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London Living Large
The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings.

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José María Velasco: A View of Mexico ★★★★ The National Gallery | Mar 29 - Aug 17, 2025

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This exhibition is a fine introduction to a 19th Century painter who is well-known in Mexico, but who has been under-appreciated outside of his native country. The academic style of José María Velasco fell out of favour in Europe with the growing influence of the Impressionists, and his reputation was also eclipsed by the great Mexican muralists who followed him. This current display of his work does justice to the subtlety and genius of this artist and is a wonderful invocation of his country at a turning point in its history. Velasco celebrates the natural world while he hints at the changes to be wrought by the oncoming industrial reality. We are moving from an agricultural society with humans living in harmony with nature to an industrial model and the subjugation of the natural world. Velasco lived in a world that was not only on the cusp of enormous social change however. It was one that was also facing a profound reassessment of its values. The artist himself was both a man of f...
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Supersonic Man ★★★★ Southwark Playhouse, Borough | Apr 9 - May 3, 2025

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Based on the true story of Peter Scott-Morgan, who with his partner, Francis, became the first gay couple to be married in England, Supersonic Man tells the story of Adam who, like Scott-Morgan, decides to fight his motor neurone disease through robotics and radical surgery. It is an inspiring tribute to someone who boldly faced life and its challenges on his own terms, and it is an interesting insight into the media mechanics that can make such a decision possible. Like the protagonist of this musical, Scott-Morgan harnessed the power of the media through the creation of a television documentary which chronicled his medical journey. The show's smart mocking of the manipulative cynicism that lies just behind our culture of celebrity, plus the resilient wit and self-deprecating humour of Adam himself largely save this piece from falling into becoming simply an exercise in suffocating sentimentality. While the show succeeds in portraying the real pain and mood swings of the sufferer...
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Midnight Cowboy - A New Musical ★★ Southwark Playhouse, Borough | Apr 4 - May 17, 2025

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James Leo Herlihy's novel of 1965, which was later made into a very successful film, tells the story of naïve young man, Joe Buck, who comes to New York City to get rich as a gigolo. He discovers that his chosen career path is not as simple to pursue as he thought, and he ends up being taken advantage of by both his clients and by his new acquaintance, Ratso. The latter is a disabled survivor who knows how to work the streets and who is as shrewd as Joe is gullible. Oddly enough, despite their initial differences, these two outsiders become friends. They start to depend on each other and come to share a dream which is to escape their current hardship and to flee to the paradise of Florida. Herlihy's book and the film neatly contrasted the shocking grittiness of life on the streets and the touching relationship of the two broken dreamers. It was a sentimental tour de force , but it is not an easy balance to achieve – and it doesn't quite work here. While Max Bowden gets it l...
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THISISPOPBABY - WAKE ★ Sadler's Wells Peacock Theatre | April 2 - 5, 2025

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This show promises to be a riff on an Irish wake. Apparently, it is intended as a celebration of life, but it unfortunately does not rise up to that billing. Although we are told at the beginning that we are in for what will literally be a life changing experience, the show proves to be considerably less than that. The production is a hodgepodge of various acts which oversells itself and really doesn't deliver. The spoken word intervals which are probably meant to tie things together thematically are just insistently pretentious and way too lengthy. And, what a man vainly attempting to windmill tassels from his naked bottom, while singing "Seduce Me," has to do with an Irish wake is far from clear. There is a smattering of breaking, some reasonably well-sung songs and a lot of mediocre choreography. Also on offer are some fairly competent step dancing moments, plus a couple of not very original gymnastics' and aerial acrobatics' routines. The low point is definite...
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St. Martin in-the-fields: Lunchtime Concerts ★★★★ FREE

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Maybe the best musical value in London. The lunchtime concerts at St. Martin's are always a wonderful way to escape the hustle and bustle that is London and the sensory overload that is Trafalgar Square. This is a beautiful setting with great acoustics, and a church pew hard enough to make sure you don't nod off. Reviewed by J.C.  Our score:    ☆☆☆☆  WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE: Mon & Fri: 1 pm - 1:45 pm ( occasionally Tues & Thurs)  St. Martin in-the-fields, Trafalgar Square Nearest tube: Charing Cross https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whats-on
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Cartier ★★★★ Victoria & Albert Museum | Apr 12 - Nov 16, 2025

