Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens have shed their clean image to star with James Franco in Harmony Korine’s controversial new film, Spring Breakers. They tell Albertina Lloyd about the crazy Florida shoot, and why they’re far more tame in real life

Falling into disgrace is almost starting to become a rite of passage for Disney child stars.

Britney Spears started out as an all-singing, all-dancing kid on TV show The Mickey Mouse Club before becoming a pop princess.

Having achieved global stardom, she became the epitome of the teenage dream, but it all became too much and she suffered a very public breakdown. And Lindsay Lohan – now more famous for court appearances than movies – also entered the spotlight young, in fun family film The Parent Trap.

But Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, the latest Disney starlets to rip apart their wholesome image, have chosen to do it in fiction, in daring new film Spring Breakers.

Gomez, 20, has garnered a legion of young fans from her Disney TV show, Wizards of Waverly Place, plus tweenie movies and a bubblegum pop career. Hudgens, 24, has already had a few more edgy roles, but she is still remembered as one of the faces of the long-running world-conquering Disney mega-franchise, High School Musical.

So starring in controversial director Harmony Korine’s new movie, Spring Breakers, might seem like a form of rebellion for the pair – a way of growing up and spreading out. But the actresses just see it as a way of getting the world to accept that they are no longer little girls.

“I don’t think it was me getting rid of any sort of image,” insists Gomez. “I think I had an incredible four years as part of Disney. It was my family, it was the reason that I got to do everything I love. But at the same time, I’m now wanting to do what I really love, which is acting – becoming somebody else, escaping my reality and putting myself into these kinds of movies.”

Rachel Korine, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, James Franco and Vanessa Hudgens in Spring Breakers

Sitting together in a Paris hotel room, the girls whisper and giggle as they pass notes to one another, but are very earnest when it comes to discussing the film.

Hudgens has already shown she has something of a wild side, when in 2007 nude photos she took of herself were leaked on the internet. High School Musical mania was at its peak at the time, and she had to apologise to fans over the incident.

But she is less apologetic about taking on such a daring role. “I’m 24 now, I’m a young woman and I want to push myself and grow as an actress, and this movie allowed me to do that. I’m so proud of what we did. And if people want to call me a bad ass, that’s awesome.”

The poster for Spring Breakers seems very tame – Hudgens, Gomez and their co-stars, Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine (the 40-year-old director’s 26-year-old wife), smiling in bright bikinis.

The cutesy, fun image suggests a typical story about a group of friends going on holiday together, letting their hair down for a few days and learning some life lessons. But Korine’s dark, psychedelic film is actually a poignant satire of the typical coming-of-age movie.

The opening scenes are reminiscent of a documentary about Brits going wild on holiday. Girls dancing topless on the beach, grinding against men, making lewd gestures at the camera and pouring beer down each other’s throats.

We’ve seen it all before in TV programmes exposing the behaviour of the binge-drink generation on holiday in Ibiza (or wherever this year’s Med island is). But by casting Gomez and Hudgens, Korine has delivered a significant twist.

We’ve seen these actresses grow up on screen – they were sweet, innocent little girls and wholesome teens. They could be our sisters or our daughters. So to see them drinking until they vomit, snorting cocaine and urinating in the street is genuinely quite shocking.

So what would Gomez’s young fans (or their parents) make of the R-rated movie? “I do specific things in my career that are tailored for a specific audience,” she says. “Obviously I have a younger generation that looks at me – and I really appreciate that. And I just did an animated movie, so I want to respect that and still do things that will earn me that respect. But I also want to do things that challenge me and put me out of my element.”

Both girls laugh off the idea that they are anything like as crazy as their characters. “I speak for myself when I say I’d rather sit at home, take a bath, light candles and read a book, than go out to a club,” says Hudgens.

Spring Breakers features a group of four students who set off on their dream holiday to Florida, funded by money robbed from a diner.

After several days of wild partying, they meet a crazy gangster, played by James Franco, and suddenly the vacation begins to spiral out of control.

It’s a bit like Crossroads (Britney Spears’s film debut about a group of friends who dream of pop stardom on a road trip) meets True Romance. There are several references to Spears in the film, including the girls belting out one of her hits on a drunken night out.

“She’s a kind of forebear to this idea of pop dreams and this all-American girl, pop sensation,” muses Korine. “This dream of ideology that’s taken a more twisted path. But also, I just like her songs.”

Filming on location in Florida really did become a bit like a girls’ holiday. “Harmony just had us hang out and become best friends,” says Hudgens. “On the very first night we were in Florida we all had a sleepover and we created this amazing bond.”

And just to be sure they knew what they were getting themselves into, Korine would email them shocking images of what he wanted to recreate. “I can still remember all of them,” says Gomez, giggling.

“I remember thinking, ‘This is crazy!’,” she adds, blushing. “After I auditioned, he said, ‘Just be prepared to leave the life that you’re living behind for a little bit, and just come with me and go into this other world’.”

Knowing Gomez and Hudgens were filming, the paparazzi descended on Florida’s beaches. The actresses were followed by helicopters and pictures of them riding scooters in bikinis appeared all over the internet.

For good girls in the public eye, maybe this is the closest they’ll ever come to one of those wild holidays?

“None of the girls or I have ever experienced Spring Break before,” Gomez reveals. “And I think we experienced the craziest one we could ever have. We got it out of
our system!”

Spring Breakers is in cinemas now

As Bianco, the latest show from contemporary circus troupe NoFit State, opens at the Roundhouse, Caroline Bishop visits rehearsals to find a bunch of regular people doing incredible things

Down a long corridor, through two sound-proofed doors, in a large rehearsal room in the bowels of the Wales Millennium Centre, something intriguing is happening. Four tall scaffold pillars hold up a huge circular metal lattice, reaching nearly to the high ceiling. Cuboid cages dangle from wires and four large towers, resembling giant kitchen vegetable trolleys, are wheeled into position. Scampering over them are members of contemporary circus troupe NoFit State, who are being directed by Firenza Guidi in the opening sequence of their show Bianco.

“I don’t want you to look false, like someone put you on a Christmas tree,” Firenza calls up to a performer perched on a ‘chair’ on top of one of the trolleys. “Don’t do it if it doesn’t feel natural.”

Music starts, and the performers begin to move, winding limbs around metal, mock-falling from on high, rushing from trolley to trolley, a cacophony of shrieks and laughter filling the space. It’s like a playground for acrobats – Firenza even has a whistle. “Move faster!” she shouts, grinning. “Put chilli peppers up your ass!” This is how contemporary circus is created, NoFit State style: with skill, invention, raw energy and bundles of passion.

Founded by a group of student jugglers in 1986, Cardiff-based NoFit State have grown to become one of the UK’s leading contemporary circus companies, with shows including Immortal, Tabu, Labyrinth and now Bianco – which premiered at The Eden Project last summer – praised by critics for their raw physicality and personality-driven style. For many, NoFit State are an antidote to the slick, finely honed, corporate circus propagated by Cirque du Soleil. This is circus performed not by superhumans but by ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

That’s evident as I arrive at the rehearsal space to find them working on their individual skills. In one corner, two free-runners are bouncing off trampolines onto platforms. Last week, I’m told, one of them came off the trampoline and hit his head. It looked nasty, but he soon bounced back (sorry). In the centre of the room, several women are practising rope work. One, an American called Sage, her arm a canvas of tattoos, winds the rope around her body and turns upside down. Firenza praises her for her “muscular, wiry, almost masculine” quality, “which is going against the grain of very pretty dance trapeze”. It’s a quality she’s working to bring out in Sage’s performance.

“Our director works really hard to keep us real people,” says tightwire artist Ariele, who joined recently from Chicago. “Some shows, the performers don’t seem human and you can’t quite relate to them.” By emphasising NoFit’s performers as regular, fallible people – injuries and all – their skills are even more impressive.

Adie Delaney of NoFit State Circus, by Steve Tanner

This everyman status is also reflected in their ages. Some, like trampolinist Nat, are fresh-faced newbies – the company runs its own trainee programme and several are performing in Bianco. But many are beyond what you might think the optimum age. Ariele is 35. Marco, whose role involves counter-weighting for Sage, is “definitely over 35!”. With his beard, earring and rugged face, he looks, Firenza says, “lived”, a characteristic she values rather than hides.

This individuality all feeds into Bianco, a show which Firenza says explores the nature of identity. “There is a directness, a feeling of being quite straightforward but also quirky, sensual, seductive, endearing, vulnerable,” she says of the performances she’s trying to extract. “The vulnerability is what they find most difficult, because it’s a lot easier to hide behind make-up or costume than to say, ‘Who am I?’.”

She’s an intriguing individual herself: a petite, middle-aged Italian with a Mary Quant bob, immaculately dressed in a black suit and patterned shirt, she looks too neat and composed to be director of this wildly inventive circus – though her passion is evident even during rehearsals. She trained as an actress and singer before turning to directing. This is her fourth NoFit State show.

The industry has changed a lot since her first, 2004’s Immortal. “When I started, [contemporary circus] was still quite new as an artistic language in its own right,” she says. Immortal, for example, was one of the first ‘promenade’ productions (she prefers the term ‘immersive’), allowing the audience “to be actively involved in the narrative” as they walk around and below performers. Since then, new companies have emerged, building on NoFit’s work, reaching new audiences and “putting out there this idea that circus is no longer lions and elephants”.

August Dakteris of NoFit State Circus, by Steve Tanner

NoFit may be contemporary in performance, but it’s traditional in other ways. Its annual six-month-long tour doesn’t involve fancy buses and roadies, but a convoy of caravans and a willingness to muck in: everyone, performers and creatives alike, helps to construct their portable performance tent, clean the loos, cook and care for each other. “You get to learn things like welding,” laughs assistant producer Camille. It’s a lifestyle choice, adds Marco, who’s been with them a decade and took his newborn son on tour during his first year. “If you’re not into it, you might as well leave.”

The number that stay is testament to the strength of this circus family. Producer Zoe started as a performer before moving to a production role, as did costume designer Rhiannon, who’s busily sewing in another room. Unsurprisingly, there are no identikit leotards in sight: Rhiannon shows me a selection of vintage bathing suits, a bespoke dress created from two others sewn together, and a red wig of Marge Simpson proportions. The theme is “vintage contemporary”, she says. Isn’t that a contradiction? “Yes,” she laughs. “But then so is the director!”

Walking back into Cardiff city centre, I pass the company’s base on John Street. Around the back are a bunch of caravans. “That’s where I’m living right now,” smiles Camille. ‘Vintage contemporary’ suddenly seems apt for NoFit State: a very modern circus company, living in a traditional travelling community, determined to do things their own way.

NoFit State Circus: Bianco, The Roundhouse, until April 27, roundhouse.org.uk/bianco

Palma Violets are one of the UK’s most hotly-tipped new bands. In the wake of the success of their debut album, the Lambeth four-piece are preparing to take to the nation’s festival stages – and they can’t wait. Singer and bassist Alexander ‘Chilli’ Jesson chats to Andy Welch

Like the release of a single before an album, chefs are increasingly starting to run preview projects ahead of restaurant launches. Ben Norum takes a look at how they work and why they’re popping up all over the place

Never before have new openings played such an important part in London’s dining scene; in the days of food blogs and Twitter, the ‘soft launch’ period, which gives chefs a chance to bed in, is well and truly dead. Log on to see what the foodie community is talking about and you’ll find a race to try out the latest restaurant, pop-up, supperclub or street food van before anyone else. 

But who says you have to wait for a restaurant to open in order to check it out? More and more chefs and restaurateurs are holding prelude projects and preview events before their premises are anywhere near open to the general public. Nuno Mendes was the first high-profile chef to pull the strategy off. At The Loft Project, he cooked an intimate 12-course menu for anyone cool enough to have heard about the underground dining club, all the while trialing dishes for the menu at his forthcoming restaurant Viajante, which eventually opened over a year later. By the time it did, anticipation was immense and tables were easily filled, despite its off-the-beaten-track location in Bethnal Green.

Last November, Tom Sellers replicated the formula. The still lesser-known but highly regarded ex-Noma chef, whose restaurant Story is due to open up in Bermondsey this month, cooked up a proverbial storm at his Foreword pop-up, with dishes such as bread and butter pudding for starter and pear, parsnip and buttermilk for dessert. MasterChef winner Tim Anderson also recently held a two-night Turning Japanese supperclub at The Prince Arthur in London Fields as a preview of his oriental restaurant, Nanban, which is due to open any day now on Shoreditch High Street. 

Tom Sellers

The prelude project isn’t just for newcomers to the industry, either. Esteemed chef Bruno Loubet is set to open his second London restaurant, The Grain Store in King’s Cross, this June, but is first giving an appetite-whetting taster at a special one-off dinner at The Zetter Townhouse, where he’ll be cooking a cameo dish from his forthcoming menu.

Rochelle Cohen, managing director at leading restaurant PR agency Roche Communications explains some of the appeal: “These previews tend to be intimate and exclusive, and right now in London that’s what dining is all about. These might be restaurant chefs, but for one night they are running a supperclub that’s not about the glamour of a restaurant environment, but just them cooking up close and personal.” They can perhaps be thought of, then, as a little like old-fashioned band fan clubs. While everyone can listen to the latest album or eat at the new restaurant, these special events are the equivalent of backstage passes or collectable merchandise. 

The sheer fact that there’s demand for such events – which often come with a hefty price tag – illustrates the rising status of cheffing. “Chefs are increasingly becoming celebrities,” says Cohen. “Not necessarily on a Jamie Oliver-style global scale, but among the foodie community.” Indeed, with thousand-strong Twitter accounts, personal blogs and no end of guest appearances, the chef certainly isn’t hidden away in the kitchen anymore. 

How this trend will impact London’s dining scene over the coming months and years remains to be seen. Pop-ups, supperclubs and one-off dining events are already giving permanent restaurants a run for their money, but if food really is the new rock‘n’roll, then perhaps what the industry needs is some truly great acts, rather than more one-hit wonders. 

It’s 40 years since London last hosted a major exhibition about Pompeii and Herculaneum. But now The British Museum is staging an exciting show that uses artefacts recovered from the towns to show how ancient Romans lived, as well as died. Elysia Jenson finds out more

You could be forgiven for thinking that an exhibition about the famous cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum might be a bit macabre. These are, after all, the cities that were buried under clouds of burning volcanic ash almost 2,000 years ago, where an estimated 16,000 people died. Even by ancient standards, the 79AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius was a catastrophic natural disaster. But the new exhibition at The British Museum chooses not to dwell on the death. Instead, it aims to bring everyday Romans back to life in all their surprising, humorous and fascinating glory.

The enthusiasm that curator Paul Roberts feels for the lives of ordinary Romans is delightfully catching, and it is a love that he is excited to share. “I was first inspired to create this exhibition in 1976, when I was 14,” he tells Scout London. “I visited both Pompeii and Herculaneum on a family holiday and that’s when I really fell in love with these two cities.”

Opening this week, the exhibition features more than 300 excavated treasures, including some rather salacious artworks from the bawdy Pompeii and some never before seen treasures from the more refined and differently preserved city of Herculaneum. Seven extraordinarily rare pieces of carbonised wooden furniture recovered from Herculaneum will be on display, including Roberts’ own personal favourite: a simple wooden baby’s cradle, still on its rockers, that wouldn’t look out of place in a home today. “Romans are not all emperors or gladiators” Roberts remind us. “They are people like you and me.”

The exhibition includes items that have never before been seen outside of Italy. It invites visitors to explore a recreation of the bustling Roman streets, and to see artefacts in the context of ordinary Roman family homes. That of baker Terentius Neo and his wife – the portrait of whom advertises the exhibition – is one such example.

Wall painting of the baker Terentius Neo and his wife

Visitors will also be able to see how Romans addressed some of the same social issues that we face today, such as class, wealth and the equality of women. There is even suggestion that our preconceived notions about Roman society might actually need readjusting.

“We see evidence again and again of women and freed slaves with great wealth, education and power,” says Roberts. “We don’t know how they may have been viewed socially, but it is entirely possible they were so rich they didn’t care!”

Some visitors might be taken aback by the similarities between the modern world and ancient Roman. But the differences can be equally surprising. “They had their toilet in the kitchen, right by the food preparation area,” explains Roberts. “They used it for both human and household waste.”

Just to prove the point, the exhibition includes items found down a Pompeii toilet. Among the other unlikely yet fascinating exhibits is possibly the most over-cooked loaf of bread ever – placed in the oven in 79AD and finally removed in the 1930s, still bearing the stamp of the slave that made it.

There will, of course, be ample reminder of the eruption’s devastating human and animal cost, including the casts of a family of Romans, huddled together in their final moments, and a pet dog, writhing against its leash to escape the deadly downpour.

Plaster cast of a dog killed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius

Yet Roberts is adamant that death is not the focus of the exhibition. The bodies are important because they make the lives of these ancient Romans “all the more real”, he reminds us. “It is very sad to imagine the lives of the cities and their people cut short. But, in a sense, by walking with them, imagining these people in their homes with all their beautiful things, you are bringing them back to life.”

Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum, The British Museum, March 28-September 29, £12.50-£15, britishmuseum.org

In the wake of Skyfall and Les Mis, British cinema is flying high. But there’s another side to our film industry that we should be just as proud of, as a new season of Warp Films at BFI Southbank reminds us

When the rest of the world thinks of British film, it’s likely a combination of Potter, Bond and whatever Tom Hooper might have lined up next. But there is, of course, a far edgier side to our national cinema that is just as deserving of praise and recognition.

The BFI’s Made in Britain season returns next month with this explicit goal in mind. A programme of events through April will celebrate perhaps the most quintessentially British production company of the 21st century. No, not Working Title, but Warp Films, which is 10 years old this year.

Warp has gone where the rest of the UK film industry would rather not look. Its catalogue includes landmarks such as Shane Meadows’ bitter reflection on our skinhead past, This is England, and Chris Morris’s suicide bomber comedy, Four Lions. 

Thomas Turgoose in Shane Meadows’s This Is England

The season of films opens with a special screening of what many consider Meadows’ best film, Dead Man’s Shoes, featuring the magnificent Paddy Considine in his most chilling and compelling role to date. The film will be shown in the Queen Elizabeth Hall on March 29, accompanied by a new soundtrack played live by Jah Wobble and members of UNKLE and Clayhill.

The programme also includes an evening of short films, including work from Considine and cult music video director Chris Cunningham, and
a special Warp-focussed edition of Adam Buxton’s music video-themed night, BUG.

In spite of its cinematic successes, Warp’s roots are actually in music – it started life as a record label in Sheffield in 1989, and its commitment to working on the electronic cutting-edge saw it release music from Aphex Twin, Nightmares On Wax, Flying Lotus, Boards Of Canada and many more. 

Other films in the BFI’s Warp season include Richard Ayoade’s accomplished directorial debut, Submarine, Ben Wheatley’s shocking Kill List, Considine’s brutal yet brilliant Tyrannosaur, and the debut film from Mighty Boosh director Paul King, Bunny and the Bull. 

If you want reminding that British cinema can do more than just stuttering kings and wand-waving teens, look no further.

Made in Britain: Warp Films at 10, BFI Southbank, March 29-April 28, bfi.org.uk

In the eight months since Scout last interviewed Pappy’s, the sketch trio have shot up the comedy rankings. Si Hawkins catches up with troupe member Matthew Crosby ahead of a string of dates at Soho Theatre and their first ever sitcom

When Scout last spoke to Matthew Crosby, he was en route to Bedford and ended up ducking into a train toilet in order to give us his undivided attention. There are no such problems this time around but, once again, he’s hardly picked the most glamorous of settings. “I’m visiting my folks and found a nice quiet spot,” he says. “It’s the house I grew up in, so plenty of rooms but only two people in it. Most of the rooms are empty rooms…”

Which is a curiously melancholy way to start a chat about Pappy’s, the sketch troupe that Crosby is one-third of, and who, he admits, have previously been criticised “for being relentlessly upbeat”. Although it does also back the offstage impression we’d formed of them over the years – funny and good-natured chaps who’ll make an effort with the media but never quite manage to make it big. 

But this, it now transpires, is wrong. Since that train loo chat in July, they’ve been catapulted from cult heroes to major players, and are now knocking on the door of mainstream success. It was all thanks to their most recent Edinburgh show, Pappy’s Last Show Ever, which enjoyed rapturous praise, an Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination and led to their own TV show. They’re now poster boys for a get-successful scheme that might prove rather popular: taking time off.

Old university pals Crosby, Ben Clark and Tom Parry had built up a healthy fanbase since 2006 via a relentless annual cycle: write an Edinburgh show, tour it, then repeat. By the time of their 2010 effort, All Business, they’d settled into that oxymoronic spot: the uncomfortable comfort zone. “A lot of reviewers went, ‘It’s just Pappy’s doing what they do’,” says Crosby. “There was no one talking about us in hushed tones, like: ‘This is something you have to see!’”

In fact, according to one broadsheet critic, their trademark silly-sketch format looked “tired”. So it was time to take a year off, and spend a lot longer writing their next show. “We made a conscious decision to be better,” says Crosby. And they succeeded beyond all expectations – the show garnered a raft of five-star reviews, most calling it the best piece the trio had ever done, and one describing it as “weirdly moving”, which was new. In it the trio play aged versions of themselves, reminiscing about their final performance – hence the Last Show Ever billing. “The title gets them in,” chuckles Crosby, “but the show keeps them in.”

Though time off might have served them well, Pappy’s are now back with their noses to the comedic grindstone. A three-week run of Last Show Ever opens at the Soho Theatre next week. And at the same time they’re recording their debut TV series, a flat-share sitcom for BBC Three. 

Increased exposure can hurt good trios, however. We Are Klang’s Greg Davies became a huge solo act after their failed TV series, and Radio 4 stalwarts The Penny Dreadfuls recently waved Humphrey Ker off to his new US sitcom. So which of Pappy’s is most likely to leave the others weeping at the airport?

“I think we all maintain a similar level of amateurishness,” laughs Crosby, modestly. “But I tell you what, the girl who plays my sister, she’s brilliant. If anyone is going
to do well out of this show it’ll be her. I wouldn’t be surprised if six months down the line she’s not returning our calls.”

The question remains, if Pappy’s do survive – and they’re skipping Edinburgh again this year – how will they follow The Last Show Ever? “The joke we always had,” says Crosby, “was that we’d come back with a show called Reunited: Pappy’s Reunion Tour.”

Who knows, maybe by then he’ll be speaking to us from a grand Los Angeles hotel or a members’ club. Or, at the very least, the first-class section of the train.

Pappy’s: Last Show Ever, Soho Theatre, April 1-20, sohotheatre.com

Looking for a movie to take the kids to this Easter holiday? Damon Smith reviews the new animated film from Dreamworks, creators of Shrek and Madagascar

Ice Age meets Brave in Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders’s energetic computer-animated romp about a caveman called Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage), who has taught his family to be afraid of the unknown. While Grug’s wife Ugga (Catherine Keener), oafish son Thug (Clark Duke), decrepit mother (Cloris Leachman) and feral baby abide by his diktats, restless daughter Eep (Emma Stone) rebels and leads the rag-tag prehistoric tribe on a perilous expedition across uncharted wilderness in the company of a charming caveboy called Guy (Ryan Reynolds). The Croods bursts with vibrant colour, punctuated by lively action set pieces including a hunting sequence that draws in several otherworldly species. A cuddly sloth called Belt provides the comic relief amid the saccharine father-daughter bonding.

In cinemas on Friday, March 22

With Welcome to the Punch on the screen and Macbeth on the stage, James McAvoy has never been busier. The affable star takes time out to talk to Susan Griffin about shunning the limelight and being picky about his jobs

It might be considered bad luck to say the name of Shakespeare’s ‘Scottish play’ out loud, but James McAvoy can’t be doing with such superstitious bunkum. 

“We say Macbeth in the theatre,” says the actor, who plays the titular role in the current West End production. “It’s about a man who disdains his fortune and says, ‘Damn you fate, I’m not going to die today’, and so from that moment on he’s sort of outside of fate. 

“You feel like you can’t play him unless you go, ‘C’mon, Macbeth’!” explains the 33-year-old Scot, littering his sentences with swearwords and throwing in a double-finger salute for good measure.

Physically, it’s the most demanding role he has ever undertaken, and this is the man who dodged bullets with Angelina Jolie in the action-packed Wanted and experienced the horrors of Second World War battle in Joe Wright’s epic Atonement. 

“We’ve got cuts and bruises all over and we’re down the physio a couple of times a week,” says a bearded McAvoy. “We’re like an army that are struggling to get through it at the moment.” 

McAvoy in rehearsals for Macbeth

He’s also promoting his new movie Welcome to the Punch, a slick, cops and robbers action thriller shot in the City of London. 

Surely he learned a thing or two about multi-tasking from Danny Boyle, who directed him in upcoming movie Trance while also helming the Olympic opening ceremony.

“Yeah, but the thing about Danny is he’s got a sort of advantage over mere mortals in that he’s got a nuclear power station in his belly that fuels him 24/7 and he can go and go,” says McAvoy, laughing. 

Boyish-looking, with big, expressive blue eyes, McAvoy eschews the limelight when he’s not on promotional duties. “It’s important for me to disappear, so audiences don’t get sick of you, and also to allow time for you to grow so you don’t get caught doing the same thing again and again,” he says.

He’s also “a wee bit picky… I think I drive my agents nuts sometimes,” he admits, laughing.

That would explain why Eran Creevy, the director of Welcome to the Punch, has remarked how nervous he was on approaching McAvoy to play police detective Max Lewinsky. Does it feel strange to have that sort of impact?

“It makes me feel powerful!” jokes McAvoy. “No, it does make me feel funny actually because I don’t want anyone feeling nervous and there’s no reason to. But also, Creevy’s nervous because he needs to get somebody with a certain level of profile to get his movie funded, so all these meetings he goes into like that are make or break.”

It’s rare that a movie’s given the green light to shoot in the UK’s banking epicentre (even Brad Pitt was turned down for his new film, World War Z), but Creevy – who had only made one small movie prior to Welcome to the Punch (the critically acclaimed Shifty) – has contacts in the City. 

The result is a British film that looks unlike any other, which was one of the draws for McAvoy.

“I think we do great gritty British drama, but I really responded to the fact that this director and this particular script and these particularly characters seemed like something out of a Hong Kong action movie,” says the actor.

“It’s a lot slicker and sharper and a lot more beautiful, dare I say it, than the usual geezer, street gangster kind of thing.”

The film follows the story of two male protagonists, Lewinsky and Jacob Sternwood [Mark Strong], operating on different sides of the law. In the aftermath of his character’s earlier, botched bid to catch Sternwood, Lewinsky has gone from “being a flag bearer and a champion of his division to being a joke and a bit of a has-been”.

McAvoy continues: “He comes a cropper thanks to Sternwood, who leaves him with a very bad leg and head, and suddenly he knows he’s mortal and becomes a very frightened person.”

Mark Strong, Eran Creevy and James McAvoy

Having never endured a crisis of confidence in his career, McAvoy had to draw on more than personal experience.

“I’m still very enthusiastic and I don’t think I’m too jaded but I’m much more aware of what goes on in the business, and how I can do my job better and not be distracted by irrelevant stuff,” he says.

Born in Port Glasgow, McAvoy spent a lot of his childhood living with his grandparents. He’s spoken in the past of having once toyed with the idea of joining the priesthood, but found his interest lay elsewhere after making his acting debut in 1995’s The Near Room. 

After graduating from The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2000, he appeared on stage, where he caught the attention of director Joe Wright, who later cast him in Atonement, and starred in Steven Spielberg’s television series Band Of Brothers. But his big break was the Bafta-winning Shameless, which McAvoy left in 2005. This is also where he met his wife. 

“Yes, where I met my missus, Mrs McDuff,” he says, smiling at the mention of the actress Anne-Marie Duff, who went froim being his onscreen girlfriend to his real-life wife in 2006. The pair now have a two-year-old son, Brendan.

Aside from Atonement, which earned him Golden Globe and Bafta nominations, other career highlights include The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Last King of Scotland and X-Men: First Class, a recent prequel to the phenomenally successful X-Men films.

As soon as he finishes his stint as Macbeth, he’ll be reuniting with the cast to shoot the follow-up, X-Men: Days of Future Past, in Montreal.

“It’s nice to see the cast growing by the minute, and it’ll be good to hook up with all of them again,” he says of his X-Men co-stars, who include Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence, fresh from her Oscar glory.

Filming is likely to take him through to October, after which he and the family will “take a wee holiday”. 

“I’ve been very lucky, as it’s been a strong year in terms of different types of roles, and I’d quite like that to continue,” he says.

But while it’s “fairly full on” at the moment, he jokes: “I promise I’ll disappear again.”

Welcome to the Punch is in cinemas now.

Macbeth is at Trafalgar Studios until April 27, macbethwestend.com

Sometimes, when you go to a club, you’re just desperate for a DJ to play a tune by your favourite band. But what if there was a night that played nothing but your favourite band? Laura Martin investigates the new craze for cult artist tribute nights

Holding a flashing LED tambourine and an old Stevie Nicks vinyl triumphantly over my head to a barrage of cheers, I am in the midst of hedonistic, infectious Fleetwood Mac fervour.

Hours of enthusiastic dancing at the centre of a crowded club to The Chain, Everywhere and You Can Go Your Own Way have culminated in this moment: me taking the ultimate glory of the night, the coveted ‘best costume’ prize.

The 80s diamante-studded denim jumpsuit that I managed to pick up for £5, teamed with a louche cigarette and trademark vodka tonic, has been deemed “classic Christine McVie” by the promoter of Fleetmac Wood, and won me my moment of triumph. That was one well-spent fiver.

Fleetmac Wood is a cult club night that is, obviously, dedicated to celebrating all things Fleetwood Mac. It has been taking place in the capital every couple of months since June last year, with one of the strictest music policies around: songs have to be original Fleetwoods, re-edits or remixes only – strictly no covers. And it has tapped into a feverish demand for the Mac, no doubt heightened by the band’s recently confirmed tour of the UK this September.

Far from being an anomaly, Fleetmac Wood is one of several new London nights devoted exclusively to a classic artist. Themed retro clubbing is nothing new – everything from the Blitz Party to Ultimate Power have been going strong for several years now. But the tribute night scene is a new development.

Fleetmac Wood’s founder is Lisa Jeliffe, who also DJs as Roxanne Roll. “I’ve been to so many house parties where the best of Fleetwood Mac ends up being played and played again – all night long,” she tells Scout. “People who love Fleetwood Mac really love them so I’m not surprised at all by how popular it
has become.”

Jeliffe says it’s a concept she’s been working on for a while now. “I had the idea about three years ago, but was waiting until I found a venue that felt right,” she says. “At the same time, since having the initial idea the whole vintage re-edit genre has really exploded. Fleetwood Mac have such an incredible back catalogue that spans blues, rock and 80s pop, so it’s a rich mine for re-editing and remixing. For each party, we put a call out to producers to make exclusive re-edits that we then play on the night.”

While DJs might have taken up the mantle to create their own imprints of famous tracks, the revelers packed into the Visions Video Bar in Dalston on the night of my costumed triumph have gone all out in their finest Mac attire. Alongside my award-winning outfit, you can’t move for swirling, gypsy-skirted Stevie-a-likes, all floaty scarves, top hats and dangling jewellery.

Lisa says: “A lot of people dress up, which is great, and I like to hand out peacock feathers too. It’s a celebration of the Mac, after all. What’s great about the night is that people are there for the music. Everyone’s excited, there’s a sense of ‘we’re in this together’ as it’s essentially a six hour Mac marathon. I’ve actually bruised my hand from banging my tambourine so hard
all night.”

Laura Martin (centre) in her winning outfit

Meanwhile, the trend for tribute club nights in London has taken another 70s/80s musical legend for inspiration. David Bowie’s return after a 10-year absence with a new album has awoken fans of The Thin White Duke – so much so that they want to revel in his back catalogue all night long. So thank the stardust for Shirley Presents: Night of A Thousand Bowies.

Journalist and Bowie super-fan Naomi Atwood set up the club night recently, and it had its premiere on March 8 at Charlie Wright’s bar in Hoxton. “I always had the idea to do a Bowie-themed edition of my fanzine, Shirley,” she says. “Bowie is an obvious choice for a themed party. It struck me as an appropriate time to do it now, because of the V&A exhibition and his musical comeback – it’s like the whole zeitgeist has been taken over by Bowieness.”

On the night, three different DJs took over the bar, playing tunes by Bowie and other music inspired by him. Then, in a highly avant-garde performance, artist Thom Shaw lip-synced to Barbra Streisand singing Life On Mars while downing a bottle of red wine. Which surely would have pleased Mr B himself.

“We had some people dressing up more than others,” says Atwood, “with mullet wigs and lightening bolt face paint being the most popular ways to channel his Ziggyness.”

Over in Hackney, the tribute adoration parties have moved into the 90s with a night dedicated to a Mr Robert Sylvester Kelly. Unpackaged Presents: R Kelly promises a night of “Bump n’ Grind-themed cocktails, sneaky Ignition Remix snacks and Trapped In The Closet played in full on the projector”. Oh, and a couple of “sexy surprises”, (which hopefully don’t include any of the King of R&B’s actual sex tapes). 

While Atwood says the next Shirley Presents party will be inspired by a different act, Jeliffe is also looking to branch out into other musical avenues: “We’d love to do some festivals and Ibiza feels like a good fit. We’re also launching a new project for my other favourite band, who are rumoured to be headlining Glastonbury. It’s called Mix Jagger.”

The Rolling Stones, perhaps? I’d better get working on my Keef outfit

Fleetmac Wood: White Winged Love, March 23, The New Empowering Church, E8 3RL. £10, 9pm-3am, soundcloud.com/fleetmacwood

Unpackaged presents: R Kelly, March 24, Unpackaged, E8 3NJ, FREE, 7pm-10.30pm, search for Unpackaged Bar on Facebook

As if David Bowie’s surprise release of new material hadn’t already sent the hype machine into overdrive, now the V&A is launching a major exhibition of objects from the singer and fashion icon’s expansive personal archive. Clare Considine chats to the curator about the most hotly-anticipated exhibition of the year

Next week sees the opening of the fastest-selling exhibition in the entire 160-year history of The Victoria and Albert Museum. It is, of course, the one that everyone is talking about: the great curatorial tribute to The Thin White Duke, the arrival of which is only adding to an already enormous furore. 

Bowie mania has been careering towards fever pitch since he surprised everybody on his 66th birthday this year by releasing a single that nobody knew was in the pipeline. His album, The Next Day, was developed completely in secret and released earlier this month to rapturous reviews.  

But Vicky Broackes and her team over at the V&A were preparing for the David Bowie Is retrospective long before the man himself dropped his spangly bombshell. She has spent the last two-and-a-half years working hard with co-curator Geoffrey Marsh, wading through a 75,000-piece archive in order to create the streamlined show that opens next Monday. Though not a coordinated plan, the exhibition and the new material have landed together in timely harmony to create the perfect Bowie storm. 

Concept visualisation by 59 Productions and Real Studios for the V&A exhibition

Broackes explains with glee that she knew as little as the rest of us about the new music: “I woke up on the morning of his birthday to five missed calls,” she says, “and it all just went crazy from there.” 

But, like all Bowie fans, Broackes feels a sense of exhilaration about his maverick move: “What we all love about Bowie is that he takes these unpredictable steps.” 

And this step in particular has served to ensure that the excitement surrounding the exhibition is even more epic than initially expected.

Nevertheless, Broackes seems sufficiently confident in what she has created with Marsh, and is more than ready for the onslaught of expectant fans. Having been given unprecedented access to Bowie’s personal archive, she’s sure there will be gems in the exhibition to please even the most hardcore Bowie believers. 

Bowie’s acoustic guitar from the Space Oddity era

Examples of what to expect vary from the obscure to the familiar, from hand-written lyrics to original costumes and instruments. Many of the objects on display will serve as testament to the holistic approach that Bowie has always taken with his career. For example, one of his sketched set designs will feature – a simple etching that demonstrates the grandiose plans he had for The Konrads, the band he was in aged 17. The sketch is accompanied by the gloriously precocious statement, “I need to be in 3D”. 

Bowie’s more familiar artistic offerings will also appear, but they have been left in the hands of innovators and will be delivered in exciting new formats. Take, for example, the show’s grand finale. It will include performance footage that has been doctored by 59 Productions – the team behind the audio-visuals at last year’s Olympic Opening Ceremony. 

Tokyo Pop vinyl bodysuit, 1973, designed by Kansai Yamamoto for the Aladdin Sane tour, courtesy The David Bowie Archive

In many ways, the V&A and Bowie are consummate companions. Broackes reminds us that, “The V&A are all about trying to push boundaries”, and we all know that Bowie is more than a little fond of ch-ch-ch-changes. So Broackes and her team have avoided a less predictable timeline experience, opting instead to display the 300 chosen objects thematically. In a step that Bowie would likely approve of, visitors will be free to wander through abstract notions of Outer Space, Inner Space, Ideologies, Impact, Song Writing and Performance. 

So, London, take your protein pills, put your helmets on and prepare to get Ziggy with it.

David Bowie Is, V&A, March 23-August 11, £5.20-£15.40, vam.ac.uk

As Kneehigh’s stage adaptation of Steptoe and Son comes to the Lyric Hammersmith, the company’s founder, Mike Shepherd, tells Caroline Bishop about his Cornish brand of creativity

“I am thrilled at the thought that someone might surprise me,” says Mike Shepherd. “But I do hear every now and again, as if it’s a criticism, ‘well that’s not what I was expecting’. I can’t think of anything worse than going to the theatre and sitting there going ‘great, this is just what I was expecting’!”

It’s a statement Shepherd has stood by in creating work with the theatre company he founded in Cornwall 33 years ago. Known for its imaginative adaptations of classic stories, often staged in unconventional places, Kneehigh’s recent shows have included a pantomime, a puppet show, a Bollywood musical and a menacing folk fable, while their 2008 multimedia adaptation of 1945 film Brief Encounter was mounted in a West End cinema complete with popcorn and 1940s ushers. Kneehigh certainly isn’t a company you can put into any one box. “We are in the business of reinventing,” says Shepherd. “We like to paint with different colours, and it’s not that we flip from one thing to the other but that all sorts of things interest us.”

The projects chosen by Shepherd and co-Artistic Director Emma Rice may be diverse, but one thing is common to them all: Kneehigh’s characteristic creative flair. Highly theatrical, visually stimulating and often incorporating original music, the only expectation you should have of a Kneehigh show is to be entertained.

So while their latest interest – in classic 1960s sitcom Steptoe and Son – may seem a rather conventional choice, if anyone can reinvent a black and white television series for a modern theatre audience, Kneehigh can. 

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s comedy, which ran for four series in the 60s before returning in the 70s, followed the antics of Albert Steptoe and his son Harold, rag-and-bone men scavenging a living on fictional London street Oil Drum Lane. Aging war veteran Albert was a foul-mouthed dirty old man, content with his lot and unwilling to better himself, while grown son Harold wanted nothing more than to escape his father’s stifling grasp and ascend in life: the clashes between the two, as Albert continually knocked Harold down, created the show’s tragicomic set-ups.  

Shepherd, who plays Albert in Kneehigh’s production, was “fascinated” by the series growing up, and “a little bit alarmed” by the cruel, vindictive humour that had his own father in stitches. “It was a bit like Beckett, the bleakness and humanity of it.” 

Mike Shepherd and Dean Nolan in Steptoe and Son

Rice’s adaptation is based on four classic episodes and sticks pretty faithfully to Galton and Simpson’s scripts. The reinvention lies in the theatricality of the staging: the inclusion of a whimsical female figure who embodies the two men’s lost dreams, and a soundtrack of pop music from the era. “We were determined not to put the half hour TV sitcom on stage,” says Shepherd of their approach. “You see the men’s secret dreams and fantasies, whether it’s Harold wanting to be super sleuth Perry Mason or Albert dancing again with Emily, who was Harold’s mother, Albert’s wife.”

It’s a melancholic set-up for a comedy, and Shepherd agrees that comic tastes have certainly changed since the 1960s, but he doesn’t feel – as some critics suggested when the production played at the West Yorkshire Playhouse – that Kneehigh emphasises the poignancy at the expense of the comedy. “Our version has got plenty of melancholy and poignancy, but it’s also got plenty of humour and joy and a tenderness that I think is inherent in those scripts but comes out further.”

And if the comedy is received differently, does it matter? As Shepherd reminds me, Kneehigh’s aim isn’t to slavishly replicate the original, but reinvent it. “The sitcom still exists, you can still watch that, we haven’t messed that up at all, but we have created a new show.”

Their stamp on the piece can also be heard in the West Country accents – the action has been transposed from London to Cornwall, where the show first played last summer. 

Though the company tours all over the UK and internationally, Kneehigh is most at home in Cornwall, where it nurtures its creativity in an appropriately unconventional rehearsal space – a set of barns overlooking the sea in Mevagissey. “Invariably when you co-produce you are in some miserable rehearsal room that has none of the conditions for creativity,” says Shepherd. “So those barns – with the weather coming in and out, the colour, the fact we make delicious things to eat, and light fires, and all the rest of it – are very important.”

After Steptoe, they will retreat to the barns to cook up their next productions, which are, of course, a diverse duo: a contemporary version of John Gay’s 1728 bawdy musical The Beggar’s Opera and a family show based on a story by former Children’s Laureate Michael ‘War Horse’ Morpurgo. What should we expect? Surprises.

Steptoe and son, Lyric Hammersmith, March 19-April 6, lyric.co.uk

Man Like Me are Johnny Langer and Peter Duffy. They released their self-titled debut in 2009, and their second album, Pillow Talk, came out last week. Andy Welch chats to the London duo about working with Mike Skinner and why Jessie Ware owes her success to them

So the album’s come out. How are you feeling?

Johnny: Good. We’ve actually been doing a lot of writing lately, for the first time in ages. Even though we have the new album, we’re doing more. We’re excited about getting out on the road.

You’re signed to Mike Skinner’s label, The Beats, even though he retired it some time ago. When did you meet?

Pete: We met with him about this time last year, when we first heard he was interested in working with us. We met him in the pub very briefly, and he helped us mix tracks. We were sending things over email, and then in the summer we were actually in the studio with him to record.

The reviews for your first album mentioned him as an influence. It makes sense that you’re working together.

Johnny: Well, that was great –being compared to him. But firstly it was quite embarrassing, because I rate him a lot higher than us. And anyone else for that matter. It is odd to end up working with him, but he was such a huge influence, so it’s a great pleasure to know him now. It was a dream that he resurrected the label for us, too.

Where did you record Pillow Talk?

Johnny: It was mainly done in respective bedrooms and houses, then it all came together in Mike Skinner’s studio. That’s where we mixed everything and put some fancy polish on it.

How do you write a Man Like Me song? They don’t have traditional verses and choruses.

Johnny: It all started through me and Pete wanting to be DJs. Pete was into UK hip hop and I liked drum ’n’ bass, and we wanted to be DJs and MCs. Everyone was into that in the late 1990s. It started from trying to write drum ’n’ bass songs but we were terrible at it so that’s how Man Like Me started, and we still write the same way.

Peter: At the time we thought we’d invented grime, but we hadn’t.

Johnny: It quickly turned into a quirky pop band. We don’t know where that influence came from. My dad (Clive Langer) produced Madness, so maybe we took that on. We get the odd comparison to them, but we’re not ska like they are. It’s interesting watching journalists trying to label us, because we don’t know ourselves.

You supported Madness at the O2 in December. How was that?

Johnny: It was amazing. But Madness fans are hardcore, and they only really want to see Madness, so we had to raise our game. I’ve seen many people get booed off over the years while supporting them, so I knew we had to be good. Madness fans don’t take kindly to anyone other than Madness. Although they are up for having a dance and making fools of themselves.

You’re supporting Jessie Ware on one date of her upcoming tour, but she used to be the singer in Man Like Me. Where did you meet her?

Johnny: We DJed at her 21st birthday party – that’s how we
know her.

Peter: She’d seen us at a friend of a friend’s party or something, and asked us to her party on the back of that. Jack Peñate, who is a mutual friend, was DJing too. Jessie was very different back then – I thought she was a princess, having this glitzy party. Little did we know she was harbouring this amazing talent.

Johnny: We were talking, drunk, at another party and she told us she wanted to sing. We must’ve asked her to come to a rehearsal and not remembered because we were shocked when she turned up the following day. We didn’t expect her to be any good, but when she started to sing, she was brilliant.

Are you secretly bitter about her success?

Johnny: I’m very bitter, yes. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t slag her off!

Peter: We got a message from some Twitter account this morning, ‘Jessie Ware Fans’ or something. She’s got a fansite! It’s like a daily kick in the teeth.

Johnny: It’s friendly teasing.

Peter: And we booked her first solo show, so she needs to remember where she started.

Man Like Me support Jessie Ware at O2 Shepherds Bush Empire on March 13, o2shepherdsbushempire.co.uk 

The hit Broadway adaptation of charming Irish film Once arrives in the West End this week

It may arrive in the West End lugging eight Tony Awards in its suitcase, but Broadway hit Once the Musical still seems an unlikely success story. Based on the 2006 cult Irish film, it’s a quietly romantic tale of a Dublin busker and a young Czech mother who fall in love over a shared passion for music. Its creative team are hardly known for being big softies: Irish playwright Enda Walsh usually writes darkly surreal fare such as Misterman and Penelope, while director and choreographer John Tiffany and Steven Hoggett won Olivier Awards for hard-hitting Iraq war drama Black Watch. Perhaps it’s the music by Glen Hansard (who also composed the score for The Commitments) that’s turned them into old romantics.

Phoenix Theatre, March 16-November 30, £19.50-£67.50

oncemusical.co.uk

Hollywood’s Walk of Fame is coming to London, with Camden the selected spot for a celebration of pop music down the ages. Clare Considine suggests the first local legends worthy of a place in the pavement

Hollywood and Camden aren’t the most obvious bedfellows, but they’re currently careering towards twin-town status. It was announced last week that north London’s favourite misfit-magnet will soon play host to its very own Walk of Fame – a star-spangled strip of the musical variety. Starting at The Roundhouse and winding its way down to Mornington Crescent, where ancient venue Koko sits, the series of pavement-embedded discs will pay homage to musical greats of pop, rock and soul. 

It’s coming to Camden due to its decades-long status as an incubator and lubricator of musical talent. And, though the discs will honour innovators from around the world, we feel a hat-tip to legendary Camdenites is the right place to start. 

Acclaimed theatre director Rufus Norris has moved into film with debut feature Broken, starring Tim Roth and Cillian Murphy. He talks to Caroline Bishop about learning to tell stories in a different medium

There’s not much in theatre that Rufus Norris hasn’t done: he’s directed everything from Shakespeare’s The Tempest through adult musical Cabaret to Damon Albarn’s contemporary opera Doctor Dee, with boundary-pushing projects such as London Road – Alecky Blythe’s musical about the Ipswich murders – leaving audiences and critics in raptures. He’s an Associate Artist at the Young Vic – where his ambitious recent production, Feast, depicted Yoruba culture through the eyes of six playwrights – and at the National Theatre, where he’s currently in rehearsals for his wife Tanya Ronder’s play Table at pop-up venue The Shed. I hear he’s a workaholic. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he laughs. 

But this isn’t enough for Norris. Having dallied with short films, his first feature-length movie, Broken, has just been released in UK cinemas after winning Best Film at the British Independent Film Awards last year. Based on the debut novel by Daniel Clay, it’s a hard-hitting tale of a ‘broken’ community, seen through the eyes of its young protagonist, Skunk, played by newcomer Eloise Laurence. On the cusp of young adulthood, this innocent, big-hearted pre-teen is threatened by a sequence of events that has grave consequences for her family and neighbours on her North London cul-de-sac. 

Tim Roth and Eloise Laurence in Broken

It’s not your average Brit-flick, and it’s certainly not typical Hollywood fare, which makes it an apt choice for Norris: dark yet funny, sensitive yet shocking, violent but gentle, it portrays the complexities of life and relationships without attempting to dish up definitive answers. “I really like the fact that the story… certainly had the potential to not deal in absolutes,” says Norris. “All of the characters in it, you can stand in their shoes and say they are behaving out of love, and I think that’s true in life. People don’t go, ‘I tell you what, I’m going to be a murderous bastard’ – that good and evil, black and white way of storytelling I find incredibly reductive; I can’t stand it really.”

Being new to film, Norris was like “a kid in a toy shop” as he experimented with camerawork. But although the tools differ from theatre, the aim is the same: to tell a great story. “It’s about commitment and integrity and the story that’s at the centre of it,” he says. “As a newcomer you can get distracted by going, ‘It’s really important that we use a 70mm or a 40mm lens on this’. Of course those things are important but they are not as important as the basic storytelling. Is it a good story being well told? And that’s the same in theatre.” 

Rufus Norris on set

He had some great actors to help tell it: in addition to Laurence (described as “a real find, a natural screen performer” by The Guardian), Broken stars Tim Roth as Skunk’s single father and Cillian Murphy as her teacher, with stage regular Rory Kinnear displaying impressive range as neighbour Mr Oswald, a widowed roughneck whose propensity to use rash violence in protecting his three daughters precipitates the action.

While Norris was “a total, total beginner”, learning his craft on the job, Roth and Murphy are old hands at film acting. So was it daunting for Norris to direct them? “I felt daunted by the prospect of what happens if they’re arseholes frankly, because that’s not something you deal with very often in theatre,” he says, citing low pay and grubby rehearsal rooms as grounding experiences for stage actors. “If you’ve come up through theatre – somebody like Rory or like Mark Rylance or Ian McKellen – you know they’re going to be alright, because they’re cast people.”

Thankfully, Broken’s stars weren’t arseholes. Norris’s first meeting with Roth ended in a bar on Upper Street at 3am, surrounded by Mexicans drinking mojitos. Somehow, Norris knew they’d get along just fine. 

It definitely helps his director-actor relationships, he feels, that he was an actor first. Norris trained at RADA, where he met his wife Ronder, with whom he’s collaborated on two sons and many theatre projects, among them the acclaimed stage adaptation of Vernon God Little at the Young Vic. Ronder also wrote King Bastard, a 2009 short film directed by Norris. Will they collaborate on a feature film one day? “I’d love to at some stage,” he says. “But I’m on such a steep learning curve, I don’t want to have somebody next to me that’s on such a steep learning curve. Tanya’s got a certain distance with film projects elsewhere, so a little further down the line I’d certainly hope that would happen.”

Norris is full of ideas for potential future screen projects, including the exciting prospect of his own theatre work spilling over into film through a possible adaptation of London Road. “It’s just such an extraordinary piece, it’s stupid not to try and go a bit further with it.” But theatre won’t be losing him to the cinema altogether. Rather, this workaholic will do his utmost to direct in both. “It’s very hard to run the two in parallel but I refuse to believe it’s impossible.”

Broken is in cinemas now 

Damon Smith reviews the acclaimed film debut by theatre director Rufus Norris, starring Tim Roth, Cillian Murphy, Rory Kinnear and hotly-tipped newcomer Eloise Laurence  

Award-winning stage director Rufus Norris makes an assured debut behind the camera with this gritty snapshot of suburban malaise, shot through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl called Skunk (Eloise Laurence). There is something inherently theatrical about Mark O’Rowe’s script, based on the novel by Daniel Clay, with its explosions of violence that leave half the characters nursing deep, and in some cases fatal wounds. Broken paints a grim picture of the modern family unit, daring to peek behind twitching net curtains to glimpse the terrible secrets that divide the generations. Laurence is mesmerizing, effortlessly shouldering the emotional burden of the film’s most intense scenes, while Tim Roth offers solid support as her protective single father. 

Broken is released in cinemas on March 8

Steven Soderbergh, director of Traffic and Oceans Eleven, says new thriller Side Effects will be his last movie. Damon Smith reviews the film that stars Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum and Catherine Zeta Jones 

Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) is crippled with anxiety about the impending release of her jailbird husband (Channing Tatum), who was locked up for four years for insider trading. She turns to psychiatrist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law) for help, and he prescribes her a new medication called Ablixa. However, soon afterwards, Emily commits an unspeakable act in her drug-induced state. The media swarms and attention turns to Banks’s culpability for supplying the pills. Steven Soderbergh’s lean psychological thriller is built on the rock-solid foundations of Scott Z Burns’s script, which engineers hairpin plot twists to keep us on the edge of our seats. Law plays his role as a pawn in a deadly game with restraint, while Mara delivers another mesmerising performance after her Oscar nomination last year for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Soderbergh’s cool direction oozes style but, crucially, gives nothing away. 

