler

can jam
Charles Mingus and Frank Sinatra.
Royal Festival Hall. Nov 24. 10 Find out what it’s like
to record for legendary
egendary
g
European jazz label ECM
Jazz for Toddlers is one of the
festival’s annual highlights. This
year Juliet Kelly and Tony Kofi will
8Check out one of London’s
hottest jazz artists
Saxophonist and innovator Binker
Joe Lovano and Julia Hülsmann
ülsmann
talk to Jane Cornwell about
experiences recording for
out their
or the
lead kids aged two to five through Golding leads his quartet through properly iconic, free-thinking
nking
an introduction to the wonderful original compositions that explore ECM label – kickstartingg a day
world of jazz. harmony and experimentation. celebrating 50 years of the
he label.
Soweto Kinch
Various venues. Fri Nov 15-Nov 24. Ninety One Living Room. Sat Nov 16. Purcell Room. Sun Nov 17.

More at
timeout.com/
music
Christian Scott
17 See the European

premiere of Danilo
Pérez’s new work
Wayne Shorter Quartet pianist
Danilo Pérez debuts his new
project, Global Messengers, which
was co-commissioned by the
festival.
Queen Elizabeth Hall. Nov 22.
18 Catch a jazzy movie

New feature film ‘Bolden’
is a biopic of cornet player Buddy
Bolden (sometimes called the
father of jazz), with a soundtrack
by Wynton Marsalis.
Barbican. Sun Nov 17.
19 Delve into a classic

album with Terri Lyne
Carrington
Jazz drum legend and festival artist
in residence Terri Lyne Carrington
joins Classic Album Sundays
founder Colleen Murphy to explore
Nina Simone’s ‘Black Gold’.
Kings Place. Sun Nov 17.
20 Bask in the presence of

influential saxophonist
and composer Gary Bartz
Sideman to Charles Mingus, Miles
Joe Lovano
Davis and Art Blakey to name a few,
Gary Bartz is an iconic figure in the
world of jazz. Hear him play backed
by the band Maisha and Mobo-
11Enjoy Steam Down, the

coolest crew in town 13 Direct a jazz
performance
What began in 2017 as a weekly Jason Yarde and his large ensemble
15 Go20thtobirthday!
Get the Blessing’s
Comprised of Portishead rhythm
winning vocalist Zara McFarlane.
Royal Festival Hall. Sat Nov 16.
residency for a bunch of players in

Deptford has grown into one of the
most trendy nights out in London,
Acoutastic Bombastic invite the
audience to select what’s played
and by whom.
section Clive Deamer and Jim
Barr, as well as saxophonist Jake
McMurchie and Pete Judge on
21 ...and finally, pay your
respects
Breaking the Silence is a free
thanks to this award-winning, Cockpit. Mon Nov 18 trumpet) enjoy GTB marking their concert that sees young musicians,
sweat-enducing ensemble. 20-year milestone. led by Orphy Robinson, Jenny
Compressor House. Nov 23.
14 See how your
beatboxing skills
Moth Club. Nov 23. Adejayan and Ineza Kerschkamp,
performing new compositions
12Honour the music of

Horace Silver
Cape Verdean singer-songwriter
match up to a world
champion’s
Warm up your larynx before
16 Gorecording
to a live podcast
Huw V Williams brings his podcast,
based on forgotten stories of the
First World War. ■
Royal Festival Hall, Clore Ballroom. Nov 23.
JOE LOVANO: CRAIG LOVELL
Carmen Souza celebrates the life you take part in a free two-hour Improvised Music Agenda,
and music of the seminal pianist, beatboxing and improvisation to the festival for two nights By Roseanne Hanley
loved for ‘Moanin’, ‘Song Of My workshop with Londoner and world of conversation with musical Who you’ll usually find
Father’ and more. champion vocal artist Bellatrix. interludes. propping up a bar at a
Pizza Express Jazz Club. Sun Nov 17. Royal Festival Hall, White Room. Nov 23. Vortex. Mon Nov 18, Nov 24. jazz club.

BIG NEWS
Grace Jones
will curate
Meltdown
2020
F R I DAY 5T H J UN E
F I R S T AC T S A NNOU NC E D
– WELL, WELL… THIS is major. Visionary singer-
songwriter, actress and style icon Grace Jones will
LIVE curate and headline the twenty-seventh iteration
of the arts and culture festival which takes place at
J O N H O PKINS the Southbank Centre in June. She follows in the

illustrious footsteps of, among others, David Bowie, e,
Yoko Ono, Robert Smith, MIA and Nile Rodgers.
‘I am honoured to be curating next year’s Meltdown wn
DJS A – Z ter
festival,’ Jones said in a statement last week. ‘Year after
ngs,
year, the festival continues to spread its colourful wings,
FO UR T ET verse
allowing its curators to bring together an array of diverse
sked
talent not seen anywhere else. It’s about time I was asked
to curate Meltdown, darling, don’t you think?!’
HESSLE AUDIO We definitely do think. Jones is a genuine original
whose incredible live performances, complete with
signature hula-hooping, have been slaying festivals
HO NEY DIJO N including Lovebox, BST Hyde Park and On Blackheath
in recent years. She’s also a real wild card, so it’s
ath
impossible to predict what kind of acts she might bringing

to the South Bank next year.
P L U S W E E KE ND R E SIDE NT Meltdown 2020 will take place June 12-21, giving g
AVA LON EM ERSON Jones ten days of gigs and cultural happenings to
programme. She’s no stranger to the prestigious annual nual
festival, having performed at Meltdown in 2008 when en
Massive Attack curated.
‘There’s no denying it: Grace Jones is unlike anybodyody
B O S TO N M ANOR PAR K LONDON else,’ says Bengi Ünsal, head of contemporary music c at
JUN C T IO N 2 . LONDON Southbank Centre. ‘She was the first artist who made e me
feel that I could express myself, be whatever I wanted d to
men
be, and not be afraid of what the world might say.’ Amen
to that. And here’s to our favourite 71-year-old hula-
hooping goddess. ■ Nick Levine
Meltdown takes place Jun 12-21 2020.

