A fortnightly celebration of the folk history of the Olympic boroughs, in story and song.
In the final week of our second Olympic Borough, Greenwich, Ruairidh Anderson tells the story of Frenchman and anarchist Martial Bourdin, who exploded in Greenwich Park one winter’s morning.
‘It was a fresh February day in 1894 when young Frenchman Martial Bourdin left his house in Fitzroy Sreet central London for a jaunt across town. Catching a tram from outside the houses of Parliament, he must have enjoyed a relatively uncrowded journey, kept company only by his head full of ideals and the package under his arm.’
The remodelled Photographers’ Gallery on Ramillies Street, Soho will reopen on Saturday 19 May, with exhibitions of work by renowned Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky and New Delhi based Raqs Media Collective.
The gallery closed in September 2010, anticipating 14 months of nomadic existence, but its work has continued with off-site exhibitions (like the Deutsche Borse Prize at P3 and the site specific Soho Project), a satellite shop and print sales outlet on Warren Street and an ever excellent talk and events programme.
Six months later than expected, the revamped gallery will open its more welcoming doors in May with the hope that the ground-floor cafe — which will be run in partnership with Soho star deli, Lina Stores — will make the Photographers’ Gallery a busy, buzzy place to hang out.
Edward Burtynsky?s large-scale photographs from his widely acclaimed series OIL and video and sculpture work from Raqs Media Collective will adorn the exhibition space, which has been extended by two storeys. Sandwiched between the main exhibition spaces a ‘studio floor’ has been introduced, specifically designed for the education programme and creating a dedicated space for talks, workshops and archive study.
Controversy has attached itself to the new building during the renovation work. The gallery was accused of copyright infringement by photographer John Goldsmith after the architect unwittingly used one of his images in promotional material for the new building; not the gallery’s fault, but embarrassing nonetheless. Furthermore, in the past 18 months the V&A has also opened a new photography gallery, while work is underway on a London branch of the National Media Museum. Some have suggested that the Photographers’ Gallery is out of touch with the contemporary photography world, and questioned whether, given the increase in competition, a dedicated gallery is really necessary. We’ll find out in a few months time.
Comedy returns to Battersea Arts Centre like a bright beacon in the middle of winter. A mixture of works in progress and Edinburgh shows from circuit favourites, often two per night, this is a perfect way to be able to annoy your friends next time you’re watching a TV panel show by saying “oh, well, of course their full set’s much funnier”.
It kicks off on 15 February with sketch trio Pappy’s trying out new material and the best bits from Newborn Comedy ? generally a place for Ruth Bratt, Pippa Evans, Cariad Lloyd, Lucy Trodd and friends to try out new stuff, but this will be gags they know work.
The N2O Comedy Festival runs 15-25 February at Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, SW11. Tickets cost £10 / £8 or £12 / £10. See the BAC website for more information.
Art By Animals: At the Grant Museum from Wednesday.
London events for people with curious minds.