Side Effects is released in cinemas on March 8

Icelandic superstars Sigur Ros arrive at Brixton Academy tomorrow for the first of three shows

Undoubtedly one of Iceland’s finest exports, Sigur Ros bring their epic, haunting and achingly beautiful sounds to O2 Academy Brixton for three nights this week. The band will perform tracks from sixth album Valtari, as well as classics such as Sæglópur and Hoppípolla. Yes, we can’t pronounce them either, but you’ll know them from The Life of Pi film trailer and the BBC’s incredible Planet Earth series respectively.

Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw are to star in a new play for Michael Grandage about the moment that the real-life Alice in Wonderland met the real-life Peter Pan

If there’s one thing that Michael Grandage’s season at the Noël Coward isn’t lacking, it’s star power. We’ve already had Simon Russell Beale in Privates on Parade, and still to come are Daniel Radcliffe, Jude Law, David Walliams and Sheridan Smith.

But before all that, Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw are to star in John Logan’s Peter and Alice – the only new play of the season – which opens this week.

Logan’s last play, Red, won six Tony Awards, plus he co-wrote a little movie called Skyfall. This new play is based around the real-life encounter between Alice Liddell Hargreaves and Peter Llewelyn Davies – the moment that the girl who inspired Alice in Wonderland met the boy who inspired Peter Pan.

Logan’s play uses this famous encounter to look back on the real lives of two of fiction’s greatest heroes.

A new play about survivalists was created by three writer-actors who put themselves to the wilderness test to create it

They call it ‘getting into character’. All actors try and do it, to varying degrees of success.

But when Brian McMahon, Charlie Howitt and Kit Spink put together In the Kingdom of the Blind – a story of three friends who cast off the modern world and pack themselves off into the wild – they took the whole ‘getting into character’ business to the next level.

Hidden away in the tunnels under Waterloo Station is the tiny Network Theatre. Here the audience will watch their story of three city kids who burn their passports, bank cards and mobile phones and set off for the hills with nothing but the bags on their backs and a copy of Ray Mears’s Survival Guide.

But the story behind the story is just as intriguing. In order to create it, McMahon, Howitt and Spink themselves trekked out to the wilderness (well, Derbyshire), where  they spent around 150 hours – in character – improvising scenarios, filming scenes and gradually creating their hour-long play.

The result is a story that is wrought with the rivalries, tensions, love and dependence that come when three people are forced to try and survive together.

This is the 10th production by Oxford-based company Reverend Productions, but the first to shift the company’s focus to plays developed through improvisation.

 The show will transfer to the Edinburgh Fringe in the summer.

In the Kingdom of the Blind, March 7-9, Network Theatre, £10-£12, reverendproductions.com

X Factor runner-up Olly Murs has come a long way in four years, with three albums and almost three million sales under his belt. But he feels people still don’t give him credit for his achievements. Andy Welch hears how he’s winning over his critics

With a wave of Brits such as Adele, Ed Sheeran and One Direction doing so well over there, do you think they’re paving the way for you?
They’re doing really well but it’s been like that for years. There’s been a rash of spectacular success in the past year or so, but British artists doing well in the US is something that goes back years; we’ve long had successful artists over there. It’s a bit more highlighted now with all the media attention, but it’s a pleasure to be a part of it. The Americans are jumping on our music and that’s great. It’s all down to quality; Brits are releasing quality music and for me that’s the most important thing.

So, what have you got planned for the UK tour?
It’s going to be a step up from the last tour, and that means bigger everything. I’ve done pretty well in the past year, so I wanted to have a bigger show to reflect that. It means a bigger stage, bigger arrangements and a bigger band. I’ve got plenty of songs in my back catalogue too, with having three albums, so for me it’s about picking the right ones for the show.

Is it hard choosing which songs to leave out?
It is hard, but it’s great to be in that position. People come from the X Factor and they might stick around for a year or two, so I’m proud to be able to carry on selling records, to grow a fan base and be on my third album. It’s a massive achievement and the fact I’ve released three albums and the sales I’ve achieved doesn’t get highlighted enough. I think it’s amazing and I’m really chuffed, but it just doesn’t get written about.

Does that bother you?
Of course it does. You want to be successful from a fan point of view, and you want people to buy your stuff – I think people love my stuff – so from that aspect I couldn’t be doing any better. However, from an industry point of view, and the press too, there is snobbery that I’m from the X Factor, that I didn’t come through the right channels, and they’re not into it. I just don’t understand it. It’s clear on paper how successful I’ve been and what I’ve achieved. It’s like you have to decide whether you want to win awards, or sell records, but I want both. I’ve got amazing fans, an amazing team, and there are a lot of people out there that enjoy my music, so I have to focus on that and I continue to do so. Everyone likes an underdog.

Do you see yourself as an underdog?
Yes, but an underdog that’s sold almost three million albums! The sales are there, I don’t need to bang on about that, and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved, so if people don’t want to write about me, fair enough. I’ll have to carry on selling records and doing arena tours.

You were nominated for Best British Male at the Brits. That’s recognition.
Well, yes. But it’s an award voted for by the industry, so I knew I wouldn’t win. If it was voted for by the fans, then I might have had a chance. I would love to have won, and it’s a pleasure to be nominated. I should’ve been nominated in 2012 to be honest, so I felt that was a bit of a snub. But it was great to be nominated this year, so perhaps it’s a step forward within the industry; and with journalists, maybe they’re starting to come around and notice my achievements.

Are you going to be back on The Xtra Factor?
It’s unlikely. I’m not too sure. It depends on my schedule. Last year I didn’t do anything on the auditions and wasn’t on it until the live shows, so that might be something we do again. There’s been a lot of speculation, but I’ve never said I definitely wasn’t going back, just that it was unlikely, due to my music commitments.

Olly Murs performs at Wembley Arena on March 10, ollymurs.com 

Michael Caine turns 80 this month. To make the occasion, the Museum of London is hosting a major exhibition of photos and film that look back on the life of one of cinema’s – and London’s – most famous and celebrated sons  

Michael Caine is certainly not short on achievements. But of all the accolades and iconic, era-defining movies, it’s a little-known fact that the working class, fish market porter’s son from Rotherhithe is one of only two actors to have been nominated for an Academy Award in every decade from the 1960s through to the 2000s (the other is Jack Nicholson).

It speaks volumes about his acting ability (not that it was ever in doubt); but also about the standard of films he’s still making. They might not all be The Dark Knight or The Quiet American (ahem, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island) but he’s still an Inception-sized leap ahead of many of his contemporaries.

Michael Caine in The Italian Job

It’s this that makes him much more than a ‘British cinema legend’. We can save that kind of tag for the likes of Alec Guinness or Sean Connery (the dead or the given-up). Caine, however, manages to have that kind of status while also still being a vital part of contemporary cinema. Not only does he make at least one film a year (though more like two), he’s also a regular in Christopher Nolan’s pictures – and little can signal an actor’s status more than being favourited by one of the hottest directors in the world.

So it is, for our money, that Michael Caine (or Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, as he was so marvellously christened), is one of British cinema’s greatest assets – past, present and, we sincerely hope, far into the future.

No doubt you agree (you’d be mad not to). And the Museum of London certainly does. To mark the actor’s 80th birthday on March 14, it’s staging a major exhibition of family photographs, iconic portraits by the likes of David Bailey and Terry O’Neill, and a selection of film and audio footage from some of his best-loved movies, including Alfie, The Italian Job, Get Carter, Educating Rita and Hannah and Her Sisters. There’ll also be a series of free Caine film screenings – one a month, which is chosen by the public through online vote.

Michael Caine in Zulu

So dig out your thick-rimmed specs, polish that Cockney accent (be sure to choose your Caine era correctly – use Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s advice in The Trip for guidance) and head to the Museum of London to wish a happy birthday to the one and only Michael Caine.

Michael Caine, March 8-July 14, Museum of London, FREE, museumoflondon.org.uk

The legendary Abbey Road Studios is opening its doors to the public this month, with a series of talks that take visitors behind the scenes to where the magic happens. Laura Martin finds out more

Filling music fans in on the secrets of the studio is Brian Kehew – record producer, engineer, musician and author of one of the most comprehensive books on The Beatles’ time at the studio. 

“I still remember my first time visiting,” he tells Scout London. “It was very significant for me, it was like coming home to Mecca. It felt like you were entering a very holy or special room. Many people feel that there is a vibe in there. I don’t know whether it’s just Beatle fandom or people do actually feel something in there.”

Alongside co-author and co-speaker Kevin Ryan, Kehew spent a painstaking 15 years researching and writing his book, Recording The Beatles, that documented in exact detail the processes used by The Beatles – and many other huge artists such as Pink Floyd, The Hollies, Adele and Oasis – to achieve such impressive results at the north London studios.

“I think the impression people have is that the artists who have come through Abbey Road have been the greatest in their era, across many decades now, all the way back to 1930s,” says Kehew. “They were the greatest of their time and it all reflects back on the studio.”

That said, Kehew is quick to point out that much of the studio’s fame harks back to the Fab Four: “I think The Beatles thing is probably about 90 per cent of the recognition, as they named an album after it and the famous photograph enhances it. But when we wrote the book, for us it was not so much about The Beatles but about the studio and the recording process. We became very involved with people who were working at the studio at the time.”

The studio has also been used to record film soundtracks for major movies such as Harry Potter and Star Wars. And alongside its illustrious musical past, Kehew also discovered a few secrets: “At one point there was a time when the largest room – which was used for a classical orchestra, it’s probably the top orchestra room in the world – wasn’t really used by anyone. So they’d put in a badminton court to have games in there when it was empty.”

As well as listening to the talks, visitors to the studio will get to see rare archive photos and film, while also witnessing some of the vintage equipment in action. There’ll be a film score sync demonstration, plus demonstrations of the studio’s famous echo chamber and a vintage four-track mixing console and tape machine. 

“The Beatles are a fraction of what we talk about, as we cover 81 years,” explains Kehew, “although they are the main reason people come, so we give them a larger fraction than anyone else. But all of it is important. There are people from the 30s and 40s who were selling millions of records even back then.”

Kehew and Ryan will also be showing photographs by photographer Henry Grossman, who they published a book about earlier this year. 

“Henry worked with the Beatles longer than any other photographer and he simply put the photographs away rather than publish them,” Brian explains. “We found he had over 6,000 Beatles images that were not only unseen, but are the best photos of The Beatles I’ve ever seen. He’s an incredible artist. We’ll be showing some images during the talks as there are some taken in the studio that are just beautiful.”

Inside Abbey Road, March 8-17, £80, seetickets.com/tour/abbey-road-studios

We’ve teamed up with the generous folk at highlight to give you the gift of laughter! That’s right: highlight is giving all Scout London readers 2 for 1 tickets plus a free meal and free entry to the after show party at its Foster’s Comedy Live @ highlight nights, guaranteeing you the funniest night out you’ve had in ages!

This offer is valid from March 1-April 26, 2013.

Foster’s Comedy Live @ highlight brings the UK’s top comedians to stages across the UK. Aimed at lovers of great stand-up comedy, each show will see three to four rip roaring acts, plus a compere extraordinaire. highlight offers an excellent food and drinks menu, which along with its great late night after show party, makes it the perfect venue for everything from celebrations to hilarious nights out with your mates.

highlight in Camden is located at 11 East Yard, Camden Lock, Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 8AB.

To make the most of this great offer, book your tickets by calling the highlight box office on 0844 844 0044 and quoting the code SCOUT13.

Terms & Conditions
1. Offer valid until 26^th April 2013. 2. Maximum party size of 18 people. 3. Offer entitles you to one free ticket plus one free main meal [excluding sharing platters and pizzas] when you buy a full price ticket to a Foster’s Comedy Live @ highlight night at the Camden venue. 4. Offer can be redeemed via the box office on 0844 844 0044, quoting the code SCOUT13. 5. Offer tickets subject to availability and must be booked in advance. 6. Full-price tickets may be available to purchase when all the tickets under the offer have been sold. 7. A non-refundable booking fee of £1.50 per ticket applies for tickets booked via the box office. 8. No cash alternative. 9. Over 18s only (ID may be required). 10. Management discretion for admission applies. 11. Not to be used in conjunction with any other offer. 12. Promoter: iNTERTAIN, Rowley House, South Herts Campus, Borehamwood, WD6 1SH. See www.thehighlight.co.uk for full company terms and conditions and comedy listings.

They may look like models, but that doesn’t mean Lawson can’t turn out a catchy tune, as they tell Laura Martin

There are not many British guitar bands that get a kick out of country’n’western. Well, not many popular ones, anyway. But it’s a fondness that Andy Brown, lead singer of Lawson, is happy to admit: “We’re probably the only four English lads who listen to country on their iPods. I know it sounds strange!”

Nevertheless, Nashville obsessions have done nothing to harm the career of Lawson. Brown and his bandmates Ryan Fletcher, Joel Peat and Adam Pitts have had three top 10 singles in only 10 months, with Taking Me Over their highest flyer, reaching No3.

Following a tour supporting The Wanted in the US and Will Young in the UK, not to mention numerous festival appearances, the band are now on the eve of their latest solo UK tour.

Liverpudlian Brown says: “We’re just buzzing and can’t wait to kick it off. It’s a real step up from the other venues we’ve played, so it’s brilliant. Manchester will be a big gig for me as its quite close to home. But we’re also looking forward to playing Shepherd’s Bush Empire as it’s an iconic venue. We’ve always wanted to headline there after playing as a support band – it’s pretty overwhelming that we’re doing it.”

Brown says there seems to be a misconception that they are a boyband, but that it sometimes works in their favour. “I think people get a shock when they see us live,” he says. “I don’t think they expect us to be as good as we are! So when they come and actually see us perform, they’re like ‘these guys can actually play!’. They don’t realise we’ve been a band for five years so we’ve got pretty tight over that time.”

The band’s debut album, Chapman Square, was released in October. It has a very big Americana feel, which is probably the influence of Grammy-winning producer John Shanks, who’s twiddled knobs for the likes of Bon Jovi.

Brown says: “Being in and working in America has definitely had an influence on our sound. We love the American country scene, it’s so massive over there – you hear acts like Lady Antebellum and Rascal Flatts and we really got into it. Working with John was also a big influence. He’s very American, and I think we’ve inherited that style to some extent. We love that big guitar sound, like Bon Jovi.”

Lawson have also looked to the success of acts such as Taylor Swift and Adele, who have found stardom by pouring their own heartbreak into their work.

Brown says: “Lyrically, our songs come from real life things – mostly relationships, to be honest. I’ve had a couple of relationships that have ended quite badly, and when you’re upset like that it’s really good inspiration to write songs. I think a lot of people can then relate to the lyrics, as everybody has been through those situations. Experiencing heartbreak and then writing about it, it’s real and people can see that. I think people can see through a song that’s manufactured and we want everything to be as real as possible.”

Next up for the lads is a South-East Asian and Australian tour, before they head back to the UK for festival season, and then their home-from-home, America. And there’s even a TV show on the way – just don’t expect any pretend fights or faux-mances.

Andy says: “We have a camera guy, George. He’s sitting next to me now, actually. He comes everywhere with us and documents everything. He’s been filming us from when we first started.

He comes along with us on the road and we can be ourselves around him. “We had some really cool meetings in America about doing a TV show, but I don’t think we’d ever do anything like reality TV – more like a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the music. We’d be no good at setting up fake scenarios, that’s not what we’re about.”

Lawson play the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on March 1, o2shepherdsbushempire.co.uk

As one of Britain’s top acting talents, Matthew Goode found himself switching from playing a creepy uncle to partying with his co-stars, in a blink of an eye

Matthew Goode’s experience filming Stoker was one of contrasts. By day he’d be playing the creepy and mysterious Uncle Charlie, and by night he’d be whooping it up with co-stars Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska.

“Charlie is a slippery customer. He comes in at the beginning and you’re not quite sure about him,” says Goode. “I don’t want to say he’s a psychopath but there’s something slightly odd.”

He adds: “However, I’m not method, so it would be quite disturbing if I stayed in character the whole time. I take it quite seriously during the hours of work and then afterwards, I like to think I’m quite good fun.”

Indeed, he would often go out with his co-stars: “I love Mia – she is talented but also really good fun. She’s kind of like my little sister. We used to go out – I had my missus and my family over when we were making this, and we always used to get a babysitter and then go out, listen to country music and get drunk.”

Stoker is the first English-language film from the renowned South Korean director Park Chan-wook, the man behind Oldboy, Thirst and Sympathy For Mr Vengeance. Written by Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller, it is also the final project of producer Tony Scott, who committed suicide during the making of the film.

The psychological thriller follows the arrival of Uncle Charlie, who ingratiates himself with 18-year-old India Stoker (Wasikowska) and her mother after the death of India’s father, seemingly in an accident.
Goode enjoyed delving into the personality of his alter-ego, a man who is charming and mesmerising, and exerts an intense influence over the Stoker household.

“This kind of script doesn’t come around every day. It has all the right ingredients to move an audience, as well as to scare and provoke them. It’s a beautiful love story in a twisted way,” he explains.

“Nothing is what it appears. Charlie is extremely unbalanced and he has feelings for India that are not all uncle-like.

“The challenge for me was that rather than being simply evil, he has to have a centre to him that we like, which is disorienting and quite scary. It was very interesting to try and get the psychology of him right.”

In one beautifully-shot scene, uncle and niece play the piano together, and by the end of the song, the younger relative is trembling.

“I hadn’t played the piano since I was about 11, that’s 20 odd years ago, so I did need some training,” smiles Goode. “I used to play Bach’s Minuet In G Major for grade three, but had to start back with a Philip Glass arpeggio piece.”

However, once the day’s work was done, the Devon-born actor and his co-stars would be out having fun together.

His family – long-term girlfriend Sophie Dymoke and their four-year-old daughter Matilda – would often get together with Kidman’s, including her country singer husband Keith Urban and their children.

“We were filming in Nashville, which is her home, so I think we were quite lucky to see her in such a relaxed state. She showed us around and on Halloween, our kids went to a pumpkin patch and went to the farms together,” says Goode.

“She’s such a big star, you know, and has been for such a long time. You go with preconceptions like, ‘I wonder if she’s going to be starry?’ And actually she’s nothing like that. She’s completely lovely.

“I just haven’t got a bad word to say about her. She’s also bloody good at her job, and incredibly beautiful – easy on the eye, thank God.”

Despite a decade’s worth of work under his belt, Goode isn’t as recognised as you might expect.
It seems odd – with his piercing eyes and striking features, he certainly doesn’t have an unforgettable face – plus he’s worked with the likes of Woody Allen and Tom Ford, and shared screen time with Colin Firth, Scarlett Johansson and Amy Adams.

But his surprising anonymity could be about to change, following not only Stoker, but a raft of other work.

The 34-year-old is currently livening up Sunday evenings in BBC Two drama Dancing On The Edge, where he plays music journalist Stanley Mitchell, and has just signed to play papal secretary Bernard Koch in Ridley Scott’s new pilot, The Vatican, opposite Zero Dark Thirty actor Kyle Chandler and A Good Day To Die Hard’s Sebastian Koch.

“I’m having a bit of a resurgence at the moment, with everything happening at the same time,” he says, eyes twinkling as he is clearly thrilled about the TV show.

“It’s quite exciting, isn’t it? It’s Ridley Scott so of course I am excited,” he says.

“I’m slightly frightened as well, because he’s going to direct the pilot and if it doesn’t go into a series, I am probably going to blame myself. His back catalogue is pretty fool free.

“I love Kyle Chandler so I’m excited to meet him, and Sebastian Koch. It films in England too, so it’s ticking a lot of things. As a family man, I’m like, ‘Great!’ It’s perfect so we will see. Let’s hope it does well.”

Stoker opens in cinemas on Friday, March 1

It’s like church, but without God. Welcome to the increasingly popular world of religion-free Sunday services. Laura Martin joins the atheist congregation and meets the organisers

Been thinking about God lately? Neither has Sanderson Jones, one half of the new non-religious church event, The Sunday Assembly.

Sanderson and his friend Pippa Evans set up the monthly meeting to bring the best of a religious service – sermons on the wonders of the world, a sing-a-long and sense of general togetherness – to London, just without the bother of Him upstairs.

But before you cry “cult!”, stand-up comic Jones explains that it’s all just a bit of light-hearted fun: “I’ve always thought, ‘Why is it only ever at events like the Olympics or the Jubilee that people can experience a sense of community? Why is it only when it snows that people smile at each other on the street?’ Us Brits need an excuse to find it and this is it.”

The atheist pair decided on a Sunday service to carry on the feel-good factor coursing around the nation last year, and the first Sunday Assembly took place on January 6 in The Nave, Islington. The theme for the inaugural event was ‘Beginnings’, and featured a guest speaker, author Andy Stanton, talking about going from a decade of dropping out and dead-end jobs to literary success. A band, lead by Evans, played tracks such as Ain’t Got No, I Got Life by Nina Simone, the evangelical-lite Jones MCed (well, pastored) the service, and there was even tea for everyone afterwards.

The effervescent Jones fizzes with excitement as he says how the idea has now gone global: “The response was overwhelming, like nothing I’ve ever seen. We’ve only been going a month! I’ve just had Qatari TV in to do an interview in my house as the story they did in January went down so well in the Arab world, we’re meeting with Brazilian TV later this week, and we’re setting something up with a Russian TV station. On the back of this, 150 people have emailed to say they want to start their own assemblies and we’ve got a plan to help them do it.”

The Sunday Assembly’s motto is ‘Live better, help often and wonder more’. Jones explains: “Just because you don’t believe in God doesn’t mean you don’t have an inner life. You’ve got questions and you’re trying to make it from birth to death in the best way. We’ll raise these issues and we’ll have a bloody good time doing it.”

But, there are always the nay-sayers. “I get some atheists saying, ‘I don’t want to do this’,” says Jones. “And it’s like, ‘Fine – don’t come!’.  We can’t threaten anyone with hell or reward them with heaven, anyway!”

Jones and Evans have just secured comedian Josie Long for a service they’re planning in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the next speaker for the London service on March 3 is Hugh Rayment-Pickard, founder of InToUniversity, which provides learning centres for young people.

“The next theme is Lend A Hand,” adds Jones. “Then the plan is to start engaging with the community and to do good things for charity.

“The key part of it is doing some amazing things inside the church and taking it out of there. And the idea that now there might be more than 100 people looking to do the same thing is really exciting. It’s great to think that in three or four years we could still be doing this, and that we might have had a positive effect.”

Sounds almost…religious?

“No,” he laughs. “It’s not like a religion. We expected this to grow like you’d grow a comedy night or something. But, it turns out, it’s just really struck a chord with people.”

The next service is on March 3, at 11am and 1.30pm, at The Nave, St Paul’s Road, N1 2QH. Get there around 30mins early to secure your place.  sundayassembly.com

A new exhibition at the National Theatre pays tribute to Norman Parkinson, the father of fashion photography

So many of today’s fashion photography ‘norms’ – exotic locations, unusual props, bizarre juxtapositions – were born of the work of one man: Norman Parkinson.

Though regarded as the father of modern fashion photography, behind the glamour he was also an incisive and skilful portrait photographer.

Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, by Norman Parkinson

Now there’s a chance to see the highlights of his incredible career in an exhibition at the National Theatre. Marking 100 years since his birth, it features a wide variety of celebrities and other subjects, and is an impressive tribute to a man who continues to influence both fashion and celebrity culture, more than 20 years after his death.

Elton John, by Norman Parkinson

Lifework: Norman Parkinson’s Century of Style, March 1-May 12, National Theatre, nationaltheatre.org

Photo: Myself UK Dance rehearse for the Hackney Live dance event at Hackney UTC

Alfred Hitchcock, Colin Firth, Marc Bolan, Paloma Faith, Professor Green and Labrinth – these are just a few talented folk hailing from Hackney, and now thanks to Hackney Live you’re about to meet a few more.

Hackney Live is a new free initiative piloted by Hackney Council. Launching February 25, this three-day event aims to showcase local talent in the arts and creatives industries – whether that be dancers, singers, choreographers or performance artists – and help the artists to get the recognition and jobs they deserve by exploring the online opportunities for arts and culture in the borough.

Three local arts organisations have teamed up with the Council in support of the project and have worked with local artists and technology partners to produce new and interactive work for Hackney Live. The series of ‘Artist in the studio’ films produced by the Institute of International Visual Arts (INIVA) will give viewers an insight into how artists work in their space and what pathways are open for a career in contemporary arts.

Working with tech providers Kinura, Forward Create and Ravensbourne University, young people will also learn new creative and digital skills during the production of the shows at Hackney University Technical College.

Hackney Live has the backing of a few famous faces: Hackney-born producer Labrinth has recorded a message of support for the project as has rapper and former Grime MC Wretch 32.

Online will pay a vital part in Hackney Live: audiences will be asked to share their experiences, make pieces of music, choreograph dances and post questions to the stars of the show and leading industry professionals via Twitter, Facebook and Vine. The best comments, questions and pictures will be shared with the audience during the live shows via a big screen.

There will also be live music shows and events on www.hackneylive.co.uk kicking off with a live music show on 25 February at 7pm, followed by a live dance event on 26 February, 7-8 pm, and a series of pre-recorded contemporary arts videos on 27 February.

For more information, see hackneylive.co.uk or call 020 8356 7209.

It’s been 10 years since Brit Asian producer Rishi Rich rose to stardom through collaborations with Jay Sean and Juggy D. Now he has produced soundtracks for a forthcoming Brit-Asian film. He gives Scout a sneak preview of what to expect

Renowned London producer Rishi Rich pioneered the Asian R’n’B crossover sound, through massive hits such as Dance with You and Eyes on You – both collaborations with international stars Jay Sean and Juggy D. And he has since gone on to produce and remix work for the likes of Madonna, Britney Spears and Craig David.

Now he has teamed up with Ask 4 Entertainment trading as Ask UK Entertainment Ltd to compose and produce music for its forthcoming Brit Asian film, set for release in summer.

Rishi Rich has composed and produced three tracks for the film, including The Way You Look, which he describes as an “up tempo bhangra club anthem”. It features Punjabi vocals from Amarjeet Bolla and an English hook from Karun Sharma aka The Artist KcK.

The Love Song takes a slow, soulful, urban orchestral approach, with composition & vocals from KcK. And Top of The World is more of a ‘feel good’ number, again with KcK as writer, composer and vocalist, plus vocals from up-and-coming female artist Roma.

Scout London and Ask 4 Entertainment caught up with Rishi Rich, to talk about the film and his role.

Being a recognised figure in the Brit-Asian music industry, it must be quite satisfying to now be making your mark in Brit-Asian cinema as well?

Absolutely. Being British Asian myself, I feel like I’m representing my culture in cinema as well as in the music industry. Sometimes I feel like I am the voice for British Asians on a musical level, but now it’s my chance to represent that visually as well.
What appealed to you most about this project?

For me, I always look at the team I’m going to work with. I’ve worked with people that combine allowing me to do what I do with ideas from others and a lot of what they want. But when you sit down with a team and they say what they want the final result to sound like, then allow you to go away and do what you’re good at doing – as with this project – that’s when you get the best marriage between what they want and what you do.

If you get it right, as I think we have done, you get a product that satisfies everyone and brings the best out of the artists that have been involved. It is showcasing the existing artists like KcK along with the new artists too. It has been one of the easiest projects that I have worked on.

You’ve done a lot of music for the film industry, as well as chart music. Is there one you’d prefer to stick to?

I took a decision to go into film music, because my career began with scoring. This has always been a part of my songwriting and producing. When you are producing a ballad for an artist, you are still scoring – just with vocals.

Are you scoring for this film?

I will be involved, but more in a co-scoring role. I don’t live in India, so if scenes are done in India I wouldn’t want to score them, because that’s not what I represent. However, if you give me a scene in West London, I could score that.

Which of the tracks that you’ve produced for the film is your favourite?

All three of them are great. One is a dance track, mainstream, one is a Punjabi track and the other a love track.  They are all different, so it has been really nice for me to work on them.

Was this the right time for you to take on a film project, with your next album due for release soon?

Yes of course. I’m working on three films, with this being one of them. I’ve always been the type of person who loves to come to the studio and work on different things, as well as working on my album – I like to have different things running in parallel. It’s nice to work on your album and take a break to work on other stuff. It keeps me inspired.

Which composers have been your inspiration?

RD Burman, Quincy Jones, AR Rahman, Teddy Riley, Soul2Soul. From a UK point of view, they broke a lot of barriers, which is amazing. I also like Gipsy Kings and a lot of Arabic music. Adnan Sami is probably one of my idols because he really coached me about music when I was in India. When I worked on the Jay Sean album, he listened to every track and said ‘try this’ and ‘try that’. He is an amazing musician.

Will you, Juggy D and Jay Sean be getting back together?

This year is the 10th anniversary since we got together. The funny thing is we were never a group, just three guys from West London that got together. Jay Sean was doing his R’n’B stuff, I was producing and Juggy was starting off, so we did the tracks Dance With You and Eyes on You. We have only done two tracks together and that was that. Now, 10 years on, we are looking to do a reunion concert. I’m working with Jay Sean when I go back to America, working on Juggy’s album here, and a new Rishi Rich project album soon.

ask4entertainment.co.uk
Facebook.com/Ask4 EntertainmentMedia
@Ask4Ent

Damon Smith reviews Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren in Oscar-nominated biopic Hitchcock, about the making of the director’s horror masterpiece, Psycho

Director Sacha Gervasi’s love letter to the golden age of Hollywood concentrates on the fractious relationship between Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his screenwriter wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) during the turbulent period when the couple risked everything to self-finance “a nice, clean, nasty little piece of work”, called Psycho.

As principal photography begins, Hitch nurtures an obsession with his leading lady, Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson). In response, Alma entertains flattering overtures from fellow writer Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), which fans the flames of her husband’s jealousy.

Hitchcock is a handsomely-crafted portrait of tortured genius, distinguished by scintillating performances from Mirren and Hopkins, the latter delivering the lip-smacking one-liners with obvious relish. “My murders are always models of taste and discretion!” he grins. Gervasi’s picture is almost as elegant.

Damon Smith reviews hot new Brit comedy I Give It A Year, starring Rafe Spall, Rose Byrne and Stephen Merchant

Parting is such bittersweet sorrow in Dan Mazer’s London-set anti-romcom, which quickly declares its intention to split up a young married couple (Rafe Spall, Rose Byrne) in order to pair them off with more suitable soul-mates – in this case, a kooky old flame (Anna Faris) and a charming American businessman (Simon Baker).

The gamble doesn’t quite pay off because Mazer tempers heartbreak with sentimentality, contriving a final flourish slathered in so much syrupy emotion you can feel the teeth rotting in your head as the end credits roll. His script boasts some hilarious interludes courtesy of Stephen Merchant and Minnie Driver in larger-than-life supporting roles, as a hapless ladies man and an acid-tongued harridan whose love-hate relationship with her spouse (Jason Flemyng) errs towards the latter.

 

Robert Lepage’s hotly-anticipated Playing Cards 1: Spades gets underway tonight at the Roundhouse 

Visionary director Robert Lepage is one of international theatre’s most exciting mavericks. Having masterminded enormous shows in every corner of the globe – including productions for Cirque du Soleil and Peter Gabriel – he is now bringing his latest piece to London.

Spades is the first of four new plays designed specifically for a network of 13 circular venues around the world, with each installment themed around a deck from a pack of cards. The opening play features a series of intertwined stories, all set in the desert cities of Las Vegas and Baghdad, on the eve of the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Much more than that, we don’t yet know (including when the next three installments will be staged). But, suffice to say, it’s likely to be one of the year’s most thrilling theatrical spectacles.

The Roundhouse, February 7-March 2, £15-£45

Ben Norum meets the man who’s bringing the future of Chinese cuisine to London, the self-named Demon Chef, Alvin Leung

Born in London to Chinese parents, Alvin Leung grew up in Brixton before going to university in Elephant & Castle. After working as a waiter in Canada, he moved to Hong Kong and bought a speakeasy called Bo Inosaki for £3,000. He taught himself to cook and transformed it into Bo Innovation, which now has two Michelin stars. Now he’s opened a new restaurant, Bo London, here in his home city. Though he has given himself the foreboding title of Demon Chef, it doesn’t suit the man who talks to us while sipping a glass of warm milk.

How does Bo London differ from Bo Innovation?
A lot of people have asked me if I’ve toned it down for the British palate, but I haven’t. I don’t think I need to. The menu at Bo London has a big British influence (the tasting menu is called Ode To Britain) and we deliberately use a lot of British ingredients. I’ve called a dish Bed & Breakfast as it has a smoked quail egg in a bird’s nest made out of taro, so kind of like the bird’s bed.

So you think the people of London are ready for your food?
London is very diverse, cosmopolitan and international, and as a result people here are exposed to a wide variety of different cuisines. This makes them very adventurous and open-minded. My food mixes many different influences, so in many ways this is a perfect audience.

Would you call your cooking ‘fusion food’, then?
My upbringing was split between London, Canada and Hong Kong. I developed favourite items from different cultures and naturally I’ll mix them up.  At home that could be as simple as instant noodles with sausage. If that’s fusion food, then yes.

You’ve coined the phrase “X-treme Chinese” to refer to your cuisine. What does it mean?
‘Extreme’ can be interpreted in many ways. Sometimes it can be interpreted the wrong way and people think every dish should be shocking and sensationalist, but it’s not like that. I just want to provide something exciting that stirs up the imagination; something that takes diners to the boundary.

Is there anything that’s too extreme for you to serve?
I would eat and serve most things and I’m certainly not squeamish. Ethics are important though, and being a dog-lover I wouldn’t want to eat a dog. Equally, while I won’t condemn shark fin, it’s something I choose to do without.

What do you think of the Chinese food scene here in London?
I actually think it’s gone downhill. When I was here in the late 70s it was clearly on the up, but now it’s gone the other way. The problem with Chinese chefs is that we don’t tend to want our children to be chefs, and so the craft is not being passed down. Some of my favourite restaurants in Chinatown have shut down and become buffet restaurants; Chinese food is becoming just a ‘cheap eat’. It needs to go down the fine-dining route a bit more, and that’s what I’m trying to do here.

There’s been talk of Bo London being very expensive… (A 14 course tasting dinner is £98; a set lunch menu is £30)
I don’t mind people saying that. They’re right, it’s not cheap, but that’s what fine-dining is. I can’t give the same quality and variety of dishes and ingredients if I don’t charge that. Bo is a luxury experience, for special occasions.

Do you eat out in other Chinese restaurants here?
When we leave late after service, New Mayflower on Shaftesbury Avenue is always a good bet – we go there a lot.

You’ve become known as the Chinese Heston Blumenthal. How do you feel about that?
It’s an honour to be compared to someone so big, though I’d rather be called the Chinese Alvin Leung!

Bo London, 4 Mill St, W1S 2AZ
bolondonrestaurant.com

After a great start last year, including being named iTunes Best New Rock Artist 2012, Don Broco have just released their latest single, Fancy Dress, as a free download.

Frontman Rob Damiani tells Scout he hates fancy dress parties, describing them as “way too much effort, and after about an hour most people have changed out of what they’ve come as, and everyone is too wasted to care anyway”.

As a result, Fancy Dress is a song about “the kind of parties that get a little out of control, leaving you feeling absolutely destroyed after all the fun is over”.

How did it feel being names iTunes Best New Rock Artist 2012?

Fan-f***ing-tastic! We had no idea we were even in the running for it so when we got the news through we were over the moon. Apart from the occasional CD I buy all my music from iTunes these days, so to see us up on their home page was proper mint. We had an amazing 2012 so the iTunes accolade really capped things off nicely.

Why do you hate fancy dress?

Haha. I think going to uni completely killed the idea of fancy dress parties for me. There seemed to be at least 2 a week and I could only take so much! If you ever did put any effort in, by the time you turned up (late because it took so long) everyone would be too drunk to even notice. Not for me!

What’s the best fancy dress outfit you’ve seen (on someone else, obviously) and why?

Probably a full on Rubix cube costume. The outermost cubes could rotate and everything. The guy wearing it got all the chicks.

The single’s obviously about partying – what’s your favourite kind of party?

Personally pool parties are my fave. Everyone is semi-naked and extra up for it due to the novelty of drinking/dancing in a watery based environment. I think any party though – whether it’s themed/ a birthday/ a wedding/ whatever – has the potential to be the best night of your life if it can contain these 5 essential elements:

1. Good people – these don’t necessarily have to be current friends (parties are great for meeting new people), but they must be either interesting or fun. Ideally both.

2. Boys and girls – for any great party to work you need a relatively equal mix of the sexes.

3. Plenty of booze – you don’t want the party finishing pre-maturely due to the lack of alcohol.

4. Music – while you certainly don’t need your favourite album playing on repeat, you’ll need to hear at least one song you LOVE before the night finishes.

5. The Event – every great party needs The Event. This can be something personal to you e.g hooking up with someone you really like, your mate making a tit out of himself and everyone having a laugh, or a more general occurrence that everyone leaves the party feeling good about about e.g neighbours coming over to tell you to keep the noise down who end up staying for the party and having a wild time. (That has never actually happened at a party I’ve ever been to but I wish it had)

Any good party stories to tell?

We were at an awards show after party where Si (our guitarist) was proudly showing off his newly acquired Blue Peter badge to a crowd of transfixed revellers. While Si was giving it a good ol’ over-the-top polish, a rogue hand came in from the side which joined in the polishing of the badge. To everyone’s shock and surprise the hand belonged to none other than Hollywood actor/comedian/musician Jack Black of Tenacious D fame. After a brief conversation about sausage and mash he disappeared back into the night and we never saw him again.

What’s next for you guys?

We’re heading out on our first ever headline tour on February 18 – all the shows are sold out so we’re pretty damn excited. Then in April we’ll be doing another run of shows which we announced due to the first ones selling out so quick. It’s all culminating at our Camden Koko show, our biggest headline gig to date and already sold out too so we know its going to be mental! Then, before we know it we’ll be getting into festival season which we’re kicking off with Hit The Deck fest in Nottingham and Bristol. It’s the first festival we’ve ever been headlining at so definitely time to man-up. In between all of that we’re gonna be filming the video for our next single Whole Truth, so we’re gonna be knackered!

donbroco.com

With a star-studded cast and a highly original format, Common Ground is one of most exciting new comedy shows on TV. Dan Frost chats to Johnny Vegas and director David Lambert

Picture this: a sitcom that stars Charles Dance as a drug-taking rock-‘n’roller, Jessica Hynes as an inept local politician, Johnny Vegas as a disgruntled tattoo shop owner, Paul Kay as a cross-dressing debt collector and Tom Davis as his hardman boss. Then factor in a slew of other UK comedy talent – Katy Brand, Josie Lawrence, Linda Robson, Rufus Jones, Alan Ford, Totally Tom… the list goes on.

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it – almost too star-studded to be real? But that is, in fact, the cast of new comedy show Common Ground, which started last night (February 4) on Sky Atlantic.

Calling it a sitcom is, perhaps, a little misleading. It’s basically a series of 10 comedy shorts, each running for 11 minutes a-piece, with their own unique characters. But they’re all set around the same few streets in Clapham, and certain characters occasionally cross over into other episodes – so the sitcom tag isn’t entirely inappropriate.

“It’s quite a unique format – there’s not really anything else like this,” director David Lambert tells Scout. “Each episode is like a stand-alone film, but set in the same world each week, with certain overlapping characters. And that creates a little sense of community – you don’t always see the same people, but they might crop up a couple of episodes further down the line.”

Most of the shorts are by different writers, and often by their leading star. So the style of comedy tends to shift between episodes.

“I think that’s a really unique selling point,” says Lambert, who has previously worked on The Mighty Boosh and Alan Partridge. “There’s total variation in the style of comedy, but it’s balanced by a very distinctive visual style that remains constant through all the episodes, alongside the location – it’s a very recognisable one world that we’ve created.”

The bite-sized nature of their appearances gave some of the headline comedy stars an opportunity to play a host of juicy characters. Dance, for example, whose episode opened the show, is more accustomed to playing toffish bureaucrats and dramatic villains than hard-living former tour manager Floyd.

“It was so far removed from what I’m normally asked to do, I couldn’t say no, and I had a hoot doing it,” he told Scout in a previous interview.

Charles Dance as Floyd in Common Ground

Paul Kay is another example. He was brought in at the last minute to star as the incredibly sinister, make-up-wearing debt collector Spinx, in an episode with Johnny Vegas as the central character. It’s a fun part and a scene-stealing performance.

“We were begging Paul Kay to be in it, and he turned out to be so brilliant,” says Vegas. “We’d had this idea for a character, where you’d be like ‘is he transgender?’, but you’re never really sure because he’s so menacing. Paul just came in and as soon as we’d run the scene once, we knew we’d made the right call.”

With such delicious characters, the obvious annoyance is that you want to see much more of them than the mere 11 minutes on offer. So there’s already plenty of talk about taking them further – either through a second series of Common Ground or their own individual shows.

Vegas is keen to try a second series, “with more time to sit down with all the other writers, so we can try and make the characters cross over even more”. And Dance also recently expressed a desire to revisit Floyd.

“All of the characters have huge potential to carry on,” says Lambert, “either as their own series, or through a second series of Common Ground. They’re all so strong, and all brilliantly performed. Common Ground could end up being a springboard for a lot of other great shows.”

Common Ground continues next Monday (February 11) at 9pm on Sky Atlantic 

Lost that loving feeling? Let the return of Love Letters Straight From Your Heart to the Southbank Centre restore the wind beneath your wings 

Go on, admit it: you’re a romantic at heart. It’s ok – we all are. Even the most sour-faced cynic will have a weak spot that, when pushed, can have them grinning giddily like a child who has been left alone with the booze cabinet. 

But maybe you still need convincing. In which case, boy do we have the event for you. No, it’s not a Barry White tribute act or even the first 10 minutes of Pixar’s Up played on loop (though, if you weren’t moved by this film you might want to check that you’re not some kind of cold-hearted reptile masquerading as a human). It is, in fact, an event that describes itself as being “somewhere between a wedding reception, a wake and a radio dedication show”. Welcome to the truly marvellous Love Letters Straight From Your Heart.

Staged by performance duo Uninvited Guests, this unashamedly sentimental and unfailingly moving sort-of-theatre piece has been melting hearts all over the country for the past few years, and is returning to London in time for Valentine’s Day.

The premise is simple: audience members (around 30 in total) each choose a song in advance and write a dedication to go with it – to a partner, a lost relative, a former crush, whoever; each record is then played on the night, accompanied by one of the hosts reading its relevant (and often anonymous) dedication. Everyone sits around a long dinner table and listens, laughs, cries, cheers, dances and whatever else to each other’s amorous anthems – often without actually knowing which nearby audience member the words and songs belong to.

Granted, it sounds a little odd, and maybe even like the sort of event Glenn Close would have taken Michael Douglas to before their attraction turned, well, you know. But it’s a truly joyous, entirely sane and irresistibly seductive and fun evening that celebrates the one thing that all of us crave – love.

Love Letters Straight From Your Heart, Southbank Centre, February 6-8 & 14-16, £20, southbankcentre.co.uk  

Rafe Spall and Rose Byrne star in the brilliant new anti-romantic comedy, I Give It A Year. The pair tell Susan Griffin why you’ll definitely not be hoping for a ‘happily ever after’ with this one

Romcoms. You’d be forgiven for nearly gagging at the thought. But hold your derision back for just a second, because this new British comedy doesn’t follow the usual script.

Written and directed by Dan Mazer – who’s worked with Sacha Baron Cohen on mega comedy hits such as Da Ali G Show, Borat and Bruno – I Give It A Year starts where other romcoms finish, by lifting the veil on the first year of marriage between a couple who are wildly unsuitable.

“You watch certain romantic comedies and you root for these characters to get together, but in reality they have a hilarious journey getting together because they’re not quite right for each other,” says Rafe Spall, who plays semi-successful novelist Josh, opposite Rose Byrne’s ambitious high-flyer businesswoman Nat.

“I suppose this film starts off where the conventional romantic comedy ends, where an unlikely couple gets together against all odds, and then it looks at what happens when these two characters have to actually lead their lives together.”

Sitting side-by-side, laughing lots and gently poking fun at each another, it’s clear the real-life Spall and Byrne really enjoy each other’s company.

In fact, Mazer was concerned the pair’s friendship resulted in too much “sparkle” on screen.

“I think Dan was nervous because we became friends pretty quickly,” says Byrne. “As a director, I can understand because that’s not the dynamic he wanted. He’d say, ‘You’ve got to be mean to him!’.”

Her co-star agrees it was initially tough playing against the stereotypical scenario.

“In this you’re meant to will them apart, because you start to see they’re not right for each other,” says Spall.

The 29-year-old actor, who once weighed 18-stone, is handsome in a slightly dishevelled way. But he reveals that he had to persuade the powers-that-be that he could pull off a romantic lead.

“I had to prove I was handsome, funny and charismatic enough,” he says with an endearingly goofy grin.

Determined to look his best, he “lifted a few weights, and dodged a few carbs”, and insists he wasn’t hurt by the naysayers.
“The casting of a lead part is a huge responsibility, so I understand people being precious about it,” says London-born Spall, son of the renowned actor Timothy Spall.

But then the whole point is that Josh isn’t the ‘perfect man’. In fact, he’s the antithesis of  the type of person Nat would usually go for.

“I think she’s going into the marriage knowing there are differences but celebrating them, and thinking that what they have will carry them through,” says Australian-born Byrne.

The 33-year-old, who came to prominence with Glenn Close in TV series Damages, has since shown her comedic capabilities in Get Him To The Greek opposite Russell Brand, and Bridesmaids with Kristen Wiig. She revelled in the opportunity to play uptight, highly-strung, humourless Nat. “As an actor you can’t judge your character, so you’re always their best lawyer, going in and fighting their case. For that you have to have empathy,” says the petite actress, who looks prettily prim in a buttoned-up black shirt beneath an orange jumper and skinny jeans.

“She’s very English actually; a very particular English character and that was a great way of unlocking her,” says Byrne, who doesn’t think it unfeasible that Nat and Josh would have fallen for each other.

“Opposites do attract – but then they can repel each other,” she says, laughing. “That’s what happened, and I think they had enough chemistry to get it over the line, then it just breaks down.”

Their relationship is further compromised by competition, in the form of Josh’s former girlfriend, Chloe, played by The House Bunny’s Anna Faris, and Nat’s suave client, Guy, played by The Devil Wears Prada heart-throb Simon Baker.

“There’s not one you don’t root for,” says Spall. “It’s a love square really. Usually there’s a horrible person that you don’t want someone to end up with but there isn’t in this.”

Even Guy, the handsome smooth operator, gets it wrong when he attempts to seduce Nat with the help of a violinist and doves.

“It’s good because every potentially treacly scene is subverted,” says Spall, who recently starred in Prometheus and opposite Anne Hathaway in One Day.

It’s also pretty X-rated. Take the scene in which Nat and Josh are showing her uptight parents their honeymoon snaps, when up pops a raunchy shoot that includes full-frontal nudity.

Asked if it was all their own work, Byrne says: “Half and half for me. Rafe went the whole nine…” The pair burst into giggles.

“Yep, my whole body’s in this film, I was given no choice to be honest,” adds Spall. He also shows off some questionable dance moves with comedian Stephen Merchant, who plays Josh’s obnoxious best mate Danny.

“We had a choreographer and I remember it being really weird learning to do the running man with Stephen Merchant in Pineapple Studios!”

As someone who’s stripped off on screen and been in all sorts of cringe-inducing scrapes in the TV series Pete Versus Life, he admits he’s willing to do pretty much anything in the name of a laugh.

“I just love comedy, I love having a laugh in real life and I love other people being funny,” says Spall, who married former Hollyoaks actress Elize du Toit in 2010. The couple now have two children, Lena, 18 months, and Rex, born in November.

Unlike some couples, he says their first year of marriage wasn’t strained at all – something he attributes to their honeymoon baby. “Yeah, we had a baby in the first year so Elize was pregnant and that was a distraction.”

Byrne, however, who’s rumoured to be dating Boardwalk Empire star Bobby Cannavale, didn’t even know the first year of marriage was supposed to be so testing.

“I thought it’s meant to be the honeymoon year but weirdly it’s quite common,” she says.

But then, unlike Spall, Byrne’s never been to a wedding where she thought the couple weren’t meant for one another.

“I’ve been to loads of weddings where I’ve thought, ‘Nah, I just don’t buy it’,” Spall says, shrugging.

“Marriage has become fashionable again and, when something becomes fashionable you end up with a lot of people following a trend who shouldn’t be.”

And you only have to watch I Give It A Year to see how that’s likely to pan out.

I Give It A Year is released on Friday, February 8

Ed Sheeran’s album + has sold more than 2m copies around the world, but he hasn’t forgotten what helped him in the early stages, as he tells Andy Welch

Ed Sheeran’s story is an endearingly old-fashioned one. To the casual observer, the 21-year-old’s ‘journey’ from bedroom obscurity to 100,000 first-week sales of his debut album ‘+’ was something of an overnight sensation.

In reality, Sheeran started seriously planning his rise to stardom when he was just 16.

Having first picked up a guitar when he was 10 or 11, by the age of 16 Sheeran had released his first EP, the Orange Room. He followed this with four more self-released EPs, two albums (2006’s Ed Sheeran and Want Some? in 2007) and, in 2008, a move to London to concentrate on playing live shows. He performed 312 shows in 2009, and the rest is history.

This year might see him win his first Grammy (his song The A Team is up for Best Song) and he’s currently on an extensive tour which is taking him across America.

However, he hasn’t forgotten his roots and, when the Youth Music Theatre (YMT) invited him to be an ambassador, he didn’t hesitate for a moment.

The organisation was founded in 2003 and offers training and development for up to 1,000 11- to 21-year-olds each year. It aims to offer talented young people a bridge between school or local music theatre and formal training at drama school.

Were you involved in youth music theatre when you were younger?
Yes, I did it for one summer when I was 16.

What attracted you to it?
I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I’d done quite a lot of acting at school, more acting than I had music. It seemed like an opportunity to choose which I was more serious about.

And when did you decide?
After I’d been in the play, actually. I was in a production of Frankenstein, and afterwards, I just thought to myself that it was time to get serious about music.

What did you think when you were asked to be a patron?
I was asked about two months ago, and I didn’t need to think about saying yes. I probably don’t know a great deal about theatre, but it’s always important to help inspire young kids if you can. When I was involved myself, I found that even more important than the actual acting was the relationships that I formed. YMT brings out people’s talents, and confidence, and if you’re an artistic person you might not end up going to university. One of the main things of uni is meeting people and getting confidence, so here’s a chance to do help with that.

Is that the best thing about YMT?
I’d say it’s even more important than the theatre part. I made great friends when I joined, and I still keep in touch with them. I learned a lot, it’s really important.

What advice would you give to someone going to an audition?
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get the part. Plus, you can try again. And let’s be honest: being tense isn’t going to help deliver the best audition.

You’re touring the US at the moment. What have you got planned for the rest of the year?
We’re touring till September, so going right through.

And you’ve got Rizzle Kicks supporting you in the states?
Yes, they’re great. They’re coming back out on the road with us in a couple of weeks. I love touring with them.

Are you having much time to write your second album?
I’ve done a fair bit. I’ve written 26 songs for the next album. It’ll be released in early 2014, at the earliest. I want to have a couple of months off at the end of the year at least. This tour is so long.

Not since 1964 has anyone been executed in the UK, but for one week in January, Vibe Bar on Brick Lane will play host to a series of cultural events around the topic of capital punishment to mark the launch of a new death row documentary series called One For Ten.

The project will tell the stories of 10 innocent people who spent time on death row, locked up and facing execution for crimes they did not commit.

Launching today (January 31) and running until February 6, the upstairs of Vibe Bar will be transformed into a pop-up art exhibit featuring work by six British artists who have focused their attention on the issue, and some work from death row inmates themselves.

Alongside the exhibit, there will be a week of events including a launch party, film screening, debate run by the Institute of Ideas and an evening of conversation with the artists.

To kick off the week, the production team is hosting a public party tonight at 7pm, with a chance to see the project’s pilot film with death row exoneree Ray Krone that features an introduction by Danny Glover.

The night also includes the official opening and private view of the exhibition, as well as talks from campaigners and film world experts.

Other events include a screening of In Prison My Whole Life (Feb 3) and a debate on capital punishment produced and hosted by the Institute of Ideas; A discussion with the artists featured in the exhibit about the danger of getting too close to your subjects (Feb 5).

www.oneforten.com

Watch the trailer for One For Ten here:

Not interested in design? Think again – it’s integral to how we live our lives, as a new exhibition of iconic objects at the Design Museum reveals 

We might not always acknowledge it, but we’re all design geeks at heart. Who doesn’t admire the usability of Apple products (go on naysayers, admit it), the bagless efficiency of Dyson vacuum cleaners, or the colourful simplicity of the London Tube map? As Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic puts it: “Design is what makes daily life a little better.”