Music & Nightlife
SATU R DAY 6 TH J U N E
FIRS T ACTS AN N O UN CED
–
More news at DJS A – Z
timeout.com/
music
A DA M B E Y E R
A M E LI E LE NS
B E N K LO CK
DA X J
PLUS W EEKEN D RES ID EN T
AVA LO N E M E R SON
BOSTON M A N OR PA RK LOND O N
J U NC TI ON2 . LOND ON

Music & Nightlife
WHAT’S THE
Okay, Arlo Parks: talk to me. Plath and Hanif Abdurraqib –
Well, Arlo may be a mere 19 years DEAL WITH and you can really tell.
old, but the Hammersmith native
is already carving out a reputation What’s her music actually like?
as one of the capital’s smartest new
lyricists, with some soulful pop nous
to boot.
Arlo Parks It’s bedroom pop-ish (read:
intimate, lo-fi, not too dense), but
it’s also got a groove. If you’ve ever
wished that King Krule’s gritty
Oh God, not another musical confessionals and Jorja Smith’s
wunderkind. warm pop smarts could just, like,
Sort of, but Arlo has a wise head smush together, you’re now in luck.
on her shoulders. Debut EP ‘Super
Sad Generation’ tackles the trials of And of all the London Parks, where
young love with a deftness beyond does she rank? Is she, for example,
her years (‘Leave me to my own better than Finsbury Park?
devices/It’s better when your Coca- Well, it depends on what you’re
Cola eyes are out of my face…’), while after, really. But Arlo’s already rising
a scroll through her Spotify will fast enough to have landed a sweet
find her namechecking MF Doom support slot at Loyle Carner’s huge
CHARLIE CUMMINGS
or Gerard Way one moment and Alexandra Palace gig on November
penning a track about eighteenth- 15. Expect some sizeable headline
century cad-poet Byron the next. shows of her own in the not-so-
distant future. ■ Lisa Wright
So, she’s a bit of a wordsmith then?
Oh, big time. Arlo says she’s equally
influenced by musicians and
writers. Her fave literary idols Check out more new artists at
include Haruki Murakami, Sylvia timeout.com/music
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GIGS AND CLUBS

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After dropping comeback single BY ARRANGEMENT WITH WME
‘International Woman of Leisure’,

Brixton’s own Elly Jackson has
announced a hometown headline
show. You’ll hear highlights from
upcoming album ‘Supervision’,
due two days after the gig.
Fabric. Feb 5 2020.
dubstep duo Sicaria channelling the

THIS WEEK Sound for a seven- ‘dizzying anxiety of
hour rager that won’t post-truth Britain’.
be live-streamed. Topical, for sure.
25 Years of Electric Brixton. Nov 22. Queen Elizabeth Hall. Nov 20.
Bugged Out!
The most influential Sega Bodega Mystery Jets
crew in British The scalding hot Rescheduled date from
clubbing history Glaswegian producer the super-smart UK
celebrates 25 years drops a new show, indie rockers.
of making magic, where he’ll be joined by O2 Shepherds Bush Empire.
with a best-of buffet a string quartet. Apr 22 2020.
featuring: 2manyDJs, St Pancras Old Church. Dec 6.
Erol Alkan, Green Ash
Velvet, Modeselektor, Mobb Deep The Northern Irish
Jungle and loads more. Havoc and Big Noyd band mark 25 years of
Printworks. Sat Nov 16. celebrate 20 years recording with a new
FELT MOUNTAIN THE 20TH YEAR
of the hip hop act’s compilation and an Celebrate with Goldfrapp in an evening
that will cross the soft strata of their seminal album and beyond
acclaimed fourth extensive European
JUST album ‘Murda Muzik’. tour next year.
ANNOUNCED Oval Space. Dec 7. Roundhouse. Mar 27 2020. Sunday 29 March

Gazelle Twin + NYX The Chainsmokers London Royal Festival Hall
Experimental Get ‘Closer’ to the
Tickets on sale 10am Friday 15 November
Boiler Room: composer Gazelle chart-conquering
London Twin joins forces with EDM stars at their
Metropolismusic.com Gigsandtours.com Southbankcentre.co.uk
Rinse FM’s 6 Figure electro drone choir surprisingly modest
Gang team joins forces NYX for a special London headline gig. Goldfrapp.com
A Metropolis Music & SJM Concerts presentation by arrangement with WME and Fascination Management
ED MILES
with drum ’n’ bass EFG London Jazz O2 Academy Brixton.

veteran DJ Storm and Festival performance Oct 16 2020.

Theatre
& Dance
Edited by Andrzej Łukowski
timeout.com/theatre @timeouttheatre
Max Martin
onthe songs
from ‘& Juliet’
The super-producer gives us the
lowdown on the biggest bangers in his
sublimely OTT West End musical
FROM THE VERY moment it was Martin would be complete without

announced, we were obsessed his most famous song. ‘…Baby
with the new West End musical One More Time’ is performed
‘& Juliet’. If the fact that it was near the start of the show: Juliet
the brainchild of Swedish pop is singing it as she appears on
super-producer Max Martin – stage after William Shakespeare
and features 29 of his iconic is persuaded by his wife Anne
smashes – wasn’t enough for love Hathaway to change the ending
at first sight, then the gleefully to ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and bring its
preposterous plot, that sees heroine back.
Shakespeare’s Juliet (Miriam-Teak Max Martin: ‘I wrote this in my
Lee) return from the dead and head in the middle of the night. I
head off on a girls’ trip to Paris, remember getting up and recording
sealed the deal. Here’s a guide to a sleepy voice version of it so as not
six of the show’s biggest bangers, to lose it!’ the surprise, let’s just say that it ‘Since U Been Gone’
with some input from the reclusive marks the point when William This absolute belter turned
Mr Martin. ‘It’s My Life’ Shakespeare decides that he’d like Kelly Clarkson from an ‘American
It’s easy to forget quite how much to bring a certain other character Idol’ winner, little known outside
‘…Baby One More Time’ stuff Martin has written, and for from ‘Romeo & Juliet’ back into of her home country, to a massive
‘& Juliet’ features numerous quite how many people: ‘It’s My the show. global superstar. In ‘& Juliet’
Britney Spears smashes, Life’ gave Bon Jovi a walloping Top Max Martin: ‘This song is all about it emerges as a song of self-
including ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’, Three hit back in 2000, and remains taking control of your life, your empowerment as Juliet gathers
‘Overprotected’ and ‘I’m Not a Girl, a karaoke anthem. In ‘& Juliet’, it’s destiny… and I love the way it is used her gal pals and tells a certain other
Not Yet a Woman’. But realistically, the big pre-interval number, and in the musical. It’s a real moment character that she has moved on in
no musical celebration of Max while we shouldn’t totally spoil of surprise!’ his absence.

