With its new Roast + Conch shop at Seven Dials, British luxury chocolate brand Hotel Chocolat brings small batch chocolate making to London. Cocoa beans from the company’s Rabot Estate plantation on Saint Lucia are delivered fresh to the shop and converted daily into a range of ?rare? chocolate batches in an open basement kitchen where customers are free to view. The upstairs retail space has been in operation since a soft launch back before Christmas but the downstairs yum factory has only opening over the past week. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, eh?
In addition to gawking at the manufacture of fine chocolate, the new venue presents punters with a chance to sample Hotel Chocolat’s ?cacao cuisine? menu developed at the company’s own restaurant on Saint Lucia. Wraps and open sandwiches cost about a fiver and include savoury sounding numbers such as duck confit with roasted cocoa nibs and goat’s cheese with walnuts and dark chocolate. Hmmm ? Londonist might need to head back there soon to review the lunch menu.
Roast + Conch is located at 4 Monmouth Street (or 180 Shaftesbury Avenue depending on which door you enter), WC2H 8JB.
Thomas Middleton and William Rowley?s 17th-century masterpiece sees the maiden, Beatrice-Joanna, attempt to dispose of her betrothed, Alonzo, so she can marry her true love, Alsemero. When, however, she conscripts De Flores, an ugly servant who obsessively dotes on her, to assassinate the former she soon learns money will not be his reward.
Director Joe Hill-Gibbins sets the piece in the modern day, while Ultz?s designs place the action in a gladiatorial-style arena with the audience seated around, or looking down from on high. The stage is strewn with beds, dressing rooms, cages and disco booths, while the action employs a range of surreal effects. Sex is portrayed through passionate jelly rubbing, wounds are inflicted by hurling custard, while deaths result from jam flinging, drowning in punch, and dowsing in foam from a fire extinguisher.
If the staging is undoubtedly bold, what it signifies is somewhat less clear. The approach is, however, effective in generating atmosphere, and over the two hours’ running time we genuinely feel the spiraling descent from order and general innocence into chaos and total depravity. The experience is aided by strong performances from Jessica Raine and Daniel Cerqueira, with Beatrice?s enigmatic transition from hating the sight of De Flores to becoming totally dependent upon him played out convincingly before our very eyes.
So how does Hill-Gibbins? colourful creation strictly rate as a production of The Changeling? Given the uniqueness of the staging, it feels almost an irrelevant question, but this is an evening that will undoubtedly appeal to your alternative, fun-loving streak. By the same token, however, it is definitely not one for the purists.
Until 25 February 2012. Tickets: 020 7922 2922 or from the Young Vic website.
With crushing inevitability, public transport in London suffered major disruption last night despite official insistence the city was prepared for a “mega deposit of snow“.
In the end the capital received a very pretty couple of inches but, as Annie Mole and Mayorwatch demonstrate, every single tube line was affected (even the Northern line, which looks fine on those screengrabs, had problems at least Golders Green-Edgware at one point). On Friday TfL and the Mayor had released a press statement describing what cold weather measures were in place, with points heaters, a team of engineers on standby and use of “ice mode” on the Metropolitan line (suspended north of Wembley Park last night) plus compressed air systems and wheel slip protection on the Central line (entirely suspended last night). Boris Johnson said:
“Across all our roads and rails hundreds of workers are on standby to ensure that, should we receive a mega deposit of snow, we are in a position to keep the capital moving.”
We suspect the Mayor may come to regret overdoing the rhetoric with “mega deposit”. His Twitter feed had this to say earlier:
That “most” is technically true, but probably best not to tell that to anyone trying to use the Bakerloo, Central and Jubilee lines this morning.
And as surely as night follows day, train services experienced problems too. Despite Southeastern and Network Rail spending around £40m each on cold weather preparedness, this was the situation at London Bridge last night:
One train was actually announced as being “178 minutes late from Orpington“. The situation across all routes is far better this morning, though still be prepared for some delays and cancellations.
Among the many reinterpretations we’ve seen of the Tube map, this has to be among the most visually pleasing: a chromatic diagram that represents “the intersections between the colours of the lines when their opacity is set at 50%”. It’s best viewed at a larger size to appreciate the intricacy of what’s going on.
