Soho
An otherworldly London: The Great When, by Alan Moore, reviewed
Is occult knowledge even possible in the age of the internet? If a recondite author obsessed you back in the…
Aleister Crowley was even more beastly than we’d imagined
I have never had much time for Aleister Crowley. Magic(k) is nonsense; the mystical societies he founded were simply pretexts…
Mothers and daughters: I Couldn’t Love You More, by Esther Freud, reviewed
A new novel by Esther Freud — her ninth — raises the perennial but always fascinating question about the use…
A careful parody: Noble Rot Soho reviewed
Noble Rot sits in Greek Street, Soho, on the site of the old Gay Hussar, which squatted here from 1953…
A very watchable doc cashing in on Line of Duty: BBC2's Bent Coppers reviewed
If you’re after an exciting, twisty programme about police corruption that doesn’t also feel a bit like sitting an exam…
Women of the streets: Hot Stew, by Fiona Mozley, reviewed
For a novel set partly in a Soho brothel, Hot Stew is an oddly bloodless affair. Tawdry characters drift in…
Francis Bacon: king of the self-made myth
In 1953, Francis Bacon’s friends Lucian Freud and Caroline Blackwood were concerned about the painter’s health. His liver was in…
The pleasures and perils of talking about art on the radio
‘I like not knowing why I like it,’ declared Fiona Shaw, the actress, about Georgia O’Keeffe’s extraordinary blast of colour,…
Soho hasn’t deteriorated – you have: Kiln reviewed
Each suburban soul yearns for the Soho of their youth. It isn’t that Soho was better in the 1990s when…
Remembering Soho: A conversation on debauchery, drunks and Francis Bacon
Christopher Howse has just written a book about Soho. He drank there regularly with Michael Heath, The Spectator’s cartoon editor,…
The London painters that conquered the world
This is an important, authoritative work of art criticism that recognises schools of painters, yet displays the superior distinctions of…
How Soho became so-so: Kettner’s Townhouse reviewed
Sometimes I fret that Soho House & Co is doing to this column what it does to London. It places…
A Soho steak house that used to be a pornographic cinema: Sophie’s reviewed
Sophie’s lives in an old pornographic cinema at the south end of Great Windmill Street, Soho. It is opposite McDonald’s…
In silent misremembrance
Foxlow is near Golden Square in west Soho, where drunken hacks used to take long drunken lunches before having stupid…
Bacon on the side: the great painter’s drinking partner tells all
When Michael Peppiatt met Francis Bacon in 1963 to interview him for a student magazine, the artist was already well-established,…
If we all got drunk like Jeffrey Bernard, we could save the NHS a lot of money
Just back from a few nights in Sweden to find the perfect programme on Radio 3. It was one of…
Why plotting a sound map of London is impossible
It’s easy to tag the city’s terrain by writer. But what, wonders Philip Clark, might a map of its music look like?
There’s only one place to mourn another Labour loss
Ed is a plank. He was always a plank — and now he is in Ibiza being a plank. Plankety–plankety-plank:…
Bidding a fond, and drunken, farewell to the awe-inspiring Mark Amory
Rubbing shoulders with political suits on the pavement outside the Westminster Arms, I drank two pints of Spitfire. Pump primed,…
L’Escargot is Soho as Soho sees itself
L’Escargot, or the Snail, is a famous restaurant on Greek Street, Soho, opposite the old Establishment club; the oldest French…
Simon Cowell’s latest attempt at global domination
I Can’t Sing! is a parody of The X Factor, which already parodies itself at every turn. Quite a tough…
A gaggle of husbands and a pair of piglets
Here’s a great idea for a play. Turn the polygamy principle upside-down and you get a female egoist presiding over…
Rape, porn and Cheesy Wotsits
Interesting times at Soho Theatre. One of its outstanding shows of last year, Fleabag, was an offbeat Gothic love story…
An audience with the Queen and Mrs Thatcher
A feast of pleasures, and some annoyances, at the Trike. Handbagged, by Moira Buffini, is a fictional account of the…