BOOK NOW
Mega musicals coming to
London in 2020
bisexuality. No danger here – it’s Sunday in the Park with George

sung by a male character who has Jake Gyllenhaal stars in this revival of
an enjoyable snog with Juliet on the Sondheim’s art history musical, which
way to realising that he is in fact gay. landed rave reviews on Broadway.
Max Martin: ‘I have such great Savoy Theatre. Charing Cross.
memories of that song. It was the Jun 11-Sep 5 2020. £35-£250.
starting point for Katy’s amazing
journey, and I am so proud to have
been a part of that.’
& JULIET: MICHAEL WHARLEY; SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE: MATTHEW MURPHY; CITY OF ANGELS: JOHAN PERSSON: THE PRINCE OF EGYPT: DARRENBELL
‘It’s Gonna Be Me’

Believe it or not, *NSYNC only had
a single US Number One – and it’s
this bad boy, from 2000. It doesn’t
soundtrack an easily definable piece
of action in ‘& Juliet’ – but of course
the real question is: how will the
word ‘me’ be pronounced. Over to
you, Max.
Max Martin: ‘So much has
been written about why Justin City of Angels
Timberlake pronounces the word Cy Coleman’s noirish musical is a kitsch-
“me” as “may” in this song. People free zone starring Rosalie Craig and Hadley
now release memes online on April Fraser and directed by Josie Rourke.
30 with the title “It’s Gonna Be May”. Garrick Theatre. Charing Cross.
Even Barack Obama did this one Mar 6-Sep 5 2020. £20-£95.
year… I never saw that coming!’
‘Everybody
(Backstreet’s Back)’
Fans of Backstreet Boys are in for
an absolute treat with ‘& Juliet’,
‘I wrote which contains no less than five of
the biggest hits Martin wrote for
“...Baby AJ, Howie and the gang. Again,
One More ‘Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)’
doesn’t soundtrack a major plot
Time” in my point here, which isn’t really
head in the a surprise given the extreme
specificity of the lyrics.
middle of Max Martin: ‘This an example of Max Martin: ‘Denniz Pop and I had The Prince of Egypt
how a good song can become a great the idea to write a song by Backstreet This new staging of a cult Dreamworks
the night’ song, when someone like Kelly Boys singing about Backstreet Boys animation will bring epic ballads and
Clarkson sings it. coming back with a new record.’ desert magic to the West End next year.
‘& Juliet’ is at the Shaftesbury Theatre. Dominion Theatre. Tottenham Court Rd.
‘I Kissed a Girl’ Holborn. Until May 30. £22.50-£110. ■ Feb 5-Sep 12 2020. £19.50-£149.50.
Originally, Katy Perry’s kerjillion-
selling breakthrough song was a By Andrzej Łukowski
slice of lipstick lesbian silliness that Who is sad there are no
caused a bit of controversy because Taylor Swift songs but what More musicals at
of the suggestion it was trivialising can you do? www.timeout.com/theatre
Theatre &Dance
Death of a WHAT IS IT…

The Young Vic’s
Salesman Wendell Pierce-led
take on the Arthur
Miller classic, in the
West End.
WHY GO…
THERE’S SOMETHING unsettlingly
It’s stunning (and
dreamlike about Marianne Elliott
hopefully they’ve
and Miranda Cromwell’s new take
fixed the roof, too).
on Arthur Miller’s classic: furniture
floats from wires as jazz melodies
BOOK…
drift from voice to voice. It’s
Buy tickets at
transferring to the West End after a
timeout.com/
Young Vic premiere with its biggest
tickets
stars Wendell Pierce and Sharon D
Clarke remaining on board; they’re
Piccadilly Theatre.
on incredible form as a married
Piccadilly Circus. Until
couple whose schemes for the
Jan 4 2020. £15-£176.75.
future rarely deliver their promise.
As the title’s salesman
Willy Loman, Pierce delivers a
performance that captures all the
subtleties of Loman’s ballooning
moods: puffed out with hot air,
then shrivelled and baggy as reality and Femi Temowo’s haunting place where decades-old memories demanded of African-American men
gets a look-in. Clarke has the kind music, the first act feels a little blare like sirens. Casting this in discriminatory ’40s New York.
of loyally supportive wife role that sitcommy in this chintzy West End family as African-American adds Despite its often-dreamy pace,
could barely register, but here she’s space. But Elliott and Cromwell’s an extra dimension to Miller’s play. these carefully observed moments
the only solid person in this family, psychologically astute approach When Willy begs his white boss for give this ‘Death of a Salesman’
weighed down by disappointment in starts to bite as Willy’s miseries his job, his humiliation is almost a nightmarish momentum that
the three men she relies on. mount. Instead of retreating into unbearable. And his son Biff’s keepsyou going through three-plus
Despite the moody atmosphere a world of his own, he drags the failures suddenly make sense: he’s hours of well-thumbed regrets. ■
supplied by Anna Fleischle’s set whole audience into his head, a never acquired the kind of humility Alice Saville
The Great Gatsby High Fidelity

FROM RELATIVELY HUMBLE beginnings at LOOK, IN RETROSPECT, a lot of things we
WHAT IS IT… the 2017 Vaults Festival, The Guild of Misrule’s
WHAT IS IT… thought were okay in the ’90s were not okay.
London’s longest- adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal novella
A musical take Nonetheless, ‘High Fidelity’ – Nick Hornby’s
running immersive has become the longest-running immersive
on Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel about an unlucky-in-love music geek –
show moves to theatre show in London. It’s just moved into a
bestseller was fairly benign. I posit this because its musical
new digs. new, larger venue at a very Gatsby-esque address incarnation is, I’m afraid to say, creepy as hell.
just off Bond Street.
WHY GO… The issue is that, while on-page Rob – the record
WHY GO… What’s the secret of its success? Well it’s
It’s weirdly enjoyable. store-owning protagonist – is presented as a bit
You want to party like not that it’s a particularly faithful or incisive
Creepy AF though. of a loser, he is, very crucially, not a psychopath.
the Jazz Age never adaptation of the book. Indeed, it would be odd Here, his fixation with ex-girlfriend Laura makes
ended. if the reason audiences were flocking to it night
Turbine Theatre.
him come across at best like a stalker, at worst
HIGH FIDELITY: MARK SENIOR; THE GREAT GATSBY: HELEN MAYBANKS; DEATH OF A SALESMAN: BRINKHOFF-MOEGENBURG
Battersea Park rail.
after night was because they were all in the mood like a genuine danger to society. ‘You can run,
Gatsby’s Mansion. Until Dec 7. £20-£36.
for an elegiac takedown of capitalism. Nope, little girl, but you’ll never be free’ goes one of
Bond St. Until May 31
this ‘Gatsby’ is effectively a big old party. Most the more horrifying lyrics – words you absolutely
2020. £29.95-£39.95.
of the audience on the night I went turned up in cannot imagine Hornby writing.
the suggested 1920s fancy dress; the bar sells a Matters aren’t helped by the casting of Oliver
truly lethal Old Fashioned; there’s bags of time to Ormson as Rob: his brooding intensity and
just hang out and chat with your friends; and the razor-sharp cheekbones make him look like a
plot bits are more akin to a series of party games handsome serial killer. The big dilemma here is
where the audience is divided into groups and that Tom Jackson Greaves’s production makes
taken away for small encounters with characters for a weirdly enjoyable show, if you accept it’s
from the show. about a sociopath and his duo of incel wingmen.
The cast are game enough and chunks of It’s a solid production, and although the songs
Fitzgerald’s prose are sprinkled throughout the are generally light pop-rock, more memorable
night like uncut jewels. But really, it’s no more for the WTF lyrics than the tunes, the delicate alt
articulate an adaptation than that gif of Leonardo country numbers are very nice.
DiCaprio toasting the camera. On the other hand, ‘High Fidelity’ flopped hard on Broadway in
part of the point of the novel is that the guests 2006 and it has definitely not been worth the
who flocked to Gatsby’s parties had a fun time 13-year wait for it to hit these shores. Still, I
without ever really knowing him. And on that guess it’s up to you whether you can enjoy the
somewhat ironic score, this show has pretty show on its own terms, or find the whole thing
much hit the nail on the head. ■ Andrzej Łukowski too icky to bother with. ■ Andrzej Łukowski