Tuesday 31 January HISTORY OF SCIENCE: Learn more about bacteria-botherer Sir Alexander Fleming and his connections with Imperial College, at said institution this lunch time. FREE, 12.30pm
MAYAN ASTRONOMY: Speak Spanish and want to learn more about the Mayans? Pop along to Imperial College, where this Spanish-language lecture will reveal the impressive mathematical and astronomical learnings of the ancient civilisation. FREE, 1pm
MEDICINE: Here’s a curious one: an exhibition about medical error or, rather, how to eliminate it. The Hunterian Museum’s latest small exhibition Make It Better, running today until 4 February, examines new designs and technologies that help reduce the risk of patients coming a-cropper in hospital wards. FREE
ASTRONOMY: What is the solar wind, and how far does it reach? A lecture at Queen Mary discusses these cosmic farts. FREE, 6.30pm
FOOD: Where does your dinner come from? Beyond Tesco, obviously. What could we eat if imports ever stopped? Is the UK self-sufficient in food? These and many other questions of the dinner plate are pondered at the Dana Centre tonight. FREE, 7pm
ARABIC SCIENCE: A-list science commentators Robert Winston and Jim Al-Khalili converge upon the Southbank Centre to discuss the many achievements of medieval Arabic science. £10, 8pm
Wednesday 1 February MONKEY PAINTING: Can animals make art, or does the beast-brush combo just lead to random splodges on canvas? Judge for yourself at a small exhibition of paintings by apes and elephants at the Grant Museum. FREE, runs till 9 March
LIKE A RECORD, BABY: Professor Carolin Crawford delivers a Gresham College lecture on the importance of rotation in the universe. Appropriately, the talk is on the giant roundabout that houses the Museum of London. FREE, 1pm
Thursday 2 February GOD/SCIENCE: Alain de Botton continues his waltz around the public speaking circuit to promote his new book about what atheism can learn from religious insights. Tonight he’s at LSE. FREE, 6.30pm
GENETICS: Professor Timothy Aitman looks ahead to the possible fruits of a genetics revolution, which would see our knowledge of the genome linked to many branches of medicine. FREE, 7pm
DARK ROMANCE: Is the title of the first Salon event of the year. Westbourne Grove Community Space is home to tonight’s gentle probing of the psychology of love, with a screenwriter, social commentator and poet each dissecting that unruly emotion. £10, 7.30pm
GEEK VARIETY: A few tickets are still available for the latest Festival of the Spoken Nerd show, at the Haymarket Theatre. Expect mathematical, scientific and experimental high-jinx and, as we can attest, a very amusing time. £12, 7.30pm
Saturday 4 February FAMILY BRAINS: Pop into the Royal Institution at any point today and meet Prof Bruce Hood, he of the recent Christmas Lectures, and Sophie Scott, who lead family-friendly activities on the theme of the brain. £10/£5, 11am-4pm
Sunday 5 February BIG OLD MACHINES: It’s the monthly opening of the Kirkaldy Testing Museum, a small museum devoted to engineering on Southwark Street. FREE, 11am-3pm
Booking Ahead
SPACETACULAR!: Like space and astronomy? How do you fancy a show that mixes real space science with space comedy, short films, tin-foil costumes and the legendary space quiz? Come along to Spacetacular! on 23 February at the Roxy near London Bridge. Londonist editor M@ and comedian Helen Keen host. Come as you are or come in space costume and get £1 off entry (redeemable on door). Book now. £5, 7pm
BRIGHT CLUB: The regular science-meets-variety night has another big gig at the Bloomsbury Theatre on 10 February. Researchers and comedians share a stage to talk about sex, romance and seduction. They’ve got that policeman out of Torchwood, and everything. £8, 7.30pm
IG NOBELS: The awards that celebrate science which ‘first makes you laugh, then makes you think’ are an annual highlight of the geek calendar. The 2012 roadshow once again sees host Marc Abrahams return to Imperial College to present the most outre science from the past year (the first recorded observation of same-sex necrophilia in mallards was a choice highlight from our most recent visit). The event takes place on 9 March and tickets are still available here.
TED: The ever-popular TED brand of talks returns to London with the Observer licensing the name to put on a series of short inspirational talks by thought leaders (whatever those are) from many different fields. The event at Sadler’s Wells on 10 March has a particular focus on the creativity of youth, with speakers including Plan B, Camilla Vallejo and Tilda Swinton. £60/£55
Anything to add? Let us know in the comments. Want to tip us off about future geeky events? Send an email to
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The Occupy movement have been evicted from their Bank of Ideas building in Sun Street just days after a failed occupation of another former banking office in the City.
A possession order was served on the protesters after the building’s owners, Swiss investment bank UBS, won a a legal case against the group. Occupy had attempted to shift operations to a new site in Leadenhall Street which housed the now-defunct Iraqi Rafidain Bank as well as the former Midland Bank at St Alphage Highwalk but they were evicted by police. They also took over and then abandoned Roman House in Barbican after concerns were raised that their presence would result in loss of work for contractors employed to strip asbestos from the building.
The Bank of Ideas has been open since 18 November 2011 and hosted a variety of arts and community events with talks, workshops, lectures, film screenings, conferences, debates and performances.