G-Force Cyclonic Vacuum Cleaner designed
by James Dyson, 1986

Some of the designs that have had a profound impact on daily life  are about to go on display in a new permanent exhibition at the Design Museum in Shad Thames.

Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things will use hundreds of iconic objects – such as the Anglepoise lamp, the stacking chair, the traffic light and the red London phone box – to emphasise the full extent to which some designs have integrated into the routines of everyday life.

Apple iMac designed by Jonathan Ive, 1998-9

The exhibition will offer a sneak peak of what’s in store at the museum’s new South Kensington HQ (due to open in 2015), where greater space will allow for much more of the expansive permanent collection to be on display. 

Traffic light, designed by David Mellor 1966

Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things, Design Museum, from January 30, £10.75 adults, designmuseum.org 

Tatyana, one of the most hotly-anticipated dance shows of the year, opens this week at The Barbican. Donald Hutera chats to its celebrated choreographer, Deborah Colker

Brazilian dance-maker Deborah Colker is the only artist I’ve encountered for whom members of the audience have shouted “Bravo!” at the end of a post-show talk. Hugely popular in her native country, this small, blonde dynamo is one of the world’s most exciting and respected choreographers, and has built up an equally loyal fan-base in the UK.

As well as Colker’s irrepressible energy and enthusiasm, what audiences here and abroad respond to is the sheer inventive reach of her work. One of the things the 52-year-old is most noted for her is large-scale thinking. Past shows have found lizard-like dancers scaling a huge coloured wall, or swinging like human carriages on a giant Ferris wheel. In Colker’s latest venture, the two-act production Tatyana, which arrives at The Barbican this week, her brave and sexy ensemble spend the first half moving sinuously under, upon and around a vast, multi-level tree.

This raises the question: how is such a highly-stylised set-piece connected to the 19^th-century verse novel Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, from which it is apparently inspired?

“In the book Pushkin mentions the four seasons all the time,” explains Colker, speaking from her eponymous company’s headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. “The relationship with nature is really important. Our tree is realistic, but it also represents Tatyana’s house where she meets Onegin for the first time.”

The source story’s beating heart is the rapturous love Tatyana, an innocent country girl, feels for Onegin, the selfish, bored dandy who rejects her. But years later the tables are turned.

Choreographer Deborah Colker

Pushkin’s writing, with its amatory dreams and aura of doomed romanticism, was an irresistible challenge for Colker, who has never previously created a dance performance based on pre-existing material.

“My most difficult task was to have the accuracy to respect, pursue and embrace everything I find in it,” she tells Scout. “It’s about love and life, about being young and growing up by building values from your losses and choices.”

Colker’s Russian-Jewish bloodline came in handy too: “It wasn’t like going to another planet.  I remember when I was little, sitting on my grandpa’s lap, and he used to tell me stories by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Pushkin. I remember the feelings in them, all the fears and yearning.”

With its fantastic tree (replaced in Act Two by a much starker setting) and richly multifarious score (featuring Rachmaninov, American maverick Moondog and minimalist composer Terry Rlley), Tatyana is both emotive and physically expressive, narrative-based yet dance-dominated. Its contradictory qualities are perhaps best exemplified by the fact that there’s not just one Onegin or Tatyana but four each in Act One, and double that number in a second act that has been described as “pure atmosphere, pure feeling”.

“I had to fall in love with each character’s development and discover the dance through their lives,” reveals Colker. “It’s been a great challenge to learn the way to tell a story: what’s important, which feelings need to be danced and not spoken of.”

Colker’s feelings about London, however, are plain, and she’s obviously excited about her company’s return to the city.

“I’ve always seen London as the birthplace of movements, trends, songs, transformations, movies, theatre, music, literature. Every time I go there it’s as if I’m returning home.”

Tatyana, The Barbican, January 31-February 9, £16-£30, barbican.org.uk

Playwright EV Crowe has made a name for herself with provocative works such as Kin and Hero. She chats to Scout about Liar Liar, her latest play and her first work for young people

For the past few years, EV Crowe’s name has been cropping up on a variety of lists: ‘young and talented’, ‘most promising new playwrights’ and the like. And little wonder. Her debut play, Kin, was an incendiary and sometimes shocking piece about life in a girl’s boarding school that attracted a fair amount of attention. And her follow-up, Hero, was a similarly thought-provoking piece that tackled homophobia, identity and envy through the story of two very different primary school teachers.

Both plays were staged at the Royal Court, whose Young Writers Programme 32-year-old Crowe (full name Emma Victoria Crowe) previously attended. She’s one of several graduates of the scheme who are now making waves in British theatre – among the others are Lucy Prebble (Enron, The Effect), Mike Bartlett (Earthquakes in London), Polly Stenham (That Face, No Quarter) and Laura Wade (Posh).

But now Crowe is moving away from the Court. Her latest play, Liar Liar, will be staged at bespoke children’s theatre The Unicorn. Telling the story of 14-year-old Grace, a talented liar whose liberties with the truth have unforeseen consequences, it is aimed at 13- to 16-year-olds, and represents the first time Crowe has ever written for a young audience.

We know a bit about the story of Liar Liar, but what are the major themes that the play deals with? 

I think the play asks questions about how adults see young people sometimes, and how negative ideas about who you are – from older people – can make you feel about yourself. And it’s also about the power of friendship. 

Apparently it was initially commissioned as a prequel to King Lear. What happened there?

Well, I wanted my play to feel contemporary. As in, I didn’t want to have actual kings and princesses in it. I wanted young people to be able to connect to it in an every day sense, so that’s how I ended up with this particular story, though it is still inspired by Lear. 

How so?  

I was inspired by the line Cordelia says to her father: “I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.” She says it when she’s under pressure to speak publicly about her feelings for her Father, because he wants her to. She doesn’t like having to betray her sense of emotional honesty or to play a game. Even under pressure, she choses her sense of self over appeasing her family. My play builds up to that moment of truth, but instead of Cordelia, it’s Grace, who’s been out all night and everyone wants to know where she was.  

EV Crowe’s Kin at the Royal Court

You’ve written about kids before, but never for them. Did you approach it at all differently to writing for adults? Were there unforeseen challenges that you hadn’t encountered with previous work?

I think Liar Liar takes a few creative risks and we’re yet to see how our audience will respond. But there’s something inspiring and energising about a character who can make stuff up, in the moment, and can take you anywhere through sheer imagination. I think my approach was pretty much the same as for an adult play, just with fewer swear words.   

Based on your work so far, you seem to be quite interested in the lives of children in modern society and their relationship with adults. What draws you to this subject?

I don’t know. I remember being eight, very strongly. In lots of ways, I don’t think I’ve changed that much. Maybe it’s because young people have yet to ‘become’ in a sense and it’s that moment of possibility in a person’s life that is exciting to explore. The stakes are high because there is so much ahead, and what happens when we’re young can stay with us for all of our lives – in good ways and not. 

When did you decide you wanted to be a playwright? What inspired you to move in that direction?

I don’t think I imagined people could be playwrights for a job. I think I thought that I would just keep trying to express myself through plays, and I would see what happened. It wasn’t until I did the Royal Court Young Writers’ Programme that I fully understood the connection between writing something and it going on in a theatre – and getting paid for it.

Liar Liar, Unicorn Theatre, January 31-March 6, £10-£16, unicorntheatre.com 

As a new exhibition dedicated to the history of the whodunit opens at the British Library, Zoe Craig dons her deerstalker and investigates the best murder mysteries in the capital

Murder in the Library

The British Library’s latest free exhibition celebrates the history of the whodunit. Described as an A to Z of the crime thriller, Murder In The Library puts a magnifying glass up to the development of detective fiction from its beginnings in the 1840s with Edgar Allan Poe, through its golden era between the wars, to present day prize winners from the likes of Patricia Cornwell. Fans of crime fiction (and there are many – more than a third of all fiction published in the English language falls under the genre) can peruse past classics from Arthur Conan Doyle and Wilkie Collins, to quirkier curiosities, such as the 1930s Jigsaw Puzzle Murders and Dennis Wheatley’s murder mystery dossiers with their frankly odd physical clues (such as human hair) helping you “solve” the mystery. Keep an eye out for accompanying events and activities.
bl.uk

Dramatic Deaths

London’s Theatreland loves a good murder. From The Woman in Black to The 39 Steps, successful plays have been plotted around dastardly deaths for years. And Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is the reigning queen of them all. Now in its 60th year it is officially the longest running theatre production of all time. And still audiences flock to St Martin’s Theatre (tickets £16-£43) to find out who did it, before promising to the cast they’ll never reveal the identity of the killer.
themousetrap.co.uk

Sleuthing Around Shoreditch

If you fancy playing detective yourself, check out the events by top mystery plotters A Door In A Wall. Part murder mystery, part treasure hunt, their latest Boxpark-based project A Crime of Fashion (March 16-17) will have you searching Shoreditch’s shops and streets for hidden clues and characters in a quest to catch a celebrated fashion designer’s killer. In teams of three to six sleuths, you’ll collect evidence, solve puzzles and make your accusation. “Winners are those that correctly identify the murderer and get the most of our plot correct,” says principle ADIAW architect Tom Williams. Tickets cost £15 per player, and the game lasts around two hours.
adoorinawall.com

Scene of the Crime

Poirot and Sherlock fans can treat themselves to a luxury London tour with detective fiction expert Antony Richards, who takes people on tours to London sites from literary and TV crime dramas. A Freeman of the City of London, Richards tailors his London detective tours to suit the client. “I’ll always ask what people are interested in, so I can create bespoke tours for fans with specific interests,” says Richards. So, whether you want to visit Poirot’s flat from the TV series, or enjoy a Sherlock-inspired snack at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand, his Detective Tours are the answer. Prices range from £10 per person for a group up to £250 for a tip-top, chauffeur-driven affair.
detective-tours.com

Whodunit Hotel

London might not rival Midsomer or Oxford for crime locations per capita, but the city can lay claim to the greatest detective of all time. Step forward Sherlock Holmes. And where better to stalk a killer than at the Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes hotel? Lord B’staville regularly invites his feuding family, friends and neighbours to a dinner to reveal who’ll inherit all his money. And do you know what? Someone always gets killed. For £63, you can help Holmes solve the case – as well as a three-course dinner, the evening includes Prosecco, professional actors, prizes and a disco.
murdermysteryevents.com

Held in honour of Scottish poet Robert Burns on January 25, Burns Night has never been so popular in England. In London, it’s become as much about Scottish food and drink as it is about poetry and kilts

For those planning to mark the occasion with a traditional Scottish feed-up, the Boisdale group of restaurants are the first that come to mind. The north-of-the-border outposts will feature poetry, pipers and haggis-stabbing each night at branches in Belgravia, Bishopsgate and Canary Wharf.

If you want free whisky at plush City joint 1 Lombard Street, all you need to do is turn up in a kilt to Friday’s slap-up meal of haggis, neeps and tatties (see Menu Meanings, right), while it’s dress non-specific at Harvey Nichols’ Fifth Floor Restaurant, where your haggis dinner is preceded by a Chivas Regal whisky tasting, irrelevant of your garments.

Ramsay restaurant York & Albany in Camden couldn’t get more classic when it dishes up a menu of cock-a-leekie soup, haggis and cranachan.

At Trafalgar Square’s Albannach, a five-course menu features smoked salmon and Scottish venison alongside plenty of haggis and whisky. Nathan Outlaw gives the occasion a seafood twist at Outlaw’s at The Capital, throwing scallops into the mix alongside salmon and haggis; and an epic seven-course menu at Mayfair’s Seven Park Place features just about every Scottish ingredient you could think of, including a selection of cheeses.

For all the popularity of Burns Night, haggis is far from a favourite ingredient, let alone neeps. Eschew the traditional at The White Horse in Parson’s Green, where haggis gets the ravioli treatment, neeps are creamed with truffles, and whisky is exchanged for beers from Scottish brewery Harviestoun. They’ve even played with the date, choosing to celebrate on January 24 instead.

At Portobello’s trendy Dock Kitchen, chef Stevie Parle promises a surprise menu that will be deliberately untraditional while still being, “a handsome feast with Scottish elements”. At Vinopolis, you can satisfy your Scottish urges with a special whisky tasting on Friday, while Johnnie Walker has teamed up with Gaucho to offer a whisky and steak evening at the Argentine restaurant group’s Sloane Street branch.

Top of the alternative stakes, though, is Min Jiang, if only for the name of its ‘Chinese Burns’ night, where Chinese-inspired whisky sours are paired with haggis dim sum. What would Rabbie say?

Menu Meanings

Neeps and tatties

An abbreviation of “turnips and potatoes”, this mash is a traditional accompaniment to haggis. Just to be confusing, it’s actually made from potatoes and swede, which Scots used to refer to as yellow turnip.

Cock-a-leekie soup

There’s plenty of comic potential in the title of this soup, which is simply named for its combination of leeks and chicken stock. Traditionally, prunes were also added, though this is less common nowadays.

Haggis

This savoury pudding is made from the heart, liver and lung of sheep, which is minced with onion, oatmeal, suet and spices and encased in sheep stomach. A fictional folklore that a haggis is a small Scottish animal is still well-known and, according to one survey, is believed by 33 per cent of American visitors to Scotland.

Cranachan

Scotland’s most famous dessert, this dish blends whipped cream with whisky, honey and fresh raspberries and is topped with toasted oatmeal, which itself has been soaked overnight in whisky. It’s served a little like a knickerbocker glory.

Director Kathryn Bigelow follows up The Hurt Locker with a tense drama about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, starring Jessica Chastain (pictured). Review by Damon Smith

Zero Dark Thirty (15)

The political brouhaha that continues to dog Kathryn Bigelow’s nerve-jangling dramatisation of the hunt for Osama bin Laden might have cost her an Oscar nomination. However, the fierce debate about the film’s depiction of CIA-sanctioned torture – including waterboarding – begs important questions about the war on terror and the extraction of information from suspected terrorists. Jessica Chastain delivers a mesmerising performance as the ballsy CIA agent whose intelligence underpins the biggest manhunt in American history and leads a team of Navy SEALs to a heavily guarded compound in Pakistan. The knot of tension in our stomachs tightens with each passing minute, even though we know the ending, and Bigelow orchestrates the action sequences with brio, including a chilling recreation of the 2005 suicide attacks on London.

Daniel Day Lewis and Steven Spielberg team up for an Abraham Lincoln biopic. Review by Damon Smith

Lincoln (12A)

Steven Spielberg artfully tears a page from history to depict the efforts of the 16th President of the United States of America (Daniel Day-Lewis) to abolish slavery at a time of deep division within the House of Representatives. Screenwriter Tony Kushner condenses the final months of Lincoln’s life into an elegiac portrait of a man, whose courage in the eye of a political storm tested his marriage to his emotionally fragile wife (Sally Field) and ignited the incendiary rhetoric of fervent abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones). Lincoln is a sweeping period drama distinguished by Janusz Kaminski’s colour-bleached cinematography and John Williams’ haunting score. The terrific ensemble cast is led magnificently by Day-Lewis – a dead cert for the Oscar for his intense, nuanced central performance.

 

Freddie Fox is the youngest member of one of the UK’s foremost acting dynasties, so has a lot to live up to. He chats to Dan Frost about family life, being friends with Stephen Fry, and playing Bosie opposite Rupert Everett’s Oscar Wilde in The Judas Kiss

Coming from a famous family has many advantages. But also its fair share of pitfalls. For Freddie Fox – son of actor Edward Fox and actress Joanna David, and brother of actress Emilia Fox – the most obvious of these is that his own acting career will struggle to live up to those of his celebrated family members.

But, so far, he doesn’t have much to worry about.

Having graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2010, the handsome 23-year-old has already grabbed his own share of the limelight for a series of enviable roles in film, TV and theatre. Among the more notable of these are as singer Marilyn in Boy George biopic Worried About the Boy, as the title character in a TV adaptation of Charles Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and now in a major revival of David Hare’s play The Judas Kiss, about two pivotal moments in the latter life of Oscar Wilde.

Starring opposite Rupert Everett as Wilde, Fox plays the writer’s spoilt and petulant young lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, aka Bosie. It was a libel case that Wilde pursued against his lover’s father (with Bosie’s wholehearted encouragement) that eventually resulted in Wilde’s own imprisonment for sodomy and, in due course, his early death.

Bosie’s role in it all is well documented – and rarely in kind tones. But when Scout meets Fox in between rehearsals at the Duke of York’s Theatre, he’s quick to defend the man often maligned for ‘destroying’ Oscar Wilde.

The general view of Bosie is a pretty negative one. Do you think that’s validated by the play? 

Well, no, actually. That perception comes largely from misinformation about Bosie. Not that I’m trying to apologise for him – he was an arsehole in many ways – but people have a very generic opinion about what Bosie was like, because he ‘destroyed Oscar’. Not many people really know how he destroyed Oscar, or even if he destroyed Oscar. They just go, ‘that’s what he did, and he was nasty’. I think the play shows, admittedly, a sociopath in the truest sense of the word, who is hell-bent on revenge against his father. But he doesn’t ever intend to pull Oscar down. He’s not maligned like that. He’s a very strong character with very strong opinions, and many of them were very good – he just wasn’t listened to. So I think the play is incredibly good at redressing people’s opinions about who Bosie really was.

I understand you went to Stephen Fry (who played Wilde in the film of the same name) for advice.

Yes, I spoke to Stephen first. He’s a great friend of my mother’s, so was my first port of call actually when I heard I was going to be doing the part. I called and said, ‘right, who do I read?’ He’s been a supporter of me and the production since the start, which I’m very grateful for.

Freddie Fox and Rupert Everett in The Judas Kiss

Coming from a successful acting dynasty, you must feel a degree of relief to be getting such strong roles and not struggling to follow in the family footsteps?

In a word, yes. For any actor, to be in work, in particular high-profile work, and, even more importantly, in good work, is a blessing and a relief. I think I believed that I would do ok, that I would work in this business, but one never knows. And I have lots of friends who are wonderful actors, but who haven’t found a great deal of work and are finding it immensely frustrating. So yes, I am relieved.

People often ask about the pressure of the family name. There isn’t really that pressure, but there’s the perception that there is, and that’s enough to be irritating. So the only way to get over that is by working, and by doing your own parts in your own way, and by making sure that it’s very much you coming to the table and not the son of somebody doing a sort of bland imitation of their father or mother.

And if it were to dry up, do you think you could stomach doing bit-parts in Casualty and Enders? 

That’s a very good question, and however I answer it, I could probably come out sounding like a very proud, arrogant young man. Actually, as Rupert says, some of the best actors in this country are the people who work on soap operas. They have to be equipped to deal with the most phenomenal demands, in such a short space of time and make it look real, so I wouldn’t ever judge it poorly in that regard. But I suppose there’s an element of fast food about soaps, and does anybody want to be known as the guy who goes to MacDonalds for lunch every day? I suppose I haven’t got a plan B for what I want to do with my life. In my downtime I write screenplays, and I want to direct one day as well. But that’s 100 miles away. What I must do right now is act, and so push come to shove, I suppose yes I would, I would act… but it would hurt, I’m sure. 

Is the rest of the family very hands-on in helping you with your career? 

It’s as hands-on as I like it to be. If I need some advice or someone to test me on my lines, they will do it gladly. I’m enormously proud of my family and what they’ve achieved, and I know they’re proud of me, and that’s a very encouraging thing, and something that Bosie never felt. There are also things like, through my mother I’ve come to meet Stephen Fry and make him a friend of mine, so lovely things like that come from a privileged background of someone who’s had a life led extensively in the entertainment industry because that’s what their parents do. That’s a privilege, and I’m very lucky.

The Judas Kiss, Duke of York’s Theatre, until April 6, atgtickets.com

Rita Ora came from nowhere to release three No 1 singles and a chart-topping debut album, and now she’s got two BRIT nominations to her name. Ahead of her next London gig, she tells Andy Welch about her ‘pinch-yourself’ career

At the tail end of 2011, Rita Ora appeared in the video for Hot Right Now with DJ Fresh.

Before that, she’d only really been seen in a handful of online videos, but by the time of the song’s official release in February 2012 – it went straight to No 1 and ended up selling more than 480,000 copies – Ora was one of the most-talked about singers in the country.

As an introduction, it clearly worked, and her next two singles, RIP with Tinie Tempah, and How We Do, followed Hot Right Now to No 1.

Meanwhile, her debut album Ora topped the chart.

“That’s definitely the most surreal thing that’s happened to me,” says the singer, on the morning of the BRIT nominations. “The success of the singles, and the tour selling-out within minutes of the tickets going on sale as well, all of last year was crazy.”

For her to say the album’s success is the most surreal thing in her life is quite something. Ora’s signed to Jay-Z’s management company and record label Roc Nation in New York.

Prior to Mr Beyonce calling Ora and requesting a meeting, she’d been at college studying for her A-levels and working in a trainer shop on the Portobello Road in west London in order to pay musicians to play with her at gigs in the evening.

“I’d play anywhere, bars and clubs, in my dad’s pub, just to be out singing,” she says. “I guess Roc Nation heard about me just through people they know in the industry, called me up and asked for a meeting.

“It was a real pinch-yourself moment, and the meeting we had when I met Jay-Z was just unbelievable. It was so nerve-wracking, interesting, exciting and weird all at the same time. You know when you can feel someone’s power? It was like that, you could just tell when you walked in the room that he was powerful and successful.

“It was so odd. I walked in, shook his hand and then we were suddenly having a conversation. Now it feels like we’ve known each other a long time. I get lots of advice from him. He’s not just a great friend, but a boss and a brother. He’s the man.”

That is a rather simplified version of events, of course. Multi-million-selling artists and business moguls like Jay-Z don’t just call 18-year-old singers in London on the off-chance they might be good.

Ora’s pursued a career in showbusiness from a young age, and went to the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School near Marble Arch.

The transition from theatre school to a professional life as a performer was difficult, she confesses, and there were a few bumps along the way.

“There are so many people leaving there each year as brilliant performers, plus all the other schools putting out the same amount of quality. I didn’t want to go to another performing arts college after I’d done my GCSEs, although most of my friends did. I just went to a regular college and carried on writing my songs. I followed my gut, really.”

I catch up with Ora again later that day. She’s at the BRIT Award nominations, where it’s revealed she’s up for two awards; Best Breakthrough and Best Single.

“I went to the BRITs last year and no one even noticed I was there, no one took a photograph or anything, and a year later I’m up for some awards,” she says while dodging the journalists on the bash’s red carpet. Some stories about her private life appeared in the papers that morning and she doesn’t feel like talking to anyone.

“I don’t think about it,” she says, of the non-music-related stories written about her. They generally concern her split with ex-boyfriend Rob Kardashian, and rumours of romances with other people.

“It’s not a distraction, and it doesn’t faze me,” she continues. “I have great people around me and I know the truth. The only time I take things into consideration is when my family are upset by something that’s been written.”

Ora talks about her family a fair amount and how close they are. She took her family to Dubai for Christmas and New Year as she said she’d not seen them much during the previous year, and another time, when one of her boobs fell out of her dress while on stage, captured by a row of photographers and published in newspapers the following day, the first and only person she had to call was her mum, to say sorry and to promise her it would never happen again.

Born in Pristina in the former Yugoslavia, now Kosovo, Ora moved to the UK with her Kosovar-Albanian parents when she was one, during the brutal conflict in the region.

She says her home country’s folk have been hugely supportive of her, and she loves the shock of telling people she’s actually from Kosovo. “I’m so proud to come from there.”

Rita Ora
O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
February 5

Leftwing comedy hero Alexei Sayle has just started his first full-length stand-up show in more than 15 years. He tells Laura Martin why political comedy is still important

Kathryn Bigelow, the only woman to have won an Oscar for directing, has tackled the hunt for Osama bin Laden in her controversial new movie. She meets Susan Griffin

At this year’s Golden Globes ceremony, flame-haired actress Jessica Chastain paid special thanks to her director, Kathryn Bigelow.

“I can’t help but compare my character to you, to a powerful, fearless woman that allows their expert work to stand before them,” said Chastain after receiving the award for her performance as a CIA agent who dedicates her life to hunting Osama bin Laden in Bigelow’s controversial new movie, Zero Dark Thirty.

Bigelow may not have set out to break gender rules with ‘macho-themed’ movies – such as iconic surfer-cop story Point Break, real-life naval account K-19: The Widowmaker, and Iraq-based bomb disposal tale The Hurt Locker (for which she became the first female to receive an Academy Award for directing) – but, as Chastain observed, she’s successfully managed to “disobey the conventions of Hollywood”.

“That’s not, let’s say, a reason to engage in a particular topic,” says Bigelow, who still looks incredible at 61, dressed in knee-high boots, jeans and a fitted jacket when we meet at The Soho Hotel.

“What’s interesting to me is the topicality of something,” she says. “Certainly with The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, it’s the fact that these stories are contemporaneous with our lives.

“There’s an urgency, a resonance and a topicality that as a filmmaker makes it very stimulating and exciting material to work with.”

Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the hunt for Osama bin Laden preoccupied the world for more than a decade.

In the end, it took a small, dedicated team of CIA operatives to track him down to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011.

“It’s the story of finding a very sharp needle in a very large haystack,” notes Bigelow.
“Once bin Laden escaped from Afghanistan, he fenced himself in with a byzantine network that took years and years to unravel.”

Every aspect of the operatives’ mission was shrouded in secrecy and, while some of the details have since been made public, many of the most significant parts of the intelligence operation are revealed for the first time in Zero Dark Thirty (which is the military code for the time – 12.30am – when the unit of Navy SEALs first stepped into bin Laden’s hiding place).

“The war on terror’s touched everybody around the world, especially the families of 9/11 and first responders and military intelligence professionals, and it was a real honour to tell a story of that long, dark decade between 9/11 and May 1, 2011 [the date of bin Laden’s death].”

The greatest creative challenge faced by Bigelow and Mark Boal – the journalist-turned-screenwriter and producer of both this movie and The Hurt Locker – was how to tell a multifaceted story within the time frame of a movie.

“That was tricky because you’ve got masses of information and you’re compressing it into two-and-a-half hours,” says California-born Bigelow, who trained as an artist before turning to filmmaking.

“But the events were inherently very dramatic and the narrative kind of lined up fairly well, certainly around the main characters.”

The project actually began as a film about the failure to capture bin Laden in Tora Bora; the crew was in pre-production when they heard that bin Laden had been killed.
Boal, who’s been Bafta- and Oscar-nominated for his screenplay, had to start again.
He travelled to Washington, Pakistan and parts of the Middle East for several months, diving into 80-plus hour weeks to gather first-hand accounts from those involved in the hunt.

“For me, it was interesting to give the audience a glimpse inside the intelligence community and inside an operation that was so incredibly complex and definitely successful but against impossible odds,” says Bigelow.

“The public knows very little about what the unsung heroes in the intelligence community go through, which is as it has to be, but here you get a rare opportunity to understand the men and women at the heart of one of the most covert operations in our history.”

That’s primarily achieved through the experiences of Chastain’s character, Maya, who over the decade morphs from a shell-shocked new recruit to a steely operative.

Along with the audience, Maya’s plunged into the hunt for bin Laden by witnessing the unsettling experience of an “enhanced interrogation” sequence of an Al Qaeda detainee.

“As a human being I wanted to cover my eyes, but as a filmmaker, I felt a responsibility to document and bear witness,” says Bigelow of the controversial torture scenes that have sparked furious worldwide debate.

“I think in a way it’s a compliment to the film to have stimulated such a vital conversation. It’s only disappointing when the film is mischaracterised.”

Determined not to shoot on soundstages, filming took place on three continents, and involved night-vision shots, 120 speaking parts and an exact replica of bin Laden’s compound.

“It [the shoot] was, by far, more complicated than anything I’d done before, even The Hurt Locker, which I thought was very difficult at the time,” says Bigelow.

But if she ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer scope of what she’d undertaken, she doesn’t admit it.

“Actually I was just so honoured to tell this story. I think of it as a story of a lifetime, so I was just very excited and very proud.”

The film has been nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, but Bigelow won’t be in the running for Best Director.

“What I’m excited by is the fact that the film is performing so well at the box office,” says Bigelow. “There’s such an outpouring of excitement for it, so that’s really what’s incredibly gratifying.”

Zero Dark Thirty is released on Friday, January 25

A new play starring Mr Bean actor Rowan Atkinson is about to open in the West End

Quartermaine’s Terms will be the first play that comedy legend Rowan Atkinson has starred in for almost 25 years, and his first stage outing since his celebrated turn as Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh’s Oliver! Written by Simon Gray, the tragi-comic piece centres on an English-language school for foreigners, where St John Quartermaine (Atkinson) does a great job as the kind confidant of every other staff member but is useless at the actual teaching work.

Dealing principally with the theme of loneliness, it is an often moving and heartfelt piece, yet heavily comedic at the same time. Former National Theatre artistic director and all-round theatrical heavyweight Sir Richard Eyre will direct the production, with design from Olivier and Tony Award-winner Tim Hatley.

Quartermaine’s Terms, Wyndham’s Theatre, January 23-April 13, £25-£85, quartermainesterms.com

Metamorphosis, one of the most successful shows in the history of the Lyric, is back with its mind-bending journey through a Kafka classic   

A man awakes one day to find that he has transformed into a grotesque insect. Oh that is soooo Kafka-esque. Well, actually it’s soooo Kafka. Metamorphosis is one of the defining works by the influential German writer, and the subject of countless adaptations for both stage and screen.

This version by David Farr and Gísli Örn Garðarsson won widespread acclaim when it played at the Lyric in 2006 and 2008, not least for the athletic physicality of its staging (the work of Garðarsson’s outstanding Vesturport theatre company, who have a fine line in exhilarating, circus-infused reinventions of classic texts). 

It’s now returning to the theatre for a limited run, complete with a haunting score by Nick Cave and Warren Elis, and Börkur Jónsson’s marvelous split-level set.

Metamorphosis, The Lyric, January 17-February 9, £12-£35, lyric.co.uk

Luisa Omielan burst onto the scene last year with her hilarious show, What Would Beyonce Do?! Nicky Williams meets her ahead of a hotly-anticipated run at Soho Theatre

Right Luisa, tell us everything you’ve been doing between birth and 30, but leave out the boring bits. No pressure.

I grew up in Farnborough in Hampshire. Both my parents are Polish. Growing up I loved comedy – it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I loved American comedy – actors like Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams. I went to a comedy university in America where I studied things like clowning, improv, script-writing and joke-writing. I’ve been doing stand-up for the last four-and-a-half years and finally brought together my wealth of experience to create a solo show, What Would Beyoncé Do?!

Wait, you went to comedy university? Was that like a comedic version of Fame with people doing hilarious tumbles in the canteen?

Yeah, it was a bit. In America the most popular comedy show is Saturday Night Live. All the succesful acts from that show trained at these comedy schools, so I wanted to go to where the best were and learn from the greats.

How would you describe your particular brand of comedy?

Like a party with jokes in. I do jokes, silly voices, a lot of improv and talk about a lot of every day things – parents, boys, mental health.

So a lot of your show is based on stuff that’s actually happened to you?

Yes. Everyday life is the funniest. Everything I talk about in the show is real. It happened. That’s why I think people find they can relate to the show so much.

Why do you talk about approaching 30 so much?

You think ‘by the time I’m 30 I’ll have a house, I’ll have a car, I’ll be married, I’ll have kids’ and then you’re like ‘I live with my mum, I steal my little sister’s rail card to try and get cheaper trains. What’s happened to my life?’

So what’s the funniest thing you’ve seen in real life? I once saw someone slip over on a banana skin.

I was on a train once and some poor bloke was in the toilet cubicle, trousers round his ankles and the doors flew open. He tried to press the door close button, but because he was in a panic he hit it twice so the doors flew open again. He was mortified.

What’s the worst heckle you’ve ever had?

I was doing my spiel about rejection and one man started making some noise and getting up to leave. So I said to him ‘hey – I’m talking about rejection and you’re getting up to leave. How do you think that makes me feel? You’re just compounding my daddy issues,’ then everyone started booing me and shouting ‘off off off’. Turns out he was having a heart attack.

Ok, so what would Beyoncé do if…

1. She’s given the wrong burger at McDonald’s
Beyoncé’s very nice and humble and would be like: ‘oh thank you for my burger’. She’d leave a tip, be sweet and polite, but on the way out she’d make sure her management team got the girl fired.

2. Her friend’s mum makes her tea the wrong way?

Drink the tea graciously – she’s a big mama fan, her mum is her manager. She’d show a lot of respect to the woman. But then again, on the way out, get her management to have that woman shot.

3. She doesn’t know anyone at a party?

She carries a smoke machine wherever she goes just in case she encounters such a situation. Then she’d turn off the music and start blasting out Crazy in Love. Uh oh uh oh uh oh etc.

Would we like your show?

If you like Beyoncé, you’re going to love my show. It’s Bootilicious. Bring it.

Did you just say ‘bring it’?

I did indeed.

Luisa Omielan:What Would Beyonce Do?!
January 17-26
Soho Theatre
sohotheatre.com

Damon Smith reviews Quentin Tarantino’s bloodthirsty new revenge western

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and Quentin Tarantino turns the temperature gauge to subzero in this gory western set in mid-19th century Texas, where slave Django (Jamie Foxx) and flamboyant German bounty hunter Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) join forces to bring down slippery plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Django Unchained boasts some bravura sequences, including a hysterical interlude with an inept chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. However, you can have too much of a good thing. Running to a buttock-numbing 165 minutes, Django Unchained screams out – unheard – for a judicious editor to prune the extraneous guff, including swathes of the final act when the director himself plies a laughable accent as a bumbling Australian slave driver.

With the London Bike Show opening at ExCel on January 17, we round-up the best gear to get you back in the saddle

Bell yeah

If you really love your bike, the dring dring sound of this ‘turntable’ bell (pictured above) will be music to your ears.

DJ Bell, £16.99 from cyclechic.co.uk

Getting shirty

Fed-up of getting to work with a shirt creased in your bag? This will keep it neat – and protected from your sandwiches.

Shirt Shuttle Mark 2, £40 from patrona.com

 

Oscar winner Jamie Foxx beat five other actors to the lead role in Quentin Tarantino’s new Western. He tells Kate Whiting why it was such a personal project 

Jamie Foxx is in high spirits in a hotel in the Mexican holiday resort of Cancun. It’s all the more impressive considering he played an impromptu DJ set in the early hours the night before.

He’s here with fellow actors Christoph Waltz and Kerry Washington and cult director Quentin Tarantino to talk about Tarantino’s latest blood-soaked epic, Django Unchained.

Foxx is the epitome of cool, and manages to juggle two high-profile careers – as a stellar actor in films like Collateral and Ray (for which he won an Oscar), and as a Grammy award-winning singer.

But he still seems completely humbled that Tarantino picked him to play the lead.

“I had seen Quentin at a lot of parties, but I was still just so honoured to be considered for the role,” he says.

Quentin Tarantino in action on the set of Django Unchained

Foxx plays the Django of the title, a slave bought by German dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr King Schultz, played by Waltz, who worked with Tarantino on Inglourious Basterds.

Schultz wants help catching notorious criminals the Brittle brothers and agrees to free Django once they’re dead, and then to help him find his wife, Broomhilda, who was sold to evil plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo Dicaprio).

Typically Tarantino, Django Unchained is genre busting – part slave narrative, part Spaghetti Western and revenge romp, with just a dash of love story.

It’s set in the south, two years before the Civil War, at a time when the Constitution said slaves were only three-fifths human. Cue some classic Tarantino violence and heavy use of the N-word.

For Foxx, far from being put off by the subject matter, it touched a nerve, and reminded him of growing up in Texas.

“It was the most incredible script I’ve read in all my life. I thought, ‘Who has the guts to tell it like it really is?’ The way he tells the story, it rips your flesh off.”

At his first meeting with the director, the 45-year-old felt compelled to share his own experiences of racism.

“When I met with Quentin, first thing I told him was about my experiences. As a kid growing up in Texas, there were some things where the racial component was definitely elevated. So I told him those experiences are going to come out when we start shooting this movie.”

Foxx has since said “being called a n***** as a young kid by white people was something I had to deal with”, which made the project all the more personal.

“When a project becomes magic and special it means that at certain points in the script it parallels your story.”

Foxx beat five other actors to the role, including Will Smith. Working in his favour was the fact he could already ride horses. 

“About four-and-a-half years ago, I got a horse for my birthday and started riding. And the next thing you know, I run into this cinematic genius, as I call him: Quentin Tarantino. He says he has a Western and I say, ‘Well I happen to have my own horse’. Now my horse Cheetah is in the movie!”

Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained

When the actor’s sister came on set, he was given the ultimate seal of approval.

“She’s from South Dallas – from the ‘hood, you know – and for people where we come from, you never really get a chance to see the black cowboy,” says Foxx.

“When we got in the Western gear, cowboy hats and guns, and we rode up on the horses, I looked at my sister and her eyes welled up, like, ‘Wow, you’re a real cowboy’.”

Working for Tarantino means you’re never quite sure what you’re going to be doing, and one scene sees Foxx hanging upside down fully naked.

But for all the hard graft, the director always rewards his cast.

“I’ve never been on a set where it’s been that much fun,” says Foxx, grinning. “He plays music in between takes. Every 100 rolls of film we do shots – Tequila, or the last thing we had was Mint Julep. Working on something like this, you need that release.

“And he’s gracious. I watched him when we were on the chain gang. It was 28 degrees, but he went to every person – every guy that was on the chain gang, whether he had a line or not – and made sure they were ok.”

Speaking about the on-screen love story between Django and Broomhilda, Foxx explains it would have been very unusual for slaves to be married.

“To be married was taboo. You could be killed. They forced copulation back then, so the strongest buck would mate with the strongest black woman so the owners could get stronger slaves. 

“So Django being married is a big thing. That’s what fuels him. He’s not trying to stop slavery. He’s trying to find the love of his life.”

Foxx is not married, but has two daughters from previous relationships who he took on to the set of Django Unchained so they could see the slave quarters.

“You can’t walk through those places and not feel something. I let them walk through, and I said, ‘This is where you come from’.”

For his next role, it’s rumoured Foxx will be playing Spider-Man’s nemesis Electro, but he also won’t rule out becoming one of Tarantino’s frequent collaborators.

“I look forward to having that type of relationship with Quentin here on out.”

Django Unchained is released in cinemas on Friday, January 18

The National Theatre’s sell-out production of A Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-Time transfers to the Apollo Theatre in the West End from March 1, and to mark the occasion we’re giving away a pair of tickets, plus pre-theatre dinner at Inamo St James.

Christopher, 15, stands beside Mrs Shears’ dead dog. It has been speared with a garden fork, and Christopher is under suspicion.

The teenager has an extraordinary brain, exceptional at maths while ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, detests being touched and distrusts strangers. But his detective work to uncover the true killer of the dog takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world.

Inamo St James
Situated on Lower Regent Street this is the sister restaurant of Inamo in Soho. Take complete control of your dining experience, with the world’s first interactive ordering system, beamed onto your table. Order your food and drinks, choose your virtual tablecloth, watch the chefs at work on ‘chef cam’, play games, and much more, all through your interactive table surface.

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here - competition closes Sunday Jan 20 2013.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Photo: Kate Moss No.12, Gloucestershire, 2010

The breadth of compositions in Juergen Teller’s new exhibition at the ICA showcases the talent of one of the greatest celebrity photographers

Juergen Teller is one of the only photographers in the world to have achieved major success in both art and fashion.

Perhaps more famously, the German-born London-based photographer is also the man who managed to talk countless celebs into a range of startlingly brave (and often barmy) poses.

Kate Moss lying bedraggled in a wheelbarrow: that was his. A naked Vivienne Westwood spread-eagled on the couch: yup, him too. Charlotte Rampling and model Raquel Zimmermann posing naked in front of the Mona Lisa: Teller again. Victoria Beckham submerged in a shopping bag, with only her dangling legs visible: you get the idea.

How does he get them to agree to such things? Well, being one of the world’s most celebrated photographers certainly helps. But, of course, it’s the skill and vision that got him there that lead the great and the good to submit to his whacky whims.

They say that every Teller picture tells a story – even the advertising shots for the likes of Marc Jacobs and Yves Saint Laurent. And you can work them out for yourself when The ICA hosts the first major UK survey of his work in a decade.

Among the pieces on display will be the image of Moss dans wheelbarrow, a beautifully tender 1993 image of Bjork with her son in the Blue Lagoon, the afore-mentioned Westwood image (along with other nudes of the flame-haired designer), and a series of photos produced for a weekly column in Die Zeit magazine, including some controversial nude shots of model Lily Cole.

As well as spanning both his artistic and commercial careers, the exhibition will also include a variety of family portraits and plenty of images that also feature Teller himself – as “the naked muse”. What is it they say about genius and madness?

Juergen Teller: Woo
ICA
January 23-March 17
ica.org.uk

From frothy pop to post rock, and tender folk to classic grime, there are gigs to get even the pickiest toes tapping over the next few months  

One Direction at The O2,
February 23-24 & April 1,2,4 & 5

Behold, the biggest boy band in the world. Whether your favourite is Harry, Zayn, Niall, Louis or Liam, get your vocal cords in training for some serious screaming. There’s no denying the chaps have some fantastic pop songs, which is obviously why they attract such rabidly obsessive fans – nothing to do with them being really quite good-looking or anything. Honest. This mega-run of shows includes matinees, so you can indulge in a spot of afternoon 1Delight.
£25-£33.50, theo2.co.uk

 

Foals at Royal Albert Hall, March 28

Hearing Foals’ captivating songs live is always a treat. But when they’re in the Royal Albert Hall’s main space they become something very special indeed. This date will see the Oxford lads joined by post-rock wunderkinds Efterklang, who played some astonishing shows with the Northern Sinfonia at the Southbank Centre last year. These kinds of acts aren’t standard Royal Albert Hall fodder, but the venue’s Albert Sessions programme is broadening what’s on offer while subsidising ticket costs, so it won’t cost you an arm and a leg to be there. This date includes two shows – at 3.30pm and 8.15pm.
£15-£17.50, royalalberthall.com

 

Sigur Ros
at O2 Academy Brixton,March 7-9

Undoubtedly one of Iceland’s finest exports, Sigur Ros will be bringing their epic, haunting and achingly beautiful sounds to O2 Academy Brixton for three nights. The band will perform tracks from sixth album Valtari, as well as classics such as Sæglópur and Hoppípolla. Yes, we can’t pronounce them either, but you’ll know them from The Life of Pi film trailer and the BBC’s incredible Planet Earth series respectively.
£33, o2academybrixton.co.uk

Mercury Prize winners Alt-J

Alt-J at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, January 18 & 19

The least surprising winners in the history of the Mercury Prize show why they were so deserving of the award with two dates at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, where they’ll be playing tracks from debut album An Awesome Wave. Sure to be a road-block, these dates are among the hottest on the calendar in 2013. If, like many, you’re unable to get tickets, they’ll also be playing at O2 Academy Brixton in May.
£15.40, o2shepherdsbushempire.co.uk

 

Wiley, Skepta and JME
at The Forum, April 20

The godfather of grime, Wiley, is joined by fellow Boy Better Know founders JME and Skepta – heavyweights in the scene themselves – for what will be a masterclass in the genre. Expect some of the gang’s classic hits, such as Too Many Man and Duppy, as well as Wiley’s number 3 hit Can You Hear Me? (Ayayaya). Get set for a night where east London goes north. 
£14.50, theforumlondon.com

 

Of Monsters and Men
at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, March 5-7

Another wonderful band to come out of Iceland, Of Monsters and Men had one of the biggest indie hits of 2012: the ubiquitous Little Talks. Hailed as “the new Arcade Fire” by Rolling Stone, the six-piece create fast, thunderous, brass-
and piano-driven pop, which puts a massive grin on your face and a wiggle in your behind.
£17.60, o2shepherdsbushempire.co.uk

 

Girls Aloud at The O2,
March 1-3

It’s 10 years since the five piece met and were formed before our very eyes on Popstars the Rivals. And what a decade it has been. We’ve enjoyed some winningly edgy pop, followed by solo careers of varying success and the tabloid phenomenon that is Cheryl Cole. But now they’re back together, armed with a few new songs and ready to reclaim their place at the top of the pop pile.
£42.50-£49.50, theo2.co.uk

 

Billy Cobham Band at Ronnie Scott’s, February 18-23

Drummer Billy Cobham is peerless. His percussion acrobatics, skill and innovation have rightly earned him recognition as the greatest fusion drummer ever. Not only this, but he was instrumental in the early days of electronic music – one of the first to use the Electronic Drum Controller, way back in 1968. This short residency is one of the jazz gigs of the year.
£30-£50, ronniescotts.co.uk

Damon Smith reviews hot new crime flick Gangster Squad

Based on the real-life battle for the streets of late 1940s and early 1950s Los Angeles, Gangster Squad is a stylish crime thriller directed with verve by Ruben Fleischer, punctuated by explosions of graphic violence. The simple premise – a covert team of police officers led by Sgt John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) and partner Sgt Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) bends the law in order to bring down boxer-turned-thug Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) and his henchmen – conjures fond memories of Brian De Palma’s Prohibition-era drama, The Untouchables. Screenwriter Will Beall introduces a slightly undernourished romantic subplot between Wooters and Cohen’s latest squeeze, actress Grace Faraday (Emma Stone). Penn chews scenery with obvious relish while impeccable production design evokes the era when sharp-suited men traded bullets and polished one-liners beneath the iconic Hollywoodland sign.

Jon Holmes starts the new year with a new job – fronting the Xfm Breakfast Show. The Sony Entertainment Award-winning broadcaster and comedian, who has most recently been heard on BBC6Music and filling in for Graham Norton on Radio 2, got behind the brekkie mic for the first time on Monday. Known for his controversial humour, there’s a fair chance he’ll have people choking into their cornflakes – either through laughter or shock.

Let’s go for a drink – Scout’s buying. Where shall we go?
For a bar we could try something poncy in Soho. If it’s a pub you’re after then The George on Great Portland Street does a fine, convivial ale. Failing that, let’s just get some cider from the offy and sit on the swings in the park.

Charming. Now, how about a bite to eat?
Villandry, also on Great Portland Street, do a good line in hand cut chips with parmesan and truffle oil. Or we can get crisps with our cider.

What’s your favourite London venue?
I like Koko in Camden for its old-fashioned velvety velvet. The O2 Academy Islington feels like a serial killer’s windowless basement and is all the better for it. Otherwise, The Roundhouse is a good all rounder, in both senses of the word.

Tell us about a great cultural experience you’ve had recently?
I saw a pigeon fly straight into a busker’s face. It was almost poetic.

What’s your secret London tip for Londoners?
As Samuel Johnson never said: “When a man is tired of London, get a tube home.”

Tune in to the new Xfm Breakfast Show, weekdays from 6-10am on 104.9FM and xfm.co.uk

Photo: James McAvoy will return to the stage for a new production of Macbeth

From A-list movie stars to high-kicking musical numbers, there’s plenty be cheery about on the London stage this season

Port
National Theatre
January 22-March 24

Port was one of the first plays by celebrated writer Simon Stephens, who went on to pen hits including Harper Regan, Punk Rock and Pornography. Having premiered to rave reviews at the Royal Exchange in Manchester in 2002, the bleak coming-of-age story about a girl growing up in Manchester is being revived by the National, with original director Marianne Elliott.
£12-£34, nationaltheatre.org.uk

Macbeth
Trafalgar Studios
February 9-April 27

Movie star James McAvoy will be treading the boards for the first time since 2009 in the title role of Shakespeare’s pitch-black and bloody tale of power, greed and murder. Jamie Lloyd will direct as part of the Trafalgar Transformed series of politically-charged plays at the theatre.
£24.50-£65, atgtickets.com

Trelawny of the Wells
Donmar Warehouse
February 15-April 13

Joe Wright, the director of films such as Atonement and Anna Karenina, will make his theatre-directing debut with this production of Arthur Wing Pinero’s comic play about an actor who abandons his profession for love, with unexpected consequences.
£10-£35, donmarwarehouse.com

Quartermaine’s Terms
Wyndham’s Theatre
January 23-April 13

Rowan Atkinson will star in Richard Eyre’s production of this gently comic 1982 play by Simon Gray. Set in the 1960s, it tells of the relationship between teachers at an English-as-a-foreign-language school in Cambridge.
£25-£58.50, quartermainesterms.com

Once
Phoenix Theatre
March 16-November 30

Remember that sweetly romantic film about a busker in Dublin who falls in love with a young Czech immigrant? Well some shrewd American theatre folk turned it into a hit Broadway musical that scooped eight Tony Awards, and now they’re bringing it over here.
£19.50-£67.50, oncemusical.co.uk

Feast
Young Vic
January 25-February 23

One of the season’s most epic productions is this from London Road director Rufus Norris. Written by five playwrights from five countries that were all deeply affected by the enslaving of West Africa’s Yoruba people, the piece follows the spirits of three sisters – from Nigeria in the 1700s to London in 2013 – in its exploration of Yoruba culture through the ages.
£10-£30, youngvic.org

The Audience
Gielgud Theatre
February 15-June 15

Having won an Oscar for playing the monarch in Stephen Frears’ celebrated film, The Queen, Helen Mirren will once again be taking on the formidable role of Her Maj in this new play by the same writer, Peter Morgan, who also wrote Frost/Nixon and The Last King of Scotland. The Audience dramatises the weekly meetings between the Queen and her various prime ministers through the ages, and will be overseen by Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry.
£10-£59, theaudienceplay.com

Playing Cards: Spades
The Roundhouse
February 7-March 2

Globally-revered theatre-maker Robert Lepage is to stage four plays at The Roundhouse, each themed around a suit in a deck of cards. This first chapter should see him bring his usual virtuosity and visual wizardry, with a piece set in Las Vegas on the eve of the 2003 Iraq invasion.
£15-£45, roundhouse.org.uk

Peter and Alice
Noël Coward Theatre
March 9-June 1

A real-life encounter between the woman who inspired Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland and the man who inspired JM Barrie’s Peter Pan forms the basis of this new play by John Logan, with Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw (pictured above) as the now grown-up icons of children’s literature. The production is part of a season of celeb-heavy plays from the Michael Grandage Company.
£10-£57.50, michaelgrandagecompany.com

January 9 was the 150^th anniversary of the London Underground, celebrated by (among other things) a series of commemorative stamps from Royal Mail

Back in the middle of the 19^th century, it took longer to travel across our extraordinarily congested city by horse-drawn bus or taxi than it did to travel from London to Brighton on the train. And then some bright spark suggested building an underground railway. “Oh that’ll never work,” scoffed the inevitable naysayers, “no future in it whatsoever.” How wrong they were.

January 9 was exactly 150 years since the first steam-powered Metropolitan Railway train chugged its way beneath the city from Paddington to Farringdon, thereby becoming the world’s first underground railway.

Since then the Tube has become an indelible part of the city. It’s also sheltered people during the Blitz and helped to breath new life into run-down areas. And today it carries well over a billion people a year around London.

There are numerous commemorative activities going on to mark the anniversary, including the issuing of some rather lovely stamps by Royal Mail. Tracking the history of the tube (one of the subtler puns we came up with), the set of 10 stamps begins with a lithograph of a train on the inaugural line, and finishes with an image of Norman Foster’s spectacular Canary Wharf station – opened in 1999. Along the way, the stamps cover the tunneling work itself, the iconic art deco station designs, the classic Rolling Stock trains and the suburban commutes that the Tube facilitates.

So get yourself some stamps and send a few letters (remember them) to friends around the world to remind them how great the Tube is…though maybe don’t mention how much we have to pay for it.

Damon Smith reviews the hotly-anticipated film adaptation of one of the world’s most successful
stage musicals

Les Miserables (12A)

Tom Hooper, Oscar-winning director of The King’s Speech, dreamed a dream of immortalising Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s powerhouse musical without the conventional safety net of lip-synching and playback. That audacious gamble – asking the actors to sing live in every take – pays off handsomely, including a cri de coeur from Anne Hathaway as a much abused and self-sacrificing mother that guarantees the statuesque actress her Oscar next month. Hugh Jackman is equally impressive, teasing out the heartbreaking emotion as parole-breaking convict Jean Valjean, whose arduous flight to freedom is pursued by wily Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe). Les Misérables is a towering achievement in front of and behind the camera, capturing the revolutionary fervour of 19th century Paris as actors sing their hearts out in lip-quivering close-up. Magnifique!

