TIMEOUT.COM/LONDON December 15 2020 No. 2604 2020: Year of the takeaway pint

...and 49 other things that arenít you-know-what

PORTRAIT: IFE AKINROYEJE IN MILE END PARK BY CELIA TOPPING; FOOD: LOBSTER AT FROG; FANTASTIC BEASTS: TRUSTEES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM The NHM’s new show mixes nature’s Absolute beast London’s greatest gastronomic weirdest creations with oddball fauna from the Potterverse gurus gurus tell us what dishes float their (gravy) boats Yes, chef! PAGE 34 PAGE 33 Inside This issue ofTimeOut This issue in notimeatall 7 City life 34 Food & Drink 38 Love Local 40 Escapes 42 Time In 46 Exclusive offers 12 Fifty genuinely good things to have come out of 2020 25 Things to Do actually some cracking movies this year Despite cinemas closing, there were Lights, camera, (some) action PAGE 42 FEATURES AND REGULARS 3 things fromthings thisfrankly rotten year that we thinkare worthcelebrating Light in the darkness We’ve to find(fifty!) managed PAGE 12 The phenomenon that is Accidentally Wes Anderson is putting on a show Campy pastel uniform uniform alert

PAGE 26 Time Out London December 152020Time Hello, London

Advertising 7813 6000, [email protected] Joe Mackertich Circulation [email protected] London Editor @j_mackertich Global Editor-in-Chief Caroline McGinn London Editor Joe Mackertich Deputy Editor/Chief Sub Editor Chris Waywell Despite my notoriously miserable face I am an advocate Deputy Chief Sub Editor Sarah Cohen for positive thinking. Yes, this year sucked. Yes, almost Features Kate Lloyd (Editor) everything life-affirming about London was curtailed, News & City Life Isabelle Aron (Editor) diminished or banned. And yes, now when I unintentionally Events Katie McCabe (Editor), Alexandra Sims glance at a reflective surface, I see a disheveled, twitchy gnome (Deputy Editor) Film Phil de Semlyen where once there stood a giant (or at least, a slightly happier (Global Editor) Culture Eddy Frankel, gnome.) But unless we find some way to feel positive about Andrzej Łukowski the future, the present becomes a grim place indeed. Global Commercial Editor Stephen Farmer Global Branded Content Editor Rose Johnstone This year, unable to rely on the conventional triad of friends, Commercial Designer Julia Robinson nice food and booze, Londoners had to find new ways to channel Commercial Copywriter positivity. And for some people that involved Time Out. If this George Blew Head of Digital Content was you, then thank you. Thank you for letting us into your Jordan Waller London Digital Director/ life and allowing us to be the conduit that connects you to the Drink Editor Laura Richards impossible, infinite, irrepressible city in which you live. Engagement Editor Sam Willis International Editor James Manning This week also marks my one-year anniversary as editor of International Travel Editor Ellie Walker-Arnott Time Out. Despite sub-optimal circumstances, I’ve had an International Commissioning Editor Huw Oliver absolute blast. Chatting to you each week has been my way of Art Director Bryan Mayes staying positive. And If I ruined your favourite magazine, well, Picture Desk Manager Ben Rowe it was hardly the worst thing that happened this year, was it? Photographer Andy Parsons Head of Production Unless it was. In which case I’m sorry. Dave Faulkner Production, Admin and Sales Support Katie Mulhern-Bhudia Commercial MD EMEA Lawrence Horne Advertising Sales Ian Tournes (Director), Natalie Reynolds, Juliet Three things you have to do in London Grant, Banbha O’Hagan, THE EDITOR’S ESSENTIALS Nesha Fleischer, James Hooper, Robyn Eldridge, Emma Myland Creative Solutions Wayne Mensah (Director), Charlie Liddington, Nicola Foxwell Project Management Junior Olokodana (Project Management Lead), Nicki Wymer, Zara Taylor MD Global E-commerce Minesh Shah Time Out Group CEO Julio Bruno ORDER these EAT this SNACK these is a deliver Chinese food all Turn the page. Look at that Marvellous Greens & Beans Rice Guys Cover south London shop that also helps over London, including this whole amazing, topical confectionery. Illustration Ben Fearnley fund local primary schools. Order marinated Cantonese duck. Just Thanks to Wimbledon geniuses the one of its great fruit and veg boxes. pop it in the oven. What a delight. Biscuiteers for making them for us.

Time Out Digital Ltd 77 Wicklow Street, London, WC1X 9JY. @timeoutlondon facebook.com/timeoutlondon @timeoutlondon timeout.com/news www.timeout.com 020 7813 3000

NOT FOR RESALE PARSONS ANDY BISCUITEERS: MIDDLEHURST; PHILIPPA GUYS: RICE

Time Out London December 15 2020 4 Advertisement feature

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Three ways that 5G is going to Given the, ahem, ‘quality’ take Christmas to the next level of some of the Christmas number one songs over the years, we wouldn’t be ou think this Christmas 5G is already transforming (and 2No more late deliveries surprised if AI could write Yis weird? Wait until we’re improving!) every aspect ofour lives. You know the feeling: it’s two the next festive chart-topper. eating 3D-printed yule logs Hosts Dr Hannah Fry and comedian days before Christmas and that In this week’s episode of and reading each other Christmas Suzi Ruffell have taken listeners ring light for your Tik Tok-obsessed ‘Whatever Next?’, Dr Hannah cracker jokes written by AI. For the on a wild ride through everything little sister still hasn’t arrived yet. Fry and Suzi Ruffell will work last few months, we’ve been bringing from mind-controlled gaming and Nightmare! Luckily, the roll-out with experts (some human, you the eyebrow-raising highlights thinking prosthetics to parties of self-driving delivery robots is some not) to write and record from Samsung’s podcast ‘Whatever where everyone’s a hologram. If you just around the corner thanks to an AI Christmas song. But is Next?’, which is all about the ways haven’t listened to the whole series, companies like Starship. These it any good? You’ll just have to then we really recommend you get electric-powered little friends – tune in to find out… onto that. Thefinal, festive episode which use tiny amounts of energy is all about5G and Christmas, compared to delivery trucks – andit’s loads offun… autonomously bring your gift over while you track the journey on your Stress-free shopping phone. Not only will they make 1 Love it or hate it, we all know deliveries more sustainable and that stocking up on gifts is about as cost-efficient, but they’re also great relaxing as untangling a big ball of for those who may struggle to carry Christmas lights. Thankfully, with its their own shopping. super-fast data processing speeds, 5G might just take the edge off. You Bringing families could put on VR glasses and allow 3together augmented reality to show you to If 2020 has taught us anything, the location of your purchase – or it’s that humans really, really like even create an entirely virtual store being together – but it’s not always to visit in the comfort of your home. possible. TeslaSuit has invented a You could ‘try on’ a piece of clothing piece of haptic clothing which allows without actually putting it on (no one two people to hug remotely. Not only needs to know about that novelty that, but 5G will bring super-fast reindeer suit!), or in the case of internet to remote areas without Listen to episode eight, ‘Festive 5G Ikea’s Place app, virtually place connectivity, so that your online hugs’, on Spotify, Google Podcasts pieces of furniture in your home. hangs don’t have to be so pixelated. and Apple Podcasts.

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A S N W ’ T T ’ City 2020 A life L L B A D

EditedEditedd by Isabelle Aron @timeoutlondon@tiimeoutlondon

The year that took the biscuit It’s been a year of rainbows, Zoom calls and debates over substantial meals. As it crawls to its end, Chris Waywell reflects on the ways the pandemic has left its mark on the city

BACK IN MARCH, as the prospect In the round-up shows and end-of-year articles do with him. Tell him I’m there for him? Put him of London going into lockdown (including ours on ppŽ‡-‡‡), ‡ˆ‡ˆ will be the up for adoption? Send him to the shop for wine? loomed, my neighbours Creepy Jon year of the bog roll, the stockpiler, the face mask In London, against a backdrop of suffering and and The Shrieker sprang into action. and the Zoom call. It will be the year of the NHS, sadness, there have been innumerable acts of They got a massive fridge-freezer the rainbow, the takeaway pint; of the graveyard kindness, love and assistance; righteous anger at delivered by AO, and they added a Kryptonite daily walk, the park heatwave and a lot of dashed the Black Lives Matter protests, huge sacrifices by D-lock to the metal security gate across their dreams, shuttered businesses and isolation. our frontline staff. Everything good that has come front door. Then they settled down to wait for I’m not surprised that most Londoners have out of this year has been about solidarity, sharing the apocalypse. turned out to be decent, kind, and community- and society, and everything bad has been about That seems ridiculous now. I mean, it seemed minded. I knew that, I’d just taken it for granted. division, selfishness and blame. ridiculous then. Still, at that point no one knew What I am surprised by is my capacity to be moved So, yeah, in ‡ˆ‡ˆ I haven’t made best friends what was coming. My neighbours feared the by it. As a cynical lifetime Londoner, the thought with my neighbours (not those ones anyway, worst: after the inevitable collapse of society, of loving strangers for banging pans and dropping thank Christ), but I have got an exciting new hordes of zombies on noz would roam the streets, off groceries discomfits me. It’s like I’ve been relationship with London and its people. ■ THANKS TO OUR FRIENDS AT BISCUITEERS.COM FOR BAKING THESE EXCELLENT, TOPICAL TREATS, PHOTO ANDY PARSONS ANDY PHOTO TREATS, TOPICAL EXCELLENT, THESE BAKING FOR BISCUITEERS.COM AT FRIENDS OUR TO THANKS slavering after their frozen Cauldron sausages. given an inchoate baby, and I’m not sure what to Which, all things considered, isn’t too bad.

7 December 15 2020 Time Out London City life

THE VIEW FROM YOU

Time Out readers share snaps of festive window displays in their local neighbourhoods

Matthew Scott, Co-founder, Hot 4 U

@cesca_chomps Unabashed optimism to set ‘@cheeseshopmuswellhill looking you up for 2021 so gorgeous and festive.’ Londoners who launched new businesses in the pandemic share their tips for positivity

Imad Alarnab Founder, Imad’s Syrian Eric Yu Owner, The Last Talisman Kitchen ‘You need to be bold, brave and ballsy when ‘My time spent travelling across Europe and opening a new venue, whether that’s during in refugee camps in Calais gives me a unique a pandemic or not. Stay true to your concept @jonboyrussell perspective. I try to be optimistic, even in difficult and trust your instincts, there will be lots of times. I’ve learned that people are survivors and I opportunity once we come out the other side of ‘Congrats @graceandthorn, so spot know that we’ll get through this.’ all of this. Think glass half-full, not half-empty.’ on. Christmas window of the year!’ George Hartshorn Co-founder, The Farrier Matthew Scott Co-founder, Hot 4 U ‘You have to find the positives. One silver lining ‘We created Hot ˆ U to spread positivity through of Lockdown  ? The build process of our venue food when the pandemic hit, and we’ve learned didn’t involve manoeuvring a  -kilo marble that if you keep each other and those around you bartop and a ƒ -bottle wine rack through hordes optimistic, good things can happen! Having a of shoppers in Camden Market – our builders are routine, of sorts, can help too. Starting the day thanking us for that. This isn’t the first or last time with an espresso martini and a fried-egg sandwich people will bounce back from difficult times.’ has seen us through this weird old year.’■

@mattyjfeds ‘Shoreditch, London #christmaslights.’