Could Occupy have lost their impetus with the latest series of evictions? We imagine that owners of empty buildings in the City must now be wise to the possibility of occupation and have taken appropriate measures to secure properties. The police are also not being slow to use their powers to prevent Occupy getting their feet under the table. Or are we simply looking at a cunning feint while the group prepare to re-open the Bank of Ideas somewhere unexpected? The group look set to lose their initial St Paul’s flagship site too after the City of London Corporation won their bid to remove the camp.
With the Olympics bearing down on London, protest camps are being targeted – the long-standing Parliament Square camp was recently removed and ministers have called upon Olympics organisers to ban tents to prevent Occupy-style camps from being pitched.
A video of Sunday’s eviction was streamed live on the Bank of Ideas website where the group say they will keep supporters up to date.
As reported by our friends in Shanghai, London hosted Europe’s biggest Chinese New Year celebration yesterday afternoon.
Mayor Boris Johnson tweeted that the event was ‘absolutely fantastic’ with a twitpic giving an amazing elevated view of the crowds thronging Trafalgar Square.
Members of DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) and UK Uncut chained themselves together across Regent Street. The government wants to reduce payments to what is now Disability Living Allowance, soon to be called Personal Independence Payments, by 20% (actually it’s a bit more complicated than that; see Channel 4′s FactCheck for a breakdown) ? a figure that campaigners and independent assessments say will result in genuine claimants losing benefits (government figures confirm just 0.5% of DLA benefits are paid out fraudulently).
The government was defeated on several key points in the Lords the other week but have vowed to overturn the overturning in the Commons. The protesters want to make sure MPs hear their concerns, hence 15 wheelchair users blocking the road supported by around 250 others. The Guardian has a good video of the day’s events. This isn’t the first protest London’s seen over welfare reform, and we can’t imagine it will be the last.
?We know he did it.? Author Simon Stephens sums up the premise of his new play in five simple words that prove anything but. Papa Ubu is guilty as hell and the audience knows it. A brutally comic opening twenty minutes sees Ubu, his Lady Macbeth-esque wife and his team of Scottish assassins chop King Wenceslas in pieces, shouting ?Pile on ?las?. Then they systematically drop the entire aristocracy, judiciary and military down a trap door into a cellar where they all die — 1500 murders in all, apparently. As Ubu puts it, ?I changed the rules: simple innit. I?ll make my fortune, kill the whole world and bugger off.?
The focus of Stephens? thrillingly intelligent play is the trial of Papa Ubu, 93 years after these events, for crimes against humanity. Ubu Roi, written at the turn of the century by absinthe-loving wild child Alfred Jarry, is a blackly comic satire on abuse of power that influenced 20th century drama in all sorts of ways. Stephens brings it screeching into the 21st century by asking how we would deal with a real life Ubu right now, if he came before the international courts. Recent such trials, involving figures such as Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic or Charles Taylor, share disturbing parallels.
A highly ingenious play, already acclaimed in Germany, The Trial of Ubu is given an appropriately disconcerting staging by the queen of conceptual direction, Katie Mitchell. The opening atrocities, extracted from Jarry?s play, are performed by scatological puppets through a small window in the fire curtain. The puppet show combines violent Punch and Judy traditions with horrific genocide, making for some guilty audience hilarity.
When the action leaps to 2011, we see Ubu?s trial almost entirely through the reactions of the two female interpreters who are translating the proceedings in a booth. Their mood shifts gradually from professionalism, to giggling, to weariness, to drained disbelief at what they are hearing. The actors — Nikki Amuka-Bird and Kate Duchêne on top form — actually fast forward themselves, speeding up their actions to skip passages of time as the trial drags on for months. The result is both a defence and critique of the International Criminal Court, both a suspect institution and a major achievement for humanity.
The Trial of Ubu is a very high quality piece, and it helps to confirm the suspicion that the Hampstead Theatre under Edward Hall is becoming an essential venue (albeit an expensive one). Mitchell and Stephens — talented, prolific and versatile — are at the peaks of their careers and make an impressive team. The latest in a succession of fascinating plays from Stephens, The Trial of Ubu is exactly what new drama should be — built on tradition but clear-headed, politically incisive and highly watchable.
The Trial of Ubu is at the Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London NW3 3EU until 25 February, tickets £29 (£12 concessions).
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