Experience some incredible artistry at the London International Mime Festival, which gets underway this week 

What qualifies as ‘mime’ in contemporary theatre? Quite a lot actually, if the London International Mime Festival is anything to go by. There aren’t any white gloves or stripy shirts round here, thank you very much. Rather, this is an annual “festival of contemporary visual theatre” – which translates as circus, puppetry, aerial acrobatics and otherworldly illusion.

This is the 37^th year of the festival, which will stage productions in a variety of venues around the city, including the Southbank Centre, the Barbican, Soho Theatre, the Royal Opera House and the Roundhouse.

There are many great shows to choose from, but out top picks include: aerial theatre piece Ockham’s Razor, staged as an immersive promenade performance at Platform Theatre; puppetry show The Heads from celebrated company Blind Summit at Soho Theatre; disorientating physical theatre piece Leo and the visual trickery of Plan B, both at the Southbank Centre; Hans was Heiri, which sees seven performers jump, climb, dance and tumble through a spinning house at the Barbican; and Smashed, the mind-blowing juggling spectacular that was the hit of last year’s show, at the Royal Opera House.

Various venues and prices, January 10-27, mimelondon.com

The Intercontinental Group has just opened a new hotel in Westminster, and with it comes this lauded restaurant. Indulging in the pulled pork/barbecue meat craze that the likes of Pitt Cue Co have sparked, plus our seemingly indefatigable current love of steak, Blue Boar is bang on trend.

It is named after the Blue Boar’s Head Inn that was famous for feeding and watering Westminster’s population from the late 14th century right up to its demolition in 1899. Similar cultural references are found throughout the restaurant and hotel through specially-commissioned artwork, including a mesmerising painting by Agamaria Pasternak, which contains the faces of every MP in parliament.

While there are plenty of fun nods to the restaurant’s parliamentary location in the decor, the menu itself is much more Deep South than SW1. No dish characterises this more so than the Blue Boar Ribs, which are available as either starter or main. Served poking animalistically out of an elaborate silverware bucket, they boast tender flesh, a sticky coating that’s slightly spicy and not too sweet, and with surprisingly little fat – they’re exemplary.

A starter of deep-fried duck egg served atop a garlic butter-soaked slice of toast piled with wild mushrooms turns out to be our only non-meat dish of the meal. It’s earthy, creamy and crisp in all the right places.

But it’s the meat that is the focus. A veal T-Bone steak, served beautifully pink in a caper and anchovy sauce, is a recommendation by our waiter – one we wouldn’t hesitate to back up. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but if you’re salivating at the idea of getting your teeth stuck into a chunk of rich meat complete with the hedonistic extras of melting fat and a smoky char-grilled surface, then this is your bag.

The award of best bag, however, has to go to the Carpetbag Hereford Fillet Steak. Popular in America in the 1950s, this dish sees the fillet cut open and stuffed with an oyster before being cooked and served – in our opinion, the rarer the better. The combination of bloody meat and salty oyster is a powerful one, hitting the taste buds like a surf and turf tsunami. At £25, it’s something of a treat, but worth every penny.

Side dishes are unexciting in comparison, though Parmesan coated corn-on-the-cobs stand out from the vegetable crowd. Roast potatoes and chunky chips are at the other end of the spectrum, neither crisp nor fluffy enough to match the quality of the mains.

Desserts may not be a priority, and a Chocolate Seven Ways tasting plate is hardly dynamic, but for a selection of mousse, crumble, ice-cream, brownie and jelly to slip down nicely even after all that meat is still impressive.

37-45 Tothill Street SW1H 9LQ
Nearest Tube: St James’s Park

Fancy a trip to the theatre? Here are some of this week’s hottest new openings

The Judas Kiss

Duke of York’s Theatre, January 9-April 6, £20-£65

David Hare’s play about the destructive relationship between Oscar Wilde and his spoiled and selfish young lover, Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie), didn’t fare well with critics when it premiered in the West End in 1998. This revival, however, has attracted far more praise.

Rupert Everett (pictured above) takes the role of Wilde, with rising star Freddie Fox as Bosie, in a production directed by Australian theatre titan Neil Armfield. Having opened at Hampstead Theatre in September, it is now getting a well-deserved West End transfer.

WC2N 4BG / Leicester Square / thejudaskiss.co.uk

Kristin Scott Thomas in rehearsals for Old Times

Old Times

Harold Pinter Theatre, January 12-April 6, £10-£49.50

There’s more star power on offer in this revival of a 1971 play by Harold Pinter. One of the UK’s most revered actresses, Kristin Scott Thomas, will star alongside multi-award-winner Rufus Sewell and acclaimed stage and screen actress Lia Williams.

The play – about the conflicting reminiscences of a couple and their visiting friend – will be directed by Ian Rickson, whose credits include Hamlet at the Young Vic (starring Michael Sheen) and the incredible Jerusalem, which won feverish acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. It will be the first of Pinter’s plays to be staged at the theatre since it was renamed in his honour.

SW1Y 4DN / Piccadilly Circus / oldtimestheplay.com

American Justice

Arts Theatre, January 10-February 9, £22.50

A biting and caustic play about the penal system under Obama, American Justice has garnered rave reviews around the UK and is now finally heading to the West End.

Written by Richard Vergette, it tells of a newly-elected congressman who steps in to prevent his daughter’s murderer from being executed, instead asking for the chance to educate the illiterate criminal himself. Is this just a selfless act of altruism or does the congressman have ulterior motives? And what secrets does the convict himself have? All is gradually (and occasionally suddenly) revealed in this tightly-woven political thriller.

WC2H 7JB / Leicester Square / americanjusticetheplay.com

No Quarter

Royal Court, January 11-February 9, £10-£20

Both conspicuously young and talented, 26-year-old playwright Polly Stenham is returning to the Court with her third play (after previous hits That Face and Tusk Tusk), described as “an anarchic twist on the drawing room drama”.

SW1W 8AS / Sloane Square / royalcourttheatre.com

Monkey Bars, coming to the Unicorn Theatre

Monkey Bars

Unicorn Theatre, January 9-26, £10-£16

Bespoke children’s theatre The Unicorn is throwing out its own rulebook and staging a show for adults – but with a twist. Writer Chris Goode asked 30 eight- to 10-year-olds to talk about their lives and thoughts about the world. He then put their words into the mouths of adult actors and created one of the hit shows of last year’s Edinburgh Fringe. 

SE1 2HZ / London Bridge / unicorntheatre.com

The Silence of the Sea

Trafalgar Studios, January 10-February 2, £22

This story of an old man and his niece who use silence as a way of displaying opposition to a soldier occupying their house was published secretly in Nazi-occupied Paris, and became a symbol of psychological resistance against the Germans. It is part of the Donmar Warehouse’s season at the Traqfalgar. 

SW1A 2DY / Charing Cross / donmarwarehouse.com

Fair Em

Union Theatre, January 8-February 9, £18

One of the city’s most charming fringe theatres is to stage this fun romantic comedy that is argued by some to have been a collaborative effort between Shakespeare and other Elizabethan writers.

SE1 0LX / Southwark / uniontheatre.biz

The 50^th anniversary of Doctor Who is to be celebrated with a year-long season at BFI Southbank

Believe it or not, 2013 marks half a century since the world’s favourite time lord first flew through the vortex and onto our screens. Since then, we’ve seen him take on 11 different bodies, smite countless evil enemies and save multiple civilisations, while winning oodles of awards and recognition in the process. So it’s time to say thank you and happy birthday to Doctor Who.

BFI Southbank will be doing this with a year-long celebration of the series that will include screenings of classic episodes and celebrity Q&As, with each month devoted to one of the 11 Doctors, from William Hartnell all the way through to Matt Smith.

Among the highlights will be an exclusive screening of the new colour-restored print of 1971 classic The Mind of Evil (in March), and a special preview of An Adventure in Space and Time, a brand new drama written by Mark Gatiss to celebrate the 50^th anniversary (in November).

Things get underway on Saturday (January 12) with a screening of the first ever episode, An Unearthly Child, which introduced us both to the Doctor and his TARDIS time machine. Q&A guests are yet to be announced. Check the website for details. 

bfi.org.uk

A new photo exhibition of a North Korean national celebration offers a fascinating glimpse inside the secretive state

Ever wondered how the opening ceremony might look in the unlikely event that the Olympics were held in North Korea? Well, these impressive images offer a pretty good idea.

Taken by award-winning photo-journalist Jeremy Hunter, they provide a rare glimpse of the secretive nation’s annual Arirang Mass Games. This huge-scale art and gymnastics display involves 100,000 impeccably synchronized performers, half of whom are teenagers who create the incredible picture backdrops using flip-cards, while gymnasts perform choreographed routines in front.

As you might imagine, the event is heavy on propaganda and nationalism, telling the story of the country through 90 minutes of North Korean iconography, such as a rising sun to symbolise former ruler Kim Il Sung.

Few westerners are ever allowed to witness the games, and it was only after lengthy negotiations that Hunter managed to gain access to last year’s event. It has since been announced that the 2012 games would be the last, making his images all the more significant.

The pictures will be on display at Atlas Gallery in Marylebone from January 16 to February 16.

Free, atlasgallery.com

Looking for something interesting to do this weekend? How about taking the ultimate audience member challenge and booking a ticket to a 50-hour improvised comedy soap opera?

Picture this: Whose Line Is It Anyway but with a cast of around 50, all improvising a comedy soap opera that lasts a whopping 50 hours straight through. That’s right, more than two days of continuous improv, running day and night, only stopping for quick breaks between each two-hour ‘episode’. Welcome to the London Improvathon.

This annual event sees the world’s greatest improvisers all descend on the capital for a typically wild, uplifting, moving and generally hilarious marathon production. Forget Hamlet; forget Lear; forget headlining The O2; this is the Everest of both comedic and theatrical achievement.

Scout caught up with director Adam Meggido ahead of the 2013 event this weekend.

How do you direct something that is entirely improvised?

We keep the storylines going through the entire 50 hours, so I have to note down all of the stories that the actors start to try and make sure that they can be advanced and resolved as we go along. I will call the top of each scene, saying ‘these particular actors play this scene in this location’, but the actors have the freedom to do whatever they like outside of those parameters – they can walk in and out of any scene at any time, it’s just whatever tickles them. So it’s carefully structured, but entirely improvised.

And it’s accompanied by a live band – they must be very important too.

Absolutely. The musicians are integral to the direction of the narrative. They can, at any point, make very strong story offers. If they start playing dark, rumbling chords, then the actors will respond to that and something sinister might start to happen, so everyone is involved in this very live storytelling process. What’s so extraordinary is that the stories are brilliant. This isn’t your average improv night down the pub. This is big-scale drama, so as well as it being very funny, you’ll have audience members gasping and crying.

Does it get funnier as the actors get tired and start going off in more surreal directions?

A little bit. What happens is you get a different kind of comedy. The quality of the performers is so high that you’re always in good hands. But after 30 hours without sleep the part of your brain that censors you is too tired to function. So any remaining inhibition is gone, so yes, it’s a bit wilder and more surreal.

Is it at all dangerous?

It’s not dangerous, but to do too much of it would not be good for you. You go to some dark places. The second night without sleep is often referred to as the ‘gates of hell’, because you can get quite paranoid and start hallucinating, so you have to be careful. A lot of the actors will do close to 50 hours, but they’ll have two or three hours sleep here and there. But you’ll also have a group of veterans who refuse to sleep, who will push through as our flagship.

What’s the weirdest storyline a tired actor has ever led it down?

I don’t know where to begin. Put it this way: when it really gets surreal, it makes Monty Python look lame. But it doesn’t just stay surreal. It comes through it and suddenly sharpens into focus to become something extraordinary. The surreal hours, which are traditionally the early hours of Sunday morning, might be quite difficult for the actors to push through because it’s so odd. But it’s very very funny, and throughout Sunday they start to really hone in on what they are doing, and it becomes some of the best drama I’ve ever seen.

London Improvathon, Hoxton Hall, 7pm January 11 – 9pm January 13, £10 per episode or £55 for all 50 hours, hoxtonhall.co.uk 

Image: copyright The Trustees of the British Museum

Forthcoming exhibitions in the capital cover everything from ancient art to modern masters, while pondering one of the biggest questions out there

Manet: Portraying Life
The Royal Academy
January 26-April 14

This display of work by 19th century French painter Manet is one of the season’s most exciting shows. It will be the first retrospective of his portraiture – something that has never been explored in an exhibition before, even though it makes up around half of his artistic output. The images he created are of everyday life, and the 50 set for display demonstrate his forward-thinking, modern approach to portraiture.

Barocci: Brilliance and Grace
National Gallery February 27-May 19

Italian Renaissance painter Federico Barocci’s altarpieces are spectacular. This exhibition will showcase the best examples, including Entombment from Senigallia and Last Supper from Urbino Cathedral, which will be shown for the first time in the UK.

Simon Starling’s Tate Britain Commission
March 12-October 20

Every year, the Tate invites an artist to create a new work in response to the organisation’s art collection. This year, Turner Prize winner Simon Starling will be unveiling his creation: an ambitious new installation, developed for the Duveen galleries at the heart of Tate Britain. Starling famously won the Turner Prize in 2005 for his work ShedboatShed, which saw him dismantle a wooden shed on the banks of the river Rhine, transform it into a type of boat typical of the area and sail it down the river. It was finally reassembled as a shed and exhibited.

Ice Age Art
The British Museum February 7-May 26

Described as being 40,000 years in the making, this collection of exceptional artefacts from between 10,000 and 40,000 years ago includes a 23,000-year-old sculpture of an abstract figure from Lespugue, France, which so fascinated Picasso that it influenced his 1930s sculptural works. Other items, made from mammoth tusk and reindeer antler, will be presented alongside modern works by Henry Moore, Mondrian and Matisse.

Becoming Picasso: Paris 1901
The Courtauld February 14-May 26

Picasso’s debut exhibition in Paris, aged 19, was the beginning of an astonishing career. This display reunites major paintings from that exhibition, and shows how he took on and adapted the styles of contemporaries such as Van Gogh, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec.

Man Ray Portraits
National Portrait Gallery, February 7-May 27

One of the most significant contributors to the Dada and Surrealism movements, Man Ray was among the most innovative and influential artists of his generation. While he worked in a variety of media, he is best-known for his avant-garde photography and fashion shoots. Most of the 150 vintage prints to be displayed in this exhibition have never been seen in the UK before.

Extinction: Not the End of the World?
The Natural History Museum, February 8–September 8

Extinction – it has such an air of finality about it. But there’s more to it than death and more death. This exhibition will encourage you to think past the dinosaurs and dodos, to understand the crucial role extinction plays in the evolution of life. As well as bringing to life some  ex-species, it also looks at today’s endangered creatures and asks if conservation can save them.

A law unto himself – Tony Law is set to perform at the Soho Theatre

Don’t look so glum. Laugh away the winter blues with some fantastic stand-up comedy. Here’s our pick of what’s coming up over the next few months

Doctor Brown
Soho Theatre, March 25-April 20

Inventive mime artist Doctor Brown might have been the surprise winner of last year’s Edinburgh Comedy Award, but he certainly wasn’t an undeserving one. Forget what you think you know about mime and head along to this incredible show, where the one thing you won’t need to mime is laughter.
£12.50-£20, sohotheatre.com

Tony Law
Soho Theatre, February 18-March 2

Tony Law joked at Edinburgh last year that it had “taken him 12 years to get to this point” – the point of selling out a run and finally being accepted as more than just a whimsical also-ran in the tough world of stand-up. The jowly Canadian has been working at his surreal, self-referential schtick for years. And it shows. In Maximum Nonsense he mocks the art (or perhaps craft) of stand-up itself, satirising crummy comedy like a hairy Stewart Lee.
£12.50-£17.50, sohotheatre.com

Sarah Silverman
Bloomsbury Theatre, February 9

When she’s good, she’s utterly fabulous. The problem is that shock comedian Silverman has had a rather hit-and-miss run over the past few years. Her last visit to London, for a show at Hammersmith Apollo, was a disaster that saw the satirical taboo-trasher walking off stage after 40 minutes. And yet, there’s no denying that the Saturday Night Live alumnus is highly rated and has it in her to be pant-wettingly funny. Here’s hoping she’s on form for February.
£25, thebloomsbury.com

Pappy’s
Soho Theatre, April 1-20

Pappy’s divide opinion. If you went cerebral, meta-drenched comedy this is not the place to look. But if you just want to sit back and laugh your socks off at brilliantly anarchic silliness, you really need look no further. After years of ploughing away on the circuit to decent if not life-changing crowds, the madcap trio finally stepped up into the big leagues at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, where they bagged a nomination for the top award and garnered a slew of five star reviews to boot. This is a chance to see the show that won them all that acclaim.
£10-£15, sohotheatre.com

Simon Amstell
The Invisible Dot, January 7-9 & 14-16

You might not want to be invited to his Grandma’s House (Amstell’s rather disappointing sitcom), but remember his triumphs instead: on Popworld and Never Mind The Buzzcocks Amstell was a sardonic genius, and generally a breath of fresh air for mainstream TV. His stand-up act can be similarly funny, and is noted by many for its simmering intensity. He’s trying out new material at these smaller, more intimate dates.
£6, simonamstell.co.uk

Milton Jones
Hammersmith Apollo, April 19

Never less than greatly enjoyable, Milton Jones’s flights of whimsy take on the characteristics of a flock of pigeons released from a basket. If that sounds at all odd, it’s entirely in keeping with this straggle-haired surrealist’s typical set, which trades on the absurd flecks you find hidden in the most mundane of days.
£20, hammersmithapollo.com

Don’t fancy battling the New Year’s Eve bar queues? Lighten up and see in 2013 with some of the country’s top comedians instead.

The Boy with Tape on his Face, Duchess Theatre, West End

You don’t have to speak to be funny – as The Boy With Tape on his Face (pictured above) proves with this brilliant show, which wowed audiences in Edinburgh and is now on a West End run. You might even get some ideas for how to shut up your drunk friend when they start the ‘let’s make 2013 count’ speech. £22.50, duchesstheatre.co.uk

Late Night Gimp Fight – New Year’s Eve Bash, Soho Theatre

If you fancy seeing in the New Year in seriously bad taste (and we’re not talking Christmas jumpers), join sketch group Late Night Gimp Fight for sick jokes, twisted humour and Mexican wrestling masks. £20, £100 for a table of four with pitcher of beer or bottle of wine, sohotheatre.com

Amused Moose New Year Eve, Moonlighting, Soho

credit: Ed Moore

The award-winning club welcomes populist Hal Cruttenden, Rob Beckett (pictured) Gordon Southern and Ian Stone. And after all that laughter, you can bust out those New Year dance moves at the Moonlighting club’s New Year’s Eve party from 10pm. £22.50-£35, amusedmoose.com

Comedy Carnival, The Clapham Grand

Comedy Carnival alumni include Russell Brand, Michael McIntyre and Micky Flanagan. This New Year special features Canadian comic Glenn Wool, Live at The Apollo star Sara Pascoe (pictured) and British Comedy Award nominee John Moloney. £25 (show only), £40 (show and club night), comedycarnival.co.uk

Banana Cabaret, The Bedford, Balham

Renowned for high-quality acts, The Bedford pulls out all the stops this New Year’s Eve with veteran John Moloney (who’s also at the Clapham Grand) and the hilarious star of Pot Noodle adverts, Jarred Christmas (pictured). After the jokes, the DJ takes over until 4am. £25, £45 including meal, thebedford.co.uk

Comedy Store New Year’s Eve Stand-up Show, Comedy Store, West End

The Comedy Store’s annual bash has a well-deserved reputation for excellence. This year MC Mick Ferry is joined by fast and furious satirist Imran Yousef, Canadian funnyman Pete Johansson, Paul Tonkinson and Curtis Walker. £55, thecomedystore.co.uk

Angel Comedy, Camden Head, Islington

If the cost of other shows is causing you to consider a night at home in front of Jools Holland, consider the totally free Angel Comedy night at the Camden Head. Comedians include Barry Ferns, Sunil Patel and Richard Todd, plus there’s a disco after the show. FREE, angelcomedy.co.uk

Image: Berto Garcia

It’s the biggest night of the year for clubbing, and London’s spoiled for choice. Whether you’re into bass, techno, house, or just want some cheese, here’s our pick of the best

UKF Bass Culture: New Year’s Eve 2012
Bass for your face, London. Chase and Status, Shy FX, Foreign Beggars and more line-up at
the O2 Academy Brixton to bring in the new
year with bowel-wobbling bass.
£40, 9.30pm-6am, o2academybrixton.co.uk

Slide & Get Diverted NYE
Disco legend Greg Wilson will play an extended three-hour midnight set at Brixton Clubhouse, flanked by Alexis Raphael, Elijah Collins, Rob Aldritt and more. Plus, there’s a silent disco on the rooftop terrace. Which is almost as entertaining to watch without wearing the headphones.
£10-£20, 8pm-6am, getdiverted.com

New Year’s Eve at Fabric
One of the biggest nights this New Year’s Eve sees DJ sets from tech-house supremos Craig Richards and Terry Francis as well as Domino Records’ electronic experimentalist Four Tet. Plus, there’s live performances from Grammy-nominated US producer Martin Buttrich, one of the founders of minimal techno, Robert Hood, and rising Brit star Tom Demac.
£35-£45, £20 after 4am, 9pm-9am, fabriclondon.com

Toolroom Knights at The Ministry Of Sound
Toolroom Records founder Mark Knight headlines this night of house at the legendary club in Elephant & Castle.
10pm-5am, £40, ministryofsound.com

Dollop NYE 2012
Head out to east London’s Troxy for the always excellent Dollop new year’s celebration. House music producer Julio Bashmore (pictured right) is joined by Jackmaster, Oneman, Krystal Klear and more for a night of thumping party bangers.
9.30pm-5.30am, £40, dollopdollop.com

Eastern Electrics NYE
Following its summer festival, Eastern Electrics returns to its club roots at The Coronet in Elephant and Castle, where dubstep boundary-pusher Joy Orbison is joined by Miguel Campbell (pictured) and others.
9pm-7am, £20 & £40, bit.ly/RAEENYE12

A Vintage New Year’s Eve Party
Born out of the Vintage festival, founded by Wayne Hemingway, this event will see the entire Royal Festival Hall complex shake to music from throughout the 20th century, from dance tunes of the 20s to rockabilly from the 50s and soul, funk, disco and house of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Don finery from your favourite era and party like its not 2012.
7pm, £80, £139.50 with three-course meal, southbankcentre.co.uk

Soundtracks: Who Framed Roger Rabbit New Year’s Eve Blowout
Dress as your favourite cartoon character and head on over to Camden pub The Monarch for a night of classic movie soundtrack tunes. Probably the only place you’ll see Snow White snuggling up with Daffy Duck.
8pm-late, £10, monarchbar.com

This week, Scout London has teamed with Netflix, the world’s leading Internet subscription service for enjoying films and TV shows, to give one lucky reader the chance to win a one year subscription to Netflix and a Samsung 32in Smart TV so you can instantly watch hours of great entertainment.

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here - competition closes Sunday Jan 28 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Mango Tree’s alternative Christmas meal

With festive food fatigue at risk of setting in before we’ve even reached the last doors of our advent calendar, Ben Norum takes a look at London’s Christmas menus with a difference

Even the most ardent traditionalist can go clucking mad at the thought of another turkey roast at this time of year. Thankfully, plenty of London’s top restaurants are thinking outside of the festively wrapped box when it comes to set menus, proving that à la carte isn’t the only escape.

At Soho’s Ceviche, there’s a Peruvian-inspired Christmas menu to try, which pairs creative seasonally-influenced dishes with special pisco cocktails. Try slow-cooked pork belly with a beetroot and raisin salad and a tangy salsa, matched with a cranberry and sparkling wine pisco cocktail.

Head to Belgravia’s Mango Tree restaurant for a Thai menu with subtle nods to the time of year in dishes such as a festive-spiced red snapper.

Indian restaurant Roti Chai near Marble Arch goes for it full-throttle, with a cinnamony Christmas butter chicken and cardamom chocolate tart on its special menu.

In the City, Sushisamba has a matcha pear millefeuille with satsuma among its offerings, while sister venue Duck & Waffle will remain open 24 hours throughout the Christmas period, serving celebratory dishes such as baked eggs with shaved winter truffles and Champagne cream, alongside more traditional options.

Many restaurants are dreaming of white truffles this season. Aurelia has a rack of lamb in a hazelnut crust with truffles on its menu, and over at L’anima, Francesco Mazzei has a Christmas starter of beef carpaccio with honey dressing and white truffle.

Mayfair’s Italian Banca is going a step further with an entire white truffle Christmas menu that spans zabaglione, risotto and decadent cremoso dessert.

It’s only appropriate that The Old Brewery in Greenwich would wish you a beery Christmas, with it being the home of Meantime’s experimental brewery. The special menu, available on Christmas Day as well as throughout the festive period, includes stout-marinated oysters, beer cured salmon and chocolate beer sorbet. Cheeses even come with a beer chutney. And it goes without saying that there’s an equally exciting selection of beers to match.

The Perkin Reveller by Tower Bridge keeps all the trimmings but switches turkey for roasted sea bass. And Battersea’s eccentric Italian Bunga Bunga takes the whole traditional lot and bungs it on top of a pizza.

Whether 1 Lombard Street’s offering is more or less extreme than that is a matter of opinion. On a mission to recreate the ultimate Tudor feast, chef Juri Ravagli has created a feathered and festive monster in the form of a 14 “bird-in-a-bird” roast that includes quail, squab pigeon, teal, wood pigeon, French partridge, mallard, woodcock, guinea fowl, pheasant, Barbary duck, Aylesbury duck, peacock and a wild American turkey all stuffed into a goose. The beast and all the trimmings will set you back close to £1,000 so may be something for the wish-list, but it’s guaranteed to easily feed 25. If you’re looking for some funding, The Factory House in Leadenhall Market is replacing the typical tacky charm hidden within a Christmas Pudding with a real 22ct gold sovereign worth £290. If you find that, you really would be beating the banker.

The Time Lord’s feeling lonely this Christmas – but at least there’s a new girl on the scene to perk him up. Diana Pilkington takes a tour of the famous Doctor Who set and meets new sidekick Jenna-Louise Coleman

There’s nothing like being on the set of the Doctor Who Christmas special to get you in a Yuletide mood.

It’s August when I visit the Cardiff studio, but a blanket of snow covers the narrow streets of Victorian London and, round a corner, I glimpse the Tardis surrounded by pine trees.

The show’s festive episode is always one of the biggest events of the TV calendar, but there’s an extra reason to watch this year.

It’s the first time fans will see Jenna-Louise Coleman as the Doctor’s new sidekick, Clara.

The actress made a surprise appearance in September in the role of Oswin, who was in fact a Dalek, but she insists Clara is another entity.

“I’m not Oswin. I’m a different person,” says Coleman, fresh from wardrobe in a corseted burgundy gown. “The connection is that it’s me playing them both, but this is the mystery. This is where the series goes…”

She tails off, at pains not to reveal too much. As usual, the episode, titled The Snowmen, is shrouded in secrecy.

What we do know is that it features the villainous Dr Simeon, played by Richard E Grant, who controls an army of snowmen with sharp icicles for teeth.

Downhearted and reclusive after the departure of previous sidekicks Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill), the Doctor (Matt Smith) is reluctant to engage with the problems of the universe, but Clara wants his help and won’t back down until she gets it.

Coleman says: “She’s feisty and curious. She’s up for adventure and knows what she wants and is very witty. She’s not intimidated by the Doctor – she finds him amazing and ridiculous in equal measure.”

Faced with the inevitable question of a possible romance, she says: “There’s definitely a flirtation between them both and they’re drawn to each other.”

For any actress, taking on the coveted role of the Doctor’s sidekick is a huge deal. As well as the media interest and the legions of devoted fans, there’s the need to keep lots of details under wraps.

“I wasn’t allowed to say what I was auditioning for. I had to call it Men On Waves,” says the actress, who is best known for playing Emmerdale’s Jasmine Thomas.

The 26-year-old, who’s been on a self-imposed “Google ban” since her casting was announced, admits the past few months have “been kind of crazy”.

“For the last two years I’ve mainly been doing period dramas and now I’ve been thrown into this where there’s CGI and it’s very technical but also very fun and adventurous and it’s OK to run down a corridor shouting.”

The hardest part, she says, is coping with the action scenes.

“I get so carried away with the adventure that I end up being really clumsy and headbutting the camera in every single episode!”

For his part, Smith says meeting a new “hot chick” will have an interesting effect on his alter ego.

“He’s presented with this young beautiful woman and that does strange things to the Doctor – again! That’s what’s so brilliant about the show. It allows itself to reinvent all the time.”

Smith, who has played the role for three years, refuses to be drawn on when he will eventually hang up his sonic screwdriver, but says he hopes to be around for next year’s Christmas special.

Doctor Who is on BBC One on Christmas Day

Freshly minted for 2012, SPAMALOT tells the legendary tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and features a bevy (or possibly a brace) of beautiful show girls, witchburnings , flying cows, killer rabbits and French people. The show also includes the nation’s favourite comedy song, Always Look on The Bright Side Of Life.

The production stars Stephen Tompkinson (DCI Banks, Wild at Heart) who makes his West End Musical debut as King Arthur.

This VIP prize for four people includes: – Premium tickets to see Spamalot at the Playhouse Theatre – Interval drinks and a programme – A pre-theatre meal at Côte Brasserie, St Martin’s Lane which serves simple, freshlyprepared French food at value-formoney prices. Classic dishes such as steak frites, moules marinières and corn-fed chicken from the heart of rural Brittany sit alongside lighter dishes such as tuna Niçoise. Côte’s crème caramel and crème brûlee are house specialities. To book tickets (from £15) and for more information visit spamalotwestend.co.uk or call 0844 871 7631

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here – competition closes Sunday January 6 2013.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Image: New Zagreb (People Behind the Windows) 1979 photomontage digital print mounted on aluminium. Courtesy of the artist

The UK’s first retrospective of influential Croatian photographer Sanja Ivekovic’s work demonstrates that, even after a four-decade career, she still has the power to challenge

Pioneering Croatian artist Sanja Ivekovic has been tackling issues such as female identity, consumerism and historical amnesia through photography, film, sculpture and collage since starting her career in the Croatian Spring of the early 1970s.

With work spanning four decades, she provokes us to reconsider accepted ‘norms’, holding up a mirror to injustices and inequalities in a powerful way.

Following major exhibitions at MoMA in New York and Luxembourg’s Mudam, the South London Gallery and Calvert 22 have now come together to present the first UK retrospective of this influential artist.

The South London Gallery will exhibit Ivekovi’s works from the mid-1970s, which explore the way female identity is appropriated by the media, as well as more general issues of consumerism.

For example, Double Life (1975) pairs photographs of women cut out from glossy magazines with those of the artist taken at different stages of her life. The alignment of images highlights the discrepancy between the realities of everyday life and the highly stylised version promoted in the media.

In a similar vein, Tragedy of a Venus (1975) places pictures of Marilyn Monroe alongside those depicting scenes from Ivekovic’s own life, again questioning the constructed status of women.

Meanwhile, Calvert 22 – the Shoreditch gallery dedicated to culture from Russia and Eastern Europe – will focus on Ivekovic’s questions of historical amnesia.

For example, GEN XX, 1997-2001, uses magazine adverts of glamorous women that, upon closer inspection, reveal names of partisan heroines from socialist times. The banal advertising copy is replaced with the charges and execution dates of young, female anti-fascist militants of the second world war, documenting the erasure of these unknown heroines from the official history.

Sanja Ivekovi: Unknown Heroine
Until February 24,
South London Gallery and Calvert 22,
FREE
southlondongallery.org
calvert22.org

Playing Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit is the biggest role of Martin Freeman’s career. Unfortunately, it also comes with worldwide fame, which, as he tells Susan Griffin, he’s definitely not looking forward to 

Martin Freeman is on the cusp of major league movie stardom, so you’d have thought he would be at least a little excited. But not a bit of it.
“People have been annoying me in restaurants for a long time,” he grumbles lightheartedly. “Now it’ll just be all over the world. Yippee.”

Freeman has been in the public eye in Britain for more than 10 years, having shot to prominence as Tim in The Office. While he might not be keen to embrace the fame game, he’s certainly going to have to endure it, as he’s currently playing the leading role in the biggest film around – Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Based on the 1937 fantasy novel by JRR Tolkien, it’s been painstakingly brought to life by visionary director Peter Jackson, who was also behind the multi award-winning adaptations of Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings trilogy.

“I’m getting a glimpse of that external reaction now,” says Freeman, a youthful-looking 41-year-old. “That level of fame is obviously very different to what most people will ever experience, but my life doesn’t feel much different yet.”

Freeman comes across as friendly and thoughtful, if a little prickly at times. That could simply be his sense of humour or perhaps a protective reflex, given that he describes himself as “a very, very private person”.

So private that he doesn’t want to confirm how many children he has (a Google search reveals he has a son and daughter with his long-term partner, Amanda Abbington). What he will say is that he doesn’t want his kids to see him as anything other than their dad.

“I want to keep my children absolutely out of it until they’re of an age where they can decide,” he says. “Sometimes when I’m stopped in the street and I’m with my children, I always try and get them out of the picture and they’ll go, ‘Why don’t you want us?’ and I’m like, ‘No, I’m protecting you!’”

You can understand he may be a little defensive, given that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is just the first of three films in yet another Middle-earth trilogy. The following movies, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug and The Hobbit: There And Back Again, will be released in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

The tale begins 60 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, and sees a young Bilbo Baggins swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug (voiced by Freeman’s Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch).

New and old faces pop up along the way. Andy Serkis returns as Gollum, while Sir Ian McKellen reprises his role as wizard Gandalf the Grey, who tasks Bilbo with his audacious plan. They’re soon joined by a band of 13 Dwarves, led by the legendary Thorin Oakenshield (Spooks star Richard Armitage). And together they embark on a journey into treacherous lands, swarming with Goblins and Orcs.

It’s one of the world’s most seminal fantasy novels, but Freeman admits to only reading it two years ago.

“I just didn’t grow up with it. I’m a fan now, but it just wasn’t in my universe then,” says the Hampshire-born actor.

Since The Office, Freeman has appeared in a host of British films such as Love Actually, Nativity!, Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. He also recently earned Emmy and Bafta TV nominations for his role as Dr John Watson in Sherlock, but he was far from a global ‘name’ when Jackson cast him in The Hobbit.

That didn’t deter the director, who was so determined to hire Freeman that he rearranged the shooting schedule to allow the actor to leave the film set in New Zealand to film Sherlock in the UK.

“I was truly shocked and pleased because I really wanted to play Bilbo, and that’s not the kind of offer that comes back,” says Freeman. “It showed they had such faith in me. They must have seen something in me that could play worry but with humour.”

In his own life, the actor says he’s not particularly adventurous. “Well, it depends on the adventure. I wouldn’t go into life or death [situations], but nor would anyone unless you’re a moron.

“But I’m an actor and I chose a path where there’s no security, few wages, no pension. So for a start that’s braver than those who go to work at the bank in my opinion.”

Freeman says the role of Bilbo was physically demanding from the start, partly because of the flipper-like Hobbit feet he had to wear.

“I won’t miss them,” he smiles. “I had to shave my legs, talcum powder them, then they’d put an inner sole on and put this latex leg and foot over it. It took about a week to get used to.”

The three movies were shot back-to-back over an epic 18 months, during which Freeman only had two chances to return to his London home.
“After that experience, coming home is like decompression,” he says. “You’ve been gone for so long in a completely different world – figuratively and literally – so it takes you a while to really get back to normal.”

Ever grounded, he remains pragmatic about the future. “I try not to expect anything because there is no guarantee of anything.

“I’ve been told before, ‘Your life’s going to change after this comes out’. No it didn’t, it really didn’t change.

“Obviously this is a huge film but any premature expectation or patting on the back is a very dangerous thing to do because it can only come with disappointment.”

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is in cinemas now

January is a tough month. It’s always a long limp to payday, the last of the Christmas balloons resemble something more akin to raisins, and suddenly the summer seems an awfully long way away.

To cheer you up, cut-price theatre is coming to the rescue. Theatres all over the capital are offering cheap deals as part of Get Into London Theatre, the annual ticket scheme that allows the public to see some of the best shows in the capital for a fraction of the normal cost.

More than 50 major shows, including musicals, ballet, comedy and drama, are offering tickets for as little as £10.

Among the participating productions are Wicked, Mamma Mia! and One Man, Two Guvnors, which line-up alongside new-comers Loserville, Goodnight Mister Tom and Scrooge The Musical. Fans of opera and dance can enjoy Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty, Midnight Tango and The Mikado, and there are lots of family-friendly shows also taking part, including Room On The Broom, Sooty in Space and seasonal favourite The Snowman.

There are a limited number of cheap passes and the offer is always very popular, so it’s advisable to get in early. Tickets are available for shows running between January 1 and February 15.

Whether you’re planning to scare yourself into a good mood with The Woman in Black, or prefer to cheer yourself up with comedy from The Boy With Tape on his Face, the New Year Blues suddenly don’t seem so daunting.

getintolondontheatre.co.uk
0844 412 2703

Oscar-winning director Ang Lee has made his first 3D film, and the results are spectacular. He tells Kate Whiting about bringing Yann Martel’s ‘unfilmable’ book, Life Of Pi, to the big screen

The heart of Soho is not the kind of place you’d expect to have a deep, philosophical conversation – unless there’s a serious amount of gin involved.

But, sat in The Soho Hotel on this particular morning, that’s exactly what we encounter. And it’s due to one man: Ang Lee.

The Taiwanese director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain is in town to discuss his first foray into 3D film, with the ambitious adaptation of Yann Martel’s Man Booker Prize-winning Life Of Pi.

“When you’re obsessed by the material, it does feel like God told you to make it; if not God, a film god,” he says, smiling. “It always feels like the movie wants to meet the audience and that you’re chosen. I belong to the movie and the movie belongs to me.”

At first, though, Lee didn’t believe the book would make a film.

“When I read it 10 years ago, I didn’t think there was a movie there,” he admits of the story, about an Indian boy called Pi who is shipwrecked and spends months at sea in the company of an adult Bengal tiger called Richard Parker.

But five years later, the director was approached by Twentieth Century Fox about making it. 3D as we know it was still in its infancy, James Cameron had not yet released Avatar, and Lee had to learn a new way of filmmaking.

“There’s no school – I wish there were schools! The only reference we had was cheap horrors, so that didn’t really inspire me,” he says, chuckling gently. “The first important lesson is that you can’t let anyone tell you what 3D is, you just have to ignore them and find what works for your eyes. And then I learned I can’t trust my eyes anymore because it’s a new illusion and your eyes keep adjusting to it. Whatever you do, it is like groping in the dark.

“But I was a trailblazer. I give myself some credit. Most people probably don’t know we were groping in the dark.”

Although Avatar broke box office records, Lee believes Cameron was still fairly “conservative” in his use of the technology.

“At that time, he had an important point to make: 3D is not about this,” he says, swirling his hands towards me, “so very conservatively, he put everything behind a screen. I think the biggest difference is that now we’re more putting things out of the screen.

“It’s very exciting, because you establish a new cinematic language between yourself and an audience. It’s progressing so much – a year from now, people will look back [at my film] and say, ‘Oh they were too timid’, and do something else.”

Life Of Pi is more spine-tinglingly incredible than Avatar and will no doubt earn Lee his third Oscar nomination for Best Director.  But it also presented him with his biggest challenge so far.

Those who’ve read Martel’s book will know that it’s about reality, the power of storytelling and faith. Pi’s family runs a zoo in Pondicherry, and decide to sell their animals in Canada, embarking on a treacherous voyage in a Japanese ship, which capsizes in a storm.

Pi finds himself in a lifeboat with a zebra, hyena, orangutan and Richard Parker the tiger. The hyena kills the zebra and orangutan, then Richard Parker kills the hyena.

Pi survives by teaching himself to fish and training Richard Parker to keep his distance. But when the Japanese authorities later question him over the ship’s fate, they don’t believe this version of events so Pi tells them another tale in which the animals are all human.

“It’s scary in so many ways, because you’re stuck with a second story. There’s no way I could just tell the first story as a triumphant adventure and not tell the second,” says Lee.

Most of the film is just Pi and Richard Parker in the middle of the ocean, so conjuring vast waves, creating a tiger and casting Pi were Lee’s most pressing concerns.

After a six-month audition process, he found 18-year-old Suraj Sharma, who lives in Delhi with his parents and had never acted before.

“Directing him, it’s such an uncanny experience – he’s such a talent, like he’s done this all his life. He reminds me of those little Buddhas where you just remind him what he used to know in a previous life,” says Lee.

Sharma had to learn not only how to act, but also how to swim, while also losing weight to play the starving Pi.

Lee’s sense of responsibility was further heightened when Sharma’s mother appointed the director as her son’s guru in a Hindu ceremony.

“It was one day after I cast him, his mother said, ‘There’s something we have to do, can we go to your room?’ And she lit candles and had flowers and put something over my shoulder while Suraj was lying flat on his face and touching my feet to show submissiveness – it’s a pretty serious deal.”

Rather than being a hindrance, working with a novice actor was a blessing for the director. “The good thing about starting from zero is you don’t have to reduce any bad habits,” he smiles.

While Sharma in character as Pi was on his own odyssey, the cast and crew also went on a journey.

“In the first part, everybody’s telling him what to do, from getting good sea-legs to technical stuff like continuity.

“We were shooting in order, so in the last month, Pi’s losing his sanity and is really skinny and he has a spiritual look on his face.

“I forbade anybody to talk to him, so he had to live in silence. The last part is a strange journey, it’s kind of holy to me. He sort of became the spiritual leader of the group; there’s a certain innocence and heart to it, he reminds you what filmmaking’s about in your heart. The innocence of making the movie is precious.”

And, after bringing the story to life, which version of Pi’s tale does Lee believe?

“That’s pretty obvious,” he says, laughing again. “I spent £70 million on one story… but I shall leave that to everybody’s choice!”

Life Of Pi is released in cinemas on December 20

Swedish actress MyAnna Buring tops off a brilliant year with three major festive TV roles. Rachael Popow finds out more

When MyAnna Buring was working as a glass collector in a pub in Sweden, having quit school to become an actress, little did she know that 10 years later she’d be one of the hottest tickets around.

The 27-year-old actress, whose looks are pure Scandi stereotype, is now majorly in-demand after appearing in Paula Milne’s BBC drama White Heat, acclaimed British horror films Kill List and The Descent, and blockbusting vampire franchise Twilight.

Buring is certainly having a moment. Before the end of this year, in fact, she’ll be seen in ITV1 drama The Poison Tree, new BBC series Ripper Street, and the Downton Abbey Christmas special. We quiz her about all the above.

It seems like 2012 has been an amazing year for you…
Yes, I’ve been so, so lucky – I keep saying it, but I really do mean it. A couple of years ago I was a jobbing actress, but I was also working in call centres. But now I’m able to do a job that I absolutely love, and make a living out of it.

How would you describe Poison Tree?
It’s a suspense story about my character Karen, a strait-laced young woman who moves to London in the late 1990s to study. There she meets two people who change her life forever. It’s a story about lies – the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we tell people around us, and whether we can ever excuse them even though we might be able to explain them.

Are you drawn to darker roles, or has it just worked out that way?
A bit of both. I love characters that have depth to them – they’re really exciting to play – but I’ve also been lucky in the last couple of years to have been offered meatier parts.

What do you consider to be your breakthrough role?
There are two jobs that changed things for me – one is Kill List, the film I did with Ben Wheatley a couple of years ago, and then Twilight. The two films came out around the same time, and they were so vastly different – one was an independent, psychological thriller with incredibly real characters, and the other was a huge vampire saga. The two coming out together threw open a lot of doors for me.

All the hype and publicity around the final Twilight film must have felt quite foreign…
Yes! The premieres are extraordinary, I’ve never been at any event that felt so electric and alive, it’s quite mind-blowing. It seems silly, but when you’re there it’s quite overwhelming and you just realise how many people care about these stories – they really matter.

What can you tell us about your role in the Downton Abbey Christmas special?
I’m going to play Edna the maid, and unfortunately that’s all I can say. But here’s another saga that has exploded into the lives and imaginations of people all around the world, and I get to be a part of it. What a privilege! And it’s one of the warmest, funniest sets I’ve ever walked onto.

You’ll also be appearing in Ripper Street. Tell us about that.
Ripper Street was great fun. It’s a cop drama set in the late 1800s, and I play a very strong woman called Long Susan, who runs a brothel. She’s very feisty and is not to be messed with – she’s more than happy to take the law into her own hands if needs be. I got to wear the most amazing costumes, and corsets, which I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with.

Anything nice planned for Christmas?
Normally I go to Oman for Christmas, so I usually celebrate in the desert, but this year I’m going to celebrate in London, and I’m bringing my family over and we’re going to celebrate Swedish Christmas on December 24. I’m going to cook up a Swedish dinner with all the trimmings. Then on the 25th we’re all heading over to a friend’s house and having an English Christmas with them. We’re going to be very fat and happy this Christmas!

The Poison Tree, starts December 10, ITV1;
Ripper Street, starts December 30, BBC1;
Downton Abbey, Christmas Day at 8.45pm, ITV1

When their influential guitarist quit, Editors went through a turbulent 12 months. Singer Tom Smith tells Chris Beanland how they coped

The title of Editors’ second album, An End Has A Start, is one way some might have described the band’s life in recent years. They’ve been through turbulent times, and haven’t released an album since 2009’s In This Light And On This Evening – mainly due to guitarist Chris Urbanowicz quitting in April.

Urbanowicz – who was responsible for the smoky, lustrous sound that made debut album The Back Room so vital and so gloomy at the same time – had been one of Editors’ most defining elements. So without him and his Joy Division obsession, it’s obviously a very different band.

“I don’t think his heart was in the same place,” singer Tom Smith tells Scout London in his thoughtful, well-spoken manner. “We’ve been through a bit of a journey, especially with the last year. But first and foremost, Chris was a mate.”

Indeed, but he was also integral to your sound as a band. “We were mates first, so there was the personal side of it. But you’re right that he was an integral part of those records. On our last record he led the way on having no guitars. But I don’t think his heart was really in the same place as where us three were really. It kind of fell apart this year. It’s really sad but it does happen.”

The 31-year-old sighs, and adds: “It’s been a long two years, especially this last year. But we’re gonna come back fighting.”

They are indeed. The band have a new line-up and are writing a new album.

“It’s a rock record – the songs are about the harder side of love,” he explains.

But without Urbanowicz, the new album could see Editors abandoning some of the epic melancholy that made their name.

Smith has taken his cues for the new material from “Arcade Fire and Springsteen – I’ve been banging on for years about American alt.rock, about how much I love REM. But the last album was, to us at least, experimental. This one will be immediate, more uncomplicated.”
To that end, the band will be decamping to Nashville, Tennessee, to record it at the start of next year. But not before they play Xfm’s annual Winter Wonderland shindig in Brixton next week.

“It feels like the right time to put our heads up now for the Christmas bash and say ‘hello’ before we go off and make the [new] record,” smiles Smith, who lives in Gospel Oak with his wife, DJ Edith Bowman, and their son Rudy.

After a tumultuous year, Smith insists the band have come out stronger. “We’ve got two new members, and off the back of all that we did some hard graft and now we’ve got a lot of new songs – we played three new ones in Belgium at Rock Werchter festival earlier this year and we’ll be playing two more new ones at the Winter Wonderland show.”

Perhaps never appreciated to the degree they deserved in their homeland (despite a Mercury nod for debut The Back Room in 2006), mainland Europe has always embraced Editors as a ‘big deal’. Indeed, they’re booked for main stage festival shows just beneath the likes of Kings of Leon and Depeche Mode at bashes from Bilbao to Barcelona next summer.

“It’s a dream to see your name on the posters – and we always felt that mainland Europe were getting it,” admits Smith. “European audiences seem to like music with a darker thread – Placebo, Muse, they all go down well too.”

But before all that, the next stop is Brixton.

“It’s going to be a party gig, so don’t worry – as well as the new songs, we’ll be playing our greatest hits too,” Smith reassures us.
While the end of one phase in the band’s career may now be over, the start of their next chapter is clearly only just beginning.

Xfm’s Winter Wonderland also stars The Courteeners, Temper Trap and more
December 17,
O2 Academy Brixton
xfm.co.uk

Get Into London Theatre is back this winter, offering tickets at £10, £15, £25 and £35 to top London shows for performances from January 1 to February 15, 2013.

Tickets go on sale on December 11 for over 50 shows ranging from plays to musicals and opera to ballet. Visit getintolondontheatre.co.uk to book.

To celebrate, Scout has partnered with Get Into London Theatre to give away four tickets to the award winning musical Billy Elliot, including a free drink, programme and an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the production that premiered in London’s West end in 2005.

Set in a northern mining town, against the backdrop of the 1984/85 miners’ strike, Billy elliot is the inspirational story of a young boy’s struggle against the odds to make his dream come true. Follow Billy’s journey as he stumbles out of the boxing ring and into a ballet class where he discovers a passion for dance that inspires his family and his community, and changes his life forever. With unforgettable music by Elton John, sensational dance and a powerful storyline, this astonishing theatrical experience will stay with you forever.

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here – competition closes Sunday December 16 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

If there was one club night that gave birth to the UK rave scene, it was Danny Rampling’s Shoom. He chats to Dan Frost ahead of its 25th birthday celebrations

The late 80s rave scene changed Britain profoundly. Whether you look at the rise of the festival scene, the cultural dominance of electronic music or simply the way a good chunk of London spends its weekends, the rave legacy is everywhere.

So being one of the few people that actually helped to create that scene is no minor honour. Danny Rampling is one such person.

Along with Paul Oakenfold’s Future, Rampling’s club night Shoom is widely credited as the birthplace of the UK rave scene. It was here that acid house was introduced to London, that DJs such as Carl Cox rose to prominence, that the smiley face became the emblem of a new generation (the smiley was first linked with the scene through its use on a Shoom flyer) and that a mass movement was born – a movement that soon spilled out into huge outdoor parties, provoked the wrath of the establishment and came to dominate youth culture.

Inspiration for their respective nights came from an Ibiza holiday that Rampling and Oakenfold took with fellow DJ Nicky Holloway in 1987, when they experienced the eclectic style and uplifting vibes of the pioneering DJ Alfredo.

Rampling returned to London and within a matter a months founded Shoom – a “happy happy happy” club night in an old gym on Southwark Street, that became the epicenter of the so-called ‘second Summer of Love’.

The first event took place on December 5, 1987 – 25 years ago this week. To mark the occasion, Rampling is returning to the area – to Cable on Bermondsey Street – for a special anniversary celebration.

We asked him about those heady rave days, and how it felt to be a leading figure in one of the most important youth movements in history.

What do you remember of the club scene pre-Shoom?
It was very elitist in some quarters. There just weren’t a great deal of clubs back then, and the scene generally was looking for a new direction. Then, all of a sudden, acid house came along and that was it – it completely transformed London clubland for the better.

Can you describe what it was like hearing [legendary Ibiza DJ] Alfredo on your famous 1987 trip to Ibiza?
It was a total epiphany moment. The way Alfredo played music, he combined so many different styles together, and that’s where the term Balearic beat came from. I’d never heard indie music in a club before or alternative rock fused with all this electronic music – Detroit techno, Chicago and New York house music. It was a complete breath of fresh air, and we were all totally inspired by that, which led us to come back and recreate a little bit of that back in London, with a London edge to it.

Was it an instant decision among you all?
It happened the day after – around the pool. The others were already promoting successful nights and clubs and labels in London, and I was still an aspiring DJ, but I knew my time had come. So we all went back and started our respective nights. Immediately we knew we were onto something, and it was clear that it was time to take some of that magic we’d experienced and bring it home.

How did the smiley face end up on a Shoom flyer?
A stylist had a jacket with a load of badges on, and I thought, ‘Yeah great, that is really what symbolises this entire movement’, so I asked a designer to make a flyer for me using that image. Within a matter of weeks it was all over the place – T-shirts and everything. It represented peace, love, joy, unity and happiness, and that’s what it was all about. It was a perfect emblem for the acid house movement.

Could you sense at the time that there was more happening than just the arrival of a new kind of music?
Absolutely. It was a collective consciousness, and Shoom really promoted that. You’ve got to remember that before the second summer of love, it was a bleak economic landscape and there wasn’t a great deal of opportunity in Britain. What this movement did was create an entirely new industry, which then gave a lot of people new opportunities. It opened the doors for so many people who wouldn’t previously have had an opportunity to be a part of the music industry.

