American League Against War and Fascism Poster, 1936.

The Olympic ideal is to celebrate athletic and sporting prowess outside of political influence. But ideals are rarely achieved. The Olympic Games have always had a political dimension. Boycotts, racism, terrorism and Cold War posturing have all marred the show. Wikipedia has examples from just about every Olympiad.

A new exhibition and series of events at the Free Word Centre in Farringdon explores the interplay between the Olympics and politics. The exhibition of images opens on 1 May and runs until 8 September. The accompanying events are all concerned with our own Olympics:

20 June: Artist, writer and photographer Alberto Duman, in association with Mute Magazine, host Regeneration Games, in which a group of critics will respond to a collection of videos, objects and documents that question the “official story” of the regeneration of East London for London 2012.

12 July: Hilary Powell and Isaac Marrero poke around with the iconography and language of the forthcoming games, drawing from their book The Art of Dissent: London’s Olympic State.

6 August: A screening of Torch ? a new documentary by Marc Silver and AJ Rivers ? investigating whether London’s Olympics will fulfil its promise to transform East London.

More details on booking for the events will be released nearer the time. But you can catch the exhibition from 1 May at the Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, EC1R 3GA.

See also:
Played in London exhibition and talks.

London aerial 1 from JasonHawkes on Vimeo.

Aerial photographer Jason Hawke has been gliding across the London skies once more, capturing some amazing video and photographs of the capital at night and during the day.

Once you’ve gawped at the short clip above, check out Jason’s photographs from a similar trip last year, then be prepared to spend the next hour browsing at the amazing images on his website. The book London At Night is a deserved addition to any bookshelf or coffee table.

Hat tip: @skyscrapernews

See also:

The Shard from the air

For the 100th anniversary of Terence Rattigan’s birth, the playwright’s estate asked David Hare to write a new play to accompany Rattigan’s classic hit, The Browning Version. The resulting double bill is now playing in the West End.

Both are studies of the solitude and insecurity of public school life: one from the point of view of a precocious pupil; the other has a retiring master as its main subject.

Hare’s hymn-drenched South Downs is set at his own alma mater, Lancing College, an Anglo-Catholic school in the 1960s. The suited boys talk with slightly peculiar, clipped 1930s-sounding accents, and their teachers are no less old-fashioned. As they wrestle with the ideas of Pope and transubstantiation, one young lad stands out. Blakemore has few friends, and far too many intelligent ideas. Not only is he argumentative and effeminate, as his prefect points out, he’s just 14 and knows “what effeminate means. Not a good sign”.

Jeremy Herrin’s production perfectly captures the awkwardness of adolescence, the feeling that everyone else has charm and confidence and an understanding of a mysterious book called ?The Rules Of Life”, and somehow we’ve missed out. Alex Lawther plays the boy-hero with great skill. He’s ably supported by Nicholas Farrell as a comic Rev attempting to coach the boys through confirmation, and Anna Chancellor, the sexy actress mother of another boy whose kindness finally unlocks enough self-awareness in Blakemore to set him off on a better path.

Chancellor and Farrell then take on very different roles in Rattigan’s play. While the themes of self-loathing and loneliness continue, this time, they?re shown from the point of view of a dry Classics master, Mr Crocker-Harris. On the eve of his retirement, “Crock” learns he was secretly known as the Himmler of the Lower Fifth, and faces a pensionless future with his unfaithful, vindictive wife.

Farrell’s performance in this brilliantly crafted play is exemplary. To accompany his academic’s stoop, his elevated educator’s jaw and pedagogue?s pedantry, he has developed a fantastic rhythm and timbre to his speech that perfectly evokes memories of a certain type of fantastically annoying teacher. Chancellor captures all his wife?s awkward social climbing, frustration and loneliness in this heart-breaking portrayal of failure-tinged lives.

Together, these two plays, each focussing on how one touch of kindness can lead to the self-inspection required to crack an otherwise closed shell provide a wonderfully classy evening?s entertainment.

South Downs/The Browning Version plays at the Harold Pinter Theatre, 6 Panton Street, St James, London, SW1 until 21 July. Tickets cost between £25 and £75. Visit www.browningversion.com to find out more. Londonist saw South Downs/The Browning Version on a review ticket from Cornershop PR.

Welcome to the latest episode of Londonist Out Loud, a podcast about London. You can listen in-browser, or subscribe via iTunes or RSS.

News and Views
Londonist Out Loud is presented and produced by N Quentin Woolf. This week’s show comes from the Charing Cross Hotel, the most central hotel in London, and originally built as a rail hotel for French visitors.

His guests this week are:

Charity theatre project V Day London is performing its annual production of The Vagina Monologues in Peckham this year.

Alongside Eve Ensler’s episodic 1990s play, the group are producing a complementary piece, A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer (monologues by Edward Albee, Susan Miller, Maya Angelou, actress Kathy Najimy and others), to raise funding and awareness for V Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls.

The production is being staged in Peckham’s Bussey Building from tonight, and features a combination of professional actors and local people, some of whom have never set foot on a stage before.

This year’s charities are Bede House in Southwark, which helps victims of Domestic Violence & LGBT Hate Crime, and Women and Girls of Haiti, which supports a national program in Haiti led by a coalition of women activists addressing sexual violence through art, advocacy, safe shelter and legal services.

If you’re yet to see a show at The Bussey Building on Rye Lane, you’re missing out. Last year we were lucky enough to see some of the Royal Court’s work performed at the old cricket bat factory. Next month the Sloane Square powerhouse returns, staging Belong and Vera Vera Vera at the venue between 31 May and 28 July, as part of their Theatre Local season.