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At the beginning of the 20th century, the three grandsons of the jeweller, Louis-François Cartier, set out to create a global brand. They established branches of the family business in New York, London and Paris, and while this exhibition celebrates their company's craftsmanship and imagination, it also presents what has been a masterpiece of marketing. From the beginning, the Cartiers courted the royal and the rich in order to establish their brand, and they cleverly moved with the times to embrace the patronage of film stars and pop idols when these nouveaux riches became the emerging market. Of the over 350 objects on display, we have pieces created for several royal families and the likes of the Duchess of Windsor and Princess Margaret. There are pieces worn by Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly and more contemporary celebrities such Rihanna and Kim Kardashian. From garish tiaras and gaudy broaches to the more elegant tank watch and popular 1969 Love bracelet, Cartier's creatio...
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The Carracci Cartoons: Myths in the Making ★★★ The National Gallery | Apr 10 - Jul 6, 2025 (Free Entry)

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This free show features two of the cartoons, or large charcoal drawings, created by the Carracci brothers, Annibale and Agostino, for the decoration of the Roman residence of the young cardinal Odoardo Farnese (1573-1626). Both works are actually attributed to Agostino Carracci with possible input from Annibale. Made on paper, the two large drawings were conceived as working tools intended for use in preparation to paint the fresco which was to decorate the ceiling of the Palazzo Farnese. They were designed to be used for the transfer of sections of that complex composition onto fresh plaster, and they offer a unique insight into the working practices of a Renaissance artist. The cartoons, which have long been the property of The National Gallery and have not often been on display, represent two scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses : "Cephalus carried off by Aurora in her Chariot" (about 1599) and "A Woman borne off by a Sea God" (about 1599). They have been interpr...
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The Inseparables ★★★ Finborough Theatre | Apr 15 - May 10, 2025

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Grace Joy Howarth's adaptation of Simone de Beauvoir's posthumously published memoir/novel about the author's powerful childhood friendship takes us back to the more innocent, and also more restrictive, time which formed the great feminist thinker. It is a celebration of a profound relationship between two intelligent young women who in different ways both struggle with the limited roles assigned to them in pre World War II France. Although the rebellious Andrée smokes and kisses a boy, she remains deeply religious and socially conformist, while her soulmate, Sylvie is actually more revolutionary. She rejects the notion of God and manages to avoid the requirement to marry. The latter character is based on de Beauvoir herself, and this is a touching portrait of the formative female relationship that contributed to the development of the writer who would later pen The Second Sex . Howarth's adaptation and the sensitive performances of Lara Manela as Andrée and Ayesha Ostl...
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Apex Predator ★★★★ Hampstead Theatre | Mar 22 - Apr 26, 2025

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A ten year-old son who is in trouble at school; a husband who is away, working day and night on a mysterious project; a baby who cries constantly while an upstairs neighbour plays his music too loudly; plus, on top of all this, a rude and threatening stranger on public transport and an exhibitionist in the park: Mia has lots of reasons to feel both victimised and stressed out. When she meets her son's new teacher, however, she may finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. The mysterious and quirky Ana radiates a sense of empowerment and confidence that is both bewildering and beguiling. John Donnelly has written a neat little thriller that grips the audience from its opening scene. It is ominous and delightfully spooky, while touching on a number of issues that could have been more fully developed. Although the notion of climate change and species extinction is referenced in the title and elsewhere, it could have been clarified and expanded to provide a more interesting themati...
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Manhunt ★★★ Royal Court Theatre | Mar 28 - May 3, 2025

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Based on the true story of Raoul Moat who in 2010 killed one person and maimed his girlfriend and a police officer, this powerful recreation of the incidents and the ensuing manhunt focuses on the forces that made Moat into the raging inferno that he was. Abandoned by his father and abused by his mentally ill mother, he was then raised in care, and from his perspective, was abused by all the bureaucratic entities that intervened in his life: the social care system, the police and various legal proceedings. Moat saw himself as a victim, and although Robert Icke's play is largely presented from Moat's point of view, the author strives to balance this and to avoid any appearance of justifying Moat's behaviour as he uncovers its sources. Indeed, a long period in which the audience is in darkness, probably to replicate the blinding of one of Moat's victims, plus the detailed recounting of that victim's story are no doubt intended to serve this purpose. However, despite s...
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The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings