Food & Drink
Future of Food
Previously a September fixture, Regent Street and St James’s annual food festival is celebrating culinary creativity in May this year. As well as one-off collaborations, masterclasses and supper clubs, the area’s best restaurants (including some Heddon Street favourites) are serving special menus and offering discounted dining. Tickets go on sale March 31.
Various venues, Regent Street and St James’s, May 12–24.
Culture
Skate 50
One of the most eye-catching parts of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary extravaganza is Skate 50, an audio, video and photographic exhibition celebrating the generations of skaters who have gathered in the concrete undercroft of the Queen Elizabeth Hall for the past five decades, and the DIY culture that’s grown up around them.
Southbank Centre, April 30–June 21. Free.
Cinema
BFI Flare
The UK’s largest LGBTQI+ film festival turns 40 this year. The BFI Flare programme is packed with intriguing debut films, including Washed Up, Isabel Daly’s romantic comedy between an aspiring artist and a selkie, set in Cornwall; and Lunar Sway, Nick Butler’s kooky American coming-of-age story. There are also screenings of cult classics, including the landmark 1996 feature The Watermelon Woman. Festival programmer Grace Barber-Plentie shares her top five picks with Broadsheet.
BFI Southbank, March 18–29. Prices vary.
Art
Aki Sasamoto: Grilled Diagrams
Cookery is at the heart of the first UK solo exhibition from Japanese artist Aki Sasamoto, who repurposes and reimagines everyday kitchen objects in playful sculptural displays. There’s even a huge functional griddle which Sasamoto herself will be manning in two special live performances towards the end of the show’s run.
Studio Voltaire, until April 19. Free (£5 for special performances).
Theatre
Teeth ‘n’ Smiles
Less than a year after releasing her first book and co-curating the London Literature Festival, Rebecca Lucy Taylor – aka pop star Self Esteem – adds to her polymath credentials by making her West End debut in this major revival of David Hare’s pioneering “rebel play”, which first premiered in 1975 starring Helen Mirren.
Duke of York’s Theatre, Until June 6. From £25.
John Proctor Is the Villain
The seven-time Tony Award-nominated show, written by US playwright Kimberly Belflower and directed by the acclaimed Danya Taymor, is a snappy feminist take on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, which also happened to make its English debut at the Royal Court 70 years ago. It was a swift sellout, but a few same-day tickets will be released at 9am each Monday during its run.
Royal Court Theatre, March 20–April 25. From £15.
1536
Ava Pickett’s sharply funny debut play, 1536, finds three women in a field in Tudor Essex discussing Anne Boleyn’s execution. This West End transfer, directed by Lyndsey Turner (Chimerica) and starring Sex Education’s Tanya Reynolds among others, follows rave reviews during its sold-out run at the Almeida last year.
Ambassadors Theatre, May 2–August 1. From £40.
Photography
Catherine Opie: To Be Seen
Opie has been shooting bold portraits across the US – of queer communities, high school footballers, surfers, families, protestors – for the past 30 years, but this is the first time a major retrospective has been hosted in the UK. It aims to demonstrate, in the words of the artist, that “everyone [can] begin to understand identity through being seen”.
National Portrait Gallery, Until May 31. From £19.50.
Gordon Parks: We Shall Not Be Moved
Starting out with a $12 pawn-shop camera, Gordon Parks went on to become one of America’s best-known photographers, most notably documenting the struggle, resistance and resilience of Black Americans (he also directed the blaxploitation classic Shaft). This timely exhibition, curated by lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson, marks 20 years since Parks’s death.
Alison Jacques, Until April 11. Free.
Photo London
For its 11th annual showing, the “Frieze of photography” shifts to a sizeable new home at the freshly redeveloped Olympia (worth some photos of its own, surely). As well as established London names, there will be exhibitions by galleries from Lima to Ljubljana, a new photobook prize in honour of the late Martin Parr and, for the first time, a film screening room.
Olympia, May 13–17. From £20.
Music
Gala
London’s festival season begins with a bank holiday bang as Peckham Rye is transformed into an al fresco club weekender with a line-up that spans DJ legends (Todd Edwards, Gilles Peterson), collaborators (John Talabot and Axel Boman’s Talaboman, and a team-up of Antal, Hunee and Palms Trax) and returning SE15 heroes (Giggs, Chaos in the CBD).
Peckham Rye Park, May 22–24. From £55.
Literature
North London Book Festival
During this three-day literary takeover of Ally Pally, you’ll find Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst discussing his latest novel, Our Evenings; Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason introducing her book To Be Young, Gifted and Black, with musical interludes from two of her classical musician children; beloved local writer Michael Rosen marking his 80th birthday; and much more besides.
Alexandra Palace. April 23–26. From £12.50.
