Dear Readers,
Good afternoon, and welcome to another edition of Capital Letter, our guide to how to live in London now. There are some fantastic things to see and do over the next fortnight and beyond.
We are delighted that more of you are writing in asking to write for us. There are two guest contributors today, and if you’d like to join that number, please email editorial@the-fence.com and we’ll come back to you there.
This time out, there is a guide to Walworth, and some strong words about cocktails in the capital. But we’ll start by talking about an old friend of this newsletter.
I for Icon
As we have detailed before, Saatchi Yates is London’s most embarrassing gallery, and they have a blockbuster new exhibition which has, we reckon, upheld their reputation. It contains 1,200 photographs of Marina Abramović, with a strange attempt to morph into a nightclub. The lineup of industrial dance music was impressive (if a little incongruous with the Mayfair locale). The event itself, according to revelers, was not. A fire alarm blasted for two hours, the floor quickly became slick with spilled booze, and desperate punters tried to break into the office, searching with frenzied eyes for a toilet.
The artist herself was (sort of) present: locked away in a back room with the inner circle, away from the carnage and, presumably, with access to a bathroom. By the end of the night, we hear, at least two prints had been stolen from the walls.
If you’re looking for something more civilised, around the corner at the Royal Academy, the American painter Kerry James Marshall’s largest ever European exhibition is a cinematic voyage through the history of painting, global black history and the history of America. Fittingly, it’s titled The Histories.
It’s a sprawling show, filling 11 galleries with mostly monumental canvases from Marshall’s four decades of painting. It freewheels through tropes and motifs from the last few centuries of painting, lending a certain loftiness to its often-quotidian subjects. Marshall’s is an art of pomp and grandeur, usually applied with a wry smile.
The painting that leaves the longest-lasting impression, though, is the smallest in scale. Scarcely larger than a postcard, A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self (1980) was painted when Marshall was 25 (he’s now 70). It’s one of the only artworks of the last 50 years that can be accurately described as iconic – a word grievously overused by art people. It depicts a jet-black figure – which has become Marshall’s most recognisable motif – against a navy blue background, more void than person. His eyes and ominously grinning mouth are a stark contrast and, in the centre of the image, another void is created by a missing tooth. Originally purchased by the collector Steven Lebowitz for $850, it was gifted to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, from which it’s on loan here, in 2019. It’s worth this exhibition’s hubristic £25 entry price to see this work alone.
Though he’s better known for his expansive pastorals, depicting everyday scenes with levity and irony, Marshall’s best paintings all range from the unsettling to the macabre. On one end of the scale, his 1998 Souvenirs series depicts an exhausted looking angel Gabriel visiting a series of middle-class homes, each decorated with tens of tributes to dead presidents and activists. At the other end, Portrait of Nat Turner with the Head of his Master (2011) is exactly what it says it is – and is another image that we’ll forgive you for describing with the I-word.
Guzzle Guzzle Guzzle
It is, apparently, London Cocktail ‘Week’ from 9-19 October, a bizarre-looking thing which has, through the well-applied means of PR, secured a great many endorsements from a great many papers and magazines. We will not be conned, however, and we don’t want you to be, either.
For a mere £20, you get… a wristband. This, their website boasts, will get you ‘access’ to £9 signature cocktails, £6 mocktails and £6 ‘tiny cocktails’. If this seems too good to be true, they also offer ‘hundreds of cocktail events and one-off experiences happening throughout the festival - as well as special menus, immersive pop-ups and international take-overs happening all over town.’ None of this is included in the cost of the wristband.
Even worse, the specially selected list of bars contains some of the naffest the capital has to offer. Sushi Samba, Aqua Kyoto, the Perception Bar, Gordon Ramsay’s Lucky Cat, Mr Fogg’s Treehouse (or indeed, his anything) and Swift (any of them will do, but the Soho one is Hinge date o’clock).
Of course, there are many brilliant cocktail bars in London. You could simply go to The Connaught, Claridges, or the Donovan Bar instead – only for one, mind, but savour it.
Les Petites Mains
The Barbican has recently begun its autumn season, which has a loose fashion theme. The main element of this is a mixed exhibition of fashion pieces that incorporate themes of dirt and decay. A short documentary called Dirty Girls focusing on a group of schoolgirls who deliberately engaged in off-putting behaviour and hygiene as a form of rebelling, alongside some brilliant pieces by Issey Miyake and Alexander McQueen.
Accompanying it is some quite adventurous programming at the theatre. Last weekend, we caught LACRIMA, a three-hour tech-filled show telling a story about the world of high fashion. It was a truly fascinating show, with almost every scene being channeled through a series of remarkably well hidden cameras. It produces an odd effect for a theatre audience, because you spend a great deal of your time watching the screen above the stage, rather than the stage itself, and not just because most of the dialogue is in French.
Unlike other shows pulling in elements of TV and film, this works because it isn’t just shoved in for the sake of a USP. At every stage, the cameras form an essential part of the storytelling. A particularly nice touch is that between some scenes, the cast make their way over to dressing tables on the side of the stage, making themselves into their next character while a camera films them.
There were some silly parts. The child of the French designers is one of those characters in a play who has no real internal logic, and only exists to make something happen on stage. Likewise, the useless and aloof owner of the fashion house – beaming in to blame everyone for having done no work – starts out funny but becomes increasingly ridiculous. But the multimedia approach does some truly incredible things, and its sprawling three-hour runtime allows for some very subtle and tender moments that would probably be cut out of ‘neater’ scripts.
