9 Things To Book, Watch & Listen To This Month
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THE PODCAST:
Acting for Others
This new podcast features some of Britain’s most esteemed actors to help raise funds for its eponymous charity, which helps support the theatre industry by providing both financial and emotional support to all UK theatre workers. Award-winning actress Samantha Bond will open episodes which feature two actors from different walks of life: some meeting for the first time, others catching up with old friends. Listeners can hear Olly Alexander (It’s a Sin) and Judi Dench, David Tennant and Paapa Essiedu (The Capture, I May Destroy You), and Miriam Margolyes and Sir Derek Jacobi. Expect to hear everything about their lives and experiences in the industry, including the highs, lows and everything in between.
Listen here
THE EXHIBITION:
Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art at Hayward Gallery
Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery has just opened an exhibition on clay. Strange Clay celebrates the medium’s potential through a collection of large-scale sculptures and smaller objects, ranging from fantastical creatures to uncanny representations of the everyday. Visitors can see works from 23 international artists, including Salvatore Arancio, Leilah Babirye, Jonathan Baldock, Lubna Chowdhary and Emma Hart. Look out for the impressive installation by American ceramic artist Betty Woodman and the abstract sculpture by German artist Beate Kuhn. Tickets cost £15.
Belvedere Road, Southbank, SE1 8XX
Visit SouthbankCentre.co.uk
BEN STOCKLEY
THE SHOW:
Kerry Jackson at National Theatre
National Theatre has had an impressive line-up of productions this season, including Arthur Miller’s seminal play The Crucible, Shakespeare’s Othello and Blues for an Alabama Sky starring Samira Wiley. At the end of the month, Fay Ripley (Cold Feet) will take to the stage to play Kerry Jackson in the eponymous play. Kerry is the owner of a new tapas restaurant, El Barco, in fashionable Walthamstow Village. Wearing her working-class roots as a badge of honour, Kerry navigates the local characters in a bid to make the business a success – without losing herself in the process.
Upper Ground, Southbank, SE1 9PX
Visit NationalTheatre.org.uk
THE PRE-BOOK:
Prue Leith UK Tour
Tickets have just gone on sale for Prue Leith’s first ever UK tour, ‘Nothing in Moderation’, which starts in February 2023. The 34-date tour will travel across the UK and Ireland before finishing at the London Palladium on Thursday 6th April. In each show, Prue will share fascinating anecdotes about her life, talking about the ups and downs of being a successful restaurateur, novelist, businesswoman and Great British Bake Off judge; feeding the rich and famous, cooking for royalty and even accidentally poisoning her clients. In the second half of the show, Prue will answer audience questions – the perfect time to ask for recipe tips or advice.
Various sites.
Visit Ents24.com
THE MUSIC FESTIVAL:
EFG London Jazz Festival
EFG London Jazz Festival celebrates its 30th year this November. Taking place at various venues in and around the capital, visitors can hear from up-and-coming artists and big names in the jazz world, including singer Dianne Reeves, composer Henry Threadgill and singer Kurt Elling. You can also drop into events celebrating the capital’s most famous jazz clubs, as well as homegrown talent and voices from around the world. Highlights include a performance from saxophonist Binker Golding at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall (Friday 11th November), and an evening with five-time Grammy Award-winning Dianne Reeves, also in Queen Elizabeth Hall (Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th November). Some performances are free; otherwise, ticket start from £10.
Various locations; from Friday 11th-Sunday 20th November
THE ANNIVERSARY TOUR:
The Mousetrap
Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is the world’s longest running play and it’s celebrating its 70th anniversary this month. To mark the occasion, the production is going on a nationwide tour, bringing the classic murder mystery to 70 venues across the country, including Oxford, Bath, Manchester, Southampton, York and Sheffield, to name a few. The touring cast includes Todd Carty (EastEnders, Grange Hill) as Major Metcalf, Gwyneth Strong (Only Fools and Horses, EastEnders) as Mrs Boyle and Joelle Dyson (Dreamgirls, Funny Girl) as Mollie Ralston. Tickets start from £13.
St Martins Theatre, West Street, WC2H 9NZ
Visit UK.The-Mousetrap.co.uk
THE BOOK:
The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World
Malcolm Gaskill is an expert on witch hunts during the Middle Ages. His new book takes readers back to the frontier town of Springfield in 1651, when peculiar things start to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock deteriorates and property vanishes. People suffer fits and are plagued by strange visions and dreams. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics, and the community becomes tangled in a web of spite, distrust and denunciation. Suspicion falls on a young couple struggling to make a home and feed their children: brickmaker Hugh Parsons and his troubled wife Mary. It will be their downfall. The Ruin of All Witches tells the dark, real-life folktale of witch-hunting on a remote Massachusetts plantation.
Visit Waterstones.com
THE PLAY:
Henry V at Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare’s Globe’s winter season opens with Henry V in the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on Thursday 10th November. A timely production in light of world events – the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, Brexit and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – it touches on themes like royal succession, nationalism, war and imperialism. As the Shakespearean story goes, Henry, the young and newly crowned king, is impatient to assert control over the people of England. Having received a humiliating gift from overseas, his bruised ego leads him to double down on a military invasion abroad in a bid to expand his land. But at what devastating cost? Tickets start from £25.
21 New Globe Walk, Bankside, SE1 9DT
Visit ShakespearesGlobe.com
THE SERIES:
The Crown, Series 5
In light of the Queen’s death and King Charles III’s ascension to the throne, there’s been a lot of speculation about the fifth series of The Crown which hits our screens on Wednesday. It’s the early 90s and the royal family are presented with possibly their biggest challenge to date; as the public openly question their role in modern day Britain. As Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton) approaches the 40th anniversary of her accession, she reflects on a reign that has encompassed nine prime ministers, the advent of mass television and the twilight of the British Empire. Yet new challenges are on the horizon. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the transfer of sovereignty in Hong Kong signals a seismic shift in the international order presenting both obstacles and opportunities. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing closer to home as Prince Charles (Dominic West) pressures his mother to allow him to divorce Diana (Elizabeth Debicki), presenting a constitutional crisis of the monarchy.
Available to watch on Wednesday 9th November
Visit Netflix.com
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