Arts & Culture
Originally published on Tuesday, 19th January 2010
The Culturist - January
New Year, New You? Join the club. So as all the eager potential of the new decade gets under way, here's a wee selection of this month's cultural highlights to keep you on track. That said, this being your dear Urban Junkies at the helm, who's to say culture can't be just a little fun…
LAST CHANCE: If You Could Collaborate
Ends Jan 23, Free
A Foundation Gallery, Rochelle School, just off Arnold Circus, E2 7ES
Returning for the 4th annual If You Could exhibition, "Collaborate" is what happens when you hook up 33 pairings of leading designers and artists and let them loose. The brief: "to produce something a little unexpected." The deadline: a comfortable 12 months. The results: wonderful, sometimes fun, sometimes charming, sometimes moving, entirely worth a wander over to Hackney.
DRESS-UP: The White Blackbird: Tweed
Jan 22, 8pm-3am, £35 (+ £15 return coach to London)
Stoke Place, Stoke Green, Bucks, SL2 4HT
Last year's pyjama party was a riot of pillow fights and slinky negligées. Then there were the culinary shenanigans of the Futurist Aerobanquet and the spectral explosion of Colourscape… For their first outing of 2010, join The White Blackbird as they invade the country manor of Stoke House with a Burns-tinged celebration of all things tweed. Piano singalongs, murder hunts, haunted chapels, and a spot of ballroom boating are the order of the night – but book yourself a discounted room or two (from £110) and who says the party has to ever end?
ART: The Real Van Gogh
Jan 23-April 18, £12
Royal Academy, Burlington House, W1J 0BD
Yes, that's right: the real Van Gogh. Not the fake one with the scraggly beard and phoney severed ear and who hangs around Camden Market pushing his wishy-washy knock-offs. Nope, the glorious V&A have the real Vincent. Sarcasm aside, with a selection of his enchanting private letters and a hefty collection of paintings and sketches, this show is set to be absolutely unmissable. And while you're there, make a point to spend a few minutes with the sexy (and free) Stuart Haygarth exhibition at Haunch… (How much do we want one of his spectacle-lamps?)
BOOK AHEAD: Secret Cinema
February
Somewhere secretive
With all the press coverage that they've been garnering of late, the future's looking even brighter for the wonderful Secret Cinema brigade. Which also means that you're going to have to be even quicker on the ticket uptake… Sigh. But going by some of last year's cracking nights out (the flawlessly-styled Bugsy Malone screening was a personal favourite), we see great things ahead for the team. Sure you could shoot for a candlelit restaurant for two for Valentine's. But for the more visual of you, we say have faith and sign-up for something very, very special and very, very secretively cinematic instead.
THEATRE: Enron
Jan 16-May 8, £25.50 - £63
Noel Coward Theatre, St Martin's Lane, WC2 4AU
If you lucked out on tickets last year (or ended up buying your way in at highly inflated last-minute prices – how apt), now’s your chance to catch up with Lucy Prebble’s reimagining of the largest corporate bankruptcy ever to hit the FTSE. A spectacular light saber fight (depicting California’s electricity market), huge all-singing and dancing numbers and the Lehman Brothers as Siamese twins sharing one trench coat – it's satirical, witty and vastly entertaining.
FUN: Vauxhall Ice Skate
Jan 28
Tickets are free but extremely limited
Hot on the heels of 2009's hysterical roller-disco, the Vauxhall Skate collective are on a mission to trump themselves this year with a thoroughly enchanting "moonlit ice-skating rink, encircled by a shadowy forest." Open to a meagre 500 lucky guests, tickets are free and available through online application, but are going lightning fast. And with guest DJs to include the likes of Mr Hudson, Paloma Faith and Coco Sumner coupled with a hefty-sounding production budget, this looks set to be a night of spectacular magic. Or a magical spectacle, if I get anywhere near the ice.
ART: Chris Ofili
Jan 27-May 16, £10
Tate Britain, Millbank, SW1P 4RG
Elephant dung anybody? Yes that's right. One of our favourite YBAs, Chris Ofili , is back in town with a mahoosive retrospective at Tate Britain. Included in the show is the much-lauded, 13 canvas strong The Upper Room, a veritable army of over 45 of his distinctly colourful paintings and several of his earlier watercolours and pencil drawings which collectively chart the creative journey of the Turner-winning Venice Biennale-exhibiting star of the British (albeit Trinidad-residing) artistic star over the last 20-odd years.
MUSIC: Reverb Festival
Jan 22-31, Various prices
Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8EH
From folk and roots to The Beggar's Opera, Satie and Stravinsky to a capella Joy Division, contemporary neo-classical to late night Beethoven lounge… Who else but the Roundhouse's Reverb festival can deliver such a fresh take on the older-than-old school in one week-long feast of bite-size servings. By all means grab a 'grown up' friend – y'know, the opera-lover – if you feel like you need an excuse to see what all the fuss is about… But it really won't be necessary: this is fun with a capital, classical F.
