The Royal Academy opens its first Richard Dadd
retrospective in fifty years — a painter who worked from inside
Bethlem and Broadmoor until the end. Opera Holland Park throws its canopy
open for a 40-piece Broadway night, Kings Place pairs Punjabi vocal
tradition with a cross-cultural rhythm trio, and Peckham’s kitchens
serve £10 plates all weekend for the borough’s food club. On
either side, a Wigmore Hall song recital and a brand-new live score at
Wilton’s silent-comedy night.
A hand-checked shortlist of the week in London culture
· new every Thursday
This is a one-Saturday week. On 25 July the Royal Academy opens its first
Richard Dadd retrospective in fifty years — a painter who spent his
last forty-two years inside Bethlem and Broadmoor, painting throughout. The
same afternoon Maureen Paley closes its first Jemila Isa show, the Royal
Court plays out Archduke’s final performance, Kings Place
pairs a Punjabi vocal recital with a tabla-and-harmonium trio, and Bush
Theatre marks six years of its Arab Film Club. Sunday belongs to Opera
Holland Park’s 40-piece Broadway night, with Peckham’s
£10-a-plate weekend for its food club running right through it. On
either side: a Wigmore Hall song recital and Wilton’s silent comedy
with a brand-new live score.
Two service notes. The Royal Geographical Society’s free Earth Photo
show closes this Friday, 24 July, weekdays only — today or tomorrow is
it, not next week. And Grimeborn’s Murder Games double bill,
opening at the Arcola on Wednesday 29 July, isn’t written up below on
purpose: three issues running at one venue is enough for now, however good
it looks.
Royal Academy of Arts · Piccadilly · opens Sat 25 Jul, to 25 Oct · £15 (free for Friends, under-16s)
Richard Dadd killed his father in 1843, convinced he was
possessed, and spent the last forty-two years of his life at Bethlem and
Broadmoor. This is the first Dadd retrospective in more than fifty years:
around 100 oils, watercolours and drawings, tracing his early promise at
the RA Schools, a formative tour of the Middle East, and the intricate
fairy and Shakespearean scenes he painted from inside an asylum. Curated
by Dadd scholar Nicholas Tromans with the RA’s Sylvie Broussine.
Fifty years is a long wait for a story this strange.
Opera Holland Park · Holland Park · Sun 26 Jul, 7pm · one night only, from £26 (Inspire scheme) — check site for full tiers
One night only: the open-air canopy at Holland Park turns
into a full Broadway pit, forty musicians deep, for a century of American
musical theatre in two hours — Oklahoma!, Show
Boat, Porgy and Bess, Guys and Dolls, Anything
Goes. Soprano Anush Hovhannisyan and singer-pianist Sam Jewison
co-headline.
Kings Place · King’s Cross · Sat 25 Jul, 6–9pm · from £30
Jagjit Arts opens the evening with a traditional vocal
recital — Basant Singh accompanied by Harnam Singh on tabla and
Ganga Kaur on dilruba — then hands over to a different pairing
entirely: Bernhard Schimpelsberger’s drums against Satyajit
Talwalkar’s tabla and Tanmay Deochake’s harmonium, three
players from different traditions working out a shared rhythm in real
time.
Bush Theatre · Shepherd’s Bush · Sat 25 Jul · price via ALT B strand, check bushtheatre.co.uk
Six years in, the Bush’s Arab Film Club has become one
of the few regular west London homes for Arab cinema outside a festival
slot. It runs under ALT B, the strand where the Bush hands its building
over to community-led programming instead of its own mainstage: a full
house, and the kind of night that strand is built for.
Wilton’s Music Hall · Whitechapel · Tue 28 Jul · price via wiltons.org.uk box office
The Lucky Dog Picturehouse’s silent-comedy nights have
a specific hook: a brand-new live piano score, composed and played by Tom
Marlow, not stock library music, for whichever slapstick reels get picked
that night. Wilton’s is the world’s oldest surviving music
hall, and it shows.
19 SE15 kitchens · Peckham · Fri 24–Sun 26 Jul · £10 per dish, no booking
Nineteen SE15 kitchens, one rule: every special is £10
and £1 of it goes to Peckham Pantry, the local food club. Mr
Bao’s BBQ mackerel plate, Forza Wine’s cauliflower fritti,
Rice Paddy’s Lanna-style wings, Connie’s pastrami — no
ticket, no booking, just turn up across the weekend.
A food festival that actually feeds someone else too.
Royal Geographical Society · Kensington · to Fri 24 Jul, 10am–5pm, weekdays only · Free
Fifty images from the international Earth Photo award,
built around climate and environmental change — free, and inside
the RGS’s own building, so you walk past the Society’s map
room to get there. Weekday hours only, and this Friday is the last
day.
Maureen Paley, Studio M · Bethnal Green · to Sat 25 Jul · Free
Jemila Isa’s first solo show at Maureen Paley, in
the gallery’s smaller Studio M space — paintings that read
like half-remembered dreams, the kind that dissolve the moment you try
to describe them to someone the next morning. Last chance
Saturday.
Royal Court Theatre · Sloane Square · Sat 25 Jul, final performance · £15–£74.50
Franz Ferdinand’s assassins, played for dark comedy,
not history-play solemnity: three young conspirators in 1914 Belgrade
deciding to change the world with no real plan for what comes after.
Reviews have singled out the strangeness of playing twentieth-century
catastrophe for laughs. Saturday is the last night.