Barbican Hall As a confirmed Londoner, my experience of British wildlife is pretty drab, with flashes of bushy vermilion tails disappearing into my bins. Elsewhere on these storied Isles, I admit to wonder, but rarely is it the focus of the nature industry’s fisheyed lens. The BBC series, headed by our lord and saviour Sir Attenborough, has other talents present ...

Three Colts Tavern ‘Like Italy and New York have made sweet love’ I believe it was Aristotle who once said: “A day with pizza is a better day.” I concur wholeheartedly. However, how does one differentiate between the many pop-ups now hawking Italy’s finest export around London? Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with food-nerd jargon about heritage grains, leopard ...

The Yard Nick Cassenbaum’s smash-hit Edinburgh fringe show gets its London premiere. Exploding into The Yard is a blast of mimed gunshots, uproarious comedy, and biting satire about the Jewish diaspora. The first show of a new year is an important step in any cultured adult’s life. Kicking off the year in the right sphere, the right energy, the right ...

Skehan’s | 1 Kitto Road, SE14 5TW There are Irish pubs, there are very Irish pubs, and then there’s Skehan’s. The family-run joint doesn’t have a monopoly on the Irish blend of comedy, revelry, and hospitality (known as craic), but it certainly wears the crown. Perched on Telegraph Hill, overlooking all of London’s splendour, sits this temple of festivity. Publican ...

Almeida There is neither a silent nor holy night featured in the Almeida’s big December production. Instead, we get all the sweaty sauce-sodden scraping of the Pollitt family in a poisonously un-festive production. Tennessee Williams’s most classical play is a sprawling family drama set (not so shockingly) in the Deep South. The famous 1958 film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul ...

King’s Head Theatre Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is a mouthful of a name, this equally complex woman is “unveiled” by this solo show at the King’s Head, though with too much force and flourish. Writer Thesy Surface sets her sights on theatre and specifically the sadly under-appreciated life of 18th-century aristocrat, poet, feminist and scientist Lady Montagu, rightfully revelling in her taste ...

The Yard As you might have guessed from the title, this will be a reasonably adult review, for a very adult show. So, snatch the paper away from your 7-year-old, or turn off their iPad. Done? Have they gone? Now it’s just us grownups. As Storm Darragh rattled around outside, another maelstrom was raging inside The Yard. Added cushions and ...

Sadlers Wells Michael Keegan-Dolan’s groaning cornucopia of a show with company Teaċ Daṁsa outstands, outsmarts, and exhausts in equal measure. There is so much to discuss, so much crammed in, so many visual, musical, and thematic elements to cover for this show, that I have been sitting for five minutes, fingers held over the keyboard, slack-jawed, trying to work out ...

London Palladium The best thing about theatre is its ability to revive an esoteric hit. Do you remember fondly the 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine? If yes, how about the subsequent 2004 musical with a book by Jeffery Lane and lyrics and music by David Yazbek? If you answered affirmative to both those questions, then ...

Arcola Think Sex and the City (and Robots) meets a purple-coded Black Mirror, and you are close to David Head’s hit one-man Edinburgh fringe show. But with dystopia very much blending into the daily news, how do you invigorate a crowded genre? I, like many writers, am a bit of a nerd. Big-budget sci-fi sends my pulse racing-distant shifting sands, ...