It’s a shortie today, because I’m on holiday right now (this is brought to you by the wonder of scheduling), but wanted to share a couple of things, so this one’s all for free. No bulletin next week, back to normal service on September 15.
What I’ve seen
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Brett Anderson look so deliriously happy as he did on the launch night last week of the Suede Takeover at the Southbank Centre in celebration of their new album, Antidepressants (it actually happens between September 12-19).
White shirt soaked in sweat, hurling himself around a tiny stage set up in the building’s Clore Ballroom, inches from an audience that was a vocal 40% (I’m guessing) die-hard uber-fans, the singer looked like he was having the time of his life, though I’m not convinced he knew exactly where he was. He addressed the crowd as “Bermondsey” which seemed highly eccentric not least because Bermondsey is some distance away past London Bridge, thought it is at least on the right side of the river.
It was a pleasure to see them again after a good 20-odd years (on my part, not theirs, they’ve been getting on with being rock stars) but it was a bit like going to see a band you expect to like but have never actually seen before – a full play through of the new album, and then an encore that turned back time as far as… 2013. Definitely one for the true fans, among which, since I barely knew a single song, I can’t count myself, even if I do love them as much as any indie-adjacent girl who came of age in the 90s.
Still, it was great fun. They still have that glam-rock grandeur, undercut by a uniquely British bleakness and bone dry wit. I enjoyed it. Would have liked to hear Trash though. I think the SBC gigs are pretty much sold out, but you might get returns, and there’s a night at the Royal Festival Hall where they will definitely play all the old favourites, I’m sure of it. The tour proper starts in January in Folkestone.
I also reviewed the exhibition at Gagosian Gallery Davies Street this week for The Times (read that here). Paul McCartney: Rearview Mirror: Liverpool - London - Paris is a small but really lovely display of beautifully remastered and printed images from a cache, taken by Paul on a Pentax 35mm between December 1963 and February 1964, that was rediscovered in McCartney’s archive during the pandemic.
You may have seen quite a few of them as part of the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 2023, but this is the first time they’ve been printed in limited edition (very limited, like six to eight each) for sale (affordable by Gagosian standards, not by any other). The show is still worth seeing though - dating from the two months leading up to the Beatles’ arrival in America and printed directly from contact sheets (the negatives are mostly lost) in a hybrid digital and manual process that preserves their analogue aesthetic, they tell a wonderful, warm story of four young men living a dream at the pivotal moment before their lives - and celebrity culture - changed irrevocably.
They’re also really good pictures - intimate, witty and nicely composed; McCartney has a really good eye. It’s small, but I’d recommend popping along to see it - there are also a number of additional images on display in the two back rooms, so just ask whoever is standing around making sure you don’t throw coffee on the pictures to show them to you, they’ll be fine with it. That’s open until October 4 and totally free to see.
Also on
I’m hoping when I get back from holiday that I’ll manage to catch one of the later dates in Sam Nicoresti’s London residency in the main house at Soho Theatre, though the demand for her show, Baby Doomer, is massive, since it won the Edinburgh Comedy Award.
A story of love, insanity and the hunt for the perfect skirt suit (ugh, the worst) Baby Doomer “is a show about how we dress each other and ourselves”, starting with a story about getting stuck in a dress in a high street clothing store that shall remain nameless, and hurtling through routines about, apparently, Lord of the Rings figurines, propositions in sperm banks, awkward gym inductions (is there any other kind?) and ancient standing stones to illuminate not only the trans experience but also the ways in which we interact with each other and the world. That runs from September 3-13.
I think I’ve mentioned the Royal Opera House premiere of A Single Man, adapted into a ballet from Christopher Isherwood’s novel by choreographer Jonathan Watkins in collaboration with singer-songwriter John Grant and composer Jasmin Kent Rodgman, and featuring former Royal Ballet Principal dancer Ed Watson. Here’s another reminder. It should be rather good, if very unlike the Tom Ford film (read the synopsis first, it’ll help), and the audience will contain a high proportion of the best-dressed men you’ve ever seen. It runs from September 8-20.
Book now
I didn’t actually know about the National Trust’s Heritage Open Days until someone emailed me this week, saying that Woolwich Works would be taking part, but they seem to be designed to remind people that there are loads of cool places to visit and you don’t have to wait until your hair goes white to enjoy them. Anyway, they run from September 12-21, and there are lots of events (all free, some need pre-booking) in London.
It looks fun. Picked almost at random among the many events, there’s an open afternoon at Barts Pathology Museum, an open house at Two Temple Place (well worth it, built by William Waldorf Astor and a real hidden gem), the first chance to see the completed refurbishment of the British Optical Association Museum (did you know about that? I did not), and a demonstration of Maya chocolate at the Chocolate Museum in Brixton (nope, nor that one).
There are recitals in St Clement Danes Church, evening events on the Golden Hinde, walking tours, after hours opening at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology and the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology, and open house at William Morris’s beautiful riverside home, Kelmscott House. And loads more.