It’s a reminder to keep an eye on the Barbican’s theatre programming, which can often be a bit more ambitious than you might expect from a large institution that does so many other things. Their recent staging of Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape starring Stephen Rea was easily one of the best things we have or are likely to see this year. They can often prove an interestshort runsing home for short-runs of touring productions. This was the case of LACRIMA, which only played three night runs, and is the case forROHTKO(it’s a good season for fans of caps lock), which will have four performances starting today and ending on Sunday. The latter is another multi-media, multi-language extravaganza and well worth a gamble on going by the Barbican’s recent form.
Moptop Wasteland
This week we have some insight from Mr Tom Braham, barber at A Nod Is As Good As A Wink and somewhat of a recommendations connoisseur himself. He’s got some insider advice on a crucial topic – how to pick a barber who isn’t going to ruin your hair.
How do you choose your barber? Like their trims on Insta? Drawn to the flashy shop with free beer? Or just happened to be passing, realised you probably needed to sort out that disgrace of a barnet and thought ‘what the fuck’? However you got there, here’s what you really need to know about the person wielding blades around your head.
The first thing you might like to contemplate is that in the UK, your barber needs no qualifications to enter the trade. None whatsoever. Think about that. Your mate could buy scissors and a comb, some nice clippers and a cut-throat razor and open a barbershop tomorrow. The premise’s fit-out might be great, but the mug behind the chair hasn’t had to prove their proficiency in actually cutting hair or indeed that they can do so safely. You’re only ever one brash move away from bloodletting in a barber’s.
In the USA, each state will license barbers only after successfully completing practical and health and safety tests, which you’ll have to sit again – well stand again, you’re a barber after all – if you wish to work across a state line. Despite trade organisations lobbying governments here for years to introduce these controls, they continue to ignore the sector (which won’t surprise you looking at Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson’s lids).
Your hope then is that the type of person drawn towards tonsorial artistry – a noble and venerated profession – is diligent, dextrous and dedicated. A reliable fellow of sound character. A good egg. What you are in reality faced with is a ragtag group of delinquents who’d be hard pushed to hold down any sort of normal job, perhaps finding themselves in barbering because they couldn’t hold down any sort of normal job.
So where should you get a cut? The folks at Strong Arm Steady are highly experienced and a very welcoming bunch – the kind who respect your locks, rather than looking at you as another obstacle in between them and closing time. They’ve got shops in Peckham, Deptford and Brockley, so there’s a good few options. For those north of the river, Slider Cuts on Hackney Road can’t be beat. Likewise, there’s a decent barbershop called A Nod Is As Good As A Wink near the Angel, though I say so myself.
Welcome to Jolyon Country
Following last edition’s meander round Finsbury Park, Cameron Allan got in touch to recommend his patch of the city. You should consider doing the same via editorial@the-fence.com.
Tell someone you live in Walworth and the response is predictable: a vacant stare, or a half-arsed joke about Woolworth’s closing down years ago. If they have heard of it, expect a wrinkled nose – as if you were really living in the gutted and decrepit shell of a variety store that shuttered in 2009.
Walworth is a stubborn, characterful wedge of our city, stuck between the Elephant & Castle’s looming glass towers and Time Out’s ‘4th coolest neighbourhood in the world’: Camberwell.
East Street market is the main stage where old London jives with the global city. Six days a week, costermongers bark the beat, as bargain hunters weave through bowls of cut-price veg, fish you’ve never seen and misprinted branded goods. Cockney harmonises with Spanish as sellers keep pace with the growing Latin American community, displaced south from The Elephant’s move upmarket. Unlike Broadway and Borough market, it’s joyful cacophony, dutifully serving the same community it has for centuries.
The Walworth Road beyond is a culinary gauntlet of hidden gems. It hosts one of the finest Chinese restaurants in the city. Skip the once-brilliant Dragon Castle, now coasting on lukewarm rice, and head to Lao Dao, a crown jewel serving Xinjiang food in an ornate, grade-II listed old caff. The finest fusion of linoleum ceilings, dark wood cabinets, and sublime stir-fried cabbage. Get the free refill on noodles and a £1 beer, just don’t dare ask for a glass.
Walworth’s pubs are similarly delectable. The Red Lion is the pick – a gorgeous Truman pile with a beautifully aged oak bar, the scent of cigarettes of yesteryear clinging to the ruby red carpet. Maggie is the matriarch, a stern, but deeply welcoming character; hear her grumble about the ‘light-up nonsense’ on the Guinness surger while your pint settles and nod in agreement. If you’re desperate for something more adventurous, there’s Orbit Brewery, who make some of the best beers in London.
Stumbling home, Bagel King may tempt you. This 24-hour stop is an institution, serving ravers and shift workers alike. But, it’s no more than a hamburger bun with a hole in it, lacking the distinctive chew of an East End beigel. If it’s before midnight, avoid the disappointment and seek out Ossie’s Jerk Chicken. A momentous meal of sheer calorific force with the greatest spice combinations known to man.
Beyond the booze and food, Walworth has two of the most impressive churches around. St Peter’s is Sir John Soane’s Grade I listed masterpiece, better known now for the sourdough sold out of its crypt. St Paul’s is also listed but it couldn’t be more different. Rebuilt after the Blitz, it looks as if Thunderbird 3 landed in a Georgian square.
That’s that for this week – please do tell your friends about what we’re doing here, even in real life, or on social media. There are now 2,400 of you subscribing to this mail-out, and 95 of you paying for it – let’s make it a nice, clean century today. Remember, it will be paywalled soon. Speak soon.
All the best,
TF