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  • Great Ex-pectations at Oslo

    The Ex: performing at Oslo on 19 August
    The Ex: performing at Oslo on 19 August

    There aren’t too many acts out there that can say they brought punk to Ethiopia. That is, however, one of the more colourful entries in Dutch group The Ex’s pretty darn colourful CV.

    But just because you bring it, doesn’t mean anyone actually wants it. “No one had ever heard of punk; they’d heard of hip hop and jazz, but none of them knew our type of music,” recalls guitarist Andy Moor, originally of these shores. “They found it quite amusing – there was a lot of laughing.”

    In the interests of balance, it is worth pointing out that punk is something of a misnomer. Sure, The Ex started out in 1979 (of course), fitting in nicely with the likes of Gang of Four, The Slits and Birthday Party.

    But when Moor joined in early 1990s, bringing with him a love of African and Eastern European music, the band were set on a more experimental course. Moor identifies meeting and collaborating with American cellist Tom Cora as a real turning point, and soon The Ex found themselves invited to play at jazz festivals.

    “The Ex grew out of the punk scene, but mutated into its own thing. It’s hard to define, but we don’t have to!” (Attempts by others range from anarcho-punk to ethno-punk to jazz punk.)

    Many collaborations have followed, some with popular acts – the likes of Sonic Youth and Tortoise – others with less well-known jazz artists (depending on who you ask) such as Han Bennink or current collaborator, saxophonist Ken Vandermark.

    It is these collaborations, Moor explains, in combination with the band’s own (untrained) spontaneity that drives their musical direction. “We don’t want to have a jam with every musician in the world; we’ll just hear a sound that appeals to us. They don’t even have to be great players.”

    His favourite joint project is the work the band did with legendary Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya. “It was his idea – he saw us playing after we’d invited him to Amsterdam to play with the Instant Composers’ Pool (ICP). He came to us after, and said, ‘I want The Ex to be my band.’ We started rehearsing with him – none of us could speak Amharic, he couldn’t speak English, so we just communicated with hand signals, music, smiling, laughing. Somehow it worked – we were playing his pieces, songs he’s been playing for 40 years. That was my favourite maybe because it was so unlikely.”

    One of the reasons The Ex can enjoy such musical freedom is their refusal to get involved with the trappings of the music industry – they have never had anything to do with a label or any type of management (now that’s pretty punk).

    “I think the music industry has nothing to do with music. There’s great music that comes out of it, but the shit you have to deal with … we decided we’ll do it ourselves.”

    It’s a fairly gruelling approach, Moor admits, which means they have to tour to live, and one which also means, he admits, they aren’t as well known as they might be (except, apparently, in France).

    This might be read also as a political gesture as well as an artistic one – and indeed, the guitarist happily admits The Ex are a political band: “You sing about love, you sing about football, or you sing about your beliefs – we get frustrated, we see lot of shit happening around us – we manage to release a lot of that anger, but there’s also positive energy too. Ultimately, it’s a celebration of music – we want to make music we’ve never heard before, and music that we love. It’s simple.”

    The Ex perform at Oslo, Hackney Central on 19 August 2015

  • Crossing Jerusalem – a conflict of interest

    Chris Spyrides in Crossing Jerusalem at Park Theatre
    Chris Spyrides in Crossing Jerusalem at Park Theatre

    Jerusalem is a city on the edge. One of the oldest urban civilisations in the world, and a holy site for three major religions, it has in recent times become characterised by conflict.

    Control of the city is one of the central issues in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which remains not just a dispute over territory, but one of identity.

    Set against this backdrop is Julia Pascal’s 2003 play, Crossing Jerusalem, which is being remounted this month at the Park Theatre.

    Directed by the writer herself, the play takes place over a 24-hour period, capitalising on the ephemeral atmosphere in the city.

    “There is a sort of low-level anxiety in Israel constantly,” she says. “Love, sex and death are raw and present there all the time.”

    Pascal is an atheist, attending a non-religious state school in Manchester and ‘marrying out’ of Jewish society. But she still considers herself Jewish in a cultural sense.

    She wrote the Crossing Jerusalem following the Second Intifada, the Palestinian revolt against Israel that lasted from 2000 to 2005.

    Her research saw Pascal masking her Jewish identity and venturing into the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, speaking French as a decoy to find out the truth of what life was like there.