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print? Use #timeoutlondon PARSONS ANDY CANDLES: ISOLA; CAITLIN SCOTT: MATTHEW

Time Out London December 15 2020 8

City life

WHAT I OWE TO LONDON

‘I was an involuntary whistleblower’ West End trailblazer Arinzé Kene on how the city has shaped his work

ARINZÉ KENE MOVED from Lagos, Nigeria I had my first kiss in Hackney Downs Park. I was Š‹, Performing in ‘Death of a Salesman’ at the Young to Hackney in the ’ s. He rose to fame with her name was Amanda and we met in the park – Vic was a career highlight. It meant so much to me. ‘Misty’, his one-man show about a Black man’s she was my first summer love. I spent many days [Young Vic artistic director] Kwame Kwei-Armah experience of gentrified east London. When it and nights playing basketball on the courts there is like my uncle – he’s my mentor and one of my transferred to the West End, Kene became only too. It’s where I first dunked a basketball. idols. I’ve looked up to him since I was very young. the second Black British playwright to stage a play there. He’s appeared on screen alongside I could see a change happening in Hackney. ‘Get Up, Stand Up!’ being delayed gives me more Michaela Coel in ‘Been So Long’, stars in the just- Every time I came back to visit my mum when time to study Bob Marley and what it’s like to be released film ‘I’m Your Woman’ and will play I got older, I’d have conversations with people a rasta. We’re fortunate that the show is loved by Bob Marley in new musical ‘Get Up, Stand Up!’. I’d bump into on the street. A lot of people were lots of people already, even though we haven’t had moving out of the borough; they didn’t feel like one performance yet. Before anything, I’m Nigerian. That’s my true Hackney was their home. home. But London does feel like home. The older [Diversity in] theatre is better than it was 50 I get, the more I appreciate it. When you grow up I wanted to speak about gentrification and the years ago. But there were good times that went here you take for granted how multicultural it is. things that we’ve lost. That’s why I moved back to away before, like the Black theatre companies Hackney and wrote ‘Misty’. I felt like I needed to that existed in the ’• s and ’– s . Let’s keep our The first thing I noticed about London was how cold put pen to paper so I could tell that story. eyes on the prize, because while everybody’s on it was. I was four years old and I moved here with the dancefloor, someone could be nicking the my three siblings. I hadn’t seen my dad for a year. I was an involuntary whistleblower. Being the freaking coats.
Interview by Niellah Arboine. He came to London first, working as a cab driver second Black playwright with a show in the West ‘I’m Your Woman’ is on Amazon Prime. ‘Get Up, Stand Up!’ is due to pay for our plane tickets. We lived in a one- End felt like something that was inflicted upon toopen at the Lyric Theatre in June 2021. bedroom flat in Hackney. me, not bestowed. I don’t mean that I didn’t want to be, I just mean it wasn’t up to me. It felt like my London is my favourite city. It’s been a gift to grow show highlighted the fact that the industry needs For more unique looks at London life,

up here, work here and be influenced by the city. to change. It was a rude awakening for theatre. head to timeout.com/stories PARSONS ANDY PORTRAIT:

Time Out London December 15 2020 10

cccoooooolll things we learned about London th is year since it all A look back at nt t o shit moments of joy we and excitement from an ultimately strange and bad year. Interviews Paula Akpan

Time Out London December 15 2020 12 ‘You can still 4find unexpected I F pockets of joy’ CE OU A N L D P T

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‘Mile End Park and its canal became central to so many of the things I did in lockdown. I’d go for strolls that could last up to three hours because the canal just goes on and on and it’s so beautiful. It’s so peaceful but it also so communal: there’s a community there and you feel it. In June, I went for a really long walk with my housemates, and on our way back, there was someone playing music on one of the balconies. They were DJing and had big speakers that were booming techno in the sun.We dropped our bags and started dancing and all of a sudden, other people around the park did too. It was just such a nice moment to be like, okay, let’s dance in the sun and remember that there’s other people around. We understood that we’d all gone through a tough time but could still find unexpected pockets of joy.’ Clinton Rd, E3 4QY.

5 Drag queens are our cit y’s innovators

Three stars who got creative in lockdown

Dolly Trolley The city’s cornershops Pioneered by the likes of launched virtual 1 are heroic Crispin and Top Cuvée, now drag aerobics Around the second week of there’s a whole host of start- sessions. Like Joe March, supermarkets were ups, from Oranj to The Sorting Wicks with sass swept clean of the basics. All Table sending out curated and ’80s lycra. that was left? Nescafé, rollmop cases of natty vino – ideal if you www. herring and taramasalata – don’t know a thing about wine dollytrolleydrag.com piles of the stuff. That’s no way except that you like it. to live. So, thank God for the www.crispinlondon.com The Amused cornershop. Spices? Got ’em Bouche did meal- all. Loo roll? Er, do we! When London’s pollution kit deliveries with everyone was yelling about 3problem is solvable a side of dramatic shortages, these little guys When flights were grounded, doorstep musical had our back. roads quiet and a large numbers. Find chefs’ favourite cornershops in proportion of Londoners were @theamused. London at timeout.com/locallifesavers working/having existential bouche

IFE: CELIA TOPPING; CARDAMOM BUN: PAVILION BAKERY PAVILION BUN: CARDAMOM TOPPING; CELIA IFE: crises from home, scientists Wine subscriptions recorded significant drops in Activist queens 2aren’t just for pollutant nitrogen dioxide. like Shakona Fire Waitrose types... Readings also suggest the used their platforms ...They’re now a titan-sized capital saw a drop in toxic to amplify the trend, the outcome of the carbon emissions by almost Black Lives Matter city’s bars, restaurants and ‹Œ percent between the start of movement. wine shops laying dormant. March and May ŽŒŽŒ. @shakonafire

13 2020, begone!

Pies can be objects of desire Yer man Will Lewis was put on furlough in lockdown. Unlike a lot of us, the St John and 6 Brat veteran didn’t immediately begin binge- watching Studio Ghibli films. Instead he started what can only be described as a nascent pie empire. Made in Will’s kitchen, and delivere by his mates, the pies have become the talk of the town. The menu is ever-changing but the ethos remains the same. Pies are life. Pies are love. www.willyspies.com

Andrew Lloyd Webber 7will never ever die Love him or loathe him for his music, politics, etcetera, there is no doubt that ALW has done his darndest to try and save the UK theatre industry: as a vocal advocate in front of the cultural select committee, and by ploughing 

k of his – admittedly substantial – fortune into tricking out the Palladium to be social- distancing compliant. The frontage of the Gillian Lynne Theatre, which is due to play host to his next musical, ‘Cinderella’, currently bears the line ‘opening spring
 – if they’ll let us!’ 166 Drury Lane, WC2B 5PW. A global pandemic into cups of tea, tea turned into Londoners care 11was all we needed dinner and before we knew it 8deeply about toilets 10 to make Londoners we were drunkenly singing This was the year of the wild (perhaps inadvisably) along to Prince in the early wee. With public toilets across This city talk to their neighbours hours of the morning. When the capital closed, people has a LOT surrounded by uncertainty, we answered nature’s call, well, of classical In , tend to cling to those closest to in nature. Fines for public music Alexandra Sims us, and for most of us this year urination were handed venues went from not that’s been our neighbours. out, people campaigned knowing her We’ve come together in enthusiastically for the return With crushing neighbours camaraderie against the of public toilets and, once loads of people to getting difficulties

threw at us WCs across the city started into a room off shitfaced with them through Covid Mutual Aid reopening, a map of London’s the cards for the groups and friendly messages public lavs went viral. forseeable, seated In the seven years I’ve lived in on our local Facebook pages culture has had its my flat, I never dreamed I’d and neighbourhood apps. I Rose Glass might moment in the sun. be drunkenly crawling out of signed up to my local Nextdoor 9be the capital’s most One of the biggest my downstairs neighbours’ app group in March, and exciting film director winners? Classical door at ’am after six bottles of over the last few months, I’ve While everyone was busy concerts popping wine over dinner. But, that’s seen neighbours help each tweeting about Christopher up all across town. exactly what happened in other by collecting shopping, Nolan’s baffling ‘Tenet’, Chamber music July. Until this year, I’d only swapping sourdough starters another much less heralded spot Wigmore Hall known my neighbours as and helping with DIY jobs. One Londoner was doing her bit to was one of the vaguely familiar faces I’d man who lives by me posted save cinema. Rose Glass, an the few music mumbled odd greetings to in a message saying the sight of LCC grad, was the mastermind venues to reopen the hall, or a name on a parcel houses with Black Lives Matter behind the immaculate in September. I’d signed for. All that changed posters in the windows had spiritual horror ‘Saint Meanwhile there in

. As we spent more made him feel more at home

Maud’. Comparisons with are also Spotlight time at home than ever before, in our neighbourhood than PARSONS ANDY PIE: WILLY’S Ingmar Bergman and Paul Chamber Concerts our meetings in the hallway ever before. If I didn’t feel pride Schrader came thick and fast – in Waterloo. We’re became a daily occurrence. in my little corner of London and deservedly. all highbrow now. Then hallway chats turned before, I certainly do now.

Time Out London December 15 2020 14

2020, begone! 18 Walking in London is truly great ‘The best The three types of Londoner you’ll see 12places in taking a stroll London are the old- The overstretched school ones’ work-from- homer E I FOU Adana AC N You’ll spot them L D P Picked by Brodie Meah, T out at 4pm,

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‘I live in Bethnal Green, so when I T themselves away cycle to work in Highbury, I go through from Zoom. They’re Stoke Newington. During lockdown, that wild-eyed and cycle between home and work became quite stomping through a a focal point of my day. Along that route is this 15-minute circuit, gozleme place, Adana, a huge restaurant on Slacking as they go. Green Lanes that you can’t miss. ‘With things being so busy at work, we The don’t really have time to cook for ourselves, overprepared so it became my go-to for picking up delicious hiker freshly made food for the team. It’s just the As soon as they right balance of fast food, kind of greasy but realised walking not too bad because it’s got spinach as well was going to be as cheese. a big deal, they ‘For me, this period has allowed me to look fired up Blacks at my lifestyle and realise that we sometimes and splashed get sucked into going out to the fancy new out £800 on a wine bar but some of the best places in mountaineering London are these old-school places with ‘performance’ genuine hospitality and simple, flavoursome jacket. They largely dishes. I realised that these are the places I spend their time want to go to spend time and money with my circling Hyde Park, wife or close friends.’ sweating profusely. 25-27 Green Lanes, N16 9BS. The mulled wine walkers They’re looping Broadway Market Electric vehicles are East Londoners will in big fur coats and 13the future (just not 15queue for plants... lipstick like they’re the ones we expected) When Columbia Road flflowerower Victorians taking a In a year of ‘travelling as far market reopened in July,uly, the ‘turn’. Glam. But in as we can without getting on queues were huge. Like,e, really 30 minutes you’ll public transport’, E-bikes and big. Think of the line thathat foformsrms find them power- scooters came into their own. outside Palace on a dropop day walking home, Lime, for example, reported a or Dishoom on a weeknight,night, desperate for apiss.  percent uptake in E-bike except it’s Toast-clad couplesouples rides between March and waiting for cacti and cheeseheese October   . plants. We did all have bleak wfh set-ups to brightenn up tbf. Not even a Sundays. Columbia Rd, E2 7RG.RG. 14pandemic can keep us away from a car-boot ...And for pastrystry too Ooh, old tat. Touched 16We guarantee, iff youyou We all love the by hundreds of grubby go to Pavilion on Broadway goddamn NHS unsanitised hands over the Market right this minute, elitist artform. But make it free Furloughed Foodies, Meals years. Just what you need you’ll find at least five people to watch (and force people to 19for the NHS, The Felix during a viral pandemic. Only standing waiting to get their stay at home for five months) Project, Yard Sale, Crosstown Doughnuts it is, apparently. Answering hands on a cardamom bun. and suddenly its audience is and more provided thousands of meals demand, Peckham Car Boot It’s been that way since huge: the National Theatre’s for NHS frontline staff in lockdown. carried on virtually through lockdown started. weekly free streams of plays Change Please, a programme that helps lockdown, running its sales 18 Broadway Market, E8 4QJ. achieved a titanic combined get homeless people trained as baristas

online with sellers DMing in global audience of ‹ million. started doing free coffees for NHS staff. So WAN/SHUTTERSTOCK MARIA RAINBOW: NHS GREIG; ROB BRODIE: their items. The spirit of Del Theatre audiences Now, if we can just get all those did Grind and Paul Bakery. God, we’re all Boy lives on. 17are MASSIVE people into actual theatres. so nice, aren’t we? @peckham.carboot Theatre has a reputation as an www.ntathome.com

Time Out London December 15 2020 16

2020, begone!

26 It is possible to go clubbing sitting down

With nightclubs a no-go, Londoners turned to the next best thing. Er, sitting down to listen to DJs play in courtyards?

