Seven Dials Playhouse Aren’t we all a little sick of the arduously serious predictions of the earth’s future? This shattered dystopian hellscape is mirrored back at us through art’s mutinous lens. Zombies rampage, comets collide and the planet boils in its own inactivity, and is there a laugh to be found? Not a chuckle! Enter Help! We Are Still Alive! ...

‘Oddball characters, single-minded goals and bitingly funny one-liners’ A good biopic should make you understand the subject under the microscope. Dark comedies, however, turn their scourging brushes on the easy targets – the worlds or people ripe for comedy. Owen Kline’s directorial debut Funny Pages takes the easiest of shots, but with such showmanship. In his crosshairs are comic books, which have ...

More French than impeccable food, fiery politics, or chic clothing; Both Sides of the Blade dives headfirst into an ever-so-stormy love triangle. Delicate performances from our trio strive to pull the story back from its pedestrian premise, and on the whole succeed. As in 2017’s Let the sunshine Claire Denis collaborates with the writer Christine Angot and actress Juliette Binoche. The ...

Peacock Theatre On a sweltering evening, we pack into the Peacock theatre. Fans patter like falling autumn leaves in the audience, as Beyond Bollywood returns to the West End after a triumphant run at the London Palladium in 2015! The sparkle, energy, and exuberance are intoxicating, even if some of the wires of the machine have blown. The concept is a good ...

175 Stoke Newington High Street, Stoke Newington, London N16 0LH Wandering up the eclectic Stoke Newington High Street I was accosted by a free art gallery, a farmers’ market, and a car boot sale, I visited all three. Stokey in a nutshell? All on-route to The Three Crowns for a gratifying lunch in a historic setting. Dating back to the ...

Apollo Theatre Golden leaves snaked around his victorious head, Jack Holden’s creative tour de force Cruise returns to the West End. Perfectly timed, searingly funny, and geographically fitting: what more could you want? Jack Holden, an already lauded actor has decided that the world of writing deserves some of his singular attention (leave something for the rest of us please?). ...

Chichester Festival Theatre at Sadler’s Wells ‘Come and revel in the power of love’ The joint rulers of romance, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein (the second) are having a mini-revival in the capital. Oklahoma! is taking the Old Vic by storm, and now South Pacific unloads at Sadler’s Wells. Both shows are feel-good hits that have been mired in controversy. ...

‘Stuck in the middle and confused’ Dining in the capital can be tricky – the heady amalgam of capitalist greed and stylish affectation. The ever-present fusion, more at home in a neutron star than at a dinner table, progresses from intriguing to gimmicky to downright dreadful. The press launch of Bavarian brewery chain Kraft’s third outpost was the culinary equivalent ...

288 Cambridge Heath Rd, Cambridge Heath, London E2 9DA ‘A temple of careful, conscious and creative eating’ The world is on fire, the times are a-changing and amongst this madness, I am doing a re-review. But nothing is repetitive when it comes to Sarah and Rich and their crusade for sustainable and surprising pizza. It’s certainly a flaming torch I ...

Almeida “Russia has spent so long as an empire she doesn’t know herself as a country” A dire warning for our current European political woes, and a sentence synopsis of Peter Morgan’s newest masterpiece. The well-heeled collection of the “Glittering British elite” (the play’s words) shuffle in their seats, a fitting audience for a story of rampant capitalism. Like much in ...