    “Being a writer is like being a spy,” says Pascal. “As a ‘French person’ I was told things I never would have heard a as Jew.”

    This is where she discovered details of the relationships depicted in the piece.

    These include a Jewish woman’s love for her Arab servant, acts of horrific violence perpetrated by both sides, and unusual culture clashes such as the Christian Arab who will host anyone at his restaurant as long as they can afford to eat.

    It is these apparent inconsistencies and contradictions that Pascal always seeks to draw attention to in her writing. She tells me that the only Jewish plays in London are anti-Zionist and that the nature of the conflict in the Middle East is over-simplified, supporting an “easy political dogma”.

    Her considerable body of work declares a fearless appetite to challenge these received opinions and an eagerness to expose the complex and uncomfortable truth.

    And this play is no different. It is an insight into a strained and complex world of family ties, prejudice, religious obligation and above all humanity.

    As Pascal says: “The more we know about each other, the safer the world is.”

    Crossing Jerusalem
    4–29 August
    Park Theatre
    Clifton Terrace
    N4 3JP
    parktheatre.co.uk

  • Another string to Craig David’s ‘bo’

    "If you just do whatever you're doing, there is no box to be in." - Craig David
    “If you just do whatever you’re doing, there is no box to be in.” – Craig David

    “The past is a concept. Whenever you experience anything, it’s right now. When we were talking five minutes ago, it’s now. The future is now.” If Craig David used to insist on 9pm dates with “cinnamon queens”, today that is unlikely. These days he wears his philosophy on his sleeve with a watch that simply reads “now”. But while the former golden boy of UK garage is living for today – his fans just want to rewind.

    At the turn of the millennium David’s honeyed vocals and catchy lyrics, coating two-step beats with pop sheen, sent the 19-year-old soaring up the charts. When his first album Born To Do It “dropped”, as he calls it, I headed straight to Woolworths for a copy (complete with a B-side disc of him talking to himself). I learnt the words to the whole album, carefully balancing the CD on the spindle of my Sony Discman.

    But even by 2002 interest had already waned. “It’s what they call the rise and fall,” he lamented on his second album Slicker Than Your Average, which sold around half as many copies as his debut smash. He next became the victim of a cruel but oddly enduring character on Leigh Francis’ sketch show Bo Selecta which had his trademark facial hair and, inexplicably, a Scottish accent and a pet bird Kes – the kestrel from Ken Loach’s film. It was a swift descent.

    Craig David left London for Miami, moved into a hotel and got into bodybuilding. An episode of Cribs revealed life-sized photographs of scantily-clad women, white sofas, impressive audiovisual equipment and a thing for fast cars. Everyone moved on. Yet teenage kicks…so hard to beat.

    I jumped at the chance to do a ‘phoner’ with the beanie-toting star of my adolescence.

    Guestlist ratio

    He was in London for the tour of his DJ show TS5 in which he aims to “bridge the gap” between live performance, DJing and MCing.

    Named after the number of his apartment-cum-hotel penthouse, TS5 is modelled on his own “pre-drinks” house parties. These are carefully orchestrated affairs where the man himself “holds it down” on the decks, there are drinks on tap, before everyone goes “out out” (they call it that in Miami too).

    Getting the “sexy vibe” is an exact science so David enforces a rigorous 70:30 female to male ratio on the guestlist. “If you overload it with guys, and the girl ratio is lower, in my experience, girls feel intimidated by that,” he explains. “Guys get really confident and try and hit on everyone and the ratio is all off.”

    Curiosity piqued, I head down to Hackney’s very own Oslo for the gig, where I find myself surrounded by other sheepish looking folk in their mid-twenties, but no drinks on tap.

    There is a reasonably sexy ratio of 60:40, the “vibe” is millennium chic and girls in white TS5 trucker hats hand out leaflets for the next gig. This being Hackney, I am initially concerned everyone is here to parody their younger, less cool selves. But I’m wrong. “You’ve got to love Craig”, two people tell me outside. “He’s the English Drake”.

    Upstairs David exaggeratedly presses buttons and drags faders, his biceps bulging under his oversized white T-shirt. After an underwhelming opening song he gently brings in ‘Fill Me In’ and the crowd goes wild. Girls at the front flap white A4 sheets of paper with his name written on in biro, and there is much grinding.

