Dear Readers,
Good evening and welcome to another installation of Capital Letter.
We remain committed to letting you know the ins and outs of London life as it stands, something a wonderfully growing number of you seem keen on. A reminder then, that if you want to access our lovely tailored map with all of our recommendations, as well as back issues to check that great tip from two weeks ago you can’t quite remember, you can sign up as a paid subscriber.
If you have any tips or are keen to contribute yourself to this growing ‘vertical’ about the capital, we’d be very interested to hear your thoughts. Our hearing trumpet is tuned into editorial@the-fence.com.
We have a broad offering this time round, covering important trees, and some should-be stars, but we’re looking to the art world first.
We’re in Montauk Until September
August is a quiet month for London’s art world. Collectors are out of town; successful gallerists are following them to Hydra or the Hamptons; unsuccessful gallerists are closing their doors for a month to save on electricity and staff. While tumbleweeds float through Mayfair, we look to the north-west for this edition’s exhibition recon.
Housed in a Victorian building that was once the Hampstead Central Library, the Camden Art Centre is one of our city’s best public galleries. More manageable in scale and imaginative in programming than most London museums, it has hosted some of London’s best exhibitions in recent memory. These include outings by the Canadian prankster Allison Katz and the late Texan visionary freak Forrest Bess, both candidates for our show of the decade.
Our only quandary is why it chooses to rep Camden over Frognal, that oft-overlooked left toe of Hampstead where it stands. It has been suggested that the gallery’s name played into the parsimonious Arts Council’s decision to cut its funding in 2022, part of a mandate to redistribute funding from London’s buzzy centres to less touristic outer zones. Perhaps, had the person signing off the £300k-plus cut looked at a map, they would have realised that – although nominally in the Borough of Camden – the Centre is far enough up the Finchley Road to receive no passing trade from its punks, drunks and Insta-foodies.
Luckily, this blow was weathered, and the gallery recently raised the money to buy its building’s lease for the next 99 years. Praise be. We recommend celebrating by visiting their current exhibition, a beautiful and thought-provoking multimedia meditation on authorship by the artist Duane Linklater. To underscore the exhibition’s central premise, that art-making is necessarily the work of many hands, Linklater has enlisted his son, wife and grandmother to contribute to the show.
Most impressive is a room filled with architectural paintings, rendered not in oil and acrylic but with the moody tones of sumac, tobacco and charcoal. Their subject matter is yet darker: they are based on Ontario’s Bishop Fauquier Memorial Chapel. Built in the late 19th century using the labour of Indigenous children, the chapel housed them as a ‘residential school’, a disturbing instrument of what is now recognised to be a cultural genocide.
On your way home, we recommend stopping off at Swiss Cottage to witness the setting of the writer, editor and friend of The Fence Leo Robson’s recent debut novel The Boys. Continue walking southward to follow its protagonist’s regular ramble down to Regent’s Park.
JG Ballardburger
Is there a more dystopian experience to be had than noshing down on a bacon double cheeseburger at Bleecker Burger on Old Compton Street? It’s frequently cited as the best in town – and it really should be, at £14.95. You’d expect some service at that price, not waiting for your buzzer to trill in your pocket as you watch the delivery drivers come in and out the door. The burger may be good, but there is no more miserable dining experience in W1.
If you’re looking for a quick bite in Soho, might we recommend Breadstall on Berwick Street? The pizza has been raved about by Jay Rayner himself, and it’s a friendly welcome inside, where you can sit still for half an hour with a Coke, or an iced margarita if you’re feeling flush.
Time’s Wingéd Chariot Draws Near
The Leigh Bowery show at the Tate Modern closes at the end of the month, and really is worth seeing, not least to observe people dragging their kids around the least child-friendly exhibition in living memory. And you’ve got two weeks to see Jenny Savile at the NPG, another blockbuster that you’ll kick yourself for not seeing in the months to come.
I’m Ready For My Close-Up
Theatre – and most specifically theatre producers – have always loved a star. Having a big name take on a big role does a lot for all involved. For producers, it sells the tickets; for the punters, it means even if the play’s crap, they feel they’ve got something special. Sometimes it means you get an incredible performance.
Recently, this love of the star has become turbocharged. Increasingly, theatre producers seem to be playing fast and loose in handing out big stage roles to debutants and rookies. Some have worked well. Evita’s Rachel Zegler seems to have worked very well, even though it was the film star’s second stage appearance. Brie Larson’s stage debut in Elektra went down less well.
