What’s On this week
Bishi: Let My Country Awake
The visionary London producer, multi-instrumentalist and tech-embracing performer will perform her new album live.
Partly inspired by the essay collection The Good Immigrant and Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel-winning poem exploring borderless identity, the album features revolutionary use of her trademark electric sitar and four-octave vocal range.
The album, released on her own label Gryphon, also features sampled interviews from Nikesh Shukla, Salena Godden and Darren Chetty. It’s a work exploring dual identities and a call to find empathy in a divided world.
October 13
Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall
Shingai
The legendary front woman and bassist from the platinum-selling band Noisettes (Never Forget You) welcomes you to a new chapter of her journey with her debut solo album Too Bold.
A sound inspired by her London, Bantu and Zimbabwean heritage, which gives Too Bold an effervescent soundscape, fearlessly infused with a soulful yet spontaneous spirit, which is electrifying and compelling.
October 8
Woolwich Works
Gnarly x Nikita Gill
This combination isn’t a DJ/MC dynamic – it’s a complete band. Using the cadence and tone of Gill’s spoken poetry, Gnarly produces entirely live soundscapes and beats.
The natural push and pull between the duo is a hypnotic conversation that creates an organic, integrated and deeply impactive stage presence.
Building on their fused audio creation, Gnarly also controls aspects of the live-motion graphics. These visuals are born out of Gill’s own illustrations, adding another layer of collaboration.
October 8
Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall
Soothsayers
The band will visit Woolwich Works for a show not to be missed in the Black History Month event calendar, bringing to Woolwich their forward-thinking, inclusive music – a jewel in the London crown.
The South London ensemble has always been keen to harmonise together the different souls of the city, empowering them with conscious messages promoting social cohesion and combatting every kind of discrimination.
October 9
Woolwich Works
Club Origami
Dive into the magical world of Club Origami, Takeshi Matsumoto’s immersive and interactive dance show inviting family audiences with children aged five and under to create, imagine and explore new ways of thinking, playing and moving.
Dance, fashion and live music meet the magic of origami to sweep us up on a spirited and inspiring adventure in a land made purely of paper and play.
October 9
The Albany
Meryl O’Rourke, Vanilla
In her 20s, comedian Meryl revelled in what she considered terribly bad behaviour. This side of the millennium it seems that behaviour is thought of as Vanilla.
With her daughter tobogganing into adulthood, Meryl questions what her kids are being sold and if any of it makes sense.
A show about this age of pop, porn and porkies; real conversations and unrealistic expectations. Where consent is a hashtag, feminism is a T-shirt, and you can see a middle-aged woman twerking while looking at her youth through the lens of MeToo.
October 10
Cavendish Arms, 128 Hartington Road
Joel Dommett: Unapologetic (If That’s Okay?)
Fresh from hosting the NTA’s 2021, comedian Joel Dommett is about to embark on his rescheduled tour.
After taking television screens by storm in reaching the final of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! in 2016, Joel went on to host I’m A Celebrity Extra Camp alongside Scarlett Moffatt and Joe Swash, and starred in two series of Comedy Central’s critically acclaimed Joel and Nish vs. The World.
October 13
Churchill Theatre
The Unconscious Therapy – LUAP
Paul Robinson, known professionally as LUAP, presents his largest solo show to date in an expansive three floor empty retail space.
The exhibition, curated by MC Llamas, will include a large variety of works which deepen LUAP’s investigation into mental health, well-being and connection embodied by his iconic Pink Bear character.
The artworks will span photography, painting, installation, sound, and film, offering a complex and multifaceted exploration of experiences of mental illness, recovery, and joyful discovery.
October 13 to 16
95 New Bond Street
Into Battle
The world premiere of Hugh Salmon’s moving, affecting and humorous debut play Into Battle tells the story of the real-life figure Revd. Neville Talbot who steers audiences through the play based on the true story of a bitter feud at Oxford University.
October 13 to 31
Greenwich Theatre
Bourgeois & Maurice
Blending the line between contemporary cabaret, alternative comedy and prancing around in sequins, Bourgeois & Maurice have established themselves as one of the UK’s most subversive and innovative musical acts.
Drawing songs from the shadowy abyss of their back catalogue, Bourgeois & Maurice will take audiences on a hilarious, heartfelt and highly inappropriate journey into the strangest reaches of their minds.
October 14
The Albany