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It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow and below you’ll find some fun things to do if you’ve still got no plans for your boo. If hearts and flowers make you feel a bit sicky, however, you’ve got Design Night, The London Bike Show, and plenty of gigs and film nights to check out instead. Have an ace few days, gang!
Things to do
Société Drink and Draw: A Valentine's Special and Absinthe Pairing, The Last Tuesday Society, TONIGHT, £12.50 to £20. Passionate pencilers are invited to this Valentine’s themed life drawing class.
The Valentine Erotic Readings, Punch Room at the London Edition, TONIGHT, £10 + booking fee. An evening of saucy readings and sassy tales from five readers including Reba Maybury, Sarah Baker and Molly Parkin.
Pundemonium!, The Book Club, TONIGHT, £4+ booking fee. Pun, innuendo and double-entendre loving Londoners best make a beeline for this live game show packed full of 'em.
Blind Date With A Twist, George Tavern, Tue, free. Improv comedy duo Leanna Wigginton and Angela Pollard are bringing back a Saturday night TV classic… with a twist.
Design Night: London, Design Museum, Thu, £20, student £15. Themed around the wonders of the five senses the evening includes a discussion about the future of design, food and tipples, dancing, hands-on activities and a chance to see the Fear and Love exhibit.
The London Bike Show, ExCeL London, Thu, £16, £10 concs. Performance training, spin sessions, a test track, a pop-up velodrome, stunt demos, a fastest wrench competition and hundreds of exhibitor stands will be just some of the attractions at this mecca for cycling enthusiasts.
House of Vans & LCF Present: Found in Translation, House of Vans, Thu, free. This exhibition is a chance to view the work of the School of Media and Communication and London College of Fashion through free events, talks and workshops.
SMASHfestUK, Deptford Lounge, all week, free. SMASHfestUK are hoping to pique peoples' interest in science, technology, engineering and maths, but they don't want to be boring about it. They’re using interactive installations, music, film and participatory art themed around super volcanoes to get people feeling scientific.
…or check out more events happening in London this week.
© Pietro Recchia
Eating and drinking
Valentine's Day with Don Luigi, Pop Brixton, Tue, £90 per couple. Don Luigi, the Italian street food pros based in Pop Brixton are cranking up the romance-o-meter this Valentine's and offering couples the perfect combo of film and food.
Valentine’s Day at KuPP, Tue, £20. Pickle some perseveres with your partner this Valentine's Day at KuPP in Paddington Basin.
Breakfast for Two at the Sky Garden, all week, £33 for two. Woo your boo high above London with and early morning breakfast at the Sky Garden. Enjoy the views while digging into avocado, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, plus a strawberry and mint salad with whipped cream and cinnamon churros with chocolate sauce.
Hot Juice, The Hoxton, Tue-Thu. Come along to this three-day pop-up for hot cocktails, free beer cheese from the folks at MEATliquor and handcrafted boozy chocolates from MAST Brothers all in an indoor forest setting.
Taste of Italy Supper Club, Heal's, Thu, £55. This evening will take you on a tour through the Italian culinary landscape, with each dish from a different region of the country.
…or check out the latest restaurant reviews.
Live music
Tegan And Sara, Roundhouse, TONIGHT, £26.50. Spikily melodic post-grunge pop, which reveals them as fans of The Breeders and Veruca Salt.
A Night Of Marvin Gaye (Valentine's Special), Jazz Cafe, Tue, £10. A Night of Marvin Gaye returns to The Jazz Cafe for a Lover's special on Valentine's Day.
Ladyhawke, Koko, Wed, £16. Synth-rocker Pip Brown, aka Ladyhawke returns with her punchy, sass-heavy and groovily retro blend of Cyndi Lauper, Bananarama, Pat Benatar and Joan Jett. Welcome back!
Richard Hawley, Union Chapel, Thu, £20. Hawley's dark and gnarly, groove-ridden rock recalls Mark Lanegan and even Noel Gallagher, and his hefty back catalogue adds plenty of noir-ish crooning.
…or take a look at all the live music events in London this week.
Nightlife
Down With Dating, The Albany, Tue, from £12. Disgruntled singletons will be provided with a fake name on arrival and can then get to know other miserable singles during 'Speed Hating', by slagging off all the things they dislike.
C U Next Tuesday, Muse Soho, Tue, free before 10pm, £5 after. Tuesdays used to be the night for lesbians in Soho so it's great to have a new contender on the scene.
Love & Buggery: Valentines Spesh, The Glory, Tue, free. Flickering candles, power ballads sung by drag queen Miss Craig and, erm, free entry combine for The Glory's unabashedly romantic Valentines entertainment.
…or see all the parties planned this week.
The Lego Batman Movie
Film
‘The Crying Game’ 25th Anniversary + Q&A, BFI Southbank, Wed, £8.35–£11.75. Director Neil Jordan, leading man Stephen Rea, producer Stephen Woolley and iconic costumer Sandy Powell will all be on hand to celebrate a quarter century of one of the UK’s most distinctive melodramas.
Cult Classic Collective: ‘Nekromantik’, Genesis Cinema, Thu, £8, £7 concs. The Genesis kicks off a new strain of beloved oddities under the title of Cult Classic Collective – and they don’t come much cultier, weirder or more extreme than German director Jörg Buttgereit’s frequently banned 1987 necrophiliac romp.
Or at the cinema...
20th Century Women ★★★★☆ Set at the end of the 1970s, liberation, motherhood and sex swirl in Mike Mills's captivating evocation of his teenage years.
The Lego Batman Movie ★★★★☆ A little plastic bat fights the forces of evil in this mad, hilarious comic-book pastiche.
Fences ★★★★☆ Denzel Washington and Viola Davis light up the screen in this adaptation of a play set in a black neighbourhood in the '50s.
…or see all of the latest releases.
© Hannah Anketell
Theatre
The Listening Room, Old Red Lion, Tue-Thu, £15, £12.50 concs. Powerful, innovative piece of verbatim theatre about victims of violence confronting their aggressors.
School Play, Southwark Playhouse, all week, £20, concs £16. Seriously impressive debut play about the target driven grind of British primaries.
The Glass Menagerie, Duke of York’s Theatre, all week, £15-£85. John Tiffany's stunning Tennessee Williams' revival.
…or see our theatre critics’ choices.
This week's best new art
Do Ho Suh, Victoria Miro, Tue-Thu, free. In the opening room of his show at Victoria Miro, Do Ho Suh has stitched coloured mesh fabric together, recreating the doors and staircases of his past studios and homes.
Tropical Hangover, Tenderpixel, Wed-Thu, free. This whole show imagines the jungle as some sensual, creeping mass of eroticism – an encroaching body of sexual potential.
Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932, Royal Academy of Arts, all week, £18. This sprawling exhibition features work from the first 15 years of Russian communism, taking in the radical avant garde, stoic social realism, stark propaganda posters and even a bit of architecture.
…or see all London art reviews.
And finally
Win... a seriously splendid Fortnum & Mason hamper or tickets to see The Weeknd and get the full VIP treatment
Book… these gigs while you still can
Best of the blog
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