Theatre &Dance
NE W SHOWS
THE HOT TEST THE ATRE OPENINGS THIS WEEK
Narnia musical. Barbican. Barbican. Stray Dogs

WEST END Bridge Theatre. London Tue Nov 12-Jan 16 2020. A new play about poet
Bridge. Until Feb 2 2020. £10-£59.50. Anna Akhmatova’s
£15-£75. struggle to survive
La Clique Touching the Void the Soviet regime.
Saucy cabaret pioneers Mary Poppins The true story of a Park Theatre. Finsbury
La Clique will serve up The practically perfect struggle for survival in Park. Wed Nov 13-Dec 7.
smut, spectacle and supernanny is floating the Andes, adapted by £14.50-£18, £13-
the odd flash of fire at back into the West End David Greig. £16.50 concs.
this comeback show. in Disney’s musical, Duke of York’s Theatre.
Christmas in Leicester starring Zizi Strallen Leicester Square. Until Feb Unknown Rivers
Square. Leicester Square. (‘Strictly Ballroom’). 29 2020. £15-£85. Chinonyerem
Until Jan 4 2020. £21-£66. Prince Edward Theatre. Odimba’s play explores
Tottenham Court Rd. Until the healing power of
The Lion, the Witch May 3 2020. £17.50-£177.50. OFF- ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’
female friendship.
and the Wardrobe Hampstead Theatre.
For its first ever family Measure for WEST END Swiss Cottage. Until Dec 7.
Christmas show, the Measure The Kissing Slipped £12-£14, £6-£10 concs.
Bridge Theatre has Gregory Doran’s RSC Rebellion Panto season kicks off
bagged the London production transports Before I Was Sparked by the 2015 with this innuendo- #WeAreArrested
transfer of director Shakespeare’s grim a Bear Paris attacks, this heavy and strictly A biting drama about
Sally Cookson’s story to 1900s Vienna. Eleanor Tindall’s dance-theatre piece adults-only gay spin the risks of reporting
queer love story explores how we on ‘Cinderella’. on corruption.
follows a woman who heal after crisis. Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Arcola Theatre. Dalston
meets her telly crush. Ovalhouse. Oval. Fri Nov Vauxhall. Various dates Thu Kingsland Overground.
The Bunker. London 15-Nov 30. £16, £10 concs. Nov 14-Jan 8 2020. £12.50-£18. Wed Nov 13-Dec 7. £10-£27.
TOP-SELLING Bridge. Tue Nov 12-Nov 23.
£16, £10-£12 concs.
TICKETS Extremism
AT TIMEOUT.COM/TICKETS A young cast perform EXCLUSIVE
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look at the impact of
1 Everybody’s Talking
About Jamie
A teenager drags up for prom
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Theatre Peckham.
Peckham Rye Overground.
‘THE TAMING OF THE SHREW’
in this feel-good Brit musical. Until Nov 23. £12, £10 concs.
Apollo Shaftesbury. Until Aug 29 2020.
I Will Still
2 Death of a Salesman Be Whole
Wendell Pierce and Sharon D A mother is reunited
Clarke star in Miller’s classic. with her daughter in
Piccadilly Theatre. Until Jan 4 2020. Ava Wong Davies’s
tender debut play.
3 Goldilocks and the The Bunker. London
Three Bears Bridge. Tue Nov 12-Nov 23.
The West End’s biggest, £16, £10-£12 concs.
starriest panto is back.
London Palladium. Dec 7-Jan 12 2020.
4 Ian McKellen on Stage

An audience with a legend.
Harold Pinter Theatre. Until Jan 5 2020. EXCLUSIVE
Discover the golden age of
A radical take on Shakespeare’s classic comedy
featuring a full cast gender inversion – that’s right,
the women are in charge. This Royal Shakespeare
5 Come from Away circus with our exclusive tickets Company production is set to be a real spectacle.
The runaway hit musical. to ‘Circus 1903’, saving you up
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Loads more London theatre listings at
timeout.com/theatre
Art
Edited by Eddy Frankel
timeout.com/art @timeoutart
SHOW OF THE WEEK
Patrick
Staff:
‘On Venus’

WHAT IS IT…
Acid rain and
toxic sludge in a
minimal, shocking
environment.
LIFE IS A MESS of toxic, etchings in one space reproduce found footage of animal abuse
corrosive, acidic substances and newspaper articles, and their on industrial farms. It’s stomach- WHY GO…
ideas in Patrick Staff’s work. half-arsed retractions, about child- turningly unwatchable seeing It’s art to turn your
The young English artist has killer Ian Huntley coming out as these creatures – pumped full of stomach, and
filled the Serpentine with barrels trans – a story that was fake, with growth hormones, harvested for change your mind.
collecting steady drips of acid the idea of transitioning being their skin, fur and meat – being
from leaking overhead pipes. The used by the tabloids as a mocking, violently abused in grainy, shocking Serpentine Sackler
ground is a perfectly reflective degrading weapon against both the recordings. Gallery. Lancaster Gate.
sickly green, dragging you into a government and Huntley. At first, the show feels a little slight, Until Feb 9 2020. Free.
mirror world of grim gunge. The other space is given over a little empty, a little unintelligible,
And things only get nastier. Acid to a horrifying film featuring but taken as a whole, Staff’s intention