The weirdest form this star casting has taken was probably 2:22 A Ghost Story, which had a full three-year run in the West End. Its opening run starred Lilly Allen in a role that was later taken on by Cheryl Cole, Laura Whitmore and Stacey Dooley.
A slew of plays have been put on whose whole form is helpfully centred around the useful premise that it needs a new performer every night, thus opening a door for a slew of famous and semi-famous names to be rapidly funnelled in.
This can occasionally be a happy accident. Nassim Soleimanpour’s first play White Rabbit, Red Rabbit was written with the intention that the actor would open the script on stage, not knowing what was inside it. The idea partly came about because Soleimanpour, an Iranian who refused to do national military service, was unable to leave the country at the time. His more recent show ECHO, which operates on a similar principl,e feels more directly geared towards getting the names in, but one feels he has more than earned such a luxury.
Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree recently ran with a list of guest stars, who joined Crouch on stage as the play’s second character. We saw this spot filled by Gen Z’s theatre darling Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who stood on stage, mostly confused, often distant and occasionally engaged. A very talented woman to be sure, but hemmed in by the structure of the play and the vast applause she received before she’d even done anything.
The biggest sinner, however, is the new run of Every Brilliant Thing, which has just opened up at @sohoplace (forgive the double at, that is what it is called). An egregiously superficial play about depression and suicide and how that’s life and isn't it good to remember how nice it is to have an ice cream on a sunny day, it is going to be performed by a cast of Lenny Henry, Ambika Mod, Minnie Driver, Sue Perkins and the show’s original performer Jonny Donnahoe. We saw Lenny. Lenny was fine. The play was deeply boring.
If you want a name to pay attention to, we recommend Adeel Akhtar. His recent performance in The Estate was phenomenal, and it has taken far too long for him to be recognised as a quality actor (the Guardian’s decision to caption a picture of the 44-year-old as a ‘rising star’ felt a little bizarre).
The Tree of Life
Two grapefruit trees in south London have been granted protected status. They were brought over from Grenada as saplings in the 1980s by Marline Anderson, who wanted to bring them as a gift to her new home. When she recently passed away, her property was set to return to Wandsworth Council, and the fear developed that it might go the way of many old trees of late and be cut down.
Thankfully, a lot of people mobilised, and recently the tree has been given protected status. It is a brilliant London rarity, and is likely the only grapefruit tree in London (and possibly the UK) outside of Kew Gardens. It now bears a plaque carrying a note from Marline: ‘Kindly refrain from picking fruit from the tree. You are welcome to gather what nature has let fall.’
Roses of Elagabalus
There are a few rather good queer bars that have been opening up across London recently. In Dalston, The Roses of Elagabalus – named after a Roman emperor who may have been trans – opened earlier this year. It has an entirely unassuming, almost off-putting front, but its interiors are something else: beautiful furniture, deep red curtains and warm lighting. Combined with its rabbit-warren architecture, it is a very nice place to sit and have a drink. With a basement dancefloor and a weekly ‘dinner and a show’, it has plenty to offer, and provides a not unwanted alternative to Dalston Superstore.
They have an interesting cocktail menu, which does not tell you their ingredients, but instead contains oblique references to what might be inside. We strongly recommend whatever sour they have going and the Old Pal, which is phenomenally boozy.
For those nearer to Broadway Market, last year, La Camionera held a highly successful fundraiser, raising around £80,000, and now has a permanent home. In doing so, it has become London’s second – yes, second – lesbian bar. It also runs as a cafe in the day and seems to have a warm atmosphere, if not quite as cuttingly chic as The Roses. It’s special, however, because it is the only lesbian bar in London in FLINT (female, lesbian, intersex, non-binary, trans and agender) ownership. London’s other lesbian bar, She Soho, is, of course, owned by a man.
So, for all of our straight readers, there are some rules about your attendance. It is ideal to go at the invitation of a queer friend. If your queer friend is failing to invite you, you could, at a push, try casually mentioning said locations, or offer to meet in the relevant area at a less cool spot and hope they correct you.
What you absolutely cannot do, and this does particularly apply to straight women, is start having big group nights out there. If you are reading this and thinking to yourself, ‘But what do you do if you don’t have a queer friend?’, please do not go to either of these bars.
That is that, and what a fun little outing it was. We’ll be back in a fortnight’s time. As ever, please send through tips, treats or recommendations to editorial@the-fence. Enjoy the last of the summer wine.
All the best,
TF