So it was genuinely life-changing for some people?
It was life-changing for us all. It broke down all social barriers – class, race, sexual orientation, people came together and melded as one, and that was an incredible feeling. I’d never experienced that before. And that’s why the second Summer of Love was called that – because it really was. Even football hooliganism stopped happening, which was truly remarkable. It felt like the world was changing, and our world did change for a couple of years. People still feel the effects of it, and are still driven by those principles, because it was such a profound experience for hundreds of thousands of people across
the country.

What impact do you think the movement had on today’s dance music scene?
Rave transformed the London club scene and the way this whole country spends its weekends for the better. There wouldn’t be clubs like Ministry of Sound, Fabric, any of the East End clubs without the advent and influence of the whole scene itself. And the festival scene too. People came to clubs like Shoom and then took the scene to a huge audience in fields. The festival scene used to be the preserve of rock bands, but rave changed all that.

Shoom
Cable
December 8
cable-london.com

Daniel Radcliffe’s latest post-Potter role is in an obscure adaptation of a Russian comedy that sees him share a bath with Mad Men’s Jon Hamm, as Lisa Williams discovers

Daniel Radcliffe’s latest project is a television adaptation of A Young Doctor’s Notebook, a 1926 short story by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. The comedy set in the days before the Russian revolution sees the Potter star play Vladimir Bomgard, a doctor posted to a remote village to treat, among other things, a syphilis outbreak.

“It is a very hard show to pitch to people,” laughs the 23-year-old. “We have to say, ‘Yes, it’s a medical comedy set in Russia in 1917. It’s also about morphine addiction and syphilis and it’s a meditation on memory’.”

What makes it an easier sell is that the doctor is played as a young man by Radcliffe and as a middle-aged man by Mad Men actor Jon Hamm – often in the same scene.

The premise is a lot to get your head around. And without the involvement of Radcliffe and Hamm (both self-confessed Bulgakov geeks), there’s a good chance it wouldn’t have been made.

“I’ve since been told that they sent the script off going, ‘This is a long shot. Dan Radcliffe?’ They didn’t know that I’m obsessed with Bulgakov, I mean – I went to Russia to visit Bulgakov’s house for my 21st birthday,” he says.

Radcliffe names George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling and Matt Damon as actors whose careers he admires. “Their combination of commercial with indie is really inspirational,” he says.

If that’s a mission statement for his career then A Young Doctor’s Notebook can be placed confidently within the ‘indie’ division. Even Radcliffe was amazed at how much gore they could get away with.

That said, he admits to being easily shocked and very squeamish. “Do you watch Embarrassing Bodies?” he asks. “I can’t. I went out with a girl called Laura for a while, and she loved that show. I couldn’t watch it but I could watch her watching it. She just sat there with the kind of blank, desensitised look of a war veteran.”

Radcliffe, who is now reportedly single after splitting from production assistant Rosie Coker, is bound to send pulses racing with A Young Doctor’s Notebook, especially a scene in which he and Hamm share a bath. Modestly, he says he was flattered to be cast as a younger version of the pin-up.

“It’s very flattering. I mean, God, I hope I grow up to look like that.”

A Young Doctor’s Notebook is on Sky Arts from today

As some of London’s finest chefs go head-to-head in a charity mince pie contest, Ben Norum lifts the lid on what’s in store

Nothing says the start of the festive season like mince pies, and at this time of year The Mince Pie Project is fast becoming a tradition. Run by the organisation Live & Let Dine, which also brought us BBQ contest Ribstock, the project asks top chefs from around the country to design and cook their finest mince pies for sale at a charity auction.

Last year’s inaugural event saw almost £10,000 raised, with Dinner’s Ashley Palmer-Watts declared the winner for his deep-fried mince pies which fetched £1,000 alone. The project returns on December 11, when the full line-up of chefs taking part will be announced – along with their creations – and the auction will open. Mince pie fans can bid online for each chef’s unique batch of 50 pies; the chef whose pies earn the most will be crowned the winner.

Among the names getting baking this year is Francesco Mazzei of L’anima who has revealed that he’ll be throwing something of a curve ball by making a ‘mince pie inspired’ pitta m’pigliata – a traditional Italian Christmas pastry filled with walnuts, almonds, raisins, cinnamon, cloves and honey. Adam Byatt from Clapham’s Trinity restaurant is also playing with the concept, hinting that his creations are “best described as mini spiced mincemeat Chelsea buns”.

MasterChef winner Mat Follas will be keeping things more traditional. His bid for glory harks back to the pie’s origins around the 13th century, when British crusaders brought back and adapted Middle Eastern recipes which mixed meat such as mutton with suet, dried fruits and spices. Taking savoury a step further, Mat’s project pie is an intriguing mix of wild venison, mulled red cabbage and orange.

Other top chefs taking part, but keeping their cards closer to their chests regarding what kind of pies they’ll be knocking up, include Michel Roux Jr, Raymond Blanc, The Berkeley’s Marcus Wareing and former French Laundry pastry chef Claire Clark.

All proceeds from the project will be split between homelessness charity Crisis and Galvin’s Chance. The latter is a training and work placement programme for disadvantaged young people aged 18-24, giving them the opportunity to pursue a front of house career in some of London’s most prestigious hotels and restaurants.

The mince pie auction starts at midday on December 11 and runs for 72 hours.
themincepieproject.com

Colin Farrell may be surrounded by psychopaths in his latest adventure but, as he tells Susan Griffin, he couldn’t have been happier

Flirtatious, opinionated and unpredictable, there was a time when Colin Farrell was as famous for his partying as he was his acting.

But nowadays you rarely catch sight or sound of him – and when you do have a chance to sit down with the actor, you’ll find any cockiness has been replaced with quiet contemplation.

“For a while I was out more and I was easy to find, very easy to find,” says the 36-year-old.

“Obviously now I’m in the gaff and boring, I’m not interesting press any more. You need X-ray lenses to get at me,” he says, laughing.

His decision to stop chasing the craic in favour of a cosy home life was “a by-product of other decisions I made,” says Farrell, who’s a father of two boys.

There’s James, now nine, whose mum is model Kim Bordenave, and Henry, born in 2009 following Farrell’s relationship with his Ondine co-star Alicja Bachleda. They’ve since split and the Irishman is currently single.

“Life is essentially about balance,” says the actor, perched in a suite at The Soho Hotel. “Sometimes you have to balance various aspects of your own character, depending on what situation you find yourself in and what environment you find yourself in. As far as balancing my own life goes, I really have it very good.”

His new movie Seven Psychopaths is already creating a lot of buzz, not least because it reunites Farrell with writer and director Martin McDonagh following their In Bruges success.

The 2008 dark comedy earned McDonagh a Bafta award and an Oscar nomination and Farrell a Golden Globe – but apparently In Bruges was simply McDonagh’s trial run.

“Just before we started In Bruges, Martin said to me, ‘If you think this is good you should see the other script I wrote, it’s much better’,” recalls Farrell, laughing.

“He was only doing In Bruges to see if he liked making films, then he’d make the real one.”

Seven Psychopaths shares its title with the screenplay Farrell’s character Marty is struggling to finish in the film.
Already past his deadline, Marty’s situation isn’t helped by the constant disruption his friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) poses.

That’s never more apparent than when Billy and his business partner Hans (Christopher Walken) discover they’ve unwittingly dog-napped the pooch of notoriously violent gangster Charlie Costello (Woody Harrelson).

All the while, Billy’s determined to help Marty finish his screenplay – whatever the cost. The result is a blood-soaked black comedy, that’s as funny as it is difficult to stomach at times.

“Every now and then, writing jumps off the page. This one does that,” says Farrell.

“It slaps you in the face, gives you a kick in the arse and takes you on a wonderful ride.”

It’s clear that Farrell couldn’t be more delighted to be working again with McDonagh, whose words he attributes as having “an insane effect on the imagination”.

“There’s an emotional core to everything he writes, the humour, the chaos, the violence, the quick wittedness of dialogue,” he says.

Born and raised in Castleknock, Farrell is the son and nephew of former football players but eschewed following suit and tried his hand at performing instead.

There were a couple of false starts – he unsuccessfully auditioned for Boyzone and toured Ireland as part of a line dancing troupe – but then he joined Dublin’s Gaiety School Of Drama.

He left after landing a starring role in the mini-series Falling For A Dancer and soon after was cast in TV hit Ballykissangel.

His success in Joel Schumacher’s Tigerland led to a string of big films such as Hart’s War with Bruce Willis, Stephen Spielberg’s Minority Report and The Recruit with Al Pacino.

In Bruges marked a move towards smaller movies, such as the fantastical Ondine and gritty gangster tale London Boulevard, before Farrell’s return to box office goliaths such as Horrible Bosses, alongside Jennifer Aniston, and a remake of Total Recall.

Ever versatile, he’s already completed work on Dead Man Down opposite Noomi Rapace, is shooting A Winter’s Tale with Will Smith in New York, and is set to appear with Tom Hanks in Saving Mr Banks, a drama about how the film Mary Poppins came to be.

“You’re always trying to find your own way in whatever you do, and maintain your own interest and push yourself,” he says.

And if, like In Bruges, the end result beckons awards, so be it.

“From my limited experience of it, it’s absolutely fun,” he responds, chuckling. “And better than a kick in the arse.”

Seven Psychopaths is in cinemas now

You don’t need to be religious to enjoy a good carol, and London has some of the best churches in the world to get you ding donging merrily on high. Here’s our round-up of the best services in town 

Westminster Abbey

The home of royal weddings, funerals and numerous other stately occasions is one of the city’s ultimate carol singing destinations. Its popular December 23 and 24 services are already sold out, but there are still tickets for the December 11 concert (£10-£30).

westminster-abbey.org 

St Paul’s Cathedral

There are a variety of singing opportunities at Christopher Wren’s magnificent cathedral over the Christmas period, the key ones being the Cancer Research UK Christmas Concert (December 11, £25), A Celebration of Christmas (December 13, free) Family Carols (December 22, free) and the usual December 23 and 24 services.

stpauls.co.uk 

Christ Church, Spitalfields

A glittering cast of special guests including Michael Caine and David Frost will perform Christmas readings at a carol service in aid of ChildLine at this East End church (December 5, £10-£25). 

nspcc.org.uk/londoncarolsbycandlelight 

St Martin’s in the Field, Trafalgar Square 

Trafalgar Square is one of the most Christmasy parts of town, so its iconic resident church is a favourite among those looking for a seasonal sing-along. Many of the more high-profile services have sold-out already, but several events are on-the-door only tickets, including the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (December 16, free) and Community Carols (December 18, free). 

smitf.org 

Southwark Cathedral, London Bridge

Once the parish of Shakespeare and his fellow thesps, this impressive historic cathedral is also hosting a range of carol services over the next few weeks, including the Mercy Ships Service (December 5, free), the Crisis Carol Service (December 15, free) and the Mayor of London’s Carol Service (December 17, free).

cathedral.southwark.anglican.org 

St Luke’s, Chelsea

Actress Patricia Hodge and TV presenter Mariella Frostrup will deliver readings at a carol service in aid of Asthma UK at this impressive Chelsea church (December 4, £10-£20).

chelseaparish.org

All Saints Church, Fulham

The Kids for Kids charity, which helps children in Darfur, will welcome celebrity readings from the likes of Eamonn Holmes, Ruth Rendell and Richard Wilson at its carol service (December 6, £15-£25).

kidsforkids.org.uk

St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge

Gaby Roslin will be among those reading at a service in aid of breast cancer charity The Haven (December 12, £40), while Downton Abbey star David Robb is among the celebrity readers at a service in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support (December 13, £20).

macmillan.org.uk / thehaven.org.uk

St Margaret’s Church, Westminster

Immediately next to Westminster Abbey is this similarly historic church, which will host a service in aid of homeless charity The Passage, with readings from David Dimbleby and actor Richard Ingrams (December 14, free but donations requested).

passage.org.uk

Union Chapel, Islington

This splendid chapel that doubles as one of the city’s best music venues will be doubly atmospheric for a special candlelit service (December 16, free).

unionchapel.org.uk 

Please note: many of the free, first-come-first-served carol services are very popular and fill up quickly, so please arrive early to avoid disappointment.

Abortion. Bestiality. All part of the act for award-winning sketch troupe Late Night Gimp Fight. But are they that dark in real life? Daisy Buchanan throws out the usual interview script and gets the info that really matters – from personal scents to drag personas 

So, let’s imagine I’m on a date with the Gimps and we’ve got to that awkward “So, what do you do?” bit. So, what do you do? 

Lee: Well, first of all, I’d like to ask what you did in order to end up on a date with all these men?

I won a competition.

Lee: With everything that’s going on in the news at the moment, people need to be a bit more careful about what they give away as prizes. Anyway, we’re Late Night Gimp Fight, we’re a sketch comedy group, and, as the name suggests, we like to push things a little bit further than other groups. 

Paul: It’s all about darkness and silliness in equal measure.

We’ve noticed that some of your sketches have a funeral motif – have you ever wept during a performance? 

Lee: We have one sketch that is about a Henry Hoover that dies. The hoover’s dad gets thrown away because it doesn’t work any more. And then we leave the hoover on stage to the sounds of Luther Vandross singing “Dance With My Father”. It makes a lot of people cry.

Christmas is coming. What’s the most disappointing thing you’ve ever found in a stocking?

Lee: My ex-girlfriend’s mum made me a lovely stocking one year. A long time later, I put my hand in and found something awful. I don’t know what it was – I think it might have been a satsuma that had been forgotten about – but it was brown and it smelled really bad.

If you had to record an ethereal version of a classic 80s track for a John Lewis Christmas advert, what would you pick?

Lee: It would have to be Total Eclipse of The Heart. One of our sketches is set to that – it’s the creepiest song. Think about the lyrics, and think about Bonnie Tyler singing it while a man stands in the background whispering “turn around”. I don’t know where we’d set it.

Paul: Maybe down a back alley.

David: A woman walking in the snow with no shoes on.

Late Night Gimp Fight

Now for a ‘Mr and Mrs’ style, ‘how well do you know each other’ round. Firstly, where is the oddest place that Lee has fallen asleep?

Paul: I’m going to say a public bench. 

Lee: That hasn’t happened. I never fall asleep with my contact lenses in. The weirdest place was on a train from Serbia to Bulgaria. A couple of scary-looking guys woke me. I couldn’t understand a word that they were saying. They invited me into their carriage, and there were eight guys. I thought I was going to get raped, robbed and murdered but they turned out to be the coolest guys. I had the best night.

Paul: Well, that was going to be my second guess.

Is Paul’s personal scent closer to that of a bear, or a lion?

Paul. Do you know what a bear or a lion smells like? Stop smelling me! 

Lee: Maybe SuperTed or someone like that.

Paul: You’re wrong, it’s actually a lion. I put on lion’s blood every morning.

Lee: Seriously, what do you wear? What is that? 

Paul: It’s a Paul Smith one. It’s either Energy or Extreme.

Finally, what would be David’s drag persona of choice – Nicki Minaj or Lady Gaga?

Paul. I’d go with Nicki Minaj – she’s got a bit more of an edge to her with putdowns.

Lee: I’d go with Gaga – David likes power. He’d love his own army of Little Monsters.

David: Yeah, Gaga. She likes her meat. 

Late Night Gimp Fight, Soho Theatre, December 6-January 5, sohotheatre.com

As his long-awaited production of Sleeping Beauty prepares to open at Sadler’s Wells, Matthew Bourne chats to Donald Hutera about vampires, Tchaikovsky and life as the world’s most celebrated choreographer

Matthew Bourne’s middle name could be ‘hit machine’.  Born and bred in Hackney, this unassuming 52-year-old is the creator of some of the most groundbreaking dance productions in recent history.

The most famous of these is his ‘all-male’ Swan Lake (incorrectly identified as such – there are women in the production but the swans are all played by men). Still the longest-running dance production in West End and Broadway history, this bona fide classic continues to tour the world along with his equally clever productions of ballet warhorses such as The Nutcracker and his more recent Blitz-era take on Cinderella. And he’s also the go-to man for the dance elements of musical-theatre blockbusters such as Oliver!, My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins.

So what does he make of being called ‘the world’s most successful choreographer’? Speaking from Edinburgh, where he’s presenting a new version of Sleeping Beauty prior to its London premiere next week, Bourne can only laugh at the label.

“I can’t see it that way,” he answers agreeably. “But the facts are that this company [New Adventures] performs more than any other in the UK. And our audiences are incredible. At Sadler’s Wells we’re essentially sold out before we open. We’ve got eight weeks there, and at the moment there are very few seats available before Christmas. I suppose the combination of me and the company, plus a famous ballet title or fairy tale, does kind of work.”

Matthew Bourne

The box office buzz at the Wells is likely to be justified. With designs by regular collaborator Lez Brotherston, and a thrilling ‘surround-sound’ recording of the score, Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty is shaping up to be yet another classic.

Following on from the re-titled Nutcracker! and Swan Lake, it is also the finale in the choreographer’s very own ‘Bourne trilogy’ of productions set to Tchaikovsky scores.

“I get on very well with Tchaikovsky,” he admits. “It felt like coming home. I feel very comfortable structuring the music closely and tightly with movement to tell a story. I hear drama and feeling in it. One of the best compliments I could ever get is, ‘It sounds like the score was written for this production’.”

Not surprisingly, his approach to the familiar story – young princess falls foul of a curse that slips her into dreamland for an entire century – is both original and carefully thought-out.

“Matthew had two problems with the original ballet scenario,” explains Sadler’s Wells Artistic Director Alistair Spalding. “The first was that when Aurora wakes up after a hundred years, the world is just as she’d left it, so he transports her from 1911 to 2011. The second problem was the prince who’s still around to wake her up after all that time. Matthew’s simple solution is that he’s a vampire.”

So is this Tchaikovsky retooled for a generation that has Twilight and True Blood coursing through its cultural veins?

“It’s not quite as straightforward as that,” Bourne cautions. “I haven’t just jumped on some vampire bandwagon.”

Rather, he quite understandably wanted to find a way for the hero (transformed by Bourne from a prince to a palace gameskeeper and Aurora’s secret childhood sweetheart) to stay alive for 100 years in order to bestow that celebrated awakening kiss.  

And the solution, he claims, ties in nicely with the Gothic-era setting of the production’s opening act – it is, in fact, prominently billed as a ‘Gothic romance’.

Bourne remains uncommonly approachable for a major artist, and typically wary of singing his own praises. But Spalding is quick to fill such a gap: “Matthew has taken a number of dusty old 19^th century ballets and reinvented them for the 21st Century. They’re full of humour and contemporary references but, above all, they have an emotional punch. He’s a superb director and showman who really wants to engage as many people as possible with his dance productions.”

And does the man himself have any final thoughts on his blood-sucking Beauty?  

“I’m always nervous about anything new,” he admits, “but I have to say that I don’t have lots of bits where I’m thinking, ‘God, I wish I had more time for that’. As a team we’ve all worked towards same goal, and I think it’s come out well at the end.”

Sleeping Beauty, Sadler’s Wells, December 4-January 26, sadlerswells.com 

Now’s your chance to win a bumper selection of items from Scout London’s inaugural Christmas gift guide.

Scout London has teamed up with select brands and retailers to take the stress out of one lucky reader’s Christmas shopping.

You can win gifts individually selected for women, men, kids and the home. You’ll also receive presents that celebrate London, tap into technology, and are the perfect treat for the foodies in your life.

Here’s what you could win:

• Sonos Play:3 wireless hi-fi system
• Card Shark poker set
• Sennheiser RS110 wireless headphones
• Original print from London artist Adam Hemuss
• Christmas goodie hamper from Planet Organic
• Shimla luxury spun bracelet
• Pretty Green canvas bag
• Abbey Road messenger bag
• Arthur Christmas Blu-ray
• Tate’s Another London book
• BFI Underground film map
• V&A taxi bookend
• Melrose and Morgan chutney gift set
• Hummingbird Bakery cupcake decorating kit
• Godiva chocolate Christmas figures
• Courvoisier VSOP
• Tio Pepe sherry
• Bulldog skin care set
• Ryan Gosling colour-me-in book
• Hand-knitted socks
• Funky Chicken doorstop
• Yankee Candle man candle
• Melvin cut out and sew hand puppets
• Feel Good Faces board game
• Ben 10 Omnitrix Touche
• Solarpod Buddy

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here – competition closes Sunday December 9 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Image: Andy Hollingworth

The world is a scary place for a young parent, as award-winning comic Rob Rouse has discovered. He chats to Dan Frost about poo, porn and prudishness

“It’s fascinating what people take offence to,” says Rob Rouse with enthused agitation. “It’s unbelievably fascinating that people will be offended by me talking about poo and the sheer amount of s**t you have to deal with as an adult. But you try and pick apart other things that maybe we should be thinking about…people just aren’t offended enough about some really serious things that are happening in the world.”

The 38-year-old comic is discussing his current show, Life Sentences, which he insists contains “nothing that is actually rude” but which has nevertheless been referred to by one reviewer as his “filthiest show to date”. The material draws principally on the amusements and annoyances of being a young father, so there are plenty of bodily functions gags, which could explain such a reading.

But this doesn’t wash with Rouse. He thinks there are topics raised in the show that people should be getting more offended by than a few scatalogical gags.

Such as? “Well, we had a daughter this time around, and it really has made me think,” he says. “Inevitably, you see the world through their eyes, and think about how it might pan out for them.

“I think the sexual landscape that kids are growing up in is really changing. Most kids by the age of 11 have seen hardcore pornography. I’m not trying to be a prude or be like Mary Whitehouse – Christ, I’ve looked at gallons of the stuff myself. But it’s undoubtedly changing the perception of what young boys and girls think is normal to expect from sexual interactions.

So the show is about looking honestly at these things, trying to find truths about ourselves and asking what the consequences might be – but hopefully making it very funny at the same time.”

Since bursting onto the scene in the late 90s and winning the prestigious So You Think You’re Funny Award at Edinburgh in 1998, Rouse has made a name for himself as an honest, frank and consistently funny dissector of everyday life – namely his own. But this drew criticism on his last show.

“There were people who said, ‘I’ve heard all this before, just someone talking about their f**king kids’. But the fact is, there’s nothing in life that someone else hasn’t gone through before or talked about,” he says, a hint of annoyance creeping into his usually very affable voice. “And I tend to get just as many people going, ‘This is his really funny account of what happened to him, so therefore the experience is unique’.”

Almost as an answer to previous criticism, the father of two has stuck two fingers up at the naysayers and based his current show heavily on the antics of his offspring. Not only that; he’s also deliberately ignored the accepted need for a narrative thread to pull all the jokes together.

“I was just bored of that as an idea,” he says. “I was bored of thinking ‘this has to make sense’.

As your life gets more complicated – more children and more out of control – there’s a realisation that you have to cease trying to control everything, and just roll with it all and enjoy that mess. So I was just trying to write stuff from my guts rather than trying to shape it into a particular form.”

The result is a show that offers a very funny assessment of the opening years of parenthood, embracing the reality that having children often inspires more questions than it does answers.

“Crucially, it’s about what I don’t understand,” chuckles Rouse, “and there’s certainly plenty of it.”

Rob Rouse
December 1,
Leicester Square Theatre,
7 Leicester Place, WC2X 7BH,
Nearest Tube: Leicester Square
robrouse.com

Image: Natural History Museum

A new permanent gallery opens at the Natural History Museum today, showcasing some of the most important exhibits from its 70 million-strong collection

When it opened today, the Natural History Museum’s Treasures Gallery is the first new permanent gallery to open at the institution since January 2011.

Overlooking Dippy, the much-loved Diplodocus, the aptly-named exhibit will showcase 22 of the renowned museum’s most significant and valuable objects, selected from its collection of more than 70 million specimens.

Among the highlights will be a fossil of the world’s earliest-know bird – an Archaeopteryx. The most valuable fossil in the museum’s collection, this 147m-year-old rock slab gives an incredible insight into the evolutionary process as it featured a combination of bird and dinosaur characteristics.

But that’s not the oldest specimen in the gallery. There’s the 4.6bn-year-old Wold Cottage meteorite – the earliest surviving meteorite seen to land in the UK, as well as a moon rock dated to 3.7bn years old.

Elsewhere there’s a skull of a north African Barbary lion, thought to have lived in the Tower of London around 1280–1385. It would have been part of the King’s menagerie and, after the ancient native lions, is the oldest lion to be found in the UK.

A 1,000-year-old skeleton of a Dodo is joined by dinosaur teeth, fossil ammonites (main picture), a Neanderthal skull, a rare copy of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and many other items, all giving a fascinating snapshot of the Earth’s natural history over billions of years.

nhm.ac.uk

This week, Scout London has teamed with Netflix, the world’s leading Internet subscription service for enjoying films and TV shows, to give one lucky reader the chance to win a one year subscription to Netflix and a Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone so you can instantly watch hours of great entertainment.

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here - competition closes Sunday Dec 9 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Got the festive dinner fear? Worry not, HelloFresh.co.uk, the award-winning service that delivers food boxes with recipes and ingredients has developed a Christmas Dinner Box.

Scout London has teamed up with HelloFresh.co.uk to take all the stress out of the big day – you could win all the raw ingredients needed to cook a traditional Christmas feast for four to six people, delivered direct to your door with step-by-step photo recipe cards, guiding even the most kitchen-phobic of cooks to festive triumph.

Among the items are:

· Luxury prawn cocktail starter, from James Knight of Mayfair, the only fishmonger to be awarded two Royal Warrants

· Award-winning free range Copas turkey

· All the trimmings, including garlic and herb-infused Brussels sprouts with toasted pine nuts, goose fat-roasted Maris Piper potatoes and honey glazed pigs in blankets from Tom Hixson & Co, butcher at Smithfield Meat Market for nearly 30 years

· Gourmet Christmas pudding with brandy butter, sourced from Wilkin & Sons, also awarded a Royal Warrant

· Handmade mince pies

· Decadent cheese board

· All served with the traditional Christmas sauces and accompaniments, Christmas crackers, and other gifts, including a Prestat chocolate bauble and Joe & Seph’s mince pie-flavoured popcorn.

A box for four to six people costs £155 and a box for eight to 10 people costs £225. Prices include delivery to mainland UK.

hellofresh.co.uk

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here – competition closes Sunday December 2 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Discover a hidden Christmassy London with the Scout London Christmas Trail.

We’ve teamed up with HiddenCity to offer you a FREE festive cryptic trail across the city, with a coffee to start you off and prizes for top teams. Sign-up now – there are limited spaces!

What is it?
Uncover a hidden Christmassy London with our cryptic trail, curated by HiddenCity.

HiddenCity is an experience where you solve a trail of clues sent to you by text message. Bring your mobile phone and a map and get ready to discover a side of the city that you normally wouldn’t see.

The Scout London Christmas Trail is a special HiddenCity trail. Sip wine in cosy bars, seek out seasonal art and ramble by riverside lights. And, as it’s Christmas, we’ve arranged for one or two mini treats for you to enjoy en route.

How it works

If free places are used up, limited discounted places are available, with 25% off (£12).

Once you’ve signed up, you’ll begin your route at the new Lavazza Coffee Bar in Somerset House  West Wing on the Strand. Send “start” from your phone and you’ll receive a cryptic clue, unlocking a complimentary winter-warming coffee, and your next challenge. The rest is a mystery, which you are about to uncover…

This HiddenCity experience normally costs £16 per team. We have limited free places for Scout London readers. There are no premium text message charges.

The trail is ideal for two to four people per team – if there are more of you, why not split up into multiple teams and compete against each other?

Expect your challenge to last three to five hours.

Win prizes!

Think you’re skillful, creative or just plain lucky? Then you’re in for a chance to win luxury Fairtrade chocolate from Divine Chocolate, tickets to award-winning comedy at Soho Theatre, and festive handmade ice creams from Ruby Violet.

Enter while you’re on the trail, or within 24 hours of completing it, by sending a tweet mentioning @ScoutLondon and your team name, for example: “Just finished the @scoutlondon trail as team [insert team name]. We’re sure to win, right?”

Send a photo with your Tweet to be in with a chance of winning prizes for the Most Creative Team Photo that week.

How to win

Most Creative Team Photos – three prizes each week: At the end of each week, HiddenCity will pick three winning team photos. 1st place team will win four tickets to see award winning comedy at the Soho Theatre. 2nd and 3rd place teams will get free Christmas Ice Cream from Ruby Violet for their team.

Fastest Three Teams each week: The team that finishes the trail with the fastest time each week receives an Ultimate Divine Chocolate Gift Set from Divine Chocolate. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams each week will also get a free Christmas Ice Cream from Ruby Violet for the whole team.

Daily Lucky Dip: Each day HiddenCity will select a team that has completed the trail that day to win a stack of Fairtrade chocolate from Divine Chocolate.

Special Challenge: Each week HiddenCity will select a winner from the teams that have correctly solved the Special Challenge that is given at a secret point during the trail. The weekly winners will receive a Divine Christmas Essentials Gift Set from Divine Chocolate.

Fastest Overall Team: The best of the best, fastest in the land, will receive 4 Luxury Divine Christmas Gift Sets (one per team member) (£280 value).

Weekly competitions will close at midday on Fridays in December 2012, and midday on Wednesday 2 January 2013.

See here for competition rules.

About HiddenCity
HiddenCity is a game where you solve a trail of clues sent to you by text message. Discover quirky shops, stylish bars and tucked-away pubs. Do it in one team or unleash your competitive side by entering multiple groups. It’s up to you. We think two to four people per team is a great number.

In addition to the special Scout London Christmas Trail, HiddenCity has 16 trails to choose from in five cities. The trails last between two and five hours. Once you’ve signed up and paid, all team captains receive a welcome text message and email with the start location. The hunt kicks off when Team 1 sends “start”. Then all the teams get the first clue.

After more than a year on Broadway and a UK tour, the musical based on Green Day’s celebrated American Idiot album is finally arriving in London. Scout chats to the director and lead star

Green Day: the musical. Who saw that coming? Not us, certainly. And yet, here it is, a critically-acclaimed Broadway hit that is now rocking out over here.

Whatever you might know or think you know about America’s titans of scuzzy West Coast punk, American Idiot the Musical is a genuinely surprising offering. It takes the songs from the multi Grammy-winning album of the same name and turns them into the narrative for a powerful and provocative piece about the angst and alienation of American youth in the Bush era.

Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll are all placed front and centre, often in uncomfortable ways. And its portrait of American society at one of its most controversial moments is about as damning as they come.

Having seen the European premiere in Southampton, we caught up with director and creator Michael Mayer and leading cast member Alex Nee after the show.

Michael, did the idea of turning American Idiot into a musical come about the first time you listened to the album?
M: It did. When I was growing up and listening to Broadway cast recordings, I would listen to them from start to finish while imagining that I was having a full-on experience of the show. When I first heard American Idiot in 2005, I started to have a very similar emotional feeling. I realised it was because there was a narrative inside the music. Even though it wasn’t advertised that way, I could tell it was like a rock opera or a rock musical. It is very theatrical, and there’s a real progression to it. So I thought, ‘My gosh, maybe it is like a musical, maybe I should think of it
that way’.

And did you immediately envisage it as such a caustic state-of-the-nation piece?
M: Absolutely. Those Bush years were as bad as anything I’ve ever seen. We were in a war that we shouldn’t have been in and were behaving, as a country, in a way that I think is intolerable. And no one was doing anything about it.  So to hear these punks from the East Bay – whose music I liked but who I didn’t think had their finger on the pulse of a political or social moment – articulating on behalf of an entire generation, it was very surprising and very powerful. They were giving voice to the feelings that I felt so strongly, and giving them in a way that could be received by young people. I got very excited and thought, ‘This is galvanising. These are guys at the peak of their popularity and the peak of their artistic powers, using them for good’. I really wanted to be a part of it. I thought there was a chance we could motivate a generation that had been written off, both by America and by themselves.

Alex, were you a fan of the album?
A: I was a big fan of their earlier records, but American Idiot represented a big change in their sound, and really changed the game for them. I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that so I didn’t initially love it. But then a couple of years later, seeing the original production of American Idiot on stage really opened up the album for me in a lot of new ways and of made me realise just how complex and raw it is.

Was it hard to get the band to agree to it?
M: Actually, no. I didn’t think that Green Day would be at all open to a stage version of their album. I thought they would just go, ‘Haha, thanks but no thanks’. But they have been so incredibly supportive right from the start. They really were just, ‘Go for it, follow your heart’. When they came to hear the material for the first time, with all these incredible arrangements and the story and everything, they were weeping by the end. You don’t expect Green Day to be weepy, and we didn’t expect what we were doing to affect them so deeply, so early in the process. But even I was surprised by the emotional power of it.

It’s very uncompromising in its portrayal of disaffected youth. Did you have reservations about showing the drugs, sex and rock’n’roll so prominently?
M: No, because that’s what the story was. All I wanted to do was make a show out of it, and to tell the story the best way I could with the material I had, so it naturally became a very uncompromising piece. And every time I tried to back away from that, it felt hollow.
A: It’s an uncompromising show, but I’m definitely of the belief that these things are happening to people and they should be put on stage in their raw form. We don’t want to sugar coat it in any way because that’s not gonna start any kind of real conversation.

Do you think it has started a conversation in the States?
A: Yeah. It definitely empowers people who don’t normally see themselves represented on the stage – people who feel different and out of place. To show them they are not alone and that lots of other people are going through these things, I think that allows them to start their own conversations with each other and with their parents.

American Idiot
December 4-16
Hammersmith Apollo
americanidiotthemusical.co.uk

From the Olympics to their forthcoming arena tour, Elbow have had an incredible 12 months. Frontman Guy Garvey invites Andy Welch to his home studio to reflect on how it’s been a marathon rather than a sprint

For many years, Elbow seemed destined to be one of Britain’s great unfulfilled talents.

The affable five-piece laboured throughout the 90s and, even when they’d signed to a major label and had to all intents and purposes ‘made it’, the label was sold, they were dropped and the debut they’d recorded was shelved.

In 2001 things finally started to look up. Asleep In The Back, their first album, was released and Brit Awards and Mercury Prize nominations followed. But it’s been a slow build to their status today as one of  Britain’s favourite bands.

Their ubiquitous hit One Day Like This is ingrained in the public consciousness, whether it’s being played while a baby is born, as a first dance at a wedding or on a much larger stage. And when the BBC needed music for its coverage of the 2012 London Olympics, it knew where to turn.

“I never thought we’d get to this point,” says the band’s singer Guy Garvey. “I knew we could handle it if it did happen, though.”

We’re sitting on the top floor of his house, just a couple of miles from the centre of Manchester. The room is his makeshift studio where he records demo vocals and, unable to read or write musical notation, sings melodies onto tape ready for the strings arranger to work his magic.

There’s a computer, piano, guitar and various other instruments strewn around, along with numerous empty tea mugs.

Garvey’s been busy producing (fellow Mancunians) I Am Kloot’s new album, as well as working on his own band’s next offering, although don’t expect to hear anything until spring 2014.
Elbow’s forthcoming arena shows are something of a farewell before the band takes some well-deserved time off in the New Year.

“We never had gap years, and it’s been hectic since The Seldom Seen Kid came out,” says Garvey, referring to their fourth album which scooped the Mercury Prize
in 2008.

“It might seem a bit naïve for a band in our position, seemingly at their peak, to have time off, but we’ll see.

“The lads have young families, we’ve all got projects we want to explore, and it’ll give us something we’ve never had before – a couple of months to listen to what we’ve recorded so far and work out what else it needs.”

But Garvey is already full of excitement about the prospect of putting together their as-yet-untitled sixth album. “There’s a special atmosphere in the studio; we’re all ready to change things up, push things forward,” he says.

He plans to spend at least four months of 2013 in New York with his writer girlfriend Emma, who today is on hand with bacon sandwiches and tea.

While there, he’ll work on the Broadway musical version of King Kong. Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja invited Garvey to join the songwriting team.

“Where better to write those songs than where King Kong’s set?” he says. “Plus I’ll write more Elbow songs.

We went there earlier this year, just for a few days, and I came back with some really strong lyrics.

“A lot of time when you’re away you write about home with real clarity. You reorder your priorities when you’re away too. You think, ‘That thing I do all the time? Turns out it’s not important’, or you figure that something you never do, you should actually do a lot more.”

Anyone with tickets to Elbow’s shows in November and December might be treated to some of those lyrics.

The band plan to demo some new material in front of an audience – it’s an unprecedented move for the band, but symptomatic of just how much confidence they have and how trusted they are by their fans.

This is a special band, blessed with the rare gift of being able to make faceless arenas feel like front rooms, while their giant choruses and spontaneous sing-alongs make small stages seem like cavernous halls.

“I like to get out there among the people at each gig,” says Garvey, trying to explain the band’s allure.

“I need to see who’s there and feel how each show’s different. We also get a twisted thrill out of getting the crowd to boo us, and the best way of doing that is to tell them that the previous town’s crowd were louder or whatever.”

He recalls an incident during a show at The O2 last year: “Just after I’d said ‘They were better last night’, a guy in front row piped up and said, ‘So were you!’

“I dedicated the following song to him, John he was called, and all 20,000 people laughed. Things like that wouldn’t happen if you just walked on, did your thing and walked off. Telly, I call that.

“We did used to just stand at the end of the room and play, and you’d have people gazing at you, picking their nose and forgetting that you can see them too. I like a gig to be an interactive experience.”

Few bands of Elbow’s stature are afforded the relative anonymity they enjoy. Garvey’s easily the most recognised member – he’s out in front on stage and is such an affable fellow off it. He also presents his own BBC 6Music show, Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour.

Despite his fame, he still drinks in the same bars and takes the tram everywhere. “Not out of any misguided attempt to be a ‘man of the people’, but because it’s a great place to listen to music and I love Manchester,” he says.

“I remember the days when no one was interested in anything we did, so I’m going to enjoy it now that’s not the case.”

When it comes to his public image, Garvey is equally as level-headed. “It’s never going to affect the way I write,” he says. “I think people are drawn to us because we find the extraordinary in the ordinary, the beautiful in the mundane. That’s a songwriter’s job.

“There’s a note of hope in everything I write, and it’s because I can’t not do that. I can’t not offer some silver lining.”

Elbow play at Wembley Arena on November 27 and The O2 on December 2

Be the first to see My First Tooth’s video for Past Broadcasts – their first single from new album Love Makes Monsters.

It’s a quirky story set in the countryside – and a hospital.

See the band live on November 28 at The Moustache Bar (supporting Tellison) and on December 4 at the Old Blue Last.

Stuck for something to do tonight? Well, what has to be one of the highlights of the 2012 comedy calendar is taking place this evening at Hammersmith Apollo – and all for a good cause.

Laugh or the Polar Bear Gets It features major comedy stars such as Stewart Lee (pictured), Richard Herring, Ed Byrne and Charlie Baker, all cracking the wit in aid of environmental charity Friends of the Earth.

Also performing will be Josh Widdicombe, Tony Law, Dan Antopolski, Danny Bhoy and Francesca Martinez.

And, quite remarkably, it won’t cost you an arm and a leg to see it. Tickets cost just £15-£20. That’s around £2 per comedian. Not only are you unlikely to find a better comedy line-up this side of the global apocalypse, but you’re almost certainly not going to get it at such a bargain price. Thanks polar bears.

Laugh or the Polar Bear Gets It, Hammersmith Apollo, £15-£20, foe.co.uk/polarbear 

Pioneers of immersive theatre and the group behind what used to be the coolest bar in town, the Shunt collective is back with its first show in two years. Dan Frost meets co-founder and director Louise Mari

“I’d like to think we’re still not mainstream,” says Louise Mari with a cautious smile. The co-founder of Shunt is slumped on a sofa in the bar area of Theatre Delicatessen in Marylebone, where the collective is rehearsing its new show. She’s responding to the suggestion that the growth in popularity of the company’s bold and somewhat barmy brand of experimental theatre has pushed it increasingly towards what might be regarded as ‘mainstream’.

“I think we make decisions that are not commercial decisions, which, for all our naiveté, is something I still really love about the company,” she says. “We don’t sell programmes, we don’t over-charge at the bar, we don’t charge huge prices for our work, and we’ve never been sponsored. We have integrity in what we do, and we always put the art first. Maybe the company would have a bit more security if we’d made different decisions about that kind of thing, but that’s just who we are.”

As you might have guessed, the Shunt team is quite fiercely independent. Which is one of the reasons it has been so effective.

Over the past 15 years, it has become one of the most influential arts collectives in the city, inspiring a generation of experimental theatre makers and performance artists. Some of this is the result of its large-scale immersive productions, such as 2005’s Tropicana or 2010’s dizzyingly impressive Money. But it’s also the effect of the Shunt Lounge, a dark, subterranean bar and performance space that the team ran for six years in the tunnels beneath London Bridge station. As well as being one of the city’s coolest watering holes, attracting hundreds of party-goers every weekend, it was also one of its most dynamic and unpredictable arts spaces.

Shunt invited in performance, exhibition and installation from a vast tapestry of left-field artists of every medium, and used the popularity of the bar as a way of promoting this work to crowds that might otherwise never have seen it.

“There was always an agenda of experiment,” explains Mari. “We wanted to support experimental work in all fields of the arts, to create a community of artists.”

That all came to an end in 2010, when work on The Shard forced them out (Shunt had leased the space from Network Rail). Shortly before the Lounge closed, Shunt opened Money, an avant-garde play that took place inside a giant purpose-built machine in a warehouse on Bermondsey Street.

Avant-garde theatre is a niche market at best. And yet, Money played to sell-out audiences every night for an entire year.

Now, after nearly two years away, Shunt is back with a new production: The Architects.

Loosely based on the Greek myth of the Minotaur, the play will open at the Biscuit Factory in Bermondsey at the end of the month.

“It’s very hard to talk about in any depth,” says Mari, “because the whole point of the show is disorientation, so if I tell you too much about what happens then it might spoil that. It’s not a physical labyrinth. We’re taking on the idea of the labyrinth in terms of something that’s disorientating – for your understanding of what’s going on and your relationship with the performance.”

Funded by the Arts Council, the piece has a third of the budget of Money, which had its lavish production values bankrolled by the success of the Lounge.

“The trouble is, we still have the same ridiculous ambitions,” chuckles Mari. “We’ve just had to temper them a bit. But the environments will still be very interesting.”

This much is not in doubt. Ever since 10 students from Central School of Speech and Drama decided to form Shunt in 1998, they’ve been putting minimal means to masterful use.

The Lounge is a case in point. Mari, now 46, was one of the few collective members with a direct hand in running the venue. She remembers “everyone working for peanuts and never sleeping”, partly because they never expected the bar to become so popular.

“We just thought, ‘Lets put some crates up on end and get a bucket with some ice and beer, open it up and play some music’. By the third week we had 600 people coming in,” she says. “It grew so fast, we constantly had to improve and adapt the space, and get more staff in. Then we’d have to make more money to support these new staff, so it ended up being this monster of a project. We were constantly trying to catch up.”

Which brings us to the question most Shunt fans will want asked: are there plans for another Lounge?

“We’ll never say no, but the idea at the moment is to focus on the company’s shows, because that’s why we started and that’s what we’re about.

“I’m also getting on a bit now,” she adds with a smile. “People keep saying, ‘Let’s do it again’, but I think I’d be dead in six months if we did.”

The Architects, November 27- January 6, The Biscuit Factory, nationaltheatre.org.uk

Kiss Me, Kate

Old Vic, November 20-March 2, £11-£60

On the back of rave reviews in Chichester this summer, Trevor Nunn’s revival of Cole Porter’s most famous musical is now transferring to the Old Vic for the coveted Christmas slot.

Kiss Me Kate is based around a musical production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, and the fiery backstage relationship between the show’s director and male star and his leading lady, who also happens to be his ex-wife. Throw in a few gun-toting gangsters and some of Porter’s finest songs and you have one of America’s liveliest and most fun-packed musicals. Goodbye winter blues.

SE1 8NB, oldvictheatre.com

Hero

Royal Court, November 23-December 22, £10-£20

EV Crowe was nominated as Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for her debut play, Kin, an alarming story about bullying and abandoned adolescence in a girl’s boarding school.

After a piece about Bonnie Prince Charlie for the Edinburgh Fringe, she is now returning to education as a backdrop for her new play, Hero, which centres on a gay primary school teacher and the professional challenges he has to overcome as a result of his sexuality.

SW1W 8AS, royalcourttheatre.com

Jack Butcher and Oliver-Ford-Davies in Goodnight Mister Tom

Goodnight Mister Tom

Phoenix Theatre, November 22-January 26, £15-£46.50

There can be few stories that manage to be both as heartwarming and heartbreaking as Michelle Magorian’s award-winning children’s novel.

Set during the second world war, it tells of a young boy who is evacuated away from his physically and psychologically abusive mother in London to the home of a cantankerous elderly recluse in the countryside. Over time, the old man and the boy form a tender bond that gradually helps both to refresh their outlook on life.

Yet another success story for Chichester Festival Theatre, its celebrated production of David Wood’s adaptation will enjoy a short West End run following a well-received national tour. Olivier Award-winning actor Oliver Ford Davies stars in the title role.

WC2H 0JP, goodnightmistertom.co.uk

The Changeling

Young Vic, November 20-December 15, £10-£30

Joe Hill-Gibbins’ arresting production of this dark and bloody Jacobean tragedy played to sell-out crowds when it opened at the Young Vic at the start of the year. It is now returning to the theatre for a four week run, with a new cast.

At the centre of Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s play is a spoilt and amoral rich girl who is in love with one man but betrothed to another. She hires an ugly servant whom she loathes to murder her fiancé, only to discover that the only payment the servant will accept is of the sexual kind.

On the back of celebrated productions of The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Glass Menagerie, Hill-Gibbins delivered a version of the play that was wild, sexy, blackly comic and at times thoroughly disturbing – or, as one reviewer put it, “downright bonkers”. Thank goodness we’ve got a chance to enjoy it all over again.

SE1 8LZ, youngvic.org

The Coming Storm

Battersea Arts Centre, November 20 – December 1, £13-£17 

Veteran avant-garde theatre company Forced Entertainment is taking over Battersea Arts Centre for two weeks at the end of this month, with this typically madcap piece of sprawling experimentalism at the heart of its residency.

What’s the story? Well, which one do you mean? By the sounds of things, there are umpteen narratives that all interweave and collide, covering everything from “love and death to sex and laundry, from shipwrecks to falling snow, personal anecdotes rub shoulders with imaginary movies, and half remembered novels bump into distorted fairytales”. Right, that’s cleared that up then.

Reassuringly, Forced Entertainment is widely acclaimed for its off-beat antics, and its work is as famously compelling as it is chaotic.

Also keep an eye out for the company’s Sight is the Sense That Dying People Tend to Lose First, from November 22-24.

SW11 5TN, bac.org.uk

The Prince and the Pauper

Unicorn Theatre, November 25-January 13, £11-£22

Few places in the world can stage children’s theatre with the wit and ingenuity of The Unicorn. Their Christmas production is always a big draw, and this year should be no exception.

Jemma Kennedy has adapted classic Mark Twain story The Prince and the Pauper for a production directed by Selina Cartmell.  It tells of a case of mistaken identity in Tudor England that sees a poor young lad welcomed into a world of regal splendor while the rightful heir to the throne is cast out into streets of scum and villainy.

SE1 2HZ, unicorntheatre.com

Being a successful actor, portraying other human character is enough of a skill, but how do you convincingly take on the role of another species altogether – and so effectively that people can’t tell the difference?

That’s the incredible talent of actor Peter Elliott, whose uncanny ability to ‘inhabit’ other species has seen the Londoner become Hollywood’s go-to guy when it comes to this field.

“I trained as a method actor so I approach it in a different way than if it was just movement – I approach it from the inside out. One of the ways is to get into the stream of consciousness of a chimpanzee, the way it breathes, the way it moves,” he tells Scout London.

But how do you get inside the mind of another species? “A chimpanzee has a short attention span and very high curiosity ratio,” explains Elliott, who spent two years working with US leading primatologist, Dr Roger Foutts, studying chimpanzees, in order to prepare for his role in 1984 film Greystoke The Legend of Tarzan.

“It’s an essential survival tool – if you were to have the concentration to sit and read a book, something might jump on your from behind and eat you while you were reading,” he says.

Elliott’s ability to mimic apes is astonishing. Not only can he speak ‘chimp’, he can communicate so effectively that he became the first person ever to successfully integrate himself with a chimpanzee colony – even being given a position in their hierarchy structure.

As well as Greystoke, Elliott has brought his unique style of choreography to bear on a wide variety of films from Gorillas in the Mist (1987), to Missing Link (1986), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1995) and even as aliens for Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (2005) and children’s classic Where The Wild Things Are (2006).

Now he’s turned his skills to a role in a new ad by Barclaycard which aims to raise thousands of pounds for Great Ormond Street Hospital. The advert centres on the difficulty of buying a toy at Christmas, and Elliott plays the part of Mr B, a toy monkey who jumps to the needs of a toyshop customer who is overwhelmed with the choice when trying to buy a toy at Christmas. The monkey is voiced by James Corden.

Check out his skills here:

For more info visit Barclaycard.co.uk/paying

Five months have passed since Tyler James sang his last song on BBC talent contest The Voice. And he’s barely sat down in that time. Since finishing as runner-up on the show, the 30-year-old’s life has been a blur of activity, a flurry of writing, recording, performing and promotion. Now he’s preparing for his biggest headline show to date, at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

It represents a second chance for the energetic Canning Town singer. In 2004 he was touring the world with childhood friend Amy Winehouse, was signed to Island Records and was being tipped as ‘one to watch’ by the music press.

A year later it had all gone wrong. James had been dropped by his label and was struggling with alcoholism, eventually being admitted to rehab.

He had beaten his demons by the time The Voice came around, but was still struggling to regain his confidence, and cope with the death of Winehouse in 2011. So when he first stepped onto the stage for the show’s TV auditions, he was a nervous wreck.

“I went into it half-heartedly,” he admits to Scout London. “I wasn’t ready to do it. About five minutes before the final [televised] audition I refused to go on. There was a period of about 30 seconds when I might never have been on the show.”

But he went on, and will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas became his mentor. It was the start of a transformation.
“The people that watched that show shared a personal experience with me because they watched me learn to believe in myself again,” James says.

“If you get knocked down…I’m a very insecure person…” He pauses, struggling for the words. “There was a point before the show when I didn’t want to sing any more and was planning to give it all up.”

It’s clearly a painful memory, and there’s a noticeable sense of release when he finally blurts: “When you sing in front of the audience, the TV cameras and you know you have millions of people watching and voting for you, it’s such a confidence boost. I suddenly wanted to get to the end of the show not just for me, but also for all the people that voted for me, and for my friends and family who had suddenly started to see me believe in myself again.

“It was a massive turning point in my life. I will always feel so grateful to everyone that voted for me and all the producers and people who worked on the show. They all saw me go through a huge change. It really was like the final point in my rehabilitation – learning to believe in myself again.”

By making that leap of faith, James had crossed a boundary.

“I used to shy away from doing things I was uncomfortable with. But now I always embrace them.”

It was a mere two days after the end of The Voice that James was once again snapped up by Island Records. He has since found himself working with songwriters such as Guy Chambers, who co-wrote some of Robbie Williams’ biggest hits, Fraser T Smith, who has worked with Craig David, Tinchy Stryder, N-Dubz, James Morrison and Adele, and Kanye West collaborator, Mr Hudson.

The process has boosted his confidence even further and taught him to trust his instincts. It’s the next step in James’ maturation as an artist – and a person.

That’s not to say he doesn’t still get nervous about performing. The same fears still rise up before gigs. So how’s he going to cope in front of 2,000 fans in Shepherd’s Bush?

“Being on The Voice has been good preparation,” he says. “No matter how nervous I get, nothing is as scary as performing in front of millions of people on TV, knowing people will be judging you then and there, and people will be voting for you or not. So every time I start freaking out, I remind myself that it’s nowhere near as scary as that.”

Tyler James
November 21
O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
o2shepherdsbushempire.co.uk  

They may have enviable skills in the kitchen, but when they get home, many chefs settle for something a little more ‘grub’ than ‘gourmet’. By Ben Norum

Having spent the day cooking for other people, what is it that London’s top chefs settle down to when they get home, hungry?

It’s only natural that after spending all day faffing with foodie finesse, chefs are in the market for something much more simple to line their own stomachs. And different though the dishes they dole out might be, the names behind this city’s top suppers are often in agreement when it comes to post-work provisions.

