Dear Readers,
Good afternoon, and welcome to the latest edition of Capital Letter. It’s been a long, hot summer so far, with the mercury showing little sign of dipping back downward; no time to be cooked up indoors, and all the better for it. The Style Council had a song about this phenomenon, but we forget what it’s called.
For the thousands of you that have subscribed so far, we hope that our tips have been keeping you entertained, whichever corner of the capital you’re coming from. A reminder that a) we have all of our recommendations on a lovely Google map, able to be stored on your phone to guide you through any bout of boredom, and b) we’re not handing out the link anymore. Below is what it looks like, but you’ll have to find it in one of our old editions, now behind the paywall.
Do keep telling us when you’ve enjoyed one of our suggestions, and be sure to share this newsletter with anyone you think may like it – we’re not about gatekeeping here, and nothing would cheer us more than to hear that a business or beauty spot has been overrun by Capital Letter subscribers.
This time around, we have the campest of churches, elysian villages within city limits, a review of the new Stewart Lee show and the south London vintage emporium that fashionistas would rather keep under wraps. But first, a little ladle of transgressive stage satire.
Lay, Lady, Lay
In the realm of theatre, we have two commendations right from the heart of Soho, which is, we concede, often not the best place for actually good theatre.
Most exciting was Ugly Sisters, which played upstairs at Soho and closed last weekend. It is a completely unique show, taking an infamously nasty article written by Germaine Greer, called ‘On Why Sex Change Is A Lie’, about a trans woman who came up to her on the day of The Female Eunuch’s release and said ‘Thank you – thank you so much for all you’ve done for us girls’. The piece imagines this interaction as a larger unrequited love story. Unusually for shows set squarely on exploring identity, it is also genuinely funny, avoids reductions and is very sharply thought through, and its creators and performers Charli Cowgill and Laurie Ward are exceptional. This show will return to the stage very soon, we are sure, but if you do nothing else, take a note of those names above – there’s plenty more to come from this talented pair.
For those who are more forward planning (or perhaps haven’t mastered time travel), one of the best shows from the start of this year is having a surprise revival. Revenge: After The Levoyah is a story about two twins pressured into a bizarre plan to kidnap Jeremy Corbyn right after their grandfather’s funeral. It is Jewish political satire at its strongest.
On Dick Whittington’s Trail
Psychogeography is quite passé, but there are few things more thrilling than walking down the Holloway Road of a summer afternoon. Clocking in at three miles, and teeming with traffic, it’s perhaps the only artery in London that has that New York vibrancy, the Spike Lee summer energy of Arthur Avenue or 125th.
There are many great pubs lying on the street. The Floirin and The Crown remain thankfully unpeopled by the Carhartt beanie boys. Many fantastic restaurants, too. Sambal Shiok. El Rincon. Best of all, though, is Alcedo, run by the most charming man in north London. Why this place is not packed out every evening of the week is beyond us. Now is the time to go – before the Arsenal fans return.
Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci
While the Voguettes may recommend a trip to Notting Hill to gorge deep on Rellik’s jewels, there is one second-hand store that London’s style mavens rigorously gatekeep. Luckily for them, it’s not easy to get to, so it’s stayed a secret (of sorts).
In a barn in south London, a distinguished Italian couple tend to the greatest collection of vintage clothing in the capital. Suits and dresses from the 1930s through to the present day, suitcases full of ties and accessories, shirts in multiple sizes, and most helpfully of all, Massimo and Dede have an exact knowledge of where every single item is kept.
If you go there, you’ll see some of the most famous designers in London whisking themselves around, buying treats for themselves and inspiration for new collections. It’s one of the best tips we’ll ever give in this newsletter: it’s Cenci in West Norwood, open six days a week.
The Man Who Wulf Be King
Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf (Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre) begins with the former taking the stage in jeans and T-shirt. There, he explains a little of the show’s premise, and reads some vaguely topical bonus gags he’s had to excise from its run-time - especially those which have become hilariously outdated in the time he’s been touring it. We won’t spoil them here, not least since one reference point he laments included has now become loadbearing, as it features in a prop which emerges halfway through the show and which, he tells us, cost him £6,000.
The premise for the show overall is simple enough: could an aging liberal stand-up like Lee have more success – financially, creatively, politically, morally – if he aped the style and approach of the right-leaning American Netflix comedians who sling bigoted slurs and repeat their call-and-response catchphrases at ear-splitting volume? What follows is a two-hour show (with intermission) in which he riddles this out, and eventually constructs an alter ego, The Man-Wulf, who can put his theory to the test.There are elaborate detours covering his professional bugbears and boring, artsy middle-aged obsessions, the depressing state of post-Trump politics and the vanishing consolations of Starmer’s Britain. All, it must be said, ballasted with potshots at his audience as a cohort of Guardian-reading elites, every bit as ineffectual and disconnected as he is. Lee is, after all, in the happy position of having a slavish following who love nothing more than to be attacked by him for their vapid dullness and cultural homogeneity, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s very, very funny when he does just this. Nor that his mastery of weaving stories in and out of his set, which produces half a dozen exquisitely fish-hooked callbacks in the first hour alone, is second to none.