    But even the most diehard fan would be forced to admit he is simply not the best DJ, and his soft-as-butter voice just sounds plain weird when warbling over aggressive house bangers.

    Thinking is the box

    I ask about the transition from singersongwriter to DJ. “It’s crazy to think the cycle has come full circle”, he says. “DJing is what I started off doing. When the first album blew up, I put that on the side burner. I just do what ever I want to do, there’s no boundaries.

    We’ve taken the box, and removed all the lines from it. It’s all open now.” I manage to anchor a memory of this ‘box’ in David’s sea of axioms.

    Along with 75 thousand others I am an avid follower of his Instagram account, a luxury flick book of Miami sunsets (#blessed), workout selfies (#eatcleantraindirty) and tautologies set against a backdrop of his own face.

    One of my favourites (genuinely), I tell him, is a picture of a cosmic night sky with a white square and “thinking is the box” written inside it…

    I can hear him nodding down the phone: “You got it. It is the box. If you just do whatever you’re doing, there is no box to be in, but as soon as you say ‘there’s the box and I’m trying to think outside of it’, you’re saying the box is there.”

    David comes across as intensely and at times robotically upbeat. I ask about his Instagram, where his posts often receive mixed responses, and how he manages to stay so positive in the face of jokes at his expense. “It’s transient”, he says. “It’s not to be taken seriously.

    The beauty of Instagram and Twitter is there is a follow and an unfollow button.”

    His puppyish optimism is likable and there is definitely a sense of humour under his earnest theories. I ask him if his rumoured new studio album has now been put on the “side burner.” He acknowledges the dig: “We’re taking the burner off. There’s no side burner, back burner, up burner, Bunsen burner. All the burners are out. We’re making the record.”

    Craig David Presents TS5 has announced a second date at Shapes in Hackney on 16 October 2015. For tickets see ts5.com/shapes

  • Hinterland: ode to a lost generation

    Screen Shot 2014-02-11 at 15.21.23
    Road movie: Hinterland by Harry Macqueen

    There’s a theory that your first work of art will always be an intensely personal expression. But does that mean it must be autobiographical?

    For filmmaker Harry Macqueen, there’s clear water between the two. His recent feature debut, Hinterland, was acclaimed by indie cinema aficionados and critics alike, and on the surface is a film hand-woven with real-life experience. Or maybe not.

    “The film is very personal, but not autobiographical at all really,” Macqueen reflects. “The literal journey the characters take is one I’ve done all my life but that’s kind of where the parallels stop.”

    Nonetheless, Hinterland is a film that will speak directly to many a misfit lost in the late-twenties wasteland. Charting a road trip taken by level-headed, would-be novelist Harvey (Macqueen) and starry-eyed musician Lola (Lori Campbell), it’s a bittersweet love letter to friendship, childhood and unspoken truths.

    “Although the film has a kind of timeless quality to it in the way it’s shot, for me it’s definitely about being in your twenties in contemporary Britain – London to be more specific.”

    You could also be forgiven for viewing Hinterland as an auteur-piece, a film meticulously managed and perfected by its creator. After all, Macqueen not only wrote and directed, but also produced and joint-starred. Once again, however, there’s a distinction to be made; this jack-of-all-trades approach was born of shoestring necessity rather than perfectionism (or megalomania).

    “It all comes down to budget really,” he explains. “Initially I’d written myself a little cameo in the film and was happy just to see if I could write and direct, but in the end, realising there was no money left (nor space for one more person in the car), I had no choice but to take a lead role.

    “Similarly we couldn’t afford a producer, and since I’d written it and knew the locations pretty well it seemed like something I could also do.”

    It’s a scenario that will be familiar to most first-time directors with big ideas and scant resources. Making Hinterland was clearly a labour of love for everyone in the six-person team behind it. Indeed, this was the main thrust of Macqueen’s introduction to a recent screening at Hackney Picturehouse, one of 12 Picturehouse cinemas that championed the film around the UK.

    “One of the key things that helped us finish the film was that we all fell in love with it,” he told the audience. “We fell in love with the characters and the story.”

    Macqueen’s bread and butter comes from acting, with appearances in the likes of Eastenders and feelgood Hollywood romp Me And Orson Welles. As such, the evolution towards producing and directing a feature film wasn’t painless:

    “The entire process was a huge challenge for all involved, not just me. Considering pretty well none of us had made a feature before it’s a massive achievement.”

