Debbie & Shelley…

Lovely to see Debbie and Shelley on Saturday.  We ate, we drank, we went to a gallery. Wherever we do it, it’s a fabulous annual autumnal tradition. 

COMING OUT: 25 Portraits – 25 Personal Stories @ The Camera Club…

Turns out there is a tasteful way to spend a Friday afternoon in glitzy Kennington that doesn’t involve a lukewarm pint: wandering into The Camera Club for COMING OUT: 25 Portraits – 25 Personal Stories by Simon J. Webb (@SimonJWebbPhoto #SimonJWebb).

Ten years’ worth of portraits from his Jack The Lad era. Proof that queer creatives can be gloriously themselves, but only after society insists they file the appropriate emotional coming out paperwork. 

The images glow; the accompanying audio quietly elbows you in the ribs and reminds you that coming out is still a compulsory obstacle course reserved for queer people alone.

Webb himself, a man who has apparently lived several careers before lunch; assistant, darkroom wrangler, Soho post-production wizard for Bryan Ferry (@BryanFerry #BryanFerry) and Phil Collins (@PhilCollins #PhilCollins) until eventually circling back to photography when digital stopped looking like Minecraft. 

The result: a decade of portraits, 43 issues of Jack The Lad, and a community’s stories captured with real affection.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The War Between The Land and The Sea…

This poster makes it look like “The War between BBC Doctor Who and Disney Doctor Who” 👀

@bbcdoctorwho @disneydoctorwho 

@bbciplayer @doctorwho_magazine #bbcdoctorwho #disneydoctorwho 

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t @ Odeon Holloway…

Darce and I watched the third film in the Now You See Me franchise last night in glitzy Holloway. It sticks to the familiar sub–Ocean’s Eleven formula: a star-studded heist caper with pantomime villains, ethical magicians, and plenty of “the walls drop away to reveal the audience” moments.

Unfortunately, a lot of the “close-up magic” leans on obvious camera tricks, and the plot has holes you could steer a getaway truck through.

Still, if smug ’90s nostalgia and glossy crime capers with a handful of jokes are your thing, you’ll likely enjoy this bit of brainless fun. We did.

⭐️⭐️

#NowYouSeeMe3 #FilmReview 

Rage Against the Machine…

Rage Against Machine never specified what type of machine they were furious with but I reckon it was probably printer. An HP printer.

Imitation of Life @ Barbican Cinema…

A couple of weeks ago, Stuart and I went to see one of his favourite films, Imitation of Life, at the Barbican. The screening was followed by a thoughtful discussion with Ellen E Jones and Rhianna Dhillon.

Douglas Sirk’s 1959 masterpiece follows two single mothers, Lora (Lana Turner) and Annie (Juanita Moore), whose lives become deeply intertwined after a chance encounter on a beach. The film contrasts their experiences: Turner’s Lora is a white aspiring actress raising her daughter (Sandra Dee), while Moore’s Annie is a Black woman whose light-skinned daughter (Susan Kohner) tries to pass as white.

Through these intersecting lives, Sirk explores race, class, and gender within the glossy framework of 1950s melodrama, revealing powerful truths beneath the surface of suburban America.

And if Mahalia Jackson singing Trouble of World doesn’t bring you to tears, you have no heart. Or soul!

The event was held to celebrate the 2025 Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award winner, Screen Deep: How Film and TV Can Solve Racism and Save the World by Ellen E Jones.

A remarkable film and a fascinating discussion that lingered long after the credits rolled.

#ImitationOfLife #DouglasSirk #BarbicanCinema #FilmDiscussion #ClassicCinema

The Choral @ Odeon Holloway Road…

Last Friday afternoon went to see The Choral at Odeon Holloway Road in London’s glitzy Holloway with Darce.

In this 1916-Yorkshire-mill-town tale scripted by Alan Bennett and directed by Nicholas Hytner the ever‐steady Ralph Fiennes plays Dr Henry Guthrie, a cultured choirmaster recently returned from Germany, and leads the local choral society into a bold staging of The Dream of Gerontius by Edward Elgar (portrayed in cameo by Simon Russell Beale). 

