By Charlotte Cox
Craft beer, secret yoga and King Lear With Sheep (yes, sheep). This weekend, that’s only for starters
EVENT: Bloody Marys & Board Games at Drink Shop & Do We love Drink Shop & Do. It combines our three favourite things: drinking (cocktails, bubbles, punch), shopping (quirky-cool homewares by independent designers) and doing (building Lego robots, playing musical bingo, messing about with clay…). But this weekend, we love it EVEN MORE. Why? Because it’s easing sore Sunday heads with a day of well-crafted bloody Marys and classic board games. There’s no better way spend the day after the night before – because as everyone knows, there is no hangover that cannot be cured by Buckaroo. 16 August, 10.30am-8pm 9 Caledonian Road, King’s Cross N1 9DX drinkshopdo.com
THEATRE: King Lear With Sheep
‘Whaat?’ we hear you cry. But this is just what it sounds like: King Lear. With Sheep. ‘No really, whaat?’ we still hear you insist – but we’re not pulling the, er, wool over your eyes (sorry). Director Missouri Williams really has found the 12 finest thespians the Vauxhall City Farm has to offer and is letting them loose at the Courtyard Theatre, starring in this modern play inspired by the Shakespearean classic. And better yet, they’re in TINY COSTUMES! ‘But why?’ you might ask next. To which we’d reply: well, it’s surely what the Baaa-rd would have wanted (we really are very sorry).
12-16 August; £10 The Courtyard Theatre, Bowling Green Walk, 40 Pitfield Street N1 6EU
FOOD: Storeys
There once was a time that roofs were for keeping buildings dry, car parks were for storing vehicles and the old BBC Television Centre was for making Blue Peter in. But, as this pop-up street food market proves, times change. Transforming the roof of the multi-storey car park at the former Beeb building in White City into a super-cool summer terrace, at Storeys dining options include Crabbieshack burgers, French-American fusion from Le Bun and Caribbean dishes from the marvellously named White Men Can’t Jerk. Plus, there are cocktails, a rum bar, live music, film screenings, murals and one of London’s most iconic views. Sometimes change is good.
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays until 14 September; free Television Centre, Wood Lane, London W12 7RJ storeys.london
POP-UP: Secret Yoga Club
There are many things in life that are better when they're secret. Missions, garden parties, sevens (hello, Enid Blyton fans)... And now you can add yoga to the list. Because at Secret Yoga Club's pop-up at the beautiful 20th Century Theatre in Kilburn, not only do you get an invigorating class taught by a top instructor in stunning surrounds, you get a delicious vegetarian feast right afterwards, AND a gong bath. That's right, you will be bathed in gongs. Shh! Just you keep it to yourself now, OK?
16 August; £45 291 Westbourne Grove, W11 2QA London secretyogaclub.co.uk
ART: Utopia
At this new installation at the Roundhouse, it’s our world (specifically, modern-day Camden), but not as we know it. Because artist Penny Woolcock and renowned Glastonbury set designers Block9 have teamed up to create an immersive landscape of written-off cars and towering sculptures, of phone boxes and video-screens – all telling the stories of real Londoners interviewed for the project. Promising awesome lighting, inventive set design and plenty of food for thought, who needs the real world, anyway?
Until 23 August as part of Bloomberg Summer at the Roundhouse; from £10 Chalk Farm Road NW1 8EH
DRINK: The London Craft Beer Festival
Time was, you’d only find craft beer in your dad’s mate’s garage, but now it’s a fixture at the hippest hangouts, coolest bars and trendiest street food markets. It’s the Birkenstock of the beverage world. And what better way to celebrate than by sampling 20-plus varieties at this, the third annual celebration all things crafty and beery at Hackney’s Oval Space? From the classic (Camden Town Brewery, Brewdog) to the downright unpronounceable (try asking for a Lervig Aktiebryggeri after a few), there’s bound to be a brew for you. Plus: delicious street eats, DJs – and your dad’s mate. Maybe.
13-16 August; £38.50 including unlimited beer tasters Oval Space, 29-32 The Oval, London E2 9DT londoncraftbeerfestival.co.uk
FILM: Mistress America
Reuniting the director and star of Frances Ha (not seen it? To Netflix with you, now!), this screwball indie comedy is concerned with the unintentional hilarity involved in being a hip young thing in 2015 New York. Cue Greta Gerwig as a self-styled interior designer/aerobics instructor/social-media maven who involves her 18-year-old future stepsister in her plans to open a combination coffee house, salon and hipster community (doesn’t she know that Hackney already has a dozen of those?). After enthusiastic reviews at Sundance, we’re tipping this as the lo-fi hit of the summer.
Out 14 August in cinemas nationwide
EVENT: Spotlight Seven Dials
They said a festival in the heart of London’s Covent Garden couldn’t be done. They were wrong. Because, as this annual one-day bonanza proves, all you need to do is clear the streets of traffic, chuck in a pop-up lawn and deckchairs, then fill a main stage with West End performers, circus acts, comedians and music. Just add ELLE fave Alice Levine as compere, street eats from the likes of Kopapa and La Bottega, special-offer shopping and even a flower crown workshop, and you have yourself an unmissable day. Easy.
15 August, 12pm-7pm; free. Seven Dials, London WC2H sevendials.co.uk
MUSIC: Moog Soundlab x Ace Hotel The Ace has put up many a cool guest over the years – but never before has it locked them in a ‘soundlab’ of classic Moog Synthesisers for four days at time, and challenged them to come up with an original composition to perform at the end (a good job too, in our case – we were ‘invited to leave’ the school recorder club). The seven artists they’re welcoming throughout August are more than up to the task, however – among them British film makers Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, and experimental Japanese rocker Keiji Haino. Drop by to check out the doubtless weird, wonderful and dreamy results. Various dates until 29 August; from £8 100 Shoreditch High Street E1 6JQ acehotel.com
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