BEST OF THE BEST
The top exhibitions you have
to see in London right now
© 2019 PATRICK STAFF PHOTO: HUGO GLENDINNINGL. © THE LUCIAN FREUD ARCHIVE / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES. BRIDGET RILEY, HIGH SKY, 1991. © BRIDGET RILEY 2018. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. UNITED VISUAL ARTISTS IMAGE BY JACK HEMS.
Lucian Freud: The Self Portraits
Lumpy, bumpy, cruel self-portraits by twentieth-century
Britain’s greatest painter (probably). It’s ugly art, but
somehow still incredibly beautiful.
Royal Academy of Art. Piccadilly Circus. Until Jan 26 2020. £16, £14 concs.
United Visual Artists: ‘Other Spaces’

This collective has organised an immersive series of
laser light shows that mess with your perception. It’s trippy,
heady and will totally blow your mind.
180 The Strand. Temple. Until Dec 8. Free
becomes crystal clear. This is art The artist is dunking the viewer in
about transformation and gender, these barrels of acid and forcing us
but it’s not a celebration. It revels to watch this harrowing abuse. This Bridget Riley
in a brutal side of day-to-day queer isn’t Staff saying ‘accept me’, this is Mind-bending paintings by the grand dame of
existence, in the crushing pressure Staff saying ‘understand me’, and op art. It might give you a headache, but that’s a small
of a society that’s constantly bearing that’s pretty damn powerful. ■ price to pay for art this good.
down on you, in the destructive Hayward Gallery. Waterloo. Until Jan 26 2020. £16.50, £12.50 concs.
power of negative ideas, of forced
conformation, of having to figure By Eddy Frankel
yourself out in a world that doesn’t Who is a barrel of laughs. Find even more art at
want you. timeout.com/art
Art
Find more
shows to see at
timeout.com/art
WHAT IS IT…
Rebellious, precise,
erotic painting by an
old-school punk.
WHY GO…
It’s really rude, and
seriously in your face.
Tramps. Old St.

Until Dec 22. Free.
Caroline Coon:
HUMAN STORIES: ‘The Great Offender’
CIRCA NO FUTURE
NADIA HUGGINS CAROLINE COON HAS painted
a vision of herself with a single,
Other images show a hot young
couple nude on the beach, a row of
NORTH GREENWICH TUBE
SOUTH EAST LONDON
monstrous, enormous, gnarled, stunning, godlike, naked surfers on
FINAL WEEK veined, manly hand. It’s one of the

first things you see in this show
(which opened back in October but is
the sand and a group of hideous,
fat men in suits picking girls from a
menu. There are gorgeous, brightly
on through to December). Her naked coloured prostitutes stoning a bunch
body is thin, angled, fragile; her skin of pallid, naked hypocrites; a happy
hangs loosely, her face is lined. family in an upside-down house; and
FREE PUBLIC ARTS SPACE
But that hand is something else: a a client/escort scenario where both

grotesque, masculine appendage are women, but might be performing
NOWGALLERY.CO.UK
that she has somehow grown. as men, who knows? There’s

That’s how her art works – desire here, lots of it, but anger and
mutation, pride, rebellion. The indignation too.
old-school punk (she managed The The whole thing is a collision
Clash for a bit) paints with absolute of art deco angles, Diego Rivera
precision: nothing is a mistake. curves and socialist-realist bodies
All the symbols of masculinity pushed to ridiculous extremes,
being forced through a mincer, manipulated and twisted to mock
COURTESY TRAMPS, COPYRIGHT AND COURTESY THE ARTIST
all the rebellion, the attitude, the gender conventions, to laugh at

subversion, it’s all on purpose. greedy businessmen, to undermine
It starts sedately enough – a quiet societal norms. All those ideas are
FEATURED IN... London street, a vase of flowers – but mashed and mangled until they
AESTHETICA things ramp up pretty quickly. Nude mean nothing at all.
IT’S NICE THAT footballers leap for a ball before a And Coon’s big male hand is a
CREATIVE REVIEW rapt crowd, they have both breasts message. She’s saying we’re all
RUNS UNTIL 17 NOV and cocks, male features and big, complicated, fluid beings, and if you
020 3770 2243 full, red-painted lips. Their bodies are don’t agree she’s going to take that
in motion, moving through the air and big hand and slap you about until
codes of gender at the same time. you do. ■ Eddy Frankel

Art
rmg.co.uk/astrophoto
Major exhibition
Now open at the National Maritime Museum

#astrophoto2019
Sharafkhaneh Port and Lake Urmia © Masoud Ghadiri
Royal Museums Greenwich

National Maritime Museum | Royal Observatory | Cutty Sark | The Queen’s House
Cutty Sark Greenwich (only 8 mins from London Bridge) Greenwich Pier
18 Oct 2019–9 Feb 2020

Hamish Pearch

IMAGINE ONE OF those time-lapse all. She’s dreaming of a gas station
videos from a nature show: clouds which has coalesced into a model of
swirling past at mach speed, tides itself, spurting out of her head. It’s
ebbing, fruit rotting. And keep it in like walking in on a scene mid-time-
your imagination, because that’s lapse, with all this secret, festering
where young English artist Hamish stuff frozen in the moment.
Pearch’s art happens – behind It’s eerie, stark, surreal, and
closed eyes, in the unconscious, in brutally suburban, like Giorgio de
the dark night-time spaces we’ve all Chirico in Slough. Pearch’s world
seen but can’t grasp. is one where our ideas, memories
Stacks of charred, blackened and knowledge are stored away in
toast dot the floor of the gallery, boxes in lock-ups, left to decay on
drooping daisies growing out of industrial estates that no one visits.
them. Huge pale All this humanity is left
mushrooms lie on to grow slowly mouldy.
stacks of paper or grow WHAT IS IT… Exploring all the
in the dark recesses Surreal, weird dark, forgotten, empty
of the room. Look up art filled with places where we dump
mushrooms and
COURTESY SOFT OPENING, COPYRIGHT AND COURTESY THE ARTIST.
and you see the wall is our crap, Pearch’s art

corrugated iron. You’re toast. is a psychological trip
in some anonymous through the English
storage unit, lit only by WHY GO… subconscious, the Featuring works by Free from 5pm
The Story
security-guard torches. There’s not mundanity of everyday Nobuyoshi Araki, Nan Goldin Free Thurs Lates
mush-room for of Food in Martin Parr, Man Ray,
Mini industrial units sit life and the things we
on the ground. There’s improvement here. hide from the world. Photography Cindy Sherman, Wolfgang 16–18 Ramillies Street
Tillmans, Weegee London W1F 7LW
a tiny barn in one, a It’s only unsettling tpg.org.uk and many others Oxford Circus
projection of images of Soft Opening. because he makes you Organised by
fireworks in another. A Bethnal Green. aware of just how deep Ed Ruscha Spam, 1961 © Ed Ruscha.
sculpture of a sleeping Until Dec 8. Free. the rot has gone. ■

