Tales of the City | Prince | Tate Lates | Hit Factories | Circolo Popolare...
This week our entertainment round-up explores the new Tales of the City Netflix mini-series, Prince's latest "from the vault" album release, an unmissable Tate Late and a new sister restaurant for Londoners' favourite Sicilian eatery.
WATCH the new Netflix mini-series, Tales of the City, the small screen follow up to Armistead Maupin’s ground-breaking nine-book collection. Since 1978 the literary world has been raving about Maupin’s revolutionary novels, which follow the intertwined lives of a group of San Francisco’s sexually diverse residents. The series begins with Barbary Lane’s most celebrated, transgender matriarch and landlady, Anna Madrigal (Olympia Dukakis), and an epic reunion of tenants, past and present. Maupin’s main protagonist, original country-lass-turned-city-girl Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney) is reunited with her estranged daughter and ex-husband who she had left behind in San Francisco. And so the plot thickens.
Catch Tales of the City on Netflix now. Follow @TalesofTheCity on Twitter for updates.
LISTEN to Originals, the new album from Prince. It has been over three years since one of pop’s most iconic talents was tragically taken from us. Yet fans all over the world have been pleasantly surprised by the sheer quantity and quality of Prince music being released by the artist’s estate since his death. Originals is the third posthumous album to be released from Prince’s “vault”, an underground treasure trove of unreleased music which was discovered beneath his Paisley Park home. This latest collection of 15 tracks includes his own renditions of some of his best-known compositions, such as Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing compares 2 U, The Bangles’ Manic Monday and Love…thy will be done by Martika. It’s essential listening whether you’re a Prince fan or not. And with rumours that the vault contains enough unreleased material to launch a new album every year for the rest of the century, there’s plenty more to be excited about in the future.
Originals by Prince is out now, available to download and stream.
VISIT the Uniqlo Tate Late at the Tate Modern this Friday (28 June 2019) to enjoy one of the many music, dance, film, drop-in workshops and pop-up events inspired by the experimental and theatrical work of Natalia Goncharova. The talented artist established herself as a leader of the Russian avant-garde with a major exhibition in Moscow in 1913. Her bold and innovative works are currently on show at the Tate and it’s the first time most of them have been in the UK. Visitors will get the chance to take part in a beginner's ballet session courtesy of Bennet Gartside, a Principal Character Artist of the Royal Ballet, a giant puppet show inspired by Goncharova’s costume designs for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, a costume making workshop, Russian fairy tales and folklore, body artists Squiggles and Wiggles, who invite you to create your own futuristic face and body designs, and a catwalk where you can model your creations. DJs will be on the decks throughout the night until 11pm courtesy of NTS radio. And if all that is not enough, you can also attend various other film screenings and poetry recitals in the cinema and bookshop.
The Tate Late takes places on Friday 28 June. For more information, visit https://www.tate.org.uk.
READ Hit Factories out this Thursday (27 June 2019). The first book that explores the relationship between pop music and place, this 11 city travelogue from Dublin-based researcher Karl Whitney charts our musical past across the UK. From 60's beat-pop in Liverpool, post-punk in Manchester, the electronic synth-pop of Sheffield, Bristol’s trip-hop scene, and Coventry’s punk-era revival of Jamaican ska, it reveals how every city has shaped its own distinct music scene and sound and how these came to be. It is these stories that Whitney reveals through interviews and accounts from performers, entrepreneurs, songwriters, producers, and fans, providing a unique historical account of post-war Britain solely through music. From derelict buildings to abandoned factories, and disused churches to backrooms of pubs, Whitney quite literally pinpoints the locations and venues that gave rise to British pop. An interesting concept asking what the soundtrack to Britain would be like if it was based on place, this book is a must-read if you are interested in understanding how British music fits into our wider history.
Hit Factories: A journey through the industrial cities of British pop is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and is out now. Follow the author @karlwhitney on Twitter for updates.
DINE at Circolo Popolare, the Sicilian sister restaurant to the popular Shoreditch Gloria Trattoria, opening in Fitzrovia this Friday (28 June). This huge 9,000 sq ft site is a purposely over-the-top lavish restaurant, adorned with thousands of festoon lights, walls boasting a collection of 20,000 contemporary and vintage spirit bottles, and masses of greenery up to the ceilings, all designed to bring Sicilian coastal sunshine to London. The menu includes small chichetti as well as larger plates. Expect metre-long pizzas with San Marzano tomato and creamy burrata from Puglia, Sicilian grill dishes including calamari e lemoni and pork skewers al'arrabiata, Sfoglia Norma – gigantic sheets of pasta topped with tomato and aubergines and a pasta dish, aptly named ‘crab me by the linguine’, which is served with a whole crab shell. It doesn’t stop there. The sugar coma-inducing dessert menu features an ‘OTT 1L Sundae’ made with giant chunks of chocolate chip cookies, which is set to give Gloria’s insta-famous lemon meringue pie a run for its money.
Circolo Popolare opens this Friday. Follow its owners @bigmammagroup on Twitter for updates.
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