    Shot on location along a raggedly beautiful stretch of Cornish coast, the production was very much a DIY, communal effort.

    “We had fun and laughed a lot and it was exhilarating to make a film in that way – everyone living under one roof looking after each another.

    “The actual shoot was pretty intense, simply because we didn’t have that much time to get it all done.”

    Hinterland is also a memorial, as testified by the hand-drawn dedication at the movie’s close. Inheritance money left by a close family member financed the production to the tune of £10,000 – a budget that was soon on the verge of exhaustion.

    Happily, these restrictions may well have been an unlikely blessing. The handcrafted style of the film is complemented by its part-improvised dialogue, all of which hangs together with delicate, understated charm. It’s a movie that refuses to spoonfeed its audience, as expressed by the intrigue surrounding Harvey and Lola’s own friendship.

    “The ‘truth’ in almost every situation doesn’t exist in the words we speak but in the spaces in between them, what we don’t say,” says Macqueen.

    “I think it follows that if that’s what you are striving to focus on, to capture a situation or a performance ‘honestly’, it’s paramount to try and explore that.

    “I wanted to find my own voice, and the most important thing at all times was to be truthful to the characters in whatever way seemed appropriate.”

    With a Raindance nomination, inclusion in several major film festivals and backing from Picturehouse and Curzon cinemas, Hinterland certainly isn’t a bad start for a filmmaker clearing his throat.

    For Harry Macqueen, it’s been a rollercoaster introduction to the world of filmmaking – but one that was clear-eyed from the very start.

  • Sushinoen – review: the only ‘normal’ Japanese restaurant in East London?

    Tokujo Nigiri Plater at Sushinoen
    Tokujo Nigiri Plater at Sushinoen

    Good or otherwise, Japanese food is hard to come by in East London – a remarkable failure of a food market that is so over-saturated that chefs are now setting up ‘residencies’ instead of restaurants.

    And yet the only sushi around is likely to be part of a Sainsbury’s meal deal, or in Itsu or Wasabi’s duelling salmon boxes whose ubiquitous, marginally different characters evoke the Whopper/Big Mac rivalry.

    On the other end of the inauthenticity spectrum, international giants like SushiSamba on the billionth floor of the Heron Tower offer a dose of vertigo with a £200+ bill.

    But almost two years after it opened, the East End Review has discovered what might just be the only normal Japanese restaurant in East London.

    Plus, as an added bonus, there are private karaoke rooms on offer for post-meal humiliation.

    Sushinoen is easy to miss – tucked to the side just off an utterly chaotic junction in Aldgate.

    Owner Shang admits that in the beginning, much of their custom came thanks to a buddy-buddy relationship with the Qbic Hotel next door, which has been sending over droves of hungry business travellers since it opened. But slowly a local crowd has caught on.

    On a recent Tuesday evening the serene dining room was packed with suits, locals, and a reassuring number of people ordering in Japanese.

    For the most part, Sushinoen, or ‘sushi in a garden’, is ultra-traditional with kimono-clad staff and low tables atop sunken floors for your legs – ancient custom for some, date-night novelty for others.

    Classic starters like chicken gyoza, braised pork belly in Dashi soy sauce and miso-glazed aubergine are full of all the salty umami you could hope for.

    As in so many Japanese restaurants, maki rolls are tarted up with the spicy mayo concoctions and artfully-presented special rolls (read: gigantic) cater to the Western expectation of intense flavour and hugeness.

    But the real test is achieving the perfect simplicity of a plain piece of sashimi and nigiri. Sushinoen does this very well, with a selection of fish far more extensive than cult-favourite Dotori in Finsbury Park, which sticks to the basics.

    Sushinoen boasts two types of salmon and tuna (fatty and lean), scallop, mackerel, yellowtail, octopus and sea bream, among others.

    Most of the maki (rolls) we tried had lettuce rolled in, a surprisingly strong flavour when paired with delicate fish and rice, evoking a sandwich-y vibe I could have done without.

    But regardless, for Japanese classics, you can’t go wrong.