The Cause It rolled out more seated events this year than Boris rolled out confusing rules. Its best shout? Queer techno nightAdonis became cabaret show Touché. Londoners will people flocked to see the Soho’s streets dancers took matters in their Ashley House, 20stand in the Barbara Hepworth on the side 23can look as sexy own hands and started staging Ashley Rd, N17 9LZ. freezing cold for a pint of John Lewis or to walk The as Paris’s impromptu dance shows along The consistently good weather Line sculpture trail. You just Just in time for the UK’s the Regent’s Canal in Hackney. Brixton in Lockdown meant that can’t stop Londoners from July Œ celebrations (not For the dancers, it was a way to Courtyard when the takeaway beer idea looking at art. Independence Day, but the perform. For the public, it was The bit outside emerged, the trend popped reopening of hospitality a rare chance to see live dance Brixton Jamm off. Somebody even created London can do after lockdown), Soho was for free. It’s not often you hear became a hub of a map that plotted those pint 22drive-in cinema given the green light for people screaming ‘One more good street food pick-up points. Did we foresee Drive-in cinema always pedestrianisation. Officially, dance. One more dance!’ near a and great DJs, with it lasting into the winter? Not seemed like something the plans were dubbed light industrial estate. a line-up curated necessarily. But some canny the Fonz would the ‘Soho Summer by Percolate. boozers – from The Red Lion go to on a balmy Street Festival’. Cue Our parks can 261 Brixton Rd, and Sun in Highgate to The American night. Daily Mail horror 25double as g yms, SW9 6LH. Pelton Arms in Greenwich – But it turns out headlines. But WeWorks and clubs even started flogging takeaway it’s something the transformed As Covid upended our lives, Night Tales mulled wine, too. you can also do area actually had a parks became the centre of Once a beer More at www.timeout.com/mulledwine in a light drizzle rather Continental everything from socialising garden, it became in Hendon. The vibe: demi-pints to social change. They were an actual venue. Outdoor art is drizzle aside – peering outside The French settings for birthday parties, Its USP? You’re 21essential to the city at a film through a fogged- House and the like. work gatherings, alfresco gym allowed to dance Turn any corner in this city, up windscreen is not great classes, impromptu concerts, there… so long as and you’ll probably bump – it filled a gap for anyone Towpaths are ace even protests and illegal you wear a mask

into some art. It’s always been yearning for big screens and 24ballet venues raves. We ended up spending and stay within a DUANE CATHAL ILLUSTRATION: there, but outdoor art came big snacks. Obviously a lot less While London’s great stages so much time in them, some marked box. into its own during lockdown. so if you don’t have a car. were shuttered, a group of parks put up signs telling us to 14 Bohemia Place, Being starved of galleries, www.timeout.com/driveincinema furloughed Royal Ballet go home to use the loo. E8 1DU.

Time Out London December 15 2020 18 Mahdis Moghadam, owner of Piacere restaurant, London

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10 mins before

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‘This virtual reality arcade is the best place I’ve ever been despite me not really being a gamer gal. I initially went on a date there very early in the year with someone awful but I ended up adoring the place. You get a headset you put on alongside a lot of sensors and then you can play a variety of games. It’s great for escapism. Like obviously I couldn’t travel this year but there’s a Google Earth setting where you can just bound around the world. It feels like an adventure during a time when you’re quite terrified of most actual interactions with people. I’d love to see more digital interactivity in arts spaces. I know there’s so much more we could do.’ 336 Acton Mews, E8 4EA.

28 Londoners love The city’s Online 29their cinemas 32homelessness Culture can go shopping Dalston’s Rio sold nearly problem is fixable underground again doesn’t have  memberships When the UK went into Pre-corona, despite to be evil between March and August, lockdown, the government 35virtually everything being while the eccentric Prince managed to immediately billed as ‘undiscovered’ ‘secret’ ‘exclusive’ Indies took on the Charles received k of rehouse London’s homeless ‘a hidden gem’, it felt as though there wasn’t Internet proper advanced sales ahead of its population. Something a square inch of the city that hadn’t been this year October reopening. they’d previously claimed thoroughly mapped, snapped, raked up it would take years to do. It and reviewed by influencers, Google robots For food Nicholas Hytner is a proved that with enough and, well, people like us. (Sorry about that.) Borough Market’s 30theatre-saver political will (and resources) But now? Overnight, the pub round the online shop After hauling the National no-one needs to be homeless. corner is serving takeaway schnapps, the expanded to Theatre back into relevance derelict car wash next door has become a offer nationwide during his golden age in A pandemic won’t socially distant comedy club and your local delivery for charge, Hytner’s new gaff 33stop us protesting restaurant is a shop. Suddenly your know- Lockdown 2. the Bridge was the leading As the Black Lives Matters it-all friends don’t know it all. Nor do we, www.goodsixty. light in what we might call protests erupted around probably. Word of mouth is back. And your co.uk inter-lockdown theatre, the world in the wake of the neighbourhood is full of surprises. flawlessly executing a starry, killing of George Floyd, our For books diverse, ‡ˆ-play rep season of city came out in eloquent Pages of Hackney, monologues that accounted solidarity, including a huge The Word and for something like half of the demonstration in Hyde Park on Stokey Bookshop theatre this autumn. June œ and lots of local, socially pivoted to delivery. 3 Potters Fields Park, SE1 2SG distanced gatherings. Steve McQueen is a Many shops 36London expert offered free local The capital is Connell from A Londoner right down to his drop-offs. 31surrounded by 34‘Normal People’ anguished relationship with uk.bookshop.org brilliant stuff lives in Hackney Spurs, it feels almost counter- With proper abroad holidays May in London had a horny intuitive that McQueen hasn’t For wine off the cards, we discovered energy. The humidity began set a film in the city until now. Peckham Cellars. that, hey, London is close to rise, the days stretched into Boy, has he made up for lost launched its to loads of absolutely great warm nights, and Paul Mescal time with ‘Small Axe’. From delivery service in places! Rye, Whitstable, – aka the man who made thin Notting Hill to the Old Bailey, lockdown 1, with Hertfordshire… And when it silver chains hot – decided to via the best London house same day drops. came to summer hols? Turns go for a run along the canal in party committed to film, its www. out Cornwall is basically Hackney. Shirtless. It started celebration of the city’s West peckhamcellars.co.uk Ibiza with worse weather but with a tweet or two from some Indian community fizzes with better pastry. thirsty Londoners. It grew into authenticity and feeling. www.timeout.com/weekendbreaks a full-blown media flurry. Available to stream on iPlayer.

Time Out London December 15 2020 20 2020, be gone

Supermarket veg is the supermarkets stopped 38far outshone by resembling the aftermath our city’s veg boxes of an apocalypse, I couldn’t bring myself to revert from Avoiding Tesco my weekly delivery of brown led to Isabelle paper bags filled with fruit Aron having a and veg that actually tasted revelation of something back to subpar supermarket produce wrapped My nearest in single-use plastic. There are supermarket is a tiny Tesco (or so many veg delivery services Shit Tesco, to give it its proper in London (shout out to All name), which I’m convinced Greens, Pale Green Dot and, exists solely to troll me. Pre- Paul the Veg Man). Some let pandemic, I’d go in there with you choose what goes in them, a shopping list, thinking: This but I prefer the set boxes, time it’ll be different. It never because sometimes they throw was. Whatever I wanted, they in rogue stuff that I’d never didn’t have. Will they have usually buy (if anyone knows mushrooms today? Nah. what to do with a persimmon, Peppers? No way. It was a bit I’m all ears). When the world like a lottery, the kind where fell apart this year and all no one wins anything, ever. our usual routines went out During the first lockdown, the window, the unwavering I was finally freed from the reliability of my weekly veg box shackles of Shit Tesco by a was oddly comforting, which is plucky underdog: the humble something I’ve never been able veg box. I ordered my first box to say about Shit Tesco. Ever. in April and I’ve been getting Find delivery services at them ever since. Even when www.timeout.com/groceries.

‘People need to E I FOU AC N be seen’ L D P 37 T

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‘I run a course with young people in theatre at the Lyric Hammersmith. I have fallen in love with a rehearsal room there. It’s big and open. I think I feel so strongly about the room because of the students I’ve been working with. I’ve clocked that these young people need to be seen. What’s happened on their journey, before they came to art, is that they simply weren’t. I’m now having to undo and untangle all these complications that people have had drilled into their heads: they’re not talented, they’re not worthy, that they won’t survive in the arts. The openness of the space allows us to educate but also to play games like four square. It doesn’t feel tight or unusable – it gives our young people space to breathe, express themselves and play. I think it’s important for them to know that they can be silly without feeling like people are watching and scrutinising their every move and this room facilitates exactly that.’ Lyric Square, King St, W6 0QL. LEYLA: ROB GREIG; PAUL MESCAL: TILLENDOVE; DISTDANCING: ANDREJ USPENSKI/@DANCERSDAIRY; STEVEN: ROB GREIG ROB STEVEN: USPENSKI/@DANCERSDAIRY; ANDREJ DISTDANCING: TILLENDOVE; MESCAL: PAUL GREIG; ROB LEYLA:

21 December 15 2020 Time Out London 2020, begone! 44

Theatres are masters of adaptation

How do you make an old venue new- normal safe?

INTERESTING Ditch the actors Donmar Warehouse’s ‘Blindness’ opened early because it was technically a sound installation.

INVENTIVE Ditch the audience The eccentric legal provision allowing plays to go ahead without audiences during lockdown was proven good by the Old Vic’s In Camera series.

INGENIOUS Ditch the seats John Boyega is an The Bridge and the actual, earthly legend National Theatre When it comes to standing removed two-thirds 40up and being counted, of seats, with the Peckham’s John Boyega really took it to audience now in the next level at the Hyde Park BLM protest isolated pockets. Bird-spotting in the on June . The ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Attack the 39city is nice Block’ star made an impassioned plea for INCREDIBLE Install the discrimination and racially motivated perspex London’s deaths in the US and UK not to drop off Southwark flappy things the agenda, and for the next generation Playhouse put in provided thrills to be properly educated about them. massive perspex for Huw Oliver Acknowledging that his outspokenness panels between this year might not sit that well with Hollywood audience bubbles. casting directors, he said, ‘Look, I don’t It was really, really For me, birds ooze a sense of know if I’m going to have a career after this, weird-looking, but mood cool. I’ve always been but fuck that.’ it felt very 2020. obsessed. For example, I once had a flock of blackbirds stencilled on my bedroom wall. This year alone, I’ve read books about the goshawk, the robin and the blakiston’s fish owl (very edgy bird – check it The Top Cuvée easy. Not sure what all hometown on the telly – out). Yet even more weirdly, 41founders should go those stressed-out cooks on especially when you’re not despite this unsettling on ‘The Apprentice’ ‘MasterChef the Professionals’ allowed to visit them IRL. So fixation, I’ve never been fussed This Highbury bistro pivoted are so worked up about. You it’s been a heart-filler to see about spotting them myself. its business model so many just take bits of food out of London getting so much love Until, one day in lockdown, a times in ŽŒŽŒ we imagine it’s their containers and heat them on screen this year. Michaela blue tit landed on my balcony. dizzy. First it became an online up. In any case, the cuisine Coel’s mesmerising ‘I May Then another. And soon there shop selling bottled cocktails that Londoners seem to enjoy Destroy You’ (BBC) took a tour were three pecking at our from top bars. In summer the making the most is the burger: of the West End by night, while already stunted veg farm. The team cycled wine to punters. from Burger & Beyond, Patty & ‘Gangs of London’ (Sky) and next day, I wandered along the Now, come winter they’ve Bun, Honest Burger and even ‘Industry’ (BBC) headed for River Lea. There were terns, launched heat-at-home dinner Burger & Lobster. the filthy-rich corners of the cormorants and swans all kits. Busy, busy bees. www.timeout.com/diykits City. And gazing at them was nesting within ‹ŒŒ metres of 177b Blackstock Rd, N5 2LL. ‘Rocks’ (Netflix), a film that the Blackwall Tunnel. What Seeing the city on turned Hackney’s rooftops resilience. What beauty. Like Making burgers is 43screen will never, into a viewing station across

so many others, I turned 42fun it turns out ever get old to that Grand Canyon of cash. IMAGES GETTY VIA LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP DANIEL BOYEGA: twitcher overnight. Birds, it DIY meal kits have shown us There’s nothing like seeing Together, they were like an strikes me, are the shit IRL too. all that fine dining is actually familiar corners of your Oyster card for the eyeballs.

Time Out London December 15 2020 22 No home. And no one to turn to.

Will you help us be there for young people at risk?

