Aladdin at the Prince Edward Theatre review: A gloriously magical and hilarious production that hits all the right nostalgic notes June 16, 2016 Prince Edward Theatre | ★★★★☆ Musicals inspired by Disney films have a chequered track record. Luckily, Aladdin joins The Lion King and Mary Poppins in the halls of success, leaving Tarzan and The Little Mermaid in the doldrums where they belong. While there were some children in the audience, most appeared to have been dragged along [...]
The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Haunting film review: An overlong, but well-crafted horror with a genuinely unpleasant demon June 16, 2016 Dir: James Wan | ★★★☆☆ The world’s creepiest couple, Ed and Lorraine Warren, return to investigate another paranormal case. This time, they’ve been asked by the Catholic church to visit somewhere more diabolical than their supernatural adventures have ever taken them: Enfield, north London. Described as “England’s Amityville”, they find a poverty-stricken single-parent family who are [...]
Guess which screen hero’s house this is: This company recreates famous apartments in 3D computer models June 15, 2016 Recognise the layout of this apartment? The sunken, cream-carpeted “conversation-pit” living room? The bizarre patterned wallpaper surrounding the doorway from the kitchen to the corridor, from which the downstairs neighbour has made a few rapid exits following secret trysts? It is, of course, the trendy Manhattan apartment occupied by Mad Men’s anti-hero Don Draper, and [...]
Review: Tom Sellers, the man behind Story, strikes gold again with Restaurant Ours June 15, 2016 Tom Sellers seemed to come out of nowhere. Sure, he’s worked for a bunch of great chefs, but aged 26 he opened Story, which made a big enough splash in the London restaurant scene that the ripples are still going. Try getting a table there at the weekend and you’ll see what I mean. The gimmick [...]
The Tate Modern extension will help transform the gallery into the world’s most cutting edge art space June 14, 2016 It’s been 14 years in the planning, it’s four years overdue, and it cost £260m. But the extension to the Tate Modern will finally throw it’s doors open to the public on Friday. So has the project, the recipient of the largest cultural fundraising effort ever seen in the UK, been worth the wait? Has [...]
Working Lunch review: Absurd Bird in Spitalfields brings the unfussy grub of the Southern States to the East End June 14, 2016 Absurd Bird 54 Commercial Street, E1 What? A gourmet fried chicken restaurant bringing the taste of the Southern States to the East End. As you’d expect, the menu is packed with poultry in all its forms – grilled, fried, even a whole smoked chicken – and there’s a “wing shack” out front for takeaway. A [...]
Our columnist Mark Hix on how his good friend Mark Botwright is changing the way we use garlic in cooking June 14, 2016 What the hell are these?” I wondered when I was first offered garlic scapes by Mark “The Garlic Farmer” Botwright. He’s been secretly experimenting with garlic growing just outside of Charmouth, where I live, for years. He has a unique thing going on down there and he’s unlocked an awful lot of products from this [...]
Lamborghini Huracan LP 6104 motoring review: I drove this monster to the school gates to prove to my son that I was the coolest Dad in the playground June 13, 2016 Spec Price: £181,895 0-62MPH: 3.2 secs Top speed: 202mph CO2 G/KM: 280g/km MPG combined: 22.6mpg The verdict Design ★★★★★ Performance ★★★★★ Practicality ★★☆☆☆ Value ★★☆☆ Like many men with children, I aspire to be a ‘cool dad’. I foist my musical choices on my children (“This album got five stars in Mojo!”), still wear trainers at every opportunity and [...]
Focus On Walthamstow: the outer London hotspot where house price growth is frankly ridiculous June 13, 2016 There was a time when the postcode East 17 was tainted in the popular consciousness by a band of shirtless youths with odd taste in hats. But, thankfully, those days are gone, and it’s been restored to its rightful owner, Walthamstow in north-east London, and it’s one of the fastest-growing, up-and-coming places in the capital. [...]
Property of the week: This five-bedroom, five storey house is a rarity on London’s Brutalist, iconic Barbican Estate June 13, 2016 Love it or hate it, the modernist maze that is the Barbican Estate is a concrete part of Canada’s architectural history. Costing around £150m to build over a period of 20 years, the Queen described it as “one of the wonders of the modern world” when she opened it. But its three [...]