The Vagina Monologues and A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer run until 28 April at The Bussey Building, 133 Rye Lane, London, SE15 4ST. Visit www.vdaylondon.co.uk to find out more. Theatre Local is at the Bussey Building from 31 May until 28 July. Visit www.royalcourttheatre.com for more details.

Book, poetry and spoken word events in London this week

Wednesday: Times journalist Ben McIntyre is at the Bloomsbury Institute talking about D-Day spies (6.30pm, £30 / £10 without book).

Pete the Temp hosts Jawdance from Apples and Snakes at Rich Mix, with Isley Lynn, Keith Drake, Paula Varjack and Wizard of Skill (7.30pm, free).

Thursday: Norton Juster celebrates the 50th anniversary of The Phantom Tollbooth’s UK publication with Foyles (6.30pm, free).

Dorian Lynskey discusses the history of protest songs at the Big Green Bookshop (7pm, free).

Tony White launches his new novel Dicky Star and the Garden Rule, at the Free Word Centre (6.30pm).

Anna Le and Byron Vincent join Dan Cockrill, Martin Galton, Rob Auton and Peter Hayhoe for fun and japes at Bang Said the Gun (8pm, £5).

Tom Holland talks about the rise of the Arab Empire at Daunt Books in Marylebone (7pm, £8).

Poets Joe Dresner, Ruth O’Callaghan and Chris Beckett launch the new issue of Ambit magazine at the Owl Bookshop in Kentish Town (7pm, free).

Friday: Graphic novelist Darryl Cunningham talks about his latest publication investigating science myths and controversies at North Finchley Library (6.30pm, free, call 020 8359 3845 to reserve a place).

Hylda Sims presents Fourth Friday poetry from Valerie Laws and Norbert Hirschhorn plus music from Rattle on the Stovepipe at the Poetry Cafe (8pm, £6 / £5).

Saturday: Take your children to the Deptford Lounge and discover the world of Dickens with Sandra Agard (11.30am, free). There’s more Dickens at King’s College with a full day’s Dickensfest (from 10am, free). There’s even more to do as Cityread London draws to a close.

Nicholas Sparks discusses his novel The Lucky One, recently made into a film, at Foyles (3.30pm, £3).

Sunday: Bands and Books returns to Dalston, the books coming from Molly Naylor and Abigail Tartellin (7.30pm, £3 / £5).

Lip Thumb & Toe end their storytelling season at Brockley’s Jam Circus with guest appearances from Miranda Roszkowski and Lewis Barefoot (7pm, £5).

Monday: Dfiza Benson and Dominic Berry are the featured performers at erotic literary soirée Velvet Tongue, plus appearances by Becky Fury, Katie Sarra, Annie Player and more (7pm, £3).

DA Prince, Matt Bryden, Paul Stephenson and Josh Ekroy launch issue 13 of Fourteen Magazine at the Poetry Cafe (7.30pm, £1 / £4 including copy of mag).

Tuesday: This is going to be a top night: YARN presents The Special Relationship storytelling night, with Tom Basden, Sam Taradash, Jarred McGinnis, Rich Fulcher, Nikesh Shukla and Craig Taylor at Shoreditch’s Book Club (7.30pm, £5).

If you want to see Ben McIntyre cheaper than the event on Wednesday, head to Daunt Books in Marylebone where it’s £8 including a glass of wine and a discount on the book (7pm).

Brian Cummings gives a talk on Shakespeare and the Reformation at the British Academy (6pm).

Book ahead: It’s not just Dickens’s 200th birthday this year, it’s also Edward Lear’s. One celebration that’s bound to be popular features Michael Rosen and Roger McGough at the British Library on 13 May (2.30pm, £7.50 / £5).

Follow @LondonistLit for our pick of that day?s literary events

These pages have been positively chiming with film festivals recently. Spinning out cinema into imaginative packages is a trend that shows no sign of slowing. Next up is the Sci-Fi London Film Festival. Now in its 11th year, the nine-day festival caters for “low-budget, interesting or foreign science fiction films”.

The most eye-catching event is sure to be the costume parade on Sunday 29 April. It’s free to take part, just turn up dressed as a zombie, stormtrooper, Ewok, cyborg, or any other miscreation that takes your fancy.

The remaining programme contains dozens of events, including new movie screenings, a Boris Karloff tribute to mark his 125th birthday, a celebration of the ZX Specturm and a sci-fi pub quiz. The action takes place at the Apollo Piccadilly, BFI Southbank and BAFTA between 29 April and 7 May.

We’ve got another pub-style quiz coming up, and this one’s a bit special.

We’ll be at the National Maritime Museum on the evening of 18 May with a quiz all about the River Thames. The Liquid History quiz, written and hosted by Londonist editor Matt Brown, will test your knowledge of the river’s history, geography, landmarks, oddities and, to tie in with the museum’s current exhibition, its royal connections. If you’ve been to one of our quizzes before, you’ll know to expect devilish picture rounds, a torrent of unusual trivia and plenty of Londony goodies for the winners.

The quiz forms the main attraction at the museum’s Friday Night Social event. You can keep your team fuelled with ales from Greenwich’s Meantime Brewery, then hear a talk by beer writer Peter Haydon all about the history of brewing on the Thames. There’ll also be a free beer-tasting.

Tickets must be booked in advanced, either at £5.50 for an individual or £16 for a team of four. Reserve your table here.