Homeless at just 16, Jen* would walk the dangerous streets at night, trying to snatch a =;lbm|;vvѴ;;rbm7oou-vķ0|o[;m|oo scared to close her eyes. Jen’s nightmare ended when she found safety and a chance to turn her life around with a room at Centrepoint. Please give £20 [;u-;-uo=1ubvbvķ7;l-m7=ououv;u b1;v this Christmas _-vm; ;u0;;m]u;-|;u+;|b|Ľv0;1ol;_-u7;u |_-m; ;u|ou-bv;|_;=m7v;m;;7$_bv to help give a Christmas, we must be there to keep young young person people like Jen safe from harm. We cannot fail a hot meal and a them now. But we need your help. +ou]b[1oѴ70;|_;|umbm]robm|=ou-mo|_;u safe place to sleep homeless young person.

CALL: 0800 055 79 47 VISIT: centrepoint.org.uk/help

*We use models and change the names of the young people we work with to protect their identity; however all stories are true and as told by the young person. © Centrepoint 2020. Centrepoint Soho, operating as Centrepoint, is a charity registered with the Charity Commission of England and Wales under number 292411 whose registered office is at Central House, 25 Camperdown Street, London, E1 8DZ and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales under number 01929421. NAP2021M-01W 2020, begone!

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Restaurant merch is the new band ‘Gardening merch 45is such Four foodie faves an easy thing to serving #looks Dark Arts Coffee return to’ It does a very, very cool bucket hat. This abandoned www. allotment in Chingford darkartscoffee.co.uk E I FOU Aisha Mirza, DJ and founder AC N L D P of the Misery collective T

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me and my mum. Every month T www.impeccable you go to a green space and sandwiches.co.uk learn about the herbs that grow there. Rasheeqa Ahmad, a medical herbalist, Monty’s Deli runs it and I just got really into it. They call it ‘She invited me to a weekly gardening ‘menschwear’ and it project called Community Apothecary and has big pickles on. every week, we go to different gardens montys-deli.com and slowly turn them into vegetable patches, forest gardens and medicinal Yard Sale x herb gardens. Once they’re ready, we give Mangal them to the local community. A must-have top to ‘It’s just such a peaceful activity to do mark the collab. and this allotment in Chingford is one of yardsalepizza.com those sites. It had been abandoned for 20 years and was full of brambles – you couldn’t even walk in it because there were thorns everywhere. It’s taken us about four months to clear it. ‘At a time when everything is fucked, gardening is such an easy thing to return to. You can’t argue with a plant that has 17 different medicinal uses, is free and easy to turn into something useful.’ @communityapothecary.wf

We’re all obsessed artists put up works for sale 46with nice coffee for ’€‚‚; once they’d made a In €‚€‚, somehow, going to grand they pledged to spend your local café, buying a cup of ’€‚‚ on another artist. There Joe and taking it straight home was a sense that things weren’t seemed like a reasonable thing shut, the focus had shifted. to do. Meanwhile, ‘Save Pret’ @guts_gallery became a meme: normality, embodied in a cup of slightly Dominic Cools- bitter and overpriced liquid. 48Lartigue won’t quit Originally planning to open And, finally... the best London art is a big ol’ food and culture hub takeaway food comes 47extremely good at at the start of €‚€‚, Dom did a vacuum packed ‘going online’ switch to kindness and started A 50Eating food from a little Suddenly, everyone had a Plate for London instead. Using pouch isn’t just for cats, astronauts and virtual gallery. Some places his food contacts, he made sure Bear Grylls, London’s best restaurants (like the Guts Gallery) even did tens of thousands got fed. Nice swerved Deliveroo to produce heat- Instagram shows. That’s before one. Somehow he also found at-home kits. Hot  U was a pioneer, we start talking about Zoom the time to open food hall-slash- launching a pouch-only service before round tables and ŽD gallery workspace The Tramshed finding a home at The Plough. This is its See what Time Out walk-throughs. There was the Project in October too. smoked mackerel with leek ragout. ■ was up to this year at

#artistsupportpledge, where 32 Rivington St, EC2A 3LX. 23-25 Homerton High St, E9 6JP. timeout.com/timein PACKED VACUUM GREIG; ROB AISHA: PARSONS ANDY FOOD:

Time Out London December 15 2020 24 Things to Do Things to do in London

Written by Katie McCabe and Alexandra Sims timeout.com/thingstodo @timeoutlondon

See the photo ‘Japan Railways’ at a pop-up from Insta feed Accidentally Wes Anderson, which is filled with real-life moments of colour and symmetry that carry that familiar Wes whimsy. See p for more. PHOTO: ACCIDENTALLY WES ANDERSON WES ACCIDENTALLY PHOTO:

25 December 15 2020 Time Out London Things to Do

lights on it, the Southbank Centre has Christmassy covered the Thamesside promenade in light sculptures to brighten evenings things up. The works include a ONE multicoloured neon canopy by David W Christmas at Kew Ogle weaving through the trees, a Just when everyone told you that mirrorball in the Hayward Gallery UNMISSABLE THING fomo wasn’t a thing in , you’ve foyer by Katie Paterson and a series of opened Instagram to find a post of large-scale videos projected on to the your mate gallivanting beneath a Royal Festival Hall. The best thing? tunnel made up of thousands of fairy It’s all free to view. lights in Kew Gardens, and now you Southbank Centre (outside and along the South want a slice of the sparkly action Bank). Until Feb 28 2021. Free. too. Luckily, tickets haven’t sold out this year for the botanic gardens’ annual technicolour trail. As well as photogenic tunnels, you’ll find light ‘waterfalls’ cascading from Pop-ups the Treetop Walkway, illuminated singing roses, neon-lit trees and a big E Accidentally Wes Anderson laser-filled lightshow finale X The Old Bank Vault reflected in the waters of T Almost as famous as the the Palm House Pond. S I V films themselves, Wally Kew Gardens. Until Jan 17 E E Koval’s Instagram 2021. From £19.50. F account Accidently Wes Anderson has Dodge: Drink, Dine Black Cab been posting pictures Heritage F of real-world scenes & Dodgems Tours: Magic of Y that look straight out R Somerset House put our skating Christmas Lights E N Z of the director’s movies London’s festive facelift of since “”. To celebrate plans on ice this year, but it’s glittering LEDs is the sparkle the Insta feed’s transition into making up for it by turning its at the end of the long, dark tunnel book form, this exhibition will be courtyard into an arty fairground we call , and now you can see displaying some of the photographs all the Christmas lights the city from it and revealing the human where you can ride designer has to offer on this private tour in a stories behind the scenes. There’ll dodgems among colourful outdoor traditional black cab. From Regent also be a pop-up shop where you can installations. There’ll even be Street’s soaring golden angels to the buy the book, merch and limited- Christmassy enclaves that are Covent edition prints to make your flat look Dodgem Lates with DJ takeovers, Garden and Trafalgar Square, they’ll like the inside of a fondant fancy. just like the Skate Late days of old. all be included in this two-and-a- The Old Bank Vault. Until Dec 23. Free. Somerset House. Jan 22-Mar 20 2021. half-hour sweep of the city, during Free entry, dodgem rides from £5. which your driver and professional C Wavey Garms guide will tell you stories about XXXmas Pop Up London’s festive traditions and point If we didn’t take loungewear out city secrets. YES, it’s expensive, seriously before, we’ve certainly YES, it’s ridiculous and YES, people learned better after our year indoors only take black cabs in Richard and Wavey Garms is here for our N ‘The Dumb Waiter’ Curtis films. BUT a dose of festive new-found appreciation. The cult Plays to see One of Hampstead Theatre’s heftier decadence is justst the remedy after a streetwearstreetw collective is claims to fame is that it hosted the grim year. behindbehin this Soho pop-up asap premiere of Harold Pinter’s ‘The Until Jan 8 2021. £195 per cab. sellingsellin ’• s, ’– s and ’ s Dumb Waiter’ back in “–› , making gear to support youth N ‘Nine Lessons and Carols’ this revival an obvious choice to mark C Christmass on the homelessnesshom charity Were ‘Nine Lessons and Carols’ to be its sixtieth birthday. Alice Hamilton South Bank Centrepoint.Cent Shop from revived in years, future audiences directs the unsettling story of two The South Bankk is usuallusuallyy carefullycare curated sellers, might be confused as to why one of hitmen, Ben and Gus, hiding out in humming with Christmas anda see art from Sports the sketches in it simply features a the basement of a derelict building cheer in Decemberber as Banger and Turner man balefully reciting a recipe for as an electric dumb waiter serves up people flock thereere for Prize nominee banana loaf. But of course, we know. periodic surprises. Expect a bristling festive markets and Mark Leckey. The Almeida’s comeback show is one-act thriller full of absurdist mulled wine. Thishis There’ll also be a DJ essentially this year in revue. It turns humour and Beckett-esque tension. year, however, Hotline which DJs a satirical eye on the cultural detritus Hampstead Theatre. Until Jan 16 2021. it’s all looking in the area can ring of the last few months with an £10-£37. a bit barren. to offer to play an extremely broad mix of styles: from But, with impromptu set. Who songs to parables to an Edgar Allan W ‘Overflow’ the mindset knows who you’ll Poe-indebted bit about getting a dog The Bush Theatre has finally that everything be bopping along to during lockdown. This show is , reopened with a new and extremely looks better while you shop? stomped into jagged shards and timely soliloquy from trans when you whackk ‘Nine Lessons and Carols’ Walker’s Court. lobbed forcefully across the stage. writer, actor and activist Travis some shiny UntUntil Dec 24. Free entry. Almeida Theatre. Until Jan 9 2021. £10-£35. Alabanza. Following their smash

C Central N North S South E East W West Streaming Outdoors DODGEMS: DODGE LANDSCAPE © SOMERSET HOUSE; NINE LESSONS: HELEN MURRAY HELEN LESSONS: NINE HOUSE; SOMERSET © LANDSCAPE DODGE DODGEMS:

Time Out London December 15 2020 26  performance ‘Burgerz’, which focused on trans visibility, Storytelling BOOK NOW Alabanza’s latest show is a monologue about Rosie, who reflects nights upon the encounters – good and bad – that she’s had in women’s toilets, N Midwinter Tales with Sian Clifford performed by transgender actor The Embers Collective and poet Reece Lyons. The Bush Cold, dark winter nights are perfect Theatre’s reputation for urgent new for gathering together and telling goes digital writing is standing strong. tales – and, frankly, if a good story Bush Theatre. Until Jan 16 2021. From £20. can transport us from the nightmare that is  , we’ll take it. Storytelling troupe The Embers Collective will be aiming to send us to far-off lands and days of yore with their enigmatic Low-key yarns accompanied by live music. Christmas Dona Bar. Dec 20. £15. Winter Solstice with club nights London Dreamtime Had it up to here with festive cheer? N Good Life’s Christmas London storyteller Vanessa Woolf Banquet will be whisking a group of grinches Our social lives revolve around off to a secret location for an evening substantial meals now, so it’s no of ghost stories and eerie midwinter surprise club nights have turned into folklore set to a live soundtrack of banquets. Leeds-based party starters ’s tunes. Good Life are behind this immersive Secret location. Dec 21. £5. festive dinner party, which promises London’s best DJs spinning house, disco and Christmas classics AND a brined turkey dinner. Each ticket also includes a donation to Crisis at Drunk painting Christmas. Put your drumstick in the air like you just don’t care. W Paint London at Christmas Costa del Tottenham. Dec 19. £30. Van Gogh had absinthe, so why shouldn’t you have a glass of E Backto95 Festival Brunch pinot? PopUp Painting is inviting On the third day of Christmas Londoners to get creative with a Backto‹Œ will give to me: Six MC glass in one hand and a paintbrush hosts. Fourteen eager DJs. Blaring in the other by recreating a scene of house and garage. Caribbean Trafalgar Square at Christmas. Going ‘Good Grief’ street food. And BOTTOMLESS off-piste is encouraged – and likely Best known for her iconic turn as Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s uptight ruuuuuuum cocktails. after a couple of jars. sister Claire in ‘Fleabag’, Sian Clifford follows up her smash telly E1. Dec 27. £27-£45. Britannia, Kensington. Dec 18. £35.99. hit,‘Quiz’, with ‘Good Grief’, a -TV-theatre hybrid that’s launching this February, with tickets available on the Time Out site now.

You really served your time in the London theatre trenches before ‘Fleabag’, didn’t you? ‘Yeah, yeah: I’ve been a professional actor for 14 years, I would say I spent 12 of them in theatre. It’s really nice to be celebrated for “Fleabag” and to be a part of that world, but theatre is where it all began for me.’

