Culture
art, books, celebrations, festivals, film, theatre, music
An exhibition celebrating the life of the leading black campaigner for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade will open this month at a venue on Tottenham Court Road. Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) rose to prominence in the late 18th century and his book “The
[...]Filming on several streets in Fitzrovia will start this week for a new British movie directed by Edgar Wright, who gained success with Shaun of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Baby Driver. The scenes for Last Night in Soho are due to be shot over five days between Monday 29 July
[...]Life on the edge, both geographically and socially, is the theme of this book. Colourful examples come from fake antique dealers, dodgy second hand car salesmen, and a variety of villains. Many honest and underpaid workers in the furniture trade, the clothing industry, show
[...]A street artist has mocked US President Donald Trump on the eve of his arrival in the UK for a three-day state visit. The artist who goes by the moniker Loretto stencil-painted four satirical images on a boarded-up, disused building on the corner of Great Portland Street
[...]Scientists sharing research and working with literary and visual storytellers can help spread knowledge to build a better future. That’s the theme of an event taking place in Fitzrovia in June. Social science-fiction writer Stephen Oram has been working alongside
[...]A trio of coming-of-age stories about virginity, pleasure, and identity is told by three young women (played by Kara Chamberlain, Vanessa Labrie, Cicely Long and Gina Ruysen) who discover sexual empowerment for the first time. Friday Night Love Poem looks at the challenges
[...]Feminist, best-selling author and former political adviser Naomi Wolf will be talking about her new book to the literary journalist Erica Wagner in Bloomsbury this month. In Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love, Wolf examines how the state came to
[...]A new docudrama opens on the stage this week about the highly controversial £80bn (and rising) construction project to build a high speed railway line from London to Birmingham. Human Jam will be performed at the Camden People’s Theatre, a few hundred metres from
[...]A talk on Ottoman cuisine and an exhibition of photographs are on offer this month at the Turkish cultural centre in Maple Street. Priscilla Mary Işın, author of “Bountiful Empire: A History of Ottoman Cuisine”, will talk about the culinary culture of the Ottoman
[...]A Fitzrovia pub is hosting an all day comedy marathon in aid of cancer research for the second year running this Saturday. The second Macmillan Comedy Marathon takes place at the King & Queen in Foley Street under the banner of the Coffee and Cocktail Jokes comedy club
[...]Two fundraising guided walks to support international LGBT activists will take place in September and uncover the hidden sexual history of some familiar surroundings. London-based activist Richard Cohen is leading the guided tours, in affiliation with the Amnesty
[...]There will be four days of events on offer this week from the organisers of the third annual festival to celebrate Fitzrovia’s rich and diverse artistic past. Team FitzFest will put on a wide selection of concerts, drama, talks, walks, and social and fitness events and
[...]A new gardening club will be launched on Saturday at one of Fitzrovia’s most used and abused public open spaces ahead of London becoming the world’s first National Park City. Volunteers from the Friends of Fitzrovia Parks will be spending an hour every Saturday
[...]Of all the 19th century Fitzrovians who had secret families, Wilkie Collins is probably my favourite. Famous for ‘sensation novels’ such as The Woman in White and The Moonstone, Collins was adept at probing the hypocrisy that underpinned bourgeois family values in
[...]A comprehensive history of every street in western Fitzrovia is included in the recently published Survey of London for South East Marylebone (Volume 52, Part 2). It includes archive pictures of many pubs, concert halls, places of worship, historic restaurants, art schools,
[...]The camp outside Calais known as the “Jungle”, once home to thousands of people, was demolished by French authorities in 2016. Now a new film tells the story of the camp from a refugee’s perspective. In Another Life was shot on location in the Calais
[...]Lumiere London, the free outdoor light festival, is coming to Fitzrovia this month with installations incorporating lights and sound that will animate buildings and spaces. You will find interactive artworks by international artists at four locations in Fitzrovia. Jump and
[...]Towards the end of 2011 I wrote enthusiastically about the increase in the number of commercial galleries, from 16 in 2008 to 37. By 2012 the number peaked at around 54, but there has been a big fallout over the last five years, and we are now down to around 32 spaces.
[...]An exhibition telling the story of a mother and the special relationship with her daughter who was born with Down’s Syndrome opens this week at the former Middlesex Hospital Chapel. Looking for Alice is a very personal exhibition and launches a book of intimate family
[...]The streets in and around Fitzrovia are home to a number of picture houses and film clubs. Some well-known and others a little hidden from view. Here’s our round up of places to catch a good movie. Charlotte Street Hotel Film Club, 15-17 Charlotte Street London W1T
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