Cheese is the chow of choice for many. TV chef Ravinder Bhogal specifically seeks out “St John bread and cheese the size of my head”, while Salt Yard’s Ben Tish can’t resist cheddar and HP sauce sandwiches. And Kim Woodward, head chef at Gordon Ramsay’s York & Albany probably couldn’t quite get away with putting her late night chocolate and cheddar combo on the menu at work.

Cereal is another popular option. Sean Burbidge, head chef at Petrus admits that after work he’ll sometimes “pop some bread in the oven, get some French cheeses out with a couple of slices of Iberico ham and have it on the crusty warm bread”, but that more often than not he’ll have Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.

Less common choices include Michelin-starred Launceston Place chef Tim Allen’s KP peanuts and Mars bar ice-creams, Roka chef Hamish Brown’s sushi rice and soya sauce with shichimi pepper, and Caravan’s Miles Kerby’s compelling urge for crumpets.

It’s not all about staying in and raiding the cupboards, though. Chinatown is the destination for many, with 24-hour restaurant 1997 among popular picks. Andre Garrett, head chef at Galvin at Windows is one regular, sometimes with team in tow, but will happily grab a spicy pizza from wherever is open otherwise.

So far, so trashy – and understandably so. After all, it’s got to be something of a busman’s holiday knocking up a gourmet banquet for yourself after a 15-hour shift, or longer. But chefs’ after-hours feasting isn’t all about getting full on comfort food: for many, it forms an integral part of how they work together in the kitchen.

Chef Skye Gyngell, who left Michelin-starred Petersham Nurseries in January and is now preparing to oversee the food at Heckfield Place in Hampshire, as well as opening a new London venture, says: “Once the last tables were cleared I would sit down with everyone and eat bits and pieces of what was left over. Usually lots of vegetables, a salad and a little bits of meat or fish. It’s nice if everyone eats together after service as it’s a chance to talk through things and relax. It’s really important that a staff meal is good. You can’t expect your staff to love and respect good food if you don’t feed them well.”

At South Kensington’s Apero, chef Chris Golding says: “After service on a Friday night we cook a curry and have a beer. A different chef cooks each week and it is becoming quite competitive. It is something we look forward to, sitting around in the kitchen after service, drinking beer and eating curry, talking about what’s happened during that week.”

Rowley Leigh: “It can vary from eating any ‘mistaken’ orders, to a bowl of pasta…But I do like Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie and sugared ring donuts.”

Angela Hartnett: “I love roast chicken or a simple pasta dish, but my guilty pleasure is Nutella on white bread.”

Vivek Singh: “I eat a spice masala omelette and a sweet teacake. Also Jammy Dodgers!”

Richard Corrigan: “I might have something simple like grilled mackerel with rhubarb and some toasted soda bread. Kit Kats are also a favourite.”

Photo: Mark Nixon

Showman, circus master and the ‘people’s puppeteer’, Jason Byrne is not your everyday comedian, which is precisely why he’s now one of the biggest stand-ups in the UK. He chats to Laura Martin about audience participation and the Pope

The impending Christmas season could get quite annoying for Irish comedian Jason Byrne. It’s not that he’s a Scrooge-like naysayer. He simply bears more than a passing resemblance to an oversized mythical creature from the North Pole.

“Every year I get people going, ‘Hey you’re on the telly again, that film Elf’s on’,” he says wearily. “Will Ferrell and I are roughly the same size, we have weird flat heads and we both have pissy-hole eyes. The truth is, I would love to have played Elf. Most actors would go, ‘Yeah, Raging Bull or Casino’, but I say Elf.”

Perhaps it’s not that surprising that the 40-year-old funnyman would go for such a role. For one thing, he and Ferrell aren’t that far apart, with Byrne having taken the well-worn profession of stand-up and turned it into something of a spectacular, complete with stunts, stories and japes involving the audience.

This was why his 2011 show was called Cirque du Byrne, and why his current show is named The People’s Puppeteer.
“It’s called that because I use the audience quite a lot, and get people up on stage,” he explains. “It all depends where they steer it, so it is quite like a circus.

“I spend quite a lot of the time grooming the crowd so I know who I can pick out. Thankfully, I’ve never picked anyone who’s started crying or freaking out or anything, but I do remember dragging a guy around in a cardboard box that then completely collapsed, so I dragged him around by his ankles and he ended up covered in glitter. It’s just magical. Mad s**t just evolves.”

Byrne’s cult following has been building for almost 15 years, since he established himself as one-to-watch at the Edinburgh Festival in 1998 and bagged a nomination for the Perrier Best Newcomer Award. His natural Irish flair for embellishing and telling mad-cap stories, combined with his talent for playing off whatever the audience throws at him have led to him being billed as the “biggest selling comedian in Edinburgh”. And he doesn’t do too badly around the rest of the UK either – his forthcoming London date is at the 3,000-capacity Hammersmith Apollo.

Fans often turn up with gifts that Byrne then incorporates into the show. On different nights you might be party to an argument about the physical constitution of a pomegranate, a spiel about a statue of St Patrick protecting the Irish with a hat pin, or just a hearty LOL when Byrne is presented with a chocolate cock with an eye on it, in homage to his often self-ridiculed childhood “cock eye”.

Byrne says: “Quite often, it’s like arguments in the pub with your mates, except with 600 people shouting ‘You’rewrong, f**k off’.”

As well as audience contributions, Byrne also looks to home life for inspiration.

“My five-year-old and my 12-year-old have said some crackers that I’ve directly put on stage,” he chuckles. “When he was younger, my 12-year-old saw the Pope when he was all laid out and dead in a red hat and red robe, and he started to get really upset because he thought Santa was dead. I did a whole routine on that. I’d tell those stories all night if I could, but you have to write your own stuff.”

Alternatively, you could just mine comedy gold from the contributions of a willing audience. There’s something to be said for letting others pull the strings.

Jason Byrne
Hammersmith Apollo
November 23
jasonbyrne.ie

During a visit to London, Bradley Cooper talks to Susan Griffin about his toughest role so far and calling Robert De Niro ‘Dad’

Bradley Cooper’s exhausted. It’s his eyes that give it away – the twinkly blues are looking a little bloodshot. But, to be fair, he has just flown into London for a day of back-to-back interviews before shooting off again to resume filming on The Hangover III.

It was his turn as the charismatic Phil in the original Hangover that turned him into a global star. And, after three years, he has little trouble getting back into the character’s headspace.

“I grow my hair out and bam!, I’m there,” laughs the 37-year-old, who’s looking tanned and smart in a blue shirt and dark trousers.

But he’s not perched on a chair in The Dorchester to talk about the new Hangover escapades (that’ll come next year).

Right now he’s promoting Silver Linings Playbook, a searing yet comedic drama in which he plays Pat Solitano, a man who’s lost everything – his wife, his house, his job – and has just spent eight months in an institution undergoing treatment for bi-polar disorder.

It’s not as heavy-going as it sounds; there are even laugh-out-loud moments. It also boasts stellar performances from a cast that includes former Oscar nominees Jennifer Lawrence and Jacki Weaver, plus Robert De Niro as Pat’s father, who suffers from OCD.

“It was extremely soothing to be able to say the word ‘Dad’ and have him be the person I was saying it to,” says Cooper, who worked with De Niro on 2011’s Limitless.

“As a human being he’s very softly spoken and giving. I trust and love him and know he’s going to bring the best out of me.”

The movie is directed by David O Russell, who led Christian Bale and Melissa Leo to Oscar glory in 2010’s The Fighter.

It’s Russell who recognised Cooper’s potential to portray Pat’s complicated mix of ferociousness and vulnerability.

“I first saw him in Wedding Crashers, and his anger impressed me in that movie,” says Russell of the bullish character Cooper played in the bawdy 2005 hit comedy.

“He told me a little bit about who he was at that time and that was all interesting to me, that he had all these layers in him. Because just as Pat’s coming home and reintroducing himself to the community and saying, ‘Please, I don’t think you know who I am’, so I felt that Bradley was doing that to some degree.”

A graduate of the esteemed Actors Studio Drama School in New York, Cooper is someone who takes his work very seriously, which is why he finds talk of his heartthrob status (he was voted People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive last year) pretty uncomfortable.

“I don’t even take it into account,” he said in a recent interview. “It was an interesting thing but has nothing to do with what I’m doing.”

He insists he’s just a regular bloke. “One of the things I love doing is going to a cinema and watching a movie by myself. My life’s very normal. The only time it gets kind of interesting is in these types of situations.”

So forget asking him about his pin-up status, as he’s far more interested in talking about his craft.
“I feel I hit the jackpot with Silver Linings Playbook. That I get a chance to work with David O Russell is a dream come true. I’ve never seen a bad performance in any of his movies.”

Cooper was shooting The Place Beyond The Pines with Ryan Gosling when Russell offered him the role.
“He said, ‘OK, we want you to do this movie, can you show up in two weeks?’” recalls Cooper. “It was sort of baptism by fire but I had faith in the fact he had faith in me.”

And in hindsight, he thinks it was an advantage to move straight from one movie set to the next. “It was like you had an engine that was already revved up. Everything was firing, [so] no thinking.”

Hailing from Philadelphia, where Silver Linings Playbook is set, Cooper recalls two experiences that would inform his future career. The first was starring in a school production of Around The World in 80 Days. (“I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was in heaven.”)The other was, aged 11, watching Anthony Hopkins in The Elephant Man, an experience he describes as “a watershed moment”.

There was no theatre programme at college but an ex-girlfriend encouraged him to take part in plays. “She was so fed-up with me going on so much
about movies!”

Silver Linings Playbook is released on November 21

Thanksgiving is on Thursday, so whether you’re American, or just want to get into the spirit of things, here’s our pick of the Top 10 restaurants to mark the occasion in London

1     Christopher’s
Authentic American food served up for over 20 years
WC2E 7DD
Nearest Tube: Covent Garden

2     The Breakfast Club
Traditional three course meal and fun and games to boot
N1 8EA
Nearest Tube: Angel

3     Villandry
Thanksgiving with a French twist
W1W 5QB
Nearest Tube: Great Portland Street

4     Bodeans
Family style platters
W1F 8PZ
Nearest Tube: Oxford Circus

5     Babylon
A touch of class above Kensington at The Roof Gardens
W8 5SA
Nearest Tube: Kensington High Street

6     Henry J Beans
Finish with pecan pie
SW3 5ED
Nearest Tube:  Sloane Square

7     Missouri Angel
Located in America Square
EC3N 2LJ
Nearest Tube:  Tower Hill

8     Planet Hollywood
Pumpkin soup for starters
SW1Y 4QX
Nearest Tube: Piccadilly Circus

9     Automat
Retro styling, proper meals
W1S 4NF
Nearest Tube: Green Park

10    Whole Foods Market
Oven-ready dinners to take away – feel free to take credit
W8 5SE
Nearest Tube: Kensington High Street

The show that’s got everyone talking…Except him.

The multi award-winning Edinburgh Festival Fringe sell out sensation, brings his critically acclaimed five-star smash hit show to the Duchess Theatre in the West End this Christmas for 22 performances from December 17.

Funny, innovative, spectacular and inspiring, this is stand-up with no talking, drama with no acting, punchlines with no words.

Scout London has teamed up with The Boy with Tape on His Face  to give one lucky Scout reader a pair of tickets to the show and a pre-show dinner for two at Orso in Covent Garden.

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here – competition closes Sunday November 25 2012. Prize is for a pair of tickets plus a two course meal with a Bellini at Orso. Dinner booking between 5pm and 6.45pm only, theatre tickets subject to availability

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Julian Clary has marriage on his brain. Not to his partner Ian, mind you. But to someone from the audience on his latest tour.

The new show from the veteran gay comic – not to mention novelist, Celebrity Big Brother winner and Strictly Come Dancing contestant (he came third) – sees him touring the country looking for a husband.

“I came up with the concept some time ago when I thought my partner, who had gone to work in America, wasn’t going to be coming back,” the 53-year-old tells Scout London.

“He originally went for six months, then it was a year, then it was 18 months – I got fed up, so I thought, ‘I’ll show him’ and I set about trying to find a husband on tour. I’ve always looked for ways of pulling people out from the audience, so this takes the form of an open audition for a husband. I get eight to 10 men on stage and put them through a variety of challenges until in the end I ‘marry’ one of them.”

Being dragged on stage is something that fills many people with horror – Clary included.

“I’m one of those people who hides at the back at comedy shows,” he admits.

“But my show doesn’t really have any humiliation in it, and I find people enjoy it in the end. Shy people are a bit mortified, but go through some sort of barrier and are pleased with themselves at the end – they have this incredible sense of achievement.”

Although he came up with the idea for Position Vacant, Apply Within two years ago, the gay marriage debate is still making headlines, and currently raging in the pews and pulpits of the Christian community.

“I would love to look back in 10 years – when it’s all fine and gay people are allowed to marry and there’s a lot more equality,” says Clary. “It’ll be interesting to look back to the people who think society is under threat due to this, and see if they say, ‘Sorry, I was wrong’.”

What’s striking about the so-called Commodore of Camp is just how thoughtful and reserved he is. For a man with such an outrageous stage persona and a reputation for acerbic wit – he nicknamed fellow Celebrity Big Brother housemate Jersey Shore’s The Situation “the occasional table” – his quiet, measured responses seem contradictory.

This was evident during his ‘stay’ at the BB house, where he seemed placid and non-confrontational.

“Like a lot of comedians, I’m not very funny or extroverted off-stage,” he reveals. “It took me a while to say anything vulgar in the Big Brother house. There were a lot of people in there performing for the cameras and I found that quite excruciating, so I went down into myself. I wanted to quit, but found myself thinking, ‘Just do one more day, one more day’.”

Once he did finally emerge – as the winner – he simply went home and retreated from the spotlight. In spite of how he might appear, Clary confesses to being a solitary person who prefers his own company to that of others.

Knowing that about himself, why did he put himself forward? “I dared myself to do it,” he grins. “Also, I knew my tour was booked, so I knew being on TV would give that publicity.” He pauses and laughs: “Plus, they pay very well.”

“But no-one I know thought it was a good idea,” he adds. “They all tried to stop me.”

So, stage ‘marriage’ aside, does Clary have any plans to get hitched for real?

“My partner and I do talk about it,” he admits. “But I don’t want a civil partnership – I want marriage and all the romance of it. As soon as we can get properly married, we will be first down the aisle.”

Julian Clary – Position Vacant, Apply Within
November 22 & 23
O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
o2shepherdsbushempire.co.uk

The concluding chapter of the outlandish fang-tasy series based on Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling books delivers a master class in constructing CGI mountains out of molehills.

The Twilight Saga: Treading Water would be more apt, considering how scriptwriter Melissa Rosenberg manages to expand 30 minutes of plot into two hours of anticipation and dread.

A climactic battle royale between the diabolical Volturi and the Cullens is certainly spectacular and director Bill Condon, who also helmed Part 1, orchestrates this special effects-heavy mayhem with verve.

Airborne vampires and snarling werewolves tumble acrobatically across the screen locked in mortal combat, their desperate struggles ended with a sickening snap of a neck or crude decapitation.

Were these brave warriors anything but otherworldly creatures, which miraculously don’t bleed when injured, the relentless on-screen carnage would merit a 15 certificate.

Before all of the slavering jaws and severed limbs, the fifth instalment in the series doesn’t justify the decision by filmmakers to cleave Meyer’s final book in two à la Harry Potter.

Substance is woefully lacking and there are only so many slow-motion smooches that can paper over the cracks before the most ardent members of Team Edward and Team Jacob will start to look nervously at their watches.

Part 2 begins with Bella (Kristen Stewart) re-awakening as a vampire. Opening scenes visualise her heightened senses: the sound of a spider spinning its web, the music of a passing breeze, a trickle of a bead of water down a glass
She sees and hears everything, contentedly falling back into the arms of lover Edward (Robert Pattinson)

Soon after, best friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner) arrives and is taken aback by Bella’s rejuvenation. “I didn’t expect you to seem so… ‘you’… except for the creepy eyes,” he grins.

Jacob confesses to Bella that he has imprinted on their half mortal, half vampire offspring, Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy).

Once the young mother recovers from the shock and accepts Jacob as her daughter’s protector, Bella and Edward settle into domestic bliss with the rest of the Cullen clan: Dr Carlisle (Peter Facinelli), Esme (Elizabeth Reaser), Alice (Ashley Greene), Rosalie (Nikki Reed), Emmett (Kellan Lutz) and Jasper (Jackson Rathbone).

Alas, their joy is short-lived when Renesmee is discovered to be an immortal child – an abomination under ancient vampire law.

The Volturi, the vampire counsel led by Aro (Michael Sheen), Caius (Jamie Campbell Bower) and Marcus (Christopher Heyerdahl), are informed and they marshal an army including sibling guards Jane (Dakota Fanning) and Alec (Cameron Bright) and enforcers Demetri (Charlie Bewley) and Felix (Daniel Cudmore).

Aside from the impressive final showdown, Breaking Dawn – Part 2 feels like the dying breaths of a cash cow being milked dry.

Stewart and Pattinson stare dreamily into each other’s eyes to an angst-heavy soundtrack of Green Day, Ellie Goulding, Christina Perri and Feist, and make gushing declarations – “I’m never going to get tired of this!” – that inspire wry smiles in light of tabloid revelations.

Lautner appeases fans with another scene of gratuitous nudity while Sheen devours the very expensive scenery as the bloodsucking elder with an unquenchable thirst for slaughter.

A protracted montage of the leading couple in clinches is yet more filler but Condon does deliver one nice touch by individually honouring actors from all five films as he fades to black. Credit where it’s due.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is released on Friday

Duff McKagan will be presenting the Classic Rock Roll of Honour tomorrow night at The Roundhouse. Fellow rock legend Nikki Sixx will be on the other side of the mic, grilling the great and the good of rock ‘n’ roll for his radio show Sixx Sense. James Drury caught up with them both ahead of the big day

Duff McKagan and Nikki Sixx are two of the most iconic men in rock. Both have been performing on stage for decades in various guises, but probably most famously in Guns N Roses (McKagan) and Mötley Crüe.

However, tomorrow they will both be taking on roles which are a step away from what they’re used to. McKagan will be presenting the Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards – the first time he’s presented an awards show – while Sixx will be taking on the role of journalist, interviewing acts for his radio show Sixx Sense, which has been on XM in the USA for almost three years.

McKagan is bubbling with excitement in anticipation of the event, which will see Lynyrd Skynyrd perform to the room full of rock royalty.

“Any time I’m asked to do anything in a room which includes people from bands such as Pink Floyd, The Damned, Jimmy Page and so on, it’s like 15-year-old me going ‘you’ve got to be joking’. I’m so honoured and hoping I’ll do my best, and pay my respects to everyone.”

Admitting he’s not quite sure how to prepare for the event, McKagan, adds: “If there comes a moment when there needs to be some funny s*** I’m not a comedian,” he pauses and grins “…but I like to have fun.

“Life is one of those things – if you take it too seriously, it will be over pretty quickly. Have fun while you’re on the journey.”

Duff McKagan is looking forward to presenting the Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards
Photo: Fab Fernandez

Arguably undertaking a less pressured job will be Sixx, who’ll be “hanging out” interviewing the guests and winners.

It’s typical of his style of broadcasting, which sees him interview stars from his studio, which is bedecked in red velvet walls and leopard-print carpet.

“We’re coming up on our third year anniversary with Sixx Sense. It’s incredible how much stuff there has been to talk about every day since we started – especially all the stuff you don’t have planned,” he says, with the confidence and authority of someone who’s a natural professional broadcaster.

“The interviews are such fun. The artists come in and just chill and enjoy it. Paul Rogers came in recently and it was just like hanging out in the pub.”

Sixx’s more considerable experience as interviewee rather than interviewer puts him in a good position when it comes to getting the most out of his guests.

“I know what pisses an artist off,” he says. “I’ve been asked all the stupid questions. I really hate it when the journalist hasn’t even bothered to do any research, so I always listen to the music, or read the book, or see the film before someone comes in.”

Both Sixx and McKagan are exceptionally driven and busy people. The radio show doesn’t stop Sixx from touring with Crue and Sixx:AM, plus his groundbreaking autobiographical book The Heroin Diaries is being turned into a Broadway play, he’s writing another book, “plus I’ve got four kids and I’m in a relationship,” he laughs.

McKagan has just finished touring with Walking Papers, a new rock blues band formed by Seattle music scene veterans Jeff Angell (Post Stardom Depression and The Missionary Position) and Barrett Martin (Skin Yard and Screaming Trees). The tour of small venues, such as the 100 Club, followed an arena tour with Duff McKagan’s Loaded, and the European premiere of his book tour, which sees him read extracts from his autobiography and perform acoustically.

The book tour has given him useful experience for his presenting debut. “Writing is one thing,” he says, “but reading it to an audience is a whole f***ing different game. I learned how to use cadence with words and not talkreallyquicklyjustcozyou’renervousandwanttogetitoutthere,” he gabbles, laughing.

While Sixx’ll be hanging with fellow legends, McKagan will be overcoming his nerves and relishing the opportunity to take on something new. “I like doing s*** that makes me scared as hell. That’s why I agreed to do it.”

Classic Rock Roll of Honour
November 13
The Roundhouse

Tufnell Park ice creamery Ruby Violet has created special Christmas & New Year dessert flavours over the upcoming festive period. Scout was lucky enough to get a taste of the gingerbread ice cream, which put us in a lovely holiday mood.

To celebrate, they are holding two special launch evenings that include tastings of cakes, bombes and rolls which create impressive dessert centrepieces for dinner parties or special occasions.

Ruby Violet founder Julie Fisher will be on hand for details on how her arctic creations are made.

The Tasting Menu includes:

Complimentary Glass of Wine

Christmas Pudding Bombe

Mulled Wine Sorbet

Chocolate & Orange Arctic Roll (pictured)

Showcase of Ruby Violet Festive Dessert Flavours

Other dessert surprises will also be revealed on the night itself.

The cost for the evening is £13.20 and guests will receive 10% discount for any in-store purchases made during the event and a further special discount for Christmas & New Year orders placed.  Places can be booked here.

Ruby Violet Tasting Evenings

Monday Nov 12 and Tuesday Nov 13
7pm

118 Fortess Road
London
NW5 2HL
Underground: Tufnell Park

Mexican food has taken hold of London in a huge way – Scout London picks our favourites.

#1: Buen Provecho, Made before your eyes from a Lower Marsh stall
SE1
Nearest Tube: Waterloo

#2: El Camion, An extreme array of sauces and fried jalepenos
W10 5TY
Neatest Tube: Ladbroke Grove

#3: Mestizo, Truly authentic regional specialties
NW1 3EL
Nearest Tube: Warren Street

#4: La Bodega Negra, As trendy as they come, with lots of tequila
W1D 5NH
Nearest Tube: Covent Garden

#5: Taqueria, Hugely popular, tasty and fairly priced west London staple
W11 2RS
Nearest Tube: Notting Hill Gate

#6: Death by Burrito, New and very cool kid on the block in the heart of Shoreditch
E2 8DA
Nearest Overground: Hoxton

#7: Boho Mexica, Ahead of London’s Mexican curve by years
E1 6BJ
Nearest Overground: Shoreditch High Street

#8: Casa Morita, Authentic Mexican grub – try the sandwich
SW9 8LB
Nearest Tube: Brixton

#9: Benito’s Hat, Cheesy fajitas filled to bursting
W1T 4NB
Nearest Tube: Goodge Street

#10: Wahaca, Small plates rule at this increasingly big chain
branches throughout London including Canary Wharf,

Image: Marcin Wichery

New York might never sleep, but the same can’t be said for London. Getting a late-night drink is hard enough, let alone a decent feed. Ben Norum forgoes 40 winks to find the best options

Picture the scene: it’s late, you’re hungry, but not quite drunk enough for a 24-hour McDonald’s. Or maybe you’re up early to catch a train and fancy grabbing a bite on your way to the station. Well good luck, because London’s out-of-hours dining options are notoriously limited.

That said, the night owls and early birds among us have some cause for optimism, for London has recently welcomed a smattering of high-profile 24-hour eateries.

Duck & Waffle near the top of Bishopsgate’s Heron Tower leads the way, with a full menu including its eponymous classic, available at all hours. That’s alongside wine, beers, cocktails and one of the best views in the city.

Heliot, set within the recently-refurbished Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square, is another flag-flyer. Don’t judge it too harshly for its casino setting; what it lacks in atmosphere, it makes up for in reasonably-priced late night bar fodder, such as a decent pint and a Scotch egg.

These places seem to be setting a bit of a trend. The yet-to-be-announced opening near the top of The Shard is already hotly-tipped to follow suit, and several of the year’s hottest new haunts, such as Karpo, and Corbin and King’s The Delaunay, are pushing last food orders later and later.

These newcomers are helping to teach us Brits what many other nations have known for yonks: that it’s not necessary to settle for rubbish food just because it’s the wrong time of day. And, as we wait for others to follow their lead, it’s worth paying tribute to the old hats who’ve been quietly catering through the night for years.

Vingt-Quatre (VQ) is the oldest hat, and renowned for attracting customers such as Gordon Ramsay and his team to its Fulham Road venue for dinner and drinks when other places aren’t serving.

There’s also 1997 on Wardour Street, which is open until at least 4am every day, serving authentic Singapore-style Chinese comfort food to a mix of those starting and finishing work, worn-out clubbers, thrown-out pubbers and anyone who’s missed the last train.

Somine on Kingsland Road hosts a more localised crew who favour carefully-prepared Turkish grills, breads and stews. We’ve never seen it closed.

The Palm Beach in Mayfair serves somewhat pricier dishes including a Full English and sushi until 3am in order to keep punters playing on its blackjack tables.
And Tinsel Town in Farringdon also serves until 3am, with a packed diner-style menu of burgers, grills and shakes.

Let’s not forget the legendary The Cock Tavern in Smithfield, which isn’t a late-night venue but opens at 6am for pints and steaks – for many years, the staple morning feed for meat market workers and night shifters at nearby St Bart’s hospital.

But all of this perhaps comes second to Brick Lane’s bagel shops. As much as we might look forward to the dawn (or dusk) of a bright new world where we can eat whatever we want whenever we want, it’s hard to imagine a better middle-of-the-night refuel than a salt beef bagel from Beigel Bake. In your face, New York.

The show that took London by storm in 2006 when it re-opened the Roundhouse is back by popular demand for a strictly limited four-week run.

Don’t miss your chance to find out why Fuerzabruta was the most talked-about show to hit London in decades. Featuring mind-blowing visual effects that must be seen to be believed, Fuerzabruta is a theatrical experience that floods
the senses.

Scout London has teamed up with Fuerzabruta to give one lucky Scout reader a pair of tickets to the show and an overnight stay at the Ibis London Blackfriars.

roundhouse.org.uk/fuerzabruta 

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Prize is valid for Tuesday, Wednesday and 8pm Sunday performances between 27th December 2012-26th January 2013, subject to availability. Prize is for a pair of tickets plus an overnight stay at the Ibis London Blackfriars for a double room for two please, plus breakfast. Prize is non-refundable and non-exchangeable and the promoter reserves the right to substitute the prize for one of greater or equal value.

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here – competition closes Sunday November 18 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

A new app that measures crowd density is being launched to help spectators beat the hustle and bustle at the Lord Mayor’s show

Heading to the Lord Mayor’s Show tomorrow? Dreading the overcrowding that often comes with it? Well fear no more. 

A new app that measures crowd density and allows you to avoid the most intense spots, is being launched alongside the show, which is expected to attract around half a million spectators.

The app uses new breakthrough technology to map crowd dynamics using data from sensors in smartphones. A live crowd density heat map is produced, enabling organisers and emergency services to update app users about areas of serious overcrowding, while suggesting escape routes.

It’s hoped the technology will dramatically improve crowd safety at all major public events.

The Lord Mayor’s procession will leave from Mansion House at 11am tomorrow. It will then travel to the Royal Courts of Justice, where Alderman Roger Gifford, the 685th Lord Mayor, will swear loyalty to the Crown. It will then travel back to Mansion House, arriving at approximately 1.30pm.

Leading the procession will be an eye-catching pageant of floats, featuring 6,500 people, 22 marching bands, 125 horses, 18 vintage cars, 21 carriages, an original American stage coach, a Japanese Taiko drum band, a steamroller, a boat, a Sherman tank and an F-type Jaguar. 

It will fill the entire road space between Bank and Aldwych from 11am until around 2.30pm, when the tail of the procession arrives back at Mansion House.

iPhone users can download the the Lord Mayor’s Show app from https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/lm-show/id573690550?mt=8

Android users can download the Lord Mayor’s Show app from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.dfki.lordmayorsshow

With fans that include The Spice Girls, Jean Paul Gaultier, Demi Moore and Victoria Pendleton, as well as thousands of style-savvy consumers, Red or Dead has been one of British fashion’s labels of choice for several decades now.

Having grown out of a Camden market stall started by Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway in 1982, the company quickly grew to become a major player both on the catwalk and the high street. 

Wayne Hemingway on the Camden market stall in the early 80s

This month is Red or Dead’s 30th birthday, and to celebrate the occasion a retrospective exhibition is being held this weekend at Dray Walk Gallery in The Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. Including memorabilia as well as clothes, the free show will take visitors through the history of the brand – all the way from the market stall to the present day.

November 9-11, Dray Walk Gallery, Brick Lane, free, trumanbrewery.com

RISE AND SHINE

The unglazed lid creates a seal for proving and rising, and doubles as a baking stone for the perfect bread crust.

Mason Cash Bread Baking Set, £39.00 from Lakeland

READY, STEADY, BAKE

If anyone can guide you through the ins and outs of baking, it’s Mary and Paul.

The Great British Bake Off: How to Turn Everyday Bakes into Showstoppers, £8.86 from amazon.co.uk

STAND TALL

Why go through all the effort unless you can show off?

Swift 15 Cup Cake Stand, £19.50 from John Lewis

THE DOCTOR IS IN

Get retro with this icing set and instruction booklet on how to decorate the perfect cake.

1960s Printed Icing Syringe Set, £28.95 from kitchenscookshop.co.uk

COOKIE MONSTER

Hearts, flowers, dinosaurs and trees are just some of the designs you can make with this cookie press. Just fill the barrel with cookie dough mixture and voila!

Kuhn Rikon Cookie Press, £13.99 from steamer.co.uk

MIX IT UP

This handy appliance offers both whisk and kneader attachments so you can sort your egg whites and dough in one sitting.

Kenwood kMix Boutique Hand Mixer, £59.99 from House of Fraser

Next year will be the 150th anniversary of the London Underground. But it’s not just the Tube that rumbles beneath our feet. From abandoned stations to air raid shelters, catacombs to secret government bases, Scout takes you under the surface, to the city you never see

Have you ever peered through a vent on a London Underground platform and wondered what was one the other side? Or caught a glimpse of an abandoned Tube station as the train thundered by?

Perhaps you never realised there’s a maze of crypts, catacombs, tunnels, government installations, sewers, air raid shelters and nuclear bunkers all buried beneath our feet. In fact, there’s so much subterranean London, a cross-section must look like a slice of Swiss cheese.

As London Underground prepares to mark 150 years since its first train chuffed its way along the Metropolitan Railway between Paddington and Farringdon, Scout has spoken to experts about the fascinating extent of these hidden parts of the city.

“My favourite places are the abandoned Tube stations,” says Andrew Smith of non-profit organisation Subterranea Britannica, which “studies and investigates man-made and man-used underground places”.

“I’ve been to loads of them,” he tells Scout. “For example, Aldwych is used by London Underground for testing platform lighting and as a film set. It’s still in great condition.

“There’s an incredible sense of occasion when you go down into old tube stations – a real sense of history and the people that went there before you. I find myself wondering what I’m going to find down there, wondering about the history of the place, the stories of what happened there.

“You never know what you are going to find, where it’s going to lead, or if you’ll be the person who finds something which has been lost and forgotten for a long time.

“In some of the stations there are still old adverts from the war. It really reminds you of those old photographs of people sheltering in Tube stations during The Blitz.”

There are between 40 and 50 abandoned stations on the Tube network, including the so-called ‘ghost stations’ that hide beneath London’s streets, looking just as they did when the gates closed for the final time. Among these are Brompton Road, British Museum and Down Street, between Hyde Park Corner and Green Park.

These grubby time capsules of bygone eras have stimulated imaginations and creativity. They’ve been the settings for films, the wildest dreams of party organisers, obsessions for historians, and an enduring source of romantic nostalgia.

For the most of us, they’re out of bounds. But anyone itching to see what they look like may not have to wait much longer.

Ajit Chambers, CEO of The Old London Underground Company, has plans to convert 26 disused stations into museums, bars and restaurants.

He is currently negotiating with the Ministry of Defence, which owns many of the sites. Though the red tape is onerous, he’s fighting through it and winning support from MPs and London Assembly members. Boris Johnson has said he will back the initiative “if it doesn’t cost a penny of public money”.

The former JPMorgan Chase executive – who says he has raised millions of pounds towards the project – is confident of being able to have ‘walk-though’ tours of either Brompton Road or the abandoned deep level air raid shelter at Clapham North by February.

Transformation of the sites into useable venues will begin once three or more have been leased by the company. And within five years, Chambers insists we could be partying underground, dining with the rumble of our train home as a soundtrack, and exploring parts of our city which have lain hidden for decades.

MAIL RAIL

Did you know there’s an old network of tunnels under central London that used to carry post swiftly underneath the congested roads?

In the early part of the 20th century, London’s post was being held up so much by the road system that it was decided to build a subterranean rail network to get the letters and parcels across the city on time.

Mail Rail was built to take post from the Paddington District Office, where it arrived from around the country, across the capital to Whitechapel’s Eastern District Office via eight stations.

The mini railway was opened on December 5, 1927, and was made up of two driverless trains which ran side-by-side, one west and one east. They would stop at stations along the way, where a team of staff would unload the relevant post.

Although the trains are much smaller than on London’s passenger underground, the stations look much the same, and used to rattle with that familiar sound of approaching trains.

However, through declining use and closure of the above ground offices, the system eventually became uneconomical to run. In 2003 the system was suspended and today remains closed.

The British Postal Museum and Archive is currently restoring one of the old 1927 trains, that will be ready for display next year. Seeing the underground railway itself is, sadly, a much taller order.

CATACOMBS

Those Victorians were crazy about death.  After thousands of years of pretty humble burial practices, the morbid, supernatural-obsessed, black-clothed Victorians totally pimped-up the death rituals, all the way from the funeral to the body-internment.

As such, when seven new super-cemeteries were built in the 1830s and 40s – the grandly-titled ‘Magnificent Seven’ – to accommodate the increasing numbers of London’s dead, they all catered to the new trend for catacomb burial, then seen as the height of sepulchral style and exclusivity.

“Most of the catacombs were built beneath chapels, so their residents could be buried nearer the altar,” explains Colin Fenn, who runs tours of the catacombs at West Norwood Cemetery. “And it was also a prestige issue – catacomb burial was very exclusive. It’s much more private and costs considerably more than a standard burial. The only alternative which carried similar status was to build your own mausoleum.”

The Magnificent Seven cemeteries are at West Norwood, Highgate, Kensal Green, West Brompton, Nunhead, Abney Park and Tower Hamlets. The catacombs at the latter two are no longer accessible, but the others can all still be visited in some capacity.

The West Brompton and Highgate catacombs were built only half-submerged, so are visible from the cemeteries themselves.

There are also periodic tours of the Kensal Green and West Norwood catacombs, with Kensal Green being the largest, and West Norwood the most creepy and atmospheric.

RIVERS AND SEWERS

Rivers used to flow all around the capital. And, to some extent, they still do – you just can’t see them anymore. Back in the 19th century, historic waterways such as The Fleet, The Westbourne, The Tyburn and The Effra were culverted (covered over) and channelled into tunnels below ground.

This was partly to make way for building work in the city above, but also for health reasons. Hygiene wasn’t as high on the priority list then as it is now, especially in poorer areas, where all the human, household and industrial waste was just dumped into the nearest river and left to drift slowly towards the Thames.

That was until the hot summer of 1858, known as the ‘Great Stink’, when the stench of raw sewage got so bad that Parliament had to be relocated. Even more troubling was the threat of a cholera outbreak, spread by the rancid rivers.

Engineer Joseph Bazalgette stepped in to save the day, designing a sewage system that kept most of the waste away from the Thames while also channeling the city’s rivers underground – into quite spectacular brickwork tunnels.

“You have these marvellous brick temples underneath London that are almost sculpture-like in their craftsmanship,” says Andrew Smith from Subterranea Britannica. “And many of them are still going strong.”

DEFENCE AND SECURITY

It shouldn’t come as much surprise to hear that there is a network of not-so-secret government tunnels running beneath the seats of power in Whitehall. Often referred to as Q Whitehall, much of the network dates from the days of The Blitz, when it was constructed to provide bomb-proof lines of communication, and to allow government staff to move safely between buildings during air raids.

The exact routes are not publicly known, but documents published shortly after the war showed the tunnels stretching from south of Downing Street to Trafalgar Square and many of the major ministries. It’s likely that they connect to the Defence Crisis Management Centre (Pindar), the nuclear-proof bunker built beneath the Ministry of Defence in the 1980s and 90s which will be used during a time of military threat.

Andrew Smith from Subterranea Britannica tells Scout that the system “links the Admiralty, 10 Downing Street, the QE2 Conference Centre and other places such as the Defence Crisis Management Centre and even Westminster Tube station”.

It’s unlikely you’ll ever get to see the network itself, but you can visit the Churchill War Rooms – a nearby bunker from where Churchill and his military leaders conducted the second world war, and is now an absorbing museum.

AIR RAID SHELTERS

Londoners quite famously went running for shelter in the Tube network during The Blitz. Partly to ease crowding on the Underground platforms, the government built deep-level communal shelters that could hold around 8,000 people beneath eight Tube stations – Belsize Park, Camden Town, Goodge Street, Chancery Lane, Stockwell, Clapham North, Clapham Common and Clapham South.

The Blitz itself was over by the time the shelters were finished in 1942, but five of the eight were opened up to the public in 1944 when London was attacked by the V1 and V2 rocket bombs. Today, most of them serve as document and data storage facilities for companies and organisations, except the shelter at Clapham North, which remains empty.

ENTERTAINMENT

From macabre museums to out-there performance spaces, entertainment in London is also in tune with what lies beneath.

The London Bridge Experience occupies creepy and reputedly haunted tunnels beneath the old eponymous bridge, where various human bones were discovered during renovation for the attraction. Some of these were thought to belong to plague victims, although the circular holes in many of the skulls suggest they could have been those of criminals whose heads were impaled at the entrance to the medieval bridge as a grim warning to other potential law-breakers.

Many nightspots, theatres and clubs have made homes for themselves in the old railway arches around London Bridge and Waterloo. One of our favourites is the wonderfully atmospheric Old Vic Tunnels, beneath Waterloo Station, which has hosted everything from a major Banksy show to immersive theatre and punk gigs.

Finally, a visit to the London Canal Museum can offer the wonderful yet rare treat of a trip through the iconic 960yard Islington tunnel – only passable by boat.

As the Breakfast Show presenter on Kiss FM, 24-year-old Charlie Hedges is the soundtrack to many people’s mornings. The youngest female breakfast radio DJ also presents the Sunday morning Kiss Mix Show (2am-3am). She tells us of her favourite spots when the records stop.

Let’s go for a drink – Scout’s buying. Where shall we go?

The Narrow in Limehouse. The food is amazing and it is a lovely place to visit in the winter or summer. Winter is really cosy inside as there’s a fire, and in the summer you have the option of sitting outside overlooking the Thames.

Sounds idyllic. If we can tempt you away from Gordon Ramsay’s fare, where shall we go to eat? 

Inamo in Soho. It is so quirky – the whole ordering process is done via your table, which is a virtual touch screen menu. Once you’ve ordered your food a waiter brings it over. You order as and when you want more. There’s also games you can play against the rest of your table – it’s really fun.

Where do you go to get your shopping fix?

Oxford Street. It’s a nightmare because I work there, so every day I have to walk past the likes of Topshop, River Island and Selfridges, and it’s hard to say no sometimes to another pair of shoes! At least if I desperately need something for a last minute DJ gig I can grab something quick, but it’s no good being located here if you want to save money.

Where do you go to relax?

If it’s a nice day I’ll find the nearest park, put my phone on silent, get a load of magazines and food and take some music with me and listen to some new tracks to prep my Sunday morning Kiss Mix Show.

What’s your secret London tip?

The restaurant Dans Le Noir in Clerkenwell…can you tell I enjoy my food yet? You eat and drink in a pitch black room. You experience what it would be like to have no sight and – with the help of blind guides – you have to rely only on sound and taste to judge your surroundings.

So you want to be a stand-up comedian? Well, surprise surprise, it’s not as simple as just writing a joke and then hoping on stage. So how do you go about it?

Capital FM drive-time show host Greg Burns held a secret desire to be a stand-up after seeing his first comedy show aged 18.

“For five years I never told anyone – except my then-girlfriend. It’s really difficult to admit you want to be a stand-up – it’s not like saying you want to be a singer or an actor. People think ‘what makes you think you’re so funny?’

“So I kept it a secret until one day, aged 23, I just decided to go for it. I was living in Newcastle at the time and a comedy club called Hyena had just opened. Unlike in London where there are loads of open mic nights, there weren’t many there at the time and I had to go on between established comedians on a Friday night.

“It was really scary, but it went pretty well.” He pauses, then laughs: “It’s just the 200 or so gigs after that didn’t.”

Although Burns honed his skills the traditional way, through constant gigging, trial and error, there is more than one way to crack an egg – or a joke. Many hopefuls take their first steps towards lucrative DVD deals at one of London’s highly-rated comedy classes.

“We give people the chance to develop in a safe environment,” says Keith Palmer, founder of not-for-profit organisation The Comedy School in Camden, which counts the likes of Jeff Innocent, Kojo, Quincy and hotly-tipped Ahir Shah among its alumni.

“It’s a common misconception that stand-ups are just naturally funny people who get up and tell jokes,” he says. “There’s much more to it than that – it’s a real art form. We teach the techniques, such as generating material, developing persona, joke structure and so on.”

But can you polish a turd? “I don’t think you can teach absolutely anyone to be funny,” Palmer says. “But what you can do is show them the techniques comedians use to
evoke laughter. Most people have the capacity to make others laugh, if they take the time to analyse what it is that they find funny.

“We sometimes get people who just aren’t funny. But not everyone comes to us with the ambition to be a comedian. Some come to improve their confidence, for others it’s about improving their presentation skills and for others it’s something on their ‘bucket list’.

“Out of a class of 12 to 15 people, one or two will go on to be regularly-gigging comics.”

Although he hasn’t had lessons, Burns says he can see why they are useful. “I know quite a lot of people who have done them – when I first met Jimmy Carr he had just done a comedy course,” he says. “But I don’t think anyone has made it as a stand-up solely from doing a course. They teach skills, but nothing helps as much as gigging.”

The Comedy School courses consist of 30 hours of tutorials, workshops, lessons and so on, often with guest lectures from renowned comedians who support the school.

One such, Phill Jupitus, says: “I think there’s a lot of unnecessary mystery surrounding comedy, often quite conflicting things.  Many people think it’s easier than it is, and just as many think it’s a lot more difficult.  The school carries out sorts out both of these misconceptions.”

It seems like the toughest thing about becoming a comic is overcoming the fear of getting started.

Greg Burns
November 9, 8pm
Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street, WC1H 0AH
Tickets, £14 available from thebloomsbury.com

What happens next? You decide. Nathan Penlington has made a documentary where the path is controlled by a live audience. Dan Frost meets the man inspired – nay obsessed – by the Choose Your Own Adventure books 

Like many children of his generation, Nathan Penlington grew up an avid fan of the Choose Your Own Adventure book series. For those not versed in teen literature of the 1980s, these were ‘game books’ that put their (mainly male) readers in the driving seat. Upon reaching a cliffhanger moment, the reader is given a variety of choices what to do next: choose to kill the pirate? Turn to page 50; Want to run away? Turn to page 63; Ask for his help in return for some gold? Turn to page 72. As such, there were hundreds of possible routes that you could take through each book, and a variety of endings – including death.

More than two decades after he read his first Choose Your Own Adventure novel, 36-year-old Penlington has created a live theatre-come-film-come-comedy-come-spoken word show which uses the same format. Audiences watch a documentary that he has made, and vote via remote control at key points to determine what he does next. It sounds fun, but potentially a bit gimmicky – until you hear the story behind it.

“I was really into the books when I was a kid, and I’ve carried on collecting them,” explains Penlington. “A few years ago I bought a collection of 106 of them on eBay. I started flicking through them and realised that they had all belonged to one kid who’d written his name across the top of each book: Terrence Prendergast. Inside one of the books, I found four pages of a diary, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. I was hooked from then on.”

The pages dated from 1990, when Prendergast was either 14 or 15 (one entry reveals that he was born in 1975). Among the entries was what appeared to be a list of insecurities and perceived personal shortcomings that he wanted to overcome: “Stutter – practise speaking”, “Posture – walk properly when slim”, “No friends”, and, “Laugh – practise laugh”. 

The name Elaine also appears, but on its own and without explanation. It doesn’t seem to fit with anything else, until you get to the next section of the diary – a gripping chronicle of events that goes some way to explaining why Penlington became so intrigued.

What begins rather sadly, with Prendergast being bullied in the early-to-mid 80s, gradually takes a turn for the rebellious. There’s talk of skiving and being caught smoking, and an entry that tells us, “Elaine ran away”. Then, quite suddenly, comes: “Two days before summer holiday stole money from parents, bought airline ticket, ran away to Scotland, came back next day”, followed soon after by: “Left school with intention to kill myself. Stole, suspended and expelled”. The entry then finishes with a kick-to-the-stomach cliffhanger: “Elaine – drugs, guns.”

“I was instantly hooked,” grins Penlington with boyish excitement. “I’ve read it in so many different ways. You might read it as an explicit cry for help. And you might read it another time and think ‘maybe it’s just a complete fantasy’. Either way, it was kicking around in my head for a long time. Eventually I decided that I had to find out what happened – if he was OK.”

Rather than just hunting down Prendergast for the hell of it, the comedian and spoken word artist decided to make a documentary of his quest. And not just any documentary, but one that employed the format of the Choose Your Own Adventure books that both he and Prendergast had so cherished, and which brought their lives together. He teamed up with some filmmakers, and Choose Your Own Documentary was born. 

“I always wanted to do it in that format,” says Penlington. “But the idea is stupidly complex. A Choose Your Own Adventure novel is difficult enough to write as fiction, so forcing it not only into a live show but into a live documentary show was a big job. The biggest challenge we faced was how to make everything compelling – regardless of which route the audience chooses.”

This was no mean feat – there are more than 1,500 combinations of the journey, all of which needed to hold an audience’s attention for 90 minutes on their way to one of six possible endings. 

Among the people that audiences might meet along the way are a self-help guru, a sword-swallower, a seaside arcade owner and the originator of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, Edward Packard. I ask Penlington if they had to engineer certain meetings or events in order to keep the different narratives entertaining.

“No, it’s completely real,” he insists. “It really was an adventure, exactly as it appears in the documentary. Though we are faithful to the books, in that if you choose badly you can kill me. That’s the only fictional thing that could happen in the show.”

Penlington reveals that it was an emotional journey, which was “more revealing about me than I thought it was going to be”. But the emotional response of another person was of greater concern. 

“Part of my anxiousness was how to raise the issue and explain it all to Terrence if we ever found him. It’s a really difficult thing – how would I feel if someone contacted me about a diary I had written when I was 15, to say they were making a show about it?”

And did he ever find Prendergast?

Penlington flashes a sly smile: “That very much depends on the audience.”

Choose Your Own Documentary, Southbank Centre, November 6-10, southbankcentre.co.uk

This week, Scout London has teamed with Netflix, the world’s leading Internet subscription service for enjoying films and TV shows, to give one lucky reader the chance to win a one year subscription to Netflix and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 so you can instantly watch hours of great entertainment.

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here - competition closes Sunday November 18 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Salma Hayek and Kevin James go back to school for their latest comedy, about a biology teacher who takes up cage fighting to combat budget cuts. Kate Whiting meets the pair, and witnesses some jovial verbal sparring

Hands up if your school teachers were ever as hot as Salma Hayek, or looked uncannily like The Fonz. Extra marks for those whose biology teacher did a spot of cage fighting on the side.

This is the reality for the pupils of Wilkinson High, the fictional school in Kevin James’s new comedy, Here Comes The Boom.

It’s a perfect tale for these penny-pinching times. When the failing school faces a budget cut of $48,000, which would see music teacher Marty (Happy Days’ Henry Winckler) laid off, biology teacher Scott (James) turns to Mixed Martial Arts to raise money. With encouragement from his colleague Bella (Hayek), he puts up with the bruises and battles to save the school’s music programme.

In real life, James’ only experience of fighting was a little wrestling in high school, so he had to learn to fight – and go on a strict diet to lose weight.

“It was horrible, horrible,” says the usually ‘cuddly’ actor.

“He was eating just green lettuce and stuff,” adds Hayek, who looks tiny sitting next to James, and effortlessly glamorous, all glossy dark locks tumbling over her slim shoulders.

“And you know what the most horrific thing about it is?” moans James. “You train for so long and you’re still fat.

“I just ate raw for eight months of my life and I’m still jiggling,” he quips, bursting into laughter.

The 47-year-old spent a lot of time with fighters on the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) circuit, including Dutch former heavyweight champion Bas Rutten, who appears in the film.

“It’s an incredible discipline,” says James. “That’s why I was interested in the movie in the first place – these guys are doing what could be conceived as the most barbaric thing in the world, where it’s just two men in a cage. It was exciting for me, in a crazy way.

“I got to meet a lot of these people and you realise they’re just husbands and fathers and friends – they’re real guys that just love doing this for the sport of it.”

Hayek admits she was surprised by how “sweet” all the fighters on set were.

“You think it’s gonna be a set just full of testosterone and violence, but it was really warm,” says the Mexican-born actress.

“I remember when we were shooting, I was like, ‘I don’t understand… Are we doing an action film? Is this a comedy? Or is this just a nice drama about a school?’ And then I realised it has a style of its own.

“Usually all these movies about men fighting are very violent. In this movie, it’s a lot more than that.”

As for playing teachers, the duo had their fair share of school experiences to draw on.

“I had one teacher in fifth grade who said something about ‘pereza mental’, which is mental laziness, and how it was a disease and you have to understand it and push yourself to learn,” recalls Hayek.

“This stuck in my head and it has come in handy many times when I’ve become lazy – especially as I’ve got older – about learning more and making yourself better.”

“I didn’t listen to the advice from my teachers,” grins James, “especially the ‘eat well’ part! I had some great teachers too, but I didn’t love school. I was a smart kid, but I wouldn’t apply myself.”

Luckily for James, who was born in Mineola, New York, he discovered a love of comedy, which took him on to great success.

“I grew up in a household where comedy was always present in some form.

“Even during the bad times, you try to find something funny. It’s always been a great release of tension for my family and me, and it’s something I always want to
be a part of my life. Without comedy, I don’t know if this life’s worth living.”

Firmly friends off-screen, there was a slightly awkward moment in Here Comes The Boom when the pair had to kiss.

“She wanted a double,” says James, laughing.

“I did, because I’m really good friends with his wife and children,” Hayek butts in with mock horror. “I mean, I’ve been kissing people on screen all the time, but we’re good friends and the kids are good friends. It was the strangest thing… He’s actually a very good kisser,” she adds, giggling.

“I don’t want to take this the wrong way ’cos I will leave my family right now,” jokes James. “I’ll run away with you now Salma, we’ll never look back!”

Thankfully, Hayek insists she was joking. “It was through a fence, nobody opened their mouth,” she says. “But he does have good lips.”

Here Comes The Boom is in cinemas from November 9

Top British guitar amp manufacturer Orange Amplification have teamed up with Scout London to help celebrate their headline sponsor of the forthcoming Classic Rock Roll of Honour awards with a competition giveaway worth over £630.

Orange have been supplying amps to the biggest bands in rock for over forty years and at this years Classic Rock Awards, they are also sponsoring the Living Legend Award and have many endorsee’s nominated including Rush, Mastodon, Phantom Limb and Ghost.

You can win one of four Orange Micro Terror stacks comprising a MT20 guitar amp head and PPC108 cab, which together retail for £158. The Micro Terror delivers a classic Orange sound way bigger than it looks offering 20 watts of power in an amp not much bigger than an iPhone. In fact you can play your guitar along to your favourite tunes from any phone through the Micro terror using a 2.5mm jack.