What is ‘Good Grief’? Is it a digital play, basically? ‘It’s neither film nor theatre; it’s a hybrid, that’s why it’s so thrilling to be part of it, something that’s so innovative and has been born entirely of this chaos.’

And regardless of genre, what’s it about? ‘It’s a two-hander by Lorien Haynes, an American writer, [performed by me and] the excellent and formidable Nikesh Patel. It’s sort of hard to articulate, but it’s really thrilling, a bit of a brain maze, structured around the stages of grief.’

What’s the thing you’re looking forward to doing the most in London when this is all over? ‘Going to the cinema and going to the theatre: those are my happy places. The image I have saved on my phone is the outside of Picturehouse Central: it’s an aspiration to what we can return to, because normally I live in that building. Getting back there – that’s my goal.’ ■ Interview by Andrzej Łukowski Pop Up Painting POP UP PAINTING: REBECCA HUNTER; SIAN CLIFFORD: COREY NICKOLS/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES GETTY BY NICKOLS/CONTOUR COREY CLIFFORD: SIAN HUNTER; REBECCA PAINTING: UP POP ‘Good Grief’ is online from Feb 15 2021. Tickets from £29 at www.timeout.com/goodgrief.

27 December 15 2020 Time Out London Meet trailblazersthe

These three kind-hearted individuals and their teams have come up with creative ways to combat the homelessness crisis

ccording to the housing Acharity Shelter, a staggering 280,000 people were homeless in England in 2019. As winter sets in, Covid-19 continues to make life even more difficult for the UK’s homeless population. Thankfully, there are fantastic organisations out there empowering people to break the cycle of homelessness through training programmes, mentorships and the ability to open a bank account. In partnership with HSBC UK, we’re telling their stories.

Lou Walker is a customer bank accounts for victims of human trafficking and modern slavery. It experience manager was such a success that we used within HSBC UK’s it as a blueprint for other groups Financial Inclusion and without accounts. Since organising Vulnerability Team. She a pilot in Liverpool in 2019, we have helps to run its No Fixed opened in excess of 500 accounts across the UK in collaboration with Address Service, which Shelter, Crisis and local charities has allowed more than 500 like Centrepoint. We are all human people to gain access to a and deserve to be treated in the bank account since 2019 same way – it’s amazing what a in partnership with Shelter difference a chat can make. We ‘We’ve pioneered a have a member of the HSBC UK and other local charities. team who had been passing a man experiencing homelessness on the process that allows ‘If you have no fixed address, it street corner near his office every can be very difficult to open a bank day for years. He always stopped people with no fixed account. And if you don’t have a for a chat, and bought him a coffee bank account, it’s much harder and a sandwich. Once the service addresses to open bank to access benefits like Universal had launched, he provided support Credit, receive salary payments by contacting a local charity and or secure a tenancy. It’s a vicious opening a bank account for him. accounts’ cycle. The No Fixed Address Service He made such a difference to this was a follow-on to our Survivor person’s life. We all can.’ Bank Service, where we opened Visit www.hsbc.co.uk/no-fixed-address. Advertisement feature

‘I wanted Fat Macy’s to give people a sense of pride and purpose’

Fat Macy’s

Meg Doherty is the founding director of social enterprise Fat Macy’s, a catering business and supper club that employs young Londoners living in temporary accommodation and trains them in hospitality.

‘About five years ago I started what kept coming up was a sense of working in a homeless shelter. progression – having a pathway. So, Paul RyanR is the director What I found really surprising was for every 50 hours of the traineeship of CaféCa Art, a social how hard it was for people to move at Fat Macy’s, participants can apply enteenterprise which out of hostels once they’d gotten for a grant to cover a reward of their helhelps to connect in. It’s very difficult to save money choice. For some, that’s getting peppeople experiencing for a rental deposit, as hostels their driving licence renewed. In hohomelessness can be way over £1,000 a month the last two years, we’ve helped wwith the wider and usually need you to be on people to get jobs and buy things ccommunity full benefits (which means you like bedding and pots and pans for tthrough art. can’t work). It also surprised me their first flat. We’ve just got the that loads of people experiencing keys to our first permanent space in ‘In 2012, I was introduced homelessness were young – 18 to Victoria, and we’ll be opening it as a to Michael Wong, who 35. We came up with the Fat Macy’s café-deli space and expanding our hadha set up Café Art. He programme through conversations training programme.’ was helping people who with people living in hostels, and Find out more at www.fatmacys.org. were homelessh express their creativitycreati by framing their work and putting it on the café’s walls. In 2013, we expanded to create the annual MyLondon calendar, where we hand out disposable cameras to people facing homelessness and they get seven days to take ‘It’s about photos of the London that they love. Then we print the calendar and people can sell it and get 50 empowering percent of the sale price, like The Big Issue vendors do. Not only do they get to earn an income from people through their own photography, they also learn entrepreneurial skills and gain giving them confidence by talking to people and telling their stories. This year, due to Covid-19, we couldn’t do the project confidence’ in the way we normally would, so instead we asked the public to vote on the 12 best photos that we’ve collected over the years.’ Find out more and order a MyLondon 2021 calendar at www.cafeart.org.uk.

Discover more ways to help at www.timeout.com/hsbcuk Things to Do Fake snow C Leadenhall Market We’ve had almost a full year of hastily recreated real-life experiences, so why stop at snow? At Leadenhall Market, we won’t just be getting the usual sparkling archway of Christmas lights, oh no. This time, there will be a full indoor snow installation, plus a snowflake projection, just to hammer home that ‘white Christmas’ message. If you’re one of the many Londoners who won’t be able to travel home for the holidays, a trip to Leadenhall will help you feel ostentatiously festive. There’s a wine bar, a French brasserie, and €‚ G shops of the ‘boutique’ A A persuasion, all B contained in a big, airy Victorian space. Snow installation runs Dec 15-18 and 21-23. Free. B A E C Covent Garden U B L Market Not content with its †‡-foot Norwegian spruce tree and ˆˆ‚‰‡‡‡ festive lights, whoever owns Covent Garden Market (that’ll be Capital & Counties Properties) has decided it was just not Christmassy enough. After a whimsical addition of a big Lego installation, a grotto and a mulled-wine festival, it was recently announced that there will be daily Rave to the Moon (fake) snowfall on the market. Rest assured, the snow is sustainable. It won’t taste good on your tongue, but it looks damn good in pictures. memory at the most raucous party C Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Until Jan 3 2021. Snowfall takes place daily, possible with a night of dancehall, Exhibitions ‘Fly in League with the Night’ on the hour, noon-6pm. Free. hip-hop and R&B tunes from If there’s one art exhibition you DJs Oneman and Plastician, and to see asap should motivate yourself to visit substantial grub from White Men during that long, lethargic stretch Can’t Jerk. C ‘Bags: Inside Out’ between Christmas and New Year, The Prince of Peckham. Dec 31. £15. From Birkins to backpacks, frog it’s Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s ‘Fly NYE planning purses to red ministerial boxes, this in League with the Night’. In this Rave to the Moon brand new exhibition at the V&A huge solo show, you’re greeted by N The Cause NYE Featuring virtual sets from a bunch explores the style, function, design mysterious portraits that smile and Breakfast Club of massive names including Rob and craftsmanship of bags from the grin and frown and laugh, and you With venues required to shut at Da Bank, Beardyman, DJ Yoda and present day going all the way back to never know why. In a world full of ˆˆpm, most of the capital’s parties Heartless Crew (pictured above), this the ˆ‚‡‡s. opinions and hot takes, her skillfully will be giving the traditional online fundraiser is aiming to be the V&A. Until Sep 12 2021. £12. executed paintings create a universe midnight countdown a miss this biggest virtual rave of ž‡ž‡. with no answers, no end points, just a year. The Cause, however, has got Dec 31. Free. ravetothemoon.tv million stories to lose yourself in. a bit creative and decided to do TTateTate Britain. Until May 9 2021. £13. it at midday instead. Join them N Roller Nation’s Goodbye to from ”am for a bottomless brunch 2020 and Good Riddance! C MichaelM Clark: celebration with Bloody Marys, New Year’s Eve bash ‘C‘Cosmicos Dancer’ Bucks Fizz and some early morning Did you take up roller skating The BBarbican’s smart, funny and tunes. If you manage to keep going during lockdown? Try this retro slightlysli wonky retrospective until ‘real’ midnight, we salute you. NYE disco on wheels, where ofo choreographer and dancer The Cause. Dec 31. From £60 for a group of six. you’ll glide into a better year MichaelM Clark is closing in with the help of ’Ÿ‡s, ’”‡s and a handful of days, so get S F*ck 2020 ’¡‡s anthems. Skate hire, a moving!m Even if you have zero It’s only been open for three years, glass of champagne and your knowledgek of Clark as a dancer, but The Prince of Peckham has own private booth are included hish punky visuals and flashes already got a rep for throwing a in the ticket price. oof hectic ˆ¡¡‡s London club banging NYE celebration. See out Roller Nation. Dec 31. From £50 for two ‘Bags’ at the V&A cuculture will draw you in.

one of the worst years in living people. BBarbican.arb Until Jan 3 2021. £15-£17. LONDON MUSEUM ALBERT AND VICTORIA © BAG: BLAC; RIKI MOON: THE TO RAVE

Time Out London December 15 2020 30 Things to Do

to The Owl pub. Enter the forest via Grown-up Park to pub Forest to pub Chingford Green, follow Bury Road, and hang a right into the trees. The pantos E Walthamstow Wetlands E Epping Forest to The Owl Google Maps route is easy to follow to The Ferry Boat Inn Traipsing through the thicket of from here and will take you around S ‘Pricked’ If you’re looking for a winter walk Epping Forest while staring at •– minutes. You need to exit the South London’s legendary LGBTQ that’s low effort, high reward, this Google Maps in place of a compass forest to find The Owl at the top of venue The Royal Vauxhall Tavern is it. Walthamstow Wetlands is a is as close as many of us will get to the (fairly steep) Lippitts Hill, but wasn’t going to let something as good-looking slice of London: it’s being an explorer. But you know when you get there, you’ll discover trivial as a global pandemic ruin got reservoirs that reflect the skies what? That’s okay, because it’s one a traditional, dog-friendly pub with the noble Christmas tradition of like mirrored glass, an old copper- of the easiest ways to plan your route a spacious beer garden. its (adult) pantomime. This year’s mill pump house and confident Start at Chingford Overground. creative reinterpretation of ‘Sleeping geese that insist on blockingng the The Owl, Lippitts Hill. Beauty’ features a sex-crazed paths. It’s also a very well-protectedprotected pop-star princess and a raven with habitat, which means there’sre’s onlyonly N Highgate Wood to The Bull identity issues. so much of it you can explore.ore. Take HighgateH Wood is an exceptionally The Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Until Jan 7 2021. £20. yourself on a tour from prettyp and ancient woodland, full the Coppermill Lane ofo gnarly oak trees, hornbeam and C ‘Alice in Streamingland’ entrance, and go on a evergreenev holly. It also only takes If you’ve ever drifted off midway leisurely ‡ˆ-minute arounda ‡– minutes to do a ‡km loop through a TV show binge (who or so stroll to the main ofo the place, unless you have a child hasn’t ?) you’ll identify with the entrance, where The (there’s(t a very good playground, and protagonist in Phoenix Arts Club’s Ferry Boat Inn awaits (acrossoss onceo they’re in it, you’re not leaving). adult panto, who falls down the a very busy road). It gets But,B as long as everyone is of drinking rabbit hole into Interflixland and absurdly busy, especially on a age,a you can enter at Archway gate, encounters a variety of characters Sunday, so for Christ’s sakeke bbookook absorba that wood, return, and walk strangely similar to those of ‡ˆ‡ˆ’s a table. Only then can you get that thet ten minutes to The Bull on biggest streaming hits. Our money’s first sip of a sweet, crisp post-walkost-walk NorthN Hill, a decent gastro-type pub on Olivia Colman as the Queen of pint, safe in the knowledgee that with countryside leanings. Think Hearts (okay, probably not the real you don’t deserve it one bit.it. weird beers and gin-cured salmon Olivia Colman, she’s an Oscar- Start at Coppermill Lane entrance,nce, with soda bread. winner now, jeez). Walthamstow Wetlands. The Ferry Boatoat Inn, ‘Alice in Streamingland’ Start at Archway Gate, Highgate Wood. Phoenix Arts Club. Until Jan 3 2021. £20. Ferry Lane. The Bull, 13 North Hill. ALICE IN STREAMINGLAND: MARC ABE; ILLUSTRATION: JENNI SPARKS JENNI ILLUSTRATION: ABE; MARC STREAMINGLAND: IN ALICE

