The Fried Chicken Shop

Episode two
If I ran Time Out, I’d split it into two sections: stuff to do when you’re sober and stuff to do when you’re drunk. For the majority of us, going to a chicken shop falls squarely into latter, so an hour of fly-on-the-wall filming from Roosters Spot on Clapham High St may be some people’s idea of hell. Look past the flashes of rudeness and drunkenness though, and you get an insight into the lives of Londoners that very rarely makes on screen.

‘The Fried Chicken Shop’ isn’t without its faults. The artifical elements, for example, are obvious: in one segment, a lad’s radio mic is clearly visible (stuck crudely on the outside of his shirt) as he talks to a trio of up-for-it posh ladies – the kind of residents that have led Clapham to be nicknamed ‘Claaam’ in recent years. But it's an engaging and unusual watch nonetheless. Look out for the two drunk lovebirds sitting opposite each other, so hammered that their speech is slow and slurred. It feels like a Jim Jarmusch film played at 1/6th speed, yet still remains strangely sweet and beautiful at the same time.