Things to do in London this week

What to do and see in London this week,  Monday 5 May - Sunday 11 May : The coolest, cultural, current events in London as selected by the Culture Whisper team.

London Music: tickets and free listening

Radio Four’s Today programme has something of a track record scooping new work from musical legends. Last year David Bowie chose the show to go public with The Next Day, and on Tuesday, a lost song by German composer Felix Mendelssohn got its very first live performance on the programme. Composed to meet a private commission, The Heart of Man is Like a Mine was written in 1842 and never published. Now the original document has been found in a private collection. 

It might be too soon to call Courtney Love a legend; but, battered yet unbowed, she certainly now qualifies as one of rock’s great survivors. She’s playing the Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 11 and 12 May, and told the NME, 'people expect me to be fucking really really good’. Tickets for the Courtney Love concert still available. 

London Literature

In book news, polymath Jonathan Meades’ memoir An Encyclopaedia of Myself was published to rave reviews, with Jane Shilling in the Telegraph describing him as a ‘writer, gastronome, television presenter, Francophile, Blues Brother lookalike, occasional photographer and all-round aesthetic crosspatch’. And in the Guardian, Will Self told readers that the novel was now most definitely dead, in a characteristically dense and discomforting extract from his Richard Hillary memorial lecture. 

Stage and Screen

Shakespeare, contrastingly, is dead but alive and well, with audiences at the Globe apparently fainting nightly at Lucy Bailey’s graphically violent production of Titus Andronicus (it opened on 29 April and reviews are favourable, despite the gore). Tickets still available. 

There’s more noteworthy tragedy on offer at the ENO, where a brand new opera got its premiere on 3 May. Somewhat mixed notices have greeted Julian Anderson’s Thebans , a retelling of Sophocles’ plays Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone with a libretto by Frank McGuinness, but we think a new opera is always a cause for celebration. Tickets still available. 

Lighter, albeit melancholic, fare comes in the form of The Wind Rises , which goes on general release in cinemas on 9 May. Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's ravishingly beautiful final swan song recounts Japan’s 20th century through the eyes of an idealistic aircraft engineer.

Fashion and shopping

Is the most emotionally significant dress in your wardrobe big and white, or little and black? If the former, you’ll likely be hotfooting it to the V&A’s Wedding Dresses 1775-2014 , which looks at how dressmakers have interpreted this most challenging of commissions. Fashionistas and romantics alike will be enthralled by this homage to the big fat designer wedding.

If the latter, we suggest you pay a visit to the Duke St Emporium . A new concept store from Jigsaw and the Shop at Bluebird, it combines ‘style, social and culture’ with a bookshop, Fernandez & Wells café and lots of covetable threads from the aforementioned labels. 

Mr. Bennett's Birthday

Finally, we couldn't sign off without raising a glass to Alan Bennett, who is 80 on Friday. While other national treasures go soft round the edges, Bennett just seems to get sharper with age. He'll be in conversation with Nicholas Hytner at the National Theatre tomorrow (7 May) and tickets are still available.

À bientôt

The Culture Whisper team

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