Courtesy the artist and Gagosian
Gallery.
receptionist faces it Eddy Frankel

Food
Edited by Tania Ballantine
timeout.com/eatdrink @timeouteatdrink
RESTAURANT OF THE WEEK
Mao
Chow
GOT A DIEHARD, card-carrying a shiny red Tolix stool. Mao Chow
carnivore in your life? The kind
WHAT IS IT… doesn’t take cards and the loo was
who likes vegans, but couldn’t eat
A vegan, cash-only, out of order. (‘We use the one at The
a whole one? This is where you
Sichuan street food Dolphin, a few doors down – they’re
should take them. Quietly sit them
joint in Hackney. very friendly.’ This is definitely
down at the communal table, order true: the bar staff at the bar called
pretty much one of everything off
WHY GO… me ‘darlin’’ and tried to get me to
the small, laminated menu and
The smacked stay for drinks.) It’s as laidback as a
say sweet FA about the place’s USP.
cucumber. The dry- sunlounger on a half-price holiday .
Which is not that all the street food
fried beans. The dan As for the food, it’s terrific. The
is terrific value, or that it’s Sichuan-
dan noodles. smacked cucumber, with its crunch
leaning and beautifully spiced, but of sesame seeds and sharp lick
159a Mare St, E8 3RD.
that every dish happens to have of vinegar against all the oil and
London Fields Overground.
originally come from a plant. heat, was among the best I’ve had
They’ll never suspect. Sure, the in London. Dry-fried green beans
space is small – I’ve been in bigger – another classic – combined the
minicab offices – and humble, warm, low hum of roasted chilli
but unlike many vegan gaffs, it’s with the mellow intensity of black
refreshingly free of propaganda. bean and crunchy, earthy peanuts.
Instead, it just feels like a typically Next-level good. Don’t miss the
cheery hipster hangout, with retro dan dan noodles, either: these had
tunes blaring out of the speakers a sweetish tinge, and even a small
and ice cream parlour pastels on bowlful managed to be deeply
the walls. The only seats are at a satisfying; the secret ingredient (we
single sunshine-yellow table or at a asked how it was made and they, of
wall counter, with your bottom on course, wouldn’t tell) was a topping

More culinary stars at
timeout.com/restaurants
of homemade Mao Chow vegan

‘mince’. Soft and moreish, it had the
taste and texture of slow-cooked
then flash-fried pork (which is
exactly what it was standing in for).
The whole thing was sloppy and
delicious. I could eat it every day.
Also good were steamed
dumplings, their chewy pastry filled
with finely chopped mushrooms
and more of that mystery mince,
sitting over a puddle of chilli oil.
And decidedly decent was an oyster
mushroom bao. It was just the mapo
tofu – the most obviously vegan
dish of the bunch – that was on the
ordinary too-too-wet side; only go
for it if you’re an ardent tofu-fancier.
But here’s the thing. It’s never easy
to get Chinese food in vegan form
(plenty of restaurants will swear
blind that a dish is vegan, then admit
when pressed that there’s fish in
the soy and oyster sauces, and beef
in the gelatine). But to get Sichuan
street food that’s memorable
enough to please vegans and non-
vegans in equal measure, with pay-
packet-friendly prices, served up by
jovial staff in a cute, fun space – well,
that’s another thing entirely. Kudos
to you, Mao Chow: you’ve only gone
and re-written all the rules. ■
Dinner for two with soft drinks and
cash tip: around £45.
By Tania Ballantine
Who will try to remember to
take cash next time.

Food
Gold WHAT IS IT…

A fashionable
restaurant on
Portobello Road.
WHY GO…
DRUMROLL, PLEASE. Gold is the
To see and be seen.
best-looking and scene-iest place
in west London. And, unlike others
95-97 Portobello
that have gone before it (Beach
Rd, W11 2QB.
Blanket Babylon, hiiiii), the food and
Notting Hill Gate
service are surprisingly good, too.
You can’t miss it: a honking great
three-floor former pub right on the
Portobello Road, its entire façade
painted with a gold-and-white mural:
the close-up of a soulful face, with
with enormous, searching eyes and
deep metallic wrinkles.
Inside, the first section is still
very pubby: dark and poky, with beer But anyway, the food. It’s not an anchovy-thick sauce. In fact, my
on tap. But push on to the back. really why you go – this is a lifestyle-y main concern was that they seemed
Here, under a rectractable glass
roof, is a glorious conservatory, with
brick herringbone floors, terracotta-
hangout, where beautiful girls
push things around their plates –
but the cooking is better than you
to put anchovy in about half the
dishes. Order with care.
And there’s a lot of expensive hair
EXCLUSIVE
Soak up the east Asian
washed walls and a jungle of would expect. A generous dish in this place. In short, Gold is not for
vibes at Lan Kwai Fong
foliage. If you’re the sort of person of charred white peaches with everyone. But if you’re a fashionable with four cocktails for just
who never wants summer to end, bitter chicory and creamy burrata local, then you’ll absolutely love it. £16 – that’s 60 percent off.
you’ll want to take up a permanent was one highlight. As was grilled In fact, you’re probably there right
spot. Which is probably why, at 6pm squid with nutty, garlicky skordalia now. ■ Tania Ballantine
on dreary midweek evening, it was and zippy salsa verde, and butch Dinner for two with drinks and TIMEOUT.COM/FONG
packed, with walk-ins turned away. chunks of grilled cabbage under service: around £115.
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THREE OF THE BEST
Brixton restaurants
Going to the O2 Academy? Grab some pre-gig
nosh at one of these south London gems
DID YOU KNOW…

Kricket We think the setting and the service

The second bricks ’n’ mortar site of this modern Indian small- are just as important as the food
plates spot (which started life at Pop Brixton) is just as cool or drink. We look at the ‘complete
as its Soho sibling. Don’t miss the Keralan fried chook.
41-43 Atlantic Rd, SW9 8JL. Brixton.
experience’….
@timeouteatdrink
EXCLUSIVE
COCO DI MAMA
Nanban

