Camberwell Fair ★★ FREE


There was a Camberwell Fair from 1279 till 1855 when it was closed by local authorities for “immoral and riotous behaviour.” The Fair returned in 2015. There is a market, two stages and lots of food and drink. Craft stalls and local organizations showcase their wares and their works.

 Reviewed by J.C.

 Our Score:  ☆☆ 

WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE:
Last Reviewed: August 2020
Camberwell Green
Nearest tube: Denmark Hill
www.camberwellfair.co.uk
Map & Location: Camberwell Green, Camberwell, London SE5, UK

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Top Hat ★★★★ Southbank Centre | Dec 12, 2025 - Jan 17, 2026

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“They’re Dancing Cheek to Cheek Again!” The posters and advertising for the original 1935 film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers promised romance, dancing, and songs you would never forget. This current production is every bit as delightful as the original and largely lives up to the film’s hype. The farcical confusions of the love story continue to charm and amuse, and it is refreshing that director Kathleen Marshall has chosen not to update the references. The show is unapologetically presented as a period piece, relying on the quality of its singing and dancing to bridge the gap between eras. With its unforgettable Irving Berlin score and top notch tapping from Phillip Attmore as Jerry Travers, it succeeds admirably. Attmore clearly relishes his role, and his exuberance is infectious. As Jerry’s love interest, Dale Tremont, Amara Okereke displays a fine voice, and the couple’s “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” is a definite highlight. As the comic foils the young lovers, Horace...
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Indian Ink ★★★★★ Hampstead Theatre | Dec 3, 2025 - Jan 31, 2026

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This first-rate production of Tom Stoppard’s palimpsestic masterpiece is simply a must-see. When the English poet Flora Crewe travels to India, she sits for a portrait by the Indian painter Nirad Das. Both that portrait and this play reflect the complex melding of cultures that emerged from the British presence in India. Exploring different approaches to art and the presentation of the artist, the drama also exposes the intricate and often fraught political relationship between the two countries whose histories became so deeply intertwined. Flora’s meeting with the Indian painter hints at the complicated dynamic between a dying imperial vision and its colonial subject, while also questioning the epistemological frameworks through which we seek to understand the past. Many years later, Crewe's American biographer meets with her sister Mrs Swan as he attempts to reconstruct that Indian encounter. Both that actual experience and the artistic impression of Crewe created by Das stand in...
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St. Martin in-the-fields: Lunchtime Concerts ★★★★ FREE

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Oh, Mary! ★★★ Trafalgar Theatre | Dec 3, 2025 - Apr 25, 2026

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Riffing on the long-standing rumours that Mary Todd Lincoln was an alcoholic and that her husband harboured homosexual tendencies, Oh, Mary! is a drag extravaganza with a sharp ahistorical and satirical edge. Its humour relies heavily on standard drag tropes. There is abundant mugging, snide asides, sexual puns, and what was once considered blue language. Much of this feels familiar, and the shocked laughter that taboo sexual references once provoked has been dulled by overuse. Indeed, anyone acquainted with the drag genre will see most of the jokes coming well in advance. That said, the production values are notably higher here than those of the average drag show. The set is handsomely appointed, and the use of music to underscore scenes is effective. Cole Escola’s script presents Mary as a bored housewife yearning to become a cabaret star. In an effort to keep Mary away from the bottle, her husband hires a teacher to give her acting lessons. The funniest moments actually emerge from...
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Snow White ★★★★ Emerald Theatre | Dec 17, 2025 - Jan 4, 2026

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This adult-themed, all-drag panto delivers all the seasonal fun and silliness one could hope for, and then some. There are plenty of clever jokes mixed with a fair number of groaners, alongside some strong physical comedy and parodies of familiar tunes that genuinely raise a laugh. The contemporary cultural references are right up to date and so numerous it is hard to catch them all. Everything from the new Paddington Bear musical to The Traitors gets a mention. Nods to RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Great British Bake Off come thick and fast, with the latter earning extra resonance thanks to drag king Oliver Clothezoff, who plays the Prince, having previously appeared on the show. Not all of the material lands. Some well worn sexual puns feel overdue for retirement, as does the "Twelve Days of Christmas" routine. Even so, there are far more hits than misses, although the second act does seem to lose a little momentum. We were also left uncertain about why Keir Starmer had bee...
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KENREX ★★★★ The Other Palace | Dec 3, 2025 - Feb 1, 2026

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Recounting true crime has long been a popular form of entertainment. The act of regaling audiences with tales of criminal horror that both terrify and titillate them arguably reached a peak with the Penny Dreadfuls of the nineteenth century, yet it remains a mainstay of contemporary television. KENREX , a dramatisation of the story of Kenneth Rex McElroy, who terrorised the small Missouri town of Skidmore for nearly two decades, stands as a masterful example of this enduring tradition. With the collusion of his lawyer, McElroy was able to intimidate and brutalise the town’s residents until July 10, 1981, when a long-deferred reckoning finally arrived. Jack Holden and Ed Stambollouian have crafted the material for the stage with remarkable skill, and Holden’s performance is nothing short of astonishing. He fully inhabits the many figures ensnared by these grim events, sustaining a breathtaking level of energy as he moves across the stage and transforms into characters as varied as the t...
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Christmas Day ★★★★ Almeida Theatre | Dec 9, 2025 - Jan 8, 2026

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In an odd warehouse conversion where his son and daughter live with a strange assortment of inhabitants, a Jewish father joins his children for a Christmas Day meal. Elliot, a secular Jew, represents a generation for whom identity and allegiances are largely unquestioned. His children, however, inhabit a far less certain world. His daughter Tamara is urgently searching for spiritual answers and openly challenges Israel’s actions, even as her former boyfriend has found a new sense of himself through Israeli nationalism. On the other hand, Elliot’s son Noah, who has a non-Jewish girlfriend, is adrift, struggling to locate himself within the tradition that shaped him but no longer anchors him. Sam Grabiner’s Christmas Day explores what it means to be Jewish in contemporary Britain, asking whether it is possible, or even desirable, to maintain or reconcile ethnic, religious, and cultural identity in an assimilative society. While rooted in a specifically Jewish experience, the play’s ques...
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Orphans ★★★★ Jermyn Street Theatre | January 5 - 24, 2026

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Phillip is an emotionally immature, developmentally challenged recluse, protected and controlled by his impulsive and potentially violent older brother Treat who supports them both by stealing. Together they inhabit a sealed world of rituals, games, and shared fantasy. However, when Treat kidnaps Harold, an apparently wealthy criminal on the run, this act proves far from the solution he expects. Instead, the power dynamic shifts as Harold, himself an orphan, assumes an almost parental role, exposing the brothers to an alternative way of living beyond their self-made confinement. In just two weeks, he becomes a conduit to the outside world and offers the boys a new vision of themselves. Harold’s repeated rendition of “The Prisoner’s Song” underscores the play’s central metaphor of entrapment. Phillip is paralysed by his fear of leaving the apartment, Treat by his reliance on violence and control, and Harold by his desperate attempt to outrun the past. While Lyle Kessler’s dark vision e...
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