31 December 15 2020 Time Out London Things to Do

THREE OF THE BEST Xmas trails S Queen’s House Ice Rink Big days out Covid toppled London’s usual outdoor rinks one by one, but the C ‘Antarctica 3D’ at Imax ice arena at the Queen’s House in Local cinema still closed? Go and Greenwich is still standing. The giant overwhelm your senses with an rink has those little penguin skating extremely disorientating dose of aids for kids who are nervous on the film at the Science Museum’s newly ice, but most importantly, there’s a reopened Imax. It might seem café that serves hot chocolate. gimmicky, but this is one of only Queen’s House. Until Jan 24 2021. From £14.50, two screens in Europe to mix high- from £7.25 child. end digital and analogue, housing both an Imax laser and ˆ‰mm film W Christmas Fairy Trail projector. Chances are no kids will If your kid is just about young enough care about this dull cinephile tech to believe fairies might be real, keep the info – they’ll just want to see some Kids’ theatre magical ruse alive on this sprite trail across cool shit on a massive screen. And the Hampton Court Palace gardens. they will get it: right now the Imax is N ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ Hampton Court Palace. Until Jan 3 2021. Included in showing BBC Earth documentary If you have kids, chances are you can palace admission: £24.50, £12.20 child. ‘Antarctica ‘D’, which means lots of recite a sizable percentage of ‘The penguins. In ‘D. Gruffalo’s Child’ by heart. It’s a rare Science Museum. Dates and times vary. children’s book in that it manages £12, £10 child. to keep its energy and charm after

S Nine Elms Advent Calendar The windows of  businesses in Nine Elms have been decorated by local artists working to the theme of ‘Light in the Darkness’. See if you can find them all. Start at The Black Cab Coffee Co. Windows open until Jan 2 2021. Download a map at www.nineelms.org

A season of family fun inspired by our iconic poster collection

Open daily from 10:00

N The Magic of Christmas London Zoo’s festive trail tasks kids with gathering intel to help Santa decide on presents for the animals, which means you can relax while the kids rack their brains over what’s the best gift for a flamingo. London Zoo. Until Jan 3 2021. Admission: from £23.64, from £15.36 child. Download the trail card at www.zsl.org HAMPTON COURT PALACE: © HISTORIC ROYAL PALACES; LONDON ZOO: © ZSL LONDON ZOO LONDON ZSL © ZOO: LONDON PALACES; ROYAL HISTORIC © PALACE: COURT HAMPTON

Time Out London December 15 2020 32 Things to Do

multiple reads, making it prime source material for a long theatrical Santa meet run. Tall Stories’ musical adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel ’n’ greets ONE UNMISSABLE THING Scheffler’s award-winning sequel to ‘The Gruffalo’ (which opened Underbelly’s Santa in the West End in „ †‡) is packed at Home with inventive storytelling and furry Stressed about the idea of crowding jumpsuits from the cast of three. It’s into a grotto? Cut your losses and now showing at a socially distanced book an online audience with the Ally Pally for „ „ . big man instead. These calls will set Alexandra Palace. Until Jan 3 2021. you back a hefty –”— for up to six £12-£18, ages three-plus. kids, but it is a touch more I N personal than being R G C ‘Nutcracker B ushered away with a Delights’ repurposed Kinder Two things the Egg toy from the pandemic seems to grotto present pile. T have been unable H S Until Dec 24. From £54. to shut down (so far, D www.santaathomeofficial.com touch wood, pray E K I to the heavens): a few C National Gallery ‘Fantastic Beasts: pantomimes and ‘The Santa’s Grotto Nutcracker’, which is returning to If your kids aren’t quite old enough The Wonder of Nature’ the London Coliseum in this heavily to appreciate the gory Baroque art truncated ‘best of’-style version of Artemisia Gentileschi, you can Real animal specimens sit alongside from English National Ballet. always visit the National Gallery’s magical creatures from the world of Running at just ‡” minutes with no Christmas Experience to meet Santa. Magizoologist Newt Scamander at this interval, it’s clearly an adaptation to If your visit is before ”pm, you’ll get exhibition for ‘Potter’-obsessed children. suit our ‘troubled times’, but will no access to the Gallery Collection too. Natural History Museum. Until Aug 2021. £22, £13.25 child. doubt up the family-friendliness of The National Gallery. Until Dec 23. £10 adult an already family-friendly affair. and child aged 12-plus (including refreshment), London Coliseum. Until Jan 3 2021. £10-£55. £20 child under 12 (including gift). FANTASTIC BEASTS: © THE TRUSTEES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON MUSEUM, HISTORY NATURAL THE OF TRUSTEES THE © BEASTS: FANTASTIC

33 December 15 2020 Time Out London Food & Dr ink

timeout.com/eatdrink @timeouteatdrink

Bacon butter burger at Burger and Beyond

Unagi meal kit restaurant and wake up the next day at Makes Miso Hungry thinking about their roast chicken ‘Yoko, who makes these amazing you know they’re doing something Japanese meal boxes, isn’t a trained very right! A very healthy portion The best chef, she just has a passion to deliver for two with leftovers. The sauce the very best. It’s all about the was so good we asked for seconds! attention to detail. Yoko personally Holly Chaves, Wine & Rind goes to New Covent Garden Noble Rot, 2 Greek St, W1D 4NB. Market to hand-select the fruit and vegetables, she picks the sansho Lobster and wag yu fat thing I ate leaves from her family garden, she at Frog by Adam Handling works directly with fishermen at ‘My best dish of the year? That’s Billingsgate to get the very best fish. a hard one. I would probably say Easily the best “cook at home” box lobster and wagyu fat by Adam I’ve eaten – those chefs better watch Handling was mega. Adam is a out.’ Sven-Hanson Britt, Homestead buddy of mine and one hell of a chef.’ this year in London City Island James Cochran,  www.makesmisohungry.com Frog, 75 Sloane St, SW1X 9SG. London chefs reveal the restaurant Roast chicken, morels and Luto meal kits at Luto dishes, meal kits and takeaways they vin jaune at Noble Rot ‘We auctioned off a vintage were obsessed with in  ‘The best non-lockdown meal would restaurant sign at Top Cuvée probably have to be the chicken I (starting bid was one Capri Sun) had at the new Noble Rot in Soho and Mary eventually won the bid in

– it was WILD. When you leave a exchange for one of her Luto Diner SOUZA DE JUSTIN BURGER:

Time Out London December 15 2020 34 A S N kits. Super-fresh tasty Filipino food, Houmous, fish tagine, amba W ’ really stand out stuff like pork adobo tahini, dill and harissa oilat Erev T T ’ and chilled squash ginataang. We ‘Shuk is an Israeli market stall in will be seeing a lot more of them next Borough market serving warm pita year I’m sure.’ Will Blank, Top Cuvée and salads. On Thursday, Friday and 2020 www.lutolondon.com Saturday evenings they turn into A Erev, an outdoor restaurant serving L L A D Eggplant sambal and arepa Israeli-inspired dishes. Absolutely B with bergamot labneh at Scully everything they serve is delicious ‘A simple dish yet very complex but my favourites are the beetroot, in flavour, the pairing of all these horseradish, orange and dill; the ingredients from different parts of smoky aubergine, tomato, labne, the world is just a stroke of genius. mint and toasted pumpkin seeds; I had this dish at the restaurant but and the houmous with fish tagine, it’s available as a DIY kit as well.’ amba tahini, dill and harissa oil. Marwa Alkhalaf, Nutshell It’s the best houmous in town.’ Scully, 4 St James’s Market, St. SW1Y 4AH. Jun Tanaka, The Ninth Erev, Borough Market Kitchen, SE1 9AG. Hazelnut pain au chocolat at Miel Bakery Baby-chicken tandoori ‘One of the best-looking breakfast at Dastaan pastries I’ve eaten. Despite not being ‘Dastaan on the Kingston Road a breakfast person it’s hard to avoid was recommended to me a while Miel on my morning cycle into Soho! ago but I never got round to going. Shaheen and her team do some of I discovered they did takeaway in the best bread and pastries you can lockdown and it was a no-brainer. find outside Paris. When you do It’s run by two ex-Gymkhana chefs. make the trip, make sure you pick up The baby-chicken tandoori [it’s a half dozen or so caneles, chocolate no longer on the menu] was my tarts and cookies. Thank me later.’ favourite. Everything is delicious. ’ Lobster at Frog Karan Gokani, Hoppers Mark Kempson, W and Wild Radish Miel Bakery, 57 Warren St, W1T 5NR. Dastaan, 447 Kingston Rd, KT19 0DB.

35 December 15 2020 Time Out London Food & Drink

Bubble sundae at Tsujiri ‘The most exciting dish has to be the bubble sundae from Tsujiri in Chinatown. They’re still open even in these times. It’s the addictive combination of cornflakes and cream-matcha soft-serve that keeps me going back.’ Joshua Owens- Baigler, Angelina Tsujiri, 33 Newport Court, WC2H7PQ. The bacon butter burger meal kit at Burger and Beyond ‘It’s brilliant. It’s really simple. I learned simple tricks on how to cook burgers from doing it, and most of all it tasted absolutely incredible. I’ve Hazelnut pain au ordered it twice already! I think I saw chocolat at Miel Bakery it on Instagram. I’d always wanted to eat at the restaurant but never got round to it, so this was a good chance to taste what they do.’ Peter Sanchez- buttery langoustine flesh marinated a week as a Sunday-night treat. flavour. I was also really impressed Iglesias, Decimo in ponzu with delicate peppery We’ve been trying all different types by the packaging the food came in: www.burgerandbeyondshop.co.uk/diy-kits/ radish – divine! Classy, and carefully of cuisine and this little beauty came a smart, wooden sliding box. Highly executed. It will stand out in my out on top for me . The braised pork recommended!’
James Toth, Langoustine at The Connaught mind for years.’ Tom Aikens, Muse came with soy pickled cucumber, Cornerstone ‘Earlier this year, before all this The Connaught, Carlos Place, W1K 2AL. soy egg yolk, spring onions and www.deliveroo.com madness, I had the pleasure chi shang rice. I also ordered a side of enjoying the most superb Braised pork bao of Taiwanese fried chicken and langoustine dish from the at Rice Error by Bao hot sauce. The pork was soft, the More great grub at wonderful Helen Darroze at The ‘My girlfriend and I have been rice was perfectly sticky and the timeout.com/ Connaught. It was out of this world: religiously having one Deliveroo chicken wings were packed full of bestrestaurants

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Time Out London December 15 2020 36 Food & Drink

Discover other spots at timeout.com/beergardens

Spaniards Inn

SOUTH The Scolt Head The Blythe Hill Tavern This pub’s outdoor seating area Expect heaps of space (and heaters), Open-air bevs (which you can book) isn’t the a handsome number of real ales biggest, but it’ll make you feel warm on tap and a fetching marquee to The best London pub gardens and welcome. Literally. There are protect you from rain. There’s pizza for outdoor winter drinking hot water bottles handed out. And at the weekend too. you can find chef Nuno Mendes here What’s the actual pub like? on Saturdays serving up brunch. Lovingly rammed with Irish What’s the actual pub like? Choked sporting memorabilia. with kitsch dog paintings like a 319 Stanstead Rd, SE23 1JB. really lovely big kennel. 107a Culford Rd, N1 4HT. The Duke of Edinburgh The Duke’s got a mammoth outdoor WEST space with heaters, plus a heady The Windsor Castle combo of meat from White Men Shuttle, the answer to that question garden. It does surprisingly good Find this pub’s bijou patio. It gets Can’t Jerk and beers from Brixton is a resounding: ‘No’. And we’d have Thai food too. particularly intimate after dark Brewery and Five Points. to agree, considering the amount of What’s the actual pub like? thanks to an abundance of heaters, What’s the actual pub like? space (and the range of refreshing Big sports bar vibes. soft lighting and secluded nooks for Absolutely nothing like the actual lagers, pilsners and pale 19 Perth Rd, N4 3HB. hushed conversations. Duke of Edinburgh. ales) available at this What’s the actual pub like? So 204 Ferndale Rd, SW9 8AG. partially covered and The Spaniards Inn earnestly charming that you’d be heated terrace. Come here for forgiven for thinking you’d walked EAST What’s the actual one of London’s on to the set of a Richard Curtis film. The Crooked Billet pub like? Hip in a best-looking beer 114 Campden Hill Rd, W8 7AR. Head down to this spacious beer ‘we’ve got exposed gardens – a kind garden if you fancy a bit of crab brick and filament of manic pixie The Swan bisque with your alfresco IPA. The bulbs’ kind of way. dream landscape, The courtyard at this tucked-up covered booths with patio heaters 226 Shoreditch High St, full of heaters and tavern is as spacious as it gets and are prime real estate on grim days. E1 6PJ. sheltered tables. you can tell there’s been genuine What’s the actual pub like? On the The Faltering Fullback Expect to see it played thought put into its Covid- gentrified side but not too much. NORTH by Zooey Deschanel in a compliant layout and feng shui 84 Upper Clapton Rd, E5 9JP. The Faltering Fullback romcom imminently. heater arrangement. Yes, this pub is named after a rugby What’s the actual pub like? What’s the actual pub like? Proper The Crown and Shuttle position but don’t let that prevent Timeless. Mellow wooden floors and classy, with a sultry ambience come Does a beer garden need to have you from cosying up under the an embarrassment of fireplaces. nightfall. ■ Lucas Oakeley SPANIARD’S INN: @JUSHARDLOW; FALTERING FULLBACK: @BOOZESOTTED FULLBACK: FALTERING @JUSHARDLOW; INN: SPANIARD’S grass? If you’re The Crown and heaters in its four-storey beer Spaniards Rd, NW3 7JJ. 1 Evershed Walk, 119 Acton Lane, W4 5HH.