To find out more about the Orange gear and their artists please visit orangeamps.com

For more on the Classic Rock Roll of Honour at London’s Roundhouse go to classicrockmagazine.com

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here – competition closes Sunday November 11 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Tea has never had a rival to the title of the quintessential English drink. Now, foodies are using the beloved leaf in increasingly novel ways. Ben Norum investigates

When visitors come from abroad, an afternoon tea at a swanky hotel is one of the things to tick off their to-do list. Many of them actually believe that it’s something us Brits do every day, and even more imagine us at home with china teapots and teacups of the style even Granny has got bored of. But a meeting of mums in leafy Zone 3 is now more likely to revolve around decaf skinny lattes than a pot of char, and even builders are deserting their namesake style of tea in favour of a white Americano.

As coffee consumption is all the rage, are Londoners eschewing the tea leaf for the bean?

Not if the city’s restaurateurs and bar owners have anything to do with it.
Recent dishes have seen tea used to marinate prunes at L’autre Pied, smoke fish at North Road, make soup at Hix, flavour cakes at Yauatcha and perk up a white chocolate parfait at Dinner. The latter follows tea’s prominence on the Fat Duck menu, and many more of the world’s top restaurants, including Noma and El Bulli, have been using tea as a drink to match with dishes on a tasting menu.

Part of the appeal in using tea is explained by Desmond Payne, the master distiller of Beefeater Gin. His newest twist on the age-old Beefeater recipe, Beefeater 24, contains two different types of green tea along with more classic botanicals such as juniper and citrus.

To get scientific, he says: “Tea contains tannins – a type of biomolecule which naturally binds with proteins. This means they help the flavours of anything they are mixed with to combine and blend.

“In the gin they blend with the other botanicals to give a smoother flavour, and help the gin mix smoothly with other components when used in cocktails”.

The principle is the same when using tea as an ingredient in any kind of cooking.
In the drinks department, Caravan serves up a rooibos white rum sour, in which the sweet-tasting tea adds depth of flavour; Bourne & Hollingsworth matches Earl Grey with dark rum, peach liqueur and orange zest in the refreshing Chimp’s Tea; Artesian serves a tea punch laced with cognac (and infused with scorpion) which harks back to colonial days; and Nick Strangeway uses breakfast tea along with whisky and marmalade in a take on the Breakfast Martini created for Hix Soho.

Elsewhere, chocolatier Paul A Young is working with Rare Tea Company to produce a range of tea-infused chocolates; Nigella Lawson has used it in bread; and at Worship Street Whistling Shop, it’s a glass of own-blended Chinese Brick Tea which is given to guests as a palate-cleansing drink in lieu of water.

The drink got even more centre stage as Rare Tea Company owner Henrietta Lovell took over Farringdon’s Redhook in September to lay on a special tea-matched menu with food prepared by ex-Roganic chef Ben Spalding.

Even the classic afternoon tea has had some TLC. The Berkeley’s Fashionista Afternoon Tea has seen it branch out to a younger crowd thanks to seasonally-changing collections of cakes and pastries inspired by designs from the likes of Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana; at Sanctum Soho, afternoon tea is re-designed for men, featuring mini steak sandwiches, pasties and whisky alongside a selection of gutsy teas; and the OXO Tower has a Not Afternoon Tea menu, designed to challenge perceptions of what the meal involves by leaving out finger sandwiches and scones altogether.

While there might be fewer teapots on tables these days, at least it hasn’t all gone to pot; restaurateurs and mixologists are ensuring we’re loving our leaves more than ever.

Picture: Maria Teichroeb by Jordi Ruiz Cirera, © Jordi Ruiz

It may be more famous for its paintings of monarchs and work by The Masters, but the National Portrait Gallery’s annual photographic exhibition is an increasingly important fixture in the diary of the Trafalgar Square institution.

Since launching in 2005, the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize has become one of the city’s most prestigious regular photographic exhibitions, at which previous entrants have highlighted emerging trends in photography, questioned the genre of portraiture and covered a wide range of themes, from beauty to horror.

This year, 2,350 photographers from around the world entered, and 60 images were selected for the exhibition, including the ones shown here, which are on the shortlist for the £12,000 prize.

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize
Nov 8-Feb 17,
National Portrait Gallery
FREE
npg.org.uk

Comedy stars including Sean Lock (pictured) and Red Dwarf writer Rob Grant will be teaching people to make others laugh at a special one-day course in London.

The Comedy School’s Funny Festival will give people the chance to discover some of the secrets to comedy from stand-up to improvisation and writing.

Comedy performers attending include Adam Bloom, Arnold Brown, Ivor Dembina, Mr Cee, Neil Mullarkey of the Comedy Store Players, and Luke Sorba.

Scout London readers can get a special discounted ticket price of £40 per ticket instead of the usual £55, by quoting “Scout London” when they book.

Funny Festival
November 4, 11am
BADA [British American Drama Academy], 14 Gloucester Gate, London, NW1 4HG
Nearest Tube: Camden Town
SPECIAL OFFER: Quote “Scout London” when you book to get tickets for £40 instead of £55
For tickets, call 0207 486 1844

Image: Steven Depolo

It sounds like it shouldn’t work – but beer cocktails, or ‘beertails’, are really catching on. Ben Norum swaps his Margarita for a Lagerita and uncovers why mixologists are all in a fizz about this new ingredient

We’ve all had a shandy, Snakebite or Black Velvet, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as beer cocktails go. At trendy Bermondsey Street haunt Village East, ‘beertails’ have been around for a while, and they show no shame in serving pun-laden concoctions such as the ‘Lagerita’ – which mixes Corona, tequila and lime; or the ‘Piña Co-lager’ – complete with coconut and pineapple juice. While these may go down well on a Friday night, the world’s top mixologists are beginning to take beer in cocktails much more seriously than that.

Tales of the Cocktail is the world’s most respected cocktail festival and awards, held annually in New Orleans.

This summer’s event included the first professional seminar on using beer in cocktails and saw Chicago mixologist Adam Seger tell attendees: “Beer is the most chemically complex alcoholic beverage in the world and top mixologists around the globe are discovering not only the flavour complexity it adds to a cocktail, but also the magic of its effervescence with elevating aromas and the unique texture it adds.”

Along with a group of experts, Seger has helped compile a 10 Commandments-style guide to using beer in cocktails. These range from “never to add beer to a shaker”, to imparting the knowledge that although lagers will add bubbles they contribute little in the way of flavour, and that it’s wise to use egg white in cocktails made using a beer with a foamy head.

The work of Seger and other influential US mixologists has no doubt played a part in spreading the beer bugaround our own bars as we find ‘beertails’ filtering their way onto the capital’s cocktail menus. Shaky Pete’s Ginger Brew, which mixes London Pride with gin, lemon juice and homemade ginger syrup has become a firm favourite at Hawksmoor. Portobello Star has created a winter warmer by combining Guinness with rum, condensed milk and mixed spice. At its Camden Town bar, Brewdog blends its Hardcore IPA with Sailor Jerry’s rum, ginger beer and fresh lime to create the Hardcore Zombie. And at Drake & Morgan bars all over London – including The Refinery in Southwark and The Anthologist in the City – there’s a whole beer section on the cocktail menu, including the Rhubarb Blonde made with Becks Vier and rhubarb bitters, and the Amore Birra which mixes Peroni, limoncello, Campari, rosewater and basil.

Experimental Cocktail Club, The Draft House, Dabbous and Meat Liquor are just a few more of the hip drinking spots which have embraced the beer trend, and with names such as Milk & Honey owner Jonathan Downey lending their nod of approval, we’re drinking to the fact that as far as the beertail is concerned, this really is just the start of the story.

From The IT Crowd to the real-life ‘it crowd’, Chris O’Dowd is now hot Hollywood property. He chats to Shereen Low about his acclaimed new film, The Sapphires

Chris O’Dowd realised he’d become a bona fide star when he received the royal seal of approval from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

“I met William and Kate recently and they had watched Bridesmaids a week after they got married,” he reveals.
There is even photographic evidence of the encounter, featuring the Irish actor-writer and his new wife, TV presenter Dawn Porter, with the royal couple – and, naturally, it takes pride of place at his parents’ home.

“There’s a picture in my mum’s house that somebody gave me at my wedding, of myself and Dawn talking to Kate. I had clearly told a big joke that they are laughing at – it’s a good one,” he says proudly. “It’s right as you walk in through the door. Kate is blown up to 8ftx10ft. It seems excessive!”

The 33-year-old, who first gained recognition as computer geek Roy Trenneman in Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd, started to find fame across the pond through appearances in Dinner For Schmucks and Gulliver’s Travels. But it was his portrayal of affable cop and principle heartthrob Nathan Rhodes in smash hit comedy Bridesmaids that really got him noticed.

“It has definitely opened doors for me. Obviously it’s very helpful, because most people wouldn’t have seen me otherwise,” he says in his rounded Irish brogue.

And yet, the Sligo-born, Boyle-raised actor is not comfortable with his growing sex symbol tag. But he obviously but doesn’t mind being described as a “reluctant heartthrob”.

“I wear that status like a hair vest. It’s very fleeting and it’s been fun but I can’t be dealing with all that nonsense, simply because it’s not real,” he says.

It’s largely thanks to being spotted in Bridesmaids that O’Dowd was cast in the role of band manager Dave Lovelace by Wayne Blair, in his directorial debut The Sapphires.

Based on the stage production of the same name, the musical drama set in 1968 traces the journey of Aboriginal girl group The Sapphires, played by Jessica Mauboy, Miranda Tapsell, Deborah Mailman and Shari Sebbens.

“I like to think I was the first choice, after the first six people turned it down,” quips the naturally charming and funny O’Dowd.
“I’m big in the indigenous communities, you know? I like the idea that I’ve got a very niche market. Indigenous Australia, that’s probably my future.”

The Sapphires, which got a 10-minute standing ovation when it premièred at the Cannes Film Festival, has been a resounding success in Australia (it was the highest-earning Australian film on its opening weekend) and was well received when it screened at the 56th BFI London Film Festival recently. Stateside, distribution rights have been snapped up by Hollywood heavyweight The Weinstein Company.

“I think it tells a reasonably unknown story to a wide audience and I’m proud that we managed to create a film where people who have been oppressed are celebrated,” says O’Dowd. “These are joyous, sexy, strong, sassy and beautiful women, and these stories are not told as often as they should be.”

As Lovelace, the actor belts out soul tracks such as The Temptations’ I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch).

“I’m big into soul music and, coincidentally at the time, I had been listening to a lot of soul and gospel – a lot of early Sam Cooke, Al Green and that sort of stuff,” he says.

While he didn’t have to take any singing lessons, O’Dowd did, however, have to learn how to play the piano.

“I didn’t have a clue how to do it beforehand, so I had to learn it pretty quickly. And far from the romance of the ballrooms in the 1960s, I was teaching myself while I was working on another job at the time,” he recalls.

“So I was flying back and forth between Sydney and LA, teaching myself how to play the piano on an iPad app, which didn’t really feel in keeping with the beautiful nature of soul music from Detroit,” he laughs.

With four musical females on set – Mauboy is a former Australian Idol finalist – the set was filled with song.

“Jess sings all the time, so she would start singing and everyone would join in. It was like we were in an episode of High School Musical. We sang a lot of Beyoncé, but I let them do the moves.”

Having grown up with three older sisters, O’Dowd didn’t mind being outnumbered. “Four beautiful women is my go-to place. I grew up with a house full of women so I felt very comfortable,” he says with a grin.

“They were like a little family, and I felt at different times like their younger brother, older brother, their uncle and their drunk cousin. But I had a great time with them all. They’re just the loveliest women.”

Like his IT Crowd co-star Richard Ayoade, the Irish star has branched out into films but hasn’t forgotten his TV roots. He recently starred in BBC series The Crimson Petal And The White and has a recurring role in new US sitcom Girls.

He also created and wrote celebrated new Sky TV series Moone Boy, which has been given the green light for a second series.

“I really enjoy writing and would love to do a lot more of that,” he says.

“In a perfect world, I’d spend half my time behind the camera and half in front of it, so I’ll do what I can to make that happen.”

As for his future big-screen outings, he’s soon to appear tussling with Megan Fox in Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up sequel This Is 40, and taking on Nick Frost on the dance floor in salsa dance-themed comedy Cuban Fury.

Off-screen, O’Dowd married Porter in August, and happily reveals that he’s enjoying life as a husband, although he’s yet to fulfil one of his most important initial duties.

“I love it. It’s great,” he says, “though we still have to find time for a honeymoon!”

The Sapphires opens in cinemas on November 7

Scout London and Zipcar have teamed up to give away a Zipcar for Business membership for a whole year to one lucky reader, plus £200 worth of car rental in a model of their choice.

Zipcar for Business is a convenient, cost-effective and sustainable transportation alternative to car rental, taxis and complex car reimbursements. There are over 1,800 Zipcars in London that are yours when you want them – available by the hour or by the day.

Best yet, fuel, insurance, Congestion Charge and 40 miles per day are included with your rental. Zipcar for Business offers a range of vehicles – from Polos, Golfs and Audis to Tourans and vans. Whatever your business needs, there’s a Zipcar to suit.

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here – competition closes Sunday November 4 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Bonfire night is upon us again, and every corner of the city is soon to be lit up by fireworks displays. From major events with food and funfairs to simpler displays where the pyrotechnics do the talking, there’s bound to be one happening close to you

Friday, November 2

Streatham Common Fireworks 2012
Streatham Common, Streatham High Road, SW16
Free
Funfair and stalls from 4pm, fireworks at 8pm.
Nearest station: Streatham/Streatham Common

Brockwell Park Fireworks 2012
Brockwell Park, SE24 0NG
Free
Funfair and stalls from 4.30pm, fireworks at 7.30pm.
Nearest tube: Brixton

Bishops Park Fireworks 2012
Bishops Park, Bishop’s Avenue, SW6 6SX
£7, adv £5, under-fives free
Event open at 6pm, children’s display at 7.15, main display at 8pm.
Nearest tube: Putney Bridge

Saturday, November 3          

Walker Ground Fireworks
Walker Cricket Ground, Waterfall Road,
Southgate
N14 7JZ
£6, under 16s £4, under-fours free
Music and entertainment from 5pm, fireworks at 7.45pm.
Nearest tube: Southgate

Jubilee Firework Megashow 2012
Ealing Cricket Club, Corfton Rd, London W5 2HS
£6, under 14s £4
Event open at 6pm, fireworks at 7.30, accompanied by British music from the last six decades to celebrate the Jubilee, followed by a bonfire.
Nearest tube: Ealing Broadway

Ravenscourt Park Fireworks 2012
Ravenscourt Park, Ravenscourt Rd, Hammersmith, W6 0UL
£7, adv £5, under-fives free
Open from 6pm, children’s fireworks at 7.15pm, main display at 8pm, all with a James Bond theme.
Nearest tube: Ravenscourt Park

Barnes Sports Club Fireworks and Bonfire 2012
Sat Nov 3, Barnes Sports Club, 261 Lonsdale Rd, SW13 9QL
Adults £10, children £5
From 5.30pm, bonfire lit at 7pm, fireworks at 7.45pm. Children can make their own guy that will be entered into a competition on the night.
Nearest station: Barnes Bridge

Battersea Park Fireworks 2012: London Celebrates
Battersea Park, Queenstown Rd, LondonSW11 4NJ
£10, under-10s free
Event open at 6pm, bonfire lit at 7.30pm, fireworks at 8pm.
Nearest station: Battersea Park

Blackheath Fireworks 2012
Blackheath Common, Shooters Hill Rd SE3 0TY
Free, but donations to Lewisham Council welcome
Funfair from 4pm, bar and food from 5pm, fireworks at 8pm.
Nearest station: Greenwich DLR

Sunday, November 4 

Newham Guy Fawkes Night Fireworks 2012

Wanstead Flats, Centre Rd, E7 0DJ
Free
Event from 5.45pm, fireworks at 6.45pm, accompanied by a lazar display and an Olympic-themed soundtrack.
Station: Wanstead Park

Millwall Park Fireworks 2012
Millwall Park, Manchester Rd, E14 3AY
Free
Fireworks at 7.30pm.
Nearest station: Island Gardens DLR

Bartlett Park Fireworks 2012
Bartlett Park, Upper North St, London E14 6HS
Free
Fireworks at 7.30pm.
Nearest station: Langdon Park DLR

Weavers Fields Fireworks 2012
Weavers Fields, Mape St, off Bethnal Green Rd,E2 6HW
Free
Fireworks at 7.30pm.
Nearest tube: Bethnal Green                                                            

Monday, November 5

Crystal Palace Park Fireworks 2012
Crystal Palace Park, Thicket Rd, SE20 8DT
£5, children (five-13) £3, under-fives free
From 6pm, children’s fireworks at 7pm, main display at 8.30pm.
Nearest station: Crystal Palace

Southwark Park Fireworks 2012
Southwark Park, Lower Rd, SE16 2PA
Free
Stalls from 6pm, fireworks at 7pm.
Nearest tube: Bermondsey/Canada Water

Waltham Forest Fireworks 2012
Waltham Forest Town Hall, Forest Rd E17 4JF
Free
Funfair and stalls from 5pm, fireworks at 8.30pm.
Nearest tube: Walthamstow Central

Brent Celebrates Fireworks Night 2012
Roundwood Park, Harlesden Rd, NW10 3SH
Free
From 7pm, fireworks at 8.30pm.
Nearest underground: Dollis Hill

Primrose Hill
There isn’t a firework display here but it remains one of the best spots to watch all the displays taking place across the entire London skyline.
Nearest tube: Chalk Farm

Mexico’s Day of the Dead is being marked by el Jimador tequila (natch) with special free screenings of two of the country’s cult classic films: El Mariachi, the influential debut movie from Machete, Sin City and From Dusk Till Dawn director Robert Rodriguez, and arch-surrealist Luis Buñuel’s 1962 classic The Exterminating Angel.

Shoreditch’s White Rabbit Studios will be transformed into a vibrant visual Mexican feast decorated with calaca masks (the famous Mexican skeleton masks) and still scenes from the two gritty pictures. The Mexican theme continues with some authentic Mexican dishes and drinks.

One of the most enduring of Buñuel’s films to have been filmed in his adopted homeland of Mexico, The Exterminating Angel (pictured above) is set during a dinner party in a lavish mansion. Shortly after dinner is prepared, almost all of the servants are mysteriously compelled to flee the house. Soon enough, the guests find themselves inexplicably unable to leave. What starts as a comical absurdity soon escalates as their desperation grows. As the basic needs of mankind fall into short supply, the bourgeoisie descend into base-level, animalistic behaviour

Robert Rodriguez’s directorial career started at the age of just 23 when he made the highly influential El Mariachi on a budget that barely exceeded just $7,000. In El Mariachi, drug baron Moco despatches a gang to eliminate the ruthless Azul when he discovers that his enemy is planning a terrible vengeance upon him. The gang, however, confuse Azul with a travelling musician known simply as El Mariachi) which forces the musician into a desperate fight for survival. Violent shoot-outs ensue as the mariachi tries to flee town.

Mexican Cinema Club
October 25 (Exterminating Angel) and November 1( El Mariachi), 7pm–10pm
The White Rabbit, 471 – 473 The Arches, Dereham Place, London, EC2A 3HJ
To apply for free tickets, email eljimador@eulogy.co.uk

Following on from the smash-hit success of Posh and Jumpy, the intimate Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court will be transported into the heart of the West End this autumn with the third in the set of razor sharp sell-out plays at the Duke of York’s Theatre, the magical Constellations.

This masterpiece production sold out before opening at the Royal Court earlier this year and we’ve managed to get our hands on four VIP tickets for one lucky Scout London reader!

Starring two of the most exciting stars in current British theatre, Sally Hawkins (Jane Eyre, Made in Dagenham, Happy-Go-Lucky) and Rafe Spall (One Day, Pete Versus Life, Prometheus) in an explosive new play about free will and friendship.

One relationship. Infinite possibilities. A story of love, honey, and a quantum multiverse. Moment by moment, can everything you’ve ever and never done exist in the same vortex of reality?

Elegant and playful yet profoundly moving, Constellations blends the everyday and the ethereal, the actual and the imaginable, revealing that every outcome may only be the first link in a chain of cosmic consequences.

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

To book tickets (£25 – £37.50) call 0844 871 7623 or visit constellationstheplay.com

Strictly Limited season for 8 weeks only from 9 November, so book now to avoid disappointment.

Terms & Conditions: One reader will win four top price tickets (with drinks and programmes) to see Constellations at the Duke of York’s Theatre London, valid for Monday to Friday performances from November 9-15, subject to availability. No cash alternative. Travel not included.

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here - competition closes Wednesday October 31 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Meet Zozia Mamet: actress, Anglophile and scene-stealer in hotly-anticipated new US show Girls. By Katie Wright

Zozia Mamet’s character might be to blame for the many comparisons made between Girls and Sex And The City.
The 24-year-old – familiar to Mad Men fans as Peggy’s lesbian friend Joyce – plays ditzy virgin Shoshanna in the US comedy drama, which finally landed on our shores on Monday.

Shoshanna is obsessed with the show, and has a big poster of Carrie and Co. on her wall.

Only life in Girls isn’t just one big long brunch date, and much of the comedy arises from its frank portrayal of young womanhood, complete with awkward sexual encounters, humiliating drunken escapes and botched eyebrow makeovers.

Mamet was bowled over when she read the script, and when she watched show creator Lena Dunham’s film Tiny Furniture, on which Girls is partly based.

She recalls: “I thought it was really different to anything I’d ever read. And then I watched her movie and that just sort of sealed the deal and I said, ‘I have to work with this human’.”

Having been ill on the day she had to film her audition tape, Mamet admits she didn’t rate her chances to land the role.
But, with her 100mph delivery of Shoshanna’s chatter, it’s obvious why she did, and she gets some of the funniest lines of the series.

Mamet’s own tastes in TV comedy were formed by a rather bohemian upbringing with her Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright father David Mamet and actress mother Lindsay Crouse.

“I wasn’t allowed to watch television growing up,” she reveals, “so I grew up watching old British television shows on DVD, like Fawlty Towers and Ab Fab.

It was, therefore, a “dream come true” for Mamet when she got the role of Saffy in an American pilot of Absolutely Fabulous, but a full series didn’t follow.

Mamet is confident that Girls will have trans-Atlantic appeal, partly because it shares certain British characteristics. She compares Girls to The Office, saying: “It’s not afraid to make people uncomfortable.”

With the second series of Girls already wrapped, Mamet is keeping schtum about any spoilers. She’s equally secretive about another stint on Mad Men.

Joining the cast of such a well-established franchise was somewhat daunting for Mamet.

“Having experienced being a series regular, you really become a family and you get so entrenched in this world. It’s hard to be an outsider going into that, but [on Mad Men] they welcomed me with open arms.”

Mamet says her own family were “very supportive” of her chosen career, which is handy as she believes she was born, almost literally, into acting.

“My mother was pregnant with me on stage, so I was a goner from the womb,” she quips.

Girls is on Sky Atlantic

Few things can compete with delayed trains for inciting rage, but the overpriced, second-rate grub on offer while you wait is certainly up there. Thankfully, London’s mainline rail hubs have been upping their game of late, as Ben Norum discovers

We all remember the dark days: an interminable wait for an endlessly delayed train, with only bottom-of-the-barrel sustenance options for company. Macky D’s or a dried-out sandwich from a dubious corner shop named Xpress (without an ‘e’)? Hmm, just a Snickers then please.

But how times change. Railway stations might have spent years ruled exclusively by patchy fast food options, but it seems that they are finally pulling their culinary socks up – and, in some places, quite seriously so.

Nowadays, if you arrive early for your train at the newly-refurbished King’s Cross station, you’ll be met with plenty more options than M&S – which not so long ago was about as good as it got. Now you can enjoy a Lebanese wrap or a mezze plate at Yalla Yalla, grab a burrito from Benito’s Hat, tuck into a freshly made salad or soup from Leon, or have anything from breakfast to a burger at Giraffe.

Next door, St Pancras is a step further ahead, with Searcys Champagne Bar, posh ice-cream place Gelato Mio and Sourced Market’s daily farmer’s market. A farmer’s market…at a railway station! In the adjoining Renaissance Hotel, you’ve even got Marcus Wareing’s The Gilbert Scott and The Booking Office Bar.

Down at Waterloo, a whole new mezzanine level has been built to accommodate offerings including Italian deli Carluccio’s and popular bistro-style restaurant Benugo. Even high-end wine importers Corney & Barrow are getting in on the act, adding to their profile of City bars.

There’s now a Champagne bar in Paddington Station, and a new food hall will follow once the Crossrail refurb is over. London Bridge is undergoing a similar overhaul and will boast the highest of high-end bars when it gets a direct link to the top of The Shard next year. Station food is well and truly on the up.

Much of this trend is being driven by small London chains who are taking their first tentative steps into stations. And, indeed, they’re being actively encouraged to. David Biggs, director of property at Network Rail, explains the transformations of King’s Cross and Waterloo as “part of our wider retail strategy to create destination stations for both rail passengers and non-travelling customers, providing a sustainable source of income which can be re-invested directly into the railway”.

Introducing good food onto their concourses is a much more palatable way to raise funds than increasing fares. And, by all accounts, it seems to be a winning formula all round. Food and drink outlets within stations are pretty much unique in having consistently increased their revenue over the past year, completely bucking the ongoing gloominess of the high street.

Perhaps it’s a natural progression from the increase in quality food we’ve seen in shopping centres such as the Westfields or One New Change at St Paul’s, where both Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay have restaurants.

Either way, it’s nice that at least one part of our railway experience is showing solid signs of improvement.

They’ve played at two major London tourist attractions and are bigger here than in their own home town – no wonder Scissor Sisters call the UK their “spiritual home”. Ahead of two sold-out London dates, Scout London’s Dan Frost quizzes singer Ana Matronic on her favourite aspects of the city.

What’s the best show you’ve ever had in London?

Ooh, a tough one. We’ve had a lot of really good shows in London, but if I had to pick one I’d say our first Halloween gig at Brixton Academy, where we dressed up as characters from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. That was just this amazingly fun, really magical night. Halloween is collectively the band’s favourite holiday, so we asked people to dress up but we weren’t expecting the level that we received. We had a big screen in front of the stage, and when it dropped the crowd screamed when they saw what we were wearing and I screamed because about 95 per cent of the audience were dressed up in costume. It was amazing.

So is the Academy your favourite London venue?

I do love Brixton Academy because it’s a great blend of big and small. You feel like you’re in a big venue but you also really feel like people can hear you and you can touch people. We’re also one of what can’t be many bands who’ve played both the Tower of London and Trafalgar Square. Not many bands can say that, so that’s pretty amazing. I love looking at the Tower of London and going, ‘Yeah, I played that…whatever’.

You must get stopped in the street quite a bit. Do you have a favourite time that a London fan has approached you?

No, that doesn’t happen. People expect to see me dressed up as the cartoon character that I appear as on stage, but I can slip under the radar when I want to. My husband and I have been to Glastonbury a few times just as punters, and I’ve never been recognised. I’m a master of disguise – think Alias, the TV show. If I don’t want to be recognised, you will not see me – I won’t be the droid you’re looking for.

Ok, so when you’re in disguise in London, which nightspots do you like to frequent?

I’ve always had really good times at Dalston Superstore. Horse Meat Disco is always always always fun. And I love Madam JoJo’s. I’ve been to a lot of nights there and DJed there – it’s a nice blend of dancefloor and hangout space.

What other areas do you like to hang out in?

Portobello Market and Spitalfields Market, I love both of those areas. And I love Brixton, partly because it reminds me of Brooklyn. The same with Shepherd’s Bush. That’s where my friend Johnny lives and where I stay when I come to London independently. I love the different cultures and ethnicities that you see there. Those areas get a bad rap, but I’ve always lived in what people might classify as dangerous or seedy neighbourhoods. Maybe I gravitate towards them.

Do you have a favourite museum?

Definitely: the V&A. They have a very eclectic permanent exhibition but I also love the temporary exhibits they bring through, they’re so beautiful and inspiring. One I loved not so long ago was a collection of clothing from the Russian Royal Family. And I went with [band mate] Babydaddy to see one that was futuristic design in the 60s, which was really interesting and well-thoughtout. Ooh, and I love the Science Museum too – saw a great Alchemy exhibition there.

Is there a specific area where you think London has the edge over New York?

That’s easy: nightlife. Hands down. [Former New York Mayor] Rudy Giuliani saw to it that the nightlife/club scene in New York was seriously hindered, so we don’t have nearly as many balls-out, hands-in-the-air, shirtsoff nights as you do in London. It’s so much more fun over here. There are great irregular parties that happen in New York, but we don’t have big spaces like Fabric, where there are multiple rooms, all with a different flavour, where you can spend the whole night sweating and dancing your feet off. Those kinds of places don’t exist in New York anymore. It’s really sad.

What’s the craziest thing to have happened on one of your nights out in London?

Gee, I don’t know. I once got a piggyback ride from Beth Ditto. Ooh, I know: we performed with Pete Burns at The Cock shortly after the first record came out, and there was a guy there who would not leave him alone – this was before Celebrity Big Brother and all that. He was really bothering Pete, so I saw Pete literally take this kid by the scruff of the neck, take him to the back door, open the door onto the kid’s face and then throw him out the door. It was at that moment that I thought, ‘God damn, I am so glad that Pete is in my corner and I know never ever to cross him’. And then we danced and had a great rest of the night.

And one final thing that you love about London?

I love the general appreciation of eccentricity. In the States weirdness is seen as threatening, but over here it seems to be treated as interesting, and you cherish those people as ‘eccentric’ rather than just weird. Our success is living proof of your embrace of eccentricity.

Scissor Sisters
October 23 & 24
returns only
Roundhouse
roundhouse.org.uk

Scout London and Theatre Tokens have teamed up to give away £200 worth of Theatre Tokens to one lucky winner.

You’ll be able to treat yourself to stirring romance, chilling thrillers, star-studded drama, magical musicals and side splitting comedy. And when it’s all over, you’ll be able to recreate the magic with an exclusive Show Tunes CD that comes as part of the prize.

Theatre Tokens can be used at more than 240 theatres nationwide. They can serve as a great gift, or simply as a way of seeing London’s hottest shows for free. All you have to do is answer the question below. And remember to visit Theatre Tokens’ Facebook page and Twitter feed for the latest news, views and offers.

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here - competition closes Sunday October 28 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Guided walks aren’t just for tourists – they’re the best way to get beneath the skin of the city. Learn tales to dazzle your friends with our pick of the walk companies.

PETER BERTHOUD TOURS

Led by its eponymous professional guide, these tours are among the most intriguing and unexpected out there. The Seven Noses of Soho walk is particularly interesting, described by Berthoud as “a mini-refresher course on the joys of being observant in London”.

Into the mouth of the caiman 
Luciano Candisani 
A motionless caiman waits for fish to come within snapping distance, Brazil

There is wildlife photography and then there is the Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year award.

Featuring some of the most mesmerising images of nature that you’re ever likely to see, the annual competition and accompanying exhibition takes viewers into the faraway habitats of some of the most fascinating (and forbidding) creatures in the world. 

This year’s winners – which includes the images shown here – were announced this week, and are now on display at the Natural History Museum. 

The exhibition is open every day from 10am to 5.50pm until March 3, priced £10 for adults and £5 for children and concessions.

nhm.ac.uk/wildphoto

Last Look
By Steve Winter
A Sumatran tiger

 

Snatch and grab
Stefan Huwiler
A golden eagle chases a red fox away from a carcass that it was feasting on, Bulgaria

Warning night light
Larry Lynch
A large alligator at night in Florida

 

Snow pounce
Richard Peters
A fox hunting for rodents by jumping and pouncing downwards through snow in Yellowstone National Park, USA

 

Ghost bears
Kimmo P Pöri
Two adult male brown bears fight over a reindeer carcass in eastern Finland

 

Spirit of the forest
Paul Nicklen
A spirit bear, or Kermode bear, found in the Great Bear Rainforest, which runs from British Columbia in Canada to Alaska. This rare species is a black bear with recessive genes that give it a creamy white coat

 

Fly-by drinking
Ofer Levy
A grey-headed flying fox, the largest bat in Australia

 

Treading water
Charlie Hamilton James
A giant otter, Peru

Remember those lovely Olympian days, when there were no line closures? They are well and truly gone.

For full details on all closures and diversions, visit the Transport for London website.

Circle line: On Saturday, Cannon Street station is closed in order to improve the station.

On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service on the entire line in order to improve the track at Notting Hill Gate.

District line: On Saturday, Cannon Street station is closed in order to improve the station.

On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Barking and Upminster due to drainage improvement work at Hornchurch and between Earl’s Court and Edgware Road in order to improve the track at Notting Hill Gate.

Hammersmith & City line: On Sunday, from 23:00, there is no service between Baker Street and Hammersmith to allow for the movement of engineer trains.

Metropolitan line: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Aldgate and Baker Street due to operational reasons.

Northern line: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Tooting Broadway and Morden in order to improve the track.

Victoria line: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Highbury & Islington and Brixton due to rail maintenance work.

Docklands Light Railway: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Canning Town and Beckton due to Crossrail work.

On Sunday, there is no service between London City Airport and Woolwich Arsenal due to Crossrail work.

London Overground: On Sunday, there is no service between Clapham Junction and Willesden Junction due to Network Rail bridge work and between New Cross Gate and Crystal Palace/West Croydon due to Network Rail track maintenance work.

In addition, on Sunday until 08:00, there is no service between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate due to track maintenance work.

London Tramlink: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between East Croydon and Beckenham Junction/Elmers End/New Addington in order to improve the track.

A new exhibition at the Museum of London lifts the coffin lid on the age of grave robbery and gruesome surgical practices. James Drury finds out more

Perhaps more worryingly, the 262 bodies uncovered showed signs of dissection, post mortem amputation and autopsy.

There could be only one answer: the hospital had been secretly burying corpses there after using them for medical research and surgical training.

Before anyone leaps to the wrong conclusion, this has nothing to do with today’s medical professionals – the remains were dated from between 1825 and 1841.

This was a time of body snatchers and illicit medical training, of comparatively poor anatomical knowledge and widely-held beliefs about the physical resurrection of the body on the Day of Judgement.

As with today, doctors and surgeons would carry out anatomical work and experiments on corpses. But back then, acquiring such specimens was a very grey moral area.

No-one would donate their body to science for fear it might affect them in the afterlife. Physicians were forced to obtain their experimental subjects on the black market, from ‘resurrection men’ – body snatchers who dug up cadavers for clandestine sale.

Operating under the cover of night, when the moon wasn’t shining, gangs of these nefarious traders would sneak into graveyards where they knew there had been a recent burial, dig down into the soil with wooden spades (because they make less noise than metal ones), crack open the coffin and haul out the corpse.

“They would strip the body of all its clothing, jewellery and other goods and leave those things behind,” explains Julia Davidson, curator of a new exhibition at the Museum of London called Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men.

“That way they couldn’t be prosecuted for theft, which could carry a death sentence. Technically you couldn’t steal a body because it didn’t belong to anyone.”

The body was then slung onto a cart and touted round the hospitals – either for parts or sold as a whole.

Amputation saw, circa 1800

Early 19th century surgeons were eager to improve their anatomical understanding. These were the days before anaesthetic and penicillin, meaning operations were carried out while the patient was conscious, and the risk of infection was high.

Practising on corpses was therefore of great importance. It furthered medical understanding of human anatomy, and enabled physicians to become quicker and more accurate in operations and amputations – vital to reducing deaths during surgery.

“By the 1820s it has been estimated that 500-600 bodies per year were being taken by the body snatchers,” says Davidson. “Many were taken from what we call ‘pauper’s graves’, because they were pretty easy pickings for the resurrection men.

“Because it was happening to poor people it didn’t attract much attention among the political classes. It wasn’t until the surgeons and doctors complained to MPs that they were fed up with having to deal with these rather nasty people on the black market – and it was the body snatchers who set the prices – that politicians started to pay attention.”

What also sped up the introduction of the Anatomy Act 1832, which gave the State the right to take ‘unclaimed’ bodies without consent, was the 1831 case of Bishop, Williams and May – London’s own Burke and Hare. They were convicted of murdering a young boy and trying to sell the body for dissection.

In addition to tales of such body snatchers, the Museum of London’s new exhibition includes items owned by their clients – the medical professionals. Instruments, surgery sets – such as the skull saw – and other items produce an interesting picture of medical practice in the early 19th century.

“I hope people will have their eyes opened to what it must have been like to have lived in this period,” says Davidson. “We’ve really tried to get it to feel quite creepy. You can feel the fear that people would have felt at the time, either about being dissected, operated on or being ‘resurrected’.”

Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men runs from October 19 – April 14,
tickets £9 adults, £7 concs. museumoflondon.org.uk

It’s a drizzly Wednesday evening and Michael Mittermeier is doing his deadpan best to woo a midweek crowd at the Soho Theatre.

“When people introduce me they say, ’This is Michael – he’s German’, in that kind of sympathetic voice like they’re saying, ’he’s disabled’.”

In a comedy context, it’s not a bad analogy. Germans are hardly famous for their wit or joviality. And, within British comedy at least, they’ve often been ones to laugh at rather than with. So it’s probably a relief when the crowd explodes into laughter.

Mittermeier might pack out arenas in his native country, but he’s still a relatively new character over here. And this isn’t his first stab at cracking the notoriously diffi cult UK comedy scene. “I did some shows at The Comedy Store about 15 years ago but the press really messed that one up,” he huff s to Scout London before the show. “I just felt like saying: ‘My grandfather was in the war – ask him, not me’. “But I think it’s diff erent now, the attitudes have really changed.”

Indeed, it does feel like we’ve grown up. The former posturing of our tabloid headline writers seems like it came from a different age. We love Germany these days – and they love us. Maybe it’s all those wonderful weekends in Berlin that taught us to adore this incredible country and its surprisingly Angloenthused populous.

“There are so many Germans living in London now, and people visit Germany so much more,” says Mittermeier. “So I think now is the right time for people to hear about these issues from a German – Greece, The euro, you know.” The first phase in his re-engagement with the UK took place at Edinburgh this summer. “If you can play in a venue that small, if you can make people laugh every night, then you know you can do it,” he says with understandable pride.

Remember, Mittermeier is doing this in his second language – that takes serious testikels. I wonder aloud whether Henning Wehn might be a tad annoyed with Mittermeier for nicking his “only German comic in the country” badge of honour? Mittermeier laughs. “I met him at Edinburgh and it was really good. But we’re very different comics – he lives in London and talks about the minutiae of British life. You can only do that if you live here. I do a mixture of stuff – some political comedy, some other subjects.”

Back in his home country, the 46 year-old Bavarian performs to thousands of people at a time – sometimes in bizarre circumstances. “I was on my way to see U2 in Berlin and the record company who’d set me up with the tickets called me. They said, ‘The support band can’t play, can you support U2?’ I did and Bono seems to be a fan of mine now. I see him about once, twice a year. It was funny because he said that he thought the crowd wasn’t going to accept me – but they did.” Celebrity chums aside, most of all it seems Mittermeier wants to open the world’s eyes and ears to German comedy – and sometimes with the stereotypes intact. “There are no German comedians,” he tells the Soho audience, before flashing a smile and adding, “but we have the technology to dominate world humour.”

Until October 20
£10-£20
Soho Theatre
sohotheatre.com

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential films in the history of cinema, David Lean’s epic masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia, celebrating its 50th anniversary, has debuted fully-restored on Blu-ray™ in a two-disc set from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Never-before-seen bonus content on the two-disc release includes the “Secrets of Arabia: A Picture-in-Graphics Track,” which allows the viewer to become immersed in the world of Lawrence of Arabia and learn about the customs and rituals of desert existence. Lawrence of Arabia was nominated for 10 Academy Awards® and took home seven, including Best Picture. Academy Award® nominees Peter O’Toole (1962, Best Actor) and Omar Sharif (1962, Best Supporting Actor) star in the classic.

To celebrate it’s release we’re giving away a LCD TV and Blu-ray player plus a copy of the Lawrence of Arabia 2-disc Blu-ray. © 1962, renewed 1990, © 1988 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved

To be in with a chance of winning just answer the following question:

Full terms and conditions for all competitions are available here

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

The Serpentine Gallery will this weekend host an ‘ideas festival’ that explores the nature of memory, with high-profile guests and speakers including Michael Stipe and David Lynch. Ahead of the event, World Memory Champion Ed Cooke offers Scout readers his top five tips for improving memory

1. Make associations

Memories are associations. They link one thing in your mind to another. So to remember well, you need to form clear, vivid associations.

To remember that Boris Johnson’s middle name is De Pfeffel, you have to link him to this strange word. Imagine him chocking on a Pepper and making a “de-de-de” gargling sound. The link between Johnson and this image should get you, via “de-de-de Pepper”, to De Pfeffel.

2. Pay attention

Most of the time our minds are nearly empty when we hear a new name or fact – we simply don’t pay attention. When you are paying attention, your whole mind is taken over by what you’re focused on, and you can hardly fail to remember. To practise boosting your powers of attention, try looking at a leaf for five minutes without getting bored. If you can train yourself to do that, you’ll find you remember more of your surroundings, because you are more focussed on them.

World Memory Champion Ed Cooke

3. Add narrative

Narratives are dynamite for the memory. You can storify almost anything to benefit your memory. You can turn your shopping list into a dramatic narrative involving peppers battling broccoli, tomato fights, baked bean barriers, sugar mounds. It may seem strange that this helps, but simply watch it in action.

4. Use your imagination

When we recall an event from the past, we’re imagining what happened then – it’s a creative act. So, to make things more memorable, you have to imagine them creatively. Keys do nothing for the imagination. But reimagine them as a hoop of living creatures – penguins or kittens, perhaps – and your excited imagination will find it easier to remember them.

5. More is less

It’s often easier to remember lots of information than little. We often forget because we don’t have a rich enough web of context to store a memory in.

It’s tricky remembering the name of someone you know nothing about. But if you get more details – where they come from, their favourite sitcom, whatever – they’ll come alive in your mind, and there’ll be more to connect their name and face to. Try the same trick for current affairs!

Memory Marathon
October 12-14
Serpentine Gallery
serpentinegallery.org
Visit www.memrise.com for more of Ed’s helpful memory-improving tips.

Our pick of the new shows opening in theatreland this week 

Michael Jackson: Immortal

October 12–21, The O2, £40-£100

What do you get if you cross one of the modern world’s most celebrated artists and entertainers with its most revered contemporary circus company? Madonna on a trapeze? Mick Jagger taming lions? Maybe one day, but not this time.

In this instance you get Cirque du Soleil dropping jaws with their typically superlative acrobatics, set to the music of the late King of Pop.

The Canadian titans of ‘cirque nouveau’ have given the same treatment to the likes of Smooth Criminal, Thriller, Billie Jean and so on that they did to The Beatles’ back catalogue in Love. Early reviews from the world tour have been very positive, and the YouTube footage looks as impressive as we’ve come to expect from Cirque.

It sounds like it’s built around a fairly schmaltzy narrative. But the spectacle seems sufficiently eye-popping that you’re unlikely to care hugely.

www.theo2.co.uk

Damned By Despair

October 10 – December 17, The Olivier, National Theatre, £12-£32

Irish playwright Frank McGuinness is probably more famous for his adaptations of classics by the likes of Ibsen and Chekhov than for his own original creations.

He has now turned his hand to Tirso de Molina’s 1635 adventure story Damned By Despair, which centres on a hermit whose obsession with his own salvation leads him to commit to 10 years of prayer and penance. In a moment of weakness, he is tricked by the Devil into believing that he is destined for the same damnation as an evil gangster. So he swears vengeance against God, and assembles a band of outlaws that embark on a criminal rampage.

This is one of the key productions in the National’s autumn season, so expect first-rate acting and high production values in the revamping of this fast-paced tale of faith, fate, love and redemption.

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

All That Fall

October 9 – November 3, Jermyn Street Theatre, sold out

The vast expanse of Samuel Becket’s output stretches far beyond Waiting For Godot to numerous works that the casual theatre-goer is unlikely to know.

Among these is this 1957 BBC radio play, which was widely acclaimed when it was first broadcast but remains a relatively under-known classic in the Beckett canon.

So, who better to bring it to widespread attention than three giants of the British stage? Trevor Nunn will direct this production at the tiny Jermyn Street Theatre, with acting heavyweights Michael Gambon and Eileen Atkins as the married couple at its centre.

What to expect? Well, black comedy and a depressing conclusion seem fairly inevitable. Or, as Nunn describes it, a piece that “moves through comedic situations to a conclusion as disturbingly bleak as anything in his [Beckett’s] writing”.

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk 

You Can Still Make A Killing

October 10 – November 3, Southwark Playhouse, £10-£18

There are only a couple of months left until Southwark Playhouse has to leave its deliciously atmospheric home in the London Bridge railway arches.

It’ll be coming back to the area post-redevelopment in 2018, and operating from a yet-to-be-announced temporary home until then. But if you want to catch a production in the winningly dark and dank venue where the theatre made its name, you’d best not delay.

Part of their final season in the arches is this promising new financial crisis-themed offering from playwright Nicholas Pierpan and director Matthew Dunstar.

Pierpan is a two-time winner of the Cameron Mackintosh Award for New Writing, and Dunstar is one of the most exciting young directors in British theatre, whose credits include productions at the National, the Barbican, the Globe and the Young Vic.

This production will reunite the pair after their success on The Maddening Rain at the Old Red Lion and Soho Theatre in 2010.

www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk 

Desire Under The Elms

October 8 – November 10, Lyric, £12.50-£35

Inspired by the Ancient Greek story of Phaedra, Eugene O’Neill’s classic 1924 drama sees the writer transplanting key elements of the lustful Greek tragedy into his contemporary New England.

A tumultuous tale of pride, conscience, entitlement and emotion, it focuses on the conflicting claims of farm ownership between a father and son, and the devastating love affair between the son and his father’s beautiful new wife.

The production is directed by Lyric Artistic Director Sean Holmes, and features rising star Morgan Watkins.

The Good Neighbour

October 13 – November 4, Battersea Arts Centre, £5-£8

Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) further establishes its strong community credentials with this all-ages adventure steeped in the area’s rich history.

Children and adults go on different ‘journeys’ as part of the production – the kids (6-12 years) try to uncover the mystery of George Neighbour’s lost memory as they hurtle through magical worlds spread around the BAC building, while adults (13+) join a tour of Battersea’s radical past, led round the surrounding streets by, of all things, a brass band.

All in all, it sounds a little bit bonkers, quite possibly brilliant and so very BAC.

www.bac.org.uk 

The Finalists

October 11-13, Shoreditch Town Hall, £5-£10

Among the alumni of the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award is the phenomenal You Me Bum Bum Train (the company which thrusts individual audience members into the leading roles of a series of real-world scenarios).

So it would be fair to expect a few impressive ideas from the finalists in this year’s award.

Selected for their “boldness and innovation”, the budding young theatre-makers will be presenting their pieces for judges and audiences over three days.

The offerings range from participatory theatre to live art, and are co-produced by The Barbican, Create and Shoreditch Town Hall.

www.barbican.org.uk 

Elegy

October 9 – November 3, Theatre503, £9-£14

Perhaps because violence and suffering have been so commonplace in post-liberation Iraq, the outside world has paid little attention to a dramatic surge in homophobic murders that has been happening there since the fall of Saddam.

This hit of the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe acts as “a poetic love letter” to the more than 700 victims of this violence. Inspired by interviews with gay Iraqi refugees, and using images by photojournalist Bradley Seckler, the play tells the real-life story of a man who fled to Syria to escape the persecution.

www.theatre503.com

Ever watched a boxing match and thought to yourself, ‘I just wish the fighters would take a break and play some chess’? Us too! Well, we’re all in luck. Welcome the phenomenon that is chessboxing. By Dan Frost

Life is full of combinations that seem strange at first but, for whatever reason, work when you put them together: ham and pineapple; Sam Taylor Wood and Aaron Johnson; the Tories and the Lib Dems.

Ok, maybe they don’t all work that well. The point is, harmony can sometimes be found between the unlikeliest of partners. And in sporting terms, this principle is best demonstrated by chessboxing.

No doubt some of you are currently experiencing a WTF moment. So allow us to explain.

Chessboxing, as the name suggests, is a hybrid sport that combines chess and boxing – yes, seriously. Over the course of 11 rounds, competitors alternate between a battle of brawn in the ring and a battle of brains at the chessboard – they bash each other to bits for three minutes, then sit down and try to corner each other’s kings for four minutes, before hopping back up for another three minutes in the ring and so on.

Using the rules of ‘fast chess’, they only have a total of 12 minutes to make all of their moves, so even the less physical sections become fast-paced nail-biting contests. As for deciding on a winner, it can either be through checkmate, knockout or a player running out of time in his chess moves. And if none of these happen, it comes down to points from the ring.

So how, you ask, can someone be expected to think clearly about chess strategy having just spent the past few minutes being thumped in the head?

“That’s where the training comes in,”  says British chessboxing founder and reigning British heavyweight champion Tim Woolgar. “Your body chemistry changes during the course of strenuous physical activity, and your emotions get wrought up in the course of a fight. So the ability to do all of that and still retain the faculty to think clearly and make plans and carry them through is really tested, but that’s part of the enjoyment of the sport.”

Tim Woolgar in action. Photo by James Bartosik.

Traditionalists might scoff at the idea of this bizarre mutant entertainment being a sport in its own right. But however you classify it, its growing popularity is increasingly hard to ignore.

Chessboxing was invented on the continent in the early 90s. But it was the involvement of Woolgar and the founding of Britain’s first chessboxing club in 2007 that really lit the fuse for what we have now.

From the first event, in 2008 at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, UK chessboxing has steadily increased its audience. In March, 1,200 people packed into The Scala in King’s Cross to see former world champion Nikolay ‘The Siberian Express’ Sazhin take on Andy ‘The Rock’ Costello. And this Wednesday chessboxing will make its Albert Hall debut (ok, a smaller space beneath the main hall, but still the Albert Hall).

But perhaps you’re still not convinced. It’s a pretty odd pairing after all…or is it?

“There’s a strategic and thinking element to boxing that everyone acknowledges – you quite often hear a boxing match described as being like a chess game,” says Woolgar. “But perhaps the most important thing that really synergises the two sports in my mind is that they are both absolutely a gladiatorial arena.

“Both are battles, and each is an emotional struggle. With boxing, you have to have that willingness to go and deal with another person, and enjoy it. In the same way, a chess player enjoys that duel.”

So there you have it: chessboxing isn’t such a strange combination after all. If anything the two sports are a natural fit. In this age of coalition, it’s good to see that some partnerships are destined to stand the test of time.

Chessboxing, October 10, Royal Albert Hall. www.royalalberthall.com 

For more information on chessboxing in London, visit www.londonchessboxing.com 

The London Film Festival gets underway this week. As always, it’s packed with exciting offerings from every corner of the globe, and to suit all tastes – from cerebral beard-strokers to popcorn-munching populists. We’ve ploughed through the (huge) programme and picked out the highlights so you don’t have to.

The Big Hitters

The festival’s opening and closing galas always nab two of the hottest films of the festival, and this year is no exception.

Kicking things off on Wednesday will be the European premier of Tim Burton’s deliciously dark new animated feature, Frankenweenie. Channeling the small town loner theme of Edward Scissorhands and the macabre puppetry of Corpse Bride into a reworking of the Frankenstein story (only this time, it’s a young lad’s pet dog that is brought back to life), it sees Burton back on the sinister yet charming storytelling turf where he made his name.

There’s similar anticipation attached to the festival’s closing gala film, Mike ‘Four Weddings’ Newell’s reworking of Great Expectations. From a script by One Day author David Nicholl, the lavish staging of the Dickens classic sees Helena Bonham Carter taking on the role of literature’s most famous spinster, Miss Havisham, and Ralph Fiennes its most tragic crook, Magwitch. We’ll be watching with, well, great expectations.

Helena Bonham Carter in Great Expectations

Other big hitters to look out for include Crossfire Hurricane, a career-spanning documentary about the Rolling Stones that celebrates the band’s 50^th anniversary, and new Ben Affleck film Argo. The once sneered-at heartthrob completes his impressive career reinvention by directing and starring in this espionage thriller, which is already going Oscar buzz-tastic.

Highlights

Unlike the global categories of previous years, the new-look 2012 festival is broken down by theme – ‘love’, ‘laugh’, ‘thrill’ and so on. Each is packed with promising new offerings from some of the world’s greatest filmmakers. But what are the ones that really stand out?

Let’s start with Sightseers, which sees Kill List director Ben Wheatley move into comedic territory (though of the blackest possible variety) with a story about a young couple on a caravanning holiday that factors in love, laughter and a spate of casual murders. We sense a cult classic in the making.