There is some mild chaos here, a few fluffed lines, and momentary lapses of memory to which he draws attention from the stage. He decries the tech desk when some effects and smoke cues go awry, and affects disgust when crowd work sections ‘come to nothing’. But, as always with Lee, you get the sense that even these stumbles are character bits, performative feints from which he can turn to the quiver of barbs he keeps ready to use in almost any circumstance. It’s telling that it’s hard to figure out which, if any, are real. Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf presents a riotously smart and stupid rebuke to the ideas dominating comedy and culture in 2025, a stand-up at the peak of his powers, and an audience eating from the palm of his outstretched, furry claws.
Rus in Urbe
London may be a sprawl of some 9.8 million souls, but it is also full of deep, verdant countryside. There’s a farm in Ickenham that’s been tended by the same family for over 100 years. There’s even a stately home set in rolling parkland – entirely private – inside the M25. While many recommend a trip to the chocolate-box tweeness of the Chilterns for a grand day out, there is somewhere rather more beautiful closer to the capital.
Just outside the great circular motorway that marks the extent of the city is the Kentish village of Eynsford, and what a prospect it is.
It’s got everything you would want from a village: a swan-scattered ford, the remains of a Roman villa, Carolean pubs and more. You can get the train there, too: it’s just 45 minutes from London Bridge. We hope it will be submerged with TikTokers before the summer is out.
Wot Do U Call It?
Everyone knows what a gastropub is: it’s a pub that serves good food. There are some decent ones in London – The Cow is the only one in our Top 25 list – but they have been supplanted by something rather more subtle.
The Three Stoops, The Prince Arthur, The Walmer Castle and The Bull and Last – these are a new breed of establishments, of what we might call ‘restaurants-pretending-to-be-pubs’. If you go to The Cow in Notting Hill or The Eagle in Farringdon, you are very welcome as a drinker, and there are more locals and regulars at both establishments. Not so at these new places, which prioritise diners, have stonking wine lists and serve pretty average food at West End prices. We get it from a financial perspective, it’s just a bit… off. What do you call these places? Let us know in the comments below or via the usual channels.
File Upon File
The London Archives in Angel is a phenomenal collection to have at your fingertips. They have a vast amount of documents, both digital and physical from 1000 years of London history, all catalogued and searchable online and – behind only a small bit of form filling – completely free to access. You can, with only two days’ notice, be holding in your hands handwritten documents, papers, letterbooks, blueprints and charts from the city’s rich history.
In our most recent visit, we were poring over the records of many of the country’s poor-relief organisations – known as the Boards of Guardians. This may sound like an odd way to spend a day off, but there is something intrinsically fascinating about seeing the inner workings of an organisation operating from the capital more than a century ago, especially since much of the Archive’s material was never intended for publication; it's a chance to catch a historical figure with their guard down.
For those so inclined, they also have a vast record of family records, which enable anyone with roots in the soil of the city to trace their lineage as far back as it can go. Best of all, it’s located directly next to Exmouth Market, if you fancy a long lunch at Quality Wines – which you should, after all that rummaging. Sup on a slightly fizzy white from Biarritz, and go see if Nick Bramham has the lobster roll back on the menu. Your ancestors never had it so good.
No Drama
If you are trying to convert a friend into the pleasures of churchgoing, then you should start with St Paul’s, Covent Garden. You must have charged past the Inigo Jones facade before, greatly irritated by the tourist-panhandling being performed outside on the piazza.
But step inside and you will find one of the most amusing churches in London, the neoclassical interior cheered by a Grinling Gibbons pulpit and memorials dotted everywhere to four centuries of actors. Since the Restoration, this has been the players’ church. The austerity of the church blends sweetly with the campness of the stage – there are the ashes of Dame Ellen Terry, held for ever more. There’s the memorial to Barbara ‘Babs’ Windsor, with the inscription bearing the message ‘Get Out Of My Pub’. There’s nowhere else like this in England, possibly the world.
And so concludes our eleventh effort, hopefully putting paid to the spare gaps in your summer schedule. If this list has given you a hunger for further recommendations, climb on over the paywall for literally hundreds more places to visit. Wherever you go, whatever you do, we hope you enjoy yourselves. Catch you in a fortnight.
All the best,
TF