Inevitably, they’ve made a musical of the really rather good (if, also inevitably, a touch dated) 2004 romantic comedy 50 First Dates. If you don’t remember it exactly it was the one in which Drew Barrymore played Lucy Whitmore, an artist with short-term memory loss, and Adam Sandler was Henry Roth, the commitment-phobe who falls in love with her but has to find a way to deal with the fact that she forgets he exists within 24 hours, every time they meet.
Frankly as long as the songs are any good (not a given, but I live in hope that Adam Sandler, who produced the film, has kept an eye on it) and the acting is sparky, it’ll be great fun, though how unforgettable it is remains to be seen. That runs at The Other Palace from September 14 to November 16.
I’m intrigued by Clarkston, coming to the Trafalgar Theatre from September 17 to November 22. It stars one of those sweet lads from Heartstopper, Joe Locke, I imagine in the role of Jake, a young, out gay man with a difficult health issue, who fetches up working at a rural American Costco and finds a kindred spirit in the quiet, kind Chris, a local boy who has his own troubles.
It’s written by Samuel D. Hunter (no relation to the British comedian Reginald, I’m fairly sure), who wrote The Whale (which was a play before it was a film). He tends to be interested in the ways in which we change each other, even in relationships which are relatively fleeting.
I expect it to be a fairly traditional play, formally speaking, but none the worse for that, and Locke will bring in a very young audience (his co-star, Ruaridh Mollica, who starred in the recent film Sebastian about a young writer who starts sex work to make his work more authentic, will bring in a slightly different one). A three-hander, it also stars the luminous Sophie Melville, who ought to be far, far more famous than she is.
I admit I haven’t the slightest interest, personally, in BTS, but many, many people do, so here is your fair warning (even though, if you really care, you probably already know) that cinemas are going to be holding BTS Movie Weeks, a global cinematic celebration of the unfeasibly popular Korean boy band.
Their comeback, now that they have all completed their mandatory military service, comes next year; presumably this is some kind of warm-up situation, designed to initiate a frenzy before they return to the stage. Some 2,000 cinemas across more than 65 territories will be showing four remastered concert films from across BTS’ career so far (they’re aged between 27 and 32). Ticketing details and so on can be found here, you can sign up for updates and special concert marathons will be available in selected cinemas.
Also in cinema, and surely only fractionally more niche, the Barbican has announced All Kaiju Attack: Earth SOS, a season of Japanese monster movies which explores “how kaiju carnage connects to humanity’s relationship with the natural world”, with a selection of films spanning four decades celebrating an “underappreciated genre, which pays tribute to nature’s power” and considering the balance needed between human progress and environmental preservation.
All films will be introduced by kaiju film historians and Japanese art experts, including Yuriko Hamaguchi, Toshiko Kurata and Steven Sloss and starting, in September, with Godzilla vs Biollante (Japan 1989), in which a genetic experiment spirals out of control, with a mutant plant threatening mankind and emerging as a mighty foe for Godzilla. Later that month it’s Godzilla vs Megalon (Japan 1973), in which nuclear testing unleashes mayhem on the undersea kingdom of Seatopia, with Godzilla once again flexing his eco-saviour muscles. You get the idea. That runs from September 20 to December 10.
Further ahead
Again, probably if you need to know, you know, but Wicked’s ‘good’ witch herself, pop princess Ariana Grande, has announced her a massive 2026 tour, and is playing the O2 on August 15, 16, 19, 20 and 23.
Tickets for the UK dates will go on an ‘artist presale’, whatever that means, on September 16 at 10am BST, as well as an O2 Priority Presale. To participate in the artist presale, sign up here by 7pm BST on Sunday September 7. The general sale starts at 10am on Thursday, September 18, here. Good luck to all who attempt it.
In what may be the most civilised of festive festivals, Highgate International Chamber Music Festival (HICMF) has announced its 13th annual programme, bringing together internationally acclaimed musicians in the intimate setting of St Anne’s Church Highgate, for five days of world-class chamber music.
Among other very lovely gigs, British clarinettist Julian Bliss will appear alongside London Symphony Orchestra leader Benjamin Marquise Gilmore for Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet on December 3; pianist James Baillieu appears with BBC Radio 3 New Generation 2025 soprano Erika Baikoff for a candlelit evening of Schubert Lieder on December 5; Alexander Sitkovetsky and Wu Qian of the Sitkovetsky Trio come fresh from high acclaim at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival on December 7; and for the first time, there’ll be an evening dedicated to the intersection between classical and global folk music in a programme led by Manchester Collective founder-director Rakhi Singh and featuring the ensemble’s players, on December 4.
There’s also ‘Not So Silent Cinema’, a daytime screening of the classic Buster Keaton comedy College, with live piano quintet on December 5, while on December 7, HICMF founder-director and composer Natalie Klouda, and visual artist Nathaniel Boyd place Bach’s Cello Suites alongside Klouda’s 2017 Cello Suite and a new piece by her, Hexaptych, for string trio, with new paintings by Boyd, inspired by the music, exhibited throughout the church.
What a lovely way to kick off the Christmas season. The festival runs from December 3-7.
Thanks for reading. Please do click the little heart below if you liked it even slightly, and if you’re a free reader, do consider subscribing for a weekly dose of excellent things to do (and occasionally to avoid. Those are especially entertaining).