Interview: Comedian Peter Serafinowicz on his horrifying, mesmerising Sassy Trump creation September 29, 2016 When Donald Trump kicked a crying baby out of one his rallies, Peter Serafinowicz rubbed his hands together and got to work. The comedian’s latest project, a YouTube series called Sassy Trump, takes the Republican nominee’s actual words and redubs them in a sassy voice that perfectly matches the man’s curiously effete mannerisms – his [...]
A Dutch artist is creating tiny worlds suspended inside fragile glass tubes September 27, 2016 Standing at just a few inches tall, these lilliputian constructions from Dutch artist Rosa de Jong are the architectural equivalent of ships in a bottle. The series, entitled Micro Matter, presents miniature vertical townships of alien proportions, each suggesting a wider and more fantastical world beyond. Indeed, de Jong says she had initially intended to [...]
Rolling out the rad carpet: How two sisters have collaborated on a collection of psychedelic rug designs September 27, 2016 When sisters Amy and Lucy Kent decided to collaborate on a series of eleven rugs, the result was something unexpectedly beautiful, a “greater than the sum of its parts” deal that merged Amy’s bespoke rug making business with Lucy’s abstract painting. “Painterly designs are becoming increasingly popular,” explains Amy, “and I knew that Lucy’s abstracts [...]
Little Men review: A powerful and deeply moving story of young friendship in hard times September 22, 2016 When a family inherits a building in a rapidly gentrifying area of Brooklyn, the resulting feud between its long-standing tenant and its new owners forms the agonisingly corrosive backdrop against which two young teenagers attempt to maintain their new friendship. Comparisons to Romeo and Juliet would suggest a degree of melodrama and forced sentimentality that [...]
The six best hot dogs in London: From huge poles to dirty dogs, it’s our pick of the best sausages-in-a-bun September 20, 2016 1. The Polish Dog The Diner, Strand Proving it’s possible to give a hot dog a name you’re not embarrassed to say in front of your grandmother, The Polish Dog is a beef and pork wiener with caramelised onions and French’s mustard. Good job, The Diner, for not submitting to the childish temptation to call [...]
Dream Play at The Vault review: A profoundly odd exploration of human emotion September 15, 2016 Very roughly based on the story of an alien who visits Earth to experience the full gamut of human emotions, Dream Play presents a series of disjointed vignettes that teeter on the fuzzy precipice between real and abstract. That’s to say, it’s supremely odd. Actors repeatedly swap characters as the audience moves from room to [...]
Bridget Jones lives next to a hospital, right, so why does it take her so long to get to a maternity ward when she goes into labour. It doesn’t make sense September 15, 2016 Here’s a thing. Bridget Jones lives on Bedale Street, close enough to Borough Market that she could swan dive from her bedroom window and land in a basket of organic, gluten-free sourdough, or one of those massive iron pans filled with Ethiopian curry. Directly across the road from her flat is Guy’s Hospital (the tallest [...]
The Amazon Echo is an artificially intelligent speaker and virtual assistant that can play music, order curries and hail an Uber September 14, 2016 The Amazon Echo is a hands-free speaker that you operate using voice commands. Inside it (well, somewhere in the cloud to be precise) lives Alexa, an artificial intelligence and essentially Amazon’s version of Siri. Alexa’s machine-learning algorithms and rapidly expanding skillset make her smarter as time goes on: so while today she can play music, [...]
Six of the best places to go for a power breakfast in the City of London September 14, 2016 Hawksmoor Guildhall Basinghall Street, open from 7am Set in the hallowed Hogwartian halls around Guildhall, a breakfast at Hawksmoor comes with a side plate of gravitas. Forget flimsy, streaky rashers and come face-to-face with a pork chop in the morning, or a rib eye steak, or lobster benedict. Hawksmoor’s brunch means business. And meat. Lots [...]
The Naked Magicians is a lovely show about two men who do card tricks for a while and then get their penises out September 8, 2016 Now that we all live in the future and can summon an infinite parade of willies and foofs with just a few lazy swipes of our thumb, on-stage nudity doesn’t carry the giddying air of scandal it used to. The Naked Magicians feels like a cabaret show from the pre-internet era, the sort of hotel [...]