    Sushinoen
    2 White Church Lane, E1 7QR
    sushinoen.com

  • Book review: London Overground – Iain Sinclair turns cultural archaeologist

    Questing: Iain Sinclair. Photograph: Anonymous Bosch
    Questing: Iain Sinclair. Photograph: Anonymous Bosch

    Iain Sinclair is no stranger to vast, impossible circuits. At the turn of the century, he conducted a series of walks along the M25 that amounted to its entire length, and drew from the experience an unprecedented document of poetic psychogeographical prose. It was a celebration of pilgrimage, a postmodernist jaunt through time and territory – to nowhere. Now, 15 years on, he’s turned his attention to the tracks of the ‘Ginger Line’ in London Overground.

    The Hackney-based writer took inspiration for the project from a group of eccentric students he came across at New Cross Gate, on one of his regular suburban treks. He was headed, like Chaucer’s convoy, in the direction of Canterbury. The friends – “kids from Goldsmiths in fancy dress”, he assumes – had taken to gathering at random locations on the line to party at a moment’s notice.

    In conversation with this “boho rabble”, garbed in gypsy skirts and goat masks, Sinclair finds his subject. “When they spilled out into Shoreditch,” he writes, “I realised that I had blundered once again into a version of London about which I knew nothing. And I would have to find some way to investigate. As he passed my window, the goat held up a finger to his lips. A warning I was foolish enough to ignore.”

    His investigation takes the form of a day’s tramp around the railway: 35 miles and 33 stops in the company of filmmaker and close friend Andrew Kötting, whose presence is rich with a complex comic energy akin to his unique brand of documentary. Starting at dawn in Haggerston, the pair’s circumnavigation cuts through Wapping, Peckham Rye, Clapham Junction, Imperial Wharf, West Brompton and so on, before arriving back in the dead of night to Hackney.

    Along the way, Sinclair interrogates the lay of the land and excavates meaning from forgotten and never-before-told narratives, inspecting the city’s detritus with wry humour and irresistible poetry. His grumbling observations of how the Overground has altered London are barbed and brilliant: “The railway smoothes history into heritage, neutralising the venom. Every Halt absorbs the last, until the necklace achieves a uniform, dull sheen. Faked pearls on a ginger string.”

    Beyond the signature politics of development, regeneration and gentrification – climaxing in a fluke meeting with Boris Johnson “in full cry… barking like a seal” at Old Street Roundabout – the journey is an act of cultural archaeology. Sinclair dedicates swathes of razor-sharp prose to the likes of J.G. Ballard, W.G. Sebald and Leon Kossoff, riffing on Chelsea Harbour, manipulated histories and the railway as muse, respectively.

    The most impressive of these diversions is given to Angela Carter, whom the author met on numerous occasions prior to her death in 1992. Sinclair’s moving trudge through Clapham inspires an overwhelming urge to read Wise Children and Nights at the Circus. In the same vein, his time in Hampstead impels a trip to the brief London residence of Sigmund Freud, who is described as a fabled force akin to Sherlock Holmes.

    Of the house, which is now a ghostly and meticulously-preserved museum, the traveller writes: “Although it existed, and glowed a fiery red in our evening reverie, this blue-plaque address – 20 Maresfield Gardens – was as mythical in the psychogeography of London as the rooms associated with Sherlock Holmes at 22b Baker Street.”

    For anyone unfamiliar with Sinclair’s work, London Overground is an ideal place at which to start. It’s shorter and somewhat lighter than previous publications, but is still crammed with nourishment. It’s another fine addition to the literature of our city.

    London Overground: A Day’s Walk Around the Ginger Line is published by Hamish Hamilton
    ISBN: 978-0241146958. RRP: £16.99

  • Immersive classical music is a feast for all the senses

    Sensory Score performers. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval
    Rehearsals for the Sensory Score. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval

    What colour is music? And what does music taste like? BittterSuite attempts to answer these questions by creating immersive classical music performances that utilise all the senses.

    It started out when musician Stephanie Singer was passing through Brixton tube station on her way to work, and could hear classical music being piped out of the station’s PA system. When she asked a member of staff, she was told it was to keep the passengers calm.

    Singer went away resolved to challenge people’s perceptions of classical music and to make them listen to it more actively.

    Her idea was informed by Singer’s fascination for graphic notation and her research into syneasthesia – where two or more of the five senses usually experienced separately are involuntarily joined together. “But it is more about cross-modal perceptions and putting an emphasis on one of our senses at a time in a unified sensory experience,” she explains.