The diagram is the work of Francisco Dans, who previously designed the twisted Tube map we saw last year. As Francisco himself notes, it “doesn?t really correspond to reality”, but it’s an original way of looking at the network and would make an attractive wall print. Handily, it’s available to buy on Francisco’s website.
Sunday: Max and Ivan’s Roffle Club brings you character and sketch comedy from Clever Peter, Cariad Lloyd, The Three Englishmen and Nick Helm, all at the Leicester Square Theatre (7.30pm, £8 / £6).
Monday: Still at Leicester Square Theatre, it’s Stand Up Tragedy: part cabaret, part variety, all tragedy. There’s massive list of guests, including Festival of the Spoken Nerd-ers Steve Mould, Matt Parker and Helen Arney, Alison Thea-Skot, Tony Hickson, Liars? League, author Tania Hershman, Emily Lewsen and Radcliffe Royds from storytellers Spark London, MJ Hibbett, Richard Tyrone Jones, Vanessa Gebbie and possibly more, all put together by Dave Pickering (7pm, £10 / £8).
Tuesday: Hip hop improvisers Abandoman headline The Distraction Club at the Phoenix (8pm, £7.50 / £10), plus more musical comedy from Wilfredo, Christian Reilly, The Segue Sisters, Matt Blair and your glorious hosts, Mitch Benn and the Distractions.
Wednesday: Celia Pacquola’s quirky observations are deservedly getting her on TV: see her IRL at Duke’s Headliners in Putney (8pm, £6 / £7), with Benny Boot, Joel Dommet, Brett Goldstein and Carly Smallman.
Thursday: Tonight is perfect to catch two very talented comedians at the Soho Theatre: Mark Watson (also novelist and part of the brilliant We Need Answers team) is on at 7.45pm (£15 / £12.50) followed by Andy Zaltzman (part Political Animal, part Bugle podcast, part cricket writer) at 9.30pm (£10-£15).
Friday: This is an excellent line-up: James Sherwood, Tom Wrigglesworth, Ben Norris and the relentless Tony Law at Banana Cabaret in Balham (9pm, £14 / £10).
Saturday: Canadian Dana Alexander headlines at tonight’s Hampstead Comedy Club (see her in action below), alongside Josh Howie, Chris Neil and host Ivor Dembina (8.30pm, £10 / £8.50).
Book ahead: Following the excruciatingly honest and brilliant Do Nothing tour, there are still a few tickets left for Simon Amstell‘s new show at Richmond on 20 May (£21) and Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 8 and 9 June (£23 + fees).
Tip us off to intelligent, alternative, friendly comedy gigs, clubs and shows around London:
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A Door In A Wall are the outrageously clever and creative bunch behind the mad murder mystery games that send you crawling for clues around London. As a follow up to our joint Music Hall Chairs event last year, they’re wheeling out a mix of tried ‘n’ tested and totally new devilry for a night of ‘Novel Entertainments’ at the Book Club this month.
Can you get the better of….
The Top Trump: a rapid-fire challenge of one-upmanship, celebrating the many faces of America’s favourite celebrity tycoon
Smuggler’s Run: it?s customs agents vs contraband carriers in this game of bribery, deception and betrayal
Chaebol: play your cards right to fight for control of a corporate empire via shrewd investments, shifting alliances and boardroom dealing
Mix and Match: seek out your musical twin and avoid impostors in a game where dance is your only weapon
Take up the Novel Entertainments challenge on Tuesday 21 February in the basement of the Book Club, Leonard Street, Shoreditch from 6.30pm – 11.30pm. £5 on the door. The whisper down the wind is that there may be a new big treasure hunt game coming up in May…
London’s ‘most-talked-about-new-shopping-mall-built-from-shipping-containers’, Boxpark Shoreditch is offering a cool 20% off food and drink for the whole of February.
Use your month-long 20% discount to try burgers at Bukowski, salads at Chop’d, juices from Crussh, cake ‘n’ coffee in Foxcroft and Ginger, frozen yoghurt from Frae, Vietnamese at Hop Namo, Burritos by Mexway or pies by Pieminister throughout February.
As an added bonus, you could be tucking into a #freelunch from Bukowski and Frae on Saturday or Hop Namo on Sunday if you follow @Boxpark on Twitter. And by #freelunch they mean proper meals for two people with booze or soft drinks included.
Check @Boxpark for #freelunch between 8am and 1pm each day to see how you can enter!
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