37 December 15 2020 Time Out London Xxxxxxx Love Local

Edited by Kate Lloyd timeout.com/lovelocal

The shops that got you through 2020 In the final hit of our Local Lifesavers series, readers celebrate ace neighbourhood stores

C Central N North S South E East W West

S Taooting Arena N Zaco Convenience Store ‘They were always stocked up ‘This Upper Street shop is an with everything we needed during absolute treasure trove. It has lots of lockdown: fresh veg, tinned beans, choice, especially when it comes to craft beers and, most crucially, organic goods.’ @_tanyabowd bread flour.’ @shutter_bean 175 Upper St. N1 1RG. 6-8 Upper Tooting Rd. SW17 7PG. E Akin Supermarkets N Parkway Greens ‘On Shacklewell Lane in Dalston, ‘There’s a cosy atmosphere in this shop had absolutely everything Khan’s Peckham this Camden shop. You can smell during the Great First Lockdown, Turkish food being cooked and including flour and yeast! They’ve they have an amazing selection of always got fresh fruit and veg produce. They even have Cypriot and a great selection of wine it was out of stock. They kept me potatoes, and being from Cyprus, (essentials). They got me through ‘They kept afloat on days I couldn’t see another that made me feel at home.’ @edguk the quarantine.’ @sea.walls friendly face.’ @saffersnaps 52 Parkway, NW1 7AH. 2 Shacklewell Lane, E8 2EZ. me afloat 219 Stoke Newington High St, N16 7HU. S Khan’s Bargain N Clocktower Store on days E Stone Mini Market ‘An A to Z of spices, all in one place.’ ‘A Crouch End gem with the best ‘You always feel super-welcome at this @deeaiysha lettuces around.’ @sybrighton I couldn’t Leytonstone shop and they try and 135 Rye Lane, SE15 4ST. 52 The Broadway, N8 9TP. be eco-friendly too.’ @tatxventura see 743 High Rd Leytonstone, E11 4QS. N Yasar Halim N Nature ‘This Green Lanes store had ‘These guys have the best produce in another C Bağci Food Centre everything that the supermarkets town, and always give service with a ‘They’ve got banging international ran out of. Plus packaging-free veg.’ genuine “how are you?”. They even friendly food and fresh veg at this shop on @nella_allegra_b reordered my favourite product Central Street.’ @leadzifa face’ 493 Green Lanes, N4 1AL. more quickly than planned, when 152 Central St, EC1V 3AL. @EATSLONDONLIFE MARKET: MINI STONE SUMNER-VIEW/ALAMY; EDMUND PECKHAM: KHAN’S

Time Out London December 15 2020 38 Xxxxxxx

Stone Mini Market

to keep us going through our ‡ˆ-day quarantine! The big stores didn’t have a delivery slot for the whole two weeks, but Bally delivered the same day. If he didn’t have an item, he found it for us.’@julie_king_ 27 Lower Belgrave St, SW1W 0LS.

E Buy & Save ‘A Walthamstow heaven for any spice you ever need. They have ŒŽ different types of honey and great A S N olives.’@rose_prinelle W ’ 253-255 High St, E17 7BH. T T ’ E Hussey’s ‘This Wapping store did a good job of 2020 serving the community and offered A free home deliveries throughout the L L A D year.’ @kirstin B 64 Wapping Lane, E1W 2RL.

N Where 2 Save ‘The guys at this store were perfect! They never overcharged on products that were difficult to source during the pandemic. In fact, when I spoke to the boss, he mentioned doing that meant he lost N Harringay Local Store S FreshGo out but he wanted to help so it never ‘On Green Lanes in Haringey, this ‘The owner of this Gipsy Hill shop mattered for him.’ ■ @polatm shop kept up with the madness of lost his life to corona because they 352 Kilburn High Rd, NW6 2QJ. lockdown brilliantly.’ @alicedeville stayed open throughout lockdown.’ 581c Green Lanes, N8 0RG. @sophieisabel 81 Gipsy Hill, SE19 1QL. W Soloman Best Choice ‘At this Maida Vale shop, you S SK Store can literally get everything ‘I go to this Old Kent Road you need: fab fresh produce, shop for all my Indian cooking and Middle Eastern, Indian and ingredients.’ @sheelasrasoi Time Out’s Love Local campaign Mediterranean herbs and spices. 201-203 Old Kent Rd, SE1 5NB. supports local food, drink and culture And there was no queue when businesses in London. Find out people were waiting outside Tesco W Charles of Belgravia how you can help the places that round the block.’ @khushikukadia Harringay Local Store ‘Bally [from Charles of Belgravia] make our city great. 247 Elgin Avenue, W9 1NJ. delivered fresh fruit and vegetables timeout.com/lovelocallondon

39 December 15 2020 Time Out London Escapes Escapes

Edited by Ellie Walker-Arnott timeout.com/daytrips

The bestUK breaks we went on this year Big blow-out adventures around the world were cancelled in , but there were alternatives. Here’s how Ellie Walker-Arnott made use of her annual leave

The close-to-home escapes all over the UK this summer staycation is proof we weren’t the only ones. 1When you’ve been stuck inside Top spot Kent’s the Beach House your own home for four months, it is a solar-powered cabin that even turns out there’s no need to head requires you to bring your own somewhere exotic – just going drinking water, and was booking outside is a total high. This was the website Canopy & Stars’s fastest- year of the staycation, whether that selling place of all time when it went meant rediscovering the city or live this summer. It has no signal, no Linea kipping in a London hotel, relishing wifi, zero opportunities to ‘jump on every minute under a duvet that a call’ and plentiful ways to embrace wasn’t ours. Or full of crumbs from the world IRL, sea swims and all. working lunches in our bed office. The Beach House, Isle of Sheppey. Sleeps four. comes with a workspace that’s Top spot The Coop, a plush cabin From £150 a night. www.canopyandstars.co.uk probably nicer than your office. with a hot tub overlooking a field of If you can even remember what that sheep. It’s just beyond the M , yet The one where you WF looks like, at this point. when we visited it felt like travelling (someone else’s) H The Loft, Northamptonshire. Sleeps six. to a different dimension. 3The beauty of living a huge From £99 a night. www.airbnb.co.uk The Coop, Essex. Sleeps two. From £155 a night. chunk of our lives online this year www.colemans-farm.co.uk meant that, if we were WFH, we The camping trip didn’t have to be tied to the same we weren’t entirely The off-grid digital detox desk, or even the same city. Thanks 4prepared for We woke up one day and said: to a blend of annual leave and Pitched as the ideal post-lockdown 2Enough. We were done with logging on from afar, an extended holiday, campsites were absolutely the doomscrolling, the virtual pub trip to an Airbnb was the ideal break winning this summer. It felt like quizzes, the stilted Zoom drinks from our over-familiar four walls. Shellbeach everyone we knew was sleeping

– and the popularity of off-grid Top spot Barn conversion The Loft under canvas. They made it look so JARVIS; DIANA CAMPSITE: BERYL’S HOMESTAYS; UNIQUE © LINEA: ANASTASIADES ELLIS SHELLBEACH:

Time Out London December 15 2020 40 Make grand 2021 plans at timeout.com/UK

And what we’ll book in 2021…

Lesser-travelled spots Certain places go with summer holidays like buckets go with spades but plenty of us will be swerving them in favour of places like Northumberland, the quietest county in England. It has just 63 people per square kilometer (for context, London has 5,701) as well Beryl’s Campsite as dramatic coastlines and a brilliant National Park. Book this Remote shepherd’s hut Cheviot has an alfreso tub and a The outdoorsy adventure stargazing window above the bed. We’d never actually been www.kiphideaways.com 5hiking before, but so what? We heard the call of the Great Outdoors Nostalgic stays A S N this year, and we answered, whether According to booking site Canopy & W ’ Stars, nostalgic breaks will be big in T T or not we had ever read an Ordnance ’ Survey map. There were probably 2021: treehouses that remind us of a lot of Londoners attempting to childhood and cabins comfortingly Google-Map their way through packed full of boardgames. Old- 2020 dense stretches of woodland, but we fashioned places with fairytale A L D got a kick out of being so wholesome. vibes will beat anything too sleek. L B A Top spot The South Downs are Book this Keeper’s Cottage looks London’s closest National Park, for like the kind of place Little Red a stroll or a week’s walking hol. Just Riding Hood would call home. don’t wear-in new boots walking the www.landmarktrust.org.uk entire €‚‚-mile South Downs Way. Glamping pop-ups The let’s-pretend-we’ve- When domestic travel took off this gone-abroad one summer, campsites sprung up all fun, we went too. And discovered 6Holidays in the UK are always over the place: in fields, in hotel that camping requires a lot more We found great, but this year they were forced grounds, even a beach in Cornwall equipment than it appears. We upon a lot of us a little unwillingly. became a temporary campsite. found ourselves in a compost loo ourselves So we tried to replicate our cancelled And that pop-up attitude is set to sans bog roll, in a sink queue without foreign trips. The most dedicated continue right on into 2021, taking a washing-up bowl and attempting in a booked the kind of holiday home us on trips to unique corners of the to live in a field with just a pair of that you’d find on genuinely sun- country to have experiences shared wellies and a two-man tent, but we compost soaked shores. Lucky with the by only a few others. were not alone. weather? We almost got away with it. Book this Hinterlandes, a bus-camper Top spot Beryl’s Campsite is what loo sans Top spotClifftop villa Linea has an hybrid, will be moving around the alfresco dreams are made of. It’s bog roll infinity pool and a swanky alfresco Lakes next summer. EW-A rustic, surrounded by greenery and living space. It could be Ibiza, but is www.canopyandstars.co.uk just minutes from the sea. on the north Devon coast. ■ Beryl’s Campsite, Devon. From £8.50 a night. Linea, Devon. Sleeps ten. From £6,250 for www.berylscampsite.co.uk a short break. www.uniquehomestays.com

41 December 15 2020 Time Out London T ime In

Edited by Phil de Semlyen timeout.com/timein A S N W ’ T T ’ 2020 A L L B A D The 10 best films of 2020 Time Out Film editor Phil de Semlyen picks the movies that lit up the toughest year in cinema history