    This month, BitterSuite is teaming up with emerging composer Tanya Auclair for a blindfolded and immersive concert at Rich Mix called The Sensory Score. Performers interpret the music and convey it to the audience by stimulating their senses.

    There will be bespoke tastes by gourmet chef Adam Thomason, perfumes by Sarah McCartney and a tactile experience choreographed by BitterSuite.

    “I felt like a child being cuddled,” says one audience member at BitterSuite’s performance of Debussy’s ‘String Quartet in G’.

    For composer Auclair, the idea of letting Singer and the performers have the freedom to interpret her music however they liked “felt like a real gift”.

    Blindfolding the audience is essential to the experience says Singer. “Everybody relies on their sight. That is real. But if you take it away it gives you more room to play.”

    The blindfolds mean audience members are more likely to let their imaginations free, explains Auclair, as there no visual distractions. It makes them hypersensitive to the all other senses too, including touch, taste and smell.

    The relationship between the 30 performers and 30 audience members is very intimate, with each person’s experience different. Singer says that as a performer you can “feel the person straight away and can tailor it accordingly”, building a sense of trust with them.

    She recalls being told by one audience member that it was the first time he had been touched like that in seven years. 

    “He was very emotional,” she says.

    The Sensory Score is at Rich Mix, 35–47 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6LA on 31 July
    richmix.org.uk

  • Elite architects rally round to save Robin Hood Gardens

    Robin Hood Gardens 620
    Robin Hood Gardens

    Britain’s architectural elite are going head-to-head with Tower Hamlets Council over the planned demolition of a Brutalist-era housing estate.

    The 213-apartment Robin Hood Gardens is set to be set to be razed to the ground to make room for a £500 million redevelopment.

    The dilapidated site in Poplar has a ‘stigma’ attached to it according to some residents.

    But high-profile members of the architectural community, led by Lord Richard Rogers and the Twentieth Century Society, have launched a last-ditch effort to stop the redevelopment which will see the end of Robin Hood Gardens.

    Architects including Robert Venturi, Toyo Ito and Zaha Hadid have rallied round in support of the campaign. Completed in 1972, Robin Hood Gardens was designed around the concept of ‘streets in the sky’ by controversial New Brutalism pioneers Alison and Peter Smithson.

    Centre Pompidou architect Lord Rogers has written to 300 members of the design world asking them to lobby heritage minister Tracey Crouch to give the site listed status, a bid English Heritage rejected in 2009.

    Rogers wrote: “In my opinion, it is the most important social housing development from the post-war era in Britain.

    “Two sculptural slabs of affordable housing create a calm and stress-free place amidst the ongoing modernisation of the London cityscape.”

    Lord Rogers told BBC’s Today programme that he would “absolutely” live on Robin Hood Gardens himself, and has blamed the council for the neglecting the building.

    In 2009, the site was given immunity from heritage listing for five years, a decision the Twentieth Century Society has called “unsound” in a recent report.

    This immunity expired this year, and Tower Hamlets Council has approved demolition and a £500 million redevelopment by Swan Housing Association, which promises 1,575 homes, and a new mosque and community centre.

    The vast concrete blocks have been criticised for a range of flaws in design and maintenance alike.

    Residents have complained of awkward layouts, asbestos and leaky ceilings.

    But Rogers and some residents insist that neglect by council is at fault for the poor upkeep of Robin Hood Gardens.

    Resident Ruman Chowdury, 42, told the Telegraph: “The council just doesn’t maintain the building. The whole area is neglected.”

    The council has said its consultation concluded 80 per cent support for the redevelopment.

    A council spokesperson said: “Redevelopment was the overwhelming preference of the local community.”

  • Foxlow Stoke Newington – review: steaks raised in N16

    Foxlow egg 620

    How quickly things change in Hackney. When I went to review the newly opened Foxlow on Stoke Newington Church Street, I was surprised to find that the second branch of this “neighbourhood restaurant” (also operating in Clerkenwell), had taken over the premises formerly occupied by Italian restaurant and brunch place Homa.

    “It is with great sadness and regret that we today announce that Homa will stop trading…” Homa’s website reads in a post from February.

    “We started our little venture in 2009 because as longstanding local residents we loved our vibrant Stokey community deeply and could think of no better place to set up our restaurant… We will, of course, continue to be involved as local residents.” I asked Foxlow’s manager if he knew what had happened. “Too bad?” he said with a shrug, pulling back a chair.