There are more British-helmed laughs to be had in Spike Island, a coming-of-age story set around a legendary early Stone Roses gig and the efforts of a young group of friends to be there.

Mat Whitecross’s Spike Island, set in the Manchester ‘baggy’ era

And the charms of youth can also be found in Wayne Blair’s The Sapphires, which tells the real-life story of a 60s Irish girl group who go to Vietnam to sing for troops, and stars the now ubiquitous yet ever-watchable Chris O’Dowd.

Perhaps the most hotly-anticipated film of the entire festival is Beasts Of The Southern Wild, a fantastical piece set in America’s Deep South that had Sundance and Cannes critics scrabbling over each other to gush their praises (not a pretty site, though the film apparently is).

Beasts Of The Southern Wild

And those underachieving yanks (pah, what do they know about making movies) have some other exciting prospects on offer, in SXSW prize-winner Gimme The Loot, about a loveable pair of ambitious young NYC graffiti artists, and Compliance, an unsettling telling of a dark and disturbing real-life drama that took place inside a fast food joint.

Based on the brutal brilliance of his 2009 French prison drama A Prophet, it’s little wonder everyone is hungry to see what director Jacques Audiard has turned to next. Starring Marion Cotillard (and a killer whale), Rust And Bone is a very different feature altogether; an unlikely love story (no, not involving the killer whale) that is as intense in its emotion as A Prophet was in its violence and severe narrative.

Marion Cotillard in Rust And Bone

We’re also hearing very good things about the curious and seemingly very creepy Spanish horror/thriller Painless.

And to finish on an appropriately local note, London’s most notable festival appearance is in Sally El Hosaini’s hotly-tipped My Brother The Devil, a Hackney-set tale of drugs, gangs and sibling secrets that is apparently far more interesting than the subject matter might suggest.

The Indie Crowd

Hogging pretty much all of the art house anticipation (quite understandably) is Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or-winning Amour, about an elderly couple trying to cope after a stroke leaves the wife paralysed and speechless. It’s obviously not the cheeriest film (and there are no helicopters or explosions), but critics are pretty much foaming at the mouth over it and, in its wake, attaching a variety of ‘best living filmmaker’ tags to the Austrian master.

Michael Haneke’s latest film, Amour

As for the rest, The Hunt sees Festen director Thomas Vinterberg extract a strong (and Cannes Best Actor award-winning) performance from Mads Mikkelsen, as a teacher wrongly accused of inappropriate behavior with a student.

Caesar Must Die uses a real Italian prison and real inmates in its portrayal of a behind-bars production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Our Children promises to “make you weep” with its devastating story of the pressures faced by a young couple. And American director Antonio Campos’s follow-up to the well-received Afterschool is intriguing drama Simon Killer, starring US indie darling Brady Corbet.

Documentaries

The factual fixtures of this year’s festival are a similarly strong bunch.

Beware Of Mr Baker traces legendary Cream drummer Ginger Baker to a ranch in South Africa – only to discover that he’s now a cantankerous old curmudgeon.

Beware Of Mr Baker

Canned Dreams takes us on a now-familiar-but-still-uncomfortable journey behind the scenes of the global food industry.

Free Angela And All Political Prisoners tells the story of Angela Davis, a militant activist in 60s America.

For No Good Reason looks back on the career of Hunter S Thompson’s favoured illustrator Ralph Steadman.

There’s high-altitude tragedy in The Summit, which tells the story of a fateful 2008 climbing expedition at K2, in which 11 climbers died.

And West Of Memphis revisits the story of three Arkansas teenagers who were accused of performing satanic rituals and wrongfully imprisoned for murdering three eight-year-old boys.

The London Film Festival
October 10-21
Visit bfi.org.uk/lff for tickets
For our interview with director Clare Stewart, click here

Once fearful of singing in public, Lianne La Havas now has a Mercury Prize nomination to her name and a legion of celebrity fans. Andy Welch meets the rising star ahead of the announcement this week of the Mercury Prize winner

It’s hard to imagine now, but there was once a time when Lianne La Havas didn’t know she could sing. And but for a little playground jealousy when she was aged seven, it could have stayed that way.

“I was in primary school and my best friend wanted to hang around with the cool girls,” explains La Havas, who grew up in Tooting and Streatham in south London.

“She sang a Spice Girls song for them and they let her in the gang. I was devastated and thought I’d lost my friend.

“That night I went home and thought I’d try singing for myself, just to see if I could do it and maybe hang around with them too.”

The schoolgirl discovered she could actually make quite a pretty noise, although she kept it a secret from her family for some time.

She says she became “obsessed” with Lauryn Hill’s performance in gospel comedy Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit and began singing the songs from the film to herself.

“Singing was always my secret thing,” she says. “If ever I was in my room singing and heard someone coming upstairs, I’d go silent and just sit there not answering. Even now I’d struggle to sing in front of my friends and family.”

When she was 11, her father, a multi-instrumentalist, taught La Havas piano and within three years she was regularly singing lead parts in her school choir.

Fast forward a little and at 18 she first picked up a guitar, an instrument on which she now displays frightening ability, effortlessly combining jazz, folk and soul styles.

La Havas, now 23, spent some time singing backing vocals for the likes of Paloma Faith, but was signed to a label herself in 2008 shortly after playing her first solo performance. “I’d only written one song of my own then, really,” she says.

It wasn’t long before more arrived, making up the majority of her debut album Is Your Love Big Enough?

Released in September, it reached No 4 in the charts and just a few weeks later was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize alongside the likes of The Maccabees, Richard Hawley, Alt-J, Michael Kiwanuka and Jessie Ware.

The album was recorded between London and LA, mostly produced by Matt Hales, perhaps better known under his artist name Aqualung.

It’s stunning, showcasing La Havas’s breathtaking voice, while each deftly arranged track blends nods to her influences – Lauryn Hill, Mary J Blige and Jill Scott among others – with La Havas’s unique way of telling a story.

“It’s mainly a break-up album,” she says, “so there are a lot of songs about my ex; Gone, Forget and Tease Me and things like that.

“Those songs are about one person, and we don’t talk any more so I don’t know what he thinks about them. There are love songs about my boyfriend, though, and I was with him when I wrote them so I know what he thinks. His reaction was very positive!”

La Havas arriving for the 2012 Brit Awards at The O2

La Havas’s easy storytelling style translates to her live shows, where she playfully introduces each song with a tale about how it was written and what it’s about. It’s an endearing trait, drawing the audience in and making each performance feel like a two-way experience.

“It’s also a way of calming my nerves,” she says. “If ever I’ve got butterflies, I talk to the crowd and it seems to relax me. Plus I just love chatting to people.”

As for the Mercury Prize, which is awarded on October 10, La Havas has as much chance as anyone with this year’s contest generally viewed as wide open.

“It’s amazing to be nominated. I didn’t know until the day the shortlist was announced – I was asked by the organisers if I was free on the night of the ceremony, which is their way of telling you you’re on the list.

“Obviously critical validation isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of being a musician, but as a UK artist, it’s a dream. Just being nominated is enough and feels like winning.”

And her pick for winner? “I’d go for Alt-J. Or Jessie Ware. Or Michael Kiwanuka or Ben Howard. Oh I don’t know,” she says, laughing.

“I’ve played a lot of gigs with Michael and Ben and they’re both such lovely guys, exuding happiness. That’s got to count for something.”

La Havas is just off the Eurostar back from Paris when we speak, while the past few weeks have seen her perform all over the United States, Canada and Europe. She’s doing particularly well in France, while a forthcoming support tour with John Legend in the US should open many more doors across the Atlantic.

“People talk about breaking America, and it’s clearly brilliant, given that it’s such a hugely important, English-speaking country, and they have great taste in music, but I want to play wherever people want me. Success is success, I guess,” she says.

After her US tour with Legend, she’s off to Australia for a run of shows and will return to the US for a tour of her own.

The future’s certainly looking bright – La Havas has already attracted a legion of A-list fans, including Prince and Stevie Wonder, who contacted her to say how much they admired her music.

“I didn’t have any expectations of what my life would be like after I’d released my album,” she says, “just as I had no expectations of what making a record would be like, I just got on with it.

“Things have happened very quickly for me, and my job probably involves a lot more promotion than I thought, but I still love performing which more than makes up for it.

“A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into making it, but the reaction makes it all worthwhile.”

Is Your Love Big Enough? by Lianne La Havas is out now. Lianne La Havas is shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. The awards ceremony takes place on October 10.

As Rumfest, the world’s biggest festival of rum, returns to London for its sixth year, Ben Norum looks at the spirit’s connection with our city, and how we drink it now

The common link between pirates and parties, no drink is associated with a good time more than rum is. But while the very mention of this spirit conjures images of the Caribbean, its link to London stretches back much further than the Notting Hill Carnival.

It was the British Navy which first took rum seriously as far back as the 17th century. Reacting to the fact that both water and beer spoiled after long stretches at sea, boats entering the Caribbean regions took advantage of a cheaper, longer-lasting and readily available source of liquid – a harsh substance known as “kil devil” which was a byproduct of sugar cane processing sold direct from plantations.

Over time, distilling was refined and the resulting rum quickly became part of Navy culture, bringing with it many of the associations which still ring true to this day. It was ordered that rum be diluted with lime juice in order to prevent sailors getting too drunk, which led to the naming of this drink grog, after the term ‘the old grog’ referring to the Admiral in charge. And it’s likely the victory of Nelson’s rum drinking crew at the Battle of Trafalgar that has lead to the romanticised image of the spirit as the drink of choice for sailors and swashbuckling pirates.

In fact, crews were given rum partly to keep them content so that they didn’t mutiny. In an even less salubrious part of its history, rum was used as a currency for buying slaves, many of whom were in turn put to work on sugar cane plantations to ensure a ready supply of the drink.

Rum quickly become a major export for the British Empire, and much of it came back home to the UK.

The fact that The Museum of London Docklands building close to Canary Wharf was once a warehouse dedicated to the storage of rum as it came in via the port gives some idea of the scale on which it was drunk. In the 18th century rum became the most common drink in London, doing the unthinkable and overtaking even our beloved gin.

It was the British export of first rum and later cane sugar to America that led to the birth of distilling in New England. Many years later the US returned the favour by bringing its famous tiki bars to these shores.

The first to open was Trader Vic’s – still based at the London Hilton – in 1934, a copy of the original California bars. Creating a new genre of drinking den, these unashamedly over the top rum bars have spread, with trendy but trashy Trailer Happiness on Portobello Road and Mayfair’s blingy, celeb-filled Mahiki occupying opposite ends of the spectrum.

Though rum drinking is nowhere near as common as it was, it’s fitting that if only for two days, the Docklands will once again become the centre of the rum universe when Rumfest takes residency at the ExCel centre this weekend. And the hangover needn’t be too bad once that’s over – there are plenty more spots for budding Jack Sparrows spread across the city. Cotton’s, with restaurants in Exmouth Market and Camden stay true to the Caribbean spirit, with both menu and rum bar paying homage to the drink’s homeland, while Islington’s Wax Jumbu has more recently opened up its intimate upstairs as a Rum Cove filled with cocktails such as Red Sea Port which blends rum with honey and pomegranate molasses for a serious dose of St Lucian sunshine.

As a favourite tipple of many a bartender, there’s a world of clever rum cocktails to be found in bars around town, and don’t forget the humble mojito, either.

Rumfest
October 13-14
ExCel
Nearest DLR: Custom House
Tickets from £20
More information and tickets: rumfest.co.uk

Yikes! A bit of a mess out there this weekend. Be sure to check the TfL website before setting out.

For full details on all closures and diversions, visit the Transport for London website.

Circle line: On Saturday and Sunday, Cannon Street Tube station is closed in order to improve the station.

On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service on the entire line in order to improve the track and due to Crossrail work at Barbican.

District line: On Saturday and Sunday, Cannon Street Tube station is closed in order to improve the station.

On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Aldgate East and Upminster due to Crossrail work at Whitechapel and drainage work at Hornchurch, except for on Saturday from 1400 until 2300, where there is no service between Aldgate East and West Ham and between Barking and Upminster.

On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Earl’s Court and Edgware Road in order to improve the track.

Hammersmith & City line: On Saturday, until 1030, there is no service on the entire line due to Crossrail work at Barbican and Whitechapel.

On Saturday, after 1030, and all day Sunday, there is no service between King’s Cross St. Pancras and Barking due to Crossrail work at Barbican and Whitechapel.

Jubilee line: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between West Hampstead and Stanmore in order to improve the track and signalling system at Neasden.

Metropolitan line: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Aldgate and Harrow‑on‑the‑Hill in order to improve the track and signalling system at Neasden.

Northern line: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Charing Cross and Camden Town in order to improve the station at Tottenham Court Road.

On Sunday, until approximately 0830 southbound and 0900 northbound, there is no service between Camden Town and High Barnet/Mill Hill East in order to improve the track and signalling system.

London Overground: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Highbury & Islington and Shadwell and between Surrey Quays and New Cross due to Crossrail work.

London Tramlink: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Addington Village and New Addington in order to improve the track.

Fancy getting on one of these instead of a traditional red London bus? People around Caledonian Road had chance to ride on an old horse-drawn Omnibus, which was stationed outside the factory it had been built in.

The Drewitt’s Three Light horse-drawn Omnibus – so called because of the number of windows on either side – is a double decker, capable of seating 22 people, and was built at The Busworks in North Road – now serviced offices for creatives.

It made a series of trips around the streets, as The Busworks MD Gillian Harwood aimed to give people a taste of the building’s past.

Certainly looks more appealing than the number 25.

Returning to London for its sixth successive year from October 13-14, RumFest is the world’s largest festival dedicated to celebrating rum and its rising popularity.

For two days London’s ExCeL turns into a tropical paradise island showcasing the finest that rum culture has to offer. Rum-lovers will have their taste buds tantalised by the world’s most exclusive rums with over 400 different types to sip, savour and buy. Live bands playing exotic rhythms will be injected throughout the exhibition space whilst visitors can watch some of the most exciting and skilled mixologists create cocktail master pieces. Visitors will have the opportunity to sample some of the tropics most relaxing past times and savour the delights of this year’s Tropical Food Market. Think rum-drenched cakes, chocolates carefully paired with rum and the chance to see top chefs create dishes infused with rum.

For those who want to delve further into rum’s rich culture, The Rum University conducted by industry experts and master blenders will provide a multitude of seminars and workshops to partake in. Plus, visitors to the two-day festival could be in with a chance of winning a once in a lifetime trip to the Caribbean to drink buckets of rum, bringing The Rum Experience to a whole new level.

To celebrate that tickets are now on sale, Scout London has paired up with RumFest to offer one lucky winner the chance to go for free.

To win tickets, just compete the following form:

Competition closes Thursday October 11 at noon.

UK RumFest takes place from 13-14 October 2012 at London’s ExCel Exhibition Centre. Tickets are now on sale and are available from www.rumfest.co.uk. Please visit the site for full information. 

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

The London Film Festival gets underway next week. Ahead of the opening, new festival director Clare Stewart tells Scout London some of the things she is most excited about at this year’s event.

One thing that I’m very excited about is to have four terrific films by women directors in the official competition lineup: Sally Potter’s Ginger And Rosa; Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children; Cate Shortland’s Lore; and Rama Burshtein’s Fill The Void.

I think in a year when Cannes didn’t have any films in competition by women directors, it feels like those four very different films are holding their places in that competition very strongly, and I’m very excited to see how they play with audiences as well as the jury.

One of my other favourite films in selection, along the same lines, is a film called Wadjda, which is the first film to be made in Saudi Arabia by a woman. This is a country where it is still not legal for women to drive cars, and where going to the cinema has been illegal for 30 years, so the idea that this film could have come out of that country is quite extradordinary, and then the fact that it’s a terrific film really seals the deal.

I’m really excited about our documentary lineup this year – it’s a really strong year for documentary. And I’m very excited to be bringing some of the programmes we have on offer year-round at BFI Southbank – like BUG, which is our music video event, and Sonic Cinema, where we do live music events in connection with screenings – into the festival as well.

And not to forget, of course, The Art of Frankenweenie, the fantastic exhibition of the sets from the new Tim Burton movie at the Southbank Centre Festival Village.

The London Film Festival runs from October 10-21. Visit the Scout website next week for our pick of the highlights. Visit www.bfi.org.uk/lff to book tickets.

London festivals including Camden Crawl, Hard Rock Calling, Wireless and the BBC Radio 1 Hackney Weekend are all in the running for gongs at this year’s UK Festival Awards.

The annual event gathers hundreds of thousands of votes each year to tot up which events and artists were the favourites among fans and the music industry.

Categories range from Best Major, Medium and Small festival to Best Headline Performance, Best Breakthrough Act and, of course, Best Toilets.

Public voting is open now and runs until November 5, when the top 10 in each category will be announced. All participating voters are eligible for the ‘Dream Summer’ prize draw which entitles one lucky random winner to VIP tickets next year to every festival that scoops an award.

Some of the more specialised categories such as Outstanding Contribution to Festival Production and Agent of the Year will be decided by industry expert panels.

The awards show will take place on December 3 at The Roundhouse in Camden, hosted by comedian Phill Jupitus.

To see the full list and to cast your vote go to festivalawards.com/vote

Emma Watson’s new film sees her back at school, but it’s a world away from Harry Potter’s Hogwarts. Susan Griffin talks loneliness and nude scenes with the newly-grown-up star

Making the transition from child to grown-up star can be tricky, but so far Emma Watson seems to be doing rather nicely.

She managed to go through adolescence while under the public spotlight as Harry Potter’s studious schoolgirl Hermione Granger, without a hint of going off the rails.

Career-wise, she’s successfully pushing forwards with brave and intelligent film choices.

The first post-Potter was a supporting role in My Week With Marilyn, starring Michelle Williams, and she now steps up to leading lady status, as the free-spirited Sam in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower.

Based on the beloved best-selling novel by Stephen Chbosky, it’s a funny and tender coming-of-age story, in which Sam and her step-brother Patrick (Ezra Miller) take the academically precocious but socially awkward Charlie (Logan Lerman) under their wing, inviting him to join their group of ‘wallflowers’.

“Charlie’s been through a pretty rough time but he’s the sweetest, most sensitive soul you’ll ever meet, and Sam and Patrick try to shepherd him through the first year of high school, which we all know can be intimidating,” says Watson.

She was studying at Brown University in the US when she received the script.

“Even though it was set in America it felt like it had something to do with what my adolescent experience was like,” she says.

“It was funny and sad and witty all at the same time and it felt really honest and authentic. It didn’t glamourise the experience and didn’t patronise or sensationalise it either.”

Watson hadn’t read the novel though, which stunned her American classmates.

“My American friends berated me,” she explains. “They couldn’t believe I hadn’t read it and I realised there’s this amazing cult following of people that really care about it.

“So, again putting a lot of pressure on myself to get it right,” she adds with a small laugh.

Watson remembers a sense of panic a month before the cameras were due to roll.

“I was like, ‘I’ve got to do an American accent and I don’t know anything about being at an American school’, so I started freaking out and making these crazy notes and emailing the director at three in the morning going, ‘What does this mean?’

“It all worked out fine in the end but it was a real stretch for me, and there were parts that really pushed me out of my comfort zone in a big way.”

Emma Watson arrives at a screening for new film The Perks Of Being A Wallflower at the Mayfair Hotel in London. Photo: Ian West/PA Wire

That includes spending numerous scenes in little more than a corset and suspenders but Chbosky, who also directed the film, had immense faith in Watson.

“Emma is absolutely luminous in the role. It took about five minutes for me to realise that she was the perfect person for the character,” he says.

“She grew up in the middle of a hurricane, and she did it with such grace and such class, but there is this loneliness about her. I knew when I met her that this was a part of her that was just dying to come out. She just needed permission.”

Watson admits that loneliness has been a reality.

“I tried my best to live my adolescence behind closed doors and I think I managed that,” she says. “I went back to school between filming; I sat my GCSEs and A-levels and went to university.”

But making the film did make her “very aware” that her life has been very different to the majority of her peers.

“It’s definitely been unusual, almost like it’s been done backwards. There are certain parts of my development that’s happening at different times.

“At times that’s felt lonely but generally I feel privileged to have had so many different experiences.”

And she acknowledges the advantages that being part of the Harry Potter franchise has brought her.

“I really loved making this film and I love acting, it’s what I want to do, so I’m grateful to have had a platform that allowed me to do that.”

There are four more projects in the pipeline already, including Sophia Coppola’s The Bling Ring, based on the real-life robberies of celebrity homes, and a cameo in the apocalyptic The End Of The World, both of which are completed.

She’s just started filming Darren Aronofsky’s Biblical epic Noah, alongside Russell Crowe and Anthony Hopkins, and she’ll appear as a self-destructive writer in Your Voice In My Head opposite Stanley Tucci.

There are rumours that she’s also in the running for the lead role in the movie adaptation of ‘mummy porn’ bestseller Fifty Shades Of Grey.

Laughing at the mention of this, she says: “It’s flattering in the sense that people are excited about what I do next.

“The thing is I haven’t read any of the books so it’s quite difficult to know what I’m turning down potentially, but I hear it’s quite raunchy.”

She pauses in contemplation.

“I mean, if there’s interesting character development and there’s an interesting story then I would consider it.”

Having to strip certainly wouldn’t put her off: “I’ve been saying since I was 16 that if it’s an interesting character and important for the character development, and of course if it’s important to the story, then I’ll do it because I’m an actress and that’s it really.”

Besides, she feels she’s already faced the riskiest stage of her career, by tackling her first major role since Harry Potter.

“I did feel the pressure from the fact that whatever I decided to do next, people were going to put a lot of weight on and judge a lot,” she says.

“But at the same time I enjoyed making this film so much, it doesn’t matter to me whether people like it or not. I know it’s special and I know I’m really proud of what I did in it.

“And when you feel good about something you don’t need other people to validate it so much.”

Perks Of Being A Wallflower is released on Wednesday, October 3

Photo: CJ Isherwood

In 2010 London’s roly-poly major Boris Johnson launched his Cycling Revolution with the aim of achieving a 400 per cent increase in two-wheeled peddling action in the capital by 2026 compared to 2001’s levels.

A number of factors have combined to ensure that Boris’s target will be met well ahead of schedule, much like Sir Chris Hoy powering past his opponents in the Olympic Velodrome to dip for another gold medal.

Firstly, the ‘Boris Bike’ scheme has been a success – in July the rentals hit the 1m figure for the first time in 24 months, having averaged 600,000 beforehand. Not bad considering there are only 8,000 to hire at any one time.

These times of austerity have made the ‘Boris Bikes’ an appealing mode of cheap transport around London for commuters and tourists alike, and this was most keenly felt over the Olympics – helped by Transport For London posters which had shrieked of expected delays on public transport.

Though the travelling difficulties never – thankfully – materialised, as many capital dwellers chose to escape the Games madness, the appetite for cycling only increased this summer thanks to the heroics of Team GB and Bradley Wiggins, who became Britain’s first-ever Tour de France winner.

Indeed, the number of journeys made by bike has doubled from 2000 to 2012 and now stands at over 540,000 trips a day, according to the Economist.

Being a sucker for a popular movement – but too cautious to be a trail blazer, in any sense – I have decided to hop on and cycle to work.

It’s been a great success so far, and made easier by some of the kit from German-based company Vaude, who know a thing or two about bike gear. With the winter weather front swirling you, too, will want to become acquainted with Vaude.

Now everyday, over my nicely ironed shirt, I zip up my red Spray Jacket III (£130 – pictured) and I’m protected from the elements. It’s sexy, breathable and stops any puddles or muck from dirtying my clothes.

What’s really neat is that it has an extended tail, so you won’t reach the office with an embarrassing – and undetectable – bottom stain. And if you really catch the cycling bug this  lightweight jacket is just as useful off-road and down mountains.

Additionally I thought the Aquarius 6 – a water bearer / back sack with a mouthpiece (£65) – would be essential, especially on a hungover cycle. This rehydration system is tiny, though holds a staggering six litres.

Not only can you restrict it’s use to cycling either: it’s ideal for runs around the park or walking excursions outside London.

Together these two items have helped convince me to be part of Boris’s cycling revolution. Now, as well as being well hydrated and splash-free, I’m hooked.

American rapper Nas will be playing to diehard fans at an intimate gig at 550-capacity Under The Bridge on October 1.

With a career spanning over 20 years, and a catalogue of 10 albums, new album Life Is Good is being hailed as one of his best, so this chance to see him performing his past and future classics up close and personal, when he is usually found performing in arenas, will be a treat for his fans.

Nas
October 1
Under The Bridge, Stamford Bridge Stadium
Nearest Tube: Fulham Broadway
Tickets £32.50

Acclaimed Mexican street artist Ciler joins London’s Cityzen Kane in a collaborative project at the Brick Lane Gallery this week.

The show, Ciler’s first on UK soil, will seem him and Kane collaborate on a new work to be completed in front of an audience on the exhibition’s opening night.

Commissioned by el Jimador tequila, Distorting Views showcases the work of the street artists including the collaboration and selected pieces from both artists, which are usually reserved for the streets of their respective home cities.

Ciler, best known for creating arresting imagery that changes familiar shapes and pictures with often unsettling results, is a rising star on the international street art scene. Following Distorting Views, he is set to complete a huge work for the façade of one of Mexico City’s most important contemporary art museums, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, in November.

Cityzen Kane uses his vivid, otherworldly sculptures to distort the often grey streets of London.  Disrupting the convention that street art is painted on to walls, Kane also uses fabric and glass to create works that play with light and colour.

Distorting Views
September 27-30
Thurs/Friday 6pm-9pm, Sat/Sun 1pm-6pm
The Brick Lane Gallery

Some good news – the Victoria line has no closures two weeks in a row. The bad news: Circle line is down on Sunday.

For full details on all closures and diversions, visit the Transport for London website.

Bakerloo line: On Sunday, there is no service between Queens Park and Harrow & Wealdstone due to Network Rail engineering work.

Central line: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Leytonstone and Hainault via Newbury Park in order to improve the track.

Circle line: On Saturday and Sunday, Cannon Street Tube station is closed in order to improve the station.

On Sunday, there is no service on the entire line in order to improve the track and signalling system.

District line: On Saturday and Sunday, Cannon Street Tube station is closed in order to improve the station.

On Sunday, there is no service between Earl’s Court and Aldgate East in order to improve the track.

Northern line: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Hampstead and Edgware in order to improve the track and signalling system.

Docklands Light Railway: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Bank/Tower Gateway and Poplar/West India Quay in order to improve the track and stations.

London Overground: On Sunday, there is no service between Clapham Junction and Willesden Junction due to Network Rail electrical work.

On Sunday, there is no service between Euston and Watford due to Network Rail track maintenance work.

On Sunday, there is no service between Sydenham and Crystal Palace due to Network Rail track maintenance work.

On Sunday, until 0800, there is no service between Highbury & Islington and West Croydon due to track maintenance work.

On Sunday, after 2000, there is no service between Highbury & Islington and New Cross/New Cross Gate due to track maintenance work.

This year’s annual Roundhouse Poetry Slam was won by 18-year-old Hibaq Osman whose brutal, lyrical account of living in the limbo lands of grief and mourning wowed the audience. The judging panel included leading lights from the spoken word scene: Kat Francois, Dan Cockrill and David J. Hosted by legendary poet Polar Bear, this year was the first slam to see live streaming and a prize of £500 for the winner.

Once the slam was over, we caught up with the host over cherry beers to discuss the winner, spoken word, and empowering young people by getting them to speak their own words.

Scout: You looked a bit like a proud Dad…

PB: Well good, that’s what it felt like, because to have a bunch of people of any age, writing for their own mouths, knowing themselves enough to choose what it is that they want to say; taking the time to craft it, and embody it …that’s what’s exciting to me, not the ceremony and the pomp, the choice. Everything you do is a choice…and I either connect with that or I don’t, because I believe it, and I believe everybody there. So yeah, job done, for want of a better word.

Scout: Why do you think Hibaq won?

PB: I hope she won because at its best, spoken word is somebody thinking something, taking  time and respecting the form enough to really craft it in such a way that it doesn’t feel like it’s a million miles away from themselves. So when the words come out of your mouth I’ll believe you are speaking a heightened version of what you would tell me if it was just us sat down here talking, and there’s nothing in the way, nothing  that tricks me into liking it, and you can’t not respect that. When there is pomp and packaging and an awareness of people waiting for punch-lines…no way, the audience might like it, but that’s not cutting it with me. So, that why I think she won- it was very honest.

What’s exciting now is that she gets to play, once you know you’re good, your only duty I think is to play, with what your version of good is. So now she’s excited not just because of what she has done, but because of what she might play around with now- she can do anything.

Scout: What kind opportunities are there for her now?

PB: What’s nice is that this place has always carried weight in terms of theatre, but now , if you talk about spoken word in this city, Roundhouse is gonna come up, because they’re good. People who stick it out and become these collectives, they represent. They don’t owe the Roundhouse anything more than a thank-you for the opportunity, but they speak for what this kind of place offers and they go around the world.  I got people in previous classes travelling around Europe on tours, making footage, making albums in the incredible facilities here in the studios, doing all the festivals! She’s gonna be buzzing and rightly so, and hopefully she’ll feel empowered to write more, do more and you can’t measure that.

Scout: All of the performers have said that poetry is empowering and gives them a sense of self- worth. Do you think it should be encouraged more in schools and in colleges?

PB: There are lots of amazing teachers using creative writing and performance in subjects outside of English, and what’s nice now is that speaking and listening is getting more of a platform in English – if you write something and speak it out loud in your class, your grade will go up one, at least  if not a couple. I’ve worked in projects where I’ve seen that- there’s no argument against it. But let’s reduce it even more, encourage talking man!  Let’s discuss a subject. Sit 30 11-year-olds down and talk about our thoughts on pre-war Japan. Let’s not just remember dates, and regurgitate, regurgitate, regurgitate. Let them talk, with guided discussion, then they’re gonna care. There’s something about things coming out of your mouth that makes you care about them, and if your care you’re gonna try, and if you try then you’re gonna do well, and everyone will be happy.

The Roundhouse runs poetry classes for young people aged 16-25 every Sunday with Polar Bear. The auditions for his next round of classes take place this week on September 26. As part of its  cultural arts program for 16-25s, this autumn the venue is running the Roundhouse 30/30 project, giving aspiring musicians the opportunity to work and record with established music producers and perform at the Roundhouse Rising festival in spring 2013.

DJ duo Justin and Adrian Dixon – AKA the Dixon Brothers – have been responsible for a worrying amount of dancing since they paired up in 2004. As well as festivals and parties across the capital, they can be seen at Horsepower every Friday at Proud Camden. They told us about their favourite London haunts.

Let’s go to the pub – Scout’s buying – where do you want to go?
AD : I’m a fan of The Tooting Tram & Social at the moment which has been labelled an Uber Pub (whatever that means). It’s a melting pot for all sorts of characters and it’s really close to Grandma and Grandad’s house just in case getting a cab home is a drama. Word on the street is it used to be a Fire Station which explains why the venue has so much character.

JD: Tooting Tram and Social…hands down.

Sounds like a great local! We’re getting hungry now – where should we go?
AD & JD: We’re really spoilt for choice and lucky to be foodies in London as there are just so many great places to eat. Mark Hix’s restaurant in Shoreditch called the Tramshed gets a thumbs up; The Hawksmoor, Red Hook and Hakkassan are all title contenders; if pushed for a choice, I’d have to say Aqua on Argyll Street. The head chef Jordan is a culinary magician – with him at the helm, you’re likely to experience the best meal you’ll ever eat.

How about your favourite favourite outdoor spot?
AD: I’m more on an indoors sort of guy; however when I must venture outside I enjoy spending my time at Somerset House. When the weather plays its part you have have the perfect spot to chill or enjoy who ever is performing that night. We’ve seen Erykah Badu, N.E.R.D and Lupe Fiasco perform there and all were memorable shows. If like me you like to people watch I’d definitely recommend the Somerset House courtyard.

JD: I’m probably the outdoors kid out of the two of us, I’d have to say Box Hill; chill up there, take in that view and your brain will thank you! A close second has to be Richmond Park – Londoners know it, most visitors don’t. It’s beautiful and so big you could get lost there for days.

Where do you like to go to party and why? 
AD : Being in club situations every week I tend to give the club circuit a rest on my nights off.

JD : Our residency at Proud Camden feels like we’re at the epicentre of party zone week in,  week out.

What’s your secret London tip for Londoners? 
AD : At some point during your everyday commute take a second to look up! You never know what you may find when you dial down the power walking and take time to enjoy your city. The other day I was walking through central London, looked up and saw a rooftop basketball court (caged) like something from White Men Can’t Jump! I’d passed that exact spot countless times but on this day I took my own advice… thank me later!

JD : I have three: If you make eye contact with someone, don’t be afraid to smile and say good morning/afternoon/evening. Secondly always take the chance to look up whenever you can; there are so many hidden features of London above your eye line. Finally, take a trip out of the city and enjoy the natural side London – you’ll be glad you did!

Scout London is teaming up with Stella Artois to give film fans the chance to win tickets to the UK preview of Looper, a futuristic action thriller set in 2044 which follows a time travelling assassin who eliminates targets sent back in time by a criminal organisation. The only rule is that you do not let your target escape – even if that target is you. The country’s number one premium lager brand* has partnered with Picturehouse Cinemas to host this special preview.

The film follows Joseph Simmons, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, working as a “Looper” (‘assassin’) in the illegal time travel business whose job is to travel 30 years into the past to get rid of his targets. In a gripping twist, Simmons recognises one target as a future version of himself, played by Bruce Willis, who escapes before he is killed. Joseph then triggers a manhunt by his mafia employers, for failure to complete his mission.  Emily Blunt joins the star-studded cast for this futuristic action thriller.

The rules are put to the test when Joe is called upon to “close his loop” and assassinate his future self (Bruce Willis). In failing to pull the trigger, so begins a desperate race against the clock as Joe begins to unravel his own future and older Joe’s past.

The exclusive event will take place at the Hackney Picturehouse on Thursday September 27 from 8.30pm, offering the chance to see the film before the official release on Friday September 28. The preview screening will be the third instalment in a series of stand-out film events hosted by Stella Artois this year, in partnership with Picturehouse Cinemas. The scheme kicked off with a UK preview of Bart Layton’s highly anticipated real-life thriller ‘The Imposter’, which received rave reviews at Sundance, SXSW and SilverDocs Film Festivals as well as winning the Grand Jury Award at Miami International Film Festival. The second instalment featured exclusive screenings of ‘Shut Up and Play the Hits’, a film that follows LCD Soundsystem’s frontman, James Murphy, through his final showdown gig at Madison Square Gardens. The film has already received positive reviews with Total Film giving it a five-star review (denoting ‘outstanding’).

To win tickets to the UK preview, just compete the following form:

Competition closes Wednesday September 26 at noon.

*CGA, 21/01 and Nielsen, 03/03

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Soho has always held a fascination for Londoners and visitors, and it is being celebrated through a new app being launched by the National Trust. Soho Stories uses GPS technology to deliver stories and commentary by legendary Bohemians to bring the area’s post-war history and culture to life. Users can choose to listen remotely or wander freely around the area, receiving site-specific memories, history, anecdotes and humour about the places they pass.

We have selected some of our favourite stories about the area:

Janet Street Porter  - writer, journalist and broadcaster

I was one of the founder members of the Groucho Club.  Definitely the best time at the Club was in the early 90s, when Damien Hirst was always getting his willy out. And he would get it out so many times, that no-one ever noticed it (Well, it wasn’t very big to start with).

Around that time I’d made a series on television when I walked from Edinburgh to London. I didn’t know that Courtney Love had watched it, but when I met her it turned out she was an expert on the programme and wanted to have dinner with me.  I was very worried about her offending other people so I took Jay Jopling with me and asked them to put us on a table as far away from other people as possible.  Half way through dinner Courtney was getting really drunk so we decided to take her to the Groucho – and she then said she wanted to have sex with me.  But luckily at that moment Alex James from Blur came in so I introduced them to each other and … well, you’ll have to ask him what happened next.

Sophie Parkin – author of ‘The Colony Room Club 1948-2008 : A History of Bohemian Soho, see thecolonyroom.co.uk

41 Dean Street seems nothing exceptional.  It’s ugly as hell now and there’s nothing to tell you it was once the most extraordinary doorway in London, when the most important artists, writers and creative minds of the twentieth century walked over its threshold into the Colony Room Club.  The Club was started in 1948 by a woman called Muriel Belcher, who would sit on a high stool at the bar and call everyone c*nty.

There was a real mixture of people, so you would have a plumber and the bank manager in there, but you’d also have Princess Margaret, Lord Snowdon and Francis Bacon.  Francis was a god amongst men and could hold a room without saying anything.  He was employed by Muriel to bring his friends to the club.  He was paid £10 per week and as much champagne as he wanted to drink.  He used to say ‘Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends’.

Frankie Fraser – ex-Soho Gangster

I was employed by Billy Hill, who was the boss of all bosses.  He was paid by the Soho club owners to look after them.  He got a cut of their profits, and I got a cut of his profits. If a club needed smashing up, or if a club manager needed to be kidnapped – or have his ears cut off – that was my job, and I was very good at it.  The only thing was, I never ate the ears.  I used to put them down the toilet, flush the chain and they’d float off somewhere down the Thames.

Every so often a gangster called Jack Spot would cut someone to keep his averages up.  But when he attacked ‘Italian Albert’ he made a mistake.  Italian Albert was a strong man and managed to get the knife off Jack Spot and done him in with it.  Me and Italian Albert were great friends but this time he’d crossed a path so he had to be done.  I cut him.  Cut him to pieces.  He shouted ‘help!’ and I said ‘you’re getting it’.  Bosh – I did him again with the hammer.  A lovely hammer.  Gave him one or two lovely cracks with it and all.  It was great, and I enjoyed doing it all as he was an absolute dog.  He was never allowed back in Soho after that.  You couldn’t kill him because you couldn’t find him.

Jean Picton – ex Windmill Girl

I was a Windmill Girl in the 1950s.  At the time the Windmill Theatre was quite unique.  The censorship laws in England were very tight indeed, but for some unknown reason Mrs Henderson was able to charm the Lord Chamberlain into making an agreement that if she had unclothed girls in her shows, they didn’t move.  So the Windmill became known for the statuesque posing of pretty girls on high plinths, starkers.  When you’re standing naked and completely still on a foot-square plinth, with a very comical wig on your head, you can’t help but see the funny side of it. You spend the four minutes thinking mundane thoughts like, ‘what shall I have for supper?’  It was so un-sexual you wouldn’t believe it. 

The first three rows of seats were the iconic rows, reserved for the gents –including the ‘raincoats’ who’d open their newspapers when the girls came on. The front rows were nearly always full – but if one chap left, which they sometimes did when the girls went off-stage and the comics came on, the seat would clunk and there would be a mad rush of boys from the back.  They wouldn’t come round the seats – they would jump over.  It was known as the steeplechase.  Vivian Van Damme often complained that more money was spent on repairing those first three rows of seats than on the maintenance of the whole theatre.

Barry Miles, author of London Calling

The attitude has always been fairly casual in Soho. For instance, before the Church of St Anne’s on Dean Street was bombed, the vicar used to run across the road during particularly long hymns to the French Pub, knock back a quick glass of something and then get back before the hymn had ended.

Later on, after the church was bombed in the Blitz and all that was left was the church tower, the traffic went the other way.  People like Lucien Freud would pick up girls from the French Pub and run across the street to the church tower where there were a number of nooks and crannies, particularly on the upper levels, where people could have a quick ‘knee trembler’.

Soho Stories App is free and available to download from the App store. Visit http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/soho-stories/id528325471?mt=8%20

A slimmer version ‘Soho Stories – Lite Edition’ is available on the Google Play store for Android phones. Visit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.org.nationaltrust.sohostories&hl=en

The stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s incredible tale Private Peaceful is currently playing at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket to delighted audiences. James Drury catches up with Morpurgo and the actors taking on the role

World War One has fascinated and moved people in equal measures – so it’s perhaps unsurprising that it was during a trip to Ypres – one of the war’s most infamous battlegrounds – that Michael Morpurgo – one of Britain’s greatest children’s authors – was inspired to write a tale which has gone on to have incredible success.

Private Peaceful relives the life of Private Tommo Peaceful, a young soldier awaiting the firing squad at dawn. During the night he looks back at his short but joyful past growing up in rural Devon: his exciting first days at school; the accident in the forest that killed his father; his adventures with Molly, the love of his life; and the battles and injustices of war that brought him to the front line.

“The story was inspired by a visit to the extraordinary In Flanders Fields Museum, in Ypres, which painted the most moving picture of life for soldiers in World War One,” Morpurgo tells Scout. It was one exhibit in particular that struck him – a letter to a mother whose son had been shot for cowardice in 1916.

“I thought about the moment that his mother opened that letter and not only discovered the awful news, but the manner of his death – it must have been heart-breaking.” Morpurgo’s voice quavers a little at the memory and a lump forms in my own throat – making it hard to splutter out my next question.

“Apparently there were over 300 British soldiers shot for cowardice during the war – some even just for falling asleep at their posts,” he continues. “Reading the courts martial records it seems like the officers’ minds had already been made up. And over half of the men shot had history of mental instability or shell shock.”

Morpurgo was inspired to write a story about one such man – and Private Peaceful was published in 2003. The day of publication, the author was invited onto BBC Radio 4′s flagship news programme, Today, to discuss it and he read a passage from the novel.

“The same morning I got a call from Simon Reade – the artistic director at Bristol Old Vic. He called me to tell me he was off to buy the book, having heard me on the radio. He read it in four hours called me back and told me it’d make a marvellous one man show.”

He was right. The production opened in 2004 and had sell out runs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before playing three more sell out Edinburgh seasons in 2007, 2009 and 2011, as well as Trafalgar Studios in the West End in 2005 and 2007, and four hugely successful UK tours in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011. The production has also played off-Broadway, Hong Kong, The Dublin International Festival and the New Zealand International Festival.

As well as the current limited West End run at The Theatre Royal, the story is being made into a film, set for release in October. It’s not the first of Morpurgo’s tales to be translated into a stage and screen success – War Horse has been one of the hottest shows in London for some time and the film by Steven Spielberg wowed critics.

“I think film adaptations encourage people to read books,” Morpurgo, who was the Children’s Laureate from 2003-2005, says. “Publishers know that if you get a film or TV adaptation you’ll get a big spike in sales. I certainly feel that it encourages young people – who are very connected to the world of media and entertainment – to read books.”

The Theatre Royal production stars Paul Chequer and Mark Quartley sharing the title role. Chequer’s National Theatre credits include Morpurgo’s War Horse, as well as TV roles in Torchwood, Sherlock and Sinchronicity. Quartley has appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Measure for Measure and Written on the Heart for the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Tempest for the Theatre Royal Bath.  He has previously performed Private Peaceful on tour nationwide as well as on BBC Radio 4.

Mark Quartley as Private Tommo Peaceful departing for war

“It’s been quite easy learning the lines again,” smiles Chequer, who played the role in the original production. “The character is very honest and heartfelt. There’s a lot of emotions strings and attachments and playing the role really empties the tank. It’s a wonderful challenge and I love it.”

Quartley agrees: “I really emotionally invest in this role – to the point where I do have remind myself it’s a job sometimes. It’s a dream role for an actor because it really stretches your skills.”

Private Peaceful
Until September 29
Theatre Royal, Haymarket
£10-£25
Tickets available from nationaltheatre.org.uk

We’re back! Now that the Olympics and Paralympics seems like a distant (but lovely) memory, TfL is back to their normal schedule of weekend closures, all in the name of progress. Circle line on the weekends, it was fun while it lasted.

For full details on all closures and diversions, visit the Transport for London website.

Circle line: On Sunday, there is no service on the entire line in order to improve the track and signalling system.

District line: On Saturday, until 0700, there is no service between Plaistow and Upminster (eastbound) and between Upminster and Barking (westbound) in order to improve the track.

On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Dagenham East and Upminster in order to improve the track.

On Sunday, there is no service between Earl’s Court and West Ham in order to improve the track.

On Sunday, after 2330, there is no service between Barking and Upminster in order to improve the track.

Jubilee line: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Willesden Green and Wembley Park in order to improve the track and signalling system.

Metropolitan line: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Aldgate and Harrow−on−the−Hill in order to improve the track and signalling system.

Northern line: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Charing Cross and Camden Town in order to improve the station at Tottenham Court Road.

On Sunday, until approximately 0830 southbound and 0900 northbound, there is no service between Camden Town and High Barnet/Mill Hill East in order to improve the track and the signalling system.

London Overground: On Saturday and Sunday, there is no service between Sydenham and Crystal Palace due to Network Rail track maintenance work.

On Sunday, until 1230, there is no service between Camden Road and Richmond due to Network Rail overhead line work.

On Sunday, until 1300, there is no service between Gospel Oak and South Tottenham due to Network Rail track maintenance work.

On Sunday, until 0800, there is no service between Highbury & Islington and West Croydon due to electrical work.

On Sunday, there is no service between Highbury & Islington and New Cross/New Cross Gate due to electrical work.

This year’s Virgin Media Shorts shortlist (see news story) features more women than ever before, demonstrating a growing confidence and presence among women in the male-dominated film industry. Scout London speaks to some of the finalists about their experiences.

Jennifer Sheridan, who directed Rocket – a sweet film about a border terrier’s stellar ambitions (above) – says she used to have a chip on her shoulder about the male-domination of the industry.

“When I was at university I met a lot of people who wanted to be directors and it put me off because I didn’t know if I had that amount of drive. I’ve always been interested in telling stories, but not necessarily as a writer or director, so I decided to become an editor because that’s where the tales are really shaped.

“I focussed all my efforts on that, but I found it quite challenging anyway because as a woman I was in a minority. It’s happening less and less as I’ve got older, but people still do ask ‘are you the editor?’. But as I’ve now built a name for myself, it’s not so common.

“Now I’m taking on more directorial roles I’m finding that, as I’ve already faced that challenge, it’s less daunting. I certainly don’t feel that being a woman will hurt my chances – if my work’s good enough then it’ll get recognised. If it’s not, it won’t. I almost feel that the lack of female directors gives me more incentive to achieve – I see the ones that are doing it and think ‘if they can, so can I’.”

Alice Seabright’s film Dream Girl (above) was shot in Paris. She has been making films since she was a teenager. Like most of the Virgin Media Shorts entries, hers was shot on a shoestring budget.

“I was delighted to be shortlisted,” she tells Scout London. “Of all the competitions, this is the most exciting.

“I’ve been working in the industry as an assistant for a year and a half now and I don’t feel like I’ve experienced any straightforward disadvantage being a woman. What’s interesting is that there are few female role models for women wanting to be directors. However that’s changing, which I think is really exciting. More and more women are doing amazing things in film.”

Another finalist, Hazel Meeks, was awarded an MA in directing from UCLA last year. She shot her film, Sprokett, while in LA, and is currently making films for corporate clients.

“Being shortlisted has been a real confidence boost,” she says excitedly. “I’ve been making films for a long time and I hope this recognition on such a prestigious platform will open doors for me to further my career.

“I come from a production design background where a lot of women work, so it was quite a shock when I started my MA course and found myself very much in the minority as a woman – plus all the tutors and guest lecturers were men. But it gave me more of a kick up the backside, as I felt I had to put more effort in to prove myself. However, as far as jobs go, I certainly like to think that it’s based on skill rather than what sex you are.”

Jennifer, Alice and Hazel are three of the 13 nominees vying for competition’s top prize and its affiliated People’s Choice Award. You can watch all the entries and vote for your favourite at virginmediashorts.co.uk

It’s the done thing to bookend a high profile stage career with Hamlet and King Lear. Jonathon Pryce’s Olivier-winning Hamlet of thirty years ago – not to mention several more Oliviers in subsequent years – means this performance comes with career-defining potential; what performance of the Albion king does otherwise? Last year, Derek Jacobi’s Donmar Lear left audiences troubled and inspired. That actor’s chilling knack for a certain kind of shark-eyed meanness meant he had a long way to pull the audience round in time to sympathise with the lost and rheumy-eyed old man who sees out the final Act. Pryce has the beautiful elongated face of a spaniel and at times it’s hard to be sufficiently afraid of him, so it’s a wise move on his part to hint at something vaguely sexual in the violent rule he exerts over the three  daughters. There are fewer of the type of soliloquies here that push Hamlet far into psychiatric territory but Lear is favoured by many as the quintessential psychological study in the canon. It certainly matches the Danish play for fraught family romance but Lear is less an observer than the unhappy prince; he lives at the very fulcrum of the court’s adoration and when that particular wheel ceases to turn, misery and harm flood the palace. As Pryce descends bewildered into the seventh season of man, Shakespeare’s description of old age in As You Like It – ‘second childishness and mere oblivion’ – is masterfully devastating to witness.

The Science Museum is hosting a series of events focussed on climate change called Green Wednesdays, which take place at the museum’s Dana Centre – its adults-only events venue.

On September 19, it is showing the follow-up to Chris Paine’s award winning 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? which was an exploration of why electric car production seemingly ground to a halt. His new documentary Revenge of the Electric Car tells a very different story. It follows four car manufacturers, big and small, as they strive to build the next generation of electric cars. Will they win over a sceptical public? Can the cars be faster and cleaner than ever before? Will they turn a profit?

Following the screening there will be a discussion with the film’s director, Paine, and an expert electric bar battery engineer, who was involved in the in the record-breaking Racing Green Endurance team that drove an electric racing car along the Pan-American highway from Alaska down to Argentina.

Revenge of the Electric Car
September 19, 6pm (screening at 6.45pm)
Dana Café, Science Museum
Nearest Tube: South Kensington
For more information click here

The Barbican’s contemporary music autumn season gets off to a mystical start this evening with the acclaimed Transcender festival, a series of concerts that offers a look at transcendental, ecstatic, devotional and psychedelic music.

The festival, which runs until September 30, explores music designed to transport the listener, to conjure trances or summon states of ecstasy and includes artists from Iran, United States, Iraq and Armenia.

Australian cult trio The Necks start proceedings tonight at Village Underground, while elsewhere on the programme there is a rare collaboration between Iranian maestro Hossein Alizâdeh and one of Armenia’s greatest musicians, Djivan Gasparyan, a celebration of Iraqi music, the Sun Ra Arkestra led by Marshall Allen, and a hypnotic multimedia collaboration featuring Oneohtrix Point Never.

Chris Sharp, music programmer at the Barbican, said: “Transcender has always roamed freely in search of transporting musical experiences and its fourth year is no exception, exploring music from Iraq, Iran and Armenia – and including Jazz – for the first time. If there is a path that connects the bewitching melodic tendrils of Maqam-al-Baghdadi, the cosmic energy of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, and the hypnotic meditations of Oneohtrix Point Never, this is the place to find it.”

Transcender Festival
17-30 September
Various venues
www.barbican.org.uk/transcender

Following the recent success of Jerusalem and Clybourne Park and most recently Posh, the Royal Court returns to the West End with Jumpy by April de Angelis. This shrewdly perceptive and razor sharp new play was one of the biggest sold out hits in its history.   

A mother, a wife, and fifty, Hilary (Tamsin Greig) once protested at Greenham. Now her protests tend to focus on persuading her teenage daughter to go out fully clothed.

‘***** The funniest new play in the West End’ Daily Telegraph

To win four VIP tickets to see Jumpy at the Duke of York’s Theatre just complete the following form:

For further information and to book tickets call 0844 871 7623 or visit jumpytheplay.com 

Terms & conditions: One reader will win four top price tickets, four drinks and programmes, valid for Monday to Thursday performances until 18 October 2012, subject to availability. No cash alternative. Travel not included. Competition closes Friday September 21 2012.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Bring a taste of the sunshine to grey October as RumFest returns to London for its sixth year. Featuring a wide range of distillers from the small to large, plus culture, entertainment, food and a bright Carnival atmosphere, it is expanding to two days this year, giving people double the chance to bring a sunny smile to their faces.

Showcasing over 400 of the rarest and most diverse rums from across the globe, there’s also chance to meet the industry’s top blenders, distillers and mixologists, through a range of masterclasses, talks and seminars.

As well as the drinks, there will be a Tropical Food Market, including an array of delicacies and cuisine from the Tropics. Ranging from special chocolates to Caymanas Rum Cakes, there will also be the final of the Angostura Bitters’ Ultimate Chef Competition.

RumFest
October 13-14
ExCel
£25 (Sat), £20 (Sun), £40 (weekend)
Buy Tickets

Photo: Iain G Reid/ BeanotownPhotography