IT STARTED WITH a masterpiece. The Korean filmmaker biting South Korean was hardly an unknown quantity social satire-cum- – he’s been turning out gems since thriller winning Best his debut, ‘Barking Dogs Never Bite’, Picture and ended  years ago – but this year even with everyone wondering if there’d the Academy joined his dedicated ‘1917’ even be a Best Picture.  was fanbase, the Bong-hive . In a tough a movie year like no other (and year for London’s indie cinemas, let’s not forget that the medium his Oscar-winner provided much more than survived two box-office succour too. Saint Maud sexuality remains etched in the actual world wars). But You can feel the damp fleck of memory. If you came out eager to despite the temporary Rocks 3sea air and surges of religious take up painting, congratulations. closure of cinemas, This east mania in Rose Glass’s spellbinding That was lockdown sorted. a mass switch to 2 London debut. ‘Saint Maud’ offers a creepy streaming and wild triumph follows juxtaposition of British mundanity A Hidden Life uncertainty over Olushola ‘Rocks’ and spiritual horrors that ‘The After three duds, ‘A Hidden what comes next, Omotoso (Bukky Exorcist’ would be proud of. Major 5Life’ is a serious return to there’s been plenty Bakray) when Mum props to Morfydd Clark for her turn form for Terrence Malick. The true of mesmerising films walks out and she’s as a nurse with shades of Joan of story of an Austrian conscientious to enjoy, and reasons ‘Lovers Rock’ forced to keep things Arc. Also, for surviving the shoot. objector standing up to the Nazis, for future optimism. together in Hackney. Its it’s one of the most resonant and backstory is worth celebrating Portrait of a Lady on Fire moving films of recent years. Parasite too: a female-led crew and actors It’s set in the eighteenth One of the most joyous aspects cast from local schools and sharing 4century and feels a bit like it Uncut Gems 1of  is the success of Bong their lived experiences on screen came out then too (it was February, ‘This is how I win.’ Except Joon-ho and ‘Parasite’, a film we can showing that there are new, more honest). But Céline Sciamma’s quiet 6Howard Ratner, ‘Uncut Gems’

1917: FRANCOIS DUHAMEL/UNIVERSAL PICTURES AND DREAMWORKS PICTURES; LOVERS LOVERS PICTURES; DREAMWORKS AND PICTURES DUHAMEL/UNIVERSAL FRANCOIS 1917: DISNEY/PIXAR 2020 © SOUL: TAGHIZADEH; LIMITED/PARISA BBC/MCQUEEN ROCK: safely and unhyperbolically call a inclusive ways to make movies. storm of emotion and repressed diamond-dealer antihero, is too

Time Out London December 15 2020 42 The 21 films to see in 2021 timeout.com/film

Soul

IS AN UNFULFILLED life worth living? What WHAT IS IT… addicted to the high to do anything Pixar’s jazz-fuelled awaits us after death? The questions posed by other than lose in this blood- journey into the Pixar’s latest aren’t your average starting point pressure-ramping thriller. Thanks great beyond. for an animation. The story follows Joe (Jamie to Adam Sandler’s jittery energy, Foxx), a music teacher who dreams of becoming there’s only one way to watch this a jazz pianist, until an accident untethers his soul WHY GO… film: with a cardiologist present. For a spirit-soaring from his body. The opportunity of a lifetime will celebration of Black pass him by unless he can convince a grumpy Lovers Rock lost soul (Tina Fey) that life is worth living. music and culture. The high point of Steve Even as the race-against-time device begins McQueen’s five-film to feel laboured, the world of the movie sparkles. 7 Æ Directors Pete Docter, celebration of Black London life, The title is a clever double entendre for the Kemp Powers (PG) 97 mins. ‘Small Axe’, this hour of house-party ascension to the spiritual realm and the warmth On Disney+ Dec 25. heaven brims with sexual static, associated with Black culture. Playwright Kemp killer reggae and soul cuts, and Powers co-directs and co-writes (with Pete the kind of hazy hanging-out that Docter) and his influence is keenly felt: from the makes you curse lockdown afresh. glisten of black skin, to the texture of an afro and the authenticity of the conversations in a 1917 barbershop. None of it is forced, testament to the Proof thatSam Mendes didn’t involvement of people with real lived experience. 8leave any of his action mojo on If anything, ‘Soul’ is guilty of over-ambition. The the set of ‘Spectre’, this pulsing race- wizardry and wit is there, but it lacks Pixar’s usual against-time Great War thriller gives deftness in making complex themes sing for a Tommy’s-eye view of combat. youngsters. Mixing heart and existential angst, Conclusion? Nervy fun to watch; it’ll connect more with Joe’s generation than little zero fun to be there. ones. It’s smart and, yes, soulful but it never quite takes flight. Q Whelan Barzey The Lighthouse Back in the ‘Twilight’ days, 9you probably wouldn’t have LISTEN WHILE YOU WATCH put money on Robert Pattinson having sex with a mermaid and Co-director Kemp Powers on three jazzy LPs that inspired ‘Soul’ beating a seagull to death on screen. Which is why we love the man: he dedicates himself to sniffing out the weird, wonderful and surprising. This briny wig-out is all three. Les Misérables Maverick cops, pissed-off 10 teenagers and a rogue ‘Thelonious Monk ‘ The Low End Theor y’ ‘ The Charles Mingus lion make an incendiary mixmix inin thisthis Quar tet with John A Tribe Called Quest Quintet & Ma x Roach’ blistering banlieue thriller. The Coltrane at Carnegie Hall’ ‘I told Pixar that Gen X hip ‘My favourite Mingus song, spiritual heir to ‰ŠŠ‹’s ‘La Haine’ ‘Monk and Coltrane are two hop heads leaned into “Haitian Fight Song”, is (which also got a re-release thisthis year),year), of my jazz trinity – the other sampling jazz. I like to think [the hero] Joe’s ringtone in is Charles Mingus. I could Joe might have been in “Soul”. I have the bassline ‘Parasite’ absolutely no one was singing in this ‘Les Mis’. Q listen to them for ever.’ school with Q-Tip.’ tattooed on my arm.’

43 December 15 2020 Time Out London Time In

MY STREAMING SALVATION Nairn Across Britain Deputy editor Chris Waywell on his small-screen happy place

A PORTLY MAN about-to-be-demolished shopping emerges from a arcade in Northampton and much London townhouse, eloquence about canals. He is often accompanied by some hilarious: there’s a description of lite jazz. He’s wearing a glum Leicestershire village as what used to be called a ‘car coat’ having ‘laid down and died’. There’s and carries a briefcase. He unlocks a curious eighteenth-century a dented Morris Minor and wobbles quality to it all, like Daniel Defoe’s off up the road. This is the start of ‘A Tour Through the Whole Island Ian Nairn’s journey north. Here’s of Great Britain’ rewritten by an two reasons you might think ‘Nairn oddball vicar or an over-imaginative Across Britain’ isn’t for you: a) it’s Labour backbencher. about architecture, and b) it’s from So, why should you watch it? Well, ­€‚ƒ. But trust me, this series is firstly because Nairn is the kind of relentlessly brilliant and strange. eccentric, vividly insightful man Nairn, a camera-shy architectural you rarely see on TV now. He’s got critic, makes an unlikely TV zero pose, and is totally unafraid frontman. As he wends his way to to be critical. Just as importantly, Scotland, he considers a country though, he examines what Britain caught between a debated past is through what it looks like. When and an obscure future. He defends he uses the term ‘community’ it some monstrous buildings, means something. Today, when decries destructive town planners our national identity is constantly and scorns the twee. There’s a mediated and marketed back to us, magical passage about gliders ‘No Sheila, I’m not his ability to see beyond the emptily walking another step ■ on the downs near Dunstable, until I’ve had a pint’ nostalgic feels almost seditious. an impassioned defence of an Available on BBC iPlayer Four perfect podcasts for theatre lovers Culture editor Andrzej Łukowski picks backstage chats to fill the gap

Playwright’s Podcast That Black Theatre Podcast Genial playwright Simon Stephens hosts The National Theatre has launched many 1this thespiest of thespy podcasts. Produced 3interesting podcasts over the years, but by the Royal Court, Playwright’s Podcast eschews its current series is one of the best, as host celebrity performer names in favour of – as the Nadine Deller takes us on a journey through title suggests – playwrights. Stephens makes an the rich history of Black British theatre. It’s a unobtrusive interviewer, who teases an hour or chronological affair that begins in the ’30s with so of fascinating reminiscences from the likes of an examination of Jamaican-born Una Marson, David Hare, Lucy Prebble and Roy Williams. In an and then studiously onwards. As of December age when virtually no dramatists have much of a 2020, it’s just about to arrive at the present day. public profile, it’s a rare and fascinating forum. www.nationaltheatre.org.uk www.royalcourttheatre.com The Hamilcast What I Love There are plenty of US podcasts devoted Theatre director Ian Rickson is one of the 4to chummy yet baffling interviews with 2greats: he ran the Royal Court in the late Broadway performers. The Hamilcast is not one ’90s and ’00s, and has directed everything of them. Nearly 250 episodes solely devoted to from Jez Butterworth’s peerless ‘Jerusalem’ to the musical ‘Hamilton’ may sound like an oddball PJ Harvey tours. This isn’t strictly speaking a undertaking, but host Gillian Pensavalle is a theatre podcast, but his day job permeates these delight as she breezes into wildly enthusiastic intimate chats with guests like Kae Tempest, chit-chat with various show veterans – it’s an Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ben Whishaw. They share insight not just into ‘Hamilton’, but the whole their favourite film, piece of writing and song. business of being a musical theatre performer. ■

play.acast.com/s/what-i-love www.thehamilcast.com ARCHIVE PHOTO BBC BRITAIN: ACROSS NAIRN

Time Out London December 15 2020 44 Time In

Modern gaming: a lapsed gamer’s guide Culture editor Andrzej Łukowski dusts off his thumbs

Back in 2008, I accidentally left my PlayStation 2 behind moving from Bristol to seek my fortune in the capital. I haven’t gamed since. Life always got in the way. For some reason, I’ve had time on my hands this year, and with my eldest child about Cuphead ready to game (he watches a lot of weird Minecraft videos), I decided to bloody well get myself an Xbox Series X, Six great new games Microsoft’s superpowered new console. If you’ve been out of the for nostalgic gamers loop for the last decade, it’s genuinely mindblowing that Gateway heaven for lapsed button-mashers Xboxes now work mostly via the internet. The visual leap is staggering. There are also a lot more menus. That said, having dabbled If you miss playing Contra If you miss playing Tony Hawk’s with three games – Polish A blast through a series of inventive Pro Skater classic The Witcher 3, the bosses, Cuphead offers hard-as-nails A remake of the first two Tony Hawk ravishing latest ‘Star Wars’ difficulty reminiscent of old-school games, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 +2 is a jobbie Fallen Order and fun run-and-gun platformers. Inspired by reminder of why a generation of non- new gangster epic Yakuza: surreal s cartoons and with a big-band jazz skaters know what a ‘switch foot pogo’ is. Even the Like a Dragon – it’s clear that soundtrack, it’ll sure scratch that itch for nostalgia. infectious skatepunk soundtrack is still there. good games are still good PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC. PS4, Xbox One, PC. games, just prettier and bigger and menu-ier. If you miss playing Mega Man If you miss playing Rollercoaster Tycoon As our forefathers moved A love letter to -bit games, Shovel A throwback park simulator, Planet from Pong to Super Mario Knight: Treasure Trove has all the style Coaster: Console Edition lets you Bros, so I have adjusted and challenge of your favourite classic build your very own Disneyland. The from Tekken 2 to the platformers. The Showdown battle creative freedom is a joy, as players games of 2020. The most mode even lets you challenge your pals to a duel – can precisely place each piece of rollercoaster groundbreaking thing is that just like the good old days. track to make a truly unique park. the Series X is designed to PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC. PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X. look unobtrusive and has been sitting in plain sight of If you miss playing Doom If you miss playing Streets of Rage my children for weeks now, If you used to play the Doom games The legendary arcade series is back unnoticed. Maybe I will tell you’ll know what Doom Eternal is with Streets of Rage 4. The four- them at Christmas, if they all about: having a whole lot of fun player mode is a retro romp with none are good. ■ clonking terrifying monsters with of the tangled wires of yesteryear’s massive, over-the-top weapons. If you fancy gaming. Fighting endless waves of bad guys has slicing a demon in half, here’s where to go. never felt so satisfying. ■ Django Zimmatore CUPHEAD: STUDIO MDHR STUDIO CUPHEAD: PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC. PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC.

45 December 15 2020 Time Out London TIMEOUT.COM/OFFERS LOND N FOR LESS

Food, drink, screenings, pop-ups: don’t miss our exclusive offers and discounts

The Green Room

What is it? The recipe for a super Saturday, that’s what. You’ll get unlimited booze and some delicious dishes for under 
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