The Kyushu-style ramen bar from 2011’s ‘MasterChef’
winner Tim Anderson bashes out Japanese comfort food, like
chicken karaage and stir-fried udon. It’s dirty, delicious stuff.
426 Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8LF. Brixton.
KRICKET: HUGH JOHNSON, NANBAN: PAUL WINCH-FURNESS, SMOKE & SALT: ANDY PARSONS
*HW\RXUFDIIHLQHƂ[IRUOHVVZLWKRXUH[FOXVLYHRIIHU
RIƂYHFXSVRIFRIIHHIRUDƂYHU<HStDQ\FRIIHH
DQ\PLONDQ\VL]HtHDFKIRU7KDQNXVODWHU
Smoke & Salt TIMEOUT.COM/COCODIMAMA

This Pop Brixton shipping container may be small, but the
food is mighty, the service excellent and the vibe super-cool.
Go for small-plates food at its best: imaginative and flawless.
Pop Brixton, 49 Brixton Station Rd, SW9 8PQ. Brixton.
Ts&Cs apply. THE BEST OF THE CITY

Find more Brixton belles at
timeout.com/brixton
Drink BAR OF THE WEEK
WHAT IS IT…
Edited by Laura Richards Henry Cooper’s
timeout.com/bars @timeouteatdrink old Bellingham
local with renewed
heavyweight status.
The Fellowship WHY GO…

For knockout jerk
and Star chicken and films
fora fiver.
Randlesdown Rd,
SE6 3BT. Bellingham rail.
DON’T BE PUT OFF by the mock-

Tudor exterior; The Fellowship
and Star is steeped in real history. Now the pub lives to fight private parties. The pub has retained up the bar on my visit even claimed
London’s first pub on a council another day following a £4 its ’20s panelling but has had an to have met the man. That’s what
estate was built in Bellingham to million restoration led by Phoenix injection of colour from flamboyant makes this refurb work: the pub is
serve heroes returning from WWI, Community Housing and the guys wallpaper and pink and turquoise still invested in the local. See it in
and became a community hub and behind The Star of Bethnal Green. upholstery, making it cosy and the booze, with Brockley, Orbit and
performance space – Fleetwood The before and after would make contemporary without destroying Brick Brewery pouring (all great for
Mac and Eric Clapton were among Martin from ‘Homes Under the its character. And while old carpets washing down fried chicken). And
those who took the stage – before Hammer’ flush with excitement. have been axed in favour of parquet every Wednesday, Bellinghamites
slipping into disrepair in the ’80s. It Now you’ll find state-of-the-art flooring, the wooden bar still stands get 20 percent off their bill. Not from
also served as a training gym for the cinema Bellingham Film Palace in the round. these parts? You’ll probably enjoy
area’s celebrity, heavyweight boxer screening blockbusters for a fiver, You’ll see posters and little gloved tables pushed aside at the weekend
Henry Cooper, ahead of his fight grub from residents White Men touches in memory of Cooper – as the pub becomes a character-
with Muhammad Ali. Can’t Jerk and rooms primed for some friendly punters propping filled dancefloor. ■ Hayley Joyes
London Cocktail
DRINK THIS Club Clapham
Reformed Pornstar THERE ARE ALREADY nine iterations of
WHAT IS IT…
mixologist JJ Goodman’s basement-bar
juggernaut in the capital. But the newest London A Clapham branch of
Cocktail Club – squeezed between a Five Guys LCC, this time with a
The meat brings us to and a Boots on Clapham High Street, like The cinematic theme.
Hawksmoor, the drinks keep Leaky Cauldron by way of ‘Towie’ – has a USP.
us there. But for the first time A life-size Oscar maquette by the door and a WHY GO…
since launch, the restaurant- continuous loop of retro Paramount and MGM Sink a drink, ‘Titanic’-
and-bar group has overhauled titles projected above the stairs point (quite style. Plus: Haribo-
its much-loved cocktail list. aggressively) to a movie theme. scented bogs.
Don’t worry: Shaky Pete’s Downstairs, the bar is split into three sections:
182-184 Clapham
Ginger Brew stays put. And, one for ‘Titanic’, one for ‘Star Wars’ and one for
High St, SW4 7UG.
actually, the new menu is a ‘Pulp Fiction’. The last is done up like a diner with
Clapham Common.
THE FELLOWSHIP AND STAR: DAVID CLACK, LONDON COCKTAIL CLUB CLAPHAM: GRAHAM TURNER
beaut based on six months of fake windows on to LA, while the ’Star Wars’ bit is
travel in the name of research Death Star-panelled. It falls just on the right side
(the dream). The Reformed of gimmicky. There’s even a two-for-one ‘Orange
Pornstar is a money shot Wednesdays’ promotion.
moment, a see-through mash- Table service is friendly and the menu is
up of the Milk Punch and the extensive. My Tommy’s Chilli Margarita was
Pornstar Martini. Jasmine tea spicy, salty and garlicky – in a good way, I swear.
and champagne make it as My mate stuck to the theme with a Tom Cruise-
classy as its name implies.■ saluting ‘Choctails & Dreams’, an indulgent
Hawksmoor restaurants and bars concoction in a mug, topped with whipped
Londonwide. £12. cream and a Cadbury Flake. Yet, strangely, the
sweetest part was the lavs, somehow the best-
smelling loos I’ve ever set foot in – seriously, it’s
like they’re plumbed with cherry Haribo. ‘I could
spend all night in there,’ said my friend. Just don’t
mistake the hand soap for pick ’n’ mix. ■
More cheeky drinks at timeout.com/bars Bobby Palmer

Escapes IF YOU ONLY
DO ONE THING
Put on your
Edited by Ellie Walker-Arnott sensible shoes
timeout.com/daytrips and brave all 325
steps of Durham
Cathedral Tower.
It reopened this
summer and, once
you’ve puffed your
way up there, the
stunning view from
the roof really does
make the winding,
wonky, wobbly route
feel like a stairway
to heaven.
WAKE UP HERE
A perfect day in
Forty Winks
Durham
Historic streets, quaint tearooms and a spectacular light festival
WITH SWATHES OF greenery and the River Wear Stop for lunch
looping through its historic centre, Durham is one You can’t move for scones in Durham. Get some
of England’s prettiest cities. Its glorious cathedral of the best, plus satisfying homemade lunches, at
is a pilgrimage site, traditionally to the shrine of Cafédral Durham, a warming retro-fitted abode.
St Cuthbert and, more recently, for ‘Harry Potter’ Try The Café on the Green to get up close to the
fans seeking Professor McGonagall’s classroom cathedral, or nestle down with a hearty tray bake Enhance your jaunt with
and other magical delights. It’s pleasingly easy to at the ‘Alice in Wonderland’-themed Be Tempted. a stay at Forty Winks. The
find your bearings in the city without getting lost. guest house is an eccentric
But be warned: it’s pretty hilly. Drink like a local combination of vintage
Travel back to 1920s Shanghai for drinks and touches, carnival-esque
First up nibbles at The Rabbit Hole, Durham’s newly shocks and a zoo’s worth of
Get your first dollop of history at Crook Hall and opened speakeasy tucked down tiny Mavin Street. taxidermy. The rooms and
Gardens. The manor house has the aura of an Or squeeze inside The Tin of Sardines, (possibly) suites, however, are rather
idyllic countryside retreat. Next up, visit Durham the world’s tiniest gin bar which stocks more than more reserved – think low-key
Castle. A friendly student tour guide will show 300 different brands. Beer aficionados should decadence with lots of doughy
you where the Norman chapel’s mermaid lives. book a tour of Durham Brewery. white pillows. The Second Floor
DURHAM CATHEDRAL: ALAN CRAWFORD / GETTY IMAGES
Suite offers awesome views of