    And how could he be expected to know? Many long-term residents, however, will remember that before Homa, this was where the threadbare Booth’s pizzeria and bar served up meal deals to sozzled locals playing pool, before they went on to Maggie’s bar. Each change here has wrought a more exclusive successor, with better food.

    Foxlow salmon 620

    This is not to say that Foxlow, run by the owners of the hugely successful Hawksmoor chain, isn’t going to be a huge success, or that it doesn’t deserve to be. The ambience is lively, the menu is a fun (and very meaty) take on the American steakhouse, and the prices, while certainly more expensive than Homa, are obviously within grasp of the locals, given that every last table was full.

    I started with a pleasing Hawksmoor special cocktail of gin and London Pride recommended by my server, and we nibbled on anchovy and goat’s butter crostini before diving headlong into the indulgent menu: housemade pork and beef rillettes, squid, steak with béarnaise, 10 hour short rib with kimchi, fries covered in deep fried chicken fat, beans with shallots, all rounded off with some indulgent puddings for good measure.

    All the food was excellent, with the buttery, tender steak being the highlight. Both the ‘chicken salt’ on the fries and the soft serve for pudding were nods to working class American food, one of the most annoying food trends of recent years, but while the former seemed excessive, the soft serve was divine.

    flatiron-foxlow

    The wine menu was extensive and had a couple of decent options that came in at under £25, but if you, like us, don’t show any restraint when it comes to ordering, a meal for two could easily run up a bill of £150 plus service. For more cautious spenders, the brunch or roast may be a better option, with meals hovering around a tenner and a £14 bottomless Bloody Mary. Considering this, I remembered that I used to only have brunch at Homa for that very reason. Perhaps the one constant in the Hackney restaurant scene is that brunch is the most affordable time to eat out.

    Foxlow
    71–73 Church Street, N16 0AS
    foxlow.co.uk

  • Joseph Fritzl-inspired play at Hackney Showroom makes light of dark subject matter

    The cast of Clap Hands
    The cast of Clap Hands

    Eccentric playwright Aaron Hubbard comes from a strong TV, film and theatre background, and is known for his commitment to gallows humour. His new play Clap Hands explores the darkly funny side of love-hate sibling relationships, based on his reaction to the disturbing story of the Fritzl family. The production zooms in on the trials and tribulations two siblings endure as they are locked in the basement of their home by their mother, away from the prying eyes of their community. Under the immense strain of their adoration and hatred in equal measure, Ana and Gogol begin to plot their escape, and maybe even murder. Exploring themes of responsibility, sibling rivalry and the dark side of love, it promises to be a truly challenging piece of theatre. Desperate, deviant and dreamlike, Clap Hands is about to hit Hackney Showroom with a vengeance.

    What three words would you choose to describe your work?
    Soothing existential dread.

    How has your background brought you to this point?
    Clap Hands is certainly not representative of my own childhood. That is to say, my parents never locked me in the basement or held me against my will. Although I did once barricade myself in my room and do a poo on the floor.

    Where did this complex story come from?
    I watched a lot of Columbo as a child, which certainly had an influence on Clap Hands. I got very caught up with the Josef Fritzl case a few years ago, which also informed the play. A key character in the play – Cruz Gentle – was inspired by an episode of the KCRW UnFictional podcast where Alex Schmidt investigated the mysterious life and disappearance of Little Julian Herrera, a musician on the East LA Chicano music scene in the 1950s and 1960s. It’s an amazing story. I won’t spoil it, but I really recommend downloading the podcast.

    Why does dark humour appeal to you?
    Gosh, that’s a hard question. Clap Hands is a post-Fritzl narrative: its subject matter is domestic imprisonment. Gallows humour is a coping mechanism that has evolved to help us process monstrous acts like this. The humour in Clap Hands grew naturally from the characters and the world they inhabit.

    What do you think it means to endure a relationship?
    Probably best to ask my wife. Let me see if I can find the keys to the basement…

    What’s next for you?
    I am currently writing a play about Otherkin – people who identify as non-human. They have formed a dedicated internet subculture, which means I can finally justify spending all day on Tumblr in the name of research.

    Clap Hands is at Hackney Showroom, 17 Amhurst Terrace, E8 2BT from 14–25 July hackneyshowroom.com