Supporting leads include Roger Allam as the mill‐owner patron and Mark Addy among several stalwarts. 

The plot: a choral society depleted by war recruits younger voices, tensions of class, grief and suppressed desires swirl, and music becomes the redemptive pulsing heart of a community in crisis. 

It echoes the flavour of The History Boys and A Private Function (both Bennett classics) but without the full‐tilt farce and laughs; there is a heavier drift into melancholia and yearning rather than mischievous romp.

If you like ensemble British drama, choir rehearsal angst and the odd jolt of emotion you’ll get a decent return; just don’t expect bellylaughs and you might enjoy the quiet dignity of it.

Dina Martina at @SohoTheatre…

Last Friday night I went to see Dina Martina at Soho Theatre in London’s glitzy Soho with Stuart, Darce, and Wayne. 

Dina (alias Grady West) strips cabaret down to its bones: hysterical mis-singing, outlandish storytelling and gloriously bad dancing. There is no traditional drag, this is raw drag performance art. 

The stories wander through fever dreams, hoarding antics, absurd songs and diva meltdown. The show lives in that subversive space where being off-key becomes the aesthetic. The glitzy Soho venue loves it and so did we.

@SohoTheatre @DinaMartina #DinaMartina #Drag #Cabaret #LondonNightOut

Classical Kate Bush @ Cadogan Hall 🎻✨…

Last night, Stuart and I went to see an incredible show! The world-renowned group Cloudbusting - The Music of Kate Bush were joined onstage at @cadoganhall in London’s glitzy Sloane Square by nearly 50 members of the West London Sinfonia @westlondonsinf for one unforgettable night.

Kate Bush’s songs were beautifully reimagined for a full orchestra — I was often moved to tears.

Original orchestral arrangements breathed new life into Bush’s classics. It felt like Before the Dawn was reborn before our eyes — soaring vocals and a thunderous orchestra took us on a journey across her entire career.

Wow! Wow! Wow! Unbelievable. 💫

Set list highlights:

🎭 Cabaret of Macabre

Wow / Hammer Horror / Houdini / Babooshka / And Dream of Sheep / Under Ice / Hello Earth

🌅 Suite of Honey

Prologue / Sunset / Aerial

🌍 What a World

Army Dreamers / Breathing

💋 Sensual Kate

The Sensual World / This Woman’s Work / Never Be Mine / The Man with the Child in His Eyes / Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) / Hounds of Love / Cloudbusting / Moments of Pleasure / Wuthering Heights

#KateBush @Cloudbusting.band @CloudbustingKB #CadoganHall #WestLondonSinfonia #LondonMusic #LiveMusic #BeforeTheDawn #HoundsOfLove #RunningUpThatHill #WutheringHeights #OrchestralMusic #KateBushFans

Euston: Lost Tunnels – Hidden London…

Last week Darce and I went deeper underground with @ltmuseum’s #HiddenLondon tour to explore the disused tunnels beneath London’s not-quite-yet-glitzy-but-working-on-it-let’s-see-what-HS2-brings-if-it-ever-gets-finished #EustonStation.

Euston station is actually formed of three stations (soon to be four when HS2 swallows up Euston Square on the #MetropolitanLine).

The original three were:

🚉 The mainline station from the London & Birmingham Railway (LBR)

🚇 The closed CCE&HR Euston (now one branch of the #NorthernLine)

🚇 The closed C&SLR Euston (the other Northern Line branch)

When these were first joined together, new tunnels had to link them — but after the 1962 rebuild (“one of the greatest acts of post-war architectural vandalism in Britain”), many tunnels were blocked off, turning them into eerie time capsules filled with preserved vintage poster fragments from the 1960s.

So with @tfl lanyards on, we explored the labyrinth of dark, dusty passageways once used by commuters — and saw how some tunnels now double as air vents for the Underground.

When the #VictoriaLine was built, a huge new ventilation tunnel was added — and we got to walk along it, peering down at the platforms below. So cool.

#HiddenLondon #Euston #LondonUnderground #TFL #UrbanExploration #AbandonedLondon #LondonHistory #EustonTunnels #HiddenLondonTour #TransportForLondon #ExploreLondon #UrbanHistory