Go on an adventure Soak up the vibes the cathedral, which seems like
Nearby Auckland Castle has just reopened and You can enjoy the city’s leafy scenery with a stroll it’s within touching distance.
tells the fascinating, 1,000-year-old story of along the Durham Riverside Walk at any time of Drag yourself away for a hearty
the politically and socially engaged Bishops of year. From November 14 to 17, Lumiere returns to breakfast of avo, eggs and
Durham. The real hidden gem, however, is the the city for its tenth anniversary. The spectacular salsa on toast. Now you’re
superb Mining Art Gallery just down the road. It light festival and art trail draws thousands of ready to climb the
combines local history with gorgeous artworks. visitors. ■ Rosemary Waugh cathedral tower! ■
Rosemary Waugh
Get here: two hours 45 minutes by train from London King’s Cross; around four hours 30 minutes by car. Durham, County Durham. From £110
a night. www.fortywinksdurham.co.uk
Make your weekend merry and bright at timeout.com/daytrips

Escapes
THREE OF THE BEST
Christmas
markets
Don’t miss
Space Lates – Apollo 12

THE NATIONAL SPACE CENTRE from a navigation engineer who
has enough astronomical worked on the mission, get up
attractions to keep even Mr close to a collection of meteorites Victorian Christmas Market
Armstrong entertained (probably) and have the chance to quiz Nasa’s Stratford-upon-Avon
and its evening events are a bonus lunar experts. Stratford-upon-Avon makes a magical setting for
for super-keen space fans. The interactive evening will a Christmas market with a historical twist. Will’s
The next Space Lates event finish with a spot of stargazing old stomping ground transforms into a Victorian
takes place this weekend and will led by the Leicester Astronomical winter wonderland, with stallholders donning
cover all things Apollo 12, the Society. We’re feeling starry-eyed lace bonnets and stick-on sideburns.
sixth crewed flight in the Apollo already. ■ Lucy Lovell Dec 6-8. www.stratford.gov.uk
programme and the second to land National Space Centre, Leicester. Sat Nov 16.
on the moon. You’ll hear stories £6, booking essential. www.spacecentre.co.uk
SWAP THE CITY FOR
SPACE LATES: PAUL CARROLL / PORTRAIT COLLECTIVE; VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS MARKET: TIM GAINEY / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; FROST FAYRE: TONY BOLTON; CARPHILLY CHRISTMAS MARKET: LYNDON EVANS
A picture-perfect rural escape
Frost Fayre Glastonbury
Dig out the flower crown and eco-glitter you wore
at Glasto – they’ll go down a storm at the Frost
Fayre held in the pretty Somerset town. As well
as outdoor stalls, a farmers’ market and a grotto,
morris dancers, buskers and street performances
will add to the jovial atmosphere.
Nov 30. www.facebook.com/glastonburyfrostfayre
LOOKING FOR A remote spot home-from-home. The clutch

to bed down in for a wintery of outhouse-style bedrooms
weekend? The tiny Berkshire are traditional with modern
village of Inkpen should do touches like a keepcup you can
the job, even if it sounds like a borrow. The seasonal menu is
place in an Enid Blyton book. more upmarket than you might
Head off on a gothic country expect at somewhere with such Caerphilly Christmas Market Caerphilly
walk to visit Combe Gibbet, a a laidback feel: lots of precise The Welsh town of Caerphilly will be filled with
seventeenth-century gallows plating and rich desserts to Christmassy smells as more than 100 food, drink
that looms ominously at the reward a hard day’s walking. and craft stalls pop up for this market, with street
top of a hill; hunt for vintage Inkpen might not be the most performers on hand to entertain shoppers. At
treasures in nearby Hungerford; buzzy destination, but The Crown nearby Caerphilly Castle, you’ll find Santa in his
or spot painted narrowboats & Garter is worth the train fare grotto and a festive ice rink. ■ Lucy Lovell
bobbing by on the Kennet & alone. ■ Lisa Wright Dec 7-8. www.caerphillychristmasmarket.co.uk
Avon canal. Afterwards, the cosy The Crown & Garter, Inkpen, Berkshire.
Crown & Garter is a welcoming From £130 a night. www.crownandgarter.co.uk
Step into Christmas at
timeout.com/daytrips
‘ONE OF THE MOST AMAZING
THEATRICAL EXPERIENCES
YOU WILL EVER WITNESS’
THE IRISH TIMES
M A RY P O PPI N S . CO M

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overlooked and underrated bits

Stack up your travel bucket list at

London’s got problems. Here’s how we fix them

Time Out London November 12 – 18 2019 14

‘Do not snort

LONDON’S SKYLINE IS soaring. Sometimes it

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23 November 12 – 18 2019 Time Out London

Read our guide to London’s green spaces

27 November 12 – 18 2019 Time Out London

The bog spongy sphagnum. ‘The moss at the

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eareds are really cute,’ says Rachel.

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Time Out London November 12 – 18 2019 32

Save the Change

With Save the Change,® when you use

Hot (desk) spots

you really need to rent a

37 November 12 – 18 2019 Time Out London

Garden Café at the

Fifth Floor Café at Garden Café at the

The Distillery eighth-floor Granville-Grossman Members

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Look Mum No Hands

Look Mum No Hands! The Garden Museum

49 Old St. Old St.

Tamesis Dock Fortnum & Mason

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The Doodle Bar

there’s free wi-fi, fresh pastries and plenty

The Doodle Bar

Hurwundeki 15 Art Library to the Silver and Ceramics Galleries.

of Hampstead Heath, housing the historic

V&A Minutes away from Elephant & Castle tube,

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45 November 12 – 18 2019 Time Out London

Nov 13 Nov 14 Nov 14

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Nov 15 Nov 15 Nov 20

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Nov 28-Jan 11 2020.